The inhuman cry of the falls echoed in my ears.

Sherlock! Sherlock Holmes! I shouted until my throat burned, yet my voice never rose above the pounding torrent, roaring down onto the rocks below.

The heavy air chilled me to the bone. I seemed to fall with the rushing water, the white spray giving way to endless, deafening darkness.

I hit the bottom and crashed into awareness with a jolt.

"Watson! John!"

My heart pounded in my chest. I gasped for air as my ribs seemed to constrict around my lungs. I struggled upright, though I was painfully aware that it was too late. I was years too late.

I sat in the dark, broken only by a sickly orange light that filtered in through the window, between the blinds.

"John." A glass was pressed into my hands.

I took one sip, and then another.

"I thought"—my voice shook despite my efforts to steady it—"that I would never see you again."

I clenched the glass between my hands.

An arm slipped tentatively around my waist, a hand at my back.

I took another sip.

"I did not intend to wake you," I said evenly.

"No, I presumed not." His smile was more cautious than his words suggested. "Might I suggest a little light and some warmth to ward out the cold night air?"

I allowed him to usher me, his arm still around my waist, out of his room and into the darkened sitting room.

I sat upon the settee as he made the fire crackle back to life in the hearth. Then he vanished once more into his room, only to return with arms full of blankets that he threw upon the settee—except for one, which he draped across my shoulders. I gratefully drew it around myself, suddenly aware of how cold and stiff I had become. Slowly, the warmth of the fire began to seep into the air.

Holmes remained on his feet, lingering beside the settee as though he dared not impose.

I shifted a little to one side in a silent invitation.

He stepped forward, but did not yet sit. Instead he paused to regard me, his gaze strangely intent. "I have long wished for nothing more than to see you where you had once so often adorned."

At last, he joined me upon the settee. We huddled together, cocooned in nearly half a dozen blankets, bathed in the warmth of the fire, but I hardly felt them next to the heat which radiated off of Holmes's spare figure.

"Perhaps I should have felt fortunate," he remarked into the dancing flames, his voice low, "but I tell you, Watson, that it was the thought of beholding you once again in our old rooms, of again wiling away the wee hours together by the fire, which sustained me in my flight across the continent. I had no greater fear than that I would never have the chance to see you again."

And yet, I felt him; solid, warm, whole, and I dared not let go.


I awoke ensconced in warmth. I stirred drowsily, attempting to make sense of heavy limbs and awkward angles.

"Good morning, John," Holmes murmured in my ear, the sound of my Christian name upon his lips still unfamiliar, if not entirely new.

Holmes and I had managed to fall asleep intertwined upon the narrow settee. He regarded me intently with his bright, stormy eyes, as though he might discern my very thoughts—as I well knew that he could. He somehow extricated a hand to gently brush a stray lock of hair from my forehead, though I doubted it made much of a difference. His own dark hair was in a rare wild disarray.

"Good morning," I answered in kind. "Have you been awake long?"

"A little while." He gave a dismissive wave.

"A few hours?"

"Perhaps." His thin lips quirked into a wry smile.

"Though I see you had little choice in the matter; I am afraid I have you thoroughly pinned." I had nearly been sleeping on top of him, his back cornered against the back of the settee, and my arms and legs were still coiled around him, my head resting against his chest.

"It is not so bad as that."

I half expected it, yet still it came as a surprise as, with a sudden motion, he pushed me onto my back, with him sprawled on top of me—lighter than he ought have been—our cocoon of blankets in a tangle of disarray.

"What was that you were saying, John?" he whispered laughingly into my ear, sending a shiver down my spine.

"You are right, I am powerless to hold you."

"I should not say powerless." He settled on top of me, his nose buried in the crook of my neck and his lips about my shoulder.

Eventually, my arm returned to wrap around his waist, and my other hand settled upon his cheek, rough with the night's shadow.

It was almost like a dream of those early days of our relations; he regarded me so attentively, as though I held the key to a puzzle he could not quite solve, but I knew it was only a matter of time before I again inevitably became nothing more than another dull routine to stagnate his active mind.

