AN: Hello all! So I needed to take a break from my "Walls" story because there has just been so much angst and darkness, and I don't want to wear myself out. Therefore I have been working on this little ditty. I've been wanting to explore the genderswapping trope for some time now, and I hope I can get the character right especially because little Jane has big shoes to fill. So any and all feedback is most welcome! This little prologue of sorts explores what Jane and Sherlock were up to in the months before they met. Enjoy!

Before

September 22nd

"One, Captain Watson, please come to the ticket counter."

The speaker crackles overhead jarring Jane out of her dark reverie. She had been sitting in the airport for the better part of seven hours on layover with nothing but her thoughts to occupy her, so the brief respite that halted the introspective spiral threatening to drag her further into the Grey was welcome if not somewhat disconcerting. She tries her best not to let the sudden anxiety gnaw through her stomach, as paralysing thoughts of further delay raced through her mind. It was ridiculous, she knew, but ever since the hospital she feared she would never make it back to London.

Breathing deep, she snaps the elastic hair band off her wrist and smoothes her hair back into a ponytail to give herself something trivial to do. Her hair really was getting too long, and the feel of it brushing against the nape of her neck instead of pinned in its neat bun was foreign. She rises achingly to her feet, and slings her duffle over her good shoulder, not willing to leave her things alone regardless of the deserted airport, and heads for the young woman behind the counter.

"Hi, hello," she starts, her voice raspy with disuse. She clears it. "I'm Janette Watson."

The young woman smiles, her straight white teeth dazzling against her dark lipstick. Even through the Grey seeping into her vision Jane could tell it was a garish shade of crimson. "Captain Watson. On behalf of British Airways and her Majesty's Royal Army, your seat has been upgraded to fist class for the remainder of your flight."

"Sorry, first class?" she asks, tearing her eyes away from the woman's mouth. For a second she almost saw a flash of red, but it vanished before she could tell if it was real or not.

"Yes, Captain Watson. As a gesture for your sacrifice," she says smiling her plasticine smile and trying not to look at her left shoulder that was currently done up with gauze and peeking out from under her olive green vest.

Jane bristles, plucking at the hem of her shirt. "Er. Well if it's all the same to you, I will just keep my seat in economy, thanks." Her tone was clipped, hard.

The young woman's smile fades slightly. "But Captain Watson —"

"Doctor. I'm not a Captain anymore," she says. She couldn't bear to be called Captain by this woman one more time, because it was true: she wasn't. She didn't want to be anything she wasn't, and she especially didn't like how utterly useless she felt when this simple fact dawned on her time and time again through the use of the appelation. Doctor was better. She was still that for the most part. She massages the tremor of her left hand, more out of a subconscious gesture of relieving tension than anything.

"Yes, of course. Doctor Watson. We will void your first class assignment."

"Why don't you give it to him just there?" she asks nodding her head in the direction of a young man curled haphazardly in the crook of an awful plastic airport bench. He was stranded like her, and had been attempting to catch a few winks unsuccessfully for the past hour. "You can, can't you?"

"Yes that's not a problem, if that is what you wish?"

"I do."

"All right that's just fine. Enjoy your flight Cap – Doctor Watson. Thank you for flying British Airways," she says flashing her teeth again.

Jane nods and walks back to her seat. She drops back into her chair just as the young woman makes her way to the young man's prone form. Her lips twitch into a faint smile. At least someone would be getting good use out of her sacrifice. The bitterness she tastes in the back of her throat causes the smile to fall from her face.

To stop herself from thinking, she stares out the wide window and watches the sky lighten bit by bit in what she assumes is a beautiful sunrise, vermillion and gold like she remembered from the deserts of Afghanistan. She screws up her eyes willing the colours — burning vivid and bright in her mind's-eye — into existence. But the only thing she manages is to give herself a headache in the end. She watches the gradients of gunmetal and graphite until her plane taxies up to the gate.