For a long while, he remained turned away from me, ballpoint pen tapping against the patient file on the desk. Clearly, he was agitated, shoulders tensed, jaw tightened. He released a long sigh before straightening the stethoscope around his neck and spinning in the chair to face me again, head cocked, brows arched, crossing his legs and holding the file in his lap, continuing to tap the pen.

"So, what you're saying is, you have a … No. You can't. What the fuck, Sherlock? How do you even …" John paused, scowling at me, and I glance around the exam room. I thought he'd be quite happy to see me, glad I didn't wait any longer to share this with him. "I'm gone for a week, and you get a girlfriend without me! How does that even happen?"

"I texted you."

"You said it was an emergency, not a girlfriend," he yelled, tossing the pen in my face quite forcefully.

"That was the emergency."

"Oh for God's sake, Sherlock." John whacked me atop the head with the file folder. "You should know better than that. … What am I thinking? Of course you don't know better. … How in the bloody hell did you get a girlfriend?"

Honestly, his reaction was rather unexpected, and I stood, gathering my coat from the exam table, preparing to leave. "I see, John. I'm human enough to be your best friend, but not human enough to learn from being such, to perhaps be more …."

I spun on my heel and quickly strode to the door, throwing it open so hard it hit the wall, bouncing back, and I had to catch it from closing once again, but he stopped me short of walking out with two questioning words.

"More what?"

Without turning to him, I answered. "More like you, John." I pulled the door closed as I stepped into the hallway, not saying another word, and hearing no further response.

"Do you need a follow-up appointment, sir?" asked the receptionist as I went to leave.

"No, Dr. Watson miraculously cured my affliction. I won't be returning."

Dreary, the Monday morning weather was typical for London, and I flipped the collar up on my coat, standing on the edge of the street, watching for a taxi to hail.

"So you're just gonna leave like that, you arsehole?" John grabbed my arm, pulling me back toward the wall of the building, which I reluctantly allowed. "How the bloody hell am I supposed to apologize if you just take off like that?"

"I didn't ask for an apology. I don't need one." I shrugged his hand off but made no move to leave. "Go back to your patients, Dr. Watson. There are people in need of you."

He shifted on his feet and stared at the wall, refusing to look at me. "Yeah, well … I have something important to take care of, had to run out for 'bout an hour or so."

For a moment, I waited, watching John, wanting to tell him everything, empty every thought and feeling running through my head regarding Victoria out at his feet, pleading for his advice, but he stood there, still staring at the wall. He wore sadness and anger in his eyes, though I didn't understand what exactly I'd done.

"Then I'll leave you be, John. You're a busy man," I stated quietly, and headed to hail a cab.

"Not too busy for my best friend, Sherlock. The café across the street has good coffee, if you have time."

The silence remained rather awkward and prolonged whilst we sat inside the café at a table by the window, trying not to look at one another as we struggled with all the things we wished to say. Much had changed in the last week, more than we'd ever expected would between us.

"This is my fault, Sherlock," John began, and I quickly looked up, studying his face, unsure how he was guilty of anything. "Before you say a word, let me finish. However insane anyone else thought I was, or still thinks I am, I readily accepted your eccentricities, and relatively quickly considered you my friend, my best friend. I could overlook all the things about you that no one else could, could see the heart I believed was there when you didn't believe it yourself. I saw you go from a friendless freak to my best friend. I saw you come back from the dead. I could believe you capable of those things without question, and yet in this, I doubt you. I laugh at you. For that …" He tapped his fingers on the table and finally made eye contact. "For that, I am indeed sorry, Sherlock. I'm not being a very good friend, am I?"

"Although I'm not exactly an expert on the matter, I don't think you are." He tossed a sugar packet at me, and we both laughed. When silence fell again, I smiled at him. "I forgive you, John. I'll always forgive you."

"Tone down the sentimentality a bit. I'm still getting used to it on you," he chided, shaking his head, and I felt my face warm slightly. He was right though. It was odd for me too, allowing myself to have feelings and express them. "So, this girlfriend of yours… Wouldn't happen to be Mary's friend you met at the wedding, maybe?"

"Excellent deduction. Perhaps you should be a detective, Dr. Watson. We've had three point five dates so far, and I'd estimate our relationship to be quite fantastic actually."

"Wait. You've been on three and a half dates while I've been gone? And how the hell do you go on half a date?"

I smirked. "We agreed to qualify the reception of your wedding as a half date between us as it was that we spent the entirety of the dancing portion of it with one another and have since determined our relationship status as exclusive and felt the time belonged within the collective of our outings labeled as 'dates' given that I had every intention of leaving that night had it not been for Victoria's intervention and ultimately, my romantic interest in her, that led me to return. For that, I must apologize. She's pointed out how horrible of me it was to walk out the way I did, but…" Pausing, I took another sip of my coffee. "At the time, that was the only thing I could think to do."

"Yeah, yeah, all's forgiven and yeah… Back to the dates." John sipped his coffee, nodding and gesturing with his finger, as if turning pages in a book. "Don't skip the good parts."

"Wednesday evening was our first official date. I took her out to dinner. Everything went fairly well. I kissed her outside the restaurant after dinner, walked her home, and decided to make plans for Saturday night. Thanks to a connection of mine, I scored us fantastic tickets to the show at the Donmar since Victoria's quite a fan of theater, and that went smoothly. Again, we kissed. She invited me in for a bit. I didn't stay too long. Then yesterday, she had to do some work in her office, so I surprised her with lunch and enjoyed listening to her as she explained the experiment she's currently working on, examining potential correlations between personality types and the Stroop Effect." I set my coffee down, grinning excitedly. "She said I can be one of her test subjects."

John's brows arched, and the corner of his mouth twitched. "And I bet you really snogged after that."

I bit my lip and glanced away out the window. "Well, it was a pretty amazing kiss. After all, she did agree to include me on her research experiment." A thought of Victoria flashed through my mind, her ginger hair tangled in my fingers, soft skin beneath my touch, her wicked smile as I pinned her body between mine and the heavy wooden door of her office, playfully demanding to be a test subject. "You know how I feel about such things."

"Yeah, I do." He shook his head and laughed. "I suppose being her lab rat's a bit like foreplay'd be to most couples."