trashchildren | For Joan

"Sounds good," Ted agrees. "If insults and then plates start flying, I'll shield you with my body, I promise," he adds jokingly. He knows even if they did end up that antagonistic, Keeley would diffuse it before it got that far, so he's not worried.

"Alright, I think I got all of it," he says, gently wringing the water out of Joan's hair.

"And they say chivalry is dead," she teases. It's unlikely Sherlock would be sufficiently riled to start throwing things, but to be fair...he's never met Roy Kent.

"Good job," she says fondly, absolutely meaning it. "Do you want to do the towel turban thing again?"

"Ooh, yup, I got it," he says immediately, hopping around to grab a towel.

He reaches around to pull it up behind her head, then folds the ends around her forehead, wraps it around and twists it, and... "Hey, first try!" he says excitedly. He knows to celebrate the simple things, clearly.

She reaches up to touch it. "Nice!" She's more than willing to celebrate with him, loving how happy it makes him, and loving how it offers her happiness too.

"Do we want to go back to bed?"

"Maybe some food first?" he suggests. He doesn't know if she's had any, but he certainly hasn't. "Not that we can't have that in bed," he adds. Might be easier than moving her around all the time. "I can make us something simple."

"Probably a good idea," she says. "At least for today."

Once she can walk on her own at least a little, she'll want to be out of bed as much as possible. But right now it will probably be easier for everyone if she just stays in bed.

"Well, since you're already in the wheelchair now, you could keep me company in the wheelchair, if you want?" he suggests, setting stuff back and getting ready to leave the bathroom.

"I can do that," she answers with a smile. It wouldn't be much more work than just wheeling her back to the bedroom.

"Excellent," he says, and cups her face from behind with both hands for a moment and plants a kiss on the top of her turban. "Alright, cutesyness on hold," he says teasingly, then heads for the kitchen.

"You hungry, Sherlock?"

She laughs as he kisses the turban, reaching out to touch his waist with her hands as he does so. "Alas," she answers to his teasing, smiling at him.

Sherlock is in the living room when they emerge, engrossed in something he's reading on his laptop. "Yeah," he says absently, not looking up. "Food is good."

Joan glances at Ted with a little shrug. That's Sherlock.

Ted smiles and shrugs back. Hey, at least he answered, that's the important part. He sets her up with a good view of the kitchen, then carefully limps to the fridge.

"Alright, you want to try that chicken and egg rice thing, or should we leave that for tomorrow and just do like a simple tomato soup?"

"It might be a good thing to have something solid in my stomach," she muses. "Just in case the medication doesn't agree with me. The chicken and egg rice sounds perfect."

It's a little adventurous, but she's feeling up for it.

"Yes, ma'am," he answers, and starts pulling out ingredients and arranging them on the counter. He pulls up the recipe on his phone as well, so he can check himself as he goes along, since he hasn't made this exact recipe before. It's not particularly complicated, but he wants to get it right.

She watches him moving about the kitchen, gathering the things he'll need, and she can't help but smile. She loves the simplicity of just being with him, keeping him company as he cooks. It's quiet and comfortable and sweet.

"How do you like this kitchen?" she asks.

"Better than the last one I cooked in," he says with a chuckle, starting to prepare the chicken. That underground bunker wasn't exactly very homey. "But yeah, it's nice. Though it's gonna take me a bit to remember where everything is, get comfortable, you know."

She smiles, remembering that kitchen. "Not that high of a bar," she says, amused.

"Yeah," she says. "Sometimes that takes a while. But at least you can arrange it just the way you want."

"Yeah, I've been lead to assume I'll probably be the only one cooking here," he says. "Do you even use the kitchen over there?" he asks, pointing at the wall that leads to apartment B.

"Oh yeah," she responds. "Mostly for coffee. Or my smoothies. Or Sherlock's eggs or Yorkshire puddings. Or the occasional body part in the fridge."

It sounds like she must be kidding. She's not kidding.

Ted pauses, as he's currently spicing some raw chicken breasts. He turns to Joan, squinting at her like he's afraid to ask. "Hu... Human body parts?"

"Just every once in a while," she says with an amused smile and a small shrug. "It's really not all that common. But it's been known to happen."

"I'm suddenly very glad we got our own apartment," he says with a shudder, then looks back at the chicken with a look of distaste. Thankfully it'll look far more appetizing (and less flesh-like) when it's all cooked.

She chuckles at that, amused, then her amused smile settles into wistfulness.

"We could live here," she says softly. "After I get better. This could be our place. When I'm working on a case I could sleep here, with you. We wouldn't have to spend days apart."

Ted pauses for a second, considering that. "That's a thought," he answers, glancing at her with a soft smile, before returning to cooking. He doesn't sound like he's outright discounting it, but he's not necessarily jumping on the idea either.

She answers that soft smile, a touch of sadness in her expression. It's not an outright rejection, but she knows Ted probably wouldn't outright reject her regardless. He's too kind. And she gets it.

"It would be harder for you," she says softly. "Being this far away from Richmond."

It's the only thing she voices, but she can imagine he might not want to move in together for other reasons. Maybe it's just too soon. Maybe this is all too fast.

Ted hums and nods a bit at that. It's half an hour by car, which isn't a terrible commute. But it wouldn't let him walk around town, sit at the pub, chat with the locals. Getting a coffee in the morning with Beard. He values that stuff a lot.

He remains quiet for a couple minutes, preparing stuff, starting the rice, cooking the chicken..

Once he's had a moment to mull it over, and has a second where he doesn't need to be actively messing with the food, he turns to Joan, leaning against the counter.

"I just... find it difficult to plan things right now, I guess?" he explains. "Feels almost like tempting fate, you know."

Having one thing after another thrown at them has been rough on them both. It was the same thing he felt when she suggested that Henry could move here. He's just not in the mindset to look further than a week or two in advance. Whenever he seems to get a handle on the current crisis, another one shows up.

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