The cab Sherlock had arranged drew to a halt outside 221B at around four in the afternoon. There had been traffic; roads clogged by shiny black cars like hoards of beetles flowing between slabs of pavement. Their taxi valiantly fought its way into central London, however, so did all the other vehicles. The battle was long and drawn out and taking place at about five miles per hour.
Y/N had contemplated just vacating the cab and walking home. It was an understatement to say that she found the ride uncomfortable, and not just because it was unbelievably boring. 'Usually,' she had thought, watching the traffic lights before them turn red just before they reached them---again, 'when someone has a one night stand they never see the person again. I, however, have to share a three-plus hour car ride with mine. And then an apartment.'
Not that Y/N regretted any of it; what happened in room 32 will now forever be a shining jewel nestled in her memories. That didn't mean it sat comfortably with the logical part of her brain, though. Or the emotional part either, for that matter. Every time Y/N replayed a moment from that night---Sherlock helplessly arching his back with pleasure, Y/N's hands sliding over his upper leg, his lips scraping her skin---a voice in her head would remind her that he probably wasn't thinking the same thing. At least, not in the way Y/N was thinking about it. She was thinking 'I made the love of my life feel so fantastic last night' and he was probably thinking 'sex feels great'. She was replaying the way her chest had overflowed with affection at hearing him say her name. He was probably replaying what it felt like to have someone---anyone---slide his underwear from his hips.
Yes, if Sherlock's insides curled in on themselves as much as Y/N's now did every second they spent together, he definitely wasn't showing it. Y/N had found him eating brunch, as he said he'd be, in brooding silence at the hotel's dining area, peacefully lost in his own head like he so often was. Usual Sherlock behaviour.
Not like Y/N's behaviour, which she realised with a sigh, would take a little while longer to become anything even close to recognisably normal. When Sherlock had left her room he seemed to take some of Y/N's zeal with him because it took a surprising amount of self-discipline to nudge herself into packing her case and starting the day.
And even when she did finally manage to start it, she did it slowly, easing herself in by pacing back and forth in the hotel lobby a few times first, mentally debating with herself whether she should go and join Sherlock's table. Not to eat---God knows her stomach was tied in too tight a knot to do that---but as a way to make things go back to how they had been before. When she saw him as her friend and flatmate, and didn't have the sound of him groaning playing in her mind whenever she looked at his lips.
Eventually, Y/N had settled on fetching some tea from one of the machines at the table still set up as a breakfast buffet and took the seat opposite her flatmate. After much deliberation, she had reached the conclusion (and hoped) that acting normal would be the fastest way to, well, get back to normal---fake it 'til you make it, as it were.
Sherlock didn't seem to need to fake it. He'd smiled at Y/N genially as she'd sat down opposite him and started a casual conversation as if nine hours ago he hadn't been moaning to high heaven because she had been kissing his neck in a particular way. As time went on, he seemed to stray further and further from the cuddly, sleepy Sherlock he'd been this morning. The only evidence of the fact that he had had sex at all last night was a love-bite Y/N knew to be hiding below his clothes. He'd regained his self-assuredness, his confidence. He wasn't exactly cold to Y/N, but he wasn't treating her like a lover either. He was treating her like...well, like how he usually does; like his best friend. He's clearly back to his old self.
Y/N, however, only became more self-conscious as the day went on. The reality of last night became clearer with every passing minute, time sharpening it like an incriminating photograph being pulled into focus. She'd had a one night stand with her flatmate, whom she was head-over-heels in love with, and now had to pretend like it didn't mean anything? How was she supposed to do that? How do you act casually platonic with someone after sharing such an experience?
Despite it being an obvious challenge, Y/N knew she had to give it a bloody good go. She tried to match Sherlock's laid back attitude convincingly. She talked like she always did while he finished his meal, joined in with his games like she always did during the excruciatingly long car ride home. She ignored the feeling of his fingers brushing hers when he handed her her suitcase. She hid her blush as memories of his pretty body spread out below hers swept into her mind unexpectedly. She planned to go straight to her room and stay there for the rest of the evening as soon as they got inside. Then tomorrow she would work. Sherlock would probably have a case. They'd have dinner in the evening. Monday was Movie Night; they'd watch The Matrix, or A Fish Called Wanda, or something else Sherlock had been putting off because it was too mainstream.
