The Seventeenth Step - Cauldron: A Love Letter (Part I)

About the characters: they are far too good to be mine.

Rating:  PG-13




Dr. Watson sat next to me in a hansom cab rattling through London in the dull light of evening, making an effort not to tilt his head in my direction often enough that I would take note of his mood. As it ever was for him in those days, it proved a losing battle. I shifted my weight and made a prisoner of the hand which had been lying dormant at my side.

"What is troubling you?"

"Nothing," he answered. "Nothing that can be mended, in any event. I was just thinking of Mr. John Turner."

"I confess that he had passed from my thoughts," I replied. "Not without effort, mind."

I watched as he made an effort to organize his ideas.  The day had been a trying, albeit an arresting one--a complex problem, a compelling drama, and a conclusion less dire than might have been anticipated.  Turner's plight had struck me briefly, as it must have done to any man with a remotely functional heart and mind, but I have always been many degrees further detached from the world than is my companion.  I rely upon this detachment for many things.  I realize, however, that the Doctor cannot feign indifference even if he tries.  It must be a tempestuous existence, I reflected, not for the first time.
 
"I realize that there is nothing to be done about it, but I cannot help but think that an unfortunate mistake of moral judgment made when the fellow was quite young ought not to prove cause for a lifetime of suffering."

"As I said at Boscombe Valley, 'there, but for the grace of God....'"

"I know it. It is all too true. Still, it is small enough comfort to be aware that such unfair fortunes could equally befall any of us." He looked out the window as the featureless brick streets blended into one another.

"Mistakes are all too like their Biblical metaphors--objects thrown into water will ripple whether we desire them to or no. Such laws are akin to the laws of physics. They are not cognizant of individual intentions."

"Universal indifference is hardly a desirable trait in a Deity."

"You never speak of God," I remarked, "and seldom enough even of philosophy."

"It isn't very flattering for you to be surprised by it, for all your depth," he smiled. "I am a very complicated man."

"Yes, you are." I commenced smoothing out a muscle in his palm with my thumb. "Are you coming back with me?"

"I should like to, very much," he answered cautiously. "Anstruther has promised to see to my practice through tomorrow afternoon."

"And you have no other pressing affairs to see to this evening?"

It was once a regrettable habit of mine to avoid mention of his wife at every possible opportunity, perambulating around her existence as if she were a relation who had been irrevocably disowned, save for the rare instances when I was forced to be more direct. Then I took particular care to refer to her in such explicit terms that I fear the deficit on other occasions was more than met.  I had grown so skilled in this quirk of nature that I once managed to spend the better part of two months periodically in and out of Watson's presence without once acknowledging that he was married at all. This practice was one of which he was beginning to tire, although he also knew full well it was hardly fair of him to be irked by it.

"Mary insisted I accompany you in the first place. I look pale, apparently. She told me so."

"How alarming," I exclaimed. 

Astonishing what the merest deliberate mention of her name could do to me, and after years of exposure.  It was an arena in which my legendary detachment failed me utterly.  I am not proud of the fact.

"It is nothing of the kind."

"Are you feeling better?"

"I am fine."

"Thank Heaven.  I am glad to hear it. And yet, as serious a matter as your health may be, surely you detect the compliment to myself. Do you really sicken when away from me?"

"Holmes," he warned me. I ignored him.  He could have expected a sudden descent into a black mood when he mentioned her name, but preferred, stubbornly, to be surprised by what ought to have been rote cause-and-effect. I had once imagined that my impossible situation would grow more possible with the passage of time. Instead, it had grown less.  This development angered as much as it saddened me. Whether I was more angry at myself for a blind fool or at the world for a bitter joke I could not say. It was difficult to be angry at Watson for any appreciable length of time.

"Or is it the other way 'round? Are you perfectly well when at home with the estimable Mrs. Watson, until a fit of evil blood strikes you and you are pulled inexplicably to my side, as if I were some sort of recurring disease?"

"I have made a considerable study of disease. You must concede my superior training in that arena. You are nothing like it."  He offered me a cigarette as he gazed placatingly at me in the near-darkness.  I ignored this as well.

"I am not a detriment to your leading a hale middle-class British life?"

To clarify, I have nothing whatever against the middle-class British lifestyle.  But I loathed the notion of the Doctor living one--without art, without chaos, without tempests or triumphs or eccentricities or passions.  In short, without me. 

"Am I really meant to make any sort of reply to that?"

"Surely if you are suffering from an aberrant condition, it would be wise to have it seen to."

"Aberrance and disease have very little in common," he said, beginning to rise to his own defense.  "You've a capital example of such in your own family; some men join special clubs in order to sit in perfect silence for hours on end."

I made a show of checking my pocket-watch in the fading light through the window.  "And some men join special clubs in order to commit deviant acts with the same gender. I only wish I had taken up with such a person."

His face froze in a mask of hurt as he sat there, evidently trying to work out a way for my statement not to have meant what it very obviously did mean. I make monstrous pronouncements at times, but at the very least I regret them.  After a moment's consideration, I placed an arm around his shoulders and buried my nose in his brown hair. I remained so until his eyes closed and he relaxed back against the seat.

