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Chapter Text

Chapter One

I have written before that 1895 was a good year, and of course that was true. I had Holmes back with me, and he truly was at the peak of his prowess, physically and mentally. I was so ecstatic to have him back, to have him being himself again, bright and blinding, beautiful and terrifying, that I fear I didn’t tend to him as I should have. He was my miracle; the love that Death returned to me after heartlessly taking my Mary. How could Death dream of touching him again?

But he was also a man, and as fallible and mortal a man as ever. How could I, who had seen so much death and destruction, of men and women great and small, fail to recognize that fact?

Yet fail I did. I think that he wished me to forget it; that he wished for everything to be as it had been in the brightest moments before his little hiatus. Holmes was forever a man who valued few opinions more highly than his own, but I think, looking back, that he valued mine just as dearly. What a humbling experience; to be trusted by someone who sees all the clockwork underpinnings of the world. Who, if he were ever to meet God, would be able to say, Yes, I understand your creation.

Or perhaps I am putting him on too high a pedestal again. I know that I tend to do that; that I tend to elevate that which I love, and I have loved him dearly for so very, very long.

Loved him dearly, and been lucky enough to have him returned to me.

So even though I should have seen the signs—even though I nursed him through his return from France after he exhausted himself to the point of seizure and potential death; even though I was with him in Reigate, when he feigned illness so well only because he was recovering from a terrible malady; even though the only reason we both experienced the virulence that was the Devil’s Foot root was because Holmes had almost killed himself through neglect—even with all these data points, I did not see what was happening.

Holmes is always after me to tell him Norbury for the slightest failings. An inability to immediately put together the pieces of a puzzle on his part is an unforgivable offense, in his eyes; and yet I fail so much more often, and he always forgives me so very easily.

I failed him again in 95. I praised his work; I threw myself into his return with the same zest that he did. He was back; London was our oyster, the solving of terrible and inscrutable crimes the pearl that we could pluck from the depths of her shadows.

I was aided in my lack of foresight by all those that I considered my closest friends at the time. And perhaps that was my own fault; my own failing. I should have included more medical men in those ranks. I was always friendly with a great many people; all the cases that fell into our laps because of this large circle of acquaintance attests to that. But I had very few close friends, and during Holmes’ hiatus and Mary’s convalescence and death, those ranks shrank still further.

Lestrade had turned from sometimes-ally to dear friend during the course of acquaintance, and I spent a few months gently coaxing him into forgiving Holmes for what Lestrade saw as a terrible slight towards me.

Hopkins hero worshiped Holmes; he would not deign to say that the man who hung the sun for him should go eat and sleep.

Kincaid, fellow medical man that he was, trusted me to look after the man that I was sharing a flat with; far be it from him to murmur more than a perhaps you should get more sleep, Watson when he became concerned about the pace that we were keeping.

I do not blame any of them for not interfering more than they did. Holmes was my miracle; I know that none of them would dare to gainsay me with regards to his health, and none of them would dream that I could fail to properly protect him.

And yet I did.

I saw Holmes doing all the same things that he did before Reichenbach, and rather than being terrified by them as I should have been, I regarded them fondly.

Of course he didn’t wish to eat when he had a case; that would be bad for his cognition.

Of course he didn’t want to sleep when he was working; he might miss some vital clue.

Of course he didn’t want to wait between cases, sometimes even working multiple at once.

I thrilled to the chase just as much as he did, after all. I had missed the excitement of hunting with him; I yearned for something, anything, to draw me out of my melancholy and back into vibrant life, and Holmes did not disappoint me.

He never did, and I wish that I could say the same.

The case that finally brought matters to a head happened in 96. We had been burning the candle at both ends for over a year by that point, and I had long since started to flag—to either skip out on cases, requesting that Holmes tell me the salient points later so that I might record them, or to ignore my practice for stretches at a time, depending on the kindness of Kincaid and some of my other medical acquaintances to keep my shingle out at all.

I was at least with Holmes when he finally crested the slope of his own stubborn determination to find out he had burned through all of his reserves. He had been up for almost three days straight, disappearing into the bowels of the city for eight to twelve hours at a time, dressed in various guises from fisherman to lady of the night.

“I have it, Watson,” he said, gray eyes bright and gleaming. “I have all that I need to see that the guilty party hangs for the murders that have been committed.”

I blinked at him, feeling very foolish and slow at having been awakened abruptly before dawn. “What murderer?”

“The Penderson case. Don’t you remember? The twins and their great-aunt.” Holmes waved a hand. “People have been dying, and even if only one was another heir, Great-Aunt Penderson feared others in her family may be targeted?”

“I… have some memory of you telling me about this, yes.” I nodded, remembering details in snatches.

Holmes mimicked my nod, constantly moving, eager and excited. “Will you accompany me on the last leg of this journey?”

“Of course, Holmes,” I said with a yawn, for it was very early in the morning—not quite five o’clock. “Would you like some coffee and toast before we go out?”

He accepted the coffee, but would not touch the toast.

I packed my revolver, of course. Holmes didn’t even need to ask me anymore, though he sometimes did. I was determined not to lose the man again, and if I had to put someone else in an early grave to ensure that, then I would do so.

Holmes had a cab waiting for us, and we bundled into it, both of us wrapped against the chilly bite of the winter air. Holmes shivered more than normal, but that was a difficult thing to judge, for he normally shivered violently with the cold weather; one of the bad things about being so very thin was that he lost heat with a rapidity the erstwhile inventors of refrigerators could only dream of. He had brought his usual blanket with him, and I tucked it around him, doing my best to shield him from the worst of the winter wind as we made our way towards our quarry.

“Will you tell me what you’ve deduced, Holmes, or must I wait for the proper reveal?” I asked with a smile.

“Of course you must wait, Watson.” Holmes chuckled silently, little puffs of fog to join the rest that blanketed London. “You would not enjoy yourself nearly as much if you did not.”

“One day we will have to put that to the test,” I groused, but without much heat; I knew how very much Holmes liked his secrets and his dramatic flourishes, and I would not have him sacrifice them for my sake. “Can you at least tell me why we are heading out now, and not waiting for a civilized time?”

“Because I fear the murderer knows that I am close to answers, and I do not want a delay to lead to another death. I have let that happen far too often in the past.” Holmes pulled the blanket a little tighter around himself.

I pressed myself a little closer to Holmes’ side, knowing that he would not agree with any verbal defense that I gave, and cognizant that when he was agitated like this a pat to his leg may be seen as more assault than comfort, even if he consciously recognized what I was attempting. “Will Lestrade be there?” I asked instead.

“Mmm, either Lestrade or Hopkins or one that they trust. I made sure to send word to the Yard before fetching you.” Holmes smiled at me again, a quick flash of an expression before he looked away. “I am aware of how much you worry, Watson, and see no reason to take unnecessary risks.”

“Hah! Then you truly are a changed man.” I continued to lean against him, glad, as always in those days, of his solidity; of the simple fact that I could lean against him. He was real, and he was with me.

“Nonsense,” Holmes scoffed. “Tell me one time when I have taken an unnecessary risk.”

The only time I could think of immediately was with the Devil’s Foot root, and I knew that was still a sore topic for him; that he considered my endangerment as a gross error that he could never make up for. So instead of answering I just hummed in consideration, letting the noise of the cab and the cushion of the fog and the dark wrap comfortingly around us.

When we disembarked in front of Mrs. Caroline Penderson’s house, Holmes practically leapt from the carriage, moving so quickly that he stumbled.

I followed at a more sedate pace, watching my friend warily, glad to see that he had recovered his balance with alacrity and was approaching the man standing beneath the nearest gaslamp. I took a moment to fold Holmes’ blanket and lay it atop the seat, asking the driver to wait for a few minutes at least. If we were more than a half hour, I would fetch the blanket and send the man on his way, but given the weather and the time, I preferred to have a conveyance ready.

“Inspector Hopkins,” Holmes said with as much warmth as he ever gave any of the occupants of Scotland Yard.

It would be hard to be cruel to Stanley Hopkins, though. The young man was as cheerful and determined a pupil as any master could ask for, and even if Holmes sometimes despaired of him along certain lines, the detective had quickly learned that the young man responded better to even the faintest hint of praise than to reprimand.

Hopkins started to hold out a hand to shake, and mid-motion changed to move both hands to his mouth and blow on them, clearly seeking to warm them. My heart went out in gratitude to the young detective, who had early on deduced that Holmes disliked most casual physical contact and didn’t react with horror to the lack of social niceties. “Got your message, Mr. Holmes. You said we’re here to stop a murderer?”

“Indeed,” Holmes said, spinning back to the front door of the Penderson estate. “Come, you two. Let me explain what has been happening.”

Hopkins gave me a sympathetic smile, and we both followed Holmes up the steps.

Holmes leaned on the bell, and when that didn’t produce an immediate effect, took his cane and rapped smartly on the door. Another thirty second wait, and he was on the bell again.

