Prompt: An old Watson goes to a curmudgeonly and world-wearied Sherlock Holmes, begging the detective to come out of retirement for one final case., from Michael JG Meathook

A/N: And that ends another December challenge. I had so much fun doing this, and a big thank you to Hades Lord of the Dead for organizing this every year, and to everyone who participated. I loved reading everyone's responses! Hoping to be more active in this fandom next year as well until another December Challenge begins. Happy 2020!

PS: This is set right before His Last Bow. Apologies for another war-related response but the prompt really fit it and I cannot get WWI out of my head. Clearly I need to write something larger about it.

It was a beautiful spring day as I boarded the train from London to Sussex Downs, though my mind was too unsettled to truly enjoy it. This was no mere visit to my old friend Sherlock Holmes for a pleasant day in the countryside. Mycroft Holmes's last words to me refused to settle in my mind, instead driving me to worry.

You may be the only one who can convince him, Doctor. Mycroft's worried face rose up in my memory.

Is it really so bad as all that? I had asked in alarm. I had listened to him lay out the facts of the situation in Europe in some shock. I was not ignorant of the politics of the day, after so many years watching ever more horrible wars across Africa and Asia, and once between France and Germany on the very shores of Europe. Still, war seemed so far away as to be unimaginable.

Worse, I expect, Mycroft said, and as he said it he looked every year of his sixty-some years. If war does come it will be unlike anything any of us have seen, yes, even you, Doctor. We shall need every advantage if we are to emerge intact. My brother's abilities are unique, and I cannot think of anyone better suited to this position

I had been sent, therefore, to convince Sherlock Holmes to come out of retirement one last time. Mycroft had explained very little of the job to me, save that it would involve time spent undercover, gathering information for our future war effort. I agreed with Mycroft absolutely, that there was no one in England who could do the job better than my friend, yet I knew I should have a job convincing him. In his retirement, Holmes had become weary of the world and all in it save myself, his violin and his bees. I thought it likely that he would refuse all entreaties to return to service. Perhaps that is why Mycroft sent me in his stead. He knew Holmes would have a harder time refusing me. Mycroft had, at times, a manipulative streak that was turned in service to his country, and no country ever had a more dedicated public servant.

I arrived at the lonely Sussex train station and found a carriage waiting for me. That Holmes himself had not come told me he knew of the reason for my visit. No doubt Mycroft had attempted to convince him to take the position before. Yet, Holmes was still a perfect gentleman, and the hired carriage dropped me off at his front door. "Ah, Watson!" Holmes said, straightening up from where he had been tending to a beehive in his front garden. "Welcome."

"Thank you, old friend," I said, shaking him warmly by the hand. "I very much enjoy visiting here, you know that."

"Yes, though I wish that this visit was for a better reason," Holmes said. "You shall not convince me, Watson. I am retired and determined to remain so."

This before we had even entered his cottage. Once we did, I put down my bag and settled into the armchair by the fire, where Holmes offered me a cigar from the trusty coal-scuttle which had followed him from Baker Street. "Mycroft seems most concerned," I said. "It was a surprise to me to see him so worried. Do you not think there will be a war, then?"

"Oh, no, Watson. There certainly shall be," Holmes answered. "Mycroft has never been wrong to my knowledge, and I think it likely that the war, when it comes, will be a horror unlike any conflict yet seen on this earth."

"And yet you refuse to do your part to assist your country?" I asked.

"In what way is it my part, Watson?" Holmes asked sharply. "This war is none of my making. The politics of nations are the purview of fools, usually the fools running those nations, getting us all into nonsensical wars that cause nothing but harm. All before they do what they ought to have done from the beginning: sit down and work out their differences at the negotiating table. But our 'great leaders' would rather see thousands of young men die in the fields for glory rather than take the high road."

Rarely had Holmes been so adamant about anything. I turned his words over in my head. I could not disagree with him. As someone who had seen war I could not do otherwise. I had seen young men, my comrades, die in the dry fields of Afghanistan and alone in hospital beds in Bombay.

