They meet in a park.
John is on his way home, cane in hand, cursing every other step as his bad leg jolts against the pathway.
"John!" A voice behind him calls abruptly, "John Watson!"
John stops, turning to see a man rise from the bench he's just hobbled past. It seems to take a long time; his long dark frame extenuated by a longer darker coat. Above it a thick black head of hair and a pale face, wide eyes looking down at him expectantly.
"Stamford." The figure says, hurrying toward John and offering a hand "Mike Stamford. We were at Bart's together."
John stares back at him with a sense of peculiar unreality. This man looks nothing like the Mike Stamford he knew at Bart's.
"Yes," He finds himself saying however. Covering for his total lack of understanding with a polite lie, even if the tone he delivers it in is one of complete disbelief. He takes the offered hand. "Hello, hi,"
"Yeah, I know," The man claiming to be Stamford gestures to himself with a sheepish grin, "I got fat."
John looks at the man's skinny frame in bewilderment.
"No," Is all he can think of to say in response.
"I heard you were abroad somewhere," The man continues. "Getting shot at. What happened?"
John backs away a little at that, contemplating the question.
"I got shot." He says honestly.
There's an awkward pause.
"Look who are you?" John breaks it in an accusatory tone.
"What?"
"I know you're not Stamford. You look nothing like him." John's run out of patience for whatever game this stranger is playing with him.
"I…"
"We knew each other for years, he was…" John casts around, then looks up into the stranger's eyes. "Shorter. Less…" John gestures around his head with the hand not holding on to his cane. "…hair!" He finishes.
"I," The man repeats.
"And he was getting fat. You look like you've not eaten in weeks."
The man in front him opens and closes his very un-Mike-like mouth as if unable to articulate a response.
"There's no way someone changes…" John starts before stopping himself mid -sentence with a thought.
"Look is this a joke?" He asks, exasperated. "Did Mike put you up to this? Some elaborate ruse to humiliate the cripple?!"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Not-Mike manages rather apprehensively,
"He's watching now isn't he?!" John's words are heavy with anger, "He's waiting in the bushes somewhere. To jump up out and yell: 'Surprise! You're an idiot'!"
Despite the cane John is stalking forward, toward a conveniently located shrubbery at the edge of the path. Behind it he completely expects he'll find a crouching man looking up at him: glasses and a ruddy face and a suit that's a little too tight for him.
Of course there's nothing there.
And of course when he turns back to the man who claims to be someone that he so clearly is not, the path is empty.