"Unimpeachable (Holmes' POV)" (ACD Holmes fanfic, rated G)
Title: Unimpeachable (Holmes' POV)
Author: gardnerhill
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (ACD)
Pairing: Holmes/Watson
Word Count:
Rating: G
Summary: What's worse than knowing the man you love is in danger? Being unable to come to him.
Author's Notes: Sequel to my 2014 JWP stories Oubliette and Unimpeachable - and as the title implies, it's Holmes' POV of the events in the latter story.
He had not returned. He would have let me know if he’d planned to visit his club after his rounds.
I was disappointed not to have his company at tea; I was steeped in apprehension when suppertime came and went, with only one plate brought up by a distressed Mrs. Hudson. His medical rounds often included a visit to the shabby dwellings of many of the Irregulars, where Watson did what he could for the lads and their families before returning to Baker Street. He could have easily been delayed with a prolonged medical situation, such as childbirth or minor surgery in one of those slums. But crime lurked in those alleys cheek-by-jowl with poverty; wolves in human form who could kill with little compunction.
No data, Holmes, no data.
Perhaps it was ironic that after supper I was engaged in the activity so ably performed by my companion - that I distracted my mind not by reading nor my violin nor bent over my chemicals, but in writing a monograph (on the importance of recognising the patterns created by blood-spatter at a crime scene) - when Mrs. Hudson appeared in the doorway, holding something lying in a nest of brown paper. Her expression - puzzlement, apprehension - instantly alerted me that something more pressing than an order of mutton chops lay in that paper.
“A boy delivered these just now, Mr. Holmes. A delivery boy from one of your pawnshops, I believe. He said they were for me, but I didn’t order these.”
I set down the pen and was beside her in seconds. I looked at what she held.
Clay. Clay for the bricks I must make as fast as ever I could.
Surgical scissors. The very pair that belong in Watson’s doctor’s bag, for I’ve seen them up close whilst he bandaged me with a good scolding (and a kiss afterward - discard, unimportant), and I recognise that little nock in the thumb-hole.
A pawnbroker’s mark scratched in the blade. Frankie’s mark - Frankie, whose shop lies in as foul a location as I could ever wish Watson to avoid. At least six gangs work that area - Clyde / Red Wall / Ship / Dead Dog / River Street / Blood Alley - crimes ranging from assault, extortion, capture for ransom, robbery, murder. Frankie the Fence - to all the world just another poor pawnbroker. Fence in more ways than one, straddles the fine line between the law and the outlaw. Will sell just about anything for the local organisations but will look the other way if one such as I purchases an item covered in clues as well.
On the other blade, a message etched in Wayfarer code, ~~ ~~ ║. River. Street. Frankie’s work again, scratched in with the same penknife.
Conclusion: The River Street ransom gang has Watson.
River Street gang headquarters: the dilapidated manor in the middle of River Street, complete with its own dungeon in which to keep their captives. Current gang boss Jake Willerton, did time for robbery with violence, suspect in a half-dozen wharfside murders but never convicted.
Action: Call Scotland Yard, assemble the men and wagons, pinpoint River Street gang center and lead the attack -
No.
“Mr. Holmes! Mr. Holmes!”
I lifted my head to meet the frightened eyes of our landlady. Only then did I realise that I gripped Watson’s scissors in my right fist so hard that it brought pain, and my teeth were locked together.
“What does it mean, Mr. Holmes?” Her voice was sharp, demanding information from me - as brisk as a slap across the face would have been, and something I needed at that moment without realising it.
What did it mean?
This was not sent as a ransom note nor as a threat to me - Jake would have sent me a coarsely-written letter. This was sent by the fence as clandestinely as possible, sent not to me but to Mrs. Hudson, with no note nor message from the boy. One of the gang had taken Watson’s bag to Frankie, and Frankie had sent the scissors here knowing only I could read the signs. Anyone else would see only a pair of scratched scissors being delivered to an old woman for her sewing basket and not a warning message to her tenant, the captive’s friend and enforcer of the law.
