9Later, outside the college, Jo and Sherlock sat shoulder to shoulder on the back steps of an ambulance. Jo had a bright orange blanket wrapped tightly around her shoulder. She was trying to convince Sherlock to put his back on.
"Why have I got this blanket?" he asked, annoyed. "They keep putting this blanket on me."
"Yeah, it's for shock." Lestrade strode over to the odd duo. He grinned at the sour look on Sherlock's face.
"I'm not in shock," Sherlock said.
"Yeah, but some of the guys wanna take photographs."
Jo barked out a laugh at Lestrade's comment. Lestrade laughed too as Sherlock rolled his eyes.
Lestrade's face became serious. "Sherlock, Miss Watson, both of you will have to give a statement. Sherlock, you should be fine about the cabbie. Anyone could see that it was self-defense."
Sherlock nodded.
Lestrade studied him carefully. "So you missed the cabbie once, and hit the wall?" Lestrade's voice was skeptical. "I thought you were a better shot, Sherlock."
Sherlock shrugged and glanced at Jo, who asked, "What are you looking at me for?"
Lestrade's eye flicked curiously between the two. Sherlock was acting... odd. Not bad, just different. Lestrade wasn't sure if he should be worried or not. A tiny smile pulled at the corner of Sherlock's lips.
"Dinner?" he asked Jo.
"Starving," Jo said, smiling.
Lestrade folded his arms. "I've still got questions for you," he said.
Sherlock frowned as he looked back at Lestrade. "Oh, what now? I've just caught you a serial killer! More or less."
Lestrade studied Sherlock and Jo thoughtfully. "Okay. We'll bring you in tomorrow. Off you go. Sherlock, make sure Miss Watson gets home safe, or I'll arrest you."
Jo smiled and shook Lestrade's hand and thanked him. She carefully folded her shock blanket and laid it on the top step of the ambulance. Sherlock just bundled his blanket up and tossed it into the back.
Jo shivered in the chill night air as they walked away from the ambulance.
"Are you all right?" Sherlock asked.
"Yes, of course I'm all right."
Sherlock studied Jo carefully. Her cropped grey-blond hair was a wild mess, sticking up in a thousand directions. She had white gauze wrapped around the abrasions on her wrists. Her clothes were rumpled and there were small spots of blood on her shoes, and the bottoms of her trousers.
"You have just killed a man," Sherlock reminded her quietly.
Jo paused as they passed an empty police car. "Yes, I…" She trailed off as she thought for a moment.
Sherlock locked eyes with Jo.
Jo smiled. "That's true, isn't it?"
Sherlock didn't look away, just raised an eyebrow.
"He wasn't a very nice man," Jo said, shrugging, and moving forward again. "He'd killed a bunch of people. And he was a bloody awful cabbie."
Sherlock smiled, apparently reassured that Jo wasn't going to have a break down.
"No," Sherlock agreed. "Not a very nice man. And he was a bad cabbie. The route he took to get us here. Ridiculous."
Sherlock chuckled. Jo giggled as Sherlock lifted the yellow crime scene tape to allow Jo to pass under it.
"Stop!" Jo squeaked. "Stop, we can't giggle, it's a crime scene! Stop it!"
"You're the one who shot him. Don't blame me."
Jo glanced to each side. "Keep your voice down!"
The police woman whom Jo had met at the Wilson crime scene, Donovan, gave her an odd look.
"Sorry," Jo muttered to her. "It's just, um, nerves, I think."
Jo sighed as they passed Donovan. "I can't believe you were going to take that pill."
Sherlock glanced side-long at her, face straight. "I wasn't. Besides, I was right. I know I was. I would've been fine."
"Whatever you want to think," Jo muttered. She blinked once. "It's how you get your kicks, isn't it? You risk your life to prove you're clever."
Sherlock raised an eyebrow, looking affronted. "Why would I do that?"
"Because I was right; you're an idiot."
Sherlock smiled, dropping his affronted pretense.
"End of Baker Street, there's a good Chinese, stays open 'til two," Sherlock told Jo as they walked, gesturing down the street. "You can always tell a good Chinese by examining the bottom third of the door handle."
"Yeah?" Jo chuckled. "I bet you predict the fortune cookies, too."
"Always," Sherlock stated.
"Don't believe you," Jo said. "You can't know everything."
"Almost can," Sherlock told her, breathing deeply in the cool night. "I know you did get shot, though, in Afghanistan. There was an actual wound. Not just your psychosomatic limp."
