Several days later, he was beginning to doubt his assumption. Countless elves, nisse, faeries, dwarves, nymphs, and other magical creatures had provided a variety of interesting and useful information. He had learned everything about the workings of the Pole, who lived there, and the distinction between magical and non-magical—mostly human and non-human—but he had found nothing about his friend. Magical creatures apparently did not travel from the Pole to Thurso. They stayed in Thurso on their way to other non-magical locations. The end of the week found him restlessly pacing his room, his thoughts swirling in unproductive circles.

Was Watson recovering or getting worse? Would Mr. Kringle come for Holmes? Or would he come to tell Holmes that Watson was gone? Had Tor been able to help? Had he passed Holmes' message? Had Watson received Holmes' message? Would he accept Holmes' return? His apology? His presence? Would Watson be there when Holmes arrived?

Or would this all be for naught, too little too late because he had failed to capture Moran as quickly as he intended?

Another lap took him past the balcony door. If only he had found a way to allow a message from Mycroft in those first few months. If he had known his friend had fallen ill, he would have checked on him, returned, done something before Watson slipped so far.

Better yet, he could have listened to his brother. Mycroft had warned him how poorly Watson would handle Holmes' plan, but Holmes had counted anger, not guilt. Watson had reacted with a steaming fury after the Culverton Smith case. Holmes had expected the same reaction this time.

His wording registered, then memory bloomed, magnifying his remorse. Watson had grown angry only after Holmes had revealed the ruse. He had spent the hours Holmes had locked them in that bedroom sitting silently in one corner, guilt battling intense worry in his eyes. How could Holmes have forgotten that?

He had been too focused on Moriarty, he decided. The chase had monopolized his time for over a year, and he had been too busy forming his plan to fully consider its ramifications. He was an idiot, a blind fool. No case was worth Watson's life.

Faint jingling intruded on his thoughts, and he looked up in time to catch a shadow cross the balcony. Could it—?

He bolted across the room to open the door. A flying sleigh circled the castle once, then landed directly in front of Holmes.

"Woah, Dasher!"

The lead reindeer snorted but stopped several feet short of the edge. Holmes' bag swung haphazardly on his shoulder as he hurried past the line of animals.

"Good morning, Mr. Holmes." Mr. Kringle descended to the stones to shake Holmes' hand in greeting. "My apologies for the delay. I intended to meet you as soon as you arrived. Come."

"Mr. Kringle," he acknowledged quickly as the older man waved him into the sleigh. "I understand. Tor said—"

Fear stole the rest of his question, but sympathy appeared beneath the thick, white beard.

"John had me worried for a couple of days, but he is doing much better. He argued Doctor Baldrum out of his room before I left." Large, callused hands gestured to either side of his seat. "Hold on tightly. Stones are bumpier than snow."

That sounded more like the Watson he remembered, but Mr. Kringle flicked the reins before Holmes could reply. Desperately gripping the handles next to him, a glance found tires instead of rails rattling over uneven stones.

"Did those cause the tire tracks on Watson's roof?"

Mr. Kringle let out a merry laugh. "Yes. I need some way to reach the warmer parts of the world. Places like Australia never have a white Christmas."

He hummed a response as the motel fell away beneath them, leaving his curiosity to return to the more important topic. "Why did you take Watson to the Pole?"

Silence answered him for a long moment while Mr. Kringle navigated around a dark cloud. "My choices became taking him with me or watching you attend a funeral."

The terror Holmes had briefly banished flared anew, much stronger for the blunt delivery, and Mr. Kringle released a sigh.

"I cannot watch the human world every moment, Mr. Holmes, and I cannot watch at all when I am traveling. When I had last checked, your brother was still too far away to make a difference. You were trying to get yourself killed in a German forest, and John stopped getting out of bed. I had to make a decision based on the information I had at the time." He paused. "I am glad I did so, even knowing you arrived that evening. This bout of pneumonia…he stopped breathing thrice, Mr. Holmes, one of which was in the middle of a dream last night. Doctors Tor and Baldrum used magic more than once to help, something we cannot usually do for humans."

Holmes' own breath caught in his throat at the honest words. Stopped breathing. Watson had stopped breathing, and only the magic Holmes had once ridiculed had saved his friend.

"And now?" he finally managed. "You said he forced the other doctor from his room. He is recovering?"

"Slowly," was the sad reply, "from the pneumonia. He will return to full strength in a few days if he chooses."

