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Chapter Text

I had long since resigned myself to the ghost of Sherlock Holmes.

His presence lingered in the creaking floorboards of Baker Street, in the scent of old tobacco woven into the upholstery, in the maddening quiet where once had been the ceaseless whirring of his restless mind. I had accepted his absence the way one accepts the inevitability of the tides, with no small amount of sorrow, but with the understanding that to resist would be a fruitless endeavor.

And yet, the ghost had never been so bold as to sit in my study chair, draped in my old dressing gown, leafing through my medical texts with the casual indifference of a man who had never once tumbled to his supposed death from the edge of Reichenbach Falls.

I could not speak. My throat tightened as my mind scrambled for rationality, but rationality had long abandoned me. The very foundation of my grief, my healing, my quiet resignation had been stripped away with one glance at the impossibly living figure before me.

Holmes did not look up from his reading, though he must have heard me enter. "Your taste in literature has not improved, Watson," he remarked, turning a page with the absent flick of a pale hand. "Dull and predictable, though I suppose it serves its purpose."

It was more than the sight of him, more than the shock rendering me motionless that broke me from my stupor.

"You are… dead," I managed, the words feeling brittle on my tongue.

"Evidently not. Though, if I may say, you do look as though you’ve seen a ghost." Finally, he lifted his eyes to mine, and there it was. That glint, that unbearable sharpness, as though he had known all along how this moment would unfold and had simply been waiting to observe my reaction like one of his curious experiments.

My fist clenched at my side. "You let me believe you were dead."

He closed the book with a quiet snap. "Yes."

The silence that followed was thick and unforgiving. My heart pounded furiously against my ribs, torn between relief and fury, longing and betrayal. It would have been easier if I could simply hate him. Instead, all I could do was stand there, drinking in the sight of the impossible, while the carefully reconstructed pieces of my life, once again, began to fall apart.

Holmes tilted his head, observing me as though I were a particularly perplexing case. "You are angry. Understandable. I would be, too."

I took a step forward, fists still clenched. "Understandable? Holmes, I mourned you. I buried you! I—" My voice caught, and I turned away, breath shaking. "I do not know whether to embrace you or strike you."

Holmes stood, the familiar rustle of fabric accompanying his movement. "Both, I suspect. And I would not fault you for either."

I turned back sharply. "Then why did you let me believe you were dead? Why not send word? A single note, anything!"

He sighed, folding his hands behind his back. "Because, dear Watson, the game was not yet over."

I let out a breath, a sort of half laugh, half sob. "The game? Is that all this is to you?" My voice cracked, my composure unraveling faster than I should like to admit. "Did it never occur to you that I might grieve? That I might spend months—years—feeling as though I had lost the only person who-" I stopped myself before saying too much, before my heart overruled my reason.

Holmes frowned slightly, as though the notion had never settled in his mind. "Watson, surely you knew I would return."

I gaped at him. "How could I have possibly known that? You fell. I saw the cliff, the water, I had seen you die."

Holmes' brow furrowed further. "But you are a man of reason. Surely you would have considered the possibility—"

"Possibility?" My voice rose, my anger spilling out in a way I could no longer control. "Holmes, I buried you. I lived with the weight of your absence. Every day, every night, I grieved, damn you! You think I should have simply deduced your return like some puzzle in a newspaper?"

Holmes regarded me with something I could not immediately place. Curiosity, perhaps, mixed with a hint of genuine bewilderment. "I did not anticipate this reaction," he admitted quietly.

I let out another shaky breath, running a hand through my hair. "No, you didn't, did you?" I shook my head, the fight draining from my limbs. "You never do."

His expression softened, just a fraction. "Then perhaps you might explain it to me, Watson. If I have miscalculated, I would rather correct my error than persist in it."

I exhaled, exhaustion creeping in alongside the whirlwind of emotion. "I do not know if this is an error you can simply correct, Holmes. But if you are truly here to stay, then by God, you owe me an explanation."

Holmes gave a small, nearly imperceptible nod. "Very well. Then let us begin at the beginning.”

The fire crackled in the hearth, filling the silence between us. I had hardly moved since his confession, too stunned, too drained to do much but stare at the man I had once lost. Holmes, for his part, had resumed his seat, fingers steepled beneath his chin as he studied me in the same way he always had, cataloguing details, unraveling emotions he only half understood.

"I have no excuse," he said at last. "Only an explanation."

I scoffed, the sound bitter. "An explanation? By all means, Holmes, do enlighten me."

He tilted his head. "You know, Watson, I do believe this is the angriest I have ever seen you."

I clenched my jaw. "And yet you seem entirely unsurprised."

"Oh, on the contrary, I am quite surprised. I had assumed, after all this time, you would be relieved."

I shot to my feet. "Relieved? Holmes, you let me mourn you. You let me stand at your grave, deliver a eulogy, carry on with the unbearable weight of your absence." My voice cracked again, and I turned away before he could see just how deeply he had broken me.

A pause. Then, softer, "Watson, I did not think—"

"No, you did not think," I snapped. "Not about me."

