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“We should get married,” Joan says one afternoon out of the blue. She’s been thinking about it on and off for the last several years, but after an incident last month where Sherlock wasn’t allowed into the room where Zhao was getting several staples in her head after a nasty fall, the thought pops up more and more often.
It takes several minutes for Sherlock to respond but that’s okay. It’s a serious thing to consider, especially since Joan has had this nagging feeling for years that if he wanted to marry her, he would be the one to bring it up. Joan watches the sun reflect on the custom beekeeping suit that Ms. Hudson had happily designed a few years ago for Zhao. Today her daughter was, in her own words, a specialized crime fighting bee detective. Of all the detective games played, Joan has developed a special fondness for this one. She gets to sit on the roof (often with Sherlock) and watch the grin break out on her daughter’s face as she does interviews with hives and mutters seriously to herself while scribbling on a notepad. Being a specialized crime fighting bee detective was, after all, serious business. Moments after Zhao looks through her magnifying glass and triumphantly yells “aha!” Sherlock responds.
“What are the terms?”
“There aren’t terms. Nothing will change except we have the security in paperwork. We’ve been together for over a decade at this point and it might make the guardianship process go smoother. And,” she says after a moment’s thought, “we can avoid another incident if I’m unable to get to Zhao - or if something happens to me at work.”
“I would never let --” Sherlock immediately tries to insist but Joan stops him by placing a hand on his knee.
“We both know it’s a possibility. But I know how much you love Zhao. And there’s no one in the world I have ever trusted the way I trust you.”
They sit in silence for a few more moments before Sherlock places his hand over hers.
“It would be a true honor to marry you, Watson.”
It wasn’t as if she doesn’t care about the ceremony. Joan does care because courthouse or not, this is a significant life event. However, the rest of her family definitely cared more.
“Did Sherlock pick these outfits out for you?” Lin asks.
Without looking up from the case files spread across the bed Joan responds in the affirmative. “He offered.”
“And these are the ones he chose?” Joan can tell that Lin is frowning and bites the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. Her mother had offered to take Zhao shopping for a few hours, Sherlock had offered to choose some clothing options for the ceremony, and Lin had offered to help get everything for the post-wedding brunch at the brownstone figured out. It was to be a small event, Joan’s family and a few shared friends such as Marcus, Ms. Hudson and Alfredo. This eventually led to Lin going to Joan’s room and trying to peek at what Joan would be wearing.
“What, you have an issue with me getting married in a suit?”
“No, that’s not it at all. It’s just…” Lin sighs heavily and drops into the chair next to Joan’s bed. “He has a better sense of your style than I had assumed.”
Joan turns to smirk at her sister. “Did you really think after over ten years together he wouldn’t have figured out what looks good on me?”
“And you’re sure he isn’t hot for you?”
“Stop that. He loves me, I love him, there doesn’t have to be sex involved.” She knows how hard it was for Sherlock to even accept the idea of love being something that he could experience after the losses he’d faced. It was tricky for her in another way - not in the idea of loving and being loved in return, but in the idea that love could exist from someone outside of her family without her having to keep parts of herself closed off.
Which isn’t to say that Joan has never fallen in love. She has. The last time that had happened her boyfriend ended up dead.
Lin hums and stands back up to compare outfit choices. Joan goes back to her files and they work in silence for a while longer. Sherlock had agreed to avoid active cases until after they were married to keep them focused on what was happening - crime would happen no matter what, but the booking was an appointment not to miss. She continues to study the autopsy details of a cold case from 1996 and is only pulled from her thoughts when the bed shifts.
“Are you nervous?” Joan freezes. Lin places her hands over one of Joan’s. “It’s okay if you’re nervous.”
“Nervous isn’t the right word,” she replies. “It’s a combination of excitement and wariness.” No matter how much she pretends, marriage wouldn’t just be a piece of paper making their lives easier. Her bond with Sherlock is strong enough that marriage hadn’t even felt necessary. She shouldn’t care what anyone else would think or assume about the two of them, and yet a part of her did.
“Joannie.” Joan stares at Lin. Lin’s giving her a small smile. “If you change your mind, no one will judge you.”
Without thinking Joan shakes her head. “No.” She places her other hand on top of Lin’s hands and gives them a squeeze. “I want to do this. I need to do this.”
