John returned to the kitchen and put a kettle on the cooker for his breakfast tea. In the meanwhile, waiting for the water to boil and for his bread to toast, he picked up the mobile from the pocket of his trousers. He spent five minutes writing and re-writing a text message. On one hand he wanted to know how Sherlock was feeling, on the other hand the previous night seemed so surreal in his mind that he wasn't sure about himself anymore. His doctor side was less prominent that morning, while his professor (and thus rational) side was stronger. Sending a message to one of his students was not in the rules he had built up in his own brain. And he had already done something extremely improper the previous day by answering Sherlock's ones. Plus he had the odd, but rather correct, impression that Sherlock really didn't want to talk about the episode anymore. Hence his window escape. It was so obvious that the young man had chosen that way because he didn't want to have a more than awkward morning conversation with his supposed professor. A conversation that John was really glad to have avoided right now. Nevertheless he couldn't deny that he was quite pleased of that 'thank you' written on that piece of paper. Which was now lying on the kitchen table, while John sipped his tea. Undoubtedly he didn't send the message.

He had quite an obsession with tea, he admitted. It was one of the few things that always cheered him up and made his head clearer. Except, perhaps, danger, but he would have never admitted that out loud. The tea was a good thing to be obsessed with, danger wasn't. In that precise moment he was savouring a new flavour he had wanted to try out. It was a mango-pomegranate green tea which tasted rather bittersweet and, for a glimpse of a second, his mind associated it with the more than definite image of Sherlock Holmes. Another term linked with the young man: bittersweet. It really wasn't a word that could've been spoken easily, but in his mind, that was still possible. Unless, well, he had to face Holmes, for he was certain that the other man would've read it on his face in less than a nanosecond.

His phone started to buzz insistently. He panicked thinking it was Sherlock, he picked it up once again and glanced at the screen, fingers trembling. Laura. A sigh of relief (or of disappointment? He couldn't tell right in that moment). He took the call, having a hard time remembering why Laura was calling him in the morning. He knew it was perfectly normal for two people who were supposed to be in a relationship to call each other, yet his brain wasn't still functioning properly.

"Hello?", he muttered in a tone that could have easily been associated with a voice from the underworld.

"Hello?", she answered tentatively "Are you all right?"

"Yes, yes. Sorry, I've…"

Was he really going to say another lie?

"…just woken up."

Perfect. It wasn't a complete lie after all, he had woken up about twenty minutes before.

"Am I disturbing you?", she asked.

"Obviously not!", he smiled, his brain finally starting to work again.

"Really bad day yesterday, uh?"

"Yes. Awful day."

Actually, his mind was saying the opposite. It hadn't been awful. It hadn't even been near the word 'awful'. Strange, odd, unexpected: yes. Thrilling, electrifying: yes. Absurd: that too. But awful: not at all. Yet he remembered that he had told Laura that it had been a family emergency. He had, to his extreme displeasure, to keep on lying on that. As he had already told himself a dozen of times, he couldn't just say that he had gone out with a student to chase a criminal. Neither he could say that the same student happened to have slept in his bedroom. He sighed. Luckily Laura took it as a sigh of tiredness.

"God, you sound exhausted!"

And he was. This time he didn't have to lie.

"Yeah, a bit exhausted. But after the breakfast I'm already starting to feel better."

"I've called you because I wanted to invite you out this afternoon, but maybe you're too…"

"No, no! It's ok. This afternoon is perfect!", John rushed to answer.

And it was. He needed some peace of mind and Laura, well, Laura was the most ideal distraction. He smiled. The woman laughed softly.

"Well, then. Where shall we meet?", she asked.

"Don't know…a stroll in a park, maybe? And then a coffee somewhere?", John suggested.

"It sounds wonderful!", she answered in her oh-so-softly-sweet voice "What about Regent's Park, York Gate?"

"Marvellous! Three o'clock?"

