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Author's note: Sorry for the wait. It's been busy. Sounds like there are many of you reading. Thank you to those of you who review. It really helps me stay motivated.

Fevers

Chapter 3

Worry had dulled his senses. He was ill-prepared when the two swarthy men jumped out from behind the stoop, both of them armed. He cursed his luck at again forgetting to get his pistol from Clarky who at this very moment was helping Lestrade muster the troops. If only Watson were here to shake his head at Holmes and produce the missing weapon.

"I rob me!"

"No!" yelled one of the men to the other.

Holmes frowned. The man who shouted turned to his partner. They argued. In Italian. Unfortunately, Italian was not a language the detective had mastered. The other man gestured at Holmes with the largest revolver he'd ever seen. Then he declared, "You rob me!"

Holmes shook his head, his shoulders relaxing. "Sorry, Old Chaps. Neither of you quite have it."

The two Italian men began to argue again. They each wore thick handlebar mustaches, and wore the clothes of the peasant, and while Holmes was intimidated by the rather cumbersome revolvers they carried, it was clear that robbery was a new venture for both of them.

Still keeping both hands marginally in the air, Holmes started talking. "Amicos, Compadres. Apprendere? Do you understand?"

They stopped and one of them cocked his head.

"Ah, comprades, no?" Holmes pointed at himself. "I…am looking," he put a hand to his forehead and began scanning the sky, "…for a friend, my amico. Apprendere? A dottore?"

Neither seemed to object to his pantomime so he leaned on one hip and limped in much the same way as Watson. "I am looking for…my amico, el dottore."

"El dottore," one said to the other.

"Y the nurses, ah…enfiermas Catollico," Holmes added.

"Si, si!" exploded the two would-be thieves.

"Where…I mean, uh, uh,..dove?" Holmes threw his hands in the air.

Neither said anything. Holmes remembered that Italians were an emotional people, and so he patted his heart lightly with his right hand. "Amore."

They stared at him and he realized he had no words to add context to his declaration of love. He could find no word for worry or concern.

"Per favore, Amicos. El dottore. Las enfiermas Catollicos. Dove? Where?"

His Italians looked at one another for a moment. Then one of them tentatively pointed down the road.

Holmes gestured with his head. "Grazie!"

Watson made it into the room under the power of two nuns who had appeared magically at just the right minute. There were no longer words to describe the pain in his leg. Swelling had taken over and he could not bend it at the knee or the hip. A low-grade infection had been festered at his bullet wound for a couple of weeks now. He'd treated it simply, and it would have gone away, as it had always done previously, if not for the constant use of the last four days. What was once a small infection had grown to be quite monster. Watson knew that if he didn't find relief in the next day or two, he was likely to lose the whole leg, if not his life.

Sister Michael slept in a chair, her head resting lightly on the wall behind. The nuns had steered him toward her, but he was reluctant to disturb her. A nun slid a chair behind him and beckoned him to sit. He didn't want to say that the pain of manipulating his bad leg would surely render him unconscious. They seemed to anticipate everything though, and a young nun urged him to lean on her and let her bear the weight. He no longer had the ego to refuse. Leaning heavily against her, he bent his good leg and settled painfully into the chair. Another nun grabbed a footstool and slid it under the leg. He couldn't stifle the groan of agony in him as his body slowly adjusted to its new position.

Sister Michael's eyes fluttered open. "You've come to tell me about Sister Mary Francis."

He nodded. Sister Mary Francis had fainted earlier in the day. Under her robes, he discovered all the telltale signs of Smallpox. It was clear she'd been carrying it for days. "She's not going to see the sun rise, Sister."

Sister Michael closed her eyes. "I feared as much."

"She's been sick for days and didn't tell anyone."

"I would have sent her back. I am sure she felt her place was with us."

Watson frowned at her. "Is there nothing in your lives but selflessness and sacrifice? Is there nothing more? Is there no regard for your own well-being?"

"She's not the only one walking around sick."

"I was not walking around with smallpox. I merely have an infection in my leg."

"It didn't stop you."

"I didn't think it would kill me either," he replied softly.

