The morning after John's body was still so full of adrenaline and anger that it seemed to ache everywhere. His arms were stiff, so were the legs and his head was dizzy for the sleepless night. He had to take an aspirin or he wouldn't have been able to go to the university that morning. He had no lessons, but he thought that his presence in the building would have at least made him look like a person who took his job seriously. And he took it seriously, but Holmes was right: it was boring. The murder had been more exciting. He discarded the thought as soon as it came to his mind once again. He had to settle back to a normal life after Afghanistan, he didn't really need some more 'excitement' of that type. He ate his breakfast lost in his thoughts and looked at his emails. Nothing interesting. He switched the PC off and went out.

It was another rainy day in London and the bus he had to take seemed to be later than ever. The air was cold, but not wintry and small raindrops reached the ground now and then. Wind was blowing too and after ten minutes of waiting at the bus stop John couldn't help but being half frozen anyway. His fingertips were starting to be of a dead cold blue and his knuckles were of a burning red.

Despite the physical discomfort given by the wind, the aspirin was starting to hit him and he slowly became sleepy, until, some minutes later, he found himself softly snoring on the bus bench. He reopened the eyes as soon as his head started to drop towards his shoulder, only to notice that the bus had already left since there were no people anymore. He cursed them all mentally for not having woken him up. Next bus in twenty minutes. He decided to walk.

It actually wasn't a very long walk to the university. It took him forty minutes going at a medium pace, less if he hurried. He had no reason at all to hurry up, so he took it slowly. At seven thirty a.m. London was already completely awake. Cars were roaring down the streets, passers-by ran or walked to reach unknown destinations, girls and boys in their uniforms moved to their schools. The city that never slept was showing his life in that never-ending flow of bodies, like blood pumping in its veins, making its heart pulsing fiercely.

By walking John managed to warm a bit and to forget the stiffness of that morning. What he wasn't forgetting, instead, were the images of the previous day. On the contrary, they seemed to became brighter every step he took. Holmes's voice when he had explained the case, he realised, was the thing he remembered the most vividly. The young man had a deep baritone voice which was an undeniable part of his charm. For the young man was charming. And he was a student, he noted to himself seconds later. Nevertheless his voice echoed in John's brain until he reached his office.

In front of it was standing a young lady with short brown hair and blue eyes. She seemed to have been waiting for him.

"Good morning", he said.

"Good morning, professor Watson.", she replied "I was waiting for you."

"Really?"

"I've sent you an email to ask for an appointment the other day, but you haven't answered. I wouldn't have come, but…it's rather urgent. I'm sorry if I'm disturbing you."

University emails. He had forgotten to check those. Damn.

"Not disturbing at all. It's my fault. I had forgotten to check my email folder. Come in!", he smiled to her.

It came out that she was a student of biology, but that her professors had suggested that she should change course to chemistry, since she was really gifted for that subject. She had questions regarding everything that concerned the study of chemistry and John had never felt so uneasy at answering questions before. He tried to do his best, but he felt he confused more and more the ideas of the young woman in front of him rather than helping her. Nevertheless she thanked him and apologised once more for having intruded. That was the only remarkable thing that happened that Tuesday.

On Wednesday and on Thursday he had his lessons. It was becoming an habit of his to look directly at the spot where Holmes usually sat. No sign of him either Wednesday or Thursday. He wondered if the young man was just on a case, which apparently was the main reason why he didn't attend the lessons regularly, or if he was avoiding him. The first seemed the more probable, but the latter was bugging him the most.

As soon as he finished the Thursday lesson, he gave another assignment for the week to come. Holmes wouldn't have done it this time either. Problem was that if the young man went on this way he realised that he probably would have needed to talk to Mike about it. And to Sherlock's parents too. He tried to figure out how his parents would look, but failed miserably. He exited the classroom and, lost in his stream of thoughts, literally bumped into Laura Collins, who let all the books she was holding fall on the floor.

"Oh!", exclaimed John, while blushing red to the ear tips "I'm so sorry! I haven't seen you!"

And kneeled down with her to help her gather up the books scattered on the linoleum.

"It's nothing. Really. I didn't see you either!", she smiled.

And what a smile, thought John. She had got her honey blonde hair down, slightly curled towards the end, which perfectly contoured her rose pale skin and made her green eyes glitter behind her glasses. She was wearing a blue jacket and matching blue trousers, and a white shirt with a fabric ornament akin to a jabot on the front of it from which emerged her long, thin neck. In that attire, very different from the ones she usually wore, she looked perfect. John swallowed hard as their hands slightly touched two or three times and flushed redder.

