A/N: Before anyone jumps on me for not being strictly Canonical, let me issue a disclaimer.
I have done my research (and a lot of it) for this story – a sort-of companion piece to A Case of Immortality, at the request of several readers.
According to the Canon, Watson's third and last practice was in Queen Anne Street; though there are two possible locations for this street the more likely one appears to be not far from Baker Street, near Euston Station and Regent's Park. This location puts it in close proximity to Bloomsbury Street and St. Pancras, both of which have been documented as being hit by both Zeppelins and Gotha aeroplanes in the London air-raids of WWI (among other places in London). I have the links for the sites I've used, if anyone wants to check my locations.
I've also done my medical research, if anyone is interested.
But at any rate, this is fanfiction, after all. Just to let you all know that I'm not making up something totally implausible.
Second disclaimer, and then I'll shut up and let you read: I subscribe to the Watson-once-married belief; and until I find evidence in the Canon to contradict that directly (beyond Doyle's normal carelessness with dates and so on) I will stick to that theory. This should not make much of a difference to your understanding this oneshot, but I am simply letting you know up front as explanation that I believe Watson only married once, even after Holmes's retirement in 1903.
And an added disclaimer: Don't be freaked out by the beginning, as you all know I cannot stand character death. This is just a plot bunny that would not let me go after reading LAST and then my own post-LAST story. Slightly melancholy, but not really dark. You have been warned.
When a noble life has prepared old age, it is not decline that it reveals, but the first days of immortality.
- Muriel Spark
I drop my small bag outside and silently push open the oaken door with a tiny squeak, poking my head noiselessly into the room – if he is asleep I would never waken him, for he needs every moment of rest he can get now.
He appears peaceful enough in slumber, his worn face placid and untroubled…the sleep of men who know they deserve far better than the world has seen fit to give them, but who are magnanimous enough to accept Fate as it is, not as it could have been.
But though he always has been able to fall asleep almost instantly, anywhere (another mark of the true soldier within), he has always been a very light sleeper; and more so now than in younger days. He blinks drowsily a few times upon hearing the chair beside the bed creak as I sit, and then he turns his head to look at me.
Sleepiness, fading into awareness, disbelief, surprise, and then that familiar slow spreading smile…I can read every thought that flits rapidly through his mind and manifests itself on his expressive face.
Surprise…he is startled to see me here. How I wish in past years I had been more predictable in that aspect. He should not have to wonder if I would be here. So many times over the years I had been on a sickbed or injured…and I was only surprised if he were not there when I awoke. Would that I had not been so inconsistent, so uncertain in my expressing of emotions that he would be shocked to find me at his bedside now, all these years later…how many has it been we met one another? Thirty-eight? How old I truly am!
But the past cannot be changed, as I am overly fond of pointing out in some feeble attempt to justify my own mistakes. And either way, the surprise has now faded to a quiet trust and gladness to see me there as he looks silently at me for a moment, blinking in the soft light.
I suddenly find that either the sandwich I choked down on the train or some unidentifiable object has lodged itself painfully in my throat, and so I merely close my hand over his cold one as it lies listlessly on the coverlet.
"You…got here quickly," he whispers contentedly, and at the so uncharacteristically weak sound my hand trembles and I feel a painful knot of tension spread out in my chest.
I nod, trying to bring my voice back to normality as I force words from my tight throat. "I came as soon as I heard, old man."
He sighs weakly, attempting to turn over to face me. I hastily settle on the edge of the bed so that he does not have to move, and he nods his weary thanks, his hand clenching in mine briefly.
His familiar hazel eyes, dimmed with weariness and a slightly fuzzy outlook because of the medication, glance over me carefully, taking in every detail with a bit more slowness than usual. Then he smiles up at me affectionately.
"Holmes…don't look so scared," he whispers. "It's not as bad as it seems."
I do not know whether to laugh or weep at his throwing my own words back in my face (the Adelbert Gruner case when I had given him such a fright) but thankfully for my pride, laughter wins over and I feel the tension in my throat start to lessen slightly.
His eyes close for a moment and he does nothing but breathe slowly. I am afraid to move, afraid that if I do something will happen that I have no power to control…but the familiar eyes open once more to fasten on my face.
"It's not that bad," he murmurs again softly, searching my worried features with touching concern. Confound him, why does he insist on taking better care of others than he does of himself? "Few days' rest…change of pace…I'll be fine then."
"Few days' rest? A change of pace?" I hear my voice rising almost hysterically and bring it back down with an effort – excitement could be dangerous right now. "Watson, you nearly had a heart attack! You cannot just change a few habits and expect to go on living that way!"
I have now thrown composure to the wind, evidently, as my voice is now shaking as badly as my hands are; this affair has very much upset my control. And strangely enough, the fact no longer bothers me as much as it used to in bygone years – I have learnt there are far more important things than pride in this disorderly world.