Holmes' attention immediately focused on the conditional. "What do you mean 'if he chooses'?" He leaned forward to better see Mr. Kringle's expression, subconsciously tightening his grip on the handles as he did so. "You believe he might choose not to recover?!"

Sorrowful candor shone from bright blue eyes. "Perhaps. Only his own character and a promise he made years ago stand between him and a hope to apologize to you just this side of eternity. His grief and guilt are so powerful that he broke free of Tor's dreamscape, twisting it around to watch you reject him instead of search for him. Thankfully, breaking the dream that way ensured he did not recall it when he woke. I do not want to imagine what would have happened if he had."

…hope to apologize to you just this side of eternity. Holmes stared through the front of the sleigh, unable to enjoy the spectacular view as he fought to reconcile this description with the Watson he remembered. How could his friend have changed so much? How could Holmes have forced his friend to change so much?

Because it was his fault, this change. He had decided to leave, and he had failed to return quickly enough. He had done this, no matter that he had intended to protect Watson. He had changed his friend to a shadow of the man he remembered. If something happened to Watson, it would be Holmes' fault.

"None of that."

The sharp words snapped him out of his thoughts, and he glanced up to find Mr. Kringle scowling at him.

"This whole business started because of fault finding," he scolded. "Do not continue the trend. Your focus should be on John, on learning how he thinks so you can refute the toxic mentality that claims him. His daily high is far lower than your darkest Black Mood."

Holmes swallowed, then nodded. "What have you found so far?"

"John blames himself for both your death and Mary's," Mr. Kringle replied, "to the point of calling himself a 'murderous traitor' when he knew I could hear. He believes he abandoned and betrayed you at the falls and that he could have and should have saved you by refusing to leave. When he stayed with Mary that morning only to watch her die anyway, he decided he must be cursed. He has convinced himself that he is a danger to be around, a burden, and better off alone. He stays in his room unless persuaded someone expects and wants him to leave, and he spends most of that solitary time unaware of his surroundings."

"What about when he is not ill?"

"I did not count his illness in that statement."

"You mean—"

Mr. Kringle nodded. "He thought I was a hallucination when I arrived, and I cannot exactly blame him. Not when my arrival banished both yours and Mary's presence."

Their presence? So Watson was—

"How often does he hallucinate?" he voiced.

"Daily. Almost constantly when alone, and regressions hit several times a day. He will not believe his eyes when he sees you."

Holmes said nothing, desperately hoping that was a figure of speech. It had to be a figure of speech. Watson would be surprised, of course, but to not believe his eyes…

"I am serious," Mr. Kringle insisted. "You will have to convince him, and you will have to be careful how you do so. Go about it wrong, and he will sink into memory and never return." He waited to be sure Holmes understood. "John hangs by a thread, Mr. Holmes. One wrong word, one incautious movement, and you will lose him. Forever. Bringing him here did not give him the purpose I hoped it would. It merely gave him a reason to hang on a little longer."

Holmes stared through his lap, struggling to make his white-knuckle grip on the seat the only outward sign of his grief and fear. Watson might leave him, might retreat into his own mind until his body slowly followed. This close to finding his friend, he might still fail. Constant hallucinations and regressions would degrade Watson's ability to tell fact from fiction, and physical weakness combined with recent illness would slow Watson down even further.

If Watson walked as slowly as Lestrade had described and looked as haggard as Tor had hinted, what would Holmes find on his arrival?

"Describe him to me," he ordered, forcing himself to confront this head on. "Describe him so that nothing I see will be a surprise."

Mr. Kringle shook his head. "You need to be surprised. A lack of reaction would only assert the assumption that you are imaginary." They started losing altitude. "Besides, I would not have time to answer that."

Holmes sat in worried silence as the sleigh slowly descended. He would find Watson somewhere in that ice-laden city, probably near the gleaming mansion in the middle. After three years, thousands of miles, and one incredible revelation, Holmes would finally get to see his friend again, but his first time seeing Watson would not be Watson's first time seeing him. Holmes needed to accomplish one more task before his exile could end.

He had to prove the difference between magical and imaginary. Only then could he convince his friend to come home.

I hunched into the pillows, struggling to inhale past the spasm ricocheting up and down my trachea. Doctor Baldrum had only left me alone after some five minutes of arguing, and I would never keep my solitude if I could not control my breathing. Already, footsteps echoed in the hallway.

