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Empty.
Useless.
Cursed.
Drifting.
One day. To the next. Minutes. Hours. They all blended together, a haze of expectations and empty rooms and solitude that steadily pushed me further and further away. I did rounds in the morning. Helped at the Yard in the afternoon, when they wanted me, at least, then I went home. To my empty house, empty chair, empty bed. Rounds. To the Yard. Then back home. And repeat.
Why did I even bother?
Expectations. Everybody expected me to return to “normal” this long after the funeral, and I had to fulfill expectations. I knew that, but the knowledge did nothing to ground me. I drifted through the days. Drifted through London. Drifted through my empty house. My few patients did not occupy me for more than an hour or two, and the Yard called on me even less, but I could not bring myself to care. Not when the absence let me drift without comment.
“Come, Watson! The game is afoot!”
“Dear? Have you seen my slippers?”
Flames flickered in my fireplace, dancing through the darkness engulfing my sitting room. The sun had long set, but I saw no reason to move. I could not sleep anyway. Might as well stay in the sitting room with them.
“Sherlock! When are you going to learn to knock?!”
She chased him out of the kitchen and towards the bedrooms. Dripping skirts announced the cause of her frustration, but I merely grinned. She and I both knew that half the fun of picking our lock came from goading her into chasing him across the house. He would probably lose to a woman’s slipper yet again before finding himself drenched in the dirty wash water. At least she had been washing the household linens.
Heat dimmed with the flames, but I grabbed a quilt rather than replenish the fire. One of the Yarders had given away his location earlier. Lestrade would frown less if he thought I had gone to bed.
“How late are you staying up?”
Mary’s voice came from the doorway, and I looked up to find her in her nightclothes.
“Not much longer.” A glance checked my pile of notes. “I need to finish these prescriptions and organize the rest, but duplicating them can wait for tomorrow.”
“Alright.” She ghosted forward, her light steps making almost no noise on the floor. Pressure bloomed on my shoulders in a half-hug before I stood to get a proper one, then she vanished back toward the bedroom. I would set some time aside tomorrow. I hated neglecting our time, but an influx of patients had kept me far too busy these last few days, and the paperwork threatened to overwhelm me.
Maybe we could wander Regent’s tomorrow.
A loud pop from the fireplace broke the memory, but I could not bring myself to mind. One of my many regrets had been skipping our evening time, that last night. Eclampsia had taken her the next morning, along with our child.
And my last reason to keep trying. Holmes. Mary. Our child. Only patients’ expectations dragged me out of bed every morning, and those diminished every week. I would not drift for long.
There's an enemy sleeping in the skin I've been dreaming in at night
Two appointments and an autopsy. Two appointments and an autopsy. The words became a mantra to coax me upright. Two appointments and an autopsy. Two patients expected me to check on them, and Lestrade had asked for help with a murder case. Questions would arise if I did not fulfill expectations. I would meet expectations, but just two appointments and an autopsy, and I could get out of sight once more.
The resolve did not make doing so easy, however, and I kept my head down on my slow pace along the street. Memories flickered and drifted all around me, painfully familiar even as they greeted me from happier times.
Mary, leaning into my side while a raised hand pointed out some interesting advertisement.
Holmes, head down in thought though he matched my pace over uneven cobblestones.
Mary, laughing at one of Holmes’ more outlandish deductions.
Holmes, chasing a suspect. Holmes, waving a cab. Holmes, deducing the last hour’s foot traffic on a single corner. Holmes. Everywhere. His city. His life. His memory. Swirling around me. My wife flitted in and out of view, but I could not escape my friend in his city any more than I could escape my wife in our house. I drifted through both appointments and the autopsy before returning home.
If I could not escape the past no matter where I went, better to relive the past in a house without expectations. My sitting room did not care whether I drifted for an hour or all evening.
And my bed did not care whether I stayed all day or not at all. I had no appointments tomorrow morning. Maybe I could doze the day away instead of drifting through it.
There's a memory glistening in the wake where the ice gave way beneath me
“Get down!”
