A/N: Sorry for the shortness of the last chapter, see it as a prologue. This one is supposed to be longer.

||T H E W I N D C R I E S M A R Y||

It was Mary's super idea to go to Speedy's café. Speedy's was almost full, but they found themselves a private table in the back of the café.

John almost thought it was a joke; to invite him to a café, only steps from the apartment he and his dead roommate shared. Since she had seen John in the newspaper she would have known what happened to Sherlock Holmes.

She could be a journalist, John thought, one journalist that's after a new scoop. I've had my experience with that kind of women.

John tried to convince himself that it wasn't the case, the case of the Fake Genius was growing old and she worked in the supermarket, he saw it himself! John did his best to ignore these thoughts, which was easier than expected.

That day John actually learned a lot, he learned that Mary moved from India to London as a little girl after her mother's death, he learned her father was whit and she'd only met him a couple of times, he learned she had a roommate named Cecil Forrester, he learned that she got fired from her job in the clothing store because she accidentally tore down a mannequin and most of all he learned that he liked Mary Morstan, she wasn't like Mike Stamford and tried to cheer him up all the time nor was she Mrs. Hudson who offered to do anything for him, if it was one thing John hated it was to be treated as a victim, like the time he got home from Afghanistan he never let anyone hold the chair out for him or cook for him, before he met Sherlock.

Mary didn't learn much; John kept his answers short and didn't let out much information. What she got out of him was that he was medical doctor recently returned from Afghanistan, he played clarinet and worked at St Barts. He seemed sad, sort of. Sometimes it could almost look like he was enjoying himself then suddenly his smile would just melt off like ice. Mary had seen his name and picture in the newspaper, she remembered the first time she saw his name. She remembered John because of the funny hat. Her roommate Cecil showed her the article.

"Look!" She had said and pointed at the picture, "Look at the cute men with the funny hats."

The other man's name she didn't quite remember. Mary had just laughed of the article and forgotten about it. The second time she saw John's name was in one of the gossip magazines she sold to a customer when she worked at a newsstand. She never read the article but remembered the title "Bachelor John Watson."

"Soo…" She started, "Do you have many friends?"

"Not many," John said, he did his best to not look sad and looked away.

Mary tried to use the information she got to make a new conversation.

"Do you happen to know a woman named Molly Hooper?" Mary asked.

John stared at her. Mary didn't seen the kind of woman that would be friends with girls like Molly Hooper.

"Do you know her?" He asked shocked.

Mary shrugged her shoulders and looked at him. He wore a black coat over his knitted jumper and wore grey jeans. His hair was blond with some streaks of grey.

Looks like he knows her, she thought, good to hear that Molly have some friends.

"Well, we're just acquaintances, we went to school together," Mary said, looking at her half empty cup of coffee, Mary knew that if she drank more than a half cup of coffee she wouldn't be able to sleep for days.

"Oh, really?" John said half interested, he hadn't talked to Molly for months and he didn't really want to either, too many bad memories came to him when he saw her, she was one of the last people who saw Sherlock before he was laid in the ground.

John blinked to keep the tears away and cleared his throat, pretending he coughed.

He looked at Mary, trying to use Sherlock's methods of deductions. He failed to see anything he didn't already know. John couldn't decide if she was extremely beautiful or just plain normal. Her black hair was curly and reached her shoulders. She used a little mascara. She wore mostly blue, he assumed blue was her favorite color. She wore blue jeans, a blue jacket over green her t-shirt with the supermarkets logo on and a simple pearl necklace around her neck. She met his staring gaze and looked fast away. She checked her watch. The time was 4:50.

"This has been really fun, but by butt has fallen asleep so I think it's best for me to go," Mary said.

She got her purse and gave John an apologizing smile. She rose from her chair and walked towards the door, weird enough John followed, not caring enough to pay. It didn't seem like anyone noticed anyway. Outside the café it rained and the streets was empty of people. Mary who waved for a cab was already soaked. As a reflex she turned to see who came out of the door.

"Do you have a habit of running after people?" She asked, or shouted because of the loud sound of the rain.

