A/N: So. This chapter is longer...and only the beginning. Gameson221b, thank you for always being so constant, so giving, so loyal, and so wonderful! Koram852, thank you for listening to me rant in panic...You could tell me to shut up and get over it, but I sooo appreciate your understanding!... For all, thank you for your patience. I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I know it's illegal to own a person... Do characters count? Aw. Damn. Anyway... The show is, of course, not mine. If it were, I would have met the actors by now...or at the very least, own a copy of the scripts! Instead, I rely on my copy of the DVDs, my memory, and the reliable transcript by arianedevere of livejournal.


Sunday.

I went on a walk this morning. I just had to get out. The space in my rooms at the bedsit had become chokingly confining.

Anyway, I was crossing through the park and I ran into an old school mate―Mike Stamford. I never really thought of us being much in the way of friends at school, but he was a cheery fellow.

He was apologetic when he realized his sarcastic humor about my being in the army was true. He seemed genuinely concerned when he put that together with my limp. I didn't try to correct him. It was too complicated to explain that the limp was psychosomatic. I wasn't going to mention my shoulder.

We picked up a coffee at the Criterion Cafe and sat on a bench along the path. Anything to keep me out of my flat.

We talked about old times, and how our lives changed. The plans we had made in our early twenties did not compare to the lives we're living now. As it turns out, Mike teaches at the hospital where we both did our residency―St. Bart's.

I don't think I'd have needed to mention my shoulder... My left hand went numb while holding my coffee...I had to switch hands and knead out the feeling. I think he noticed. I caught his glance and tried very hard not to shout at him. I told myself that the look he gave me wasn't pity...maybe sympathy. He was another doctor, he had the same medical training that I had.

I had to distract myself, talk about something else. I let it slip about my financial complications, and my need of new living arrangements.

I actually started talking about the things E told me I should: The lack of a job, my family not being supportive, my alcoholic sister being so...dramatic. I didn't have to say anything about my phantom wound or the effects of my actual injuries. But as we talked, I started to feel as if I could have. I was expressing more of my life to this person, this almost friend, than I could to my supposed therapist.

I couldn't believe the difference of actually letting someone in... Or, was all of that tension and frustration just boiling over finally?

"Who'd want me for a flat-mate?" I was annoyed with myself.

Then he said something that pulled me out of my self-pity.

"You're the second person to say that to me today."

I couldn't help it―I was curious, and Mike thought he could be helpful, so I walked with him back to Bart's. At least I wouldn't be going back to my flat for a while.

I was a little surprised when he led me to the research laboratories. The walk-through tour was interesting. All of the rooms had the same purposes, though the markings had been updated...doors had been replaced, and the equipment was decades newer...

I was starting to get annoyed. Could one person be so difficult to find...? But there he was standing at the far end of the last lab. He leaned over a light-table, piping something onto a sample dish. He glanced up once, acknowledging our interruption and dismissing it as quickly.

Mike nodded at the other man in the room, clearly trying to subtly let me know we had found who we had been looking for. Alright. Thank you...he's the only other person we'd come across since we stepped foot on this level. I could not have figured that on my own...

Anyway, I couldn't very well shout at him 'Hey, are you looking for a flatmate? Sorry, but it's kind of an emergency. I'm about to be evicted.' That'd win him over for sure.

Instead I stared at him, I'm not sure how long. I did try to be discreet...

"A bit different from my day..." I tried to cover my blatant curiosity, though I'd said as much half an hour earlier to Mike when we'd stepped into the hospital. Just what was I doing?

Mike chuckled. I could have choked him.

"Mike, can I borrow your phone?"

Without patting the pockets of his suit jacket, Mike turned to the other man. "...In my coat."

"Er, here. Use mine." What was the matter with me? From the moment we entered the room, I had lost all control over my own mouth.

"Oh. Thank you..."

He looked at me, an evaluating once over...a slow draw of eyes from the outstretched cuff of my right-hand sleeve, to my collar, and down to my feet, including a rather intense analysis of my titanium cane. I couldn't tell if he'd come to any conclusions, though. His face was...hard to read.

"It's...an old friend of mine. John Watson." I could tell by Mike's hesitation, he expected some kind of criticism. But this man didn't have the cold stare that most training officers adopt in a dressing-down. His face was so fluidly transitioning, I got the oddest feeling...he was reading me. Not in this particular moment, but whole pieces of myself.

He lifted my mobile from my hand without looking away. His eyes were an iridescent blue, so many shades lighter than my own...

"Afghanistan or Iraq?"

My stomach turned. "Sorry?" I looked to Mike, turning back quickly.

"Which was it, Afghanistan or Iraq?"

I shifted under his scrutiny and he turned to the phone, finishing his text and sending it before handing the device back.

"Afghanistan. Sorry, how could you know?" I glanced at Mike again. He was grinning. He had been waiting for this...? Was this the criticism I thought he was expecting? It was hardly criticism...more like curiosity, a puzzle being worked out...

"How do you feel about the violin?"

I stared at him, mystified by the abrupt change. He was back at his workstation, typing on a computer. For the briefest moment, I thought he was asking me... I'm shaking my head at the idea of it, even now...

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I play the violin when I'm thinking. Sometimes I don't talk for days on end. Would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other." He looked up at me expectantly, flashing a very wide, very fake smile... The smile vanished, and he evaluated me seriously.

I didn't know what to say. I hadn't even met him, not really—I hadn't even heard his name—and he was talking as if moving in together was a done deal.

I looked at Mike. My old schoolmate smirked back at me, knowingly.

I swallowed the shout that bubbled at the base of my throat. I was being irrational. Mike had not set up a prank on me, he hadn't even made a phone call since I'd run into him at the park... There had to be an explanation.

I kept staring at Mike. "Oh, you... You told him about me?"

Mike raised his shoulders defensively. "Not a word."

I was uncomfortably aware of my temper. "Then who said anything about flatmates?"

A haze of motion drew my eyes back to the other man. He pulled a long coat over his shoulders, threading his arms in the sleeves. "I did." He said it as if that fact was all that mattered. But, he continued his explanation. "I told Mike this morning that I must be a difficult man to find a flatmate for. Now here he is, just after lunch, with an old friend—clearly just home from military service in Afghanistan. Wasn't that difficult of a leap."

I clenched my jaw. Did he really just make a crack at my intelligence? "How did you know about Afghanistan?"

He must have selective hearing. He skipped right over my question, and went on to details about a flat he'd found in central London, and wanting to meet me there tomorrow. As he spoke, he strode to the door.

I couldn't decide if he was trying to be difficult, or if he was just naturally...wild.

"Is that it?" I was a bit impatient. All of this expectation and no information for me, I was just supposed to go along with it. I had learned more than once that 'just going along with it' could be a bad business.

He stopped and came away from the door, turning and putting his hands in his pockets like he had all afternoon. He obviously didn't though, he was still shifting between feet. He was impatient as well. "Is that what?"

"We've only just met, and we're gonna go and look at a flat? We don't know a thing about each other. I don't know where we're meeting. And I don't even know your name."

Just as I thought earlier, he had read me. He listed off an analysis of my life in less than three seconds. And he knew more about me than I think Mike did. He even mentioned my therapist and the problem with my leg... I hadn't said anything about that to Mike.

I guess I can't say it anymore. Something seems to be happening now. I even have an appointment on my calendar:

7pm, tomorrow

Sherlock Holmes

221B Baker Street


A/N: After a minor freakout last week...our boys have now officially met. *Sigh.* More to come! Stay tuned for the thrilling adventures and personality conflicts of Sherlock Holmes...and friend. Just the one. :)