I may have let out a silent sigh; an exhale slightly longer than the ones before it, because Holmes shifted on top of me and, as though in answer to my thoughts, he pushed away, propping himself upright, and then lifted himself from the settee entirely. I hastily pushed upright after him, some protest half-formed upon my lips.

However, I did not have the chance, as he stopped, a hand outstretched toward me. "Some breakfast, perhaps?"

I accepted his hand and allowed him to pull me to my feet as I belatedly caught up with his intent. "I suppose some breakfast would be in order," I admitted with perhaps a touch of reluctance, though my stomach had ideas of its own.

"That's the spirit!" Holmes clapped me upon the back and his hand lingered, trailing down to my waist. "I shall ring to inform Mrs. Hudson that we have company, meanwhile you are welcome to either washroom; what is mine is yours."

"Thank you."

"It is the least that I can do," Holmes said, suddenly intently sincere.

He raised his free hand—the other remained upon my hip—to my face to caress my cheek, and I could but lean into the touch, fleeting though it was. As he pulled away, his gaze seemed to hold unspoken volumes if only I could decipher them.

I could have watched him for years and still he would be a mystery to me, but instead I at last went and dressed for the day, all the while wondering what it might hold.

I emerged to find Holmes seated at the table, impeccably dressed, his chin smooth and his hair in order, the day's paper in disarray around him. He immediately put down the page he had been perusing—I recognized the agony columns.

I attempted to motion for him to resume his reading; that I had not meant to interrupt him, but he was not to be persuaded. Instead, he swept the pages littering the table onto the floor and poured me a cup of hot coffee.

I contented myself with being the subject of his attentions as I sat down beside him, took a sip of coffee, and then asked, "Have you found anything worth investigating?"

"No, only the usual little mysteries of London life."

"Perhaps Lestrade will come by with a case."

He waved off the suggestion outright. "Inspector Lestrade has proven himself to be sufficiently capable of solving such problems as are ordinarily brought before the Scotland Yard."

"And I know you have no use for that which is commonplace."

"Precisely, Watson!"

"Then what will keep your interest now?"

"It is hardly all so commonplace, as you describe it."

"You mean to say that you have found a case worthy of your intellect?"

"No, not a case."

"Chemical inquiries then?" I glanced over at his chemical equipment, but it was all put away and had become buried amid assorted debris.

He disregarded the question entirely. "What of you, Watson? I am aware that your practice is a quiet one; do you grow restless?"

"Restless? No, I would not say so."

"In any case, perhaps a change of scenery would do us both good. You long for the English countryside, eh Watson?"

"I would not say that precisely," I attempted to protest. "And I know that you are hardly fond-"

However, Holmes had none of it. "Consider it done. If it is agreeable to you, we shall leave tomorrow, or the day after if you prefer."

"This is for some investigation?" I asked, more bewildered by the minute.

Holmes shook his head. "Even I admit some merit in taking a holiday to the seashore, and our native coast is not entirely immune to the approach of summer."


Cold rain poured down in sheets, which hammered against the roof of our cab. The horse's hooves splashed through the muddy river which had once been a road. The entire world seemed to be hidden behind a grey curtain. The cab pulled to a stop in front of the dim silhouette of the village inn and we hastened from one door to the other beneath an echoing clap of thunder.

The door shut forcefully behind us in a vain attempt to keep out the storm even as we carried it in with us, our coats streaming, boots flooded, and trousers drenched. For all of the activity which erupted around us, delicately taking away waterlogged hats and coats before the rainwater seeped into the hardwood, the rest of the inn was quiet, nearly empty even in the fullest flush of spring.

"It's the wail of the Grey Lady." The innkeeper indicated the rattling windows, caught in the howling wind. Then, to Holmes and I, he said a touch pointedly, "Shall I show you to your rooms, gentlemen?"

Stiff and sodden, I eagerly followed him, past a solitary parlour, up to our private rooms, where he left us, courteously closing the door behind him. The rooms were pleasant enough; a small private sitting room, which led into a bedroom, furnished with a hearth on one side, in front of a pair of beds, neatly made.

"I fear I had forgotten the caprice of our fair English weather," Holmes said with a chuckle, already sloughing off his jacket and proceeding to his waistcoat.

My shirt and trousers felt wet and heavy against my skin, and with them came an insidious chill. It felt more of November than May; hardly a time to visit the seashore.

