As the weeks passed after their little missunderstanding, Sherlock started to notice small, small changes in John's behaviour. Little pauses as he handed him his tea, John lingering far longer than normal after kissing Sherlock's hair, a slightly heavier pressure on his hand as he held it in the evenings.

John could not have pinpointed these things himself, did not quite notice, in fact, but he was aware of thinking about a few things he did not use to think about before. "If you were unhappy, would you tell me so?" he suddenly found himself asking, sitting one evening watching telly, his lap full of thinking detective. "You would know... you always know" Sherlock mumbled sleepily in response, burrowing deeper into John's lap. "That's true... you are not exactly subtle about it either, are you?" John found himself chuckling, gently petting the hair of his best friend and love. He only got a light muttering in response.

"Would you?" It had been nearly half an hour since they'd said a word and John looked down on Sherlock with surprise "would I what?" "Tell me if you were unhappy". "Oh" John blinked and thought about it for a moment "yes, I would. And probably include an instruction manual for how to fix it, too, come to think of it. You don't exactly do subtle well, emotionally. We're fine, Sherlock. I mean that". "Mmm" the detective agreed, closing his eyes like a sleepy cat, even rubbing his face against John's arm a little.

"What do you want for dinner? John asked a moment later, as the credits rolled in the show he had been watching. "Something it makes you happy to cook". John found himself smiling at that response. "Is that an attempt at being romantic, Sherlock?" "I don't do romantic" Sherlock huffed in response "and I do not try. If I did do romantic I would succeed".

"Of course you would" John laughed in responce and bent down to kiss Sherlock on the head. "Sentiment" scoffed the genuis grumpily, but it was not lost on John that he made no attempt to pull away, and he smirked. Sherlock might be able to see through most people easy as anything, but he could see through Sherlock just as easily.

Gently, the doctor extracted himself from the detective curled up around him and headed into the kitchen, starting a stew and humming for himself. He had only been at it for five minutes when Sherlock's violin joined in with the melody, which was rather a Sherlock way of helping with supper.

John brought both plates to the carpet infront of the fire, making a point of starting a fire and then feeding Sherlock bites. The detective clearly did not understand the point of any of that, but he humoured him, letting himself be pampered and held, and John felt profound relief, suddenly, at how life had turned out, remembering so very well how closed off the love of his life had been not two years ago, and felt very keenly how fortunate he was.

Fortunate to have survived Afganistan. Fortunate to have found the love of his life, fortunate to have gotten rid of his limp and the tremour in his hand, so that he could once more perform surgery. Fortunate to get Sherlock back, to be loved in turn, fortunate to have the amazing friends he had gained these last few years, to have not one but two occupations he loved, and most of all, fortunate to get to be here, in peace, with the man he loved. He truly was blessed.

So this is where we leave the somewhat triggering parts of the story behind; the next chapter will move on to the next part of the story, where there will be slightly longer time passing in between the chapters, as this story spanns an entire year, set after "A Johnlock Christmas" and before the very last paragraph of "Portrait of a Genius", the first story in the series, whcih mostly takes place the year before the second part of the Quadrology. All recognisable content still belongs to its respective owners.

TapTap