Series 4 was definitely...something. Whatever it was, it wasn't what we expected, and definitely not what John and Sherlock deserved. So, fueled by spite, I sat down and started to re-imagine the story right from the beginning and came out with over 10,000 words richer.

This doesn't act entirely as a fix-it, as it's going to be almost completely canon compliant until I start re-writing Series 4, but, regardless, I hope that I'll do the great romance justice.

Also, Moftiss can suck my ass.

The war was like an echo. Reverberating off of stone walls into empty rooms, the war was loudest at night when his mind was settled, allowing it to be heard after being drowned into near nonexistence by the oppressive chaos of London during the day. But, try as London might to stamp out the echo of the war—and with it, memories of pain, bloodshed, and death—it always somehow resurfaced, wet and bedraggled but alive all the same. It was like a parasite that couldn't be killed, feeding after nightfall off of the fallibilities of the human mind in its most vulnerable state. It whispered and hissed, reminding any creature who would listen that it was there, that it would always be there, like a succubus.

John couldn't help but listen.

The echo of the war rang out gunshots in his ears and drew blood behind his eyes. It robbed him of sleep; nights full of pleasant dreams, even no dreams at all, were a distant memory. He relived the sweltering heat, the sun burning his flesh. He remembered the sight of men falling on the battlefield, the tears of the men he saved and the eyes of those he couldn't. He remembered all of it: the pain, the gunfire, the very moment that the bullet ripped itself through his flesh—

John wrenched his eyes open and sat up in bed, his heart pounding, chest tight, and his breath shaking with every tremor of his left hand. A burst of lightning and clap of thunder outside his window illuminated the small room, casting horrible, twisted shadows, and John brought his shaking hand to his chest in a poor attempt to steady himself. His forehead was damp with sweat, as were the blankets, which practically strangled him.

Ripping the cold sheets from his body, John fell back against his pillow, feeling the rickety bedframe creak and the mattress groan under the force of it. Hand still over his heart, he gasped a choking breath and felt his eyes sting with tears that never fell. Instead, he dry-sobbed into the empty room and waited for the sun to rise, with only the ticking of his alarm to keep him company.

When the storm subsided and sunlight started seeping its way into the room, John sat up on the edge of his bed and tried to focus on the feeling of the carpet beneath his feet. In the faint sunlight he tried to focus his wavering gaze on something distinct in the sea of muted brown that surrounded him, but found that it was becoming harder for him to even distinguish one wall from the other. Eventually, his eyes drifted to his desk—and, in turn, to the war itself. Or, rather, what John had left of it. Against the desk leaned his cane, cold and demanding and proof of the throbbing echo in his mind.

Eventually, he limped over to the desk and took his cane in hand, hating the weight of it. He mechanically began his morning routine, most of it out of habit and muscle memory rather than as the result of any conscious decision. He tossed on his dressing gown before making himself a cup of coffee—milk, no sugar—in the only mug he owned, bearing the arms of the Royal Army Medical Corps. He ignored the morning paper and took the last apple from his fruit bowl. He already knew that the fridge was empty, too. He should probably go shopping after therapy.

John didn't have a dining table, so he set his sorry excuse for a breakfast down on the desk, sat down, and laid his cane over his lap, ignoring the way that it pressed, cold and lifeless, into his thighs. He opened the top drawer of the desk to retrieve his laptop, one of the few items of luxury he had to his name; underneath it lied a small notepad, an unused pen, and a handgun. John placed the laptop on the desk in front of him and closed the drawer. His gaze lingered on the gun far too long as he wondered how long it had been since he held it in his hands, how the cold metal would feel against his skin.

He wondered if being shot was quite how he remembered it.

Before he could dwell on the thought for too long, John took a swig of his coffee and opened his laptop. It opened to the same page it always did, 'The Personal Blog of Dr. John H. Watson.' And so John proceeded with his morning routine and sat there, hands clasped in front of his face, staring blankly at the screen without any hint of a clue as to what to write.

He'd had the blog for over a month now and had written barely a handful of times, nothing more than four sentences at a time. Ella said that he should be writing in his blog more often, to which he had agreed absentmindedly without any real intention to carry through with her request. She remained insistent, so on Monday John had posted about getting drinks with the rugby lads. He posted yesterday too, about those strange suicides that he'd heard about on the radio, so could probably get away with not writing for another couple of days. Any more than that and Ella would be on his case again.