The warning sounded from behind me, tense with the ragged urgency of imminent danger, and I hit the sand just in time to protect my head from flying debris. A piercing scream rose from not ten feet away, and my scrambling crawl found cover behind a rock, where I took inventory—uninjured—before I rushed toward that scream.
“Mary!”
“John.” Blood-covered fingers tried to squeeze my hand. “John. I’m sorry, John. I won’t—”
“No. Stay awake, Mary!”
She relaxed instead. “I love you. Help…him.”
“Mary!”
A sob rose in my throat as her injury stopped bleeding, but I easily followed her pointing finger to where a man lay propped against a tree, feebly holding pressure against a bleeding wound. I dodged across open ground to hit my knees beside him. War made no time for personal grief.
“Easy, sergeant. It’s alright. Stay awake for me.”
“Watson.”
My typical litany of reassurance faltered at the familiar voice, then the man moved to pin me with that grey gaze.
“Watson, I—”
No. No, Holmes could not be here. He was still in London. I had left him at home. Safe.
Or in Switzerland. In danger.
“Watson…”
Whatever he tried to say faded beneath a sigh. Empty eyes stared straight through me as his hand fell away, and from far above the raging battle came the familiar whistle of an incoming shell.
“Get down!”
I woke to a scream, nearly falling off the bed in my haste to obey. Danger. Incoming. Explosive. Hide—
Bedroom. My bedroom. I sat on my bed, quilts piled on my legs as gasping breaths tried to calm my pulse. Just a dream. The whole thing had been a dream. I was not at war. Not dodging shells. Not failing to save Mary. Not watching Holmes die.
Because I had already killed them. Urgent terror bled away from the more permanent guilty grief, and another moment pushed the covers aside to move to my chair.
“Holmes!”
Better the waking memories than the mixing nightmares.
A distant galaxy dangling in the dark. Hope that floats above the deep
“Hand me the pepper? Thank you.” She shook a light coating over the entire dish then passed the shaker back to me. “I am glad I caught you today. I keep hoping you will visit, but every time I try to come here, your lights are off.”
“I am, too.” Glad to see her, at least. I would not address the other half of that comment. Mrs. Hudson had found me on the way home this afternoon and, when I could not invent an appointment, had somehow talked me into cooking with company. While I had no appetite and less desire to eat, and she had needed to hurry home for several ingredients I no longer stocked, the last hour had passed in quiet conversation. Some easy. Some painful, but most of it somehow welcome. Stories and memories came to life as she showed me the dish her sister had given her, and even the ghostly presence lingering near the doorway did not make me wish for an empty house. Provided I could keep this memory, I would willingly pay dearly for it tomorrow. A thump closed the cabinet door to let me lean on the counter beside her.
“You need me to check the sugar for spoilage—”
“There. That can simmer for a few minutes before we add the meat.” She glanced at me though a damp rag started wiping down my dusty counters. “You know you are welcome at Baker Street, right?”
I nodded. I knew that, though I would never go. She did not need to know that Mary stood in the corner, laughing at where Holmes tried to steal ingredients with a transparent spoon.
“Then why do you never visit?”
Though I would apparently have to tell her something. Two hard swallows delayed until I found the words.
“He’s still there,” I answered shortly. Thickly. “They are still there, haunting me around every corner. I usually avoid that whole area.”
Silence answered me, though I did not look up to watch the sympathy bloom. “Is that why you put your practice up for sale?”
“We could put a swing here, in a year or two.”
I nodded again but made no other reply. I would have left months ago if I could only sell this haunted house. At this rate, I might just leave without its sale. Go far from London and try to start over.
Not that I cared if I failed, but I knew better than to say as much. She buried another silence in checking the pot.
“You might ask Mycroft for ideas,” she finally suggested. “He has mentioned messenger jobs before when he dropped off the rent…”
The world ground to a halt, all sense of time drowning beneath the utter confusion also holding the looming memory at bay, and I barely caught something about many Irregulars working for Mycroft now as I fought to make sense of what she had just said. Why would Mycroft be paying Mrs. Hudson rent? Especially after all this time. No memorial needed to continue for three years.
“Do his guards rent from you or something?”
