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Joan’s seen a whole raft of them come and go, the coppers who pick up her dad in the morning. He brings them home like stray kittens who all think they're tigers. All brash masculinity and Brylcreem.
They also tend not to last very long. For whatever reason. One was audacious and stupid enough to make a pass at her as her father came down the stairs and the front room door was open – he lasted that one morning and she never saw him again, a new record. News of that particular incident must have filtered around the nick, because most wait outside for at least six months after that.
Most aren't even as interesting as that. They all rather blend into one indistinct dark suit and the pungent scent of tobacco and cologne. She couldn't point most of them out of a police line up if she tried.
But then there's Morse.
Of whom, her first impression is: sweet, awkward, and absolutely, totally and without doubt not cut out for his job. But her father seems to like him for a protégé by the way he talks of him, a project like the bits and bobs of DIY he keeps down in the garden shed.
So maybe, she thinks, he’ll last a little longer.
Like the elaborate tree house she and Sam demanded as children –inappropriate trees in their 16x16 garden notwithstanding- her dad will tinker and try his hardest to make something happen of it, but the materials will frustrate him into giving in. Or, as she suspected would eventually occur here, the materials themselves would realise their unsuitability and resign themselves to sitting dormant in her father's shed, because no amount of fussing or tinkering would make them into the beautiful tree house all parties desired.
/
She's wrong about almost everything.
(It’s been known to happen every now and again. Not often, mind.)
He not only lasts, but insinuates his strange way into all of their lives in a way she's never seen before, and apparently without any concerted effort on his part.
He calls Sam ‘Sam’, her dad ‘Sir’, but steadfastly refuses to refer to her or her mother as anything other than ‘Miss Thursday’ and ‘Mrs Thursday’ respectively no matter how many times she and mother tell him to call them by their given names. He lasts to the point where they give up telling him, knowing the habit is too ingrained to change.
He comes up fairly often in conversation at home, somehow escaping the work category that would mean he was consigned to the table in the hallway. Her mother asks after Morse, even makes him casseroles if her father mentions he's been spending too many late nights at the station. Joan’s heard her dad talk about his colleagues more times than she count remember, always with respect and admiration but with Morse there's something new. It takes her a while to recognise it for what it is but when she does it's unmistakable: awe.
It makes an impression on her, in any case.
As does he.
/
One evening she nearly charges into the dark sitting room, looking for a cardigan she thought she'd left in there – when a bundle of suit and coat on the sofa makes her jump and stop dead in the door way.
A column of light falls on the lump from her opening the door, illuminating long eyelashes and strong cheekbones and she realises it’s Morse of all people, fast asleep on their sofa.
This is a turn up for the books. She hasn't seen this before.
Joan peers closer at him; his long lanky body; his persistently unkempt hair; the lines in his face so relaxed in sleep. She knows that mind of his is ticking away in there –he probably does solve crimes in his sleep- but it's... disconcerting to see him so still.
It occurs to her perversely that he's within touching distance. If she were so inclined, that is. Not that she is. But if she really wanted, she could just reach out and--
“Mind how you go.” Her father’s hand on her arm makes her jump again, her cheeks heating like a child caught with her hand in the biscuit barrel. She isn't sure what precisely she feels guilty about, but she ought to feel guilty about something, she's sure of it.
“Morse,” her dad mutters to her, as though she didn't know. “He’s been in the wars recently, so do let him catch some shut-eye, will you? And don't go charging up and down the stairs like an elephant this evening as you usually do.”
Joan makes a face, but comes away from the door and clicks it shut quietly behind her.
(She finds out much later that ‘being in the wars’ translated to being stabbed in a library by a serial killer and being too committed to his work to go to hospital about it. By the time she finds out, she knows him well enough that she isn't even surprised that's what happened. Typical Morse.)
/
The worst thing about Detective Constable Morse, though, is that he's infuriatingly easy to fall in love with.
Joan thinks it must happen to him a lot –though he'd never say, or probably even think so himself. Women must fall over themselves for a single studied glance from him.
It's not even like he's what she would usually go for. Too quiet, too cerebral. Not the bad boy with charm and swagger to sweep her off her feet and probably break her heart, not even remotely. He's someone her father might actually approve of, in theory at least.
