Fic: Watson's Watch
Title: Watson's Watch
Author: Garonne
Words: 3600
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Holmes/Watson, Mary/Watson
Note: Characterisation à la Guy Ritchie
Summary: Holmes and Mary understand more of Watson's secret fears than he himself. Angst all round.
Holmes, speaking to Watson in 'The Sign of Four':
"Subject to your correction, I should judge that the watch belonged to your elder brother... He was a man of untidy habits - very untidy and careless. He was left with good prospects, but he threw away his chances, lived for some time in poverty with occasional short intervals of prosperity, and finally, taking to drink, he died. That is all I can gather."
.. .. .. ..
Watson stirred in the bed beside me and I reached out quickly to pull the ashtray on the bedside table closer to me, before he should wake and see the cigarette ash I was carelessly letting fall. In doing so I dislodged a few bullets and a box of drawing pins, which fell to the floor with the most appalling clatter.
"What the devil, Holmes?" Watson muttered, not emerging from under the bedclothes. Only the back of his blond head was showing.
I stroked a finger over the ticklish skin at the back of his neck, not bothering to answer. He wriggled a little but did not move away. I went on playing with the wispy hairs his barber had missed and reflecting on the events of the previous day. Blackwood was dead, Watson was here and I knew I should savour the moment. Unfortunately my mind is not so constructed as to simply revel in the present; I cannot help but extrapolate into the past and, in this case, the future. It is, after all, my profession.
Watson turned over onto his back and looked up at me, his face breaking into a lazy, contented smile.
"I had forgotten how ridiculous you looked in the mornings," he said, reaching up to tug at my hair, which was perhaps somewhat disarrayed. He laughed as my lips tightened in indignation. "Did I say ridiculous? I meant gorgeous."
He inched himself higher in the bed so as to be able to nip at the underside of my jaw. "I don't feel like getting up just yet," he said, his hand drifting down beneath the bedclothes. "If you don't have any objection, that is, old chap?"
"On the contrary. I too would rather not cut short your final time here."
He stiffened and the hand on my leg froze. I could have bitten my tongue off, but the act would have been futile. The mischief had been done.
"Holmes - "
Resigning myself to the inevitable, I slid out from under him and reached for my waistcoat, laid over the back of the chair. From its pocket I drew the small box I had been carrying around since Watson lost it.
He recognised his engagement ring from the box alone and raised his gaze slowly to meet mine. His eyes were troubled. "Holmes, don't spoil this morning."
I wondered how he could ever have imagined it would not be spoiled, now that the euphoria of concluding the Blackwood case had died away and all that remained was the ever-present, ever-oppressive truth that this would be the last morning he spent in my bed, before his imminent elevation to the status of a virtuous, respectable, betrothed man.
I said coldly, "Did you truly think - perhaps I should say fear - that I hoped you would bend your morals for me? I know you don't think that highly of me."
His lips thinned, but he held back from speaking.
I ought to have held my own tongue, but I could not help but add, "I doubt that righteous heart of yours could ever fall enough in love with anyone for that."
His face turned stony and I knew I had gone too far. He slid out of bed, his back turned to me, and began to gather together and don his clothes. I watched the Watson only I was ever permitted to see gradually disappear, suffocated under layers of linen and Harris tweed. When he turned back to face me even his collar and tie were already in place.
I saw his gaze dip briefly to my lips and I knew the same farewell gesture was in his thoughts as in mine. I willed him to relent, but he slipped the ring into his waistcoat pocket and bid me good day in a subdued voice.
"You're the one leaving me, Watson," I cried plaintively, but only when I knew he was already out of earshot.
The fact was, I knew Watson's true motive for marrying, which I believed even he himself had never fully understood or acknowledged in his own mind. I had never confronted him about it; that would have been the height of cruelty. Whatever he may occasional assert, I am never unnecessarily cruel. Not to him.
.. .. .. ..
Mary
I admit to experiencing a certain fluttering sensation in my chest, when I found myself with John Watson on his knees before me, ring in hand. I attempted to suppress the feeling, for this was no time for girlish sentiments, but rather for a cool head and frank speech.
"Stand up, John," I said.
He did so, his face collapsing into a mixture of surprise and awkward confusion.
