Hi! We're Scarlett and Jennie and we'll be taking you through the crazy workings of our collective brains!

Just a bit of general info that we want you to know before you begin:

This story is written in the points of view of John and Charlotte. We will tell you at the beginning of the chapter which POV it is.

John's POV will be written by Scarlett.

Charlotte's POV will be written by Jennie.

We really hope you enjoy our work! Please feel free to leave any comments, all feedback is useful!

Love,

Scarlett and Jennie xxx

John's POV-

Mike held open the door as I made my way into the hospital lab he had brought me to in St Bart's hospital. I hated the way everyone held open the doors. I hated the limp I'd developed since returning from... But more than anything I hated this cane I had to use, which caused people to look at me with sympathy that I did not need or want. Damn their sympathy! Sympathy is not going to cure my limp, and neither is this damn cane.

I looked around at the impressive array of equipment that the lab held.

"Bit different from my day!" I said.

"Ha, you have no idea!" I turned to look back at Mike. We trained at Bart's together when we were 18, two young boys who wanted to make the world a better place. Of course, I left after our second year, and we hadn't seen each other since. Bit of a surprise when he turned up on that park bench, a real blast from the past. Except, Mike was actually fulfilling the dream of changing the world. He was a teacher now. And me? Well, I'm just John Watson. Nothing happens to me.

Mike made his way across the lab and sat down on one of the tiny wooden stools provided for the students and staff here. I stood near the door, feeling like an intruder in new territory. Mike was looking at something on the other side of the desk. I turned my gaze towards the thing that held his gaze. I can't really remember registering anything else other than the beautiful creature who stood before us.

She must have been about an inch shorter than I was, and I was never the tallest man in the world, but her legs just looked so long and toned. She had a tiny waist with an obvious, but not prominent, chest. She stood tall, all her angular curves accentuated by her purple dress, cut off just above the knee with a slightly full skirts and a sweetheart neckline. But it was her face that held my attention, trapped as if there was a physical bond keeping my eyes locked with the woman in front of me. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, with cheekbones so prominent I was surprised she didn't cut herself on them every morning as she applied whatever make-up she used to her face. Her eyes were a piercing, sapphire blue, with just a hint of green playing around the edges of the irises, framed with long eyelashes. They were wide and round, like jewels sparkling as a centrepiece to a delicate, intricate and complex piece of artwork. Dark eyebrows arched high over them, giving her an expression halfway between aloof and surprised. Her lips were baby pink, with either no lipstick applied, or just worn of throughout the day. They sat like a cupid bow just beneath her petite nose. Everything was perfectly proportioned and nothing looked out of place. And her hair cascaded down her back in ebony curls, like a waterfall. As if to enforce the metaphor, she turned to look back at the microscope she must have been using before Mike and I walked in, and her hair moved with her, as fluid and graceful as water. She wore minimal jewellery, just two plain, white pearl stud earrings. The colour and glow given off by the pearls almost matched that of her skin.

My train of thought was cut off by a voice, a voice with could only be compared to honey and Christmas bells. It danced over the words effortlessly and I struggled to pay attention to what was being said.

"Mike, can I borrow your phone? There's no signal on mine."

"And what's wrong with a land-line?" Mike sighed.

"I prefer to text."

"Sorry, it's in my coat."

I felt in my pocket. Yes, there was my phone sitting snugly in the denim of my jeans.

"Er, here. Use mine." I took the small black device out and offered it out to her.

"Oh." She looked pleasantly surprised at the offer. She shot a look at Mike, just a passing glance, before standing up to retrieve the phone. "Thank you."

"An old friend of mine, John Watson," Mike introduced by gesturing in my general direction as she walked slowly towards me. Her hips swayed ever so slightly as she did so, producing a whooshing sound from the skirt of her dress as the different layers of material rubbed together as she moved. Her shoes – small heeled court shoes – made a clipping sound with every step she took. She took the phone out of my hand and I tried to keep my eyes straight in front of me, it would have been rude to stare. I chose instead to look back at Mike, who gave a suggestive nod as she opened the phone and began to type.

