The next morning Watson felt tired and unrested. He had been dreaming horrible dreams for most of the night. The most vivid of which was Holmes sitting in front of the empty fire place in the darkened parlour of 221B. Watson could not understand why he didn't just get up out of the chair. Walking towards Holmes, he saw his friends hands had been nailed to the arm-rests, his legs nailed to the seat. Holmes was staring at Watson through dead eyes.
"You could have saved me, John."
Watson woke up suddenly, breathing heavily. He was covered in sweat. It took him a moment to realise that it had only been a dream and that Holmes was not actually sitting dead somewhere, nailed to his chair.
But as he got up and splashed his face with cold water, he could not completely shake off the uneasy feeling the dream had left him with.
A full day of seeing patients as well as a clinic in the morning for anybody suffering from chest complaints lay ahead of him. Actually he was quite glad for the busy day for Watson was a man given to worry and over-analysis if left to turn things over in his mind for too long.
He sat to breakfast, after washing and shaving, and read through some patient notes before moving on to the room at the front of the house that he and Mary had agreed was to be his surgery.
As Watson had anticipated the clinic and his patients had kept his mind wonderfully occupied. He never got a chance to think about Holmes, of their fight the previous night or even the nightmares. He was called out on an emergency toward the end of his clinic hours. A horse and cart had over-turned and a young man had become trapped underneath the cart. By the time Watson arrived quite a crowd had formed. The horse had already been righted and led away but they were too afraid to move the boy until the doctor gave the say so. After examining the prone victim, Watson declared that he was concussed with cuts and bruises with the possibility of a leg broken. Gently some men from the surrounding crowd eased the boy out and on further inspection Watson diagnosed his leg as unbroken but badly sprained. The young man thanked Watson over and over as he was helped away after his ordeal. One of the rescuers,
"A coalier, by the look of him," thought Watson, tipped his cap toward the doctor in acknowledgment as he walked away. Watson returned the gesture and he too left to return to his house where he hoped his new housekeeper, the stern but reliable, Mrs. Cuckold, had lunch prepared.
On the walk back Watson found himself thinking of Holmes and their fight. He would have to see the detective again soon. He would not feel right with himself until he had talked to his old friend.
His lunch indeed was set out on the dining table and there was no patients there to disturb his meal. Mrs. Cuckold had stacked his messages in a neat pile beside his plate. Before he even touched his food Watson shuffled quickly through the stack, hoping to find an envelope with Holmes' familiar script. But none was there and Watson felt uncharacteristically disappointed. There was a letter from Mary on gently scented paper, however. It was reminding him that they were to have dinner with her parents at the Royale that night - in case he had forgotten. Indeed he had forgotten and indeed was in no mood to attend but he had already agreed and a voice kept sounding in his head;
"Only because you are expected to."
It was amazing how much that voice sounded like Sherlock Holmes.
The afternoon surgery hurried by and again the work swallowed up all the nagging doubts and worries swimming in Watsons' mind. Of course, all too soon the patients were gone and the grandfather clock in the hall was chiming seven o'clock.
Watson dressed in his best, picked up his walking stick that everybody knew marked him as a hero of war. A small vanity on his part. He would much rather crawl into bed and throw the quilt over his face. Instead he put on his hat and coat and started in the direction of the Royale.
Having decided to walk, Watson arrived with only moments to spare. He was shown to a table underneath a rather garish painting where Mary and her parents were already seated.
"Forgive me", Watson approached the table. Marys' father stood and shook Watsons' outstretched hand.
"Nothing to, old bean", the man took his seat as Watson kissed his wifes' hand. "Just arrived ourselves."
Watson took his seat beside Mary. They inclined their heads and smiled. Mary looked radiant and seemed to positively beam - Watson found his smile to be somewhat forced. The usual tittle-tattle was the primary conversation over dinner. The weather, the day they had, Mary regaling them about her young students newest exploits. Watsons attention, which was hanging on by a thread, now started to wan completely. Unconsciously, he was examining Mary. She was tall and slender. Pale but with a warm friendly face. Very neat and put together with impeccable manners and a refined lady-like attitude. All in all the perfect wife for a London doctor. So is that why he was sitting there eating a rather disappointing beef Wellington?
"Would you stop!", Watson brought himself up sharply. "You are over-thinking because of what Holmes put in your head, you dolt! You love Mary and Mary loves you and THAT is why you are here."
He was annoyed with Holmes all over again and this must have shown on his face because, with a start, Watson, realising he must have become lost in his thoughts completely, noticed Mary was asking him if everything was alright.
"John, are you with us at all?" Mary sounded anxious and just a little irritated.
"Yes, my dear, yes", Watson looked up and saw that Marys' parents were looking as worried as she.
"I am sorry. I had a difficult case today. A young man trapped under a cart. It was touch and go for a moment. I was just wondering how he was recovering." Living with Holmes, he had learned to lie fluidly.
Marys father who was a retired army doctor, nodded his head in understanding.
"Aye, sometimes it is hard to leave the patients behind", he said knowingly.
"Yes, my girl", Marys' mother piped up, "You may get used to it. At times you shall be a widow to the profession."
She didn't say it with any degree of malice, more, years of understanding.
Watson just gave a small smile and tried to pay more attention. He was sure the dinner could not last too much longer.
It didn't and soon the small dinner party were walking toward the hansom. The younger couple walked ahead while the older couple kept a respectable distance but could still keep an eye on their only daughter.
