OK…I know I ought to be writing New World, but I have writers' block, and I rather hoped this would get rid of it. So hopefully, this will hold you all over until I can come up with what Holmes thinks of Miss James. Oh, and the Elizabeth of this story is not the same Elizabeth of New World…I just couldn't come up with another name at the time of this fic's advent. Forgive the lack of creativity, I beg you. On with the show.

"Where is she, Mycroft?" Sherlock Holmes was pacing his brother's study, quietly so as not to wake Russell (who was asleep on the sofa) or his son (who was asleep in a chair). His wife had been taking a vacation on the continent, or at least that was what he gave out. He knew that his son and his brother knew better, but was reasonably sure that no one else knew that she'd gone away for several weeks because they'd had a nock-down-drag-out argument and she'd slammed out of the cottage. He had heard from her three times by telegraph, the first to inform him of the name of the hotel she was staying in, the second to inform him that she was coming home, and the third to inform him that she had contracted an illness and would be back as soon as she was fit to travel. That had been a week and a half ago. He'd telegraphed her at the hotel, apprising her of the situation at hand, and had received a reply saying she'd be back the next day. That had been two days ago, with no communication in between.

"I am sure she is fine Sherlock. You know that Elizabeth can more than take care of-" The bell sounded and the younger Holmes tensed. Mycroft went to answer the door.

Elizabeth Holmes stood on the other side, most definitely worse for the wear. She had lost at least a stone and a half, was trembling and did not have a coat on, although it was mid December and snowing. Mycroft pulled her into the apartment and called sharply for his brother. Elizabeth shook off his hands gently, preferring to be standing of her own power when she saw her husband. Sherlock drew in a sharp breath when he saw her, pulling off the gloves she'd obviously put on as she'd run out the door; they hadn't been buttoned all the way. He looked at her silently for just a moment then, in an uncharacteristic gesture of affection, pulled her into his arms, pinning her hands to his chest. She went stiff in his arms, and did not relax as she was prone to doing. He pulled her closer, muttering something into her hair and heard her sharp intake of breath and a small noise of pain. He released her immediately, keeping hold of her shoulders as it was obvious she could no longer stand on her own.

"What happened?" he rasped out, taking in her broken looking appearance and the fact that all he weight was being supported by her left leg.

"The train to Calais was delayed overnight, so I missed the ferry I was going to take," she began quietly. Her voice was a shadow of itself; he had to lean in to hear her. "There was some sort of accident on the ferry, one of the boilers exploded. I stumbled when the boat lurched and fell into the railing, and a deck chair fell with me, caught me in the ribs." She smiled weakly, but no one smiled back. "To top it all off, as though I hadn't had the ferry ride from hell, my heal caught on the ramp and I twisted my ankle."

"Did you see a doctor?" her husband asked slowly.

"No. I didn't have the time. I caught the first cab here when I got off the ferry." She saw her husband roll his eyes eloquently at her, and qualified. "I was cold and tired and in not inconsiderable pain. At that point in my life," she snapped, "I did not really care if the cabbie did shoot me." This statement served to snap him back to reality. Without a thought to his injured back, Sherlock Holmes scooped his wife up into his arms and, calling to Watson, brought her to the spare room for a diagnosis and some drug induced sleep.

Watson wrapped her two cracked and one broken rib and set her sprained ankle, asking her how she managed the stairs to the apartment. He took Holmes aside as he was leaving, telling him to keep the woman off her feet and not to let her move around very much for several days. Holmes promised to do his best and, Watson having known Mrs. Holmes just as long as her husband, agreed that that was as much as he could ask for. The door clicked behind him and Holmes turned around to see his wife on her feet looking at him.

"You ought not to be standing; you heard the doctor." He tried to keep his voice light. Elizabeth said nothing, taking several steps forward. He met her, afraid she'd fall and hurt herself further. She leaned into him, her fingers winding themselves in his lapels, tucking her head under his chin.

"Can this fight be over? Please?" her voice as she said that was even softer than it had been in Mycroft's entrance hall, and it gave out entirely on the last word. He tried to wrap his arms around her, but felt her wince.

"Is there anywhere I can touch you without causing pain?" he growled. She laughed weakly and told him to ignore it. He settled with an arm around her shoulders and the other around her waist.

"This fight is most definitely over, my dearest Elizabeth." He dropped his head to breathe this into her ear. He felt her shoulders shake in silent sobs and a moment later he felt her warm tears on his neck. "Oh Elizabeth. Don't cry darling. It will be alright."

