"John?"
The voice intruded on the darkness, pushing its comfort away. I frowned and tried to ignore the disturbance. I wanted to sleep.
"Watson? Can you hear me?"
Holmes. Worried Holmes. That was strange. Had I entered another memory already? They usually waited for me to wake up a touch more.
"Open your eyes, John."
Why? I had been deeply asleep, and my covers were warm. If I was going to be foolish enough to fall for an imagined reunion, could I not at least see the reunion in its entirety before the dream ended?
Apparently not. Movement roused me further, and cold fingers squeezed mine though the warmth came from a person rather than blankets. A sturdy arm wrapped gently around my chest. Had it been a regression rather than sleep? I did not recall a memory taking over, but I did not always. Nicolas could have prevented me from wandering.
Wait a minute. If the warmth behind me could only be Nicolas, then who gripped my hand?
Holmes knelt in front of me this time, a slight frown escaping as I blinked him into focus. Hallucinations did not block my view of the opposite wall, nor could they grasp my hand so firmly. How could Holmes have followed me to the Pole?
Concern morphed into remorse. "I am not dead, Watson, and I am sorry I had to make you believe I was."
The words destroyed that fleeting hope. My friend stumbled over apologies. He did not deliver them in a sad tone without a single sign of discomfort. The dream had simply changed scenes. I needed to get out of here.
"No." He refused to release my hand. "No, I am not letting you free. I will stay until you accept that I am real."
And leave immediately after, I finished. If something looked too good to be true, it probably was. I was dreaming, hallucinating his form over another person's, something. Better to escape now, and I fought harder.
"You are far too stubborn," Holmes informed me, his other hand coming up to cup mine. "What do I have to do to convince you I am real?"
If only he could be. I would give anything to have my friend back, but it would never happen. I had abandoned him. He was dead.
"I am not." His immediate rebuttal announced I had unintentionally spoken aloud. "Watson, please. Listen to me. Moriarty did not write that note. I did. I paid that boy a shilling to draw you away. Moriarty would have shot you on sight, but facing him alone meant he agreed to a duel, which I knew I would win. Then, for all that he was Moriarty's lieutenant, the military had instilled enough honor in Moran that he would have respected a rightly won duel."
I made no answer, still fighting to free my hand. Whether the assertion was true or not, it could not be accurate. If Moran had been aiming at me, then he had not respected the duel. Regardless of how my mind had conjured the information, Holmes was dead. How could I end this dream?
He merely gripped me tighter. "The problem arose when Moran arrived late. He saw only the results of our duel and channeled his grief into revenge on me. Instead of waiting for you at the entrance to the canyon, I could only hide on a rock while you decided I was dead. I have been running from him ever since."
Running through my dreams to haunt my house, more like. Holmes could not be here, and I would not fall for the illusion again. Anything would be better than falling for the illusion again. Would a wandering walk through town get rid of him?
Unlikely. It never had before, and I doubted Nicolas would let me leave my room with that goal in mind, anyway. I continued trying to free my hand. Perhaps if I fought hard enough, I could jolt myself out of the dream.
Or perhaps a cough would do it for me. A tickle rose in my chest, forcing me to halt my struggling. I watched for him to dissolve, but Holmes' frown merely deepened when the initial cough turned into a spasm that left me breathlessly leaning against Nicolas.
"Why will you not believe me?"
Because he was false, an illusion. A dream. Holmes did not apologize, did not believe in magic, and did not want me around. Alive or dead, I had still betrayed him, still fallen for a forged note when I should have stayed by his side. He could not be here.
"You are wrong." Nicolas gave me a shake. "You are wrong, and I have been telling you as much for over a week. He can be here, and he is here. I left a note in Baker Street while you packed. Mr. Holmes followed a rabbit to the Polar Line, which he rode with Tor and Drofelbrek to Thurso. As humans cannot take the last part of the journey, he waited in the Family Suite of Gorfunkle Motel until I could leave you long enough to fetch him. What magical creatures did you meet, Mr. Holmes?"
"Elves, nisse, faeries, dwarves, nymphs, lutins, a pixie, and several creatures a dwarf called 'hobgoblins,'" he listed easily. "Oh, and the sylphs guarding the bridge. Several canaries flew in and out of windows, and I saw a rabbit trying to catch an elf's attention. What are the color-changing lizards?"
"Painting," Nicolas answered when I merely stared. "Do you believe me now, John?"
I made no answer, still staring as I covered a cough in my shirt. I doubted Nicolas would have acknowledged another person as "Mr. Holmes," and this contained far more detail than any dream I had experienced over the years. As hallucinations could not touch me, either I had gone insane—well, more insane—or...
I could not finish the thought, but I did not need to. Nicolas had caught enough.
"You are not insane."
Yes, I was. Most doctors would have put me in an asylum after seeing my first rabbit at age six, but the insanity of seeing the magical did not necessarily equate the insanity of seeing a dead man. Why would Holmes search for the one that had betrayed him?
"You did not betray me," Holmes contradicted after Nicolas evidently relayed my silent question. "I wrote that note. I sent you away on purpose, Watson, knowing exactly who was coming, and I went into hiding to protect you. Mycroft has been following me for nearly a month, trying to catch up so we could take care of Moran. He succeeded the day before you left with Mr. Kringle."
