Disclaimer: Psyche0610 ≠ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Chapter Twelve

Watson was awakened by a loud crash of thunder.

The noise persisted. Bang bang bang. Watson sat up sleepily in his bed. No, that wasn't thunder—it was loud pounding at the door. Watson glanced out the window. It was still pitch black outside. Watson considered ignoring the racket and going back to sleep, but the knocker at the door refused to stop. Watson sighed and, throwing on his dressing robe, headed downstairs.

"Hullo?" Watson started to ask, opening the door, but he stopped mid-syllable. It was Holmes at the door. "Good Lord, Holmes!" Watson cried. "What on earth are you doing here like this?"

It was a good question, because in his haste to Watson's, Holmes had neglected to throw on his cloak and hat, despite the nippiness of the February night air and the still steadily falling rain. Holmes had a desperate and almost wild look in his face, so far from his usual stoicism that it startled Watson.

Holmes clasped Watson's shoulder. "Watson," he said in a strange voice, "please, please, please tell me that Sian is here!"

Watson started. "Sian, here?" he asked. "Of course she isn't. Now please step inside and tell me what is going on. Where is Sian?"

"Oh, God, Watson, she's gone!" Holmes cried out.

"Gone?" Watson repeated, taken aback by the vagueness of the statement.

"Yes, gone! She's left me! She and the children are gone!"

"Now, Holmes," Watson said practically, leading him to the parlor. "You don't know she's left you."

"Oh yes I do," he said. "The safe's been opened and one of the transporters is missing."

"Oh."

"Yes, oh," Holmes said bitterly. "And only Sian knew where the transporters were kept, and only Sian knew the combination for the safe, and so only Sian would have been able to take it."

"Oh."

In the lit parlor, Watson could clearly see Holmes's face for the first time. He noticed that his cheeks were shining with moisture, but Watson couldn't tell if it was from streaks of tears or from the steady rain from outside.

"I don't know what to do," Holmes said, leaning his head against his curled fist.

"You're hysterical," Watson noted. "Not much can be done in that state. Why don't you stay in the guestroom, and we can think of a solution in the morning."

Holmes nodded wearily, and Watson led his poor friend upstairs.

---

Holmes was in a sorry state when he came downstairs the following morning. Completely battered and disheveled, Holmes slumped down at the breakfast table with Watson. Watson knew that Holmes had to be in poor spirits if he wasn't making a grab for the London Times.

"Good-morning, Holmes," Watson said.

"Good-morning."

"How did you sleep?" Watson asked before he could stop himself. He grimaced at his own question—that probably hadn't been the most tactful inquiry at the moment.

"Terribly, thanks," Holmes said.

The two men were silent. Holmes drummed his fingers agitatedly against the table.

"Have you come to any sort of conclusion on what to do?" Watson asked carefully. Holmes heaved a sigh.

"There's only one thing for me to do," Holmes admitted.

"And that is…?"

"Simply, that I must use the second transporter to go and bring her back."

"Do you think she will?" Watson asked.

"She must," Holmes said. "I—I thought that we were getting better, she and I. I thought that she had gotten over her wave of homesickness." Holmes bit his lip. "I need her, Watson."

Watson had never seen Holmes so emotional before. Was this truly the man who once had claimed that his brain has always governed his heart? The man who once had reasoned that love was an emotional thing, and whatever was emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which he place above all things, which was the reason that he never would get married himself?

Apparently, yes. Watson had always believed that Holmes's opposition to love and marriage was unhealthy, but he had gotten so accustomed to it that it was mind-boggling to see Holmes so emotional.

"I think that you should go," Watson said. "And soon."

"Yes," Holmes agreed.

"But do you know where to even look for her?" Watson asked.

"I think I have a certain place in mind," Holmes said cryptically.

---

Holmes knew that if Sian had returned to the future—oh, who the hell did he think he was kidding?—her own time, there was only one person who she would turn to; her father.

Back in his room in Baker Street, Holmes rummaged through the bottom drawer of his bureau, searching. Ah-ha! There it was. Holmes quickly pulled out a small cloth bag, in which laid the clothing that Holmes had worn during his stint in the future. As he pulled the coarse blue slacks out of the bag, his mind flashed back to when Sian had bought them for him.

"You'll need these," Sian had said, throwing a few pairs of pants atop of the already extensive pile of clothes Holmes had in his arms. Holmes looked at the pants warily.

"Oh?" he asked.

"Yep. Blue jeans. Pretty much a staple for any American."

An American. Was that what Sian had missed? Being an American? Or was it being a woman of the twenty-first century? Hell, was it even just being a Fairfax? Whatever it was, Holmes would accommodate. He needed her, goddammit. He'd live in America, in the year 2009, just to be with her.

Holmes paused. Would he really give up everything for her? His home and career, his friends and family, his time and country, just to be with Sian?

Well, yes. Sian had done it for him without thinking twice. Granted, Sian had also abandoned everything in the end, but he'd ignore that part. He had to get her back.

Without wasting any more time, Holmes hastily dressed himself in his twenty-first century outfit. He had a mission.

Holmes ventured downstairs, where Watson was waiting for him in the parlor. He raised his eyebrows at the sight of Holmes dressed in his twenty-first century finery.

"Shut up," Holmes said, using one of Sian's pet phrases. Even just the phrase made his heart pang.

"Now," Holmes said, "I will go to Sian's father's home and see if he knows where she is. If she's gone anywhere in the future, that is where she would go."

"Be careful, Holmes," Watson said.

"I will," Holmes said, and with that, he disappeared into the future. Again.