Despite his will to forget everything about that day, on his taxi ride back home, John couldn't really let the thoughts go.

The first thought was that it had been one of the weirdest days of his life, if not the weirdest. But the second, persistent thought was about the mysterious man called Sherlock Holmes, because the more he knew him, the more he became a mystery. According to what Lestrade had said, Sherlock had no friends and didn't like people and, after the scene at the shopping centre, John was finally realising why. Obviously he had already realised that most of the people would have found the young man terribly arrogant, pretentious and unbearable, but, on the other side, he had also thought that probably people didn't like him because they didn't know him at all. As he had done. For he hadn't liked him when they first had met, yet Sherlock's cleverness had made him change his mind. But no. Now it was clear why people didn't like him. Why Donovan didn't like him (he was still thinking that somehow both the professor and Sherlock had been exaggerating on their clashes, not anymore now). Why everyone looked at him as he was affected by some sort of pestilence.

And it was not only the shopping centre part. There was also the fact that the young man had drown John away from the university, made him run to and fro looking for some burglars and, in the end, left him there waiting for his return. Which hadn't happened. And it hadn't even been the first time. Sherlock had gone away from the crime scene. Sherlock had gone away from the park as if John had been almost transparent. John was angry. Mainly because Lestrade's words about him being the first person Sherlock had brought to a crime scene had made him think that the young man held him in a different light than the others. Mainly because after those morning messages he had almost been persuaded about the correctness of his theory. Mainly because in one day all his convictions had crumbled. Now, not only he wasn't sure about Sherlock anymore, he wasn't sure about himself.

He was lost in these thoughts when a vivid memory of that day kicked in: Sherlock apologising all of a sudden, doing it as if it was a sign of weakness. John had never heard, in their brief acquaintance, him say he was sorry. Not when John had scolded him. Not when John had tried to make it clear that he didn't want to be called by his first name. Yet he had done that day. John was sure it meant something, but, god help, if he did know what. Even the following sentence had been rather unusual for the young man.

"I'm not good with people."

John was sure he had seen sadness in the other man's eyes, a trace of vulnerability never shown before, a statement that could mean everything and nothing at all. At the same time. Of course he wasn't good with people. John had noted that. He knew it too well. But he also knew that Sherlock didn't mind, first of all because if he had cared, he wouldn't have said those things out loud. So why that sentence out of the blue? Why did it sound like an apology not to the young lady he had made burst into tears, but to John? John knew he couldn't prove anything. Probably, and he sensed defeat one more time, he would never have known whether it was just his mind seeing things that hadn't the slightest reason to exist or not. Because of only one thing he was sure: that he couldn't ask Sherlock at all. That idea made him even angrier than before. Damn that young man. He was so angry with him and yet all his thoughts were focused on him. He wanted to shoo them away, but failed miserably.

The taxi had almost reached his flat, when John had eventually managed to make those reflections vanish. After a whole day, he took out his mobile. Four text messages and two calls. Laura Collins. He read them.

First message: John, what has happened? You have just disappeared. What's the emergency?
Second message: Why aren't you answering me?
Third message: Is it something serious? I'm worried. I'm really worried about you. What's happening?
Fourth message: I'm really, really worried now. Is there something I can do for you, to help?

John smiled for she was worried for him and felt really bad at the same time. Lost in the chase with Holmes he had totally forgotten to check his mobile. He felt ashamed for having let Laura worry that much about him and he had no words to express it. He texted her back trying to demonstrate that he was really sorry about what had happened.

Laura I'm so sorry. It was a family emergency.
It took me longer than I had expected and I totally forgot about my mobile.
All solved now anyway. Thank you for your kind messages.
I'll call you tomorrow morning and sorry again.
John

Lie. It was such a blatant, obvious, evident lie. An awful, horrible, terrible lie. John Watson didn't usually lie to his girlfriends. He had already done it once with Laura. This was the second time. Why had he done that? Oh yes. Sherlock Holmes. If that was even possible, he became even angrier with him.

The taxi stopped and he got out of it. He was still freezing from the waiting and, since he had warmed himself a bit in the cab, the cold air outside hit him stronger. He was desperately in need of a warm bed and of a deep sleep until the next morning. He stepped on the stairs and reached his flat, but as soon as he put his keys into the keyhole he discovered the door was open. His military senses kicked off. He entered the living room with circumspection. In the dim light he noticed a dark figure sitting on his armchair. He became conscious that it was a known silhouette. A person that shouldn't have been there at all. He turned on the light and the white face of Sherlock Holmes appeared from the darkness. Furious that the man had broken into his house, he yelled:

"Sherlock bloody Holmes! What the hell are you doing here?"

But at a second more attentive glance, he noticed something else. Sherlock's shirt was covered in blood and, by the way he was breathing, it was his own blood. The left upper part of the chest was literally soaked in blood and showed a cut in the fabric of the shirt. John passed in milliseconds from being irate to being sick with worry.

"Sherlock!", and this time wasn't a shout of anger at all as he rushed to him.

The young man, a weary smile on his face, spoke with a cracked voice:

"Evening, John."

