Creating Chaos: Part two

Of course he had known long before I was certain. I had half wondered about his curious glances and those odd questions, but frankly my own fears were so overwhelming that any other considerations were overlooked.

Then, as I lay on the floor sprawled over my wash-bowl, he came and sat quietly next to me.

"We need to talk."

"Not now Holmes, as you can see the 'old girl' is not quite up to it. Perhaps you could just wait-" another wave of sickness hit before I was able to finish.

"I have been waiting rather nicely for some ten minutes by the door, meanwhile you have been depositing the meagre contents of your stomach into that basin." He looked over my shoulder and pulled a face.

I hugged the basin tighter to my chest, "which is a jolly good reason to leave me be. A girl needs her privacy, especially when she is not looking particularly stunning. It appears I have eaten something that does not quite agree with me and I assure you it is not pleasant viewing, so do go away."

"A chap does not simply abandon his wife when she is stricken."

"I will do fine thank you, besides what are you doing up here, I left you downstairs with The Times."

"I can hear you wrenching from below, making it dashed difficult for one to focus."

Although I had my back to him I knew he was shaking his head, my imagination now saw that immaculate black main tumbling forward and I half considered stretching behind to push it back into place. I did recognise this as a poor excuse to run my fingers through his hair, (something I seemed to crave for of late.) Then observing my actual hand and realising it was covered in breakfast bile, I made the sudden realisation that this was more than an upset stomach.

"And I have deduced some time ago Jane that this is more than a bit of food poisoning."

The truth suddenly lay between us and he reached out to acknowledge it, stroking back my hair and gently turning my head. I looked into his eyes and managed all but two seconds of bathing in those cold gray pools before another wave of nausea hit me and left me clinging to my bowl for dear life.

"Oh dear-god…"

"Shush, fight it and try to breathe deeply."

"Tosh, how can I breathe inwards when my food is going outwards? I should never have bloody-well eaten this morning. I should never have let you anywhere near me!" I made an effort to pull my hair away from the bowl and managed to successfully elbow him the chest, "what makes you suspect that anyway?"

"Well, I should say it is fairly obvious. Let us evaluate the evidence shall we?" He held his hand into the air and began to tick off his long fingers as was his custom. "Fact number one, you are vomiting in a basin on the floor. Fact two, that once reliable and I may add rather healthy appetite has become somewhat unpredictable. You have avoided several meals recently; though you have been reserving food to consume later, the flat is suddenly full of pieces of cake and sandwiches squirreled away. Fact three, you lost your balance and almost fainted yesterday for no particular reason. These symptoms alone should cause a chap some concern. However, fact four would be that beautifully freckled face is looking somewhat piqued of late; indeed I would describe you as positively 'blooming.' Your teeth appear whiter, your hair is radiant, your smile broader and your eyes are much brighter. I understand all these factors can be enthused by your sub-conscious and the amassing of maternal serenity, also by natural chemicals now saturating your blood. Fact five would be the pronounced mood swings; normally Watson you are the most amiable soul a fellow could ever encounter, however even Lestrade was obliged to make a sharp exit after you also chastised him for his 'big muddy boots.' That would be on Wednesday, therefore you have a changeable temper and paranoia of germs. Indeed there has now been two of us erroneously contaminating your clean 'nest' with our muddy boots and I have perceived you have been scrubbing the floor at night. He dropped his hands and looked at me sadly, "have you something to tell me Jane?"

"The scrubbing was not the dirty boots Sherlock, it was to clean my vomit from Mrs Hudson's rug and I am not entirely sure myself, so no use alarming you."

"But you are prepared to take on that worry yourself." He shook his head and looked away, "am I such a delicate fellow that needs protecting hum?"

"Of course not, but this is not something one can be mistaken over, I was waiting to be certain."

"And yet the evidence is now before you, literally," he gently pulled the basin away and replaced it with a clean handkerchief. "Here, wipe those filthy hands if you wish to touch my hair and I clearly perceive that you do, I assume this sudden fascination with my locks is yet another irrational consequence?"