I knew the other law, the one Frankie had to abide by in that neighbourhood; as in the days of Oliver Twist, commandment the first was Thou shalt not peach. Frankie had neither spoken nor written a word of warning, but had still risked his life to send this message only I could interpret.
My heart lay in my breast like lead. If I joined the police in this raid, that would proclaim to all and sundry that someone had talked - and that most likely someone was Frankie, whose body would be found under a pier before the week was out if he was suspected. Police alone could be construed as just a raid on a known site for criminal activity with a good chance of nabbing a good number of them in one spot.
Conclusion: I must not join the rescue of Watson. I had to repay Frankie’s act of courage with one of my own.
“It means…” I cleared my throat, blinked, looked around, and bemusedly noted that the mantel-clock had not traversed a full minute from the moment I had first laid eyes on Watson’s scissors. “That this is now a matter for the police, Mrs. Hudson. A criminal gang is holding the Doctor for ransom and has not yet sent their note.” I very likely explained all the details of my observations to her whilst I made my way to the telephone, but can recall little.
I insisted on speaking to Lestrade only. He was cross (he had been halfway out the door ready to head home, I perceived), but his irritation vanished when I told him. “I know the very spot, Mr. Holmes. Charming locale indeed, and lovely clientele. The lads and I will have Dr. Watson free before midnight.” The amused, deadly tone of voice was a comfort; Lestrade was a friend to Watson and would be scarcely less invested in retrieving my partner than I myself would have been. “Heh! Only sticky bit is telling ‘em which ones can’t go on the raid - every hand’ll be up when they learn who’s being held. We’re very fond of the Doctor down here.”
Moved more than I wished to be during a time when I must think clearly, I spoke sharply. “Tell them nothing - only that you’re after the River Street gang boss. The gang must not know who they hold or they may panic and kill him to facilitate their escape. Act surprised when you see Watson there. Time is of the essence, Inspector. I have given you the information you need. I regret that I cannot accompany you.”
“Too bloody right you’re not - coppers rough up a few of the thugs it’s police business, but if you give them what-for it’s retaliation. I’ll do what you say. We’ll get him back.” Click.
***
I would not revisit the following two hours for anything, not if I was offered the opportunity to solo at the Met before Sarasate for doing so. Mrs. Hudson brought tea and then considerately left me alone to let it grow cold. I could not write a word more on my monograph; my mind did not seem to work correctly. I took up my Stradivarius and bow, and it felt as if I held a pair of sticks.
It is futile to make bricks without clay, to surmise without facts; yet my mind conjured suppositions and named them facts. Should the police reveal themselves too soon, the gang will have time to kill their captive and scatter like cockroaches. Jake’s gang may take Watson to one of a hundred lairs in that rat’s maze of a neighbourhood - and Scotland Yard in the meantime will helpfully trample every piece of evidence that would show me where they had gone. Watson would not let himself be taken without a fierce fight; bruises and contusions heal, but broken bones and skull fractures can be harbingers of death for one whose health has never fully recovered from war injuries. The River Street gangsters have committed such grievous bodily harm on their targets that several have died days after their ransom was paid and they themselves were freed.
I was cold; the fire was cheery, the room was snug, and I was cold. Somewhere in the lumber room of my mind was a vineyard in the south of France under a July sun, warm breeze on my bare arms, laughter and the light heart of a man in love. It must have happened to someone else; someone else had drolly quoted lines from a Shakespeare comedy to his beloved lying in his arms, his mouth as warm and sweet as the grapes eaten together.
If I had never -
No. If I’d merely continued pining for him, and he had stayed silent, this pain would be the same, and would bear the heaviness of regret as well. And there would be no Beatrice and Benedick played out by two men in a French vineyard, now safely stored in my lumber room.