By that time John was already kneeling near him, looking at the wound. It seemed pretty bad by the look of it and it surely needed some stitches.

"What have you done?"

"I? I haven't done anything.", he tried to jest, panting for the pain the wound was causing him.

John shook his head.

"The burglar…", Sherlock exhaled "hit me with a knife. I hadn't expected him to have a knife."

"Why haven't you gone to the hospital, for the hell's sake?"

"I don't like hospitals. I don't go there if unnecessary."

John gawked and shook his head a second time. Sherlock was such a child.

"In this case it is necessary! You're wounded. You must go to the hospital, for the heaven's sake!"

"Lestrade tried to persuade me too.", said the young man "He insisted a lot. So I came to you."

John overlooked the fact that Sherlock not only knew his mobile phone number, but also his address, and stared at him directly in his eyes.

"You're a doctor.", continued Holmes "You can cure me."

"I can't…I…", tried to answer John.

"I trust you.", replied Sherlock, eyes fixed on him "I don't trust hospitals. I trust you."

"I haven't even got the proper equipment!"

"I trust you.", repeated Sherlock in a whisper.

Then he closed his eyes, inhaling and exhaling deeply in an evident attempt to soothe the pain. John wasn't even sure how the young man had managed to stay perfectly conscious all the time. He ran to the bathroom, oblivious of everything else but Sherlock bleeding in his living room. Luckily he had still got his medical kit. It wasn't the best around. It was old and it had certainly seen better days and he wouldn't have used it in any other occasion. But Sherlock had said he trusted him and John surely didn't want to contradict him right now. He went back to the other room with his instruments. He thanked himself for having at least bought a new surgical thread as he had come back from Afghanistan, since his old one was totally damaged and unusable. Nevertheless he needed to boil the needle to sterilise it before the use.

"I have to quickly boil the needle, Sherlock.", he explained "It will take a while. Are you still sure you don't want to go to the hospital?"

The young man, still eyes closed and breathing heavily, fiercely shook his head.

"Ok. Ok."

John filled a small pot with water to boil and put his surgical disposable gloves on. He did it so quickly he would've put the fastest person in the world to shame. Then he went back to Sherlock.

"I need to pull off your shirt to take a closer look at the wound. I'll do it slowly, so that I won't hurt you. If you feel pain as I do it, tell me to stop."

He started to open the buttons of the shirt, noticing that his hands were slightly shaking. He took a deep breath and went on. As he had told Sherlock, he began to pull it off very slowly. Some blood had already coagulated and thus he had to gently strip the fabric from the skin. Sherlock slightly groaned twice but didn't ask John to stop. As the chest was finally free from the shirt, John sighed in relief. The blood on the fabric had made it look worse than it actually was. It wasn't as deep as he had thought it to be, but it was indeed rather bad.

He took the bandages out of the box and cleared the area around the wound with some water. In the meanwhile the small pot had started to boil and John threw in the surgical needle. One minute of boiling would have disinfected it. He then rushed again to Sherlock and started to put some betadine on the cut, carefully trying to do it as softly as possible. The young man groaned at John's touch, but still didn't complain. When the needle was finally ready for use, John took it out from the water, dried it with a sterilised bandage and inserted the thread in. He looked at Sherlock as the needle got closer to his chest.

"Now it will hurt a little.", John announced.

Sherlock opened his eyes and stared at John.

"It's not the first time I have got stitches on me. It won't hurt that much. Don't worry, John."

The word 'John' was pronounced in such a reassuring tone that John felt his whole body getting warmer. That word echoed of deep trust. Had it been another moment, John would have brooded over it, but now his medical senses were stronger than anything else. He pierced Sherlock's flesh slowly but steadily. When the needle crossed the skin layer, Sherlock shivered, but didn't murmur anything. Ten stitches and not a single groan later, the cut was eventually sealed. John took some other betadine and disinfected it once again, before applying a fabric medical adhesive plaster on it.

As soon as John finished his job and moved to the sink, Sherlock got up from the armchair, put his blood soaked shirt on and took two steps towards the exit.

"Where are you going?", John swiftly addressed to Sherlock.

"Home.", he answered dryly, still voice cracked.

"You aren't going anywhere with that!"

The young man turned to him again, his eyes showing his weariness. John couldn't let him go at home alone in that state. But Sherlock evidently thought otherwise, because he started to walk again towards the door. But this time his legs didn't hold him up properly and he had to hang on the wall to keep himself standing. John huffed and run to him, catching him before he completely fell on the floor.

"See?", John smiled, despite the situation "You can't even walk properly…as a doctor I can't let you go home alone."

For a glimpse of a second John asked himself if Sherlock lived with his parents or not. The latter was more probable, but anyway he didn't want to ask Sherlock that question right in that moment.

"So what are you going to do?", the young man asked in a rather teasing tone "Are you letting me stay here?"

In a complete different situation, in a complete different life John would've thought that what he was about to do was highly inappropriate. Somewhere in the rear of his mind there was still a voice screaming that Sherlock Holmes was his student and that he had already crossed a billion of boundaries with him. Nevertheless at the moment Sherlock was just a patient and he was a doctor. He couldn't just let him go. He nodded.