"Afghanistan or Iraq?"

I froze, eyes still on Mike. I turned my head slowly towards the direction of the sound. She was faced away from me, eyes focused on my phone in her hand, typing rapidly.

"Sorry?" I asked.

"Which was it, Afghanistan or Iraq?" She turned to look at me with those piercing eyes I had found so striking. She didn't look for long though. After what could have only been a second, her attention was returned to the phone. How could she have known about my military service? And where it was? To narrow it down to two possible places after having only met me for 30 seconds, it was impossible. I looked back over to Mike, making sure that this wasn't a practical joke. The idea had been plaguing me since he mentioned that he knew a friend in search of a flatmate, it was all too convenient to possibly be true.. I half expected to see him stifling laughter, be he just looked bemused, not the expression of a joker.

I looked down towards the floor, vaguely aware of the sound of a door opening behind me, but my thoughts were in disarray after this sudden confrontation. I focused entirely on getting my words out in the right order.

"Afghanistan. Sorry how did you-" I was cut off as she began to speak to the person who had just entered.

"Ah, Molly. Coffee. Thank-you." Molly was a small, mousey girl. Dressed in a jumper and lab coat, she struck me as the kind of girl who preferred to not be the centre of attention. She was pretty, of course, but she couldn't ever compare to this woman who was now taking the coffee mug out of her hands whilst handing me back my phone. They shared a fond smile, obviously friends then. Until something in the woman's face dropped. "What happened to the lipstick?" I looked over to them. Something had shifted in the mood.

"It wasn't working for me." Molly's voice had a warmer tone to it, but it wasn't as musical, as captivating.

I put my phone back into my pocket.

Watson, get a hold on yourself. You have known this woman for less than a minute, and you are already comparing her to other women, who you have know for even less time!

The black haired woman turned to walk back to her original seat, sipping her coffee as she went. "Really? I thought it was a big improvement. You're mouth's too," she paused, making grasping gestures in the air with her perfectly manicured, delicate fingers as she tried to find the correct word, "small now!" She finished.

"Okay," I heard Molly sigh. She made her way back out of the lab. I'm sure her mouth looked fine – with or without lipstick. But Molly seemed to take it in her stride, a little put out, but accepting. Poor girl, she looked like she received comments like that all the time. I watched her out of the door. She seemed nice.

"How do you feel about the violin?" As Molly left the room, I looked back at Mike. He flashed me a half smile, as if he knew what was coming. There was a silence, and I realised that the unanswered question was aimed at me.

"I'm sorry, what?" I turned my attentions to her again. My voice sounded like a mumble compared to the woman's confident, clear dialect. I shifted my weight to my other leg as she began to speak.

"I play the violin when I'm thinking," she began, not even looking up at me. "Sometimes I don't talk for days on end. Will that bother you?" She finally turned to face me. "Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other." She smiled at me a little patronisingly, as if she were making an internal joke at my expense, or like I was a small child who had just produced a mediocre piece of artwork but she was determined to convince me it was good.

I stared at her. Flatmates? I glanced back over at Mike, I could feel confusion lining every part of my face.

"You- You told her about me?"

"Not a word." Mike had a hint of mystery in his voice, but he had always been once for Drama and excitement. His eyes were wide and he shook his head in small movements, holding a vile of some purple liquid up to a light.

My eyes diverted to the floor again, the default direction for anytime I'm confused, before looking back up at the woman. "Then who said anything about flatmates?" I asked quickly. This was the second time this afternoon that she had guessed two things about me – and correctly. I wanted to know what was happening.

