The long forgotten smell of scrambled eggs woke John that morning. He lay in bed as the sun streamed in through his window and he wondered why Sherlock would be making breakfast at this hour. He didn't even eat it most of the time unless John made him and let Sherlock steal some of John's strawberry jam to go with it.
Oh... never mind. The thought hit John as he remembered that it wasn't Sherlock that was cooking the breakfast. He closed his eyes and ran his hand across his face, it was The Doctor, and he was messing around into the kitchen again. Just what John needed to start his day.
As John tried to ignore the dull ache in his shoulder, he waited for the sound of breaking dishes. Hearing none, he decided it might be wise to go check on his new flat mate before he set himself or the kitchen on fire. As John was getting dressed he got a text message from Mycroft.
How is it going?: M.H
Of all the people in the word to dump on me you had to pick him. Why does he need to be here again?: J.W
He needs you and you need him: M.H
I don't need anyone and no one can help him, besides a psychiatrist: J.W
You would be surprised. You are not the only one who has lost his way, John.
Take care of him, it will be good for you. You are not that much different from each other. Have fun shopping: M.H
John mentally groaned at the reminder that this was the day that they had to go food shopping, hopefully they could get it over with as fast and as painlessly as possible.
He needs you. Take care of him, you are not that much different. Mycroft's words ran through John's mind as he painfully pulled a dark grey jumper over his head. The cold weather was making his shoulder hurt more than it usually did and he remembered Mycroft's threat of making him move to a place with around the clock supervision and care unless John decided to behave himself.
Maybe it wouldn't hurt to give The Doctor a tiny chance, he didn't think Mycroft knew what he was talking about when he said that John needed The Doctor and The Doctor needed John and to take care of him, but it might get Mycroft off his back for a little while at least.
As John walked into the kitchen he saw The Doctor spooning eggs onto two plates and hearing John's footsteps, he looked up and smiled broadly. "Good Morning," he said cheerfully and then he looked down at the spoon he was holding and seemed to remember what he was doing with it.
"Oh, yes! We... I mean, I made breakfast." he said proudly, waving the spoon in the air as to emphasize the statement. "I see that," John answered warily, as he walked across the kitchen and sat down at the table. The Doctor carefully set a plate down in front of him and backed away.
Yes, I think he officially knows you don't like him.
Ignoring the thought, John took a bite and was surprised to find the eggs were quite good. It had been a long time since anyone had made him breakfast and he had forgotten what it was like.
"Did you have any trouble? He asked as he took another bite.
"Trouble? Me?" The Doctor asked and grinned. "No, none at all." And he was silent the rest of the meal, although John could tell he was excited about going shopping, it seemed as if he didn't want to anger John by talking about it. John remembered the last words he had said to the other man.
Nice going, John, if it were Sherlock who had said that you would have pinched him.
"The breakfast was really good," John said quietly after he had finished his eggs, "Thank you for making it."
The Doctor looked at John and was silent for a moment as though he was thinking about how to respond. After a few seconds he smiled and nodded, "Thank you, John Watson."
As they rose to clear the table, John paused and looked down at the plate in his hand, taking a deep breath, he quietly said, "John... Just, John."
"I'm sorry?" The Doctor asked as he gingerly set his cup and plate into the sink and turned to face John.
"You can call me John." John replied and looked up at the Doctor who looked surprised and then excited, as if he understood and he rubbed his hands together and nodded at John. "Alright then, John," he replied with a slight smile, "You may call me The Doctor."
"Is that your real name?" John asked. The Doctor looked down and placed his hands in his coat pockets. "It is what all my friends call me or..." The Doctor paused and looked away, not being able to hold John's gaze anymore, "They used to call me." he said sadly.
"Alright," John said, not wanting to push the man into that dark place of sadness he always seemed to be standing at the edge of. "The Doctor it is."
The Doctor only nodded but John could tell his response made the other man truly happy.
He needs you, Take care of him. "Shut up, Mycroft." John muttered to the voice in his mind and went to get his coat, calling over his shoulder, "Ready to go shopping?"
Immediately The Doctor was at his side and he hopped excitedly from foot to foot as John locked the door to the flat and hailed a cab. Inside the cab, The Doctor was silent but John could tell he was excited about 'Shopping in a real shop'. John cleared his throat as if to say something to him but realized he didn't have anything to say so both doctors just sat and quietly looked out their windows.
"Yellow car, Rory." A soft voice broke the silence and John looked over at The Doctor.
"What?" He asked.
"Yellow car." The Doctor replied, looking rather pleased with himself, unaware that he had let the name slip by accident.
"Why did you say 'Yellow car, Rory?' John asked, "Who is Rory?"