I sat in my chair and steepled my fingers. I closed my eyes so as not to look at the empty chair an arm’s length away. From my childhood I have served You, in Your guise of the answer to Pilate’s question, and in the form of Your faithful handmaiden who stands blindfolded atop the Old Bailey. You give extras that bring goodness. This man’s life has been a rose in mine. I would be grateful, and much more able to bring justice and truth to light in the face of evil, should You see fit to leave this rose unplucked and in my keeping for the immediate future. If, as too many say, You are repulsed by our love, then let us at least be judged together when the time comes.
Enough. I needed to think productive thoughts. Think beyond tonight. Visualise the arrow at the bulls-eye before loosing the string. When you come home, Watson - when you come home - I will see to it that you never travel unaccompanied in those lion’s dens again. For Watson would continue to minister to the pauper lads in the alleys and gutters of London, even as I continued to give them employment; I knew my Watson and loved him for it. Now some of the lads could also earn their keep as his personal guard. Tommy McConnell - Mac, by his preference - would do admirably, small but with a tough streak in him and a sound head on his shoulders; Big George Carter, no higher than my fourth ribs but quick and clever as well, and nothing escaped his notice; Bobbie Knight, the girl in boy’s clothes who swore and smoked more than three of the lads together, was good with a knife...
When the ‘phone rang it was a bolt to the heart. “Lestrade.” My voice was so calm.
“We got ‘im, Mr. Holmes. Worse for wear - they didn’t ‘arf beat him - but he limped out of that den on his own two feet. Which is more than we can say for some of the River Street Gang.”
I sat down. I remembered what breathing felt like. My heart almost drowned out the voice in the earpiece. “His injuries.” Still so calm.
“He says they broke some ribs, and he’s got a beautiful shiner. So does Jake Willerton, by the way, the Doctor’s doing. He was soaking wet and shivering, the bastards doused ‘im with a bucket of river water. Hurt him some, getting him out of that hole - made a noise or two. Wouldn’t let us take him to hospital. Our station doc’s binding him up now and he’s drinking our nasty tea like it’s champagne.”
“I’m on my way.”
Mrs. Hudson’s relief mirrored what my face must look like; I asked her to draw a bath and prepare some hot food whilst I headed to Scotland Yard, a change of dry clothes and shoes wrapped in a thick blanket beside me in the cab.
***
He was the first thing I saw as I walked into the station. Watson sat at a bench in his trousers and shoes, swathed in bandages at his middle. He was draped in a coarse grey blanket and his face was buried in a teacup.
Alive. Beautiful. Mine.
Clay, Holmes, clay.
In pain from the ribs - two of them, judging from the wrapping - and from the binding itself. Lungs unpunctured, thank God. Contusion on left cheek below blackened left eye. Reeks of Thames water, must keep close watch for infection or illness; state of ribs may call for sponge bath instead of a soak. Expression haunted beyond look of pain. “Getting him out of the hole” - those creatures kept him in the house’s oubliette, they might as well have buried him alive. With those broken ribs he could have easily suffocated, especially after being drenched, or gotten a punctured lung. Attempted murder for Jake Willerton, oh how I will make that stick.
He was flanked by police. Only then did I hear and notice Lestrade beside me, and I may have said something complimentary about how he handled the raid, judging from his dumbfounded expression. Watson, huddled in pain and misery, did not look my way yet.
I knew exactly how to gain his attention, and raised my voice to speak in a sharp tone. “Against my will, I am sent to bid you come into dinner.”
The police looked puzzled at that non sequitur.
But Watson looked up and into my face with the same look I gave him, the haunted look gone from his face.
I affected carelessness even as my eyes did not. “Mrs. Hudson has kept your supper warm, Watson, as you are unpardonably late tonight.”
The police chuckled, the odd remark explained.
But my Watson knew what that first statement had been - the most innocuous of Beatrice’s lines to Benedick, in the very middle of a police station. I might as well have walked up to him and kissed him in front of everyone.
