==Chapter 10==

And When Is The Right Moment

"The loneliest moment in someone's life is when they are watching their whole life fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly."

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

Neither Beth nor Sherlock let go of the other's hand as they made their way down into Vallorbe, both undeniably shaken and needing the comfort. They grabbed a small bite to eat at an inn on the Orbe River, let their clothes dry, and listened to the latest news. It seemed that Kaiser Wilhelm II was indeed making moves on Napoleon's empire—Beth was reminded of the phrase unstoppable force meets immovable object.

They took up another train to head deeper into the country for the moment. As they settled in and the train pulled out of the station, Beth was irresistibly reminded of their last train ride, bad memories and good. She pushed them away and looked at Sherlock, studying him for a moment, then looked out the window at the passing Alpine scenery. Should I press a little further now that those cracks in the marble are a little wider? Or would that be insensitive because of what just happened?

Reality is still fracturing, now more than ever, and you have a responsibility to Sally, Kathy, the boys, the whole world... and so does he. She sighed, took a deep breath, and broke the silence, though she kept watching the scenery. She couldn't meet his gaze; she felt as though she were betraying him somehow. His trust, perhaps. "What was wrong with Sally in the first place?" she murmured.

Holmes froze, wide-eyed – she wanted to talk about that, now? What the devil did she think it had to do with her? Just possibly because Sally is her friend? ...Well, it's still none of her business! Things had been going so well between them, too, why did she have to go and spoil it?

Beth sighed softly and gathered up the nerve to face him. "I mean it. Sally. Why don't you like her—and don't tell me that you don't dislike her, because I saw the way you looked at her. I don't think you've ever even said one word to her since the Doctor picked me up."

No... not since you left her alone in the library, confused and afraid... Holmes's jaw tightened, answering icily, "If there had been a need to converse with the woman, I would have done so."

"You didn't need to talk with me," Beth said softly. Or go backstage to meet Jeremy, or tour me around the TARDIS, or even argue as long as we did in Torchwood before I told you about Mycroft...

Holmes's eyes narrowed, perversely tempted to ask if she would prefer that he hadn't.

She gathered up her nerve again and pressed on stubbornly. "You must have thought something was wrong with her—if you hadn't, wouldn't you have been happy for your best friend? Marriages are kind of supposed to be good things."

"Not that I would know, of course," Holmes said caustically. As if he could ever have allowed himself such a distraction... As if any female of your acquaintance was that desperate! He sighed. "As I told Watson, my dear, my sole objection was that he had perhaps attached himself to Miss Sparrow a little too hastily."

Beth sighed in frustration. "Would you have liked them to be courting for months? A year? Would that have worked for you?" Losing friends, yeah, that wasn't fun, not in the slightest, but the way he'd handled it from start to the present had just been incredibly toxic for everyone concerned!

Needled past endurance by her tone, Holmes snapped unthinkingly, "Well, it would have been a damn sight better than the man throwing himself away on a..." He only just managed to bite back what he'd been about to say, glaring; he didn't know who he was angrier with, Beth or himself.

Her eyes flashed in anger. "A what? A child? Or something else?" She didn't want to know—she already knew what he was capable of calling a girl he was speaking with face-to-face. She didn't want to know what he might call someone who wasn't even there to defend herself. "I don't even want to know how a man falling quickly but deeply in love with a woman and marrying her constitutes as 'throwing himself away.' The thing is, I don't think the speed of it or anything about Sally really had anything to do with it." With a bit of effort, she softened her voice. "Must've been lonely in 221B the first time around."

He'd been about to respond, but her last words made him feel as if the breath had been knocked out of him. She still dared... As if Beth or anyone else who'd read those damned accounts of Watson's could have the least idea...! "Don't be ridiculous."

"Losing your best friend," she said coolly, "even temporarily, is always lonely." First her big brother had moved out when she had still been little, and then Chloe... Somebody seemed to have forgotten about her already. "And you'd do anything to get them back," Beth said quietly. No one—not her parents, not Geoff, not even Sally—would ever know about the things Beth had looked into after Chloe's death. Things to fix it, to bring her back. A last-ditch attempt with a spell when she didn't even believe in magic... and nothing happening. That was when she'd finally had to face the truth, and it had nearly broken her.

Holmes suddenly couldn't look her in the eye, wishing for the hundredth time that he could keep his face from changing colour. He might not have done anything to prevent the match... But if the TARDIS hadn't intervened? And he was fully aware that Watson would have been furious if he'd known what his so-called friend had actually done.

"I hated it," Beth continued quietly, "when my brother moved out—missed him like crazy. But at least he was still alive. At least John was still alive..." Because someone in this compartment had a best friend who wasn't so lucky, Sherlock, come on...