John glanced at the clock. He had just under an hour until his appointment. Sighing, he drained the rest of his coffee, closed his laptop, and decided against eating the apple before reaching once more for his cane and continuing with his morning routine.

Shower. Clothes. Shave. Teeth. Shoes.

Wash, rinse, repeat, every day, without fail.

Thirty-seven minutes later he was on the tube. Twenty minutes after that he was back in Ella's chair. He hated that chair.

He and Ella exchanged the usual pleasantries and John tried to ignore the pitying look in her eyes. She was a nice woman, really, she was. But she just didn't understand. John tapped his fingers against the arm of the chair.

"How's your blog going?"

Ella was leaning forward in her own chair. John could only assume it was an attempt to be inviting.

"Yeah, good," he replied, looking anywhere but at her. He cleared his throat awkwardly. He really was an awful liar. "Very good."

"You haven't written a word, have you?"

Choosing to ignore her, John instead pointed to the notes on her lap. "You just wrote 'still has trust issues.'"

She glanced down at her notes, fiddling with her pen. John could tell that she disapproved. "And you read my writing upside down," she said, raising her brows. "D'you see what I mean?"

John saw exactly what she meant but, again, chose to ignore her. He gave a twitch of his lips and continued to tap against the arm of the chair.

Ella sighed and straightened her back. "John," she began, "you're a soldier, and it's going to take you a while to adjust to civilian life. And writing a blog about everything that happens to you will honestly help you."

"Nothing happens to me," he said. And it was probably the first honest thing that he had told her since they met.

The session didn't last long; Ella gave up soon after that, and John couldn't help but be glad. Therapy made him feel guilty. He and Ella parted on the same terms as always: a "Same time as next week?" followed by a "Yeah, sure." An awkward nod of the head later and John was free to go. 'Free' in this case, however, had variable definitions.

Outside, the weather was rather nice for late January, the storm last night having made way for a much more pleasant climate. John decided to take the long way home through the park. After all, it's not as if he had anything better to do.

The park was nice enough. It was quiet—surprisingly so, considering it was nearing midday. Only the distant murmur of London traffic was audible some number of streets away. Still, it was too much, the echo too oppressive, so John started counting his footsteps.

Step, step, click.

Step, step, click.

Step, step, click.

He became so engrossed in counting his mechanical steps, in fact, that he almost missed a man's voice calling his name.

"John! John Watson!"

John turned to see the round face of a man who had been sitting at a nearby bench. He stared blankly for a moment as the man approached him—a man who, upon closer inspection, he recognised.

"Stamford!" the man exclaimed, smiling and holding out his hand in greeting. "Mike Stamford. We were at Bart's together."

"Yes," John smiled bleakly, taking the proffered hand. He hadn't anticipated running into an old friend, and wondered if it made him a bad person to wish that he hadn't. "Sorry, yes, Mike. Hello, hi."

Stamford grinned at him and nonchalantly gestured to himself. "Yeah, I know," he said. "I got fat."

"No, no." John shook his head and tried to sound convincing. Stamford, however, didn't seem to mind.

"I heard you were abroad somewhere getting shot at!" he said. "What happened?"

John dropped Stamford's hand to clutch again at his cane and automatically glanced down at his bad leg. "I got shot," he said, not looking Stamford in the eye.

Stamford's good-natured smile wavered, and John couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor bastard. He didn't know, after all.

"That's—"

"Yeah," John cut him off. "I know."

He hated this part, the part where people switched over to their 'pity faces' and tried to tell him that they were "so sorry for you, dear, it must be horrible" and tried to offer unsolicited comfort, like they somehow understood just how he felt. Or, even worse, when people took one look at his suddenly visible cane and then purportedly had to dash off to a previously unmentioned engagement, as if they were repelled by being in such close proximity to just a fraction of the tragedy of the war that they skimmed over in the papers with their coffee in the morning. Nothing had ever made John feel so utterly useless.

He and Stamford shared that moment of silence while the dull hum of London traffic continued to murmur in the distance. John was about to bid an awkward farewell and regret not taking the tube back to his flat, but, somehow, Stamford spoke first.

