AN: As I said on my other story, sorry for the delay. I am working on five different writing projects and trying to juggle them is hard. For those of you who are curious: next chapter is Sherlock's perspective.

Sherlock was still asleep when John headed out to his group meeting. He'd still been up when John had gone to bed, but had also indicated that he still wanted John with him in his room. They'd begun doing so during the whole horror of the case with K. It wasn't exactly platonic, but it wasn't sexual, either. Sherlock usually used Hamish as a large fuzzy block that kept the two of them from touching. On top of that, he sometimes told John to sleep upstairs, and when Sherlock wasn't there John slept upstairs as well. So John had fallen asleep alone, but woke up to a Hamish barrier. He tried not to make a lot of noise as he got ready and headed out. It was only ten-thirty, and the meeting wasn't until noon, but he was going to walk there. It helped clear out his brain.

As usual, once he got up to Dr. Dodson's office, someone was already there. Eli, the group's self-proclaimed "elder statesman" always showed up before anyone else. Today John was also greeted by Peter, who had apparently returned from his delayed honeymoon in Europe (the first one had been delayed by some sort of hospitalization of his wife).

"You're very pale for someone who just was in Greece," John said to Peter as he sat down. John knew that had been the last destination in the trip. He didn't show any signs of having been in the sun, besides a few light streaks in his long hair and beard.

"I don't tan. I burn. My wife has a lovely tan, though."

"I take it you had a good time?" John asked.

"Most excellent, thank you." He smiled broadly.

"Gloria got married while you were gone," Eli said to Peter. Gloria was Gloria Yellowfox, the person who had introduced John to the group. John knew the man she'd married, Graham, slightly from the K case.

"Oh, she did?"

"Yes, but they're not going anywhere yet."

"Another delayed honeymoon. I've started a trend," Peter said with a chuckle.

"Are you all right?" Eli asked John. Eli always took the time to check in with each group member individually.

"I suppose. No new dramas. He hasn't gotten high in a while but I'm not betting that will continue. And an old friend has tried to contact him, but he doesn't want to speak to him."

As soon as John finished his sentence Dr. Dodson came into the room. He sat down off to the side of the circle of chairs. He always tried to let the group conduct itself as much as possible, and mostly asked for specific information or would give them an impromptu psychiatric lesson if no one felt particularly chatty.

Only a few minutes after Dr. Dodson came in, Mari walked through the door. A heavyset woman with bright red hair, she had attended the group the second longest. "Peter!" she said as she searched for a chair. "How was Europe?"

"Very good, thank you. And you're the first person to not say I didn't get a tan."

"You mentioned once you never tan."

"No one but you was listening, then." Mari and Peter laughed.

"John? How are you?" She sat in a nearby chair.

"Tired," he said. "No new dramas but I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"I'll ask for more at the start of the meeting, then." Mari was a big believer in letting the whole group hear everyone's troubles.

The group members chatted amongst themselves as they waited for the other members to arrive. Rodney arrived shortly after Mari, and shuffled his way to a chair, not saying anything. The bleached tips of his black hair were now dyed a brilliant electric blue. Gloria and Jason came through the door at the same time. "Guess whose daughter is at the top of her class?" said a grinning Jason.

"Yours," said Eli, sounding satisfied.

"And guess whose brother got a job?" Gloria took a seat right next to John, while Jason sat next to Mari. She was about his height, but much smaller, chestnut-skinned and high-cheekboned.

"What's he doing?" John asked. He'd met her husband's brother, Martin, a few times. He knew that Martin had been living with Graham and Gloria for a while, first coming off drugs and then looking for work and looking after their son, Angus. Martin and Graham were part of a set of triplets and were very close. Their older sister had also crawled out of the pit K had put them in, but their brother had not.

"Working in a creche, believe it or not. He's loved taking care of our son."

"I hope it goes well," John said.

