From W. Y. Traveller: Memory loss

"Watson, what are you looking for?"

I did not look at him, too busy lifting up piles of papers on my desk to search beneath them. "My watch, Holmes, have you seen it?"

"Your brother's watch?"

"Yes, you have seen it then?"

I looked towards him in hope, but he met my look with a shake of his head. "I'm afraid not, my dear fellow."

I sank into my chair, distraught at losing an object I valued so highly. My brother and I had not got on, but the watch was my last remaining link to him or our father, and I valued those memories highly. Even more than that, that watch was the very thing Holmes and I were discussing when we first met my dear Mary, now gone for several years. I had other mementos of her, of course, but the watch still held a special place in my heart.

Holmes watched me, sharp eyes noting my distress at the loss. As much as I knew the attention came from the kind heart Holmes rarely showed, at that moment, it felt suffocating. Holmes had never met my brother, and I rarely talked about him; he could not share in all the memories lost with the watch. Even the memories of Mary, though she and Holmes had become quite good friends, he could not know them all.

Sinking into a gloom more characteristic of my friend than myself, I barely noticed Mrs Hudson entering the room. "Is something wrong, doctor?" she inquired.

I roused myself enough to smile weakly at her. "Just a loss of a watch, Mrs Hudson, and of memories."

"Not the battered old pocket watch you keep on your desk?"

I sat upright, suddenly alert. "You've seen it?"

"Mrs Hudson seems to have not only seen it, but was the one to take it in the first place," Holmes said. "Where is the watch now?"

Mrs Hudson looked distraught. "I'm so sorry, Dr Watson! I saw it out on your desk and sent it away to be cleaned as a birthday surprise for you. They told me it should be back on Monday."

I laughed at the sudden relief of knowing the watch was safe. "Thank you, Mrs Hudson. Knowing my watch is safe and will be returned is all that I wanted."