folks they would laugh when they saw us together

a story in three parts

by anamatics

Joan calls Sherlock back, leaning over the balcony of Jamie's apartment, fingers idly tapping out a rhythm, the beat of a song she can't remember, on the railing that surrounds the balcony. He answers in less than one ring, but is quiet when she wants to ask him more about the case.

"We haven't had a great deal of success," he confesses and Joan can just picture him standing in the middle of the living room, one hand in his pocket and toes wiggling distractedly in too colorful socks. She can feel his frustration even though he's not physically present beside her and she wishes that she could touch his shoulder and tell him that it will all be okay. They'll figure this out, they always do. "Bell is convinced that there has to be more to this, that these children are the key to the whole case - but we cannot figure out their connection to it on a larger scale."

"Have you thought about other, maybe looser, connections?" Joan asks, glancing inside. Jamie is walking around the perimeter of the room, her lips pulled into a deep frown. She has something in her hand, and Joan's stomach drops to somewhere around her knees when she gets a better look at what it is.

She's seen bugs before; they've found them in the brownstone a few times on some of their more exciting cases. It isn't a good sign.

"You know what," she says almost distractedly. "Let me call you back in the morning. Jamie had a theory about this case, and I'm thinking that we'll be seeing confirmation of it soon enough."

He's in the process of asking what on earth she means by that when Joan pulls the phone slowly away from her ear and hangs up. Joan stands perfectly still, watching as Jamie's expression grows increasingly more and more murderous. Joan guesses that there is some honor among people in Jamie's line of work, and that this sort of thing simply isn't done.

She slides the balcony door back open and pops her head inside. There's no place to hide a bug out here, and Jamie probably knows it. The heating from inside hits her full in the face and Joan realizes just how cold it is out here. The wind is whipping in off of the river, and she'd been so distracted trying to figure out what the deal is with Marina - Lauren's kids was that she hadn't noticed. Joan silently inclines her head backwards, inviting Jamie out into the air.

There's a moment then, when Jamie's expression softens into something that could be friendly once again. She sets the bug down on the counter top and pulls her coat on before stepping outside.

"Demetri?" Joan asks in a low voice.

Jamie shakes her head. "No," she confesses. "Or at least I don't think so. He wouldn't be stupid enough to try something like this." She purses her lips and wraps her arms around herself, a pensive expression on her face. "It does explain a few things, however, about why this situation has cropped up at all."

"How do you mean?"

Somewhere below them, a car horn honks and Joan glances over the balcony to see that someone has spaced out a green light. She wraps her fingers around the balcony railing and stares out over the river and Brooklyn beyond.

"Think about it," Jamie says, coming to stand next to Joan. "I understand why Demetri had Marina Pietrova killed. Betrayal isn't handled kindly in this line of work," she explains. "She was about to turn him into the authorities and he handled the situation accordingly. His reaction to Sherlock snooping around was to take him and rough him up a bit - and use his connection to me to get information he's been after for years now." Jamie shakes her head and looks down at the street below them.

It's honestly a little disturbing how pragmatic Jamie is being about Marina Pietrova's death. She isn't a good person by any stretch of the imagination, Joan's coming to realize and accept that. Not all their victims are, but they still deserve justice.

"Then what of the kids?" Joan asks. They're at the heart of this, and yet no one can figure out just how. "Where do they figure in to your version of this case?"

She's silent for a long time then, breath fogging in the cold air. Finally she turns to Joan, her hair blowing into her eyes. Joan reaches out, forgetting herself, and tucks it behind Jamie's ear. She catches herself then, and snatches her hand away, a flush blossoming across her cheeks.

"Demetri doesn't know that they're Pietrova's. He's probably under the impression that they're from whatever orphanage he usually gets his kids from in Russia," Jamie reaches up and touches the spot on her cheek where Joan's fingers had lingered. "Someone else did this, someone who knows of your connection to Sherlock - that's why this place is bugged." A wry smile plays at Jamie's lips and she steps into Joan's personal space. "They're hoping to catch us in a lie, and I don't intend to do that, do you, Joan?"

It takes all of a second for Joan to shake her head. "No," Joan says. "We can't get caught, not until we can get enough evidence to convict Alice Zellner and Mr. Evansport for kidnapping."

She's thinking of the case and the kids when Jamie leans forward and presses her lips to Joan's cheek. "We can't discuss them inside," she says in Joan's ear. She's so impossibly close and her shampoo smells like summer in the middle of winter. "And it has to be convincing."

And it's Joan who forgets all of her reservations and turns and presses her lips to Jamie's in a kiss that is neither hurried nor is it chaste. She knows she can fake this… whatever this is. They both know that it's just that, a fake relationship with no true affection. Joan wants to say that they can handle it, but this kiss feels real and like everything she's wanted.

The thought of it terrifies her.

They go back inside and put the bug back where Jamie found it. Joan sends Sherlock a text from Jamie's phone, explaining the situation. She tells him that maybe he should start to look into a usurper within Demetri's organization, and suggests the name of the man who'd functioned as Demetri's right hand as a decent place to start. She watches as it encrypts the message with that same cypher that had been such a puzzle to them for so long.

He replies a few minutes later, but Joan can't stomach reading his response past the first line of text that informs her, for what feels like the hundredth time, why, exactly this is a horrible plan. She knows it's a horrible plan, but it's the best one that they've got. They have to keep those kids safe, there isn't another option.

Jamie's disappeared into the room that she's been using as a studio, and Joan doesn't particular feel like going in there and possibly having to confront another giant picture of her face. The first one had been unnerving enough, a second; she doesn't think she can stay in character.

She instead chooses to stand in the doorway, watching Jamie in profile, the canvas slanted slightly away from the door. "I was going to order dinner," she says, because like hell is she going to cook to make this even more domestic. "Did you have any preference?"

"Something spicy," Jamie says distractedly, reaching for a different brush and not turning to look at Joan. "Maybe Thai..."

They eat sitting side by side, an hour later, the iPad propped up on Joan's lap. She's distractedly reading the Mets' practice report, and Jamie's reading over her shoulder with interest.

"Why do you care so much about baseball?" Jamie asks at length. She's deceptively good with chopsticks and has been stealing bites of Joan's curry whenever she thinks Joan isn't watching. Joan is debating revenge, but is waiting until the moment is right. "It's an entirely predictable game - brilliant if you like statistics - but incredibly predictable."

"Why do you paint?" Joan asks, because it's the same thing to her. Just something to do when you're bored. A means to an end of mental stimulation. Joan cannot recall the last time she watched or listened to a game without thinking of something else as well. It's friendly, familiar, background noise. Before he retired, Joan thinks that she could have sat and listened to Bob Murphy call the game all day. It's been years since he retired now, and Joan can't remember the last time she'd sat and listened to a game the whole way through. "Everyone needs a hobby."

Jamie looks away, her expression unreadable. "It isn't a hobby," she confesses. Joan knows that they're being overheard, but it feels real. "I was taught as a child to find an outlet for my creative energies when my parents had no time to keep me engaged."

Somehow, Joan isn't really surprised. She leans over and blatantly steals some snap peas from Jamie's plate, daring her to object with a raised eyebrow. Two could play that game. "My mother put us into piano lessons, but they didn't last long. I'm not very musical." She doesn't mention that with a writer for a father, there was never enough money to keep them in lessons for any extended amount of time. She doesn't think that she wants Jamie to know about that - she gets the sense that their upbringings were very different in that regard.

