AN: Ok, you really have to be in just the right mood to read this chapter.
It's so depressing! Sad, too. But I might sudgest music, like Dave
Matthew's "Gravedigger." I was watching that music video on MTV when I
wrote a good chunk of this. That song so totally Rocks! Anyway, getting off
subject. So... Whaaaaa! I only got four reviews!!! Speaking of which, until
I get more than 15 reviews a chapter *'Cause that would just be insane* I'm
going to give personalized responses to my reviews. So...
Estriel: Yeah, how do you like this? And thank you for reviewing; I feel so loved! =P
Lady Riahanna Dragoneye: I'm sorry if you thought it was insensitive, but I was only joking. Ya know, that part in the Godfather with the horses... Yeah. Anyway, who wrote the other Nona Brown fic? I'd like to read it! Oh, and thanx for reviewing.
Imp: *Black Rose stares at Imp in disbelief* Oh, man, are you missing out! Go! Read! Be free! It rocks, I promise!
Alexia S. Luclwit: Yay, my first review! You will now go down in history! And I know, I'm cruel. This next chapter is even more cruel...*Evil Grin* And torturous. So, yes, it will continue for the sake of Sherley Torture fans. But not for more than two or three chapters... I don't know any Nona torture fans.
Thank you for listening to my authorial ramblings, now, on to the fic!!
*P.S. Oh, and keeping with the Doylean style, the Holmes-inclusive parts will be written from Watson's POV. Thanx again!
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^Bring-Bring...Bring-Bring
I woke up, glared at the illuminated bedside clock reading 3:12 AM, and got out of bed reluctantly to answer the phone.
Who could be calling at this time of night?? I thought, and picked up the receiver.
"Hello?" I croaked in a voice that spoke quite plainly of a hangover. No more vodka night for me! I thought.
"Is this a Miss Nona Brown?" asked a male voice with a slight Brooklyn accent. I could hear the sound of many voices working in the background.
"This is she...May I ask who is speaking?" Curse my mother, I thought, for drilling phone manners in to my head often...
"This is Detective Davis with the NYPD. I'm sorry to disturb you at this hour, ma'am," said the man, "But we have a man here asking for you." My thoughts immediately flew to my half-brother, Mitchell, who was always getting himself in to one mess or another, and calling me to bail him out. *AN: I do not know if Nona had a half-brother, but I needed a very close family member to have that kind of history, and a half-brother seemed appropriate*
"Can you describe him to me?" I asked. Better be sure who it is before I come down there with bail money...
"All right, sure. He's around 6'2, *To the Sherlockian Purists, I am not sure about the height, but I do know that he can take a foot off of his stature at any time... I love the Empty House!* with black hair and gray eyes. He's dressed kinda funny, too, like he was at a costume party. At the time he was taken into custody, he was wearing a dark trenchcoat, with a deerstalke-" The Inspector stopped, alarmed, at the sound of the receiver hitting the floor, feet thumping loudly next to the phone, and a door slamming.
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The instant that the inspector described the man at the station, I knew. I don't see why it did not occur to me sooner; if I could get in to the past, why not, then, could someone get from the past into the future? Maybe even Holm-... My mind refused to think that far ahead. It was like a battle between the two sides of my personality; the logical side, skeptical as always . . . Forever making sure that I never got my hopes up so that they would never get disappointed- even now, when there is a chance, the tiniest of chances, that he might be here, that I might see him again . . . That was the optimistic end of my mind, the part that believed in that tiny, almost invisible ray of hope that said that I might see the man I loved again...
So fast does the marvelous human brain work that I believe, to this day, that I had thought this out before the phone had hit the ground. All I remember was the realization that Sherlock Holmes, whom I loved more than life itself, was within a ten-minute run from here. After that, all I did was run out of the room in to the chill November air.