Watson managed a smile through the pain. “I will convey my regrets to Mrs. Hudson for her being put out.”
I helped him on with the dry clothes I had brought; his shoulders were cool and shaking, and I felt the tension caused by his pain in my hands. I had to get him home. A bath, a bowl of Mrs. Hudson’s beef-barley soup and a cup of tea would do much to restore his equilibrium, especially if I tended him with all of these. I would re-wrap him properly, giving him more room to breathe. Morphine, just enough to dull the edge of pain and let him sleep.
Lestrade watched but did not assist, for which I was grateful. “Mr. Holmes, you ought to have seen Jake’s face when I told ‘im who he’d nabbed - chalk-white. Seems word is out in the underground that nobody is to touch the Doctor here.”
“And yet I was ‘touched’. I identified myself,” Watson winced as I helped thread his arm into a sleeve; I pretended not to notice. “He didn’t believe me. It seems other victims have tried to frighten him off with the name Sherlock Holmes before. And my bag was gone, with my cards in them - they’d taken the drugs and dumped it.”
A two-edged sword, the fame my Watson has brought me - and this time the edge caught him. “But this time, there really was a wolf among the sheep.”
Watson’s pained laugh at my quip turned into a cough and an intake of pained breath, for which I cursed my wit. He was shaking now, and cold. Jake Willerton wouldn’t hang for this, but I’d see he never saw a sunrise through unbarred windows for the rest of his life.
Lestrade cocked his head, his forehead wrinkled. “Some of the lads could carry you out on a chair - “
“No.” Watson stood, dressed in what I brought him. Only I knew how heavily he leaned on my arm. “I can go home on my own.”
We made our slow way out and down the stairs to the waiting hansom; I helped him in, as I longed to do every time we were out together. We had a relatively smooth ride, but Watson still drew a sharp breath when a wheel hit a pothole; I barely refrained from wincing in sympathy. The driver would be able to hear everything we would have said, so I remained silent. The trip back to 221b was agony for both.
Mrs. Hudson let us in, and her hand flew to her mouth at the sight of my companion’s blackened eye. “Oh my dear!”
“I assure you, Mrs. Hudson,” Watson said, slowly and gravely. “It’s a good deal worse than it looks.”
***
Unfortunately, my dear Watson was correct. No sooner had Mrs. Hudson and I undressed and settled him into my bed (a second flight of stairs unnecessary agony for an invalid) than he began to shiver in earnest despite the heated blankets the landlady and the girl spread over him. He was in no condition for a bath, so I sponged him down with warm water instead; sadly, it did little to slow his shivering, even if it made him smell a good deal better. I also gave him enough morphine to sleep away the pain, “dulling the edge” be damned.
In addition to the ribs and bruises he’d sustained in his fight, being doused with cold filthy water had given him a chill. The poor man was the very picture of misery for the better part of two weeks, groaning in pain after every cough. I watched him, silently begging pneumonia to stay away from this room as if I bargained with one of my informants; pneumonia was dangerous in Watson’s normal state of health, but with his compromised chest it would be surely fatal. Perhaps my patron heard my plea, for Watson began to breathe easier and to totter around the room to attend to his own toilet - perhaps he had enjoyed me bathing him, but was pleased to be reminded that he was no longer an invalid. His ribs mended slowly, but his cold retreated.
I slept in Watson’s room upstairs. When I took up the violin I worked my way through Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan’s repertoire to bring sleep when Watson began to turn down the morphine. I followed the proceedings for the charge against Jake and the other gang members who’d been rounded up. Nearly a month after the attack I was able to pay a visit to Freddie’s shop and to buy back Watson’s untouched Gladstone bag, complete save for the stolen drugs and the scratched scissors. (No doubt that worthy was taken aback by the actual payment I left him over and above the five pounds he’d asked.)
And on the way home, pleased at the look of surprise I would receive for magically producing his dear old doctor’s bag, I purchased one other item for the recovering Watson, which might just strike a light back into those blue eyes: a large bunch of grapes.
