Chapter One
Wednesday, 26 April 1893
The book shop had appeared overnight, or so it appeared to Watson. His maid, Eliza Martingrove, assured him that it was a lovely little shop and it had been there since shortly after Mary Watson had passed away. The man who owned it was quite gruff and eccentric according to her ("the way he just fawns over those books. Sometimes he speaks to them like they're his children, sir!") but it was quite the little shop. The next best thing to a public library on the corner she said. ("If you'll pardon me for saying so sir, I can't believe you haven't been in there. It's been there over a year.")
Watson didn't find it so hard to believe. He hadn't seen much of anything since his wife had died. Losing Holmes and Mary so close together had turned out to be too much for him. He'd been bedridden and ill for a week after the fact.
It had been raining the day of Mary's funeral. He'd stayed out by her gravestone far too long and when he felt the need to move he'd only moved to another, isolated, corner of the cemetery to stand over the stone he and Mycroft had placed there for Sherlock Holmes. Watson was fairly sure he was the only visitor. He hadn't managed to admit to the public that Holmes was dead yet and he did enjoy having a private spot for him to go to and think of his friend without interruption. The exposure to the elements combined with his weakened state had him afflicted with a pleasant case of pneumonia, which he was partially surprised that he had survived. There was no one left here but him and it would have been very easy and quite desirable to allow himself to be swept away. He was a solider though, a solider through and through, and he was going to stick this out until the bitter end. It would indeed be a bitter one; he knew that through and through. Besides, he knew that the reactions of both Mary and Holmes if he appeared at their sides prematurely would be less than favourable ones. He could almost hear Mary's sobs of 'why, John, why' accompanied by a tirade against shameless romanticism given by his dear friend. The prospect of being able to hear them again almost made those pains worth it.
The bookstore must have appeared during his illness, he decided. The new line of thought distracted him from the darker one.
After his illness, when he was back to something resembling himself, he had followed the example of another Holmes: he had set up his lines and ran on them. He woke up, he ate breakfast, he saw patients, he had lunch, he saw patients, he had dinner, he went for a walk, he wrote, he retired. The only time there were ever any interruptions were when Lestrade called him out for help at the Yard. His practice was quite meagre and he did greatly miss the adventures and the mysteries. He did what he could for Lestrade, be it autopsies or amateur deductions, because it was a taste of a life he'd once had and could never have again. He'd take what he could get of it.
Those were his lines and those lines were his life. It may be a paradise to a man like Mycroft Holmes but it was a purgatory boarding on a hell for John Watson. It was an annoying period of waiting. Waiting for things to get better, which they never really would, and waiting for it all to end, which would happen in the quite distant future. It was existence and nothing more.
He found himself looking up at the bookstore. He must have walked by this place dozens of times before on his walks but he had never really studied the place before now. It was closed now; he could see the old man limping about getting his till in order. When he hobbled over to the door to pull down the blinds he stared at Watson for a moment, as though surprised to see him, and then gave him a quick nod of greeting. Watson barely had time to return the gesture before the blind was pulled down.
I shall stop in tomorrow, he decided as he passed the bookshop and continued up the street to his practice. It would certainly be a break from the routine and his library could do with some additions.
He soon found himself on the steps to his empty practice. He was still, even so long after moving out of Baker Street, hard pressed to refer to Kensington as home. Before it was "I'm going back to Mary" and now it was "I'm going back to my practice." Home had never really factored into it at all. He let himself in and settled in the sitting room, which doubled as his waiting room during consulting hours. He helped himself to a few fingers of brandy and took a seat at his desk. He had to get the story of the Musgrave Ritual finished tonight to be ready for the publisher's on Friday.
It was very likely unhealthy for him to be so enveloped in the life of a dead man but, like so many other things, Watson found he just didn't care anymore.