That was her plan, that's how she'd deal with her...embarrassment? Heartache? She would make a few new memories with him, that's all she had to do, Y/N told herself. She just had to get her brain to see him as a friend again rather than a---whatever he'd been that night.
But she didn't want to. Last night had been a taster of what being romantically attached to Sherlock Holmes would entail. It entailed gentle touches and loving caresses and honest communication, and, of course, fiery fervent hunger. Their bodies, their minds, seemed to go together like caesium and water, a violently passionate explosion, and she had liked it. Hell, she had loved it.
Sherlock had seemed to love it too, which is what Y/N was finding so confusing. The way he'd looked at her, the way he'd trusted her---put himself literally and metaphorically in her hands---had seemed so genuine that Y/N had almost forgotten they weren't actually already married with three children. His emotion, his vulnerability, had seemed so open, so bare and raw that it was, quite frankly, a shock when he'd left her room. Sherlock's immediate withdrawal from Y/N's presence this morning doused the reaction she had felt between them like a bucket of ice water being lazily thrown over an inconvenient flame. He'd plucked up any sentiments he'd dropped the same way he'd collected his scattered clothes, packing away his sensual side the same way he'd later pack away the suit he wore at the wedding.
'It was just a one night stand,' Y/N thought, 'how could I have been so stupid to think it was more?'
...
Y/N's plan to scurry off to her room as soon as Sherlock had withdrawn the key from the lock went perfectly, and it was there that she stayed until she realised it was almost past dinner time. Her body told her rather than her clock, her digestive system having unknotted itself during her time alone, and now feeling painfully empty. Not just because she hadn't eaten properly since yesterday but because worms of disappointment had burrowed through her soul, leaving holes that couldn't be filled with physical matter.
She hadn't seen Sherlock since they'd got home, so wasn't aware that he'd spent his time moving from room to room, not really sure what to do with himself. His watch's stubby hour hand eventually dragged itself to a time that Sherlock deemed acceptable for dinner, and he set about making some as something to do. He didn't know what Y/N wanted to eat but he knew what he wanted; something warm and filling and soothing, so he made macaroni and cheese. Once it was done he stared at the two bowls, wishing it had taken a bit longer, or the process had been more complicated. But it hadn't been, and the meal's preparation was complete, so he set them on the table and was about to call Y/N downstairs when all of a sudden there she was.
Y/N had let her stomach drag her from her room and to the kitchen, but ignored it when she got there and saw Sherlock making something. Seeing that he, too, had been brought there for the same reason, at the same time, caused a wave of that feeling again, that they were somehow in sync, connected although rooms apart, and she couldn't help smiling as she leaned on the door jamb to watch him.
People are always most interesting to admire when they don't know they have an audience, and Sherlock is no exception. He has a habit of exposing his true state of mind whilst he thinks others are not around, and Y/N likes to catch him at these times, get to know him a little better without him even realising.
She also just likes to...see what he gets up to. Because it's funny, or cute, and always endearing. Sometimes he hums tunes while he cooks, or puts the radio on and sings along, his love for music getting the better of him. Y/N was waiting for him to do that, now. Waiting for him to turn on the radio, hoping he'd start stirring whatever was in the pan he had over the hob in tune to Martika's Kitchen---or something---as Y/N had once caught him doing.
But he didn't.
Methodologically, he laid out two bowls to serve what he'd made into, and when he did Y/N saw what it was her smile faded.
She loved mac 'n' cheese, and Sherlock was one of the best makers of it in the whole of England (well, Y/N thought so) but she'd only seen him eat it twice before; that winter he'd had a really bad cold, and that time his mother called to inform him that one of his uncles had died.
