Once they had gotten all of the packages up to the apartment Sherlock went to the kitchen to grab a knife and begin opening them. John watched in amazement and horror as Sherlock kneeled down on the floor and carefully slit all of the tape open with the sharp blade. He was terrified that Sherlock was going slip and injure himself. The first package he opened contained a laptop. Sherlock flipped it open and felt the keys... "Braille," he muttered to himself.

He tossed the expensive piece of equipment aside roughly and opened a second package. It was much smaller and contained a watch. Sherlock carefully felt the buttons and the face of the device. He pressed a textured button on the side: 'Nine-fifteen pm' the pre-programmed device chirped at him in a woman's voice. He had started slightly at the sound. "Mycroft." Sherlock concluded and got up off the floor.

"Aren't you going to open the rest of them?" John asked, suddenly very curious.

"No. Just send them back."

"Sherlock, this is expensive equipment," John scolded in exasperation, "It is probably all very helpful stuff that would make your life MUCH easier."

"I have you to make my life easier."

"Funny," John said sarcastically, "I can't be around all the time. I have a job you know; one that I'm going back to on Monday. You should keep this stuff. It will help you stay occupied and oriented until I get home."

"No, John."

"You are a stubborn git, you know that?"

Sherlock remained resolute.

"Fine. Will you at least open this one?" John asked as he set the light package on top of Sherlock's hands which were resting in his lap.

"Why? What is it?"

"It's something I ordered for you."

Sherlock looked mildly surprised. He tore open the large envelop and carefully emptied the contents onto his desk: two books and an audio CD slipped out. Sherlock opened the books and touched the pages gently. "Braille," he said much like he had the first time.

"It's a course pack. The CD goes along with the book and will teach you how to read it."

"But John – "

"Before you just throw it out, listen to my way of thinking," John said without giving him a chance to continue. "I know how much you hate all of the audio books you've tried because of how long it takes for them to read everything to you... it's impractical. I figured that if you could learn how to read braille, you would then be able to read at your own speed and not get frustrated with the technology. There are some great resources online, we can order you all kinds of books..."

"Thank you, John," Sherlock said suddenly. "It was very kind of you."

John's heart warmed in response to Sherlock's honest appreciation. "And if you keep that laptop which I'm sure Mycroft has already had preprogrammed with all kinds of great sites and resources for you, you'll be completely self-sufficient."

Sherlock was silent for a long moment, "I suppose I could take a look at it."

John felt relief wash over him. Sherlock may hate Mycroft, but he hated dependency even more. "And maybe he's gotten you a more accurate audio web-reader program," John added aloud, more to himself than to Sherlock, "Then you won't have to fight with the cheep one you downloaded and I won't have to help you do computer research anymore."

He didn't need to say anymore. Sherlock was already curious to find out what exactly his brother had put on the device. He felt around for it on the floor, then snatched it up and opened it on the desk. He didn't speak to John again that evening.

Despite Sherlock's earlier insistence that the rest of the items be sent back to his brother, John squirreled away all of the packages into his room. He set them neatly aside and unopened in hope that Sherlock would in time come around – just as he had with the laptop.

...

When John finally lay down in bed that night he felt exhaustion in every fiber of his being. It had been a long day. A part of him wanted to hug Mycroft of sending all of the equipment that John had already been looking into purchasing. He knew exactly how much the laptop had cost and could only imagine how much money had been put into the programming and all of the other items that were still left unopened in their packages. The other half of him wanted to kill him. Mycroft had not stopped by to see Sherlock, had not phoned, had not even texted John to ask if Sherlock was alright, since the first night in the hospital. What kind of sibling could be that detached? John wondered if Sherlock actually preferred his brother's silence as he said, or if he only said things like that because he was hurt that his brother didn't care enough to visit. He didn't think about this long however. The exhaustion seized him, his groggy mind wandered, and he dropped quickly off to sleep.

