c. December 1902
"You wrote that when you killed him, did you not?"
Vernet didn't look up from the lenses he was comparing – the shards of glasses he was holding against each other and holding up to the light alternately.
"I have no intention of bringing him back, Vernet."
"You wrote that book, Arthur – please cease to delude yourself."
"I have no wish for him to take over everything again!"
Vernet slowly looked up, absently reaching out to steady a piquette he had nearly upset. "You can not change what is. You have created something beyond your control – as you have realised, I believe."
"He is a fictional character – nothing real!"
"They certainly realise that – else they would not ask for his return. But you are incorrect in saying that nothing is real within him." He turned away to dispose of a liquid.
"I am aware that you-"
"Not I, Arthur." He turned back, crossing around the table and catching up two of the lenses. "Holmes. You wrote something more real than what you set on paper – more functional and dimensional than you give him credit for." He pulled a box away from a window. "Doing away with him as if he was a bit of rubbish to be binned and forgotten was never truly an option."
"He was a waste of time."
"Perhaps. And if you had simply weaned off writing him then perhaps you would have been free – but instead you now stand within his clutches again." He held up the lenses, and then sighed in disappointment and tossed them carelessly to the shelf and crossed back to his table.
"I wrote another book."
"So you did. But you and I are both well aware that you have not brought Holmes back."
"There is another case. They should be content."
"But they are not. And they will not be." He met the doctor's eyes again. "I think you know this."
"I killed him."
Vernet pointed at the papers in the other's hand. "And I bring him back."
"And if I refuse? I need not be at the control of my own creation."
"I care not – that creation of yours shadows me more than you. However, I do not believe your peace offering has been accepted. It is a truce – but it is not peace."
He glared at the papers for a moment, and then carefully folded them and slipped them into his pocket. "If necessary then..."
"It will be very necessary, Arthur."
"You have a dangerous mind."
"Simply organised."
"I know..." He frowned slightly. "How do you bring him back from death, Vernet?"
The man smiled slightly and glanced up from the notes he was making. "Quite simply: he was never in it."
AN: Continuation to One Final Problem in that Vernet writes The Empty House as well. Yes, this is ten years later, I know... One, Adam looks VERY young, so...I sort of give him thirty or forty years in each place depending on how well known he is and what time it is. He sort of always looks the same, so as long as he begins a life as about five or ten physical years younger than he is, he can continue for a few decades. 3-15-2016