"I'm sorry. For everything." Her voice, though muffled by his chest, was stronger than it had been.

"Not another word. Eliza, you need to go to bed. You look as though you haven't slept in weeks." He wiped the tears off her cheeks and saw her into bed, then sat on the edge, looking down on her as she fought to keep her eyes open. "You cabled me that you were ill. Did you see a doctor for that?"

"Of course," she said, the laughter creeping into her voice.

"And? The prognosis?" the smile crept into his own voice and he took her hand.

"I had the flu." She told him quietly, dropping her eyes.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he choked out.

"You would have come." She said it so simply.

"That would have been a bad thing?" He fought to keep his voice even; he would have given much to have been there for her, holding her hand.

"I've had it before. I didn't want to get you sick. Please don't be angry with me."

"Darling," he said softly. "I am hardly angry with you. You need to rest. I shall apprise you of everything that has happened." She nodded and he stood.

"Sherlock," she called after him. He turned at the door, the question in his eyes. "I missed you. Let's not do this again, hmm?"

"Agreed. Sleep. Nothing more will happen to you. My word on it." She smiled, remembering the first time he'd said that to her:

Elizabeth had yet to become a Holmes that first time. She was, however, living in his house and cooking for him, as per the arrangement for her rent. It was three days since her experiment went wrong and she'd ended up alone and friendless in Victorian England. It had been mid December then as well, and the sun was setting when she picked herself and her little black bag up off the pavement where she had unceremoniously landed after the shock of both electricity and failure wore off. She had had the forethought to grab a coat before even beginning the experiment, on the off-chance that something did in fact go wrong. The coat, luckily for her, was long and black, and served to hide the face that she had jeans and a sweater on underneath it. She'd walked around for a while, her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her coat. It did not take her long to realize where she was, and even a shorter amount of time for her to see how desperate the situation was fast becoming: it was cold and she had no where to go and no money to let an apartment. She did have several credit cards and a wad of American cash, but none of that would do any good the slightest bit of good where she was. On a sudden whim, she'd stopped a passerby and asked for directions to Baker Street, thinking that if anyone could help her, The Great Detective could. She walked the several blocks to the house and stood before the green painted door for several moments before ringing the bell. The door was opened promptly by the middle aged Scottish woman that Elizabeth knew to be Mrs. Hudson. Elizabeth told the landlady what she wanted and was ushered into the warmth of the hall. Several moments later, she was directed up seventeen steps to the sitting room door. She knocked and was told to enter, and came face to face with the rest of her life.

That first conversation was one of the longer ones they'd ever had. She spent most of the night proving her case, and the wee hours of the morning were spent explaining, to the best of her knowledge, how her laptop (which made up most of the contents of her little bag) worked. Before any of them realized, it was three in the morning and Elizabeth was yawning so widely that her jaw cracked in three places. She laughed, and Watson laughed with her, before insisting that she go to bed. Holmes, to Elizabeth's very great surprise, offered his own room, as it was closer than Watson's attic room. She consented, wearily, and followed him through the dim corridor to his bedroom. He opened the door and motioned her to lead him into the room. She did, and he stood in the doorway and watched as she sat on the bed and unlaced her boots and shrugged out of the huge coat.

"That is a very singular choice of attire, Miss Marsh." She laughed at him and he smiled back, wishing her good night. She slept like a rock that morning, and rose that afternoon to make the arrangements for rent with the landlady.

That third day, Mrs. Hudson was out at market and Watson was with a patient. Elizabeth was cooking, baked chicken and mac-n-cheese, when the situation she was in hit her full on for the first time. She dropped the dish she was washing and it smashed against the marble sink. Through the tears that flooded her eyes she searched around in the soapy water for the shards of china. One of the bigger and sharper ones caught her in the palm of her left hand and she shrieked a rather less than ladylike word as she threw herself into one of the hard wooden chairs and jumped nearly out of her skin when an upper class British voice said from the doorway,

"That is hardly a word I should expect to hear from a lady." There was a great deal of humor lacing his voice. She glared through tear -drowned eyes at the Detective of Baker Street.

"It's hardly funny; there's a chunk of porcelain stuck in my hand." Holmes came into the room, looking at her hand. He took it in both of his, putting pressure on her wrist to stop the blood flow. He looked up at her for a moment, his eyes catching and holding hers as he said, "This will hurt." She nodded. He took hold of the sliver of china and twisted it out of her hand. She twitched, but didn't pull away from him. He took his own handkerchief out of his pocket and pressed it to the palm of her hand.

