The Many Adventures of Jane H. Watson and Sherlock Holmes

Summary:

Captain Jane H. Watson of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers returns home from Afghanistan seeking a flatmate. Little did she know that this flatmate would end up changing her life… for the better. Genderbent John Watson. Borrows heavily from the television show and other official and unofficial resources.

Chapter One

All she could hear were gunshots. Ammunition was being fired, seemingly from every direction, though she knew that was only because she could not see what was happening. In truth, the only thing she was able to see from her position on the hard ground was a blue sky, cloudless, yet filled with dust and smoke. She knew something was wrong. She shouldn't be lying on the ground half-conscious and confused during a firefight. When did she get here? What happened? She racked her brain for possible answers, but she could remember nothing.

It was at that moment that she felt a terrible, searing pain in her left shoulder. She knew, right then and there, without a shadow of a doubt, that she'd been shot. And if anyone else out there on the battlefield was to get wounded, she would be unable to help.

"Jane? Jane?"

She heard her name being shouted, but at this point, she couldn't make out who it was. She looked around frantically, as much as her body would let her anyhow, but she could not find the source. From her position on the ground, she attempted to assess the wound, but could not lift herself enough to investigate the back side of her shoulder. At this point, she couldn't tell which side of the shoulder was shot, nor if the bullet was still lodged somewhere in her arm. The only thing she noticed when she brought her right hand to her face was blood. And a lot of it. Her consciousness was beginning to fade and she knew that within minutes, she would be dead.

"Please, God… let me live," she finally whispered, a single tear trailing down her face. And then everything went black.

She woke up screaming. Sitting up in the small single bed, she frantically looked around the London hotel room she currently called home and realised that she was not in Afghanistan. Not anymore, anyway. No, those events happened months ago. And yet nearly every night that followed, she had that nightmare. Collapsing back onto the stiff mattress, she attempted to take some deep breaths and calm herself, all to no avail. She felt a sob build in her chest and a tremor in her right hand, and she knew this night would end no differently than all the ones before it. She silently prayed for this nightmare to end once again, and found herself slowly but surely crying herself back into a restless sleep.

Waking up the next morning, she rose from her bed and hobbled across the tiny room to where her cane was waiting for her. She then walked over to the small table and opened her laptop to write in her therapist-mandated blog. But she just sat there staring. Nothing worth blogging ever happened to her. Nothing. Which is exactly what she planned to tell her therapist when she saw her later that day.

"How's your blog going?" Ella, her therapist, asked.

Chickening out of what she had planned to say, Jane replied instead with "Yeah, good… Very good."

"… You haven't written a word have you?" The therapist replied, looking doubtful.

Jane looked down at the notebook on Ella's lap. After noticing what was scribbled on the notepad, Jane deflected the question and instead replied, "You just wrote, 'Still has trust issues'."

"And you read my writing upside down. You see what I mean? Jane, you're a soldier. And it's going to take you a while to adjust to civilian life. Writing a blog about everything that happens to you will honestly help you."

Jane knew she meant well. After all, she was sure Ella had dealt with plenty of PTSD-riddled soldiers before and had helped them. But really, what did she expect Jane to write about? The dreary room she was currently living in? What she had for breakfast? No one would want to read that.

Jane sighed and looked away. "Nothing ever happens to me."

After her rather terrible therapist appointment, Jane decided she would go to the park not too far from Ella's office in central London. She hadn't spent too much time outdoors the last couple months due to the fact that it took much more time and energy to get there than she was willing to spend. So she figured, since she was essentially already across the street, that a little stroll through the park might help her clear her head and relax before she headed back to her sad excuse of a room. But after only a few minutes of walking, or well, limping anyway, she began to regret her decision. Her leg was sore. She was tired and cranky from being chronically unable to sleep, and even the unusually sunny London day could not make up for the pain she was feeling both emotionally and physically. At this point, all she wanted to do was sit down and take a breather for a few minutes before returning to the street and catching a cab back home. But of course, the closest bench to her was occupied. Figures. As she hobbled past the bench, she heard her name being called.

"Jane? Jane Watson?" Confused, she turned around. "Stamford! Mike Stamford, we went to Bart's together!"

As she looked at the man, realisation suddenly dawned on her. This was Mike, the awkward young man from school who used to have a major crush on her. Looking at him now, she could definitely tell he gained... quite a few pounds since those days. But then again, those days were quite some time ago. Lots have happened since then, she would know.

"Yes! Sorry, yes, Mike. Hello!" she replied with a fake enthusiasm and a handshake.

"Yeah, I know, I got fat," he joked with a smile.

"Oh, no, no."

"I, uh, I heard you were abroad somewhere getting shot at..." He began awkwardly, "What happened?"

Brief snapshots of that day flashed in her mind. The dust in the sky, cries and screams of fellow soldiers on either side, the smell of blood.

"Well, I, um, I got shot."

Not knowing what to say to her rather blunt and honest retort, Mike instead gave her a terse smile.

"Do you maybe want to go grab a cup of coffee? Catch up?" He hesitantly asked Jane.

"Um, yeah, sure." It's not like she had anything better to do that day, anyway. Or really any day for that matter.

A few minutes later, after visiting one of the many coffee shops surrounding the park they were in, they returned to a park bench and sat down, sipping on their drinks. The silence was rather awkward and Jane decided to break the silence.

"So, are you still at Bart's, then?"