Holmes fell silent. I dared not look at him, dared not meet those sharp eyes that could unravel me with a glance. When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter than I had ever heard it.

"I was not certain I would return."

That stilled me. My anger and grief did not fade, but it shifted, making room for something else. Something raw. Slowly, I turned to face him. "What do you mean?"

Holmes met my gaze, his expression unreadable. He hesitated, weighing his words carefully. “When I went over that ledge, Watson, I did not know if I would survive. I had a plan, yes, but even the most carefully laid plans do not always account for the unpredictable.”

I remained silent, waiting.

He leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on his knees. “I had to disappear. Moriarty’s reach was vast, and eliminating him did not ensure that his network would simply dissolve. I could not risk them knowing I had survived.”

I swallowed, my throat dry. “But you could risk letting me suffer?”

His lips parted slightly, then pressed into a thin line. “I thought it best.”

The words landed like a slap. I let out a sharp breath, shaking my head. “Best for whom, Holmes?” My voice was quieter now, laced with something more fragile than anger. “Because it certainly wasn’t best for me.”

He exhaled, his fingers pressing together as though searching for the correct formula to mend what he had broken. “Watson, I-” He stopped himself, uncharacteristically uncertain. “I did not expect you to grieve so deeply.”

A bitter laugh escaped me. “No, of course you didn’t. I was meant to move on like one of your discarded experiments, wasn’t I? Pick up my life, tend to my patients, and simply accept that the most infuriating, brilliant, impossible man I had ever known had ceased to exist.”

His brows furrowed, as if hearing the weight of my words for the first time. “It was never my intent to hurt you.”

“And yet, you did,” I murmured.

The room felt unbearably small. The firelight flickered over Holmes’ face, casting shadows that made him seem both familiar and strange. For all his brilliance, he remained blind to the depth of what had been lost.

I ran a hand over my face, exhaustion creeping in once more. “Why are you telling me all of this now- why have you decided to return now of all times?”

Holmes studied me, his expression softer than before. “Because you deserve to know.” A pause. Then, more quietly, “And because I have missed you, Watson.”

The breath caught in my throat. For the first time since stepping into this room, since seeing him alive, my anger faltered.

I had missed him too.

God help me, I had missed him more than I had words for.

I let out a slow breath, my anger waning, leaving only exhaustion in its place. I rubbed a hand over my face, willing myself to stay composed.

“You missed me,” I echoed, my voice barely above a whisper. “Well, Holmes, you certainly had an unusual way of showing it.”

Holmes did not react immediately. He merely watched me, as he always did. Calculating, dissecting, waiting for something unseen to reveal itself. But there was something different in his gaze now. Less certainty, more… vulnerability.

“Would it have been better,” he asked finally, “if I had written to you? If I had risked exposure, my own life, for the sake of alleviating your temporary grief?”

I opened my mouth, ready to affirm it without hesitation, but the words did not come. Because, damn him, he had a point.

Had I received a letter, some cryptic reassurance that he lived, what then? I would have scoured the earth for him. I would have followed the trail, consequences be damned. And that, I realized with a bitter twist in my stomach, was precisely why he had done nothing.

Holmes studied my face and gave the barest nod, as if he had deduced the moment I reached my conclusion.

“You see,” he said, voice quiet but firm, “it was never about causing you pain, Watson. It was about keeping you safe.”

I scoffed. “Safe? I have been in more peril at your side than I ever was on my own! I have taken bullets for you, thrown myself into fires I had no business surviving, all because you asked it of me, and you never had to ask, really.”

Holmes' lips parted slightly, his brow creasing. “And yet,” he said slowly, “this was the one thing you could not abide. The one wound I inflicted that you cannot forgive.”

I turned away sharply, pacing toward the fireplace before I did something foolish, like let him see the way my hands trembled. “You were dead, Holmes,” I muttered, staring into the flames. “I was forced to learn how to live in a world where you no longer existed. And now-” I exhaled sharply, turning back to face him. “Now you sit before me as if none of it mattered.”

Holmes' expression flickered—there and gone in an instant. But I had known him too long, studied him too well. It was not indifference that kept him still. It was uncertainty.

For all his brilliance, for all the cases solved and lives saved, his emotion, regret, human connection, it was a puzzle that eluded him.

“I seem to have… miscalculated,” he admitted, voice quieter than I had ever heard it.

I swallowed hard. I should have felt triumphant for hearing him say it. Instead, it only deepened the ache inside me.

“Holmes,” I said, my voice rough, “why did you come back?”

His gaze flickered, something unreadable behind his eyes.

“Because I could not stay away,” he answered.

The words settled in the space between us, heavier than I had anticipated. And I found, much to my dismay, that my anger could not hold against them.

“Because I could not stay away.”

Damn him. Damn me! I did not know if I could forgive him. But I knew, without question, that I would never send him away.

Silence stretched between us, thick with the weight of all that had been said and all that still remained unspoken. Holmes, for once, did not seem to have an immediate answer. No clever remark, no sharp deduction to cut through the tension.