I did not observe his approach, only felt the weight of my jacket lift from my shoulders.

"I am quite all right, Holmes," I said, "only tired from the journey."

He draped my jacket over the chair beside his own, too close together to properly dry, and his waistcoat lay on the seat of the chair beneath them. He was already dressed down to his shirtsleeves, which had soaked through, making them nearly translucent.

At last, I began to fumble with my cufflinks and then moved on to the slick buttons of my waistcoat. The water had seeped all the way to my undergarments, and so I disposed of it all, and was left no warmer than before. I absently massaged at my old war wound, still sensitive though it had long since healed.

"It cannot be said that our English weather is without its merits." There could be no question as to the object of Holmes's astute attention; he regarded me openly, a smile teasing about his lips and dancing in his eyes.

When we had spent the night together before, I had been so caught up in the urgency of the moment that I had not taken the time to simply look at him, but now I could not look away. He was no less magnificent than I remembered. And yet, for all of the confidence which he projected, he was laid bare as I was; I saw every mark of his recent trials and the accompanying tension surreptitiously coiled about his muscles. I knew he could at times go for days on end without sleep, but I wondered if he was indeed no less weary than I.

The rain drummed against the roof and rattled at the window panes, tossed to and fro as the wind howled by in fearsome gusts. From some distance came the low rumble of thunder. Yet, inside, in the flickering gaslight, it could have been any early evening; the grey of the storm kept at bay by heavy curtains.

I took a step, or perhaps two, across to Holmes. He reached out toward me and I let him take my hand between both of his, cold even to my clammy fingers. His astute gaze was questioning.

"I am only tired, that is all," I repeated.

He drew me nearer still and my other hand settled upon his sharp hip; his skin warm and smooth to the touch. His fine hair stood on end.

"We have come a long way," he acknowledged, extracting one hand from mine to trail across my scarred shoulder, caressing the uneven skin.

My hand drifted upward from his hip, along the once familiar contours, to his ribs, always a little too prominent.

"You need not commit it to memory," he said lightly, though he traced my figure no less deliberately.

I shook my head. "You have nothing to fear; my memory is not so good as yours."

I felt him give a quiet sigh. "Even my memory is nothing to the reality."

"What had you forgotten?"

A smile flickered across his lips. "Shall I count the ways? Your piercing wit, the heat of your passion"—his hand settled upon my hip—"your tender regard"—he gently pressed his palm in the centre of my chest.

"I did not dare to dream that you could hold such affection," I confessed.

"No, then it is time I set that right."

He raised his hand to lift my chin, the other at my waist, and I felt the warm press of his lips, slow and gentle, and then again. As we parted, he seemed to glow in the low light.

"The memory does not compare." My voice came out a little rougher than I expected.

"Indeed, it does not."

He leaned in so that we might kiss yet again for good measure, a little deeper than before and he drew me closer still.

I insisted breathlessly, "Sherlock, truly, are you quite well?"

"I have seldom felt better. Though I fear we have both been wasting away." His hand wandered across my stomach.

I only belatedly registered his words, food the furthest thing from my mind.

"I believe that is the bell for dinner now," he said, but he did not move.

I stretched upward to kiss him once more, even more forcefully, and then at last I assented, my cheeks still flushed, "Shall we go down to dinner?"

He let out a sharp, barking laugh, and only then pulled away.

I had nearly forgotten the chill, but now we dressed quickly in clean, dry clothes, and then descended for dinner. The dining room was simple, but pleasant enough. Few of the tables were occupied; one man sat at the bar, and a gentlewoman sat alone at one of the larger tables. She was kind enough to permit us to join her.

"Mrs. Everton," she introduced herself.

"This is the esteemed Dr. Watson, and I am but his humble associate," Holmes answered in kind. I do not think she detected the irony in his words.

We sat down across from her.

"It is a relief to have some company; it is a charming town, but very quiet. You gentlemen are here on vacation?"

"Yes, precisely!"

"Your husband is not with you?" I asked.

Her gaze fell—Holmes gave me a pointed look, as though I had made some glaring faux pas. "No, it has been a year since he passed," she said.

