The moon hid behind clouds. Wind rustled the tree leaves into a dissonant symphony. A faint echo of howling could be heard. Shuddering, John buttoned his jacket up and looked around. He saw two rays of flashlights from Dewer's Hollow. Henry and Sherlock. They looked as though they had just encountered a ghost. Henry was shaking out of excitement while Sherlock looked rather angry. John almost ran to meet them. The detective ignored John's questioning eyes and blurted out.
"John, take Henry home. I'll be at the inn."
Henry almost tripped and John supported the man in time so Henry didn't fall.
"You saw it. I am right. You saw it, too."
Henry tried to free himself from John's grasp. He swung his arms and paced around the petrified detective.
"A monster hound! It's out there."
His voice was fervent and sounded confident. Sherlock didn't listen. His pale face looked translucent like a silvery ghost. His eyes lost their usual focus. John held his tongue although he wanted to ask if Sherlock was okay: the detective was sweating profusely in the middle of the night. Before John said anything, the long coat flapped around and disappeared around the bend to the direction of the inn. John shrugged it off as he was well accustomed to his flatmate's behaviors. He tugged Henry's jacket, and the two men walked towards the direction of Henry's house.
Henry was almost insane. He kept mumbling to the doctor. He stopped in the doorway of the sitting room and turned his back to John.
"Look, he must have seen it. I saw it – he must have. He must have. I can't…Why? Why would he say that? It-it-it-it it was there. It was."
John helped Henry to sit on the sofa and said in an assuring tone.
"Henry, Henry, I need you to sit down, try and relax, please. I'm gonna give you something to help you sleep, all right?
Henry wasn't paying attention. He made a maniac smile. He declared,
"Good news, John. It's-it's-it's good. I'm not crazy. There is a hound, there…there is. And Sherlock – he saw it too. No matter what he said, he saw it."
John made it sure that Henry takes pills before he left.
Sherlock's gait was unstable but fast. Anyone seeing him from behind would have said he was very drunk. Anyone from front would have asked if he had seen a spirit or something. He was almost running from the moor, seeking for other people's company. The inn was brightly lit, warm with mouth-watering smell and delightful mumbles of its guests. He let out a breath of relief and hoarsely ordered a strong drink. With his glass, he sat on an armchair by a roaring fire. Sherlock was so chilled despite his coat: it wasn't from the cold. Appreciating the warmth from the fireplace, he took a couple of sips and closed his drink left a burning sensation down into his stomach. His senses were fine. So how could he see the hound, then? He could picture its red glowing eyes, low and deep growls, black shiny fur, enormous body… He opened his eyes. Nothing but the usual Friday night at the inn. It took him more than half of his drink when he was able to define the emotion that he was having: fear. Sherlock Holmes was feeling a fear. He mumbled to himself.
"Keep eliminating the impossible. Then however improbable, only the truth remains."
It wasn't possible: the dog shouldn't exist; but he had just seen one. Not a trick of an eye. Henry Knight also witnessed it. The fire danced and crackled in the hearth. It was only when John cleared his throat that the sleuth realized he was not alone.
"Well, he is in a pretty bad way. He's manic, totally convinced there's some mutant super-dog roaming the moors. There isn't, is there?"
Sherlock ignored John and continued to gaze in the direction of the fire. He was totally lost in thought. John glanced at the drink that Sherlock was having: it was rather strong one. The doctor reached for his notebook and asked.
" Listen, er, on the moor I saw someone signaling. Er, Morse – I guess it's Morse. Doesn't seem to make much sense.
Sherlock blinked rapidly. There was something strangely irking in John's attitude. John didn't understand. What he needed so much at this moment was total silence, but his flatmate kept babbling about bloody stupid Morse code. U, M, Q, R, A. Whatever that was, it had nothing to do with the monster hound. The detective wouldn't have admitted it to anyone, not even his brother, but his friend, John. His voice betrayed him. In a trembling voice, he said,
"I saw it too. A hound, out there in the Hollow. A gigantic hound."
The doctor almost laughed as the detective talked through gritted teeth. Sherlock breathed shallowly. He knew John doubted his words. When the doctor advised to stick to what they knew, the detective could not help but to confess.
"Once you've ruled out the impossible, whatever remains – however improbable – must be true. Look at me. I'm afraid, John. Afraid."
He showed his shaking hand. The amber liquid in the glass moved as his hand kept trembling.