He winces at the vehemence of my tone and lowers his gaze with painful weariness. "I cannot just drop everything, Holmes," he whispers sadly. "You've not lived in London for years…you don't know the damage the war caused. The repair work is only beginning for us."
"And you have done more than your duty to your country, Watson!" I reply intensely, my anger at his confounded stubbornness tingeing it with more ire than I had intended. "It is time for a younger man to do his part!"
He sighs again, closing his eyes once more. "You don't understand, Holmes."
"No, I do not understand," I whisper, my voice now beyond shaking. Control, remain in control… "Watson, it has been six months since the war ended…and you have not even fixed the damage to your own house from the air-raids!"
He had returned from the war to find his living quarters in Queen Anne Street only partly intact, and the majority of the damage had not yet been rebuilt. I knew for a fact he had been living in the habitable part of the house and leaving the repairs undone.
"Haven't had the time," he murmurs wearily. Then, almost as an afterthought, and so low I barely hear it, "Or the money."
I rub my forehead with my free hand, feeling the stress and worry headache I have been battling all day threatening to come to the fore. "You've been treating patients for free again, is that it?"
Perhaps I sound cynical or unsympathetic, for his eyes spring open and a tiny flash of fire lights in them. "Holmes, children are sick and dying; illness is sweeping this city like it never has! We don't have enough help! I've no time to spare on repairing the few rooms I have that were damaged heaven only knows how long ago; there are unfortunates in London who yet have no home at all!"
He trails off suddenly with a pained cry, gasping helplessly for a breath, and I curse myself for exciting him. I place my hands on his shoulders gently and guide him through a deep breathing exercise he had often used upon me in the past, and in a moment I feel him shudder and take a sharp intake of air.
"I'm so sorry, Watson," I whisper, filled with remorse. Why can I never handle these things correctly?
He shakes his head, concentrating on regulating his breathing before looking back up at me and speaking in a more measured tone.
"I'm fine, Holmes," he says quietly, calmly, as if daring me to contradict his words.
"You're not fine, my dear fellow," I control my voice with a supreme effort, taking a deep breath to regain my nerves…I did not come here to excite him, I must remain calm. "You were found on the floor of your consulting-room by your housemaid, Watson! Had she not come in when she did…" I trail off unsteadily, the ensuing vision just too horrible for words.
Once more the shocking, numbing horror I had felt when I first opened the telegram this morning sweeps over me, that dread I had succumbed to until I had read further and realised my first horrible conjecture was (thank heaven above) wrong.
My friend looks up at me, and his eyes are clouded with exhaustion but also that old familiar sparkle I have always seen when I exert more care for him than is normal for my aloof nature. He takes such good care of others that when someone returns the gesture, he regards it as an almost incredible gift – a favour that I have been more than occasionally remiss in returning over the years.
"Holmes, angina pectoris is not the same thing as a heart attack," he informs me softly, reassuringly (sounding so much like a competent doctor that it seems thoroughly incongruous to see him on bed-rest). "Merely a warning of the possibility in future. So I have to carry nitroglycerin tablets with me at all times for the rest of my declining years…that is not a great inconvenience, my dear fellow."
Not a great inconvenience…my dear Watson, ever the master of understatement. He does not quite realise what a horrible electrifying jolt this episode has dealt me – a clear, cold, ruthless reminder that we are no longer a couple of middle-aged men living in Victorian London; perhaps skirting danger a little too closely but never falling over the edge, whether by a strange kindly Providence or my own wit I never have been able to decide. We are not so inexplicably untouchable. Not any more. Those days are long gone.
I close my eyes for a moment, trying to formulate exactly what I wish to say to him and also attempting to get my mind into some semblance of order for the first time today. When I open my eyes again, he is trying to raise himself on one elbow, eyeing the pillows under his head and frowning, obviously very distressed by his own weakness.
Suddenly I find myself treading carefully, not wishing to damage that foolish pride of his that he treasures so dearly. But I cannot watch him in such a helpless state, my refusal to offer help forcing him to ask for it, either. Both would be humiliating, but more so the latter.
"May I?"
"Please," he sighs with relief, allowing me to help him sit up carefully. I prop a few extra pillows and cushions behind him and then ease him back slowly, gently. His eyes are closed when I am finished, but they then open and he gives me a small grateful smile, leaning back with a contented sigh.
He is certainly taking this much better than I…not that that surprises me at all. I have always been aware that he is a far stronger man than I; strange, considering that his strength has always been tempered with that romantic nature that I never would be able to control were I he. His life is one of balance, mine of extremes...and he is the only anchor that keeps me from one extreme or the other. Does he realise just how important that is to a nature such as mine?