Jo nodded, pursing her lips. "Yeah, that's right. Shoulder."
"Thought so. Left one, yes?"
"Still don't believe you. And that was a guess. And don't say you never guess, because you guessed that Harry was a boy."
Sherlock scoffed. "Semantics."
Jo huffed out a tired laugh. She glanced at Sherlock and saw his sharp smile playing across his face. "What are you so happy about?"
"Moriarty," Sherlock said.
Jo nodded, rolling her eyes. Of course he was excited about a potentially psychopathic person and/or group of people. "So any ideas on who or what Moriarty is?"
Sherlock's face brightened further. "I've absolutely no idea."
Several hours later, back at her bedsit, Jo slumped into one of her only two chairs. This one was slightly less squeaky than the other. She was pleasantly full of dim sum. Her leg was hardly bothering her. A zing of pain every once in a while, but otherwise, almost the same as before Afghanistan. Her shoulder was sore from being tied behind her, but it was nothing that Jo couldn't handle. She'd experienced much worse.
It was nearing two-thirty in the morning, but Jo couldn't sleep as she contemplated the adventures of the last few days. A dead aunt, a crime scene, a mad detective, a hostage situation, and actual food in her system; it was strange to have had such a full few days, among the dull grey of the usual since her return from the war.
Jo thought of her silly blog (orders of her therapist) and thought of sharing her adventures. Jo was such an awful typist, finger-pecking her way through even the shortest bits, that she hated it. But… Jo had an empty journal. Leather-bound. Companion fountain pen. It was beautiful. And Jo had always enjoyed writing.
Jo pushed herself out of her chair, and dug through her drawers until she found the journal. It didn't take long. Jo flicked on her lamp, and sat at the table, setting the beautiful journal in front of her. Across the top, Jo scrawled a title in permanent pen: A Memoir of Sherlock Holmes.
Sherlock steepled his fingers, slouching in his black armchair, as he considered the events of the case. It had been an interesting endeavor, a nice change from the stagnancy of boredom.
The cabbie's motives had been quite unexpected, and something Sherlock didn't quite understand. What was so special about children, anyway, especially children that you hadn't seen in ages?
Sherlock snorted softly, the sound absorbed by the organized chaos around him. Sentiment. He'd never understand it.
But the cabbie and his methods weren't what was currently standing out in Sherlock's mind.
Jo Watson.
She was a puzzle. Interesting. Different.
Sherlock had written her off as ordinary (dull!) the first time he had seen her, standing near the wall at the crime scene. He had seen, and observed everything.
Short hair, just growing out from a buzz cut, unusual hairstyle for a woman her age. Shoulders straight, and feet apart, hands clasped behind her. Parade rest. Military personnel, then.
Face and hands weathered and tanned, but a sliver of paler skin could be seen where the horrible blue jumpsuit she was wearing had slipped up her wrists. Suntan.
Military, suntan, harsh weathering. Heat, wind, and sun, possibly sand. Afghanistan or Iraq.
The woman was steady in her resting stance, but when she had walked, or moved around, she had favored her right leg. Injury? No, psychosomatic. Her right hand was calloused, and her fingers curled as if she carried something in that hand frequently. A cane, yes, for the psychosomatic limp. Probably had a therapist, too. And if the limp was psychosomatic, something traumatic must have happened for her to obtain it. Wounded in action, then.
Her comfort around the dead body and the bustle of the crime scene told him that she had seen such things before.
The large first-aid kit resting by her feet, possibly the property of the police, but unlikely. The woman was dead.
Comfort around death, unbothered by the bustle of busy people, first-aid kit, doctor, or nurse, at the least.
Sherlock had seen it all in an instant.
Sherlock had also noticed how thin the woman was, and the dark circles under her eyes. Depression. Eating disorder. Nightmares, or restlessness, but Sherlock didn't care much. He had dismissed the woman just as quickly as he had seen everything about her.
Sherlock had been a bit surprised when the woman, who Lestrade had identified as Watson, had reacted so calmly to the realization that her aunt was the dead woman lying on the floor.
Then, when Sherlock had laid his deductions out, Watson had actually praised him. Most people couldn't stand Sherlock's so-called 'know-it-all' tendencies.
Sherlock had declared the case murder, not suicide, and then upon his realization that there should a suitcase, a pink suitcase, left everyone at the crime scene confused and annoyed, something that Sherlock found a slight bit of perverse pleasure in.
It was the intrigue of Watson that had made him, chuckling, realize that Lestrade, poor idiot that he was, would suspect the woman in the murder. A quick text had saved that waste of time.
