Catalyst (noun): 1. A substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction. 2. A person or thing that precipitates an event.

A Reprint from the Reminiscences of Dr. John H. Watson, M.D.

Chapter 1: Fraying Edges

As I look back over my accounts of my friend Sherlock Holmes and myself, I realize that I have given the impression that he was essentially a solitary being, save for myself, and that even towards myself he was often cold. Our more observant readers may have guessed the truth. If I have given an erroneous view of my friend, it is only in order to place due emphasis on his mental powers. But my own feelings, given what Sherlock Holmes has been to me through our many years of friendship, require that I write an account that shows the man as well as the deductive reasoner, even if it is never read. Our more observant followers may also have guessed that Holmes was by no means without friends; indeed, he surrounded himself with some of the most extraordinary people I have ever met. Contained in this story, and in others never published, are accounts of how Holmes and I worked together with London's most intelligent unknowns, to solve cases none of use could have accomplished alone.

"Well! It seems we are all to be murdered in our beds!"

I jerked fully awake in my chair at Dr. James Emerson's outer office. Though I had lived with Sherlock Holmes only since January of that year (it now being June) his habit of exclaiming with delight over a convoluted case had already made me a dedicated reader of the paper, in order to distract him from the cocaine he resorted to in times of boredom. I turned to the woman next to me.

"A murder? How very shocking; what has happened?" I was alarmed to realize that I was politely lying when I said the news was shocking. Due to Holmes's obsession with illegal killings, discussion of such things was becoming almost normal.

"Oh, read for yourself. It is too distressing," sighed the young lady. "My appointment was for five minutes ago, why have they not called me?" Disgruntled, she got up and moved away.

I scanned the paper, only to discover the news to which she referred was not that of a murder at all, but a jewel robbery, in which two pairs of diamond earrings and a priceless pearl necklace belonging to the Duchess of Somerset had disappeared without a trace. The newspaper declared the police were confident they could locate the thief, and as they had put neither Lestrade nor Gregson—the best of the professionals—on the case, I could only conclude it was the truth. Disappointed, I tossed the paper aside and attempted to amuse myself by observing the others waiting to see Dr. Emerson.

It was at times like this that I envied my friend's apparent ease with people of all classes, from his street urchins to the moneyed family whom he was now attempting to rid of a blackmailer. Every patient in this office was obviously better off than me. Had not my old orderly, Murray, dropped by to visit a few weeks ago and demanded I see a doctor, I wouldn't be here at all. It was true, my shoulder and leg were recovering slowly and the healing had taken more out of me than it probably should have. I insisted this was an after-effect of the fever and would pass, mostly because I had begun to believe the opposite. In my private moments, I would viciously fight the knowledge that my mind was slowly slipping from my control, wracked with visions of the war. In a public place like this, I simply tried to ignore it. I had resisted seeking other medical advice for fear my suspicions would be confirmed, but could not use cost as an excuse when Murray had offered to help pay for a specialist.

So here I was. The only lucky element about this was Holmes' absence from London for a few days. If it was bad news I got, I would have some time to prepare to hide it from him. The man had a cursed ability to tell whenever I was upset, and I had no interest in my only maybe-friend knowing I was going mad. If, indeed, I was.

"Dr. Watson? Your appointment, sir."

I followed the doctor's assistant to his office, where Emerson greeted me and waved the assistant out. The physical examination seemed routine enough to me, but apparently not to the doctor, for when I had dressed and sat down to hear his consultation, he was frowning.

"You say you are a veteran, sir?"

"Yes; that was how I obtained the injuries to my shoulder and leg." And mind.

"I am surprised your leg was not amputated. Did your surgeon say why?"

"No, he did not." Because I was so terrified of infection that I wouldn't stop screaming until he put the anaesthetics away.

"And you had enteric fever for eight weeks after?"

"I did." It would have been a blessing to be off the field; except I didn't realized I'd left.

"Are you eating regularly?"

"I am." Half-starving for several months can do that to a person.

"And sleeping? How are you sleeping?"

"Not as well as I might be, I suppose." The understatement of a lifetime. And it has nothing to do with Holmes's violin.

"Can you be more specific, Dr. Watson?"

"I have nightmares sometimes." Every night. Often twice.

"I see." This went on for awhile, the lines between Dr. Emerson's eyebrows getting deeper and deeper and my evasions coming closer and closer to lies. Finally the doctor sighed and rubbed his forehead, leaving a smear of ink. "Is there anything else regarding your health that you're concerned about, sir?"