"That was rather horrid of me," I said, making an effort to sound charming.  I don't imagine I succeeded.

"Yes, it was."

"It is my way, you know. I seduce men into my rooms thus. You said you would like to accompany me back to Baker Street, but sounded unsure. I then took the unprecedented step of insulting the fellow I would very much like to take home. It is that shocking counter-intuitiveness which has led to so many past successes."

He rubbed at one temple wearily.  "You have hoodwinked other men into sleeping with you by accusing them of not being homosexuals?"

I laughed against the top of his head. "I have a great many tricks up my sleeve, as you can see."

"They are not all particularly effective," he pointed out.

"No," I agreed.  "What would it take to convince you to come back with me?"

He stared at the floor of the cab, resignation and a sort of mournful culpability chasing one another across his face. "I didn't need convincing. I never do, and you know it.  I was thinking of an appropriate lie."

Dr. Watson lied to his wife a great deal, but he cannot lie to me and has very wisely never tried.  If he had been able to prevaricate with me, it would have been different.  Perhaps I would not have been able to stand it.  Perhaps we would have enjoyed far more peaceful relations.  I cannot say.  I can say for a fact that the ever-present knowledge that I was hurting him merely by being alive was a difficult cross to bear.

"My poor fellow," I said after a pause.  "I'll go over the case notes for an hour with you, shall I?"

"That would be helpful," he conceded.

"I do care about your health, you know," I added softly. He searched within for traces of anger at me--I could see him do it--but as was usually the case, they had paled all too quickly. "I fear that I wish I were the only one who paid it any mind."

"I know," he said. "Mistakes create ripples. I know it all too well."

"My mistakes reverberate as much as anyone's, my boy."

"But mine more than most," he stated flatly. "Mine more than most."

I devoted the remainder of the cab ride to the warmth of his head as it lay against my face.  It would not be there for long, after all.





The drama of the following tale speaks for itself, for there are deaths, intrigues, sacrifices and one miracle.  It was a tragedy in many senses, a morality play in others.  But I shall let my friend begin it, for his other life was the spark which set off Mt. Vesuvius.

Dr. Watson has recently placed in my possession a brown leather diary which contains the daily accounts of his existence just before I disappeared, and bears every sign of having been under near-continuous lock and key.  He said he wanted me to have it.  I cannot think why he wants such a thing, for I spend as little time as possible dwelling upon my life before I died, but I cannot deny it touched me he should trust me so far.  There is no better way of commencing the story than to quote it, for if there is one thing the Doctor can do with verve and atmosphere, it is begin a story.  It is the middle and the end where one usually runs into trouble.  He wrote in 1891:

"If it is unusual for Holmes to make any mention of my wife, it is far more unusual for her to interrogate me regarding my activities while in his company. Mary possesses, in a far more advanced degree than any I have ever seen, the desire to help others be happy, and it is this quality more than anything else which worries me like a chain around my ankle when she merrily desires me to tell her the tales of my latest exploits with 'Mr. Holmes.' She has never pressed me, never acknowledged the slightest suspicion, which maddens even as it relieves me. For Mary is not stupid. She is less stupid even than she is malicious, which is to say not at all. But she seemingly enjoys my accounts, greatly abridged, of my adventures with Holmes so innocently that I cannot but think her an unwitting pawn.  My friend, meanwhile, would prefer a week in the stocks to speaking of my wife at all.  The fires of my guilt thus stoked from both directions, I pass a weary week without even attempting to see Holmes, then succumb to my desires and begin the heinous cycle afresh whenever an unrepentantly demanding telegram recalls me to his side. This downward spiral has continued uninterrupted until last Tuesday morning.  But I've had the most extraordinary news, and I cannot but think that the significance of the event will somehow shake me from my placidly sinful existence. Coincidentally, that very day also happened to merit an unannounced visit from Holmes.

He strode with easy grace into my consulting room last night as I sat at my desk staring before me, wondering what on earth I was to do. That Holmes would be injured somehow was certain; that it would alter our lives together, even more certain.  Most certain of all was that he would find it out one way or another, but these considerations senselessly paled before the image in my mind of how he would react when I broke it to him. Then suddenly there stood the man himself, looking for all the world as if he had not slept more than three hours since I had last seen him a fortnight previous, and had lost five pounds he could ill afford to have misplaced."

Let us take note of three items in particular in the above account.  First, the Doctor liked and admired his wife.  He was not in love with her, but there are far worse marriages in the British Isles.  Second, I was making his days a misery.  And third, logical considerations paled for the Doctor when in my immediate presence.  In other words, he was little able to look out for his own best interests when in my company.  These are salient points.

To resume the narrative, I did indeed arrive as he has written, looking less than my best.

"Holmes, whatever is the matter?" he exclaimed, pushing back his chair.

"Yes, I have been using myself up a little too freely of late," I replied, making my way very slowly around the walls of the room. "Have you any objection to my closing your shutters?"

He stopped me as I advanced and pushed me into a chair. Exhausted as I was, I made less protest than I would have otherwise.  He then turned his back on me and fastened all the shutters himself.  He bolted them as he did so, and drew the blinds.  When he had finished, he returned and stood anxiously before me, his warm, capable hands situated behind his back judiciously.

