30 minutes ( a sherlock fanfic )

Chapter 1

30 minutes.

30 minutes was the amount of time it took John to boil water on the stove in his first flat. 30 minutes was the amout of time it took to listen to one of those amusing radio shows about those cats. 30 mintues was the time to took to write a blog post, solve a murder, bake a cake. 30 minutes was all it took to enjoy a cup if tea, interrogate a subject, perform an experient in a kitchen.

And yet, so very little could be done in only 30 minutes.

Life could not be lived in 30 minutes.

No matter how many of those 30 minutes you had.

30 minutes.

That was all he had left now.

It wasn't like it was overly important all of the time. Sherlock could look at a crime scene, rattle off his deductions and be done in less than 30 minutes.

But not all of the time. And contrary to what Sherlock would have many believe, their life wasn't just crime scenes and murders. There was a lot of time in between those few cases deemed acceptable by Sherlock, and John knew it had to be filled somehow that didn't include shooting walls or exploding microwave. It was hard to keep Sherlock occupied before, and even worse now that something would only hold his attention for a short time before he forgot he was.

It was an advantage in that he could redirect Sherlock back to the same thing many times without him actually knowing he'd done it already. Of course, Sherlock was often too clever to fall for that more than once, if at all.

Win some, lose some, John figured.

But it was hard knowing that things you had done together, stupid things really, things that you would want to remeber, inside jokes and secret plans like eight-year olds made in their club houses. They'd never be able to have those again, to arrive home and after a chase or something, and John could refer to something that happened only an hour ago and they would both laugh; almost falling down the all like that first case together.

No more of that. And it hurt.

Of course, it was always amazing to watch Sherlock's eyes light up when John brought out, what, was to him, a new book.

And he did it every day.

But the look on Sherlock's face was almost worth the est of the suffering, the rest of the loss.

Almost.

The rest of it was made up by the brilliant twinkle when he reached a deduction, how he bounced like a child when he explained his deductions to everyone else who didn't have a clue. How every time he saw Mrs Hudson was like the first time he'd seen her in weeks, always greeting her with a big hug and a kiss, and the moment when he realized for what was the millionth time, even before he lost his memories, that John genuinely liked him and genuinely thought he was brilliant, and actually wanted to be round him.

Sherlock didn't even have enough time to get angry about it. He had only 30 minutes. Sometimes his bad moods would spill over, and he would spend an entire day on the sofa, muttering into his silk robe some profound secrets that he'd forgotten he'd told them before.

And John could always tempt him with a cold case, an interesting crime and one of the ones Sherlock had left the flat for when it was new, and that he kept around now just in case, for times like this.

And Sherlock was brillaint and amazing and utterly fantastic, but even he couldn't live in 30 minutes.

No one could.