Kris Kringle. I had not heard the surname in a while, but if Holmes was already on his way back to London, why had Nicolas convinced me to come here? And what "addendum" could have allowed him to come?
"You know I cannot watch the human world every moment," Nicolas answered. "When I had last looked, the elder Mr. Holmes was still too far away to help. From here, all I knew was that you had stopped getting out of bed, and he was still a several hours' train ride away at minimum. I did not learn of his imminent return until just before we wandered the gardens. We ran out of time before I could tell you. Then you fell sick, and you broke the dreamscape when I tried again last night. He is alive, John."
"You did not kill me. You did not betray me. You did not abandon me." One hand moved to my shoulder though he continued watching me. "Do I really need to repeat myself?"
Amusement bubbled at his wry smirk. Holmes did not apologize, but he also did not repeat himself. The question sounded much closer to the Holmes I remembered, and I slowly pushed myself off the floor. My gaze never left him though both he and Nicolas steadied me to my feet.
"You are really here?" The words came out somewhere between wary question and incredulous statement, but he nodded anyway.
"I am."
My hesitantly outstretched hand landed on his firm shoulder. As hallucinations could not touch me, so I could not touch dreams, and shocked amazement rendered me unable to do anything but stare. Holmes stood in front of me, alive, not dead, in the middle of the Pole with Father Christmas.
What could have possessed him to travel to the place he had once ridiculed?
"Do I truly need to relay that?"
I could not answer even silently, and Holmes scowled at me before I could decide what to reply.
"You, of course," he said in a tone that added, you idiot. "Three years of exile, and I return the day you disappear. I had the Irregulars and several of my old contacts searching for you before darkness fell. I hope those children mob you like they did me."
I frowned, letting my hand fall off his shoulder to cover a cough in my shirt. How would they mob me? Why would they mob me?
"You—" The question caught, and worry resurfaced as he swallowed and tried again, "You are coming home, are you not?"
Home. Where was home? I enjoyed the Pole, when I was not sick, but Nicolas had too many other things to do. He did not need to deal with me.
"You are welcome to stay if you wish, John. You should know that by now."
Yes, but this was not home. I had called London home once. With Mary. With Holmes, but London had not been home in months. I did not want to go back to that empty house. What did he mean by 'home'?
"Baker Street. Will you come back to Baker Street?"
Baker Street. With Mrs. Hudson. With Holmes. Quiet evenings in the sitting room. Long nights in my upstairs bedroom. The occasional case. Lestrade's spontaneous visits. I had called that home once, too, but I had not in years. Not with Holmes gone.
Mrs. Hudson probably thought me dead by now, anyway. I could not go back there.
"Why not? She thought me dead until last week. One would think she would grow used to it."
The barest hint of a smile tried to turn my mouth. Mrs. Hudson would color his eye for such a comment, but that did not mean she would want a walking ghost in her house.
"She told me to bring you home," he disagreed, "and she recognized Mr. Kringle's note. She does not believe you dead, Watson. Neither does Lestrade. Come with me."
I wanted to. I wanted nothing more, but I still hesitated, what ifs swirling in my mind. He had let me think him dead for three years, and he had avoided me for a year before that. Following me to the Pole was probably simple curiosity, but could it mean he wanted me to return? I would not go where I was not wanted, no matter my own preference. Would I return to London only to find myself alone again?
Grief flickered, then strengthened as Nicolas relayed my thoughts.
"No." The steadying hand on my arm abruptly moved back to my shoulder. "No, Watson. I was not avoiding you, and I will not deceive you again. I swear. I followed you because I want you to come home."
Searching for way to find home again.
The words filtered out of a distant memory. They somehow called to mind restless pacing and unending questions, but I had no memory of ever hearing them.
"You dreamed that, John. That was the last line of the song Tor paired with several conversations from the train."
Fragments of memory drifted forward at the comment. Tor and Drofelbrek, bickering as they always did. Holmes, pacing fit to wear a hole in the carpet. Tor, shaking his head apologetically. Holmes, face twisted in utter scorn.
"That was false," Nicolas interjected. "I said you broke the dreamscape, remember? The magic shattered when your perspective changed."
Which had been when worry flipped to scorn, I realized. So Holmes had spent a day's train ride harassing a nisse and a dwarf for answers. How had he escaped that in one piece?
"They were too busy arguing," he replied, wry humor failing to cover continued fear, but footsteps scurried across the bedroom before he could continue.
"There ye are, laddie. I—" Tor broke off mid word as he came into sight, then a wide grin split his face. "I was jus' gonna tell ye I'm headin' back home. Guess ye're too?"
Holmes looked at me expectantly, obviously wondering the same thing, but I hesitated. Could I take the risk?
Yes, I decided. The solstice was less than two months out. If everything fell apart or I discovered he was lying to me, I could always come back.
The smile that split Holmes' face announced he would never let me reach that train.
Only one more chapter to go! Can hardly believe this one's almost done, lol. Don't forget to drop your thoughts, and thank you to those than did on the last chapter :)