From PowerOfPens: Watson's injuries get sore in cold weather.


It was the dead of winter, the coldest London had fallen under in several years. I had received a number of missives from my elder brother Mycroft, all of which cautioned me to stay indoors. I hadn't imagined it would be so difficult to follow his instruction - usually such terrible cold serves to discourage the more interesting criminals from engaging in their usual activities. On this occasion, however, Inspector Lestrade had approached me with a most fascinating problem. The National Portrait Gallery, which had been closed temporarily to the public owing to the awful weather, had been robbed upon the very first night of its closure.

There were a number of interesting points about the case, but I shall leave it up to Watson whether he wishes to publish a no-doubt hugely embellished retelling; here, I write instead not of my successes, but of a notable oversight on my part. I think it important to record this, so as to remind myself and others that no one is infallible and everyone - even Sherlock Holmes - has their blind spots.

Watson and I had agreed to meet back at Baker Street. Whilst I had created a distraction for the thieves themselves, he had gone to scope out two possible locations where I believed the stolen artwork to be stashed. Under usual circumstances, I would have preferred to have switched roles. My deductive ability would have made going through each location a far swifter process. Unfortunately, the thieves in question had been assisted by one of the gallery's curators, who had met both Watson and I and knew us to be involved in the investigation. Given Watson has no skill with dissembling, it was down to me to don a disguise in which I could create a distraction.

So now I stood on the corner of a street in Shoreditch, resisting the urge to scratch the fake beard from my chin, waiting for Watson to show. It had been barely a year that we had been living in Baker Street, an even shorter time that he had been assisting me with my cases, and I was continually shocked by the faith he showed in me. His army revolver weighed heavy in my trouser pocket, as he had insisted I take it with me earlier that night.

I checked my pocket watch nervously. He was over forty minutes late and I was beginning to regret that he hadn't taken his gun with him. He was still new to London, and while he may not have had any of the art thieves to contend with, this was not the safest area of London. I reassured myself that he was an army man, and continued to wait.

Just as it was drawing close to an hour later than the time we had agreed on, I spotted a figure limping toward me. I shifted uneasily, but as he drew closer I realised it was Watson.

"Were you injured?" I was striding forward before I even realised what I was doing, uneasy at how much he winced with every step upon his left leg. "Were they-"

"I'm fine," he waved me off. "No one was there. It's the second location, Holmes, the one by the river."

I looked him probingly up and down. He stood stiffly, face unusually pale, left arm rigid at his side.

"Your injuries..." I realised slowly. "They get sore in cold weather?"

"There really is no hiding anything from you, is there?" he snapped, one of the rare sightings of his 'bullpup', and strode off to hail a hansom.

It was a foolish oversight on my part. I had seen first-hand how difficult a process his recovery had been over this last not-even-a-year. As we clambered into the cab - Watson with some difficulty and muttered curses - I did find myself wondering why he hadn't said anything. He surely knew what to expect in weather like this.

"I trust the delay will not affect the criminal's capture?" He stared pointedly out the window, watching the snowy streets pass, but despite his gruff demeanour there was an edge of anxiety to his tone. All at once, it became clear to me why he had kept his pain a secret.

There was an element of pride, as there always was when it came to my recently-acquired flatmate. But it was more than that too - he had worried I would discount his use to me in my cases. Which was fascinating, truly, because I had never considered the possibility that he might believe my cases as valuable as I believed him to be in solving them.

"Holmes?"

I had still not responded, and now he was looking at me with open anxiety.

"Have I bungled it?"

"Not at all," I dismissed easily. "The thieves won't be able to move the stolen art from their bolt-hole until the weather improves. I shall wire the Yard, they will finish this case."

"Oh. Good."

The rest of the ride passed in silence, but inwardly I concluded that my new flatmate was something of a blind spot for me. New Year was only a few days away, and so I made a secret resolution to myself - I would not allow him to remain so. One way or another, this next year, I would sound out Doctor Watson; his limits, his motivations. I had never had what one could call close friends - was this what we were becoming?

It was a manner of mystery I had never encountered before, and its singularity made it all the more intriguing. I smiled to myself. This next year would prove most illuminating.