But there's something about him. An enigma on her doorstep in the morning, a perfect gent putting his coat over her shoulders as he walks her home from non-dates and dates with other men. Never overstepping the mark. There are times when she wishes he would; just once, just a little light impropriety on his part to make her think he might want to be more improper with her.
If anything, it's her that's guilty of toeing the line—her teasing and flirting met with traces of equal perplexity and amusement. Mostly, she's glad though. She's sure she wouldn't like him so well if he started acting like any other bloke with her.
When his sharp eyes are on her, she feels as though she's being seen, rather looked at. She never thought the distinction would matter to her, but the feeling it brings is one she keeps seeking out.
She's a fool, a stupid lovesick fool, making eyes at her father’s subordinate. And he's delightfully oblivious.
/
Sam is the only one who twigs.
That is, other than the misunderstanding on her father’s part that arose from their unexpected jaunt at the Midnight Rooms, a notion she disabused him quite promptly of after Morse was dispatched to Witney.
One morning she's carefully fixing her hair in the front room mirror whilst Sam’s eating breakfast, and the next minute the doorbell rings. She's smiling before the ringing has stopped and Sam sees it. He looks at her in question till it clicks. Extra care taken over her appearance plus unseemly delight at his arrival is a damning combination; either one on their own might have been explained away but both in close proximity to each other is the smoking gun.
Sam snorts out loud and Joan knows there's no telling him otherwise now. He won't be put off like their father was. He's annoying as hell, her brother, but he's always understood her better than their parents. She puts it down to the (dis)advantage of being close in age. She's just going to have to deal with his inevitable mockery.
"I'll get it," she calls out, jumping down from the fireplace and attempting to ignore Sam.
“’Course you will,” Sam says under his breath with a smirk.
“Shut up,” she hisses as she passes.
There's nothing unusual about hers and Morse’s conversation, but unfortunately, he happens to stand in the doorway of the front room when he walks in. In full view of Sam – who keeps giving her knowing looks over the top of the newspaper he's reading. Morse himself just looks confused, seemingly sensing there was a second interaction going on but not being let in on it and being too far polite to ever ask.
“Sam,” Morse says as a goodbye when her father comes down and signals their departure. Sam nods in response, still smirking. He looks at her and smiles a little. Her traitor heart flutters despite herself. God, she's pathetic. “Miss Thursday.”
“’Yes, Morse!’” Sam mocks in an exaggerated female voice when the front door shuts. “‘No, Morse! Three bags full, Morse!’”
Joan glowers at him, snatching her cardigan from the table. “Don't look both ways when you're crossing, will you.”
Sam ignores her, clearly enjoying the moment too much to let it go. He calls after her when she stomps out: “So is it going to be a summer wedding or what? Let me know so I can get my suit dry-cleaned.”
/
("Love, I suppose. You don't know ‘till you meet the right one.”
“No, I don't suppose.”
He smiles mildly, unaffected. Joan doesn't know who she's more annoyed at: him for being so blithely unaware, or herself for imagining he wouldn't be.)
/
Joan’s fingers are so cold the weight of her suitcase rubbing against them makes them sting. Any other day it might have made her abandon her half-formed plan and walk home to the warmth of her childhood room before anyone even realises she was considering it.
Her thoughts swirl.
She has the strange and unpleasant sensation of thinking of everything at once. The blood she spent an hour scrubbing out from under her fingernails. The bank and Ronnie. Her parents. Around the chilling feeling of a gun cocked and pointed at her head. Even worse, at his.
It's like she plucks him out of thin air when she hears his voice calling her name behind her, as though she willed him into being by thought alone. She’s half glad he’s here, half wants to keep walking. Glad he’ll hear it from her -he deserves that much- and not second hand from her father. Scared that if she has to say goodbye she’ll never leave.
He doesn't know it, but he comes within touching distance of breaking her resolve. His beseeching stay might have done it, had she let it hang in the air between them with their misted breaths. Joan watches tears form in his eyes, making them wide and glassy. She's never seen him cry before. She hadn't supposed- that it would mean that much to him.
Still tries to help, offers her anything she might need. There’s no doubt in her mind he would follow through if she ever asked as well. Not even because of any special regard he has for her as his superior’s daughter and half-friend, but because it’s just the sort of man he is. He's just good.
Too good for her. She's the one who gets good men killed as soon as a bad one turns on a bit of charm.
He holds her chilled hand to his warm cheek, and Joan thinks maybe she's known that all along.