Minutes passed in silence as he fought off the comparison. Watson was alive, ill but alive. He was not dead. He would not die. He would recover. He would come back just as Holmes had.
Holmes just needed to figure out how to reach him.
A knock sounded on the front door, pulling him out of the thoughts insisting he check Watson's pulse, and Mrs. Hudson dropped the duster she had been pretending to use on the table behind him. Several young voices spoke over each other as soon as the door opened, the obvious question completely incomprehensible due to their noise.
"Yes!" Mrs. Hudson finally cut through the din, and they silenced immediately. "The younger Mr. Holmes is alive, but he is with the doctor right now. Wait here."
He gained his feet as she came down the hall, meeting her in the doorway. "The Irregulars?" he asked.
"Who else?" She made no effort to kill the smile that had not faded since he arrived. "They all want to see you, but we have been keeping the sitting room quiet."
He glanced back at his friend, then opened the door wide and stepped into the hall. "Send them here." The hall would keep the noise lower in the sitting room while also letting him stay within Watson's sight and hearing.
She disappeared toward the front of the house, and many small feet stormed the hall a moment later.
"Mr. Holmes! Mr. Holmes!"
Some seven or eight of the oldest Irregulars crowded around him, pushing uncomfortably close in their excitement as their happy chorus filled the hall. A hand slipped into his pocket, and he gently caught the wrist.
"I doubt you will find anything," he told the grinning boy, "and I want it back if you do."
"It is you!"
He had no idea which child had said it, but he suddenly found himself pushed against the wall, wrapped in a chaotic, unwilling hug by a group of excited children. Black ribbons and bands quickly fell to the floor—some of them after bouncing off the ceiling.
"When you gonna start cases again?"
"My mum fainted when my uncle sat up in his coffin. Did Mrs. Hudson faint when she opened the door?"
"What did the doctor do?"
"Was he very glad to see you?"
"Does your brother know? He'll be glad, too, though he'd never show it."
"I can't believe you're here!"
"Don't you remember what you told me when I ran away?"
"Don't do that again!"
Questions and happy exclamations swirled around him, the next coming before he had a hope of answering the first, and he rode out the hug instead of trying. Slight embarrassment appeared when they realized they had nearly tackled him, but no one apologized as they took a step back.
"Are you goin' back to Baker Street?"
"Eventually," he replied. "I will be staying here until Watson recovers."
They visibly deflated as a group, and a frown competed with Tom's happy relief. "He's still not listening?"
"Not yet, but he will. Is everything alright at the courtyard?"
Every child nodded quickly. "The littles started screaming when Jackson got back from the station," Tom supplied. "The noise brought the rest of us out of cubbies and nearby alleys, and he told us to run for here when we didn't believe him."
Cubbies and alleys. They should have been Running the streets even this late in the evening, and that said more than the grins remaining on every child's face.
A small hand carefully reached out to touch his, and he ended the hesitant contact by putting his hand on the boy's shoulder.
"I will keep you updated as I may," he promised, glancing back towards the hearth. "Tell Jackson to station someone outside if he has not already, but I need to return to Watson."
They agreed in an indecipherable clamor, and the door slammed behind them a moment later. He returned to the sitting room.
"Anything?"
Mary shook her head, fighting to hide her worry that even the Irregular's volume had not reached Watson.
"Not even a twitch. I had hoped—"
She firmly shut her mouth, swallowing the troubled words, and he knelt in front of Watson again. There must be something he could do.
"Watson, look at me."
His friend never stopped staring through the far wall, and he moved in the way of that empty gaze, taking the doctor's hand.
"Watson, you need to come back."
Still no response. That hollow blankness was worse than the shattered grief he had seen in Switzerland, and he started talking, saying anything that came to mind in the hopes of reaching his friend.
"I went west from the falls that day, following the mountains past Rosenlaui in the general direction of Interlaken. Switzerland is more rugged than I knew. Have you ever tried to climb a mountain in a snowstorm? Apparently, the higher elevations can get snow year-round, and I was not prepared for a blizzard in May. I reached the next inn with snow stuck everywhere. You would have laughed heartily when one of the village children piped that I looked like a walking snowman.
"Did you know Rosenlaui is tiny? It is much smaller than the innkeeper made it out to be, more a collection of huts than a town. It was ridiculously easy to avoid on my way west.
"I see you kept the note I left at the falls. I wish I could have alerted you that day, but I could not. Not without putting you in danger with me. You were exposed and unprepared, and I could not risk it.
"Are you listening to me? I returned as soon as I could, Watson. You can thank Mycroft later for helping me take care of Moran so quickly. He found the tiger hunter. All I did was read the death report in Interlaken. I have no idea how he found the blackguard so quickly, but I am glad he did. Do you think he could find you? Could he trace wherever you have gone? Where are you, Watson? Can you even hear me? You need to come back."
The stream of thoughts faltered, and he watched, hoping, praying for a response. The train ride from Interlaken had taken over fourteen hours, but that felt like the barest moment compared to waiting for Watson to look at him. The doctor still did not move.
Mary's hand landed on his shoulder. "It is alright, Sherlock. He will come back eventually."
No. That was not good enough. "Eventually" could be in an hour or in a month.
Or never, a small voice reminded him. Brain fever did not always exhibit physical symptoms, and the normal temperature was no indication that Watson would pull out of this. Some people never did, their bodies quietly following where their mind had already gone. That could not happen, not to Watson. He had come back for Watson; Watson needed to come back to him, and he continued talking, moving, touching, doing anything he could conceive that might reach his friend.
But nothing he tried worked. Talking did nothing, touch brought no response, and Watson did not even look at him when he started playing—then scratching—on the violin someone had brought from Baker Street. His friend had locked himself in his own mind and refused to come out.
He eventually gave up for the moment, and the long evening passed in worried conversation with Mary and Mrs. Hudson.
Don't forget to review! :) Thanks to Guest, Corynutz, and MCH1987 for the reviews on chapter 3
Guest: lol, I suppose that works
MCH1987: you might be right. too bad Holmes never took up hockey