“Oh, no. He still maintains that memorial.” A taste test started slowly adding the meat. “I have no idea why, of course. Something in Mr. Holmes’ will, I think, but I can keep the rooms empty as long as he keeps paying. Do you think this needs more salt?”
“That doesn’t need any more sugar, Mr. Holmes, and neither do you. Now get out of my kitchen!”
She passed me a spoon, and scattered conversation returned to the recipe she tried to teach me. Between the recipe and the memories come to life, I spent most of the evening frantically trying to stay in the present, but she never commented on my lapses in concentration. Minutes slipped away as we shared a stove, pretending the world had not irrevocably changed on a quiet, snow-covered morning.
Pretending I did not tell her goodbye.
And the only way out is where we fell in
Mycroft still pays Holmes’ rent.
The words swirled in my mind, grounding me in the present just enough to mark the time even as they repeated themselves in a thousand different ways.
Holmes still has a home. Mycroft still pays his rent.
Neither Holmes was sentimental enough to maintain a memorial for three years. I doubted either Holmes would maintain a memorial at all, but the fact remained: Holmes still had a home three years later. Three years after faking his death.
Why else would Mycroft still pay rent?
And why else would a lucrative practice in a decent neighborhood stay on the market for weeks longer than typical, if a certain government official did not try to keep some requested portion of his brother’s home intact?
I had no idea, but I also had nothing to lose. Not when I had been trying to leave for weeks. Holmes had avoided me for a year then disappeared for three. I fully recognized—and accepted—the possibility that I had somehow destroyed the friendship that I missed so dearly, but someone had expended considerable effort in preventing my practice from selling, and Holmes had always said that the simplest solution was usually the most accurate.
If Mycroft had tried to keep me in London, I would give him one opportunity to direct my leaving. The door had barely closed behind Mrs. Hudson before I had packed a bag, but the clock placed Mycroft at work the next morning before I left the house. No appointments meant no one would look for me today, and I had no reason to stay in London. I waited only a few minutes before Harris showed me into Mycroft’s office. The click of the latch pulled his attention away from the official-looking paper in his hand.
“Good morning, Doctor.”
I barely nodded. The sharp pen in my pocket kept my thoughts focused well enough, but I still needed a second to form words. Mycroft did not care about pleasantries any more than his brother had. Did. Maybe.
“I’m leaving London. You have one chance to tell me where your brother is.” Either send me to the only person I have left, or tell me he wants nothing to do with me.
Mycroft stilled, then slowly set the paper back on its stack. Watery grey eyes studied me for a long moment. He opened his mouth, then closed it, undoubtedly seeing my silent addition. I never needed words with a Holmes.
They needed words with me, however. He organized the stack of papers before making a decision.
“I cannot possibly answer that, but I have an operative who might.”
I glanced back, already half turned toward the door at his initial refusal. He scribbled a train station and two addresses on a scrap of parchment.
“I will wire my operative to meet you at this station, but he has not responded to the last several missives. His last known plans put him at this motel for another four days before he is due here. If you will give him a message, you will save me some time, and I will pay for your ticket.”
I could do that. He quickly added several lines to a letter in his drawer, sealed the envelope, and handed me two envelopes and the addresses. The second envelope held a train voucher, and I barely glanced at the words before tucking them both into an internal pocket. His murmured “godspeed, Doctor,” followed me out the door.
Whether this sent me on a snipe hunt or to Holmes, I would follow the trail as far as it went.
But I can't swim
Simplon.
I stood on the platform, staring at the sign announcing Simplon, Switzerland. So close to Meiringen. To Reichenbach. I had not expected Mycroft’s address to take me here. To bring me back. Had not expected to step onto this platform once more.
The station’s largest sign swayed in the breeze from an incoming shower.
“Holmes! Holmes, no! Please! Where are you?”
The train rattled and clicked out of the station, headed to its next stop, but I remained in place.
Crashing falls. Spraying water. The heavy burden of grief and guilt.
Bustling crowds slowly drained. No one stayed in a station, no matter the weather. Everyone had places to be, and only a few minutes sufficed to leave me on the platform, alone but for the transparent Holmes that had followed me from London. He waited for me to pull my gaze away from that swinging sign before turning down a side passage.