"Do you want to get coffee?"

John stared at him. "Sorry?"

"Coffee," Stamford repeated. "I'm on my break. There's a little café just 'round that corner that isn't half bad and I'm not due back until after one."

Somewhat baffled, John exhaled a laugh and nodded his head. "Yeah," he said. "Alright. That sounds—yeah."

Stamford smiled broadly and straightened his coat, and John silently hoped that this wasn't going to be an encounter that he would live to regret. Catching up with old acquaintances hadn't exactly gone smoothly ever since he got back to London; the only person that John had wanted to see was Bill Murray, the doctor who had saved his life in Afghanistan, but even he was now happily married, unintentionally and unknowingly mocking John's emotional isolation with every mention of his new wife. As John had soon found out, no-one wanted an emotionally starved Army doctor with a limp for a romantic partner, and he didn't want to force that onto anyone in turn, so he was alone.

The café was small and crowded, so Stamford offered to buy their coffee while John waited outside. Had it been anyone else, John would have suspected that the gesture was out of some twisted moral obligation that probably had something to do with his cane, but John had known Stamford well enough while they were studying at Bart's to know that it was the same gesture of kindness that he would show anyone, limp or not, just because he was a good bloke with his heart in the right place.

"Here," Stamford said, holding out a takeaway coffee cup. "I couldn't remember how you liked it so I asked for it with no sugar and brought some packets instead."

John gave a small smile and took the coffee. "Thanks, mate."

"No problem," Stamford said, taking a sip of his own. "Be careful, it's a little hot."

John thanked him again and the two sat down on a nearby bench. Wondering how to continue the conversation, John glanced around the park and took a swig of his coffee before turning back to Stamford, who didn't look nearly as uncomfortable as John felt.

"You still at Bart's, then?" he asked.

Stamford nodded. "Yeah, teaching now. Bright young things, like we used to be. God, I hate them!"

He laughed, and John felt himself chuckle too at the memory of life before the war. Their pure naivety alone was comedic in itself, and John found the nostalgia somewhat comforting.

"What about you, then?" Stamford asked. "Just staying in town 'til you get yourself sorted?"

John huffed, amused. "I can't afford London on an Army pension."

"Ah, and you couldn't bear to be anywhere else," Stamford laughed. "That's not the John Watson I knew."

"Yeah," John said, somewhat harsher than he had intended, "I'm not the John Watson…"

He caught himself before he could say anything more, and Stamford awkwardly looked away, clearly understanding his mistake. John's hand began to shake and he switched his cup of coffee to his right hand, clenching his left into a fist in an attempt to stop the tremor. Stamford sipped his own coffee and looked back at John, still undeterred.

"Couldn't Harry help?" he asked.

John shook his head, remembering the bitter, angry, drunk texts Harry had sent him the previous night. "Yeah, like that's going to happen."

Stamford shrugged in understanding. "I dunno," he continued. "Get a flatshare or something."

"Come on," John said. "Who'd want me for a flatmate?" He didn't feel the need to elaborate further; Stamford had seen enough in the twenty minutes since they'd met to know what he meant.

Instead, Stamford's eyebrows furrowed in thought and he began to chuckle. John looked at him in question. "What?"

"Well," Stamford said, "you're the second person to say that to me today."

For the first time in months, curiosity sparked in the back of John's mind. "Who was the first?"

"Friend of mine," Stamford replied. "Well, sort of. He should still be at Bart's now, if you wanted to meet him."

"He works there too?" John asked.

Stamford laughed. "God, no."

He didn't elaborate, and John didn't question further. "Come on," Stamford said, standing up and gesturing in the direction of the hospital, "I'll introduce you."

"Are you sure?" John asked, gripping the handle of his cane and standing, minding his bad leg. "I mean, well—you know, I don't really exactly get on with people very well anymore. Not since—"

"Oh, don't worry about that," Stamford interrupted, smiling. "I have a feeling he'll like you just fine."

Intrigued, John shook his head and huffed a laugh. "All right," he said. "Lead the way."

Stamford grinned and the two of them made their way out of the park and down to Bart's Hospital. John tried to inquire about Stamford's mysterious friend, but he blankly refused to describe him.