"Yes. Yes. You are going to sleep here tonight."

There came no answer from the young man who, instead, simply clang to John and allowed him to transport him to his bedroom. John helped him sit on the mattress and pull off his shirt once again. Sherlock didn't say anything, but passively accepted John's cares. He gave him his pyjama shirt and helped him putting it on, since Holmes couldn't obviously fully move his arm.

"Wait a second. I'm going to bring you a medicine to soothe the pain.", John announced.

"I don't need any.", Sherlock answered.

"Yes, you do. You're in pain right now and you can't just keep on denying it."

Having said that, he bolted off to the bathroom once again. He opened the drawer under the sink where he kept the drops he had taken to soothe the pain of the bullet wound, filled a glass of water and went back to the young man, who was still sitting on the bed, looking at the door. John gave him the glass of water and, quite surprisingly, he drank it without any complain.

"It will take ten minutes for it to have its effect."

"I know.", answered Sherlock flatly.

The conversation ended there. John stood upright near the door, waiting for the other man to say something, but it didn't happen. Minutes passed till Sherlock finally started to show the signs that the medicine was having the desired effect.

"You should lie down.", John said in a caring tone.

Sherlock did what John had told without protesting.

John watched Sherlock's head on the pillow, his eyes closed, his black curls around the face, his skin paler than ever. The characteristic smell of the betadine, mixed with that of blood, was filling the air, reminding John that the man had been wounded. He looked so vulnerable, so fragile in that state. Million light years away from the cold, distant look he always wore during the day. It was almost hard to believe that the person in that bed was the same person who stayed totally calm in front of a dead body. John smiled softly.

"You've got a question."

It was the young man's voice. It was furry and sleepy, yet coherent.

"It's nothing important right now.", replied John.

"Ask it. My brain is still working."

John thought about letting the question drop, but in the end he decided to ask it.

"Why have you left me waiting for you? Why have you gone alone to face that criminal?"

It had been the question that had bugged him since the taxi ride, reinforced as he had seen Sherlock covered in blood. Had John been there with the young man, he would have probably avoided it to happen. He sighed. Sherlock didn't answer for some seconds.

"I didn't want to get you into further trouble.", he eventually exhaled.

John looked at him, waiting for further explanation, which didn't come. Instead Sherlock turned his head away and said nothing.

At that point John turned away too, aimed to the living room. Yet, as soon as he took a step, a trembling voice whispered:

"I'm sorry. I always cause you so much trouble."

John had to stop, torn between going back to Sherlock and reassuring him or not. But he realised that Sherlock didn't want people to know his weakness, so, to avoid new complications with him and to spare him the embarrassment of the situation the morning after, John decided it was better to walk away in silence. As he heard the other man sigh in relief, he knew that it had been the best decision.

Exhausted and drained of all his strengths, John ducked in his armchair, desperately trying to sleep. A sleep that would've erased his spinning thoughts, a sleep that would have provided him with a clearer mind. A sleep that obviously didn't came. It was like he had a million of thoughts buzzing in his head, coherently forming two seconds before and becoming a mass of confusion two seconds later. Thoughts about Sherlock, obviously. About that young man who was quietly sleeping in his room. About that person that should've only been his student and it was far too many other things. About his own taste of danger which, in John's opinion, had made the two of them meet. All this kept him awake for a long time, questioning the nature of his almost non-existent and yet so deep bound with the young man. For he couldn't deny, in his own moment of weakness during that long night, that he was drawn by Sherlock Holmes like he had never been by anyone else before. With this thought he eventually fell asleep.

When he woke up the following morning, his whole body was aching: his legs were sore and so was his left shoulder, and so were his hands and feet. Trying to regain a proper composure, he wondered for two seconds why he had slept in his armchair. The medical kit still on the floor and some blood on the fabric of the seat allowed him to remember that Sherlock in his flat hadn't just been a weird dream. The rooms were still peaceful, therefore he deduced that the young man was still sleeping. He walked to his bedroom to see if everything was alright. He tried to not make the minimum amount of noise for he didn't want to wake him up.

Some creaks and squeaks of the floor later, he eventually reached it. As he looked in, he immediately noticed that the bed was empty. It had even been perfectly made with John's pyjama's shirt gracefully folded on it. On the other hand Sherlock's blood-stained shirt had disappeared, just like his owner. The window was flung open and John went near it. On the sill there was a piece of paper. John read.

Your floorboards creak far too much. I highly suggest some repairing.
I didn't want to wake you up anyway, so I had to choose a different exit.
And I was right: your limp is definitively psychosomatic.
Sherlock Holmes.

Further down on the paper there was something else.

Thank you, doctor Watson.

That man was impossible. John shook his head and smiled.

AN: Well, that was it. This chapter, I have to admit, was rather hard to write, especially on the medical part. I know that I have probably written something wrong about the whole procedure that John applies to help Sherlock, but I hope that it isn't very far from the reality nevertheless.

And I hope you "enjoyed" it.

Thank you for reading!