"I do beg your pardon, Miss Morstan, for my presumption and - "
I cut him off with a kiss. It was our first and I must say I rather enjoyed it. It occurred to me that he had certainly been practising a great deal on Holmes over the past few years, but I immediately suppressed the thought.
"Of course I'll marry you, John," I said as I stepped back, leaving him staring at me in bewilderment. "But we must be absolutely honest with each other, and I don't wish to start off with empty gestures - " I waved a hand at the spot where he had been kneeling, " - when your heart's not fully in them."
"Mary, I assure you, my sentiments are genuine and - "
"And your intentions honourable? " I completed with a smile. "I know."
He cleared his throat. "Damn it - I mean dash it all! What I meant to say was, I love you."
It was wonderful to hear and I am only human. I decided that a serious talk on the subject of Mr Holmes could be postponed for a later occasion.
"And I you, John." On impulse I caught his hand and he pulled me in for another kiss.
Later that morning I suggested dinner with Mr Holmes that very evening to celebrate. John was reluctant at first and I had to suppress the phrase 'a lovers' tiff' that came immediately to mind. Indeed I was none too keen on the idea myself, for seeing the two men together was something I generally avoided. Watching John watching Holmes watching John was not particularly flattering to a girl who knew she could never hope to provoke such looks. I would call the sensation painful, but I had long since realised that a light-hearted, level-headed attitude was the only way to avoid heartbreak in the situation in which I found myself.
I pressed the issue of dinner, however. I wanted an opportunity to exchange a few words with Mr Holmes. What is more, I wanted to see John and his friend together one more time, to reassure myself that it was an experience I could bear with equanimity. Of course I trusted my John, but he could only control his deliberate actions, not the involuntary gazes and gestures from the depths of his heart. Moreover, I knew perfectly well that our wedding day would not be the last we saw of Mr Sherlock Holmes.
.. .. .. ..
Holmes
Miss Morstan and I carried the burden of the dinner-table conversation, Watson remaining unusually silent. I believe he had not expected me to accept the dinner invitation, but there is a certain masochistic streak in me that insisted on seeing the happy couple flirt disgustingly.
In the event, there was little of that. Watson ate silently and Miss Morstan kept up a surprisingly well-informed conversation with me about the situation between Bismarck and the German Kaiser.
After the cheese Watson went to wash his hands, as the euphemism goes, leaving me alone with his fiancée.
"I don't believe I have congratulated you, Miss Morstan," I said lightly.
She looked straight at me. "I feel I should rather be apologising to you, Mr Holmes."
I was so startled I almost displayed the emotion. In lieu of that near lapse, I flicked an invisible piece of dirt from my sleeve. "Indeed? What a peculiar thing to say. Am I supposed to be deducing why exactly you would wish to apologise to me, for I confess I haven't the faintest notion."
I was certain I detected a trace of impatience in the gesture as she dropped her napkin onto the table. She waited a moment before speaking. "You do know why John wants to marry, I am sure, Mr Holmes. The true reason, I mean."
She looked up into my eyes as she finished speaking and I was quite sure she was not speaking of her own charming personality, but of the same hypothesis I entertained. It was not pleasant to think that, in this at least, she knew Watson as well as I did.
"So you are now an amateur psychologist, Miss Morstan?" I said coldly.
"No more than you are."
"At least I don't apply my knowledge of the human mind to the entrapment and seduction of Dr John Watson."
She glared at me, an intense blush of anger rising in her cheeks. Fortunately for her glass of wine and my white shirt-front, Watson returned at that moment. It was not, however, before his fiancée had had time to snap: "You are a liar, Mr Holmes."
The first explanation for her words that occurred to me seemed inconceivable, but I had no time to reflect on the matter, for Watson was already sitting down, making a remark about the lateness of the hour.
Twenty minutes later we set Mary Morstan down from the cab at her employer's house and I was forced to endure the goodnight embrace. I did not turn away; indeed I found a certain morbid fascination in the sight.
Watson climbed back into the cab, instructing the driver to take us to Paddington. It was there that he had set up his new practise, in the house he was preparing to receive Mary. I knew the mere sight of it would turn my stomach.
