"Open your eyes, Sherlock."
The noise filtered hazily through the fog, confusing him in its complexity. What was it? What did it mean?
"Come, brother. Wake up."
Words. He was hearing words, but that did not reveal what they meant. What did the words want?
"Open your eyes, Sherlock. You need to eat something."
Sherlock. That was his name. That made sense, but what was…eat? That meant food, did it not? Why would he need to eat? Sleep sounded much more appealing.
A large hand gripped his shoulder, shaking in a wide motion that moved his entire body.
"I know you can hear me, Little Brother. Open your eyes. You can sleep again in a minute."
The smell of something warm and familiar tickled his nose, and his stomach growled. Food. Right. He had not eaten in days, almost as long as he had gone without sleep. Maybe he should eat.
First, though, his eyelids needed to respond.
"Wake up, Sherlock."
Light feet creaked across the floor, joining clattering wheels to announce they were still on the train. Dishes clinked behind his head.
"Do we need to send for a doctor at the next station?" asked a vaguely familiar voice.
"No." That was his brother's rumbling tone. "He is merely exhausted, and no wonder, after all that has happened in the last month. How far are we from London?"
"About ten hours, sir."
London. Watson. Memory tugged, dimly recalling worry. He had collapsed before he could ask something important. What was it?
The question fled when Mycroft shook him again. He wanted to sleep.
"Sherlock? You need to eat."
Yes, he wanted that too, but eating would be hard with his eyes closed.
The scent reached his nose again. Was that creamy chicken soup? How had Mycroft gotten that on a train?
"I know you can hear me, Sherlock." The hand shook him harder, pushing away some of the haze weighing every muscle. "I will not let you ignore me. Open your eyes."
Holmes was not ignoring him. He simply could not rouse yet. Mycroft needed to learn some patience.
"If you go back to sleep, you will next wake in hospital." Irritation bubbled at the threat, and faint amusement crept into Mycroft's words. "Eat something, then you can go back to sleep."
A platter clattered on the table, probably containing that soup. However his brother had found it, Holmes wanted some. His stomach growled again as his eyes finally obeyed his commands.
"There you are." Relief leaked into Mycroft's tone. "I have soup, then some meat and cheese for later. Can you sit up?"
Bleary vision focused as Mycroft proposed the question, but Holmes' sleep-muddled mind needed another moment to process its meaning. The words clicked as Mycroft opened his mouth to try again.
"I think so."
Hunger made his hands shake, but he slowly pushed himself high enough to lean against a pillow. Mycroft carefully passed the half-full bowl, though he held it until Holmes showed he would not spill.
"Eat that and at least some of the meat before you go back to sleep," he ordered, watching Holmes clumsily grab the spoon.
His stomach growled again in response. Cream of chicken soup had been his parents' meal of choice when one of the Holmes boys fell sick, and too many years had passed since he last ate something familiar. He willingly took a large mouthful. Then another. Mycroft let him finish most of the soup before he spoke.
"How long?"
He tore his attention from the spoon, struggling to keep his eyes open despite his hunger. Mycroft's question had many possible connotations, but deduction proved impossible with his eyes so heavy.
"How long what?"
"Since you last ate," Mycroft clarified, "and since he found you. Your last message said you were safe in Montpelier."
He looked back at his bowl. The soup was disappearing too quickly.
"I believe about a week since I ate," he answered, scraping the bottom. "I lost him for less than an hour, but a local restaurant had just dumped its supper leavings."
Mycroft said nothing for a moment. "And since he found you?"
Holmes had no way of knowing. He tried to use the meat to avoid admitting as much, but when Mycroft asked again, Holmes replied with a question of his own.
"What day is it?"
"Wednesday."
He shook his head. Mycroft realized his assumption a moment later.
"May the second."
Lack of sleep made the math come much slower. "Thirty-two days." He swallowed a large slice of beef. "He found me checking the post office near the lab. I did not know he was there until a bullet chipped the door frame."