I knew I wasn't allowed to run in the halls of my apartment building, but at that point I was beyond caring. I ran, tumbling through the halls, oblivious to the heads popping out of the doors to the right and left to see what in the world could be disturbing their sleep at this time of night. I ran, to be that much closer to the one I had been separated from across aeons of time. My heart and I flew pounding down the stairs, for how could I have waited for an elevator, and burst out in to the night.
I have no idea what passerbyes must have thought. Here was a woman whom looked not a day over 23, wearing crop yoga pants and a camo spaghetti- strapped sleep top, with tears streaming down her face, who was sprinting through the middle of NYC, in the November snow, slush, and mud no less! And, to top it all off, barefoot! Even with the cold, the rain, and weaving through the crowded streets, the only thing I could think of was the beating of my heart, in sync with the pounding of my feet as I lessened the distance between Holmes and myself, step by step. That night, I flew like one possessed. I flew through Manhattan, past the many familiar places that now had new significance since my return to now; the Coffee on the Hill, where I had sat just that morning and drank that lifeblood of my life that is Chai.
Only a few steps later was the little deli where I stopped at least once a week for lunch... But the sight of the local department of the NYPD drove all that out of my mind. Just the knowledge of who was standing just a few feet past those glass doors was enough to make me weak in the knees. As if in a dream, I reached my hand out for the door-
BEEBEEP-BEEBEP...BEBEEP-BEBEEP...
My eyes flew open as I realized where I was: in my dorm room, right where I had fallen asleep. It had been a dream. Holmes was still over 100 years away... That last thought was still the hardest one to cope with. The dream was coming around three times a week, and it showed no sign of letting up. My eyes filling with tears, I pulled something on a chain out of my camo top. From an objective eye, it looked like a ring, with a small line of diamonds grazing across it, but to me, it was my only lifeline to a world I had once known, a world where I had been loved, where I had been at home, a world that had been torn from me just when I had made it fit. Glancing over at my sidetable, I saw that my alarm clock read 6:30.
Oh, great. I had forgotten to turn off my alarm last night, even thought it is a weekend, and I should be sleeping in. Damn. Not only would I never get to sleep now, but I would have dark circles under my eyes tomorrow. Or today, as it were. With a deep sigh of regret, I wiped the tears from my eyes and went to go get some coffee from the common room.
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Opon arriving downstairs, I found my roommate, David, watching the TV. I still remember the controversy that we had when the school found out that there was a co-ed roommate pair. What had happened was, when he arrived here, the term had already started, and the boy's dorms were full, so the computer-that-is-god put him in the girls dorms, more specifically, in my room. After replenishing the supply of caffeine in my bloodstream, I walked over to the couch, sat next to David, and pulled one of the ever-present fleece around my shoulders.
Given time to reminisce, my thoughts went, as always, to those first few weeks after I had been sent back here. Those first few weeks were filled with anarchy. My parents, the police, my friends and family... All of them wanted to know where I had gone, what I had been doing there, why I never called, etc. All I wanted to do was crawl in to a hole. Of course, foremost on their list of questions was to the identity of my fiancé. I had told them the first thing that flew in to my mind, because I obviously couldn't tell them the truth. At the time of that particular examination, we had been in the kitchen, and I had glanced over at the paper sitting on the kitchen table; the headlines spoke of prisoners of war being returned from Iraq. I had already been informed about all the terrible catastrophes that had come to pass while I was gone, but though it still seemed like Bush just screwing things up for the fun of it, I could use it to my advantage. The story I had told my parents went as follows: In the middle of a life crisis, I had gone to London. and once there fell in love with a detective. Only a few days after our engagement, he was drafted in to the service *Yeah, I know that they did not instate a draft in England; Fanfic land, people. Just pretend* and flew off to Iraq. The next thing I heard of him, he had been declared missing in action and presumed dead, so I came back here. I had told nobody but David the truth, and I still don't know why he believed me. I almost jumped off the couch when David wrapped his arm around me in the comforting way of a sympathetic friend.
