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After a long day at work managing her own caseload and that of her colleague who had recently gone on maternity leave, Joan had found him wandering not far from her flat, ostensibly walking to the bus. He must have been on a case for him to get this far south. She hadn’t been able to get much from him about what he’d been doing to get into the state in which she found him, and that lack of coherence alone would have been enough to worry her, let alone all the blood. Amidst her distress, Joan had pang at having recently passed over a lovely and spacious North Oxford flat she’d toured with the estate agent. It did have a small bathroom, but otherwise had been exactly what she'd been looking for. The real reason she hadn't taken it was now standing, bloodied and much the worse for wear before her. Joan knew Morse lived in the same neighbourhood as the flat she'd liked, and she'd been afraid of jinxing herself into just this very scenario.
It rather ticked her off that it was happening anyway, she reflected, as she ordered him to sit on the green velour sofa and wait for her return with the first aid kit. She could have been doing this in a lovely flat with a back garden instead of having to drag him up a flight of cramped stairs from which it was impossible not to hear the nightly game shows on the neighbors’ telly. At least he didn't seem to be drunk. He didn't smell of alcohol anyway, though also wasn’t himself. Drugs maybe? She hadn’t seen a head wound other than the two cuts on his face or she’d think concussion. He'd been far too quiet as she'd scolded him for not going to hospital immediately. Joan still wasn't sure if the cut on his cheek needed stitches. She wasn't going to sew it up—not that she wouldn't, for Morse—more that she couldn't bear being the one to cause a scar. Not on that pretty face. Hopefully the plaster would do and they could decide whether or not to take him in in the morning.
"Here we are then," she said, coming back into the room with the white plastic kit in her hands. The idiot got back up from the sofa when she entered as if she were the queen, despite how he winced. Those sorts of manners enacted in the 1970s made her feel that something had gone very wrong for Morse. Perhaps he’d been given an unasked for ride in the TARDIS from some bygone era and that was at the root of it all.
"Sit down," she said firmly, a touch of exasperation entering her voice. "You look awful. Stay still and we'll get you cleaned up."
There was blood on Morse's face, and he looked like he'd been knocked over into the mud. Joan had already gotten him to take off his jacket and muddy shoes, and had put down a towel for him to sit on on the sofa. It seemed a bit much for both of them to ask him to take off his trousers. He might flee. Or she might make a fool of herself. Joan never knew where she stood with Morse, and him turning up like this out of the blue was outrageous. Maybe she shouldn't have let him up here. Maybe she should have taken him to the hospital and left him there. Maybe she should have taken him to his flat and left him there. Or called her father and let him deal with it.
But then she seated herself beside him on the sofa, set her case on the coffee table and turned so she finally got a look at Morse's face, and it was so intense and yet wholly pitiful that she stopped for a moment. The bridge of his nose was bleeding, and he had another cut across his cheek. She was speaking before she could stop herself.
"You may as well take up boxing at this point. The job has clearly required you learn to take a punch." She reached up to touch his cheek below the cut, which would certainly be purple tomorrow. For now the skin didn't seem to know what to do with itself and was a sickly indeterminate colour. She snapped herself out of it and hurried to get a bowl of water as well as a cloth. As she returned and started gently daubing at the blood so she could see what was what, she spoke again.
"Seriously, Morse, have you never considered taking some classes, if only for self-defence? I know it's not your strong suit, but your intellect hasn't proven very useful at saving yourself from this sort of thing."
He looked even more miserable at her words, but he finally spoke. It was not quite a whisper or a whimper, but very low and quiet and full of pain. "It's not that I can't, exactly, but maybe at this point that's precisely it. Won’t or can’t become the same thing after long enough. I was brought up to always avoid violence. It was the one part of it all that I tried—try, I suppose—to still honour."
Joan sat back and set the bowl back on the table. "What do you mean?"
He never spoke of personal matters, and this was far too fascinating for her to let go. She held the cloth out an inch from his face, waiting for him to answer.
"My father—he got violent sometimes, when he'd been drinking. And my mother—she'd been brought up a Quaker, but had left it behind to some degree. After the divorce, she went back with a fervour, and the parts about peace and nonviolence were so important to her. She wanted a peaceful life. And she always had such sorrow for those who would feel the need to strike out. 'There's a hole in their souls' she would say. 'Don't let that happen to you.'"
