( Read more... )

            When John shuffled out of the bedroom the next morning, track pants and t-shirt heavily rumpled, Sally was already up, carefully navigating the kettle and cupboards in search of a cup of tea. She glanced over as John yawned and stepped into the kitchen.

“Sorry I didn’t ask,” she said quietly. “But I was dying for a cuppa, ( Read more... )

            The sun had just disappeared over the horizon on Friday evening when someone rang the doorbell for 221B. Sherlock, lounging on the sofa with his hands clasped beneath his chin, didn’t even open his eyes, so John just sighed and put aside his book, shaking his head as he descended the stairs. Their latest case had only ended that morning ( Read more... )

            John had been gone for a week when it happened.

Sherlock had woken to an unfamiliar tightness somewhere in his chest. He knew immediately that it wasn't a physiological problem, but its cause was still strangely hidden from him. He skipped breakfast, as usual - John would have chastised him, but he was in Scotland for a ( Read more... )

1887

The first snow of 1887 went largely unnoticed for a number of hours, due chiefly to the fact that Holmes and I were fast asleep in each others’ arms. Holmes woke before me, and he pushed, gentle but insistent, at my shoulder until I joined him in the realm of consciousness.

“First snow,” he whispered in the semi- ( Read more... )

1886

I woke surprisingly late on the morning of the twenty-ninth of December, 1886. Holmes lay above the blankets beside me without collar or cuffs, stripped to his waistcoat and propped up on one elbow, watching me carefully. I in no way objected to his presence - in fact, it had struck me sometime in mid-April of that year how very ( Read more... )

1885

The winter of 1885 came somewhat early - it was in the hours before dawn on the morning of November the twenty-second when I awoke to the sound of hushed flurries beyond the window. Holmes was already there, fully-dressed and seated on the edge of my bed, staring out at the snow, his long, lean frame held with imperious distance ( Read more... )

            On the eighteenth of December, 1883, I awoke to the sound of a raging storm. Outside my window, the entire world had been blanked out and replaced with a white screen of snow, making a rather grand entrance this particular winter. When I turned away from the window, I found a half-dressed Sherlock Holmes looking down at me, an innocent ( Read more... )

1882

The year of 1882 passed in a flurry of new cases and new adventures. Life with Holmes became yet more enjoyable, more comfortable, more necessary to me as the anniversary of our acquaintance came and went almost without notice. I tailed after him and basked in his brilliance; I patched him up when he ran into trouble; and he, ( Read more... )

1881

It was a frozen, December morning, a week before Christmas, 1881, when I woke to the white glare of a fresh snowfall and a dull ache pervading my right leg. Reluctant as I was to leave the warmth of my bed, I knew that the fire in the sitting room would be blazing, and the brightness of the snow combined with the fresh bite of ( Read more... )