Author's Note: AHHH DEATH TO THE DOCUMENT MANAGER. That is all.

Actually, that isn't all. I was thinking it would be fun to do a little Sherlock Holmes fanfiction challenge. Just a thought, but might be something to do. All the slash I've seen here is Holmes/Watson, which, granted, I love mor e than is healthy, but I thought it'd be fun to see if we could try some other slash pairing, like Holmes/Lestrade, Watson/Mycroft, Lestrade/Gregson, Holmes/Henry Baskerville, I don't know, what you will. A little experiment. I'll do it if you will.

Okay, done with my shpiel,

Chapter Four: An Elaborate Game

Breakfast the next day was spent in uncomfortable silence. I was scarcely hungry, and Holmes seemed loathe to tear his eyes off of his own meal to meet mine. There was nothing abashd or worried in his manner, but only diffident and detached, as if he was pointedly avoiding any reference or gesture that might turn my attention to the subject of his outing the previous night.

"We shall have to make some inquiries today, Watson," he began conversationally after a moment. "As to the matter of Mycroft's bracelet. It is a pretty little puzzle."

"I suppose we should go to Pall Mall again." I kept my eyes cast down at the table.

"Not at all," said Sherlock Holmes in surprise. "No, we are to meet with Inspector Lestrade in several hours for lunch in the comfort of our own home. I believe that refusing the assistance of the official police simply for the sake of making it a...well, a family affair would be quite callous and selfish. No matter how often you accuse me of the same, I like to surprise you when I can."

This was a pleasant surprise, and I gave my friend a short smile. He perked up at my positive reaction, and, busying himself with the remainder of his food, he encouraged me with a flick of his fingers to attack my own.

As Holmes had declared, Lestrade rang the bell only two hours later, and shuffling in with a gruff greeting when I opened the door. He looked out of sorts, and I took it that as usual, he was at a loss for leads, and perhaps had even more to offer my friend than the mystery of the diamond bracelet.

"Mr. Holmes," grunted Lestrade, with a curt inclination of his head. "As you requested, and always a pleasure to be of service to a friend."

"My dear Inspector Lestrade." My friend whisked forward from the table, brushing his breakfast to the edge of it as if making a uselss effort to improve the appearance of the room. "How good of you to come. I assume you've spoken to my brother Mycroft on the subject already."

"I spoke to the lady," Lestrade nodded. "Our old friend Miss Anne Fairchild, missing a present that she has yet to receive." His raised eyebrows gave me the distinct impression that he was not impressed by our young lady's story.

I expected Sherlock Holmes to take offense to this intimation of her guilt, but, with a quiet shrug, he cast a rueful glance at the breakfast table, and then ushered Lestrade over towards the sofa.

"We are old men, Doctor Watson and I," he said with a laugh, "and our lazy, retiring habits cause us to eat far too late in the day to schedule visitors for lunch. Bear with us and be patient, we'll be brought up our second meal in an hour or so, and before that time we shall have plenty of opportunity to discuss matters at hand."

The three of us settled ourselves into our favorite chairs, taking up the peculiar, three-pronged judicial positions that Holmes was so fond of. "And so," he asked Lestrade, with a little smile.

Lestrade sighed. "I've reason to suspect that old aquaintance of ours, Mr. Daniel Fairchild." Holmes shook his head, and Lestrade continued, his deadpan tone completely unchanged. "Or perhaps that same Alec Allastair character who started those fires only so many weeks ago."

"Mr. Allastair and Mr. Fairchild," Holmes insisted, "are serving their time and are still quite in custody, as you know better than any, as you locked them away with your own hand." He raised an eyebrow at Lestrade, and nodded cnouragingly, biting his lip as he did when he was preoccupied. "And Miss Sarah Carraway is in quite the same position. I cannot think of any enemies that Miss Fairchild could have, and Mycroft has few enough aquaintances to have even fewer enemies than she. It must, then, be your everyday burglarly, done by a particularly shrewd man."

"So it must," Lestrade agreed grudgingly. "I suppose that all of that is as true as could be. Well, Mr. Holmes, I'm most absolutely at a loss, as you no doubt suspected. Your aid should be quite invaluable."

For the entirety of the conversation, I sat back and watched the two men, since at no point did they ask for my opinion. It seemed to me as if the two were involved in some poorly rehearsed show, with Sherlock Holmes gently prompting the confused and reluctant Lestrade in every statement. What was this, I wondered, this play, apparently for my benefit? The color rose to my cheeks, and I found myself uncomfortable in my chair, eager beyond reason to get away from this tribunal and out into the fresh air. I excused mysel abruptly, with a few low and hurried words, and then made my way out into the sun, abandoning the lunch that I saw our landlady bringing up herself from below.

Even as I slipped out of the front door, I heard Inspector Lestrade make a deragatory sound in his throat. "This is an elaborate little game you're playing, Holmes," he was saying. "I wouldn't be surprised if it only ended in tears."

My friend laughed. "Hardly, Lestrade. It's entirely harmless fun, you'll applaud me in the end. It's an ingenious way to meet my ends, as I'm sure you'll admit."

Sick to my stomach, and seething with rage, I hailed a cab.