I fidget for a moment nervously, running a finger along the stitching seam in his coverlet, until his hand closes over my fingers to stop their nervous twitching.
"What is it that you are undecided about telling me?" he asks quietly, and with a trace of amusement. Confound it, he knows me and my nervous habits far too well.
I gulp a deep breath and look at him, schooling my face into what I hope is a calm and reassuring expression; however, I have the feeling that I only succeed in looking very awkward.
"Watson…this has to stop," I finally say gently. "My dear friend, I know you are a man of action, but…even you cannot go on like this forever. You've been working yourself to death for years now, and it is finally catching up with you."
How I hate to say it, how it cuts me to my very core to say the truth, but someone has to tell the man before he succeeds in killing himself. And thereby indirectly, killing a large part of me.
Watson frowns at me, giving a sigh so weary it sends another lump to lodge in my throat. "That's what Stephens – the Doctor they called, Holmes – told me," he murmurs, his face falling miserably. He knows I am right, but that infernal pride will not yet allow him to admit the relentless fact.
I tentatively lay a hand on his arm, putting as much earnestness into my words as I ever have in my life. "He is correct, Watson. My dear chap, I…" I hesitate, unsure of what to say next – these matters have never been my métier and I confess to being completely out of my depth.
How to phrase it to not sound as if I have no faith in his strength…for indeed I have more trust in his fortitude than I ever have had (or ever will have) in my own. I do not want him thinking I disbelieve his ability to keep going, but I cannot allow him to continue on a path to self-destruction, in a good cause though it may be.
He raises a questioning eyebrow at me when I hesitate for too long, and I finally take the plunge. Please let this come out as concern, not pity…
"Watson, I am asking – pleading – with you to not keep on like this," I manage with a hard swallow. "My friend, you've done your part; please stop this before you really do have a heart attack. You have to stop, Watson. For…both our sakes, you simply must."
Either my rare emotional words or my unsteady tone seems to have arrested his attention, for his gaze grows slightly more alert as he glances at me fondly, an understanding flickering warmly in the back of his eyes. Thank heaven one of his formidable skills has always been filling in the gaps that my poor word choices leave in a normal conversation.
"I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I stopped my work, Holmes," he says sadly, and I can see the hidden pain of acceptance in his face as he whispers the words. Fate and age are indeed cruel, and some men simply too noble, too good to be subjected to its ruthless pursuit. There is no justice in the world these days.
Now is my chance…I have to take it…
"Watson…" I hesitate uncertainly, aware that he is looking at me strangely. I swallow hard once more and try again. "Watson, have you considered retiring?"
That got his attention, certainly, for he now turns a fully alert gaze onto me. "Retire?" he repeats blankly. Blast, he doesn't understand it yet…I shall have to vocalise the entire thing.
Now or never…
I tighten my grip on his arm slightly. "Watson, why do you think when I was choosing between those two cottages on the Downs sixteen years ago that I refused the better ocean view of the one for the other?"
He blinks at the unexpected query, obviously processing this question slowly and bringing the memories back to recollection. "More secluded, was the reason you told me," he says at last, looking quizzically at me.
I grin despite the sobriety of the talk we are having. "You know I've a habit of altering the facts slightly."
"Keeping the truth from me, you mean. Yes, I know."
I wince uncomfortably, and he smirks at the successful jab (even ill, he still knows exactly where the chinks in my heavy armour are) before motioning for me to continue. "What then?"
"It had a spare bedroom," I replied simply.
He stares blankly at me, and I hurry onward before I lose my nerve entirely. "I never expected you to stay in active practice for so long, Watson."
I admit my underestimation of both his strength and his health freely; I did not know my Watson as well as I thought I did at the time of my retirement. I have said the phrase so often it has become a cliché between us, but it remains absolutely true – I never do get the man's limits.
Until now. He does have them, and he very nearly over-reached them at a terrible price. I repress a shudder and formulate a last earnest plea.
"You need to stop, Watson. This…this is not our London anymore, my dear fellow," I find myself saying sadly, with some sense of loss. "This London belongs to another generation, old chap, and you and I are no longer a part of it. Fighting it is not doing you or London any good, old fellow."
I see the pain I still feel deep inside flash across his haggard face, and I pat his shoulder gently.
"It's time to let go, Watson." My voice has dropped to a near-whisper despite my efforts to be firm and forceful, for I find it impossible at the moment as the memories come flooding back, triggered by the heartbroken look upon his care-worn face.
I had come to terms long ago with the fact that London and England…the whole world, in fact, were changing, progressing, shifting. I and the bit of world I could keep hold of were remaining the same, and the world was convoluting around me – newer, younger, brighter faces were filling the police stations, countless young fellows were adopting my methods and starting as private consultants themselves. New inventions, new people, new progress, a new age…and all of it completely different from the world I had grown to love as my domain in life.
