An artist and a doctor. One wouldn't think the two would truly hit it off. One, left-brained, book smart, a former army man who had at one time in his life let a psychosomatic limp limit him from the adventure his entire life would later become. The other, a right-brained woman, creative, who traveled from Shanghai to Los Angeles while studying art, never once allowing life to pass her by whether it was a broken foot or a chipped tooth falling off a horse in New Zealand. A few hours before the date, after John had called out to Sherlock multiple times, knocking at his door, and eventually settling with leaving a note by that still sizzling "possibly mildly corrosive" solution to tell his partner that he was leaving, John had had his own doubts as well.
She was younger than him. ...possibly a lot younger than was comfortable. Eight, maybe ten years? However, they were both adults and wasn't she the one who had given him the number first? She was in her twenties, he in his thirties, but she was definitely no child. Jacklyn was a full grown woman capable of making her own decisions and if he had felt attraction toward her, and her him, than really, where was the harm? It was not uncommon that people got together with such a large age difference, rare, yes, but not uncommon. Did that even make sense? Sure. Sure it did, John thought to himself. It did.
He ended up taking a cab to her house, a small little one story house on the outskirts of London, away from the city. When he had knocked on her small white framed door, a young man, exactly twenty (John would learn this later after chatting with Jacklyn), with dark green eyes and dark brown hair opened the door, John had been a tad shocked and confused. He had thought he had called on the wrong house. He thought...until Jacklyn had introduced the lad a Ryan, her student. John had thought he had been interrupting a lesson, but it was soon revealed that Jacklyn and her student actually lived together. That seemed a bit...strange, but John only brushed it off as something different between the book world and the art world. Things tended to be more liberal.
The dinner went better than John could have hoped for. She laughed at his jokes, he marveled at her adventures...they found they had much more in common than they initially expected. They both lived with a strange and yet somehow charming flatmate, enjoyed reading (Jacklyn had even read John's blog), and enjoyed the same rush of adventure...to some extent. The best thing about Jacklyn was that she listened to him and that was a nice change from the shut in Sherlock or his friends that Sherlock claimed actually really disliked him.
A few hours passed and John managed to sneak away for a few minutes, calling Sherlock to see if they were still going to go to the symphony. After fruitless attempts to contact the self proclaimed detective, John took it upon himself to extend the invitation to Jackie. Once at the grandiose theatre, there was still no sign of Sherlock. After the couple had taken their seats in the velvet red chairs, the lights dimmed and sure enough as they went up John had discovered the reason for the unresponsiveness.
Sherlock Holmes stood center stage, violin in hand. He lifted his bow and began to play. John watched, mouth agape, knowing that surely Sherlock had found a way to inconvenience the actual violinist. Jacklyn almost asked, but John just nodded. No doubt the music was beautiful. Sherlock could play the violin well...better than well. One would think the man had spent a majority of his childhood at a conservatory for the arts instead of in a psychologists stuffy examination room.
After the show, and after John...and Sherlock...had seen Jackie home, the pair received a distressing call from Lestrade about a bank robbery. John and Jackie gave each other a quick parting kiss before the dynamic duo made their way into a cab. Sherlock made lightning fast observations about Ryan, the house, and even Jacklyn while waiting for them. The case Lestrade had posed for them was only two blocks away from Jacklyn's house. Close enough in Sherlock's mind to link the two seemingly separate cases. The vault had been completely cleared of thousands of pounds, slowly over the past few months. The same amount of time it would take to get from "Aardvark" to "Apothecary".