"But now you worry it will. It will need to be properly lanced to drain infection. We'll have to do it here."

He chortled. "I'm sorry. I am aware that your skills are vast, but I'll need a surgeon and a sterile field."

She shook her head. "You don't have that long."

He turned away from her. These women practiced no pretense. Everything was stated so bluntly. "Don't underestimate my constitution, Sister. I survived three years of war in Afghanistan."

"It'll do you no good now. The leg is bad and you'll be lucky to live if you don't do something now."

"I'll be fine."

She looked past him. "Sister, bring us some tea, please."

He relaxed his head against the wall, but was startled when he felt her fingers at his wrist. He pulled away, "My pulse is fine!"

Ignoring him, she placed the back of her hand against his forehead. Only courtesy prevented him from slapping it away. She frowned. "You're fevering."

"It's not the pox."

"No, it's the infection in your leg. I'd hoped it hadn't turned to fever yet."

Watson didn't push her away. There was only some indignation he could muster to hide his own fears. "We'll have to rig up a wheelchair of sorts. In the morning, we can start pushing back to the quarantine line. I'll hear no arguments out of you. We're spent, all of us."

She surprised him by nodding. A nun appeared with two cups of tea. She took them, handing one to the doctor. Desperate for any relief, Watson drank it down. It took a couple of minutes for him to notice that she hadn't touched hers. The room began to gently sway, and her two brown eyes became eight. He was trying to summon a protest when his head dropped to his chest.

Sister Michael looked up at the waiting nuns. "I'll need clean blankets and a scalpel from his bag. Bring me some boiling water. We'll do this as carefully as if it were the Bishop himself."

His two Italian friends never left his side. Holmes considered dipping into an alley and trying to lose them, but the neighborhood was not familiar and they still had two guns to his zero. He would have tried another pantomime but unsure that his acting was all that effective.

After several hours of walking, Holmes saw one of them point to a man in a checkered suit sitting on a stoop. The Italians ran ahead and began talking at him. To Holmes' surprise, the thoroughly English looking man answered them in Italian. He trotted after them. "You there. You speak Italian?"

The man stood up and squinted at him. "A bit. I live in the same building with some Eye-talians. I know just enough to tell them what's what."

"I need help. I am looking for a friend, a doctor who came down here with some nuns to minister to the sick."

"Aye, ol' Luigi and Paolo was just telling me about it." The man gave him a crooked smile.

Holmes saw a mischievous glint in the man's eye and he stiffened. "They seem to be leading me nowhere."

The man listened to Luigi a bit more and turned to Holmes. "They know where the doctors and the nuns are at, but they're reluctant to share it with you."

"Why!?"

The man listened again. "They're good Catholics. They say you have designs on those nuns. The boys got the idea that you're in love with them. Worried that you'll de-flower one of them if you get half a chance: a very sinful occupation to be sure. They like you so they're staying with you to make sure you don't get hurt or find those nuns."

Holmes reddened. "Will you please tell them that I have no…interest in the nuns? I'm trying to find my friend, Dr. Watson."

The man squinted at him again. "My eye-talian ain't that good. I'm good at saying things like, "Get your eye-talian ass off these steps," or "I'll burn your rooms if you don't get your under garments out of the loo," but I ain't too schooled in eye-talian niceties."

Holmes gave a long sigh. "Tell them that I want to help the nuns, I want to help the doctor. Nothing more."

The man wrinkled his nose and thought on it some. Then he turned to Luigi and Paolo and said a few things in a very cockneye-accented Italian. Luigi and Paolo shot back questions. A few minutes later, all of the men turned to look at Holmes.

The doctor didn't wake up when she thought he might. The leg was lanced and she'd collected almost a quart of pus thus far, but he still didn't wake. His fever continued and she'd been mopping his forehead for a couple of hours now. Other sisters stopped to ask after him, but she shooed them off. Sister Mary Francis had passed while she operated on his leg, and a pallor of death hung everywhere. If she could muster the courage, she would send the healthy ones back to the quarantine line at first light.

