I heard the shot, watched as you fell, and my heart stopped beating. Logic and reason, those two things that I professed to hold so dear to me, vanished and I found I did not miss them. I didn't hold back my anger and grief as I struck out at your attacker, and immense satisfaction filled me as I felt the bones of his face give under my fist.
Some thought must have remained with me however, as I searched him, relieving him of his weapons. Though I am sure it was only practicality on my part. He'd proven he was willing to shoot either of us, and I could not allow him such an opportunity again.
But when I turned to you, I feared I would find you already gone. I cannot begin to express how terrible the thought was to me. How I trembled inside as I took you up in my arms. I'm sure that it wasn't until I saw your shocked eyes searching my face that I started to breathe again.
"You're not hurt, Watson? For God's sake, say that you are not hurt!" I shouted in my panic, at same time I saw the blood upon your thigh.
I pulled out my pocket-knife, and had already cut back your trouser leg before you answered. "It's nothing, Holmes. It's a mere scratch."
"You are right," I sighed.
Though it was a bit more than that, the bullet had past clealy through the muscle, and was not so great a thing as I had feared. And I added some words of assurance, though I confess they were as much for my benifit as for you. "It is quite superficial."
The relief that flooded me was so profound that I'm not sure how I contained it. I pulled the kerchief you habitually kept in your sleeve free, and making a crude yet effective bandage of it I helped you to stand once more. The weight you placed on my arm as you stood beside me was a thousand times lighter the one that had been lifted from my heart. I welcomed it, and gladly.
While I could feel some of my reason returning, it was undeniable fury that filled me as I turned my gaze to our prisoner, who was just pulling himself together. I'm sure the look on my face was not a pleasant one, and I didn't wish it to be. And perhaps you thought me overly dramatic in the way addressed him then, but I tell you, no truer words have ever past my lips.
"By the Lord, it is as well for you. If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive."