Finally the door opened and a porter who had clearly dressed in a hurry scowled out at us. “What’s the meaning of this? The family is still abed, and—”

Holmes didn’t hesitate, pushing past the porter with ease. “Please inform Mrs. Penderson that I require her, her niece, and her nephew at their earlier convenience. I have solved the case, and I think if she wishes to have more than one relation to give her inheritance to, she will want to hear what has been happening immediately.”

The porter sputtered, but Hopkins took out his proof of office and barked out, “Be smart about it, man.”

Cowed by both Holmes’ unrivaled confidence and Hopkin’s symbol of authority, the man scurried away, presumably to gather the family as requested.

Not ten minutes later, we found ourselves in a well appointed if small library with the three resident members of the Penderson family. Mrs. Caroline Penderson was a small, dainty bird of a woman, her skin having shrunk against her bones as she aged. Her niece and nephew were beautiful creatures, both just shy of twenty years old: flaxen haired, red of cheek, with eyes the blue of a desert at noon—hot and dry and easy to get lost in.

“I hope you know I shall be returning to bed as soon as you are done this dreary business,” Pansy Penderson sniffed.

“You shall indeed be spending a great deal of time abed, but not in the manner that you think,” Holmes said with a flash of a hunting dog’s smile. “Would you care to tell your great aunt why you are so tired, Ms. Penderson?”

“Because she’s always tired,” Percival snarled, immediately coming to his sister’s defense. He was a man who didn’t take kindly to anyone insulting, belittling, or even attempting to closely befriend his only living immediate family. “She takes after Mother that way.”

“Was it you or your sister who killed your mother, young squire?” Holmes asked without missing a beat.

I blinked. I had expected him to start at the beginning, as he usually did, but I suppose the sharpness of the children had caused him to change tracks.

Percival straightened to his full height, putting him still a few inches lower than Holmes. “Sir, you’ve no right to insult my family like this.”

“I am not insulting you. I am impressed with both your daring and ingenuity. You would both have been sixteen at the time, yes?” Holmes shook his head. “Young enough that I doubt anyone believed you capable of murder, let alone murder of the one who bore you. But you are not sixteen now, and I have been suspicious of you from the first. Quite the sad story, losing your mother, then your father, and then your cousin being the first victim of a new madman killing unaccompanied young people? It could have been simply terrible luck. It could have been… but it was not.” Holmes reached into his pocket and pulled out a simple gold bracelet. “Do you recognize this, Ms. Penderson?”

“Well, I’m certain that I don’t,” Pansy said, looking to her great aunt with wide, liquid eyes. “Aunt, please, tell me what this man is suggesting?”

Mrs. Penderson had not reached her age by foolishness, at least. She took two steps deliberately back from her niece and nephew, putting herself in easy reach—and protection—of Hopkins. “I took the two of you in as a courtesy to your father. He was always the kindest of my brother’s children.”

For a moment fury flowed across Percival’s face, and I wondered what kind of father he had been; not a kind one, I think it safe to say. Then the fury was gone, and Percival shoved his hands into his pockets. “We haven’t killed anyone, Auntie. Why would we, when we’re safe and comfortable here?”

“Yes, safe and comfortable here.” Holmes paced the short length of the library. “But here is not where you wish to be, is it? You despised your mother and your father, but you do love your ancestral home. How galling it must be to know that it will be sold off; that though you will one day come into enough money to restore it to glory and take your place as proper gentlefolk, you must wait for first your parents and then your great aunt to die before you can do so.”

“That doesn’t explain why we would kill poor Ivy,” Pansy whispered, tears in her eyes, every inch the frightened and overwrought young ingenue who didn’t understand what was going on.

“Doesn’t it?” Holmes shook his head. “You have systematically eliminated everyone who stood between you and inheritance, and everyone who would have split that inheritance. It was only a matter of a short time before you killed your other two cousins, and then Mrs. Penderson, too, was it not?”

“Ivy was killed by a madman who’s been targeting young people walking alone,” Percival declared. “We had nothing to do with her death, and that’s the truth, Aunt Cary.”

Mrs. Penderson studied the young man, and then with a shake of her head turned to Holmes. “What do you believe, Mr. Holmes?”

“It is not a matter of belief; it is a matter of proof.” Holmes dropped the bracelet onto a shelf. “I have quite a few bits of proof now. This bracelet; a few strands of hair, caught between the fingers of the latest victim; she fought back more than expected, didn’t she, Ms. Penderson?”

Pansy still looked lost and uncertain. “The latest victim? But she was a streetwalker, wasn’t she? What reason would I have to interact with a streetwalker?”

“What indeed. That is why this case took me so long, and why the poor woman lost her life. I could explain three of the deaths that occurred around the two of you, but not the other three. They seemed to have no sane reason.” Holmes stepped towards the young woman. “That is because there was not a sane reason, was there? There was only the fact that you had developed a taste for killing, and the more you managed, the less chance anyone would look towards you when considering how your cousin came to die.”

“That’s ridiculous. Look at me!” Pansy spread her arms, and she was indeed a diaphanous image of beauty. “Do I look strong enough to kill four people?”

“You don’t need to be strong to slit someone’s neck; only determined.” Holmes took another step towards the young woman, towering over her. “And it helps it you are willing and able to drug the larger victims you select.”

Pansy huddled up, a tiny white sprig of baby’s breath overshadowed by a looming scarecrow. “I didn’t do anything.”

Holmes’ voice stayed a quiet purr, matching her volume but still somehow carrying threat. “I have witnesses who will place you near the crime scenes. I have a shoe print that is very near your size. I have your hair, and your bracelet, and when I have Inspector Hopkins here inspect your room, I am certain—”

“Percival, you wouldn’t let them in my room, would you?” Pansy gasped out in a terrified whisper. “These strange men going through my worldly goods—my undergarments—”

Percival was staring at his sister as though he didn’t know her at all. “Did you really do it, Pansy? And… without me?”

Pansy suddenly straightened, and the frightened girl was gone. In her place was a wraith in white, and she struck at Holmes; only as he leapt back, his blood flicking across the library to splash against my cheek, did I realize that the young lady had drawn a knife.

“He threatened me!” Pansy cried, real tears threading down her cheeks. “He—he’s a devil! Oh, Percival, please!”

“Don’t move!” I instructed the woman, trusting Hopkins to cover Percival as I trained my revolver on Pansy. “I will shoot you.”

Pansy seemed to see the knife in her hand for the first time, and dropped it. “I—I don’t know what happened. Oh, Doctor, please help me!” She lurched towards me, and I hesitated, unable to shoot someone asking for my help.

Holmes was under no such spell. He darted forward as Pansy pulled a hypodermic from inside her gown, grabbing her wrist and causing her to drop it.

Percival still hadn’t moved, and I watched as what shreds of sanity Pansy had collapsed at this evident betrayal from her twin. Laughing, she skipped back from both me and Holmes. “Fine, then,” she whispered. “Let’s all burn together, then.”

And the young woman threw herself into the fire.

Holmes tried to grab her, but her nightgown immediately burst into flames, and she clawed at him with hands that were turning gaunt and blistered before our eyes. Shrieking, she threw herself from the fire towards the bookcases, and when those failed to catch, onto the curtains.

Holmes and I grabbed the curtains, smothering the young woman’s body, keeping the flames from taking the entirety of Penderson Manor.

“Pansy?” Percival took a step towards his sister. “Pansy, this isn’t funny.”

“Not a joke, lad,” I said quietly, confirming what I already knew by unwrapping the body to lay my fingers against where a pulse should be. Char and overheated fat coated my hand, and I grimaced, wiping the mess off on the curtain. “I’m sorry, she’s dead.”

“No.” Percival turned to his aunt, and then to me. “No, you’re a doctor! You fix her!”

“Some things can’t be fixed,” I replied, standing, trying to put my bulk between him and the body; trying to keep my voice steady and firm while not being cruel. “Come on, let’s go to your room, all right? I’m sure Inspector Hopkins has some questions for you.”

“We didn’t do anything.” Percival backed away from both me and Hopkins. “We didn’t—you!” He jabbed a finger at Holmes. “This is your fault! You did this! You killed my sister!”

Holmes stood slowly from where he had knelt beside the body. He didn’t look at the boy or his accusing finger. Instead he swayed, his fingers moving to the cut that Pansy had left across his cheek. Blood continued to ooze from it, a steady stream that turned the left side of his face to a mask of crimson. “I will never apologize for finding the truth.”

“This isn’t truth!” Percival backed towards the door. “This is more lies! More tricks. Everyone’s always trying to trick us. Well, I won’t allow it. Not this time.”

The lad turned and fled the room, all his poise and confidence stripped away along with the comfort of his sister’s presence.

Mrs. Penderson studied our small group with sad, tired eyes. “Thank you, Mr. Holmes, for getting to the bottom of this matter. I wish that your answer had been different.”

“I cannot change what the truth is, Mrs. Penderson. Even if sometimes it would be kinder if I could.” Holmes swayed again, his fingers falling to rest against his thigh.