"You are afraid of something."

"Of course not," I scoffed.

"You never come here. You consider this house Hell upon Earth; what is more, you were treating my windows just now as if they were dire hazards. You are afraid of something," he repeated.  It was a nice piece of reasoning, and I could say nothing against it.

"Well, I am." I shrugged nonchalantly.

"Of what?" he asked, beginning to lose his patience. I cannot blame the dear fellow.  There I sat resembling nothing so much as a fugitive from justice, with an expression on my face of utter calm.  It must have been maddening.

"Of air-guns," I said shortly.

"Air-guns.  Whose air-guns?"

"Colonel Sebastian Moran's, to be precise."

"Holmes, you are bleeding," he said in distress, taking my hand and looking over the battered and bloody knuckles. He made at once for a drawer in which I surmised he kept a number of emergency supplies.  He hates when I am injured, at least until he can determine I'll come right in the end.  I equally hate to see him fuss over me, for I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, but it is very difficult to remain terse with such a person.

"I apologize for calling so late," I murmured when he had returned and set about putting my hand to rights.

He kissed my fingers. "Never mind that."

This was surprising.  I do not know any of them intimately, but I believe that housewives tend not to go in for that sort of thing.  I raised a single brow at him. "Is Mrs. Watson in?"

"She is away on a visit," he replied.  He flushed slightly in spite of himself.

"Indeed! A walk to see the neighbors, perhaps, or to take in the air, or--"

"She is in Hampshire."

"Is she?" I retained my dispassionate tone. "You are alone?"

"Not any longer," he returned dryly. "You are here."
 
"A touch!" I laughed in spite of myself.  Watson is not the cleverest man I have ever encountered, but his timing is impeccable. "And a perfectly factual observation, to boot. I am here."
 
"Holmes, what does this mean?" he asked as he sponged away the semi-coagulated blood from my two burst knuckles.
 
It had been a difficult day.  The day before that had been nearly as bad.  I could not allow my vigilance to falter much, I knew.  But while I watched him cleanse my hand, something like peace and rather more like exhaustion washed over me.  Finding I could not speak for some moments, I closed my eyes.

"It is no airy nothing, as you can see," I reflected at length. I'd no desire to talk of it--any of it.  "When will she return?"
 
He glared at me. "I recall having asked you what this all meant in the not long distant past."

"You are avoiding the question."

"You are changing the subject."
 
I was too tired to argue.  "Do you remember Professor Moriarty of the manuscript you titled somewhat hysterically, 'The Valley of Fear?'"
 
"The criminal mastermind or the mathematics professor? For God's sake, Holmes, tell me what has happened!"
 
"Nothing, as yet. He is making an effort to end my life."
 
He sat back, his impossibly blue eyes wide with concern. "You've completed your investigations? You have him in your power? Or is this a preemptory measure?"
 
"No, not preemptory by any means. Merely the next logical step. They set fire to our rooms--to my rooms," I corrected myself.  It had not been intentional, so I carried on, hoping he had not noticed.  "You may have seen a note of it. No doubt they imagined that either some of the papers or your humble servant were contained within. They were mistaken on both counts, and I am deeply gratified to report that Mrs. Hudson is perfectly sound, and in a ghastly rage over the event."

The moment I told him, I wished I had not.  He had to know, of course.  But he looked quite grey with worry.

"Holmes, this is outrageous," he stated at length, applying disinfectant to my hand. "You must have them arrested."
 
"Not before my plans mature."
 
"Your plans are worth more than your life?"
 
"My plans are very important indeed, and my life safe enough for the time being."

He regarded me pensively as he began to wrap a bandage around my fingers. Distracting him would be no easy task, but I relish a challenge.  "What is she doing in Hampshire?"
 
"She is remaining there for a fortnight," he sighed.  "Holmes, permit us to remain on the topic of--"
 
"That is very intriguing indeed."

"Actually, my dear chap, it isn't nearly so intriguing as the topic of your planned assassination."

"Do I recall your having once told me you had comfortable bachelor accommodations for one? I could fill a vacant peg, with your permission, as you have no gentleman visitor at present. Your hat-stand proclaims as much."
 
"What are we going to do?" he demanded, rising and returning his materials to their case.

I must here interject that, whatever impression has been previously given of our relations during Dr. Watson's marriage to the admirable if infrequently mentioned Mary Morstan, we were very seldom alone.  That is, we were seldom so very alone that Watson and I managed to lose track of the sense of sand through the hourglass.  We had used to spend six or seven hours at a stretch without a word exchanged between us in the sitting room, and the time felt like the barest minute.  This was when we were friends.  Before I had ruined it, and very nearly ruined him.  Before he'd abandoned me in a fit of misplaced morality.  Before my time with him was marked like the minutes before a hanging.  But I had already determined that we were now so very alone that I might make an effort to forget the clock.
 
"I have several ideas," I assured him, rising as well.  I undid the knot of his cravat with two slight tugs, a trick mastered as an undergraduate, and tossed it behind him. I then commenced ridding him of waistcoat and collar.
 
"What are we going to do about the danger you are running?" he asked, stilling my hands emphatically.
 