Jamie's head tilts to one side and she's almost distracted-looking as she watches Joan. "I find it hard to imagine you not being good at something, should you set your mind to it." The pronouncement pulls a wan smile onto Joan's lips and they're just eyeing each other like this is some sort of date and the whole idea of it seems a lot less horrible the more that Joan thinks about it.

This is all an act, and she's intrigued, wants to ask Jamie questions that she should already know the answers to - had this been real. Joan feels torn, unsure how to ask the questions without tipping her hand to anyone who might be listening. She casts about, searching for a segue, to get the conversation back onto something that they could talk about.

"Did your brother play baseball - was that where your interest in the sport came from?" Jamie asks, her voice a picture of polite interest.

It is a complicated answer, and not one that Joan feels entirely comfortable giving. She eats one of Jamie's impossibly spicy snap peas and breathes deeply through her nose, looking anywhere but Jamie. "It used to be a thing that I would do with my dad," she explains. "We'd go to see him, sometimes, and he'd tell me about the Mets. It was the one thing..." she shakes her head, and she can see the narrowing of Jamie's eyes, obviously clued into the fact that there's something that she's missing. Joan decides to let her wonder. "It was the one thing that was the same about him, no matter what else changed. I played little league until I got too old for it - I never wanted to play softball."

"And were you any good?" Jamie asks, because obviously that is the clarification that's needed.

Joan thinks of strike outs and complete games pitched, about learning how to throw a knuckleball in the middle of a back alley behind a homeless shelter with Oren reading books for school against a dumpster. She thinks about jeering boys who didn't understand and taking them out, three up, three down.

"I was okay."

The conversation dies, and Joan trails after Jamie into her studio when they've finished eating. There is another bug, this one taken apart with the screwdriver from Joan's eyeglasses repair kit and set neatly to the side of Jamie's palate. Joan closes the door behind her when she comes in.

"I won't abide them listening in here," Jamie announces, not looking up from where she's rummaging through tubes of oils, a brush in one hand. "The living space is fine, but this is my space where I work. I'll not have them listening in on my plans."

"That seems reasonable," Joan answers. She hadn't thought much about it, honestly, but Jamie does have a point. They didn't even bother to hide the bugs all that well. They were meant to be found, which begs the question as to why. Joan has no answer for that question and she can't quite figure out if Jamie has any idea about it. Joan watches her as she moves fluidly through her supplies. This is her natural environment, far more so than the criminal underbelly of New York. "Are you going to call Demetri and tell him off for it?"

Jamie shrugs, having successfully found the paint she'd been looking for. She glances down at it in her hand, already streaked crimson from what Joan guesses is a loose cap somewhere in the pile. "Probably not, I may mention to Zellner and her people that I find their methods incredibly invasive." She pauses, holding her brush in the air as though she's trying to catch a fleeting thought. "Yes, I might tell them that."

A chill runs down Joan's spine. She lets herself forget, when they're just talking, when they're just two people occupying the same space, just who Jamie is. She is another mask, maybe the most true of all of them, but just another mask worn by Moriarty. Being told something by Moriarty sounds a lot like a bullet between the eyes and Joan concentrates on that worried feeling that grips her, attempting to burn it into her memory.

She can't let herself forget.

"Wait until after this investigation is done," Joan says. She doesn't think that she can say anything that will make Jamie stop, but she can at least remove herself from being complicit in their subsequent murders. And maybe they'll get enough evidence that they'll be safely in jail and Jamie won't bother trying to kill them because murders in jail are, according to Sherlock, a 'hassle'.

There's a pleasant smile at Jamie's lips and she's mixing powder into paint and the entire room smells like turpentine and oil. Joan crosses the room and opens the window. "I didn't think you'd approve," Jamie says.

"I don't like my privacy invaded either," She replies smoothly. "But try not to kill them?" Joan says it like a joke, but she's deadly serious.

"Oh, I have no intention of that," Jamie says loftily. "I intend to use their lack of respect to leverage some information out of Demetri that he's been holding back on for some time." She glances over at Joan, and there's an almost amused twinkle in her eyes. Joan looks away. "Do you really think I kill everyone who wrongs me?" She tilts her head to one side; brush up in the air again. "If I did that, Joan, half of the criminal underbelly of every major city from here to Hong Kong would be dead... you'd be dead."

The anxious, worried feeling that's settled in the pit of Joan's stomach dissipates somewhat and she flashes an almost smile at Jamie. She can't say that she's happy for it, but she does think that it's a white flag if Jamie's ever waved one.

Joan leans against the window and feels the cold glass through the back of her sweater. It's a calming feeling, one she appreciates as she prepares to ask this question. "There is only one bedroom in this apartment," she begins and Jamie looks up sharply, her eyes narrowing as she waits for Joan to continue her thought. "And I was thinking that we should probably discuss the sleeping arrangement here, where we won't be overheard."

"I sleep on the right," Jamie says and goes back to mixing her paints as though the matter is settled. It isn't settled, not even close. Joan has never been one to share her sleeping space easily. Sleep is so vital to Joan's ability to function that she doesn't really know how to articulate that she doesn't think a simple brush off is going to explain it.

"I um..." Joan sighs as theatrically as she can. "I kick."

"For someone who values rest as much as you do, you certainly overthink it, Joan," Jamie says distractedly. "It's a bed, plenty big for two people. You stay on your side, I'll stay on mine and they'll be none the wiser."

Joan puffs out her cheeks and hopes that she's right.

Joan wakes up the next morning warped in a warmth that she hasn't felt since the last time she'd had a regular bed partner. She rolls into the warmth, content to doze until the alarm goes off.

She's nearly dozed off once more when her eyes snap open, hazy as they are with sleep and lack of glasses. She's practically nose to nose with Jamie Moriarty, who is staring at her with sleepy eyes and tussled hair.

"You didn't say you cuddle," she says in a low voice as Joan hurriedly scoots back to her side of the bed.

Swallowing, Joan shakes her head in a vehement denial. "I don't." To add emphasis she rolls onto her other side and stares at the blank wall. Her cheeks are flushed, and embarrassment has settled over her in a thick cloak that feels suffocating. How could she have been so stupid, to allow this to happen? She should have slept on the couch.

Fumbling on the bedside table for her glasses, Joan shoves them onto her face and blinks at a now in-focus Jamie, who hasn't moved save to throw an arm very clearly onto Joan's side of the bed. Sleepy, Joan stares up at the ceiling before rolling over and glaring at the encroaching arm. "When did you come to bed," she flushes at the words as she says them, because it sounds so overtly sexual when it really isn't. She'd gone to bed by herself last night, after reading a lengthy email from Sherlock explaining how this situation as escalating in ways that he didn't like or approve of and replying that if he'd just solve the case already Joan would be free from playing house with Jamie. He'd sent back a single line of text reminding her that this whole thing was her idea to begin with and Joan had put away the iPad and dozed off not long after.

"A little after two," Jamie says and her voice is heavy with sleep. There's a streak of deep blue paint on Jamie's cheek, and Joan reaches to touch it, to rub it away. "I lost track of time," she adds, fingers wrapping around Joan's and holding them to her cheek. It feels so intense, so intimate, a gentle touch that is everything that Joan doesn't want this to be.

She doesn't pull away. Jamie is sleep warm and her eyelids are already drooping once more. This is all an act, Joan swears to herself, shifting so that her glasses are not digging into the side of her face.

"Take them off," Jamie suggests, and Joan starts – her hand jerks away and the warmth is gone. Jamie's eyes are open again, crinkled at the sides and she reaches up and plucks them from Joan's face. She turns and sets them on the far edge of the mattress – well away from both of them, before settling back into much the same position as before.