"So you're a pacifist? A pacifist police officer?" Joan's tone was flat, possibly more than it ought to be, but she was suddenly quite angry. "Do you mean to tell me you don't even try to fight back when some drunk swings at you, that it's just turn the other cheek?" She fully pulled back from him, the bloody cloth making a mess on her denim trousers. They're dark though, it shouldn't stain.
"Not exactly," he said, his eyes opening to warily look at her expression. "I couldn't call myself a pacifist, not with the things I've done. And I don't believe in it. I never quite could, but then I never quite could allow myself to let it go completely."
His voice was quiet, and so miserable, but Joan still felt anger coursing through her. But not at him, despite how it might save her. Anger for him. "Couldn't your great brain come up with a better career than the police, then, for someone so concerned with ethics?"
She started scrubbing again, more roughly this time. She needed to finish this, send him on his way or at least to sleep without all this anger and adrenaline coursing through her. This is foolishness. No, he should not stay here. He made these choices that had infuriated her for years—and clearly he couldn’t change.
But yet, at his next wince her hands gentled, and a wave of shame washed over her. Here she was, caring for him as she’d always wanted to do, his vulnerability on full display in whatever strange state he was in, and instead of communicating, she herself was the one clamming up in frustration. Joan got the dry flannel and dabbed until his nose was dry enough to apply the plaster. Leaning close to him was discomfiting, as she’d always kept herself back.
Morse was similarly affected—shuddering. He was practically—no, he was in fact shedding tears. "But what's the matter?" Joan said, her voice now devoid of anger or scolding. Only quiet, honest, meeting his anguish with her own.
"I'm so tired of wanting things I can never have. Things that aren't for me."
"How dramatic." This reply should be arch, but her tone remained soft. "Who says they aren't for you?"
He shrugged, so she continued. "The universe? God? Who or what do you think is out there denying you what you want?"
He looked at her, and whispered, "You."
Joan reeled back, eyes wide, but he looked away, rubbing his eyes, irritating the cut on his cheek and making it bleed. "Oi, stop that!" she said, back to bossy. "If you want to ruin all my hard work and hurt yourself then yes, you're correct, I'm the one denying you what you want."
She brushed his fingers away, and got the cloth back out of the bowl, dabbing the cut on his cheek again, getting another cotton ball out with antibac and daubing it on gently, letting the quiet sit there until she'd gotten out the plaster and had it mostly on across his cheekbone.
"Why would you say that? Why do you think I don't—" she withdrew, staring at him desperately. "What do you want then?"
He couldn't look at her, but again he whispered, "Same thing as ever. You."
Joan's heart could hardly take it, and she bowed her head, and when he didn't shift away she rested her forehead right on his shoulder.
"Oh you fool," she breathed. The tears were coming up for her as well. "You absolute idiot."
Yet her free hand had somehow grasped his shirt, in case he tried to get away. She needn't have worried. He turned to her, trembling a little.
"D-don't," he managed, around what sounded like an enormous lump in his throat, "don't say that, if you don't mean it. I love you. Have done for so long now. I don't know why I'm saying this now, you probably have no more reason to now than you ever did. Less even, since things have gone so poorly for me."
"Oh, stop talking for a moment and let me ," she said, tipping her head up to look at his red-rimmed eyes, so tired and worn, stoned or high or whatever he was, but Joan could scarcely feel bad for him, if this is what it took for him to finally get this off his chest.
She placed the second plaster over the cut on his cheek as she spoke. "I thought you weren't that interested. I wanted you to be, but I didn't want to have to beat you over the head with it. And every time you seemed like potentially you might want to—it was either the worst possible time for me, or you pushed me away. Like when you decided to go out with Claudine instead of coming outside with me. It hurt. I figured you two would get along, I promised I'd introduce you, but I still wished you were the smallest bit interested in me.”
He looked so perplexed, but she didn't let him speak. Instead she urged him up and across the shag carpet into the bedroom.
"You shouldn't say anything more tonight. I'll be miserable if you bolt out of here in the morning, but that’s what I fully expect, so it doesn’t matter. At the very least you're too tired to function, so you should sleep.”
He nodded tiredly and didn't really protest. He must have been in quite a state, or he never would have gone along. In fact it was quite jarring not to have him fussing and coming over scandalised that she was unbuckling his belt and unbuttoning his trousers and pushing him back on the bed. But he was so completely exhausted he let her undress him down to his pants and undershirt and sort of curled up on top of the comforter. It was a cold night though, and Joan didn't really fancy sleeping out on the sofa herself. And she'd paid all that money for a double bed so she might as well finally get some use out of its size.
