"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment." - Buddha

March 11th

Why are doctors such terrible patients?

"I'm perfectly fit to go home!"

"Miss Watson - look -"

"Miss Watson?! Are you kidding me? Of all the titles -"

"Jane. Please. Let's just walk out shall we?" Sherlock turned to glare at the offending doctor. "He won't stop us tomorrow morning, will he?" The unfortunate Dr. Sawyer cowered under the detective's glare, being nearly a foot shorter.

"Oh. Um. Of course not. Dr. Watson will be discharged tomorrow morning with - with as little fuss as possible.

Sherlock couldn't help but panic slightly behind his cool exterior. If Jane came home to 221B before her cast came off, he might have to help her up and down the stairs. Would she even allow that? What about safety? Lying in a hospital bed grumpily watching crap tele while Sherlock sat nearby working on cold case files was far safer than sitting at home with Mrs. Hudson. Should he stay home? Could he stay home without causing chaos? Sherlock decided to remain in the flat with Jane as long as he could.

"Well, this should be interesting, at least," he thought.

(March 20th)

"Sherlock, get off the couch. You've been staring at the ceiling for three hours. Even listening to you yelling at the tele is better than that."

"What? Why?"

"It's weird. You've barely blinked. Don't meditate yourself into a coma, boy-wonder; I need your long-legged brain-transport to run errands for another couple months."

"Ah... right." Jane went back to her incessant typing as Sherlock swung his legs over, stood up, and stepped over the table.

"Is that necessary?" Jane snapped, not even glancing up.

"What, stepping on the table?"

"Yes."

"I always do that."

"Yes. You step on the table I may want to set my plate down on sometime. Remind me never to eat food that falls on it."

Since she didn't seem to be paying much attention to him anymore, he quickly backed through the kitchen into his room. He'd spent most of the past week in his room, actually. Sherlock never thought he would find himself avoiding his flatmate, except maybe when she was infatuated with the latest boyfriend. She had been either eerily indifferent or disconcertingly irritable since she came home.

"I wish I could just confront her. She's accused me of avoiding confrontation before, but I know very well that I'm skilled at doing it to others. I don't want her to get upset. There's no way to tell what the source of her anger is at this point, and I would rather not discover it to be me and provoke her into leaving... Leaving the flat." I was not about say "leaving me"! his brain protested quietly. "I want her safe. This won't do. I have to keep an eye on her, and she's pushing me away."

"DAMMIT JIM." The outburst was accompanied by an impressive crash. Eyes wide, Jane hurried over to Sherlock's door and pounded on it.

"Sherlock, what've you done?" The door was yanked open to reveal a slightly out-of-breath Holmes and a half-destroyed bookshelf on the floor. "Good God, man."

"Er - sorry. Just - a temper tantrum I suppose."

"A temper tantrum?!" Jane shouted. "Have you LOST YOUR MIND?"

Her outrage only served to aggravate him further, and he took a long, sweeping step closer, bellowing right back.

"APPARENTLY I HAVE. Thank you, thank YOU, Jane Watson!"

"What? What do I have to do with it, you lunatic?!"

"EVERYTHING. It's always EVERYTHING with you now! DISTRACTIONS!"

"What?!" Without thinking, her flatmate got in Jane's face.

"You! You are a distraction! IRENE wasn't as bad a distraction! Do you have ANY IDEA what happened to me while you were with Moriarty, Jane?! I HAD A NIGHTMARE ABOUT FINDING YOU DEAD! A nightmare! And then I see what he's telling you! And it doesn't matter if you stop trusting me, because even if I got you out, IT WAS MY FAULT IN THE FIRST PLACE."

Jane gaped at him in shock as he cut off the rest of his rant, his normally pink and bowed mouth pressed thin and as pale as his skin.

"If - but - I - You did - What -" She choked back her consternation, backed away, and hobbled up to her room. "What the hell just happened?" She pushed it out of her mind as best she could and picked up the novel she'd been half-way into when Moriarty grabbed her.

Sherlock could not believe what he'd just done. He was relieved when her door didn't slam shut, which would mean that she wasn't angry, just alarmed and probably confused. He knew he never should have allowed himself to get so out of control. Getting in Jane's space like that was likely a frightening experience for her, especially after what happened. He wasn't exactly sure how much of his rant had come out of his mouth, either, which was concerning. He resorted to methods similar to Jane's: pulled a stool up to the table in the kitchen and immersed himself in an experiment.