I admit that I likely caused the driver a great deal of grief that day, as we drove around towards Mrs. Cecil Forrester's on a whim of mine. I wondered to myself, perplexed and full of injured pride, what it was that my friend was getting at with this "game" as Lestrade had shrewdly called it.

If it was some sort of ruse for the sake of catching the thief, than why was I so obviously not allowed to be a part of it, and why had Holmes been so nonchalant about keeping me in the dark? He knew better than anyone that I would throw away my lodgings, my possessions and my comfort, even my wife's company for the sake of his little adventures. And my companionship was not trustworthy enough to be given insight into this mystery of his.

And then of course there was the inexplicable intrusion of Miss Fairchild into every aspect, professional and otherwise, of my life of late. I could not decide in that moment if I was more indignant for Mycroft Holmes, seemingly oblivious and innocent of all that took place, or for myself. I had seen Sherlock Holmes callous and insensitive before, but apparently in his new incarnation as a lover, he became even more so, rathre than gentler and more understanding. I supposed that an emotional situation such as love would easily bring out the worst in people in many situations, and that it was to be expected.

And there, I had said it. My thoughts stopped their angry train, and I lingered over the realization that I had hit on the true cause of my misgivings. Love was what I had called it, and that was what was so shocking. Love had been known to change many a man's habits, to cause him to turn from his friends and to accuse them and wrong them in many ways. Of course my friend was no machine, despite his desire to be considered so, and thus I had been cut out of his life and his thoughts in favor of a woman. It was entirely to be expected, I repeated in my mind, over and over again, as the cab pulled up outside of Mrs. Cecil Forrester's home. I could not rejoice in it, for it was the most ill-made and ill-timed of matches that I had ever seen. That was the reason that it rankled so much within me, yes, that was it.

I realized that I had to make a choice. Either I must sit by and watch my friend destroy himself and his relationship with his brother, not to mention Mycroft's newfound and unexpected happiness, or I had to intervene and put a stop to all of this nonsense. Just as I was thinking that, as a friend, it was my responsibility to step in, a third option occured to me. It turned me cold to think of it, and yet, the more I did so, the more I realized that it was the best possible choice to make. There would be nothing lost to Holmes, and I myself would be burdened no longer with a heavy conscience as I watched him at his wooing.

With a curt nod to myself, I instructed the driver to turn the cab around and return to Baker Street, even as we stopped. He grumbled, displeased with his capricious fare, but all I could think about was how I would deliver my decision to Sherlock Holmes.

Inspector Lestrade was just leaving in a cab of his own, when we pulled up to 221B Baker Street. I paid the cab driver, and waved him off. He was no doubt glad to be rid of me, and particularly glad to have the rather expensive fee that my ride back and forth had elicited. Lestrade called something to me in a friendly voice as I mounted the stairs, but as I turned to see him, his cab was speeding away around the street corner.

Sherlock Holmes was again at the violin when I entered, something pleasing by Vivaldi that I had never heard him play at before. Upon seeing me, he laid down the instrument, and smiled with a little bit of a gentle reproach in his gaze.
"Ah, Watson," he said, "you left us in such a terrible hurry, I hadn't even a moment to ask where you were off to."

"I apologize for my rudeness," I said, straightening myself in the face of his remonstrance. I was no child, and I was determined not to be treated as one. "I felt that as my presence was not needed, it would be best if I left you and Inspector Lestrade alone to your own devices."

Holmes shook his head, waving his hand airly at me, and turning back to the chair near which he had left the violin. "I've been thinking, Holmes," I was saying, trying to keep my voice as steady as I thought a hardened military doctor should have, "I've been thinking for quite some time, and I've reached a rather difficult decision that I should like to discuss with you."

To my great annoyance, Holmes began to wind his bow back and forth across the strings as I spoke, creating a frustrating, whining background noise to my demands for his attention. Determined not to be forestalled by this, I continued staunchly, eyes half-closed as I made my proclamation, my gaze not meeting that of Holmes.

"I think it is time that I left," I announced. "I feel that we've found ourselves at a seperation point, and that our respective lives can no longer take place in communal harmony."

Holmes' bow scratched across the strings, and he almost dropped it, as his eyes shot up to take in my closed and cold expression. Dumping the instrument into a messy, but undamaged heap on the floor, he opened his mouth, and then closed it again, as if he was trying to get out a sentence, but choked it off before he managed it. He stared at me for a long moment before looking away and rubbing the back of his neck with one hand in a nervous and startled gesture.

"My dear Watson," he said, smiling up at me hesitantly. "Surely we aren't as hopeless as all that. Why don't you come sit down with me by the fire for a moment and we'll talk about these new arrangements that you seem so keen on."

I bristled at his words. He thought it was a fancy of mine that should pass in an instant, and continued to treat me as if I were a recalcitrant toddler. "No thank you," I insisted. "I have only returned to inform you of my intentions, and perhaps it won't be long until I take up practice again, as a man of my age should do."

"But," Holmes insisted, dropping his paternal airs abruptly, "But I really thought,-!"

I did not give him a chance to continue, but shook my head to forestall his words, and turned on my heel, stalking out to the door. There was a deep and indescribable twinge in my heart, even as I went, and I glanced back over my shoulder just once, to see Sherlock Holmes sitting, slumped in incredulity and dejection, his mournful eyes following me as I left 221B Baker Street for what I was sure would be the very last time.