The coughing fit finally eased, and relief bloomed as the footsteps continued past my door. I did not want to fend off another doctor. I wanted to know what she was planning.

Assured I looked at her, Mary finally wandered from the office, but she took a winding path through the room instead of initiating some specific memory. Graceful fingers traced the few books before pretending to flick her picture on my wardrobe, and she ultimately settled on the bed near me. Far enough away I would not have to watch her touch me, she simply stared, apparently drinking my face much like I absorbed hers. I did not often get to observe her this closely. Blonde hair and blue eyes announced her English heritage, but a slight darkening of her arms and face revealed the years she had spent in India. The deep tan she had acquired in that baking country had never fully left her once-pale skin, and freckles scattered her nose. This must be a summer vision.

How I missed her!

Holmes materialized behind her, raising a finger to keep me from reacting. Amusement tried to break free, but Mary never moved as he drew steadily closer to lay his transparent hand on her equally insubstantial shoulder. I almost heard her shriek.

"Sherlock!" She twisted, aiming a swat at him though he darted away. Her voice sounded watery, false, and he would never have cackled like that, but I still felt a faint grin twitch my mouth. He had crept up behind her many times over the years.

"John! Quit laughing and help me!"

She chased him across the room, and one hand grabbed the slipper that appeared in her path. I leaned against the wall while Holmes desperately tried to escape a beating from a woman's slipper, my grin widening when he failed yet again.

"Watson!" His voice distorted as if it traveled down a long tunnel. "Are you going to pick a side?"

No. Then and now, I found it far too entertaining to simply watch them. I dragged a blanket over my legs.

"Watson!"

"Why should I?" I muttered, recalling my words so long ago. I did not usually speak to my hallucinations, but no one could hear me from my bed. "You deserve it."

"So you have already chosen your side!"

At the time, Holmes had quirked a smile of complete mischief and thrown a pillow at me, but he could not do that now. The images faded away as a heavy fist pounded on my door.

"John?"

I aimed a dull frown at the noise. So much for having an errand. What was the point of banishing the doctors when Nicolas returned early?

He knocked again. "You know I can hear you, John. Answer the door, please."

Please? The extra word announced he had a reason for coming—aside from being a nuisance—and I sighed but pulled myself upright, covering a cough in my shirt. He must have decided not to go to Scotland after all.

A painful bronchospasm halted my progress about halfway across the room, but I eventually turned the knob to find Holmes staring at me over Nicolas' right shoulder, utter shock painting his face. I focused on Nicolas when the hallway revealed no sign of Mary.

"I thought you had an errand to run today."

"I did," he agreed. One thumb gestured through Holmes. "Look again."

I glanced down the hall, then affected the confusion that refused to bloom. What could he be referencing?

"At what?"

"Mr. Holmes is alive, John. You are not hallucinating this time."

I said nothing for a long moment, surprised he would do this. In the week or so that I had been here, Nicolas had tried a handful of ways to provoke an argument out of me, but I had not expected him to pretend the visions were real. He usually preferred to draw me out of them.

He merely waited, however, despite knowing my thoughts, and I finally turned away. If he wanted an argument, he could go find a dwarf. I had other things I wanted to do.

Like watch Mary chase Holmes again, but one foot prevented the door from closing. "I am serious, John," he insisted as he followed me into the room, Holmes a step behind. "Mr. Holmes is alive."

"Not possible." I affected a scowl he did not need to see to understand. "Why did you really come here? I know you can't see him any more than the others can."

No matter who could see him, I preferred the mischief of earlier to the worry dominating his expression now, and a distracted thought wondered what memory my mind had conjured. I did not remember ever seeing that mixture of distress and grief on my normally stoic friend.

"I just told you," Nicolas answered. "Mr. Holmes did not die in Switzerland."

I pointedly walked away. However slowly, the gesture adequately made my point. Nicolas would not do this to me, so I must either be dreaming or hallucinating. Only time would tell which, but until it did, I refused to fall for it. Believing an imaginary return always left me more alone when it finally ended.

A gesture made my candle spark of its own volition. "You are not dreaming, John."

Alright. Nicolas did not usually make his magic quite so apparent. Uncommon while awake meant extremely rare in a dream, so while I had no idea why he had decided to play along, I must be hallucinating a miraculous return in front of Nicolas.

So much for a relaxing day.

"Watson."