She turned her back to me, picking up a long mess of black, woollen fabric that had been draped across another of the wooden stools. "I did," she replied. "I told Mike this morning that I must be a difficult girl to find a flatmate for." She put on, what John now saw was her coat as she spoke. It reached just below the hem of her dress, and the fabric was fitted at the waist, flattering her figure. "Now here he is just after lunch with an old friend clearly just home from military service in Afghanistan." She spoke so quickly that I had a hard time processing it all at once, but somehow I managed. She now wrapped a blue scarf around her neck, almost the exact same colour as her eyes. The coat and scarf together, it suited her, highlighting her paleness and giving her a glow, almost like a halo around her. "It wasn't a difficult leap," she concluded, giving me another patronising half smile.

"How did you know about Afghanistan?" I asked the floor. Really, a grown man should be able to look at something else other than the floor, but my mind obviously did not care what a grown man should and shouldn't be able to do. I took a deep breath and swallowed before looking back up at her. I was a little intimidated. Here was a beautiful, confident woman who knew things about me before I'd said two words to her, and was still telling me things about myself that she should not have already known.

She ignored my question and carried on. "Got my eye on a nice little place in central London. Together, we ought to be able to afford it. We'll meet there tomorrow evening, seven o'clock." She held my gaze for about a second before making an apologetic gesture with her head, cocking it slightly to the right. "Sorry, got to dash. I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary." She swept elegantly and effortlessly past, and I was still struck dumb over the comment about a riding crop? Did I hear her correctly? I came to my senses just before she exited through the double doors. A flat together? After only 2 minutes of meeting? Didn't seem logical.

"Is that it?" I asked.

"It that what?" She asked, moving with graceful steps back towards the centre of the room. Her hands buried themselves in the pockets of her coat as she watched me.

"We've only just met and we're going to go and look at a flat?" She stared at me, then turned to look at Mike, the unasked question of 'is he serious?' was passed between the two of them. She met my eyes again.

"Problem?"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I broke into a smile, this was ridiculous. I looked back over at Mike. Now the unasked question was 'is she serious?' Mike made no comment, but just looked back and forth between me and this woman. It suddenly struck me that I did not even know her name. In fact, all I knew about her was that she knew Mike and was friends with another woman named Molly. How was I supposed to even consider moving in with this woman if I didn't even know her name.

"We don't know a thing about each other, I don't know where we're meeting, I don't even know your name." I waited for an answer. She looked at me with such intensity it made me slightly uncomfortable. It was as if she were scanning me, analysing, reading. But that was a ridiculous thought. There was absolutely no way she was going to find out anything by just looking at him for half a second.

"I know you're an army doctor and you've been invalided home form Afghanistan, I know you've got a brother who's worried about you but you won't go to him for help because you disapprove of him, possibly because he's an alcoholic, more likely because he recently walked out on his wife, and I know that your therapist thinks that your limp's psychosomatic, quite correctly I'm afraid." She seemed to deliver this all in one breath. I looked down at my leg and then back up at her, astounded. "That's quite enough to be going on with don't you think?"

She made her way back toward the door in her slow, graceful movements. I stared straight ahead, I couldn't bring myself to look at her. How did she know all of that about me? It was all true, but how did she know? She half opened the door, the wooden structure her lower half, so only her chest up could be seen. Her hair brushed against the edge of the door as she leaned back towards my and held my gaze, hand still on the silver handle.

"The name's Charlotte Holmes and the address is 221B Baker Street." She gave me a flirtatious wink before nodding to Mike. "Afternoon." Mike raised his hand is acknowledgement and she swept out of the room. The door slammed shut behind her and I could just see the flash of her black coat disappear through the narrow pane of glass in the door. She left behind a silence, and a very confused John Watson. I looked questioningly at Mike. Did that just happen?

As if he could read my thoughts, Mike answered my look with, "Yeah, she's always like that." He nodded at me, as was still glued to the spot. I shifted my weight from one leg to another, and then back again, but nothing was comfortable.

What the bloody hell just happened?