07.

I slept all through the day, that night, and well into the early hours of the next morning. I was going to have to make another appointment with Ella about this. She'd warned me about this, sleeping all the time. It was a sign of situational depression – exhausted all the time, sleeping all the time, and never feeling any more rested than before. I made a mental note of that and pushed myself to get up from where I still lay on the couch.

Sherlock was knocking around in the kitchen, oddly enough. I couldn't see him from where I sat, but my nose registered an odor most foul and I groaned. I rubbed my eyes and stood, stretching through the disgust.

Sherlock peeked out of the kitchen. On his face were safety goggles, accompanied by an apron and what looked like thick yellow cleaning gloves. "You're awake." He said. "I did wonder if you were still alive."

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. "You didn't think to check if I were still breathing?" He waved me off and disappeared back into the kitchen. I shuffled to the door, wrinkling my nose as I went. "What in God's name is that smell?"

"Sulfuric acid. Testing it on organic materials." With his back still turned to me, he held up something in each hand. "Eggshell. Rooto drain opener. Elementary."

"Then why are you doing it?"

"You took it upon yourself to sleep for," he pulled back a glove to check his wrist, "21 hours." Sherlock busied himself again with his household experiment. "This is the result of a great deal of boredom."

"I'm not your monkey." I muttered. "You can, I don't know, find other things to do. Things that don't make the entire flat smell like a swamp."

"Eat something, Katherine." Sherlock said flatly. "You are almost intolerable before 7 am."

"Me?" I sputtered, pointing to myself in utter disbelief. "I'm intolerable?"

"Eat." He repeated.

Scowling, I snatched an apple from the side of the counter that was untouched by eggshell or drain opener and lumbered off to take a shower. Halfway through Katherine's Bangin' Tunes Volume 1, another smell started wafting around the flat. This one was so horrendous that I could smell it through the lavender shampoo and Irish Spring. I jumped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around my body, and stormed out into the hall.

"WHAT are you doing?" I shouted, trying to keep my towel up and save myself from the stench of death. "What is that?"

In each of his hands was a bottle of Febreze. "Mediterranean Lavender." He said, holding up one. "And Tahitian Sunrise." He waggled the opposite at me, unfazed by my look of horror.

"It smells like roadkill." I said, beginning to cough. "Put them down. We're getting out of here."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow and looked at each of the bottles. "I read that these were supposed to cure odors."

"Not two opposite scents. Not sulfuric acid." The cough grew steadily worse. I shook my head and turned to leave.

"Katherine?"

I glanced back at him over my shoulder. I couldn't stand to turn back fully to the blossoming mushroom cloud of chemicals behind me.

"You're dripping all over the floor."

After pressing my lips together, I marched myself back into the bathroom and finished rinsing the shampoo from my hair before rushing to get ready before we were poisoned from whatever was drifting through the air. Sherlock seemed much restored to his old ways – he was unbearably sarcastic, shockingly straightforward. This was the man I'd heard so much about.

I had to admit, I preferred him like this to the withdrawn shell of a person I'd stumbled in upon. He was trying. It wasn't that he was bored. It was that he had to keep himself busy. I understood that and could never really be upset with him for it – I wanted to do the same.

Before leaving the sanctuary of my room, I dialed Sarah Sawyer and left her a message saying that I would accept the position she had offered if it were still open. It was part-time, only a few hours in the mornings before lunch. But it would get me out into the world and back on my feet one baby-step at a time. I needed that. I had to stop sleeping, I had to rejoin the general population and live my life.

When I'd gathered my thoughts and my things for the day, I tucked my nose into the collar of my coat and rushed down the hall, snatching Sherlock by the coat sleeve as I went. I dragged him behind me until we were on the stairs and safely away from the flat.

"Next time, do us both a favor and just open a window." I said, smirking. Before he could protest, I turned and made my way down the stairs and out to the street. I could sense his frown even behind my back. For the first time in a while, it wasn't raining.

