A/N: In case anyone is listening to the BBC Radio version of DEVI that I recently put up on YouTube, I probably should inform you that I am drawing heavily on that for the Vicar's personality and a few other minor details (my apologies to Bert Coules) as well as upon the Granada version. But the story should make sense even if the reader has not heard or watched either of those.
Watson
I awoke the next morning to pouring rain and crashing thunder outside the small cottage, making sinking back to sleep not a viable option. My leg was aching miserably as well, and I glanced at my watch in some annoyance, only to be surprised at the realisation that it was half-past ten.
I had slept late, even for my lazy habits, and Holmes must have let me, knowing I was exceptionally tired after such a trying last few days. I rose wearily, a loud clap of sudden thunder followed almost instantly by a brilliant flash of lightning momentarily blinding me, and I fumbled for the candle.
I performed my toilette quickly, wondering if Holmes had spent a restful night, donned my dressing gown and went to the sitting room.
I opened the door to see him pacing about fretfully, casting glances at the windows streaming with the heavy rain. Not a good sign – this was going to be a long day, I could feel it already.
"Morning, Holmes," I said tentatively, helping myself to a cup of coffee and glancing about the room.
His only answer was an ill-tempered growl as he stopped and stared moodily out at the landscape. I cursed the storm for its bad timing – Holmes's moods fluctuated with the weather even when he was feeling his best, and now when he was struggling to overcome this depression and drug this was the worst possible time to have a storm.
I saw that the library books I had gathered the night before were strewn carelessly about, some of them opened to certain pages and pads of heavily scribbled paper littering the floor around them.
"Were you up all night reading?" I demanded in disapproval, fixing him with a reproving look.
"Not the whole night, no," he growled petulantly, "just early this morning. To blazes with that blasted rain, why did it have to storm today!"
He appeared to be very irritable, nervous almost, as if something was making him edgy. I wondered if he had been plagued with nightmares yet again but knew he would take affront were I to ask him about the idea.
"When would you like breakfast, Holmes?" I attempted to draw him from that black mood he was in.
"I wouldn't," he snapped, picking up one of his books and leafing through the pages.
"Holmes, you must eat –"
"I am not in need of more medical opinions, Doctor," he growled, scowling blackly at me.
He obviously was in a dreadfully depressed mood and I was rather irritable myself, my leg throbbing and the storm heightening the already tense atmosphere of the small cottage. We had nowhere to escape to, and so I fixed myself some toast and went back into my bedroom to spend the morning writing, leaving Holmes to his own devices.
But as I absently chewed on the end of my pencil, my mind wandering from the story at hand for the hundredth time in the last three hours, I could not shake off that feeling of foreboding that was hanging over me. The storm had apparently blown itself out, only the wind remaining of the fury of the morning, but the air still seemed electrified with tension.
I gave up trying to put articulate thoughts down upon paper finally and started back out to the sitting room to check on whatever Holmes had been amusing himself with all the morning.
As I opened the door, I saw that he was nowhere to be seen – must be in his bedroom. I took my dishes out to the kitchen and performed the mundane but necessary task of washing them and putting them away. The domestic work allowed my thoughts some freedom to wander, and I turned over and over in my mind what I could do to continue to occupy Holmes's mind without insulting him by trying to do so.
After a half-hour I was no nearer a solution than before, and I made my way despondently back out to the sitting room, only to stop short when I saw Holmes.
He was just putting a syringe back into my medical bag along with various implements he had evidently removed in his search!
I was dumbfounded – he had the nerve to use my supply of the drug instead of his, so that if I checked his syringe I would find it unused? He was stealing my drugs from my medical bag before my very eyes to keep up a pretense that he was really staying off the cocaine?
"Holmes!"
He dropped the bag and whirled around, startled.
"Watson – I thought –"
"What the devil do you think you're doing?" I demanded hotly, feeling my face flush in anger.
