Work Text:
Unsolved mysteries are their stock in trade. But they're all unsolved crimes, and every once in a while Joan finds herself wanting to sink her teeth into a mystery that doesn't involve some of the worst things people can do to one another. And so she peruses Wikipedia, scrolling through pages about the green children of Woolpit and the Cucuteni-Trypillia culture and the Hum.
Tonight, it’s because she can't sleep. Their latest case is tied up with as neat of a bow as a double murder can be, and Sherlock had turned in far earlier than she would've expected even when there wasn't anything on their plate. She'd cleaned up the kitchen, puttered around the rest of the house tidying up what had been neglected while they tracked down a murderer, and went to bed at a semi-reasonable time.
And laid awake for over an hour, regardless of how many sheep she counted. Sighing, Joan levers herself out of bed and pads downstairs, skipping the creaky stairs in an attempt to not wake Sherlock from the first full night's sleep (even for him) he's gotten in nearly a week. Grateful that they now have an electric kettle so she won't wake him with the whistle of the stovetop one, she fixes herself a cup of drowsy-time tea. Back upstairs in her room, she settles back against her pillows, tea in hand, and pulls up the Wikipedia page for the Plain of Jars in Laos on her phone.
Despite the tea, mysterious prehistoric burial jars aren't enough to put her to sleep. She moves on, into the Dyatlov Pass incident in Russia. Death, yes, which she deals with entirely too much of on a daily basis, but crime, probably not. Maybe a slightly higher-stakes unsolved mystery will give her brain enough to chew on that she can fall asleep.
She vaguely remembers reading about this incident before, but the details are murky. The Wikipedia article draws her in and she learns about Soviet hiking certifications, baffling half-destroyed tents, and reports of glowing orange orbs. The potential explanations are fascinating and move from the natural and probable (an avalanche, or high and unexpected winds), to the improbable (Soviet parachute mine testing), to the impossible (the Yeti). No longer simply a means to the end of falling asleep, Joan turns the facts over in her head, already itching to start looking through the proper sources linked at the bottom of the article.
Before she can get there, the Firefox tab freezes. The slight hiccup is enough to remind her that this was an endeavor in the service of falling asleep, not of delving into yet another mystery to solve. But leaving the article half-read will also keep her awake, so, with a sigh, she swipes the app closed before re-opening and refreshing the page.
Skipping the first few sections that she had already finished, she opens the Explanations section, ready to scroll down to the Other explanations that will likely make her laugh with their absurdity. But she does a double take as the section expands - the very first sentences, under the heading Avalanche, are different than they were five minutes ago when she first read them.
Official cause of death…independent computer simulation…did someone solve the mystery in the time it took for her to find and open this Wikipedia page?
Something about the phrasing sounds familiar and, on a hunch, she clicks into the edit history. The most recent edit, with 379 characters added to the article, is attributed to an editor labeled bomrosol, at 01:52 Thursday morning.
She is definitely blaming that 01:52 for how long it takes her to work it out. When she does, she retraces her steps back downstairs, intentionally stepping on the creaky stairs before knocking on Sherlock's bedroom door. “Lombroso? Really?” she calls out. “That's how you want people on Wikipedia to know you?”
The door jerks open to reveal Sherlock, clad in a T-shirt and pajama pants, blinking in mild startlement. “Watson.” His voice cracks from the disuse of sleep, and Joan muffles a giggle as he clears his throat. “I heard you come down earlier for tea, and I assumed you would be asleep at this point.”
“I tried not to wake you, I'm sorry.”
He gestures into the room, and she ducks past him to sit on the couch. This clearly isn't going to be a quick discussion when he settles back onto his bed, cross-legged with his laptop on his knees and an expectant, excited expression on his face. “You didn't wake me, I was already up. And I know you're going to ask, but I did get some sleep, and I'm not sure what it was that woke me. But since we're between cases and none of our cold cases seemed intriguing at the moment, I decided to spend some time researching some historical unsolved mysteries, and updating the portal by which the masses learn their factual information these days.”
“Wikipedia,” Joan says, and Sherlock tips a hand to her in acknowledgement.
