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Sherlock had thought he had forgotten. He pressed on like he had dealt with it all, as if he no longer cared for what had happened back in London. That much was a lie about as see-through as glass. Joan had, undoubtedly, been able to tell the way he stopped and went cold when she so much as mentioned Irene the first time. Perhaps his shut down on the topic wasn't entirely purposed. Perhaps it was just the cold shot of pain. More agonizing than any physical horror he had ever endured, the pain of loving and trusting and losing and betrayal. The pain of believing in someone and somehow knowing they would fail but still, in the pit of your heart, the heart you had potentially unwillingly gave to them, it burned.

Then came a letter stamped with a distinguishable A that could only be one person; they'd argued over it. Joan was afraid. What it would do to him, what he might do, but after the storm had calmed she was convinced and sleep took her away. Something else took Sherlock away. He thought he had forgotten this, too. It was like any other skill you'd become far too attached to, unfortunately, and it was relearned with ease. He was an addict. One clean stretch didn't clean his hands, didn't wash away all those dabbles from such youth, didn't clear away the mess he left and promises he broke and people he left down as he just drowned himself. Far too much the coward to take the gun and pull it. Some bare thread of hope still there.

He would be found in exactly the state he mentioned during one of their cases. A motel, low end, rough part of town. Cheap locks. The gear put away but the man himself so incredibly spun half naked on the floor.

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"...can you elaborate?"

He said that he hadn't been arrested and the evidence repressed, but did he do it? Joan couldn't help but wonder Irene's place in all of this, but she resisted asking for now. Trying to digest what she'd already been told and getting the full story.

He had chased serial killers before, why not consult on organized crime as well? That all made sense to her, but this "Moriarty"...it sounded so sinister. Something from a book or a movie, not reality.

"So he was like a crime boss? Mafia-godfather-like guy?"

Both hands scratch at the back of his head before he rises again and they come up to dig at his eyes with a heavy exhale. He really did not want to talk about this for so many reasons but he owed it, didn't he? He owed it to her after what she had just done and everything she had done in the passed for these weeks. Hands fall to the table.

"I can't," not only because of memories but because of the level of security on the matter; but he nods at her deductions fingers splayed and the tips tapping the table. "Yes, Watson. A very dangerous crime boss with very lethal information and plans."

Edited 2012-12-09 04:09 (UTC)

And now. Now came the question she had been somewhat reluctant to ask. Joan stared fixedly at his hands, following how he moved and tapped and otherwise nervously shifted. It made her anxious while seemingly soothing his.

"... did you do it?"

For Irene. For justice. For whatever reason he might have for killing someone. She wasn't-- Joan didn't see it in him, but then again wasn't that what all people whose friends or family committed a violent crime said?

"No," a moment. "He killed himself, and in that moment I knew that he won." But he was a lot more volatile than she seemed to have brought herself to think. The drugs helped in his twitchy behaviour back then but that point aside Holmes was still quite eager to fight tooth and bone for what he believed right.

Sherlock leans back and stays silent for a moment as the coffee comes to his lips. Fingers tap down one after the other on the fake china. Flashes of the past now seeming so scrambled. What would Lestrade say about it all? Would their stories match up. What happens now that he knows Irene is still alive. What is going to happen. Is Moriarty? Was it all a clever ploy? Was Irene trying to lure him back to London?

"How does... Irene figure into this all?"

One last question. She planned to call England, of course she did. Meddling and prying further, but she planned not to tell him though Joan knew he would know regardless.

She hadn't even touched her coffee yet, but mimicked him when he went to do so and realized she had definitely not put enough in the pot. It was weak and sugary, but she drank it all the same if only to keep herself a bit more alert.

"Did he hurt her? I mean before-- when you thought she was gone. Did you think it was him?"

He knows she will. He considers leaving. Packing up a few small things and relocating elsewhere. A chat with Gregson before she can get to him after she gets to his contacts in England and hopefully work something out. If not, then. Well, he doesn't know. His options are limited. He looks up at her for a moment with something of an unreadable expression. Only in due that he doesn't know what he is thinking; he doesn't know what to do. All it took was once. Things were better when he was distant. Safer.

"Irene was something of a specialist of her own," he lets the cup slide to the table, eyes down on the brim that his fingers ring about now. Slowly they slide around the cup; around and around. "She worked with him, although I did not know at the time. She was a flawless actress."

At the last bit Joan feels her heart sink. She knew already from his own words-- they were close. He didn't take her death well. All of that... and to find out someone who had helped him and had seen him like this and what else they may have shared.

He was guarded. It was in his nature. But he let Irene in and then she betrayed him.