"My sincerest condolences. My dear wife…"

She nodded in empathetic understanding. "You must have a good friend to help you get a change of scenery. Do not let the stormy welcome mislead you, this is truly a lovely town and the people have been very welcoming."

"How long have you been here?"

"Only a week. It was rather sudden, just on a whim."

I chuckled. "I had only a day's warning."

"Of the whole world, you chose the English countryside, and so here we are," Holmes said.

"I would choose the same," she said.

Easy, cordial conversation carried us all through dinner. It was after we had finished eating, while we were waiting on the coffee, that Mrs. Everton stood and made her excuses.

"You have made for wonderful company, but I regret it is past time I retired for the evening. I owe you both my gratitude for dining with me this evening and I hope that it may not be the last."

Holmes waved off her gratitude and I insisted, "It is our pleasure."

She ascended the stairs, and Holmes and I went to take our coffee in the parlour, in a pair of chairs by the fire, not quite so comfortable as those at the flat on Baker Street.

"She was most agreeable company," I remarked.

"Would you say so?" Holmes said as though he had hardly noticed her at all.

I put down my coffee cup. "You would not?"

"I suppose," Holmes said with a wave. "There were perhaps some points of interest."

"Holmes," I admonished.

"Were you not so preoccupied by her company, Watson, that you did not notice her nervous hands?"

"There is little wonder that she might be nervous beneath your incisive gaze. I found her very forthright."

"Your nature is too generous, but perhaps you are right, Watson. After all, there is little I can deduce from such a brief opportunity; only that she lives in the north of London but frequents the coast, is of Scottish extraction, and that she is of greater means than she presents herself to be."

"Holmes, how could you possibly glean all of that from a mere conversation?" I exclaimed, impressed despite myself.

His lips curved upward in a triumphant smile. "Have you also forgotten my methods?

"I did not mean to overhear, sir," the innkeeper said, coming into the parlour, "but you could almost be a detective with a trick like that!"

Holmes bowed his head. "You are most kind. I am but an amateur."

"Are you? Well, there's not much to investigate around these parts, unless you're here after the Grey Lady, but there's little a detective could do about her."

"All the better then; we are here on leisure and are quite content to occupy ourselves without any need to invent a mystery to investigate."

Holmes may have been content to have his private laugh at the local legend—his eyes sparkled with wry humour—but, my interest piqued, I said, "You have mentioned the Grey Lady before, who is she?"

"You'd better ask what," the innkeeper replied. "The Grey Lady and her Wandering Sailor haunt these parts."

"Do you mean to say that they are spectres of some kind?"

"The very same; spirits cursed to wander evermore. They say she was a willful woman—some say a witch—who was married to a faithless sailor; fond of drink, and fonder of women. One night—hardly the first—she caught him coming home drunk just as the sun was beginning to rise. It's said she even smiled as she saw him off to bed, but when next he went out to sea, his ship had hardly weighed anchor when it capsized in a storm, just off the shore, and there remains, cursed to never set foot on land again. But even from the seas he haunted the witch that cursed him until she wasted away to her grave, and now neither of them will ever be at rest."

Silence fell in the wake of this remarkable narrative, and the innkeeper seemed to be satisfied with the effect he had produced.

"And so it is your spectres that are to blame for our unseasonable weather?" Holmes concluded.

"Indeed, the Grey Lady brings the spring frost, the summer storms, and the early snows; and it is misfortune to any sailor who ventures out upon her Wandering Sailor's choppy seas."

Holmes gave a barking laugh. "A very pretty account, though hardly within the bounds of nature."

The innkeeper nodded intently. "It's most unnatural."

"Perhaps we will be fortunate enough to see these spectres for ourselves while we are here, eh Watson?"

"I should hope not, for your sakes, gentlemen."

"If such a tale is to be believed, we have already braved the Grey Lady's storm, and I confess I am not so keen to face another," I said.

"Ever practical, Watson. You are right, instead, we ought hope for clear, spectreless skies."

"As do we all," the innkeeper said, and soon after took his leave, "Unless there is anything you gentlemen require."

