Summary: When Captain John Watson meets a nice girl in the middle of a war, life gets complicated. Meanwhile, Sherlock dresses up as an Afghani, learns to talk to the animals, and wonders why everybody in this god-awful dust heap of a country calls him "Motherfucker". Romance, violence, mayhem, and plotless adventure ensue, including but not limited to copious amounts of: swearing in multiple languages; careless shredding of historical fact and geographical reality; total disregard for any military organization, procedure, protocol and knowledge; Thomas Hardy-level coincidences; narrative blunders of the most obvious sort; and general crack and nonsense. Also, sex. But not right away. I like a little foreplay myself.

Notes: Yeah. If you didn't get it from the summary, this is very much a work in progress. I've got 3 and a half chapters written and no bloody idea where this is going whatsoever, but I'm hoping that by posting what I've got (a.) I'll quit tweaking it instead of writing new stuff and (b.) it will bust the logjam that is my brain. If not, I will be begging you my dear readers for help and suggestions. So...fasten your seat belts...Here we go.

"Told you he was a horse's cunny," McGraw says under his breath. "Shit, I'd give her my left nut if she wanted it."

John watches, along with the rest of his section, as she walks carefully past them, pulling the scarf up over her head so that it sits lightly at the top of a messy gathering of hair, a barely acceptable deference to local custom. Even so, like most women here, she walks by as if they are a herd of mangy, fly-ridden donkeys standing at the roadside and not worth her consideration at all.

"What about the right one?" Screamer asks.

"What?"

"Would you give her the right one if she wanted it?"

"Nah," McGraw says and sucks in the last of his cigarette before tossing the butt on the ground. "Ex-wife's already got that one."

"Fuckin' Yanks got no social graces at all." Bol tells them, grabbing up the rec forms and jumping down out of the cab. He puts on his battle face, the one that somehow seems to emphasize the red in the corners of his eyes and the tribal scars on his cheeks. John feels certain that Bol is not going to get the same chain-jerking run around that they had just observed the American sergeant giving this civilian aide worker.

Freed from having to try pulling rank on an American, John and Shea hang back then, leaning against the side front panel of the transport truck, enjoying the warmth radiating from the bonnet. The Afghan winter cold seems to have taken up permanent residence in John's core and his spine craves even this bit of heat, as if the unbearable scorch of the summer here had never happened.

John glances over to make sure the others are all engaged in posturing and dick measuring and whatever else it takes to free a couple pallets of cement from this particular colonial arsehole.

All clear. Except of course, for Shea

John shoves himself off the truck. "Going for a stroll."

Shea, who had been leaning his head back looks up and immediately grasps the situation. "Lookin' to get your arse handed back to you in a teacup then?"

John ignores him and pulls his glasses down against the sunlight.

She is across the road, leaning against the door of a battered rover much as he had been lounging on the transport, except her calm façade has broken. He can tell by the way she takes a pull on the cigarette between her fingers and then practically spits out the smoke. Casually, John checks the empty road for traffic and then wanders across in her direction. She looks up, stills herself and watches him through narrowed eyes. The wind blows the scarf off her head and tendrils of hair slip across her face. She pushes them back behind her ear.

She is truly lovely. And, John decides, it's not just the months stuck out in the desert with only men and goats around to make him think that.

"You're okay?" he asks.

"Just brilliant, thanks."

He leans against the battered vehicle behind her. The metal of this truck is cold, but the sun is warm on his face. She raises an eyebrow but doesn't turn her head to look at him, just takes another drag on her cigarette.

"Those things will kill you, you know," John tells her conversationally.

"Says the man carrying an assault rifle."

"And, as you can see, I am in the pink of health."

"Well, good. Let's hope that keeps working for you then." She takes another long, aggressive pull on the cigarette.

He quirks a smile, but doesn't look at her, keeps his eyes moving out of habit, even though there isn't much to see inside the huge U.N. compound.

Not a lot going on at the war today, honey.

She huffs out the smoke again, doesn't bother to look at him when she talks. "Are you just here to flirt? Because I've got a husband. He's an American. Navy SEAL, loads of medals, mean as a snake."

"That's funny, because I've got a wife. Commando. Kind of reminds me of a rhinoceros with a bad case of the itch and a hangover, but only when she's drinking. She's as big and ugly as one all the time though."

"Liar."

"Just following your lead."

"Pussy-whipped in general then?"

