Quality of Interest

He stared at his cup of black coffee, at the way the dark liquid would shimmer and ripple as he bounced his knee beneath the table while he reminisced over how things had finally started to look up.

Six months ago, his world had come crashing down around him. He questioned everything, from his dead friend's intentions to his own sanity. He'd refused to believe anything he'd heard about Sherlock since that day, even said man's final words to him. He could not and never would believe that it had all been an elaborate ruse.

John Watson had seen too many devilishly clever feats and too many fascinatingly solved cases to ever bloody well believe that Sherlock Holmes, the world's only consulting detective, had been anything but perfectly genuine in his feats and abilities. He was a self absorbed, socially stunted prat but he was no liar.

John shook his head and internally scolded himself for allowing this redundant line of thought to take over his morning ritual once more. There were far more pleasant and far less depressing things he could be filling his mind with this morning. For example, he should be thinking about the woman who'd excused herself from his flat only an hour before and more specifically, about the very wonderful things they'd done first on his couch and then in his bedroom. He could be thinking about the wonderful way she'd woken him from his first peaceful sleep in months. That's what should be in his thoughts, not Sherlock Holmes. It was sick, really. So he made a conscious decision to smack himself the next time he slipped up and thought of the consulting detective rather than Mary.

Yes, that was an excellent idea and he smiled as he raised the now cooling drink to his lips. Just as he was about to take a long awaited sip, a knock came at the door. He quickly set the cup down and strode to the door, hoping against hope that Mary was back to surprise him with a day off of work.

He unbolted the door and swung it wide. The smile on his face immediately vanished. In its place his features all pinched together, his jaw offset to the left and he canted his head as if the slight change in perspective would yield him a different vision than what he originally saw.

There, stood none other than Mr. Sherlock Holmes himself. Before John even had a proper chance to question his own sanity, he shook his head and closed the door once more.

"Nope." He said curtly but didn't move away from his spot. He just kept shaking his head, his hand still on the doorknob. "No, I did not just see Sherlock Holmes in front of my flat."

"Yes, John, you did." A muffled response came from beyond the door, from the ghost he'd just seen.

"No, I did not." He argued through the door, raising his voice to compensate for the wooden obstruction. "Because if I did, that would mean something very, very wrong has been going on for the past half a BLOODY YEAR!" he yelled, his heart was pounding now and his breathing had just doubled in rate. Why couldn't it have been Mary, safe, pretty, liked to say his name during sex, undoubtedly alive, Mary? Why did this life hate him so?

"Open the door, John."

"Sod off."

"I'd rather not explain through the door."

"You'd rather not," John exclaimed incredulously just before he ripped open the door. "You'd rather not! You unbelievable bastard!" The next moments happened in a bit of a blur but they resulted in Sherlock grasping his nose as blood soaked his shirt and jacket while Watson shook out his hand cursing about how much that really, really hurt.

"Can I come in now?" Sherlock asked in what would have been his normal tone if the airway through his nose hadn't been recently plugged up. John glared at him, still in a mild state of shock when he nodded and led the way into his flat. He didn't pay the dead man any attention as he went to the kitchen, passing his now cold cup of coffee and grabbing a sack of frozen mixed veggies from the icebox. He glanced up at Sherlock who was still gingerly holding what was likely a broken nose. He grabbed a hand towel, wrapped the frozen bag with it, walked over to him and set the cool combo down. He ignored the way his friend narrowed his eyes at him when he moved his hands away, looked at his nose for a second to determine that, yes, it was indeed broken before he grabbed it expertly between two fingers and pulled, resetting the bone into its proper location. He didn't let himself feel guilty in the least for the yelp of pain the move elicited from the taller man.

"I was going to have Molly do that." He heard him mumble as Sherlock lightly touched his own nose once more. John almost laughed at the way he flinched when he offered the cold compress before taking it and applying it to his nose.

"Molly might have just added to it before fixing it if she'll be anywhere as pissed as I am at finding out that you've been alive all this…" He saw the odd look Sherlock threw his way despite the obstruction covering a great deal of his face. "Fuck me, she knew?" The other man just nodded before angling his face toward the ceiling in the hope of stanching the flow of blood.

John pushed a stool in Sherlock's direction and then grabbed another frozen sack from the ice box for himself. He sat down on a stool of his own, grabbed his cold coffee, took a stubborn sip, winced at the acrid flavor and spoke.

"Explain and it better be the story of the century."

Sherlock spent the next hour doing just that. He told of how he survived the fall, how Molly had aided him in the task and why he'd been unable to tell anyone. He explained how Moriarty had used Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade and him as game pieces. He then gave a cursory telling of the past six months, how he'd dismantled the syndicate thereby freeing them of any danger.

"So you see, I could not in good faith reveal anything to you before now," Sherlock finished as he wiped at his face with a wet cloth he'd procured only a few minutes before.

John just sat there for a minute and decided that he must still be in shock. He had no idea how to respond to even one word that had been said. He wasn't sure if he should be angry at him for not having enough trust to tell his former flat mate that he was, in fact, not dead or if he should thank him for perhaps saving his life. So instead of thinking about his own processing of the situation, he asked after another's.

"So how did Mrs. Hudson take the news?"

"She screamed, then slapped me, then hugged me and then slapped me again. Then she made me some tea, opened a new tin of biscuits and told me she'd kept the 221b tidy in my absence but that it in no way meant she was my housekeeper."

John couldn't help but chuckle.

"And Lestrade?"

"Haven't approached him yet. He should be getting fully reinstated to his old job and pay scale sometime today or tomorrow. But after Mrs. Hudson's slaps and your punch, I'm actually quite concerned that he might shoot me."

