Alrighty. So, this is my second fanfiction ever. The first one didn't work out so I'm starting afresh. I really want to get it right and I feel like the thing I need to work on is correctly adhering to a character's personality. So, if I ever misrepresent a character, I beg of you: LET ME KNOW. I take criticism (or any other form of feedback) well. If you read it, please review. I'll love you bunches!

~M.

i

"I know a body!"

"I don't care who you know, Donna, I don't want to go out."

Donna glared at her over the table. Rose nibbled at her chips and did her best to make it obvious. She had no intention whatsoever of dating anyone. She was in a long-term relationship with two imaginary men and a third "body" would complicate things.

"But you'll love him! He's handsome." She raised her eyebrows in the dingy tea shop. The lighting was colored amber and it was evening, so everything appeared as dim as it felt. Rose rolled her eyes at her friend.

"Well, he's also older and we both know men your own age don't work for you." Rose glared. Finally, in a last-ditch effort: "Let me tell you, if you get with this bloke, you'll be set for life! He's got a steady job, a level head…"

"Oh, yeah, what does he do? Does he work in your office?"

Donna made her signature snorting laugh. "Heavens, no! He's a doctor!" She was just about to go on a ramble about how wonderful it would be if Rose ended up with somebody respectable, but she stopped when she realized Rose was balking.

Rose's ears had perked up and she her eyebrows furrowed. Something about that sounded…nice.

"A…doctor?" Donna ran with it.

"I knew it!" her voice bellowed in the un-attractive way only Donna Noble could make sound lovable. "You're going to adore him and you'll marry and—dammit, Rose you'd better as hell make me your maid of honor! You remember when you're off getting engaged that I was the one who put you two together!" Just like that, she was already talking about marriage. Rose didn't seem to mind for once; for some reason, just the thought of meeting a doctor sounded right and it perplexed her.

ii

Two weeks later, Rose Tyler was sitting at a table in a restaurant waiting for her mysterious doctor. Donna had given them each the other's mobile number, but it had taken several attempts to get an actual date. He kept cancelling, rescheduling, and even stood her up once. He apologized over the phone profusely and, for some reason, Rose kept giving him another chance. She understood he was a doctor, but it did seem odd that he could have that many emergencies with his patients in a two-week period. She was beginning to wonder if he was just trying to blow her off, but his contrite apologies and insistence upon rescheduling clearly disproved that theory.

Yet, she was beginning to question that conclusion. Again. He was already twenty minutes late and Rose was staring at the phone with a sort of resigned expectancy. Any moment now, she thought. Unless this time he figured he'll just make it obvious he's not interested by completely breaking off communication. For all I know he's already put me on Call Reject.

Just as she was standing up to leave, she saw a man with a cane in a really unattractive beige jumper looking anxiously around the room, standing at the entrance. She squinted. Donna said he'd be wearing a god-awful jumper, but she never mentioned a cane. Could be him, she thought. She took a chance, raising her eyebrows as she smiled and waved at him.

He noticed and looked relieved. He limped forward with stiff steps across the room. As he got a few yards away from their table, he almost ran into a waitress. Turning back to Rose in his disorientation, he tripped over himself and spilled the wine glass on the table onto Rose's lap. She made a little noise and stood up. Cursing, he grabbed a napkin and offered it to her. She grabbed it a little too harshly and began to rub furiously at her borrowed red blouse (Donna's going to kill me).

"Agh! I'm so—damn, I'm so sorry, Rose, I…" She looked up at him. He stopped as their eyes made contact. "Uh…you are Rose, right?"

She broke out into laughter and he began to chuckle with her. People around the room were beginning to stare a little, but the two lunatics didn't seem to care much. She snorted and covered her mouth with the napkin as her tongue poked out between her teeth.

"Ye—yeah. Rose Tyler. Glad to meet you," she forced out between laughter. She held out her hand and he took it, laughing along.

"John Watson. Same."

iii

And that was it—the beginning. A month or so later, they both discovered that Donna was right. He was nice, he was kind, he was patient, and he was mature. Unlike her last several boyfriends. And Rose decided that she truly liked him.