Concern was beginning to rise in my breast. Holmes’ voice was too flat; his eyes too dull after the shining brightness they had held through most of this case. He seemed to be staying on his feet merely through an effort of will.

I belatedly thought back to the last time I had seen him eat, which was over two days ago; to the last time I had known him to sleep, which was at least three days. He had been running on sheer will for far too long already; if that will had run dry, or been sapped by the horrors that we had witnessed, it was no wonder that he was faltering.

“I will see to the funeral arrangements for my niece, and to the care of my nephew.” Mrs. Penderson blew out a sharp breath. “If you will leave me, Mr. Holmes; I’m certain Inspector Hopkins and I will be able to manage matters from here, and your fee shall be delivered to you as soon as the banks are open.”

Holmes opened his mouth, but in the end apparently decided not to protest. He merely inclined his head, and turned on his heel.

He almost stumbled into the doorframe as we left the library, though, and I reached out to place a hand on his shoulder. “Steady, old man,” I murmured. “Not much further to the cab.”

“Wise, having it wait for us.” Holmes tried to flash me a smile, though it faltered, his eyes not meeting mine—further proof that he was not feeling well. Making eye contact was frequently an effort for him, and though he would often try with me, especially after stressful events, his failing to while praising me meant that he was feeling terrible indeed. And his next words made it clear why. “You are unhurt, Watson?”

“Not a scratch upon me,” I replied honestly. “You are the one who has been injured.”

“Nothing serious,” Holmes whispered, his fingers returning to his cheek; pressing against the wound; starting to arch to push into the wound. He truly was feeling awful, to seek that kind of painful stimulus.

“Don’t, Holmes,” I commanded.

He hesitated, blinking at me.

I held out my hand. “Don’t press or pick at the wound. You don’t want it to scar, do you? Make it harder to do your disguises if you’ve got a big scar upon your face.”

“Apologies, Watson. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.” Holmes placed his hand into mine, and I felt the tremors that were wracking his body.

“I think it’s more what hasn’t gotten into you. You really should have taken the toast.” I gave his hand a squeeze, though I didn’t clasp him too tightly. Clasping too tightly was always a good way to make Holmes try to flee, and I would need him to listen to me over the next few days, if I didn’t want to be picking him up off the floor.

Holmes grimaced in dismay. “Toast is such a terrible invention.”

I couldn’t help laughing at that declaration. “It is a staple in all European cuisines, my good man.”

“That doesn’t make it less of a travesty,” he murmured, allowing me to guide his steps.

I managed to bundle him into the cab, wrapping the blanket firmly around him again. He was shaking badly by the time we arrived at Baker Street once more, and I took the time to escort him inside before returning to pay the cab driver.

When I ducked into Baker Street and found Holmes still standing in the foyer, his blanket slipping off his shoulders, the true enormity of his distress struck me again. He was not the type of man to stand still, and especially not the type to stand still instead of returning to his own space.

Mrs. Hudson came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on an apron. “Doctor Watson, Mr. Holmes, welcome home. Can I get you lads anything?”

“A thin soup, if you don’t mind, Mrs. Hudson,” I replied.

I saw her eyes widen as they flicked from me to Holmes and back to me. She nodded, jaw setting like a general about to go to war. She knew what my asking for thin soup when Holmes wasn’t acting himself meant.

“Come on, Holmes. Let’s get back to our flat.” I placed a gentle hand behind his elbow, guiding him forward.

He came without protest, though he almost fell down the stairs three times. “You really are unhurt, Watson?” he murmured as I opened our door and gently guided him through.

“I am utterly unharmed,” I answered, steering him towards the settee.

“That is very good,” Holmes murmured, his words thick and slurred. “Because I…”

And that is when my dear friend’s constitution finally failed, and he pitched forward in a dead faint, only my arms keeping him from meeting the floor with a force that would have been regretted by us all.

Chapter Text

Chapter Two

“This is foolishness,” Holmes sulked from where he was wrapped in his blanket, his shoulder pressed hard into mine, keeping as far from the biting winter wind as our covered carriage allowed.

“No, what’s foolishness is repeatedly doing the same actions and achieving the same painful results and yet not changing one’s behavior.”

Holmes pouted for just a moment, his lips pursing, his eyes drawing down. Then he sighed. “You know I will simply find some crime or another to investigate. That is what I always do when you insist that we leave London for my health.”

“I know that you will try, but at least we will be saved from Scotland Yard barging in at all hours of the day and night; we will have only what correspondence Mrs. Hudson sees fit to send to us; and you will not be so easily recognized and drawn into adventures as you might be back home.” I had repeated all of these reasons before, but Holmes had also repeated his complaints before. I think the ritual of going over both objections and counter-arguments was a comfort to him, in a strange way.

“I am fine, Watson.” He practically growled the words.

“You are most decidedly not,” I snapped back, and something in my tone must have startled him, for he turned wide and wounded eyes on me. I forced myself to take a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Holmes. I didn’t meant to be short. I just…”

I just could not get the image of Holmes’ unconscious form out of my thoughts. Could not stop imagining how his ribs had felt, far too prominent as I unwrapped him from his layers of clothes. It was not just the last few days that he had been skipping meals. He looked as though he had been starving for weeks.

And I had not noticed.

I, who lived with him, who had vowed that I would not fail him again, had not noticed the state that he had driven himself into.

“I am fine,” Holmes repeated, his hand snaking out to rest lightly against my knee. He didn’t face me, though, his chin tucked into his blankets. “I’m sorry that I frightened you, Watson. I suppose I did make a few miscalculations there.”

His cheek was still healing, the laceration a dark line of scabs across his face. “Everyone miscalculates every once in a while,” I said, allowing the tension in the carriage to fade. “But you really must take better care of yourself, Holmes.”

“I will do so,” Holmes replied with a lightness that did not make me believe him. “I have agreed to come on your little holiday, have I not?”

It had been the only way to get Holmes to agree to leave London—if I went with him. Not that I begrudged spending the time with him; I would fret indefinitely if I had not accompanied him. But still, I felt guilty for leaving my practice; guilty for leaving Baker Street empty.

Guilty here, guilty there; guilty for caring for Holmes, and guilty for failing to care for him. Perhaps my mind was just fixated on finding things to be guilty about.

The landscape through which we traveled was beautiful, if stark: snowy drifts of white that stretched out as far as the eye could see, blending with the horizon, sometimes impossible to make out from the low-hanging clouds.

“Shellsby really is a beautiful place,” I opined to Holmes.

Holmes stared out at the stark beauty through the window. “I much prefer a London soot-streaked snow to this stark white. I have told you before, Watson, and I say it again: I feel much safer in the city than I do in these desolate wastes. Oh, they are beautiful, I will not argue with you there. It is foolish to argue with a writer about matters of beauty, is it not?” He flashed me one of his blink-and-miss-it smiles; an attempt at conciliation, I thought. “But think of what those pristine wastes mean. Think of all that one man could do to another in that empty vastness. Why, with temperatures such as these, one need not even do anything to one’s fellow man! Simply stranding him in one of those wastes would be a death sentence. And if one is trapped in a house during these deep winters with someone of questionable character? If one’s husband, wife, father, mother, brother, sister…” His voice became quieter and quieter as he spoke, until it trailed away for a moment as he whispered this last before rallying once more. “If such a person were to turn to violence in the darkest and coldest time of year, what is one to do?”

“Hopefully there are other family members who can step in.” I chafed my gloved hands against each other, a chill running through me as I contemplated the horrors Holmes’ soft voice conjured up. “Friends. The more rural a community, the more tightly woven I find it tends to be.”

“In that you are right, Watson. Unfortunately for some, that can mean any who don’t fit into the expected weft and weave find themselves without a warm hearth to turn to.” The quiet sorrow in Holmes’ voice once more made me wonder about his family history, but he did not offer, and I could not bring myself to ask; to break his trust with my curiosity.

“You will always have somewhere to turn, Holmes,” I instead said softly. “So long as I am capable of lighting a fire, I will cherish every moment that I get to spend beside it with you.”

Holmes didn’t smile, but he did make a quiet hum of agreement, and he slid his gloved hand over to rest upon my knee while he continued to press against me to save himself from the cold.

I resisted the urge to put an arm around him. He would not find it comforting, and my old wars wounds were as incensed by winter as Holmes’ body was by his lack of accommodations in his schedule for such mundane tasks as eating and sleeping. Unfortunately there was little I could do for my body aside from providing warmth and ice in alternating measures, judiciously using morphine if I found myself in too much pain to sleep, and trying desperately to find the perfect amount of motion that kept my muscles limber without sending them into knotted balls of agony.

Perhaps this was why I found it so much easier to focus on Holmes’ physical needs—they were reasonable, the sensible requests of a body that wished to keep working at peak efficiency and merely needed to be given the tools to do so. Sometimes I missed having a body like that.

But now was not the time to be morose, especially not when Holmes’ own moods would likely be mercurial and dark for the next few weeks. He never handled illness or invalidity well, and he also didn’t handle failure well. He considered the Penderson case a failure, even though I had tried again and again to tell him that it was not.

