NOTE: this is a WWII/'50s AU inspired by one of my dreams. In the dream, John had become Joan and I kept it.

This part is made of three chapters, already written. And I'm a 4 chapter along with the second part (but I prefer waiting for them to be complete before publishing ^^)...

Ok, have a good time with this!

Joan Watson had got used to the noise of aeroplanes, to the alarms. Working in the Continental bases during WWII meant that, and more. After three years on the field, a shoulder wounded in action (luckily it was just something more than a graze) and uncountable nights and days spent next to wounded and dying soldiers, the role of Head Nurse had been given to her for her level-head-ness and her solid decisional abilities that endured even in the worst scenarios (and she had seen quite a few of them), when even some soldiers fell into a panic.

So, when from the officers' wing of the camp hospital she heard Doctor Anderson shout and yell (he wasn't the brightest apple in the bunch, if you asked her), and a second baritonal voice answering but laced with pain, she didn't hesitate to go and see what was happening.
And what was happening was that a 6 feet long man was arguing with the doctor for something (impossible to discern about what through the shouting). The man wasn't very mobile, having both legs plastered into casts until mid-thigh, the right arm was plastered as well, with the elbow bent at 90 degrees, and he had a dressing that run all around his head. A mop of curly dark brown hair escaped from the top of the dressing itself. The man seemed quite young, mid-twenties, more or less her age, and didn't really seem a soldier or, God forbid, an officer. She approached the bed.

"Sorry sirs… "

"YOU HAVE TO ABIDE THE DOCTOR'S ORDERS, YOU WERE ORDERED TO…"

"I'LL NEVER ABIDE TO STUPID ORDERS, I WASN'T DOING…"

Joan counted until ten, straightened her back, put the hands on her hips, took a deep breath and then,

"SHUT UP!" her contralto voice carried and covered those of the men, who turned to look at her flabbergasted, "Thank you, sirs." She said, with her normal, gentle tone. She approached the bed, took the syringe out of the doctor's hands and looked at both of them, "Doctor Anderson, may you please explain me what's going on? I could hear shouting from the central ward, and you were disturbing the rest of my patients." She smiled but it was a dangerous smile. The curly haired man looked at her with interested eyes.

"The patient here is Mr Sherlock Holmes and has been assigned to our care even if he is not military. Orders from above. He has two broken legs, one broken elbow and he is severely concussed. He is in a rage status and needs to be put under sedatives." He said, in his petulant voice.
Joan looked at him completely unimpressed

"Doctor Anderson, what is inside the syringe?"

"Just some morphine, to help with the pain and make him rest." Joan looked at the doctor and then at the patient. Then she took the folder with the patient's information and read through.

"I can't be under morphine, I have a case to solve and I need to be vigil." Holmes said, at a meeker tone. Joan made a shushing gesture, keeping on reading. Another nurse, Molly, peeked in the room.

"Doctor Anderson?" she asked, "We have an emergency and we need a doctor, can you please come?" Joan took the chance,

"Doctor, you can go as you please, I can take care of the patient here." She said. Anderson huffed, but his duties were clear.

"Don't come crying to me when this idiot makes you go mad."

"I can assure you I can handle my share of idiocy, I do that every day." She answered, looking pointedly at him. "Now go, Molly is waiting for you."

Anderson got away from the room. Joan put the capped syringe in her white coat and proceeded to check the patient.

"You just called him an idiot and he didn't even notice." He said, almost trying to make small talk while the nurse checked his pupillary response covering and uncovering his eyes (light green, blue? What was the name of that colour, anyway? She wondered) and then prodding his head and the bruise on his cheekbone.

"He's the worst we've got in here, but he can be quick with amputations and he is a good orthopaedist. Besides, we need to make do with what they give us. You're surely still a bit concussed and I don't know how giving you morphine would ever seem a good idea to him: you have to be awake, not to drug-sleeping. For the rest, you need to eat more regularly, and you have a long way to go to heal properly. Your bones had to be settled again." She explained him.
The man, Sherlock, looked at her interested. She didn't complain at being scrutinized by him, and settled to scribble some instructions on the chart.

"Does your left shoulder hurt a lot?" he asked her. She shrugged.

