trashchildren | For Joan

"Mmm." Joan had a head start on breakfast so she finishes first. She takes a swallow of coffee, and then another. Then she sets the cup down and folds her hands around it, keeping her hands warm and holding onto something. She waits for Ted to be finished.

He doesn't take too long at least, clearly having an appetite. That's another side effect of the Christmas food - once you get hungry again, you get really hungry.

He pushes the plate forward and picks up his coffee, taking a sip and giving her a warm smile.

She smiles back just as warmly, every ounce of her love for him in her expression, but with a trace of her sadness for him as well.

She glances at her coffee cup and takes a breath. Ted has told her about his mother's tactic of starting difficult conversations with something nice and sweet. She figures she'll give it a shot.

"I saw this video the other day," she says, "of a baby sloth being given a bath. Afterwards they wrapped it in these strips of pink cloth, so it looked like a baby in a onesie. It was adorable."

"Awww," Ted answers softly, obviously finding the mental image adorable as well. "I love a good sloth."

There's a tiny itch in the back of his head, like Joan doesn't usually bring up stuff like this, and it's a very familiar tactic to him.

Oh right, she had said she wanted to talk to him today. "Wait, are you about to bring up something difficult?" he asks, suddenly a tiny bit nervous - though not too much so, since he knows more or less what she wants to talk about.

"Me too," she says to his love of sloths. "They're great."

Then he catches on to what she's doing, and she can't help a tiny smile. She hopes he takes it as it was intended: a sign of care and respect, paying homage to something his mother did to ease difficult situations.

"Yes," she says, that tiny smile remaining but turning a bit sad. She takes a breath and dives in. "Like I said last night, I was worried about you yesterday. I know it's hard to be away from Henry. I know your feelings about your relationship with him are complicated right now. And that's all completely understandable and normal. What really worried me..." Another breath. "Was you watching It's a Wonderful Life."

He gets it - it's both something to put him a little bit at ease, but also to warn him about what's about to come next. He appreciates it.

Ted sets his cup down and leans forward onto the table, listening. She doesn't say anything particularly surprising though - until it takes a completely unexpected turn.

"What?" he asks, blinking at her in confusion. "Why?"

She looks into his eyes, hoping that he can see the love and concern in hers, and watching carefully for his reaction to what she's about to say.

"Ted..." she begins softly, and it's hard for her to continue, but she does. She has to.

"I know what happened to your father."

Ted freezes almost imperceptibly, easy to miss if she didn't know him as well as she does, and wasn't watching his reaction carefully.

He doesn't say anything, but after a moment he leans back in his chair, waiting for her to continue. His face has suddenly changed to being completely closed off, despite how open he was trying to be to listen to her just a moment ago.

She sees that, sees him completely close off, and it hurts. She sighs and looks down at her coffee cup again. She doesn't even know if it's worth it to go on now. If he'd even be listening to her.

"If you need time to process that I understand," she says softly.

He nods a bit, pursing his lips, considering.

"How'd you find out?" he asks, his voice tightly controlled and deceptively casual. She could've deduced it, sure, but she wouldn't really know unless, well, she knew.

His voice doesn't deceive her. She can sense anger beneath his tightly controlled façade.

"I saw how you reacted to the fact that Turner Chapman lost his father," she says softly, still looking at her coffee cup, not wanting to see that closed, cold expression any more than she has to. "I could see you were hurting. But I knew there was more there than you were letting on, and I was concerned. I wanted to know so that I could be aware of how things might affect you. So I could help. But I didn't want to ask you, because I knew it had to be a painful subject. So I asked Sherlock to see what he could find, and he came across the police report."

Ted takes this all in, watching her. So she's known for months. He's had time to mend multiple broken bones in the time she's known.

And the fact that Sherlock knows too, it shouldn't surprise him but it still hurts. He got divorced less than a year ago, and then all that terrible stuff with Turner and Rupert happened, and Ted just wanted one bit of pain to be something he didn't have to think about, something that wasn't known.

He knows her intentions were good, and he knows he was resisting telling her, but that doesn't help how betrayed he feels. The fact she found out about the most traumatic experience in his life through something as cold and impersonal as a police report, that stings.

"So instead you went behind my back," he concludes, and his voice may not be loud, but it's definitely sharp. "And you're not even apologizing, you're just telling me, and you can't even look me in the eye while you do it."

She looks up at him, meeting his eyes, her expression plain and sad.

"Should I have asked you?" she asks softly, not flinching from the sharpness in his tone or the anger in his gaze. "You were already in a vulnerable state. I didn't want to make it worse. Should I have told you before now? Would it have made a difference? Or should I have just kept it to myself?"

She continues to look him in the eyes. If that's what he wants, that's what she'll give him.