Lin nods her head in return. “In that case, I’ve narrowed it down to two outfits for you to choose from.” She pulls her hands away so she can point to the pair of ensembles hanging off the door frame. “You have to be serious about this, tomorrow will change your life.”
Her sister was right. But Joan knew which outfit Sherlock would like to see her in more. She points to the outfit on her left.
“You’re my dad now, Uncle Sherlock,” Zhao announces during dinner the week after the wedding. Joan holds back her amusement at the brief flash of realization and panic passing through Sherlock’s face. He looks between the two of them.
“Yes,” he says cautiously. “I have married your mother and will be your legal guardian. Your judgement is correct.”
Her daughter -- their daughter? -- muses on this information while pushing the peas she obviously doesn’t want to eat around her plate. Sherlock turns and tilts his head slightly. “I have no idea why we didn’t discuss this earlier as a --.” He bites his tongue which shocks Joan more than anything he could say at this particular moment. He’s right, they should have discussed this earlier, and she wants to push more on what he kept himself from saying. However, before she has a chance, Zhao speaks up again.
“This means I have to call you dad instead of uncle, right?”
“You can just call him Sherlock,” Joan interrupts. “Uncle Sherlock might get a little confusing at this point.
“Okay!” Zhao replies cheerfully. “Sherlock Uncle Detective it is.”
Despite how hard she tries, it’s impossible for Joan to avoid covering her face with her hands as Sherlock chuckles along with Zhao's delighted laughter.
As she predicted, nothing really changes in their relationship post-wedding. They rotate getting Zhao ready for school every morning. They work cases. They bicker. They go to their own beds on nights when they don’t crash in the living room or dining room or tv room.
And yet, despite the status quo that had been kept since they became work partners (which only truly shifted with the birth of Zhao), Joan was still surprised to see one of Sherlock’s friends with benefits digging through the fridge.
“Morning,” Joan says while walking into the kitchen. The woman pop up for a second to wave hi and after a few moments the face and a name match. “Annette, right? I haven’t seen you in forever.”
“Mmm. Sherlock usually comes over to my place now but it’s nice to be back in the Brownstone. He has a fantastic bed.” Annette closes the fridge with a sigh. “He said I could have a container of Greek yogurt from the fridge. I just can’t find it.”
Joan smiles and pulls the fridge back open, reaching all the way into the back to grab a black shoe box. “Here, we had to find a new way to keep Zhao from eating them all.”
Annette returns the smile while grabbing a spoon to eat with. “Thanks. I’d almost forgotten why he’d gotten distant again.”
Joan gives an illusion of nonchalance as she puts the kettle on. “I’m sorry, I’m not exactly sure what you mean.”
“Haven’t you notice that he basically drops everything when something’s going on with your family?” Joan impulsively wants to respond that they aren’t a family, wants to explain that it wasn’t what Annette thought, but she misses that chance fairly quickly when Annette continues to speak. “I don’t know what it is this time around, but this is maybe the third time I’ve seen him in the last five months?” Joan keeps her eyes focused on the kettle when Annette elaborates - “I can count on one hand the number of times we met during the year after Zhao was born. It’s sweet, really.”
She doesn’t know what to do with this information. Since day one in their partnership she’d emphasized the fact that his sex life was none of her business. At this point, years and years later, Sherlock had restrained himself to off-hand comments that usually left her rolling her eyes. Of course, whenever something happened in her sex life…
Despite this aspect of their reality, a low ball of negativity starts growing near her ribs. Joan is not completely sure why. After a few minutes of actual small talk, Annette leaves, leaving Joan alone with her tea and this weird feeling. Was it irrational resentment?
“Morning, Watson.” Sherlock walks into the kitchen wearing sweats and pulling on a shirt. Joan sips her tea silently, watching Sherlock grabbing himself food with his standard I-Just-Got-Laid-And-I’m-Feeling-Great vibe. He pauses when walking to join her at the table. “Something wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t be daft, Watson. You barely extended a greeting but since it’s clear you had restful sleep last night, the gesture is coming from a place of annoyance. Zhao is with Xiu this weekend and unless something has changed in the last seven hours there aren’t any active cases troubling your mind. If Marcus had texted with some news you’d be going through your wardrobe to find something crime appropriate. Shall I go on?”