I let out a slow breath, pressing my fingers to the bridge of my nose. "You truly are impossible, Holmes."

"Yes, I have been told as much," he replied, and to my astonishment, there was something almost tentative in his voice.

I glanced at him then, really looked at him. Not just at the sharp lines and familiar features, but at the hollows beneath his eyes, the slight tension in his shoulders. For all his arrogance, for all his brilliance, he was not as unaffected as he wanted me to believe.

My anger had not vanished, but something else crept in to take its place.

Relief.

No matter how furious I had been, no matter how deep the wound he had left behind, he was here. In front of me. Alive.

And I could not bring myself to push him away.

I exhaled and took a step closer, hesitating for only a moment before sinking into the chair opposite him. My body ached with exhaustion, for the grief and rage had drained me, but now, with my heartbeat finally slowing, a different sort of weariness took hold.

Holmes studied me carefully, his sharp gaze softer now, as if reassessing the situation. He tilted his head slightly. "You are still angry," he noted.

"Of course I am," I muttered, rubbing a hand over my face. "You left me."

"I did."

"You're not even going to argue?"

Holmes sighed. "Would it serve any purpose?"

I huffed a quiet laugh, despite myself. "No, I suppose not."

He nodded, satisfied, then leaned back in his chair, watching me with something bordering on curiosity. "So, Watson, what now?"

That was the question, wasn’t it. What now?

The fire crackled between us, its warmth creeping through the study, easing the sharpest edges of my temper. I glanced at Holmes, at the way he sat, fingers tapping absently against his knee, an old familiar habit.

It was ridiculous how easily I could slip back into this. How, despite everything, the mere presence of him settled something in my chest.

What now?

I exhaled, then met his gaze with something steadier than before. "Now, Holmes, you explain everything. From the beginning. And this time, you do not leave anything out."

Holmes' lips twitched—almost a smile, but not quite. He reached for the poker, adjusting the fire absently before turning back to me.

“It was, of course, Moriarty’s web that necessitated my disappearance,” he said, as if we were discussing the weather.

I narrowed my eyes. “Holmes.”

He exhaled through his nose. “Yes, yes. The details. Very well.” He leaned forward, the firelight casting sharp shadows across his face. “After our encounter at Reichenbach, I had mere seconds to act. I had anticipated that Moriarty would not allow himself to be taken so easily—his contingency plans were extensive. But I had my own.”

I scoffed. “Of course you did.”

His eyes flicked to mine, gauging my reaction. “Watson, if I had let you in on my plans, you would have been in greater danger. Moriarty’s network did not fall with him. They would have come after you.”

I shook my head, but before I could reply, he continued. “For months, I dismantled what remained of Moriarty’s empire. I traveled across Europe, cutting ties, following leads, ensuring that when I returned, neither you nor Mrs. Hudson nor anyone else I hold in some regard would suffer retaliation.”

I swallowed, letting that sink in. My anger had not disappeared, but it had shifted. I had thought Holmes had chosen to stay away out of indifference or simply calculation. But now… now, I saw something else beneath his words. Care.

Perhaps not expressed in a way I would have preferred, but care nonetheless.

“You should have trusted me,” I murmured, rubbing my temple.

Holmes was quiet for a long moment. Then, so softly I nearly missed it, he said, “I did.”

I looked up sharply. He was staring into the fire, his expression unreadable.

A strange sensation settled in my chest. Not quite anger, not quite relief. Something else entirely.

Holmes sighed, shifting his gaze back to me. “Watson, you have always been a man of unwavering loyalty. I have no doubt that had I told you of my plans, you would have insisted on staying by my side.”

I straightened. “And you assume that would have been a mistake?”

He hesitated. “I assume that had I watched you be harmed because of me, I would not have been able to bear it.”

That stopped me cold. Holmes was not a man prone to sentiment. He avoided it as one might avoid a particularly noxious odor. But there was no jest in his voice, no playful deflection. Just quiet honesty.

I swallowed against the sudden dryness in my throat. “Holmes…”

But he was already moving on, as though he had not just spoken words that unraveled something deep within me. “Regardless,” he said briskly, “I have returned. And you, my dear Watson, will simply have to adjust to my presence once more.”

I stared at him for a long moment, torn between laughter and exasperation. Finally, I exhaled and allowed a small, weary smile.

“God help me,” I muttered, “I believe I missed you.”

Holmes gave me that insufferable smirk of his, the one that so often made me want to throttle him. And yet, after all this time, after mourning him, cursing him, missing him, it felt like a homecoming.

I sighed, shaking my head. “You are impossible.”

“So you have said,” he spoke, his smirk fading into something softer. “Though I must confess, I was starting to have some concern over whether you would welcome me back at all.”

I frowned at him. “Holmes, you are an infuriating man, but did you truly think I would turn you away?”

He looked at me then, really looked at me, as though weighing something in his mind. He was rarely hesitant—Holmes either leapt or did not move at all. But now, there was a flicker of something… uncertain.

“Time is a peculiar thing, Watson,” he said at last. “It alters much. I have found that absence does not always strengthen bonds, it can just as easily erode them.”