It wasn't like Rose to attach herself to anyone quickly, especially a man about ten years her senior. But she was okay with it because there was something between them. He had an understanding of her pain, even if they never talked about it. It was as if they both had loved dangerous people and the aftereffects left them reeling. She was glad they never talked about it, though, because she couldn't very well say, "It's the men in my dreams." Which was also a boon for John, since he couldn't very well tell the woman he was dating that his crazy roommate was the reason he always cancelled at the last minute or that he had sabotaged his last dozen relationships.

Rose didn't really mind when John would flake out and she never asked for specifics. She wasn't attached to John the way Donna might have liked her to; instead, he felt more like someone who gave value to her life rather than someone with the potential to become the center of it. She told Donna as often as possible to stop mentally designing her bride's maid gown; she wasn't that interested.

"Yet!" Donna would say. "Who knows? Maybe it's love! Oi! Now you owe me. Go find me an incredible bloke with a great job." As always, Rose would roll her eyes and laugh. It was silly because, frankly, she couldn't even imagine kissing John yet alone marrying him. There was no spark of romance, only the hint of a blooming friendship.

John, however, very much wanted this to work. Not necessarily because he was smitten. It was more because he was just plain tired. Sherlock had insulted, experimented, and deduced away practically every good woman in London. At this point, John cared enough about Rose to realize if he didn't tell her about the unique difficulties of being Sherlock Holmes' blogger it would only make matters worse. He determined that he had to warn her, arm her so to speak, or she would hate him later.

Rose's phone rang. John Watson lit up on her caller ID and she smiled despite herself. It was 6 in the morning and she hadn't slept at all last night. Fed-up with dreams of her leather-clad savior, she drank a pot of coffee in order to self-induce insomnia and spent all night reading classic novels and watching Firefly reruns. She felt like the walking dead when she picked up the phone, but did her best to sound perky.

"Hey. What's up?" Her voice came out in a dull monotone. She shrugged. Definitely not perky, but at least I tried.

"I was wondering if you'd like to have dinner tonight." The army doctor didn't really know how to sound cordial; he always sounded as if he were giving orders. Rose chuckled.

"Yeah…um, that sounds nice. But you sound a little tense…is everything alright?" She heard hesitation over the line.

"I…I was hoping you could come over to my place for dinner."

"Oh…would Charlie—no. Sorry," she laughed. "I can't remember the name of your roommate—would he be okay with that?"

"Uh…yeah, actually, I was hoping you could meet Sherlock." They both laughed.

"I still can't believe anyone could name their child that unless it was out of malice, but okay. I'll come over."

John smiled as he hung up the phone.

"Hm. You must be serious about this one if you are encouraging her to meet me," a voice from behind him sighed. "So," Sherlock sat up on the couch. "Is she another teacher? Another one of Sarah's friends?" John twiddled his thumbs and didn't turn around to meet Sherlock's eye.

"She's…," he huffed momentarily then became instantly indignant. "She's a shop girl."

He could practically hear Sherlock's eyebrows shoot up. "A shop girl? Really, John, I thought your expectations were a bit higher than that…"

John jumped up and strode to the kitchen for tea. He didn't want to have this conversation. He'd already gotten an earful from Harry.

"…but, given your propensity to overlook practicality in relationships…," Sherlock heard John snort from the other side of the room. Nail on the head, John quipped internally. Sherlock didn't finish his sentence.

iv

It was an overcast night. Clouds had greyed the sky all morning and afternoon. Now that it was dark, the smell of impending showers loomed. The wind was cold and penetrated through to Rose's bones. She huffed and clutched at her arms, watching her breath turn to fog in the freezing nighttime air. The sweater wasn't anywhere near thick enough.

"Hey, you cold?" she heard John ask behind her. A heavy jacket was laid over her shoulders and she turned to smile at him.

"Thanks, babe." She didn't know why she'd decided to give him a pet name and it didn't taste right on her tongue, but he seemed to like it. He threw his arm around her shoulders and drew her in close as they strolled along the sidewalk in the streetlight. They were walking to his apartment from the car; he'd parked a ways away in order to stretch out the time. He told her he wanted to get some air. In all honesty, he was just scared the most longsuffering woman he'd ever met would break it off the moment she set foot in 221B Baker Street. Her teeth chattered.