I nearly tripped over the rug. His voice had not been that accurate in years, and my grip on my cane tightened, using the carved wood as a ground to avoid slipping into the past when memory bloomed. The visions I welcomed when alone I usually tried to postpone when Nicolas was nearby.

The memory continued to press, however. If I could not delay the memory, I would need to push him out of range.

"Leave me alone, Nicolas. I'll probably see you at supper later."

"Watson," Holmes said again. Steady strides carried the hallucination ever closer. "Watson, you are not imagining me. Moriarty had a lieutenant he ordered to target you if I survived. Moran aimed at you from the moment you rounded that final bend in the path. I could not reveal myself without him killing us both."

I pretended to rifle through the wardrobe. My first dreams had envisioned everything from Holmes walking into my practice to Mycroft informing us that his brother was alive and in hiding, but I had not imagined such a scenario in years. What could have caused a speculatory vision today?

My illness, perhaps, I decided as yet another cough tried to double me over. I braced myself on the wardrobe. My fever had sparked every memory from our first meeting to the falls, and I still was not back to where I had been when I arrived at the Pole. The loss of so many of my barriers could have brought those futile wishes to the fore, but Holmes moved closer before I could think on it further.

"Watson, look at me." One hand reached for my shoulder, and I abandoned the wardrobe to head for the office. If watching Mary's attempts to touch me hurt, Holmes' twisted a knife in my chest. The pain would do nothing to keep that memory at bay.

"Watson, please—"

No. Not until he returned to the hallucination I did not have to acknowledge. I dug through my desk, searching for something I remembered seeing my first night here.

"John, stop pretending you are deaf. I know you can hear him."

Nicolas did not have to see my face to know I had rolled my eyes. "Of course I can hear it, and I know you can't. You're just picking the thought from my mind. You know I hate it when you do that."

Where was it? I was running out of time, and if Nicolas would not leave, I needed a different plan.

Holmes tried to move in front of me as Nicolas quickly shook his head. "I am not. My errand today was to meet him in Thurso. He is really here."

"We both know he's dead, Nicolas, and I never would have thought you one for cruelty. Go away."

"No, and no one will bother us, either." A gesture locked the doors before footsteps in the hallway could come any closer. They faded as Holmes tried to catch my attention yet again. I ignored him.

"John, stop looking for the pen. I removed it days ago."

I finally looked past the dead detective to scowl at him, now gripping a splinter to stay in the present. "Why?"

"Why do you think?" he retorted. He gently pulled my hand away from the sharp spot, the silent rebuke clearly conveying his opinion of my actions. With my injuries not bothering me as much as they had in London, the concentrated, physical pain of a splinter or a sharp pen did wonders to keep me in the present, as he well knew, but I had no chance to argue with him. A glimpse of Holmes abruptly negated my efforts.

"Watson."

Something in his voice caught my attention, and I quickly wiped my pen.

"Coming, Holmes."

The large rabbit willingly curled in my desk drawer, disappearing as I crossed the room. They knew to hide from Holmes.

"What is it?"

Curiosity flipped to concern as I opened the door. My friend leaned against the frame, his face much paler than it should have been. His right hand tightly gripped his bleeding left side.

I reached to steady him as he paled further. "What did you do?"

"I…" His reply trailed off as his eyes lost focus. He blinked several times, then swallowed and tried again, neglecting to protest when I moved to better support him. "I believe I—need sti…" The words faded once more as he swayed, then slumped against me.

"Holmes!"

"You are not there anymore, John. Come back."

No answer, and his pulse raced beneath my fingers. Shoving a loose bandage out of the way found three deep gouges on the left side of his back. He had obviously tried to treat it himself, but he would never have been able to reach the spot to stitch the wound. I was fortunate he had made it up the stairs.

"Where is he?"

"Treating you for an injury at Baker Street. Listen to me, John. You need to come back."

I needed only a few minutes to suture the wound with the supplies I kept in my desk, and a tight bandage further stemmed the bleeding. With no way of knowing how much blood he had lost, I could not guess when he might wake, but I could watch him in my room easier than trying to get him to the sitting room. Several rabbits helped me get him onto my bed, and I cleaned the floor then settled in to wait. With any luck, this misadventure would not make us miss our train tomorrow.

"Focus on my voice, John. You are not there anymore."

A different room overlaid my vigil, and callused fingers gripped mine. The memory faded as Nicolas came into view.

"John, can you hear me?"