Somewhere between getting resituated and Joan half-wanting to demand her glasses be given back, they end up nose to nose. Jamie still has a streak of paint on her cheek and it's oddly endearing to Joan, blurry though the world is right now. Later, she'll say that she isn't sure who moves first, but she knows that she's the one who caves, and leans across the space between them and presses her lips against that blue streak. Jamie tilts her head and they're kissing again, only this time it's slow and easy – practiced even and the thought that this is becoming a habit terrifies Joan.

Jamie pulls back, her lips red and swollen and Joan is caught, breath stuck in her throat, struck by how intimate this is. "I could have you," Jamie whispers, all the sleep gone in her eyes and replaced by something different, something dark and intriguing. Joan has seen that look on her face only once before, full of desire and a ceaseless want for everything that she cannot have. The world isn't enough for Jamie; Joan knows this, but this, this little piece of it is entirely hers to give and she's contemplating giving it. "I would have you, if you …" she sucks her lower lip into her mouth and looks away, hair falling into her eyes.

And Joan kisses her again because she would have Jamie too, if she understood how this had progressed from a shared attraction and a lot of fake kissing to real kissing and actual desire painted clear as the blue streak across Jamie's cheek. She's falling, she knows it. She's not even into women and she's falling anyway.

"How much of this is real?" She whispers, lips grazing at Jamie's earlobe. There's a shift, and Joan is practically on top of her – weight on her elbows and knees and fingers tangled in Jamie's hair.

Jamie's smile is slow and easy and entirely disconcerting as she takes a handful of Joan's sleep shirt and they're kissing again and god – it feels so good and Joan's sleepy and content and she definitely could see herself doing this for hours and hours.

"All of it," Jamie whispers, her nose brushing against Joan's and their foreheads bumping. "I am doing this for you," she says again, and her fingers curl around the back of Joan's head and pull her back in. They're about to kiss, sharing the same air, and Jamie adds, lips sliding against Joan's as she speaks. It feels good and it promises more and Joan can feel what little resistance she still has slowly starting to ebb away. "I won't do anything you don't want, I swear to you."

Something about that proclamation makes Joan pause, mind racing and fingers curling into Jamie's hair. "I need to think," she says in what she hopes is a low enough voice to not catch the listening device's attention. She sits up and extracts herself from Jamie as best she can. Her finger curl around the sides of the mattress and she can feel her shoulders shake with the effort to keep herself together.

The bed dips and Jamie's presence, the feeling of eyes boring into the back of her head, is gone. Joan lets out a slow, uneasy breath of air feeling like she's shouldered the weight of the world and unsure just how to escape it. Jamie is there then, holding out her glasses with a strange, somewhat distant expression on her face.

"You have paint on your face," Joan says once she's got them back on. Jamie's fingers fly to her cheek and Joan shakes her head. "Other side," she corrects.

Jamie pulls her fingers away from her cheek. "I must have missed it last night when I was cleaning my brushes." She frowns, and Joan knows that while the gesture might have seemed deliberate - as so many were with Jaime - that one probably was not.

Joan lets out another slow breath and rises, rummaging in the drawer that she's been offered for leggings and thick wool socks. "I'm going for a run," she says, not caring that it looks to be absolutely frigid and potentially about to snow outside. She has to get out of this apartment for a few minutes, to allow herself time to think, to breathe without Jamie's constant, ever-observant presence lurking just out of view. Sherlock had been right; this had been a horrible idea.

"It looks absolutely miserable outside, you'll get sick."

Taking a gambit, a careful play on words and an act for the people surely listening in. "You say that every morning," she says flippantly, tugging off her sleep shirt and hunting for her sports bra in the drawer. She's not exactly embarrassed, standing in a tank top and shorts and knowing that she's being stared at. She's used to that, on some level. It's be stared at or become invisible, and Joan hates the idea of being invisible.

A slow, easy sort of a smile blooms across Jamie's face. She settles herself down on Joan's side of the bed, nails still picking distractedly at the paint on her cheek. It's flanking off now, and Joan is very pointedly not looking at it as she successfully finds her bra and slings it over her shoulder on top of her leggings. "In the middle of the winter, it's true every morning," Jamie points out.

Joan rolls her eyes. "That isn't going to stop me," she says, and she means every word of it.

"Take the key," Jamie says, tossing it to Joan a few moments later. She's wrapped up in a robe and has socks on against the cold floor. Joan catches it and can't help but feel slightly vindicated at the you-are-absolutely-insane look that Jamie is giving her. It's sort of hypocritical, Joan thinks, but she doesn't say anything at all. "I may be gone when you get back."

"Oh?" Joan asks, bending to tie her shoe.

She doesn't ask where Jamie is going, but Joan is pretty sure that it has something to do with the cable company truck that's parked just outside the building and has been there for the better part of the last two days.

Joan runs, key pressing into her palm on its leather fob. She runs as hard and as fast as she can, wanting to forget everything but the skill it takes to dodge around people. Blood pounds in her ears and Joan pushes herself until her mind is perfectly blank.

It's glorious.

"You're outside," Sherlock says when she calls him from the midway point on her run, breathless and needing to take a breather, perched on the edge of a freezing cold park bench. "She let you leave?"

Joan doesn't answer for a moment, her breath fogging the air before her. "I'm always free to go."

"But you won't," Sherlock says without prompting. "Because of Moriarty?"

"Because of the kids, Sherlock," Joan retorts, because honestly, confused as she feels, that has been the reason for this charade since the beginning. "They're so young and I do not want them sold off to the highest bidder just because Marina or Lauren or whatever her name really was pissed off the Russians."

He seems to take her word for it, humming quietly. "We might have some news on that front, actually. Captain Gregson's Interpol contact was able to locate the orphanage that Pietrova adopted the children from and was able to establish a familial link between them. Pietrova has a younger brother and sister. The brother is 35 and facing a prison sentence for being involved with the mafia in Latvia, and the sister is twenty."

"The kids are the bother's?" Joan guesses, because going off of the evidence, the sister seems unlikely. "And she took them because he was going to jail and she was about to go into witness protection?"

He makes an affirmative noise. "One is his, yes, the little boy. His mother was killed when the brother was arrested, and he and the little girl - we're not sure her origins yet - were in the care of the sister, who's still in school. She put them into an orphanage because she couldn't afford to care for them," He sighs and Joan can picture his face, a study of contradicting emotions: anger at the men who did this and sadness for those two children. "It's almost honorable, what Pietrova did to keep those children safe."

Joan stares out across the road. She's at the far corner of Central Park, having run farther than she'd anticipated. She's still out of breath but her mind is racing. "We have to get those kids away from the adoption agency," she says at length.

"Yes," Sherlock agrees. "I don't the way you're going about it, though. A search warrant works just as well."

"I'm sure," Joan says. An idea strikes her and she follows it along in her head. "Do you have any word on who Mr. Evansport really is yet?"

He's quiet for a long time. "Not yet, why?"

"I think he's responsible for the listen devices in the apartment - which means that he's trying to catch us in a lie - or listen in on Jamie's plans." Joan sucks in a deep breath of air. "We're meeting with Zellner this afternoon to discuss a possible home visit," she adds. "Maybe I could try to wheedle for the kid's stories?"

"No," Sherlock disagrees. "Don't do that. As much as I hate it, you're supposed to be out of law enforcement and happily pretend-married to a murderer. I think that a person in your role would know better than to ask prying questions. Especially given that you've established yourself as being fully complicit and aware of all Moriarty's crimes."

"Then what do we do? We have no way of getting those kids into a better situation, at least not right now. Unless you can get that girl to the US."

