A/N: Written for Watson's Woes Weekend Writing Prompt #14: "Write an AU, based upon some event, choice, or action in Watson's life, and what his life would be like had a different decision been made than the one we see in Canon."
"On the very day I had come to this conclusion, I was standing at the Criterion bar, when someone tapped me on the shoulder, and turning round, I recognized young Stamford, who had been a dresser under me at Bart's." - STUD
~ooOoo~
It is a crisp autumn evening in '81. I've just alighted from a cab after a particularly trying day, and pull my grey Inverness tighter around me as I head towards my somewhat dingy new flat. Surely, I can do better than this, I think to myself, making a mental note to upgrade my living quarters at the first available opportunity.
I step up to my door, feeling the long day acutely now as a sharp pang jolts up my wounded leg with a vengeance. Will it always be like this? Am I to live out my life as nothing more than a half pay crippled medico too broken after the war to do much other than barely scrape by on a few meager shillings a day?
As I fumble for my key in my coat pocket, I am stopped short by a group of young street urchins who cross my path, nearly tripping me in their eagerness to get to their destination. Amid their cheerful laughter, I let out a deep sigh. Surely, it must get better than this. True, I am reasonably content with my lot in life. All things considered, the outcome could have been far worse, but am I truly fulfilled?
No.
My key is halfway in the lock when I remove it and slip it back into my pocket. I turn, headed heaven only knows where. Fully well realizing this area is no place for a gentleman to wander alone at night, I do so anyhow, not so much thinking in a clear state of mind as I am simply lost in thought. And eventually end up in the one place in this cesspool of a city where a man can be alone with, drown in, his self pitying thoughts.
Several hours have passed. judging by the time on my pocket watch (the very act of which further fuels my black mood at the memory of my departed brother) before I exit the bar. I am naught but a fool, I scold myself, realizing just how much like my brother I am fast becoming.
I'm not entirely sure where I am, I have no recollection of this area or how I came to it.
Confident that at least the situation cannot possibly worsen, that I have sunk to rock bottom in a meaningless and friendless existence, my heart suddenly sinks to the pit of my stomach. Good Lord, it's him!
Though his back is turned to me while about to enter the very bar I just exited, I recognize him all the same. His voice. High pitched and nerve wracking, I hear it as he greets a patron he apparently knows, who stumbles onto the pavement, either as inebriated or even more so than I am.
For the life of me, I can't so much as recall the chap's name but he's about the last person on this earth I wish to see. He was always a decent, easygoing young man, amiable enough, although I never much cared for the fellow, myself. It might be nice to have an acquaintance with whom I could chat with on this lonely night, but not now, not like this. Not with me being so shamefully intoxicated.
Before he has the chance to sight me, I turn the corner into a fog laden row of dilapidated brick row houses in search of a cab, but it is as I should have expected. None can be found at this ungodly time of night, much less in this seedy section. A fine mess I've gotten myself into.
I veer off into an alley, hoping it will provide a short cut out of this forsaken place when I hear the quick scuffle of feet behind me. Before I have chance enough to turn round, I feel the cold, hard press of a knife pointed squarely in the small of my back. Its wielder has quite the heavy hand, and as he pushes the blade in further to press his intentions, a trickle of blood inches down my skin. I bite my lip in attempt to keep from crying out.
My assaulter demands for me to empty my pockets, which I do. After my stint at the bar, there is nothing to offer him but a few shillings, which angers him greatly. In the rough voice of a man who has spent a lifetime smoking himself hoarse, he demands for my pocket watch, which I stubbornly refuse to part with. He warns that we shall be engaging in a trade tonight.
The watch for my life.
Perhaps because of my already black state of mind or the fact that by now I have as much alcohol as blood coursing through my veins, I spat back the response that the watch was worth far more than my life, so it was not a trade I should be inclined to consider. That he would be the better off for the bargain.
To which he responds that I should not be so inconvenienced then, when he guts me like a fish.
A fine mess, indeed.
It is at this point of complete desperation where I decide to make a swift run for it. Having stood without making so much as the slightest move until now, I do manage to catch my attacker momentarily unawares. I take off down the alley, kicking in some ancient rotted wood fence towards the end. This fence opens into an urban yard well lit by the light of the full moon and the glow of lights emanating from within the surrounding houses. I'm over the remnants of the fence in a heartbeat, landing on my bad leg and smarting my equally miserable shoulder wound in shielding my fall.
My attacker's footsteps are pounding on the cobblestones, he is gaining me fast. I am barely able to right myself between my war injuries and the excessive drinking I've indulged in tonight.
A flash of polished steel is the last I see before the white hot pain bursts through my belly. By Jove, this is pain the likes of which I have never felt before! And the blood! Did I bleed this profusely when I had to be practically dragged off the battlefield by Murray?
I am unable to account for what occurred next, or how my pocket watch went missing despite my foolhardy efforts to save it, so I come to the conclusion I must have passed out and remained in such a state for no little time. When my eyes blink open once more, the night sky is considerably lighter, my coat is soaked through with my own blood, and I am no longer lying in the yard I had fallen in.
Directly above me is a streetlamp - I seem to be propped up against it. Around me are a good dozen or so curious bystanders, mostly shabbily dressed men reeking of a delightful combination of sweat, dirt, alcohol and foul smelling cheap cigars. Among them are three constables and an official looking man - I catch one of his inferiors refer to him as Inspector Lestrade, or something to that end. I cannot be sure for all my own heartbeat is resounding in my ears. Regardless, he is a peculiar looking, ferret faced chap, this Lestrade.