Holmes and I remained in the parlour but a little while longer before retiring to our rooms. Though two beds had been provided, we only had need for one. With the blinds drawn and the gaslight turned all the way down, we huddled in the dark beneath all of the blankets we had been provided. Holmes's cold hands and feet crept beneath my nightgown and I pressed nearer to him to reclaim some warmth as he took it.

"This I had forgotten perhaps most dearly of all," Holmes said, his voice a low whisper in my ear.

I could but agree. Indeed, I wondered if I had ever felt him intertwined with me so.


The next morning dawned misty and grey. A thin, pale light filtered through the shimmering veil. We rose late and by the time we descended for breakfast, our few fellow lodgers had already come and gone.

"At least it seems that the local spectres have ceased their wailing," Holmes remarked between bites of toast. "I believe it is as good of a day as we will get to survey the lay of the land. What do you say, Watson?"

"Perhaps you are right. I should like to see the countryside, and it is better than remaining cooped up in the inn, at any rate."

"That's the spirit, Watson!" he said with a hand upon my arm.

We soon concluded our meal and set out, walking sticks in hand.

We had hardly been able to see the shapes of the buildings through the curtains of rain the day before, and so as we stepped out we were granted our first true glimpse of the town in which we had temporarily settled. It hardly warranted being called a town at all; the inn sat upon a little plot of land all its own, which butted up against a little post office and general store, and a little ways beyond that were the spires of a church. Otherwise, as far as I could see, it was all farms and country houses nestled amid rolling hills—blankets of deep green asleep beneath the fine mist, which all gave way to white on the horizon.

Holmes summed it up in a phrase, with a wave of his arm; "The quaint English countryside."

I waited, expecting him to continue with some cynical remark, but he only gave me a mischievous smile and took my arm to set off down the road.

Still, I had to ask as we went, "Are we going to investigate some crime concealed within these quiet little houses?"

"If we did care to investigate, I am certain we would find far more unusual happenings than your imagination could conjure. Surely, Watson, the people of the countryside can be no different than those of London merely because they are spread more thinly, and thus we should expect their lives to be no less remarkable. This small town may very well be a microcosm of the entire world."

"You sound as though you mean to make a study of it."

"Perhaps I shall! I had abundant opportunities to study the continental villages, as they afforded me a frequent refuge upon my travels, and the English countryside may serve as an enlightening contrast; I expect we may find they are not so different after all."

It almost sounded as though he were serious about embarking upon it, but I could not be certain.

We strolled for some miles along winding dirt roads which cut between bright green fields, sometimes hedged in so that we walked in a tree-lined tunnel, emerging from the mist and disappearing into the same, and at other times it was open, so that we might look out over the misty country, hemmed in by low-lying clouds, and I even thought I glimpsed the tip of the church steeple as a sign of just how far we had traveled.

Gradually, a low rumble came upon us from the distance, more subtle than thunder, and so constant that I hardly noticed it at all until the sound had grown too loud to ignore—but I am certain that Holmes observed it sooner. As we neared, the wind picked up, but the mist only deepened.

At last, we stepped out from under the trees onto the precipice of what I at first took to be a white void; the wind whipping around us and a crashing ringing in our ears. The rolling landscape which continued on into the mist in all other directions, abruptly gave way some feet ahead of us to sheer white cliffs and roiling grey seas.

So this was the destination that Holmes had in mind. He looked out upon the ceaseless tides, his keen features ashen in the grey light, but with all the grandeur of nature's fathomless spectacle and no less intense. I could no more hold him than I could restrain the ocean.

He turned back toward me, a tempestuous light in his eyes. I could not look away if I had dared. We were alone for miles, shrouded behind curtains of mist. We drew each other close and our lips pressed together, stiff and clumsy from the cold, caught in the spray of the sea, its cry echoing around us. As we pulled apart, I wondered if the dampness beneath my eyes was not only from the mist.

If Holmes observed anything, he made no indication of it, and instead turned to continue along the bluffs, his arm still tightly linked with mine.

It was some time before either of us spoke again, and it was Holmes who eventually broke the silence, his words surprisingly light but his aspect subdued; "We have already met his Grey bride, and now I believe we also have the pleasure to make the acquaintance of the Wandering Sailor."

Indeed, though the wind had fallen somewhat, a pitiful howling could be heard above the crashing waves below. A shiver ran down my spine.

