REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW. Note: I am now attending college, and my ability to post will become severely impaired (if you haven't noticed already). Please review as it will motivate me to get going quicker.

When you are alone though, time seems to blur by, melding together into a sort of dream, until one day you have a moment of clarity and see months have passed.

It's winter now, the air biting and tugging at my face when I go out each morning. I don't own a scarf, so I ruefully turn up the collar on my coat.

"… turning your coat collar up so you look cool."

I've missed Christmas I think, which explains why my mum called a while back, asking if I was coming round for dinner. Guiltily, I hope Harry cleaned up enough to visit them, because I wasn't up to it. I do think I remembered to send them a present, but Christmas just isn't my holiday. What is, to be honest?

Work is busy, as it always is during the winter. People freezing or falling ill or getting injured because of the snow and ice. The other doctors and I run around like mad, trying to get everyone coming into the A&E room sorted. It's good. Keeps my mind off things. And since I don't have much time in which to see everyone anyway, I can keep moving from person to person.

"Here John," a nurse hands me a file. "Patient with a hurt wrist, possibly broken, and some bruises. Slipped on a patch of ice."

I nod and head off to the bed she's pointed me to. The curtain is partially closed, but I step around it in a businesslike manner and… freeze.

You have got to be shitting me.

Mary Temple is sitting on the bed facing way from me. She doesn't see me, due to another nurse is checking her pupils (slipped on ice the first nurse said, Mary must have hit her head as well), so I'm able to stare unabashedly shocked at the back of her head for a few minutes.

We haven't spoken again since she left my flat that morning. I never thought, in a city as big as London, that we ever would.

But here she is. Dropping into my life again.

How does she do that?

For a second I entertain a wild notion I could just step back out and hand the file off to another doctor, but (too late) the nurse spots me and waves me closer.

"Oh good." She pats Mary on the shoulder. "No concussion, just the wrist. Don't worry, Dr. Watson will have you good as new in no time, dear."

Mary smiles at the nurse's retreating back, but it slips when she sees me. We stare at each other while the nurse, oblivious, leaves with a cheery wave.

"Hello," I finally say, breaking the tense silence.

"Hey," replies Mary softly, with a gentle smile.

"Um how've you been?"

"Not bad. You?"

"Can't complain." We're still watching each other, almost shyly. "You look good," I say, a bit randomly to be honest. Isn't that the sort of thing you're supposed to say anyway?

(She does though. Her hair's even longer now, stretching down her back in a thick dark wave, her skin still a tan brown, even with the lack of sun, though flushed with what must be pain, and her eyes bright for the same reason. She's got on a cream colored jumper, and a thick purple coat, striped fingerless gloves, and a matching hat lie on the bed next to her.)

"You look like shit," Mary says conversationally.

And just like that I break, laughing and feeling as though I've abruptly come up for air after holding my breath for the first time in months.

"Can't argue with that," I say, coming over to her, suddenly feeling more at ease. "What happened to your wrist?"

"Slipped on a patch of ice on my way to work. I was in a hurry. Tried to catch myself with my hand."

"Now we can't have that," I say, slipping into my friendly doctor voice. "How are you going to serve coffee?"

She rolls her eyes in retaliation, but winces when I take her arm gently A quick examination, through which Mary bites her lip and doesn't say anything, reveals that the wrist is only sprained, not broken, and Mary lets out a sigh of relief. Soon it's bandaged up with instructions to not use it for a few weeks, and I'm writing her a prescription for painkillers.

"Not bad Dr. Watson," Mary says, surveying my handiwork.

"Any good?"

"Very good."

I can't help but give a chuckle and a wry grin. "Just doing my job. Here you go."

She hops off the table, and picks up her gloves and coat with her good hand. Helpfully, I pick up her hat and drape it on her other arm. Mary grins and bows her head in thanks.

I'm already turning back to her file to finish writing the last notes, thinking she's leaving, when I hear her speak again.

"So, I'll see you around, John?"