"Thank you, for everything," she whispered, not looking at the man who still held her hand in his.

"My dear Miss Marsh, no thanks are necessary. This is what I do. I will do everything in my power to see you home safely, or at the very least, see you situated comfortably here. My word on it." His voice held the same trace of humor that she'd heard before.

"You aren't what I expected," she told him.

"What did you expect?" he was laughing at her, and somehow she didn't mind.

"A thinking machine with appendages."

"My dear Miss Marsh, I allow Watson do publish my doings with one condition: that he leave emotions out of it. This makes me seem rather cold-blooded, I agree, but it does wonders for business." Elizabeth laughed out loud, her earlier misery forgotten for the moment. "You really need to stop with the 'Miss Marsh nonsense. It's starting to get annoying." It was Holmes' turn to laugh at that, saying, "As you wish, Elizabeth." Holmes sat with her, her hand in both of his, until Watson got home and, after the doctor stitched her up and bandaged her, the two men set about cooking dinner.

Elizabeth Holmes drifted off to sleep, the image of the doctor and her husband fussing around the kitchen keeping the smile on her face despite the pain in her chest.

Her husband watched her from the doorway, also lost in memory, though memory of a different, less happy, time. There had been one other time, in the thirty years that he had known his wife that he had come very close to losing her. Close enough, in fact, that the majority of his brain told him that she was gone for good and only a small part held out hope hat she would return.

It was during the Moriarty period, just before they'd gotten married, when he had told her at least once a day not to go out by herself, or at all if she could help it. True to her form, she didn't listen to him. He'd gone out to…what he was doing was not important. She'd waited an hour, according to Watson who had done everything but physically restrain her, to make sure he wasn't coming back and went out, for stationary of all things. Watson was driven nearly to distraction by the time Holmes came in, neigh onto midnight. He told his dearest friend that Elizabeth had not come back, and it took only hours for Holmes to find out what had happened to her. Once it became obvious that something was between them, even if neither of them knew what it was, Holmes had set an Irregular tailing her wherever she went. He had only to find Billy to know what had happened to Elizabeth. To the detective's great annoyance and Billy's shame, the twelve-year-old was drugged unconscious in an ally. After the boy came to, the detective learned that Elizabeth had not made it to the stationary shop, but had instead been attacked where Billy himself had been found. The boy's description of the attacker had not been promising: A tall man wearing a long grey Burberry with a white muffler and black bowler had come up close behind her and hit her on the back of the neck with something that looked like a police truncheon.

Holmes searched for four days before part of him, the larger part of him, gave up hope. He knew how much Moriarty hated him, and he knew that the man would not hesitate to hurt Elizabeth to get to him. He did not sleep, and smoked pipe after pipe of foul tobacco, snapping at anyone who talked to him. Then, on the morning of the fifth day, when Mrs. Hudson was out, the bell rang and he heaved himself to his feet to answer the bell, growling something at Watson to stay in his seat. He wrenched the door open and felt his heart flutter and stop for a moment at the sight at his feet. Elizabeth lay there, dressed in a ripped and bloody shift, corset and petticoat with a threadbare cloak wrapped around her shoulders. There was snow gathering in her hair. Her face was bruised and bloody; there were several visible cuts on her shoulder, one of which was still oozing blood. She was barely breathing, but she was. Holmes scooped her into his arms and pounded up the stairs, calling for Watson to get his medical bag. He sat on the sofa with the woman in his arms, and would not let her go while Watson worked on her. The doctor said nothing to his friend, working around his arms and requesting that he shift Elizabeth from time to time so he could clean all the various lacerations.

"She needs a bed and several blankets, Holmes." Watson told the detective quietly. He nodded, standing with her in his arms and walking to his room. He pulled the bedding back one handed and sat, swinging his legs up and pulling the blankets around her. She shifted in his arms, her eyes blinking open in the dim light of the single low gas lamp.

"Holmes?" she rasped out, her voice grating in her throat.

"I am here. You are safe." He told her quietly, holding her more tightly.

She closed her eyes briefly, and a sob shook her chest. She cried softly into his shoulder for a long moment. He held her silently, stroking her hair.

"Holmes?" she asked, when she could speak again.