She quickly got herself ready in the yellow tiled bathroom, pulling on a modest blush pyjama set with button up top and trousers lest he think she was trying to seduce him, though it was silk and somewhat fitted, so it wasn't exactly dowdy. Joan shook her head at herself. He apparently had decided to want her again. Or he thought he had the whole time—what a waste, if so. The years they had spent circling each other!
But as she crept back into the darkened bedroom and saw him helplessly asleep on her blue floral duvet Joan couldn't but turn her thoughts to how it would be even more maddening for her to harden her heart now that he'd finally broken down enough to expose his tender feelings merely because he hadn't done so sooner. For it was useless to try to deny the truth: she cared for this frustrating man who had been such an enigmatic figure in her life for so many years. Being a practical creature, she couldn't quite bring herself to call it love right out as he had—they had to get to know one another better first! But at the same time she had enough self-knowledge to know it wouldn't take much for her to find herself walking down that path.
Joan crawled into bed on the side opposite to the low nightstand where she usually put her things—he'd stumbled in from the living room and so had naturally landed on the side closest by. She tugged at the covers under him until he shifted enough to let her get them out and over them both. He moved slightly closer, but his even breathing seemed to mean he had returned to deep slumber, and so Joan laid there, acutely aware of the place on her thigh where his bare knee touched her, and wondered not if, but exactly how awkward things were going to be when he was more himself in the morning.
But she yawned, and figured things would sort themselves out or not, and tried to tell herself that even if he ran out of her flat, unable to remember or cope with what he'd said to her, well wouldn't that be the status quo for them? She could live with it, right? Could go back to before he'd said that the one keeping him miserable, who didn't want him...was her . She ached at the thought. No, she finally decided, sometime around four am when gloaming was visible since she hadn't remembered to draw the blinds: she couldn't go back. Something would have to be done. With that decision made, sleep finally found her.
Endeavour yawned. He rolled over and stretched out, before he froze into complete rigidity. He was comfortable. Far too comfortable to have slept on his own cheap and thin mattress. It smelled far too different, far too good, for this to have been his own room. The room was bright, and it was full daylight. He looked over, and realised with creeping terror that he was not alone in the bed. Memories rushed back to him. He'd been hit, and then the man outside the bar had given him something “for the pain”. What a fool he’d been to have taken it—surely he’d known that sort was unlikely to be dispensing paracetamol! He had wandered around after that. He remembered wanting to find safety. But he’d also wanted to see her—his eyes closed in complete mortification as he remembered Joan running into him on her block, catching him by the arm and pulling him into her flat with a worried scowl.
The memory itself read like a kaleidoscope of horrors. He'd said—what to her? Why had she brought him in? His finger rose to his face, and he felt the bandages she must have placed there. But why were they in bed together? He hadn't—he couldn't have—? It dawned on him that parts of him certainly were quite awake. Why now? Why did he— How did he manage to get himself into these scrapes?
"Morse, you're thinking too loudly," Joan said into her pillow. "Some of us have only now got to sleep after a full night of thinking."
"Sorry," he said automatically. "I just—don't know how to stop?" He bit his lip. Why was he such an idiot? If he was somehow lucky enough to have found himself in Miss Thursday's bed he should shut up and let her sleep. He stared hard at her white textured ceiling and the lace curtain that he could see fluttering against the geometric white and blue wallpaper in the morning breeze. He tried to breathe quietly, but ended up feeling more like he was about to have a panic attack.
"Hmm," said Joan, and she turned so that he was terrified she would see—or feel—but then her hand was sliding over his chest under the covers. His head whipped around and he could see her softly dishevelled hair, her lovely face, but her eyes remained closed. "Don't say a word. I'm going to see if I can't make you stop." Her eyes didn't open but instead she shifted closer to him so that she was pressed against his side and just as he was about to spring up and make a break for it, her hand travelled lower, and oh God how was this happening? She grasped him fully in her hand through the cloth of his pants.
He exhaled sharply but somehow managed not to make any sort of intelligible sound.
Joan was more awake than Morse probably thought she was. Somehow pretending to be half-asleep made her feel braver about running her hands over him as he practically shook with shock. But not, she thought, indignation. His breathing was rapid, but sounded excited, not terrified. At least not completely. She opened one eye enough to see him, staring at her. Oops. She'd been caught. But it wasn't as if there could be much doubt. Her hand was on him even now, and—yes, his hips had in fact made the most minute of movements forward into her grasp, but it counted, to her mind, as intention.