He considered my being put in danger a failure, though I had not been injured at all.

Adjusting my leg, which didn’t actually help with the ache in it, I continued to lean against Holmes.

We would have our holiday. I would ensure Holmes put on at least five pounds during it. When I was satisfied that his health had been restored, we would return together to London, and everything could resume as it had been, though I would be much more careful with my companion’s health.

These were the thoughts that swirled in my head as I dozed against Holmes, glad to have the glass of the carriage windows between us and the frigid winter.

***

We spent four days in a very nice inn, being cared for by an old couple who seemed to find the idea that someone could earn a living as a writer a strange and fascinating occurrence.

Holmes took delight in pressing them on their beliefs, asking something at every meal that steered the conversation towards my craft.

“Not much for reading,” Mr. Cosgrove said with a smack of his lips. “Better with numbers. Harder to lie with numbers.”

His wife was more circumspect in her concerns over what one would want to do with the written word. In fact she seemed more put out by the idea that people would keep books full of untrue stories. “Keeping records, that I understand,” she said on our second morning there. “But stories? Everyone knows that stories are best heard. Nothing quite like a good storyteller, excepting maybe a good bard. But that’s just storytelling with music, now ain’t it, and everything’s better with a bit of music.”

“Here here!” Holmes declared, raising his glass in toast.

I tried to be polite to our hosts even when they asked the strangest questions, and to disabuse them of the notion that I was doing anything other than recording my dear friend’s rather incredible life.

Holmes did not help me in this endeavor, refuting my declaration that I wrote only the unvarnished truth with, “I suppose if you redefine varnish then you can get away with saying that.”

I scowled at him in what was mostly mock exasperation. I was thrilled to see him enjoying these little verbal dances with our kindly hosts, and honestly he was rather less cruel about my writing in front of them than he usually was when we were at Baker Street.

By the third day, I finally figured out what all of Mrs. Cosgrove’s references to ‘true storytellers’ actually meant: she wanted me to stay in the common room in the evening and regale the other guests as well as her and her husband with some of my stories.

I acquiesced, of course. I wanted to be a pleasant guest, and it was as good a use of my time as any.

Holmes sat at the back of the common room, farther from the fire than I wished him to be. He had his Stradivarius out, and he tuned it quietly, not interrupting me as I plied the small crowd—only eleven people, including the Cosgroves—with questions about what kind of story they desired.

When I finally settled into spinning the tale, Holmes accompanied me on his violin, providing a mostly accurate mood for my words.

When we retired for the night, after much praise and a request for a repeat performance tomorrow, I found myself grinning like a schoolboy. “Well, that was a great deal of fun, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Hmm,” Holmes opined.

I gave him a mock despondent stare. “Did you not enjoy my storytelling?”

“Oh, I found you to be, as ever, a great teller of romantic fiction.”

“Holmes!” I protested. “That was not romantic fiction; it was one of your cases.”

“It can be both, in your hands,” he said, a familiar twinkle in his eye that I hadn’t seen since the morning he dragged me to the Penderson manor.

“Does this mean that you won’t be accompanying me tomorrow night?” I said, hand to my heart as though he had mortally wounded me.

“Oh, of course I will. Whatever else shall I do, sit in our room and stare at the wall?” Holmes shook his head. “No, no, that will not do. I have found this holiday less taxing than some of our previous so far—you really did do an excellent job on your selection of books that I can peruse—but if I am to keep my skills sharp, I must keep utilizing them. Did you see that young Luke and Callum are having an affair?”

“Holmes!” I hissed, grabbing his elbow, my eyes darting about. “You cannot say such things.”

We arrived at our door, and though he heaved a sigh, my companion waited until we were inside to continue. “Did you think I would proclaim such where any of their fellow villagers would here? But it really was quiet obvious, despite or perhaps because of their attempts to hide it.”

“Talk like that can ruin a man. Get him killed.” I hated that this was the case, but it was the world we lived in; the world Holmes and I had to navigate, our relationship not quite what some preachers railed against but also feeling quite different from a typical friendship to me.

“I know. Just as I will not say that young Mary’s child is not related by blood to the man that she calls husband. Nor that both know this and are content with the situation.”

I stared at my friend. “Holmes, it would be absolutely terrifying to live with you in a small village.”

“Wouldn’t it?” Holmes sighed. “You need the millions that fill London to make my gifts of observation and deduction less horrifying, I suppose.”

“That wasn’t…” I rubbed at my sore shoulder. “I love your deductions, Holmes.”

“And there you are something special.” Holmes favored me again with a small smile. “I am glad that you enjoy what I do; that it does not discomfit you as it does some other people. And I am glad that you have been picking up the skills yourself. I have heard…” Holmes hesitated, settling onto his bed and drawing his blanket up around his shoulders. “That is, Lestrade has shared with me some of the cases the two of you worked on while I was… away.”

I sat upon my own bed, surprised that he was bringing up his hiatus willingly. “I did my best. It seemed a reasonable course of action for me to continue assisting the police where I could.”

“Of course. Only reasonable,” Holmes murmured, and I wondered how much he saw through me; how much he understood of my all-encompassing grief, and how I had clung to every memory of him I could.

Every memory but Baker Street, which hurt too much; which was too haunted by his ghost, and something I fled even as I longed for it with every fibre of my being.

We teetered, then; on the edge of actually discussing his absence, and his miraculous return, and how desperately we had been avoiding discussing both for so very long a time.

And then Holmes collapsed backwards onto his bed, kicking his shoes off. “Good night, Watson. I think I shall follow your advice and strive to get some sleep.”

“Good night, Holmes,” I said, moving to turn off the lights and actually put on my nightgown.

There would be another time to talk, I knew; one when we were both well-rested and prepared.

***

Everything went wrong on the fourth night.

The day had been difficult. Holmes had burned through all of the reading material of interest to him, and though he scraped at his violin, it was just that—scraping, coaxing terrible sounds from the instrument that made my head ache within minutes. He refused to come down to dinner, though he did eat after a great deal of coaxing.

It took all of my patience not to lose my temper with him. I had known this was coming. I had warned myself repeatedly. But Holmes had seemed so determined not to lose to his black moods, and I had thought, perhaps, this time…

It is not personal, I reminded myself. It is not something that he chooses, and he is doing his absolute best. Be patient.

And I was. I did not raise my voice. I merely repeated, with quiet insistence, that he must eat. I did all that I could to ensure that he had options in what he ate, of varying textures and tastes and temperatures.

And he did eat for me. Despite how miserable he clearly was, he managed to rouse himself enough to eat for me before huddling under the blankets again.

If that had been the extent of matters, it would have been miserable, but not without precedent, and I would have shrugged it off as just part of living with an eccentric genius who could not control his own mind and body as well as he wished to.

No, everything truly went wrong when the fire started.

It began late, after ten o’clock. Everyone was already abed; I was already drifting in a haze of dream. The night was quiet, in the way that country nights often are, which is to say filled with the sounds of distant dogs and cows and the occasional shrill shriek of some small animal meeting its demise. The noise was not nearly so constant as it would be in the summer, but still, it was present.

It hid, for a little bit, the sound of flames starting to devour the building.

By the time the alarm was sounded, the entire west wing of the inn, where Holmes and I were staying, had transformed into a conflagration. Sparks like dying fireflies greeted my return to the waking world, and I choked on the smoke that was filling the air.

“Watson!” Holmes called again, and I realized that it was his voice that had woken me. “Watson, quickly, your coat, and we must escape.”

I hastily donned trousers, my thickest boots, my suit jacket, and my winter coat. I was still not properly dressed, but at least I would not be absolutely freezing when we found ourselves outside.

Holmes finished my ensemble by wrapping a scarf around my neck, pressing it over my nose and mouth. He proceeded to do the same to himself, and then led the way out into the hall.

I limped badly as I followed him. Winter was not kind to me at the best of times, and now was not the best of times. But I also couldn’t afford to stop and massage my leg, not while we walked across the river Phlegenon from Greek mythos, fire accompanying our every step.

I was dizzy and lightheaded from the smoke by the time we made it outside. Holmes had kept his hand on my arm the entire time we walked, refusing to go ahead of me. I was grateful for it, even as I wished he would abandon me if my slowness put us in greater danger.

If I had not been light-headed, maybe I would have understood what was happening. It was close enough to what happened at Reichenbach, wasn’t it? How many times would I have to be taken advantage of before I gave up on trusting entirely?

More times than one life could hold, I knew, because I would rather be taken advantage of than leave someone in need to die when I could have saved them. But still. It rankled to have my profession and my ethics used against me both times.

The voice that called to me was young—someone not quite an adult, I didn’t think. There was desperation in the tone as they called, “Oh, doctor, please, come quick! She’s burnt so bad.”

It was easy enough to believe what the voice claimed—the blaze continued unabated, and there was enough confusion and noise to make me unsure who anyone was in the flickering firelight.

