Major fluff and Holmes-petting ahead!

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Watson

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I heard Inspector Lestrade's voice echoing from the other side of the church and realized that he would not know where to find me.

"Holmes," I said. He was unresponsive as he had been the last ten minutes. "I have to go around and let Lestrade know where we are so we can take you out of here." I touched my hand to his stark-white face, frozen and nearly hypothermic. I swallowed back tears of anguish at the thought of leaving him even for a few minutes, exposed to the bitter chill, his lips already faintly blue. Without thought, I removed my own thin shirt and draped it across his chest, tucking it in at his sides. "Don't worry, Holmes, I'll be right back. You are going to be fine."

Opposite to my careful, slow movements inside the grave with Holmes, I stumbled out of the hole running haphazardly in the direction of Lestrade's voice. Although I paid no mind to myself at the time, I imagine I was a fairly amusing sight that morning: half-naked, covered in muck, yelling and sprinting across a church courtyard.

I spotted Lestrade who scarcely had time to react to my state of disarray before I grabbed him and started tugging him along behind me toward Holmes.

"Good God, man!" he remarked, struggling to keep up with my pace. "What the devil is going on? Have you found him?"

I wanted to wallop him for such an obvious question, but there was no time. Holmes needed to be warmed and quickly.

I released my hold on the officer's arm once we arrived at the grave site. I still shudder to think that it may indeed have been Holmes' final resting place.

To my great appreciation and respect, Lestrade did not make a fuss or react in shock upon seeing Holmes' desolate and sickly form in the coffin. He worked with me quietly and swiftly to remove the injured detective from the ground, offering up his own policeman's jacket for the cause of thawing Holmes.

We managed to secure Holmes into a hansom cab without stirring him to wakefulness. While relieved that he had suffered no pain during the excursion, I was also concerned that he could no longer be roused.

I settled in beside him on the bench, lifting his torso into my lap without hesitation. Lestrade was not in a disapproving mood for which I was grateful. "You'll be taking him to the hospital, then?" Lestrade asked me, preparing to give instructions to the driver.

"Absolutely not," I said. "I'm taking him to the flat where I can be assured that no one else will have access to him." I did not want to risk any cult members having the chance to bring more harm to him.

Lestrade nodded in understanding. He said a few words to the driver and locked eyes with mine briefly before our cab pulled away.

--

Mrs. Hudson was in quite a flustered state when we arrived back at Baker Street. I asked the driver of the cab, a friendly Scotsman, to assist me in carrying my charge upstairs and he graciously obliged. Mrs. Hudson began fretting the instant we walked in the door, asking what I needed for her to do. The cabbie and I carefully took Holmes, who was now covered by a shirt, a workcoat and two blankets, upstairs.

"Mrs. Hudson," I said, as I myself started to become troubled over Holmes' condition, "I would be very alleviated if you could draw a warm bath right away.

"Of course, Doctor," she said complacently. She lingered for a moment at my side. "He'll be all right, won't he?"

"God willing, Mrs. Hudson," I said simply, dismissing her. I thanked our driver and gave him a handful of coins, allowing him to find his own way back downstairs.

I checked my beloved patient's condition. He seemed agitated from all the movement and was gripping the bedclothes tightly. He lips were still cyanotic, so I wrapped more coverings on top of him and around his head. I needed him to reach a stable body temperature before I placed him into the hot bath, or I risked him falling into shock.

The poor man looked so pathetic and miserable that I had to do something more. Lifting up the mass of blankets and other coverings, I climbed into the bed next to his shivering form. I wrapped my body around his, willing the warmth of my own body to heat his.

I lay there for ten minutes before his trembling finally ceased. I mentally catalogued my friend's injuries as I lay there, not wanting to disturb him quite yet. His leg was most serious and would need to be treated before I could think about putting him in the tub. It was most likely that I would have to scour the wound to boil out the nasty infection. I hoped that Holmes could manage to stay unconscious during the procedure. In his fragile state, I dared not use an anesthetic.

I sighed as I slowly climbed out of the bed. Holmes lay as white as his bedclothes, his brow furrowed in his silent torment. I left to rummage through my desk for the supplies I was going to need for cleaning and wrapping the knife wound: alcohol, a water basin, soap, carbolic acid, gauze, bandages, towels and morphine.

Mrs. Hudson met me in the sitting room to let me know that the bath was ready. I thanked her and told her to get some rest, that I would take care of everything else.

At least that was my hope.