The words settled between us, quieter than the crackling fire, yet heavier than I had expected.

I exhaled, rubbing a hand over my jaw. “Yes. Time changes things.” I looked at him then, at the sharp lines of his face, at the familiar intensity in his gaze. “But not this. Not you and I.”

Something passed over his expression, something fleeting, unreadable, and yet I swore I saw his fingers twitch, as if resisting the urge to reach out.

I gave him a small, tired smile. “You should know by now, Holmes. There is very little you could do to drive me away for good.”

He regarded me for a moment longer, then, almost imperceptibly, he relaxed. The tension in his shoulders eased, and though he did not say it aloud, I understood.

Holmes huffed a quiet, amused breath and leaned back in his chair, fingers tapping against the armrest. “I shall endeavor to test that theory, then.”

I chuckled, rolling my eyes. “See that you don’t.”

Silence fell between us, it was not the heavy, unyielding silence of earlier. It was something else. Something familiar. Something almost, dare I say it, comfortable.

I poured myself a drink and, after a brief hesitation, poured one for him as well. I held it out, eyebrow raised.

Holmes accepted it, fingers brushing against mine as he took the glass. It was brief, nothing at all, and yet the warmth of his touch lingered longer than it should have.

I cleared my throat, raising my glass slightly. “To the return of lost things.”

Holmes tilted his head, considering, before mirroring my gesture. “To things never truly lost.”

Our glasses clinked softly together, and for the first time in a while, I felt like I could finally breathe again.

Chapter Text

I should have sent him away.

I should have insisted that he return to his own room, that he let me rest, that we both attempt to make sense of this impossibility in the morning. But I did not.

Instead, when Holmes hesitated in my doorway, lingering like a man uncertain of his welcome, I found myself shifting to the side of the bed, making room where none was needed. It was not an invitation, not exactly, but it was enough.

He turned back toward me, keen eyes flickering over my face, searching. "You're not tired."

"Neither are you," I countered.

A slow smile tugged at the corner of his lips, and I had the strangest feeling that he had been hoping for that very response. Without further hesitation, he stepped fully into the room, crossing to the chair near my bedside and settling into it as though it had been his intention all along.

"You intend to keep me company, then?" I asked, raising a brow.

"It would seem so," he replied, entirely unbothered. "Unless you object?"

I sighed, rubbing a hand over my face. "I suppose not."

He nodded, as if that settled things, then leaned back in the chair, stretching his long legs out before him. For a time, neither of us spoke. The fire had burned low, and the only sound was the soft crackling of the last embers and the occasional shifting of the house as it settled for the night.

And yet, I felt strangely... awake.

I had spent so much time longing for this man, mourning him, cursing him for leaving me, and now here he was, alive, breathing, very much himself, and yet somehow changed. He was studying me in that way of his, eyes sharp, thoughtful, but lacking the usual edge of amusement. There was no game to be played here. No performance. Just the two of us, in the quiet.

"You haven't asked me anything," he observed after a while.

I frowned. "About what?"

"About where I've been. What I’ve done. How I survived."

I hesitated, then sighed. "Do you want me to?"

He tilted his head slightly, as though considering. "I imagine you would have, if you truly wished to know."

"I do," I admitted. "But I also know that you'll tell me when you're ready."

His expression shifted—only slightly, but enough. A flicker of something that might have been surprise, or perhaps something softer. He nodded, seemingly satisfied, then glanced toward the dimming fire.

"It's strange," he mused, "to be back in this house. To find everything as I left it."

"Not everything ," I muttered.

He huffed a quiet breath of amusement, then cast a glance toward my bed. "Move over, Watson."

I blinked. " What? "

"You are not sleeping, and neither am I," he said simply. "And that chair is hardly comfortable for an extended vigil."

"Holmes—"

"It would not be the first time."

I opened my mouth to argue, but the words failed me. He was right, of course. There had been nights, long, weary nights after particularly harrowing cases—where exhaustion had overtaken us both, leaving us collapsed in armchairs, sprawled across the settee, or, on rare occasions, occupying the same bed when sleep had been a luxury too fleeting to waste on propriety.

Still, this was different.

This was after .

Holmes must have sensed my hesitation because his expression shifted, the usual arrogance giving way to something quieter. "I have spent two years among strangers, Watson," he said. "Two years without conversation, without familiarity, without..." He trailed off, then exhaled softly. "I find I have missed it."

The words were not sentimental, not in the way another man might have said them. But coming from Holmes, they might as well have been a confession.

I sighed, shifting to make room. "Very well."

He did not hesitate. In a matter of moments, he had stretched out beside me, lying atop the covers with his arms folded behind his head, staring up at the ceiling as though nothing at all were unusual about this arrangement.

I turned onto my side, watching him in the dim light. "This is absurd."

He hummed, noncommittal. "Perhaps."

Silence stretched between us once more, but it was different now. The space that had yawned between us earlier had narrowed, the distance between what had been and what was now beginning to settle into something neither of us had the words for yet.