Author: gardnerhill
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (ACD)
Pairing: Holmes/Watson
Word Count:
Rating: G
Summary: What's worse than knowing the man you love is in danger? Being unable to come to him.
Author's Notes: Sequel to my 2014 JWP stories Oubliette and Unimpeachable - and as the title implies, it's Holmes' POV of the events in the latter story.
He had not returned. He would have let me know if he’d planned to visit his club after his rounds.
I was disappointed not to have his company at tea; I was steeped in apprehension when suppertime came and went, with only one plate brought up by a distressed Mrs. Hudson. His medical rounds often included a visit to the shabby dwellings of many of the Irregulars, where Watson did what he could for the lads and their families before returning to Baker Street. He could have easily been delayed with a prolonged medical situation, such as childbirth or minor surgery in one of those slums. But crime lurked in those alleys cheek-by-jowl with poverty; wolves in human form who could kill with little compunction.
No data, Holmes, no data.
Perhaps it was ironic that after supper I was engaged in the activity so ably performed by my companion - that I distracted my mind not by reading nor my violin nor bent over my chemicals, but in writing a monograph (on the importance of recognising the patterns created by blood-spatter at a crime scene) - when Mrs. Hudson appeared in the doorway, holding something lying in a nest of brown paper. Her expression - puzzlement, apprehension - instantly alerted me that something more pressing than an order of mutton chops lay in that paper.
“A boy delivered these just now, Mr. Holmes. A delivery boy from one of your pawnshops, I believe. He said they were for me, but I didn’t order these.”
I set down the pen and was beside her in seconds. I looked at what she held.
Clay. Clay for the bricks I must make as fast as ever I could.
Surgical scissors. The very pair that belong in Watson’s doctor’s bag, for I’ve seen them up close whilst he bandaged me with a good scolding (and a kiss afterward - discard, unimportant), and I recognise that little nock in the thumb-hole.
A pawnbroker’s mark scratched in the blade. Frankie’s mark - Frankie, whose shop lies in as foul a location as I could ever wish Watson to avoid. At least six gangs work that area - Clyde / Red Wall / Ship / Dead Dog / River Street / Blood Alley - crimes ranging from assault, extortion, capture for ransom, robbery, murder. Frankie the Fence - to all the world just another poor pawnbroker. Fence in more ways than one, straddles the fine line between the law and the outlaw. Will sell just about anything for the local organisations but will look the other way if one such as I purchases an item covered in clues as well.
On the other blade, a message etched in Wayfarer code, ~~ ~~ ║. River. Street. Frankie’s work again, scratched in with the same penknife.
Conclusion: The River Street ransom gang has Watson.
River Street gang headquarters: the dilapidated manor in the middle of River Street, complete with its own dungeon in which to keep their captives. Current gang boss Jake Willerton, did time for robbery with violence, suspect in a half-dozen wharfside murders but never convicted.
Action: Call Scotland Yard, assemble the men and wagons, pinpoint River Street gang center and lead the attack -
No.
“Mr. Holmes! Mr. Holmes!”
I lifted my head to meet the frightened eyes of our landlady. Only then did I realise that I gripped Watson’s scissors in my right fist so hard that it brought pain, and my teeth were locked together.
“What does it mean, Mr. Holmes?” Her voice was sharp, demanding information from me - as brisk as a slap across the face would have been, and something I needed at that moment without realising it.
What did it mean?
This was not sent as a ransom note nor as a threat to me - Jake would have sent me a coarsely-written letter. This was sent by the fence as clandestinely as possible, sent not to me but to Mrs. Hudson, with no note nor message from the boy. One of the gang had taken Watson’s bag to Frankie, and Frankie had sent the scissors here knowing only I could read the signs. Anyone else would see only a pair of scratched scissors being delivered to an old woman for her sewing basket and not a warning message to her tenant, the captive’s friend and enforcer of the law.