"Thank you!", she said as she stood up with all her books comfortably in her arms once again.

John cleared his throat to ask if she needed any help in transporting them, but his mouth was so dry that he nothing came out when he tried to speak, and she walked away with John motionless and agape in the middle of the corridor.

John Watson passed the following weekend with a well distinguished sense of uneasiness. Nightmares of his soldier past haunted him more than the usual and he thus spent his insomniac nights roaming around the neighbourhood until morning came. On the contrary he spent his days in the flat, desperately trying to regain the lost sleep, not succeeding to.

The consequences of his weekend completely showed on his face on Monday. He had deep blue bags under his eyes and it looked like someone had bleached him of his natural skin colour. He was feeling quite sick too, with a terrible sense of nausea throughout his body. And he had a lesson that morning. Fine. He took an aspirin again, hoping for it to do its job fast.

At eight he was walking straight to his office, when he met professor Collins once again.

"Good morning!", she said lively and smiling.

"'morning.", grunted a yawning John in response.

She gave him a concerned look.

"Oh my! You look awful!"

"Yeah. Thank you for having reminded me that.", said John wearily.

"I didn't mean to be rude or impolite…", she quickly apologised "I'm sorry I had said that."

John shook his head.

"No, sorry. My fault. It's just…I'm not really in the mood today, I think."

"Hard days?"

"Yeah. I feel like a truck had hit me and left me on the road."

"Can I do something for you? I don't know…a coffee, maybe?"

John had to battle his stomach, which was already revolting at the idea of something going into it. He just couldn't refuse such a gentle offer.

"Yeah.", he answered, fighting back a retch "A coffee would be marvellous."

He followed Laura to the canteen in a state akin to a trance. They sat down and Laura went to take two cups of coffee for them. Just the smell of it made John turn purple. He couldn't drink it. He smiled, knowing that probably it was more similar to a grimace than to a proper smile. She didn't seem to notice, but he pushed the cup in front of him away. He pleaded his stomach to not give up in that exact moment.

"What happened?", she asked politely.

John, who was fighting his inner battle with the ever-growing sickness, barely heard her voice and found himself asking in a daze:

"What?"

"If you don't want to tell me, don't worry. Just know that I'll be here if you need to talk."

John mumbled a sound of approval and stared at her for a while, but not really paying attention, his head a separate entity from his body by now. He tried to recompose himself and coughed, as if it would've woken him up. She was still smiling softly.

"I am truly sorry…I've had a really awful weekend and…at the moment I am probably the worst company ever…"

She smiled, sipping her coffee slowly.

"It's ok. Don't worry."

Finally aspirin kicked off and he won over his stomach, which quieted down. He took his coffee and drank it quickly. It was hot and really welcome. The caffeine in it gave him an immediate shock and some of the sleepiness disappeared. He felt rather better. Not the best, but at least he felt like he could speak again without having to compose every single word thirty times in his head.

"Thanks for the coffee."

She smiled again. A beautiful smile for a beautiful woman. With the help of the coffee, he took his chances.

"I'm sorry for this…whole thing.", he said "Forgive me."

"I've already forgiven you. There's really nothing to worry about."

"Would you forgive me better if I invited you to dinner?"

She frowned a bit and John expected a negative answer. But then she opened in another of her smiles.

"Friday evening?"

"Perfect.", smiled John back, feeling definitely sick and definitely happy.

They stayed in silence for a while, smiling shyly and blushing now and then. He felt more like a teenager than a grown-up adult in that moment. He hadn't felt that way since a long time. Since his ex-wife, actually.

Minutes later they both got up and parted, John to his Monday lesson, Laura to the laboratory.

As John entered the classroom and as all the students sat down, John's eyes travelled to the usual spot in the last row. Empty still. He wondered what was happening to Sherlock Holmes. He had told John about the cases, but it had been a week since he last saw him and he felt a distinctive guilty feeling in his guts. He was worried. He shouldn't have been worried. Holmes was a normal student, like every other student in front of his eyes. Other two students were absent that day as the register said. It was the normality. It was perfectly normal. Still his guts said otherwise.

The next lesson and the lesson after that were the same. Holmes didn't show up and no one sat at his place, leaving it desolately empty, the feeling of it striking John deep inside. He felt like he had been deprived of something familiar. Surely he couldn't call the young man 'familiar', since he barely knew him. But his arrogant, disrespectful presence was something he had started to get used to. Like it was a part of the classroom, a part of his new life as a professor. And now he missed that part. Like he would've missed any other student who wasn't attending the lessons, he tried to persuade himself, only to be mentally slapped by his brain: Sherlock Holmes wasn't any other student and he was starting to be worried that he had upset him.

