It always rained in November London as far as John remembered and that November was no exception. It was a cold freezing rain and he cursed himself for having forgotten his umbrella at home. He needed to do some shopping and he hadn't got the time to go back and take it. He thus walked under the rain, trying to get the most heat possible by wrapping himself in his leather jacket. By the time he had reached the supermarket he was cold and wet. The heating of the shop welcomed him as a deep warm hug and he took off his jacket to let this warmth embrace his cold skin under his jumper. He needed to buy everything. Last time he had gone for shopping had been two weeks before and his fridge was literally crying because of its emptiness. But since he didn't want to stay out much, he didn't go to his usual shopping centre, which was quite far away, but decided to go to the nearest one, being it just fifteen minutes' walk from his flat.

As he walked under the grey sky, he realised how quickly November had come. The second week of it would've been two months since he had started to teach as a professor at the university. Two months since he first met Sherlock Holmes. With whom he hadn't talked since the 'flat accident'. The young man had always been attending the lessons, never missing one, but, as soon as they ended, he just disappeared for good. And, no matter how hard John tried, he couldn't retrace him. More than once he had tapped on his mobile, wanting to send Sherlock a message. But something had always stopped him. He didn't even know what it was. It just happened. He had to accept that he just couldn't send that goddamn message.

He walked through the vegetables section and picked up some zucchini and potatoes, then he bought biscuits, milk, meat, some packed frozen meals, a soup for the evening to come and went to pay. When he reached the check-out, he had the weird impression of being watched. He turned all around to check if there effectively was someone staring at him, but saw no one. God, after the meeting with the umbrella man he had become rather suspicious. Now that was the understatement of the century. He had become hyper-suspicious. Given that the other man had known his night meeting with Sherlock Holmes, he had started to suspect that his house was being watched by don't-know-who. He had even changed his usual timetable to be certain no one was following him. After a very stressful week, which had also almost led to a quarrel with Laura, he had given up, blaming himself for his military trained mind. He was too used to be set on alarm mode and probably was just perceiving things that didn't exist, if not in his own mind. It was like when he had returned from Afghanistan: he had seen danger in every person he had met. It had taken him one month of daily psychotherapy to finally get over it. He sighed heavily in front of the check-out assistant who raised a questioning eyebrow. John shrugged his shoulders and paid in silence.

When he left the shop, the rain had stopped, but an ice-cold wind had already started to blow. Minutes later he had his fingertips of a worrying blue colour. He started to walk faster, first to reach his destination in lesser time, second to see if that helped him to warm a bit. It didn't work as he had wanted for the shopping bags were quite heavy and, three minutes later, he was panting hard trying to catch his breath. Five months of sedentary life had already made him lose his properly fit muscles. He huffed and a cloud of breath condensed in the icy air. Two runners passed by, giving him an amused look. He certainly was a funny sight at the moment. He was leaning on a wall, his hair messed up, his black jacket damp, sweat drops on his forehead due to the brisk walk and two big shop bags in his hands. He laughed hysterically, so that he became short of breath one more time. He had to wait a while to regain his composure and then started to walk again.

As he was approaching his flat, the sensation of being followed struck him one more time. He turned in every direction, but like it had happened at the supermarket, there was nobody watching him. He snorted. When he almost reached his flat's building, he noticed there was a figure standing near the front door. A very well-known figure. A figure that he had least expected to see there. A figure that he didn't want to meet at all.

For a fraction of second John thought about walking away, but his ex-wife Janine was already greeting him with her hand. God, no. He didn't want to see her, he had nothing to tell her and he didn't want to hear what she had to tell him. She was his past and he really didn't need that past anymore.

"Hello, John!", she said with her brightest smile, the one which used to send John to heaven and now only managed to make his fingers tickle with the desire of punching her right in the face.

"Why are you here?", was his cold answer.

He was rather astonished by her appearance in front of his flat, because he couldn't understand how she knew his address, before realising that every change of address was forwarded to her via lawyers.

"Aren't you happy to see me?", she said cheerfully.

"Not in the slightest.", John hissed.

"Really?", she asked pityingly.

"Did you really think that I would've been happy to see you? After the hell you have put me through? Seriously, Janine?", he yelled in the middle of the road, not giving a fuck "Tell me what do you want and go away. As fast as you can, possibly."

Janine stayed still for a second.

"Aren't you going to invite me inside at least? It's freezing out here!", she tried to smile.

"No, I'm not going to invite you inside. Just tell me what do you want. Here. Now."

John was starting to get really annoyed.

"Well…I have been thinking about you a lot later and I was thinking if we could…try to go back together."

John gawked, astonished.