Yes, but I could not yet respond, as usual. I sat in my desk chair, Nicolas kneeling in front of me. His relief provided a strange contrast to Holmes' renewed concern, and dulled irritation bloomed. Most hallucinations did not continue after a regression. What would it take to get rid of him?

"Accept he is real, then convince me you do not want him around," Nicolas replied. "If you would simply look at him instead of towards him, John, you would realize he is as solid as I am. How many times have you specified their transparency?"

Enough, I admitted silently, but I pulled myself to my feet without answer. I did not need to look. Even if he had accepted the magical world—which he would not have—he could not be here. He was dead. I had killed him.

"You did not."

Huffed disagreement sent me into a spasmic cough, and I moved to the other side of the desk when Holmes reached for me again. Pain and longing already made his presence a study in contradictions. I did not want to watch him try to touch me.

"You have grown more stubborn over the years," he informed me. "What can I do to convince you I am real?"

Nothing. I had stopped falling for the "miraculous return" hallucinations years ago. At least with the furniture between us, he could not grab for my shoulder.

"There must be something," Nicolas insisted, frowning. "He is real, John. He had to go into hiding to protect you."

No. He died because I abandoned him. What about a bout of pneumonia could have made my hallucinations so powerful?

"You are not hallucinating."

"If I had shown myself, you would be dead," Holmes said simultaneously. "Do you remember the rock fall? Moriarty was aiming for you, not me. Same for the fire at Baker Street the night before we left. If we had gone to the flat that night, where would you have slept?"

On the settee. I would have wanted to be between Holmes and the entrance, but what did that have to do with anything?

"The flames started in the cushion, Watson. Either Moran or Moriarty set a time-release charge that lit one of the pillows. Instead of Mrs. Hudson putting out the flames, I would have been treating you for full thickness burns at best."

And watching me die at worst. I struggled through another coughing fit as Holmes took a cautious step closer.

"I stole this from your dresser while you were with a patient."

A small piece of paper almost hesitantly moved into my direct line of sight, and familiar fingers set it on the desk where I had no choice but to see it.

One glimpse captured my attention. A case had taken us to a photographer's studio, but only a stubborn refusal to leave had convinced Holmes to sit for a photo. I had kept that picture in my dresser for years before it went missing, but with another, older picture still in my possession, I had not thought of that one in far too long.

How could a hallucination have produced it?

"Watson?"

I said nothing, still studying the picture that had disappeared in the aftermath of Holmes' death. The visions usually chose half-forgotten memories as their center, not abandoned belongings. Even my illness should not have changed the trend.

More important than that, however, was the picture's appearance. The paper carried more creases than I recalled, but however a hallucination might have manufactured the dingy picture, it could not make the table's grain completely disappear behind the paper. The glossy photo looked strangely solid.

"Pick it up, John."

No. Not yet, but I also could not tear my gaze away. Could I have fallen asleep after all? Was this simply a new variation of an old dream? I did not remember growing tired, but I had been sick recently. I still took long naps at strange times.

"You are not dreaming. Pick it up."

I cautiously prodded one wrinkled corner. When paper moved beneath my nail, I rested a finger on the edge. Midday light glinted on the glossy surface firm beneath my touch. Impossible.

Possible. A shaking hand carefully picked up the photo that did not vanish with the contact, and I stared. The floor disappeared behind it. A frayed edge felt soft against my hand. One fingernail caught a crease. It looked real and felt real. Could it be real?

And what did that say about Holmes?

"Watson?"

He stood next to me, reaching for my arm yet again, and I evaded him. Not yet. I would not risk that yet, but I could no longer discount it completely. True or not, I had to know. I slowly turned to look.

Grey eyes stared back at me. He wore a rougher, more casual suit typical of his travel clothes, he had missed a spot shaving, and his hair was longer than he used to prefer. Bags beneath his eyes revealed a recent shortage of sleep, but the slightest slump of his shoulders indicated a more mental wearing out than a physical. I faintly noted the concern creasing his forehead, but I focused instead on the opposite wall—that I could not see. I could not see through him, and the window cast his shadow. When Nicolas pointedly stepped behind him, Holmes blocked even the immortal's bright red travel coat.

My vision flickered concurrent to Holmes' cry of alarm.

Progress! Finally. Maybe? What do you think? Hope you enjoyed!

And a huge thanks to MCH1987 and Cc for your reviews last chapter :)