==Chapter 5==
Two Worlds, One Heart

I'm afraid that sometimes, you'll play lonely games too. Games you can't win, 'cause you'll play against you.
— Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You'll Go!

"What's the movie?"

Holmes shook his head, still engrossed in Beth's phone. "Documentary, twenty-first century." He paused the display, and looked up at Watson in the bedroom doorway. "Watson, did you ever wonder what might have happened if Guy Fawkes had succeeded in blowing up Parliament? Somebody will actually build a full-sized replica, with the same amount of gunpowder and everything!" The sheer size and power of that explosion was going to make its way into his dreams, he just knew it.

"Sounds very interesting. Oh, have you seen the one that someone made about 1896?"

Holmes's brow furrowed – Watson's tone was suspiciously nonchalant.

"It's called," Watson added, tone becoming sterner, " 'Idiot Detective Husbands and Their Big Mouths'." He sat down on the bed, keeping his voice low. "Holmes, what in the world have you been saying to Beth? Did you know that she's out there in the sitting room right now, falling asleep over one of your pamphlets?"

Really? Holmes perked up, only just managing to keep from asking which monograph Beth had been reading as he caught the look in Watson's eye.

Watson shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You two are going to be the death of me. You have enough self-destructive tendencies between the pair of you to keep a psychiatrist rich for years."

"But I don't understand... Beth hasn't seemed upset lately! She even helped Lestrade with that garden wall robbery..." Which you're not supposed to know about, remember? But Watson merely sighed, then gestured for Holmes to continue. "Well, it was concluded, after all, there was nothing for me to contribute!" Not that you didn't try... "Although she... might have gotten a little short with me about deducing where she'd been..."

Watson shook his head again. "You didn't say anything in the way of greeting, did you. Went right to the deduction?"

"A Labrador?" Holmes's mouth became an 'O', closing his eyes with a groan. "Yes..."

Watson sighed deeply, clearly choosing his words with care. "Holmes, Beth is more tolerant of your quirks and flaws than I ever thought any woman could ever be, but even she has her limits." He frowned as Holmes winced, cheeks warm. "And yet, it still doesn't explain her sudden obsession with your monographs. The case went well—it was wrapped up in a few hours, for God's sake. Even her low self-esteem would have to go into overdrive to find fault with that kind of outcome!"

Holmes's blush deepened. "Ah. I... might have said something to the effect that Lestrade was... making do until I recovered?" "Good Lord, he must be missing me on cases!"

A soft groan escaped the doctor. "I take it that was a joke, and one she might even have let pass if things haven't been so..." He dragged a hand down his face. "Holmes, I'm worried about her."

Holmes nodded, grimacing down at the blankets. "I will make it right, Watson." Beth shouldn't ever have been made to feel like a consolation prize!

That evening, Beth took dinner for herself and Sherlock upstairs on a tray, two bowls of tomato soup that was so much better than the canned stuff she'd grown up with. She knocked on the bedroom door to announce her arrival, then entered. In a deliberately terrible French accent, she declared, "Dinner is served!"

Holmes chuckled. "Merci, madame."

She smiled and set the tray down over his lap. "Please," she continued playfully, "make sure you finish while everything is still reasonably warm, because the greatest tragedy of this era is that we're apparently still about eighty years out from any decent microwaves. I looked it up and it made me very sad." How hard could microwaves be to invent and mass-market, really?

Sounds like your cue, old boy. "...That hasn't been the only thing, has it?"

She frowned smilingly as she sat on the bed. "What are you talking about?"

"What I said to you after your case with Lestrade. I, er, understand you've been poring over my monographs since then?"

Beth blinked. "I'm just... trying to learn. I mean —" her eyes went wide with memory — "there's a lot I don't know. I found that out when I was out with Grandpa Geoffrey." She didn't like to be caught out not knowing something simple like sand going into mortar.

Holmes nodded slowly, frowning. "But I don't imagine my attitude helped at all. Love, what I said was thoughtless and insensitive. You were trying to prove to your grandfather, and to me, what you could do, and there I was, trying to upstage you." He looked down at the tray and murmured, "I was jealous, Beth... so I showed off. I'm sorry."

She shifted uncomfortably, not having expected any of this — it should have been water under the bridge, right? "Um... honestly, I was expecting, um..." worse behavior than that... "oh, never mind about that." She blushed: contrary to what her husband appeared to be thinking, she needed to have some faith in him, that he could behave as a mature adult. "Sherlock, it's... it's fine, it's no big deal."

Except that with Beth, 'fine' often meant exactly the opposite... "You know, you are allowed to agree with me that I was being a jerk. Love, if you're genuinely interested in learning more about forensics from those papers of mine, I've no objection..." At least someone was actually reading what he'd written! "As long as it's for the right reasons. I don't want you studying at all hours because those careless words of mine made you feel like a... a raw recruit." Rather than a detective in her own right. "You did a good job on the Evans case, Beth."

Flattered and flustered at the same time, she blushed again and dropped her gaze. "I know I did." She looked back up. "I just also know that there's a lot that I don't know, and I need to learn and..." She shook her head, her heartbeat erratic against her ribcage. "I don't know why you're making such a big deal about this!"

