Work Text:
The first time Joan smiles after the funeral is when she unceremoniously wakes Sherlock at her desk.
She’d slept soundly that night, having turned in early – after making sure to set the leftover lasagna in the fridge, despite Sherlock’s suggestion concerning how storing the dish and heating it up later only ruins its optimum texture, and after an unprompted, borderline enthusiastic lecture on the harmful effects of sleep deprivation that she swears she’d given herself at one point in the past.
True, her rest met no interruptions whatsoever, despite the preceding speeches about her crucial need for sleep that were so persistent one could mistake them for protests in disguise. The last sounds she’d heard before switching off her lamplight were a slight shuffling of papers and – something like a one-sided argument just outside her bedroom door?
Joan figured seconds later that she wasn’t the one being addressed. It was Clyde being spoken to, or rather, spoken at, regarding the case of the missing zebras. This was hardly new. It helped Sherlock to reiterate and bounce ideas off another subject after all, be it animate or inanimate, human or otherwise. This was merely the first time such an exchange occurred in her home, or what was carefully manufactured and maintained to feel like her home, anyway.
There was still a strange stiffness to the air of her apartment despite her recurring visitor, yet the strain was not so much cold as it was indifferent. Joan couldn’t tell whether the place was taking on an entirely new character, shifting towards another path, another opportunity, or at last shedding the neat, orderly demeanor she’d worked so diligently to mask the stirring storm with. No matter how well its minimalism veiled hesitation, as if to question whether all this ever truly belonged here, if it was even allowed here, Joan could never forget the reasons behind her little setup in the first place.
--
The large doors to her bedroom were barely closed before she’d closed her eyes, but come morning, were shut completely. Joan blinks at the soft sunlight spilling onto her sheets. She tries to ignore how dusty it feels in her bedroom all of a sudden. There’s another box of Andrew’s things in the corner by her dresser that she’s trying to ignore, too.
She should probably start cleaning the place up soon. And talk to Sherlock about the next step she’s been considering. It wouldn’t be easy, discarding everything she’d channeled into this change to step back into something familiar. But at least this was familiar – the process was familiar.
To Joan, coming home always involved leaving first.
--
She slips out from under her blankets and out of her sleeves, the warmth of her red cardigan insufficient in a way it never quite was before. Opening the double doors quietly, she catches sight of Sherlock’s face pressed onto her desk. He’s asleep. Good. The corner of her mouth quirks, but it subsides for the time being as she steps out of the walkway to turn on the heater, and to fetch a few things from her shelf.
Joan slams three books onto the desk before his sleeping figure, and as his head shoots up, as his posture straightens, she relaxes her own, and yields to her blooming smile.
“Wow, I really enjoyed that.”