Work Text:
I write him, constantly, a letter a week. This, though I don't know where he is at any given time.
I send all the letters to the Diogenes Club; whether Mycroft can forward them or burns them unread is unknown to me.
I miss him like an ache inside me. Mary is loving and kind, and she understands what Holmes and I held between us, and for that I am grateful.
Until his brother and I conspired to get Sherlock Holmes to the Continent and under the care of Dr. Sigmund Freud, his comfort and solace was the cocaine bottle and the needle, dragging him further into the abyss of addiction. He is free, no longer a slave to the contents of his morocco case. But he was still frail when we parted in Vienna, and fear still haunts me for his well-being.
I pray for him constantly as well. Keep him from opium dens. See he avoids the alleys where hashish is sold. And do not let the lure of another kind of bottle take the place of his syringe. That bottle, my father and brother knew all too well.
I have my own bottle for comfort, that has stood me in good stead all my life.
My dear Holmes:
Once again I dip the pen in the ink bottle.