"No, I don't think so." Apart, of course, from the fact that I have flashbacks to the wards and the fields in Afghanistan, visibly jump whenever anyone makes a sudden noise, keep waking up covered in sweat and crying and thinking I can't breathe… I pushed my thoughts away and tried to infer what Holmes would deduce from the ink stain that now decorated the man's forehead.

Dr. Emerson sighed again. "Very well. I am sorry to say that there is little I can do for you, except to call at your home in a week's time, as we agreed earlier. And, of course…" He reached for his prescription pad. "This ought to give you some relief."

I dropped the papers as fast as I would a snake. "Doctor, the pain from my injuries isn't that bad! I don't need morphine—" I turned over the other prescription "—or opium!"

"A morphine prescription is routine in cases such as yours. To use it is not dangerous."

But it's addicting. And the last thing Holmes needs right now is more morphine lying around our rooms.

"Even if that's true, I do not want to spend the rest of my life rotting away in an opium den!"

"And how do you propose to spend it?" demanded Emerson impatiently, turning back to his list. "Andrews!" He went to speak with his assistant, while I sat frozen in my chair. How was I going to spend my life? I almost didn't want to know. Deaths from drink and drugs clung to my family tree like parasites—my own brother spent half his small income in public houses. I had determined that my own life would be normal, but what was normal? Getting shot twice, losing most of my friends to a war, and living with ruined health on a veteran's pension didn't exactly fit the bill, but surely opium and morphine were no cure for that?

Emerson turned back to me. "Dr. Watson, I will be blunt. You are clearly not getting better. In fact, you seem to be getting worse. Your wound pension runs out in three months, and if you continue along your present path you will not have the strength to work, or indeed, do much of anything. I cannot help you, sir. The most I can give you is comfort."

"Comfort!" I rocketed out of my chair. "It's of great comfort to know that the only thing I am good for now is to be a degenerate addict!"

He sighed. Again. I wondered how his wife could stand it. "I see this a lot with veterans. It's not an unusual—"

I shoved the prescriptions in my pocket and walked out the door before he could finish. Outside, I thought of calling a cab but decided security about this month's rent was better, and turned to walk home.

Was it even worth resisting? I thought miserably as I trudged along the crowded, roiling streets, full of shouts and oaths. If I was as far gone as Emerson seemed to think, perhaps my will to resist the drugs would burn out anyway. I could save myself the trouble and start using them now—I stopped in horror. What was I thinking? Should I risk the very thing I feared for Holmes in his languid periods between cases? Overdose. The thought of finding my only possible friend dead from too much cocaine made my hands shake. Holmes had never showed much beyond a mild and absentminded liking for me, but I would never subject him to the after-effects of an accidental suicide.

I entered our rooms at Baker Street with a quick greeting to Mrs. Hudson, who was struggling with her apparently broken wringer washer, and climbed the stairs wearily. What was I going to do with the prescriptions? The idea of actually taking opium, or morphine in the absence of the need for sedation was repugnant to me, but medical school and later the army had hammered it into me to follow a doctor's orders. I finally shoved the prescriptions under a stack of Holmes's papers. Archaeologists excavating these rooms in a hundred years would be hard pressed to find them now.

The next day found me at the railway station, seeing Stamford off for his cousin's wedding after a morning visit with him. It was June, and (to dare Holmes's disapproval and indulge in a small degree of romanticism) city and country alike seemed blushing and abloom, newlyweds and fiancés strolling down every street, hands linked. While waiting for Stamford's train, he and I fell into conversation with two of the latter, come down to London from Sussex, where they had met and courted, to be married at the home of the lady. The soon-to-be bridegroom, who introduced himself as George Alder, soon departed to find a porter, leaving us to the tender mercies of as excited a young bride as one could wish to encounter.

Miss Serena Nelson nevertheless drew my interest for, after telling us several too many details about her wedding dress ("Cream ribbed silk with a veil of lace to match the trim and a wreath of orange flowers, can you imagine?") she began to speak about how she and Mr. Alder had nearly been driven apart forever by a blackmailer.

"But Mr. Sherlock Holmes—maybe you've heard of him—cleared up the whole thing, and we're ever so obliged to him," Miss Nelson declared as her fiancé returned with two porters, one of whom took their luggage and the other, Stamford's.

"Indeed you must be," I replied, my heart leaping at the thought that my friend must even now be en route to home, if his case was concluded with such expediency. "My congratulations."

"Thank you, sir." George Alder assisted the porter with his luggage and the couple went to a waiting cab. I bid goodbye to Stamford and turned back to see Miss Nelson waving at me. I waved back with a smile.