" Always been able to keep myself distant...divorce myself from…feelings. But look, you see…body's betraying me. Interesting, yes? Emotions."
He felt an anger roil inside him. How weak he was: throughout two thirds of his lifetime, he had tried to detach himself from emotions. Here he was, totally terrified from a dog that wasn't possible. Almost in self-disgust, he muttered out,
"The grit on the lens, the fly in the ointment."
Sherlock felt John's pitiful gaze.
"You've been pretty wired lately, you know you have. I think you've just gone out there and got yourself a bit worked up."
John obviously was trying to assure Sherlock, but his choice of words didn't help.
"Worked... up? Me?! There's nothing wrong with me."
Can't you understand? I am doubting myself now, John.
Sherlock ranted on his deduction of other patrons of the inn for a few minutes. John was dumbfounded; he didn't understand why the detective was so upset. John just cleared his throat and said,
"And why would you listen to me? I am just your friend."
Sherlock regretted it almost immediately after he opened his mouth: he said rather savagely.
"I don't have friends."
A look of hurt fleeted across John's face. Sherlock wanted to call after the doctor and apologize to him, but John had already left the place.
That night Sherlock stayed up in the armchair; other patrons left for their homes or rooms upstairs. The fire was dying out. The detective didn't move a bit. He kept pondering over the fear, a new emotion that he learnt. Whatever this fear was, it seemed that it had bitten the detective to the bone, and had never let it go. It wasn't the dog that he was afraid of. Mycroft's text- what are you doing?- of the previous day reminded him of the enemy in custody, Moriarty. He emptied his glass and closed his eyes.
His mobile vibrated again. It was Mycroft. He could hear the strained voice of his brother. The news wasn't of a surprise but a distraction. Moriarty had to go free. Now the ball was in Moriarty's court. There was nothing but to wait until the villain made his next move. Jim was dying to get attention of Mycroft.
Why? What would he exactly have in his mind?
Sherlock's mind had lost the usual clarity; it was submersed in the dark murky water.
Okay, one by one. The priority should be the hound.
When the window was brightened with the grey half-light of the dawn, a thought hit the detective. There was a very high possibility that they, some of them, had been poisoned with a sort of hallucinogen. When they visited Henry's house the previous day, they all had coffee and talked about the hound. John, who prefers black coffee, didn't see the dog. Sugar. Someone might have laced Henry's sugar with some chemicals. Who? Someone who desired to drive Henry into madness; who wanted to see Henry suffer. Henry's memory about his father's death... it had to be someone involved in his father's death. He heaved a deep sigh, rather relieved. It was another case of murder and nothing more. He had just regained his belief in himself. But this theory needed verification: he had to go to Henry's and get the sugar sample.
Tapping his coat pocket that held a bag of the questionable sugar, Sherlock roamed around the village to find John. John had looked upset: all those thorny remarks were against the detective himself: his friend might have thought that they were directed at him. The friend remark was the mistake. Sherlock shouldn't have said it. It was time to mend up the relationship. To come to think of it, he didn't lie. He didn't have friends, but only one. John Watson. The question was how to make the doctor understand it.
The second reason was rather practical, and he knew some people would frown if they had known. He had to test Henry's sugar that he had just nicked from Henry's kitchen: John would be the perfect object to test it. If John could see the hound after taking the sugar, then it would prove his theory about the impossible hound. To do that, he needed to use the Baskerville base; it would be a piece of cake this time for his brother wouldn't dare to refuse.
John was sitting in the cemetery behind the church. He glanced at the approaching detective, cleared his throat, stood up, and turned around to walk away. The doctor's expression looked very uncomfortable as he tucked the notebook inside his pocket. Looking awkward, Sherlock asked about the Morse code. John brushed it off, saying it was nothing.
"You're being funny now. Funny doesn't suit you. Stick to the ice."
"John. I don't have friends..."
Sherlock bit his lips, paused, and then muttered out.
"I have only one."
John shook his head incredulously and resumed his walk. Sherlock stared blankly at the doctor's retreating figure.
What the hell? What's wrong with him?
Sherlock's brain got into a high gear: he must have missed something. Sherlock had been ignorant of other people's feedback or reactions. He had no trouble to brush it off when Donovan shot a deadly glare or Anderson nitpicked his comment or Lestrade reprimanded him. He could ignore Mycroft's request for his service. But he just couldn't do the same to the doctor. Sherlock realized something, and strode to catch up, calling after the doctor's name.