Though I am unable to make out much of what is being said by the heavyset old woman ferret face was interviewing, what I can discern is that it was she who discovered me in her yard when her bull pup would not quit its barking. She'd "hollered for a copper," and so, here I was.
Blood still oozing through my fingers, it is nothing short of a miracle have awoken at all.
"Halloa! I know this fellow," comes a tinny voice (or was that simply the ringing in my ears) from behind the Inspector.
Casting my gaze upwards, for my eyes are about the only part of me I can move, is unmistakably the man I of late caught sight of outside the bar. Had I been a man and faced him, drunk out of my wits though I was, perhaps, I could not help but think, perhaps I would not be in this seemingly inescapable fix just now, but sharing a drink with an amiable man, one who certainly would have listened to my troubles with a sympathetic ear. If I remembered correctly, he was one with numerous acquaintances and connections - why, it was even possible he might have been able to help with my lodging dilemma.
But it was not to be. I made the conscious decision to revert into myself, to swallow my own troubles and shun humanity in my own embarrassment at the sad predicament fate (and a healthy dose of my own stupidity) had thrust me into.
More mumbled voices came from above. That fellow - confound it, what is his name? - and the Inspector speaking about me as though I was already existing in the past tense. Well, at the rate I am losing blood, I would be, soon enough.
" …knew him a few years back… Dr John Watson, I believe…"
If any good was to come of this, at least I would not die unidentified, cast into Potter's Field like some nameless beggar.
I spend the next several moments drifting in and out of consciousness. My vision grows dark then turns on anew like a match being systematically blown out and lit all over again. An endless interval of blessed light snuffed out by the darkness, whose presence was fast overpowering those little glimpses of light. I am vaguely aware of a Doctor on the scene, applying pressure to my wound and speaking to me in cold, precise medical terms during those times I am semi conscious. But they are not moving me! Why the deuce are they not taking me to hospital?
Because there is no hope for me.
I know this as I know my own name. There is no hope for my survival, so why waste the effort and manpower it would take to cart me off in the first place? I am naught but a walking corpse. I know it, the Inspector knows it, the attending Doctor knows it, even whatshisname is aware of it.
Stamford. Yes, that is it! His name is Stamford, the dresser under me when I was at St Bart's, not long before I went into the military.
Strange, how the dying mind works.
I lay underneath a lamp post, shivering from the chill of the night air along with the massive blood loss I have suffered, and yet, all I can think of when Stamford's name comes to me is that there is a piece of the puzzle that is my life which has been shifted out of place. No matter how I force myself to think on my past with fondness, to remember the family gone before me that I'd likely soon meet again very shortly - all my mind continues to turn to is the single thought that something monumental is out of place.
It stems not from a fear of dying, for long ago I made my peace with the Reaper. Two brushes with Death in one year will do that to a man.
No, this is one of those things you realize has a higher purpose than your life alone. More than an opportunity missed. A destiny left unfulfilled.
Whatever this is, I never learned.
~ooOoo~
Needless to say, I obviously did not perish on that miserable autumn night. By some divine stroke of Providence, I survived - though only by a hair's breadth. However, my thoughts often wander back to that fateful evening. Though I usually dismiss it as the distorted thinking of a blood starved brain, there are days I cannot help but wonder if I did in fact come to a fork in the road on that night, and subsequently walked down the wrong path.
Ah, but I refuse to dwell on this point, as I believe with all my heart that destiny does have a way of finding you.
Shortly after my health is on firm enough ground, I am able to open my own practice with the money I saved taking on a fellow lodger in my new rooms on Queen Anne Street. He is an insufferable lout, who thankfully, is moving out at the end of the month due to his impending nuptials to a striking woman by the name of Miss Mary Morstan. Would that I could find a wife such as she!
I will be alone again, but considering the company I am keeping, that will be a much welcomed occurrence. Though I am relatively happy here, I may look into finding myself a new fellow lodger, for I should much rather prefer a partner to being alone. I am remarkably lonely at times. For some strange reason, I've become even more so since my mate's announcement of his upcoming wedding.
Oh, I do have acquaintances here in London. It is not as though I live the life of a hermit. I even struck up a sort of fellowship with that odd ferret faced Inspector, who befriended me in hospital after my ordeal. He felt a strange sort of connection to me, he said, like he knew me from some other time and place. Likelier, it was pity that drew him to me, but it was kind enough of him to offer a friendly word after taking my statement once I was well enough to give it.
He even brings the occasional patient to me - mostly his constables injured in the line of duty. I have a great respect for them, and have been nothing but eager to help the fellow out. Alas, I must bring this entry to a close soon, for as a matter of fact, the Inspector has called on me this very night about tending to a detective working closely with him on some case wherein his man was injured attempting to prevent a break in at the bank on Coburg Square.
As I write this, I can see the Inspector and one of his men carrying the fellow out of a cab, up to my door. Poor chap; he looks to be seriously wounded. Perhaps even dead already.
A shame, as I have often heard Lestrade speak so highly of him. An amateur in the field of detection, yet a talented one, whose name may have been well known under the right circumstances. But this injured man, I hear, is quite difficult to get on with, and this inapproachability combined with a distinct unchecked cocaine habit, has prevented him from achieving great things.
The Inspector bursts through my door, carrying the limp body of the unconscious detective whom I fear has a nasty scalp laceration. I motion for him and his constable to move the injured man to the back room, where I examine all my patients.
I follow close behind, medical bag in tow.
The detective is laid out on my examination table as Lestrade turns to me.
"Doctor Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes…"