He stared at me almost as if in puzzlement.
"Don't give me that look! How dare you!"
"What the deuce are you going on about, Watson?"
"You know exactly what I'm going on about!" I cried, stung by his prevarication as much as his actually stealing my own drug, supposed to be only used for medicinal purposes. "I should have known better than to leave my bag where you could get your hands on it!"
Holmes glanced down at the bag, then back at me, and his brows furrowed into a black knot.
"Of all the nerve, your stealing my drugs and using them instead of your own just so that it will continue to appear that you're staying off that infernal cocaine!" I heard my voice break and the fact made me even angrier.
"Watson, I am not –"
"I don't want to hear your excuses!" I snapped, glaring at him with a fury I had not felt since I had first found out about his reverting to the drug. "If you want to slowly kill yourself with that devilish substance then do it, but do not try to use my supplies to accomplish that end! I should have known you couldn't be trusted with the stuff lying about!"
He had not shown much expression until that last statement, which I regretted the instant it had left my mouth. I bit my tongue to prevent myself from making matters worse as his face flushed an angry red and he looked at me with a very indignant and furious glare.
"Doctor. You have made a very serious error in judgment," he said, his voice dangerously chilling.
"Oh, really. What do you call getting into my things and using for your own pleasure what I only keep around as a topical anesthetic? I never dreamed you would stoop so low," I snapped back at him.
Holmes flushed darker and he took a step toward me, then stopped. He took a deep breath and some of the colour left his face, the complete rage leaving his eyes to be replaced by what appeared to be deep hurt. Hurt? I could understand guilt, but not hurt. Why…
But before I could consider the matter he had spun on his heel, grabbed his overcoat, and left the cottage, slamming the door behind him and disappearing down the path, head bent against the wind.
Fine. If he wished to be an idiot and ramble about in the wind then so be it – it would give him a chance to walk off that drug anyhow, confound him!
I stood for a moment, seething, and then reason began to reassert itself and rationality started to once more control my thoughts. I had been harsh and rude – lost my hot temper yet again and it only had made matters worse. Why did I do these things?
I slumped against the wall in my despair – I was never going to get him to give up the drug if I could not control my anger at his reversals. I sighed wearily and walked over to the table, starting to put the implements back into my bag.
Then suddenly my heart nearly stopped, and I pounced upon the phial that held my small supply of cocaine – one of many drugs and sedatives that I kept in my bag at all times.
It was still full, to the brim.
He hadn't touched it.
I stared at it for a moment. He had not touched it, unless…unless he had refilled it with water or something. I went into his bedroom and checked his own Moroccan case – there had been nothing gone from his supply either.
I went back to my bag, picking up the phial once more, wondering if he had replaced it with some other liquid. But then suddenly my gaze fell upon the table beside me. A nearly drained water glass with a filmy white residue at the bottom stood there along with an empty paper packet. I felt a cold hand grip round my throat as I realised what an error I had made.
He had been merely searching through my things for a headache powder, nothing more harmful.
I slumped down into the nearest chair, my mind spinning in my consternation and remorse – he had just been trying to relieve the intense pain I knew he was feeling – he had removed some items to find the correct powder and was replacing them when I had exited the kitchen. It was sheer bad luck that he had been in the act of returning a syringe when I had entered.
I had made a grievous error.
I had accused him of stealing, of lying to me about the fact, and – worst of all – of using the drug when all he had been doing was getting an innocent pain reliever.
I groaned, dropping my weary head into my hands. No wonder he had looked so shocked and hurt – he had done absolutely nothing to deserve that faithless outburst; I had jumped to a totally wrong conclusion and had then lost my temper because of it, accusing him of the very thing he was trying so hard not to do.
I swallowed hard and went to my room to get my tweed jacket, shoving the empty packet into my pocket on my way out the door, dreading what was to follow but knowing it had to be done.