"We are going to the Continent." It was going to prove more arduous than I had anticipated.  I picked up his clothing and strode toward the staircase which I knew full well housed the guest bedroom although I had never once occupied it.   This maneuver left Watson with the choice of either following behind me and continuing the conversation or remaining alone in his own sitting room. He did not take long to think about it.
 
I reached the top of the stairs and then paused in the hallway.  It was not difficult, by perusing the carpet, to identify the sewing room, and by process of elimination the guest bedroom.  I threw the door open with complete confidence and stepped inside.  I could feel Watson trying to work out how I knew which room it was from behind me, and knew my task was nearly at an end.  Having deduced that the deductions themselves were of no small value when it came to seducing the Doctor, I occasionally indulged in quite inexcusable parlour tricks.

"But where on the Continent?"

Once he had joined me in the room, I shrugged diffidently.  "It is all one to me. How often is this aired?"
 
"Once a week. Holmes, do be serious--can you have led any of them here?"
 
"The men who attacked me are, without exception, both gaoled and unconscious. There are three Yard men guarding your home."
 
"What?" he asked, startled.
 
"I put them in place before I began any of these risky undertakings." This was quite correct; it had been the very first task to which I'd attended. I could not see any of them, of course, for there were quite luckily no windows in the Doctor's guestroom.  Seeing his posture was still unyielding, I began removing articles of my own clothing, one at a time, until the fact that I stood before him clad only in my shirt and trousers prompted Watson to do what I had intended all along--that is, to shut the door.
 
"I am glad to see you making yourself comfor--"

He was not permitted to finish the sentence, I am afraid.  I'd employed my favourite method of interrupting him.  An instant after he had shut the door I had also, quite purposefully I admit, turned the conveniently placed key in the lock.





It may occur to one to question the wisdom of collecting the Doctor and parading him over Europe, making him, effectively, as marked a man as I was.  My simple answer to this is that he was universally known to be my closest confidant, and if Moriarty's henchmen had spirited him away or questioned him or tortured him or any number of other measures, I could do nothing about it if we were on separate land masses.  I am self-confident enough to pronounce he was far safer two feet away from me.  The more complicated answer, of course, is obvious.  But I maintain that the simple answer was more than reason to bring him along.  It was meant to be a mere three-day jaunt, after all.

Running from the world's foremost criminal mastermind ought to have been a harrowing experience from the very outset, but spending two days completely alone with John Watson in Brussels, watching the slow progression of the Senne and sitting in pleasantly situated French cafes under whimsical stone buildings, is hardly the worst event which can befall a person.  Particularly not a person of my tastes.  There was one unfortunate incident upon the Rue Haute when a spot of quick thinking on my part prevented the designs of an agent of evil with a pistol, but I was still in the phase in which danger merely heightened my appreciation.  It was the same for the Doctor, or so I surmise from the attentions he showed me later that afternoon.  Taken all in all, despite the constant low anxiety, it was a perfectly marvelous situation.

We were in Strasbourg when that situation altered.  Strasbourg is a charming city, no doubt, but I had spent that day in such a state of nervous anticipation that I fear Watson had abandoned the project of getting any sense out of me.  I'd wired the London constabulary that morning, and was quite preoccupied wondering whether we should the next day depart for home, and what steps I would be required to take against the gang legally when we arrived there.  We walked through the city arm in arm for several hours, as we were wont to do in London before the appalling interruption of marriage, and when we returned to our snug little hotel, there the telegram lay waiting for me.

I tore it open when we'd reached our room and read it.  Then I said something worthy of a Thames dockworker and threw it in the grate before sitting on the settee with my head in my hands.

"What is it, Holmes?"

"I might have known it," I lamented.

"Whatever has happened, we shall manage."  He sat beside me.  "Has the gang been secured?"

"Oh, certainly."

"Then what is troubling you?"

"Professor Moriarty and Colonel Sebastian Moran have escaped."

He grasped my shoulder, his face grim.  "He of the air-gun?"

"The very same."

Letting out a slow breath, he allowed, "That is bad news indeed.  Of course, when you left the country there was no one to cope with either of them.  I had not expected them to prevail once you had laid your nets, but we can hardly be surprised."

I stared at the window numbly.  I had to find them, of course.  But I'd little doubt finding them would prove the least of my concerns.

"Where shall we go now?" Watson inquired with that blithely courageous look he adopts when we've been dealt a considerable blow.  It is a very endearing expression, but I was far too chagrined to appreciate it.

"I shall continue on to Switzerland, I imagine," I said slowly.

"Then let us pack."  He squeezed my shoulder affectionately and made for his bag.

"You, my dear fellow, are returning to London as soon as is possible."

He stopped, looking back at me in surprise.  "Surely you know I shall do nothing of the sort."

"Allow me to explain something to you," I sighed.  "These men, before I crushed their criminal organization, were after me in an effort to prevent that very occurrence.  They were distracted, laying their traps, battling my own.  They were beset with a thousand equally essential tasks.  There were legions to command, measures to be taken.  Now, my dear Watson, they have nothing.  No distractions, no plans, no empire to run.  There will be one thing on their minds, and one thing only, and that is doing me grave bodily harm."