Holmes couldn't help wincing slightly – Watson being called 'John' by anyone, Sally especially, still sounded... wrong. He'd never even thought of the doctor by his first name while they were lodging together, Mary had been the only person of Holmes's acquaintance to ever call him that... and each time she had, Holmes had felt more and more as if Watson was becoming someone he didn't know anymore...

Beth sighed. She was obviously not getting through to him—despite her having talked about Chloe not that long ago, he was obviously not making the connection. She massaged her temples, frustration making her tongue sharper than she meant it to be. "Sherlock Holmes, you have to be the most self-centred person I know. Are you even listening to me at all?"

Holmes gritted his teeth, irritated beyond words – why wouldn't she just leave him alone? "I should think the whole carriage is by now," he muttered sourly.

Beth saw red for a moment. Calm down, don't snap back, come on, you can do it—but I'm not definitely not being that loud and he knows it! "Then I'll leave you and the whole carriage with one last thought and then shut up," she managed in her most saccharine tone. Then she dropped the sweetness and stood, intending to leave once she was done. "Things change. That's normal—that's life. You don't have to like it, exactly, but you don't have to act like your life is over because of it, either."

Her tone turned fiercer than she'd meant it to be, but she was sick of his... his... of all this mess. You made yourself lose Watson, you idiot. "And don't you dare think for one second that I don't know what I'm talking about, either, because I had to keep on living when my best friend was murdered, and I had known her all my life. It wasn't fair, and I hated it, and I hated that the world had to keep on going when she wasn't there anymore, but shutting myself up and pretending that I didn't care about anything anymore hurt a lot more than moving on."

Her outburst had taken Holmes completely aback. You imbecile... Beth confided in you about her best friend not two days ago and you forgot how soon after? And, damn it, anything he might have been about to say was now impossible – he couldn't think of a single reply that wouldn't sound unforgivably callous.

Well, maybe she'd finally gotten through to him, at least a bit. "You know, it's too bad," she said softly. "I think you would have really liked Sally if you'd given her a chance." Sally was deep and thoughtful and clever and well-read—under more normal circumstances, particularly ones that didn't involve Watson marrying, Beth didn't doubt that Sherlock would rather choose to get to know Sally than her. "You could have had two good friends, instead of losing the one you had." Turning to go, she opened the door.

Holmes's lip curled, although resisting the urge to snort; Sally hadn't even been a Holmesian. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if the woman had been a fangirl, he might have felt more confident that she wouldn't try to poison Watson against him... Still, what did it matter now? He and Watson would never see each other again anyhow, Beth might as well have saved her breath.

Beth looked back over her shoulder and sighed again—should have quit while you were still ahead. Shut up, I can salvage this... uh... zed... "He wants to see you again, you know," she said softly. She might not be one hundred percent certain, but she didn't doubt Sally'd had much better luck on her end than Beth had had on hers up to now. "This time to apologise—because, yes, you weren't the only one at fault." Sherlock being a jerk certainly didn't excuse John giving him enough reason to believe he was right.

Holmes passed a hand over his face, sighing, his anger giving way to weariness. He felt sure she believed what she'd said, and her concern was touching, if irritating. Choosing not to say anything this time that they'd probably both regret, he looked away out of the window, hoping she'd get the message.

Okay, great, apparently Beth had just ruined things between them for nothing. "Fine, be that way," she muttered, angry with him and herself. She stepped out of the compartment and slammed the door shut.

Bra-vo, just when you thought you couldn't make things any worse... Holmes flopped sideways onto the bed and buried his face in the pillow, letting his burning frustration loose in a long groan. The wretched woman was driving him mad, why had he ever left Torchwood?!

According to the station map, the next stop along the line should have been the lakeside town of Montreux, but Holmes was still moping by himself in the compartment when the train came to a slow, shuddering halt – the engine had broken down. Given the choice between waiting indefinitely for repairs and continuing on foot, most of the passengers chose to gather their belongings and walk; Holmes and Beth were among them, although spending most of the remaining stretch studiously ignoring each other.

Holmes found himself drawn against his will into conversation with a chocolatier from Lausanne, who seemed to enjoy bemoaning the loss of his trade to anyone within earshot. The hapless detective did his best to tune the man out, reflecting dismally that even here, chocolate must now be worth its weight in gold.

Beth, on the other hand, fell in with another young woman, who was traveling with her brother to visit family in Martigny. Beth got the sense that this girl knew, on some level, that things had not always been as they were now, because she talked about how difficult life had been lately in a way that didn't suggest merely the deteriorating state of the world at large. But life, apparently, was getting worse even in Switzerland—their saving graces being their own fortified neutrality and their import arrangements with Rome for food.

