trashchildren | For Joan

"Oh yeah?" he prompts gently, interested to hear more, without actually asking specific questions in case there's stuff she doesn't want to talk about. Obviously what happened to her biological father is an implied question, but she can avoid it if she wants to.

She recognizes that he's leaving the door open for her to talk about her biological father without pressuring her to do so, and she loves him for it. She decides she's going to talk about it, in the interest of laying all the central difficult truths of her life on the table.

"Yeah." She takes a sip of wine. "My biological father was schizophrenic. It started manifesting when my mom was pregnant with me. She kicked him out."

She takes another drink, a longer one this time.

"I didn't know any of this until I was a teenager, when Oren told me. He's older and he got to know our dad before he left our lives. I looked him up and found out he was homeless. That's when I started volunteering at homeless shelters, hoping to see him. And I did, every once in a while. Sometimes he recognized me. Usually when he was on his meds. Other times..." She shakes her head.

Ted listens quietly, his arm still around her. He gives her a gentle squeeze as she trails off. No wonder she has that instinct to care for people.

It's also something that deeply saddens him, beyond a personal level, the fate of ill and homeless people people in America. Even in the best of conditions, living with mental illness or having mentally ill family is probably very difficult.

"And now?" he asks gently. Because she's very much talking about this in the past tense...

Joan has done a lot of advocacy for the mentally ill and homeless, volunteering at shelters, running clothing drives, and taking cases of missing homeless or mentally ill people pro bono when the police refuse to do anything. And Ted's right that Joan's desire to heal people is at least in part rooted in her desire to heal her own father, her own family.

"He died a couple months ago," she says softly. "It had been a few years since I had last seen him."

"I'm sorry..." he says softly, and really means it. There's nothing he can really say, nothing that can really fix that, so again he just sits there with her, hopefully just providing a safe space for her to share and be sad about it.

"Thank you," she murmurs. "My feelings are...complicated. I never got a chance to really get to know him. I wish I had. I think that's what makes me the most sad."

She's quiet for a moment, just letting him hold her, before going on.

"I found out a few months before he died that I have a half sister. Sometime after my mom kicked him out, my dad had a stretch of time when he was relatively stable, and he got married. Her name is Lin, and we have a pretty solid friendship. When my father died, he had a bible with him that had a letter tucked into it with my Chinese name on it. In the letter he told me about Lin. We had already met, but...he wanted me to know. In one of his lucid moments, he wanted to make sure that Lin and I had each other."

Ted nods in understanding. He knew his own father, quite well, but there's still so much lost time. And he never got to see the man Ted became.

He smiles softly at the part about her half-sister though. "That's nice," he answers. Even if she never got to know him, she did get more family out of it.

He pauses. "Wait, what's your Chinese name?"

Their situations aren't identical, but they're similar enough that Joan knows that Ted does understand in a way only those who have lost their fathers can. And she's not surprised at all by his reaction to her half-sister. Personal connection is so important to Ted, central to his life and his purpose. Joan thinks about Lin, hoping she's doing okay, and resolves to have lunch with her when she gets back to New York.

Whenever that is.

His question draws a smile. "Jingyi," she tells him, using the Mandarin pronunciation.

Ted makes a face of concentration and tries to replicate it. "Djyn-yee -- no, hold on, say it again?" he requests. Already it's pretty evident this is something he's pretty bad at, but is trying to get right.

She chuckles. "Jingyi," she repeats. "Don't worry, it's hard for English speakers to get the pronunciation right." She kisses his cheek. "I love that you're trying, though."

He tries again, and it's slightly better the second time, even though there's definitely still something Kansas about it. "I dunno why I'm trying, I still can't even say Zoreaux's name right." That name is pretty close though, but again, still kind of Kansas.

She cups his face and turns it toward her so she can kiss him softly.

"I love that you're trying," she repeats softly, eyes on his.

Ted softens like putty in her hands, and he smiles gratefully.

"...Bet you can't say 'Theodore' with a Kansas accent," he jokes mildly.

She smiles and gives it a try. "Theodore." It's close, but the accent is definitely artificial.

He looks at her seriously for a moment, like he's deeply considering and evaluating it. "...Yeah alright, that's actually pretty close," he admits, then chuckles. "Not that anyone ever calls me Theodore. Well, Sherlock did, when he was summarising me."

She laughs. "That sounds like Sherlock," she affirms. "Now he would be able to do a Kansas accent. Accents are one of his many talents. Languages, too."

"Oh, I'd love to hear that," he answers, amused even just at the thought. "I can maybe do some accents when I'm being theatrical and doing voices, but languages, I got no clue."

"It's not my strong suit, either," she agrees. "I speak some Mandarin...not as much as my mother would like...but Sherlock speaks it almost like a native. I can't think of a language he cant at least read. And there have been many times when he's used accents in a case to lower the guard of people we needed to get past."

Her mother wants her to speak Mandarin, do good in school, get an impressive job... Ted doesn't know much about Chinese-American culture, but it does seem pretty in line with what he's heard.

"So what would your mother think of you dating me?" he asks curiously.

Ted is doubtless familiar with the stereotype of the strict Asian parent pushing their kids to overachieve. And...yeah, that's pretty much Joan's experience.

Ted's question surprises Joan a little, and she blinks and then frowns in thought.

"I mean..." She holds up her hands. "She would have no problem with you being white, if that's part of the question. I think she would be a little overwhelmed meeting you, because she's a reserved person and you are way friendlier than she's used to. She will probably disapprove at first, because I don't think she has ever approved of my boyfriends off the bat. But I know that you'd be able to win her over."

She leans forward to kiss him gently.

"Ultimately, though," she says with a smile, "it doesn't change anything. I'd still want to be with you even if my mother hated you. But she wouldn't."

It was definitely part of the question. A lot of cultures can be very insular. Just like a lot can be racist. Thankfully Ted's family isn't. (A little sheltered, perhaps, but well-meaning.)

He does make a mental note to maybe tone it down a little, if he gets to meet Joan's mom. ...Not that Ted is very good at doing that.

"My mom would love you," Ted says. "So I don't think we need to worry on that front at least."

Joan knows Asian families that wouldn't be okay with their kids dating a non-Asian, but that's not her family. Her stepdad is white, hence the Watson.

"I would love to meet your mom," she says. "And I would love to introduce you to my mom. And my dad. He would actually probably be really excited to meet you. He's a big sports fan. It's one of the things we bonded over when I was young."

"Oh yeah?" Ted asks, obviously excited by that. "Oh, you gotta make sure to give me a cheat sheet of his teams beforehand, so I don't accidentally insult them and make him my mortal enemy."

She grins at his excitement and chuckles. "He's a New Yorker, through and through. Mets and Jets. Big fan of Joe Namath, and perpetually frustrated every year the Jets fail to make it to the playoffs." She takes his hands and squeezes them. "But don't worry too much about offending him. If he disagrees with something you say he will argue with you and enjoy every second."

Ted does make an 'uh oh' face at the Jets. Yeah he's definitely said some things about them in the past. But then he laughs at the reassurances. Yeah he knows people like that. Ted can be pretty diplomatic, but he'll gladly engage in that kind of banter.

"Alright, good to know. Sounds like a New Yorker," he answers cheerfully.

All this talk of fathers suddenly reminds him though, and he looks at the time.

"Hey, would you mind if I called Henry real quick? I usually call around this time."

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