--

I had removed Holmes' trousers, since I would need to remove them for his bath anyhow. It gave me a chance to see the full effect of his ordeal. From head to foot, he was covered in dirt, mixed with dry and wet blood. He was positively covered in wounds and abrasions, but only had one broken bone. I shook my head as I surveyed him, horrified at his state and furious with his aggressors.

I placed several towels underneath the affected area on his leg. My anger softened when he gave an involuntary cringe at the simple movement. I was sickened that the infection had grown worse since I had first observed it. His leg was tangibly warmer than the rest of his body by far. The wound appeared to have grown even redder than before, and more yellowish fluid was draining from it. I had no more time to wait. I gave Holmes the smallest effective does of morphine, hating to put him through more pain, and yet striving to protect his condition from growing any worse.

It was a gut-wrenching process, cleaning and disinfecting the wound. At one point, in a pain-induced delirium, Holmes became partially awake and tried to weakly fight me as though I were a demon from some nightmarish world. I gently reassured him, while I held his flailing upper body down with my left arm, continuing to work on the wound with my right.

When I had finally finished, we were both exhausted and soaked with sweat. Still, I had to keep working and get my senseless friend into the bath. It was not difficult to carry him the short distance to the bathtub in the adjoining room. I imagine even if he were completely healthy and properly fed (if such a state of being could exist for Holmes), I should easily be able to lift him for a brief time.

I tested the inviting temperature of the water and then with no small amount of exertion, I lowered him into the tub. The transfer helped to wake him and he blinked groggily at his environment.

Spying me, brow raised in confusion, he said, "Watson? Is it still today?"

"What do you mean, Holmes?" I wondered. "It's always today." I reached for a box of soap.

Holmes managed to look even more confused at that. Then, soothed by the water and lulled by the morphine, he drifted back to sleep.

I smiled, relieved that at least for the moment, my friend seemed to be recovering. I washed away the boundless amount of dirt and carefully cleaned all of Holmes' wounds. Even after I was finished, he looked as though he had been beaten with a meat tenderizer. His face had swollen further and the bruises there had become darker. The littering of angry welts across his chest and back were red and inflamed. While I was washing his tangled hair, I found a gash on the back of his head and an alarming amount of dried blood. Once I had washed away the dirt and blood so that I could see the cut, I knew that he would need stitches. While he was fairly content under the morphine's comfort, I sutured up the back of my friend's head with a small amount of catgut.

Finally, once I had cleaned every inch of his marred body, I briefly left him to go replace his bedclothes. I then dressed him and laid him in his bed like a sick child. I bandaged his broken wrist and placed it carefully at his side. I wrapped his torso loosely to cover the littering of deep wounds.

I sat down in a chair next to Holmes' bed, wondering if I had missed anything. He simply lay there, having been contented throughout all of my ministrations.

After all that strain, cleaning all his wounds, lifting him, moving his awkward limbs around, scouring his badly infected leg, in addition to staying awake all night worrying for his safety, I could hardly keep my own eyes open. I leaned back in my chair slightly, intending to catch just a few moments' rest.

--

A sharp sound broke through my slumber. I sat up quickly, realizing that I had slept through the afternoon and into the evening hours. I turned on the lamp and stood up to check on my patient's condition.

Holmes was fitfully jerking in his bed, his blankets flung to one side. His face and neck were flushed and covered in sweat. He mumbled something that I could not understand. Concerned, I put my hand to his face and felt the warmth there.

"Holmes." I shook him gently, with no response. Just a few hours earlier he had been nearly hypothermic and now he was burning up with fever and probably suffering from shock. I checked his bandages to see if there were telltale signs of new infections. Holmes yelped in pain periodically while I looked him over, likely the same yelps that had woken me.

I checked his leg to be sure that I had cleaned it sufficiently. As I loosened the bandages, Holmes began to utter my name. "Watson…oh, God, please, you've got to find me! My body is decaying…the worms are coming for me!" I shuddered as he cried out in his feverish worries. His leg, however, appeared fine.

I tried to rouse him, to no avail. He simply could not grasp my presence. For the next couple of hours he drifted in and out of his delirium, crying out for me and begging me to help him, although I continuously assured him that I was with him and that he was safe. Occasionally, my name was substituted for his brother's, and he would take on a childlike air. All the while, I tried desperately to anchor him to the present, holding his hand tightly and wiping his brow with a towel.

I kept praying for the dawn, holding out that a new day would bring recognition and health back to my poor friend.

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Marill: Yay! I mean…I hope Holmes gets better!