We sat there for a few minutes in silence, then he spoke without his eyes leaving the Gilligan's Island reruns on the TV.
"You had one of those dreams again?" He said.
"Yup." I responded. also not looking at him. I just couldn't bring myself to. It was like I had double vision; I was seeing one thing, but the entire time, I had my memories laid over it. In real life, I may have been sitting on a college dorm, watching a fifty-year-old TV show, but in my mind, It was a new year's night, over 100 years ago, sitting in a window seat and wishing with all my heart I was here. The irony was that now, I would give all I had to go back to that New Year's Eve, to that window seat. I was dragged out of my remorseful musings by the voice of my friend next to me.
"Nona, you have to stop doing this. You can't get back. I know it's hard, but you have to admit it to yourself: you will never see him again." In the cold, hard, depths of my soul I knew he was right. It was coming on one year that I had been returned to Manhattan, and still the hole in my heart was fresh. I just couldn't bring myself to let go, to speak it out loud... Because if I said it, then it would be true. Which is why the words "I will never see Holmes again" did not escape my lips. Admit it to myself that I might, I still would not admit it to the world. I sighed, and slowly drifted out of consciousness with the comforting weight of David's arm around my shoulder, images of Holmes floating through my head.
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~*Watson*~
One year. It had been one year, almost to the day, that my friend and roommate, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, had killed himself.
Please do not jump to conclusions; he did not commit suicide of the body. No, he chose a much more painful and lingering solution: he killed his mind, his only asset in life. He stopped everything; refusing to leave his room, refusing to take cases, would barely eat, drink, sleep...
You may ask me what could possibly make my friend, who is renown for such moral character, turn to such a self-destructive route; what could make, indeed, any man turn his back on all that he was? The answer to that riddle is the same as what made a man all he was: Love.
He had trusted his heart, for the one time in his life, and had been wounded more deeply than any before him, or even any after him would ever be. But of course, you already know that sad, and even unbelievable story; that of Nona Brown, time traveler extraordinaire, and the only person to ever break through that steel wall surrounding the heart of my comrade. Only to be sent back to whence she came, from the future. Now that I see those words in print, I barely believe that strange story myself, though it was myself that had found her, wearing such outlandish clothes, two years ago, gazing around London like one in a dream. And, indeed, it seemed as such when I remembered it now... But I have spent far too much time on reminiscing. Now, let me turn to that dreary November day on which my story, this chapter, at least, really begins.
I remember the morning well. For not the first time in the past months, I had woken up to find the breakfast set for two, but little hope that both chairs would be occupied. I suppose that Mrs. Hudson and I did not really believe he would ever come out of his room; he had managed to stay barricaded in it for days beyond measure, and showed no intention of coming out any time soon. Finally, after watching Mrs. Hudson carry away the unused plates for what seemed the hundredth time, I decided it was just too much.
Stalking up to Holmes' apartment like a man possessed, I hammered on his door with my fist.
"Holmes?" I bellowed, "You must open this door this minute. If you do not, I shall be compelled to break it dow-" I was cut short by, much to my surprise, the door obeying my request. I stopped my shouting at the shock of the sight before me. A man barely recognizable as my friend of many years stood before me, unshaved, unclean, wearing clothes that bore the marks of many a night's sleep, and his eyes... His eyes just stopped me at the sight. Deep, dark, forlorn pits of despair, with no sign of their former life and vigor, and surrounded by the dark shadows of a man who had nothing left to live for.
That sight, of Holmes standing there in his doorway, undoubtfuly only half sane, sobered me in a way that nothing else could have. I draped my arm around my friend's shoulder, partially to lead him, and partially to assure myself he would not pass out at that very second, and guided him to sit on his bed.
All in one glance, I took in the state of his room. Holmes had never prided himself on cleanliness, and indeed had been the laziest man I had ever met as regards to housekeeping, but this really threw it in to balance. Compared to it now, his room had been a haven of organization.