"I don't think we can," Sherlock lets out a quiet sigh. "At this point, the best possible option for those children would be for them to be adopted through some other agency - to families that will actually have them."

"There's no chance at a relative being willing to take them in?" Joan sighs, knowing that the lead on a potential relative hadn't panned out. She frowned, an idea striking her, one that Sherlock wouldn't like.

"None that we can locate in the States," Sherlock replies with a defeated sort of voice that lets Joan know that he doesn't have much of anything to go on right now. She wishes she could go back and talk through the case again.

Closing her eyes against the park's foot traffic, Joan posits the idea that she knows he'll hate. "Jamie has made a child disappear before."

"Twice," Sherlock agrees, and his tone is sour. "However, I do not think that she would be willing to do so for a stranger's child."

"So we shouldn't resort to that?" Joan asks.

"Not unless you think that Alice Zellner and her cohorts will kill the children in order to avoid implication in their kidnapping," Sherlock answers. "Give Detective Bell and me time, Watson, I think we may be on to something with this Interpol lead. If we can find any evidence linking Zellner to Piertrov beyond pretending to be her mother - criminal impersonation will hardly stick to someone as well connected as her - we'll have a reason to bring her in and arrest her. CPS can then take the children and you," he pauses and tries not to sound gleeful, "can come home."

Joan hangs up a few moments later, her mind spinning with the implications. Tomorrow they would see Zellner again, and by then, maybe there would be more answers from Sherlock.

The trip back she takes it slow, she lingers, cuts her pace down to a more reasonable mile time, and by the time she gets back she's freezing and drenched by the spitting, icy rain that had started to fall. She lets herself into the apartment, shivering and kicks her shoes off by the door to be dealt with later.

There is a mug of tea, still steaming on the kitchen counter. Jamie is nowhere to be seen, and Joan takes the mug between ice-cold fingers gratefully. She pads in semi-dry socks down the hallway to stick her head into Jamie's studio, damp hair clinging to her face.

She hasn't really had time to think, more time to shut her brain off and reacclimatize herself to this being part of a job, and that she has no interest in spending any more time with Jamie than is expressly necessary.

The lie, even when it's only in her mind, tastes sour. Joan swallows the bitterness of it and drips, perhaps consciously, cold rainwater all over the warm, dry floor of the studio, Jamie's fuzzy wool socks be damned.

"You look dreadful," Jamie says, and her lips quirk upwards on one side, a little crooked and privately amused. She's sitting with her laptop on her knees, phone pressed to her shoulder, obviously having been interrupted.

Joan sets the key down on the bookshelf just to her left. "Just wanted to tell you I'm back - and to say thank you for the tea."

She nods, and Joan retreats, tea still clutched in one hand. She drinks it quickly, before shedding her wet clothes and showering. It's only close to an hour when she's dressed and her running clothes are hanging up in the bathroom that she goes to collect the iPad and her phone from where she'd left them on the kitchen counter.

Joan puts the kettle on and curls into a small ball on the couch, feet tucked up beneath her as she waits for the water to boil. Sherlock has sent her a transcript of the conversation he'd had with the Interpol agent (and Joan is happy to see that, unlike last time, it isn't in French), as well as everything they've got so far. She's midway through the interview when the kettle whistles and she's up and taking it off the stove quickly.

She spends a few minutes contemplating the tea in the cabinet before she selects a tin of a blend her mother as mentioned she liked in passing a few times, and sets it in the infuser. Behind her, she can feel Jamie looking at her, having gotten off the phone and emerged from behind her closed studio door.

"Want some?" she gestures to the tea and Jamie nods and sets her laptop down on the counter, phone clattering on top of it.

"How long was it raining while you were out there?" Jamie asks, staring out the window. She lets out a quiet sound that might have been a laugh. "You really are going to get sick."

Joan laughs, "Nah," she says dismissively as she crosses over to Jamie and hands her a mug. "I'm used to it." She catches herself before she says more, about how this is nothing, or that she's been doing this for years now - because Jamie's already supposed to know it. "I got an email you might find interesting," she adds, and passes the iPad over, unlocked and without a passcode needed.

Jamie's eyebrows climb up her forehead as she reads and her expression darkens. "I don't suppose he would want me to do what I did with her, would he?" she asks.

"He didn't seem to think you'd be amenable to the idea," Joan replies. They're talking around it, but there are questions that Joan desperately wants to ask. She can't ask them, because asking them makes them real and they're secrets that can't be said out loud anyway.

Everything here is a secret that can't be said out loud.

The iPad ends up back on the coffee table and Jamie stands in the window, mug clutched in her hands and expression distant. Joan watches her, knowing that she could ask anything, and yet not wanting to. There's the same sick, nervous feeling twisting at the pit of her stomach, the one that's been lurking ominously for days, exacerbated by close proximity and how having to keep up this ruse full-time.

Joan knows what it is, she knows what it is and the very thought of it terrifies her. She's never had a cause to question; she's always just gone the easier path, in that situation. She's never felt the need to pull out those strange feelings she sometimes gets and examine them more closely.

It has to just be the ruse they're maintaining, the spending all this time cooped up in this apartment with someone as apparently appealing to Joan as Jamie Moriarty. Joan wonders if she's got a thing for emotionally distant people, or if they're just the sorts of people she gets along best with. If she really thinks about it, she's had lovers like Jamie before, all endless creative energy and catastrophically bad break ups that had made Joan swear to never date an artist again.

She isn't gay, she can't be gay. Sexuality crises are for teenagers and people in their twenties, and Christ, that was a long time ago for Joan. She's confused and caught up in the act. That's all it can be, because looking at Jamie standing in the window is enough to make Joan toss all her good sense and caution into the wind and actually make this real.

The kids need her, and Joan needs to keep them safe.

"With Alice Zellner visiting tomorrow, do you think that we should make sure that the nursery is prepared?" Joan asks. She flicks the iPad's off switch as she leans forward to put down her empty tea mug. She needs to focus on something other than her panicked thoughts right now, and preparation for this space to be invaded by people who are not them seems like as good an idea as any.

Jamie looks up, tea apparently forgotten. There's a strange expression on her face, distant and completely closed off. Joan's breath feels like it's stuck in her throat as Jamie sets her mug down beside Joan and disappears down the hallway without a word.

This is what Joan's afraid of, the feeling of not knowing and finding that more confusing than anything else. Jamie is an enigma, Sherlock had been absolutely correct about that. Joan had once liked to delude herself into thinking that she had Jamie all figured out, that it was easy to parse out motivations from behind the guise of an emotionally stunted woman who couldn't understand that she was hopelessly in love with Sherlock Holmes.

The truth, as it usually does, proves to be far more complicated. Jamie isn't without emotions; she simply doesn't process them in a way that makes sense to Joan or anyone else with anything resembling a normal range of emotions.

What scares Joan the most is that she's starting to think she might be actually able to make sense of the maelstrom that rages behind Jamie's eyes when her face is perfectly blank. The charming smiles and moody silences - all of it. She's a lot like Sherlock.

Joan follows Jamie down the hallway and finds her standing before the one door that neither of them have opened. Jamie had mentioned that she'd had her people prepare the room, and when Joan comes to stand beside her, Jamie glances at her with that same closed-off expression, before she reaches out and pushes the door open.

It is a child's room, pale yellow walls and light green curtains on the window. Joan stands in the doorway and takes in the sparse decoration, serviceable, and yet not over the top. "Don't want to seem desperate," Jamie's voice echoes in her head, and Joan looks over at her for a long moment before stepping into the room.

Jamie doesn't follow her. She stands in the doorway, fingers white knuckled on the doorframe. Joan looks down at a small stuffed bear that's sitting inside the crib, and when she looks back up, Jamie's gone.