When I followed the hunched figure and panicked young voice, though, I was met with a swift and brutal blow to my chin. I dropped, barely making a sound, my ears ringing, blood in my mouth.

Something pressed against my face, and I gasped in an unwise breath.

The smell of bitter herbs pervaded my nostrils; brought tears to my eyes; and drew grey curtains of gauze over all my thoughts. Something opiate-based, I decided; and then my thoughts fragmented, fluttering against each other like moths against a lighted pane of glass: doing nothing but damaging themselves and each other.

I dropped into darkness, and I did not know anything for an indeterminate amount of time.

***

I woke in the back of a farm cart, snow drifting down from a star-pocked sky to settle on my numb face.

I tried to sit up, and immediately decided that my face was not numb enough. My entire left cheek burned with agony, the eye refusing to open properly, my lips feeling swollen and useless. I groaned, lifting a ginger hand to touch the battered flesh.

“Easy there,” Holmes said, though the words were inflected with a light shiver. He reached out to capture my hand, keeping me from actually prodding at the injury. “There’s nothing but soft tissue swelling. No break or dislocation that I can palpate. Can you talk?”

“Yesssh,” I answered, the word distorted by shivers and the swelling of my face and the lingering effects of the drug.

“Very good,” Holmes said in a soft voice, looking pointedly over his shoulder, towards where the horse pulled the cart; a bray cut through the night, and I corrected myself to, towards where the donkey pulled the cart. “Don’t talk yet, though. Let me explain what is happening, though we must be very, very quiet as I do so.”

I realized that his words were indeed very quiet, and that his lips barely moved. If not for the fact that I was used to straining for every little sign from Holmes, I would have missed that he was talking entirely. I blinked, trying to get a better look at our driver.

“Don’t. We do not want his attention. Besides, isn’t it obvious?” Holmes murmured. “That man is Percival Penderson.”

I must have made a disbelieving noise, for Holmes nodded, saying, “Oh, I am quite certain. He lured you with a request for aid, and like a craven coward then struck you, and used your health and safety to get both you and I onto this conveyance.”

“The little devil,” I hissed, though it came out more, the litt debl.

Holmes smiled. “Indeed. Now, Watson, we must—”

But I lost track of what Holmes was saying as I lifted my hands to my face once more. Or rather, attempted to, only to be stopped short by the manacle around my left wrist, which was connected to a similar one around Holmes’ right wrist. Utterly surprised, I tugged at the chain, watching the way the links clanked against Holmes’ wrist.

Holmes smiled, a quick flash of white teeth in the darkness, and I knew there had been no mirth in it. “Insulting, isn’t it? In just a few seconds I could be free of these, but I would not leave you to be harmed.”

“’m not sure getting harmed yourself will help with that,” I muttered. “What is your plan, Holmes?”

“To get us off of this conveyance and away from our captor. I do not think we will like what awaits us at his destination.” Holmes’ thumb traced over the back of my hand. “He has your army revolver, but I do not think he will shoot us. He wants to hurt us too badly to do something so quick and simple.”

My jaw clenched hard, and I tried not to think of how badly I missed the weapon. “What do you intend, then?”

“To jump, of course.” Holmes shifted so that I sat more securely in his lap, leaning down as though checking me for further injuries or signs of waking. “We will need to choose a place where we might lose him among trees; on the open plain he will just run us down. What say you, Watson? Are you prepared to run at my side?”

“Always, to the best of my ability.” I drew in a breath, trying to assess my leg. It hurt, but was it the steady pain of forever-damaged tissue, or was it the more debilitating pain that would stop me from running even if I wished to—needed to? I thought it the former—there weren’t enough sharp stabbing sensation for the latter—but I knew how easily the first possibility could become the second. “I might slow you down,” I murmured.

“Then I shall be slower,” Holmes said with exasperation. “Come now, Watson.”

I tightened my grip on Holmes’ hand. “I am with you whenever you call.”

He did not call, though. He waited for the cart to follow the path into a thick copse of trees, and then he gripped me tight to his chest and fell backwards off the cart.

We would have been all right if the ground were where Holmes expected it to be, I think. But the snow had drifted oddly, and the trees were apparently not of a uniform height, and some fool had wound the road far too close to a drop-off for any sane person’s comfort. We fell, and we kept falling, snow moving around us like a softly hissing snake.

When finally we stopped rolling, I was atop Holmes, who was breathing heavily. “Run, Watson,” he whispered, pushing himself up to his feet.

We ran, the two of us a terrible tandem—my wrist manacled to Holmes’, Holmes breaking a path through the drifts of white, my leg hurting more with every wrenching step.

I expected to be immediately chased. I expected us to have to hide as soon as we reasonably could. But Holmes had timed things with exactitude, and we were left to our devices for what seemed an eternity, wending our way deeper and deeper into the cover of the trees.

I knew how easy it was to lose track of time, so I forced myself to count, a slow and steady rhythm. I needed to know how long we had been running for; how long we might have before Percival found and followed our trail. I do not think I managed to keep an exact count, pain and my head wound leading me to repeat certain numbers and skip others, but it was a decent enough count for my purposes of estimation.

Percival noticed the loss of his captives after approximately eight minutes, and proceeded to howl out his frustration along with quite the colorful list of curses, only half of which actually made it to my ears, alongside very descriptive threats of what he would do to us when he caught us.

“Keep moving,” Holmes whispered, his breath warm in my ear. “We have a chance to be clean in this, and I would prefer to take that opportunity.”

I nodded, teeth gritted to prevent me from crying out.

I continued my count for another four hundred and eighty beats, straining my ears as I neared the eight minute mark for any sound that might indicate Penderson on our heels. When none came, I allowed myself to cease counting.

Thus I don’t know exactly how long we wandered those lonely, treacherous woods. They were sometimes things of beauty—bare arms of branches entwined together, making shadows on the fresh-fallen snow, or new constellations out of the bright burning stars. Other times the trees were creatures of menace, threats emerging from the dark to make us startle and slip.

Twice more we fell, once because I tripped on a fallen tree, and once because Holmes discovered another precipitous drop in ground level by stepping into a drift and having it try to devour him. Thankfully we were able to recover both times, and continue on our way.

What was not lucky was the weather. Darkness pressed in upon us, and though the stars shone down, they provided no warmth. Nothing to replace the precious heat that the wind, constantly skirling snow around us, stole away in nips and nibbles that left me almost unable to move.

Holmes did not seem to be doing any better than I, and I prayed that we would not succumb to hypothermia before we managed to escape our would-be murderer. Perhaps we should have tried to overtake him, manacle and gun or not.

Finally Holmes slowed his pace, sighing in relief as he tilted his head and listened intently. “I think we are safe. We lost him on that little rocky goat path, and I do not see him finding us again.”

“Oh thank God,” I murmured. The one good thing about the cold was that it seemed to be helping with my facial swelling, making talking painful but not an exercise in self-flaggelation. “Then we must either find somewhere warm, or start a fire, or both.”

“I do rather love to be warm,” Holmes said with a quiet melancholy that frightened me.

“There are at least trees about,” I said, trying to keep my spirits up, my thoughts suddenly far clearer as a new kind of fear quickened my heart. “We should be able to find something to burn. Oh, but how I wish I had my gloves. At least you thought to provide scarf and hat.”

“Yes,” Holmes said, voice still slightly distant and dreamy. “Strange, isn’t it, how extremes tend to wrap back around to one another? Blisters on the skin from both heat and cold. Scarves to protect from both fire and ice.”

I wondered briefly if I could trust Holmes’ assessment that Penderson had lost our trail, given how rapidly he seemed to be succumbing to cold. Then I shook my head, though that made my jaw ache terribly. Of course I could trust Holmes on this. We were merely both reacting to the cessation of immediate danger from our fellow man—Holmes’ body by finally acknowledging the cold, and myself by confronting the dangers that Nature posed in all her terrible great glory.

“Warmth.” I stamped my feet, grimacing as my toes burned with agony and my scar tried to seize up. “We could both look for firewood, if we can get these manacles off. You said it would take less than a minute, right?”

“Right.” Holmes stared at the manacle, blinking owlishly at it as though he’d never seen the like before.

I stared at Holmes’ arm where it protruded from his sleeve. At the bruised purple swelling that had engulfed his wrist, and the way his flesh pushed against the manacle. At the angle of his arm, and cursed myself for a fool. It wasn’t just the cold that was getting to Holmes; it was shock of a different kind.

“Holmes!” I hissed his name under my breath, not daring to shout lest some trick of the wind bring my words to Penderson’s ears. “When were you going to tell me that you were hurt?”

“When it became relevant.” Holmes swallowed. “I do believe it is relevant now, Doctor.”

I carefully used both my hands to work his coat sleeve, robe, and nightgown up his arm, hissing again as I saw that the white fabric was saturated with frozen red.

Compound fracture.