"Teaching now. Bright young things like we used to be... God, I hate them." They chuckled; Jane's being insincere. While it was nice to see an old friend, she really just wanted this unfortunate conversation to be over. She was not in the mood.

"What about you? Just staying in town until you get yourself sorted?"

"I couldn't afford London on an army pension." And it was true, she really couldn't. She was living in the cheapest accommodation she could find and even then it was breaking the bank.

"And you couldn't bear to be anywhere else. That's not the Jane Watson I know!" He replied with a smile. He really seemed genuinely happy to be reconnecting with her. It was too bad Jane didn't quite feel the same way.

"Yeah, well, I'm not the Jane Watson you used to know. Not anymore." She said looking down, the tremor in her hand returning once again.

"Couldn't Harry help?" Mike was one of the few people in Jane's life who had met Harry, though it was obvious he didn't know about her problems with substance abuse.

Jane scoffed. "Yeah, like that's going to happen."

"Well, um, how about a flatshare then?" Mike was running out of ideas by this point, but really wanted to be able to help his old friend.

"Oh come on, who would want me for a flatmate?"

Chuckling, Mike replied, "You know, you're the second person to say that to me today."

By this point, she was intrigued. "Well, who was the first?"

Walking into the lab at Bart's hospital, she noticed new equipment, some she had never even seen nor heard of, lining walls and tables. She also noticed a man in the lab, who she had also never seen, completely focused on working with some equipment. He was slender with curly black hair and based on the way he was hunching over to use the tool, also seemed to be very tall. Was this the person Mike was talking about? Was he really suggesting a flatshare with a man?

"Bit different from my day." She commented to Mike.

"Oh, you have no idea," he replied with a chuckle.

"Mike, can I borrow your phone? There's no signal on mine," the mystery man interrupted without looking up from his work.

"And what's wrong with the landline?"

"I prefer to text." He said bluntly, still not glancing up.

"Sorry, it's in my coat."

"Uh, here. Use mine." Jane offered. The man finally looked up, wondering who else was in the room.

"Oh, um, thank you." Noticing the cane she was using to support herself, he decided to walk over to her to collect the phone.

"This is an old friend of mine; Jane Watson," Mike interjected.

"Oh yes, old friend indeed." He collected the phone and without looking up, asked, "Afghanistan or Iraq?"

"...Sorry?" Jane wasn't quite sure she had heard him right. Had Mike told him about her already?

"Which was it? Afghanistan or Iraq?"

"Afghanistan... Sorry, how exactly did you know.." Jane began to ask, but was interrupted when another woman walked into the room holding a coffee mug.

"Ah, yes, Molly. Coffee. Thank you. What happened to the lipstick?"

"It... wasn't working for me," Molly replied with hesitation.

"Really? I thought it was a big improvement. Your mouth is… too small now."

Jane stared, incredulous, at this man. Did he really just say that?

"… Okay." Molly replied, hesitating again before leaving the room. It was clear, even to Jane who'd seen these people for no more than two minutes, that Molly had a big crush on whoever he was. And he was either not interested, or completely blind.

"How do you feel about the violin?" He asked, out of the blue.

"Sorry, what?" Jane was still trying to comprehend his last statement. This question threw her off as well. The violin?

"I play the violin when I'm thinking and sometimes I don't talk for days on end." He said, in all seriousness, staring at the computer screen he was now using. "Would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other."

"Flatmates? Who said anything about flatmates?" Jane asked, bewildered. She then glanced over to Mike who was sitting on a lab stool looking amused. "Did you tell him about me?"

With a knowing smile, Mike replied, "Not a word."

Still confused, she looked back to the man who apparently did not notice, or at least didn't care about the evident dumbfounded look on her face.

He sighed, not really wanting to explain but he also knew that she would not understand otherwise. "I told Mike this morning that I must be a difficult man to find a flatmate for. Now here he is, just after lunch with an old… friend. Clearly, you are just home from military service in Afghanistan. Wasn't a difficult leap."

Jane stood there for a second, just staring at the strange man before she finally asked, "How did you know about Afghanistan?"

Ignoring her question, the man simply responded, "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, 7:00. Sorry, got to dash. I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary."

Incredulous, Jane asked, "Is that it?"

"Is that what?"

"We've only just met and we're going to look at a flat?"

"Problem?"

"We don't know a thing about each other. I don't know a thing about where we're meeting, I don't even know your name."

The man took in a breath as he prepared to list what he had deduced about her. "I know you're an army doctor. And you've been invalided home from Afghanistan. I know you've got a brother who's worried about you but you won't go to him for help 'cause you don't approve of him, possibly because he's an alcoholic and more likely because he recently walked out on his wife. And I know that your therapist thinks your limp's psychosomatic, quite correctly I'm afraid. That's enough to be going on with, don't you think?" Jane looked at him with a blank expression as she attempted to figure out how on Earth he knew all that about her. As he was walking out the door to retrieve his riding crop from the mortuary, he added, "The name's Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221B Baker Street. Afternoon." Finally, he smiled and winked at Jane as he left the room while Jane just stood there, staring.

"…Yeah. He's always like that."

AN: Hey all, hope you enjoyed the first chapter! Like I said, the fic will be strongly based on the show, especially in the beginning. I will, however, add in my own cases and original chapters and such. I should have the next chapter out soon!

~Mrs. Jane Holmes