To make up for a short chapter last time, here is a long chapter and the long awaited introduction to Holmes' mother. Enjoy!

Holmes kept the pony walking forward at a slow rate. It took us nearly a minute to go a mere two blocks. I repeatedly asked him where we were going, but he had assumed that mantle of silence and mystery so common to him. So I waited and watched as the houses and shops went by. We were going through the center of town, which meant I had plenty to see. I surveyed the high walls and broad archways with amazement, thinking of how long they must have stood there and what changes they had seen. After a while, I began to wonder if this was the tour of Oxford Holmes had mentioned earlier and whether we were even going in the correct direction to see his mother. If it was the tour, I certainly was not getting the benefit of it as I could not identify any of the sights and Holmes did not deem it fit to enlighten me on the subject. Finally, we passed out of the center of town and turned onto a road with a field on one side and a row of buildings lining the other.

"Holmes, do you even know where the devil we're going?" I asked, my nerves beginning to wear thin.

He nodded, not turning his attention from the road.

"Where then?" I asked.

He gave a little snort, as if the answer to my question were the simplest thing in the world. Perhaps to him it was, but I was still very much in the dark. I turned my back to him, deciding that wherever we were going it would be better to do so in complete silence than to have Holmes mock me for my inability to see through his schemes. At this point, we had begun to approach a cobblestone church with long slit-like windows. As I watched, it occurred to me that there was very little road beyond it. "Holmes," said I, but he held up a strict forefinger for silence. We drove past the church and stopped at the gate of the cemetery. Here my friend got out of the carriage and unhitched the pony, leading it over to a plot of grass across the road. I got out of the trap, without his assistance this time, and waited for him, hoping that I had come to a desperately wrong conclusion about our destination.

Once Holmes had settled the pony and tied its reins around a small tree, he began walking towards the cemetery. I watched him, wondering whether I should follow him or wait by the trap. If my conclusion was correct then it was very likely he might want some privacy—but then if he had wanted that he would have gone by himself and left me with Mycroft.

Holmes quickly settled my question for me. The moment he reached the cemetery gate, he turned around and shouted, "Well, are you coming or not?" in that impatient tone that I knew so well. He then began to make his way among the graves.

It took a fair amount of energy on my part to catch up with him, for he used every bit of his elongated stride to his advantage—almost as if he did not wish to leave footprints on the short-cut grass. Finally, he stopped a few yards ahead of me in front of a simple tombstone. I came to his side, breathing heavily from my exertions. We were about a third of the way through the cemetery, near the left hand gate. On the tombstone were the words:

Violet Holmes

Beloved Mother and Wife

1829-1862

Holmes pulled the now somewhat wilted bouquet from the inside of his coat. Gingerly, he placed the flowers at the base of the tombstone, arranging them so that the flowers themselves were nearest the grave.

"Shall I leave you alone?" said I.

"Whatever for?" Holmes said, turning to face me with a confused look.

"I assume that you would want some privacy," said I, equally confused by his reaction.

"Don't be ridiculous, Watson," said he, going back to his task of arranging the flowers.

There was a pause between us, during which Holmes busied himself with pulling all of the petals off one of the roses and bedecking the ground in front of the gravestone with it. I, on the other hand, stood in what I can thoroughly say was the most awkward position of my life, unsure whether to ask Holmes about his mother or to leave the site completely. Finally, I decided on the former.

"What did she die from?" I asked, my medicinal training and Holmes' own scientific nature barring any more intimate discussion of the subject. However, despite my careful choice of subject, Holmes remained quiet, carefully arranging the flowers and seeming to contemplate whether to take another of the dozen and reduce it to petals as he had done with the first. Finally, I could stand it no longer.

"I should not have come, Holmes," said I.

At this, Holmes gave a little sigh through his nose and fixed his grey eyes on me. "Watson," said he. "I can scarcely see how a simple grave should be disturbing to you. Surely medical practice would have brought you to the site of more than one headstone."

"Yes, but—your mother, Holmes."

"What of her? She is dead. So is yours if I recall correctly."

The mention of my own mother brought the blood to my cheeks. "Visiting a grave is a private family matter, Holmes, and I should not have intruded upon it."

"Nonsense!" he replied.

"It is not nonsense, it is respect for the dead!" I cried.

Holmes stood up from where he had been squatting by the grave, wiping his hands of the dirt and plant matter that had gathered there. "My dear Watson," said he. "Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps not all the world sees things as you do? My mother perished by her own hand in the Autumn of 1862. As such, I have no more sympathy for her than for any other suicide that I have come across in my work, nor shall I ever. I complete these little gestures for the sake of my father and despise every minute of it."

"But she's your mother, Holmes!" I exclaimed, scarcely believing my ears.

"A mother does not leave behind two children and a grieving father for her own selfish ends," Holmes cried. "She renounced that title the moment she stepped off that chair."

There was silence between us. I had not known the severity of the loss upon Holmes' family. To think that Holmes' mother had hung herself—it was almost beyond belief. And now to see Holmes standing here by her grave, hating her for abandoning him; the tragedy was enough to bring water to my eyes. Did he even know why his mother, of all people, had left him—or had he filed it under the vast inscrutability and unreliability of women?

I did not ask why Mr. Holmes still seemed to think her alive. I have seen in the old and the sorrowing many strange things, and this was not the least of them. I had no idea how long he had been like this. Perhaps it was only the first turn in the decline of a great mind, for in all else he seemed perfectly stable. This seemed to be the only thing awry, though I had not been present long or gone into much depth on his health. However, there was no doubt Mr. Holmes actually believed his wife to still be walking those halls in the delicate state she was in just before her death. And no doubt to Holmes this was the most abominable injury to both reason and himself.

"I…I'm very sorry, Holmes," I murmured.

He looked at me then back down at the ground. "For God's sake, Watson," he said in a low voice. "Don't look so downhearted. If anyone were to be upset, it would be I, and I am not in the least. Therefore you should not, indeed must not, grieve."

"Sorry, Holmes," said I, wiping the water from my eyes with my sleeve. He simply waved his hand at me and bent over to pick up another one of the roses. For a moment, I thought he was going to reduce it to petals like the first, perhaps with more violence due to my interruption. Instead he just stood gazing at it, seemingly mesmerized by its simple, elegant beauty.

"What was she like?" I asked, trying to steer both my friend and myself towards a more respectful outlook.

"I haven't much recollection of her," he replied brusquely, his eyes fixed on the rose. "She died when I was eight."

For a moment, we stood there in silence. Finally, Holmes cast me a sidelong glance and gave a little impatient huff. "You wish to hear the story, don't you?"

I could not deny that I did, but at the same time I did not want to cause my friend any more pain than I had to—for despite his aloof manner I could see that the subject did pain him.

Finally, I decided upon a middle ground. "I will listen, Holmes," said I. "Only if you wish to tell it."

This gave him pause. He stared at the ground for what seemed like an eternity, spinning the rose gently between his fingers. Finally, he leaned against the headstone and said, "Where shall I begin?"

Oh dear, how much will Holmes tell if he only says what he wants to? This is hardly the time to give way when such intimate details about Holmes' childhood are at stake! Well, let us hope that he'll be generous.

Reviews appreciated as always!