“This way.” His firm grip kept us together as we threaded the crowd, winding this way and that as he lost whatever tail he had noticed. A silent gesture pointed the mercenary out to me once, but Holmes got us away soon enough. We would follow the Rhone toward Geschinen.
“Herr? Herr Bonson?”
“Stay away from the windows, Watson. Moriarty’s air gun needs only a silhouette.”
Pressure on my shoulder halted me mid step. Grey eyes lowered to meet mine. “Can you hear me?”
“Quickly.” Something caught his attention, then the hissed word sent us darting through alleys and onto the next street. I ignored the pain in my leg to match his pace, but a distracted thought still looked forward to Monday, when the raid would gather Moriarty’s web, and we would be free to have a true holiday.
“Come.”
“Clear?”
He nudged me deeper into the shadows but nodded. “For the moment.” A frown finally noted how out of breath the run had left me. “Alright?”
“Fine.” I waved the question away, keeping one hand near my revolver even as I fought to slow my breathing. “Not—in as good of shape as I used to be.” Another deep breath became a hard exhale, and I stood upright. “Where next?”
“He cannot hear you.” Something jingled, then a hand tugged mine, “Nor see you, with his glasses in pieces. Come, Herr Bonson. Let us find an empty compartment.”
“Holmes! Holmes, answer me!”
Nothing. No response. No screams. No sign. My dearest friend was dead. Because of me.
My fault.
“HOLMES!”
“You are not there anymore. Mycroft warned me that you would not leave the station, you know. Something about time travel? I think I can deduce what he meant. You have not even seen me yet.”
The lurch of a moving train. The quiet bustle of people finding a seat. A door clicked open, then shut, and a whisper barely reached my ears.
“Watson.”
“Watson.” Dark hair peeked over a low wall, followed by an urgent wave, and I hurried to join him. Long fingers squeezed mine in greeting, but the beginnings of a question earned only an order for silence. Whoever he watched, Holmes thought himself unnoticed.
And I would not break his cover. Seconds stretched into minutes as I scanned the shoppers around us, but only when a commotion started at the next shop did I realize what he planned—and against whom.
“Really, Holmes.”
He waved off the mild remonstration, but I could not deny my own amusement when a group of Irregulars charged out of the park, threw an entire drift’s worth of snowballs at a constable walking his beat, then scattered into the various alleys. The uncommonly rude young man found himself a walking snowman in the middle of the Christmas rush, and the familiar shape on the next street braced his hands against his knees in hearty laughter. Scotland Yard would have a new story by day’s end.
And hopefully that constable would mind his tongue.
“He neglected to relay the best way to get your attention, however. You need to come back. I cannot help if I do not know how.”
“Ignorance is no excuse. If you do not know, you will have to learn. Now…”
“You need to come back, Wa—” The name cut off. “Please come back. You are not there anymore, and I would much rather you be here.” A pause, then quieter, “Blank stare. Steady pulse and breathing, but no recognition. Does he even know his name? What have I done? What do I do?”
Sounds drifted from nothing, slowly forming into words. Then sentences. I gradually realized that I had heard them seconds ago. Minutes ago?
“He said I would need to be ready to leave, that you would have our next address in your pocket. I found my current address, and my French address, but not a new address. Did you hide another note somewhere else?”
“Keep these somewhere safe? I will need them in a few days.”
Probably the inner pocket. I had shoved the operative’s envelope into an inner pocket, for safe keeping, but I had not found the operative yet. Ghosts had kept me at the station.
“Belgium?”
Or perhaps put me back on the train. A private compartment gradually came into focus. I sat on a padded bench facing toward the front of the car. My bag rested on my lap, my cane by my leg, and rustling paper found a familiar envelope in equally familiar hands. Not possible.
“Why would he send us to Belgium?” Grumbling irritation read and reread the letter I had shoved deep in my innermost pocket, but despite Mrs. Hudson’s information and Mycroft’s reply, I had not fully expected to find my long-dead friend. Did I truly sit across from Holmes?
“Geological and mineralogical chemistry? At least he picked something interesting, but Belgium?”