"Have you completely gone MAD?", he shouted "Do you seriously think that I'm going back with you? You…what's that? Your last lover has left you and you are coming back to the old poor John, who's always so kind, so merciful?"

Had he not been John H. Watson, a man with the highest ethics, a man who would never ever have lain a finger on a woman, he would've strangled her right in that spot. Janine tried to answer.

"It's not like that, John.", she said in soft, caring voice "I know I have made some mistakes…"

"Some? Some? Are you even listening to what is coming out from your mouth?"

Now John was furious beyond any reasonable doubt. That woman had betrayed his trust not once, but a dozen of times. He had suffered and she hadn't done anything to help him. Never. And now she was asking him to rebuild a relationship with her? No way. No fucking way.

She was staring at him and tears seemed to fill his eyes. Oh, he knew she was the best fake weeper ever. She could just start to cry whenever she wanted to. John had already been fooled a good amount of times by that trick. He grunted.

"Don't do the 'I'm-in-tears-I'm-so-sorry-John' look, Janine. It doesn't work anymore with me. Go back to one of your old lovers and do that to him. Maybe it will work.", he remarked angrily, quite proud of the icy voice coming out of his throat.

"But…John…please…"

"No please. No. No anything. Nothing. Just go away and leave me alone."

And John started to unlock the front door, turning away from Janine. While he was shutting the door behind him to not see her anymore, she last screamed:

"Don't you love me anymore?"

"NO!", he shouted back.

And slammed the door with a loud bang and went upstairs to his flat. He entered the leaving room and leaned on the entrance door on his back, letting the plastic bags drop on the floor, dipping his nails into his palms to the point it started to hurt. He let out a series of furious huffs. Then turned to the door and hit it with a punch, making his knuckles bleed.

"Fuck!", he shouted.

That's what he really didn't need. He tried to focus back on his normal activities, like putting the shopping in its right place; but all he obtained was him throwing the things in the cupboards or in the fridge, with such a strength that a bottle of milk cracked and broke in the fridge. He huffed angrily. Why did it always happen to him? Why did she need to torment him like that? He had already made it clear that he didn't want to see her anymore a billion of times before. Not after what she had done to him, not after all those decisions that had made John go from 'I love you' to 'I loathe you' and 'I despise you' in less than three months. She wasn't a welcomed presence in John's life anymore. And now his head needed to be cleared. He collapsed on the chair, not even thinking about cleaning the floor, which was a mess of milk, fragments of glass and smashed potatoes. He stayed in that position motionless for a while, but the anger didn't go away.

He needed to drink. He badly needed a drink to forget all that. To forget a past he didn't want to brood over anymore. A past that he had thought it had been finally just a bad memory and yet it had reappeared. He stood up and stormed off, aimed to the pub. He didn't go to his usual one, though. He furiously walked for a long time, until his leg started to ache. As soon as he realised that they weren't going to hold him upright for any longer, he entered the first pub he found in the street. He didn't even know where he was. Good.

He literally threw himself on a chair at a table and called the waiter, who gave him an inquiring look. Certainly he was in a state that would've made everyone question his mind's sanity.

"A beer, please.", John asked.

"Which type?"

"A strong one."

The young waiter started to walk to the counter, but John stopped him. He needed something stronger than the beer.

"And rum, please.", he shouted.

The waiter nodded and came back with a pint of beer and a glass of rum. John immediately drank the rum in one single sip. It went right into his stomach, warming his body and easing his troubled mind. He asked for another seconds later, in the meanwhile he drank the beer.

A bunch of memories from his past started to re-emerge inside his brain. The first time he had met Janine, when he had just graduated and was looking for a job. Their happy strolls during the summer days. Their first holiday together. He hated every single bit of those memories. They meant nothing anymore. When he had decided to sign up as an army doctor, a while after they had married, she hadn't protested. She had accepted it. He had been happy about that. But then all had changed. Everything he had thought to have built up had crumbled down piece by piece. He had been sent to Afghanistan. She hadn't objected it. He had been surprised. She hadn't cried when he had left, like all the other soldiers' wives. He had been astonished. She had never said a 'miss you' in their calls. He had thought she was just different. Then, when he had come home on license after six month, he had discovered she had been cheating on him. Not once. Repeatedly. He had tried to rebuild their relationship, since he had felt responsible for it. It was him that had left her alone. Everything had gone back to normality. Then he had left again and, one year later, she had asked for divorce.

