"I see you haven't gotten one of those motorcars yet," Irene notes, sipping her tea and looking across the table at Mycroft.

"While one may be more expedient, I do favour the old-fashioned methods." He smiles. "And I doubt if Lorena would ever forgive me if I got rid of the horse."

"You wouldn't have to get rid of him, just put him on the train to Wyoming. She'd be only too glad to take care of him."

"I'm sure she would. You'd want to be careful or she'll set up a ranch and never come back."

His words hit a little closer to home than he doubtless intended. All of Lorena's letters have the same wonder and awe in them, even when she recounts some macabre tale. If she did decide to try her hand at ranching, it would come as no surprise. "Did you ever worry that Sherlock would do that?"

Mycroft smiles ruefully. "Once or twice, but he's always been far too restless to settle to something like that for long." He finishes his slice of cake and washes it down with the last of his tea. "If you're ready I'll leave you home. Does Thursday suit you again?"

"Yes, I believe it does."

Lorena flattens herself against a wall, chambering three more rounds in her revolver. A bullet clips the corner of her wall, one of the splinters slicing her cheek.

"Bastards."

Another round of firing, but she holds her peace, settling her heart rate again. The gun smoke reaches her nose and she sucks in a breath. Christ, but you could get high on that stuff. The wooden wall is pitted and scarred, scorched and splintered by the bullets throwing dust in her face, It's so long since she's fired they might think that they've gotten her.

Idiots. Don't they know who they're dealing with?

The shooting stops at last, but she doesn't hear any footsteps and nor does Alan shout or re-appear. It's not too hopeful.

She takes off her hat and puts it on the barrel of her gun, poking it out past the corner.

A bullet rips through the crown and she peeks out, firing back in the direction from which it came. A muttered curse, and silence falls. (The silence of three in the afternoon, she thinks, in a half-forgotten town with a detective and a marshal standing up to a gang of would-be bank robbers. It could have happened forty years ago and not a thing would be different.)

Alan stands up from behind the water trough, brushing dust off his clothes. His badge glints in the light and he smiles at Lorena as she steps out from behind the wall.

"Good shot!" he shouts, laughing, eyes still twinkling from the fight. It's moments like this that she half-thinks she could grow to love him.

"You didn't do too bad yourself!" she calls back, grinning at him as she puts her hat back on. "Do you reckon you have enough cuffs?"

"Oh I doubt if they'll put up too much of a fight. Better get the Doc. I think you got that last fella in the shoulder."

John shakes the rain from his hair and brings the groceries into the kitchen. He puts them away carefully and brews coffee, humming to dispel the quietness of the house. It takes a while before he realises that the tune is one of Sherlock's. Having brewed coffee, he takes it upstairs with the newspaper, expecting to find Sherlock dozing in bed, as he's been for much of the last few days.

The bed is empty, covers rumpled. John sets down the coffee, swearing softly, and goes back downstairs. It was to be expected, really, that Sherlock would get bored of bed rest. John just thought that it would take another couple of days before that would happen, based on past experience of an ill Sherlock. Influenza has always managed to lay him low, every single time.

With the kitchen already ruled out of a search, the evident absence from the bedroom, and the low likelihood of him being in John's room, the study is the obvious place to search. The study, too, proves Sherlock-less, leaving the back room and the front parlor. Of those two, the back room is far more likely. When John gets there, the fire has burned low in the grate, and Sherlock is lying slumped over on the sofa, grey curls visible even from the doorway. John sighs and crosses the room, shaking the detective awake.

"Back to bed for you," he says, but Sherlock shakes his head, straightening.

"No," he coughs. "I have to go to Michigan."

What sort of fever dream is this? John wonders. Michigan? We don't know anyone in Michigan. Wyoming I could understand, even Washington. But Michigan?

"What the hell are you talking about?" He presses his wrist to Sherlock's forehead. It's hardly a fool-proof method of temperature checking, but it feels about the same as it did earlier.

Sherlock swallows back another cough, pulling a telegram from inside his robe. "Suspicious lesions," he whispers hoarsely, before clearing his throat and trying again, his voice clearer now. "Suspected foot and mouth. They need me to confirm."

"They don't need you to do anything. The Department people are perfectly capable without you, and you are in no fit state to be heading off to Michigan. You can't even sit up without coughing your lungs up, never mind trying to keep food down or stay awake. You'll end up with pneumonia and it'll be the death of you. Back to bed."

"They requested my presence."

"I'll send word back that you're unfortunately unavailable."

Sherlock watches him for another minute, face taut and red-rimmed eyes narrowed, before he relents. "All right." He pushes himself up and totters out the door without another word.

To the backing noise of Sherlock clattering up the stairs, punctuated with the odd cough and even a sneeze, John returns to the kitchen and makes soup. By the time he gets back upstairs with that and the newspaper, Sherlock is asleep, back to the headboard, coffee sitting cold beside him. John eases him down so that's he's actually lying on the bed, then tugs the covers up to his chin and feels his forehead again, tuning out the rattle of his breath.

"I'm sure you're fit to go to Michigan," he murmurs, closing the door softly behind him as he leaves.