John chuckles. "McGraw back there says he'd give you his left testicle if you asked. Don't think I'd go quite that far."

"Gosh. How lucky for me." She deadpans as she looks at the burning end of the cigarette for a long moment. She scowls at it suddenly and then tosses it away. Throwing off the badass motherfucker attitude just as casually, she suddenly washes her face with her hands. "Argh! No wonder the women are still wearing burkha here. It's not the fucking Taliban, it's all the bloody soldiers. You're so…"

"Handsome? Brave? Clever?"

"Stupid. Juvenile. Disgusting."

John pretends to talk to himself, as if he hasn't heard a word she said. "Unbearably sexy, but that just goes without saying. It's the uniform. And the guns. The big guns. And the really, really short hair. Throw in the sun burn, trench foot, jock itch…it's all just an irresistible package."

"Oh for god's sake, shove off, will you?" To demonstrate her meaning, she gives him a solid push with her two hands against his upper arm. For the last four months John has been humping more weight in armor and gear with him every time he leaves the base than she probably weighs dripping wet. He barely rocks in response to her push.

He grins at her. "I'm not going away that easy."

She thuds back against the rover again and re-covers her face with her hands. "I knew I shouldn't have gotten out of bed this morning."

John declines to make any comment about her and bed, although he certainly thinks about it for a long, lingering moment. Instead, he lets his head fall back again, closes his eyes, raises his face to the sun. The cold wind catches the scent of her and carries it past him and he tries to parse its bits: cigarettes, eucalyptus, something sweet from her hair – coconut oil maybe – and under it all, just that warm smell of woman.

The boy in him suddenly wants to wrap his arms around her and bury his face into the spots that he knows would be warm and soft: just under her chin, just behind her ear in the curtain of her hair. The boy in him craves that safety.

Sometimes he hates soldiering, living like he does on all adrenaline and testosterone. It's absurd. He calculates his time until next leave to the second. It's a very long time and she is standing right here and he can smell her.

Well…maybe it's not the boy in him that wants so badly to hold her….

He expends some mental energy going over a few multiplication tables and drug dosage formulas just to get everything under control again.

"Goats," she says eventually.

"Sorry?"

"Goats. The orphanage had a herd of milk goats but last week one of them got hold of the wire on an IED and blew the whole lot of them to dogfood. So, no goats. No goats, no milk for the children. Some fine American church organization sent me four dozen cases of beans with bacon a few months ago. Thought I could trade here for something I could trade out in the market for goats."

"You really believe any army wants more canned beans?"

She rolls her eyes and shrugs. "Okay, so I really didn't think it through," she mutters, more to herself than John. "I used to be better at this kind of thing. Losing my edge." She sighs and squints into the sunlight. "Should have Betty Boop'ed him."

John looks at her out of the corners of his eyes and lifts an eyebrow. She turns toward him. Her dark eyes round big and she purses her lips, tips her head one way and her hips the other and lays a finger by the side of her mouth: classic bombshell airhead.

"Ah." He nods. "Yeah, that's how we got the cement off him. 'Course Bol there always throws in some bare chest."

She pulls a face, huffs and thuds back against the truck in defeat. "God, I hate doing that kinda shit." She lifts her thumb and looks as if she's about to bite the cuticle, but then seems to remind herself not to and drops it again. She scowls instead, white teeth nipping at one corner of her full bottom lip and stares off away from John, obviously thinking. She gets very still.

John loves watching smart women think, so he watches her, openly, appreciatively. When she looks over at him after a minute, as if realizing he's still there he lets his eyes slide past her to the same distant, invisible point she'd been focused on, as if trying to see what she was looking at.

She goes back to thinking. He watches her do it for another few beats before he continues on with what he pretends is his reason for bothering her.

"You work for Little Wanderers then?" he asks, tapping the logo on the door of the Rover.

She glances down at it. "Right. Let me applaud you on your firm grasp of the obvious."

"Runs in the family. Do you know the kids pulled out of a no-name village near Baghek two weeks ago? A girl about twelve with a toddler and a baby? Some friendly little neighborhood squabble left everybody else dead."

She looks at him for a long moment. "Not just another day's work for you?"

"Some days are harder than others."

She thinks about this, studying him. This time he keeps his eyes steady on hers. "Yeah, they're with us. She doesn't say much, but physically she's fine. The wound on her arm is healing nicely. The little ones are good. Eating like horses. They always do." Her eyes catch on the medic badge stitched to the beret folded into his shoulder lapel. Something sparks. "Hey, what's your name then?"

