Okay, this is my first Elementary FanFic. I can't get this Ship out of my mind, it is infuriating, I love them so much. I'm okay with friendship and romance either way on the show, but I love reading about a romance between the two.

Alright, enjoy!

Sherlock Holmes was utterly confused.

Standing there in the living room of the brownstone, waiting for Watson to come down for her lesson, he felt lost. She was a woman who had baffled him at every turn. She had stayed where so many, including his own father, had run for the hills. She had admirable detective-skills, especially when it came to marks on dead bodies. She made him a better person. And for the first time since his childhood, he liked who he was.

He sprayed a little perfume on the floor, knowing full well that he would regret that until next Tuesday.

He sat on the couch and stared ahead of himself. He registered everything around him, storing every scent, sound and object neatly in his memory. But he wasn't aware of it. The main part of his brain was trying to deduce the mystery that was Joan Watson. Which was near impossible. She was the only one who managed to surprise him. Going left when he thought she would go right. Staying as his apprentice when he thought she'd move on.

He had quite enjoyed their time together, teaching another mind about his ways, not being alone all the time. Somebody, besides Gregson, who believed he could be better. It felt surprisingly good. It made him forget about London.

She'd forced him to move on. Forced his mind to focus on something other than his misery.

His hand suddenly surged forward, his long fingers closing around Clyde's shield. The little animal had quickly crawled up to Sherlock's crime scene, but had not gotten the chance to defile it. He put the turtle on his lap and stared at it for a very long time.

Watson was taking her time.

The animal moved his legs, and Sherlock laughed at the utter ridiculousness of it all. Clyde looked as helpless as he felt.

"Sherlock?"

His heart was in his throat for a nanosecond. This was why he felt confused. She could sneak up on him. He rose, put Clyde down on the couch and turned to her. She was standing in the doorway, a blindfold tied around her head and a nervous look on her features. And she looked beautiful.

Sherlock was surprised to notice that that assessment wasn't coming from any sexual attraction he had towards women. Joan just...was beautiful like this. It almost felt wrong to think it, because he had seen his fair share of women in blindfolds and had worn enough to know that they were a restrictive form of sexual intercourse. Not being able to see was an inconvenience, especially during sex. Not that he'd ever had much trouble with that. His sight out of the way, that gave his other senses more room to assess, to see.

But it didn't feel like that, with her. He didn't feel like he was looking at one of his call girls. He was looking at Joan, a woman he trusted more than anyone, a woman who trusted him enough to put on a blindfold.

He had to compose himself. Not a second had passed since he'd gotten up. "Watson! Excellent!" He quickly paced over to her and took her hand in his, ignoring how his body reacted to that.

"Sherlock, what's going on?" she asked. "What's this lesson?"

Sherlock smirked as he lead her to the carpet. This was what he did best. "Smells are essential to a detective, Watson. You might remember the case with the comatose woman who wasn't comatose at all?" She nodded. "The deodorant gave her away from the beginning."

"Yes, I do remember. But why am I blindfolded?"

Because you look beautiful. "Because, my dear Watson, your senses need to be sharpened. Years of sensory attacks on your nostrils have weakened them. And a normal human being already has weakened senses." He knew she was rolling her eyes then; he felt her hand tighten around his and her stance distanced her from him. "But fret not, they can yet be saved. There is a crime scene here. I want you to identify a possible killer."

"O-okay. But...I don't know where to go."

"Just kneel. Start sniffing about a bit."

She sighed, and he knew (or guessed) what she was thinking. She all found this utterly ridiculous, but Sherlock didn't agree with that. It was very important. For goodness sake, he'd solved multiple cases because of his sense of smell! To his surprise, however, she sank to her knees without complaint, her cheeks a lovely pink.

Oh, Joan Watson, are you ever not going to surprise me? Sherlock looked at her, sitting on the floor, her hands splayed at her sides as she did as he instructed her. After a few seconds, she wrinkled her nose and coughed. Ah.

"What the hell is that?"

Sherlock smirked. "You tell me."

She inhaled deeply and coughed again. "Smells like...sandalwood and musk. What is..." She sniffed again, and Sherlock felt amazingly pleased with himself and her. She was doing this willingly and she was doing it well. "Is that jasmine?" Her voice now held contained excitement. She sniffed again. "No way...orange blossom? Sherlock?" Sherlock bit his lip to stop himself from smiling like an idiot. She had guessed the top note. "Is that Chanel No. 5?"

"Excellent detective work, Watson! You can get up now." She rose fairly quickly and Sherlock folded his hands behind his back. "Now what does that tell you?"

