A/N: So I'm a dork and a patriot and I wanted to write something because it's Veteran's Day here in America, and this is what I came up with. In all seriousness, though, thank you to all our active duty and retired military members. Without y'all we wouldn't even be here, and we owe you far more than we can ever repay.
John had two jackets over the course of his time in the Army. The first had been issued after he'd graduated boot camp, tan camouflage with his last name, rank, and unit patch on it. Desert air and blowing sand did nothing good for clothing, but he had kept it until it had been run ragged by the elements. But he couldn't bring himself to just get rid of it when they issued him another, so he had put it away in storage, thinking maybe one day he'd wear it again, when he got home. His second had been essentially the same as his first, except this time, thanks to his diligence, there were a few more stripes in the rank. That one had proved slightly more weather resistant, and he had kept that up until the day he was shot. After that, the jacket had been in no state to be worn by anybody, and once he had woken up from his surgery, they had disposed of it. The first one was still sitting in his closet, one of the few possessions he kept from his tours.
When he had finally gotten home for good, he had pulled his original jacket out of storage and given it a quick look-over. It was just as rough as ever, but he felt no desire to keep it after what had happened. So, he had taken it to a shop and donated it. After that, he had given it no more thought, figuring he would never see it again. The jacket had sat for a while in the store, and when it was finally purchased, its second owner spent no time wondering about its first. After not too long, he had sold it himself; he'd only bought it to serve as part of a Halloween costume, and once the party was over, found that he had no more use for it. So back to another store it had gone, sitting for a while more, overlooked.
Jess and Tyler made their way into the shop, not really sure what they were looking for. Just browsing, and being broke teenagers, with the combined money to buy maybe one thing. Jess jumped between the aisles erratically, as was her wont, barely giving the coats a glance. The edge of the jacket caught her eye, and as she moved on she thought that was something Tyler might like. Tyler went methodically up and down each row, looking for anything interesting or unusual; as Jess had predicted, the battered old Army jacket caught his eye, and he pulled it off of the rack, giving it a once-over.
"Hey Jess," he called out, "what do you think of this?" She wandered back over and looked at it. She nodded, finding herself inordinately fascinated with it, though for no particular reason.
"It's neat. I wonder who it belonged to." She picked up the price tag. "Ten quid. We've got that, if you want to get it. Try it on, let's see if it fits you." Tyler slipped off the plain grey coat he was wearing and pulled the tan jacket on. The sleeves and body were the right length, but whoever had owned it before had been just a little broader about the shoulders. Jess laughed appreciatively at him.
"Does it look okay?" he asked her, slightly concerned that her first reaction had been to burst out laughing. She nodded at him.
"It really suits you. And it fits, mostly. You should get it."
"You seem very set on it for the one that's not actually going to be doing the wearing." Jess shrugged at him, trying to explain her interest.
"I don't know, it's just really catching my mind; I wonder who's it was before it got here." She reached out and touched the name tag stitched onto the upper right pocket. "'Watson'. It only looks a couple years old, but it's been run ragged."
"Well, it probably spent some time in a war zone," Tyler reminded her. "Not much of a surprise that it's a little disheveled. So do you want to get it?" Jess nodded enthusiastically.
"Yeah, I want to find out who he was. We should give it back to him."
"You know, if he got rid of it, he probably doesn't want it back," Tyler pointed out. "And it would be kind of creepy to trace some guy down and just randomly tell him you've got his old Army jacket. Besides, how would you find him? I can almost guarantee you there's more than one Watson in the phonebook." Jess bit her lip, then smiled triumphantly.
"Well, that's his unit patch," she pointed to the patch on the arm, "and that says what his rank is. We've got his unit, his rank, and his last name. We can find him. And even if he doesn't want it, we can at least offer it back." She didn't seem to have registered his bit about not accosting random people, and Tyler shook his head, resigned. She'd never give up now, so he may as well help her; try and spare the poor guy a bit of confusion on the extremely off chance they did track him down.
"Alright then, let's see if we can find him." Jess smiled happily. They purchased the jacket and took it back to Tyler's house, where they began their search. They found the unit patch online quickly. It was from the Royal Army Medical Corps. So he's a doctor, Jess thought. However, a search of the personnel listed in the RAMC with that rank and last name came up bust. Jess bit her lip and scowled at the computer.
"Come on Dr. Watson, where are you?" she muttered.
"Try taking the rank out and just looking for the name," Tyler suggested. "This thing's a couple years old; he might have gotten promoted, or retired." Jess redid the search with just his name, and this time she turned up a result.
"Got one!" she called out. "Doctor John Watson, Royal Army Medical Corps, retired. You were right, Tyler." Tyler arched his eyebrows. He was surprised Jess had gotten a result, but he had to admit that as time went on her idea was starting to sound a little less crazy. Just a little.
"So do you think it's really his, or what?" he asked her. She shrugged and shook her head in uncertainty.
