A/N: *pops out from behind door, Enola Holmes style* 'Tis I! Hi all, long time, no see! I'm going to hopefully get this year's challenge done in one go and then move on to finish the old ones languishing around. (Also, apologies to Book girl fan for how this first one went down…) The title comes from a song that's apparently original to Loreena McKennitt, "The Stockford Carol," on the album To Drive the Cold Winter Away, which I highly recommend for getting into the spirit of writing period pieces.

From Book girl fan: A gathering of old friends

==With Song and Tale We Pass the Wintry Hours==

Day 1: Christmas Eve, 1918

David Wiggins warmed his hands on his beer and looked around the pub. It was much quieter, emptier, than he remembered. Probably had been, for the past four years, but he hadn't been around to see it.

Shells whistling overhead, the cold, slimy muck of the trenches as bad as anything he'd ever experienced going down to the Thames, you couldn't even light a cigarette in here, he'd seen one poor bugger shot dead for it…

He shook himself back to the present. Grim though it was, it was better than the Somme.

When two men entered The Crooked Arrow, David recognized Jem Allen before he recognized Isa Saunders. Jem had a terrific white scar across the left side of his face, but it was the same boyish face underneath. Isa's features were unscarred, but his eyes were haunted and somehow it completely changed his face.

Four years ago, David would have wept. Now, he was grateful just to see his friend alive.

"Evenin', Wig," Jem nodded as he took a seat at the table. "Happy Christmas."

Isa took a seat but said nothing.

"Evening, lads." David drummed up a faint smile. "You're the first."

"I don't expect everyone will show." Jem pulled out a box of cigarettes and proceeded to light one. "Not everyone's going to want to risk it."

It. The influenza, the sickness David, Jem, Isa, and thousands of others like them had brought home with them from the trenches. Already, this illness was unlike anything he'd seen in his lifetime, taking down hale and hearty young people with frightening speed. One could attend church perfectly fine on Sunday and be buried the following Saturday.

David knew some of the lads wouldn't be willing to risk congregating in their old haunt — choosing to hunker down, instead, in the homes they hadn't seen in years — and he could not fault them for it. But he hadn't seen any of them in four years or more, and by some miracle, eleven of the original dozen Baker Street Irregulars had survived the War to End All Wars.

Tommy Wilkins, they had lost to the Third Battle of Ypres, trying to take Pilckem Ridge. Tommy was not the first friend David had lost in the war, but he had by far been the oldest. They'd grown up neighbors; David could not remember a time he hadn't known Tommy.

And now Tommy lay in a cold grave in Flanders.

"—'s that brother of yours?" Jem was saying.

"Hmm? Oh, Peter wanted to come but Mattie wanted him to stay." David shrugged ruefully. "How can you say 'no' to your wife these days?"

Jem barked a short laugh, just as another man entered the Arrow. The one Irregular who hadn't joined the Army, because his city needed his civil services: Sean Youghal, detective inspector.

David saluted him with his tankard. "Happy Christmas, Detective Inspector!"

Sean came forward, curiously hesitant, and nodded. "Happy Christmas." He glanced at the mostly-empty table. "I'll get more drinks."

Jem shook his head. "In a moment, in a moment. Haven't seen you in a long time."

Sean smiled but didn't quite meet Jem's gaze.

"G'sakes," Isa muttered, speaking aloud for the first time since he'd entered. "Don't tell us you feel guilty for not enlisting when you had a job that wouldn't want you to."

"Should've done my part," Sean protested.

"You did," David said firmly. "Crimes still needed investigating, I'm sure. Not like Mr. Holmes is in the harness anymore to pick up the slack."

"Anyone heard from the Guv lately?" Jem wondered.

"Last I heard he was with the Watsons, helping tend to the Doctor," said Sean.

"How bad off is he?" Isa asked quietly.

"He'll need a cane for the rest of his days, that's certain," David said soberly. "Lost hearing in one ear, too. I went to see him a few days ago, however, and there is nothing wrong with that man's brain, or his tongue."

Isa smiled faintly, and David was relieved to see it. "Good old Doctor."

Sean nodded, then set off for the bar.

"It's not what I thought it would be like," Jem said quietly.

Isa frowned questioningly.

Jem's eyes were beginning to mirror Isa's. "Coming home."

"You know what I keep thinking of?" David said suddenly. As the other two turned back to him, Sean returned with drinks.

"And what do ye be thinking of?" Sean prompted.

"I keep thinking of the beginning of A Study in Scarlet. 'The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster.' Two wounded limbs and nerves shattered." David briefly nursed his own left arm, which had taken a bullet as well, but to less damaging effect than Dr. Watson's. "I keep thinking of how he looked when we first met him, and how I keep seeing that look in other men everywhere I go, my shaving mirror included."

"You know," Sean said slowly, "I'm sure he was never quite the same man afterwards — it's funny to think of now, but he would still have been a lad, really, when he first shipped out… But he did heal. He could go on adventures and help people and get married — twice — and have wee ones and be a good friend and husband and father. What I'm saying is…" He faltered. "I want… I hope for the same… for all of you."

Isa did not look convinced, but he murmured, "Thanks, Sean."

Jem nodded. "Life goes on, doesn't it? Things might get worse before they get better… but they have to get better at some point."

David smiled wearily. "I'll drink to that." No sooner did they raise their tankards, than three more of the Twelve Apostles — Watson's nickname for the original Baker Street dozen — came through the front door. Llew Price, Danny O'Neal, and Ted Thompson.

Scarred and haunted, all of them, but alive.

It was just seven of them, out of twelve, but he was grateful for each one of them, and the ones who couldn't come. And the one who wouldn't come. At least Tommy had had a good run — they all had. And whatever came next, they could hold on to that.

A/N: So, um, who feels the need to write some pandemic-inspired catharsis? Sorry, guys, I hope next time is happier.

But I have to say that, as much as I love to focus on the part of the canon timeline that involves Moriarty, this is the part that haunts me, World War I and afterward. What was this war really like for the characters we know and love? And yes, if the original Irregulars were around 10 to 13 years old in STUD, they would be in their forties during the war.

Some quick notes about the Irregulars! "The Twelve Apostles" is a nickname I came up with for the original boys a long time ago, as a way in-universe of recognizing the boys who started it all, as time passed and new Irregulars joined on and the original ones moved on. My first name for Wiggins was always "Davy," but it seems like he might have stopped using the nickname as he got older. Peter, his brother, is absent from this but he's existed since my original novel-length fic! In fact, several of the Irregulars named were first mentioned in that fic. And yes, Sean Youghal is Inspector Youghal of "Mazarin Stone." If MAZA takes place in the first few years of the 20th century, that's enough time for one of Holmes's boys to have entered Scotland Yard and risen through the ranks.