Chapter Text
In the beginning, the first time Morse sees her, Joan orders him into her family’s house and all of their lives.
They keep brushing past each other, passing electric sparks each time, but without lasting connection. In those early days, eye contact is mostly via mirrors, shy glances and tentative smiles. Joan is braver by far, but even she only dares push so far before drawing back.
It’s not the story either of them expected, and sometimes one or the other is dizzy with not knowing how to play their part. But it’s a fun game they’re playing, that’s all, isn’t it? No harm in it.
Family hasn’t meant safety and affection to Morse in a long time. That begins to change, the more he interacts with the Thursdays.
The strangest part of it, Morse reflects, is that it no longer feels strange. The Thursday household has become his second home - more than his own, at that. He no longer feels that same thrill of trepidation crossing the threshold, though he’s always mindful of his status as an interloper, no matter how many times Mrs. Thursday assures him he’s welcome. Still, he does try, for their sakes, to push himself beyond his comfort zone, accepting sandwiches on occasion (he’ll stuff down a bite with Fred’s wary eyes on him), accepting Sam and Joan’s congenial teasing, accepting - tonight - an invite for tea from his mentor. It’s hardly the first time, but he still hunches awkwardly in corners, waits to be invited into conversation. On the other hand, he’s been here enough times that he knows where to find Win’s favorite knife for peeling the potatoes, and he helps her chop carrots before she shoos him into the living room to “catch up with the boys.”
Morse tries to point out that he’s just spent the entire day with Thursday, and therefore has very little in the way of catching up to do, but Win won’t hear of it. She knows exactly when he’s avoiding social interactions, and nudges him along anyway. It’s times like these that he can imagine what she was like in Joan and Sam’s childhood, gentle yet commanding at once. He’s sure, between Win’s savvy and a copper for a father, the two of them got away with very little.
“Joan’s not due back from the bank for almost an hour yet, but Sam just got in,” Win tells Morse . “He’s been testing Fred’s patience lately, so I’m sure he’d appreciate a buffer. Now run along, food’ll be ready before you know it.”
Reluctantly, Morse slinks into the living room and sits down at the spot Thursday gestures to, and almost immediately regrets it. When Joan arrives forty-five minutes later, she makes eye contact across the room to a harried Morse stuck between feuding Sam and Fred. His eyes widen a fraction when he sees her, and he sends her a silent plea for help. She laughs quietly, and takes her time unwinding her scarf and hanging her coat just so, just to see Morse squirm a few more seconds. Sam’s spent the entire time baiting Fred with politically charged barbs he doesn’t even believe in, just to see his dad splutter and turn purple, and Morse has been trapped helplessly between them, attempting valiantly to make himself invisible.
Joan debates for a moment whose side she should take, and settles strategically on soothing her dad, as the party less likely to let go peacefully without her intervention. However, she goes to stand beside Sam, both in sibling solidarity and to put her nearer to Morse. “Sam, stop poking the bear,” she admonishes, “you’re going to drive Dad to an early grave.” She winks at her brother, who deflates slightly.
At his daughter’s presence, and taking his side no less, Fred softens. “Poking the bear? Are you saying I ought to eat less of your mother’s cooking, then?”
“I’d say no such thing.”
The meal is a comparatively calm affair. Morse has been around enough that they don’t show off for him so much anymore; Sam and Joan bicker over which direction to pass the potatoes, Fred sighs heavily at Joan’s stories about a recent date, and Win grumbles about having no help with the dishes. (Morse offers to dry, at which point Sam, prompted by a glare from both parents, jumps in to assist.) In spite of it, or perhaps because of it, there’s always an authentic warmth to the Thursday family interactions, a sense of belonging that Morse craves.
After tea, Joan pulls out a Scrabble board and tugs at Morse’s wrist to pull him into the living room. It’s an innocent enough touch, but Morse startles anyway. Joan has that effect on him, in spite of… everything. All the excuses he mentally rehearses don’t drown out the small zaps of electricity that tend to crop up when she’s around.
“Now, Morse,” Joan admonishes, wagging a finger playfully in his face, “go easy on us, yeah? Maybe don’t be… you.”
Morse offers her one of his charming tucked-in smiles. “That seems like a promise I can’t keep.”
