Was it delirium or just exhaustion? Holmes was not sure; his restless mind ticking through data even as he tried to sleep. They needed sleep, all of them, and yet now was not the time to rest. It couldn't be; they had to get off this train soon. Moriarty, if he had survived in the rubble of the Meinhardt factory, had doubtless telegraphed ahead and would have deadly welcoming parties waiting at the upcoming stations.
And yet their tired and wounded bodies failed them, and they slept.
Tomas kept the first watch, promising to wake them if the train slowed, if they had a chance of jumping off before it arrived at a station and near-certain death. Holmes let his eyes close and slipped into a dream of falling through a bottomless, bone-chillingly frozen black void, awakening to the half-lit icy cold of reality when the boxcar jolted bolts of agony through his shoulder, then drifting back into an uneasy darkness.
He was aware that Watson had shifted him down into the meager straw that lined the bottom of the car and was lying behind him, bracing Holmes' shoulder against his chest so Holmes would be spared the worst of the train's rocking. They had no protection from the cold except to huddle together in the clothing they wore. Frigid wind blasted in through every open slat as the train rushed along. Holmes' feet were cold, even through the fine gypsy leather boots with their sheepskin lining. Watson had managed to get his right boot back on him after removing the ugly splinter, before the ankle swelled up - but now he could feel the turgid flesh pressing hard against the leather. He wondered if he would be able to walk on it, let alone run...or fight.
Simza was curled against the front of him, holding his hands in both of her own, cradled to her breast under her thick cloak. He breathed in the scent of her tangled mass of curls as she nuzzled into his throat – straw, spice, blood, cordite. He was grateful for the warmth, and for the fact that each time he was jarred awake, gasping from the hurt and the dream of falling, she woke, too – whispering calming words in her own language, squeezing his hands gently.
He'd felt Watson wake too, several times, tightening his grip around Holmes' waist as the train lurched. The pain radiating from Holmes' savaged shoulder was breathtaking, and he felt it sear and pulse like fire even through the laudanum haze. Holmes was fairly inured to laudanum – a fact he had never shared with Watson - so he concentrated on riding above the pain, trying to move his mind to some bright high Elysium above the infernal blaze.
On some level, Holmes knew he had died just a few hours earlier. He mulled that fact with purely clinical interest. Died, heart stopped. Brought back by Watson. He accepted it factually. On quite another level, he was fascinated by it, trying to remember where his consciousness had been while he'd been dead. He couldn't recall. As the adrenaline injection had coursed through his veins and reanimated him, he'd spouted some nonsense about that horrid pony and a fork and Mary. But the truth was he had no idea. There had been no dream of ponies and dining utensils, of that he was sure; he'd made that up out of whole cloth, his brain sparking and coruscating like lightning. Of his step into the Last Great Mystery, he had no memory, no memory at all.
The whole thing annoyed him more than a little. He reminded himself that it had not been time to die; not now. Not yet.
Not while Moriarty still draws breath.
He hoped that Watson would someday realize the impact of what they'd done today. Thank you, old boy. By raising me from the dead - for a while, anyway - you've saved yourself. And Mary too...I would have liked to know her better, I think, but she still has a part to play before all this is done.
Suddenly - as the boxcar shuddered like bones rattling, shattering Holmes for the thousandth time that night - he saw in a single pristine flash the endgame, the gleaming black-and-white architecture of how it would all play out. The red book, Tomas, the ferry from Calais, the message to Mary, Lestrade and Scotland Yard...
Like pieces on a chess board.
And for the black king, only white death.
For the white king, too, more than likely.
The near-certainty of this didn't frighten him. It had been a foregone conclusion, really, since the opening gambit.
He felt Watson stir awake, felt Watson's fingers press against his neck, checking his pulse. Mother hen. Holmes' mind registered it fondly, recorded it, moved along - as he also suddenly realized that the soft, warm support under his head was probably Watson's arm.
His arm is probably asleep, Holmes thought vaguely and with an odd sense of contentment, before the tide pulled him under again, into the dark dream and the long fall.
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