"Are you sure everything is alright, John?" Mary kept her voice low, "You didn't seem yourself tonight."
"Yes, I am sure my dear. It was just a long busy day." Watson did not like lying to his fiancée but he did not feel much like telling her the truth either.
"Well, alright then," she didn't wholly convinced but she let the subject drop. "So shall you be paying a visit to Mr. Holmes tonight?" Mary said his name with the faint trace of disdain Holmes used when saying hers but Watson did not remark on it.
"No, no. Not tonight, I think. Bed is the place for me. I have another busy day on the horizon."
They arrived at the carriage and, after a chaste kiss on the hand, Watson bade goodnight to Mary and his future in-laws.
He felt thoroughly miserable. Between the lack of sleep due to the nightmares, worrying about his relationship with his wife-to-be and worrying just as much about Holmes, he needed a drink. He needed a stiff drink and even though he had told Mary he was going home to bed he really wanted to sit in his old rooms with a glass of port talking about the evils of the world and how himself and Holmes could put them to rights with Holmes' intellect and Watsons willingness to let Holmes of the leash. So he started walking in the direction of 221B Baker Street tapping his walking stick off the cobbled road.
Mrs. Hudson admitted Watson straight away despite the lateness of the hour.
"Wonderful to see you, Doctor", Mrs. Hudson lowered her voice conspiratorially. "I haven't heard a peep out of him all day. Mayhap you can rouse him."
"You know how he gets, Mrs. Hudson. He is probably working over the final details of a difficult case." He climbed the stairs to Holmes' rooms and a flash of Holmes nailed to the armchair shot through his head. He hesitated at the door for an instant before walking through into the parlour. The fire was lit and standing in front of it was Holmes tuning his violin.
"I was expecting you an hour ago", he gestured to the side-table where two glasses of port stood.
"I had dinner in the Royale", Watson gratefully took the glass. "With Mary and her parents."
Holmes clenched his jaw once but otherwise did not react to Watsons explanation.
Silence reigned while Watson sat down and Holmes absently examined the strings on his instrument. A letter lay open on the side-table beside the glasses. Watson reached for it.
"Lady Chatterton - her priceless Russian figurines have been stolen." Holmes did not even look up. "She had her butler - and lover - to dispose of them and they are planning to run to the continent on the insurance money."
"Ah. So you shall be bringing them to justice."
Watson felt the familiar sense of awe go through him.
"Well Lord Chatterton beats his wife quite regularly. I would be rather inclined to let her make her escape. She only wrote me the note, hoping to make it appear as if she had no hand in there disappearance."
Watson nodded. That sounded somewhat like a moral victory, but that wasn't he was there.
Now that he had satisfied the irrational part of himself that Holmes had not succumbed to some awful fate during the night, these fights had to be settled once and for all. Things could not stay the way they were and, after thinking about it during the walk up to 221B, he figured that if he could put everything to rights with Sherlock Holmes then he could rid himself of the uncomfortableness surrounding his relationship with Mary.
"I know what you are going to say, my dear Watson", Holmes sat opposite Watson taking his own glass. "And the answer is no."
"What do you mean, Holmes?", Watson played innocent. "I haven't asked you anything."
"Please Watson. Let us not do this. I know why you are here. I know you want to talk about the fact that you are getting married in three weeks and have me resign myself to the situation happily. I could see today that the fact I don't weighs heavily on you."
Watson looked up.
"I haven't seen you - ", the doctor stopped and smiled to himself. "The coalier!"
Holmes merely nodded.
"So why can't you be happy for me, Holmes?" Watson leaned forward toward his friend. "I have found a charming and wonderful lady who has agreed to be my wife and you, well to quite honest, all you do is sulk."
Holmes sprang out of the chair as if a current had run through it.
"Sulk? Of course I sulk. I am watching you fling your life away on a pointless union!"
Watson stood up too.
"It is not a pointless union", he snapped back at Holmes heatedly.
"Yes, my dear Watson, it is. You shall never be happy. Living in a soul-shattering relationship with a woman you don't actually love, all because you feel you should! Pretending to be something you are not to appease society and to do that YOU are walking away from the life that makes you happiest!"
Watson was completely taken aback by the tirade Holmes had flung at him. It took a moment for his brain and his mouth to start working in alignment again.
"So what am I to do? Give up on this engagement and move back with you here?"
Holmes, who had been pacing to the other side of the room in agitation, turned and in three quick strides stood in front of Watson. He was so close to the doctor that their noses were nearly touching.
"Yes! Because if you stopped and paid attention to yourself for one moment you would realise everything! Realise the happiest you have ever been is in these rooms. Realise that you shall never be content just being a general practitioner, when a brain like yours cries out for more aggressive stimulation and realise that Mary is not the person for you to spend the rest of your life with!"
"So who is?" Watson challenged Holmes, glaring at the detective.
"Who is the person I'm to spend the rest of my life with?"
For a moment Holmes eyes locked onto Watsons and then, as if he realised how close he was standing to the other man, he retreated back to the fire-place.
"That is something else you have to realise, my dear Watson."
With that Holmes turned his back and Watson knew the conversation was over.
He left Baker Street with a rather uneasy feeling settling in the pit of his stomach.
Watson was not someone who scared easily - after all the adventures he had undertaken with Holmes - but that conversation had left him thoroughly shaken and his mind was in worse chaos than before.