"Perhaps," Holmes sighed, "because you've had me as a patient for nearly two months, non-stop? The last thing I want is for you to make yourself ill because you've forgotten how to slow down!"

Beth flinched. "Slow down?" she echoed sardonically. "Please, I should be so lucky that anything around here would ever happen fast enough that I'd have to." Sherlock may have lived in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries for a little while, but she had a feeling he still didn't understand just how slow life in the nineteenth truly was, medicine included. "...except for food cooling." She nodded at his bowl. "Better get going on that — no microwaves." She grabbed her own bowl and tucked into it, wanting to leave to clear her head... but knowing that would make things worse.

Holmes silently picked up his bowl, swearing inwardly. He should have considered just how utterly bored Beth must be, stuck at home nursing him, no wonder she'd been throwing herself into study! And now he had even less idea of what to do about that, he couldn't heal any faster than he already was. If only he didn't have such a strong feeling that, sooner or later, the decision to take things easy would be taken out of his wife's hands altogether. Watson was right, Beth was far too much like himself in that for comfort...

"Sally?" John put his head around their bedroom door, where Sally was reading Kathy her picture book. "Beth... is downstairs doing laundry..."

His wife frowned as she took in his expression. "And?"

"She's crying." And despite all the progress they'd made, Watson didn't think Beth would appreciate his company just now.

Sally nodded at once, scrambling up. "Take Kathy, I'll go."

"Right you are. Come on, darling," he murmured to Kathy, starting to fuss as she was handed over. "Aunty Beth needs Mama..."

Sally tapped softly on the scullery door. "Beth? Can I come in?"

Beth inhaled sharply, trying to pull herself together — but the tears were still coming, darn it. "Yeah." She half-turned from where she was sitting on the floor to see Sally enter and close the door behind her. Hastily, she wiped at her face with her sleeves, hands full with a stained skirt, breath hitching. "Hey."

"Hey." Sally gave her friend a faint smile, coming over to sit beside her. "Watcha doing?"

"Got soup on my skirt last night and it's not coming out. I don't... I don't know what I'm doing wrong."

"Ooh, tomato, yeah. Um, have you tried white vinegar yet?" Another trick from Mrs. Hudson's storehouse of knowledge, gratefully received.

Beth shook her head. Stupid, stupid... "Didn't think of it."

"I can get it if you..." Except this wasn't really about soup stains, was it? "Maybe later?"

"I wanna get it out now — I've spent too long trying to get this zedding thing clean..." Beth rose slowly, aching from sitting on the hard floor.

"Beth..." Sally reached out tentatively, then hesitated at the look in her friend's eye. "Bottom pantry shelf, left side."

"Okay." Beth made it to the pantry before a light sob escaped her. Her mind was going into overdrive, creating all kinds of nasty conclusions about why Sally hadn't yet asked what was going on when Beth was obviously crying... Not that you understand it yourself. She returned with the vinegar and dropped back down in front of the laundry tub, brushing at her tears with the back of her hand. What the zed is wrong with me?!

Sally handed her a clean rag. "Just blot it on, then leave it for a bit."

"Okay... You know, you can just..." Beth waved her hand at the door when her voice wouldn't continue. "'m fine."

Sally smiled wryly past the lump in her own throat. "Yeah, me too." Shuffling closer, she put her arm around Beth's shoulders. "And I'm good right here."

Beth whimpered and hunched her shoulders in shame, shaking her head.

"Oh, honey..." Sally tightened her hold. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know! I was cleaning this stupid skirt and I just started crying and I don't know why..." Beth did let herself lean a little into the older girl's hold, though.

"It's okay, honey. Hey... with everything we've all been through the last few months? It's a wonder any of us are even getting out of bed in the morning." Hell, she certainly wouldn't some days if she didn't have to feed Kathy!

"But everything's okay now! I mean, Sherlock is getting better and nobody else got hurt..."

Sally shook her head sadly. "S'not how it works, sweetie, you know that. Those awful things still happened, and it doesn't stop hurting just because we survived."

"Mm..." Beth rested her head on Sally's shoulder. "Don' wan' it," she mumbled.

"Yeah." Sally leaned her head against Beth's with a sigh. Me either.

Standing in a T-shirt and blue jeans and sneakers for the first time in months, Beth looked into the mirror and saw a stranger. When did her soft, loose-fitting tees and her well-worn jeans become so foreign to her? Maybe it was her hair, hanging limply down almost to her waist, the longest it had ever been. Respectable for a Victorian girl, and much, much longer than her old trademark bob.

Even her face looked different, harder and sharper, all the softness of childhood gone.

At least the dark rings under her eyes were familiar. Those rings had been her companions for years now. For a while, it had seemed as if they might be gone for good, during the delirious happiness of December, but now they were back, and she could swear they were taunting her.

Never mind them, she had more important things to do.

She was locked away in the bathroom, the one place where it wouldn't be easy for the others to walk in on her. Her hands as unsteady as her heartbeat, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the Vortex Manipulator.