After talking about the dead dog with Billy, Sherlock returned at the table where John was having breakfast, rather brunch. Over the past 24 hours, the two men solved the mystery of the Baskerville hound; the murderer of Mr. Knight was revealed and died in the mine explosion. The innkeepers got away from any charge: Henry Knight and Lestrade were talking with the local force on the murder of Mr. Knight the Senior, and the death of Dr. Frankland. Billy brought a dish of pancakes for the sleuth with a bottle of Maple syrup. After chewing a small bite of the pancake, Sherlock played with the pancake and the syrup for a minute in obvious hesitation. John noticed it and said,
"A penny for your thoughts?"
Their eyes met briefly. The detective flinched a bit, put down his fork, and asked.
"John, when I said I got only one friend, you didn't think the friend was you. Who was in your mind?"
John wiped his mouth with a napkin and said.
"Billy."
"What?"
"The skull. In Study in Pink, you said it was your friend."
"John. That is the most absurd story that I've ever heard from you."
John rolled his eyes and said,
"Well, you haven't given me an impression that you consider me as a friend..."
"John, I didn't realize it until..."
The doctor raised his eyes in question. Sherlock stopped in mid-sentence and racked his brain to find a proper way to explain. This was more difficult than to admit the secret experiment that he had done on John at the Baskerville lab. The sleuth stammered.
"The Sam vest and the pool...I saw you walking out of the booth in the pool with all the explosives... I saw your eyes blinking, S.O.S in Morse code...and I realized I couldn't lose you. I'd rather die for you...and in less than five minutes, you pounced upon Moriarty just to save me despite the snipers and all."
He looked down and glared at his hardly touched dish. Sentiment. Mycroft had warned that sentiment was a disadvantage. He admitted in a timid voice,
"You were ready to die to save me. John... No one, maybe except Mycroft, but he is family, has ever done that for me. I..."
The detective just couldn't go on. To his relief, John grinned.
"The feeling's mutual, Sherlock. You would do the same if you were in my place, right?"
The sleuth nodded, unable to speak as flashback of what had happened at the pool hit his mind again. Jim Moriarty. Moriarty knew Sherlock's Achilles heel was John. Moriarty would strike back in a way that could damage the detective the most, and that would involve his friend, John Watson. A complicated emotion fleeted across the detective's face. Oblivious of this, the doctor continued.
"Let's admit it. You are the most difficult person to share a flat; you put me into an experiment that might be unsafe; our refrigerator's shared by cadavers and food; hardly does a week pass without an explosion, a fire, or noises in the kitchen; you insult me, actually all the people in the world, as a fool... Why is it me all the time that apologize for something that you do to Mrs. Turner or Mrs. Hudson?"
John took a secretive pleasure in ranting on his flatmate: he hadn't fully pulled himself up from his terrifying hallucination at the Baskerville base. Sherlock didn't know what to say or how to react: apparently he couldn't dish it out. His lips pouted at the doctor's honesty. John paused and regarded Sherlock for a few seconds. Then he declared,
"But I am your friend. No matter what happens between us, even when you treat me as a sort of guinea pig..."
The detective tried to suppress the smile; he couldn't. There were no hard feelings between the two men. John cleared his throat in an embarrassment as Sherlock fell silent. The doctor ordered more coffee. Despite the lurch in his stomach, the detective nodded silently, and started to wolf down the rest of the pancake to please the doctor.
He finished his pancakes and glanced at his wrist watch. It was 11 o'clock. Moriarty would be walking out of the prison free at this very moment: that was what his brother said the previous night. He knew he would have a closure with Moriarty in the near future and what Moriarty had in store for him would make his life hell. In spite of the final showdown with Moriarty he knew must come, at least today he would forget it and just enjoy the brief peaceful moment with his friend, John.
"Hey."
Lestrade's smiling face appeared from the door of the bar of the inn.
"I will join you two soon. Just finished talking with the local force. After brunch, back to London. I got my car."
He disappeared to place an order for himself. John checked an incoming message and said,
"It seems we've got a new case, Sherlock. Have you heard of Turner's master piece, The Reichenbach Fall?"
Sherlock's eyes twinkled at this news. Still they had a moment to share. It was a blissful moment.