"Come back to Baker Street," I said on impulse.
Watson looked at me with undisguised suspicion.
"Merely for a drink, old man, I promise. It's only ten o'clock, you know." I could see he was close to conceding and added, "As your best man, surely I should have some familiarity with your wedding plans? What better time than this evening to enlighten me?"
He looked up sharply.
I flicked open my coat and pulled out a handkerchief, not looking at him. "I am your best man, I presume?"
I could feel him relax in the seat beside me and when he spoke I knew he was grinning. "Of course you are."
Our sitting room in Baker Street was largely occupied by certain experiments I was conducting, but I managed to find two armchairs and dragged them to the fireside, where Watson was stoking up the fire Mrs Hudson had left for me.
"Port?" I said, as he took a seat
"Thanks." After a moment he sat upright, frowning. "That's my bottle! From a grateful client - I remember it distinctly."
"Yes, it was rather kind of you to leave it here," I said smoothly, handing him his glass.
He sank back into his chair, muttering something about having spent hours wondering about the bottle's whereabouts. His grin belied his words, however, and my own matched it.
We sat by the fire and talked about the usual nonsense: the aftermath of the Blackwood case, international politics, amusing anecdotes from Watson's surgery, my investigations into the criminal applications of macramé. We laughed a great deal and the level of port in the bottle gradually fell.
I could not keep my eyes from Watson's face, flushed as it was by the heat of the flames, his hair glinting golden in the firelight. I began to feel that this had been a much more foolish idea than it had initially seemed. Watson had often called around to Baker Street since his official departure, though until the previous evening he had never stayed the night. But the previous visits had all taken place in daylight, not in suggestive half-light, with Watson's collar undone and his eyes sleepy and inviting.
It was difficult to watch him with equanimity, surrounded as he was by the relics of our life together: the couch on which we had first embraced, the bookcase against which I had leant on more than one occasion while he wrapped himself around me and fumbled with my braces, the armchair that, as we had discovered, fitted both of us snugly if we were sufficiently entwined -
Watson stood to pour us both another drink. Fatigue and his previous intake combined to render him clumsy and he upset one glass whilst pouring the other. I caught the glass and the bottle, he caught my hand and before we knew it we were practically in one another's arms.
His lips opened and I could feel his breath on my cheek. "Holmes," he murmured.
I turned my head so that we were facing. His eyes were clouded by a painfully complicated mixture of reluctance and desire. Not for the first time, I wished I could not read his features with such ease. I closed my eyes, but I could still feel the heat of his body against mine, the smell of his shaving soap indecently close. I could already imagine the taste of port and tobacco he would have. His hand was resting on my arm. He had only to clasp it tighter, to pull me closer, and I knew we would both surrender.
I gave him a hearty clap on the shoulder and stepped away. "Clumsy of you, dear man. That was a damned good vintage you almost threw away."
Watson had not moved. "Holmes," he murmured again.
I froze, captivated by the sound of a certain note in his voice, one which held very particular associations for me.
He looked dazed and unhappy, but the sight only roused my ire. How dared he come back here and talk to me thus, when it was he who had gone and engaged himself to another?
I slammed my glass down on the table with such force that the contents splashed out, staining the pages of an open notebook red. It was a particularly nice notebook, a gift from Watson. I noted this with one part of my mind, while another studied his pale, set face. No rational part of my brain seemed to be in control of my vocal chords, however, for I heard my own voice say, "I wonder you can stand there and speak to me in that - in that tone, when it is you who is deluded, you who's the coward, and I have done nothing at all."
I expected to suffer Watson's strong left-hook for that, but though his hands clenched into fists, he checked himself.
"Do you care to explain that, Holmes?" he said in a voice of forced calm.
"I know perfectly well why you want to marry, and it's a coward's reason. You're afraid, that's all, afraid to die alone."
He stiffened and I could see I had struck deep to the bone, but I was too angry now to stop.
"You know I'm right." I was determined to prove my point, regardless of the cost. "Take out your watch."
He was standing as though frozen to the spot. I stepped up to him and slipped a hand into his waistcoat pocket. He flinched as my fingers touched his side but did not pull away. I drew out his late brother's watch, snapping the chain in one sharp movement, and held it up to his face.
