From Michael JG Meathook: After suffering a traumatic brain injury, Sherlock has to face the possibility of losing his capability as the world's greatest detective.

"It could have been worse." That is what the doctors tell me, over and over, as I recover slowly in the Charing Cross ward. "You could easily have died. It's a miracle you didn't succumb to a coma."

Watson, the only doctor whose word I have ever trusted, doesn't demand gratitude from me. He says only,

"You may yet recover. With time and work..."

"What if I don't?"

"Then we shall have to think on what comes next."

It takes 8 months before I return to Baker Street, and still my mind is not what it was. I am less exacting about my former "brain attic"; any memory, logic or knowledge is sacred. Slowly, my mind begins to coalesce. Lestrade brings some simple robberies and I solve them from my armchair - I am still Sherlock Holmes after all - but it isn't the same.

My hand eye coordination is shot. I miss the violin, and my chemistry table, which I can only use for the simplest, safest of experiments. Watson, temporarily and with his wife's blessing, has moved back into the upstairs room to keep an eye on me and aid in my recovery. When I make a half hearted joke about his second career as a nursemaid, he reminds me that general practitioner is already a second career. He used to be an army surgeon, after all.

He leaves for work and I think on his own, long recovery. His leg and shoulder still pain him to this day and he bears it with patience I cannot seem to muster. I resolve to try harder and count my blessings (Watson among them).

Mary Watson suffers a miscarriage. It isn't too serious, having come very early in the pregnancy, or so Watson assures both Mrs Hudson and I.

"In truth, I am glad," he confides in me later that evening over brandy and cigars. He has had to light mine for me, as it has been a 'bad day', and for whatever reason I could not get my extremities to cooperate no matter how hard I tried. "I have had my doubts over whether she could bear a child to full term. She seems so frail these days..."

"You should be with her," I suggest gently. "And I... I must leave."

"Leave? Leave where? Leave London?"

"Leave the country." I don't know when this idea has formed, but it must have been brewing somewhere in my broken mind for quite some time. "The cases I can work bring me no enjoyment. I am not my brother; a life of inanition holds no appeal."

"So what would you do instead?"

"Travel."

Watson inhales on his cigar, in deep thought. "What about the bad days? When you cannot light your own pipe?"

I shrug. "I shall not smoke. I have money enough to travel comfortably. And you have other priorities."

"You know it is no burden-"

"But it burdens me." I stub out my cigar, trembling fingers a stark reminder of my weakness. "I am grateful, Watson, truly. For your support, for all you have done. But I must live independently. I must forge a new life for myself."

"I could come with you."

"Your wife-"

He raises a hand. "To begin with, I mean. Not permanently. I could join you for, say, the first month of your travels. Where did you think of going to first?"

"Switzerland."

"Switzerland it is then. If," he adds sternly, "you are certain this is what you really want?"

"It is," I tell him with earnest fervour. Now the idea has taken hold, I myself am quite taken with it. We toast to our plan, and to the next chapter of our separate lives.

"Who knows," Watson remarks, "perhaps the fresh mountain air of the alps may do you some good."

"Moriarty?" I scoff as we sit overlooking the great Reichenbach fall. "Really, Watson?"

"He is technically the reason for your departure-"

"But my death? He was just some lowlife who got lucky with a piece of lead piping." The spot he struck with said piping twinged as I remembered. "Hardly a dramatic ending."

"Oh I would rewrite him," Watson assures me. "A criminal mastermind, a Napolean of crime... You shall die, locked together, tumbling over the great Reichenbach fall."

"And where are you in this?"

"Duped by a simple ruse," he responds far too cheerily, handing over a roughly hewn sandwich from our picnic. "A medical emergency, a fake telegram to draw me away."

I scoff again, but accept the sandwich, my hands hardly trembling at all. A good day, today.

"It is dramatic," he accepts with equanimity, "but it will be sure to get the public off your back. You shall have the anonymity you desire."

"Oh very well," I huff. "But be very kind in your portrayal of me! I shan't have a funeral or eulogy or any of that, so this will have to serve as both."

I can just imagine the twinkle in Watson's eye, as I read his latest missive in Germany.

Dear Holmes,

Hope this was the sort of thing you had hoped for.

Watson

It is a copy of his latest, last Strand publication - The Adventure of the Final Problem. I skim most of it, romanticised drivel as it is, but my eyes stick on the last line: "the best and the wisest man whom I have ever known". I wonder if this is a eulogy after all. A eulogy of the man I was before the accident.

Watson would never have intended it as such, of course, and I have no wish to offend him. So I fire back a hasty letter of my own.

Dear Watson,

I suppose it will do.

Holmes