As a medical man, I was forced to look at my friend with a more cynical eye, and was not surprised at what I found: Holmes bore every sign of illness, those of both body and mind. I had seen these symptoms many times before in my regiment days. He was obviously in a miserable state of depression; his stature, the expression on his face. . . It told me all I needed to know. My only chance now was to appeal to that cold, cynical reason he used to prize above all things.
"Holmes, you have to let go of her. Nona is gone, and, though I loathe to admit it even to myself, the odds are a million to one she will ever come back." After a long pause, when Holmes finally responded, the change in his voice was as startling as that in his appearance; that which was once so light and, while never cheery, had changed to the gravely murmur to one who has not spoken but to himself for many days.
"I know, Watson. But my heart is forcing me to hang on to that one- millionth of a chance that she is still out there; that she will find her way back to me. I know in the very pit of my soul that she is trying, and I hope for all I believe in that she is not suffering as I am, but there is still that chance, small though it is, that she will come back."
The agony in my friend's voice was heart-wrenching. The pain in his eyes when I spoke Nona's name was worse. But by far the final blow was that I knew what he was feeling. I had been going through the same thing since the day she had left; the miserable feeling as if my body was being eaten away by an infectious parasite, but the look in his eyes changed that. Now, that gentle gnawing had morphed into pain, blatant and simple.
And seeing him, knowing that his pain was worse, that was the last straw.
Then, there was the finality. The fact that I *knew,* without a shadow of a doubt, that there was no logical way for her to come back. And there was nothing I could do about it. Just that, being powerless, not having control over where my life was headed; that was almost as bad as the pain. After all, I had loved her too. The voice of my friend sitting beside me startled me out of my stony reverie.
"I dreamed about again her last night. I've told you about the dreams, haven't I?" He had, in fact, not told me about any such thing, and when I told him so, he began to relate the particulars to me.
"It always is the same, Watson. I am leaving the house, for what reason I know not, when I see something in an alley to one side. Seized by my natural curiosity, I walk over to investigate. However, when I reach it, I realize what it is: Nona's necklace, the one I gave her, and the one she was wearing the day she was sent back. I place it in my trench coat pocket and turn around to continue on my way, only to find that the world behind me is not at all as I had left it. There is an orange light coming from incredibly tall lampposts, aimed downward. The street is blanketed with strange carriages, but there is not a horse in sight. Possibly the most incredible of all, there are more people making their way through a thick, grayish slush on the streets than I think I have ever seen out at that time of night, for indeed night it has become, though it was not an hour past tea when I entered the alley.
"Stumbling out in to the light, I observe further: All the people, save a very few, are dressed in the most outrageous clothes, yet they seem oddly familiar. Suddenly, I realize where I must be: I am in the future, Nona's future, where she went when she was sent back. That I have no doubt of, that she was sent back. Now, my only thought was to find my way to her, but the instant I stepped to cross the street, I was almost run over by a carriage moving at an ungodly speed. Stumbling back, I was addressed by two men in blue uniforms. When I inquired as to the year, they pulled out small devices out of their belts and spoke in to them. It is a wonderful future we are destined to, Watson, for voices came out of them, like a telephone with out wires. They informed me that I should come with them, and I saw no reason not to comply, so I did as they asked. They then took me to what was unmistakable, even in the future, as a police station. I was placed in a seat in a corner and questioned as to where I was going. Knowing only one thing in this strange time I was in, I said that I was meeting a friend of mine, a Miss Nona Brown. After giving me the most uncomfortable looks pertaining my accent, they took out what I did recognize as a telephone and a book of an obscene size. After paging through it briefly, they spoke a few words into the telephone and then replaced the receiver. I then sat idly for a few minutes, until I sensed a disturbance by the door. There was Nona, her arm reaching out to grab the handle on the glass door, and there is where my dream ends."