"And this is the moment you imagine I shall return to London?" he asked with a look resembling amusement.  He stopped to light a cigarette and leaned easily against the mantelpiece.

"Yes, it is."

"Well, you are mistaken.  It does not happen very frequently, but may I say when you do happen to be wrong, you are very wrong indeed."

This would never do, I reflected.  Running from appreciable danger for a finite period is one thing, and dragging one's dearest friend (among other things) through a veritable sea of trouble is quite another.  I assumed a stern expression, and employed the last ounce of truth I thought might make a difference.

"I have no desire that you should accompany me.  I shall be very put out if anything happens to you."

"Nothing will happen to me, and I intend to guarantee the same for you."

"I'll travel much more fleetly alone."

"It is a shame, then, that you will be burdened with a companion."

"I do not know who gave you the impression this was a democracy, but it is not, nor is it a debate or discussion."  I was beginning to see that far stronger measures would be required to convince him to return to the relative safety of England--or rather, anywhere that was not in my immediate vicinity--and I dreaded the tactics I would be forced to employ.  But convince him I would, one way or another.

"And neither is it goodbye, for I'll have none of it."

There was nothing for it.  I shifted tones immediately.  "You are hardly my ideal choice at this juncture, in any event," I continued harshly.  "You will do nothing but hinder me.  If you were blessed with even the most intuitive skills at observation and deduction, you might be of some use, but sadly you are not.  Nor do you possess any other qualities likely to aid in preserving my life."

"I am a doctor, you absurd fellow," he insisted.

"You are a half-pay army surgeon with mediocre qualifications whose experience treating life-threatening injuries lasted all of what?  A week?  Two?  How many lives did you save before you got yourself shot, Doctor?"

"Mocking my army record may be a creative way of convincing me to leave you, but it is not going to work." 

Damn the fellow and damn his serene self-assurance, I reflected.  His voice was strained, but steady.  He threw the cigarette stub in the grate with an air of casual finality that was so endearing I felt my pulse quicken slightly.  I considered briefly whether saving his life was worth being cruel to him and found my answer all too quickly.

"I cannot think why you desire to slow me down so effectively, but doubtless the end result will prove much to your satisfaction."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"I will be dead, and you can return to that paragon of English virtue, Mary Watson, and live your pedestrian little lives in peace.  Go home now, save yourself a week or a month of trouble, and allow me at least to live if I cannot live with you."

He looked as if I was physically hammering away at him.  I very nearly caved at that moment, but clenched my teeth and held my tongue.

"I cannot leave.  You know full well I cannot," he said heatedly.

"Go back to your wife.  At least to her, you can serve some purpose.  I have heard that the marital act occasionally produces the most fantastic results."

"Holmes, please spare me your remarks upon the institution of marriage even if you are to spare me nothing else."

"For the last time, go back to your wife," I growled at him.  "Leave me.  It isn't as if you don't know how it's done.  It will be all the more enjoyable the second time, I assure you."

This remark landed where I intended it to, and his kindly face twisted as if I'd plunged a dagger into him.  How I loathed myself at that moment, but how I enjoyed saying it.  I may well be cold, but I am not cruel.  After his return, I had made every effort not to punish him.  But I lived a miserable half-life at times, and we both knew it.  It was far easier to spit venom at Watson than it should have been, I realized at that moment.  The words had emerged as naturally as breathing.

Still his resolve remained in place, though he had paled slightly and his brows taken on the expression he gets when his shoulder will not permit him to move in any direction without pain.  "I will not abandon you."

"Don't you understand?" I snarled, standing and approaching him threateningly.  "I don't want you here!  I am sick to death of the weakling who is so blind to his own mind that he has spent the last three years married to a fool while sodding his former partner.  Can't you leave me in peace?"

He had placed a stalling hand on my chest when I stalked toward him, and as he gazed at his own appendage holding me back, his eyes slowly closed with the weight of my abuse.  At long last, without opening them, he spoke once more, his voice more stricken than I care to recall.

"If you wanted me gone, you would simply have left me.  I am not capable of tracking you.  Your performance was excellent, I assure you, and no more than I deserve.  You ought to be sick to death of me."  He looked up at me.  "I am sick to death of myself.  But you and I are going to see this through.  After, when we return to London, you may rail at me however you like, or leave me if that is the only solution.  But if you truly wish me gone, you are going to have to disappear, Holmes.  I will not depart of my own volition."

What was I to do?  I held him to me fiercely and silently cursed myself for the imbecile that I was.  I am in entirely over my head where John Watson is concerned.

"How could I have been more convincing?" I asked at length, my fingers in his hair.

"If you actually desired to be alone at this moment, you would be alone," he repeated.  "I am no match for you."
 
It occurred to me that teaching the Doctor logic may not have been entirely in my own best interests.  Of course, I could not take full credit--he was always shrewd enough on his own.

"You are the most damnably stubborn wretch I've ever known.  Why can you not listen to reason?  Now I've upset you, and all for nothing."

"I shall survive it, I imagine.  I am an old campaigner, as well as an old friend."

"I am sorry I called you a weakling."  I turned his face up and I kissed him.  How the devil I was to get us out alive, I could not even think.  But I was so relieved it hadn't worked, and so touched by his loyalty, I was very nearly happy.