Their trek continued along the edge of Lake Geneva, Montreux appearing slowly in the distance. As they drew nearer, faint strains of music floated over the still water; Beth and her companion, Zoe, paused.

"That sounds rather like a festival," said Zoe.

"It does," Beth agreed, and looked fully at Sherlock for the first time since they'd left the train.

That music... Holmes had halted abruptly as the sound reached him, staring towards the town, all but trembling, as the sweet, distant notes of a fiddle seeming to echo in his ears. It had been so long... so long since he'd last heard any kind of music, he couldn't even remember... and he couldn't ask to play, either, it would quite ruin their disguise...

Beth's chest ached as she realised what he was reacting to; she couldn't even imagine how long it must have been since he'd played, or what that sort of withdrawal must have been like for him. She gave her companion an apologetic look and moved over to Sherlock, taking his hand and squeezing it gently.

He squeezed back convulsively, then realised how tight his grip actually was, easing up on her with a sheepish look.

"Hey, it's okay," she murmured soothingly.

He smiled at her gratefully, feeling almost ridiculously glad that she wasn't holding his attitude during their last 'discussion' against him any more. Although you'd rather be holding more than just her hand right now. Holmes was suddenly thankful that they were travelling in company, preventing him from doing anything rash; he really oughtn't to be this comfortable with the thought of Beth in his arms...

When they reached Montreux, large circles of colourfully-clad people and individual couples danced on the village green, and children played around the bonfires. The older folks sat around the fires and tended the food, content to be warm and watch the festivities.

Beth smiled as she watched – she'd been to plenty of festivals before but certainly nothing ever quite like this. "I wonder what they're celebrating. I would've thought it was kind of the wrong time of year for a festival..."

Holmes glanced at her, amused. "You haven't noticed anything different recently?"

"Well, there's the sun… but I would have thought they've been… um… exposed to it? All this time? "

"I would have thought we still weren't far enough east..." Holmes shook his head; he wasn't really certain of anything anymore, least of all how Time was behaving and why.

"Mm..." She brightened, turning her most winning smile upon him, hopeful. "Wanna dance? "

...Don't be stupid, you know you can't, you're trying not to attract attention, remember? Anyway, when was the last time you went country dancing, do you really want to make an even bigger fool of yourself in front of her? Holmes sighed inwardly, and shook his head at Beth. "Thank you, no. I do not dance."

Well, it was no less than she'd figured—but you really, really hoped, you idiot, and you know better. Her smiled had faded, but she quickly forced another, not wanting to make him feel bad. "Right. Okay." She looked away quickly, gaze settling on the dance again. What she wouldn't give to be able to join... she'd never gotten the chance to dance before...

Holmes cleared his throat, her obvious disappointment prompting him to venture, "There is no reason why you should not participate, however." The train likely wouldn't arrive for ages yet, Beth might as well occupy herself while they waited.

"Oh, no," she said quickly, and blushed. "I actually wouldn't have the faintest idea of what I'd be doing." It wasn't as if she'd actually ever danced herself, and could she dance with a complete stranger if she tried? No one you know has ever wanted to dance with you—why would a stranger? You're not worth it—Shut up.

Looking around at the nearest bystanders, Holmes noticed an awkward-looking youth of approximately Beth's age, also partnerless and gazing wistfully at the dancing. Perfect. "My dear, that young man there keeps glancing in your direction every few seconds – I feel sure he would be delighted to instruct you."

Beth glanced where Sherlock had indicated and gave a slight laugh, shaking her head. "I really doubt it." Literally no one had ever been the least bit interested in her in that way before, with probably the sole exception of Tom Johnstone... And even he never actually said anything. Why would your luck change now? Face it: the only men interested in you are men like Moran. ...stop it. Turning away so that Sherlock wouldn't see her face, she decided to head off away from the dancing; maybe she could at least get a decent bite to eat.

Holmes sighed as he watched Beth walk away, he wished he could have said yes... then he caught the youth's eye and strolled over for a quiet word. The lad stared at Holmes as he approached, confusion quickly turning to disbelief; then his gaze shifted past Holmes, expression becoming disappointed but resigned, shaking his head at the detective.

Mystified, Holmes turned to follow the youth's gaze... and his mouth fell open at the sight of Beth being led towards the dancing by someone else entirely. She'd... found herself a partner... Well, good... Good, he could finally stop worrying... He hoped she'd enjoy herself... She certainly looked as if she was...

Without you.

Sky: Ho boy. Sherlock, if you'd quit being difficult, you might be happier—it's worth a shot. :P There's a bit of backstory as to why Beth has never danced before, and that'll probably crop up at some point in the future. All I'll say for now is this: remember what she used to do at school? She'd have a bit of a reputation for that...

Ria: And yes, there is a lot more to the end of 'The Sign of the Four' in this universe than we're telling – yet!