"Fuck..." Joan breathes out, holding the bear between nervous fingers.

She checks the room over, getting lost in a copy of Paddington Bear. She remembers the story from her childhood, her brother complaining that it was boring and predictable and her mother scolding him in two languages before going back to reading. The book is older, creased with age, and the publishing date sets it to be close to thirty years old.

There are no bugs in here, at least none that Joan can find. She goes back to the kitchen and collects her iPad before venturing back down the hall to the half-closed door of Jamie's studio. When no objection is voiced by her presence, Joan slips inside and closes the door behind her.

Jamie has been using her wrist as a palate, apparently, it's streaked with a combination of orange and yellow ochre, a brown that Joan can't identify dabbed to one side.

"Those are your books," Joan says, and it isn't prying or even a question; just a simple statement of fact.

The brush stops moving and Jamie looks up at Joan steadily. "Some of them are," she says quietly. "Others were acquired at a second hand shop I frequent when I need older paint." She looks down, her expression almost perfectly blank. "I had a horrible idea, when the Marshalls let me go, and I almost acted on it."

"What stopped you?"

Jamie looks away, down at her feet in thick wool socks. "It wasn't practical," she says and the lie is so obvious that Joan doesn't want press. She merely crosses back over to the half open window and perches on the sill. Sherlock's sent her chat invitation and Joan's a little afraid of his aversion to vowels but wants to know what he's up to all the same. She settles in, her back pressed against the rain-slicked glass and doesn't look at Jamie for a long time.

"I do have a laptop," Jamie points out, some twenty minutes of Joan fighting with autocorrect later. "You could..." Jamie sucks her bottom lip into her mouth. "Use it to better facilitate your argument with him."

Joan shakes her head. "They've found out who Mr. Evansport really is. He's apparently a cousin of Erik Karnsten's."

"This is coming together rather nicely," Jamie says and Joan isn't sure if it's directed at her or simply a comment to herself. She looks up at Joan, using the back of her paint brush to tuck her hair behind her ear almost expertly, until another streak of paint, this time orange-ish brown, ends up on her cheek. "Erik... doesn't have any children that I know about."

"Well, with his wife's career, I can imagine that it isn't the easiest thing in the world," Joan points out.

Jamie tilts her head to one side, and Joan sets the iPad down and tugs a paper towel off the roll that's tucked carefully on a shelf beside a truly bizarre piece of salt beached white driftwood.

"You have paint on your face," Joan explains at the eyebrow that's risen in question.

"Oh," Jamie stays perfectly still. "How careless of me." It had been a deliberate action this time, Joan almost smiles.

Joan dabs at the streak, and soon it's gone and Joan steps back. She can feel herself smiling and she glances at the painting that Jamie's been working on and can't tell what it's supposed to be. Perhaps, she thinks, stepping back, it's for the best. Jamie has always struck Joan as being exceptionally private about her art.

"Do you think that they're, I don't know..."

"Having a run at Demetri?" Jamie shakes her head and she turns back to the blotchy orange-ish brown square she's dabbing paint onto with a critical eye. "The thought had occurred to me as well, but this is too neat for that. I believe that Pietrova was legitimately about to go to the authorities, she was a big enough fish that they'd make a concession to get those children here. I wonder if Erik found out about it and decided to right a long-time wrong in his personal life at the same time as taking care of the problem. They're both getting on in years, I suppose." She taps her chin pensively with a paint free finger, eyeing the square critically and reaching for her actual palate and a different brush. "Perhaps they wanted to build a legacy and these children, what with their Judas of a mother, were too easy to pass up."

Joan frowns, "Then why front with the adoption agency?" She sighs and moves to throw the paint-covered paper towel away. "It seems so..."

"Unnecessary?" Jamie makes an affirmative noise and makes a very deliberate mark on the canvas before her. "Not if you want to make sure that it's legitimate."

"Then our involvement is what, just a happy accident?" That sounds absolutely insane to Joan.

Jamie looks up from eyeing her brown square critically. The ring, the stupid ring on her finger that makes this whole thing seem unnecessarily real, glitters dangerously as Jamie shifts the palate over to her left hand. "Demetri doesn't know any of this, probably aside from Pietrova's betrayal, so his offer was innocent. Erik was foolish to go through his own adoption agency, if that is indeed his motive." She glances around. "It does help to explain why they're so keen to listen in, though. Any overheard that could prove we're unfit so they can give the children to the Karnstens guilt-free."

She wants to point out that Erik Karnsten doesn't sound like a much better alternative, and at least Jamie... Joan silences the thought with a mental shake. Jamie is no better, a murderer and a professional liar just like Karnsten.

The rest of the afternoon is spent in silence; Joan wanders back into the nursery and finds that the books on the shelves are obviously well-loved. She laughs when she finds a worn copy of Eloise, and sits on the edge of the bed, reading about the terrible child who lived in the Plaza Hotel for what feels like the first time in years. Oren has got to have kids, and soon, she needs to have an excuse to read all of these wonderful stories to a child again.

That night, Jamie comes in earlier, and Joan is still awake. They lay together in silence and Joan swallows all her nervousness and finally rolls over to face a slightly blurry, if very much there, Jamie.

"Did your Mets win today?" Jamie asks.

"No," Joan says, resigned to this over the course of decades of abuse by the stupid New York Mets. "But it was just a scrimmage against a college team."

"That is embarrassing," Jamie says and her amusement is evident by the twitch of her lips. "But I suppose that this early in the season-"

"It isn't even the regular season, it's spring training," Joan sighs. "You get used to it, though."

"What, being a downtrodden fan of a bad team?" Jamie asks.

Joan shrugs. "Better than bandwagon-ing on the Yankees just because they win all the time."

"What," Jamie asks, leaning closer, "if winning is what I like?"

Joan gets a sense, all of a sudden, that they're no longer talking about the Mets. They're so impossibly close together and Jamie's mouth is so close to Joan's ear that Joan can hear her say, her voice so low that there will be no way that the bugs could catch it, "Darling, a gay crisis doesn't suit you."

"I'm not a prize to be won," she answers, turning into Jamie so that their noses are almost touching. The whole idea of two separate sides of this bed seems laughable now.

"No one is saying that you are," Jamie points out, and her hand tentatively touches at the sleeve of Joan's shirt. "I would have you," she echoes, her face perfectly blank, "but I know that you are uncertain."

"How," Joan breathes.

Jamie lets out a quiet sound that could be a laugh and rolls onto her back. "Best not rush such things," she says broadly, loud enough to be overheard. "Good night."

It is a long time before Joan falls asleep.

There are, and Joan feels a hint of regret as she pushes the though from her mind, decidedly fewer kisses the next morning. Jamie is still a horrible invasive force and Joan wakes up firmly on what has become her side of the bed with Jamie sleeping practically on top of her, one arm slung casually over her stomach. It is, oddly, very peaceful to have someone sleeping more on your shoulder than the pillow, and if it wasn't for the mouthful of hair that Joan inhales at the shrill beeping of her alarm, Joan would have let her linger.

Coughing, she nudges Jamie off her shoulder, and the grin that greets Joan as she fumbles for her phone to turn off the alarm tells her that Jamie has been awake for some time.

"You could have woken me up," Joan says, after she switches the alarm off and finds her glasses.

"Where's the fun in that?" Jamie asks.

Alice Zellner is coming at nine thirty, and its eight thirty now. Joan doesn't have time to go for a run, and stares regretfully at her running clothes, folded up and sitting on the bathroom counter.