Mama, I miss you so much…

Of course she'd been putting off doing this, using the VM to go home. I ran away from home and got married. That alone was enough to make any homecoming difficult! But to add that she'd time-travelled and her husband was from the past? Never even mind that he was Sherlock Holmes!

Mama, did you ever wonder if you stopped loving Daddy?

She wasn't ready to face all her family yet. And with everything that had been going on lately… she'd missed her mother so much sometimes it took her breath away. Mama hadn't been her confidante in years — at least, not regularly. But Beth had never craved her advice and her comfort as much as she did now, and no amount of love even from Sally could make up for it.

Mama, I got married. I know it's crazy, but I love him! I do! But a lot has happened, and I'm so tired…

There. The coordinates were set. She was ready to go.

She took a deep breath and raised her chin, bracing herself. "Showtime."

She pressed a button, and the world disappeared around her in a flash.

When it reappeared, she had to drop to her hands and knees, gasping. But the surface beneath her hands was dirt, not tile, and sunlight was dappling everything green and golden around her.

Rising to her feet, she had to blink back tears. Frozen Time had almost made her forget what the sun looked like… but more than a year of winter had almost made her forget what green looked like.

The woods behind her house were at once achingly familiar and sickeningly foreign. She felt like an intruder.

"Okay, that's enough," she said aloud, her voice too unsteady. "Upwards and onwards." She could see the house through the trees. Heart pounding, she braced herself again and moved towards it. The plan was for her to not be noticed sneaking back in. The younger kids were playing in the living room, Mama would be wrapping up work at her desk nearby, and Daddy, home for the weekend, had taken Brian and Tim down to the shooting range for lessons.

I never thought I would get married. Nobody was ever going to live up to him, you know? And then he ended up loving me back. Mama, what was I supposed to do?

Her parents had bought the house when she was two. They'd been living in an apartment in New London, and Mama had been homesick, missing her family and the corner of the world she'd grown up in.

Beth could certainly relate.

So they'd moved the family to the U.S.

The house looked exactly as she'd remembered it, which was a mercy. A renovated early-20th century farmhouse, pale yellow siding, white trim and shutters. Old, worn, but still very much home.

I'm tired, and I'm feeling all these awful things and I don't like it and I don't know what to do about it.

She tread carefully across the back porch, and opened the sliding door as quietly as she could. When she'd closed it behind her, she stopped, chest aching. Why did it feel so weird to be standing in her own dining room?

Is it because it's not yours anymore?

She tiptoed into the kitchen, where she'd been planning to meet Mama. She could hear Jessica, Jason, and Cameron playing, and she could hear her mother wrapping up her accounting work for the day.

Please don't be angry with me. I love you. I love you so much. I've missed you.

"You guys behave for each other, all right?" Mama called. "If you need me, I'm going to be in the kitchen."

"What's for dinner?" Jess called back.

"Food!"

Cold fear gripped Beth's insides. Mama was actually coming to the kitchen, and Beth wasn't… wasn't… A sharp jolt of pain lanced through her chest. I'm not ready.

Mama was going to be so angry and upset and Beth would not be able to stand it…

She turned, hurried across the creaky dining room floorboards as softly as she could, opened the sliding door, and burst outside, running across the porch and away as fast as she could. She heard her mother's raised voice but couldn't understand what she was saying.

Beth must have pressed the right buttons to return to 221B, but she didn't remember doing it. She only knew she was crying before she realized she was, sinking to the bathroom floor and burying her face in her hands.

She couldn't do it. She couldn't.

It was a very long time before she could leave the upstairs bathroom in 1896.

The lack of anything much to do was still dragging at Holmes, but after a night of particularly vicious coughing, he was too tired to be bored. Beth had lent him her phone for ebook reading, although her suggestion of reading material, The Devil in the White City, was only making him want to use the Vortex Manipulator to hunt down America's first serial killer. Despite the engrossing read, he found himself drifting in and out of sleep all afternoon… but on the umpteenth time, he woke not to silence, but his wife's voice wafting from the next room, singing quietly.

What would I give
To live where you are?
What would I pay
To stay here beside you?
What would I do to see you
Smiling at me?

His chest hurt in a way that had nothing to do with the damn pneumonia. Beth's choice of songs was always a good indicator of her state of mind, and this song, filled with so much yearning, indicated nothing good.

Where would we walk?
Where would we run?
If we could stay all day in the sun?
Just you and me
And I could be
Part of your world

The pain in his chest sharpened. She was part of his world… wasn't she? Didn't she believe that? As uneasy as she can be with this time period? a dark corner of his mind hissed. Do you?

Ria: That documentary Sherlock was watching at the beginning of the chapter is 'The Gunpowder Plot: Exploding the Legend', presented by Richard Hammond. The repercussions of a successful assassination by Guy Fawkes et al would make a great DW episode all by itself...

Sky: Brrr! And yes, we know this chapter's kind of depressing, sorry, but we swear this is all going somewhere! *cough cough acertaincanonadventure cough* In the meantime, Happy New Year! Hope it's a better one for all of us!