"That either the victim or the culprit is extremely lucky."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. Sometimes, it was easy to forget that she was indeed a woman. "Focus, Watson."

She smiled. "Sorry. Okay, like I said, either the culprit or the victim is very lucky and extremely rich. A bottle can cost up to $2100."

"It's not the victim, Watson. The victim was a very poor, young student, with no distinguishable fragrance on her body upon discovery."

She nodded and bit her lip. Sherlock caught himself staring at her for a minute too long. Confusion washed over his brain. Normally, his body responded to women, and never had it to Joan, but now his brain was responding. It never had before. Not even with...

He shook his head fiercely. He would not allow his body nor his brain to think like that.

"Okay, so the culprit was rich. And a woman." She shook him out of his thoughts.

"Why a woman?"

She snorted. "Please, Chanel No. 5 is a women's perfume. Everybody knows that."

Sherlock grinned, utterly pleased. "Take the blindfold off, Watson." She yanked it off before his words had fully left his mouth, blushing heavily. "A well-done job. I'm proud." Why do you look so overwhelmingly beautiful, Joan Watson, when you blush?

"So, how do I figure the culprit from that?" Her eyes were shining with excitement, and Sherlock knew this was what she loved above everything. Even being a surgeon. He couldn't help but feel a little bit complacent about that. He had introduced her to his way of life. He loved being able to teach her, to watch her grow into a wonderful detective and watch how she loved it.

"Well, after this, you start digging into the victim's background. Figure out if she's got friends or family that are this rich and have a motive. But that is for another time. You've done exceptionally well, Watson."

Joan smiled gratefully. "Thanks, Sherlock."

Sherlock took the ridiculously expensive perfume from his pocket and handed it to her. She'd more than deserved it. She stared at him for a good long while, her fingers closed around the bottle. "Are you serious?"

Sherlock swung his arms out and to his side stiffly and shrugged. "Like you so accurately pointed out, this is a woman's fragrance. I don't know what I would do with that perfume." He turned on his heel and walked out of the room, his mind wandering to his bed. His body needed rest. "It's yours, Watson!" With that, he took the stairs three steps at a time, leaving her baffled and surprised.

He knew it was overly expensive and not like Joan at all to own it. But he'd figured it might make a good starting point in this exercise. It's not like he didn't have the money. He slammed the door behind him and got himself ready for rest.

But when he lay in his bed, he couldn't find his sleep. His body was restless, and his mind kept wandering to the woman downstairs. He couldn't fathom why she was affecting him so. He stared at the ceiling as time progressed without his knowledge. At some point, he heard her soft footsteps on the stairs and turning to his door instead of her own. He turned his back to the door and pretended to be asleep. He didn't want to face her. His door opened, and then he only heard her soft breathing and her eyes on his back. She stood in the doorway for a long time, just looking at him. He stayed still the entire time, even though his mind ached to turn and let her know he knew she was there. You can't sneak up on Sherlock Holmes. Except that she could. After maybe ten minutes, she moved again, but not away, but towards him. His heart started pounding, and he frowned slightly at that fact.

His bed dipped as she sat down, leaned over and suddenly he felt her lips on his temple, causing him to shiver. "Thank you, Sherlock." she whispered, and then left.

Sherlock let out a breath and flipped on his back. There were a couple of things wrong with him. First, why hadn't he realised he had been holding his breath? That never happened, he always was aware of things like that. Second, why didn't his mind and body listen to him? It was like he was losing his self-control. Sherlock Holmes didn't do losing his self-control. Third and final, why did she have this effect on him? It was beginning to become a bit annoying. Every time he heard her, or saw her, his body responded in some fashion. It was a bit distracting, honestly. This wasn't something he was familiar with.

Fuck! Sherlock rarely swore, but this was a dire situation. He felt like he was losing his mind. He had to do something. Anything. Ignoring his body's plea for rest, he jumped up and went downstairs. Solving a case, that would probably work best.

He conjured up a box of cold cases, and started shifting through the information, soaking up in it. Three years ago, two girls, sisters with the age of 6 and 3, disappeared without a trace or ransom demand. The only suspects were their childless aunt and estranged father. Both had a solid alibi. Splendid. This was a good case to solve in the dead of night.

At the end of the night, however, he wasn't even close to solving it. His mind kept wandering off to a certain dark haired woman. It was infuriating. He huffed angrily, rose and took out his basketball. He needed something, anything to get his mind off places he didn't want it to go. He began bouncing it, and throwing it and hitting every wall he could without breaking something, while he ran the case through his mind. Every piece of evidence led straight to the father, but he was in Casablanca at that time. How was this even possible?