They hurry about, breaking into a box of cheap picture frames and going through the photos that Joan's brought with her, selecting a few and popping them into frames. It had seemed an odd request at the time, but Joan gets the sense that this is the way that Jamie talked about when she'd first told Joan that this was a horrible idea.

"You're going to get rid of this safe house," Joan says after they're done and Jamie is gathering her things from the studio and preparing the lock the door. "Once this is over."

"I may," Jamie says, tilting her head to one side. "I suppose it will depend on the outcome, though. I think I can trust you to keep a secret, and I'm sure Sherlock already knows where we are."

"I never told him." Joan points out.

"He wouldn't have asked."

The place looks... lived in. Joan's sneakers are still drying on the heater when Zellner comes in, Jamie is pretending to absorbed in the Times and it all looks so disgustingly domestic that Joan has to take a deep breath, fingers playing with her grandmother's ring on the wrong finger, and remind herself to fall into the character.

"Ms. Zellner, come in," Joan says, watching as the woman steps into the room in sensible low heels. Joan almost tells her that they leave their shoes at the door, but thinks better of it. She doesn't want to be too contrary. "Do you want some coffee or tea?"

Zellner contemplates Joan for a moment before shaking her head. "No, thank you, Ms. Watson." She glances towards Jamie, who's watching them from behind the newspaper with an almost disinterested look on her face. "This is a truly lovely space. Near good schools too, you're very lucky to have found such a place."

Joan shrugs. "It's wonderful for this neighborhood. I find myself missing Brooklyn sometimes, though."

And it's an opening volley, something that Jamie can build off of. Joan glances up to see that she's set down the paper and is getting to her feet. "Ms. Zellner," she says and doesn't offer her hand.

"Alice, please," Zellner says, and glances between the two of them. "I don't know if you've been told what this visit entails?" When they both feign ignorance, Zellner continues. "I need to have a look around, check for any blatant environmental hazards, and then there's another interview that I figured we could conduct on Monday morning, if that sounds alright for both?"

"That would be fine," Jamie says.

It's easy then, at least by Joan's estimation, to lean against each other, hold hands and make stupidly affectionate faces at each other as they watch Zellner go through the apartment - she checks the bedroom carefully, looking through the books for a long time. Joan reaches forward while she's distracted and pulls Zellner's blackberry from her pocket. She wiggles her eyebrows at Jamie, who's face is an absolutely priceless picture of shock and pockets the phone. She's willing to bet that Jamie has a phone cloning program on her computer.

When Jamie excuses herself to take a call a few minutes later, Joan feels the briefest brush of Jamie's fingers against her leg, and the weight of the phone is gone with Jamie into the studio.

"What's in there?" Zellner asks; eyes narrowed as Jamie closes the door behind her with a long and rather meaningful look at Joan.

"Her studio," Joan says with a shrug, "She paints."

"I had no idea," Zellner replies, making a note of it. Joan reasons that that note pad is going to have to be liberated as well, but she's not going to be the one to do it. "Oils?"

"All kinds," Joan explains. "She usually keeps the door closed, though; I don't go in there much." Joan lowers her voice and whispers conspiratorially. "That's where she does most of her work."

Mrs. Zellner nods severely. "Why don't we give her some time to talk, I'm sure you have questions, Ms. Watson."

"Joan, please," Joan insists, and they end up back in the kitchen. Joan boils water for tea and grins at Ms. Zellner. "I bet you're wondering how someone like me could ever fall for someone like her."

"And what are you like, Joan," Zellner asks, setting her papers down on the table and sliding into a stool. she pulls the times towards her and reads the headlines with a interested look on her face. "You seem very respectable to me. I know that Ms. Moriarty does some business with Demetri, but he never exactly said what."

Interesting, she's playing dumb, Joan changes course mid-idea, curious to see if she can get the reason why she's playing dumb out of Zellner. "He wouldn't have," Joan replies. "The nature of Jamie's work is a far more intellectual pursuit than what Demetri does. Take it from someone who does know, it's probably better that you don't."

The woman raises her eyebrows behind her glasses and regards Joan impassively. "And you know?"

There is a joke here, and had this been any other time, Joan would have made it. She shrugs, "You can't exactly marry someone without knowing all their secrets."

Zellner opens her mouth to say more, but the kettle whistles and Joan collects mugs and makes the tea wordlessly and efficiently. Her hands are shaking, and she's worried that, in a moment of idleness, Zellner will want to mess with her phone. "Interesting," Ms. Zellner says, taking the mug that Joan offers her and sitting up on her stool. "You, I must say, are something of an enigma, Joan."

"How so?" Joan asks.

"It's customary to expend a few cursory web searches for our organization. We check for ties to enemies of Demetri's, law enforcement, things like that. The only records we were able to find were older - it's like you've disappeared from the searchable Internet for the past two years..."

Joan makes a show of biting at her lip and looking away, hands fiddling with her tea. "When Jamie and I first met, it wasn't under the best of circumstances," she confesses, because it's actually true. "I ... I guess you could say that I shocked her, and she was intrigued and wanted to know more." She sips her tea, the lies flowing easily now. "We did spend almost a year in France."

Mrs. Zellner nods. There is a fond smile on her face. "It must be nice, to be newly-wed," She looks around the apartment as though she's taking it in for the first time. "And to be considering starting a family."

Jamie takes that moment to come back, reaching across Mrs. Zellner with all the nonchalance in the world as she slips what Joan can only assume is her phone back into Mrs. Zellner's cardigan pocket. She collects the laptop and bound leather notebook that were sitting next to the newspaper on the kitchen counter. "That was Marcus," she says to Joan with an almost imperceptible furrowing of her eyebrows, "I have no idea how he got this number, but he won't be calling again. My apologies."

Very much doubting that Marcus had indeed called her, mostly because that would be insane, Joan offers Jamie a cup of tea and accepts a gentle kiss on the cheek as a thank you. "We were just talking about how we met," she says.

"Oh, that whole mess with you sticking your nose into things where it didn't belong?" Jamie laughs and Joan nudges her in the side with her elbow, all playful affection. Jamie turns to Mrs. Zellner. "She stumbled into the middle of one of my more intricate operations and I had to work around her. She was..." and Jamie trails off, an expression on her face so full of love that it makes Joan's ears and cheeks burn.

They talk for a few more minutes, and Zellner is nearly out the door before Joan notices that there's a change in Jamie. She stands at the end of the long hallway to the door out, next to Joan's running shoes and fixes Mrs. Zellner with a look that Joan is fairly certain could kill if Jamie wanted it to. "I have to say," she announces, almost conversationally. "That I find your methods for surveillance a little archaic, Alice."

Mrs. Zellner freezes. From where Joan is, leaning against the kitchen counter, it looks as though her expression has turned from perfectly blank to completely terrified. "I'm sorry," she says, her hand snaking into her pocket to pull out her phone.

It feels as though the temperature in the room has dropped by degrees, as Jamie – no, this isn't Jamie – Joan shakes her head and watches as the woman that she's come to absolutely loathe everything about steps forward, hands in the pockets of her slacks, and her expression murderous. "Don't bother calling Erik or his fool of a cousin." The threat, though ever present, feels more imminent than ever.

"What are you doing?" Joan hisses, feeling the investigation start to come apart at the seams.

"Mrs. Zellner has been sticking her nose where it doesn't belong, Joan," Jamie says and her whole body seems to still. Joan nods, still panicked and not quite following the thread of this. It seems like Jamie is trying to play up the reaction that they'd both felt, initially, pulling the bugs out of hidden nooks and crannies on the first day. She is playing up the sense of violation and the sheer irritation at the audacity of these people to come into a private space, a safe house and violate every ounce of trust that Jamie had given them. "And I intend to make my feelings on such a matter very clear before she leaves."

