A/N: Sherlock will be back soon, but it'll be a few chapters before anything happens between he and Laura. In the meantime, we get to see Laura and John's relationship grow and prosper and whatever!


Laura waited three days before dialing the number scribbled in distinctively med-school-graduate handwriting on a fragment of an old takeout menu. It wasn't until she'd arrived home from a particularly long day of a editing an author's soon-to-be sixth best seller that she'd allowed herself to think about the scrap of paper on her bedside table. Now, lying on her back with her limbs splayed out across her bed, she could hear Irene's words of wisdom floating through her head.

"One day says desperate," Irene had told her when, at the age of fourteen, Laura had asked her sister why she'd yet to call the twenty-something she was so melodramatically besotted with. "Two still says too eager, but four or more says he's no more than an afterthought," the infallible guru of all things male had told her, and the words had stuck.

After propping her head up on a pillow, Laura reached for her phone and the advertisement for Free Chinese Cuisine Wednesdays. Taking a deep breath, she whispered to herself that this would not end like her first attempt at a relationship—she was now stronger, wiser, and most importantly, away from that bloody house and all that it stood for. She then dialed the number, nearly dropping the phone when John answered on the third ring.

"Hullo?" his voice was thick and slow, and Laura was immensely grateful that he had no way of seeing the heat that flooded her cheeks and neck, or the way she squirmed beneath the blankets due to the bewitchingly viscous element that sleep had added to his speech.

"Oh, sorry—did I wake you? I can call back later if—"

"Who is this?" he asked gruffly, and she cringed, wishing nervousness didn't have the ability to wipe all propriety from her mind.

"This is Laura, Laura Adler. We met a few days ago…" The realization that he might not even remember her hit Laura with far more force than it should have, evoking a pitifully hurt, but thankfully inaudible, huff of disappointment from her lips.

"Yes, yes, I'm being terribly rude," he said after clearing his throat. Her delight that he did indeed remember her was slightly overshadowed by the fact that the gravely edge to his voice that she'd so enjoyed had now disappeared. "How are you, Laura?" he asked, and she smiled stupidly into the phone at the sound of her name on his lips.

"I'm well," she told him, her nervousness beginning to dissolve. "I've spent the past few days editing an incredibly exciting novel; Graham Lucas is terrible with character development, but otherwise his language is almost hypnotic," she told him, wanting to make sure he knew her profession wasn't at all connected to Irene's.

"You're a book editor, then?" he asked, and she nodded, then added "yes," when she recalled that he couldn't actually see her. "And you're probably a bloody good one if you're working with Lucas," he said, and she smiled. "I suppose you could say that," she replied in an overly boastful tone, and he laughed.

"Well, Miss Adler, it's suddenly become very obvious to me that I know absolutely nothing about you…" he began, and she smiled, glad that he'd picked up on her impersonation of Lucas' rather pompous rhetoric and had joined in on the joke. "…while I have firsthand evidence that you know quite a bit about me. I hardly think that's fair, do you?" he asked, and she laughed.

"Not at all, Dr. Watson. Perhaps we should do something to level the playing field," she suggested, and she could hear the smile in his voice when he responded.

"My thoughts exactly. I know of the most exquisite dining residence; how dost thou feel about cuisine of the Italian variety?" he asked, and she giggled shamelessly.

"I've never encountered anything I enjoyed more," she managed to reply between bouts of laughter.

"Does tomorrow evening, Alfonso's Italian Fine Dining at eight sound good?" he asked, returning to a normal tone once again.

"It sounds perfect," she told him, grinning like a fool.

When she hung up the phone a few minutes later, Laura snuggled into her blankets, pulling the warm fabric close around her and allowing herself to relish in the first real contentment she'd felt in far too long.


A/N: So, because I have finals this week, I won't be updating any of my other stories until next week. But luckily for you guys, I've already written a ton of this story so I can just update in like 15 seconds. So while all my other readers have to wait a whole week, you guys still get daily updates! :D It's not that I'm biased towards Sherlockians...but I totally am :P