Or was this just another hallucination?
Worried lines creased thick make-up. Blonde hair peeked from beneath a Norwegian explorer’s rough cap, and threadbare clothes carried more patches than original fabric, but grey eyes skimmed the note held in long fingers.
“And how can I help—ah.” He stopped mumbling for several seconds to read a specific paragraph multiple times, then interest deflated into frustration. “I already tried that, and you still have not seen me. What about—”
The question cut off as he glanced up, then both letter and envelope fluttered to the seat below him. He nearly mouthed my name, though his initial intention to place himself beside me faltered when I flinched. He hesitated for only a moment before slowly changing seats, and a frown escaped when I maintained enough distance to stare at him.
“What did I do to make you afraid of me?”
I shook my head. I did not fear him. I feared this dissolving like it had so many times before, but his eyes remained grey, his hands familiar, and his shape correct. Even with the unfamiliar posture belonging to the Norwegian explorer, this looked like my friend.
But a year of avoidance and three years of grieving blame did not disappear under one flicker of hope.
“Can you hear me?”
I nodded. A decade’s worth of scars hid beneath his current disguise, but his voice remained quietly accurate. Blonde hair showed no signs of being a wig, but I had never met anyone else with steel-grey eyes. Hesitant caution slowly closed the distance to grab his wrist. Sadness joined the evident concern as I tabbed his pulse.
“You are not imagining me, Wa—” The name cut off with a swallow and a glance at the door. “I am real,” he rephrased. “I swear. Three are too many to hide, and I could not make you choose. Moriarty had a lieutenant who would have captured Mary to get you and captured you to get me. I could not risk—”
The sentence strangled beneath a different sort of fear, and his other hand gripped the one still tabbing his pulse. Predictable movements carefully slid across the bench to press his shoulder against mine.
“I did not know about Mary until just now,” he promised quietly. “I would have come for the funeral if the news had reached me. Mycroft believes that something caused a problem with the mail. Apparently, he has been sending me letters since January, but I have not received them.”
His pulse felt the same as I remembered. The shape of his wrist. The calluses on his fingers. His words carried the same tone and cadence, and his ears reddened beneath the discomfort of speaking his thoughts.
“He says you gave him an ultimatum after a visit with Mrs. Hudson, that you must have discovered the rent my estate pays on our old rooms though he had no chance to ask.” Keen eyes grew more and more concerned the longer I struggled to answer. “You would have boarded the day before yesterday, spending nearly thirty-six hours in the train car on Mycroft’s word. Where would you have gone if I had not found you at the station?”
Away. Anywhere but towards Reichenbach. Anywhere but where we had gone before, on that wonderful, horrible, final trip. I could have gone to the next address and waited for a few days to see if he arrived, and after that…
Anywhere. Nowhere. Destination hardly mattered when I did not expect to arrive, but I forced my wandering thoughts back to the matter in front of me. To the hand gripping mine. To the concern becoming full-blown worry the longer I stayed quiet. To the familiar voice refusing to fill the compartment.
This…might be real.
“Say something. Please.”
And quiet pleading suggested he might not begrudge my presence, but even if this proved false, even if he rejected me yet again, I still had nothing to lose. A long moment fought to speak without the endless scripting I had used in London.
“H-Holmes?”
The word emerged barely a murmur, but he still flinched and glanced at the door. A solid nod asked me not to name him again.
“Sigerson, for now,” he said with the faintest smirk. “We boarded the first train toward France,” he continued at my silent question. “We will change at the next station to turn towards Belgium. Mycroft thinks Moran is searching for me there. We can go home as soon as Moran is behind bars.”
He could go home, I corrected silently. I did not have a home. Not anymore, but he did. I could focus on fighting for his home.
“Watch his back, dear. And maybe pay him back for the salt in my coffee last week?”
Well, most of the time. Enough to be useful. Probably. I hoped. Maybe if I proved myself useful enough, he would let me follow even when he went home. Anywhere was better than that haunted house, after all, and whether chasing cases in London or drifting through Europe, I rarely felt more at home than at Holmes’ side.
After avoiding me for so long, I simply hoped he let me stay.