The air was chilled, and the sky was gray, but there wasn't a raincloud in sight. That was good because I hadn't even thought to bring my umbrella. Silently, Sherlock stepped out and hailed a cab. As it was pulling over, my cell began to ring and, with a quick glance at the caller, I answered it.

"Dad?"

"Morning, Katherine." He said tiredly. "How are you?"

Sherlock opened the door of the cab and slid inside, gesturing for me to follow impatiently when I didn't move immediately after him. I nodded and hopped in, closing the door behind me.

"Oh," my father said. "You're busy. I'll just talk to you later, darling."

"Is anything wrong?" I asked, cutting him off before he could end the call. My dad never called just to chat. There had been a reason for this, I knew it. I wasn't letting him get away before he confessed it to me.

"Nothing. Just… have you happened to hear from your mother?"

I blanched. It had been at least a week since she'd left for Sylvia's. My mother was the one to just call and chat. "No." I said. And I didn't have to ask to know he hadn't heard from her either.

"Well, alright then." He sighed. "I'll let you go. I love you much, KW. Stay safe."

"Will do, Dad. I love you."

I hung up first. I couldn't relax my reeling mind. I knew my parents were separating, most likely when my mother decided to return from France and resume her life. But not calling was an indication that she was happy there – content. She called us when she was antsy and in a mood to fuss about not being home to cook dinner. My mother assumed that when she was gone, both my life and that of my father was only seconds away from collapsing.

It was mid-October. She would usually be home, starting to make her plans for the holidays. She liked to call our relatives in advance to start guilting them into joining the Watson's for her famous Christmas dinner. And then she would recruit me to start helping her buy presents for people like Sylvia and her son Kyle.

I hated it. Every year, I hated it.

Right now, I missed it. I was worried for her, worried for me. What if she decided not to come back? Just sent my dad the papers in the mail and stayed in France with Sylvia. It sounded so dramatic, but she wasn't above things like that. I would never admit it under normal circumstances, but I learned my moxie from my mother. She was invaluable to me, much like oxygen. And I wouldn't get over it if she never came home.

I had just begun to dream up ways to convince her to come back when Sherlock spoke. It was something I didn't quite catch, so I had to lift my head to look at him and ask him to repeat himself.

"Where are we going?" He asked again, sounding bored. "You insisted we leave the flat."

"Wherever you like, Sherlock." I said. "It doesn't matter to me." I turned back to the window and tuned out while he gave the cabbie instructions.

Even lost in my thoughts, I noticed how Sherlock made an effort to sit as far from me as possible. He was nearly pressed against the window. He would have been, had he scooted just another millimeter to the right. And then I noticed that I was doing the same.

Our hands were in our laps. His flat on his thighs, mine clasped together, and our eyes were everywhere but on each other. Neither of us spoke. The hum of the engine and whisper of the tires on the road were the only noises in the cab. Especially with my mind in turmoil, the thought of things being like this – ridiculous and strained – didn't do anything to encourage me.

"Your father." Sherlock said suddenly. "Is he… are…" He scowled, seeming frustrated, and then fell silent again.

"Alright?" I asked, fishing for the end of the sentence. He paused for a moment, then gave a quick bob of his head. Sherlock was asking if my dad was alright.

"He's fine." I said. My answer was rushed. I could tell that Sherlock noticed that because he cut his eyes toward me, searching for something I refused to show. Then, it seemed he remembered my insistence that he stay out of my head and so he turned back to the window.

"Thanks." I blurted. Then blushed. Then wanted to fling myself out into the street and beg someone to hit me with their car. Sherlock looked mildly alarmed – he didn't know what to say either. I'd been furious at him for lacking social graces. It turned out that mine had gone into recession since moving my things into his flat. "For the, you know, thought. For asking. About my dad."

I had to shut up. I had to stop talking. It was physically painful for me to hear myself keep trying to make things less awkward. I couldn't imagine what he was thinking.

"You don't have to do this." He said.