Eventually, Holmes spoke again, quieter this time. "Did you ever believe I might return?"

I hesitated, then closed my eyes. "I wanted to."

A pause. Then, just as I was beginning to drift toward something resembling rest, I felt the slightest shift beside me, the brief, fleeting press of his hand against my sleeve. A touch so light it might have been imagined.

I awoke in the middle of the night, though i was never truly sleeping. The room was quiet, save for the steady rhythm of breathing beside me, a reminder that this was no dream.

Holmes was still there, still alive.

I kept my eyes shut, listening. His breaths were slow, measured, though I doubted he was truly asleep. His mind never rested, not fully. I wondered, briefly, if he had spent the last hour staring at the ceiling, lost in whatever labyrinthine thoughts occupied him in the small hours of the morning.

"You're awake," he murmured, proving my suspicion correct.

I sighed, turning my head slightly on the pillow. "And so are you."

"Obviously." A pause. "Did I wake you?"

"No." I shifted, exhaling. "I don't know if I ever truly fell asleep."

"Nor I."

We lay in silence for a time, the fire having long since burned to embers. The room was not cold, but I could feel the weight of the night pressing in, the way it always seemed to do when sleep evaded me.

Holmes moved then, shifting onto his side, closer but not touching. "It is strange," he said, voice quieter than before, as though hesitant to disturb the stillness between us. "To be here. To be back ."

I opened my eyes, finding him watching me in the dimness. His expression was unreadable, but there was something in it, something unguarded, something I had seen only a handful of times in all our years together.

"You never meant to stay away so long," I said, and it was not a question.

He hesitated, then nodded. "No."

I swallowed, my throat tight. "Then why?"

A flicker of something passed over his face, guilt, perhaps. Regret. "It was not safe," he admitted. "For you."

"For me ?" My voice came sharper than I intended. "Holmes, do you honestly believe—"

"You mourned me," he interrupted, tone steady, but his gaze did not waver. "You grieved. I saw it."

I inhaled sharply, an ache settling deep in my chest. " Of course I mourned you." The words came out softer than I intended, but no less fierce. "What else was I meant to do?"

He did not answer.

The silence stretched, and I realized, with no small amount of astonishment, that he had known. That he had seen .

"You watched me," I said, understanding dawning. "From a distance. You were there ."

Holmes's lips parted, but for once, he seemed at a loss for words.

A part of me wanted to be angry. To demand why he had not come sooner, why he had let me suffer, why he had not spared me the agony of believing him lost forever. But another part—one far more exhausted—simply felt the weight of it all pressing down upon me, making my limbs heavy.

I exhaled, closing my eyes. "I do not know what you expect me to say to that, Holmes."

"Nor do I."

And yet, neither of us moved.

The night stretched on, the fire nothing but dying embers now, the edges of the world softened by exhaustion. And still, I could not bring myself to ask him to leave.

"Sleep, Watson," he murmured after a time.

I almost laughed. "Is that an order?"

"A suggestion," he amended. "Though I expect you will ignore it regardless."

I sighed. "Likely."

Holmes huffed a quiet breath, something like understanding, a touch of amusement.

And then, before I could talk myself out of it, I reached out—not far, not much, just enough that my fingers brushed against the sleeve of his shirt. A silent reassurance. A reminder that he was real.

Holmes did not pull away.

Chapter Text

I woke with a start. The room was dark, save for the soft glow of embers in the fireplace. My breath came uneven, my pulse a frantic thing in my throat, and for a moment, I was still caught in the same dream that had plagued me for months.

Falling. Water closing over me. A hand slipping from my grasp. I exhaled sharply, pressing the heel of my hand against my forehead. My skin was damp with sweat.

"You were talking again," came a voice from the other side of the bed. Calm. Steady. Unmistakable.

 Holmes was sitting upright, his back against the headboard, just as I had found him so many nights before. His eyes gleamed in the dim light, and though his face was carefully composed, I could see it in the way his fingers tapped idly against his arm—the way he had been watching.

"You always do," he added, softer now. I swallowed, running a hand through my hair. "I know."

Holmes had told me as much before, in the early days of our shared lodgings, usually with the sort of smug amusement he reserved for observations he was certain I had failed to make myself. "It is hardly my fault," he had once said, "that your subconscious is so appallingly talkative."

But now, his voice held none of its usual sharp-edged teasing. Instead, he was watching me, his gaze sweeping over my face, taking in whatever signs of distress I had failed to mask. And Holmes, damn him, never missed a thing.

"Bad dream?" he asked, though we both knew he already had the answer.

I exhaled. "They’ve been worse since—" I hesitated. "Since you left."

It was the closest I had come to admitting what I had not yet put to words.

Holmes did not move, but something in his posture shifted. The air between us felt heavier, charged with the weight of things unsaid. "Yes," he murmured. "I suspected as much."

Of course he had.

I forced out a breath, scrubbing at my face. "Do you ever sleep, Holmes?"

A familiar smirk flickered at the edges of his mouth. "When it is convenient."