"You'll just have to wait to meet him," Stamford said. "He outdoes any explanation I could give you."

Of course, this only drew John in further.

A short walk later and John found himself back in the familiar corridors of Bart's. Stamford took a left toward the labs and John followed him until they stopped in front of the last door on the right. Stamford peered in through the window, smiled, and gave a brief knock before opening the door. He entered the lab and held the door for John, who nodded appreciatively and followed, glancing around the room.

"Well," he said, "it's a bit different from my day."

Stamford smiled and nodded. "You have no idea."

"Mike, can I borrow your phone? There's no signal on mine."

John turned to source the unfamiliar voice when his eyes landed on a man a few tables down, back straight and delicately holding a pipette filled with… something. He was dressed in a suit that looked much more expensive than any John had ever owned, and he had delicate, pale features that were framed by a dark mass of curls. He contrasted greatly with Stamford's rounder, red-faced complexion, and John's own more golden hair and skin, bleached and tanned by the Afghan sun.

"And what's wrong with the landline?" Stamford asked the man, who still hadn't glanced in their direction.

"I prefer to text," he replied curtly.

Stamford set down his briefcase and rummaged briefly in his pockets. "Sorry," he said. "It's in my coat."

"Uh, here," John said, reaching into his own pocket without a second thought. "Use mine."

It was only then that it appeared that the man realised that Stamford hadn't entered the lab alone.

"Oh," he said, somewhat surprised. "Thank you." He glanced over to Stamford before looking back to John, who held out his phone in offering.

The man stood up from his place at the lab bench and walked over to accept John's phone, buttoning up his suit jacket as he did so. He was taller than both himself and Stamford, John observed, and probably slightly younger. The man looked somewhat odd, but John couldn't decide if it was more to do with his aristocracy—in both manner and appearance—or his intelligent, inquisitive eyes, which were currently locked onto John's own.

"An old friend of mine, John Watson," Stamford said, introducing them. John had almost forgotten that he was in the room, he was so caught up in the stranger's gaze.

Lips curling at the edges in an expression that he could only describe as smug, the man accepted John's phone and turned partially away from him, flipped the keypad open, and began to type.

"Afghanistan or Iraq?" he said, not taking his eyes away from the phone.

John frowned at him and looked over to Stamford, who smiled knowingly at him. The man continued to type.

"Sorry?" John asked, thinking he might have misunderstood the question.

"Which was it—Afghanistan or Iraq?"

This time, the man looked back at John, his eyebrows raised expectantly, awaiting an answer. John hesitated and glanced again at Mike, who nodded at him encouragingly.

"Afghanistan," John answered, his voice wary. "Sorry, but how did you…?"

"Ah, Molly!" the man interrupted, looking past John to the door of the lab, which had just been opened by a young woman wearing a lab coat. "Coffee! Thank you."

Molly timidly handed over a mug of coffee and the man gave a quick smile before immediately frowning at her.

"What happened to the lipstick?" he asked, handing the phone back to John, who looked around the room, uncomfortable at the sudden intrusion. Stamford didn't seem to be uncomfortable at all. In fact, he looked like he was enjoying himself.

"It, uh, wasn't working for me," Molly said, giving an awkward smile.

"Really? I thought it was a big improvement," the man replied, seemingly surprised at her statement. "Your mouth's too small now."

He turned away and walked back over to his bench. John wondered what kind of a man gave honest makeup advice to a woman in a laboratory. His mind supplied an answer and he tamped it down, ignoring his stereotypical thoughts.

Molly's smile faltered. "Okay," she said, her voice small and defeated, before scuttling back toward the door.

The man took a sip of the coffee and grimaced, putting it down before turning his attention to his laptop. He didn't look back at either John or Stamford.

"How do you feel about the violin?" the man asked.

John looked over his shoulder to see that Molly had already left the room. He looked then to Stamford, who smiled, but didn't answer the question. John could only assume that meant it was directed at him.

"I'm sorry, what?" John asked.

"I play the violin when I'm thinking. Sometimes I don't talk for days on end." The man stopped typing to look at John inquisitively. "Will that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other."

