AN: A small chapter and hopefully light hearted too. :)

CHAPTER-4

SOME FRIENDLY BANTER

When John and Sherly finally got up it was almost 9.30 PM and both had a slight muscle sprain in their necks. But looking at both their faces, anyone would have said that the slight ache was well worth it as they both seemed infinitely better than they both were before the much need nap. They both were ravenously hungry and were so glad that whoever had come into their flat while they were sleeping were kind enough to leave cartons of food behind. But both being too lazy enough to heat it in a microwave, instead just opened it and started to attack it with fervor. But somewhere in the middle of eating John suddenly paused with the spoon full of food in mid air. He was overwhelmed by the sudden guilt which he felt. He was eating food and enjoying here, when his dear Mary was buried somewhere 6 feet below the ground. He felt ashamed of himself.

Sherly who just then noticed that John had stopped eating looked at him to find fresh tears rolling off his eyes. She immediately understood the reason for that. Somehow when it came to guessing the motives behind John's actions, it came more easily to her than deciding what was good and 'bit not good' regarding others. She knew he was wallowing in forced guilt for enjoying simple thing as eating when he had just lost his wife. She could never understand why people behaved that way; why people felt making themselves suffer will somehow ease the pain which was caused by some other factor. She was glad she was a sociopath, well albeit a little at least, even though the recent events were strictly pointing against that fact, which she ofcourse conveniently ignored.

She calmly laid a hand on John's shoulder and spoke in a soft tone. She said, "John, I'm sure Mary is not and can't be hungry anymore but you are and so you really need to eat." When she earned a glare from John, she decided what she said must have said something that fell into the category called 'bit not good'...again. So she modified her sentence to something she has heard normal people like John and Lestrade tell to grieving family members of the victims often and said , "Err what I meant was Mary is in a better place now and she is happy wherever she is now. I'm sure she would want you to be happy too. It would make her sad right, if because of her you are destroying your life? Think about that John." Somehow this time she must have got it right as John started to wipe his tears and turned towards her with a slight smile starting on his lips and said, "Thank you."

But somehow, it seemed both their appetite had vanished after that conversation and both decided they would eat it later. So they kept the leftovers in the fridge and went back to sitting on the couch. After few minutes of companionable silence , John slowly turned towards Sherly and said, " What you said before, that was really good. Made me feel really better." Sherly was just starting to smile smugly on achieving the feat of making John happy when John added, "You heard that exact speech when I was talking to that little girl who had recently lost her mother in a murder in that 'flight of the pigeons' case, right?"

'Caught' was the first word that came to her mind when she heard John say that and her resulting facial reaction must have been really funny because what she heard after that a sound she had missed for almost 3 years… the lovely sound of Dr. John Watson's laughter. After sometime she too sheepishly joined in his mirth for it really was infectious.

….

The next morning when John woke up to the smell of fresh food wafting from the kitchen, for a minute he smiled in the same blissful way he used to wake up on those lazy Sundays when the famed Watson household brunch would have been cooking. But a moment in, the reality came crashing down. Mary was no more. Those wonderful Sundays were now all but a part of his brain where some of his life's most wonderful memories were stored.

So when he got up and came out after getting ready for the morning, the sight he took in was nothing short of alternate reality. There in the kitchen was Sherline Holmes cooking something on the stove and Harry and Mrs. Hudson sitting idly around the kitchen table and drinking tea. Sherly was the one who first took notice of John and she waved him towards the table saying, "What are you staring at John, come sit and eat something before your sister finishes all the scrambled eggs and bacon; even though she kept complaining about the shells in the eggs!" For which Harry shot a deadly glare towards her, but did not comment on it.

Mrs. Hudson then patted a seat next to her for John to join them on the table, which he took gratefully eventhough he really doubted it was all some comic dream... Because Sherline Holmes cooking and others sitting and eating that food, should really be the start of something like a darkly humorous joke or even more apt, a horror story!

So when he softly asked others as what was going on, indicating discreetly towards Sherly; it was ofcourse Sherly herself who answered. She said, " For the past three years, the only pass time other than crap telly and occasional spotting of people I was searching for was… cooking." And after a smug pause, because even her pauses are smug it seems; she added, "Don't give me that look John, I can cook extraordinarily!" The said look was a totally unbelievable scoff from John which became a full fledged snort when Sherly declared that she could cook extraordinarily. Seriously even in cooking it seems she found 'ordinary' boring.

She then sniffed and put her nose up in that haughty manner she always did when she thought whole world was full of nothing but a bunch of idiots not really worth her time; she proceeded to put whatever she was cooking into John's plate. She was then standing impatiently behind his chair waiting for him to taste it and accept the truth that she was a chef extraordinaire. So John slowly took the piece of what seemed like the afore mentioned scrambled egg and ate it.

There was a loud crunch of quite a few bits of egg shells in a single mouthful he took. And since spitting them out would offend his friend he decided to humour her and eat through atleast that single mouthful, if not anything else. He then ate a small piece of what seemed to fried bacon which thankfully was more edible than the scrambled eggs. But when Sherly noticed that he was not touching the eggs again and nor was he exclaiming at her expert culinary skills, she got cross and asked him why he wasn't eating the eggs. And when he replied that it was full of shell pieces, she replied, "Oh for God's sake John, don't be like your whiny sister who doesn't understand my haute cooking methods! I just added them for some crunch! Ordinary scrambled eggs are too soft and boring!" And stormed off from the kitchen into her room to sulk. The rest of the people gathered around the table gave a look to the retreating figure and then towards each other and burst out laughing. And when Harry said, "She totally smashed the egg, I can bet on it! It was no haute cooking method or any crap like that." , there resounded another bout of merry laughter throughout the house.

AN: I know there wasn't much in this chapter; but I just wanted to add some happy moments into it, mainly because again next chapter will be heavy on emotions where the matter of surrogacy will be brought up and if I have any say in it (which I have thankfully), it will be finalized for sure! :D

Updates will be more frequent as I have something kind of a deadline to finish this, so for all those lovely people who have placed alerts, I'm sorry, it is going to be bugging you. :)

And thank you all lovelies for reading, reviewing and placing alerts on this fic. It makes me immensely happy that you all are showing interest in this! :D