She looked up at his face, a line of red still visible on his skin where his cheek had been pressed to the edge of the pillowcase, and was both surprised and not when he turned fully toward her and kissed her, a backward kiss, starting out so passionate and then retreating into tentativeness as he seemed to doubt himself, or perhaps her reaction. Joan made what she hoped would be interpreted as an agreeable noise, and stretched up closer to him, chasing his mouth with more kisses. Who cared about morning breath—this was it. It was happening, she had him, his arm around her and her hand still pressed to the hardness between his legs. It was surreal and wonderful, and he seemed to regain a little confidence at her reaction. He kissed her more deeply, his arm wound around her back and his hand tangled into her hair. His hips pressed up and she squeezed a little.
He had to pull back to gasp a breath, and his incredulous look made her shake off the haze of lust enough to laugh at him.
"What, did you think you were getting out of here without dealing with all that you said to me last night?"
He looked even more confused and dismayed. " This is dealing with what I said to you last night?"
"It’s supposed to be a nice prelude, but you can't seem to stop talking, let alone thinking. I fear I will have to try harder," she said, ducking under the covers even as she pulled him out of the confines of his pants, taking him into her mouth. Now, he was shocked, well and truly. She could feel the rigidity of his abdomen beneath her. Good. Time to take Miss Thursday off her pedestal.
Joan pushed the covers back so she could look up at him, and then took him in her mouth. He gasped again, and she glimpsed the long column of his throat as he gulped in air as he moved. She had a little experience in this department, though not a lot, and it was gratifying to see his hands tighten on the bed sheet. She tried to listen and watch a little for what made him suck in a breath, or twitch in response, and she almost wished she hadn't forbade him from speaking, but no if she hadn't he'd inevitably have said something to stop this from happening by now, and she was having far too much fun. For every time his hips shifted up toward her, and every time he groaned, she felt powerful. Look at her, finally, after all these years, succeeding in getting him to shut up— to stop thinking .
And when he was getting closer, she took one of his hands and put it to her head, so that she could feel from him what he needed, and he tried to be gentle, but by the end he had a fistful of her hair and was breathing so heavily, trying to pull away but gasping in shock when she pushed forward so that he finished in her mouth. It was somewhat unpleasant but extremely and completely worth it in the way his eyes widened as he took her in, before falling back against the pillows, breathing heavily.
Joan crept up to him, and hesitated for a moment, unsure, before he revived enough to wrap his arms around her and pull her into his chest, his cheek resting on her hair. He trailed his hand down her silky pyjamas, along the elastic of her waistband in a silent offer, but no, this was what she'd wanted for now. If they were going to continue this abrupt departure from their usual disappointing lack of a relationship, then there would be time for him to make it up to her. If not, Joan didn't want to be quite so vulnerable with him.
The thought made her wonder if she had pushed him too far too fast, but when she looked up at him, he was smiling slightly and looking far more relaxed than she had ever seen him at any time during their years-long acquaintance. Joan was suddenly dying to know what he was thinking.
"You may talk now," she said, in case he wanted to unburden himself.
He huffed out a little laugh and shifted them around so they were both on their sides facing each other. He had to slide down a little until they were nose to nose.
"Is this a dream?" he asked.
Joan rolled her eyes. "Is this the sort of thing you usually dream about?" Then her eyes widened. "Wait—you don't have to answer that."
He was smiling in earnest now. "No, I would never dare to presume to have a dream like this."
It was killing her, how happy he looked. He reached out and brushed some hair out of her face, letting it linger into a caress, his fingers carding gently through her hair. Joan found herself melting further.
"Just regular old real life, I'm afraid," she said.
"There's nothing about this that feels like my regular existence," he said. "So please let me...have a little more of whatever this is..."
He leaned forward and his hand settled on the side of her face as he kissed her again, so sweetly, not at all put off by the taste that still lingered in her mouth. She sighed happily as he pressed kisses along her jaw, down toward her neck.
"You can have as much as you want of it," she said against his hair, "but you'll have to pay the price."
"Alright," he said, making his way across the silky fabric on her chest as his hand found the hem of her top and slipped beneath.
Joan stopped his progress. "You're not supposed to agree before you know what the price is," she said, a bit playful and a touch bossy.
He looked up at her. "I don't care what it is," he was suddenly serious. "I would give anything to be with you."
She'd forgotten quite what a romantic he could be. Joan sighed and snuggled into his arms.
"Even your deepest darkest secrets?" she asked.