The Doctor looked at him and his happiness slowly turned into confusion as he stared at John for a few seconds and John could see that the Doctor had forgotten who he was.
Catching himself as Rory disappeared from the seat beside him and John Watson looked at him, The Doctor smiled tiredly at John as he realized who he was with again. "I... I was just talking to myself, It's nothing, just a yellow car. It's what you say when you see a yellow car, you know."
John smiled softly but his smile vanished as he remembered how Sherlock hated playing yellow car and always said it was stupid when John tried to play it with him.
"I'm sorry." The Doctor whispered and turned back to the window, still trying to collect his bearings and trying to remind his scattered memories that it wasn't Rory sitting beside him.
John, angry at himself for letting his emotions show took a deep breath to steady his irritation before replying. "For what?"
"I'm sorry for whatever memory took away your smile." The Doctor looked at John sadly before turning back to his window.
John nodded stiffly, all the irritation at himself suddenly blown away. "Yeah," He replied. "So am I."
A flash of yellow caught his eye and before he could stop himself, he whispered. "Yellow car."
He heard The Doctor giggle softly beside him and the sound reminded him of Mycroft's words again, He needs you and you need him. John closed his eyes, remembering the look of confusion on The Doctor's face as he looked at John, but saw someone else instead and how long it took him to realize who John was again. John rested his tired head against the window as the rain started to fall against it.
When they reached Tesco's, The Doctor, much to John's relief, behaved very nicely. He kept close to John, looking around wide eyed at everything as John pushed the trolley.
It took The Doctor only a few minutes to finally stop gaping at everything and to desert John in the middle of the store. As John started his own shopping, The Doctor would appear at his side every few minutes to unload various items into the trolley with childish glee and a full description of every item.
John never knew that a cup of milk and pepsi helped the brain function. Or that chocolate chip biscuits dipped in ketchup could boost your courage level and you could do things you never imagined doing after consuming them.
As John was getting some milk he heard The Doctor gasp, and turning around he saw the tail of the familiar brown coat disappearing into the pasta aisle. A few minutes later The Doctor showed up again, this time his arms were full of boxes of dinosaur shaped macaroni and cheese and bow tie pasta.
"Look what I found, John," The Doctor exclaimed, holding up two of the boxes in delight, "Pasta in the shapes of triceratops and bow ties! Some of my favorite things! I knew a triceratops once, it loved golf balls..."
His voice trailed off as he stared down at the boxes in his hands and then he quickly looked up and around as if he had forgotten where he was and then suddenly remembered again.
He gave John a little smile. "It was a good dream." he said softly and placed the boxes in the trolley with little pat. "I'm glad Donna pointed these out to me."
John was about to say something, he didn't know about a Donna and the random forgetting episodes were starting to become a regular occurrence with his new flat mate. But before John could open his mouth to say anything about it, The Doctor caught sight of some bananas and was gone again.
Shaking his head, John turned to look for some food that might interest him. The Doctor seemed to be doing better than John at finding things. He had a good collection of different types of food. Mac and cheese, ketchup, chocolate chip biscuits, sushi, wasabi, bananas; animal crackers; jammy dodgers and some pepsi.
John didn't know what planet his flat mate had gotten his strange taste buds from and he desperately hoped if he ever tried to make any more meals for John that he would stick with eggs.
He cringed when he remembered The Doctor placing peanut butter and a bag of marshmallows in the trolley and started talking rapidly about how it was always a good thing to keep a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich under your bed.
Passing the bakery section, John found a group of children gathered around the cupcake display and The Doctor, standing right along with them, all of them looking eagerly at the cupcakes. A woman came up beside John and as she looked at the children, she smiled and asked, "Which one's yours?"
Without thinking John replied with a small sigh, "That one." And he pointed to The Doctor. The lady laughed softly, "He looks sad, get him a red velvet, a red velvet helps with everything."
John didn't know what to say and just nodded, He hadn't noticed it before now but The Doctor did have new shadow of sadness around him as he smiled down at the children and chatted with them about the different cupcakes. After he watched the Doctor walk away, distracted by a sale on pickles, John went and asked the woman behind the counter to box up two red velvet cupcakes.
As they were getting ready to check out, something caught The Doctor's eye and before John could see what it was, The Doctor grabbed it and hid it under some celery.
"What did you get?" John asked, but The Doctor looked away, unwilling to meet his gaze. "Nothing important." He replied, shyly and looking slightly embarrassed. John just shrugged and turned away but he knew The Doctor's excuse wasn't true, it was something important.
As John grabbed his bags and headed for the door, he gritted his teeth against the pain in his shoulder. He was surprised when he felt someone's hand gently touch his, stopping him to take the bags from him. He looked up to see The Doctor adding John's bags to his own collection.
