Work Text:
It was the coldest and darkest hour of the night when they opened the sitting room door. Watson hung his overcoat on the hook and knelt at the grate; Holmes kept his on and went to the window, counting the lights across Baker Street with one thin finger, but these were different days, and he closed the curtain again.
After an age the doctor's arm wound around his waist, its owner waiting for the all clear, but Holmes, feeling the edges of the room for pain, testing the air for the sorrow and loneliness that had lived in his lungs for years now, it seemed, said nothing. He searched, even, for the dark shapes that too often smiled at him with Watson's smile. Finally he quirked an eyebrow in confusion. Perhaps the thick must of the place was some kind of repellent?
"Yes, my boy," he said. "We're home."