"Let's see if we can find him on the internet," she replied. She googled his name, and something actually came up. "He has a blog. And apparently he leads a very interesting life…" It was her turn to arch an eyebrow. The man seemed to spend more time getting shot at in London than he had in Afghanistan. She scrolled up and down, but she couldn't find where he lived. Finally, she went to the other man's site, something about the Science of Deduction, and it listed their address as 221B Baker Street. Tyler caught the look on her face and decided to cut her off at the pass.
"You are not going to this guy's house. That would be just plain stalker."
"It would not be!" Jess responded indignantly. "I just want to talk to him. If it's not his, we can just go and try again."
"And if it is his? He'll think we've gone round the bend if we come up to him and just start rambling."
"We can give it a shot, can't we? Please?" Jess gave him a puppy dog look, and despite himself he quickly caved. He sighed heavily, and shook his head. He was trying not to picture the myriad ways in which this plan of theirs could go sour.
"Fine. Let's see if we can catch him at home."
John opened the fridge, scanning for anything fit for human consumption. Not a whole lot, at least not a whole lot that wouldn't give him either food poisoning or nightmares for a week. He rolled his eyes. He kept swearing to himself that next time, damn it all, he would make Sherlock go and get the shopping, but then he remembered that when they weren't on a case the detective had the attention span of a fly. John had taken him along one time and had spent twenty minutes trying to get him out of the frozen foods section, and the twenty minutes after that apologizing profusely to the store owner and trying not to get thrown out.
"I'm going to get the shopping." He dashed out the door. The trip was quick, but as he headed back to his door with the bags, he heard someone call out,
"Excuse me!" He turned. Two teenagers, a boy and a girl, were coming toward him. "Um, I'm looking for Dr. John Watson," the girl told him. She gave him a bright smile and gave the boy an 'I told you so' look. He was intensely confused, but he'd seen weirder since he met Sherlock, so he easily covered it up.
"That's me, actually. Who are you?"
"My name's Jess and this is Tyler," she told him. "Actually, we think we might have found something that belongs to you." She pulled the jacket off Tyler's arm and held it out to John. "Is this yours?" John's heart just about stopped when he saw it.
"Yeah, that was mine, but where on earth did you find it? I gave that thing away a year ago." Jess seemed not to notice his shock, so Tyler explained.
"We found it in a shop the other day, and wondered who it belonged to, so we decided to see if we could find out. We just wanted to see whose it was." John was starting to recover from his surprise, and remembered his manners.
"Um, would you like come in? I just got back from the store." Jess smiled at him again.
"Oh, its fine, we just wanted to see if it really was yours. You can keep it if you like." The two turned to leave, but after a second Jess turned back around. "And also, we wanted to say, thank you." She gave him a bright smile and dashed off after Tyler. John stared after the two, still thoroughly surprised. He touched the jacket, then folded it over his arm and picked the bags back up. He went up the stairs and into the living room, where Sherlock was looking at him.
"You saw all of that, didn't you?" John asked him. He nodded, but kept typing at his laptop. John dumped the groceries on a clean spot of the kitchen table and went to the living room, jacket still tucked over his arm. He placed it on the coffee table and stared at it. Competing emotions swirled inside of him.
"That was yours," Sherlock stated, moving over on the couch to join him. John nodded.
"This was the first jacket I was issued when I joined the Army. I gave it away when I got back, but those two found it and returned it."
"Why did you get rid of it?" Sherlock gave him his usual piercing stare, but it was an honest question. John shrugged.
"I don't know. At first I figured I'd keep it, but after I got shot I just didn't want it anymore. When I got back I took it out of storage and gave it away."
"What changed?" John looked confused, so Sherlock elaborated. "You kept it before you were shot but got rid of it after. What changed in between?" John sighed heavily and tried to articulate his answer.
"When I got back after I was shot, I didn't have anywhere to go, or anyone to turn to, or anything to be there for. I was just kind of… empty. And this reminded me of why, and it reminded me of when I wasn't like that, so I just… got rid of it." John stared off into the distance, his mind back in the desert, and the dark days of the time he'd spent just wandering, looking for something to be.
"If it reminds you of all these things, then why did you keep it when they gave it back to you?" Sherlock's voice broke in on his thoughts, taking him back to the present. John looked at him and smiled.
"Because I'm not empty anymore." The unspoken part of his sentence echoed between them, and Sherlock smiled back. The two men sat in peaceful silence for a while. Finally, Sherlock's phone buzzed with a text.
"It's Lestrade. Grab your coat, we've got a case." He bolted off after his own, and John stood up, refocusing his mind on the present. He looked around for his own coat, but he couldn't seem to find it off-hand. His gaze settled on the battered, rough looking old Army jacket. He smiled slightly to himself and reached down to pick it up. For the first time in almost two years, he pulled it on.
He met Sherlock at the door and gave him another smile. "Let's go, then."