"Perfect! I'm looking forward to meeting you. Plus I have something of yours!"

"What's that?", questioned John, quite surprised.

"Don't you remember?", she laughed mockingly "You'll see then! Later!"

And she ended the call.

John thought for a while about what she had to give him, without coming out with any decent idea. Nevertheless he was really happy to see her. Their last date had been what it seemed like ages ago, for she had been busy with the university and she had had a very full week. Hence she didn't have any free time. John hadn't minded that much, but now he realised that he missed her.

He finished his breakfast quietly happy and went to the bathroom to have a shower.

At half past two he was on his way to Regent's Park. Luckily it was a nice mid-October Saturday. The sun was shining in the deep blue sky, which was quite unusual for the season they were in. Even the temperature was agreeable and it looked more like an early spring afternoon rather than an autumn one. Yet the environment around completely showed it. Most of the trees had yellow, orange and red leaves that had already started to fall down, leaving the branches of those same trees bare, naked with their grey-brownish trunks. It gave London an air of darkness more than the rainy days, almost a foretaste of future years of desolation and destruction: the burning red of the leaves being the fire that would eat the city and the grey barks its remaining ashes, the bright sun in the blue sky just a mocker of that imminent decadence.

Before Laura arrived, John spent some time admiring the vibrancy of London's life one more time.

Through York Gate passed the Saturday people. London was as always full of tourists wandering from the streets into the park as though seeking shelter from the upheaval of the crowded pavements and busy roads. Families with children, elderly couples, young spirits all mixed together in a perpetual coming and going through the gardens.

Laura arrived five minutes later. She was dressed in simple, yet fitting clothes. A pair of blue jeans and a caramel pullover, her hair braided and her best smile on her lips. John's heart danced lively in his chest at the sight. As she approached, he immediately saw what were his belongings she had been talking about: his jacket and his briefcase! Due to the hunt with Sherlock and the consequent night, he had totally forgotten about their existence. He smiled foolishly at Laura, who laughed.

"You remember now!", she said as she handled the items to John.

"Oh yes! I don't really know where I had my head yesterday!", he chuckled.

"It must have been a rather serious emergency, having caused you such a lapse of memory…", she said gravely "Do you want to talk about it?"

John exhaled. He knew that the conversation would have eventually focus on that topic, but he had expected it to not be their first one. And here it was John Watson again, torn between the uneasiness of lying to his date and the unwillingness to tell the truth. He swallowed hard and cleared his throat, trying to find the right words to explain everything. Words that, unluckily, seemed to slip away from his brain.

"Well, I…", he managed to mutter, knowing that it sounded so wrong.

"There's no need to talk about it if you don't want to. But I thought that maybe I could help somehow…"

"Yes, I know.", John answered and, taking her hand into his, continued "And I appreciate your interest in it, but it's a rather complicated situation even for me at the moment. But I promise that as soon as I sort it out, I will tell you everything about it."

Nice, John, he mentally said, proud of himself. He could've told her another lie about, dunno, a problem with his ex-wife (he hadn't still told Laura about her, he realised) or something else; instead he had come out with a more than plausible explanation and it was the truth, for it was really a rather problematic situation that with Sherlock and he had still to understand the whole of it. And he didn't want to cause himself further confusion, before having solved it.

Laura smiled in response and John understood that she wouldn't have asked anything anymore. She just accepted that there were things he wasn't ready to talk about. He was very glad of that. She was a very good woman and he started to think that, perhaps, she could truly become someone important for him.

They spent the rest of the of the afternoon walking through the gardens, admiring the ponds with their swans and ducks, losing themselves in the Queen Mary's Gardens, whose flowers weren't that lively anymore, but preserved some memories of the last summer with the white roses still blooming gracefully. At six o'clock they parted, after having drunk a hot chocolate on a bench and having laughed about John's university years as well as Laura's ones.