Joan exhales with a huff, her only indication at being rattled at all. He doesn’t gloat about making deductions about her very frequently anymore so she knows he’s trying to push her buttons. As if that would make her speak. She takes a long sip of her tea. “It’s not your problem, don’t worry about it.”
Sherlock butters a slice of toast thoughtfully. When he looks up from his plate to stare at Joan, his eyes are shining. “You’re jealous.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re jealous. You saw Annette this morning and somehow her presence soured your mood.”
Joan crosses her arms. “I’m not jealous.” At the non-suppressed glee on Sherlock’s face she uncrosses them. “Why would I be jealous?”
“Your husband is having an extramarital affair. That tends to fill a spouse with jealousy and rage. Surely we’ve solved enough crimes of passion for you to consider this as a possibility.”
“You’re not having an affair,” Joan snaps. “I went into this marriage knowing that our sex lives would continue as normal. I still don’t care who you bring home.”
“And yet?” Sherlock leads, and she knows he won’t shut up until she gives him something.
“Annette had been curious about what had happened in our relationship in the last five months and it surprised me. No jealousy, no urges for murder against you.” Sherlock doesn’t speak again until Joan rises from her chair which, to be honest, is slightly worrisome. “I’m going to take a shower,” she announces as she drops her mug into the sink. As she heads out of the room, she’s stopped by a light touch - no, grab of her hand. She meets Sherlock’s eyes as she turns. He looks about as shocked as she does by his actions. He lets go of her hand and they stare at each other for a few moments.
“I haven’t told any of my sexual partners about our marriage, out of respect for you.” he says softly. “I can tell you’re still wary about being public with our relationship and while I trust every single person I’m intimate with, I absolutely will not risk making you uncomfortable in regards to your privacy.”
It feels like an apology. Guilt replaces the resentment in seconds. “Thank you.” The problem isn’t the marriage. She chose to marry him and the fact he still thought she wasn’t comfortable with this new reality made her wonder what she’d done to lead to that conclusion. But the revelation was unsettling - was he hiding it for his sake as well? And if not, did he actually want to share the news with people? As she mulls on those thoughts her possessiveness flares: their relationship isn't impacted by outside forces. Plus, at the end of the day she is the person Sherlock Holmes comes home to.
Maybe hiding their marriage is still the best decision.
Sherlock’s phone buzzes on the table; he checks it immediately. “Marcus wants us to meet up with him at a diner in Queens.” He looks her up and down. “You might want to hurry with that shower.”
“Mom, mom.”
Joan jolts awake when her daughter starts shaking her shoulder. Blinking a few times, Joan pats the couch to find her phone. 7:30am. The case they’d spent five days on had wrapped up less than two hours earlier and for a moment she completely spaced on why she was being awoken at this time on a Sunday.
“Māmā.”
“Shì? Tā shì shénme,” Joan responds with a groan.
“Xiu hé Rachel dōu.”
“Oh, right.” Joan stretches and tries to fully sit up on the couch. Today was a scheduled visiting day for Xiu and Rachel: Zhao’s birth mom and her wife. It took her a few seconds to realize that she was having trouble getting up because of the weight on her. Tangled up with her was Sherlock, sleeping as if the world didn’t exist.
“Don’t worry,” Zhao says with a wave of her hand. “I know you and Sherlock need to sleep. I’ll see you this evening!”
“Nice try, kid. I’m not letting you leave on your own.” Carefully, Joan extracts herself from Sherlock’s hold and gets up as her daughter responds with indignation. She and Zhao walk to the door and she gets to have a quick conversation with Xiu until Zhao seems to lose her patience and starts pulling Rachel so they can leave. Joan smiles as she watches the trio walk down the street, Zhao holding their hands and chattering excitedly.
Joan had heard Sherlock wake up as Zhao was being sent off for the day. Oddly, there’s a slight spike of anxiety that floods her chest as she closes the door. This certainly isn’t the first time they’d woken up next to each other on the couch - or on the floor, on one occasion - during or after working a hard case. The fact that Sherlock was holding her as they slept was the only aspect completely out of the ordinary. She notices that Sherlock has become more physical late than he had ever been in the past, sometimes brushing her arm with his as he passes by in the kitchen, other times resting a hand on her shoulder as she explains the newest information she’d found online.
