trashchildren | For Joan

"Serendipitous," Sherlock agrees. He opens the box and pulls out a large pill bottle, then hands it to Joan.

"I'll fetch a glass of water," he says, heading out of the room.

Joan holds the bottle up to Ted. "Somehow I suspect I'm going to have a little trouble with childproof caps right now," she says.

When Ted opens the bottle, he'll doubtless notice the pills are pretty huge.

Ted hums in agreement and takes the bottle, opening it. "Whoof, those are real horse pills," he comments, handing the opened bottle back to her. "Hope your swallowing muscles still work."

"It should be fine," she says as she takes the bottle. "They did a test at the hospital. They wouldn't have sent me home otherwise." She looks into the bottle and grimaces. "Wow. Yeah. The downside to keppra is the large necessary dosage."

"Still, you'd think they could've just halved the size and told you to take two," Ted muses. Of course knowing absolutely nothing about potential reasons they might've had to make them this way, like release times and all that stuff.

"After you take that, wanna go wash your hair?" he asks, brushing her hair back over her shoulders, and idly starting to loosely braid it, for no real reason.

"It's probably a question of release," she says, looking at the label. "One pill twice a day," she murmurs to herself. "Okay."

It feels lovely to have him playing with her hair. "I'd like that," she answers softly. Not only to get all the gunk off her scalp and out of her hair, but also because she enjoys being taken care of like that.

Sherlock returns with a glass of water and waits as Joan tries to fish out a single pill and fails to get her fine motor skills to cooperate. She sighs in frustration and holds it up toward Ted again. "Can you get it?"

"Yup," he answers, accepting the bottle and carefully pouring a single pill out, handing it to her, then putting the lid back on the bottle.

It makes him sad, seeing her have trouble with stuff, not just because it's a reminder of how she's been hurt, but because he knows how frustrating it must be for her. But he actively tries to avoid reacting too much to it, figuring that him making a big deal would only make it worse.

She's really grateful to him for not making a big deal out of it. She knows this takes time, that it could be that she's totally normal in a week. She just has to get there, and she knows that both Ted and Sherlock will be with her every step of the way.

She takes the pill from Ted, then the water from Sherlock, and gulps the medicine down.

Ted waits to make sure she's swallowed and has handed the glass back to Sherlock.

"Alright, off we go, time to get more medical gunk off you," he says cheerfully. (Though any cheer he's exhibiting lately is hard fought for.) He makes sure she's ready to go, then leans on the wheelchair and wheels her off towards the bathroom.

Once there he rolls her with her back all the way up to the sink - the height is actually almost perfect - then grabs a towel she can have between her neck and the edge of the sink, both to make her comfortable and to make sure water doesn't drip down her neck.

"Comfortable? You know, relatively speaking?" he asks.

"It's actually not too bad," she says, relaxing as best she can. She smiles up at him and gently touches the easiest reached body part (which happens to be his thigh).

"Thank you," she says, so much meaning in those two words.

Ted smiles at her thanks, and he knows she doesn't just mean this. He leans down to kiss her - with her head leaned back it's a perfect angle.

"You're very welcome," he answers softly. He'd do just about anything for her.

She kisses him back, and smiles up at him. She knows the depths of his devotion to her, and she's just as deeply grateful, even if having to be helped so much is frustrating.

She settles back. "Remember, you'll want to make the water hot. The glue they use for this sort of thing will often melt at high enough temperatures, which will help wash it away."

"Alright, just let me know if it's too hot," he say, grabbing the shampoo and the shower head. Benefit of a small bathroom, at least, the shower and sink being close together, and the hose just long enough.

He runs the water over his hand first, while turning up the temperature, before carefully turning it to her scalp. She doesn't wince away at least. "Hot enough?"

It's definitely hot, but not painfully so. "That should work," she says, closing her eyes to guard against water or shampoo getting into them, just in case.

"Have you ever done this before?" The question she initially thought of asking was Did you ever do this with Michelle? But she figures it not only doesn't need to be said, saying it out loud might actually be uncomfortable, even painful, for him.

They both know that's really what it means, but he's glad she doesn't ask directly. Sometimes he's perfectly fine discussing his relationship with Michelle. Other times it's a bit more sore. She lets him decide whether to talk about it, and he appreciates that. Likewise he doesn't really want to directly compare the two of them either.

"Not in the sink, no," he answers, carefully applying shampoo, then massaging it into her scalp with one hand. "But obviously I spent years doing it with Henry. He doesn't have quite as much hair though," he adds with a chuckle.

He smiles a bit to himself. "Actually, there was a period where we thought Henry was gonna be a girl, and I got really excited about the thought of doing her hair. So Michelle would suffer through me practicing doing braids and pigtails and all sorts of things on her."

She gets it. Direct comparison between Joan and Michelle isn't something either of them wants. Even though Joan is technically in a role in Ted's life that Michelle once held, she knows that she doesn't replace her. She's aware that Ted knows that, too. If she thought he felt otherwise, then Joan would have hit pause on the relationship to give him time and space to figure out if he wanted Joan or if he just wanted someone to keep Michelle's place warm.

Joan smiles at the thought of Ted being excited about having a girl and doing her hair. It's an incredibly sweet mental image.

"You can braid my hair if you want," she offers.

"Alright, but don't say I didn't warn you when you end up with a 10 year old girl's hairstyle," he answers teasingly, though it's also evident he'd be kind of excited to do so.

A lot of the gunk in her hair is coming away fairly easily, but there is some that takes a fair amount of massaging and rinsing to get rid of it properly.

"I look forward to it," she says with a smile. "Although Sherlock will probably roll his eyes out of his head," she notes with a not-insubstantial eyeroll of her own. "Having my hair braided would probably be a good thing until I'm up and about again, just to keep it out of the way." And she wouldn't be able to do it herself with the current state of her fine motor skills, but she leaves that unsaid.

She knows that getting all the gunk out of her hair is a tough task, but she notes that he's being gentle and patient, and that is both perfect and so him. She loves him dearly.

Ted smiles with amusement at her eyeroll. He very much enjoys the banter between the two of them.

"I bet Keeley would just love to style your hair as well, if you want to go a bit more fancy than primary school chic," he points out.

"I bet she would!" Joan smiles at the thought. "It would be nice to see Keeley, too. And Roy. And Rebecca."

She knows Ted wants to be sure she's up for it before bringing people over. There's part of her that wants to be completely better before letting people see her. But a bigger part of her really misses these people Ted has brought into her life, enough that she thinks it would do her good to see them.

It's not even been that long since they've seen them, but they weren't exactly in a mindset to enjoy the socialising at the gala.

"We could have a FIFA tournament," he jokes mildly. Maybe at some point, but definitely not quite yet. Joan wouldn't be able to play anyway. And Ted would probably need to learn how to play first.

"Let's see how we feel tomorrow, maybe we can have someone over for dinner?" he says, a genuine suggestion this time. "OH, I just realised I would love to watch Roy and Sherlock talk. You know, assuming they would actually talk at all."

"Oh my god," Joan says, the idea so strong she can actually see Sherlock and Roy at the table together. "They would totally get into a misanthropic staring contest. The whole time. It would be amazing and we absolutely need to make sure it happens. So, have Keeley and Roy over for dinner, if we're feeling up to it?"

"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?"

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