But Friday came and, with it, all the thoughts about Sherlock Holmes disappeared. It was the "grand jour" of his date with Laura and he felt completely at ease with himself. He wanted to make it perfect. The previous day they had arranged their meeting. John had discovered a cosy and romantic Thai restaurant near the university and booked a table for two at eight.

At six o'clock p.m. John Watson was nervous. Wrong. He was panicking. He had somehow managed to cut a hole through his best suit and it had thus become useless. His everyday wear wouldn't do either. He scavenged through his wardrobe to find something decent enough for a first date and eventually managed to find a lilac shirt and a pair of blue trousers he didn't even remember he had. They were old, but still tidy and smart. Nevertheless the hunt for them had made him sweat madly and he had to have a second shower. In less than one hour he had passed from being early to being almost late. At ten past seven he rushed out of the flat and ran to the flower shop nearby. Already closed. He cursed every creature on Earth and went straight into the nearest supermarket, managing to buy a lovely bouquet. At eight o'clock he was standing in front of the restaurant.

Laura arrived two minutes later. She wore a knee-length creamy shantung dress and blue silk shawl. John's eyes glittered in the dark at the sight and he felt extremely embarrassed for his lousy trousers and shirt, but she didn't mind.

"Hello John!", she smiled "You look lovely this way!"

"You too.", he managed to mutter. "Shall we go in?"

And they entered the restaurant.

The atmosphere was perfect. They were both rather nervous at the beginning, but soon the air became more and more relaxed.

"So you were a soldier in Afghanistan?"

"An army doctor, not really a soldier."

"Has it been hard? The life there, I mean."

"At first yes. Then you get used to it. Now I find it quite difficult to readjust to normal life."

"You're doing fine. And your students seem to like you."

"Really?"

"I've heard them speaking about you.", she smiled.

"Then I should be proud of myself.", he ironically answered.

"There are other rumours, though.", she remarked.

John knew that the rumours involved a taxi ride with Sherlock Holmes. Nevertheless he asked politely:

"What rumours?"

"Well,", she smiled slightly slyly "half of the school saw you getting into that taxi with Sherlock Holmes."

"Guess so.", John sighed with a smile.

"Where did you go?"

John thought about answering that question for some seconds. He would have loved to tell her the truth. They were on a date and he wanted to be completely honest with the person he was trying to build a relationship with. She would have understood. They would have laughed about it later. Yet he decided to not tell her anything about it.

"Nowhere important. He needed an advice about something.", he cleared his throat "That's all."

"You don't want to tell me, do you?"

"Really, it was nothing worth mentioning. Just…advice."

"With the police?"

John swallowed hard.

"Yeah."

An awkward silence fell between them, but John didn't want to say anything anymore on the matter. He felt like it was something private between him and the young man. As they finished their dessert two minutes later, they stood up, John paid the bill and they went outside the restaurant. Then Laura spoke again.

"They say he's a freak."

"Who?", replied John, pretending he didn't know what she was talking about.

"Mr. Holmes."

"Don't you know him? I mean, he should attend your course too."

"Never seen him. He has a habit, apparently, of not coming to lessons. No one seems to bother anymore. People just let him live, knowing that nothing good will come from him. Or so I've heard. Yet you went somewhere with him. I guess that it makes you special somehow.", she teased.

"I'm not special at all."

"Oh, you are to me."

And she kissed him. John froze for a second, unable to realise what was happening, but as he did, he answered the kiss passionately, his heart pounding in the chest. They broke the kiss at the same time and stared at each other for some seconds.

"Well," muttered John, rather embarrassed "I guess you've forgiven me for my awful Monday morning state."

"Guess so.", she smiled again "Bye John, see you on Monday!"

"Bye Laura!"

And he started walking home. Damn. She was brilliant, beautiful and she liked him. No one could've been happier than John Watson in that moment. He had thought that after Afghanistan he wouldn't be able to readjust to a normal life anymore. Instead here he was: a good job, even if still temporary; a good city where to live and a beautiful woman. He didn't need the thrill that the case with Sherlock Holmes had given him. He didn't need a dangerous life to be happy. Readjusting to a normal, quiet life was all he needed. Yes. What he needed. But was that what he wanted? The face of the young man appeared in his mind, the question lingering in the air still unanswered.