"I can carry my own bags, I don't need any help." John said, embarrassed at someone noticing his pain and trying to help him. The Doctor smiled and shrugged, "It's alright, I understand. We all have our old war wounds that hurt us some days."
John stared at him, he had never mentioned his injuries or his past to The Doctor and it angered him that The Doctor would bring it up like this. "So where are yours?" He asked coldly, doubting the man before him ever saw a battle in his life.
The Doctor tapped a finger against his head and whispered sadly, "Up here." Then he turned and walked out the door leaving John speechless, to follow behind.
When they finally made it back to the flat and after staggering through the door with their haul of the day, The Doctor set his bags of various food items on the kitchen table and grabbed the bag with the special and secret item, which he had held in his lap during the cab ride home. He ran up to his room and was gone only a few minutes before returning to help John unload the rest of the groceries.
After they had gotten everything put up, The Doctor flung himself upon the settee, tiredly drawing his knees up to his chest and sighed. "I didn't know shopping could be so tiring, I must be getting old." He giggled like he just told a joke.
Sitting down in his chair, John nodded. "I had forgotten about it, I used to do the shopping all the time before..." He caught himself as he was about to say "Before Sherlock died." The Doctor looked at him quietly, as if he knew what John was trying not to say.
They sat there for a while in unsure silence of each other, listening to the rain fall. The Doctor startled John when he suddenly half jumped half fell off the settee and asked if John wanted a cup of tea.
Nodding in reply, John accepted and before John could move, The Doctor vanished into the kitchen and a few minutes later he reappeared with two cups of the best tea John had tasted in what seemed like years. "I think they might be playing Monty Python again today." John said, trying to break the uncomfortable silence between them.
The Doctor looked up from his tea, his eyes shining. "Oh?" he replied, his eyebrows raising excitedly. John nodded and for the next couple of hours they watched Monty Python, with The Doctor sitting in his corner, giggling into his tea cup every few minutes. As John sat there and found himself starting to smile at the antics on the telly, he received a text message from Mycroft.
Well done, John, just one day at a time: M.H
I don't know how. I don't know what to do: J.W
Neither does he. Being alone hurts him, John, just like you and just like Sherlock. Don't make him be alone, John: M.H
Tears stung John's eyes as the memories flooded his mind and he could hear Sherlock's voice. "Alone protects me."
"You were wrong." John whispered as he ran his shaking hand across his forehead. He felt eyes upon him, lifting his head he saw The Doctor looking at him, almost shyly as if he knew he was interrupting something.
Shaking off his memories and emotions, John stood up, putting his poker face on again. "Ready for dinner?" He asked gruffly and The Doctor brightened at the thought.
John could already tell the man was the type to always be hungry but would forget to eat whenever caught up with his mind.
Like Sherlock.
The thought took John off his guard and he angrily brushed it away, nothing about this man was like Sherlock.
Later as they sat at the kitchen table, John tried to make himself eat a half a sandwich and drink a cup of tea, he looked across the table and wondered if his new flat mate was a child stuck inside a man's body or an old man stuck inside a younger man's body. There were some moments that John couldn't tell which, as The Doctor sat across from him, eagerly eating his dinosaur macaroni and cheese, mixed with wasabi and drinking a concoction of milk and pepsi.
John thought the man would fall off his chair in surprise as John presented him his cupcake after dinner was over. The Doctor kept staring down at it and then back at John again, speechless with emotion.
John sighed, and as he said "It's yours, I thought we could use some desert tonight." The Doctor looked like he was about to cry. "No... No one has every given me a cupcake before," he whispered as he looked down at his gift. "I don't know what to do."
John smiled before he caught himself and replied, "You just take it and eat it."
The Doctor nodded, "Thank you, John, I appreciate you."
Stunned by the simple and honest statement and not knowing what to say in reply, John just nodded and turning, he left the kitchen, unable to face the man who unwillingly reminded him more and more of Sherlock.
"Well done, John," Sherlock said as John finished wrapping the last of the bandage around Sherlock's arm. John was surprised when Sherlock handed him a black felt tip marker. "Do you want to authenticate it?" Sherlock asked. John smiled and gently wrote John was here on the wrapping. Sherlock looked pleased with his signed injury. "Thank you, John," he said as he eased painfully into his bed and John draped the duvet over him. "I appreciate you."
A/N: Hope you liked it, I'd love to read your reviews and thoughts about it.
Does John seem like he's warming up to The Doctor more?
I'm not exactly sure where this is heading after this chapter so if you have any thoughts or ideas that you have or would like to see. Let me know and I'll try to write them.