At some time in the night John slipped from unconsciousness into a dream – a strange blend of memory and fear. He was standing in his medical tent in Afghanistan. He felt the oppressive heat and smelled the blood and sweat, he heard the screams and... gunfire? He felt his breath catch as fear began to creep into his heart and tighten like iron bands around his chest. He swallowed hard and went to the opening of the tent. Suddenly he was in the middle of a chaotic scene. Sherlock was there, in the middle of the battlefield with him. He was shouting orders at the men. They all went rushing forward right into a minefield. John cried out to him to look out, to stop, but Sherlock didn't hear him. None of the men could hear him over the sound of the guns. All around him explosions were going off and men, who John knew to be dead, were dying all over again before his very eyes. Sherlock turned to look at him with knowing eyes before a final explosion shook John awake. "Sherlock!" He shot up in bed, a cold sweat covering his entire body. He was trembling and his breath was coming in ragged, uneven, gasps. The dreamed blast had engulfed Sherlock and, for a moment, John fought off the wild urge to go check up on his roommate to make sure that he was alright.

He lay back in bed and closed his eyes, forcing himself to take slow deep breaths and to clear his mind. His leg pained him terribly and he got up to pace the room. He went through the motions of talking himself down: "It was just a dream," he muttered to himself. You are safe. Everything is fine. Sherlock is fine. You will never go back there again. Sherlock is not in danger. It's just from the stress... you had a long day... it is just stress resulting from Sherlock's trauma. Just go back to bed. Go back to bed. He was finally able to settle down and fall back to sleep sometime around three am – after having alternated between sitting awake and pacing for nearly an hour.

He awoke late in the morning feeling as though he were not fully rested. He felt uneasy; the nightmare had managed to unnerve him. He hadn't had one in over a year. Did this mean he was slipping back? That he still was not fully recovered from the PTSD? He got ready and wandered downstairs, still feeling the residual effects of the dream in a throbbing pain in his right leg.

"Good morning, John," Sherlock stated when John entered the living room. To John's surprise, there was a steaming cup of tea sitting invitingly on the table beside his chair. Sherlock was sitting at his desk, running his fingers over the pages of the book that John had bought him.

"Good morning," John replied and sat down in his chair.

"Did you sleep well?"

"Yes, and you? You made tea... how long have you been up?"

"You had one of your nightmares again last night," Sherlock stated, ignoring the questions. He closed the book gently, folded his hand together, and gazed blindly and patiently at John.

"How did you know?" John asked, feeling both surprised and slightly ashamed.

"I heard you call out."

"You heard me all the way over in your room?"

"My hearing has greatly improved remember?"

John was silent for a moment. At least it meant Sherlock had gone to bed – he hadn't denied being in his room.

"You sounded quite distressed."

"I'm fine."

"Was it about the war? Or something else?" Sherlock pressured.

"What does it matter Sherlock? It was just a dream."

"It does matter, John. Your mental and emotional health are just as important as your physical health. In fact, in your case, the mental directly affects the physical... your leg is paining you isn't it?"

"How could you possibly...?"

"I heard you shuffle down the stairs. Your foot falls are uneven – you're placing more weight on your left leg."

"It's ok, really."

"If you don't think that I will understand, perhaps you should speak with your therapist about it." Sherlock's tone was open, practical and concerned; there was no hint of bitterness or sarcasm. He genuinely wanted to help.

"No, it's not that I don't think you'll understand," John tried to explain, "It's just that I don't think that I need to talk about it. It's over, I know why I had it, and I won't be having any more."

"Stress," Sherlock concluded, "Stress triggers them. Isn't that what you told me when you first moved in?"

"Please, Sherlock, leave it be."

"Fine," he said and opened up his book again.

After a moment of silence John interrupted, "How is that coming along?"

"It's quite simple actually. I completed the lessons last night."

"Did you go to bed?"

"Yes, shortly after one am."

"How do you know what time?" John asked, wondering if Sherlock had decided to use the new watch.

"I heard the church bell."

"So, do you think you would like to have some more books in braille?"

"Yes."

"Great, we can look into them and find out if any of your research books or encyclopaedias can be ordered."

John sounded so happy with himself. Sherlock was genuinely grateful for the gift he had given him. John was right after all: reading would go MUCH more quickly if Sherlock was able to scan through the books himself rather than have someone read them to him.