I saw from the top of the cliffs a dark figure walking slowly along the beach, and within five minutes I had made my way down to it, slipping more than once on the wet path and cursing my aching leg. But I deserved all the pain and more for what I had done, albeit unwittingly.
Holmes had stopped walking and was sitting on one of a large group of rocks, still damp with the previous rain and the salt spray. The wind was whipping about and the seagulls that had taken cover from the storm were just now emerging from their hiding places, whistling softly about the amount of wet on everything.
A grey wave splashed upon the shore, sending a bunch of them scattering as I took a deep breath and walked over to where he was sitting, huddled up miserably with his back against a large grey boulder.
He neither looked at me nor said a word as I rather breathlessly sat beside him on the edge of the boulder, fidgeting nervously with my gloves. He remained silent, staring out over the grey water with a pained, narrowed gaze.
For a good five or six minutes we sat there, neither of us moving, and I was acutely aware of the painful silence broken only by the crashing surf and the screaming gulls. Finally I could take it no longer.
"Holmes, I – I am so sorry," I blurted out, not daring to look at him, drawing the paper packet from my pocket and holding it in my shaking hands, "I – was completely wrong in what I did, it was inexcusably rude. Can you – can you forgive me for what I said, for not trusting you?"
I dropped my gaze to my trembling hands, angered with myself beyond belief for my actions, gripping the paper so hard it began to tear.
I saw a black-gloved hand reach over and firmly remove it from my own, and I glanced up at his pale face, as he stared out over the choppy water.
"I always have said that correct deduction is not one of your abilities, Watson," he said at last.
I winced, but knew I deserved that and much worse for what I had done.
"Deduction or no, I was wrong, and I'm very sorry," I said in shame, putting my chin down upon my cupped hand and staring moodily out over the Bay. "Can you – forgive me?"
I felt him shift in his seat and turn toward me, and I sat up and met his eyes at last.
"It was a perfectly natural and logical deduction, Watson," he sighed, "given the fact that I have already committed equally covert transgressions in the recent past."
"That makes no difference, I –"
"And you have had to forgive quite a bit from me, my dear chap," he interrupted me, his austere eyes softening for the first time, "I believe 'tis only fair play to return the favour."
I visibly relaxed, the wave of relief swamping me with its intensity, and he chuckled outright, sitting back against the rock and motioning me to do the same beside him.
"You are in pain, then?" I asked hesitantly, "why didn't you tell me?"
"There was no need, you were busy writing and I knew what to take," he replied wearily, leaning back and folding his arms as a gust of wind whipped about us.
I sighed, following his gaze over to the cliffs. We sat that way in silence for several minutes, and then I hesitantly broke the quiet.
"This is where you were sitting when you drew that lovely sketch yesterday, wasn't it?" I asked wistfully.
He smiled and flushed slightly, nodding. For a moment we said nothing, then he looked at me out of the corner of his eye a little shyly.
"Would you like to learn the basics, Watson?"
I sat bolt upright in my excitement, nearly knocking my head into the rocky ledge above us and setting him chuckling again.
"Do you think I can?" I asked eagerly.
"Unless you are completely bereft of the ability to draw a straight line, then yes," he said mischievously.
I was thrilled at the idea – not only would it be enjoyable for me but it would give him something to do, to occupy his mind for another afternoon.
"Have you a journal with you?"
"Naturally," I retorted, pulling out my ever-present leather-backed notebook with a grin.
"I have one condition," he warned as I scooted closer to watch him.
"Name it," I replied eagerly.
"If I am to teach you how to sketch, then you have to teach me how to write a passable story," he said, shaking his pencil at me playfully, "for I found it deucedly more difficult than I had at first imagined!"
"It's a bargain," I said with a grin, extending my hand.
And with the handclasp came the feeling of the storm clouds being pushed back, for a while at least. And if I had anything to do with it, I vowed, they would not reappear on the horizons in the near future.
To be continued...reviews would be phenomenal!