Sherlock had found Jennifer Wilson's case within an hour. He hadn't wanted to go all the way back to his flat, someone else's was closer, Lestrade had told him, and Sherlock was sure that she wouldn't mind, and Watson interested him for some reason. Sherlock was curious.
So he had taken the pink suitcase to Watson's flat, shot down her confusion and indignation at his sudden entrance, then laid everything that he knew about her out.
Even with his perpetual and purposeful bluntness, Watson was still impressed.
Something about Watson intrigued Sherlock, and not just her amazed reactions to his deductions. Sherlock sensed… something different about the woman.
But he had put that curiosity aside for a time when he realized what he could do to prove to her that her limp was all in her head. Sherlock could see the faint hunger in the woman's stone-blue eyes as she stared at the pink suitcase. She needed danger and excitement, or she was going to wilt like a dead flower.
For some reason, that thought made Sherlock's nose wrinkle.
So he had dangled a figurative carrot in front of Watson's nose, and knew she would follow him.
And he had been right. As usual. The chase from Angelo's restaurant had gotten Watson's heart pounding, and her adrenaline flowing. And, of course, she had left her cane behind. Just Sherlock's point.
The change was dramatic.
Watson had been bright and smiling, and excited and alive.
A small bit of pleasure had bloomed in his chest when he saw her smile.
Then Lestrade had gone and ruined it with his silly drugs bust.
But apparently not.
Jo hadn't seemed to care about his past. It was refreshing.
The cab ride back to Watson's bedsit had taken an unexpected turn-literally and figuratively.
He hadn't expected the cabbie. And he certainly hadn't expected Jo's sudden, brilliant realization. Obviously, Watson was smarter than Sherlock had given her credit for. Not that her level of intelligence was anywhere near his, but then, nobody's was. Expect perhaps Mycroft, the lazy git.
The situation at the college had been more exciting and exhilarating than the cab chase from earlier.
Sherlock had been so interested in the cabbie's little 'game' that he had nearly forgotten Jo was there, ignoring her anger and fear until she had drawn the gun he had noticed hidden in her trousers and shot the cabbie dead.
At least he had gotten one piece of information from the obstinate cabbie; Moriarty.
The name sent a thrill down Sherlock's spine. He had nothing on the name in his mind palace. The mystery was definitely a ten.
Who'd ever heard of sponsored killings? Not even Sherlock.
Still, quite possibly the most interesting thing that had happened was that Jo had shot a man for Sherlock, a virtual stranger, with no hesitation. Sherlock wasn't quite sure what to make of it.
Jo's soft but sturdy voice had drawn him out of his thoughts. The blood on Jo's wrists had unsettled Sherlock, no matter that he dealt with blood and gore on a regular basis.
And the gun. The unregistered gun. That was a problem. Sherlock doubted that Jo would have served time for her shooting the cabbie, but nevertheless, the gun was unregistered and illegal.
So Sherlock had tampered with the evidence. So what? Lestrade would forgive him, if he ever found out, which Sherlock was determined would never happen.
Sherlock had planted his and the cabbie's fingerprints on the gun. If Jo's fingerprints were on the bullets themselves, from when she loaded them, well, Sherlock would come up with something for that as well.
For some reason, that was quite unfathomable to him, Sherlock didn't want Jo to be in any sort of trouble.
Sherlock had dragged Jo to a restroom and scrubbed the powder burns off her hands and fingers.
Jo had complied without complaint. Sherlock had been worried that she was going into shock.
But Sherlock was the one who was shocked when she had shouted at him and called him an idiot… then had the nerve to laugh at him!
Sherlock had found that he didn't mind.
Jo Watson was special.
In his mind palace, Sherlock opened an empty file folder, and slotted the information Sherlock had gathered on Watson inside, the mental picture he had formed of her clipped to the top.
Sherlock paused before he slid the folder into a file cabinet. Hmm….
Sherlock frowned and fingered the folder. Decided, he laid the folder on a table cluttered with 'files of interest.' He'd have to come back to Jo Watson.
Sherlock's sixth sense said that Jo Watson was different. A cut above most. Sherlock's lips twitched into a smile. Jo Watson and Sherlock Holmes would meet again. He was sure of it.
Hooray! That's one down. Hope you enjoyed this. Thank you so much, reviewers! You guys are the bomb! This chapter is for you. Hope you liked the Sherlock POV. I hadn't planned on that. Anyway, see you next time!
-Indigene Syke