The meeting was just about to begin when Tammy dashed through the door. "Just in time," she gasped out as she sat, her long blond hair sweeping off to one side.

"All right, let's get started," Dr. Dodson said. "Does anyone have anything they want to bring up first?" After a few shakes of the head, he said: "Very well, let's go around the group. Eli?"

"Fine," he said, smiling.

"Peter?"

"The honeymoon was wonderful, and nothing came up then."

"John?"

"You're thinking about something," Mari said before he could respond.

"Kind of, yes."

"We'll get to that later, then. Mari?"

"Nothing new. Still sober. I think I may be able to bring his friend in once. He's wearing down." Mari's husband's best friend had apparently seen him being abused when he was a teenager, and it ate at him tremendously.

"Rodney?"

"She went to work every day this week. So that's good."

"Yes that is. Tammy?"

"Six months sober! We're going out to eat tonight. Her choice."

"Congratulations. Gloria?"

"Well, as I said before, his brother got a job. He's still clean too."

"Good for him. Jason?"

"It's been a good week. Almost like before I found out."

"So John has been the only one who's had any big problems this week?" Dr. Dodson looked around at the group.

"Apparently," John said with a sigh. "It's not really a new thing, though."

"What's the old thing, then?" Eli asked.

"I was thinking this week that he was a lot more comfortable with touching me before we got into whatever our relationship is now."

"Romantic?" Tammy said.

"I guess you can call it that. If there's a romance with no dates or touching and a giant stuffed animal seperates the two of you in bed every night."

"Is that different from before?" Gloria looked him right in the eye.

"Yes," John said after a moment of silence, not believing he was admitting all this.

"What's different besides that?"

"He's so much more cautious around me."

"No intimacy." Peter said it as a fact, not a question.

John shook his head. "I don't know if he'd ever let me. I wouldn't even say he's afraid of it - it's more sheer terror and panic."

"And there's more." Peter used the same tone he had before. John knew that he and his wife had intimacy issues and hadn't actually had sex, but he hadn't thought of their situations as similar.

"Because he said he'd choose her over me." John's words hung in the air.

Peter nodded knowingly. "And?" He didn't want to seem to let John abridge.

"He gets off to what she did to him. He has fantasies about it. He's even said if she took him back he'd go with her without a second glance!" John had started to talk in a normal voice, but by the end his face was red with shouting. He hadn't thought about the implications of this before, but suddenly he felt furious with Sherlock.

Peter actually smiled after his outburst. "How long did this go on?" he asked John.

"Ten years, I think."

"How old was he when it started?

"Four."

"You have to remember that every single sexual impulse he has has been changed by his experiences. Most of us remember really experiencing sexual desire in our early teens, right? By the time he got to thirteen he'd already had hundreds of sexual experiences."

"Are you saying he liked those?" All his anger melted away from Sherlock and towards Peter. He barely resisted the urge to jump out of his chair and deck him.

"It's more than that. He most likely found a lot of it painful and scary. Sometimes it felt good, but it always had menace. Sex is always all of those things. And you're both a different person and a different gender. You know what he's thinking? 'What if this is even worse?' You have two choices: one is painful and scary, but sometimes good, and you know what it's like. The other is totally unknown, but along the lines of the same thing. Do you go with the known, or try the other one? You'd probably go to the known one, right?" Peter folded his hands in front of him. "Are you really surprised he doesn't want to see what's behind the other door?"

Before John could say anything, Rodney spoke up. "And I'm sure he loves that other person. He has to; otherwise he can't rationalize any pain he was caused."

John felt his mobile vibrate in his pocket, and cursed. He'd have to answer it, in case it was a crisis involving Sherlock, but he'd felt almost on the verge of a breakthrough. "Mobile's ringing. Mind if I step out?"

"Take the call," Dr. Dodson said, and gestured to the door.

John headed out and picked up the mobile on the third ring. "John? It's Lou George. I'm usually not in the office on Sundays, but can you stop by? It's important."