"You think a string of children and grandchildren can save you from his fate. Save you from gambling away all your money, as he drank his. You won't die alone and indebted, a wretched drunkard, abandoned by the world, because you'll have been surrounded by a loving family all your life. And what am I?"
His face was as grey as if I had stabbed him. He did not so much as blink and I felt suddenly sick at my own cruelty. I let his watch drop onto the table beside us and it rolled across the wooden surface and fell to the floor. The glass front smashed. Watson flinched at the sound.
"You're a cold-hearted bastard, Holmes," he said softly. "That's all."
He picked up his hat and coat and walked out without another word.
I sank into a chair. How could I have spoken thus to the bravest man I ever knew? How could I have tortured him thus with his deepest fears? He would have done well if he had punched me in the face.
.. .. .. ..
I did not even look up when Mrs Hudson ushered Miss Morstan into the sitting room, the following afternoon. My visitor flung open the curtains, emptied my drink into a flowerpot and sat down opposite me.
"I will take a seat, thank you, Mr Holmes," she said pointedly.
I am not ashamed to say that I glowered.
"I saw John this morning."
"How nice for you."
"We spoke about something rather important, Mr Holmes. We spoke about you, in fact."
"Indeed. How gratifying to be described as rather important."
She returned my glower with a cold glare of her own. "Important to John, I meant, and I wish to Heaven it weren't so."
I sat back in my armchair, extremely disinclined in my current mood to accord Miss Morstan even a fraction of my attention. She began to fiddle with the handles of her bag, her composure deserting her a little.
"We spoke for a long time - at least I spoke and John stared at me in shock."
I lit my foulest smelling cigar and blew the smoke in her direction.
Her lips thinned in anger but she persevered. "I assure you, I am not here for my own amusement. For my part, I should be perfectly happy if your name were never to be mentioned in my hearing again. However John - John thinks rather highly of you." Her voice took on a peculiar, strained note, although she was still looking straight at me. "I don't see why he should be forced to decide between us, Mr Holmes. I - I pride myself on my open-mindedness and my common sense. For John's sake, surely you and I can reach a compromise?"
I almost choked on my own cigar smoke. I swallowed hastily. "To what precisely are you referring, dear lady?"
"You know perfectly well! I am not an idiot, Mr Holmes, nor a complete innocent. I am a soldier's daughter, you know, and I grew up in a succession of camps. I have had ample opportunity to observe you and John together, and - in short, I'm not blind."
My mind whirled. The shock of hearing the true and illegal nature of our relations so boldly acknowledged - as boldly as she could bring herself to do - would normally have shaken me to the core. Now, however, that seism was entirely outclassed by her unexpected offer. Profoundly unsettled, my first instinct was to attack. "I must confess, Miss Morstan, I'm at a lost to understand why you should be so generous."
For a second I thought I saw her lip quiver, but when she spoke after a moment's silence her voice was firm. "John is the best and kindest man I ever met," she said softly. "I would do anything to know I possessed even the smallest part of his heart."
The caustic remark that had been forming in my mind died on my lips. Her victory was a hollow one indeed. Indeed it was only partial and yet I already tasted the bitterness of my own total defeat.
She was watching me, waiting for a response. "I meant what I said just now."
"And Watson?"
She nodded. "However - he said you would never accept him on those terms."
I had known it since first she presented the idea to me, but to have the truth thus spoken aloud was painful. I turned away, trying not to think of what I could have had.
After some minutes of silence, Mary Morstan stood up and I did likewise, offering her my hand. She met my eye. "Good day, Mr Holmes."
"Good day, Miss Morstan. Give my regards to your fiancée."
The room seemed much emptier after her departure than it had before she arrived. I sank into a chair, my hand going automatically to the pocket where I now kept Watson's watch. I drew it out, turning it over and over in my hands. The face was smashed, the hands open to my touch.
I might have had it repaired, but I knew I could never bring myself to return it to him and remind him of my cruelty. I would present him with a new timepiece as a wedding present, something that would not remind him of the future from which Mary Morstan would not necessarily save him.
The old watch I kept. I would carry it in my pocket at his wedding and smile.
.. .. .. ..
