trashchildren | For Joan

Joan feels absolutely comfortable with Ted helping her get dressed, which is significant for someone as independent and stubbornly self-sufficient as Joan. There's a lot of love and care and trust between them. She lets him hook up her bra, since she can't quite seem to get her hands to reach behind her, and probably wouldn't have the fine motor skills anyway.

"I don't think so," she says. "Although I don't think I'm going to be up for anything more complicated than broth for a while."

"Higgins wanted to bring over a casserole for us, supposed to be amazing," he says, smiling as he he helps her on with a jacket. "I can tell him to hold it off a little while though, make sure we can actually take proper advantage of it."

"Oh, that's so sweet," she says, touched. It's exactly the sort of thing Higgins would do, too...he's a sweet, wholesome man with a sweet, wholesome family. It makes her sad to think of Rupert using him to do terrible things. "It would probably be good to hold off for at least a couple days, yeah. But tell him I really appreciate it and can't wait to give it a try."

Sherlock comes in with a wheelchair just as Joan is letting Ted put on her shoes. Simple flats, which she supposes she'll be wearing instead of heels for a while. He parks the wheelchair, then comes over tp stand on the opposite side of Joan from Ted.

"Ready?" he asks, taking her hand and her elbow and looking at Ted to do the same.

Ted nods, hopping over to Joan's other side and taking her hand and elbow to help her into the wheelchair. His leg and ribs might be still be messed up, but at least he's still got his regular amount of upper body strength, as long as he plants his feet well.

Joan is also incredibly small and light, so even though she's weak enough that she can only barely help them get her into the wheelchair, it's not too hard for Sherlock and Ted to get the job done.

Sherlock grabs the bags so that Ted can use both of his crutches, and pushes the wheelchair, making sure to go slowly so Ted can easily keep up.

Ted has gotten a fair amount of practice at walking with the crutches by now, so he can go pretty fast if he wants. That if, if he wasn't tired and achy. By the time they get to the cab, he feels all sweaty again. After they help Joan in, and he gets in and sit down himself, he's actually got chills for a moment, but he tries to ignore it for now. He can worry about when they get settled in.

Joan notices those chills, and so does Sherlock, sitting on the other side of Ted. They exchange a glance.

"Hey," Joan says. "Are you okay? Do you feel sick?"

She raises a hand to feel his forehead.

"No, I'm fine," he answers automatically. "I mean.. Just a little bit," he admits, finally. He does feel achy, more than he usually does with his injuries.

When she feels his forehead he does have a very slight fever. Not a lot, but just enough to be noticeable.

She lowers her hand, trembling a little. "You're a little warm," she says, frowning faintly in concern. She looks at Sherlock. "Do we have acetaminophen at home?"

"We should," Sherlock answers.

"We'll give you some of that. It should help with the fever. Any other symptoms?"

"Just the regular fever yuckiness," he answers with a shrug. Sweats, chills, achy body, lil bit queasy. "It's not that bad."

He also feels anxious, but he doesn't mention that cause, you know, he's got plenty to feel anxious about.

"I'm sorry, that sucks," she says softly. "Are you still taking meds for your injuries?"

She wants to make sure acetaminophen isn't going to react with anything he's taking. It would also be good to know if his meds should be keeping a fever down, since that would mean this is a breakthrough fever and things could be worse than they appear.

Ted nods. "Yeah, gonna be on them for a least a few weeks," he answers. Given his injures were pretty significant, it takes longer for than to heal than if he'd just broken the one leg. And it's only been two weeks so far.

She nods. That makes sense.

"What are you taking?"

"Uh," Ted answers, then starts rooting in his bag. He's keenly aware he's talking about this next to Sherlock, and doesn't want to make things hard on him. So instead of saying it out loud, he just shows her the bottle of Vicodin.

Oh. Crap. Joan should have thought of that. She looks up at Sherlock, who is pointedly looking away from the two of them. She's particularly glad now that they aren't going to be staying in 221B, although they're going to be careful about where Ted keeps the Vicodin when Sherlock comes over.

In addition to the issue with Sherlock's sobriety, Vicodin has acetaminophen as one of its components.

"This should be keeping your temperature down," she says, looking up at Ted, the concern plain on her face.

Ted has been rather careful about not taking pills in front of Sherlock, and keeping it packed away. Not out of distrust, but out of concern. He got a big talk from the doctor when he was prescribed these, so he knows they're fairly potent, and can be addictive. It's also one of the reasons he was getting so much follow up with Shaun visiting.

He frowns softly when she mentions his fever though, and he pulls out the pill caddy he uses to keep track of his doses.

"...Oh," he says, realising as he looks at it. "I forgot to take them this morning."

Sherlock turns his head at that, catching Joan's eyes, knowing that they're both thinking the same thing.

Sherlock is the one to say it, all too familiar with what Ted is going through.

"You're in withdrawal."

Ted looks over at Sherlock. Well, he would know, wouldn't he?

"Oh," he answers. "Well, that makes sense."

He shouldn't be too worried about this - he knew it was a possibility, and he's also taking his evening dose soon, which should fix the suckiness. But, well. There's that anxiety gnawing away at him, making him feel worried even so. But mostly what he finds himself worried about is Sherlock.

It's good that it isn't something contagious, because Ted was right to think that it might be a problem for Joan to get sick now while her body is still recovering from hypoxia. However, it does suggest a future problem.

"When you stop taking these, we'll need to be careful to wean you off of them slowly," she says.

Ted nods. "Yeah, my doctor told me that," he answers. "Had a whole speech about being careful with my dose and everything. But... You know, there was so much stuff this morning, I guess I forgot."

He might have been craving them more if he knew that's what was going on.

"Luckily for you," Sherlock says, "you will be sharing a domicile with a woman trained in narcotic dependency mitigation. There is likely no better person you could be sharing your bed with right now."

Joan rolls her eyes a little at the way he put that, but aside from the unnecessary allusion to their sex life, Sherlock's not wrong.

"Well, I knew that well before this, but that's just based on her being a great person," Ted answers with a chuckle, trying to inject some cheer into this conversation. And maybe distract a little from the topic.

Joan smiles at that, and takes his hand in hers.

Sherlock sighs a little, the outside party to Ted and Watson's cuteness. He doesn't mind all that much, though. Not as much as usual. It's nice to see Watson happy.

Ted squeezes her hand and smiles back at her. Hey, Sherlock opened the door for that. He's just going to have to deal.

"And then right before someone tries to, you know, have me dealt with, I befriend not one but two detectives. Impressive, being that lucky and unlucky at the same time," he muses.

"It is a fortunate coincidence, " Sherlock replies, not one for luck.

Joan, on the other hand, is willing to go with the premise. "I think we were meant to be together," she says with a smile.

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