I shifted to face him. "What?"

"The talking thing." Sherlock said. "Your cheeks are red. You are clearly uncomfortable."

"Okay." I turned back to the window before the blush could visibly creep down my neck. "No more talking."

I never even thought to ask him where we were going.

Apparently, Sherlock's idea of a good time was hanging out in the morgue at St. Bart's. Giving him free rein to pick our destination hadn't been the better of my good ideas. I bit my tongue and followed him inside, but quickly drew the line when I realized that the morgue was exactly as I imagined: cold, dimly lit, and in the sub-floors of the hospital.

My worst nightmare.

"Why are we here?" I asked. "This wasn't exactly what I meant when I said I didn't care. I thought…" I looked at the glare of the light dancing across one of the examination tables with a shudder.

"You never specified where you would like to go." Sherlock stated, shedding his coat. "I have business to attend to. You may sit. Molly keeps books at her desk."

"So, I'm just supposed to hang out. In a morgue." I nodded, pursing my lips in distaste. "Right." What I wouldn't admit was that this place gave me the heebie-jeebies. I hated it. I was afraid right down to my bones, but I couldn't very well run out of there screaming. I sat down, as he'd said, and watched him go about his 'business', just as comfortable here as he would have been back at the flat. "You come here a lot?" I asked.

"Yes." He said.

My flatmate hung out in morgues. I said nothing in return and ambled off to find a book to read. I had nothing better to do and I refused to go to the flat with that horrific smell still lingering. After hitting up a vending machine for the world's tiniest bag of peanuts and a pop, I settled in with a very torrid looking romance novel. Not really my taste, but it was that or an anatomy textbook.

About thirty or so pages in, a woman in a lab-coat came wandering out into the hall. She had change in her hand – she was going to spring for some overpriced peanuts too, I imagined. Upon seeing me, she gasped. A broad smile broke out over her face and she rushed to my side.

"You must be Sherlock's flatmate." She said, extending a hand. Unfortunately, it was the hand that held her change and it went skittering all over the bright white floor. "Oh, goodness." She muttered and dashed down to retrieve it. I helped as much as I could, but her movements were so erratic that we nearly bumped heads twice. When she stood again, she held out her hand a second time. I shook it and she introduced herself. "I'm Molly Hooper. This is my lab. Morgue. Whatever you'd like to call it. Sherlock likes to do some of his work here."

I smiled back at her. "I'm Katherine." I said.

"Oh, yes. I know." Molly blushed. "I'm sorry, was that rude? I just meant that I've heard about you before."

I arched a brow, confused. "Sherlock told you?"

"Oh, goodness, no. Sherlock never tells anyone anything personal." She said with a sigh. "John talked about you often. And Mrs. Hudson said that John's sister had moved in with Sherlock – I just recognized you. I figured you must be her. You have that look about you. I suppose all the Watsons must have it."

Molly Hooper was a talker, but I could tell it was out of nervousness and not the want to chat. I knew that feeling very well. I held up my pop and gestured to the seat beside me. "I'm just sitting here while Sherlock finishes up. I'd love some company if you're not too pressed for time." I set aside her book. "I can't seem to lose myself in this.

Molly blushed again when she saw her book on the chair, but then began to laugh. "It is pretty awful, isn't it?"

I hesitated for a moment before hanging my head. "Extremely. I mean, 'dark chocolate orbs'?"

Molly threw her head back, thoroughly tickled. Her brown hair bounced in a rather endearing way, as if it had a life of its own. "I know, I know. It's terrible. I just can't bring things here that really would hold my attention. I wouldn't be able to work." She put her money in the machine and made her selection. It dropped into the bin below and she retrieved it before walking quickly to take a seat next to me. "So," she said. "Tell me about life with the madman."

Molly opened her crisps, grinning at me. I grinned back. So, Sherlock did whatever it was that he dragged me to Bart's for while I talked to Molly Hooper. And I had the thought that I might just have made a friend.