John still remembered the day of the call. She had smiled in front of the screen and told him her thoughts. She had been in love with someone else, simple as that. She prosecuted him to the court, obtaining all John's belongings, because she managed to demonstrate that, by going in Afghanistan, John had abandoned her on her own. That had been the last straw that broke the camel's back. John, who had desperately tried to make the things work again, had given up. She had used him. She had used him from the beginning. And he had believed her. What a fool he had been. She had just ruined his life and he had allowed it. It had taken him two years to get over it and now she was thinking that a 'sorry' would have sufficed. But John had promised himself: never again. Never again with that fucking woman.

For every painful, angry memory he drank a glass of rum. Two hours later he was so drunk that he couldn't almost recognise who he was. He was so smashed and wasted that when a man sat at his table, he didn't notice it for a while, even if he had him right in front of his eyes. When he did eventually notice it, he got angry.

"Piss off! This is my table!", he muttered disjointedly.

"Actually, it's the pub's table, not yours.", a voice calmly answered.

"Pfff. Shut up already, fag!", John replied, angrier.

But that voice sounded familiar. He was sure he had already heard it somewhere.

"You're completely drunk, John."

John tried to focus, despite a gallon of alcohol running through his veins, making it difficult for him to rationalise his thoughts. A dark blue coat. A blue scarf. Pale skin. Black curls. Snap. Sherlock.

"Sh-Sh-Sherlock!", he finally blabbed.

"Yes, Sherlock. That's my name. So you have still got your brain. Nice to know.", and he smirked at John "But I think it's time for you to leave this place. Come on!"

Sherlock approached and put his hands under John's armpit, lifting him up from the chair. John stumbled, but the young man kept him upright and started to push him outside the pub.

"I have to pay!", John shouted.

"I've paid for you.", huffed Sherlock in annoyance "Now just shut up, you're making a fool of yourself."

John didn't quite understand what was happening. There was Sherlock, hands on his shoulder blades, pushing him; the same Sherlock who was his student, the same Sherlock he had no idea about how he could be there right in the pub where John had been drowning his brain in alcohol. The brisk chilly November wind hit John as soon as he stepped out of the warm place. It cleared his mind a little, but not completely. He was feeling the precise symptoms of drunkenness. His head was dizzy and his sight was blurry. He didn't know where to put his steps and was having a hard time standing still either. Sherlock held him up. If it hadn't been for him, John would have dropped on the pavement in no time.

"Come on, doctor Watson, you can do it!", he urged.

And they started to walk. Now Sherlock, to help him walk, had took him by the arm and they were side by side. Somehow his brain recognised that it was surely an odd image to see: a drunken (quite) old man, being carried home by a younger boy, who seemed completely at ease in the role he had taken up. John giggled aloud. Sherlock looked at him puzzled.

"What's that?", he enquired.

"It looks like you're taking care of me.", John laughed louder.

"I am taking care of you.", stated the young man.

John stopped laughing abruptly and let Sherlock guide him. But soon he noticed that they weren't going to John's flat.

"Where are we going?", he managed to say after three minutes of thinking.

"Home."

"Wrong road, then.", and he started to laugh again.

"I'm taking you to my place. It's nearer. And I don't trust you enough at the moment to leave you alone in your flat."

John gawked and opened his mouth in surprise. Somewhere amidst the state of inebriation his brain was still working.

"Sorry, what?"

"You can't stay alone this wasted. You may choke on your own vomit. And I'd rather avoid that."

John didn't say anything anymore. On one hand because he didn't know what to say, on the other because Sherlock was right. Nevertheless the whole situation was, one more time, highly inappropriate. A student was bringing him to his house. A student. Sherlock. Whatever. A student. He was still a student. And he was his drunk professor. Oh god, that was so wrong.

They reached Sherlock's flat ten minutes, and a lot of steps, later. John's logic woke up.

"What about your parents? Wouldn't it be…awkward?"

It wasn't really the question he had formulated in his mind, but it seemed that his brain cells weren't so eager to cooperate with his body.

"I live alone.", Sherlock dryly answered.

"I suspected that.", John found himself answering.

"Good to know that your brain isn't dead yet.", smirked the young man.

Then he literally pulled John upstairs and into the bathroom, opened the tap of the sink and pushed John's head under it. All John felt was the coldness of the water on his head, which cleared his thoughts a bit more. Yet he was still far away from being even near the idea of sobriety. He could hold himself up alone, but he couldn't quite understand the entirety of what was happening around him. Sherlock threw a towel to him.

"Dry yourself off."

John did as he was told, not without some difficulties, for the towel seemed to be alive under his shaking hands. He laughed one more time. Sherlock huffed and helped him in that activity too.

"It'd be better if you sit for a while, before falling asleep.", the young man remarked and guided John to the living room.