I was in shock. I, too, dreamed about Nona, but not in such detail or complexity. Truly understanding the depth of Holmes' wound for the first time, I offered the only condolences I could; a pat on the back and a warm word of friendship. And then, there was the fact that Nona was having the very same dreams, though we would not find out until later.
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Estriel: Yeah, how do you like this? And thank you for reviewing; I feel so loved! =P
Lady Riahanna Dragoneye: I'm sorry if you thought it was insensitive, but I was only joking. Ya know, that part in the Godfather with the horses... Yeah. Anyway, who wrote the other Nona Brown fic? I'd like to read it! Oh, and thanx for reviewing.
Imp: *Black Rose stares at Imp in disbelief* Oh, man, are you missing out! Go! Read! Be free! It rocks, I promise!
Alexia S. Luclwit: Yay, my first review! You will now go down in history! And I know, I'm cruel. This next chapter is even more cruel...*Evil Grin* And torturous. So, yes, it will continue for the sake of Sherley Torture fans. But not for more than two or three chapters... I don't know any Nona torture fans.
Thank you for listening to my authorial ramblings, now, on to the fic!!
*P.S. Oh, and keeping with the Doylean style, the Holmes-inclusive parts will be written from Watson's POV. Thanx again!
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^Bring-Bring...Bring-Bring
I woke up, glared at the illuminated bedside clock reading 3:12 AM, and got out of bed reluctantly to answer the phone.
Who could be calling at this time of night?? I thought, and picked up the receiver.
"Hello?" I croaked in a voice that spoke quite plainly of a hangover. No more vodka night for me! I thought.
"Is this a Miss Nona Brown?" asked a male voice with a slight Brooklyn accent. I could hear the sound of many voices working in the background.
"This is she...May I ask who is speaking?" Curse my mother, I thought, for drilling phone manners in to my head often...
"This is Detective Davis with the NYPD. I'm sorry to disturb you at this hour, ma'am," said the man, "But we have a man here asking for you." My thoughts immediately flew to my half-brother, Mitchell, who was always getting himself in to one mess or another, and calling me to bail him out. *AN: I do not know if Nona had a half-brother, but I needed a very close family member to have that kind of history, and a half-brother seemed appropriate*
"Can you describe him to me?" I asked. Better be sure who it is before I come down there with bail money...
"All right, sure. He's around 6'2, *To the Sherlockian Purists, I am not sure about the height, but I do know that he can take a foot off of his stature at any time... I love the Empty House!* with black hair and gray eyes. He's dressed kinda funny, too, like he was at a costume party. At the time he was taken into custody, he was wearing a dark trenchcoat, with a deerstalke-" The Inspector stopped, alarmed, at the sound of the receiver hitting the floor, feet thumping loudly next to the phone, and a door slamming.
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The instant that the inspector described the man at the station, I knew. I don't see why it did not occur to me sooner; if I could get in to the past, why not, then, could someone get from the past into the future? Maybe even Holm-... My mind refused to think that far ahead. It was like a battle between the two sides of my personality; the logical side, skeptical as always . . . Forever making sure that I never got my hopes up so that they would never get disappointed- even now, when there is a chance, the tiniest of chances, that he might be here, that I might see him again . . . That was the optimistic end of my mind, the part that believed in that tiny, almost invisible ray of hope that said that I might see the man I loved again...
So fast does the marvelous human brain work that I believe, to this day, that I had thought this out before the phone had hit the ground. All I remember was the realization that Sherlock Holmes, whom I loved more than life itself, was within a ten-minute run from here. After that, all I did was run out of the room in to the chill November air.
I knew I wasn't allowed to run in the halls of my apartment building, but at that point I was beyond caring. I ran, tumbling through the halls, oblivious to the heads popping out of the doors to the right and left to see what in the world could be disturbing their sleep at this time of night. I ran, to be that much closer to the one I had been separated from across aeons of time. My heart and I flew pounding down the stairs, for how could I have waited for an elevator, and burst out in to the night.