"Thank you; no that fascination has been going for a while, almost ten years now since we first met, it has just intensified." I felt myself redden and quickly changed the subject, "well I suppose it was to eventually happen, though I rather assumed we were becoming immune."

"You know I ought never to have pestered you yesterday evening, I should have considered your now delicate disposition. I have never considered myself a 'cad' before Jane, indeed my moral benchmark has been rather high in most considerations; however it seems I have allowed myself to slip of late. I have been pestering you far too much and this is the result."

"You never pester and I am forever tempting you. We both know Watson is that little piece of grit in Sherlock Holmes's thoroughly efficient machine, bless-you. Besides it sounds as though you regret it, do you?"

"Good-lord no, not at all. If I was to go back it would be to make it all happen sooner rather than later, I should have seen common sense right after the Moran case. All the delay has only allowed this turn of events to unfold, creating an element of desperation in our encounters that befits two individuals starved of passion. Indeed, should I have proposed straight after your infamous 'snake story' all these desperate couplings would have been avoided. We could have been contentedly indulgent instead of frantically making for lost time and as such, we may have been more proficient at planning a family."

"And I see things differently. I confess, I have rather enjoyed being somewhat shameless since we married, I think I quite shocked myself at times. A lady gets very little opportunity to behave anything but proper, so all this brazenness and our bohemian episodes were rather a treat."

Holmes smiled shyly, "yes it was rather fun, though I rather suspect Lestrade would eventually have had us arrested for indecency. Especially when he presented me with a sample of lace found in the storeroom next to his office last week, the unusual needlework being identical to that on a dress you were sporting two days earlier. Our Inspector may miss much in his understanding of criminology, but he has a keen eye on fashion and recalled its origin. I was unable to explain its presence and I was suitably affronted when he suggested that I recommend to you a more reliable seam-mistress."

"Oh-dear and he did warn me about you years ago, honestly you must not laugh, he was dreadfully serious. He said you suppressed your passions rather than indulged them and that was not an entirely healthy scenario. That one day they would burst free and god help the poor women who had to cope with them. Then again Mrs Hudson warned me too, just after I unpacked; she sat me down and explained all about certain 'urges' in young gentleman resulting in 'inappropriate advances.' I was to always be wary of such behaviour and never allow myself to be taken advantage of. She said; 'the Lord has'na made im so accommodating for nount lass.' I had no idea what she meant and of course those were early days, no-doubt after gaining the measure of you Holmes she had satisfied herself that nothing untoward could ever possibly happen and she never mentioned it again."

"Yet here we are."

"I know and I was rather patronising to her at the time. I say Holmes, you would think that between the two of us, with my medical knowledge and your great mind, that we could have been more sensible and taken precautions."

"But there is never anything 'sensible' about any of our encounters. As far as I am concerned all common sense and even decency go clear out of the bedroom window every time, probably with those stockings of yours Mrs Hudson found on the coal shed roof, (indeed we have been rather careless with your clothing of late.) However I do believe I also warned you, stressing an inclination towards passion when aroused, it was my absolute undoing in my youth."

"Really?" I now allowed myself to fall gently against his chest and then pushed my head into his neck, "is it just for the passionate times in the bedroom that we need to atone?"

He pulled me further inwards, "no, indeed the fact that we did not keep our encounters strictly to the privacy of our bedroom is an example of our recklessness; all those other places were occasions of extreme abandonment."

I thought wistfully of our encounters in the linen-cupboard on the stair, that once at Scotland Yard, but decided that the potting shed at Norwood was my fondest memory. "Sherlock, I know a child will be dreadfully inconvenient at present, but we once agreed it was a realistic outcome, although it has been such for some time now, are you enormously disappointed?"

"'Disappointed'-no, concerned yes. Another Holmes in this world has only marginal benefits, depending of course on inherent traits."

"Which of us has the most beneficial inherent traits?"

