Work Text:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”
I relaxed into my chair, letting the opening lines fill my awareness. The clear, relatively warm October night did not yet carry either the Guy Fawkes celebrants of next week or the chill of an incoming snowstorm, and I wanted to ignore Holmes for a few hours and enjoy an old favorite.
“Where did…but then…”
If he let me, of course. One index closed to let him open another, and grumbling irritation alternated with the low mumbles of searching for the page that aligned with his notes. A morning of boredom had led into a day of redoing old experiments. After one too many resulted in noxious fumes, he had finally started updating his indices. The pile of notes had been growing in the corner for months and truly needed organizing, but he failed to do so quietly.
I almost wished he would return to his experiments.
“Where is…aha!” The pen that followed him around appeared yet again, carefully noting whatever information the newspaper had provided one day in the middle of June. “That fits…there, but that needs to move over…there. Now where…”
Rustling flipped back and forth in search of the next section, and I read the same paragraph yet again.
“Confounded…”
Ripping paper suggested he removed a damaged or inaccurate section. A constant stream of muttering painstakingly copied the correct information to a fresh sheet, which he returned to its place in the index. I finally managed to turn the page.
“Now where did I first see…right. His accomplice went…there, and I need…to add that. Blast. Where will it fit?”
Maybe I could fashion some earplugs out of wax? I had done that before, after all, and muffling the monologue had worked well enough that day.
Except I disliked not being able to hear my surroundings.
“In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify—”
“…journal. Right. I wanted to reference that journal, but why…”
I might have to, however, if I wanted to stay in the sitting room. A glance at Holmes confirmed him completely unaware of his running commentary, but I could not manage a single paragraph without him distracting me. Perhaps if I chose a different book?
Unlikely. The light changed before I could try, however, and I glanced up in confusion. Each lamp still burned, bright but stable. The fire had not flared nor died. Mrs. Hudson did not stand in the doorway with another lamp. I saw nothing amiss in the sitting room, and the light looked strangely colored. So then why—
“Look to the skies!”
The call carried from the street below, and I set down my book to gain my feet. Reflected light added pinks, reds, and greens to the buildings opposite me, but I nearly hit my face on the window when I saw the cause. A moment’s decision lunged for the door, half a thought grateful for the mild days that did not make me hesitate on the stairs.
“Holmes, look outside!”
He made no reply, and I would not wait for him. Not for this. The back door slammed behind Mrs. Hudson as I reached the entry, and I delayed only long enough to grab my jacket before heading out the front to watch vibrant bands shimmer across the night sky. Green and white and red intermixed to color the stars in a show far brighter than anything I had heard of except from the poles. More than one neighbor released a sound of awe.
“That’s amazing!”
“Isn’t it?”
“What’d they call these? Auroras?”
Several voices agreed, with one adding the correlation with solar flares, but I tuned them out to enjoy the show. While the green hovered just above the northern horizon, every moment put the red and white in a different spot, and when a glance confirmed several cabbies had pulled over to watch, I stepped just off the walk to better see down the street. My parents had mentioned a massive aurora when Harry and I were young, but I had not seen anything like this even from our home in northern Scotland. This was far more interesting than any book I had on my shelf.
Familiar footsteps stopped behind me, and I tore my gaze away from the colors to find Holmes craning his neck just like everyone else on the street. I waited only long enough for the crowd to shift before I once more stood beside him, though silence reigned beneath such a vibrant light show.
“That one’s dancing. Just barely. See it?”
Comparative silence, anyway. He nodded, obviously enjoying the lights just as much as I was, and several minutes passed in patterns of color before I started scanning the people around us—mostly to give my neck a rest. Several of our neighbors had rushed out in dressing gowns and house shoes, one had curlers in her hair, and one had thrown a bath robe over absolutely nothing. I doubted he would stay outside for very long, astronomical show or not, but several others had also hurried out in various degrees of “presentable.” I soon alternated watching the sky with our neighbors, but only when a glance included Holmes did I take a second look.
“What in the world are you wearing?”
He pulled his attention from the sky to look at me, then at his coat. The question nearly reached audible before he looked at the coat, and I made no effort to halt the laugh that escaped as he darted back inside to change, his ears red.
He reappeared a moment later as if nothing had happened, but the tips of his ears colored once more every time I tore my gaze from the sky to smirk at his jacket.
Mrs. Hudson would laugh herself to tears when I told her that Holmes had mistaken her new, deep purple coat for his own typical black in his haste to get out the door.