"Only when I strain it too much… wait a second, how do you know about that?" Sherlock smiled.

"The way you hold the chart. You are left handed but were corrected to write with the right and you try to do so when working, but you hold the chart more against the hip than with the left arm and your posture is a bit rigid on that side, like you are afraid of feeling pain." Sherlock then shut up and waited.

"Oh… wow, well, amazing. And you got that just from how I hold the chart?"

"And from the fact that you took the syringe with the left: a right handed person would never have."

"Really fantastic." She said. Sherlock looked at her surprised. "What's up?"

"This is not the usual reaction I get to my deductions." Was Sherlock's response.

"And what is it, usually?"

"Piss off."

Joan let out a huff of laughter, and Sherlock too took out a smile.

"Well, Mr Holmes, I think you'll have the time to deduce pretty much the entire staff here, because it looks like you'll be here at least for six weeks." Sherlock groaned again.

"I'll be dying of boredom… Mycroft will pay this dearly." Joan patted his good shoulder.

"We'll try to avoid your death, just work with me, uh? I have to go now, but I'll be back."

And indeed she would be back, because no other nurse could stand that annoying git that a bored Sherlock Holmes was. He made a couple of younger nurses cry in shame after revealing some personal secrets, and the more experienced ones were wary of him. It had to be added that he was a nightmare to be fed, because he almost always disregarded food. After the third day in a row (more or less after two weeks of his stay) in which his only meals had been the teas she had taken the habit to take with him at the end of the day (he would deduce all her patients of the day, she would coax some calories in him and have him doing his exercises not to lose movement in the legs and the shoulders), Joan decided to take the job, literally, in her hands.
At the following meal time, she asked Molly to substitute her in the main ward and went to Sherlock's room.

"Ah, Joan. Please, tell your colleague that I have already eaten." Sherlock said upon seeing her.

"Sarah, you can go, I will deal with this git." The other nurse didn't hesitate in going away leaving the task to Joan.

"Sherlock, you can't make my nurses crazy, otherwise the other patients will be in trouble."

"Boring. And I'm dying of boredom, just like I told you!" Joan rolled her eyes

"You're just being overly dramatic. Come on, start eating, at least you will be less bored."

"Eating is boring and it slows my mental process." Joan's eyebrows rose and she looked at him, totally unimpressed.

"Sherlock, you are healing, your body needs nutrition, if you won't eat by yourself, I'm not beyond feeding you." Sherlock looked at her raising one eyebrow, that disappeared under the gauze
on his head. "Your expression would maybe be more effective if you hadn't a whole roll of gauze on your head." Joan smiled at him. "Ok, listen to me: if you don't eat by yourself, I'll be feeding you myself all your meals." Just to carry her threat across, Joan took a spoonful of pudding from the dish and started making aeroplane noises. "Vrooom, Julie Oscar Alpha November to Sierra Hotel Echo Romeo Lima Yankee, we request confirmation for the landing…" Sherlock's eyes widened comically (SHERLY? REALLY?) and he took the spoon from Joan's hands, putting it in his mouth and starting eating on his own.

"Devious woman." He muttered between a mouthful and the other. Joan smirked and patted his good shoulder. He glared at her, she didn't take him seriously.

"I have good news for you, anyway. I should be able to take off the bandage from your head and replace with a smaller one. If you'd like, it could be a good occasion to wash your hair." Sherlock almost moaned at the thought.

"Yes, please, I can't stand them anymore." Joan smiled.

"You eat all your meals and I'll try to make the best to relieve your boredom. But only if you eat regularly."
Sherlock begrudgingly accepted and this unusual woman was the first able to coax something out of Sherlock without restraining him.

The following four weeks passed with this strange routine, with Joan making sure to be the one attending Sherlock in the most annoying phases, and Sherlock going a bit out of his usual behaviour trying to impress the blonde.
After other two weeks the bandages on his head were removed and he was allowed to shave, to his delight. At the end of the fifth week, the plasters on the legs were removed and Sherlock underwent a week of physiotherapy in order to regain a bit of strength. Joan was assigned to this duty too, because otherwise making Sherlock cooperate would have been impossible. She didn't mind. She had definitely become rather fond of that impossible lanky man.
At the end of the sixth week, the last plaster was removed and Sherlock was deemed good to go back to England. Joan checked him over one last time, deeming him ok to travel.