"What's wrong?" Y/N asked, coming into the room properly, already wanting to bundle her friend up in her arms and kiss the top of his head until whatever was causing him to crave comfort food was forgotten. She was so focused on Sherlock, now, that she wasn't even aware that her awkwardness, all of a sudden, had been cured. Cured, eradicated, erased, washed away by one of those waves of love for him she kept experiencing.
Sherlock seemed to have been so engrossed in his own thoughts that he hadn't noticed her come in. "Nothing. Why do you ask?" he said as they sat down in their normal seats. They were back to normal already, and Y/N was so distracted by concern that she didn't even notice.
"You make macaroni and cheese when you're sad."
Something flickered behind Sherlock's eyes but it had been too fleeting for Y/N to register what it had been. Turning his gaze down to watch his fork try to stab a piece of pasta, Sherlock said, shrugging: "I just felt like something with cheese in it."
Y/N didn't believe it for a second. "You're lying."
He rolled his eyes and Y/N would have laughed at his childish behaviour had she not been anxious for his wellness.
"Fine, fine, I won't press you. Thank you for cooking for me."
He creased his eyebrows, looking nearly convincingly baffled. Nearly.
They were almost back to normal.
Y/N placed her hand over his on the table. This morning that would have caused her cheeks to heat to uncomfortable degrees, but now she didn't even register the tingling sensations. He was her best friend, her love, even if he didn't see her in the same way. "If something is bothering you, Sherlock, I'll help you solve it. You know that, right?"
Just as Sherlock opened his mouth to reassure Y/N that everything was, in fact, fine, his phone buzzed on the counter.
"What was that?" she asked, forgetting to remind herself not to be nosy. Like a protective mother hen, Y/N now saw everything as a possible threat. Was whoever was messaging him the reason for her the macaroni and cheese? Y/N sighed inwardly, almost laughing at herself. Her metaphorical hackles were raised, and she didn't really---when she thought about it---have any proper reason for them to be. Her friend was probably eating Macaroni and cheese because he just...liked macaroni and cheese.
Tapping the screen to silence the notification, Sherlock moved his food around his bowl, releasing some of the heat from the centre in a flurry of steam. "I put some clothes in the washer-dryer downstairs, that was the timer telling me the cycle has ended."
"Oh." Y/N wilted a little. Distressing texts being the thing that was bothering him would have made fixing the problem for him easier---and, in Y/N's mind, the faster everything was rosy again for the one she adored the better. If it had been an ordinary text it would have probably been enough to reassure her that she'd been mistaken; he wasn't hiding something, he wasn't upset; her empathy, her intuition, had been wrong. But the fact that he'd done washing so late in the evening only raised more questions. Was Sherlock really so desperate for something to distract his mind that he'd go down to the dingy little utility room and complete such a mundane task?
Sherlock clearly wasn't willing to talk about what it, was ever it was, so Y/N decided to try direct his attention away from it instead, although she wasn't sure what with. Her first thought was to ask him where he learned to dance so well; but that would mean thinking about what had happened after that, which Y/N knew he probably had no interest in doing.
Y/N had been trying to think of something to say for so long that Sherlock was putting his now-empty bowl by the sink. He reached for the tap but Y/N stopped him: "I'll wash up, seeing as you cooked," she offered in what she hoped was a cheerful tone. She hoped he'd stay with her while she did, maybe offer to dry the things once she'd washed them; she wanted to spend some more time with him before they went to their separate rooms for bed. She wanted to get to the root of whatever was clouding his pretty eyes. She hadn't noticed them this morning, too blinded by her own clouds, but now that she thought about it they had definitely been there since he'd had brunch. Something was subtle and hidden under his comfortable old clock of cool confidence, hidden so well only four people in the whole world would be able to find it. Three of them shared his DNA, and the other was now putting her empty bowl in the sink, watching her flatmate leave the room.
She called over to him: "Where are you going?" as he neared the apartment door, her heart jumping slightly at the thought that he was mysteriously vacating the apartment at night.
He chuckled in what could easily be mistaken for fondly at her blatant concern. "I'm getting my laundry from the utility room."
Y/N's cheeks flushed slightly. "Oh. Okay."
"Really, I'm fine, Y/N."