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The shock of seeing Holmes alive before me was such that I was incapable of controlling my emotions and holding up the walls I had so carefully built around my heart. Dangerous emotions were overflowing from within the deep well of my soul. My mouth surely hang open in a most unbecoming manner and the expressions shifting over my face must have been clear as day to an observer such as he. Incredulity, mad hope and desperate love – not the kind of love one habitually feels for a gentleman friend – he must have seen, and who knows what else.
Miraculously, he did not flinch or shy away from the sorry spectacle I made, but stood firm before me with a slowly growing flicker of some strange light in his quicksilver eyes. I stood there trembling, transfixed, my fingers gripping the side of the writing desk for support. I barely dared to raise a hand in his direction, half convinced that it was all a mirage, turning into thin air as soon as I should try to touch him.
His angular features softened at the sight of my weakness; he first took a strong hold of my trembling hand and then swiftly scooped me into his wiry arms as I was reduced to a sobbing mess.
“Hush, hush, my dear,” he murmured into my hair and a thousand other endearments followed – but I was too distressed to realise their meaning until much later on.
In retrospect, this tenderness - for I cannot call it otherwise - should not have come as a complete surprise for I had sometimes thought to have caught glimpses of a fierce longing, fueled by some strange passion within his soul. (I also knew, to my great regret, he wished to hide this side of him from me as well as the public and to appear as a cool and calculating automaton, driven by reason alone.)
His clever hands cradled my head and his long fingers soothingly stroked my back and sides. How long we remained like this I have no idea – it might have been an eternity or two for all I knew – for time had stopped and lost its meaning. Bleary-eyed and feeble, my sobs had at long last calmed down but my hands still clung to his coat like my life (or perhaps his ?) depended on it.
“Come home with me Watson,” he commanded, though his tone was unhabitually gentle.
I, like in some strange but wondrous dream, allowed myself to be led out of the consultation room, from the reception into a hansom and then, through the cobbly streets of London, to that familiar address at Baker Street. There he finally steered me up the stairs to our old sitting room. There he guided me, a sleepwalker drunk with his proximity, to sit beside him on the settee. It was in this familiar setting I had though lost to me forever that I slowly started to come back to my senses. The feelings of astonishment, joy and all-encompassing gratitude for this miracle I had been granted were starting to give way to burning shame and gut-wrenching fear, followed by an undercurrent of resentment. Holmes no doubt deciphered this ugly turn of my thoughts before it registered in my own consciousness for he sprung from the sofa to take a guarded stand in front of the fireplace, closely observing my reactions.
I could scarcely meet his steely eye but felt compelled to do so nevertheless. I knew I had been laid bare before him and was waiting for the inevitable judgement. There was a bitterness that clung to my throat – his disappearance had torn my heart to a thousand pieces and it was not a thing so readily mended. The thought of his presumed fate bought tears to my eyes anew, and I drew a shaky breath that must have sounded as loudly in his ears as it did in mine in the stillness of that room. Shame and guilt for these sentiments I had so long harboured in my chest caused me to vainly attempt to hide my face in my hands.
“John,” like a flash he was suddenly kneeling before me. “Forgive me,” his smooth barytone was tense with emotion, “for I have been a blind fool.”
His hands sought mine revealing my distressed mien to his searching eyes. “Look at me,” he pleaded and I was (wasn’t I always thus?) unable to resist him.
His eyes, usually so piercing, were shining with a softer light and his face, often a stern and forbidding mask whenever I voiced a more romantic notion, looked almost tender around the mouth. It was only at that point that my feverish mind recalled how he had held me earlier this afternoon (without the stifling restraints of convention) and the sweet words (“darling” and “dearest” amongst them) his lips had whispered into my ear. Hope swelled in my brest at this revelation though I barely knew what to think. He must have seen my indiscreet gaze follow the path of my thoughts onto his lips for his face suddenly acquired a decidedly ravenous look. Dark eyelashes fluttered against pale cheeks but, in a rare flash of insight, I intuited that this was an unexpected display of nerves rather than playacting.
“Come to bed,” he whispered in a tone I would have surely deemed sultry had it been anyone else’s. I might have hesitated had he not added after a pause in a voice that trembled, barely audible to my hearing, “my love.”
I took his hand and allowed him to guide me once more. My trust in him was not misguided – long suppressed desires were let out that night, giving expression to feelings that were too raw to put into words, and, best of all, forgiveness was begged for and granted.
For love is a wondrous subtle thing and may yet mend my broken heart.