I huffed. "Meaning never."

He lifted a shoulder. "I find it a dull and inefficient use of time."

"Then why are you still here?"

Holmes blinked, as though the question had taken him by surprise. Then, instead of answering, he tilted his head slightly, his gaze drifting toward me once more. "You were reaching for something," he remarked, his voice quieter now. "In your sleep. Just before you woke."

I swallowed. My hands curled instinctively against the bedsheets.

"Falling," I admitted. "In the dream. You were—"

Holmes' expression did not change, but something in his eyes did.

After a beat, he shifted, the mattress dipping slightly with his movement. His hands, so often restless, lay still now, folded atop the blanket. "I am here now," he said, simply. I nodded.

It was not a grand declaration. It was not even an apology. But it was Holmes, in the way only he could be. Holmes did not move. Neither did I.

For a moment, the only sound between us was the quiet crackling of the dying fire and the distant hum of the city beyond the windows. The warmth of sleep had not entirely left me, but neither had the ghosts of my nightmare.

I shifted slightly, rubbing at the back of my neck. "How long was I asleep?"

"Not long," Holmes murmured.

Of course not.

I turned my head toward him. He was still watching me, though I could not quite name the expression in his gaze. The firelight flickered against the sharp angles of his face, casting shadows beneath his cheekbones, and I realized, not for the first time, how exhausted he looked.

"You haven’t slept at all," I observed.

Holmes arched a single brow, the barest smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "You seem determined to make observations more frequently of late, Watson. Have I truly been away so long that you have forgotten my habits?"

I sighed, shaking my head. "No, I remember them well enough."

It was true. I remembered the countless nights I had returned late to Baker Street, only to find Holmes in the same position, perched at the edge of his chair, fingers steepled beneath his chin, eyes alight with some new deduction that could not wait until morning. I remembered the times I had fallen asleep to the scratch of his pen against paper or the sharp, discordant plucking of his violin at odd hours. And I remembered, too, the mornings after his longest cases, when he would finally succumb to exhaustion, collapsing onto the settee in his dressing gown and sleeping for a day and a half.

"You are staring, Watson."

I blinked. "Am I?"

"Indeed."

I exhaled, glancing away. "Well, forgive me for being concerned about your well-being. A foolish sentiment, I’m sure."

Holmes hummed, something thoughtful behind the sound. "Not foolish," he said at last. "Just unnecessary."

I let out a dry laugh. "That is where we disagree."

A beat of silence.

Then, suddenly, Holmes shifted, uncrossing his legs, stretching his arms above his head with a quiet sigh. "Well," he announced, "if you are determined to fuss over my apparent disregard for sleep, I suppose the only reasonable course of action is to remain awake together."

I frowned. "Holmes—"

He turned his head toward me, tilting it slightly in that way of his, like an owl considering its prey. "You were the one who wanted to spend more time together, were you not?"

I opened my mouth, then shut it again. Damn him.

Holmes' gaze flickered, as if reading my thoughts, and he made a small, satisfied noise before shifting to sit cross-legged on the bed. He reached for the book on the nightstand—one of mine, I realized—and flipped it open, scanning the pages with vague interest.

"Go back to sleep, if you wish," he murmured, not looking up. "I have no intention of doing so."

I swallowed, still watching him. It was not unusual for Holmes to go without sleep, nor was it the first time he had kept watch over me in some unspoken, silent vigil. But there was something different about it now. Something I could not quite name.

"You should rest," I said, though we both knew it was futile.

A quiet huff of breath. "An unnecessary endeavor."

"And yet, you're the one who told me to sleep."

Holmes did not respond. Instead, his gaze flickered back to me, sharp and assessing. The dim morning light barely softened the intensity of his stare.

"You talk in your sleep," he remarked.

I sighed, scrubbing a hand over my face. "So you've said."

"You never used to as much."

I stilled.

The implication was clear.

I hesitated before saying, "It's nothing."

A flicker of something crossed Holmes's face, too fast to catch. "A dull explanation, Doctor."

I let out a quiet laugh, though it held no real amusement. "What would you have me say?"

Holmes watched me carefully. "The truth."

I exhaled, looking away. "I've had... more nightmares. Since you left."

Silence.

I braced myself for some remark—some deduction delivered with his usual clinical detachment. But it did not come.

When I dared to look back at him, Holmes was studying me, his expression unreadable.

"I had suspected as much," he said at last. "Though I was not certain if they were merely residual from past traumas or—" He hesitated, just briefly. "—if I was the cause."

The admission surprised me.

I blinked at him. "You?"

"You lost a great deal when I left, Watson." He spoke evenly, as if reciting a fact rather than making a confession. "That is undeniable."

I frowned. "And you believe that my nightmares were caused by—what, grief?"

Holmes tilted his head. "Not grief. Absence."

It was, I realized, the closest thing to an apology I would ever receive from him.

A lump formed in my throat.

"I kept to your room, you know," I found myself saying. "While you were gone."

"I am aware."

"Of course you are." I let out a tired laugh, shaking my head. "And do you also know why?"

