Solid Ground

Holmes has made it well known the extent to which he abhors the softer passions, and so I am careful not to offend him by the depth of my feelings with a set of rules I have established for myself.
On the other hand... Holmes rules, if there are any guidelines he ascribes to, apparently allow for watching me sleep in the early morning.

1883

I am not on solid ground. There is no moment I feel able to simply rest and be at peace with the fortune an otherwise tragic life has tossed my way. Yet, for the moment it is enough.

I have learned the importance of the moment. The moment is everything.

A brief smile of reassurance to a man about to undergo surgery, offering the only comfort available in a moment shared.

The sharp high pitched whistle of a bullet in flight, a moment before it shatters your future.

Moments are all we have, and so I cherish every one I have.

I have learnt to be careful with Holmes. If I ever made known the depth of feeling I harbour, I fear that would mark the end of his tolerance for me. He has made it well known the extent to which he abhors the softer passions. I can not change who he is and I will never make demands.

I choose my moments carefully.

I am insufferably polite, keeping a close rein on my temper for anger is passion. I allow myself to express delight in his deductions and wonderful mind, for that is the closest I will ever be to a declaration of my inner feelings. I follow the extraordinary delicacy of the touch of his hands upon his scientific instruments with my eyes only when I am certain his attention is safely focused elsewhere.

Those are the rules I have learned to follow, and I follow them devoutly.

If Holmes possesses a set of rules of his own in his daily interactions, apparently they allow for watching me sleep in the early morning.

I woke up to Holmes sitting fully dressed on the side of my bed. He tentatively touched my arm with his hand and drew back as I turned to look at him.

"What's wrong? Is there a fire?" This was my much overused and completely honest reaction.

He smiled at my exclamation and I grinned back. I smelled no smoke. Not a fire. There had indeed been a fire in the middle of the night a year past; an interesting story I will tell another time. "What is it?"

"I am sorry to wake you, but there is a client waiting who may interest you. Get dressed. I will wait."

Wait. What?

He stepped aside as I pushed myself up, but he did not leave. That was strange for him and somewhat uncomfortable for me, but I did not ask him to leave.

I have two confessions:
1. I am terribly desperate for attention.
2. I am more stubborn than ashamed.

Getting up in the morning is not an easy task for me. A stiffness settles into my old wounds overnight that makes the first movements of wakefulness exceedingly painful to endure as my body warms up and starts functioning again. There is a reason Holmes asks me to rush when there is need to depart quickly.

I reminded myself yet again that my body has not always been the wretched scarred thing it was turned into through injury and illness. If only I had known Holmes back then…

Be that as it may, this is who I am now.

He passed me my clothes, and I accepted without a word. He watched as I slowly pulled on the sleeves of my shirt, and I studiously went about my task as though I were not being observed. There is a method to this. My left shoulder does not rotate as it should and extension is limited, this means that I can not simply reach backwards with my left arm to catch the other half of my shirt as I pull it on. The left arm must go through first with the assistance of my right, and then the right may follow. There are times, particularly the mornings when I am robbed of all semblance of grace, such as this morning, that the task becomes more difficult than it ought to be.

Holmes obligingly caught the end of my shirt and pulled it to meet my reaching hand, and I felt my cheeks grow warm as I blushed with embarrassment.

"Does it bother you?" He asked.

What part? The injury, the assistance, or his observation of it? I sighed. It mattered not. "No. Of course not." Yes. It was bad enough that I should lag so far behind Holmes intellectually, for even though I am educated and intelligent in my own right it is far from a match to his own powers of thought. Physically, I am at an even greater disadvantage. Though I have had a full two years to heal and I have made great progress in my recovery, in the eyes of society I am still considered an invalid incapable of meaningful employment. One day I will be myself again.

However, this is who I am at this moment.

I have no doubt about Holmes' friendship, but he is a logician, and logically I understood that our association would end if he had a more able assistant. It is to my benefit that he does not have someone better at his disposal and I am adequate as an occasional companion. I have the time to take notes and run simple errands. Even with the loss of my occupation it is a relief to be useful to someone.

As I fastened the buttons the fingers of my left hand started tingling and I found myself making a fist several times to subdue the tremors.

I may have cursed under my breath at the inconvenience of it. I do try and control my temper, but having Holmes witness my deficiency in something as simple as getting dressed was exceedingly aggravating and the frustration of it got the better of me.

Holmes sat down on the bed beside me. "Watson."

I shook out my hand and tried the buttons again. The fingers continued to be bothersome as I slowly continued my habille, and I found myself answering in a tone somewhat sharper than I had intended. "Yes?"

"You are remarkable."

I could only blink and wonder at the multiple uses of the word. "Remarkably what?" I asked, and braced myself for whatever onslaught of criticism might come.

Remarkably slow, remarkably useless, remarkably decrepit? Holmes had claimed there was an interesting client waiting in the sitting room and by now he was probably more than a little impatient to return.

He looked at me seriously and placed a hand over my uncooperative fingers, stilling their movements for just a moment. "Remarkably extraordinary."

It was a compliment I felt ill prepared to accept. I could think of nothing to answer. I can only imagine the shades of red my face became.

"The interview will commence when you are able to join us, I will wait for you in the sitting room." He said finally, stood up, and took his leave as enigmatically as he had entered.