Fin
.. .. .. ..
Author: Garonne
Words: 3600
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Holmes/Watson, Mary/Watson
Note: Characterisation à la Guy Ritchie
Summary: Holmes and Mary understand more of Watson's secret fears than he himself. Angst all round.
Holmes, speaking to Watson in 'The Sign of Four':
"Subject to your correction, I should judge that the watch belonged to your elder brother... He was a man of untidy habits - very untidy and careless. He was left with good prospects, but he threw away his chances, lived for some time in poverty with occasional short intervals of prosperity, and finally, taking to drink, he died. That is all I can gather."
.. .. .. ..
Watson stirred in the bed beside me and I reached out quickly to pull the ashtray on the bedside table closer to me, before he should wake and see the cigarette ash I was carelessly letting fall. In doing so I dislodged a few bullets and a box of drawing pins, which fell to the floor with the most appalling clatter.
"What the devil, Holmes?" Watson muttered, not emerging from under the bedclothes. Only the back of his blond head was showing.
I stroked a finger over the ticklish skin at the back of his neck, not bothering to answer. He wriggled a little but did not move away. I went on playing with the wispy hairs his barber had missed and reflecting on the events of the previous day. Blackwood was dead, Watson was here and I knew I should savour the moment. Unfortunately my mind is not so constructed as to simply revel in the present; I cannot help but extrapolate into the past and, in this case, the future. It is, after all, my profession.
Watson turned over onto his back and looked up at me, his face breaking into a lazy, contented smile.
"I had forgotten how ridiculous you looked in the mornings," he said, reaching up to tug at my hair, which was perhaps somewhat disarrayed. He laughed as my lips tightened in indignation. "Did I say ridiculous? I meant gorgeous."
He inched himself higher in the bed so as to be able to nip at the underside of my jaw. "I don't feel like getting up just yet," he said, his hand drifting down beneath the bedclothes. "If you don't have any objection, that is, old chap?"
"On the contrary. I too would rather not cut short your final time here."
He stiffened and the hand on my leg froze. I could have bitten my tongue off, but the act would have been futile. The mischief had been done.
"Holmes - "
Resigning myself to the inevitable, I slid out from under him and reached for my waistcoat, laid over the back of the chair. From its pocket I drew the small box I had been carrying around since Watson lost it.
He recognised his engagement ring from the box alone and raised his gaze slowly to meet mine. His eyes were troubled. "Holmes, don't spoil this morning."
I wondered how he could ever have imagined it would not be spoiled, now that the euphoria of concluding the Blackwood case had died away and all that remained was the ever-present, ever-oppressive truth that this would be the last morning he spent in my bed, before his imminent elevation to the status of a virtuous, respectable, betrothed man.
I said coldly, "Did you truly think - perhaps I should say fear - that I hoped you would bend your morals for me? I know you don't think that highly of me."
His lips thinned, but he held back from speaking.
I ought to have held my own tongue, but I could not help but add, "I doubt that righteous heart of yours could ever fall enough in love with anyone for that."
His face turned stony and I knew I had gone too far. He slid out of bed, his back turned to me, and began to gather together and don his clothes. I watched the Watson only I was ever permitted to see gradually disappear, suffocated under layers of linen and Harris tweed. When he turned back to face me even his collar and tie were already in place.
I saw his gaze dip briefly to my lips and I knew the same farewell gesture was in his thoughts as in mine. I willed him to relent, but he slipped the ring into his waistcoat pocket and bid me good day in a subdued voice.
"You're the one leaving me, Watson," I cried plaintively, but only when I knew he was already out of earshot.
The fact was, I knew Watson's true motive for marrying, which I believed even he himself had never fully understood or acknowledged in his own mind. I had never confronted him about it; that would have been the height of cruelty. Whatever he may occasional assert, I am never unnecessarily cruel. Not to him.
.. .. .. ..
Mary
I admit to experiencing a certain fluttering sensation in my chest, when I found myself with John Watson on his knees before me, ring in hand. I attempted to suppress the feeling, for this was no time for girlish sentiments, but rather for a cool head and frank speech.
"Stand up, John," I said.
He did so, his face collapsing into a mixture of surprise and awkward confusion.