I moved the fabric just enough to confirm that bone did indeed break through skin in two places, and then hastily rolled the fabric back down. The last thing I needed to deal with was frostbite on a compound fracture site, though if I wasn’t careful, that’s what I would get. “I need to splint this, and we need to get you to an orthopedist immediately.”

God, Holmes’ right arm being permanently maimed; that was a horror story in six words. Though he tried to keep himself as skilled with his left hand as his right, he did favor his right hand more, and he needed both to play his violin.

To box.

To use his chemistry set with ease.

I wrapped that fear up and buried it deep as I could. I had seen men maimed before. They found ways to adapt; ways to live. If the worst that happened from this little adventure was that Holmes had to learn to adjust to a new limitation, then we would be damn lucky, because at the moment Death seemed to surround us, humming in the skirls of snow, stalking us in the form of a ferocious young man.

I had fought Death many times before, though. I knew that one day He would win, but that day would be as far in the future as I could manage.

“Can you still pick the lock?” I asked, feeling foolish.

“...I am afraid with my arm like this…” Holmes lifted his eyes from his misshapen wrist to meet my eyes. “I can certainly try,” he said, some spark returning to his words that had been missing.

“There’s my good man,” I said, putting as much warmth into the words as possible.

It took Holmes almost five minutes to pick the lock on my manacle. I had debated having him start with his own, but if I was free I could start gathering firewood more easily while he worked on the second one, whereas if he was free, I could only watch helplessly as he worked.

I did not like leaving him. It was clear that the cold and his injury were fast becoming too much for his already-fragile health to handle, but if I did not find the trappings for a fire, we would both not last much longer.

There was something beautiful about the way the snow lay. Something soothing and quiet. Our unexpected human presence must have kept what animals usually frequented these areas from making noise, for the only sound was my own breathing and the quiet shushing of the snow as it drifted and settled.

I gathered what I could for wood, digging tinder out of animal warrens with fingers that ached and then burned and then tried to cease working altogether; breaking up pieces of fallen trees that I hoped had been dead long enough to burn easily. I cursed my lack of gloves repeatedly, my fingers growing duller and duller, until I could no longer feel past my first knuckle at all.

Satisfied that I had enough of a load to start a fire, and quite certain that looking for more before finding a source of warmth would be a good way to die, I hurried back to Holmes’ side.

He had managed to remove the second manacle, and was sitting with his broken right arm buried in the snow. He stared expressionlessly upward, his eyes unblinking as snow fell onto his face.

For one terrible moment I was certain he was dead. Then I watched a snowflake melt and roll down his cheek, and saw the tremor of his breath in the frigid night air, and managed to draw in a breath of my own once more.

“Here, Holmes.” I began to arrange the fire. “Does your arm hurt terribly?”

“It is not a pleasant sensation,” he allowed, which mean that yes, it did hurt terribly. Which I had known it did, but I needed to break the silence.

“Can you still feel your fingers?” I asked.

“I can feel my palm, and there is occasionally tingling in my fingers, but… no. No, I cannot feel them properly.” He had lowered his face to look at me, and what he saw must not have been comforting, for he turned away.

“Warmth first, and then I’ll see what I can do to set and splint it.” I stared at my very nicely structured fire, only now realizing a very fundamental problem: I did not have anything with which to light the wood and tinder I had gathered.

Holmes used his boot to nudge the manacles closer to me. “Steel. There should be flint around. This part of the country is rich in it.”

“Bless you,” I said, moving in to press a kiss to his forehead before scrambling off to look for any rocky terrain I might scour for my missing piece of our survival.

It took me longer than I would like to find the sleek black rock, though I knew I should thank Providence that I found it at all. By the time I returned to Holmes’ side, his head was against his chest, and he was no longer shivering, which was never a good sign.

I reined panic in with fierce determination, treating my heart like a half-broken stallion. The best thing I could do for Holmes was get him warm and keep him warm, and that meant getting the fire started.

Despite how frigid and stiff my fingers were, I managed to coax sparks from the manacle, and when one of those sparks finally took, I bent all of my will and lung power towards growing the little ember into a blaze, and the blaze into a bonfire.

The fire was painful, as heat usually is to a hypothermic patient. I forced myself to scoot back from it, though some perverse instinct wanted me to bury my fingers in the flashing orange flames; to get myself as close to the warmth as I physically could, even if that meant hurting myself.

“Holmes, here,” I said, drawing my friend in against my side and carefully calibrating where we were. “Come here, now, and let’s get you warmed up.”

“No need,” Holmes murmured, his eyes shut. “I am… perfectly… content…”

He had been about to content himself into an early grave, but I did not argue with him. Instead I held his good hand between mine, gauging the distance we should hold our fingers from the fire. I wished that I had a blanket to wrap around us both, to capture the heat, but I did not.

“Warm first, then deal with your arm,” I muttered, trying to keep myself focused; to keep myself aware of what needed to happen, so that I did not let the cold catch me unawares and seize us both for eternity.

“It’s all right, Watson,” Holmes breathed into my neck, his head on my shoulder.

“It is not all right!” I snapped with more heat than I intended. “A broken arm—a compound fracture in a snowstorm—this is the furthest thing from all right!”

Holmes’ eyes had flown open at the start of my diatribe, and he blinked blearily at me. “Watson?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, old chap. I know you’re only half conscious and trying to reassure me.” I drew in deep breaths of smoke-tinged air, trying not to cough; trying not to think of the burning building we had fled not that long ago.

“I am quite all right,” Holmes replied peevishly.

“You aren’t, and that’s all right.” I wrapped one arm around his waist, pulling him a little tighter to me. “How do I make you believe that, Holmes? That it’s all right to not be all right?”

Holmes first tensed and then relaxed in my hold. A contemplative little swirl of notes hummed from his lips as he studied the fire. “I have already put you through so much, Watson. Put Mrs. Hudson through so much. Even brother Mycroft. I must be all right, don’t you see?”

“But it only makes it harder on us when you act as though you’re all right even when you’re clearly not,” I answered gently.

“I always think that I am all right when I say such.” He looked down at his broken, snow-packed arm. “Well. Usually I am. Now is an exception. I had to be all right to save you.”

I frowned. “When did you break your arm?”

“When we first escaped the cart.”

He’d been running with it broken for at least twenty minutes; probably much closer to an hour before I finally noticed. I held him a little tighter.

“I don’t meant to be difficult,” Holmes said after a few second’s pause. “With eating. With sleeping. With my health. I do not want to cause you trouble.”

“I know,” I soothed.

“I just do not know what to do with this body most days.” Holmes waved his good hand at himself. “I do not… I do not know why I have it, most days. What it is good for. I wish I were just my mind; just my thoughts.”

“But you are not,” I replied in the same gentle tone.

“I am not. I am…” Holmes shuddered. “I am a man who should be dead. I am a man who survived when he should have died. I am a myth, for it is myths who rise from the dead, yes?”

Holmes’ shuddering continued, and I couldn’t tell if it was because I had finally gotten him warm enough to shiver, or if it was the torrent of words that had escaped their confines.

“I do not need you to be a myth,” I said slowly. “I do not need you to be anything other than what you are. Other than Sherlock Holmes.”

“But Sherlock Holmes is a myth,” he said, staring at me with wild, haunted eyes, the grey of his irises washed out almost to match the snow about us. “You have made him that, and I thank you for it, but I fear I do not live up to the man you have envisioned.”

“Oh, Holmes.” I held him tighter, pulling him as close to my body as I could. I reached up, drawing his forehead to rest against mine. “You do not have to prove anything to me. I have loved you exactly as you are for well over a decade now, and pray I will be allowed to do so for decades more.”

“It is. Hard.” Holmes continued to shiver. “It is hard, not understanding my body or myself. I wanted to pretend that Reichenbach never happened; that I never grieved you. But instead I have brought you grief again. Brought you to pain. Endangered us both.”

“Would that it were so simple to turn back time and erase the worst moments of our lives.” I buried my fingers in Holmes’ hair, drawing his head down to rest on my shoulder.

“But it is not,” he whispered, and I think that he cried then. Just a few tears; just a slight shaking of his frame; but given how infrequently he cried, I knew how much it mattered that he was doing so now.

“We will get out of here,” I said, my determination feeding off of Holmes’ vulnerability. I would not let these be the last words he said. I would not let some young fiend be the final part of my friend’s tale—of his life, for he was right, and sometimes I would do well to remember that these were far more than stories. “I swear it.”

“I believe you,” Holmes said, chuckling softly. “There are so many logical reasons to question your conclusion, and yet, I believe you.”

“That is because you know me.” I pressed shivering, tingling fingers against Holmes’ cheek. “You know I will never let you down.”

“You will not. My rock in stormy seas. My stable foundation.” Holmes pressed his head into my hand. “I am sorry for my little episode. I do not know what happened.”

“I do.” I pressed another kiss to his forehead. “You admitted to only being human, and I will not let that be in vain. So. You must pardon me as I go to fetch more firewood for us, and when you are truly warm, and the shock has lessened, I will let you curse me at the top of your lungs as I do my best to set your arm.”