Joan nods just once, fingers gripping the edge of the kitchen counter to keep herself from doing anything too drastic.

"Its standard procedure," Alice Zellner is saying, hands flailing every which way, blackberry in one hand and an expression of pure panic on her face. "Demetri would-"

"Demetri," Jamie cuts her off with a vicious little bark of laughter, "Would do no such thing. Especially not to me." She folds her arms over her chest and stares hard at Zellner. "I've half a mind to call him and see what he has to say about your actions. No doubt you'd end up just like Pietrova, shot in an abandoned lot somewhere." She looks down, and Joan feels a sick sense of realization at the pit of her stomach.

She reaches forward, expression carefully blank, and picks up Jamie's phone. There's no passcode to unlock it, which strikes Joan as incredibly odd given how paranoid Jamie can be about the authorities, but the last number to call the phone was, indeed, Marcus' work line.

How had he even gotten the number? Joan swallows nervously, already not looking forward to explaining to Marcus why she'd spent the better part of a week now playing house with someone who, if she'd wanted to, could very easily be one of Interpol's most wanted. He didn't understand Moriarty or Sherlock's continued relationship with her - nor apparently would he understand Joan's strange sense of infatuation.

"Jamie," Joan says, very quietly. Her voice feels lost in her throat. She's making a deductive leap right now, but given Jamie's comment about Erik Karnsten's idiot cousin, Joan is willing to bed that sometime last night they were able to find him and bring him in for questioning. And no doubt he rolled over on Alice, and maybe even Demetri's whole organization. "Let what's about to happen, happen."

Jamie looks over her shoulder, hair almost obscuring her face and her expression murderous. Joan meets her gaze evenly, because killing Zellner will not keep those babies safe and Jamie has to know that.

There's a knock on the door and Zellner just about jumps out of her skin.

"It's unlocked," Jamie calls, although, Joan can see the hand that hangs limply at her side clench into a fist that shakes slightly. Joan wonders if this is truly as much of a violation as it feels like.

Sherlock opens the door, his expression grim. "Ah," he says, and Joan catches the dangerous glint in his eyes. Something big must have happened. Why hadn't he called? Where was her phone? "Mrs. Evansport, it's good to see you again."

"I'm sorry?" Mrs. Zellner says, brow furrowing in confusion. "I have no idea who you are."

Bouncing on the toes of his battered shoes, Sherlock looks around the room. "I'd wondered where you were lurking," he says, more to Jamie than to Mrs. Zellner. "There's a lot of light in here."

"Good for painting," Jamie replies with a small smile. She wrinkles her nose. "Bit too modern for my taste though."

Joan resists the urge to roll her eyes at the both of them. She comes to stand beside Jamie, and through the open door she can hear the sounds of booted feet stomping up the stairs. Marcus must not be far behind, then, which is good, because this is super awkward and she doesn't want Zellner to bolt.

"Mrs. Evansport," Sherlock says, giving Jamie a look that Joan knows all too well. He enjoys showing off his intelligence just as much as Jamie does; only he has a modicum of modesty about him when he does share, unlike Jamie. "My name is Sherlock Holmes. I observed your interview with Detective Bell when you came to speak to him regarding the murder of your daughter Lauren." He smiles then, and it's almost cruel looking. It almost reminds Joan of Jamie when she's feeling particularly vicious. "That, however, is not exactly the real story is it?"

"The cousin?" Joan whispers to Jamie.

"Quite," she replies in an undertone. Jamie fingers brush against the edge of Joan's shirt, and then Joan's hand. Joan turns her hand, and lets her grab hold, a small smile on her face. "He apparently sang like a canary when he found out he was facing international kidnapping charges."

Sherlock bounces on his toes, and turns to see Marcus and two armed SWAT guys that Joan thinks are really unnecessary to arrest a middle aged woman - she supposes that they're probably for Jamie's benefit. A show of unnecessary force, a reminder of how her freedom could easily slip away once more, even if this isn't about her at all.

"Alice Zellner," Marcus begins, looking up from his notes. "We've been looking for you. Could you please come with us to answer a few questions regarding the murder of Marina Pietrova, alias Lauren Evansport?"

Mrs. Zellner looks like she's just seen a ghost and nods just once fingers curling around her blackberry so tightly that Joan can see her hand shaking. "Alright," she says, swallowing visibly.

Marcus flashes a cheeky smile at Joan and leads her away. One of the SWAT guys lingers, looking around for a moment before disappearing off down the stairs as well.

"Why the hell didn't you call me?" Joan demands, stepping forward and poking her finger into Sherlock's chest. They've been partners long enough that he should have contacted her as soon as he knew something like this - something huge that was going to be enough to merit an arrest.

"I did," he replies curtly. "You didn't answer your phone." He glances over to Jamie, who's got her hands in the pockets of her slacks and an impassive expression on her face. "Eventually we had to call the Marshalls and Captain Gregson had to argue with Agent Matoo for a good twenty minutes before he gave up her phone number so you'd at least have some warning before we barged in."

"Only twenty minutes?" Jamie sounds almost disappointed. "I would have thought Ramses had more fight in him than that."

"Captain Gregson may have implied that you were involved with this... to expedite the process," Sherlock admits, glancing at his feet. Jamie glares at him.

She's almost annoyed that they'd gone to all the trouble of stealing the phone, only to have it not be needed. "Was there anything on her phone?" Joan asks, looking over at Jamie and marveling how her expression softens when she turns her attention away from Sherlock. They really are at complete and utter odds with each other, and it would almost be funny, if it didn't make Joan feel sick to her stomach with the betrayal of what she's been up to the past few days.

"There was," Jamie says, and produces a tiny thumb drive from her pocket. She passes it over to Sherlock without a word, and he stares down at it for a moment before closing his fist around it. "I found a series of emails between Erik Karnsten and Zellner regarding the status of the children and a rather long diatribe about how Demetri's interference was running the perfect plan, which, I feel I should point out, was far from perfect." There's a childish sense of indignation about Jamie as she says the worlds, as though the plan is an affront to her very nature. Joan has to remind herself that yes, it probably is.

"Are the kids okay?" Joan asks, turning back to Sherlock.

"They were surrendered to CPS early this morning, probably right after Alice Zellner," and Sherlock says the name with such derision that Joan wonders if they've discovered something truly unsavory about her beyond the obvious kidnapping and involvement with murder, "left to come and speak to you."

"And Erik Karnsten?" Joan asks.

Sherlock turns to look at Jamie for a long moment, his expression unreadable. His eyes slide to Joan. "Provided we can locate him, he will be arrested for his involvement in Marina Pietrova's murder."

"And you don't want to get involved with Demetri," Jamie's voice echoes in her head, a warning from when this all started. Joan knows then that there is a very good chance that they will never find him - that he's gone from the world already, another casualty of disloyalty within Demetri's organization.

They stand in awkward silence, and Joan closes her eyes, wanting, oddly, for Sherlock to go away so that she can leave without an audience. She feels unsteady, because it's over. There's no need to linger, and yet she wants to, and the thought feels like it should be repulsive.

Sherlock's phone chirps and he pulls it from his pocket. "Detective Bell wants me to ride with him," he says with what almost sounds like disappointment. "Will you be back tonight?"

Swallowing, Joan nods once.

He nods, "I will see you then," he says. He shoots a dirty look at Jamie. "Moriarty."

"Holmes," Jamie replies with an eyebrow raised in challenge.