"All they need do is talk to stop this war in its tracks," Holmes said more quietly. "Yet instead of that, all these so-called great men are making plans to ensure that they will be better able to send men to fight and die than their neighbors. Yes, even my brother!"

"You are not wrong, Holmes," I said. "Yet, could it not be true that if you take this position - and I do not know much of what it is - you might prevent some of those deaths?"

"I may prevent the deaths of some of our English soldiers, and yes those of the French, by causing the deaths of German and Austrian ones," Holmes said. "Can you truly say that they deserve their fate, any more than the English and French will? War is indiscriminate, my dear Watson, and we are all humans, are we not? This will be a pointless charade, engineered by monarchs and politicians and the young men who fight in it have nothing to do with the tangled web of alliances that brought us here."

"I don't pretend to understand the politics of it," I said. "I doubt anyone does. And you are quite right, Holmes, that the Germans are hardly any different than we are ourselves. Yet, should England fall…" I trailed off, the thought too horrifying to contemplate. "Holmes, we must do whatever it takes to prevent that."

Holmes had always been patriotic in his way, and I could tell that the idea gave even him pause. "I have seen too much of the world, Watson. I have seen crime that would be unimaginable to the ordinary man. I know what humanity is capable of. All I wish is to be left in peace with my bees."

I felt immediately sorry that I had agreed to come. Had my friend not earned his peace, after so many years service? Yet I knew my friend well. I had often been on the receiving end of letters bewailing the boredom of the countryside. For all that he loved his bees, Holmes had never learned to thrive in the peace of the countryside, and I thought it not unlikely that some of his current attitude was due to this. "Holmes, such a case would be the pinnacle of your career," I said.

"Moriarty was the pinnacle of my career, Watson," Holmes said.

"Twenty years ago, Holmes. No one remembers Moriarty now. You are right, this is a new age with new threats that make Moriarty himself seem quaint by comparison!" I said. "I know I should feel easier in my own service if I knew you had turned your powers upon this war and done what you could to ease our way."

"Your service, Watson?" Holmes asked.

I shrugged helplessly. "Holmes, if we are to go to war, I cannot do else but offer my services to the Army once more. I have experience that will be beneficial, and I cannot do less than men half my age will do."

Holmes remained silent and I knew then that I had surprised him. "Watson, you cannot be serious," he finally said.

"I am perfectly serious," I said.

"You are sixty years of age!"

"I am aware of that," I said. "I am sure the Army can find a use for me. If this war is to be as horrible as you and Mycroft say-" and I had no doubt that it would be, so deeply did I trust my friend's judgment - "then we shall need every doctor at the front."

Holmes, for all his brain power, had never been to war. But he had heard of its horrors, from me and from his brother, and I knew he was contemplating the many outcomes this one could have. I knew as well as he that my chances of surviving this conflict, when it arrived, were not high. He was quite right that I was sixty years of age, and I carried injuries that would make service difficult. But I was determined to do my part.

"Well," Holmes said at last. "You have surprised me, Watson. I rather thought that if there is a war we would spend it here, watching it go by."

I paused. "Holmes," I said, recognizing the invitation for what it was. "I shall be honored to join you here, when the war is over."

The words should I survive hung between us, as if by saying it we should make it come true.

"In that case, Watson, I shall tell Mycroft I will accept the position he has offered me," Holmes said finally. "I cannot do less than you, old friend. If in some way my service shortens this war, well, then, it will be worth it."

"Thank you, Holmes," I said. "Mycroft will be grateful as well."

"I am not doing it for him," Holmes said. "Now, before we must start this unpleasant business, there is a very nice tavern in the town that does an excellent side of beef. I suggest we go there for dinner and spend the evening in front of the fire, as in the old days."

"I should like nothing better," I said.

So it was that Sherlock Holmes undertook the greatest role of his career, though when I published it as His Last Bow, I of necessity altered some small facts so that readers should never know of how reluctantly he took the job. To the reading public, Holmes was a hero of the highest order, and in this, his last and greatest case, I was determined to ensure that he remained one.