I have no idea what passerbyes must have thought. Here was a woman whom looked not a day over 23, wearing crop yoga pants and a camo spaghetti- strapped sleep top, with tears streaming down her face, who was sprinting through the middle of NYC, in the November snow, slush, and mud no less! And, to top it all off, barefoot! Even with the cold, the rain, and weaving through the crowded streets, the only thing I could think of was the beating of my heart, in sync with the pounding of my feet as I lessened the distance between Holmes and myself, step by step. That night, I flew like one possessed. I flew through Manhattan, past the many familiar places that now had new significance since my return to now; the Coffee on the Hill, where I had sat just that morning and drank that lifeblood of my life that is Chai.
Only a few steps later was the little deli where I stopped at least once a week for lunch... But the sight of the local department of the NYPD drove all that out of my mind. Just the knowledge of who was standing just a few feet past those glass doors was enough to make me weak in the knees. As if in a dream, I reached my hand out for the door-
BEEBEEP-BEEBEP...BEBEEP-BEBEEP...
My eyes flew open as I realized where I was: in my dorm room, right where I had fallen asleep. It had been a dream. Holmes was still over 100 years away... That last thought was still the hardest one to cope with. The dream was coming around three times a week, and it showed no sign of letting up. My eyes filling with tears, I pulled something on a chain out of my camo top. From an objective eye, it looked like a ring, with a small line of diamonds grazing across it, but to me, it was my only lifeline to a world I had once known, a world where I had been loved, where I had been at home, a world that had been torn from me just when I had made it fit. Glancing over at my sidetable, I saw that my alarm clock read 6:30.
Oh, great. I had forgotten to turn off my alarm last night, even thought it is a weekend, and I should be sleeping in. Damn. Not only would I never get to sleep now, but I would have dark circles under my eyes tomorrow. Or today, as it were. With a deep sigh of regret, I wiped the tears from my eyes and went to go get some coffee from the common room.
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Opon arriving downstairs, I found my roommate, David, watching the TV. I still remember the controversy that we had when the school found out that there was a co-ed roommate pair. What had happened was, when he arrived here, the term had already started, and the boy's dorms were full, so the computer-that-is-god put him in the girls dorms, more specifically, in my room. After replenishing the supply of caffeine in my bloodstream, I walked over to the couch, sat next to David, and pulled one of the ever-present fleece around my shoulders.
Given time to reminisce, my thoughts went, as always, to those first few weeks after I had been sent back here. Those first few weeks were filled with anarchy. My parents, the police, my friends and family... All of them wanted to know where I had gone, what I had been doing there, why I never called, etc. All I wanted to do was crawl in to a hole. Of course, foremost on their list of questions was to the identity of my fiancé. I had told them the first thing that flew in to my mind, because I obviously couldn't tell them the truth. At the time of that particular examination, we had been in the kitchen, and I had glanced over at the paper sitting on the kitchen table; the headlines spoke of prisoners of war being returned from Iraq. I had already been informed about all the terrible catastrophes that had come to pass while I was gone, but though it still seemed like Bush just screwing things up for the fun of it, I could use it to my advantage. The story I had told my parents went as follows: In the middle of a life crisis, I had gone to London. and once there fell in love with a detective. Only a few days after our engagement, he was drafted in to the service *Yeah, I know that they did not instate a draft in England; Fanfic land, people. Just pretend* and flew off to Iraq. The next thing I heard of him, he had been declared missing in action and presumed dead, so I came back here. I had told nobody but David the truth, and I still don't know why he believed me. I almost jumped off the couch when David wrapped his arm around me in the comforting way of a sympathetic friend.
We sat there for a few minutes in silence, then he spoke without his eyes leaving the Gilligan's Island reruns on the TV.
"You had one of those dreams again?" He said.