I knew the other law, the one Frankie had to abide by in that neighbourhood; as in the days of Oliver Twist, commandment the first was Thou shalt not peach. Frankie had neither spoken nor written a word of warning, but had still risked his life to send this message only I could interpret.
My heart lay in my breast like lead. If I joined the police in this raid, that would proclaim to all and sundry that someone had talked - and that most likely someone was Frankie, whose body would be found under a pier before the week was out if he was suspected. Police alone could be construed as just a raid on a known site for criminal activity with a good chance of nabbing a good number of them in one spot.
Conclusion: I must not join the rescue of Watson. I had to repay Frankie’s act of courage with one of my own.
“It means…” I cleared my throat, blinked, looked around, and bemusedly noted that the mantel-clock had not traversed a full minute from the moment I had first laid eyes on Watson’s scissors. “That this is now a matter for the police, Mrs. Hudson. A criminal gang is holding the Doctor for ransom and has not yet sent their note.” I very likely explained all the details of my observations to her whilst I made my way to the telephone, but can recall little.
I insisted on speaking to Lestrade only. He was cross (he had been halfway out the door ready to head home, I perceived), but his irritation vanished when I told him. “I know the very spot, Mr. Holmes. Charming locale indeed, and lovely clientele. The lads and I will have Dr. Watson free before midnight.” The amused, deadly tone of voice was a comfort; Lestrade was a friend to Watson and would be scarcely less invested in retrieving my partner than I myself would have been. “Heh! Only sticky bit is telling ‘em which ones can’t go on the raid - every hand’ll be up when they learn who’s being held. We’re very fond of the Doctor down here.”
Moved more than I wished to be during a time when I must think clearly, I spoke sharply. “Tell them nothing - only that you’re after the River Street gang boss. The gang must not know who they hold or they may panic and kill him to facilitate their escape. Act surprised when you see Watson there. Time is of the essence, Inspector. I have given you the information you need. I regret that I cannot accompany you.”
“Too bloody right you’re not - coppers rough up a few of the thugs it’s police business, but if you give them what-for it’s retaliation. I’ll do what you say. We’ll get him back.” Click.
***
I would not revisit the following two hours for anything, not if I was offered the opportunity to solo at the Met before Sarasate for doing so. Mrs. Hudson brought tea and then considerately left me alone to let it grow cold. I could not write a word more on my monograph; my mind did not seem to work correctly. I took up my Stradivarius and bow, and it felt as if I held a pair of sticks.
It is futile to make bricks without clay, to surmise without facts; yet my mind conjured suppositions and named them facts. Should the police reveal themselves too soon, the gang will have time to kill their captive and scatter like cockroaches. Jake’s gang may take Watson to one of a hundred lairs in that rat’s maze of a neighbourhood - and Scotland Yard in the meantime will helpfully trample every piece of evidence that would show me where they had gone. Watson would not let himself be taken without a fierce fight; bruises and contusions heal, but broken bones and skull fractures can be harbingers of death for one whose health has never fully recovered from war injuries. The River Street gangsters have committed such grievous bodily harm on their targets that several have died days after their ransom was paid and they themselves were freed.
I was cold; the fire was cheery, the room was snug, and I was cold. Somewhere in the lumber room of my mind was a vineyard in the south of France under a July sun, warm breeze on my bare arms, laughter and the light heart of a man in love. It must have happened to someone else; someone else had drolly quoted lines from a Shakespeare comedy to his beloved lying in his arms, his mouth as warm and sweet as the grapes eaten together.
If I had never -
No. If I’d merely continued pining for him, and he had stayed silent, this pain would be the same, and would bear the heaviness of regret as well. And there would be no Beatrice and Benedick played out by two men in a French vineyard, now safely stored in my lumber room.