Watson had wondered at my retirement during what he regarded as still the glory years of my career…but I knew better than anyone else that it would not be long before the sun would sink and then set on my reign in London as the world's only private consulting detective…certainly I would shortly be upstaged by someone with the sheer wealth of new knowledge and the vitality of youth that I simply was not capable of matching.
And, if I could not be as good as once I was, I saw no point in continuing a practice that only came increasingly closer to greater danger for both of us as the century turned and the criminals grew more daring, more dangerous. That incident with Killer Evans sixteen years ago (how long that seemed!) had pushed me over the brink at last – it was time to go before my growing carelessness cost one of us more dearly than I was willing to pay.
Six months later I was happily ensconced in a completely new world to explore, categorise, and calculate.
And I had never regretted it for a moment, save on those lonely evenings when I would make some discovery and turn excitedly round to tell Watson – and he would not be there.
We had spent over a fortnight thrashing out the decision, discussing the possibilities, the alternatives, and had had more than one emotionally-rampant and unsuccessful argument over the matter; finally he had told me he could not retire with me, for he would go raving mad having nothing to do for years to come…and he still had plenty of active years left.
I understood that…I did not at all like the idea, for I had assumed (to my discredit, I do have a long-standing habit of taking the wonderful things in my life for granted) that he would simply go with me to Sussex. But still I understood, and left him an open-ended invitation to come down at any and all hours to see me, which he did nearly every weekend that he could afford to do so.
And for nine years, that became the new way of life for us. With his fame as a writer and by association with me, Watson had absolutely no trouble in acquiring a quite satisfactory practice in Queen Anne Street, and by all accounts was living a peaceful and contented life as I was, though in a different setting.
London changed and moved on without Sherlock Holmes, but my Watson never did, to my great contentment. We needed no more than that.
Then came the summons, back to the harness in the service of my country. A two-year stint in America and working my way through a German espionage ring had driven a wedge of distance and little to no contact between us for the sake of my safety, and though I had entertained some hope that the rift would close once my spying days were over, that hope was dashed when I found out he had volunteered for medical duty in His Majesty's Army. I had done my duty for my King, and now it was his turn…though the risk was considerably higher for him, and he was volunteering faster than men half or a third his age.
Four long, weary years, in which I saw him only twice, talked on the telephone three times, and worried about him every hour the rest of the time, living for the moments when wires would reach me that he was still alive. Then the news of his discharge came at last. I met him when he stepped onto Portsmouth Jetty, a worn and weary man similar to the one I had met for the first time over thirty-five years before, and for a few days we had fallen back into old habits there at my bee farm in Sussex.
But all good things must come to an end, so they say, and he had finally returned to London, to find his house damaged by the Zeppelin raids and London still reeling from the devastating effects of the Great War. I had heard very little of him, seeing him only occasionally in those six months due to his working constantly doing heaven only knew what, until this morning when I'd received word of his collapse.
I shake myself out of my musings when Watson looks up at me with dimmed eyes. "Time to let go…" he repeats softly.
I nod wordlessly, clasping his hand in a tight grip, fairly willing him to let go of his stubborn tenacity, for his health's sake…for my sanity's sake. Because whether I fully understood the indestructible link that held us together for life or not, the fact remained: were the worst to happen to him, I would not be far behind, and I well knew it. The idea of being so irrevocably attached to someone, anyone, was both appalling and at the same time oddly comforting.
But I did not want him attempting to solve the greatest mystery of all time alone, and over something as trivial as overwork. This was not how it was supposed to happen.
He shifts uneasily on the bed, sighing at some hidden distress, and closes his eyes with infinite weariness. I remain in my position, my head bowed over his weak grip, wishing to heaven for the bygone days in which we only joked about growing older.
So many times in one of my theatric fits he would tease me about how someday my love of melodrama would cause him to fall into cardiac arrest…how cruel and horrible seemed that jest now!
"Holmes…I won't be up and about for a few days yet, they want me to be under observation for at least two," I hear his quiet murmur and glance up.
His eyes are still closed, giving me no glimpse into his soul to see what he is really thinking. "But after that…"
His grip on my hand suddenly tightens and he looks upward to meet my gaze…warm and full of a contentment that I have not seen in many a year from him…a look that I know has to be mirrored in my own expression, as a smile spreads across my face unbidden at his next words.
"I want to go home."
As I said, perhaps not exactly Canonical but merely a what-if, how I see the beginning of the end we never got a glimpse of; hope it was a fair read even if your views on the issues differ from mine.
Partly inspired by LAST and A Case of Immortality, and partly inspired by bcbdrums's icon Immortal, which can be found on her DeviantArt page – go have a look, won't you?