Title: The John Watson He Knew

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)

Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life.

Summary: It wasn't the cane or limp that told Mike John had changed: it was the handshake. ASiP character/scene study.

Written: Draft: 6/13/13. Edited 6/26, 7/6 -7/7/13.

Notes: Many months ago, when I was considering writing a series of scene studies on how John handles touch, I took notes on John's first interaction with Mike Stamford in ASiP, with particular focus on their handshake. I found the difference between John's handshake in that scene, compared with handshakes both later in the same episode and in future episodes, to be fascinating. John's lack of focus and discomfort - brilliantly, subtly done - are so telling as to his character's mindset at that point in the show. I wanted to explore that moment further and Mike spoke up, offering this one-shot as a result. Dialogue quoted from the episode does not belong to me. As always, I truly hope I did the characters justice. Thank you for reading and for your continued support. I cherish every response.

Mike Stamford was a man who believed that, just as the concept of destiny belonged to works of fiction, the phrase 'everything happens for a reason' existed for voices other than his own. A career in medicine had quickly shown him that to believe there was a reason for all the heart-breaking cases he saw, the awful diseases and injuries, was to believe that the world was a cruel place and he chose early on not to live under those tenets. So seeing John in the park that day was a chance thing, a matter of population and probability. Stopping him to say "hello" was the polite thing to do.

And buying him a coffee, obligating him to sit for a moment, was because of a handshake.

John had always had a good, solid handshake, even before he was a military man: firm but not crushing, with steady eye contact and straight-backed, attentive posture. The person on the receiving end always got the impression that John was totally committed to the handshake and, by extension, the person whose hand he was shaking. Unlike Sherlock's strong grip, which came with the microscopic analysis of a man who saw people as equations within the world's greater laboratory, John radiated a committed, holistic focus – 'you as a person deserve my full respect and attention.'

That was John Watson. And this limping man with the military haircut and tightly worn, yet familiar, dry humor…this was not the John Watson Mike knew.

Because while this John Watson did shake Mike's hand – Mike honestly couldn't imagine John ever being impolite enough not to – it was just that: done only out of ingrained politeness and societal expectation. When John shifted his cane to accept Mike's hand, the grip, while not exactly limp, had lost much of its sure firmness and, most telling of all, John's attention wandered. After an initial, brief eye contact, John began looking down and around, not just with his eyes, but even turning his whole head at the end. At first, Mike thought it might have been wariness on John's part, his military experience instilling in him the critical importance of being aware of one's surroundings, especially while standing still in an open space. But he soon realized that, more than wariness, it was discomfort: John really didn't want to be there, in that moment, with Mike. And not just with Mike, but with anyone; a silent, screaming truth hidden within the stillness of John's initially half-blank, half-trapped expression when he belatedly turned to the sound of his name.

And that was not John Watson.

John, for all his quiet, background competence and need for solitary walks, was a people person. While some went into medicine for the research potential, the intellectual puzzle of diagnostics and treatment algorithms, John, though enjoying those aspects, was committed to the people within the symptoms. He seemed to genuinely care about people's lives beyond what brought them to see a doctor; so much so that when John's blog later became household reading, Mike wasn't surprised to find that the story aficionado in John also hid a bit of a storyteller. So this John, shaking Mike's hand with obvious discomfort, looking around as if for a way out, then hurriedly shifting his hand back to his cane, as if more comfortable putting his weight on inorganic aluminium than connecting with human warmth…it was more than unsettling.

It was wrong.

And it was in the heart of that deeply undeniable wrongness, where it would have been far kinder to just let John go on his way, that Mike, a man far from cruel by nature, found himself buying John a coffee and gesturing to a bench, politeness obligating him to accept and stay.

They sat sipping their coffees around awkward silences, the conversation forced and tight; Mike shifting under the growing weight of uncertainty and regret while John bit back angry words around an attempt to hide a shaking left hand. Then Mike, in what should have been a moment of monumental stupidity, suggested that this John Watson, a man who clearly wanted to be alone, consider a flatshare. To which John responded, with the good grace of injecting a bit of rough, but honest, humor into the severity of how he'd changed: "C'mon. Who'd want me for a flatmate?"

And, God help him, Mike thought of Sherlock Holmes. Not only thought of him, not only considered inflicting the forceful, difficult personality of Sherlock Holmes on an adrift, solitude-seeking John Watson, but actually brought John right over to meet the man.

It should have been a disaster – Sherlock's aloof, deductive invasion of privacy should have caused John to withdraw even further; the meeting at Baker Street should never have been suggested, let alone accepted and conducted, and Mike should have been ostracized by both men for his ridiculous actions, for the mere thought of putting them in the same room that day.

But it wasn't a disaster; it was, in fact, an inexplicable success. And the thing of it was, Mike had never intended to try and 'fix' John that day, to restore the John Watson he had known back at Bart's; never thought that introducing John and Sherlock would do anything of the sort.

In fact, Mike hadn't thought about a single one of his actions that day at all.

Weeks later, as he witnessed the growing connection between John and Sherlock, saw John lose the cane and Sherlock gain the word 'friend' in his vocabulary, Mike suddenly found himself thinking of a nurse he'd met at Bart's years ago, who had succeeded in getting a notoriously non-compliant patient to listen to education about his condition. When he'd asked her how she'd done it, she shrugged, "I just knew, somehow, that sampling that meal with him and his family was important. I had no idea he'd start trusting us enough to learn about why he kept being admitted to hospital afterwards; it just happened. Instinct, I suppose."

And so, as the months passed and the two men changed each other for the better – John bringing out Sherlock's hidden humanity and fierce devotion and Sherlock bringing John back to his loyal, people-focused, chaos-thriving roots - Mike decided that it was instinct that had driven his actions in that park that day. Not the ancient, air-crackling, 'deep in your gut' sense of prophecy-laden importance depicted in fantasy novels when a fated moment in time came to pass. Just unconscious, professional, in-the-moment instinct. Simple and unassuming; not world-shattering on a grand scale, but deeply affecting on an individual, personal one.

Sort of like John Watson.

John would never be the exact same man Mike had known. Even without the experience of war, people changed with time and the paths their lives took. But a year after introducing the two men, Mike and John were sitting in the pub, having their regular session of complaining about endless NHS paperwork, discussing interesting cases, and talking about Sherlock's latest endeavors, when several of Mike's colleagues came to the table. As Mike introduced John around, John met and held each person's eyes with a nod and smile accompanied by a firm, attentive handshake, completely focused on the moment, before gesturing for them to join the conversation.

As Mike moved over to make more room, he decided that he'd take instinct over the grandiosity of fiction's destiny any day.

Because those handshakes right there?

That was the very heart of the John Watson he knew.