That provided...a lot of clarity.

But she planned to gain more later. Holmes would have no opportunity to slip out on her tonight or for a long while. He'd relapsed. Their check-ins were about to get more frequent. Every two hours? Try every half-hour. At least for awhile now.

"Did you know all this before she "died"? But- also. Why would she get in contact with you now? You wouldn't say what was in the letter before and you don't have to, but if Irene was apart of this crime organization will she come here?"

He still doesn't know the full story of Irene and Moriarty. He is unsure how much he really does want to know. She was a criminal, she came and she went, she got in trouble with many high-authority persons throughout the entire world and was paid for it with thrill, excitement, and riches. She did what she did out of desire and nothing else. Yet for someone so irrational, it seems, so incredibly impulsive, she was miraculously logical and smart enough to trick Holmes on more than one occasion.

In the end, though, it was betrayal. No matter what mind might say that she may as well be the only reason he was alive today. She found him so close to the end and she was the only reason Lestrade came to clean him up and send him off before anyone knew that Sherlock Holmes got away. She was also the only one who knew the progress he was making; the only way Moriarty could have known what he knew.

He couldn't help a short laugh before letting his hand slam down on the table perhaps a little more strong than he initially meant for it to. "Adler works for Adler. Moriarty drew her in with his promises, and he won."

Joan reached out quickly to stop her mug from toppling over, giving a start herself at the sudden noise.

He hadn't answered her question, not really and that was a tell to her that it was time to let this conversation fall aside. For now.

"I'm not going to tell Gregson." she said, referring of course to his relapse.

"And neither are you. Finish your coffee and go shower or whatever else and then you are going to bed."

Not your mother she had said once, but that tone sounded terribly like one. She stood up and poured her own cup out in the sink before coming to stand by him.

"Come on. I'll get my pillows off my bed and some of the extra blankets. You know the drill."

As in Sherlock's claim to privacy just became nil. Joan planned to set up camp right at his bedroom door. It was not even dark out yet, but Joan was in no hurry for night and the inevitable bottom out crash that would come.

He could feel his heart slow, his hands start to shake, pain start to slide back. Drear, tiredness, depression. He'd make a comment on motherhood if he had one. Instead, with a deep frown, Sherlock pushes his way up to his feet and turns abrupt. It almost looks like he's grabbing something to his chest by the way his shoulders curl. Silently, he just walks up the stairs.

Well. Good. Sharing time was over. They can go back to never talking about this ever again. Fair is fair.

Faint steps followed behind him the whole way up, diverting only to venture into her own room quickly and strip free her sheets and blankets and grab her pillows.

The whole bundle in her arms as she entered into his room and dropped them upon the floor. She set up a place for herself right by the door, finding him like a child sent with no dessert laying face down on his bed still completely clothed. She would have sighed, but found herself with little energy to even do so and instead used what remained to venture across the room and close the heavy drapes and leave them in darkness. Settling down in her makeshift "sleeping bag" Joan thought to read, but not even the discomfort of the floor beneath her back seemed to ward off sleep.

She was drained and took the opportunity to recoup. She dreamed of morgues.

Later when he had begun to stir as if waking, Joan found reason enough to situate herself on his bed. Waiting for him to slowly groggily come back, but he was taking a bit longer than Joan was clearly ready to wait and so-- well being a doctor she did what she did best.

"How are you feeling?" it was not a question seeking an emotional response, it was a question to his physical. Joan had no problem invading his space it seemed, placing the back of her hand against his temples to check for cold sweats or clamminess as she sat perched on the side of his bed. Congratulations, Holmes-- you've made her right worried. The combination of fitful sleep and nightmares.

If he wasn't wakened by that he would surely find offense when she pressed her thumb beneath his eyelid and pulled down. It had been maybe three hours tops and the outside had finally begun to darken. It came quicker in the colder months, but Joan had flicked on his side lamp which was honestly in need of a new bulb. She released his face soon enough though and instead took his arm in her hands, fingers finding his wrist pulse point as she checked her watch.

Yes, didn't shower. He went up stairs and passed out exactly that way. One big scorned manchild who got sent to bed for being particularly naughty. As he managed to pass out, at least for awhile, he jittered and jumped a bit in his sleep. It was actually the burn out that woke him. This feeling of panic on the back of his neck. Cold sweat across his skin. His brows frowned as she began to poke and prod at him. Slowly, Holmes' body rolled over and lossed eyes managed to look up at her.

"Must you be so invasive," it comes slow and quiet as he swats away her prodding hand. "I feel like I've been run over by a truck, how do you think I feel, Watson? I'm coming down from Heroin."