The meat vanished as quickly as the soup, and he claimed a large piece of cheese before leaning back on the bed, eyes closing as he chewed. He needed to sleep more, but something else prodded him. He struggled to remember the other question that needed answering.
"Why are you here?"
That was not it, but that might lead to it. Mycroft helped him untangle the covers before he replied.
"I did not stop sending mail," he rumbled. "It stopped going through, and my last note said that if you did not respond, I would come for you. I was in your rooms when my guard came with word of an altercation near the post office."
He pulled his mind back to wakefulness, though his eyes refused to reopen. Counter to his nature, Mycroft had spent the last month fighting to catch up so he could help. Everything from his brother's quiet words to his place next to the bed announced how concerned Mycroft had been, but his own worry was not the only reason behind his actions.
"Why…did you need a response?"
"I had not heard from you since January," Mycroft responded simply. Gentle fingers removed the rest of the cheese still clutched in Holmes' hand.
"But…" He trailed off, trying to pin what was so strange about that. Mycroft knew he did not always answer. He could not always answer, if Moran watched the post office, but Holmes could think of only one missive that would require he reply.
"Is Watson alright?"
That familiar cadence answered him. He knew it did, but the words slipped through his exhausted mind.
"What was that?"
A hand landed on his forehead, checking for a fever, then drew up the covers. He still could not make out the reply.
Fatigue claimed him before he could try again.
"Sherlock, you need to wake up."
Mycroft's words penetrated the haze of sleep, and Holmes groaned, then stretched. He felt much better. With another meal and the right company, all would be perfect.
Company. Watson. He still did not know what had happened to his friend.
"Sherlock?"
Mycroft sat in the chair beside his bed, waiting for Holmes to wake. A platter of cold cuts sat on a nearby table, and Mycroft held a stack of papers.
"We are less than an hour from London. Are you awake enough to talk?"
Holmes nodded, pulling himself upright to stretch again. "What is wrong with Watson? Is Mary alright? Mrs. Hudson?"
"Mrs. Hudson is fine. Eat something." The omission did not escape Holmes' notice, and Mycroft shuffled the papers slightly as Holmes willingly claimed some meat. He said nothing else, however, evidently searching for words. Holmes' worry grew with every moment his brother delayed.
"Mycroft?"
The older man sighed, then placed the stack of papers in Holmes' lap. "Copies of every note I have sent since Christmas," he said shortly. "Read the top four."
That he would rather Holmes read old missives meant he could not decide where to start, but Mycroft never found himself without words. Holmes hesitantly opened the top note.
An obituary. He held an obituary in his hand, and grief joined the worry. Mary's death would not cause Mycroft's reluctance, however. He tucked the clipping away to read in depth later and reached for the next note.
"You need to come back."
The fear that had begun at Mycroft's indecision became something closer to terror. Mycroft had tried to call him home months ago. With Moran still uncaptured, only Watson could have prompted that decision, but Mycroft would have said if his friend was dead.
"He is not doing well, Sherlock," the third slip read, the date suggesting several others had arrived between it and the second. "You must return."
He stared at the words. They had guarded their notes closely, wary of interception. For Mycroft to write that Watson was declining, even without using Watson's name, said much more than his own name and the order to return. The miles between them meant Mycroft would have said only enough to claim Holmes' attention, intending to provide the rest of the details on Holmes' arrival in London.
Just how badly had Watson taken Mary's loss?
Badly enough. Skimming several others revealed more of the same, and he slowly reached for the fourth note Mycroft had indicated. These had grown more terrifying as he went. What could be worse than admitting Watson's poor health on paper?
"If I do not hear from you in four days, Sherlock, I am coming for you."
A hard ball lodged in his chest. Four days. After waiting three months between the first dated note and the ultimatum, he had given Holmes four days to respond. Something had to have changed.
"The Yard placed a twenty-four-hour guard on him," Mycroft started when Holmes looked up, "beginning in January. Lestrade alerted me in late March when the guard followed Doctor Watson to the edge of the river. He thought the doctor was sleepwalking."