I sat in my chair and steepled my fingers. I closed my eyes so as not to look at the empty chair an arm’s length away. From my childhood I have served You, in Your guise of the answer to Pilate’s question, and in the form of Your faithful handmaiden who stands blindfolded atop the Old Bailey. You give extras that bring goodness. This man’s life has been a rose in mine. I would be grateful, and much more able to bring justice and truth to light in the face of evil, should You see fit to leave this rose unplucked and in my keeping for the immediate future. If, as too many say, You are repulsed by our love, then let us at least be judged together when the time comes.
Enough. I needed to think productive thoughts. Think beyond tonight. Visualise the arrow at the bulls-eye before loosing the string. When you come home, Watson - when you come home - I will see to it that you never travel unaccompanied in those lion’s dens again. For Watson would continue to minister to the pauper lads in the alleys and gutters of London, even as I continued to give them employment; I knew my Watson and loved him for it. Now some of the lads could also earn their keep as his personal guard. Tommy McConnell - Mac, by his preference - would do admirably, small but with a tough streak in him and a sound head on his shoulders; Big George Carter, no higher than my fourth ribs but quick and clever as well, and nothing escaped his notice; Bobbie Knight, the girl in boy’s clothes who swore and smoked more than three of the lads together, was good with a knife...
When the ‘phone rang it was a bolt to the heart. “Lestrade.” My voice was so calm.
“We got ‘im, Mr. Holmes. Worse for wear - they didn’t ‘arf beat him - but he limped out of that den on his own two feet. Which is more than we can say for some of the River Street Gang.”
I sat down. I remembered what breathing felt like. My heart almost drowned out the voice in the earpiece. “His injuries.” Still so calm.
“He says they broke some ribs, and he’s got a beautiful shiner. So does Jake Willerton, by the way, the Doctor’s doing. He was soaking wet and shivering, the bastards doused ‘im with a bucket of river water. Hurt him some, getting him out of that hole - made a noise or two. Wouldn’t let us take him to hospital. Our station doc’s binding him up now and he’s drinking our nasty tea like it’s champagne.”
“I’m on my way.”
Mrs. Hudson’s relief mirrored what my face must look like; I asked her to draw a bath and prepare some hot food whilst I headed to Scotland Yard, a change of dry clothes and shoes wrapped in a thick blanket beside me in the cab.
***
He was the first thing I saw as I walked into the station. Watson sat at a bench in his trousers and shoes, swathed in bandages at his middle. He was draped in a coarse grey blanket and his face was buried in a teacup.
Alive. Beautiful. Mine.
Clay, Holmes, clay.
In pain from the ribs - two of them, judging from the wrapping - and from the binding itself. Lungs unpunctured, thank God. Contusion on left cheek below blackened left eye. Reeks of Thames water, must keep close watch for infection or illness; state of ribs may call for sponge bath instead of a soak. Expression haunted beyond look of pain. “Getting him out of the hole” - those creatures kept him in the house’s oubliette, they might as well have buried him alive. With those broken ribs he could have easily suffocated, especially after being drenched, or gotten a punctured lung. Attempted murder for Jake Willerton, oh how I will make that stick.
He was flanked by police. Only then did I hear and notice Lestrade beside me, and I may have said something complimentary about how he handled the raid, judging from his dumbfounded expression. Watson, huddled in pain and misery, did not look my way yet.
I knew exactly how to gain his attention, and raised my voice to speak in a sharp tone. “Against my will, I am sent to bid you come into dinner.”
The police looked puzzled at that non sequitur.
But Watson looked up and into my face with the same look I gave him, the haunted look gone from his face.
I affected carelessness even as my eyes did not. “Mrs. Hudson has kept your supper warm, Watson, as you are unpardonably late tonight.”
The police chuckled, the odd remark explained.
But my Watson knew what that first statement had been - the most innocuous of Beatrice’s lines to Benedick, in the very middle of a police station. I might as well have walked up to him and kissed him in front of everyone.
Watson managed a smile through the pain. “I will convey my regrets to Mrs. Hudson for her being put out.”