Sherlock listened as John took a quiet sip of his tea and picked up the morning paper. He seemed so calm, but Sherlock knew that he was shaken. He had to be. He had been terrified last night. Sherlock had awoken shortly after falling asleep to the sound of John shouting his name. He had only ever heard John call his name like that one other time: the day he stepped off the roof of St. Bart's Hospital. He had known immediately that it was a dream, but the level of fear and worry in John's desperate tone had startled and moved Sherlock; he had never wanted John to worry about him like that again. He had wanted to go to John's room and wake him, to reach out to him the way he knew John would to him if he had experience a similar issue. Unfortunately, he also somehow knew that John wouldn't really appreciate it – just as he didn't appreciate Sherlock's concern right now. This was one area of his life that John kept entirely to himself and he did not like acknowledging that he had an issue to himself, never mind to other people. Sherlock's questions only embarrassed him. So, knowing all of this, Sherlock had not gone to John's room last night, and he had graciously let the topic of conversation drop.

"John? Are you going out anywhere today?" he asked innocently.

"I hadn't planned on it... might do a bit of the shopping. Why?" John asked, looking over the top of the paper.

"I want to come with you."

...

A second week passed in this manner... John never left the apartment without Sherlock. The two of them would often go and sit in cafés, parks, malls and bars, and everywhere they went Sherlock would ask questions – demanding that John make observations and describe things, place, and people for hours. John found himself beginning to notice things about people before Sherlock asked the questions. Even though he felt he would never be able to read the signs and spin them into a story the way Sherlock could, he felt that he was getting pretty good at noticing them. A splash of mud here, a bit of lipstick on the collar there, some coffee on a tie here, a tattoo on the ankle there... things he had never really noticed before. It seemed that to break people down the way that Sherlock did you had to completely turn off the part of your brain that was human. You had to force yourself to see the things you didn't want to see, the things your mind chose to miss or forget because they don't fit into your own assumptions. You had to analyse them, every single detail of them, like the results of a new experiment.

Meanwhile, whether they were home, or out, Sherlock continued to taste, listen, feel and experience different things. It was a constant and seemingly never-ending stream of information he collected, catalogued, and filed away in his mind. Sherlock was hell-bent on 'observing' as much as possible by himself, so that when he was eventually invited to a crime scene he would only need to depend on John's eyes for a small portion of the data. He never said this to John, but John understood.

Occasionally, Sherlock would be seized by random ideas as to how he could widen his scope of knowledge and would then force John to take him out to – often embarrassing – locations. One example of such a location was a ladies' make-up store; Sherlock chose this particular establishment so that he could poke around and learn the different smells and feel the different textures of the different high and low-end products. "Make-up says a lot about a woman, John," he had said in defence when John tried to talk him out of the idea. Another time, they spent over an hour in a clothing store without buying a thing; instead, Sherlock slipped from garment to garment feeling every fiber of every possible type of cloth imaginable while people stared at them both as if they were completely mad. Once or twice they had even gone to the grocery store to give Sherlock a chance to poke around and try to identify all of the different smells and sounds there. In busy places such as these Sherlock never left John's side. He kept in constant contact – with one hand either clinging to his sleeve or resting on his shoulder. John didn't mind at all. He was happy that Sherlock was learning pace himself and also to embrace and overcome his new situation. John was more than willing to comply with Sherlock's wishes if it meant that he was being of genuine use to the great detective – no matter how humiliating the resulting scenarios were.

...

Because of his incredible memory and long history of communicating while actually paying attention to something else completely, Sherlock was able to type on a regular keyboard without error. However, the programs that Mycroft had had programmed into the new laptop were incredibly useful and thus, Sherlock had asked John to transfer the decent programs to his old laptop and return the other to Mycroft.

"Wouldn't it be easier to just transfer your files to the new one?" John asked as he eyes the complicated device.

"This one will be being watched and probably tracked. Mycroft is incredibly efficient."

"You honestly think your own brother would take advantage of your current situation to spy on you?"

"Yes."

John sighed and did as he was told.

...

John's blog and cell phone had both become a burden to John over the past seven days. He had returned to work, but only part time so that he could be home half of the day with Sherlock. Because of work, it was essential to check his phone, but Sherlock almost never texted anymore and his absence was filled by Lestrade's increasingly angry messages.

If you don't bring him down here tonight I'm going to drive over there with a warrant and get him myself. Lestrade's message had just come in as John reached the surgery.

Ok, I'll talk to him. We'll be by tonight.