Pausing, I look up at her. She's regarding me intently, the cheekiness gone and serious consideration in its place. I open my mouth a few times, trying to figure out what to say.

How about the truth? "Maybe."

Mary gives me a small knowing smile. "Ok then." She turns to leave, but stops one more time, glancing over her shoulder. "And John? You are a good man. It's alright to reminded of that once in a while."

Then she's pushing past the curtain, and I'm left behind wondering how a random woman who keeps dropping in and out of my life can leave such utter mental and emotional turmoil in her wake.


Of course, it takes me some time to work up the courage to go back. A few mornings I make it almost up to the door, then hurry on past, embarrassed and tired, subjecting myself to the horrible coffee at work.

Then one evening, I'm wandering home in a daze. It's been a bad day. A particularly nasty car crash, families standing by in tearful shock, and, standing out most of all in my mind, a young boy with dark hair who died of a drug overdose not long after being brought in from an icy alleyway.

Before I know it, his pale face swimming in my mind, my feet have led me to the door of the café. It's dark inside, most of the lights inside are off and a closed sign hangs on the door.

Come on. Please, Mary. Just one more crazy, random meeting.

The café stays dark. Nothing moves around me on the street except a few cars, hissing through the snow. A hollowness that has nothing to do with the cold settles deeper into my chest as I bow my head.

"… so alone."

"John?"

My head shoots up.

And there she is. Coming out of the alley where the café's back entrance must be. Purple coat, blue scarf, dark hair, and shining eyes. My heart beats once, hard, at the sight of her. Maybe she notices the sudden tears pricking my eyes, maybe she thinks it's just the wind, but she comes up to me slowly, hesitantly.

"Are you ok?" asks Mary.

I can't help but let out a short burst of hard laughter. "Probably not." That earns me a wry smile. "Can I walk you to the bus or the tube or wherever you're going?"

She nods, and we set off, ice crunching under our feet to go with the swish of thick, warm fabric, and the sharp whistling of the wind.

"About what you said," I begin. I should feel awkward, uncomfortable, but it's too late for that. All I feel is tired and my voice is soft and even. "About being a good man."

I feel rather than see Mary turn her head to look at me, silently allowing me to go on.

"I've lost a lot of people in my life. People I could have saved. War buddies, my sister to alcoholism, strangers I'm supposed to take care of at work." A deep sigh huffs out, creating a huge ghostly cloud in the air.

"I lost my best friend. He committed suicide, jumping off a building right in front of me. And— I just keep thinking I could have done something to stop him, to save him."

I blink quickly and stare down at my shoes, hunching my shoulders.

"From what I hear," Mary says very gently, "you did save him. Several times."

Startled, I stop walking and bring my head up to stare at her. She bites her lip, almost shyly, and shuffles her feet.

"After you… stopped coming in the mornings, I… well, I was curious," explains Mary, embarrassed. "So I looked you up on the Internet, and, um, found your blog."

I lean back and let out a long "ah".

Mary still looks nervous. "I didn't mean to pry."

"No, no, it's fine." And it is. Strangely, I don't mind. It's almost a relief that I don't have to explain everything to her. "You've got to expect it when you post your thoughts on the Internet for everyone to see."

The corner of Mary's mouth quirks. "I suppose. But it's only to my general obliviousness to the majority of things going on in the world that I never put it together sooner."

How does she manage to always make me laugh? But I do.

She sobers though. "There are some demons John, that we can't defeat. However hard we try. But just because you failed doesn't mean you aren't a good man. If anything it means you are one."

"I heard once you shouldn't make people into heroes. They don't exist."

"And if they did I certainly wouldn't be one of them."

"Perhaps. But we all need something to believe in don't we? Does it matter if whatever God we choose is flawed? That only makes Him more dear."

I smile back at her, and as the snow and cold night air and stillness of the stars swirls around us, we stand there. Together. Just looking at each other. And I feel my heart again. Two beats this time. Like it's just starting to remember how.

Sherlock, its lines, and characters belong to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, and BBC One.