"Yup." I responded. also not looking at him. I just couldn't bring myself to. It was like I had double vision; I was seeing one thing, but the entire time, I had my memories laid over it. In real life, I may have been sitting on a college dorm, watching a fifty-year-old TV show, but in my mind, It was a new year's night, over 100 years ago, sitting in a window seat and wishing with all my heart I was here. The irony was that now, I would give all I had to go back to that New Year's Eve, to that window seat. I was dragged out of my remorseful musings by the voice of my friend next to me.
"Nona, you have to stop doing this. You can't get back. I know it's hard, but you have to admit it to yourself: you will never see him again." In the cold, hard, depths of my soul I knew he was right. It was coming on one year that I had been returned to Manhattan, and still the hole in my heart was fresh. I just couldn't bring myself to let go, to speak it out loud... Because if I said it, then it would be true. Which is why the words "I will never see Holmes again" did not escape my lips. Admit it to myself that I might, I still would not admit it to the world. I sighed, and slowly drifted out of consciousness with the comforting weight of David's arm around my shoulder, images of Holmes floating through my head.
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~*Watson*~
One year. It had been one year, almost to the day, that my friend and roommate, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, had killed himself.
Please do not jump to conclusions; he did not commit suicide of the body. No, he chose a much more painful and lingering solution: he killed his mind, his only asset in life. He stopped everything; refusing to leave his room, refusing to take cases, would barely eat, drink, sleep...
You may ask me what could possibly make my friend, who is renown for such moral character, turn to such a self-destructive route; what could make, indeed, any man turn his back on all that he was? The answer to that riddle is the same as what made a man all he was: Love.
He had trusted his heart, for the one time in his life, and had been wounded more deeply than any before him, or even any after him would ever be. But of course, you already know that sad, and even unbelievable story; that of Nona Brown, time traveler extraordinaire, and the only person to ever break through that steel wall surrounding the heart of my comrade. Only to be sent back to whence she came, from the future. Now that I see those words in print, I barely believe that strange story myself, though it was myself that had found her, wearing such outlandish clothes, two years ago, gazing around London like one in a dream. And, indeed, it seemed as such when I remembered it now... But I have spent far too much time on reminiscing. Now, let me turn to that dreary November day on which my story, this chapter, at least, really begins.
I remember the morning well. For not the first time in the past months, I had woken up to find the breakfast set for two, but little hope that both chairs would be occupied. I suppose that Mrs. Hudson and I did not really believe he would ever come out of his room; he had managed to stay barricaded in it for days beyond measure, and showed no intention of coming out any time soon. Finally, after watching Mrs. Hudson carry away the unused plates for what seemed the hundredth time, I decided it was just too much.
Stalking up to Holmes' apartment like a man possessed, I hammered on his door with my fist.
"Holmes?" I bellowed, "You must open this door this minute. If you do not, I shall be compelled to break it dow-" I was cut short by, much to my surprise, the door obeying my request. I stopped my shouting at the shock of the sight before me. A man barely recognizable as my friend of many years stood before me, unshaved, unclean, wearing clothes that bore the marks of many a night's sleep, and his eyes... His eyes just stopped me at the sight. Deep, dark, forlorn pits of despair, with no sign of their former life and vigor, and surrounded by the dark shadows of a man who had nothing left to live for.
That sight, of Holmes standing there in his doorway, undoubtfuly only half sane, sobered me in a way that nothing else could have. I draped my arm around my friend's shoulder, partially to lead him, and partially to assure myself he would not pass out at that very second, and guided him to sit on his bed.
All in one glance, I took in the state of his room. Holmes had never prided himself on cleanliness, and indeed had been the laziest man I had ever met as regards to housekeeping, but this really threw it in to balance. Compared to it now, his room had been a haven of organization.
As a medical man, I was forced to look at my friend with a more cynical eye, and was not surprised at what I found: Holmes bore every sign of illness, those of both body and mind. I had seen these symptoms many times before in my regiment days. He was obviously in a miserable state of depression; his stature, the expression on his face. . . It told me all I needed to know. My only chance now was to appeal to that cold, cynical reason he used to prize above all things.