John went home happy and relaxed as he hadn't been in ages, grateful that the afternoon with Laura had made him forget about the 'Sherlock's problem'. Actually, that wasn't quite true. Now and then, amid the smiles, the jokes, the hand holding, the image of Sherlock had come to John's mind, making him worry about his actual conditions. What if the wound hadn't healed properly? What if it had become infected? What if the young man was in pain? As he stepped into his flat, he picked up his mobile once more and started tapping on it.

How are you?

He never sent it.

Just as the Saturday had been a cheerful sunny day, Sunday manifested itself in its whole gloominess. When John woke up, at around seven, the sky outside was of a gun-metal grey and it was raining so hard that the whole flat echoed of raindrops like he was living under the Niagara falls. And he had to do the shopping. Damn himself and his idea of doing the shopping on Sunday because there were less people in the supermarket. Usually he didn't mind about the rain, but now it really looked like the Deluge. He took his umbrella and went out, becoming wet to the bones in less than three seconds. Not only it was pouring, there was also strong wind which made his attempts to stay dry totally useless. He almost began to run to reach the tube as fast as possible. While doing that, he noticed a black car on the opposite side of the road, moving slowly, as if it was following someone. But, except him, there was literally nobody around and no one would have needed to follow him around. He wasn't some sort of criminal or some important person. It was probably just his suspicious mind playing with him. He laughed at his foolishness.

Yet the car approached and stopped a bit further from where he was walking towards. A man in a grey suit and grey umbrella got off and stood still in that exact place. Inasmuch John was going in that same direction, he found himself getting closer to it step by step. Differently from John the rain didn't seem to touch the other man. Now he was almost by his side.

"Doctor John Watson?", the man in grey addressed to him.

He hadn't had even the time to think about the fact that a totally unknown man knew his name, that the other man grabbed his wrist and stopped him in the middle of the road.

"Get in the car."

John looked at him, in a mix of disbelief and daze.

"Or what?", he answered bravely, trying to understand what was happening, not finding a single logical solution.

"If you don't get into the car, I will have to make you."

"I refuse.", John replied once more "Who are you?"

The man in grey pulled his jacket aside, unveiling a gun.

"So?", the man threatened.

John swallowed and, unwillingly, entered the black car. The other man took the driver's seat and started their ride. John couldn't see where they were going for the windows were obscured and he could only take glimpses of the streets outside. He tried to focus on the turns, the noises, the crossings, but it seemed that the driver was just going round and round without a precise destination. Twenty minutes later they finally stopped in an industrial area, which John couldn't recognise at all.

Standing in the middle of it there was a tall man leaning on a black umbrella. He was dressed in a blue suit and had brown but icy eyes glimmering in the dim light of the place. He seemed perfectly at ease in such an abandoned building despite his luxurious appearance. John wasn't sure whether he were a criminal or a businessman, not that there was that big difference between the two categories either.

The man smiled a forced smile.

"Doctor Watson. Welcome.", he spoke in a serpentine voice "I was looking forward meeting you."

"I…wasn't.", answered John in his lousy attempt to sound firm.

"So, doctor Watson, what's the nature of your collaboration with Sherlock Holmes?"

So it was all about Sherlock. He should've guessed that. In what kind of trouble had that young man put himself into? What did that man want? And why from him? He tried to regain his composure and spoke:

"Collaboration with whom?", he pretended to be surprised, swallowing hard.

"Don't waste my time, doctor Watson.", the man with the umbrella answered softly, but menacingly "Lying to me isn't the cleverest idea, you may want to know that."

"I am not…", but John didn't have the time to end the sentence.

"So you are basically denying that the other night Sherlock Holmes came to your flat?"

How the…? But the man spoke once again.

"By the look on your face is clear that I'm right. But don't worry. It'll be a secret between us." He hissed near John's ear "I just happen to know it because I'm concerned about him. Very concerned."