"Yes, I know." ah and there is that disappointment again Holmes. Best not mention the obvious.

"What I want to know is whether you feel abnormal. Are you going to suddenly drop dead any second and leave me out of work? Because I hate job hunting."

She does not release him and instead gives him a swat back of her own to stop his meddling. She eventually let go of his arm though, satisfied and rested her forearm above his head, leaning over to check his eyes again now that he was awake.
No longer constricted. That was good. It had been a few hours so now he was experiencing the opposite; pupil dilation.

The steady expression of the surgeon in her faded after a moment though and her eyes flicked over his face quickly as if she was remembering something- sometime before. But she simply said, "You still need a shower."

And then away she went, settling back against the wall (he had no headboard to speak of) and folding her hands in her lap as she stretched out her legs. Distancing herself in her own way and settling back into the role of "sober companion".

"It will help break the sweats. But if you want to sleep more I will go get my book." as in she will continue sitting. Right here.

He tilts his head to the side, watching her; listening. He hears it. More than just the upset of having a client relapse. There was something else in her tone. With a huff, he sits back and lets her finish. He doesn't say anything when she is done and sits herself back again. Hands fold into his lap. Eyes look down at them.

"Have I." - "I've." - "I disappoint you, Watson." He finally manages and looks toward her. "Like I disappointed Lestrade. Like I would disappoint Gregson; and I disappoint my Father. Do you know how many times I have actually seen my Father since boarding school?" His brows frown deeper. Here it comes, the crash. Where he can't hold anything in any longer. Where that desperate scramble for some feeling of hope takes over and he's gasping beneath the water. He might as well drown.

He seems to be speaking a little faster now. It's nerves, and it's all personal, and it's so hard for Sherlock to speak of emotions. Of what he hides. Quiet and quick. "You should avoid thinking of me as anything but human, Watson. I'm nothing better than human and my all accounts I wish I could say that was not so but it is. Imagine a human who could not turn off their mind." He swallows and leans back, looking away.

"Once you see the puzzle in things you can't stop. It either makes you a brilliant person or a dead person, often one and then the other."

"It isn't that. I know you are human, Holmes. I've tried to get that part out so often I doubted it a few times, but..."

She keeps her eyes focused on a point. Her hands clasped together. She knows about failure. She knows about disappointment. She'd seen it in her parents eyes the day she told them she was quitting. Better stop now then live the rest of her life as a shunned and disgraced surgeon, unable to get a job in what she spent her life training to do in any decent hospital. Forced to move from home and find some low rate position in a hospital use to malpractice issues.

"I'm disappointed in how things have turned out." she worded carefully. Slowly. "Not in you. Maybe not even in me. Just-- the situation."

Every part of it. Down to the day she put on her surgical mask and walked into that room to the day he had first put a needle in his arm. What a pair they made. But in the end what frightened her the most...what made this all so horrifying was the idea that she knew he didn't want her to leave and if they knew of his relapse that was exactly what would happen. He'd be off back in the system for god knows how long away from what kept him sane and she would end her yet another career on another failure.

And she-- cared. How could she not? He was a child at best sometimes and maybe that was what made it so hard. He needed someone. He needed a friend. And she wanted to make sure he had one in Alberto or someone before she was gone.

"You are not a dead person, Sherlock." she sighed faintly, "Just- a troubled one. A troubling one. And that is very.. human."

"Should have been." He says so quiet it might not have been audible at all. Regret. Regret was what he read in her expression as his eyes met hers and stayed for a long moment. No, he did not want her to go. He did not want her to come in, either. Father's orders made it so but leaving was not something that came easy to Holmes. As hard as it was to get in through his armor was just as hard to get back out again.

"I never understood how people made fleeting relationships. How they could just," he uses his hands to emphasize, "let someone in. Like a window, see through and free to open and close as desired. So simple, it seems, to them."

Joan thought for a moment, trying to come up with an answer, but she didn't have one. Not one that would be sufficient. She'd had colleagues once and friends. Boyfriends. But lately-- she could understand.

She wanted those relationships, but this way it was safe. Meeting people and making acquaintances as a sober companion. It kept distance while feigning closeness. A superficial closeness. And Holmes refused to play by those rules leaving her to contemplate too heavily the lack of relationships she had now after cutting ties.

"They don't think about how it might go wrong, they just hope it will go right." she says at last, shrugging. "You've let people into your life before... not everyone is as discriminating. Maybe they should be a little, but to be overly so is just as bad."

Joan gave a half shrug, "You might miss out on something-- something worth hoping for."

There was her best answer. A mantra she hadn't even taken to heart lately, but being around him...it made her think. Made her wonder.

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