"Yes, that was one of your more unforgivable moments," he conceded.  "I must remind myself that you were making an effort to protect me.  That is what you were doing, is it not?"
 
"That is what I was failing to do, certainly."
 
"It is not so ignoble a goal," he granted.  "For that, as well as for several other things,  I love you."

"You love a coward," I whispered.  For he had been right all along.  If I sincerely wished to protect him, why had it not dawned on me simply to depart?

"I love the best and wisest man in England," he said.  "Come along--help me gather our things."

And so we packed our bags, left in the night, and fled to Basle.  The coward and the weakling, running for their lives.




Switzerland was rather less beautiful than it could have been, as I spent much of our time scanning crowds, taking subtle precautions, and attempting not to picture one or both of us lying cold in a wooden box.  Still, I am forced to admit it was highly invigorating.  We hiked over snow-drenched trails, stopping at rustic inns to seize cups of hot tea between our fingers, watching as the first buds bloomed below us in the valleys of the Alps.  We had been traveling for nearly a fortnight all told when we approached the village of Meiringen, and my life as I knew it came to an abrupt halt.  It was a day I am exceedingly reluctant to recall, but one cannot leave out key elements of plot due to mere distaste.

We had been largely silent that morning, preferring to walk side by side in the crisp mountain air.  Dr. Watson drank in the atmosphere of springtime, surprised on occasion by a profusion of young wildflowers pushing up through inhospitable ground, appreciating his immersion in nature even as he watched me failing to appreciate it.  I, in turn, having been newly energized by the inevitability of the challenge, strode forward determinedly.  I could take our foes down still, I was sure of it.  And once I had, we would return home.

That notion struck me with a very unexpected pang of dismay.  Since our relations had altered, I had never once possessed him for such a lengthy, continuous period.  I was growing quite accustomed to waking up with a flood of warm satisfaction, his leg over mine or my arm tucked about his waist.  We would return home, he to his wife and I to my dead fireplace. 

"Have you ever wondered what it would be like to keep going?" I asked without thinking.

Dr. Watson turned to look at me quickly, for I had not spoken a word for over an hour.  "Whatever do you mean, my dear fellow?"

I berated myself silently.  I already regretted the question, but I could not very well back out.  Choosing instead to make light of it, I selected my words carefully.  "It is nothing of importance, my boy.  It is merely an intriguing proposition: what would befall us if we spent a year abroad?  Or five?  Or failed to return, substituting wanderlust for stability?  It is the merest fantasy, of course, but not devoid of interest.  Lands in which fountains of youth spring and rivers flow with gold are not very likely either, but they are still considered admirable topics for reflection."

My companion remained silent, his eyes upon the path we were treading.  I was greatly relieved.  I had never once asked John Watson to abandon his wife in favour of his friend for two very excellent reasons.  One, he could say no.  Two, he could say yes, and he would no longer be the paragon of decency I admired so wholeheartedly.  The former would wound me bitterly; the latter would likely bury us both.

When we had reached the town and then the most suitable inn, I engaged us a room under a pair of false identities.  There were two beds, the proprietor assured me, so that we might both rest in perfect comfort.  I was duly appreciative of this consideration. 

After I turned the heavy key in the lock, I dropped the satchel I had been carrying with a sigh of relief.  I had wished for a likely place to think, and the comfortable, well-appointed little room seemed ideally suited.  Then I felt Watson's arm twining round my waist.

I locked my fingers with his.  "Which bed would you prefer?  The smaller, so as to repose in peace?  Or the larger, which entails an element of risk?  I intend to spend five or six hours smoking, but that does not imply you will pass an uneventful night."

"The larger then, certainly," he replied.  "I am a sporting man.  Holmes, may I speak with you for a moment?"

"I would be honoured," I said absently, digging through my pack to find a small black pipe and a pouch of tobacco.

"The topic concerns the proposition you made me earlier, when we had nearly reached the village."

Having located the pipe, I shifted my attention to the Doctor's eyes.  They were deeply careworn, and no less apprehensive.  They were not unlike the lakes we had observed at a distance, shockingly blue and mist-obscured.  Stuffing the pipe with shag, I shook my head.

"There is nothing to discuss.  The remark was not made under due consideration." 

"I understand that," he said gently.  "However, due consideration or no, I feel I must speak with you upon the subject."

"Whatever for?" I protested irritably.  "I am infrequently given to flights of romance as it is, so it seems most uncivil to hold me to the one statement I've made in weeks which was free of reflection."

"I know, my dear fellow, but free of reflection or no, you meant it all the same.  Did you not?"

I narrowed my eyes at him, for something about his pressing me seemed very disquieting.  "I should drop it if I were you."

"But I would like nothing better than to travel the world with you," he said hoarsely.  "That is what I must speak to you about.  It is not a viable proposal."

My unease was rising, for I had only hitherto survived as Watson's paramour by failing to press any of the points which worried me like a stone in my chest.  I abhorred thinking of his other life.  I loathed that I saw him three and four times in a month.  But of the matters which needled me incessantly, I very practically kept my peace.  He was clearly about to discuss one of them.  He or I would give ground.  The other would take it.  The precarious balance would be upset.  One would be slighted, the other appeased.  It was bad all round, and I gripped the stem of my pipe the way I clung to ignorance and indifference as the only sure way to keep him.