"You do understand that even a small change can be taxing to your volatile health and you are far too frail to be exposed to excessive stress and fatigue."

"Do you remember when your brother said something similar to Queen Victoria at that emergency assembly during the Percy Phelps case, she responded with; 'you need not concern yourself Mr Holmes, my devised frailty is for public sensation only, one is essentially perfectly healthy and more so I may add than yourself.' You took great delight in recounting the incident to me."

"Indeed I do, Bothermine was mortified; that comment almost resulted in a loss of appetite for several hours."

"Speaking of which, at least Mycroft will be happy; he may yet have his heir and his mentee."

"Not at all, he has already warned me about the dangers involved in childbirth, apparently he has done some research and calculated the odds of your survival, they were not good considering what he termed as 'your advanced age and ailments'. His hints were indeed dire warnings and you are quite right he is persistently rather negative."

"How dare he, 'advanced age indeed!"

"No doubt I will have the pleasure of yet another brotherly lecture on behaving impetuously and not considering another individuals welfare."

I was suddenly shocked, "you have done this before?"

"Well not quite as dramatic as impregnating someone, the last lecture was after I was sent-down from Oxford." He looked a little sheepish, "merely for blowing up the collage chemistry labs and a fellow student, it was nothing spectacular." He threw hands in the air with remembered frustration, "Reginald Musgrave was only singed, he eventually recovered and I refused to accept that I placed his life in any danger."

"Oh-well, I blame him for this situation."

"Reginald?"

"No Mycroft."

"Mycroft! Jane that is equally ridiculous, I simply refuse to allow you to blame our decadence on my conventionally upright brother. "

"But he arranged that holiday to Italy, after that you were never quite the same."

"Yes, he knew it from my visit as a child, Italy has always been rather liberating for me," he smiled a little wistfully. "It was refreshing not to be constantly observed and judged. No one had heard of Sherlock Holmes, therefore Sherlock Holmes could behave quite deploringly and more importantly his wife could behave even more so."

"Yes I remember, we hardly left our hotel room for at least three days."

"Almost seventy-two hours, it was deliciously shocking to have our food and wine sent up."

"However sadly we are in the here and now, what shall we do?"

"We shall go on holiday to France."

"Why?"

"Firstly because Mrs Hudson needs fresh air and rest, it was her Doctor's prescription. Therefore I have sent a letter to her sister in Portsmouth, we will arrange for her to holiday there for a month. Secondly you are in no condition to run this house alone, you will also need fresh air and more reliable weather. Yes, I shall take pen to paper again and write to Cousin Alexander, he has a villa in Paris."

"Why France and not Italy?"

"Well, there is of course avoiding the obvious reason of my poor behaviour in Italy and it is only in Paris where we will find the renowned consultant Pierre Routree. Pierre has written several interesting papers highlighting his curiosity in coal-tar derivatives, although his actual specialism is in maternity. He has some revolutionary theories pertaining to pregnancy and an empathetic eye on how to survive gestation if the mother is poorly. I do believe you would both stand a far greater chance under Pierre's watchful eye than any English specialist."

"There is that insinuation again, honestly -I have not been 'poorly' for years! You know that word 'both,' does sound plural and rather odd, a little terrifying after years of being singular."

"My apologies, the correct pronunciation should have been 'nous trois' or more precisely 'the three of us,' for that is how currant matters stand Jane. Indeed we shall make a rather odd threesome and I would like to think an 'effective' one, although I do rather suspect we are creating more chaos for London."

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If you see a typo or spelling error please let me know, I discovered about 10 when I re-read Part One just now, (the SHAME of it!)

Honest it's not laziness, it's actually the opposite, the hyper-imaginative brain is assuming that what's in the head is also on the page … and if not will go on pretending it's there regardless. I now see lots of missing words or extra words!

On my holiday at present, so plenty of time and nothing better to do than to play about with these two characters. I am also feeling romantic, (so sorry proper Holmes fans, but Miss Watson's hormones are all over the place!)

Tegan