DISCLAIMER: Believe it or not, I don't own Holmes or Watson (luckily for Watson)

This is my first EVER fanfic so please be reasonably nice – rated M for (later) violence and Holmes/OC. Enjoy!

Holmes

It had been two years since Watson had… gone.

Strange, how much you taken some things for granted, until they are taken away. I had often wondered how he had felt for those years after the Reichenbach incident. Somehow it seemed morbid to ask him, especially as during that time he had suffered not only the loss of his best (I hope I should not be presumptuous in that reasoning) friend but also that of his wife, to whom he was quite devoted. Having had such limited experience of those emotions at the time, I was curious.

But now, of course, I have tasted grief for myself, and am profoundly glad I did not question him.

It was a cold November day when a policeman arrived at 221B. At first I presumed (erroneously) that he had come to request some help with a case. Which proves once more that it is a capital mistake to theorise without all the evidence, as I had told Watson on numerous occasions.

Watson had been out on his normal evening stroll and a hansom cab driver had lost control of his horse, which had reared up and struck my friend a glancing blow on the head. Despite the prompt attention of a medical expert on the scene, he had never regained consciousness. I had been to see him, almost childishly disbelieving Lestrade's reports. And so I had looked down on the body of my old friend (indeed, my only friend), his forehead roughly swathed in bloodstained cloth, his eyes gently closed, just as if he were sleeping. But there was none of that life, that companionship that had meant so much to me. Foolishly, I had almost expected him to be smiling, or at least showing me some kind of sign, telling me that I could go on. But, of course, there was nothing.

It was so shockingly sudden that for a long time I felt absolutely nothing. Watson had once remarked that there was something "positively inhuman" in me, and indeed for several months I believed that his comment had been true. I felt numb. Every day I expected to see him sitting by the breakfast table when I came down in the morning and once, upon waking in a disorientated state very early in the morning, I staggered downstairs and groggily interrogated a bewildered Mrs. Hudson as to his whereabouts.

And when the pain finally began to hit me, I drowned it out as best I could. I returned to the almost daily use of cocaine, which Watson had always deplored, and when even that failed to dull the agony I turned to alcohol instead. I spent several weeks in a hazy stupor of inactivity, Mrs. Hudson emerging sometimes from the smoke-filled gloom, attempting to force me to eat.

Eventually I came round, to find Mycroft standing in my rooms, having confiscated both my supply of cocaine and all the alcohol in the vicinity, hence condemning me to face a lonely, hideous, reality. I believe I may have practised some of my bare-knuckle fighting skills on him, but he refused to relent. I blamed him all I could, but mostly I blamed myself. If only I had gone out with him instead of staying, sunk into one of my ridiculous black moods, I might have been able to push him out of the way. Or even better, the beast might have brought about my end instead. Watson would have coped with the loss better than I.

I fell into the deepest depression I had ever experienced. I hopelessly bargained with myself, with fate, with whatever had driven Watson to take that stroll. But it was all no use. I felt empty, stupefied, and spent weeks on end locked in my room, refusing even Mrs. Hudson access, reading Watson's accounts of our adventures together, which I had so unjustly criticised.

It was nearly two years later before I returned to my practice as a consulting detective. At first my cases were uniformly mundane – if anything I believe Lestrade was attempting to lower me back into my old habits gently. But then she arrived.

I had received the telegram that morning.

Mr. Sherlock Holmes. I must speak with you urgently. I believe my life may be in danger. Yours faithfully, Miss Anne Chantrey.

Mrs. Hudson admitted her into my room at approximately a half an hour past noon. She was certainly a handsome woman, petite but with a certain poise to her head that showed her force of character. Her eyes were a sparkling shade of blue, her small face pale and determined, long, thin hands clasped together worriedly rather than demurely. She was dressed in the dull black of mourning, but there was no trace of tears on her elegant face.

"Mr. Holmes?" she asked questioningly.

I nodded. "Miss Chantrey?"

Anne

He wasn't quite as I had expected him. He seemed unusually tall to my eyes; he cannot have been much than a shade over six feet, but his excessive thinness seemed to accentuate this. His arms looked as though one could snap them with a single touch. His fingers were so long and spindly they appeared like pale spiders. His face was sharply and uncomfortably angular, his bright grey eyes hooded under heavy black eyebrows.

"Why have you come to see me, Miss Chantrey?" he said quietly. His voice was soft, but clear and articulate.

"I had better get to the point," I said, glancing down at my interlaced fingers. "If I may start at the beginning…?"

"The best place to start, in my opinion," he said, with the barest hint of a smile.