"You should've not done it," he answers, no longer bothering to try to hide the anger. "How has knowing made any difference? What do you think would've happened if you didn't know?"

She takes a breath, accepting the anger without returning it and without withdrawing. "You would continue bearing the knowledge alone," she says softly. "You would watch a movie about a man...a father...contemplating suicide, while struggling with the feelings of your relationship with your own son, and no one would know why that might be particularly hard." She looks at him with so much love and concern and sadness. "No one would know to make sure you're okay," she finishes.

He sees her concern and her compassion, and part of him loves her for it, but right now it's also frustrating, and the anger still ultimately wins out.

"And did you need to? First of all, I called you guys over to keep me company anyway," he points out - though if he's honest, he knows that's not necessarily a given, at least on any other day.

"And if I hadn't - what do you think would happen? You think I would do the same thing? You think I would ever do that to Henry, to you? I hated my dad for what he did to me and my mom, you think I could do the same damn thing?"

He gets suddenly to his feet, pushing the chair back roughly, needing to walk, to move, to not look at her for a second.

He springs up, shoving the chair, and she rises as well, turning so she's still facing him but not pursuing him or trying to get him to look at her. She knows that him calling them over isn't a given, that he doesn't always seek out help and support when he needs it, wanting to be positive and be the one who helps, not the one who needs help. But she's not going to call him on that.

"I know you would never want to hurt Henry," she says. "Or me. That doesn't mean you're not in pain. Or that the thought never occurs to you, even if you never act on it."

Ted rubs at his chin, pacing back and forth, and glancing over at her when she says that, shaking his head a bit.

"You know what, I don't want to talk about this," he decides. "I need to get to work."

He turns and goes to get his stuff.

She watches him go, then sinks down into the chair again, putting her face in her hands. Shit. She had figured this reaction from him was likely, but it doesn't make it any easier.

She sighs and lifts her head. Then she gets up and goes into the living room, not saying anything, just sitting down, being present. She's not forcing him to talk, but she's also not going to abandon him because he's angry.

He goes and grabs his backpack, getting his laptop and everything he needs. He sits down on the bed for a second, taking a moment to breathe. He manages to calm down enough to know that whole 'don't go to bed angry' applies to more than just going to bed, and that he probably shouldn't run off to work while still fuming.

But he also really doesn't want to talk about it. But... he knows her intentions were good. He knows she did it out of love, of being worried about him.

He grabs his backpack and goes to put on his shoes and jacket, then stops at the living room, seeing her sitting there.

Ted sighs and heads over to her. "I'll see you later," he says quietly, and leans down to give her a goodbye kiss. He's not done being angry and hurt, and you can still tell in his posture and his voice, but he doesn't want to just walk out coldly like that.

"I'll see you at the game," she replies softly before returning the kiss, emphasizing that she's not going to abandon him, even though he's angry with her. "I love you," she says when their lips part.

"You too," he answers quietly. He's tired and sad and hurt and angry, but he appreciates her doing her best to mitigate the awfulness of the situation.

He gives her shoulder a little squeeze, then turns and heads out the door to go to work.

She gives him a small, sad smile at the squeeze, touching his arm with an answering gentle affection, then watches him go. Once the door closes behind him she takes a shuddering breath and hides her face in her hands again. She sits like that for a long moment, before finally lifting her head, getting up, and going to take a shower. There's still a day ahead of her, and she has a football game to go to.

Ted doesn't talk about it with the gang - that would require telling them about what exactly he's so upset about in the first place. Beard notices that's something's up though, and Ted admits that he had a fight with Joan, and he offers his quiet sympathies.

But mostly people are in good spirits, after what appears to have been a roaring success at Higgins' house, so Ted tries to let the cheer infect him as well, so he can be there to support the team.

Once the match is about to start, he does glance up at the owner's box as he heads out onto the pitch. Despite everything, he's glad she's still there to support them.

Joan goes by 221B after she's dressed to check in with Sherlock. The other detective takes one look at her face.

"You told Ted."

"Yes."

"He didn't take it well."

"No."

They don't say much about it after that. Joan knows Sherlock would much rather she not share her domestic troubles with him, even though he will certainly listen if she needs to talk. She doesn't really need to talk to anyone but Ted, so instead they talk about their case. It's good to have a little bit of time where she can focus on something else entirely.

When she gets to the owner's box she greets Rebecca and Keeley, asking them about their Christmases, trying to not show her sadness. Keeley picks up on it, though, and asks her if something's wrong. She quietly confides that she and Ted had a fight. After being mock shocked that Ted would ever fight, she tells Joan that if she needs anything, she's there for her.

When the team is marching out onto the field Joan leans over the edge of the box a little to look for Ted. When he looks up to see her in the box she smiles, and gives him a little wave, then blows him a kiss.

Edited 2021-12-11 23:29 (UTC)

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