Morse and the Thursdays each have a characteristic style which showcases itself early on: Fred is practical, consistent if not the best, and cuts off muttered curses at a bench that seems to magically replenish itself with purely vowels each turn. Joan’s signature move is well-placed short words; the hefty consonants seem magnetically drawn to her fingers in the bag, and likewise to the score multipliers on the board. Win, as an avid reader, is blessed with an abundant vocabulary, and plays her turn quickly, yet tends to opt for low-scoring moves. Sam is a weak speller, but excels at blocking plays his opponents have spent several turns eying, which earns him plentiful groans and even, once, a whack upside the head from a frustrated Joan (Win’s disapproving raised eyebrow discourages her, but Fred tosses her a wink when he thinks her mother isn’t looking). Morse, to no one’s surprise, puts his crossword hobby to good use, and pulls out ridiculous words none of them have ever heard of - he’s frequently challenged, despite being able to cite an approximate definition each time. Fred knows the lad’s cocky confidence well enough to pull out the dictionary; though he very much doubts his bagman’s ability to pull off a knowing bluff without a tell, a lifetime of policework has made him a mite suspicious of the mind’s ability to invent convenient memories.
“There,” Joan says with satisfaction, leaning back with a Cheshire cat grin. “Jo, 25 points. Write that one down, then - and no cheating,” she admonishes Sam, leaning over to ensure he records her total accurately.
Both Morse and Win make noises of disbelief. Normally Morse would be hesitant to rock the boat, but he has a wicked competitive streak, and besides, they’ve all challenged his plays enough times. Still, he waits for Win to make the first move; obligingly, she does.
She shakes her head. “I don’t think so, Joan.”
“Yeah? What about you, Morse, our walking dictionary? Do you believe me, or are you siding with Mum on this one?”
The challenge glinting in her eyes ignites a spark somewhere deep in Morse’s belly; he resolutely ignores it. “I echo Mrs. Thursday’s doubt.”
Joan laughs delightedly. “So formal. Well! Is that a proper challenge, then?”
Morse nods, and Joan crows, “To the dictionary! The real one, seeing as the one in Morse’s brain has let me down.” She winks at him, and he can’t help the mild flush that creeps up the back of his neck.
Dutifully, Fred flips through pages and reads out, “‘Jo, a Scottish word for sweetheart.’ Sorry, lad, this one goes to Joan.”
Joan crows in victory, and while Sam rolls his eyes and Fred sighs, Morse smiles genuinely at her; this is a side of Joan he quite enjoys. Gracefully enough, he sacrifices his turn, but gets quick revenge on his next play. The Thursday family squints at the board, where he’s added an R to make Win’s previous “each” into “reach,” and squeezed an E beneath, in a space nearly cut off by one of Sam’s infuriating blocks.
“Re?” Joan says dubiously. “That’s a prefix, Morse; it doesn’t count as a word on its own.”
He raises an eyebrow and mimics her words from last turn: “Is that a proper challenge, then?”
“Of course it is! That’s in the rules, isn’t it? It has to be a whole word! Dad?”
“That one’s all yours, pet. I’ve had enough of Morse dazzling us all with his intellect for one evening.”
“All right, all right, give it here, then.” Joan’s frown turns into outrage as she reads, “‘The second tone of the diatonic musical scale’ - Morse!” Her whine turns into a laugh halfway out of her mouth. “Of course it is, you and music!”
Later, after a handful of pointed yawns from the elder Thursdays, the Scrabble board has been packed away and Morse is in the hall, searching for a scarf that’s fallen off the banister where he left it. Joan appears at his elbow, and ducks down to retrieve the missing scarf from the ground. “I still think that’s cheating, you stealing my signature like that.”
“Knowing the short words is a vital strategy in Scrabble,” Morse replies, winding the scarf around his neck. “And it’s hardly my fault you don’t remember your music lessons.”
Joan scoffs. “Serves us all right, going up against a man who spends his free time doing the crossword with opera for company.” She straightens his scarf then, and it strikes Morse that they’re really rather alone in the hall - and he suddenly feels awkward around her, despite the ease with which their banter flowed earlier. It’s something different, just him and Joan, as opposed to the way he’s started to fit with the Thursday family as a whole.
He wants to challenge her, to ask what else she knows about him, aside from crosswords and opera and whatever bits and pieces she’s managed to glean about her father’s work. He can’t form the words, but he wants…
Suddenly Sam is there, tugging lightly on Joan’s hair, complaining that she left him with the work of resetting the living room. Joan sticks out her tongue at her brother, and Morse is back to feeling like an interloper, a forgotten observer cataloging family moments. He stutters out a perfunctory goodbye, and vanishes out into the snapping cold air, unable to banish a wistful sort of feeling he can’t quite name.