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Year 1
Joan had never been the kind of person who kept track of anniversaries. By the time she found herself living in a dilapidated brownstone with a semi-mad genius, most of the significant dates were unwelcome memories anyway — ghosts of relationships past and accomplishments from a dead career.
So when she opened her eyes to find Sherlock perched on a chair by her bed, her response was to groan and throw an arm over her face.
“You promised to stop doing this. It's number twelve in the roommate agreement.”
At moments like these — which was to say, most of the time — she wondered why she'd ever thought something as sophomoric as a roommate contract would keep Sherlock constrained, when even the lock on her door was nothing but a mild obstacle.
“Number eleven, actually. And it is precisely because of that agreement that I'm here.” He jutted out his hand, clutching something.
Joan, still blurry from a late night spent pouring over case files, reluctantly forced herself to sit up. She glanced at his offered hand, then did a double take. It was a pair of opera tickets. For that night. That couldn't be good. “You're not going to bribe me into waving the rule about building explosives in the house,” she warned.
Sherlock's face tightened, on the edge of arguing — How else was he supposed to find out who tried to bomb the subway? Didn't she care about the safety of New York's citizens? — but he shook it off with visible effort. “That's not what they're for. I'm going to accompany you to this opera.” He tapped the ticket for emphasis.
“You hate going to the opera.”
“Yes, but you don't.”
She gave him a hard stare, one she hope conveyed her disdain for all things enigmatic before 9 a.m.
“And,” he added, “it's our one year anniversary.”
She tried to make sense of that statement. She failed. “Excuse me?”
“As voluntary roommates. Hence my earlier reference to the roommate agreement.” He flashed a mild smile, one she recognized as both genuine and shy. As if, despite his room-invading, contract-breaking confidence, he wasn't actually sure how his gesture would be received. Wasn't actually sure — and did actually care.
“You bought opera tickets to celebrate?”
His eyes darted from her face to the floor as he nodded.
Huh. That was — well, she would say a surprise, but she knew better than to be surprised by Sherlock. She'd given up making any assumptions about what he would or wouldn't do months ago. Nice. It was nice. Though that wasn't a word he'd care about hearing.
“Thank you,” she told him. “Now, would you please leave?”
Another smile darted across his face as he rose, carefully placing the tickets in the chair. She matched it with one of her own.
“Really,” she added, more gently this time. “Thank you, Sherlock.”
He shrugged a nod as he turned to leave, as if it was nothing. But they both knew better.
Year 10
“Happy anniversary,” Sherlock whispered from behind, breath warm against Joan's ear.
Now is not the time, she would have shot back if she could talk. Which she couldn't, because she was bound and gagged, stuck scrunched against her best friend in a serial killer's trunk. At least Sherlock had somehow wriggled out of his restraints, and was now busy tugging at the cloth that blocked her mouth. Happy anniversary, indeed.
“This is not what I had in mind,” he said conversationally. “Though given that it's only six in the morning, it's very possible that we'll still make it to New Jersey for the game this evening.”
The cloth fell free. She gratefully gulped a few mouthfuls of stale air before asking, “You got us tickets to a football game?”
“I did.” He switched to working at the rope that held her hands behind her back, poking and kicking as he shifted to get a better angle. The dim light of a cell phone flickered as he moved. “And I promise not to tell you what's going to happen.”
Rolling her eyes was pointless on so many levels, but she did it anyway. After ten years together she'd learned that some of his predictions were just luck. He wasn't nearly as astute a sports analyst as he liked to think.
“Aren't we supposed to not talk?” she asked. “To save air?”
She could feel his hand flick, waving the idea away. “We'll be out of this temporarily inconvenient situation long before that becomes a problem. If I'm right, we're only a few minutes away from his house now.”
“You mean the house belonging to the murderous psychopath?”
“Preciously. And where I believe he's keeping little Jenny.” The triumphant tone that slipped into his voice confirmed what she'd suspected from the moment she'd come to, tied up and bumping along a dirt road: He'd gotten them kidnapped on purpose.
“I'm going to kill you.” No need to explain her thought process. He'd know.
“What, no corny 'unless he kills us first' joke?” He gave her arm constraints a final yank. “Ah – there you go.”
She rolled her wrists a few times, coaxing back circulation before shimmying onto her side, tucking her knees, and attacking her ankle restraints. “I don't make bad jokes, and he's not going to kill us.”
“You say that with such confidence.”
She stopped clawing at her leg restraints for long enough to turn and look at him. His face was only a few inches away, a grin clearly visible even in the faint light of the phone.
“Yes,” she admitted. “I am fairly confident that we will get out of this alive.” They always did, even if it sometimes came down to sheer luck. “But that doesn't mean I think it was a good idea.” Even she wasn't sure if she was just going through the motions, but somebody had to say these things.
“Not an entirely inappropriate way to commemorate our ten years as partners, though.”
No, she agreed to herself as she leaned forward to try her restraints again. Not entirely inappropriate at all.
Year 30
Joan wound her way slowly through the garden path behind their house, carefully clutching two cups of coffee. It was a sublime day, the kind that made her glad to live in a quaint Connecticut suburb; bright sun and cool air that somehow hadn't given over to frost yet. But Sherlock didn't care about the weather, except for how it affected his bees. He would care about what was in the file she had squeezed under one arm.
She found him at the end of the path, wrapped in a blanket, contemplating the bees. At least he was in one of the chairs she'd set out. She was tired of telling him that he was too old to sit cross-legged in the grass for hours at a time. (“Age is in the mind,” he'd say. “I'm a doctor, and no it's not,” she'd retort. So many countless iterations of the same argument, and then he'd spend days trying to hide that his knees hurt, as if he could possibly still fool her.)
He reached out for his cup without looking up; she handed it over without comment. He sipped and made a face.
“If I'm going to sit through an insulting local production of Shakespeare, the least you could do is make regular coffee.”
“Your doctor said no.” She carefully lowered herself into the lone chair next to his before tossing the file into his lap. “That should make up for the play.”
He looked at it with interest. “What's this?”
“A present.”
He picked it up but didn't open it, glancing over as if waiting for permission. Or perhaps suspecting a trick. “You never get me anniversary presents.”
“I figure I can make an exception after thirty years.” Besides, she didn't add, it was half Bell's idea — and all his contacts. No, she wanted the credit for this one. “Open it.”
He did, and his eyes lit up, sparkling with pure delight. “Is this – ?”
“Yes. That's everything they have on him.”
He stared down at the reports (and more importantly, the USB that went with them) in joy. Under the lines and wrinkles the smile he got when presented with a challenge was exactly the same — manic and irresistible. “I knew they'd finally come begging for my help.”
“I wouldn't say they begged.”
“Of course they did. Serial killer on the loose, the cops getting nowhere — they'd have to drag the great Sherlock Holmes out of retirement for this.”
For someone who insisted he was done with the crime solving life for good, the 'great Sherlock Holmes' didn't seem too upset about being pulled back in. Just the opposite, as she'd predicted. Not that she blamed him. Some cases were too juicy to ignore.
“We're still going to the play,” she warned. “I promised Lydia.”
She expected him to launch into a rant about how neighbors didn't matter when there was a murder investigation to attend to, but instead he reached forward and grabbed her hand, holding it tightly in both of his. His hands were warm, skin loose and soft except for the violin callouses that rubbed against her palm, familiar. His eyes met hers, expression gentle.
“Thank you,” he said. “For everything.”
She nodded, laying her free hand over his. “You too.”
And then, because they were verging on sentimental, she added: “How about you tell me about the case?”