"Holmes!" I said again. My free hand clutched his arm in mirror image of how I only just noticed Holmes gripping me. "Holmes!" I tried to say more, to do something other than repeat my friend's name, but the words refused to form. I had no idea from where he had come, but I could think of no better view than to see the friend I had thought dead kneeling in front of me.

Pleasure battled worry in his gaze, and I wondered why. I did not try to ask, however, stealing quick glances around the room while never daring to let him out of my sight. My last hazy memory had been Baker Street, then, more clearly, that long train ride home. How had I gotten to Kensington?

It did not matter, I decided. What mattered was my friend still kneeling in front of me, and I squeezed the hand in mine.

"How—When—" I could not form a coherent question, and I paused, intending to try again. The falls pushed themselves to the front of my thoughts, however, and I abandoned the failed question to push the unbearable image aside. He was here. The memory could not be true.

"Watson. Watson, look at me."

Mary leaned heavily on my right shoulder as Holmes appeared in my line of sight, worry still quite visible. "I am here," he told me as if repeating himself. "I am not dead. You did not kill me."

No. Please, no. Not again. Whether the falls was reality or dream, not even he could read my thoughts that well. He could not know what I had realized at that cliffside waterfall. Could I have fallen asleep? Was I dreaming again? I had no idea how many times I had seen him fall just before I reached him, but the number probably equaled the times he had returned only to evaporate the moment I believed his claims.

"You are awake, Watson. You are not dreaming, nor are you hallucinating."

I hoped not. I very much hoped not, but how could I be sure? How could I know he would not vanish the moment I decided I believed him?

I could not. Better not to believe him, but the hand gripping my arm gave a small shake the moment the thought arose.

"Stay with me, Watson. You are needed here."

I need you here, that seemed to say, but the induction could not be true. My friend needed no one, especially not me. It was the other way around. He had done just fine without me for the last year, while the first day after Switzerland had shown just how little I was worth without him.

First day? The time frame prodded at me, and I left the question of belief for a moment. If the first day had shown that, what about the days since? How many days had passed since that horrific afternoon?

I had no idea. Hazy memories of being led from place to place came to the fore, but time had not mattered as much as the knowledge that my friend was gone because of me. I tightened my grip on Holmes' hand instead of trying to ask, wishing that would prove this was real.

"I am here," he said again, and I wondered at his willingness to repeat himself. "Stay with me."

Not if he was a dream. I would not fall for that again. It was bad enough watching him fall so many times from that height. I had no wish to fall still deeper when the dream ended yet again, but he continued clutching me, giving my arm another small shake when I looked away.

So I tried the opposite tack. I allowed the faintest hope, intending to use it to end the dream. The smallest spark would not drop me far when it extinguished, and perhaps when I woke for real, someone could prove that ghastly image of the falls a dream as well.

The dream did not end, however. Holmes still knelt in front of me. Mary still leaned on my shoulder. Could he be real?

The hope that had started as the smallest intentional spark grew involuntarily large when he did not vanish, and relief plainly showed on his face when I willingly looked at him.

"What is the last thing you remember?"

Crashing water. Rocks. Loss. Pain.

"Switzerland." I glanced around again, returning to the previous question. If this was no dream, if Holmes was truly here, not dead, then what had the falls been? Was it just one long, horrible nightmare?

Possible, I allowed, and I hoped that was the truth. That would account for the presence of the dead man in front of me, but it still did not explain the deep lines only just beginning to fade from Mary's face.

The front door opened, then shut, and familiar footsteps carried down the hall.

"I packed for about a week, Mr. Holmes," Mrs. Hudson's voice said just before she reached the door. "I hope I didn't—well." She changed what she had been about to say as she came around the corner, and she stopped in the doorway, smiling widely at me. "Hello, Doctor. I am glad to see you back. Goodness knows—" Holmes adjusted, glancing at her, and understanding replaced the relieved smile. "I'll get you an early luncheon."

"Back?" I repeated as she quickly left. "So I di—" The sentence faltered inexplicably, and I broke off, then forced myself to continue, "did dream it?"

"Dream what?"

"Switzerland." I looked around the room, trying to decide what might have happened.