"I do beg your pardon, Miss Morstan, for my presumption and - "
I cut him off with a kiss. It was our first and I must say I rather enjoyed it. It occurred to me that he had certainly been practising a great deal on Holmes over the past few years, but I immediately suppressed the thought.
"Of course I'll marry you, John," I said as I stepped back, leaving him staring at me in bewilderment. "But we must be absolutely honest with each other, and I don't wish to start off with empty gestures - " I waved a hand at the spot where he had been kneeling, " - when your heart's not fully in them."
"Mary, I assure you, my sentiments are genuine and - "
"And your intentions honourable? " I completed with a smile. "I know."
He cleared his throat. "Damn it - I mean dash it all! What I meant to say was, I love you."
It was wonderful to hear and I am only human. I decided that a serious talk on the subject of Mr Holmes could be postponed for a later occasion.
"And I you, John." On impulse I caught his hand and he pulled me in for another kiss.
Later that morning I suggested dinner with Mr Holmes that very evening to celebrate. John was reluctant at first and I had to suppress the phrase 'a lovers' tiff' that came immediately to mind. Indeed I was none too keen on the idea myself, for seeing the two men together was something I generally avoided. Watching John watching Holmes watching John was not particularly flattering to a girl who knew she could never hope to provoke such looks. I would call the sensation painful, but I had long since realised that a light-hearted, level-headed attitude was the only way to avoid heartbreak in the situation in which I found myself.
I pressed the issue of dinner, however. I wanted an opportunity to exchange a few words with Mr Holmes. What is more, I wanted to see John and his friend together one more time, to reassure myself that it was an experience I could bear with equanimity. Of course I trusted my John, but he could only control his deliberate actions, not the involuntary gazes and gestures from the depths of his heart. Moreover, I knew perfectly well that our wedding day would not be the last we saw of Mr Sherlock Holmes.
.. .. .. ..
Holmes
Miss Morstan and I carried the burden of the dinner-table conversation, Watson remaining unusually silent. I believe he had not expected me to accept the dinner invitation, but there is a certain masochistic streak in me that insisted on seeing the happy couple flirt disgustingly.
In the event, there was little of that. Watson ate silently and Miss Morstan kept up a surprisingly well-informed conversation with me about the situation between Bismarck and the German Kaiser.
After the cheese Watson went to wash his hands, as the euphemism goes, leaving me alone with his fiancée.
"I don't believe I have congratulated you, Miss Morstan," I said lightly.
She looked straight at me. "I feel I should rather be apologising to you, Mr Holmes."
I was so startled I almost displayed the emotion. In lieu of that near lapse, I flicked an invisible piece of dirt from my sleeve. "Indeed? What a peculiar thing to say. Am I supposed to be deducing why exactly you would wish to apologise to me, for I confess I haven't the faintest notion."
I was certain I detected a trace of impatience in the gesture as she dropped her napkin onto the table. She waited a moment before speaking. "You do know why John wants to marry, I am sure, Mr Holmes. The true reason, I mean."
She looked up into my eyes as she finished speaking and I was quite sure she was not speaking of her own charming personality, but of the same hypothesis I entertained. It was not pleasant to think that, in this at least, she knew Watson as well as I did.
"So you are now an amateur psychologist, Miss Morstan?" I said coldly.
"No more than you are."
"At least I don't apply my knowledge of the human mind to the entrapment and seduction of Dr John Watson."
She glared at me, an intense blush of anger rising in her cheeks. Fortunately for her glass of wine and my white shirt-front, Watson returned at that moment. It was not, however, before his fiancée had had time to snap: "You are a liar, Mr Holmes."
The first explanation for her words that occurred to me seemed inconceivable, but I had no time to reflect on the matter, for Watson was already sitting down, making a remark about the lateness of the hour.
Twenty minutes later we set Mary Morstan down from the cab at her employer's house and I was forced to endure the goodnight embrace. I did not turn away; indeed I found a certain morbid fascination in the sight.
Watson climbed back into the cab, instructing the driver to take us to Paddington. It was there that he had set up his new practise, in the house he was preparing to receive Mary. I knew the mere sight of it would turn my stomach.
"Come back to Baker Street," I said on impulse.