"Not only was it not a viable proposal, my dear chap, but it was never a serious proposal.  If you are finished, I should like a little peace."

"You don't understand," he said.  His hands were shaking ever so slightly, which caused a cold sensation to strike my spine.  "I love you more than anything.  But there is a very good reason why I cannot simply run away with you."

"Yes, you are married.  I assure you that I had already noticed," I snapped, growing unexpectedly impatient.  My saying it was better than him saying it, after all.  I sat down behind the desk.  It was an animal's instinct of placing a large, solid object between itself and danger.  Smoking would be a comfort, I thought, and proceeded to strike a lucifer.  "If that is the confession of which you must purge yourself, I grant it is a considerable one.  I will have you back in London with the week, I assure you."

"My wife and I are expecting a child."

I ceased the effort to light my pipe and simply held it in my hands.  Words escaped me for a time.  I simply could not think of any.

"Congratulations," I said at last.

Here I must make a small detour and confess something which I have never confided to any living creature.  It is not for nothing that I spent years schooling my mind into strictly regimented obedience to order, for when it gets away from me it is a far worse experience than I can easily describe.  Such interludes happened often when I was young, and it was a supreme effort to train myself to keep my own imagination under control.  As a child, it seemed as if I was seeing visions--whether they were based in practical fact, such as looking at the flour upon the floor in the kitchen and suddenly hearing the argument between the cook and the scullery maid, or something as absurd as waking in the night absolutely assured that not one but several highly aggressive hydra were stalking our grounds, the results were the same.  I could see nothing and hear no one until the vision had ended, and due to one or two trying but irrelevant circumstances, the monsters were more frequent visitors than I should have liked.  Grecian phasma notwithstanding, it is a terrifying thing when your mind gets away from you, and that is precisely what happened immediately after I congratulated the Doctor.

The first image flooded my brain with the force of a supernatural torrent: Watson was in his consulting room, at his desk, light from the window striking the papers he was shuffling.  His child had been born; I could not see the infant, but I knew it all the same.  The maid poked her head round the door to inform him that his wife was taking tea, and to deliver a telegram I had sent to him.  When he saw what it was, his brows tilted curiously as a fond smile touched his lips.  He looked pensive, tapping it against his palm for a moment.  He opened and read it.  Folding it in half twice, he slowly dropped it in the dustbin.

No, I thought forcefully, and blinked my eyes.  The vision was gone.

"Holmes, are you all right?" he asked me.

Now I was walking down a street in London on an errand having to do with a case.  I was focused, purposeful.  Turning a corner, I suddenly found myself nearly face to face with the Doctor, who was accompanied by a young lad of seven or eight.  His hair was flaxen like his mother's, but his face was the perfect mold of that which evidenced a startled smile at the sight of me.  Watson's eyes shone for a brief moment, and then dimmed when he remembered himself.  At first he merely assumed an air of pleased surprise, but a flash of panic crossed his face when he glanced at the observant young boy next to him, hoping he had seen nothing, or that if he had seen something, it would not occur to him to question his father about it.  He nodded at me and pressed my hand, and then they both walked away.

Stop this, I ordered myself.  My heart was pounding.  All was lost, and I knew it.

"Of course I am all right.  I am well aware of the many miracles of the human anatomy.  It isn't as if I assumed...."

I lost my train of thought.

I was in the drawing room of Watson's home.  I was standing before Mary Morstan Watson, whose plain, genial, expressive little face was twisted as if it had been made of wax and I had melted it.  She was all in black, a colour I had never once seen her wear before that day.  She insisted on knowing how it was done.  I wanted to comfort her, but I stood there as if carved out of wood.  She needn't worry, I told her.  She needn't be anxious about her home, her finances, the practice.  I would see to everything.  But she would want no assistance of mine.  I could hardly blame her, under the circumstances.  She would sell the house, sell everything, and begin a new life far from London.  As I walked out into the cold afternoon air, I knew I would never see his child.  I was nothing to them.  Worse than nothing.  I could send them funds, perhaps, if they were not returned with a cold note of thanks and a dismissal, but I would never know what his boy or girl looked like.  I adjusted the mourning band tight against my arm. 

No, no, no, no, ten thousand times no.

"Holmes, please say something.  Anything you like, only speak to me."
 
I looked down at the pipe in my hands and realized I had snapped the thin stem in half.  I dropped it and closed my eyes once more.

"I would not have informed you this way, so suddenly and without warning, but when you spoke of us leaving..." he said.  He looked relieved to have told me, wracked with sympathetic concern, but not ashamed of the news.  I was glad of that, though I didn't know it at the time.

He would live an extravagantly fuller life without Baker Street, without the burdens of a twisted passion which stabbed as often as it soothed him.  He would live in every way better without me, and I would prefer to die than to be without him.

There was a thought.

"You are right, of course.  You must go back to London eventually.  Sooner rather than later, I should think."

