A/N: This was inspired by a prompt from mizjoely: soulmates au.
The first time John Watson had heard the phrase "laughing eyes," he was about five and someone had used it to describe some lady on the telly. He had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. How can eyes laugh? They don't even have mouths.
It was a few years later that he started to dream about a girl with blonde hair and large blue eyes. When she smiled, and she was so pretty when she smiled, her eyes lit up with happiness. And when she laughed, they were filled with mirth (another word he had learned from the telly). Even when she wasn't laughing, there was a mischievous look in her eyes.
Laughing eyes.
As he got older, he dreamed of the girl more often. She was his age and a tomboy, loving sports and going with her army officer father to the local shooting range. But she also loved baking with her mum, spending the day making bread and getting flour all over her apron and jeans.
He kept looking for her while he was awake but he never met anyone quite like her, not in school. Not in uni, though he dated plenty of girls. Not in the army, even though he thought a girl as proficient with a gun as her would end up in the army.
Not while running all over London after bad guys with Sherlock. Girlfriends came and went, just like at uni, but while he still dreamt of his perfect woman, he had yet to meet her.
Then came Sherlock's death and he was barely able to sleep, let alone dream.
He was in the surgery, eighteen months after losing his best friend, that one of the other doctors introduced him to the new nurse, Mary Morstan. He could feel his jaw drop when she turned around from putting away files to smile at him.
The same blonde hair. The same smile.
The same laughing eyes.
He wasted no time before asking her out. John wasn't about to let his dream woman get away.