A/N: Here's something I found from my computer and decided to finish. This story is not related to my other Sherlock fics.

Summary: Sometime after Sherlock came back from the dead John wakes up to find Sherlock acting completely out of character – friendly, polite, has manners and able to make not only tea but breakfast as well! John is totally freaked out by the change - what's wrong with Sherlock?

Disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock Holmes

John Watson groaned and buried his face into the pillow as his alarm clock beeped alerting him that it was time to wake up. He felt like he had slept only few hours and probably had too, since his lovely flatmate Sherlock "I-don't-need-sleep" Holmes had decided to give him a violin concerto at 3-bloody-am – well, if screeching the violin could be called a concerto. And now John had to get up at 6am and be in the surgery in less than an hour.

Turning off the alarm he dressed and shuffled down the stairs to the kitchen, still half asleep. Tea – tea was what he needed and luckily for him he had made it so many times that he didn't have to even think about it anymore. He knew where everything was and could do it with his eyes closed if needed – which was a good thing on mornings like this. Except this time, as he entered the kitchen, nothing was where it was supposed to be – especially Sherlock.

On normal mornings John would wake up to find the kitchen empty and Sherlock lying on the living room couch in his mind palace or playing the violin or working on some experiment. There would never be tea or breakfast ready for him when he woke up – that was John's job as Sherlock more often than not forgot to eat and John was pretty sure he didn't even know how to cook. But this morning as John entered the kitchen he was assaulted by the smell of eggs and bacon as well as tea.

John stared at the scene in shock and rubbed his eyes thinking he must still be asleep. There was no way that Sherlock was sitting on their clean kitchen table eating what seemed to be the traditional English breakfast and drinking tea.

Suddenly he looked up and gave John a wide smile.

"Good morning, John! Come sit down, please, I made breakfast." He said cheerfully and John gaped at him. It did look like Sherlock, the overly tight purple shirt and all, and sounded like him too, but he couldn't possibly be Sherlock. Sherlock wasn't cheerful or polite and John was pretty sure he had deleted the word 'please' from his vocabulary. No, Sherlock was rude and moody and childish and didn't much care about anything other than his cases and experiments. And he would never have made John breakfast.

Shaking his head John sat down still staring at Sherlock.

"You made breakfast?" He asked as Sherlock handed him a cup of tea just the way he liked it. "Is this one of your experiments again?" He narrowed his eyes.

"Yes, isn't that what I just said?" Sherlock said frowning at him concernedly. "And no it's not an experiment. Are you feeling okay, John?"

John shook his head in disbelief.

"Okay, who the hell are you and what have you done to Sherlock Holmes?"

"John? What are you talking about? I'm obviously me."

He was looking at him concernedly again and John felt like banging his head to the table. He was way too tired for this.

"Tell me something only Sherlock and I would know."

"What are you on about John? This is idiotic." Aha, there was the Sherlock scowl, but it wasn't enough to convince John entirely.

"Just tell me."

"Fine." He huffed in a very Sherlockian way. "You shot the cabbie for me."

John nodded slowly. No one apart from them knew that, except for Mycroft perhaps and it had to do for now. He didn't have time to deal with this now, but he would keep an eye on his out-of-character-acting flatmate.

The rest of the breakfast – which was impressively good – was eaten in silence expect for Sherlock's few requests like "Pass me the salt, please", which made John immediately narrow his eyes.

"Just leave them; I'll take care of it." Sherlock said smiling after John had eaten and about to start cleaning up.

"Okay enough Sherlock." John said exasperated. "This is seriously starting to creep me out."

"John?" Sherlock looked at him confused. "What are you talking about?"

"You, Sherlock! You! You acting like – this." John exclaimed and waved a hand around the room.

"Like what?" Sherlock asked and there was the concern again.

"Gah! Just – nothing. Nothing at all. I'm going to take a shower." John said feeling even more tired than when he first woke up. He didn't have time to try to figure out Sherlock's latest experiment – because that was what this had to be – he had to get to work.

John exited the kitchen and went to take a shower hoping it would relax him a bit, which it did and John felt much better as he left the bathroom and re-entered the kitchen dressed up ready to work. The kitchen had been cleaned and everything was back in their right places, but Sherlock was nowhere in sight.

Sighing John picked up his keys and put on his coat, ready to leave when Sherlock burst through the door his long coat billowing after him.

"John! John! We have a case!" He shouted grinning and John felt relieved – this was the Sherlock he knew. "There you are John. Good you're dressed already, we have a case!" He exclaimed and clapped his hand before pushing John out of the door to the street.

"That's all well and good, Sherlock but I need to go to work."

"Work… Work is dull." Sherlock scoffed. "This is much more interesting John. We have a serial killer!"

Well that explained why he was so giddy about the case, John mused. He debated with himself for a second whether or not to call in sick and follow Sherlock to the crime scene, but like always his soldier side won.

"Fine, I'll call in sick, but only if you promise to tell me what that little experiment of yours earlier was about." He said digging up his phone.

"Why would you want to know?" Sherlock frowned for a second. "Never mind, whatever. The game Dr Watson is on!"

The next morning John woke up to find the kitchen table full of Sherlock's experiments and Sherlock having already solved the case, lying on the couch demanding John to make him tea. He smiled, oddly relieved, as his Sherlock was back. It had most likely been another one of Sherlock's experiments that John just didn't understand and he was happy to leave it just that. John didn't think he could deal with a polite Sherlock – that just wasn't him, it didn't feel right.

For two years he had been hoping for his Sherlock to come back from the dead and he had gotten his wish. Of course he had been angry at Sherlock and punched him a few times too, but really he couldn't be happier. He had missed his crazy, brilliant consulting detective and was beyond happy to have him back even with the experiments and all. So to have Sherlock change so drastically would be unnerving and… well, it wouldn't be the same.