"Meditating on the joy of thrusting oneself into matrimony, Watson?" said a familiar voice just behind me. "Especially when all so might have easily gone astray, and their young love spoiled when it should be sweetest and best?"

"Holmes!" I turned and found myself, to my consternation and delight, addressing the porter who had taken Stamford's suitcase, looking at me with unconcealed fun in his eyes.

"It is good to see you, Watson. I see you've made the acquaintance of my young friends. A simple enough case, but with its own points of merit. I see you must have walked to the station, or your shoes would not be so muddy so early in the day, so let us call a cab to get back to Baker Street."

Call a cab we did, for which I was grateful. Holmes winced and then sneezed as we rolled out of the station, past cooing couples and more than a few bouquets of flowers.

"Caught cold, Holmes?"

"No, it's the roses, they make my nose itch. And why must those giggling couples get in the way so? Do amorous chemicals in the brain prevent them from seeing that they are blocking the road?"

I sighed, and hoped promptly and illogically that I did not sound like Dr. Emerson. "They're in love, Holmes. It's June."

"It's a public nuisance," Holmes retorted. "If I ever fell in love, I would do it in January."

Contrary consulting detective. I'd hardly be shocked if he did. I shook my head and grinned wickedly. "You do not like feeling the sweetness in the air, then?" I asked with false concern. "June brings you no happiness, no hope?"

"I only hope that George Alder did not spend his bride's entire fortune tipping every cabman between here and Sussex. That purse is new, but the lining is frayed already; you can always tell a generous spender that way."

"And why did you dress in a porter's jacket for your return trip? What does that portend?"

Holmes yawned. "Little enough. It was a case of a set of misplaced luggage, if you can believe I have fallen so far. I was able to locate it in a matter of minutes. Frankly, Watson, the only thing of any note that has happened since I left London is the extraordinary rise of the price of saffron."

"If you are beginning to take notice of the trade in spices and disguising yourself as a porter for a simple case of a missing suitcase, I fear you may soon grow desperate," I said lightly, attempting to hide my worry that he might soon turn to the cocaine without something more to occupy him.

If Holmes read my implication he gave no sign of it. "I shall not conceal it, I dressed so just as much for your reaction. I do enjoy catching you off your guard a little."

"I don't know why I was shocked to see you dressed as a porter. There's a hardly any place in London where you could not feel at home if you wished."

"There is one place, Watson, and I fervently hope no case shall take me there. If secrecy was necessary, I should fail miserably."

"And that is?"

The cab drew to a halt, and Holmes climbed down to pay the driver. "Not even you, my dear Watson, may know that." He broke off as a flustered Mrs. Hudson hurried down the stairs.

"Oh, Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson, thank goodness you've returned," she exclaimed. "I thought I would be driven insane!"

I threw Holmes an inquiring look, but he seemed as puzzled as I. "I haven't even been here to make a mess, Mrs. Hudson. What is the problem?"

"It's not you," Mrs. Hudson replied, wringing her hands. "It's her. All she said was, 'I'd like to look at your wringer washer,' I'll swear to it, she said nothing else, and the poor young lady had been waiting for you so long, Mr. Holmes, I thought the least I could do was let her amuse herself. So I show her the washer, and go back to fetch the laundry, and when I come back, she's sitting in the middle of my kitchen, with soapsuds everywhere and my washer in five different pieces and half the bars pulled off the windows—and all she says is, 'Who designed this? The handle is too short and the nails will give out in six months. I'll fix it for you; I know how.' She's been there three hours, Mr. Holmes, and I can't get rid of her!" Our landlady had obviously left distressed behind and was entering frantic.

"Did she mention why she wished to see me?" At the possibility of a case, Holmes's eyes had lit up instantly.

"She mentioned something to do with a robbery," replied Mrs. Hudson, apparently a bit annoyed that Holmes was not taking the destruction of her beloved washer as an unheard-of calamity. "And I told her I didn't know when you would be back, but she insisted upon waiting, and I—"

Holmes promptly brushed past the landlady and darted up the stairs. "Don't fret, Mrs. Hudson, we shall have the young lady off your hands in a moment. Do keep her company while I rid myself of this unprofessional apparel." I threw an apologetic look at Mrs. Hudson before following. If this case was anywhere near as intriguing as the description of the client who brought it, all thoughts of cocaine would, I hoped, be vanquished from Holmes's thoughts.

A/N: Flashbacks, nightmares, and Watson's other problems as recorded here are classic symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, though that particular term was not coined until after World War II. A description of a patient addicted to opium can be found in 'The Man with the Twisted Lip.'