Watson looked at me with undisguised suspicion.
"Merely for a drink, old man, I promise. It's only ten o'clock, you know." I could see he was close to conceding and added, "As your best man, surely I should have some familiarity with your wedding plans? What better time than this evening to enlighten me?"
He looked up sharply.
I flicked open my coat and pulled out a handkerchief, not looking at him. "I am your best man, I presume?"
I could feel him relax in the seat beside me and when he spoke I knew he was grinning. "Of course you are."
Our sitting room in Baker Street was largely occupied by certain experiments I was conducting, but I managed to find two armchairs and dragged them to the fireside, where Watson was stoking up the fire Mrs Hudson had left for me.
"Port?" I said, as he took a seat
"Thanks." After a moment he sat upright, frowning. "That's my bottle! From a grateful client - I remember it distinctly."
"Yes, it was rather kind of you to leave it here," I said smoothly, handing him his glass.
He sank back into his chair, muttering something about having spent hours wondering about the bottle's whereabouts. His grin belied his words, however, and my own matched it.
We sat by the fire and talked about the usual nonsense: the aftermath of the Blackwood case, international politics, amusing anecdotes from Watson's surgery, my investigations into the criminal applications of macramé. We laughed a great deal and the level of port in the bottle gradually fell.
I could not keep my eyes from Watson's face, flushed as it was by the heat of the flames, his hair glinting golden in the firelight. I began to feel that this had been a much more foolish idea than it had initially seemed. Watson had often called around to Baker Street since his official departure, though until the previous evening he had never stayed the night. But the previous visits had all taken place in daylight, not in suggestive half-light, with Watson's collar undone and his eyes sleepy and inviting.
It was difficult to watch him with equanimity, surrounded as he was by the relics of our life together: the couch on which we had first embraced, the bookcase against which I had leant on more than one occasion while he wrapped himself around me and fumbled with my braces, the armchair that, as we had discovered, fitted both of us snugly if we were sufficiently entwined -
Watson stood to pour us both another drink. Fatigue and his previous intake combined to render him clumsy and he upset one glass whilst pouring the other. I caught the glass and the bottle, he caught my hand and before we knew it we were practically in one another's arms.
His lips opened and I could feel his breath on my cheek. "Holmes," he murmured.
I turned my head so that we were facing. His eyes were clouded by a painfully complicated mixture of reluctance and desire. Not for the first time, I wished I could not read his features with such ease. I closed my eyes, but I could still feel the heat of his body against mine, the smell of his shaving soap indecently close. I could already imagine the taste of port and tobacco he would have. His hand was resting on my arm. He had only to clasp it tighter, to pull me closer, and I knew we would both surrender.
I gave him a hearty clap on the shoulder and stepped away. "Clumsy of you, dear man. That was a damned good vintage you almost threw away."
Watson had not moved. "Holmes," he murmured again.
I froze, captivated by the sound of a certain note in his voice, one which held very particular associations for me.
He looked dazed and unhappy, but the sight only roused my ire. How dared he come back here and talk to me thus, when it was he who had gone and engaged himself to another?
I slammed my glass down on the table with such force that the contents splashed out, staining the pages of an open notebook red. It was a particularly nice notebook, a gift from Watson. I noted this with one part of my mind, while another studied his pale, set face. No rational part of my brain seemed to be in control of my vocal chords, however, for I heard my own voice say, "I wonder you can stand there and speak to me in that - in that tone, when it is you who is deluded, you who's the coward, and I have done nothing at all."
I expected to suffer Watson's strong left-hook for that, but though his hands clenched into fists, he checked himself.
"Do you care to explain that, Holmes?" he said in a voice of forced calm.
"I know perfectly well why you want to marry, and it's a coward's reason. You're afraid, that's all, afraid to die alone."
He stiffened and I could see I had struck deep to the bone, but I was too angry now to stop.
"You know I'm right." I was determined to prove my point, regardless of the cost. "Take out your watch."
He was standing as though frozen to the spot. I stepped up to him and slipped a hand into his waistcoat pocket. He flinched as my fingers touched his side but did not pull away. I drew out his late brother's watch, snapping the chain in one sharp movement, and held it up to his face.