“Watson,” Sherlock softly calls. Game face on, Joan turns around to respond. He beats her to it.
“I apologize.”
“For what?” She notes the tiny signs of him beginning to fidget, his fingers starting to lightly drum on his thighs, his body barely shifting as he switches his weight on each foot.
“I appear to have made you uncomfortable by falling asleep in your embrace this morning.”
“Wait--” Joan interrupts before he gives a long-winded speech on physical intimacy while making inaccurate assumptions on how she felt about their relationship since they got married. “I’m not uncomfortable at all. It felt nice.” She watches Sherlock nod his head; she feels a sudden rush of courage.
“We’re both obviously still exhausted and Zhao isn’t around for the day. If you want, you can lay down with me in my bed.”
Sherlock’s eyes open wide. Internally, Joan’s delighted by the fact she still knows how to leave him completely speechless. This pride helps reduce the anticipation she feels as Sherlock stares at her, jaw almost dropped.
“Yes,” he finally stammers. “I’d enjoy that.”
Joan sits up immediately once she feels the lightest touch on her shoulder. Her eyes fly open and she turns to see Marcus Bell. She’s in one of the conference rooms in the precinct. She has no clue when she’d drifted off.
“We’re about to visit Harrison’s country home. Figured you’d want to ride with me.”
She wipes the corners of her mouth reflexively and stands up. Marcus gives her a smile but Joan is completely out of the mental energy needed to return it. “Did you find him?”
“Security footage puts Harrison last seen at a gas station five miles from the house. A team left before I managed to get you.”
He’s deflecting. Joan’s too tired and stressed and scared for the subject to be talked around instead of being faced head on. She stops at the cruiser and stares as he unlocks the door. “Marcus.”
There’s a pause. “No. We haven’t found him. But we’re hoping.” Marcus opens his door. Joan mirrors his action.
It’s been eleven days since anyone had seen Sherlock Holmes.
Not including the video delivered on a flash drive to the precinct with a ransom.
This isn’t the first time either of them had been abducted. It definitely wasn’t something anyone could ever get used to, but after Zhao was born their concerns were at time almost entirely focused on making sure she was safe when one of them wasn’t around to watch her. All the other times this nightmarish event had occurred in their lives had been very early in their partnership and had been connected to ongoing investigations.
This situation was based on revenge.
There had been a money laundering case a few months back that she and Sherlock had solved. Cases of money laundering weren’t usually on their radar as worthwhile investments, but after security footage showed two people simultaneously collapsing dead on the floor had been found in a museum that acted as a front for a money scheme, they took the case. It was one thing for the case to revolve around the Argentinian artist whose works were showcased at said museum. It was another thing for the case to be solved due to the presence of artisan glitter used in an abstract art fashion show in New Jersey.
It was clear from the beginning of her investigation that the kidnapper was not connected to the politician who had sponsored the Argentinian mob in the first place. No, Harrison was angry about his wife’s fashion show being rescheduled due to heavy police presence. Or, that is, his former wife. As the police raced to the house, they hoped to find both Sherlock and said ex alive.
“Hey,” Marcus says, interrupting Joan’s mental spiral. They’ve arrived on the scene. Joan decided she’d be more stressed out if she was waiting outside so they sat and watched the house. “It’s going to be okay.”
“Are you saying that to reassure me or yourself," she replies flatly.
“Can’t it be both?” He once again tries to give her a small smile. Before she has a chance to react, he sits up more. The paramedics are going inside the house.
Joan rushes out of the car, stopping next to the Captain. “What’s happening? Did you find Harrison?”
He shakes his head; the hope that had been building in her chest is smothered as the frustration rears its head once again. She has half a mind to turn around and go back to the squad car so she can sit alone and scream, but he stops her.
“We didn’t find Harrison, but we found Carolyn. And Sherlock.”
As if by magic, the first stretcher rolls out of the building. Sherlock’s eyes are closed. The skin on his face that isn’t bruised is white paper pale. They’ve put an oxygen mask over his face. His left knuckle is covered with blood. But he’s alive, he’s alive. Joan wants to collapse from relief, but there’s no time for that now.
“I’m going to go with them.”