Holmes did not answer immediately. But when he spoke, his voice was quieter.

"Tell me."

I looked down at my hands, flexing my fingers against the sheets. "Because it still smelled like you."

Holmes inhaled sharply.

It was quiet, barely audible, but I caught it. My gaze remained fixed on my hands, unwilling to meet his eyes. It was one thing to say it—to admit, out loud, the foolish thing I had done, the foolish comfort I had sought. It was another to face him afterward.

"You found solace in that," Holmes said. Not a question. A deduction.

I huffed a quiet laugh, shaking my head. "If you must put it that way."

Holmes did not respond immediately, and so I continued, voice quieter. "Your absence was... deafening. The flat was empty in a way I hadn’t realized it could be. The silence… it was wrong’’

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Holmes shift. His fingers, which had been resting idly against his knee, twitched, like he meant to reach for something and thought better of it.

"I did try to move forward," I went on, as much for myself as for him. "I attempted to pack away your things. Thought it might help. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I would stand in your doorway, look at the books, the papers, the... disorder of it all, and I couldn’t touch a thing."

Holmes exhaled through his nose. "Because 'everything had its place,'" he murmured.

I let out a breath of laughter. "Yes. You always insisted upon that, despite your refusal to impose anything remotely resembling order."

A pause. Then: "And yet, you disturbed it."

I swallowed. "Yes."

His voice was softer now, thoughtful. "You sat on my bed."

I nodded.

"You read my journals."

Another nod.

"And you slept there."

I closed my eyes briefly before opening them again. "Yes."

Holmes was quiet for a long time. I finally forced myself to look at him. He was watching me, gaze sharp but not unkind. His expression was unreadable, but I saw it—the knowledge settling into him, slotting into place like the final piece of a puzzle he had already mostly solved.

He had known. Of course he had known. But hearing it, spoken plainly, was different.

"It was easier," I admitted. "Being in there. At least for a time."

Holmes considered that. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter, but firm.

"You will not need to do so again." Something in my chest tightened.

"No," I murmured. "I suppose not."

I forced myself upright, throwing off the lingering remnants of drowsiness and pretending, for both our sakes, that the room did not feel stifling with all the things left unsaid.

Holmes watched me in that infuriating way of his, like I was a puzzle he had already solved but was still amused by. I ignored him and swung my legs over the side of the bed, rubbing a hand over my face.

"Tea," I muttered to myself. "I’ll make tea."

Holmes hummed in response but said nothing, which I chose to take as permission.

I moved about the kitchen easily, the ritual of it was simple, familiar. Boil the water, set out a cup, let the leaves steep just so. I had done it hundreds of times. Thousands.

"Only one?"

I frowned. "What?"

He nodded toward my hands, his expression unreadable. "You did not make me a cup."

I blinked down at the single teacup. I hadn't even thought about it. It was automatic, a habit I hadn't realized had changed.

"You never used to drink it unless I forced you," I said, covering the misstep with dry amusement.

"Nevertheless," Holmes murmured, "you always made me one."

I took a slow sip leaning in the doorway of my room to buy myself time, pretending I wasn't shaken by such a simple observation. "I suppose I got out of practice."

Holmes didn't respond, but I could feel him taking that in. I busied myself with the tea, and he stood, beginning to move about the room as though reacquainting himself with it. His fingers trailed along the edge of my desk, pausing briefly on the pile of discarded papers. He stepped around a stack of books near the wardrobe, glanced toward the fireplace. Then, he stilled.

I didn't have to look to know what he had seen.

His voice, when he spoke, was quiet. "You kept this."

I turned my head just enough to see him standing by my bedside table, where a small, framed photograph sat.

A photograph of him. I swallowed, gripping my cup a little tighter. "Yes."

He didn't touch it. Just stared. The silence stretched between us, brittle and uncertain.

"You took it from the box in my room," he said at last. Not a question. A deduction.

"Yes," I admitted.

Still, he did not look at me. "Why?"

I let out a slow breath. "Why do you think?"

Something flickered across his face, too quick to name. He turned from the photograph and resumed his quiet survey of the room.

It was only then that I noticed how many of his things had found their way into my space.

There was a pair of his socks, tucked absentmindedly into the top drawer of my dresser. His violin case sat in the corner, not because I had moved it there, but because I had never moved it back .

Holmes took all of this in, not speaking, not accusing. Just noticing .

I exhaled sharply. "You were everywhere ," I muttered, almost to myself. "Even when you weren't."

A strange smile ghosted across his lips, something soft and knowing. "Yes," he murmured. "I rather suppose I was."

Holmes moved about as if he had never been gone. His sharp gaze swept over the space, cataloging every minute detail, every misplaced object. I could see it—the way his mind worked, the way he took in the signs of his absence, the evidence of his presence lingering despite it.

"Did you find somebody?"

I frowned, shifting where I sat. "Somebody?"

"A replacement for me." He said it so matter-of-factly, as though it were the simplest question in the world. "A new confidant, a new companion—perhaps even a romantic entanglement?"