"You think a string of children and grandchildren can save you from his fate. Save you from gambling away all your money, as he drank his. You won't die alone and indebted, a wretched drunkard, abandoned by the world, because you'll have been surrounded by a loving family all your life. And what am I?"
His face was as grey as if I had stabbed him. He did not so much as blink and I felt suddenly sick at my own cruelty. I let his watch drop onto the table beside us and it rolled across the wooden surface and fell to the floor. The glass front smashed. Watson flinched at the sound.
"You're a cold-hearted bastard, Holmes," he said softly. "That's all."
He picked up his hat and coat and walked out without another word.
I sank into a chair. How could I have spoken thus to the bravest man I ever knew? How could I have tortured him thus with his deepest fears? He would have done well if he had punched me in the face.
.. .. .. ..
I did not even look up when Mrs Hudson ushered Miss Morstan into the sitting room, the following afternoon. My visitor flung open the curtains, emptied my drink into a flowerpot and sat down opposite me.
"I will take a seat, thank you, Mr Holmes," she said pointedly.
I am not ashamed to say that I glowered.
"I saw John this morning."
"How nice for you."
"We spoke about something rather important, Mr Holmes. We spoke about you, in fact."
"Indeed. How gratifying to be described as rather important."
She returned my glower with a cold glare of her own. "Important to John, I meant, and I wish to Heaven it weren't so."
I sat back in my armchair, extremely disinclined in my current mood to accord Miss Morstan even a fraction of my attention. She began to fiddle with the handles of her bag, her composure deserting her a little.
"We spoke for a long time - at least I spoke and John stared at me in shock."
I lit my foulest smelling cigar and blew the smoke in her direction.
Her lips thinned in anger but she persevered. "I assure you, I am not here for my own amusement. For my part, I should be perfectly happy if your name were never to be mentioned in my hearing again. However John - John thinks rather highly of you." Her voice took on a peculiar, strained note, although she was still looking straight at me. "I don't see why he should be forced to decide between us, Mr Holmes. I - I pride myself on my open-mindedness and my common sense. For John's sake, surely you and I can reach a compromise?"
I almost choked on my own cigar smoke. I swallowed hastily. "To what precisely are you referring, dear lady?"
"You know perfectly well! I am not an idiot, Mr Holmes, nor a complete innocent. I am a soldier's daughter, you know, and I grew up in a succession of camps. I have had ample opportunity to observe you and John together, and - in short, I'm not blind."
My mind whirled. The shock of hearing the true and illegal nature of our relations so boldly acknowledged - as boldly as she could bring herself to do - would normally have shaken me to the core. Now, however, that seism was entirely outclassed by her unexpected offer. Profoundly unsettled, my first instinct was to attack. "I must confess, Miss Morstan, I'm at a lost to understand why you should be so generous."
For a second I thought I saw her lip quiver, but when she spoke after a moment's silence her voice was firm. "John is the best and kindest man I ever met," she said softly. "I would do anything to know I possessed even the smallest part of his heart."
The caustic remark that had been forming in my mind died on my lips. Her victory was a hollow one indeed. Indeed it was only partial and yet I already tasted the bitterness of my own total defeat.
She was watching me, waiting for a response. "I meant what I said just now."
"And Watson?"
She nodded. "However - he said you would never accept him on those terms."
I had known it since first she presented the idea to me, but to have the truth thus spoken aloud was painful. I turned away, trying not to think of what I could have had.
After some minutes of silence, Mary Morstan stood up and I did likewise, offering her my hand. She met my eye. "Good day, Mr Holmes."
"Good day, Miss Morstan. Give my regards to your fiancée."
The room seemed much emptier after her departure than it had before she arrived. I sank into a chair, my hand going automatically to the pocket where I now kept Watson's watch. I drew it out, turning it over and over in my hands. The face was smashed, the hands open to my touch.
I might have had it repaired, but I knew I could never bring myself to return it to him and remind him of my cruelty. I would present him with a new timepiece as a wedding present, something that would not remind him of the future from which Mary Morstan would not necessarily save him.
The old watch I kept. I would carry it in my pocket at his wedding and smile.
.. .. .. ..
Fin
.. .. .. ..