"NO!" Holmes fell slowly, his rigid body toppling to the earth at my feet, the drained phial tumbling from his grasp as he hit the ground. "Holmes! What is it? No, no!" I cried out incoherently as I stared dumbfounded at the stiff form of my friend. Blindly, I knelt beside him, unsure what to do. Was he unconscious? Was he… No. I couldn't think it. He had to be alive. My military training kicked in through my initial shock, and I leaned to see if he was breathing, my heart racing. I almost collapsed with sheer relief when, after several horrific seconds, I felt his faint breath on my cheek. Urgently I ripped away his tie and pulled open his starched collar and shirt buttons, leaving his chest bare and his throat free for him to breathe more easily. But nothing happened. Holmes continued to wheeze pathetically, a spasm every so often interrupting increasingly long periods where his body lay motionless, his limbs going limp. I rolled up my shirt sleeves and set about compressing his chest, trying not to feel the icy coldness of his skin as I desperately pumped life into his failing heart. I leaned over his face and closed my open lips around his own mouth which hung open slightly, blowing air into his lungs, trying to bring him around. I blew five times, then returned to pumping at his chest, hopelessly determined not to fail him. Suddenly, I heard a ragged gasp, and looked anxiously to see Holmes raise his head weakly, his mouth gaping as he took in lungful after lungful of fresh, sweet air. Laughing in shock and ecstatic joy, I sat my friend up against a brick wall and held his shoulders steady as he recovered enough strength to sit unsupported. "What the devil-" I began, but I was interrupted by a rough finger placed clumsily to my dry lips. I looked down, and Holmes was gazing up at me in a mixture of surprise, relief, gratitude and admiration. "Watson," he began, "how can I ever begin to repay you? You have saved my life, my friend." He smiled blearily up at me, and oh! How I longed to tell him! But I could not. Instead I smiled weakly at my closest friend, and said simply, "Holmes, where would you be without me? I despair to think how you survived before I came along. You are, of course, more than welcome, but next time- as I'm sure it will come- I'd prefer you to tell me before you intend to take some unlabelled concoction? I could have told you in a second, from the smell, that it was a poison."