Although I could hear my own voice, I had no idea why it rang out so icily cold.  It often sounds so, even to me.  But not generally when I am speaking to the Doctor.

"Well, naturally, my dear fellow--we will be through with this blasted business soon, and back in Baker Street.  But that has nothing to do with what I've just said to you."

"I will be back in Baker Street," I corrected him dully.  "Alone, or so I imagine."

"Not alone," he said firmly.  He was very pale.  A part of me pitied him. 

"I suppose Mrs. Hudson will be there."

He clenched his hands briefly in frustration and chagrin.  It struck me that I was not making it any easier than he'd imagined I would.  "I will join the two of you as often as I can, if you will allow me."

"Very well.  As you wish."

"I do wish it," he protested, flushing.  "I have always, save for one grave misjudgment, desired to be near you.  But I have been given to understand it is also as you wish, Holmes.  If you crave my company, it is yours for the asking."

"But not mine for the taking." 
 
I wondered if it were possible to feel worse than I did at that moment.  Then I realized that I had been quite unbearably unhappy for a very, very long time.

"You are right to blame me for this, but it has happened nevertheless and we will try to make the best of it." 

"Forgive me, my dear fellow," I murmured, "but the best of it isn't any damn good."

I managed to startle him with that observation.  He drew a deep breath.  "Holmes, you know the way I feel about you.  If I hadn't told you, you might have deduced it from the mere fact of my being here.  Please believe me when I tell you that I knew you would be deeply affected by this news."

"Not as affected as you are going to be.  How would you prefer I introduce myself to the child?  As an odd student you once took digs with would be best, I suppose."

"Holmes, please--"

"My dear fellow, it would behoove you not to mark me just now.  In fact, I suggest that you feign ignorance I am even here."

"Why must you be this way?" he demanded.  He was asking about my hatefully clinical tone of voice, not my actual speech.

"Distant and misanthropic?"  The wind rattled the shutters outside our rooms and set the tree boughs dancing.  I stood up and retrieved my overcoat.  "I am always so. I manage to disguise it from time to time."

"That isn't true.  You are charming and sympathetic, at least one or two days in the week."  He attempted to smile at me, but I was miles away from him already.

"Yes, I am," I hissed.  "Coincidentally, you are in my presence one or two days in the week.  Doubtless there is some hidden connection.  Be that as it may, I am terribly sorry to be acting the part of the slighted courtesan--you must excuse me for it.  I cannot imagine anything more tedious, but after all it comes of long study.  It is no easy affair being John Watson's literary muse by day and kept concubine by night."

"Stop it," he snarled at me.

"Why?  I should not like to.  I am quite admirably suited to both."

"Can you truly imagine I don't care what it is like for you?" he cried.  "It is forever occupying my mind.  I eat, sleep and breathe it, and on your behalf."

"How touching," I said frigidly.  "Is it on your mind while you are pleasuring your wife?"

I regretted it nearly the moment I said it.  Nearly.  Not precisely, however.  I turned away from him.

"Where are you going?" he asked, masking his distress as best he could.

"I have one or two little matters to attend to, if you would consent to remain here."

I had nearly made my escape when he reached out and grasped me by the hand.  He pulled me closer to him, and I allowed it.  His hands were cold, which was unusual, and there were deep circles under his eyes.  I knew why I had not deduced it, of course.  Watson was an anxious wreck, had been so for the majority of our journey, but I had imagined he was so haggard because armed men desired to murder us in cold blood.  That there could have been something else on his mind never even occurred to me.  I placed my hand at the back of his neck and kissed him briefly.

"I never meant to hurt you," he whispered. 

I believed him.  After all, he cannot lie to me.  I broke away from him and opened the door.

"I know," I said.  "But you've quite a talent for it all the same, haven't you?"
 




I cannot recall very clearly what I did that afternoon and evening.  I determined to check up on one or two snares I had set in place as we traveled, to determine how far ahead of trouble we were.  There were telegrams waiting for me at the office and I retrieved them; Moriarty, Moran, and perhaps other agents would catch up to us the next day.  This news, taken in stride with other news, was almost heartening.  I sat in a dingy little public house of sorts over several glasses of whiskey and forced my brain back into submission.  I wandered about outdoors after that, without object, simply leaving prints in the snowy woods.  The sky was clear and my tracks sharp.  I could not have lost myself out there, no matter how hard I tried.  I made a number of decisions about the way I would act when presented with several scenarios regarding our enemies.  I made still more decisions regarding my friend.  When I heard the distant bells toll nine, I had finally erased the feeling of the mourning band strapped around my arm.  By this time it was dark, and on my way back through the town, I stopped by a chemist's just as he was closing up shop.  I purchased a vial of morphine and a tiny syringe and put them to their ultimate use.  Throwing them away immediately after, I returned to our lodgings and made my way back to our room.

There were no lights.  I found my way in the dark.  Watson had taken the larger four-poster, the smaller cot unoccupied.  I stood over him for a time, my head finally succumbing to waves of otherness--it was not peace, not happiness, it never had been, but neither was it pain and it was that otherness I had needed so very badly.  When he noticed I was there, he looked up at me.  Then he pulled me down into his arms.

He didn't say anything.

What was there to say?