JWP #28:
An Interesting Dialogue: Take inspiration today from the following lines: "I can explain!" "Is that so? Well, you are the writer amongst us, so I look forward to your tale Watson."
He needed to hurry. Holmes would return any minute, and he doubted his friend would be happy to see what had occurred in his absence.
He mixed the compounds over the burner, stirring slowly to keep the mixture from overheating again. This was his second attempt; he would not have time for a third.
The pharmacy had been short on two of the medicines he needed to treat Ms. Benson's illness, so he had hurried home with what he needed to make it himself. Already, his clumsiness had broken one of Holmes' vials and cracked a beaker, and he could ill afford to break another. He needed to finish this, clean up the mess, and hurry back to his patient before Holmes arrived. He would stop at the shop before he returned to replace the pieces he had broken.
The door below opened, then closed, and he cursed under his breath. The compound still needed another minute over the flame, then another minute to cool. So much for offering apology and replacements at the same time.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs, slowly climbing halfway before pausing, then nearly running the second half. "Watson! What is—?"
The words cut off as the door swung open, and he finally took the compound off the burner and poured it into the container he had ready, pretending to ignore the consulting detective behind him as he fought not to spill.
"Watson."
Holmes' voice was nearly a growl, and Watson smothered a cringe but made no answer.
"Watson."
The anger in that tone was apparent, and he hurried to forestall the argument. "I can explain!"
"Is that so?" was Holmes' answering near-growl. "Well, you are the writer between us, so I look forward to your tale, Watson."
He did not answer immediately, focused on not spilling the results of two hours' work.
"The pharmacy was out of what I need to treat Ms. Benson," he finally replied just before Holmes lost his patience. "There was no time for me to hunt through every pharmacy in the city, so Agar agreed to sit with her while I compounded what we needed."
Silence answered him, and he glanced up from quickly cleaning up his mess to see Holmes staring at him, anger still in that steely grey gaze.
"I'm sorry, Holmes," he said quietly, turning back to the last couple of items on the table. "You know I would not use your chemistry set if I had any other choice. The experiment you had going is sitting there, in the window with the same amount of sun it had before you left. All I did was move it from the table so I would not knock it over."
Setting the cleaned glassware aside, he tore two pieces of paper from the back of his journal and wrote the items he would need to replace on each, leaving one on the table as an acknowledgement for Holmes to find. Avoiding eye contact, he shoved his copy in his pocket, grabbed the medicine that would save his patient's life, and hurried past Holmes and out the door.
He had no time to think about it the rest of the day, nor all night, more focused on treating the illness that was making it so hard for Ms. Benson to breathe. It had been years since he had tried to make anything more difficult than a fever reducer, and he spent most of the time praying it would work. If he had gotten one thing wrong, the medicine would do nothing at best and kill her at worst, but she slowly rallied, and by the time dawn lightened the eastern sky, he was able to tell her worried family that she was out of danger. She woke a few hours later, and he left her in the care of a large family overjoyed to have her back and generously grateful to the doctor who had saved her.
He walked slowly home. This had not been his first sleepless night this week, and he was exhausted. He stopped only to replace what he had broken—and buy a couple extra things he was sure Holmes did not have—before turning his steps towards the flat, interested in little besides setting the chemistry supplies on Holmes' table and going to bed. Ms. Benson would recover, and he no longer needed to sit vigil.
His elation at her survival faded behind his worry on the slow walk home. Holmes hated when anyone touched his chemistry set, and there had been several rows when Mrs. Hudson or one of the servants had tried to clean that area in the months after they had first taken lodgings together. Holmes had every right to be furious with him, but while Watson regretted breaking a couple of things, he was replacing them, and he could not apologize for doing what was needed to save his patient. According to Agar, she had stopped breathing twice in the few hours he had been away. There would not have been time to hunt through other pharmacies that may or may not have carried what he needed, nor could he have gone to St. Bart's to use the laboratory there. He had no other choice but to use the only chemistry set he had available, no matter that he fully expected an argument the next time he saw Holmes. He hoped he could sleep before that, however. He would gladly put off the inevitable argument for when he was more awake.
He entered the flat quietly, hoping to reach the sitting room and his bedroom with no one the wiser. Mrs. Hudson never stopped moving around in her rooms as the door shut with a faint click, and, if he was fortunate, Holmes would not be home to start the argument he knew was coming.
His luck had apparently run out, however. Holmes spun around from pacing in front of the fireplace when the door opened, and he tensed, bracing himself for the argument to come as he walked slowly into the room, gently placing the chemistry supplies on the table and his bag on his desk. Holmes' gaze followed every step.
The gaze was unnerving, but he would take that over an argument—especially after several sleepless nights—and a heavy silence fell as he carefully restocked his bag. The silence stretched, and he started to wonder if Holmes would let him leave the sitting room without a word.
Placing his restocked bag in its spot, he was moving toward the door when Holmes finally spoke. "Your patient?"
He sighed, relieved. Holmes did not like that he had borrowed the chemistry set, but he at least was no longer angry.
"Alive," he replied.
Holmes nodded and started rooting through the bag of supplies, and Watson continued to his room, hoping Holmes did not start a loud or obnoxious experiment until at least mid-afternoon.