"At least we are on land while he is stranded at sea," I said.

"Fortunate for us, perhaps, but I would hesitate to wish such a fate on a worse man than he by all accounts—cursed to wander the lonely seas for ages without end."

It was difficult to imagine a more lonely sight, looking out over the cliffs into the endless white mist, unbroken by ships or seabirds, not even a horizon in sight; only water.

I turned away. "I thought you held that the world is big enough without such things."

"Watson, I am surprised that these spectres do not strike your fanciful nature."

I gave him a reproachful look, though it held little heat.

On our other side, the land rose and fell in dun-colored fields interspersed with dark and grey-looking trees, growing paler until it faded into the sky. I wondered if I could make out a lonely house sitting upon the crest of a low hill, looking mournfully out upon the sea.

At last, I said, "I confess, I find it difficult to fault the Grey Lady for her ire or her curse—a loveless marriage is not so different from the lonely seas."

"But now he shall never have so much as a chance at remorse, is that not too steep a price, even for trifling with a lover's heart?"

I dared not meet Holmes's eyes, but I breathed a sigh; the sharp air pierced my lungs. "And he was not the only one sentenced by her curse to wander in solitude for eternity."

The words had only just left my lips when the wind rose up around us in a fearsome howl. We drew our coats tight around us and huddled together as if to block out the wind, but the chill crept beneath my collar. The wind seemed to give a pained half-human cry, which echoed in the waves below.


The next day, the Grey Lady's tears pattered against the roof of the inn; sometimes harder and sometimes only a steady drizzle, but never letting up entirely. Holmes and I settled in the parlour by a crackling fire. I had a book in hand, but it remained closed upon my knee between Holmes's lively conversation, and then Mrs. Everton who soon joined us, likewise stranded indoors on account of the rain.

I rose and greeted the lady warmy as she entered, however Holmes hardly remarked upon her arrival at all.

"Good morning, gentlemen," she said pleasantly.

I cordially insisted that she take my chair by the fire, and I drew up another on her other side for myself. We began, as is customary, on the subject of the weather, and proceeded on from there.

"Now it seems yesterday was particularly clement," I said. "Were you able to make the best of it?"

"I took a little stroll of my own among the pastures, though I confess, they made for a dreary scene. You gentlemen must have gone far; you were away nearly from dawn to dusk."

I was about to assent when Holmes put in, with a lighthearted air, but a challenging glint in his eyes, "How do you know that we did not take our time going hardly any distance at all, or end up lost in circles around a single pasture?"

She seemed somewhat taken aback—I gave Holmes a look and was ready to say something, but she then replied, "Well, I could not see you at all on my little stroll, so you must not have been so close. Where did you go?"

"All the way to the sea," I said before Holmes could speak again.

"That is a long ways! It is a good thing the rain did not return until after dusk."

"Yet you were caught out in it," Holmes remarked. "I perceive that your dress dried stiffly in the night."

This time I did exclaim, "Holmes!"

"No, it's quite all right, I was only startled by your friend's keen observation."

"It is a talent of his," I said darkly.

"You are right, I went out again in the evening and regretfully it began to rain before I could return."

I glanced again at Holmes, anticipating another remark, but he said nothing, and the conversation soon turned to other matters. I did not notice when he departed, but I eventually observed that he had gone—I presumed to our rooms.

It was sometime after that the conversation took a more serious turn, perhaps inevitably so.

It began cheerily enough; with a laugh, Mrs. Everton said, "That was always the way with Arthur."

And then her voice fell and my countenance did too.

"How long were you married?" she asked quietly. "It was nearly twenty years for Art and I."

"Four and some months." She made a sympathetic sound, but I shook my head and said, "I can hardly imagine…"

"I still forget that he isn't here sometimes, even though it has been a whole year without him."

"The house feels strangely empty, as though it belongs to another." I provided what little I could.

"When before it seemed so full," she assented. After a moment's silence, she confessed, "I am not only here to escape an empty house. Art and I used to come to this quiet little town nearly every year. It was like a second home to us; we knew the innkeeper, the postman, the neighbours. There was a hill we used to climb from which we could see the sea, and at night we watched the stars, when the Grey Lady was away. We were here just before he died. I suppose the truth is that I have come looking for him, as though last year I somehow left him behind with the local ghosts."