John felt like his head was in a fishbowl. Drops of water were running down his neck from his hair and he tried to focus on them to remember himself he had to regain his composure. He managed to reach an armchair in the middle of the room and collapsed on it, his legs not able to hold him up anymore. He closed his eyes, since headache was striking in too. Sherlock went to the kitchen and brought John a glass of water with an aspirin, then sat on the sofa in front of him. John took the medicine.

"You have questions.", the young man said seconds later "I can read it on your face. Ask, then."

John gawked, shocked. Was Sherlock really giving him permission to ask some questions? Obviously his face showed those thoughts too, because the young man spoke again.

"Yes, you can ask me questions. First it'll help you stay awake, second it'll help me stay awake, third you probably won't remember much tomorrow. Ask."

John swallowed, while his brain seemed to dance in his skull. And he couldn't understand whether it was the alcohol or Sherlock's willingness to answer his questions. He had millions. And his brain wasn't cooperating.

"How did you know I was in that pub?", he eventually managed to say.

"I have been following you since this morning."

"Wh…following me? Why?"

"I was bored. That's all."

John elaborated the thought in his brain. It was highly, terribly highly inappropriate, but in the state he was in, he found it laughable. He laughed aloud, mainly because he had the confirmation that he hadn't imagined things.

"So…you followed me because you were bored."

"Yes."

"Okay."

John accepted it serenely, like it was the most normal thing in the whole universe. Then asked the second question.

"How's your…", and he pointed to Sherlock's chest.

"Strange for you to ask."

John knew he hadn't asked him about his wound for three weeks, but Sherlock had literally vanished and he hadn't seen him if not during the lessons, after which the young man had disappeared for good.

"You disappeared.", John replied.

"You did too.", was the irritated answer.

"What?", John frowned.

"You didn't even send me a message, despite having my number. I thought you didn't care and didn't want to talk about it anymore."

John felt his cheeks going red and swallowed hard. Sherlock was right once more. The young man opened the buttons of his shirt and John, despite his blurry sight, clearly saw a bright pink scar where his stitches have been.

"I removed them by myself, if you were wondering.", Sherlock said flatly.

John nodded.

"How old are you?", the question slipped out from John's mouth before he could even realise it.

Damn the drunkenness, he cursed mentally. How it even came to his mind, John really couldn't guess. Yet the young man in front of him seemed rather impressed by it.

"Twenty-seven."

John's brain, which was already massively damaged by the alcohol, stopped working.

"Sorry, what?", he blabbed unintelligibly "That's…impossible!"

"I'm certain of it."

"And how…?"

John was about to ask how it was possible that Sherlock was only at his second year of university, already knowing how bright, clever, brilliant he was. Obviously Sherlock understood the question before John could complete it.

"I was in rehab until four years ago. I enrolled at university one year later. Satisfied?", he answered coldly.

John had to stop and think. Rehab. Had Sherlock just said that word or was it the rum working?

"Don't do that, John."

"Do what?", John didn't understand.

"That face. Your face is clearly saying 'it's not possible, I must have got it wrong'. I assure you, you didn't. I'm not a saint or a hero, John."

"But…"

John didn't know what to say. Had he been sober, his mind would've helped him in that task. But his thoughts tangled together, making it impossible for him to form a coherent sentence. Yet he managed to say something. Not his best speech, but something.

"…you are clever! The cleverest, most brilliant, amazing person I've ever known in my whole life! I can't imagine…how?"

"It's not a question I'd like to answer right now.", the young man replied "It's not a topic I'm at ease with. Like you aren't willing to talk about your ex-wife with anyone, even with your supposed girlfriend. The past is the past."

John gulped. Sherlock looked at him, aquamarine eyes under black long eyelashes fixing him, cold eyes. Freezing cold eyes. John felt helpless under that gaze and understood that the time for questions had ended. Plus his eyelids were becoming heavier and heavier, until he couldn't keep his eyes open anymore. He fell asleep.

When he woke up he was lying on a sofa. His head was hurting so much that it looked like it on the verge of exploding. He had a vague reminiscence of what had happened the previous day, but it took him all his strengths to understand where he was. Sherlock's flat. He was in Sherlock's flat. And, like it had happened weeks before, Sherlock was nowhere to be seen. On the coffee table next to the sofa there were a glass of water and another aspirin. He stretched his arm to reach it. As he did that, his mobile buzzed inside his trousers. He took it out and read the message, despite his still blurry sight.

I've gone out, so you don't have to be embarrassed in front of me.
Take the water and the aspirin.
I've left the doors open, so you can leave when you want.
And don't worry, I'm not going to talk about it to anyone. –SH.

John read and smiled. This time he quickly tapped the answer on his mobile. And sent it soon after.

Thank you, Sherlock.
John.

He took the aspirin, drank the water and left.