"Yes, my dear?" he marveled at the ease with which the endearment rolled from his tongue.

"Can you not leave please? I don't think I could do alone just now."

"You never need worry about that again. I will not leave you. My word on it."

And he didn't. Not then and not ever, with one exception that nearly made him lose her. He'd proposed the next week, and they'd eloped to France two weeks later. Now here, thirty years later, he had the instinct to take her in his arms and not to let her go until she woke up. He did not, however, both because he knew she needed to sleep comfortably and because he knew it would cause her pain. That was the last thing he ever wanted to do to her. His son once asked him why he married in the first place. Michael had been fifteen at the time, reading his Uncle John's stories and not understanding why he would give hostages to fortune.

"Papa, why did you marry mother?" Holmes' twenty year old son plopped himself down next to his father on the Downs and asked him the question that had been on his mind for quite some time now.

"What prompts this?" his father asked in return, trying to buy time to come up with something suitable for his son to hear.

"It just doesn't make sense. Your life is so dangerous, perhaps not so much here, but back when you and mother lived in Baker Street, it just seems like marrying her put her in danger. I don't see why you didn't just...live together or something, so she (and later I) wasn't such an obvious target." Michael Holmes did not look at his father as he said this, unsure of his reaction to this prying into his private life.

"She actually said the same thing. I wouldn't hear of it, and neither would Watson. I married her, Michael, because I love her." his son's head snapped around to look at him when he said this. Michael had never heard his father admit out loud to loving his mother. There was not a doubt in his mind that it was true, especially when he saw them dance together, but he'd never heard it expressed it out loud.

"Oh." His son said quietly, blushing and turning away.

Holmes laughed. "Your mother said something very similar." This was too much for the boy; he muttered something and left, walking back toward the house with his father's laughter ringing in his ears.

Michael had never asked anything about his personal life with his mother after that. Holmes had told Elizabeth that night as they were preparing for bed and she'd laughed too, although she expressed some concern that he'd scarred him for life. He hadn't been, apparently, as he kept functioning as a normal person should. Holmes closed the door behind himself quietly and stood silently watching his son sleep. He remembered the first time he'd watched over Michael's sleep, though the boy had been much younger then.

His wife had had a difficult delivery, but Watson had warned him that it would be the case. It happened that the baby was bigger than any of her doctors had predicted, and her hips were not overlarge. It had very nearly come to surgery, but, knowing how much Elizabeth hated surgery, he would not let the doctor insert the inter-vinous that would prepare her for the surgery. She called him to her bedside and he held her hand as she gave the last push she had in her. To everyone's surprise and delight, the squall of a newborn was the next sound heard. Elizabeth's head dropped back to the pillows, tears coursing down her very pale cheeks. Holmes was relieved beyond words, but there was still so much blood. Too much. She squeezed his hand and he looked at her. Her eyes were dim and tired; he knew exactly what she was thinking.

"Don't you dare." His voice was low and commanding. Her eyes narrowed. "Don't you dare even think it. You will be bringing this child up, Eliza. While I welcome him as an addition to the family, he is a damn poor substitute for you." Her eyes flickered once, and he knew he was getting through to her. "Don't you dare let go and leave me." That did it. Her eyes flared back to life and her grip on his hand was hard.

"I wouldn't dream of it," she whispered to him, her eyes never leaving his. The doctor came back in then, laying the boy in his mother's arms. Holmes watched as they got acquainted, mother and son, then fell asleep together. He would not move from their side until the doctor said they could go home. Holmes got into the habit of watching over his new family that night, and did not ever get out of it.

Holmes shook himself out of memory, knowing there was too much to do to stay alive to lose himself in the past. He walked to where his brother was sitting and joined him, the two falling into soft conversation about what the next step should be. Mycroft urged him to get out of the country, but he knew Elizabeth would not be up to the kind of travel it would take for at least a month, and that would be too late. He knew this enemy of his would stop at nothing to hurt him, stooping as low as to harm his family. That was something that would not be tolerated, and this person knew it. That was what frightened him the most; that was why he swore, before meeting Elizabeth, that he would never give hostages to fortune. However, fortune seemed to have had other ideas. The Detective of Baker Street sighed softly, knowing there was nothing he could do about it now. Instead, he set his mind, and the mind of the only person in Britain that he considered his intellectual equal, to the problem at hand. It would be quite the three pipe problem.

Right then. Leave a review, if you please, if only to tell me to get back in gear with regards to New World. J