“Hold on,” Gregson protests, grabbing her arm as she tries to pass. “I know you were a doctor and I know he’s your partner. But we can take you to the hospital until they’re ready to let you see him.”
“But I have to be with him --”
“There’s nothing you can do for him right now and even if you ask, they’re not going to let you ride with them.”
“I know this company,” Joan argues. She’s not even looking at Gregson as she talks to him, she’s watching her partner’s eerily still body on the stretcher. Gregson’s words are faint, the world becoming more and more muffled as the EMTs prepare to load Sherlock into the ambulance. Her voice has been getting louder as she tries to break through the fog that muffles her surroundings. “They let family ride in the front of the ambulance.”
“That’s what I’m saying, Joan --”
She can’t think, she can’t breathe, she can’t let him go without a fight. “And he’s my husband.”
Gregson goes silent. He lets go of her arm. The world seems to stop for a moment as it takes in the phrase that slipped out for the first time after being held inside for nine months. Joan walks towards the driver of the vehicle. She feels the stares of the officers around her. That doesn’t matter.
Nothing but Sherlock Holmes making it out of this encounter alive matters.
“Please let me ride with him,” Joan says. “He’s my husband.”
Joan is so focused on her research that she doesn’t realize Sherlock’s come downstairs until he taps her on the shoulder. She pulls out a headphone earbud. “Hey. Did you need something?”
“Getting some tea.” He raises up his mug for her to see. “What’s this?”
“Oh, right!” Pushing her laptop to the side, Joan stands up to grab the violin case resting on the table. She opens it carefully for Sherlock to see. He was released from the hospital a couple weeks ago and while he’s been feeling better, the cast on his left wrist kept him from being able to do everything he wanted to. Other than dehydration and bruising, Sherlock was lucky to leave the situation with only a broken wrist.
“So, when you were giving Zhao lessons earlier today, I remembered that I’d seen this violin in storage a few years ago. Obviously, you’re the musical expect, but I figured that once you’re healed you’d want to be able to use your own violin during lessons.” She shrugs. “I don’t know how much time it would take to get this one working again - it might be a nice project for you to focus on while you’re on ‘house arrest’.”
The final sentence has barely left her mouth when Sherlock’s lips press into her own. He had put the mug down at some point during her explanation, which lets him hold her forearm gently. Sherlock breaks the kiss but doesn’t let go of her arm.
Joan blinks rapidly. “Wow. Uh, what was that for?”
“The captain told me what you said.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She wants to explain why she hadn’t told him, but she doesn’t have a good excuse. It felt so right to put their relationship out there. Talking about it would mean that they would have to decide if they were going to be officially public and Joan had realized that she didn’t want to have that conversation. Apparently, her response is the wrong one - his face closes off and he moves away from her.
“I figured that you letting our coworkers know that we are married meant that you wanted our relationship to move to a new stage, but it was wrong for me to assume.”
Joan moves back into his space. His eyes open wide and she steps so that he’s slightly leaning on the table. Her eyes close as she kisses him, mirroring the softness of the first kiss he’d given her. “Your deduction was correct, Holmes,” she whispers before kissing him harder.
They stand together in the kitchen, seconds quickly turning into minutes, maneuvering in a way that results in Sherlock landing heavily into one of the chairs. It’s as if the skies cleared and they are finally standing in the sunshine.
“I’ve been wanting this since we got married,” he admits.
“We kissed at our wedding,” Joan replies.
“I know.” Sherlock’s hand grips her waist when she carefully straddles his lap. He stares up at her as if she’s the one who put the stars up in the sky. There have been many times where he watched her with such wonder, but this is the first time she doesn’t ignore the buzz it causes under her skin.
Joan’s hands move up his good arm to his shoulder to his neck to his jaw as they begin kissing again. There is nothing she wants more in this moment than to feel every part of him, to touch him the way she’d imagined during some late nights, to let him learn every crevice of her body. She is being very careful in how she moves because his wounded arm still rests between them, but she doesn’t want to be careful right now. He breaks the kiss to kiss along her jaw, down her neck, moving closer to the edge of her shirt. She runs her fingers through his hair, reveling in the heat that’s moved both up her neck and down past her navel.
A crash from upstairs interrupts them. Sherlock leans his head forward to rest on her chest. “Sorry!” a voice calls from upstairs.