He nodded, but a little wariness had crept in. She hated to see it after his wholehearted smile a moment before, but it was necessary.
"Even if it meant you had to give up old ways of being? Ways you're used to, that feel natural to you?"
"I hate all my ways of being anyway."
Joan shifted and looked up at him sadly. "But you can't just cast them off—they'll creep back up on you."
He was starting to look a little cross, as she'd expected. "So I've got to give them up, but there's nothing I can do—all my bad habits will come back and there's nothing I can do to stop them?"
Joan sighed. "There is something you can do, I believe that fully, I really do. But it's not possible to do it all in a rush. It's hard, and it takes time and help and belief in your own ability to change."
"You sound like the one who doesn't believe in my ability to change."
"Oh Endeavour, now you sound so defensive. That's not what I wanted..."
He'd stopped, gone still. Joan tried to back up.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to call you that if you don't like it, it...slipped out. Ever since I saw it on your Warrant Card I can’t help thinking of you that way."
Morse disentangled himself from her on the bed and sat up, rubbing his face.
Joan followed him and sat beside him, tugging on his arm. "Don't rub it—you'll reopen the cuts. You've got to let it heal. That's all I'm saying really. You've got to let it heal. You can't pretend you’re fine and call it done, but really you're rubbing all the wounds open again so they fester. I want you in my life, want to help however I can. But there's things that are going to be a problem—you know will be a problem, unless you're really serious about changing."
She looked over at him, but he wasn't looking at her. His gaze fell somewhere beyond the foot of the bed. Joan felt awful for dragging him down like this when he'd seemed so content moments ago, but she was glad she hadn't let him touch her. This would be that much harder. She needed to keep herself back, because after all the horrible things she'd seen in her work, she knew that the kind of life Morse had led, bright child of divorced parents, dashed ambitions when he'd left college, descent into drinking—there was a good chance that he could never—
What? He could never be good enough for her? Could never be perfectly safe, like Jim Strange?
Joan put her hands to her own face, and felt the tears welling up, vulnerability finding her despite her efforts to keep it at bay. Morse noticed her shift, and looked over at her warily.
"Sorry," she said. "I'm sorry. It's not about you. I'm concerned about the drinking, and there's other things that might become issues or might not. But the truth is I'm afraid to let you close. I've always been—attracted to you," she didn't want to admit she'd been half in love with him since she'd first opened the door to him when she was still at home with her Mum and Dad. "But I've always been worried that you didn't really see me, and that if you did—if you knew how boring and bossy and petty I can be, that you'd lose interest and drop me straight away. That you only want what you can't have."
He exhaled, and turned to her in the bed. "What about knowing how kind you are? And how caring and capable, and good? I have never felt good enough. And you're right. The—the drinking's a problem. But it's just over the top of another problem, or a pit full of problems..."
"And what's in there?" she tried to ask neutrally. "What's there that you don't want to see?"
"If I'm being honest, I'm not entirely sure," he admitted. "I suppose that's some of what you meant before, about festering. But part of it is," he turned his head away, not able to look at her and keep talking, "how alone I've felt. I—I want someone to see me, and I want to see you, Joan."
She laughed a little, and took her hands off her face so she caught it when he looked back over at her sceptically.
"I think that's the first time I can remember you ever calling me by name," she said.
"Oh," he said. "Is that—?"
"It's all right with me. Is the same alright with you?"
He blinked. "Maybe. I'm not-I'm not sure. No one's called me that for years. Not since—well, not really since my mother died."
And there it was, finally in the open. Over the years Joan, aided and abetted by her mother, had speculated that all Morse's problems stemmed from this primal wound. And she didn't want to become some sort of replacement for his mother, but he'd spent the past twenty years grieving for her, it wasn't reasonable to think he could immediately stop. And allowing himself to be cared for—he couldn't help it if no one really had since his mother had passed. This was terrifying. He might need more than she could give. He might need more than anyone could. But if she didn't try, would she ever forgive herself?
Joan reached down and flipped the sheet up over their heads. Somehow this admission was easier with the rest of the world blocked out.
“Let’s try it out then, and see how it goes. If you’re really serious, it’ll be hard. But I want this. For you and for me. There’s no one out there who doesn’t want you to succeed, Endeavour.” She rested her hand on his heart. “But it’s on you to make sure there’s nothing in here holding you back.”
He nodded solemnly, but his hand shook a little when it covered hers, and she was lost, charmed by the excitement that vibrated through him.
“Let’s try then,” he confirmed.