And so, John proceeded to make them breakfast, gladly putting the weirdness of the morning before out of his mind and as the evening came he had all but forgotten about the incident until the evening came. John was just about to leave the clinic and head home when his phone beeped alerting him of the arrival of a text message. He dug the phone out of his pocket thinking that it was most likely to be Sherlock demanding that he come to some crime scene as he had earlier received a message from him saying that they had another case.

And Sherlock it was, but instead of a case the text contained only one word:

Angelo's.

-SH

John raised his eyebrows wondering why Sherlock wanted him to meet him at Angelo's when he was in the middle of a case. Shrugging he hailed a cab and headed to the restaurant.

John searched for Sherlock as he entered the restaurant and saw him waving at him from their usual table. Frowning he walked to the table and sat down opposite of his flatmate.

"Sherlock, what are we doing here?"

"Eating, John. This is a restaurant after all."

"You solved the case, already?" John asked with raised eyebrows.

"No."

"No?"

"That's what I just said. Do try to keep up, John." Sherlock scoffed still studying his menu.

"Sherlock, you never eat while you're on a case." John said.

"Well I eat now. You should be happy – always bugging me to eat."

"Fine." John said and opened his own menu while every once in a while glancing at his flatmate waiting for him to do something out of character. For the most part he acted normal, but there were some things that stood out. For example Sherlock thanked Angelo for the food as it was brought to the table and actually ate it. Furthermore he asked John about his day and John couldn't detect any mocking or sarcasm in the question – it was truly sincere.

By the time the dinner was over John was ready for a drink. He was totally freaked out by this polite and caring Sherlock – the man had helped a lost child to find her mother and done it even politely and pleasantly for Christ's sake! – So he had messaged Lestrade and was meeting him at the pub for a pint.

"John." Lestrade greeted him.

"Hello Greg." John said.

"Missed you at the crime scene today. Sherlock was a right pain in the arse and dashed off again without a word." Lestrade said tired as he sipped up his beer.

"He was?" John asked surprised. Apparently hid flatmate's 'kindness' didn't apply to crime scenes.

"You bet. Managed to make the witness cry and Donavan was this close to punching him at one point." Lestrade sighed. "He really is much worse when you're not there keeping him in check."

"So you haven't noticed him acting in… an unusual manner?" John asked.

"Well, if you're talking about being even more of a bastard than usual then no. Why?"

"It's just he's been acting really weird these past few days."

"Weird how?" Lestrade frowned.

And John proceeded to tell him all his observations of Sherlock's odd behaviour. Lestrade found it hard to believe but promised John to keep an eye out for him and they parted ways, John feeling much better at having someone to talk about it.

His good feeling however went right out of the window as he arrived back at Baker Street and found that Sherlock had stopped at the Tesco and shopped groceries and even brought milk!

These incidents, where one moment Sherlock acted like… well Sherlock, but the next like he was the epitome of kindness and politeness, kept happening during the next week and John was in turns either irritated, freaked out or downright worried. His mind went through different kinds of scenarios of how or why Sherlock would be acting like he had and he became increasingly anxious about it.

Talking to Sherlock helped nothing as the man acted like nothing was out of the ordinary and worst of all John didn't think he was faking it. He liked to think that he knew when Sherlock was lying – he had these small mannerisms that gave him away, but only for John (and maybe Mycroft) as he had spent enough time with Sherlock to get to know him properly. So the only thing he was left with was his medical knowledge and the things he could come up with were borderline terrifying.

Then one evening a thought entered his head and refused to leave him alone. It was so simple that John felt like an idiot coming up with all kinds of theories including DID, partial amnesia etc. It was so simple! What if Sherlock was high? It was entirely plausible; Sherlock had a history of drug use after all.

And then when his suspicion thoroughly settled in, John was horrified. What if he really was taking drugs? Drugs could make people turn into somebody totally different and it certainly would explain Sherlock's behaviour.

But why would he, after being sober for so long? Was it the Fall? Sherlock had never told John what he had gone through during the years of his absence, but John had heard his nightmares after he returned. What if it had been so bad that Sherlock was turning to drugs again?

He couldn't let Sherlock destroy himself like that. He would help Sherlock get through rehab. He would make him talk about what he had gone through. He wouldn't lose his best friend to something like that. Not after just getting him back.

Making up his mind John stood up and walked to the kitchen where Sherlock was doing his experiments.

"Come here for a second, Sherlock." John said pacing a little in the sitting room. Sherlock did as asked looking at him curiously.

"Yes John, what is it?" He asked smiling kindly and John rubbed his head anxiously, before deciding there was no easy way to go about this.

"Sherlock, are you high?" He blurted out and Sherlock looked at him stunned like he couldn't believe what John had just asked him.

"Sorry, what?" The consulting detective asked like he had no idea what John was talking about and John lost it. He grabbed Sherlock by his head and made him look at him.

"I asked you: Are you high?" He said strongly. "Look me in the eyes and tell me you're not taking drugs again." He demanded but Sherlock just looked shocked his eyes wide and mouth hanging slightly open – a very unsherlockian expression.

"Damnit Sherlock!" John cried out letting go of the detective and stepping away from him. "I'm running out of ideas here, so unless you have suddenly developed a multiple personality disorder, then the only thing I can think of is drugs. Just please tell me so we can get you help." John pleaded. "Please Sherlock, we will get through this together, you just need to tell me."

Sherlock opened his mouth clearly trying to say something, but was interrupted by a voice from the door.

"What are you doing here?"

A/N: Thanks for reading! Please review and tell me what you think.

- Dalnim