It's Complicated (The Victorian Era - Date Unknown)

James is sitting in what is still referred to as 'his' chair, directly across from the seat Holmes has taken. He is waiting patiently for his friend to speak, or at least, as patiently as the present circumstances can allow. After several long moments pass, during which Holmes merely presses his fingertips to his lips and stares down at his crossed legs, James finally speaks. "Holmes, you promised an explanation. I have been rousted from my warm bed…"

"And the loving arms of your fiancée," Holmes murmurs, then looks up to meet James' indignant gaze. "My apologies. Old habits die hard, I fear. How fares the future Mrs. Watson?"

"She is fine, although surely anxious for my return," James retorts, dropping all pretence that the two of them aren't sharing his bed more nights than not these days. "It's not like you to exchange polite pleasantries, Holmes. So do me the courtesy of explaining exactly why I am here and not home."

He watches closely as Holmes blinks, then slowly lowers his fingers from his lips and rests them on the arms of his chair. The tip of one taps - nervously? - against the leather as he finally meets James' eyes. "You're going to find what I'm about to tell you somewhat...difficult to believe, but I promise you, James, in all earnestness, that what I'm about to recount is nothing more nor less than the absolute truth. And I can also promise you that it has nothing to do with any of my unsavory former habits involving the needle."

James nods, although privately he reserves the right to ascertain the truth of that statement for himself. When Holmes begins to speak of seeing visions and being haunted in his dreams by the face and form of a young woman from the future - one Molly Hooper, the identity of the mystery woman revealed at last! - those doubts rise up and threaten to bubble into speech. However, he has given his word to wait until Holmes has completed his tale before commenting, and thus remains silent. In spite of this resolve, he knows that his expression is giving much away to a man as observant as his friend.

"I have seen this woman's face in my dreams, and often in the waking world, since I was a boy of fourteen," Holmes continues. "Or rather, 'these women' as I have learnt that there are actually two Miss Hoopers who have been haunting me. Do you recall the shirtwaist factory fire of 1879?" he asks suddenly, an apparent non-sequitur.

James nods; he remembers that horrific event all too well, even if it occurred while he was still serving in the army. "A number of the young ladies working there perished because they'd been locked in by their employer in order to keep them from stealing," he responds with a sad shake of his head.

"Including one Margaret Hooper," Holmes states. A shadow passes his face. "I...dreamt of her death," he continues softly. "More than once."

James cannot help raising his brow at that. "Perhaps you read her name in the papers, and your sympathy - er, outrage - at the unjust manner of her passing is what brought on your dreams?

Holmes gives an impatient shake of his head. "I told you, Watson - I dreamt of her long before her sad demise, and until recently I had no idea what the dream meant. As you know, there were no sketches of the unfortunate victims in the papers and therefore no way for me to be aware of her appearance. Nor did her name mean anything to me; when the fire occurred, I hadn't yet learned the name of my...occult visitor."

He uses the term hesitantly, and once again James is hard-pressed to keep his opinion to himself. Holmes has declared himself free of opiates and he himself had destroyed the paraphernalia at Holmes' own request not many months past. If not for that, he might have suspected such interest in spiritualism as a sure sign of a drug-addled mind.

But Holmes is as sharp and focused as James has ever seen him, and so he is forced to concede that, as the Bard so aptly put it, there might very well be 'more things in heaven and earth' than were dreamt of in his philosophy.

"If you desire proof of a more concrete nature, Watson, I can offer you this: After my return to London and our dispatching of Moran, I determined to discover the truth of her identity. With that in mind, I paid a call on one of my contacts, a young man named Billy Wiggins. I was going to describe her to him and then commission a sketch for him to show around. Upon being greeted by his wife and allowed to wait in the sitting room while she fetched him, I observed their wedding portrait on the wall. Out of nothing more than a desire to pass the time, I took a closer look. Imagine my consternation when I saw the face of the very woman I was looking for, acting as maid of honour to the happy couple."

James started to offer the possibility that Holmes had seen that portrait before, but was again stopped before the words could reach his lips. "I can assure you, Watson, that I had never set foot in the Wiggins household before that day, and had never seen the photograph. Yet there she was, the woman who'd been haunting my dreaming mind for well over a decade. I'd found her at last, only to discover that she'd been killed...and thus learned the painful truth behind my dreams of fire."

He sounds so lost, so bereft, that James impulsively leans forward and lays a sympathetic hand on his friend's wrist. "I'm sorry," he says sincerely. Whether Holmes' interest in this woman is a delusion or somehow spiritual in nature, his emotions are very real - and very unexpected. "Holmes, forgive me, but it sounds almost as if you have...fallen in love with this spectre of your mind. I say this as friend - are you so certain that you haven't conjured up this 'Molly Hooper' from the future in order to make up for the loss of Miss Margaret Hooper?"

Instead of snapping at him, Holmes offers him a small smile, a bare curve of the lips. "That thought had occurred to me. However, certain events have convinced me otherwise - both things that I have witnessed, and things that Miss Charlotte Morgan has shown me. It was she who gifted me with this." He nods at the Cheval glass that dominates one corner of the room now. Holmes rises to his feet, striding over the glass and laying a hand on its surface after a brief hesitation.

He speaks as if to the mirror now, explaining in detail some of the things he's witnessed, including medical procedures that make James wish for a notebook. The 'Heimlich Maneuver', for example, might have some real value in saving someone from choking to death, and the description Holmes gives of 'cardiopulmonary resuscitation' is even more intriguing. The details are far too complex, too intricate, to be mere delusions of Holmes' mind; brilliant though his friend is, he is no medical man, and he recites the procedures for reviving someone who isn't breathing as if reading from a textbook. And although the two procedures are ones James has never heard of, the plain truth of the matter is that they both seem very, very plausible.

He retains many reservations about what Holmes has shared with him, including his interactions with Miss Morgan; as far as James is concerned, all so-called spiritualist mediums are nothing but charlatans and cheats. But when Holmes describes the events of the meeting he attended - most notably Miss Morgan's recitation of the events that took place at the Reichenbach Falls, events which very few people are privy to - he feels some of his skepticism lifting.

It isn't until nearly six weeks later, after Holmes has endured yet another occult experience that seems to pull him from his own body and time into the future, that the skepticism falls shattered at his feet.

And all because of a vision of his future self - future descendent? - one Doctor John Watson...and his wife, Mary Watson, nee Morstan.