To at least pull the bone back beneath skin, where it belonged.

“My steady Watson. Always looking for the next task, even when it isn’t a pleasant one.” Holmes watched as I stood, and tried to emulate me. “I only have one good arm, but perhaps I can also assist in gathering…”

I caught him as he swayed, and guided him back to sit by my fire. “No,” I said firmly. “You will stay here.”

“I will stay here, Doctor,” Holmes said, somewhere between resigned and amused.

“And I will be back before you miss me.”

“Impossible,” I heard him whisper as I trudged off into the snow. “I will always miss you as soon as you are gone.”

The words warmed my heart even as the icy wind bit at my flesh, and I resolved to return as quickly as I possibly could.

Holmes was mine to protect for the moment, and I would do so to the very best of my ability.

Chapter Text

Chapter Three

I wonder now if I should not have left him. If I should have allowed him to accompany me. I feared for his life if I did, though; feared that the cold would snatch him from me. That the effort of trying to lug about great pieces of wood would further dislocate his already fragile bones.

I could not have predicted what I would return to.

Thankfully I am a man who tends to work in silence. Oh, I will enjoy a good song or three with like-minded individuals when we are all working on a project together. And I will always enjoy Holmes playing for me, his violin pieces a pleasure that my soul will forever treasure. But when I am writing? When I am pursuing any repetitive mundane task? I tend to do so in silence.

The quiet of the snow and the trees added to my desire for silence, I think. I could have broken that silence, but it felt holy; sacrosanct; something best left unmolested, and so I made only what noise I must as I broke apart pieces of dead trees in search of better fuel for the fire that would sustain us.

I returned in silence, though I was intent on calling out to Holmes as soon as I saw him.

Before I exited the trees, though, I knew that Holmes was not alone.

“I tell you, he is gone,” Holmes said, voice pitched to carry; pitched for me, I knew, and I immediately changed my limping stride to a slow crawl through the snow.

“Liar,” Percival hissed. “He was here. I see the manacle there; I see the evidence of his footprints.”

It was true that my footprints were visible, though the snow and the wind had already obscured them somewhat.

“Why ever would I lie about something so pedestrian?” Holmes inquired.

“Because you like lying,” Percival snarled. “That’s all that you are: a liar who got my sister killed.”

I dropped all but one of the pieces of wood I had gathered, holding tight to my chosen weapon in both hands.

“I do not lie,” Holmes said, still in that voice intended to carry. He did not know where I was; did now know that I was already listening.

“You lie all the time!” Percival lashed out, whipping my service revolver in a sharp arc so that it cracked against Holmes’ head. “He records so many of your lies. Monstrous creature. You don’t deserve to be alive.”

“And I assume you are going to rectify that?” Holmes said, his words stiff but still clearly enunciated.

“I’m going to kill him, and then I’m going to kill you. Slowly. Maybe just put out the fire, watch you bleed out in the cold. Though… they say death by hypothermia is a good death and that’s not what I want. No peace. No numbness. Maybe I’ll burn you, like you burned her.”

The fire separated, a small firefly piece breaking off.

Percival had taken one of the sticks from the fire, and was approaching Holmes in the snow.

I judged the distance between myself and the terrible tableau. If I lunged forward now, I might be able to stop him from hurting Holmes.

Or I might be shot, and die where I lay, Holmes left at the young beast’s mercy.

It was no decision at all, not really. Holmes himself would tell me—has told me—that waiting was the proper decision. That ensuring Percival Penderson’s attention was fixed elsewhere could only increase my chances of success.

I still hate that I did it. That I stood, trembling, horrified, and watched as Penderson applied the burning branch to the side of Holmes’ neck.

“Yes,” Penderson breathed as the scent of scorched skin filled the air. “Oh, yes, that’s right.”

I think he intended to do much more. I think he intended to slowly torture Holmes to death; I have testified to as much.

It would have been a slow process. As slow as the way he rocked the branch against Holmes’ flesh.

“Scream for me,” he urged, moving the branch up to Holmes’ left cheek—to the one that his sister had carved.

Holmes didn’t make a sound, though it was clear he was conscious; clear, as I closed the distance between myself and Penderson, that he was trying to keep Penderson’s attention only on himself.

Penderson hissed, irritated at the lack of response—at the lack of burning sizzle. The wood had already lost the heat necessary to burn through flesh easily.

He turned to shove the branch back into the fire… and his eyes caught mine.

I was already most of the way to him. I lunged the last two steps, my bad leg be damned, and brought my weapon down upon his head even as he attempted to level my revolver on me.

I knew he would miss even as his finger tightened on the trigger. He’d been too eager, firing too early. The bullet sliced through my nightgown, and singed the skin of my right side, but it took no flesh with it.

My branch came down with a heavy whack against Penderson’s left temple, and he fell.

I hit him again as he did. Straight to the back of the neck. Shatter the C1-C2 spinal connection. Crush the cerebellum where it rests so daintily inside the skull.

Penderson was already unconscious, I think. Certainly he didn’t do more than exhale a quiet moan.

I struck him a third time, where the second blow had landed.

A fourth.

These were killing blows. I knew that—knew that any single one of these strikes could have ended the young man’s life, from the first to the ones that I seemed unable to stop myself form raining down upon his prone form.

He had tried to kill Holmes.

He had threatened me, and used Holmes’ affection for me against him.

He had hunted us, when I had wanted nothing more to do with his family.

He was a monster. A madman. A—

Someone grabbed the branch, keeping me from bringing it down on Penderson again.

“He’s dead, Watson,” Holmes said, in the most strangely gentle voice I think he ever used on me. “He’s dead. You can stop hitting him now.”

“He…” My hands tingled where they gripped the bark; splinters blared agony in my fingers. “He hurt you.”

“He did,” Holmes acquiesced. “But he will not do so again.”

I allowed my fingers to release their grip on the branch, and Holmes tossed it into the fire.

“Your neck.” I immediately reached for Holmes.

He stood still, allowing me to examine him without complaint. The burn on his neck was significant, but so long as infection didn’t set in, it should be all right. If we could get back to the village, then I could beg around for honey; that kind of compress worked very well for burn wounds, I knew.

I moved up from his neck, tracing the faint redness of his skin where Penderson had pressed the branch against his cheek. Some of the scabbing had been pulled free, and his face oozed lightly again.

Nothing too serious, though. Nothing to vie with the injuries I already knew that he had.

The injuries that I still needed to treat.

“Sit, let me fetch the rest of the wood,” I commanded.

Holmes sat, situating himself on the other side of the fire from Penderson’s body, but not before kicking snow over the young man’s face. “Be swift, please.”

I was.

I did not tell him that it was because I was terrified I would once more leave him, only to return to a scene of death and carnage.

That I feared my heart would be carved from my body once more, and I would not be able to keep going again if that happened.

I did not need to do so. He understood, as evidenced by the way he moved himself to rest against me as soon as I had placed the wood onto the fire, growing it into a blaze that drove away the darkness and the cold at once.

“Your arm,” I managed, though my teeth chattered.

Holmes grimaced. “Do you think it must be set now? You’ve no proper equipment.”

“No, but I have fabric I can tie into bandages, and I fetched sticks that will work well enough as splints. I must get the bone back beneath your skin as quickly as I can. Every moment it’s exposed increases the risk of it dying.”

“Is bone considered a living thing, then?” Holmes tilted his head as though this were the part that mattered. “If it can die.”

“It is as alive as all other parts of your body. Why should bone not count as living if skin does?”

Holmes considered that. “Skin has rather less calcium and phosphorus in it. Skin does not feel or look like rock; does not become rock, as old bones will.”

I knew precious little about fossils, and did not want to argue with him about them even if I did. Not right then. “I will rephrase so that bones do not seem alive, if only you will grant me permission to start seeing to your arm.”

“Naturally,” Holmes said, extending said arm.

We went through the careful process of revealing the gruesome injury one more time. I measured the sticks that I had brought, breaking them down so that I was fairly certain they would stay around Holmes’ arm.

Then I grabbed Holmes’ elbow with one hand, clasped my fingers in his with the other, and I pulled.

Holmes screamed.

There are very few things I have ever seen that can cause him to do so. I do not blame him for letting this be one of those times. With a terrible grating snap, the bones slid back under the skin, their edges rubbing and twisting against each other as I fought to get them properly aligned against the pull of confused, pain-addled muscles.

This would have been much easier if I had three of four hands, but alas, I did not. I did not even have Holmes as an extra set of hands, as his poor body had given up on consciousness as I attempted to twist his arm so that it would be straight once it healed.

Doing my best not to let my alignment slip, I clasped Holmes’ elbow between my knees, kept a hold on his wrist with one hand, and began laying my collected branches for the splint along his forearm. They slid away from me four times before I managed to tie torn-up strips of my nightgown about them, holding them in place.

Once I had the arm as stable as I could manage, I bundled Holmes into my arms, and held him, waiting for consciousness to return.