“I really hope that wasn’t something expensive,” Joan says, trying to catch her breath.
“It’d be worth it just to have this moment again.”
Joan leans back, catching his mouth in one more kiss before patting his thigh and standing up. “Zhao is almost definitely going to climb into our bed again tonight, so this moment can always continue after she leaves for school in the morning.
Sherlock grins at her. “I’ll look forward to it.”
Joan can’t remember the last time Sherlock had time to make a full English breakfast, so it’s a delightful surprise for her to wake up to. She hums as she walks downstairs, wrapping her soft, red comfort sweater around her tightly. “Good morning,” she calls.
Sherlock’s head pokes into the door frame. “Morning, Watson!”
“You’ve sure been busy today,” she says as she makes her way to the dining room. He leans in to kiss her on the cheek when she passes him to make a cup of tea.
“I had an epiphany. Actually, two epiphanies.”
“Cool. Spill.”
“We’ve been looking at the case backwards. We assumed that because the antique manuscripts disappeared, Robinson killed himself and three other people in a murder-suicide. In reality, the murder-suicide was not as random as we had believed and with four people out of the way, the manuscripts were taken.” He begins dishing food onto Joan’s plate when she sits down.
“But we already knew the killings weren’t random.”
“We knew that the victims all knew each other, yes. The question was, why were those three chosen out of the crowd? Everyone there had been connected through the same seller.” Sherlock grins. “But those three were the only other ones who knew the number of manuscripts that were authentic.”
“So by getting rid of them,” Joan begins.
“-- there would be no one left to dispute the authenticity of the forgeries.” He sits down with his own plate.
“Well done, Sherlock. I’m impressed. So, that’s one epiphany. What’s the second?” His sudden silence makes her put down her fork.
“Sherlock?”
“Do you know what’s significant about this date, Watson?” She frantically wracks her brain. There was nothing scheduled to happen today, no birthdays or weddings or recitals. He continues. “You asked me to marry you a year ago.”
Part of her wanted to feel like a fool for not remembering this date, but the bigger part of her was impressed that he’d remembered. Their wedding anniversary was the more important date, and it wasn’t as if she’d made a true proposal. “I did.”
“I have spent the last two weeks very specifically thinking about that day,” he says, carefully slipping out of his chair to rest on bended knee.
“Oh my god.” This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening, they were already married, why would he feel the need to propose to her? She’s overwhelmed - with shock, with confusion, with delight. “Sherlock --”
“‘À la très bonne, à la très belle qui fait ma joie et ma santé, à l'ange, à l'idole immortelle, salut en l'immortalité!’” He pulls out a small box, a box he’d shown her at the beginning of their partnership. Joan stares down at the shimmering ring when the box opens. “‘To the very good, to the very beautiful one who is my joy and my health, to the angel, to the immortal idol, hail in immortality!’ Charles Baudelaire,” he says with a smile, “is known for his love poems for good reason.”
“Sherlock --”
“Hear me out,” he interrupts once more. “I showed you this ring years before when I found out a difficult truth about my family. I was in a fragile state of recovery once more. You easily could have walked away at any point in time, but you continued to stay. I never thought I would have a reason to get married. And then the years continued to pass. You stayed. I have never taken it for granted and on this day, a year ago, you made it clear that you wanted to stay regardless of what would happen. Marry me again, Watson. Not for a crowd or for the law. But for us.”
“I’m in my pjs,” Joan blurts. “You’re all dressed nice and I’m in my pjs.”
Sherlock laughs, a full body laugh. It breaks the tension that had been slowly mounting. “And yet, as Baudelaire says, you are still beautiful.”
Listening to this speech felt more nerve-wracking than their initial conversation about tying the knot had been. It had felt symbolic back when they did it the first time. But, as Joan slowly lifts her hand out to Sherlock, she knows today it’s so much more than a symbol.
They both smile as he gently slips the ring on her finger. “It would be a true honor to marry you, Holmes.”
Joan takes a deep breath before opening the door to the roof. She’s glad that the skies decided to take a break after raining for five days straight. As much as she enjoys the rain, renewing her vows while holding an umbrella didn’t sound very romantic. Her eyes adjust to the sunlight as she steps outside, holding a small bouquet of white roses. It’s funny that their vow renewal has more of the essence of a traditional wedding than their actual wedding did.