"I'm sorry, I'm just-" John started, but got interrupted by the owner of the café.

"Hey! You know you have to pay!" The owner shouted after them from the door, trying not to become wet.

The owner was a big man with a big red beard.

"It was only two cups of coffee!" John shouted back.

Now he was soaked. Mary rolled her eyes and groaned.

"Do I have to pay everything for you today?"

From her purse she got her wallet and paid the owner. He gave John a

deadly glare and stormed into the café again. Mary looked down on her soaked shoes.

"Damn it! Those shoes were new!" She said and cursed.

Her wet mascara made her look like an angry raccoon, but of course John didn't say that aloud. She was one of the few women in the world that still looked fine with it. She sighed.

"Those times I wear mascara it has to rain!" She said, more annoyed than angry.

Maybe he just didn't want to be alone or maybe he just wanted to help, either way he invited her to his apartment to get dry. Mary gave him a grateful look.

"Thank you," she simply said, she lived on the other side of town and she knew Cecil would get furious and curious if she got home wet.

"It isn't far," John promised, he didn't know why but he felt sort of relived.

Empty. And quiet. That was the first words that struck her when she saw his apartment, because it was empty. It had no signs of someone even living in it. The apartment itself wasn't big; one bedroom, one bath and one kitchen and a living room in one. The living room had one sofa, one table, a cheap TV and a little bookshelf. The apartment was on its own way creepy, like a scene from a horror movie where a monster will in any moment appear and scare everybody. The whole apartment seemed to be painted in the same color, beige.

John helped her take off her wet jacket and hung it up on a clothes hanger. She moved towards the bookshelf. She had a habit of studding people's books.

Books can tell more about a person than you would ever imagine, her father once told her. She had herself a big book collection, most romance novels or fantasy novels. Mary saw herself as a hopeless romantic. Mary wasn't sure what the books were saying about John. In John's bookshelf it was one Simple Art of Murder, two Edgar Allan Poe books, four Agatha Christie novels and over ten other crime and psychology books.

"What do you think?"

She turned to see John with two cups of tea. He gave her one of them.

"Well, I can honestly say that I have read none of them," Mary said and took a sip of her tea.

"You don't read crime or mystery books?" He asked and nodded towards the sofa, inviting her to sit.

She sat down and sat her cup of tea on the table.

"I did as a child, but not anymore." She said, "Won't you sit down?"

The sofa was big enough for them both and John sat down.

"I'm thinking about becoming one," John said, not meeting her eyes.

Mary froze and sat her tea cup back in its saucer.

"What?" She asked, "a criminal?"

John laughed.

"No, a crime writer," he said.

"Oh, that's something quite different," Mary said and tried to do her best not to look embarrassed.

They sat like that for a while, not saying anything. Mary caught her reflection on the black TV screen. Her wet mascara made her look like a stupid raccoon and her hair looked like a bird's nest. She sighed.

"Can I use your bathroom?" Mary said and rose from the sofa.

John rose too and pointed on a door on the left side of the room. She smiled and disappeared into the bathroom.

After ten minutes Mary came out from the bathroom again. Her hair was back to normal and her wet mascara was gone. She looked warm and dry.

"I think it's time to go," Mary said, "Cecil will start to wonder where I am."

She got her jacket from the clothes hanger and took it on.

John opened the door for her. From her purse she gave him a note, her phone number and address. Her writing wasn't exactly beautiful, but readable. John couldn't help to smile, he was about to close the door when Mary called for him.

"When you start your book, please make me into a character!"

When John got back inside his apartment he sat down by his laptop in his room. He opened a new document and made the title "The Wind Cries Mary".

John wasn't sleeping at all that night, he was writing on his new book. The book was about a great man and a genius, a helper and a friend and a saving grace called Mary.

A/N: I think in the original stories John started as an detective, but I can't see that in this version. Anyway I was thinking about making this a whole story instead of a collecting of one-shots. What do you think I should do? And if you have an idea of what you want to see in the next chapter you can just say it on a review or say it to me in a message.