Rose lifted her foot as they reached the steps of the apartment, but John clutched her waist and pulled her back. She looked up a little confused. His face was the symbol of apologetic.

"Um…listen, I think there's something you should know…about Sherlock." A pause. "But…uh. I'm not really certain what it is." She chortled at the ridiculousness of the comment, but he looked at her deadly serious. The laughter faded.

"What—what's wrong with him? Is he like…a serial killer or something?" She couldn't help but giggle a little again, but his face silenced her a second time.

"Eh…no. Not exactly." Her eyes widened.

"What do you mean, 'Not exactly'?!"

"Well, I mean, not at all—but he's been accused of having…that sort of mindset."

"Murderous?"

"Sociopathic."

There was a long pause between the two. Clouds of mist floated in the air from their open lips. Sirens blared in the distance.

"Okay," she said, sounding a bit too determined. "Let's go meet the regent psycho." She pecked him on the lips and smiled before bounding up the stairs to look down at him expectantly. Slowly, a grin spread across his face and he limped up the stairs to open the door for her.

v

At dinner, Sherlock was fairly quiet. He barely made a sound when he met Rose, giving her a tight-lipped smile that looked so forced she wondered if he was planning how he would kill her in her sleep. She smiled back.

They sat at the tiny dining room table, John's chicken parmesan steaming from their plates. Their landlady, Mrs. Hudson, had been unable to make it and when Sherlock told John, his entire face went pale. Rose couldn't decide it that was because he wanted more people at the table to help even out Sherlock's strange demeanor or if he was afraid Sherlock had murdered Mrs. Hudson and stashed her body in the recycling bin out in the back.

"So, what do you do?" Rose asked, swallowing down the chicken a little too forcefully as these morbid fantasies raced through her mind.

His eyes met hers languidly. "I am…," he looked over to John and back to her. His face contorted into that creepy smile again. "I work in sales." Rose raised an eyebrow and shifted her eyes to John. He avoided looking at her. She could tell it was a lie—a lie John told him to tell me—but she wasn't about to point it out.

Sherlock emptied the last of the port into his glass. Desperate to do something distracting, she stood up.

"I'll go get the other bott—"

"NO!" John bolted out of his chair. She froze, staring at him like he was a lunatic. Realizing his mistake, he chuckled and glanced back and forth between her and Sherlock.

"I…I mean, why should you do that? You're the guest. I'll go get it." With that, he dashed out of the room towards the kitchen. She sat back down and stared after him.

Turning, her eyes met Sherlock's. He was just about to give her the creepy smile again, she could tell, so she raised her hand and held it in front of him. His eyebrows twitched.

"Don't. You. Dare. Give me that damn smirk. I swear, I'll never stop having nightmares." Then, he smiled. An actual smile.

"I don't think I could have faked it much longer anyway," he chuckled.

"Well, you were doing a piss-poor job of it, so don't even complain."

They looked at each other. This was exactly the sort of sincerity it seemed John had tried to preempt.

"Alright, so give it up." He raised his eyebrows in response, fingertips meeting at his chin.

"Give what up?"

"Don't play dumb with me," she jerked her thumb in the direction John had stumbled. "What's in the kitchen?"

"Human body parts," he answered much too quickly. Her mouth fell open. He grinned.

John came back into the room to be met with this scene. Rose's thumb frozen midair, mouth hanging open, and Sherlock looking far too smug for John's liking.

He rammed the bottle down on the table as harshly as he could without shattering the glass.

"Dammit, Sherlock, what did you do?! Deduce her darkest secrets? Psycho-analyze her life choices? What could you possibly dislike about her!?" His arms gestured wildly.

Sherlock's eyebrows rose into a curly mop of black hair. "Nothing. Actually, I rather like this one." John looked startled.

Rose narrowed her eyes at Sherlock. "I take it that's uncommon."

"Very."

"Flattered."

He smiled in response. Rose rolled her eyes and went back to eating. She didn't even care if he was telling the truth; surprisingly, having her fears mocked made her feel almost at ease. And, although she'd never admit it…she kind of liked him, too.