He finally lost himself in the case, and it was a relief. His heart rate slowed to a calm and steady pace, just as he liked it. He threw the ball again and again, while his mind cracked the case slowly but surely. It was a relief.

"Sherlock!" Watson came storming down the stairs, her face red with anger. "What the hell are you doing?!"

Sherlock let the ball bounce through the room and smirked triumphantly. "I just solved another one of Gregson's cold cases!"

"Why were you bouncing that ball at six in the morning?! Some people actually sleep in on a Sunday!" She grabbed the ball and threw it at him in anger. He dodged quickly.

"Feel better?" he asked calmly, ignoring any and all signals his mind and body were giving to him.

She raked her hand through her hair and sighed. "No. What cold case did you solve?"

Sherlock took the file and gave it to her. "Recognise this?"

"Oh yeah, the two missing girls. How did you solve that?"

He was most excited that she asked him this. Not that he wouldn't have told her anyway. "Well, you might want to know that the estranged father is a very wealthy man, he owns an art gallery. His net income is over 2 million dollars per year. Now, I've called in a couple of favours at the airports and it appears that he owns a private jet. He can go anywhere, at anytime." He pointed to a world map, and he saw that he had Joan's full attention. It pleased him. "Now, a trip from Casablanca to New York, isn't long at all. Nine hours tops. It's easy enough, especially with a private jet. Fly to JFK, take his two daughters, fly back and it's done, before they're even reported missing."

Joan watched him with intrigue. "Aren't you going to call Gregson?"

"I will tell him when I see him." He sighed deeply, his high spirit leaving him. "This is the bad news. The US has no extradition contract with Morocco. Time isn't of the essence, because we simply cannot get the man over here. One has to admit, it was perfectly planned. I plan to reach out to a contact of mine in Casablanca, see if he can snoop around."

"But what of those poor girls? Who knows what shape they're in."

"There's really nothing we can do now. But my bet is that he took them away from their mother because she filed a lawsuit against him when they divorced. He lost custody to his girls. She said he was highly abusive." Sherlock looked at the picture of the mother with her two girls. "I think it was the other way around."

"She was abusing them?" Joan bit her lip and Sherlock had to turn his eyes away from her. This was honestly maddening. "How can you tell?"

Sherlock tore the picture from the wall and handed it to her. "This was taken four days before they were taken, one year after their father left. Notice how the oldest, Lizzy, has a bruise on her neck. And the youngest, Alice, is waving and her sleeve is rolled up a bit? She has a bruise on her wrist. If their father was indeed abusive, any traces of bruising should be gone after a year."

"These look barely two days old."

Another good job. Sherlock felt pride swelling in his chest. "Exactly. Add the fact that both girls don't look genuine in their smiles...well, I think it wasn't their father who abused them." He despised the idea that a mother could do that to her children, and anger boiled inside of him at the thought of what those girls must have been through.

Watson looked up at him, surprise and wonder in her eyes. "You're not planning on reporting this at all, are you?"

Sherlock smiled at her perception, she was really quite a detective. "Not yet. I want confirmation first. If they're happy and safe in Casablanca..."

She suddenly stepped forward and hugged him, taking him by surprise, cutting off his sentence. "I knew you had a good, gentle heart." He sniffed her lovely scented hair and that sent his stomach swirling. This was not a good idea.

"I have a particular disdain for abusive parents. Even more so than for blackmailers. If those children are safe and happy, I have, indeed, no intentions of reporting this breakthrough." He heard the venom in his own voice. She stepped back, smiling broadly. "Which is, as you might imagine, rather difficult for me." She rolled her eyes at that, but it could not deter him from the fact that she was beautiful.

And there his mind went again, off to places it didn't belong. He almost groaned aloud. He had to deduce what was happening to him. He used to be better, sharper, with her, but that was quickly fading into a fatal distraction. Something he had to solve on his own. As hard as it was to admit, this was his own fault. Not hers.

"Thank you, Sherlock." she said, tapped his chest with her hand and turned back to the stairs. "While I'm awake, I'm going to jog. Care to join me?"

Sherlock considered it briefly, but didn't think it would be a very good idea. He needed some time away from Watson to figure it out. "No, I need to run some errands!" he said as she walked up the stairs. He shrugged on his coat and put on his shawl. "Won't be gone long. If anything happens, call me!"

He closed the door behind him, and stood on the porch for a minute. He had never before offered that she call him if something happened.

He had to do something. To talk to someone, or his head would explode.

Alfredo. He would know what to do.

So Sherlock hailed a cab and got in, giving the driver Alfredo's address. Alfredo was his last hope. If he couldn't help him...

No one could.