A/N: This 221B is especially for Azolean, who has left a string of charming reviews on a variety of my stories - I really appreciate it, and am very glad you've enjoyed what I wrote. You've made my day, thank you so much! :)

As for everyone, I am currently on hiatus from fanfic writing in general, but I plan on returning! I have a couple of fics lying around which have not yet seen the light of day on this site, and I might just post them sporadically before I return full force with new fics, probably later next year.


Pride

It had occurred to me, that, sometimes, I made a mistake in publishing the cases of my dear friend Mr Sherlock Holmes. Not only did he fail to appreciate the stories, they shifted some of our clients into an undue spotlight. The speculation I have heard as to who Irene Adler (an alias, of course) might really be! But, I have often felt that Holmes's work offered him little enough in terms of public praise, and when I read letters to the editors of a certain distinguished newspaper, maligning him as a madman, I should say that I've done rightly, after all. Holmes's genius might be so dazzling brilliant that a common man cannot grasp it, but I have never seen him act mad in any way, and my accounts should serve to show that he never deviated from the paths that logic dictated him. He may be unorthodox and exasperating, often trying, but sometimes tried, and I should never reduce him to the same level as the poor unfortunates of our mental institutions.

However, I have never felt more proud of my little accounts than when Holmes, lying on the settee in his Sussex cottage and dragging languidly on his pipe, lay down the last page of my most recent manuscript and said, for the first time: "Not bad."