The light in the lamp was low, but she refused to sleep. If her work on that leg was not good, she would have hastened the death of a good man, a man who'd shown only them respect and concern. It ate at her differently than the death of Sister Mary Francis. The sisters knew that doing medical care at times of disease and disaster was their calling. They lived for these times and they were prepared to die for them. Dr. Watson was a man who had been too unfailingly decent to leave them when he could have. He was dying purely of his own goodness.

She heard a shuffle at the door and turned to tell another sister to go away when she saw a man standing there. He looked to be a proper English gentleman. She picked up the lantern to get a better look. The man was pale with the most extraordinary deep, brown eyes, and he was looking past her to the man on the bed. Suddenly, he blinked and shook his head. When he looked up again, he stared at her. "Will he live?"

"I don't know," she whispered in turn.

He nodded slightly. "He said he wouldn't catch smallpox."

"He didn't. I'm afraid he has a rather serious infection in his leg. I had to do some surgery to relieve it."

Holmes looked around. "Not sanitary conditions."

"I had no choice."

He nodded again.

"Are you his friend?"

"He talked about me?"

She shook her head. "We had little time to talk of anything but disease. He is a very good man though. He is very worthy of the regard of others."

"That he is." Holmes stayed at the door, holding onto it as if to stay upright.

"You followed him down here?"

"I had little choice. I knew he would follow you, and he wouldn't think of own well-being. He's…loyal like that, bull-headed and brave, I suppose."

She gestured. "Come sit with him."

"I..uh, I'm not good with this. I have no medical skills. Perhaps, I'd better stay here."

She stood up. "I need to check on my sisters. Sit with him. A familiar voice would undoubtedly help."

She led him by the arm over to the bed and gestured at the basin. "He'll need to be kept cool. Talk to him. Encourage him. I believe it can be as strong as medicine."

Holmes sat down as she left the room. Watson was flushed, his breathing laborious. Holmes gently touched his forehead, and it was hot and dry. Then he lifted the blanket and looked at the wound. The nun had cut a three-inch gash where the swelling was greatest. Blood mixed with pus leaked into a pan. Holmes dropped the blanket and breathed deeply. He resisted an impulse to stand up and walk away. He needed to pace and ponder and demand from those he depended upon, but none of that was possible.

Finally, he gathered himself and reached for the basin. The water was tepid, and Holmes frowned. Room temperature was not good enough to help a burning fever. Holmes went to the window and threw out the water. "Sisters!"

A nun appeared.

"I'll need some cool water for the doctor."

She disappeared and he sat again. He placed a hand on Watson's arm. "You're giving me quite a scare, Old Boy, and you know it too. You know I am lost in these moments. The explosion at the docks, remember? You had me tied up in knots wondering as to your welfare. Got little else down until I saw to you personally. Quite a distraction it was too."

The nun hurried in with a basin and fresh cloths. Holmes nodded at her. He dipped the cloths, wringing them thoroughly. He mopped Watson's forehead. Then he opened his collar and mopped some more. "Not really used to catering to you, you know. I like it much better when you fuss after me. That's really the more accurate of equations I should think."

Holmes stopped for a moment, his brow furrowed. "I don't suppose it's all that satisfying to have to worry after me so much. It would probably be a more satisfying friendship if I thought after you more. The truth, Watson, is that I do. I do worry after you…just not in the same ways you do for me. In fact, I've been rather racked with worries these last few days."

Holmes spread a cool cloth on Watson's chest and then grabbed another to spread on his forehead. "You know, Watson, I am not me without you. I know that's sort of an odd thing to say, but you are so good in the areas where I am not. You keep me from spinning away from the world; you keep me grounded. I know I sound a bit overwrought. You'll have to excuse my…hyperbole right now."

Watson stirred and Holmes looked frantically for signs that he was waking. Instead, the good doctor settled into a pattern of even deeper breathing. Holmes sighed, "Watson, my old friend, please do me the favor of coming back. I…rather need you. I can't seem to…bear the thought of how lonely I'd be…Think of Mary. She'll be crushed. And I was just getting…used to her. Please, Old Chum. Please…don't leave me."

Next Chapter Friday or Saturday