I exhaled sharply, shaking my head. "No."

He watched me expectantly, waiting.

"I tried," I admitted. "Eventually. I went out, met new people. But... it was difficult."

"Difficult how?"

I hesitated. "I suppose I grew rather antisocial for a time. New connections felt tedious. Hollow. I had little patience for it."

"Ah," he murmured, something wry in his expression. "No one quite measured up."

I shot him a look. "That is an insufferable way to put it."

"But an accurate one."

I rolled my eyes but did not argue.

Holmes shifted slightly, his gaze flickering toward the ceiling in thought. "And Mary?"

I inhaled slowly. "I let her go."

Holmes absorbed this quietly, nodding to himself. His gaze dropped for a moment, skimming over the familiar disorder of my room, inevitably, his sharp eyes landed on the journal.

My breath hitched before I could stop it.

It lay on the desk, half-buried beneath a stack of papers, but not well enough to escape Holmes’ notice. He moved toward it, plucking it up with a kind of detached curiosity, though I knew better than to believe it was truly detached.

“This,” he murmured, turning it over in his hands, “is mine.” He flipped it open, thumbing through the pages. I saw his expression shift almost imperceptibly.

"You've been reading it."

"Clearly." I sighed, rubbing my temple. 

Holmes did not answer immediately. Instead, his eyes darted across the pages, scanning, analyzing, retracing the words he had written. His mouth quirked slightly.

"You have been studying my notes on you."

I exhaled slowly. "It is one thing to know you observe me, Holmes. Quite another to see it laid out in ink, methodical and absurdly detailed."

"Absurd?" His brow lifted. "I would hardly call it absurd."

"You kept lists."

"Naturally."

"Catalogs."

"As any scientist would."

"You wrote down entire conversations of mine—word for word!"

Holmes had the audacity to look pleased with himself. "You are rather quotable, Watson."

I threw up my hands. "That is not the point!"

He turned another page, murmuring as he skimmed. " ‘Watson always sets his teacup down precisely three inches from the edge of the table. The habit appears unconscious.’ Hmm. That is still true, I see." 

"Holmes."

" ‘His handwriting deteriorates when he is tired, but his signature remains precise regardless of exhaustion.’ "

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Good Lord."

"Ah—this one is particularly interesting." He turned the book toward me, tapping a passage with his finger.

I didn't have to read it. I already knew it.

" ‘Watson becomes uncharacteristically quiet when troubled. His hands remain steady, but his breathing changes. He carries his grief in his shoulders, rather than his face.’ "

Silence stretched between us, heavier than before. For all his keen observations, he said nothing of the fact that his absence had made those habits worse.

Slowly, he closed the journal, his fingers lingering over the worn cover. "You ought to have written your own observations on me," he said at last, a wry tilt to his voice. "I would be curious to see how I hold up under your scrutiny."

I huffed a quiet laugh, shaking my head. "You wouldn’t like it."

His lips curved. "Wouldn’t I?"

I scoffed, shaking my head. "You never did care for my writings about you. Why should I think you'd appreciate my private observations any more than the public ones?"

Holmes exhaled sharply, something just shy of a laugh. "Ah, your infamous articles. I had nearly forgotten how you made a legend of me while simultaneously misrepresenting me at every turn."

I snorted. "Misrepresenting you?"

"You make me out to be something larger than life, Watson. Some infallible genius, brilliant beyond mortal understanding. It’s terribly misleading." Holmes gave me a pointed look, then turned back to the journal in his hands. " you do me too much credit. And, more to the point, you do yourself far too little."

I frowned. "Meaning?"

"You frame your involvement in our cases as secondary, when in truth, it was often indispensable." He flipped idly through the pages, though his attention remained fixed on me. "Your deductions were sound more often than you believe. Your instincts have saved us both on more occasions than I imagine you've bothered to record."

I opened my mouth, but he cut me off with a wry glance.

"And no, I do not mean merely in matters of gunfire and brute force, though I am aware that is where your mind would go first." Holmes studied me for a long moment, then tilted his head slightly. "Tell me, Watson, if you had written of me honestly, not as some romanticized figure but as I truly am, what would you have said?"

I blinked at him. "You ask as though I never did." I thought back to the countless pages I had written over the years, the cases, the late nights, the small details Holmes thought I never noticed but which had lingered in my memory nonetheless.

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. "I would have said that you are the most maddening man I have ever known."

His smirk widened.

"And," I continued, "that you are also the most brilliant."

Holmes’ expression didn’t change, but something in his posture shifted, something almost imperceptible, but there. He tapped his fingers against the cover of the journal, considering.

"And what of yourself?" he asked at last.

I frowned. "What of me?"

He gestured vaguely. "If you were to write yourself as you truly are, rather than as some humble chronicler in my shadow, what would you say?"

I opened my mouth, hesitated, then shut it again. I had never given it much thought. I realized, Holmes knew that.

"I suppose," I said finally, "that I would have to think on it."

Holmes nodded, as though this was the answer he had expected.

"Then think on it," he murmured.

And for once, he left the subject alone.