John gulped at the last two words which sent shivers down his spine. Who was that man? His voice easily shifted from the threatening to the compelling, from the rough to the velvety in a matter of seconds. Nevertheless John didn't feel really frightened by him, more disgusted actually. That sensation of disgust made grow inside of him the idea of not saying a single word of his acquaintance with Sherlock. He thus challenged back.

"Who are you?", asked John abruptly.

"An interested party.", replied calmly the man.

"Who are you?", John repeated "What's your name and what do you want from me? Now!"

"Threatening me doesn't work either, doctor Watson. As for who I am…", he stopped for a second looking up to the ceiling "…you may say I'm the closest thing to a friend that Sherlock has."

"And that would be?", pressed John.

"If you ask him, I'm sure he'll say I'm an enemy. His archenemy."

John frowned at the declaration, which seemed rather dramatic.

"And your name would be?", John urged once again.

"My name is not important, doctor Watson. Although, I suppose, you may find it out soon."

The man with the umbrella stopped one more time before speaking again.

"What I want from you? Information."

"What kind of information?"

"Information about Sherlock Holmes. Wasn't that obvious?", he stated "I've heard that you're looking for a new flat. I might be able to provide you with one and…even pay you an adequate sum of money for that…information."

"So, to be clear, you are basically asking me to spy on Sherlock Holmes."

"Spy? No, doctor Watson. I'd never ask you that. I'm just asking to keep an eye on him and keep me informed. I promise you will be well rewarded."

"No, thanks.", was John's dry answer.

And he really didn't have anything else to say. Whatever that man was offering him he wasn't going to spy on Sherlock .

"Loyalty.", the man stretched the syllables "I admire that. But, doctor Watson, you might want to think about it overnight. Think about the side you're on. Think if it's convenient. Think if it's wise."

"I'm quite sure", John replied firmly "that I've already stated my negative answer and I don't think I'm going to change my mind tonight."

"We'll see, doctor Watson, we'll see."

And he walked away, swirling his umbrella. Then turned again to John.

"By the way, how's your shoulder?, he asked "The other night must have been hard for you sleeping on the chair. I hope it doesn't bother you that much."

And he smiled a bleak smile and definitively left. The man in grey drove John home.

As he stepped out of the car, he sighed in relief. It wasn't raining anymore and he had still to do the shopping, but he couldn't be bothered right now. He simply returned to his flat and collapsed on his armchair, thanking his legs and his mind for having held him up till now. Everything his mind saw was the man with the umbrella and his menacing, subtle words. He knew about John and Sherlock. He knew about the night Sherlock had spent in his flat. Nobody could have possibly known about that. Nobody. Yet that man knew. How that was possible, John didn't really have the slightest idea. A tired and forced smile appeared on his lips. Sherlock Holmes had surely a great enemy and John felt once again the heavy weight of not knowing anything certain about that young man. What had he done to have such an enemy? What was he still hiding under his unfathomable mask?

He took his mobile one more time, questioning whether he had to warn Sherlock about his meeting or not. The man hadn't actually threatened Sherlock in any way. In the end John thought that he didn't want to worry the young man with a rather futile text, hence he decided to speak directly to him.

He spent the rest of the day at home, eating a Chinese takeaway at midday and a pizza for dinner. He didn't do anything else, except thinking about the whole question over and over again, until, at nine o'clock p.m., exhausted, crawled to bed and fell asleep in a matter of seconds.

The next morning he saw Sherlock during his usual Monday morning lesson. He felt relieved. Despite his resolutions, actually, he was feeling a little guilty for not having called or texted him to know if everything was alright. But the fact that he was there surely meant that the wound was healing well and that the man with the umbrella hadn't killed/wounded/tortured him in any way. For one second their eyes met and John could've sworn that the young man had just smiled at him. Yet, as soon as he blinked, there was no sign of a smile on Sherlock's face anymore, so that John thought that he might have imagined it.

He wanted to warn him about the encounter with the umbrella man just after the lesson, but as soon as it ended, Sherlock had already vanished.