"Holmes, you have to let go of her. Nona is gone, and, though I loathe to admit it even to myself, the odds are a million to one she will ever come back." After a long pause, when Holmes finally responded, the change in his voice was as startling as that in his appearance; that which was once so light and, while never cheery, had changed to the gravely murmur to one who has not spoken but to himself for many days.
"I know, Watson. But my heart is forcing me to hang on to that one- millionth of a chance that she is still out there; that she will find her way back to me. I know in the very pit of my soul that she is trying, and I hope for all I believe in that she is not suffering as I am, but there is still that chance, small though it is, that she will come back."
The agony in my friend's voice was heart-wrenching. The pain in his eyes when I spoke Nona's name was worse. But by far the final blow was that I knew what he was feeling. I had been going through the same thing since the day she had left; the miserable feeling as if my body was being eaten away by an infectious parasite, but the look in his eyes changed that. Now, that gentle gnawing had morphed into pain, blatant and simple.
And seeing him, knowing that his pain was worse, that was the last straw.
Then, there was the finality. The fact that I *knew,* without a shadow of a doubt, that there was no logical way for her to come back. And there was nothing I could do about it. Just that, being powerless, not having control over where my life was headed; that was almost as bad as the pain. After all, I had loved her too. The voice of my friend sitting beside me startled me out of my stony reverie.
"I dreamed about again her last night. I've told you about the dreams, haven't I?" He had, in fact, not told me about any such thing, and when I told him so, he began to relate the particulars to me.
"It always is the same, Watson. I am leaving the house, for what reason I know not, when I see something in an alley to one side. Seized by my natural curiosity, I walk over to investigate. However, when I reach it, I realize what it is: Nona's necklace, the one I gave her, and the one she was wearing the day she was sent back. I place it in my trench coat pocket and turn around to continue on my way, only to find that the world behind me is not at all as I had left it. There is an orange light coming from incredibly tall lampposts, aimed downward. The street is blanketed with strange carriages, but there is not a horse in sight. Possibly the most incredible of all, there are more people making their way through a thick, grayish slush on the streets than I think I have ever seen out at that time of night, for indeed night it has become, though it was not an hour past tea when I entered the alley.
"Stumbling out in to the light, I observe further: All the people, save a very few, are dressed in the most outrageous clothes, yet they seem oddly familiar. Suddenly, I realize where I must be: I am in the future, Nona's future, where she went when she was sent back. That I have no doubt of, that she was sent back. Now, my only thought was to find my way to her, but the instant I stepped to cross the street, I was almost run over by a carriage moving at an ungodly speed. Stumbling back, I was addressed by two men in blue uniforms. When I inquired as to the year, they pulled out small devices out of their belts and spoke in to them. It is a wonderful future we are destined to, Watson, for voices came out of them, like a telephone with out wires. They informed me that I should come with them, and I saw no reason not to comply, so I did as they asked. They then took me to what was unmistakable, even in the future, as a police station. I was placed in a seat in a corner and questioned as to where I was going. Knowing only one thing in this strange time I was in, I said that I was meeting a friend of mine, a Miss Nona Brown. After giving me the most uncomfortable looks pertaining my accent, they took out what I did recognize as a telephone and a book of an obscene size. After paging through it briefly, they spoke a few words into the telephone and then replaced the receiver. I then sat idly for a few minutes, until I sensed a disturbance by the door. There was Nona, her arm reaching out to grab the handle on the glass door, and there is where my dream ends."
I was in shock. I, too, dreamed about Nona, but not in such detail or complexity. Truly understanding the depth of Holmes' wound for the first time, I offered the only condolences I could; a pat on the back and a warm word of friendship. And then, there was the fact that Nona was having the very same dreams, though we would not find out until later.
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