How I had wanted to search those hills, to drag the waters beneath those terrible falls. For years I wondered what I might have found.

"Thank you, Dr. Watson, you have been very kind to me, though I am but a stranger."

Her voice jarred me back to the present. The two of us, alone in the little parlour of the inn, beside the crackling embers. Outside, the rain pounded a steady rhythm against the window panes.

"You have been most welcoming to a pair of strangers. But if I may beg your pardon, I fear my friend has been gone for a long time; I ought only be gone for a moment to our rooms to ensure that he is perfectly well and not to be disturbed."

She graciously bid me a momentary farewell, and I departed the parlour for the living quarters of the inn.

All seemed to be quiet as I stopped at the door and fumbled with the key; no wail of the violin nor bubbling of chemical equipment. There was only so much, I presumed, that Holmes could get up to away from his Baker Street rooms, unless he had discovered new pastimes in his time abroad. Without even a mystery to contemplate, I could but wonder what he could have possibly found to occupy himself in the hours since he had left the parlour.

At last, my key turned in the lock and the door opened. The front room betrayed no sign of his activities; even the chairs were devoid of his languid figure. I passed into the bedroom.

"Holmes," I called quietly.

The room was unoccupied, and no different from how we had left it upon descending for breakfast that morning.

Rain rushed down over the windows like a waterfall and I heard the half-human cry of the wind howling against the walls. I opened my mouth to call for him again, but no sound came out.

He must have merely gone for a walk, that was all. A leisurely stroll in the pouring rain. He had been gone a little long, but that was not so unforeseen, not for Holmes. I would just go to ensure that he was truly well, merely restless from our quiet sojourn to the countryside, and not to be bothered.

Outside the windows a storm was brewing; the wind screamed and shook at the rafters and the rain came down harder every minute.

I found my coat and forged out into the rising tempest.

I now only recall the journey in flashes. My coat was sorely insufficient to keep out the pouring rain, and I was quickly drenched to the bone. My only thought was to follow the route Holmes and I had taken the day before. My boots squelched through the mud as I waded down roads that had turned to rivers. I could only see grey, sodden countryside for a few yards around me, before it vanished behind curtains of rain. At times I thought I glimpsed a distant figure standing in silhouette upon a hill or a ways down the path, but it was only the ragged shape of a long dead tree trunk, or a twisted bramble. The trees shook dangerously up above as I passed beneath their branches.

At last, I emerged upon the bluffs, overlooking the wailing sea.

"HOLMES! SHERLOCK HOLMES!" I yelled over the wind and the rain and the crashing tides.

I trod heavily along the water-laden cliffs, my boots overflowing with every laborious step. I thought I saw a dim shape through the sheets of rain; a figure standing upon a precipice, looking out upon the crashing waves with steely eyes.

"What are you doing out here?" I shouted—I thought the water may have even crept into my ears, dampening my hearing.

He turned slowly and replied, his voice just audible above the rain, "So you have abandoned Mrs. Everton?"

"What are you talking about? We need to find shelter before we both catch our death of cold!"

Above, a brilliant flash of lightning pierced the grey clouds, followed by a low rumble of thunder.

"What do you suggest, Watson? By the time we reach the inn, I expect the storm will be past."

"We'll find something!" I insisted, taking him by the arm as I scanned the hills rolling away from the sea.

We hurried along the cliffs, toward the road back into town, as the storm raged around us, the lightning drawing ever nearer.

Abruptly, Holmes stopped and pointed up at the crest of a hill, just a few yards away, where a solitary dark shape stood. "Is this what you are looking for, Watson?"

It was little more than a shack, perhaps an abandoned toolshed, creaking perilously in the wind, but we both eagerly piled inside. It was dank and edged with cobwebs, but the roof held tight enough against the rain and the walls kept out the worst of the winds.

We immediately set about peeling off our outermost layers to lay them out to dry as much as possible as we waited out the worst of the storm. The only wood on hand to make a fire was the structure itself, if it was not too damp to light, and even drenched, with stiff, cold digits, we were not yet so desperate for warmth.

