Prompt: From chapter 9 of SIGN, I quote (from where Watson is waiting for Holmes to return with news about the launch: Could there be, I wondered, some radical flaw in my companion's reasoning? Might he not be suffering from some huge self-deception? Was it not possible that his nimble and speculative mind had built up this wild theory upon faulty premises? I had never known him to be wrong, and yet the keenest reasoner may occasionally be deceived.
1887 or '88, and Watson had never known him to be wrong? Poetic license in stretching the truth for story's sake, or had Holmes really never been proven wrong on anything before? What would Watson's reaction have been the first time Holmes was proven wrong?

A/N: Hi all! Sorry for the late update; I was gone all of yesterday and didn't really have a chance to write. I've also been wrestling with the next chapter of Power of the Pen, which JUST ISN'T COMING. #raises eyebrows pointedly at muse# #muse sticks out tongue# Anyway, that's my lame excuse. I have managed to grab a chunk of free time as it flew by and am using it to write up this chapter. If my muse is feeling more helpful by later today I'll see if I can post that chapter of Power of the Pen, too. #prods muse# Until then, I offer this chapter.

By ten o'clock, I had become very worried. Holmes had said that he would return before seven, and I had not seen nor heard from him since then. I did not like to worry over his absence, as it was not unusual for him to become absorbed in a case. I would not have been quite so worried were it not for the rain, which was beating down as though it had some sort of personal vendetta with the earth below. I did not like to imagine Holmes out alone in such a storm. Of course, I did not like to imagine us both out in such a storm either. I stared out the window, searching for the figure of my friend through the torrent. I saw no one.

Holmes had gone out to locate a friend and possible fellow conspirator of a certain Mr. Dennis McMurtry, who had gone missing four days previously. No one had seen or heard from him since he left his house that morning. Holmes was quite certain that he was hiding with his friend, seeking to fake his own death to escape from his wife. I, having met the woman when she came to hire us, was certain that this was not the case, for his wife was as kind and amiable a woman as I had ever met, and I could not imagine that anyone would want to leave her at all, never mind go through such a roundabout procedure as that. Holmes did not change his mind, however, and had insisted upon paying a visit to Mr. Arthur Kingsly, whom he suspected of hiding McMurtry.

I looked at the clock for the third time in two minutes. Watiting for Homles has always been the biggest cause of anxiety in my life. If I trusted him to be more careful about his own well-being, it would not be such a worrisome task. As it is, however, I don't trust him to feed himself when he is on a case.

The slamming of the front door jolted me out of my reverie, and my anxiety vanished with the sound. No one slammed doors quite like Holmes did. I heard him trudging up the stairs, and threw another log on the fire. He was bound to need it.

A bedraggled bundle of soaked clothing slid its way into the sitting room. Holmes looked absolutely dreadful, and clearly felt a good deal worse.

"He wasn't there," he growled the moment he saw me.

"For heaven's sake, Holmes, why didn't you come home when it started to rain? I'd be very surprised if you hadn't caught cold by now," I berated him, as he stomped into his room to change. "You could have saved yourself a good deal of the soaking you seem to have received."

"I had to make sure, Watson," came his reply, muffled by the door.

"Couldn't you have made sure some other day? Preferably a drier one."

His response was unintelligible.

I sat in my armchair and waited for him to return. He emerged wearing his dressing gown and a scowl. "He wasn't there," he repeated, slouching in his chair. "The only place he could have gone, and he wasn't there. I was wrong, Watson. I've been wrong the whole time." He glared viciously into the fire.

I was unsure how to reply to this. "Holmes, you mustn't look so down about it," I said finally. "Everyone makes mistakes. Even you."

"No, Watson, I do not. How could I have been so far off my mark? I know he would not turn anywhere else, and yet he was not there. He must have been taken, murdered, perhaps. But what could the motive have been? And how could I not have seen it?" He pounded the arm of his chair with his fist. "How could I be so wrong?"

While I had been skeptical of his theory myself, I did not wish to see my friend beat himself up over this incident. After all, to err is human, and Holmes is human, whether he always believes it or not. "Holmes, really, you shouldn't be so hard on yourself. You'll pick up the trail soon enough."

"But how could I have been so far off?" he exclaimed, looking at me incredulously. "I have been lead astray in the past, but never have I been so utterly in error over a case so trivial. How did this happen?"

"Holmes, listen to me. You cannot truly expect to be right all the time. You are human, Holmes, and humans make mistakes. Would you rather be infallible, or would you rather be human?"

"I should not have been this wrong," was his only reply.

"Come, old fellow, did you really expect to get it right every single time? Without fail? Even with so much uncertainty in your line of work?"

He was about to reply, when a light came on in his eyes, and he stared into thin air for a long moment. "By heaven, Watson, that's it! What a fool I've been! You're a genius, Watson, an absolute genius..." He leapt from his chair and rushed back into his room.

"What on earth are you talking about, Holmes?" I asked, once I managed to stop gaping.

"Kingsly works at a theatre, Watson, and there are old living quarters there. I'm sure of it! I remember it now... Why on earth didn't I think of that before? Of course he wouldn't be at the house, they would know that if someone caught onto his disappearing game that would be the first place to look!"

"You mean you still think he ran away himself?"

"I'm sure of it, Watson!" He ran back through the sitting room and dashed down the stairs. I heard him shouting for a cab outside.

I slumped back into my chair, shaking my head. So much for my lesson in humanity. I was beginning to think it would do him a world of good to be wrong a bit more often.

A/N: Hmmm... My muse ran away for the last couple paragraphs. #chases after muse# (he's really being a handful today...)
Also, as a heads up to all you wonderful readers, I will be starting school in a little under a week, so my updating will not be as regular as it is at present. Once I get back on my feet after the initial shock of being back in school I'll be updating regularly again, hopefully, but there'll be a period of trial and error :P