"No, Watson. You did not dream it. I have been presumed dead for two weeks."

Two…weeks? No. It had to be less than that. I had just made it home yesterday. Or maybe the day before. I had not lost a fortnight.

Right?

Vague memories came of voices asking…something. Of pleas. Of pain. Of conversation. Of loss. Of a familiar presence. Of death. Of knowing.

Murderer!

"No," Holmes said quickly. "Whatever you are thinking, it is not true."

I had abandoned him, my dearest friend, left him to die at the hands of the most dangerous criminal we had ever chased. He should not want to be near me. I was a deserter. Untrustworthy traitor. Murderer!

"Watson!"

Pain lanced through my shoulder, physical and far weaker than the less tangible ache spawned by that horrible realization, and I found terrified grey eyes less than a foot from mine. Relief appeared when I focused on him, but horror shot through me. If the falls was no dream, then neither were my actions.

"Left you." The partial sentence came of its own volition, releasing whatever had held the rest at bay, and thoughts flowed though I fought to stop them. "I abandoned you. Left you to die. I should have stayed with you, should have been there, should have known!" I dropped my grip on his arm and tried to release his hand. He did not want to touch me, could not want contact with the one that had betrayed him. I had chosen a terminal stranger over the one I had sworn to protect, had broken my promise in the worst of ways.

"No! Watson!"

Hands grabbed at mine, fighting for the contact I fought to escape. Why was he even here? Alive or not, he should not want to be anywhere close to me.

"Watson, listen to me!"

Pain spiked in my shoulder again, strong enough to pause my struggle, and he immediately held my hands in his.

"You did not leave me," he said quickly, placing himself directly in my line of sight. "I sent you away. You did not betray me. I wrote that note. You did not abandon me. You did not desert me. You did not break your promise."

"Should have seen," I repeated, fighting his grip. "Should have known. I saw him. He came from the other direction. I saw him, but I kept walking!"

I finally got my hands free again, and I tried to pull away from him. My friend had never welcomed physical contact anyway, and I knew he could not want to touch me. I was a traitor. I had deserted him, left him for dead.

Murderer!

"No!"

Slender arms wrapped around me from the side, thwarting my increasingly faltering struggles with her embrace, and Mary buried her face in my neck to fill my awareness with the scent of her hair rinse.

"Listen to him, John. Please."

What was there to listen to? I had deserted him. He should not want to be near me. I needed to give him the space he should want, but she held me too tightly to fight her off. I finally stilled, panting. Why was I so weak?

That did not matter either, I decided. More important was getting Holmes away from me. He could not want me. I had destroyed our friendship, irrevocably betrayed him. I would not inflict my presence on him, but even if I could break Mary's hold, I was not strong enough to leave my chair.

"Go," I choked out, burying my face in the fabric so I did not have to watch him leave. "Go. Get out of here. Get away from me!"

"No." With Mary pinning my arms, he easily renewed his grip on my hands, and he cupped them in his own as Mary readjusted to keep one arm around my shoulders. "I am not leaving. I do not want to leave, and you do not want me to either."

"Don't lie to me!" I fired back, surprised hurt making me look at him. Confusion in his gaze prompted me to continue, no matter that each word grew progressively harder. "Of course you w-want to leave. You shouldn't w-want to be n-near me. I l-left you. Be—be…trayed…you… Ki…kill…" I could not finish the phrase, and I finally stopped trying, letting the sentence trail away as I gradually relaxed into Mary's less confining hold. I had no idea how he was alive, but it was no thanks to me. I had believed a forged note, had left him to die. Wherever he had been since that day was my fault, and if he had truly died, that would have been my fault, too.

My fault. It was all because of me. I had sacrificed my dearest friend for a terminal stranger. My fault. Mea culpa. Mo locht. Mo choire. Ashtbah mn.

"WATSON!"

Strong hands gripped my shoulders, giving me a firm shake, and Holmes again appeared directly in front of me.

"Stay with me," he nearly pleaded when I looked at him, and I felt a frown turn my mouth. I had not gone anywhere, but I asked a question instead of saying as much.