I helped him on with the dry clothes I had brought; his shoulders were cool and shaking, and I felt the tension caused by his pain in my hands. I had to get him home. A bath, a bowl of Mrs. Hudson’s beef-barley soup and a cup of tea would do much to restore his equilibrium, especially if I tended him with all of these. I would re-wrap him properly, giving him more room to breathe. Morphine, just enough to dull the edge of pain and let him sleep.
Lestrade watched but did not assist, for which I was grateful. “Mr. Holmes, you ought to have seen Jake’s face when I told ‘im who he’d nabbed - chalk-white. Seems word is out in the underground that nobody is to touch the Doctor here.”
“And yet I was ‘touched’. I identified myself,” Watson winced as I helped thread his arm into a sleeve; I pretended not to notice. “He didn’t believe me. It seems other victims have tried to frighten him off with the name Sherlock Holmes before. And my bag was gone, with my cards in them - they’d taken the drugs and dumped it.”
A two-edged sword, the fame my Watson has brought me - and this time the edge caught him. “But this time, there really was a wolf among the sheep.”
Watson’s pained laugh at my quip turned into a cough and an intake of pained breath, for which I cursed my wit. He was shaking now, and cold. Jake Willerton wouldn’t hang for this, but I’d see he never saw a sunrise through unbarred windows for the rest of his life.
Lestrade cocked his head, his forehead wrinkled. “Some of the lads could carry you out on a chair - “
“No.” Watson stood, dressed in what I brought him. Only I knew how heavily he leaned on my arm. “I can go home on my own.”
We made our slow way out and down the stairs to the waiting hansom; I helped him in, as I longed to do every time we were out together. We had a relatively smooth ride, but Watson still drew a sharp breath when a wheel hit a pothole; I barely refrained from wincing in sympathy. The driver would be able to hear everything we would have said, so I remained silent. The trip back to 221b was agony for both.
Mrs. Hudson let us in, and her hand flew to her mouth at the sight of my companion’s blackened eye. “Oh my dear!”
“I assure you, Mrs. Hudson,” Watson said, slowly and gravely. “It’s a good deal worse than it looks.”
***
Unfortunately, my dear Watson was correct. No sooner had Mrs. Hudson and I undressed and settled him into my bed (a second flight of stairs unnecessary agony for an invalid) than he began to shiver in earnest despite the heated blankets the landlady and the girl spread over him. He was in no condition for a bath, so I sponged him down with warm water instead; sadly, it did little to slow his shivering, even if it made him smell a good deal better. I also gave him enough morphine to sleep away the pain, “dulling the edge” be damned.
In addition to the ribs and bruises he’d sustained in his fight, being doused with cold filthy water had given him a chill. The poor man was the very picture of misery for the better part of two weeks, groaning in pain after every cough. I watched him, silently begging pneumonia to stay away from this room as if I bargained with one of my informants; pneumonia was dangerous in Watson’s normal state of health, but with his compromised chest it would be surely fatal. Perhaps my patron heard my plea, for Watson began to breathe easier and to totter around the room to attend to his own toilet - perhaps he had enjoyed me bathing him, but was pleased to be reminded that he was no longer an invalid. His ribs mended slowly, but his cold retreated.
I slept in Watson’s room upstairs. When I took up the violin I worked my way through Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan’s repertoire to bring sleep when Watson began to turn down the morphine. I followed the proceedings for the charge against Jake and the other gang members who’d been rounded up. Nearly a month after the attack I was able to pay a visit to Freddie’s shop and to buy back Watson’s untouched Gladstone bag, complete save for the stolen drugs and the scratched scissors. (No doubt that worthy was taken aback by the actual payment I left him over and above the five pounds he’d asked.)
And on the way home, pleased at the look of surprise I would receive for magically producing his dear old doctor’s bag, I purchased one other item for the recovering Watson, which might just strike a light back into those blue eyes: a large bunch of grapes.