Chapter Fourteen
I have not written for some time. It has been a year since I left Martha in Scotland and two since Holmes' death at the Reichenbach falls. So much has happened since that fateful day and I am no longer the Watson I was then. Lestrade encouraged me to start up my practice again – convinced that work would be the best thing for me. I have continued as a police surgeon to the yard, the murders of last year were never solved but the killing stopped as abruptly and with as much violence as it began. Three more women were murdered and still the police are baffled. The man who seeked to gain my attention was perhaps merely a deranged killer, bent on causing as much suffering as possible. This proves to me how disturbed my mind was at that time, to think the murders were done for my benefit!
Martha remains in Scotland and my search for the man in the rain continues. Lestrade has sent out men looking for any man that may answer his description, any man committed to any asylum or hospital or prison has been investigated and still nothing. I am inclined to believe he was nothing more than an apparition, a figment of my tormented mind, sent to torment me more. Mycroft remains as elusive as ever. He refuses to see me, to speak to me about what he may know and I am convinced he does know something. Martha wishes to return to London, she says she has been away too long and misses her old home. I cannot blame her and have agreed to her return. It has been so long, the feelings I had for her are still present but they have faded into a ache rather than the constant pain that was present whenever she entered my thoughts. Perhaps my infatuation with her was also simply my disturbed mind seeking comfort.
Of all the things I have been through I must confess that my loss of feeling for Martha has been the most painful. I miss the feeling I had for her almost constantly; I miss how she made me feel after Mary had gone, how she comforted me in my darkest moments, how the mere look of her would transport me to a different world where I was happy and at peace. The loss of that love, that intensity, grieves me and I wish for its return more than I wish for the return of Holmes.
It is growing dark out and my mind is comforted rather than tormented by it. I think I may finally be letting Holmes go. Work has picked up and Martha is returning, while I am not happy, I am not plagued by a constant sense of dread and fear as I once was. I can see the stars beginning to emerge out of my window, penetrating the silky darkness like beacons of some far away hope and I feel peaceful. I feel sleepy and perhaps tonight I may sleep without being haunted by the face of my dearest friend.
I see the stars emerging and I think of home. I think of Watson and wonder if he too is looking at the same sky. I cannot think such sentimental thoughts, not if I am ever to return home. These men plague me and dog my every step; my thoughts run wild with a thousand scenarios of my death. How often have I pondered that subject over the last two years? Too many times. My instincts tell me the end is near and I pray to any God that may be listening to make the end quick and painless…