Nothing about their relationship has ever been traditional. It’s comforting.
When she makes eye contact with Sherlock, she watches his breath catch at the same time as hers. There was no coordination on what they’d wear for this ceremony and while she knew she would look stunning in her black and silver dress, the white suit and black shirt combination Sherlock is wearing is amazing. Joan finds herself rushing down the aisle that was carefully formed between the standing hives.
She stops in front of him. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“You look amazing.”
“You are breathtaking as always, Watson.” His lips curl into a smile. “We complement each other quite nicely.”
Joan feels almost giddy. “Of course we do.” She wants to stay in this moment forever, taking in the beauty standing in front of her, his outfit and his face and the hunger in his eyes. But they didn’t take the day off to stare at each other on the roof. The spell is broken when Zhao tugs on Sherlock’s sleeve.
“Right!” he says, digging into his suit jacket and pulling out a piece of paper. He passes it to their daughter, who hands Clyde to him so she can hold the paper with both hands. Clyde is also dressed up for the occasion; the white knitted cozy for him holds their original wedding bands. They’ve gotten the silver bands inscribed with the phrase ‘I took the one less traveled by’.
“What’s that?” she asks, looking between the two of them.
“Well, you said this was gonna be different from the wedding, so I asked Bà to help me write this. I wanted to surprise you.” Zhao looks up from the paper nervously, but Joan reassures her with a smile. Taking a deep breath, she begins to read. “We are here together today as a family. Family is all about love. My parents love me, I love them, and they love each other. Our family is bigger than just the three of us, but today is for us and Clyde and the bees. I am so happy to have you two as my mom and dad.”
Joan feels herself tearing up with each line of her daughter’s speech. She initially focused on Zhao, watching how intensely she concentrated on the words printed for her, but when Joan looks up and sees the soft and small smile on Sherlock's face, she once again can’t look away.
This is exactly where she was meant to be.
“That was beautiful. I'm going to cry,” she admits carefully wiping under one eye to stop the flow of the tears that begin to pool. She leans down, putting her flowers down to make it easier to give her daughter a hug. “Thank you, Zhao.”
“Welcome! Now it's your turn,” Zhao says cheerfully, turning to hand the paper back to Sherlock and recollect Clyde.
“Yes,” he says. “Now it's my turn.”
The world stops when Sherlock grabs her hands. It feels like their first meeting all those years ago is replicating itself when he begins to speak.
“When we first met, I told you that I didn't need you. I thought that I could manage my sobriety by myself and that you were acting as an annoying and invasive babysitter. I thought you needed me more than I could ever need you. We both know I was wrong. You saved me, Joan. I would have died without you. I didn't truly know what living felt like outside of the constant noise in my mind. I thought that after the loses I had before you I could never give another person love.” His voice cracks. “But I have our daughter, and I have you, and I wake up every day knowing that I truly am the luckiest one. I have loved you all along. And I'm honored that you chose to love me back.
Joan sniffs. She’s given up on stopping her tears; Sherlock has done the same. “I think you’re going to one up me,” she laughs.
“Try me,” he says, squeezing her hands tight. She takes a deep breath.
“You showed me a new world, Sherlock. My whole life was pointed towards one goal and when I fell from the path that I had been on for decades I fell into you. Even outside of our work together, being with you has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve experienced. I could never have imagined being so happy. Thank you for accepting me and thank you for being a wonderful father.” Joan reaches out to cup his cheek in one hand, brushing away tears with her thumb. “I love you, Sherlock. And the world gets to see that we choose each other day after day.”
It’s Sherlock’s turn to laugh, leaning into her touch and covering her hand with his own. With her other hand she reaches out to hold Zhao’s hand. “None of us will ever have to do this alone. And that's the most rewarding part of the last 15 years I've had with you.” He nods his head.
“I would hold Zhao’s hand,” he says, “but I don’t want Clyde to feel left out.”
Joan looks down at her giggling daughter. “Can he kiss the bride now?” she jokes.
“Yes!” Zhao immediately lets go of her mom’s hand to cover her eyes. “You’re allowed to kiss now.”
Sherlock meets her lips with his own. The three of them, Clyde, the bees. Family. Love.
This will forever be their home.
