Mia watched John disappear from view and suppressed a grin. Finally! She'd finally had the chance to meet him! She had first noticed the kind doctor with the gentle smile two weeks ago when a clumsy waitress had spilled hot coffee on him. He had jumped up in surprise, but said nothing and stood blinking – frozen in shock – for a moment while the waitress apologized profusely and fought back tears. He had calmly assured her that he would be alright and that everything was 'fine'. Mia had never heard someone say that word so kindly before. There was no sarcasm or anger in the tone. He'd quietly gone to the restroom to clean up and the silent café had slowly attained its normal hum of activity. Mia had been sitting only a table away and noticed that before he left – in his now very wet and stained trousers – he placed a tip on the table.
Mia had never witnessed such human grace and kindness before in her life, and admired the handsome stranger greatly. Every day since, she had noticed him when he came in. Every day he ordered the same thing and often took it to go. She'd remarked on his eye and hair colour, the laugh-lines on his face, his quiet unassuming manner. He certainly hadn't walked off the cover of a magazine, but in his own way he was handsome. Even more so, she'd discovered today, when he was talking directly to her with his soft blue eyes focused on hers and his warm voice asking her questions. He was attractive in how normal and yet extraordinary he was. She had been very surprised when her order had been called and he'd picked it up. She'd wished she could say something to him as she was taking the order out of his hands, but she had been completely taken off guard and other than: Hey, you're the guy that had coffee spilled on him, she couldn't think of any way to start a conversation, so she'd let the idea drop.
She had been completely thrilled when, moments later, he'd approached her table and asked to sit down. It was like something out of a storybook and there was no way she could say no. She was glad that she finally had a name to add to the face: John Watson. She wondered if his limp was from his time in Afghanistan, and she also wondered what had happened to his arm. She had never seen him without the sling and she wondered how much longer he would have to wear it. He had seemed very used to it, by the way he carefully balanced his tray and how he quickly removed and then later put on his jacket. She found him completely fascinating. Her mind kept flashing back to the look he gave her when he first sat down, it was as if he was trying to figure her out... It was the look that you receive from strangers who think that they know you from somewhere but can't quite place you. Though it seemed a little strange, she'd liked the attention.
She silently cursed herself for getting lost in her work. She couldn't believe that she'd let that silly novel command her full attention. She'd gotten absorbed in the plot – which was actually pretty good – and completely forgotten his existence. That is, until he decided it was time for him to go. Tomorrow, she would make up for her rudeness. She'd come prepared to have a very long and detailed conversation. She wanted to know all that she could about this John Watson. If nothing else, he seemed like a lonely man, and there was just a feeling she couldn't shake when he walked into the room; it was as if instinct were telling her that they were meant to be important to each other. She already liked him immensely... tomorrow just couldn't come fast enough.
...
John returned to 221B later than usual that evening. He was almost afraid to open the door, knowing that Sherlock had been cooped up in the flat all day without a case to work on. When he got to the top of the landing Sherlock called out to him, "Hurry up, John, I need your opinion."
He groaned, "My opinion on what?"
"The kitchen of course," Sherlock said and bounded out from said place, drumming his long fingers on the wall impatiently.
John slipped off his boots, as he did so he felt Sherlock's impatient hands on his shoulders and – in less than a moment – he had been stripped of his coat. "Hold on!" John said in surprise and then slowly and stubbornly hung up his scarf and hat. He felt old and creaky and just wanted to sit with a cup of tea. He rounded the corner and stared in shock at his immaculate kitchen. There were no experiments crowding up the table, no burn marks on the cupboards, the stove was... brand new?
"Sherlock, what did you do?" John asked in awe.
"I felt it needed a bit of a change."
"Sherlock you replaced our kitchen?!"
"Not all of it. I simply had some people come in and tidy it up a bit."
John opened the fridge – no body parts... at least, none that were immediately visible. He examined the sink – the drain wasn't plugged with guck as he'd imagined it would be when he returned. He dove under the counter into the pots and pans cupboard – brand new. He examined the stove... never been used. He ran his fingers over the spots in the cupboards which, just this morning, had been black as coal – flawless.
"Well?" Sherlock pressured, "What do you think?"