"I might have shot you had I had my gun handy."

"And hence my concerns."

"I see your point."

"So when can you move out of this dreary place and back to the 221b?"

This sent Watson for a loop. He hadn't thought much beyond the immediate return and certainly not as far as to the possibility of becoming flat mates with Sherlock once more. He wasn't even sure if he'd forgiven the presumptuous man yet.

"Mycroft will pay for the move. He's been quite generous with personal funds lately. It will be interesting to see how far I can milk this guilt of his. Who knew he could be so sentimental?"

"Sherlock, I don't even know…"

"I suggest as soon as possible. This area you've chosen to live can't be very pleasant for your newest lady friend. It's too far from her place of work at Bart's to make easy evening calls and is on completely opposite ends of town from her own flat. And seeing as how you're far more serious about this one than the last ones, it would be a much better fit."

"I don't even want to know how you know all of that."

"So you'll come back soon."

John hated how Sherlock rarely actually asked, instead turning requests into statement of fact somehow. He couldn't help but look around at his current accommodations and scowl. He really didn't like it, never had. He'd taken it for two reasons. It was cheap and he'd been able to leave 221b immediately in an attempt to escape the oppressive grief the old flat only helped to perpetuate. He sighed.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Good." Sherlock stood, pulled a card from his coat pocket and placed it on the kitchen table. "Call this number and they'll take care of everything." Then he headed for the door.

"Hey, where are you headed off to now?"

John watched as Sherlock hesitated at the door, his back stiffening slightly. "I told someone I'd come see them after I spoke with you."

He might not be a quick to see minute details around him as the detective but he also wasn't as slow minded as Sherlock liked to exclaim from time to time.

"Give Molly my love and make sure she knows I'm not upset with her in the least for not telling me."

He saw the way Sherlock tensed again, his step faltering slightly as he passed through the threshold. He just nodded and didn't turn around, disappearing down the steps and around the corner out of sight.

"This is going to take some getting used to again," John muttered as he locked the door and looked at the card he'd grabbed off the counter. "And it looks like I'm moving again." He looked around and scratched the back of his neck. "Shit."

XxXxX

Molly absently rubbed the towel against her damp hair as she searched out something mind numbing on the telly. She slumped onto the couch in her puffy white robe, the one that made her feel like she was a guest at some high end spa and refocused her efforts on her hair once a suitable channel was found. The talk show host chatted on with his guests as she decided just to wrap the towel around her head as she grabbed the lotion off of the coffee table to begin her normal after shower routine. She'd just finished with one leg when a knock came at her door. She took a quick peek at the clock and wondered who would be calling so late. Halfway to the door she froze. Could it be?

She looked down at herself and sighed. Of course it was, only he showed up when she was completely indecent and if that would have been an issue before the Moriarty debacle, it was doubly so after it for obvious reasons. She tore the towel off her head, and threw it down the hall before running her fingers through her damp hair. Just before she took hold of the door, she took a deep breath in order to compose herself and then…

XxXxX

It had taken Sherlock a few moments of pacing outside her door before he finally found the wherewithal to knock. It wasn't as though he hadn't thought of this encounter several times a day for the past two months but when finally faced with the reality of being here, he'd faltered. He still didn't fully comprehend his… desire to see her repeatedly. He still wasn't sure what had set it off in the first place. Had it been her speech in the lab before his fall? Had it been her complete willingness to aid him despite the sorts of hardships she would endure as a result? Had it been the potent mix of drugs and spontaneous sex? One of those events, he leaned towards the latter, spurred this newly discovered part of himself. Even The Woman had not made him feel this way. She'd been intriguing, stimulating in new and wonderful ways but in the end that was all she was while with Molly… It was something he didn't quite have words for yet.

He didn't know if it was what people called lust or caring but he'd be lying if he didn't admit to himself that it disconcerted him. It felt too much like what he'd once found with a syringe. He got that same desperateness to him when near her as he would just before he pumped himself full of mind altering chemicals. After the first time with her, he'd thought it had just been the sex and the natural highs a body experienced after copulating with another human. So after a month of not being able to remove the scenario from his mind, he'd found a willing woman and tested the theory. It hadn't been the same, not by a long shot.

He hadn't exactly planned to indulge with her a second time but once he was with her, he'd found he had no willpower to oppose his baser desires. He would have done so a third time had the previously meek pathologist not bluntly refused him.

That had not been a pleasant experience. He'd never been one to truly care about the opinions of other and as such, he wasn't one that could easily develop hurt feelings. That night had been an acute exception to that rule. It was bad enough that she rejected him but the way she responded to his attempts at persuasion had been surprising to say the least. He'd spent that lonely night and each one since then pondering what he needed to say, how he needed to act and what he needed to do in order to convince her to allow him back into her good graces in order to get him back into her.

He knew it was crass of him to even think that way. He'd done things he wasn't quite proud of back in his drug using days and he saw the parallel to that. Maybe he shouldn't try to indulge with Molly. Maybe he should take these similarities as warnings. Maybe he should but he wasn't going to. Molly wasn't some illicit substance that would take over his life with the distinct possibility of death attached. She was his pathologist. She was, or at least had been, quite taken with him. She bounced back time and again from his unintentional and intentional verbal lashings that were simply a part of the hazard of spending any real amount of time around him. Not many people were capable of dealing with that like she did. He could think of only four other people that fit that description. Most grew to hate him in very little time but not Molly, not his pathologist

If it was just because of some attraction for him that she harbored, as he always imagined was the case, then he would take advantage of that quality. Wasn't that the point? Two people who had a mutual interest in one another would take advantage of said mutual interest to mutual gain? Did it matter if the quality of the interest differed? He didn't think so. So he knocked on her door…