"Watson."

"That's what you told the girl?"

"John. Well, Doc John, I think. Or maybe she overheard. Hard to reme—" She laughs suddenly, throws her head back and laughs a delighted and delightful jingle of sound. John smiles vaguely. "What?"

"You're Doctor Bread."

"Sorry?"

"One of the few things she ever says. Doc nan…nan is Dari for bread…Doc Nan…Doc John. That's got to be it. We've been trying to figure out what she means. Doc Nan." She looks at him seriously for the first time. "Guess you made an impression."

"Ah, yes, well…my winning personality seems to cross all cultural boundaries."

"Mmm." She shrugs with one shoulder doubtfully at that, but really smiles at him for the first time, pulls the blowing twists of hair out of her face again. "Come visit her."

"Oh…no…I just wanted to know…ummm…I don't know," John looks away, goes back to scanning, suddenly unsure of himself.

"Come on. Might do her some good to see a face she recognizes." She tips her head at him and he catches a twinkle in her eye as his look flits across her face and then over to Shea, who is pointedly ignoring them. "Come on. You guys are always looking for a PR opportunity."

John shakes his head. "My crew's mandate is to pull fire and then shoot back. We don't do the hearts and minds stuff. We save that for all the smart guys you see around here." The wind cooperates in making his point by blowing cold and dusty around the currently barren base. A pi-dog slinks across the road.

"I can have the kids throw stones at you if it would make you more comfortable. Some of them are spectacularly good at it."

He gives her a meaningful look. "Don't want to bring attention to you."

She shrugs. "Town's pretty pro forces – base is the best economic opportunity this place has had since Marco Polo passed through. No grubby Koran-spouting Mullah's going to get beyond any cold hard cash. They're just the means for the headmen to keep the money flowing." He'd argue with her except he knows she's right. "Besides, the Taliban is way too busy arguing over how many virgins dance on a round from a 115 to worry about a little collection of damaged children and worn out foreign whores."

He wouldn't describe her as worn out and he's aware that the Afghan definition of whore can be ridiculously broad, but he sees her point.

"Besides, you hang out with us and it will just confirm to them that you're nothing but a bunch of pussies."

"I prefer to think being nice to women and orphans has a quiet manliness and chivalry."

"Mmmm…Yeah, well, call it what you want but don't underestimate the advantage of an underestimate."

"We're not cowards." John can't help protesting.

"So why don't you come visit?" Her eyes sparkle with amusement. "Not afraid of a little girl, are you?"

He has been shamefully out-maneuvered. He huffs out a breath of laughter and shakes his head. "Nicely done."

John knows that she is perfectly aware that soldiers are afraid of little girls. Little kids in general, tumbling puppies, the soft laughter of a woman, the smell of baking bread…anything that seems like home. He steadies his eyes on her and she looks just as solidly right back at him. The irises of her eyes are so dark that even in the sunlight they look black. Big bad soldiers are definitely afraid of all kinds of girls.

Something thuds down hard inside John, like a trapdoor falling, or a guillotine.

John hears the truck's gate slam home and out of his peripheral vision sees Shea stir himself. He looks back at her one last time.

"Right. I'll see what I can do."

"Yeah?"

"I'm just in town for the day. We convoy back up into the Alamo tomorrow."

"The Alamo?"

"West Bank of the Helmand," he indicates with his chin. "Yanks are calling it the Alamo."

"Bloody pessimists."

"It's not so bad, considering. We let them have Maiwand."

She laughs and he smiles back. He would give anything to stand here longer and watch her laugh. She squints a little bit at him again in a way that he thinks is already incredibly familiar and that he won't forget. "So, you'll visit? Yes?"

"Doc! Quit fondlin' your dick. We're off!"

"I can't make it a promise."

"I wouldn't dream of considering it one." She smiles, satisfied. "But I'm all for quiet manliness and chivalry myself."

John ducks his head, hopes she thinks it's the wind and the sun bringing the blush up in his face. Then he trots back across the road just as the truck backs around. It stops as Bol shifts it into first and John grabs the door McGraw holds open and swings himself up. They all look at her as they go past, but she's back to regarding them as less than a herd of jackasses.

"So, which one?" McGraw asks, "Left or right?"

John ignores him.