After he leaves, Joan collects her phone from where it's still plugged in to its charger on the bedside table and sees that she has no less than ten missed calls. "That's what we get for rushing around," she says, mostly to herself. She'll apologize to Sherlock tonight, when she's back at home and the world hopefully goes back to feeling normal.

Jamie is standing in the doorway, and it's the look on her face, more so than anything else that makes Joan set her phone back down on the bedside table. There's a slip in the mask, a hole torn through the cloak of Moriarty to reveal the woman beneath. She looks almost vulnerable.

Perhaps Joan is a fool, for wanting to get involved with this woman. It will only hurt her in the end, and it will crush Sherlock.

"I suppose that I should apologize, for throwing you into a sexuality crisis," Jamie says, and though her face is a mess of unspoken emotions, her tone is oddly conversational. "It was never my intention to have you so confused."

Joan laughs, and it's a strangled, choked sort of a sound. "It would have come up eventually." It's hard to admit it, but Joan feels as though she owes it to Jamie to try and explain things. "I just never had the time to think about it, before. Maybe my life has finally stabilized enough that I can try and wrap my head around it."

"And experimenting with someone nearly ten years your junior for the sake of saving children?" There's a wry little crooked smile on Jamie's lips and her eyes have softened to something that could be almost fond.

"Sometimes things happen." Shrugging, Joan turns Jamie's logic back around on her. "You told me once that you're drawn to things that you don't understand."

"I am," she says.

Joan glances down at her phone, there's a text from Sherlock that makes absolutely zero sense, she clicks off the screen. Meeting Jamie's gaze evenly. "Maybe I am too," she confesses.

In the quiet moment that follows, Joan is halfway to expecting Jamie to try and needle her, announcing something like how Joan had boasted having figured her out and had that changed? The words never come though, and they stand, eyeing each other across a room and it feels like there is far too much distance between them.

"If I were to ask you something, would you answer me honestly?" Jamie sounds almost hesitant and it's weird. She's usually so confident in everything she does and says that it seems almost bizarre to hear her so hesitant.

"I suppose it would depend on what you asked," Joan replies smoothly, but she thinks she knows what's coming. The conversation is really only going one place.

Jamie steps more fully into the room. "I would like to try this..." she gestures to the expanse of empty room between them, "without the lies we've had to tell."

"You want honesty?" Joan asks quietly, because it honestly sounds a bit ridiculous, all Jamie does is lie. "I don't know, Jamie, that's going to take a lot more from you than it will from me." It had taken all of ten minutes on a computer to make Joan basically untraceable - a ghost - but Jamie is more complicated, more criminally inclined. More dangerous.

"Am I truly that repugnant to you?" Jamie asks. "You know who I am - what I am."

"No," Joan confesses. "I do know who you are, but sometimes I catch these glimpses of humanity in you and that... that is what..." She can't get the words out.

Jamie is across the room in three steps, her fingers touching Joan's upper arms, and she's so impossibly close. There is that vulnerability, what she wants, what she's intrigued by in Jamie. "You are an enigma to me, Joan Watson," she says, and presses her lips to the corner of Joan's mouth.

The kiss feels like it was supposed to be a chaste peck, but it feels like hello and goodbye and I've missed you all at once. Joan's fingers skirt across Jamie's jawline, holding her there when it becomes more intense, more desperate and Joan feels like running. Jamie's fingers trail down to rest on her hips, to slide the back of her shirt up and Joan doesn't protest.

'I would have you,' Jamie had said, and Joan isn't quite ready for that, but this feels like a decent enough place to start.

Sherlock is cooking when she gets back, lips red and kiss-swollen from what Jamie hadn't called a goodbye, but a parting. "I will see you soon," she'd promised, before disappearing back into her car and vanishing up the street into the icy evening air.

"Do I need to stage an intervention?" He asks, pointing a spoon almost accusingly at her.

"No, Sherlock," Joan says with an exasperated smile. She comes to stand beside him, leaning against him and looking into the pot where he's cooking... "Is that a shoe!?" she exclaims disbelievingly.

"Absolutely not," Sherlock replies, looking scandalized. "Although I can see where you'd make that assessment, it is rather shoe-like." He lifts out what looks like half of a chicken carcass from the broth he's poking with his spoon. "This is not for today, though. I made pasta."

"Thank god," Joan mutters to herself. She moves to get down plates and forks and it's only when they're safely on the table that she asks how Sherlock and Marcus were able to catch Mr. Evansport so quickly and Sherlock lets out a low chuckle.

"We had some help," he confesses, and then goes on to explain how the man had walked into the police station with a black eye and had demanded to speak to no one other than Marcus. "Moriarty, apparently, was interested in solving this case as well - and she understood that he was the weakest link in this chain of criminals and made him come to us."

They're sitting at the kitchen table, elbow to elbow sharing one knife because Ms. Hudson is out of town this week and there are no clean ones. "The loss of Karnsten will be a blow for Demetri's organization," Joan says, because she knows that it will. She almost feels bad for the boisterous Russian; even though she knows that he's a bad person. He was almost completely uninvolved in this whole ordeal. "Do Marcus and Captain Gregson think they have a case against him at all for Marina Pietrova's murder?"

Sherlock shakes his head. "They don't, unfortunately, because it seems that Karnsten was the one who pulled the trigger."

A wave of disappointment washes over Joan and she sets down her fork. She had hoped that something more would have come out of this, and she can't quite hide the feeling on her face when Sherlock reaches over to take the knife back. "Did you really think that you'd get something out on him with all this?" He asks and Joan just shakes her head.

"We went into this wanting to keep those kids safe, and that's what we did. We got the people involved and we solved Marina Pietrova's murder, but..." she sighs and looks down at the pasta that she's barely eaten. "I guess I just thought that we'd manage to take out more of Demetri's organization than his adoption ring."

It was, perhaps, by design, that they were unable to get a crack at Demetri. Jamie had wanted to do it her way, and they had, for the most part. Joan had been a little annoyed at the pronouncement that Jamie was pulling strings in the investigation behind the scenes, leading them towards a sure conclusion, but there didn't seem to be any motive to it other than to keep the children safe.

'Because that is what you want,' the phrase echoes in her head over and over again and Joan feels sick.

"Is it possible," Joan says, pushing her plate away from her and meeting Sherlock's gaze. "That Moriarty could actually care for another person... besides you, I mean?"

"I don't think she's capable of any human emotions," Sherlock says. He fiddles with the knife, looking at his reflection in the shiny steel for a moment before he sets it down in the space between them once more. "But I am not the best judge of her character." He gives Joan a sympathetic look. "Nor, does it seem, are you."

Joan bites her lip and wraps her arms around herself. She feels cold and worried and she doesn't know why. There had been something about the way that Jamie's touch had lingered on her grandmother's ring, still on the wrong hand and still oddly biding-feeling; it had felt final. A declaration that could not be spoken in words. "Maybe it's better this way," she suggests. "That we don't know."

Sherlock looks down at his fingernails and distractedly pulls on a hangnail. "Maybe," he admits, and there is a look of something that is so pitying, so sorry for Joan that she feels the sick sting of betrayal all the same.

He knows, and he's not angry, just sad.

Joan gets a text at two-thirty that morning from Jamie. It says a lot while containing very few words at all, and Joan's heart thuds in her chest as she reads the words.

I never thought I'd come to find silence so suffocating.

Joan stares at the words sleepily, curled with her back to a spare pillow. She doesn't know what to say, but it's remarkable how her half-asleep mind comes up with the idea.

So come sleep here.

Twenty minutes later, the bed dips and an arm wraps around her and Joan drifts back to sleep.