When it had been definitively ascertained that there was nothing more to be done, I at last turned upon Holmes, who stood, staring at the walls of our meagre shelter no less gravely than he had stared out upon the sea.

"What were you doing out there?" I demanded. "You vanished without a word! What if something had happened to you?"

He turned toward me as suddenly and forcefully as the releasing of a spring. "Have you come to ask again for my congratulations?" he asked scathingly, though I could make neither head nor tail of it.

"Is this your notion of a joke? To disappear and leave me to only guess at what has become of you?"

"You would deign to think of me at all with such charming company to entertain you?"

"Three years I mourned you! There was not a day I did not think of your fate, while you were out on holiday on the continent!"

"What else was I to do? To count the days in London as you grew old with your dear wife? It was your choice to leave and extricate yourself from my grasp!"

"Yes, I chose to leave, because I could no longer stand to stay! I could not bear to watch you waste away from your cocaine and morphine, all the while biting and sneering at my every effort to please you!"

"And yet, you never even gave a word of warning."

"A word? I tried and tried, but you would not hear a word from me, and can you not read my every thought?"

"No, Watson, your mind is like an open book, and yet…"

The silence lingered in the foot or two between us just a little too long. A flash of lighting set the jagged shadows of the loose boards of our ramshackle shelter in sharp relief.

"Well, now you know my mind. I would be content to remain at your side forever, if only you did not inevitably tire of me."

Holmes let out a sigh which was drowned out by the crashing thunder above. "You are right, my dear Watson, I was thoughtless; I took you for granted without even realising what a precious thing I had, and it was only your ill-fortuned marriage which made me cognisant of what I had lost by my own hand. But now I swear to you, Watson"—he took my hand in his—"that you will never be alone again so long as we both do live, if you will accept me."

"Truly, Holmes?"

"Do we not both deserve another chance?" Hope gleamed in his bright grey eyes.

At last, we drew together into a tight embrace. Even though my drenched shirtsleeves, I could feel the warmth radiating off of him.

"If I am not mistaken, even the Grey Lady and her Wandering Sailor have made their peace," Holmes murmured.

Sure enough, having worn itself out, it seemed the storm had moved on, leaving only the quiet patter of a lingering drizzle in its wake. Even the crashing of the ocean was muted from its previous rage.

Holmes helped me into my still heavy raincoat—his jacket he carried over his arm—and we put back on our boots, at least now empty of water, and we stepped out of the little abandoned shack arm in arm. It was like a new day had dawned; over the endlessly crashing tides I could even hear traces of birdsong, and we went with a fresh spring in our steps.

We went a little ways along the cliffs, and then turned back on to the still muddy road which ran, after a fashion, back to the inn. In the interim, we passed through quiet glens and over the unmistakable, picturesque rolling hills of the English countryside.

"It does not do to underestimate the English countryside," Holmes remarked, "a commendable choice for a holiday. Perhaps, one day we may even be fortunate enough to retire here."

I laughed in surprise at every word of his remarkable declaration. "You would retire? Here? What would we do in a place like this?"

"We might walk along the coast in the morning, bathe in the sea in the afternoon, we could even live off the land." At that I could see that it was in jest. However, he was entirely earnest as he continued, "I know that I would never tire of it so long you accompanied me."

It was the most natural thing in the world to answer, "Certainly."

And as there was no one else for miles, we exchanged another kiss—another merit of the countryside.

By the time we returned to the inn, we were both still drenched, and breathless from our long hike, but in cheerful spirits. We took a dinner of rich, hearty stew in our rooms and left the empty bowls upon the table in the front room. Then, our clothes again all put aside to dry, we huddled together by the fire without them; my head rested upon Holmes's shoulder, and my back pressed against his chest, a heavy rug draped over us both. The heat quickly dissipated the lingering moisture and our exhaustion turned to a feeling of peaceful comfort; our good cheer remained.

It was I who broke the comfortable silence which had fallen, "I do not know if there is any other man so fortunate as I to have been granted another chance."

"I could name another," Holmes said with a wry smile.

I shook my head, my hair brushing against his chest. "No fortune could be greater."


Note: Thank you for reading! This story was a bit of something new for me in how I approached writing it, and I'd love to hear what you think!