"And?" Holmes prodded when Mycroft fell silent. "Watson sleepwalks occasionally, but you believe this was something different."
Sorrow appeared as Mycroft nodded once. "The doctor's actions more closely resembled a regression. Many combat veterans experience them or something like them, but Doctor Watson's seemed to have started after the double funeral."
"Wait," Holmes interjected. "Who else did Watson bury that day? You said Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson are well."
"His wife died from eclampsia."
Oh, Watson. Holmes leaned back against the pillow, aching with sympathetic grief. He should have been there.
"Where is he now?"
Mycroft carefully moved the papers to the foot of the bed. "Two of my guards joined the Yard's the day I sent that note," he continued, ignoring Holmes' question to indicate the ultimatum. "Over the last month, Watson has wandered to the river no less than ten times. Each time, one of the guards has woken him before he fell in."
"Where is he?"
His brother pinned him with a look but gave him a smaller pile of notes in answer.
Another sleepwalk to river last evening. The date read the beginning of April. These must have been updates while Mycroft tracked Holmes.
One patient today, the next read. No food.
No food? What did they mean no food? Watson had stopped eating?
Apparently so. The next three read the same, followed by, Yarder offered meal. Declined.
Holmes glanced up. "'Yarder' is Lestrade?" he asked. His gaze returned to the missives when Mycroft nodded.
Guided home after sleepwalk to alley. No food sleep.
Had he stopped sleeping as well?
No food.
More tea than food. No sleep.
Small meal. Two patients. No sleep.
No food. Two hours sleep. Sleepwalk to river.
He started skimming, worry and fear increasing with every repetition of No food. No sleep. Some added, Never spoke. How could Watson have stopped eating and sleeping? He was a doctor! Taking care of himself and others was ingrained so deeply in Watson's personality that they had argued many times over Holmes' lack of interest in either. What could have made him stop?
Small meal. Lowered price practice. Sleepwalk to river. Screamed awake in cemetery.
Holmes froze. Screamed awake in cemetery.
Screamed awake.
Nightmares plagued his friend badly enough to scream himself awake in a public place. That could explain some of the problem. Watson's nightmares of war had always stolen his appetite for at least part of the day. Unable to escape his grief in daylight or the memories in sleep, he would struggle to find interest in meals.
Normally, however, he would throw himself into work. Why then did so many notes specify less than three patients that day?
All day to run one errand. Many stops. Two sleepwalks.
He wanted to throw the notes across the train car. Weak from lack of food and undoubtedly hurting from the changing weather, Watson could not bury himself in his work. It was a miracle he could get out of bed. Holmes turned away from the papers, looking at Mycroft in clear pleading to simply give him the rest at once.
Mycroft refused. "Read the last two notes."
The fear could not get any stronger, but it seemed to choke him more. A slightly shaking hand smoothed the paper's wrinkles.
Tailor took his clothes in again today.
Again?! He stared at the words, struggling to breathe past the terror in his chest. The date read less than two weeks ago. If Watson had lost enough weight to warrant a visit to the tailor more than once, what would Holmes find on his arrival?
Only one way to find out, and he hesitantly unfolded the final paper, dated today.
No movement by midmorning. Curtains closed. No answer at door. Sent for Yarder.
No movement…Curtains closed. Holmes hung his head. Watson had not woken this morning. He suspected where this was going.
He suspected, but he had to know. After a long moment, he slowly looked up, forcing himself to meet Mycroft's gaze.
"I know nothing else," Mycroft rumbled. He paused, then quietly voiced what Holmes had no wish to hear. "The doctor does not know about the guard. For him to not answer the door…" The sentence uncharacteristically trailed off, but Holmes understood. He did not want to think it any more than Mycroft wanted to say it.
At the least, Watson did what was expected of him. Always. For Watson to not answer the door, to not perform the "expected" response when someone arrived at his practice, something must be wrong, and the papers before him loudly announced what that "something" probably was.
Holmes had to brace himself to find Watson dead.
Poor Holmes. This might be a long road.
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