"Sherlock," John said in disbelief. He didn't know what to think. Too many questions were racing through his mind. How had Sherlock done this? Had Mycroft helped? How much had it cost? Did Mrs. Hudson know anything about it? Where were all of Sherlock's experiments? That last question was answered when he turned around and saw the living room. Every surface was covered in beakers and chemistry paraphernalia. "You're experiments are in the living room." He stated lamely.
"Yes, well, the men needed space to work," Sherlock said brushing off the remark. "Tell me John, does the colour match exactly? I told them it had to look exactly the same. They replaced three cupboards."
"Yes, it's perfect," he replied, "But how did you do all of this?"
"I simply went online and did some research, and then I made some phone calls. Several people owed me favors, so the work was done at a decent rate as well as quickly. I told them I needed it completed today and they arrived less than an hour after you left. It won't hurt our bank accounts too much either," he said answering a couple of John's unspoken questions.
"So, when I make a mess I spend an hour or so cleaning up, but when you make a mess it is ok to replace the entire kitchen?"
"Not the entire kitchen. Just the pots, pans, stove and three cupboards – honestly John, the stove was beyond repair."
John shook his head and brushed it off. It was fine. He had left Sherlock to take care of the problem and Sherlock had taken care of it. He simply wouldn't check his account balance for the next few days – he assumed that Sherlock would have taken half of the cost from his account, though he would discover later that in fact Sherlock had paid for it all: "It was my mess," being his only explanation.
"It's fine," John replied, "It looks great. It would be even better if it stayed exactly the way it is – at least for a couple of days," he added, "I had no idea we had that much surface-area in our kitchen."
"Sorry, the experiments have to go back," Sherlock said – not sounding sorry at all.
"I figured," John said in acceptance.
"Care for some take-away?" Sherlock asked then.
"But we have our new kitchen! We should at least cook in it once before you turn it back into a science lab."
"Well, if you feel like cooking after the long day you had, you can be my guest."
John contemplated his options. He really didn't feel like cooking. It would mean he'd have to mess up their tidy kitchen – he really needed to take a picture and add all of this to the blog... no one would believe him otherwise. He decided he could settle with being able to eat at the kitchen table for the first time since he'd moved in, "Ok, take-away sounds good," he assented.
...
A couple of hours later John was fumbling in the kitchen drawer for a fork – he'd decided to give up on chop-sticks, especially since he couldn't hold the cardboard containers of food steady with his other hand.
"So what happened at work today?" Sherlock asked.
"What do you mean?" John was surprised by the question. Sherlock never asked him about work.
"You were home late, but in a surprisingly good mood. So something must have happened."
"Nothing happened," he lied, and then realized he'd just been dishonest. He had been trying to quell that behaviour lately – it was always hard to break oneself of the small habits. "Well, nothing to do with work anyway," he added, though he really didn't want to be discussing this with Sherlock.
"Oh?" he said and waited for John to carry on.
"I met someone at a café," he said simply as he took his seat at the table across from Sherlock – fork in hand.
Sherlock had to fight back the urge to slap John back to his senses. He should know by now that romantic relationships were not his area – John was terrible with women. Yet for some reason continued in his vain attempts to pursue them. Sherlock wondered idly what is was about women that made John so desperate to be involved with them. Surely if it was sex he wanted he could simply go have a one-night stand, or hire someone, but it was more than that. John wanted a relationship. He seemed to crave a kind of companionship that Sherlock didn't provide. Sherlock just couldn't figure out what that was.
"Oh," he said offhandedly. He was about to utter the word 'boring' but realized that John was actually willing to talk to him on the subject, "Go on," he added accommodatingly. He was only slightly curious. Usually he found John's love life utterly boring – it always ended the same way. Said love-life was also usually responsible for clouding John's mind and infringing on their time together. Sherlock was already feeling that John was being irresponsible for even entertaining the idea of a relationship right now. Surely the two of them needed more time to adjust?
"There's nothing much to say. I find her attractive, she seems to like me back. I'm going to have coffee with her again tomorrow."
"I see," Sherlock replied. Yep, this was going to be like all of the rest. He was certain of it. I give it two weeks. He thought as he finished up his Chinese noodles.