Chapter Two: Baby Steps

Sooner or later Joan Watson had become less confused. It had been two weeks since her pummeling from the thug. Her head hurt less, besides a few headaches every so often, and she was learning more about herself too. She had been in the army; a decorated captain, serving as a doctor. She wound up getting shot in action after three years in Afghanistan. After that, she was discharged and living on an army pension, which couldn't have been much. Nightmare plagued her from a war she barely remembered. After the army and being discharged things became much more clouded. She had listened to Sherlock tell her about their first cases and had him read her blog to her out loud, while she lay in the hospital bed.

It felt odd reading something she wrote about her and her…flat mate? She felt as if the memories wanted to meld back with her mind and body, but they just didn't fit.

Another complex situation was Sherlock and their relationship. She couldn't amount it to anything. He spoke of their past encounters as something endearing and sentimental, but then when he would do something or attempt to show any signs of comfort, he came off as cold. This just left Joan more confused then before. He would always look at her with those calculating grey-blue-green eyes as if she was a fact in a textbook that seemed to state that the sky was pink. Those moments gave her some of her worst headaches.

After the first couple days of Joan being in the hospital, she told Sherlock he could go home (their home?) and that he didn't have to stay all night. He eventually complied.

A week after she told him he didn't have to stay they had released her.

Sherlock met her early that morning. She had gotten dressed and pleated her hair (the doctor had told her that was a good idea, just incase she was having any trouble with her motor skills), waiting for him. "Ready?" He asked, looking her up and down. She would have thought it promiscuous if she hadn't have gotten to know him over the last two weeks. She gave him a small nod, making sure she had the pill bottles and instructions the nurse had given her.

Once outside he hailed a cab for them and opened her door. She slid in quietly, flipping through the contacts on her mobile. She didn't know half of these people. "221b Baker Street." Sherlock told the cabbie. She dropped her mobile in her lap and looked over at him.

"And you're comfortable in one of these knowing that I killed a cabbie and that a cabbie tried to kill you?" She asked, curiously. That's why she was having such trouble trying to define their relationship. They lived together, which seemed to be set up in a normal enough way, through a mutual friend (someone she actually remembered from her uni days), until the part where she killed someone to save his life after only knowing him for a day. But the more she thought about it the less farfetched it seemed. He was a brilliant man with an even more remarkable mind. It was truly a talent.

When he would stay with her during the day, he would deduce the nurse that chose to walk in at that moment, displaying his deduction skills to her. He would tell her their entire life story without asking any them a single question. At times it seemed a bit rude, but altogether it was just magnificent.

She saw his eyes quickly flicker from the window to her. "Of course I am." He said. Sherlock had told her early on that he trusted her with his life, which she was under the impression he cared dearly for. "Are you?"

"Yes," She said without haste.

Sherlock's heart threatened to burst. He had focused on rebuilding his fragile partnership with Joan, diligently, over the last two weeks. It was a lot more difficult then he first imagined. He was so accustomed to being himself around her and having her integrated into his lifestyle that he hadn't even realized how much he really depended on her. "Joan, before we move-" He stopped speaking when he noticed her with a stack of sticky notes and a pen, scribbling something onto it. "What are you doing?" He asked.

She finished what she was writing and placed it on the back of her mobile. "The doctor said it would be good. To write things down that I learn, so I can remember them easier. Like…" She lifted up her phone and showed the note to him. It said: Sherlock gives vague replies. He frowned.

"I do not give vague replies." He said, defiantly.

She raised her brows daringly. Only she would be able to get away with that look pointed at him. "Oh, yes you do. I've known you for two weeks and-"

Sherlock cut her off promptly, his heart dropping into his stomach for the second time today. "Two years. Two and a half years." He wanted to look away and get angry and throw a fit. Why must it have been Joan? It was so stereotypical of the universe to pick on people in such ways.

She nodded, her eyes going a bit downcast. She added to the note that was stuck to the back of her mobile. Two and a half years, it said. Sherlock would have said more, but the cab rolled up to Baker Street. He tossed a few pounds towards the cab driver before getting out. He didn't wait for Joan to open the door and walk inside.

Mrs. Hudson wasn't home, most likely at the shop. He was halfway up the stairs, taking them two at a time, when he heard Joan shut the door to the foyer. She was behind him in no time. At least her limp hadn't come back, but he did notice the slight tremor in her left hand. Most likely from being cooped up in a hospital for two weeks.

Joan walked in, trialing behind Sherlock. He was already seated in a chair that faced another, smaller one across the sitting room. Must be mine, she thought to herself. She removed her jacket and hung it on the rack next to his infamous long black one. "So, um, where is the kettle?" She asked, really needing a cup of tea.

"Top cupboard, to the right." He said. Sherlock had his mobile out, texting furiously, the clicks of the touch-screen keyboard filling the quiet flat. Joan sighed and set the pill bottles on the kitchen table, before finding the kettle right where he said it was. She filled it with water and waited.

"So, any plans?" She asked, scrawling down where the kettle was on a brightly colored sticky note and placing it on the cupboard door. She leaned her elbows on the table, looking at him. He wasn't paying the slightest attention to her. "Sherlock!" She said loudly, maybe a bit more loud then she had meant to be.

His head snapped up from his phone. He was giving her an expectant look. Typical of him, from what she had seen. "Got any plans for today?" She asked again, her voice more irritated and pressing. Everyone else she had encountered treated him like he was some sort of freak or ticking time bomb that might explode at any given moment. Joan didn't see him that way. She saw him as misunderstood and lost, even if he constantly held that air of arrogance that said 'I'm smarter then you,'. It was as if she was the only friend he had. The more she was around him the more she understood why she was attracted to him so much. No not that way. (Okay maybe a little.)

"Plans? As in cases, yes. Lestrade just texted me. He has a kidnapped boy and a murdered father. Care to join me?" He asked. Joan raised an eyebrow at him. He didn't seem off put at all by the idea of going out and investigating a murder at the drop of a hat. He seemed to notice her gaze. "That is if…you're feeling up to it. I can hardly expect you to jump right back into running around London with me. You were just discharged from the hospital today." He added quickly.

Joan picked up her pen and wrote something down quickly. Go and investigate a murder with your flat mate you don't remember? She thought of her options. Sit at the flat, bored and alone or look at dead bodies with a handsome smart man. Dead bodies seemed more appealing. "We should go look at the case for…" Joan was having trouble remembering the Detective Inspector's name.

"Lestrade."

"Right, Lestrade."

Sherlock quickly bounded from his chair and swiftly put on his coat. He wrapped the blue scarf tightly around his neck. Joan followed, hurriedly, putting on her coat as well and heading out the door. In her wake she had abandoned the kettle and the note that read: I love him. I love him?