Prompt: Latin, from Lucillia (I adored this prompt by the way, I had such fun actually using all the Latin I had to study).

A/N: See the end of the story for translation notes All the Latin aside from the last two lines comes from Caesar's History of the Gallic Wars.

Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres...*

John Watson sighed and tried to bring his thoughts back to his schoolwork. It was about the fifth time he had become distracted, by seemingly anything that moved. It could hardly be his fault that even the lightly falling snow was more exciting than Latin grammar, could it?

Incolo, incolis, incolit, incolimus, incolitis...ahh, it was the third person plural. Incolunt**. He smiled grimly, determined not to let the Latin get the better of him again.

"John!" His brother, Henry, entered the small study, holding a ball and looking at the younger man expectantly. "I propose a small rugby contest. I'd like to see what you learned playing for that team at university." As young boys, they had frequently played two-man rugby; in fact it had been Henry who taught John how to tackle an opponent. But they hadn't played in years, not since Henry had left for University some four years before John did. That was when all the trouble started.

John looked up irritably, "Certainly not. It's snowing, and besides, I have a great deal of work to finish before I return to London." He was only home for a scant three days, and with the amount of work he had to do, it hardly seemed worth the trip.

"Oh, go on, Johnny," Henry wheedled. "What's a little snow when we haven't played rugby in years?"

John threw down his pen, growing more annoyed with the interruption by the minute. He squinted at the passage. Surely the the different parts of Gaul weren't calling the Celts to do anything? Then he realized his mistake. Appelantur, not appelant***. "You've just caused me to mistranslate a passive as an active." He sat back in frustration, throwing Henry a dark look, although he was truthfully more angry at the translation than anything else. Caesar's Gallic Wars were supposed to be one of the easier works to translate; there was none of the elaborate word order one found in poetry such as Ovid or Catullus. Why he couldn't do it was beyond him.

Henry sat down next to him, picking up the paper. "Latin, John? You should have done what I did."

"What, give it up before your second year?"

Henry grinned. "University was much more fun after that."

John shook his head, "But you didn't even graduate."

Henry shrugged, "It's no matter. I didn't need it anyway." John thought about arguing, asking what exactly Henry planned to do with no prospects of a career in sight, but their father had had that conversation many times, to no avail. John loved his brother dearly, but he could no longer pretend that Henry Watson was anything other than careless. Perhaps that was why he himself worked so hard to achieve his goals.

"The question," Henry continued, tossing the ball up in the air and catching it. "is why you need to waste your time translating centuries-old poetry. I thought you were going to medical school, not the Academy in Athens."

John smiled in spite of himself. "You have a point there, at least, I think so. There isn't much need anymore for medical professionals to write out prescriptions in a dead language, but for some reason they insist on our learning it so here I am." He shrugged, turning back to Caesar. He still had ten more pages to translate, and he groaned aloud. Waiting for him was a diagram of the bones if the foot he was supposed to label, and an altogether too-long text on the properties and theory of the smallpox inoculation which he was supposed to read for his next class.

Henry watched him, remarking, "You're making me glad I didn't go into medicine, Johnny. Look at all this work you have to do!"

"Yes, well, when I can save someone's life thanks to my medical training, it will all be worth it," John said. Both their eyes strayed to the photograph of their mother, dead these five years of a pneumonia that should have been cured if only they'd caught it in time.

Henry, never comfortable with such heavy, emotional moments, sat up, " What would you do, if you had the choice? "

"I'd be a doctor," John answered, confused. "That is why I'm going to medical school."

"No, no, I mean something else," Henry asked. "Besides being a doctor."

"Well," John answered, his eyes straying to his personal bookshelves, which were full to bursting of adventure novels, the works of Mr. Dickens, a few of that newer genre, the detective novel, as well as a few true classics. "I should very much like to write. Stories, I mean." He ducked his head so Henry wouldn't see him flush in embarrassment. He thought of the little journal that he kept locked in his bedside cabinet, full of the beginnings of stories, or short interludes between characters. Nothing substantial, and certainly nothing publishable. Just something he did in his very limited spare time.

"Well, then, why don't you?" Henry asked. "You could even do that alongside a medical practice."

John shook his head, "I can't even finish one story, and it's getting very hard to balance all my endeavors. Even the small amount of writing I do now is taking valuable time away from my studies." He had been thinking of giving the writing up for a while, but something always stopped him.

Henry, of course, never listened to any logical reason for why one shouldn't do something, and said, "So find the time. I don't see the point in giving up something you enjoy."

"But it's never going to get me anywhere," John said. He gestured toward the still unfinished Latin. "This will get me somewhere. I could write for years and never have the security from it that medicine will bring me."

"If you'll have all the security from the medicine, then there's no reason why you shouldn't keep writing on the side," Henry said doggedly. John shook his head, giving up the argument. This was about as serious as Henry ever was, and even now he wasn't listening to sense.

"Life is short, little brother. Do what you love," Henry said as he left. John turned back to his Latin, but he kept thinking about what Henry had said. Maybe he shouldn't give up on his writing. Maybe he would be able to fit it alongside his medical career. If only he could find a subject that would lend itself to more than just his scribblings and become something actually publishable.

Years later, Doctor John Watson received his late brother's pocket watch only a few days after the first publication of A Study in Scarlet. Being unable to visit Henry's grave on the Continent, he simply looked sadly at the watch, thought of all the wasted potential of Henry's life, and whispered to it:

Vale, frater meus, et gratias tibi ago.

Requiescat in pace.****

*All Gaul was divided in three parts.

**incolo: I inhabit, incolis: you inhabit, incolit: he/she/it inhabits, incolimus: we inhabit, incolitis: you all inhabit, incolunt: they inhabit.

***Appellant is "they called," appellantur is "they were called."

The entire line he was translating goes "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur."

So, "All Gaul is divided into three parts, of which one is inhabited by the Belgians, another by the Aquitaini, the third, those who in their language are called Celts, in ours, Gauls."

****Farewell, my brother, and thank you (literally, I do thanks to you). Rest in peace.