He smiled in a way that was either mocking or teasing, but John found that he couldn't tell the difference. He looked blankly at the man before turning to Stamford for answers.

"Oh, so you… you told him about me?" he asked.

Stamford shook his head as he inspected a beaker. "Not a word."

John looked back at the man, confused, and couldn't help but feel like there was a joke here that he didn't understand. "Then who said anything about flatmates?"

"I did," the man said, his back to them as he pulled on a long, dark coat. "Told Mike this morning that I must be a difficult man to find a flatmate for. Now, here he is just after lunch with an old friend, clearly just home from military service in Afghanistan. Wasn't that difficult a leap."

"How did you know about Afghanistan?" John asked, intrigued. The man wrapped a thin scarf around his neck and continued to gather his things.

The man ignored his question, checked his phone, and walked back over to John. "I've got my eye on a nice little place in central London. Together we should be able to afford it. We'll meet there tomorrow evening, seven o'clock. Sorry—got to dash," he quipped, smirking, "I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary."

John stood there, baffled at the exchange. And, though he might not know better anymore, it felt like he was being flirted with. Who knew, though? Maybe mentioning riding crops in casual conversation wasn't as suggestive as he thought it was.

"Is that it, then?" he asked hurriedly, before the man could walk out the door.

"Is that what?" The man turned back to him, hands in his pockets, one brow raised challengingly.

"We've only just met and we're going to go look at a flat," John deadpanned, still confused but now more intrigued than ever—was this man inviting him to be his roommate, or was he asking John on a date?

The man looked at him innocently. "Problem?"

John smiled in disbelief and looked across to Stamford in hope of some help, but his friend seemed to be content observing and didn't offer a word. John turned back to the man, whose eyes expressed amusement under dark lashes.

"We don't know a thing about each other," John said. "I don't know where we're meeting. I don't even know your name."

The man's eyes narrowed playfully as he examined John closely. "I know you're an Army doctor and you've been invalided home from Afghanistan," he started, tone and gaze sharpening. "I know you've got a brother who's worried about you, but you won't go to him for help because you don't approve of him, possibly because he's an alcoholic—more likely because he recently walked out on his wife." John stared at the man in disbelief, opening his mouth to speak, but he wasn't finished. "And I know that your therapist thinks your limp's psychosomatic—quite correctly, I'm afraid."

John looked down at his leg and cane, suddenly self-conscious of his limp, and wondered how on earth this man could have possibly known that it was psychosomatic. Even Harry didn't know that.

"That's enough to be going on," the man finished, lips quirked up in a self-satisfied smile. "Don't you think?"

He turned to leave the lab and John stared blankly, shocked, at where he had been if he had second thoughts about his abrupt dismissal, the man leaned back in through the open door, his eyes twinkling smugly.

"The name's Sherlock Holmes," he said, "and the address is 221B Baker Street." He grinned at John and had the audacity to wink at him before turning to Stamford. "Afternoon!"

Stamford raised a hand in farewell as Sherlock Holmes left the room, coat sweeping out widely as the door slammed behind him. Just like that, he was gone.

John stared at the door, his head buzzing with far more questions than answers, and looked over to Stamford, who simply smiled and said, "Yeah, he's always like that."

John's stay at the hospital didn't last long after Sherlock's departure; it was nearing the end of Stamford's break and John still needed to pick up those groceries, but his mind was spinning after his and Sherlock's conversation.

"Are you going to see him, then?" Stamford asked, interrupting John's thoughts as they shook hands.

John blinked, dazed. "Pardon?"

"Sherlock," Stamford clarified. "Tomorrow. Are you going to see him? At Baker Street."

John thought about it for a moment. Sherlock was a strange man, and not the type of person John would have previously considered as a potential flatmate at all. But, still, there was something about this man, something that had latched itself onto the back of John's mind, and he found that despite their strange encounter, he really did want to go meet with him. It felt strange—almost indulgent.

"Yeah," John said, smiling. "Yeah, I think I will."

Stamford clapped him on the back. "Good man," he said, grinning. "I had a feeling he'd like you."

Whatever Stamford meant by the statement, John didn't question it. He was too busy thinking about the next time he'd see Sherlock Holmes.

Credit to Arienne DeVere on LiveJournal for her wonderful transcript of the show.