It did, slowly, Holmes first stiffening in my arms, and then, after perhaps five minutes, declaring, “This has been a very nasty business, Watson. Grotesque. Macabre.”

“It has,” I concurred.

His good hand bounced against the ground, a silent rhythm that the snow ate. “I am sorry that you had to take care of Penderson. That you had to… that is, that you…” He drew in a deep breath. “I am terribly sorry for all of this.”

“You’ve no need to be sorry for any of this,” I told him gently. “You did not mean to become the object of a petty young man’s revenge.”

“I did not.” Holmes considered. “I know that this is difficult for you.”

I stared around at the snow-swept, frozen land around us, my eyes carefully avoiding the corpse on the other side of the fire. “I will do anything for you. Happily. You know that.”

“I do know that. Which is why I try to keep things like this…” He gestured so that I had no choice but to look at the corpse. “From happening. I do not like to see you choosing to kill. Not on my behalf.”

“I have always been the one to happily offer you my gun,” I protested, not quite understanding what Holmes was getting at.

“You trust me so very much, Watson.” The fingers on Holmes’ good hand clutched at my arm where I held him. “You always have, from the first that we met. You see me, and you know me, and yet… yet you trust me.”

“Of course I do!” I didn’t understand what he was circling so avidly. “You are the most trustworthy of men.”

“I try to be. But at least part of that is because of you. Because you are my Watson, and you deserve to be treated well.” Great wracking shivers shook Holmes’ frame. “Yet always you return to me, no matter what I have done, or what I have failed to do.”

Shock, I reassured myself; this was nothing more than shock talking, and all that I needed to do was keep Holmes calm while it passed. “You have always treated me well.”

“Oh, we both know that is not true! Sometimes I have treated you abominably. I fear… I fear that the entire years after Reichenbach were a mistake. That Reichenbach itself were a mistake. That I ought either have died with Moriarty, or risked you. I question myself, though there are no answers! And because of those questions, those terrible impossible non-answers, I try to run from the entire affair. To pretend that it never happened.”

Ah.

I drew in a deep breath, recognizing at last what conversation we had returned to. “I do not blame you, Holmes. I have talked to those who did, and we all understand why you did what you did.”

“Do you, Watson?” Holmes turned, his eyes fever bright even as the snow continued to leach what color they usually had from them. “Do you understand how very terrible it was, John? How my heart ached to return to you, and how I could not? How I had convinced myself, over time, that it was not such a great deal… and then you fainted when I presented myself to you again! You forgave me, so quickly, so thoroughly, and yet when I heard Lestrade arguing with you, telling you that I had treated you poorly, I agreed with him! When Mrs. Hudson told me in such gentle chastising tones that she understood my fears, but that I had been a right cad to leave you alone through such great grief—Watson, I fear I have made so many errors, and I fear that I will never be able to make up for them. And now… now I have made you a murderer, to boot!”

“Holmes.” I help his head between my hands, staring into his beautiful eyes. “Oh, my precious, beautiful man. You have not made me into a murderer. I killed men long before I met you. Britain made me into a killer before you, and I do not regret what I did to protect my patients, and I do not regret what I have done to protect you.”

Holmes’ fast breathing slowed, becoming something… not easy, but at least sustainable. “And the rest?” he whispered.

“The rest…” I drew in a breath, holding the smoke in my lungs, allowing my eyes to drift from his to the stars above. The rest indeed. How could one summarize a life? A calling chosen? Holmes knew about callings—had crafted an impossible career, one that only he could have managed. Surely he would understand that I had given myself to the career of him, just as he had given himself to detection? But perhaps… perhaps he wouldn’t. Or perhaps that wasn’t even the proper metaphor. Sometimes I feel that I am not such a great writer; that I have not been able to capture what truly matters, not in a way that others will understand.

Holmes continued to watch me, his eyes locked avidly on mine when finally I forced my attention back to the banal earth.

I had to give him an answer, and so I did what I always do: I told him the truth. I am not a very good liar, after all, and he is very good at finding lies. “I don’t know, Sherlock. I don’t know if there was a better way for you to handle matters. I don’t know if things would have been better or worse if we tried to face Moran in London immediately; if I ran with you; if you have been there when Mary died; if she had spent her illness alone…” I gave my head a shake. “I do not know, and neither do you. What I do know is that you undoubtedly did what you have always done: you made the best decision that you could with the information that you had at the time.”

“I didn’t know how much it would hurt you,” he murmured, his lips barely moving. “I didn’t know how deeply or long you would mourn me.”

“For a man so full of pride, you do not recognize your place in other’s hearts easily, do you?” I leaned in to press a kiss to his forehead again. “You are and always will be precious to me. But I know better than to use that affection as a cage. You are Sherlock Holmes. You solve mysteries—the more grotesque, the better. You make decisions that affect people every day, and you must be swift and certain in those decisions. I will not try to make you doubt yourself.”

“You would have to wait right now, anyway. Someone else is making me doubt myself quite well enough.” His lips twitched into a tiny smile.

“Unfortunately that someone is very persuasive. I know. He persuades me of things all the time.” I kissed his forehead again; I would have liked to spend all day kissing him, though I knew he would chafe at such prolonged contact. But I could at least allow myself this indulgence, especially now, when we both clearly searched for solace and answers. “But I do not want there to be any doubt on my account. I believe that you did the best you could by me; I believe you will do the same moving forward. I am content with our relationship, Holmes. I am content with you.”

“You truly don’t mind my making mistakes,” Holmes whispered, as though this were the most important revelation in the universe.

“I said earlier, and I will repeat: you are only human. And that is not something I will ever ask you to apologize for.” I touched his cheek, beneath where the wounds were. “All I ask is that you sometimes remember this fact when it comes to caring for your body.”

“I try. For you, I will always try.” Holmes shivered again, and curled himself into me, his broken right arm in its splint held carefully away from his body.

I held him, trying to regulate the fire so that we were warm but not sweltering; the last thing we needed was a layer of sweat to freeze to our bodies.

We would try together, and though I sometimes question the universe, or God, or whatever else might guide the threads of human lives, I had faith enough in the two of us that I thought this would be enough.

***

I do not know how long we sat there, entangled together, two small warm bodies fighting against Nature in order to remain John Watson and Sherlock Holmes. It was still nighttime when the villagers found us—still dark when Cosgrove managed to pull a cart up next to our fire, and helped me to gently shift Holmes into the conveyance.

The inn was beyond salvaging, though some things—including Holmes’ Stradivarius—had been rescued. Cosgrove listened intently as I wove an abbreviated version of the Penderson story for him, and spent the next hour exclaiming about rich bastards and useless kids before dropping us at his son James’ house, where we were welcomed for the night.

Holmes spoke very little. It was clear he was well beyond exhausted, a state I shared. I didn’t allow either of us to sleep until I had properly dressed the burn on his neck, and cleaned his cheek, and traded my makeshift splint for a better one—one held carefully in place by other hands while I wrapped it.

When finally I was certain I had done all I could for Holmes, we tumbled into a shared bed—one that Cosgrove had apologized for, but which I found perfect.

“It’s almost dawn, you know,” Holmes remarked as I lay my head against his shoulder.

“It doesn’t count if you’ve been up all night,” I muttered in reply. “First thing you learn in the Army: ignore the sun if it’s being inconvenient.”

Holmes laughed, his good hand squeezing mine. “Thank you, Watson. For all that you have done, both tonight and in the past.”

“Thank you, Holmes. For trusting me. For putting such faith in me.” I ensured that no one could see us, and pressed another kiss to him, this time to his good cheek.

“We will have faith in each other,” he whispered, his eyes drifting closed. “But it will be the type of faith that all men have. A human faith.”

“Yes,” I agreed, recognizing that he was almost asleep and glad of it.

Only when he had dozed off and I could hear the soft sound of his steady breathing did I find myself able to do the same.

***

We returned to Baker Street rather worse for wear than when we had left, and Mrs. Hudson tutted about us even as she ensured that we were cared for. I could not blame her. Sometimes I wonder that the woman slept at all, for the troubles that we brought to her door.

It took Holmes four weeks to heal from his broken arm, though we were lucky that it healed cleanly despite the severity of the injury. He allowed me to help with the physical therapy tasks that the orthopedist gave him, and when he was finally able to return to his violin, he played my favorite piece without my even having to ask.

We hadn’t managed to heal everything from our past, I knew. Perhaps there could be no such thing. Reichenbach had changed us both; hurt us both; and our reunion had fixed many things, but it could not erase all that pain.

But there had been something revelatory about sitting in the snow, a fire the only thing keeping us alive, the stars above us and a man who would have killed us dead by my hand.

Holmes was not a force of nature, no matter what I may have written before; and I was not someone floating in his wake.

We were the both of us just people. People who lived, and laughed, and loved—especially that last.

Oh, how we both loved.

And that was what mattered. That we lived. That we loved.

That we did both together.

I did not know then what other cases we would face; what other trials we would undergo.

But I was more certain than ever that we would see them through together.

And that together, hand in hand, we would one day find a lasting peace.