"You'll be happy, free at last. Keep on the exercises for your legs and arm so they regain their strength and you'll be fine." She told him, smiling, if a bit sadly. Sherlock looked at her, then a quick glance to the door. Closed.

"So, I am not one of your patients anymore…" he said, his voice low. Joan looked at him and tilted her head.

"Exactly, I am a free woman now, no more begged by all the staff to take care of the git."

"You know they don't call me git…"

"Oh, but I do." She said, a small smile.

"Anyway, I was saying, I am no more one of your patients, therefore it is no more required for you to be professional towards me, am I right?" Joan furrowed a bit her eyebrows. Sherlock got on his feet, trying his legs, and closed the, admittedly small, space that lingered between them. He didn't exactly crowd her, but was close to.

"I'd say no…" she answered, wanting to know where he would go. Her stance opened a bit, her arms resting lightly on her hips as she was used to keeping them. "I have to admit I'm not used to looking at you from down below, you're quite tall." She said. Sherlock observed her stance opening, the way she touched her hair and her slightly dilated pupils.

"Well, and you're a tiny strong woman, if you could boss me around for all this time." He smiled her, looking rapidly at her lips. A bit of colour got to Joan's cheeks as they tended to gravitate towards each other.

"Someone's got to. You're insufferable." She answered.

"You'll miss me." He said, a small smile.

"I'll miss you." She confirmed.

"Miss Watson, I can be pretty sure you are as unattached as me, and have neither a fiancé nor a husband waiting for you in England, do you?" he murmured at a couple of inches from her lips.

"Just a sister waiting for me, no one else." She confirmed, her breath slightly shallow.

"Then, I hope I'm not being too forward in daring this." He closed the distance between them with a chaste, if firm, kiss. She whimpered and clutched his forearms, still minding his bad arm. They parted with a small sound. "If you are amenable to the idea, I'd like to be waiting for you to come back to England. You know where I live and a part of what I do. I enjoyed our time together and I really enjoy your company. Women are usually boring and predictable and you are neither. Please, tell me…"

"Yes," she answered, "Yes, I'd like for you to wait for me. I'd like to come back to you.". Sherlock hugged her tight.

"I didn't want you to back off on me on some duty honour you would surely pull out, so I'm sorry I had to tell you this at the last second. I'll make it up to you. Your duty period will be up in three months, won't it?" Joan looked at him and nodded, smiling. "Then I'll be waiting for you. In the meanwhile, thanks for taking care not only of my injuries but of my mind as well."

"It'll be better for you to be keeping this promise, Sherlock, I wouldn't make me cross."

"It's far from my desires," He answered, kissing her forehead. A knock sounded at the door. "I have to go now." He pickpocketed one of her embroidered tissues from her pocket. "See you soon, my dear."

"See you soon, Sherlock." She said, leaving a small kiss on the corner of his mouth.
Sherlock exited the door, following a man in a sharp suit, and Joan hoped that it wasn't the last time she'd seen that amazing man.
She took a few minutes to calm down, restore her breathing and try, failing, to keep a stupid grin from appearing on her face. When she felt she was composed enough, she exited from the door that brought to the main ward. Outside of it, a few feet from there, a tall man in a suit with a black umbrella at his side seemed to be waiting for her.

"Joan Watson?" his public school accent evident in the three syllables, the blue eyes darting over her in a familiar if not unsettling way.

"Yes, how may I help you?" she answered, promptly falling into her Head-nurse persona. The man smiled at her.

"Please, come with me, we need to have a chat." he said, making her way into an empty office. She looked at him warily "I swear, I just want to speak with you. About your last patient, Sherlock Holmes."

"I'm sorry, sir, I will not discuss Mr Holmes' health status with others than him." She answered.

"Do not worry, I shall not ask you about his health. I have a proposal for you, Miss, and I'd like to be heard out." Joan looked at him suspiciously but followed the man inside the room. The door was just closing and, "My name is Mycroft Holmes and…"