"Why?" Confusion mixed with grief and something I hesitantly named as fear, and I decided I needed to elaborate. "Why are you still here? Why would you not want to leave? You shouldn't want to be here. You should hate me." I knew I did, but I refrained from saying that.

"I do not hate you," he said immediately. "I sent you away to protect you. I wrote that note, Watson. I paid that boy a shilling to get you back to the inn the moment he saw Moriarty coming, and he was nearly too late. Given another thirty seconds, Moriarty would have caught you at the entrance, and I would have heard a gunshot."

The last words came out inexplicably strangled, but I ignored that in favor of the numbed sort of understanding flooding me. "You…wrote the note."

"I did," he confirmed, repeating, "I sent you away to protect you. Do you remember anything I told you earlier?"

Earlier? I had woken to find him kneeling in front of me, then the last several minutes had been spent trying first to reorient myself then to let him go. When had he told me anything?

He read my answer without my having to speak it, and he described the fight with Moriarty, followed by long minutes trapped on the side of a cliff while I decided he was dead.

"I returned as quickly as I could," he finished. "I swear. I caught the first train north the moment Moran's death reached me."

"The lieutenant."

"Yes," he answered. "Moriarty's lieutenant. One of Mycroft's guards caught him, and he resisted. The report found me in Interlaken early yesterday morning."

Interlaken. Interlaken was in Switzerland, not many miles from Reichenbach and about a fifteen-hour train ride from London, if I remembered the schedules correctly. If he had taken the first train, why had it taken him over twenty-four hours to get here?

Had he just lied to me?

"Watson. Watson, look at me." A frown appeared when he saw the hurt I could not hide. "What is it?"

I stared at him for a moment, debating whether I wanted to call him on it.

"You took the first train?" I finally asked, and he nodded, still studying me. "Yesterday morning." He nodded again. "The train from Interlaken is not a thirty-hour trip, Holmes."

"It is not," he agreed, his frown fading behind understanding. "I got here last night."

The pieces clicked into place. My physical weakness, the hazy memories, the too-real visions, they all fit to form a complete picture.

"Brain fever."

"Yes." His hands wrapped again around mine, squeezing gently. "You have been ill since the day you returned." He watched me, somehow showing no signs of discomfort at such a conversation. "I owe you so many apologies, my dear Watson," he murmured. "I should have planned that day better, should have prepared for the possibility of Moran's threat."

No. Please, no. Not that, too. If he should have planned the day better, then he had planned it to begin with. He had planned that. He had planned to leave me behind, guilty of murder. He had not wanted me.

I had somehow broken his trust. Even before I had left him on that cliff, I had broken the trust it had taken me years to build. That was why—

"Stop, Watson. Stop. You are far too stubborn." He pressed my hands yet again, waiting for me to look at him before he continued, "I trust you completely. My plan had been to send you back to the inn long enough to subdue Moriarty. Moran was supposed to come with his master, and it would have been a duel. I knew Moriarty understood nothing of fighting techniques, and I expected to win more easily than I did. Then, for all that he was Moriarty's lieutenant, Moran's military background had instilled enough honor that he would have respected a rightly won duel. The Yard knew nothing of Moran, and provided Moran swore to disappear, the Yard would never have known anything. Moran did only what Moriarty told him, and without his master, the tiger hunter would have settled quietly in some rural part of India. The problem arose when Moran was late. Something had kept him at the train station, and they had been separated. He did not witness the terms of our fight, only the result. Instead of meeting you at the entrance to the canyon, ready to continue to Rosenlaui, I was hiding as Moran aimed his air gun at you the moment you came around the bend in the path. I could only watch you trace my footprints to the edge of the cliff."

And foolishly decide he was dead, I finished, as if an ageing professor could truly kill my friend. I was a blind fool, unable to move past the initial evidence and think to look up. I had been so busy hoping to spy Holmes clinging to a rock that I had failed to see him lying on one.

"You are far too stubborn," he said again. "How do I impress upon you that nothing that happened that day was your fault?"


Stubborn, stubborn Watson. Changing one's thinking can be so hard.

Hope you're enjoying, and don't forget to drop a review! Thanks to those who did so on the last chapter :)