“The very same. There are a number of, quote unquote, unsolved mysteries that no longer fit that category. Some due to our work or that of law enforcement, others due to the work of scientific researchers, and some due to those involved speaking up after years of silence.” He leans forward, laptop sliding precariously over his knees, and Joan decides she's too tired at this point to protect it. “But this one, this is fascinating. The prevailing theory has always been that there was an avalanche of some kind in the Dyatlov Pass - well, it of course was not called Dyatlov at the -”
Joan sighs. “What, so it's a coincidence that you chose to edit the same page I was reading at two in the morning?”
The startled look from when she first came downstairs reappears, quickly replaced by a lopsided smile. “Ah, so that is how you found my Wikipedia handle. Do you really suppose that I would be following your internet browsing habits to that extent?”
A fair point. She shakes her head and draws her feet up to sit cross-legged herself. “At least, not anymore.”
He huffs - in amusement or indignation, she isn't sure - and shakes his head as well. “No, for once this truly is a coincidence, as much as I dislike those. It seems we both decided to spend our free time on some mysteries that aren't quite so time-sensitive as the ones we spend our work time on.”
Once, that statement, and the truth of it, would've bothered her. But she accepted this part of herself and her life long ago. “And it seems you may have solved this one?”
“Not me,” Sherlock's face is adorable when he's petulant, but she will never tell him that, “and not all of it, but two researchers who specialize in the mechanics of snow and avalanches have some theories. And you'll never guess what it is they used to develop those theories.” He drags his laptop back to a more secure place on his lap, bouncing slightly while he waits for her answer.
Of course there are people who specialize in the mechanics of snow and avalanches. Sherlock probably knows at least one of them personally. “Well, unless there was another similar type of disaster recently that they based their ideas on,” his whole body shakes, along with his head, with his no, “then it was some sort of computer simulation. That’s what your new edit said. Did it have something to do with that creepy AI with the doll from a few years ago? Bella, I think they called it?”
“No, but that's a very good guess.” He taps at his keyboard before turning his laptop around to show her the screen. It’s open to a still from a video, featuring Sherlock dressed in an ill-fitting, ruffled purple dress.
“That's from when Everyone made you sing the songs from…from Frozen, right? Wait, did Everyone help solve the Dyatlov Pass mystery?” Obviously they've provided assistance in solving many of the cases she and Sherlock have closed, but a cold Russian hiking death case certainly does not sound like the kind of thing they'd be sticking their grubby little fingers in.
“No, no, I showed you this because it's Frozen! Frozen helped solve the Dyatlov Pass mystery!”
“What?” Two in the morning is not the time for this conversation. “Did you just say that the Disney princess movie that took over every children's aisle for years helped solve a decades-old mystery? Was there an avalanche in the movie and the animation or drawing or something helped some scientist work something out?”
“Very good, Watson!” Sherlock starts typing as he talks, a skill she will never have. “There is indeed an avalanche in the film, and one of the researchers saw it and realized the program that the animators developed could be used to simulate real-life avalanches as well. They were able to adapt the code and investigate the Dyatlov Pass incident. Their findings showed that a specific type of avalanche - a slab avalanche - could have caused the injuries seen in some of the hikers. And they determined the mechanism that could’ve caused such an avalanche, what with the katabatic winds -”
A huge, audible yawn splits Joan’s jaw open, and Sherlock’s closes with the snap of teeth. “Oh. Right. You were meant to be going to bed.”
Joan shakes her head, waiting for the yawn to pass. “No, I came down here. But I do think I might actually be able to fall asleep, this time. Solving a mystery will do that. Though this won’t stop people speculating about the radiation on the hikers’ clothes, or the glowing orange spheres reported in the sky.”
“It was Soviet Russia,” Sherlock says, disdain coloring his voice, “so I would not put much stock in either of those as unusual, and in any event the glowing orange spheres weren’t reported until years later. But if those mysteries are answered, people will speculate about the soft-tissue injuries and orange skin. You know how people are.”
Joan rolls her eyes. “And you know as well as I do that those are far more likely due to scavengers and mummification. I am going to bed. You should try it, too.” She stands and retreats to the kitchen before turning back around. “Good night, Sherlock. And change your Wikipedia screen name.”
The smirk when he looks up makes her feel like the screen name may have been specifically so she’d notice. But it is, now, past two AM on a Thursday, and she does not have brain space for that one. But he responds with “good night, Watson,” and she trudges back upstairs glad for the whole strange specter of the evening.
And falls asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow, knowing that she’ll likely be woken in six hours by a tortoise in her bed.