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For a moment, the two brothers simply stared at each other. Finally, Holmes gave a little grunt that I had come to known from my years at Baker Street as his indication of reluctant consent. Mycroft smiled wanly and offered him a hand, which Holmes pointedly ignored.

"How did you find me?" he asked as he shifted amongst the leaves, turning his head towards where I stood hidden in the shadows.

"A man deranged… Oh, let us not pretend at sensibility here, little brother. It is hardly the time nor the place. I knew as soon as I saw Dr. Watson walking alone that you were at least agitated."

"I had cause," was Holmes' terse reply.

I flinched slightly and looked down at my boots.

"However it came about," Mycroft continued with a puzzled glance at me. "A man in your state and at your age would hardly be able to navigate the paths of his youth without trouble."

"You seem to have made it in one piece."

"Au contraire, mon frère," Mycroft replied. He lifted up his pants leg to reveal a small gash in his shin, no doubt from a particularly vicious rock. He dropped the fabric and said, "When Dr. Watson tends to the two of us later, which I hope he will be obliging enough to do…" I nodded my consent from the shadows. Mycroft smiled and turned back to his brother. "I dare say that I shall be deemed the one worse for wear."

"Too much leg work?" Holmes said wryly.

Mycroft snorted. "You could say so."

I could just barely see the ghost of a smile cross Holmes' face before he turned his eyes to me. "You can come out from the shadow of that tree, Watson," said he. "My brain is not so dulled that I cannot distinguish the sounds of two sets of footsteps instead of one, nor have I gone blind in your absence."

"I simply did not want to startle you, Holmes," said I as I approached.

Holmes gave a little snort of derision. "And you thought standing in the shadows would keep me from seeing you?" he said dryly. "My dear Watson, for a man who writes about me as though I were superhuman, you have the astonishing habit of underestimating me."

"Careful, little brother," Mycroft warned as my face turned red. "I'm afraid Dr. Watson here is the only one who can attend to us. Unless you want to reveal this little mishap to Dr. Gordon?"

"And thus his gossiping wife," Holmes added with a little wince of frustration.

Mycroft smirked like a man who has just won a chess game against a difficult opponent. "Then I suggest you extend a little more courtesy towards the only man within a two and a half mile radius who can treat your wounds," he said.

I wanted to point out that it was my duty by virtue of my Hippocratic Oath to attend to all who are injured—and that even if it wasn't Holmes was my friend—but a pointed look from Mycroft told me to keep my mouth shut.

"Very well," Holmes murmured after a moment. "Though I have no doubt Watson has seen me in fouler moods than this."

"No doubt," Mycroft replied. "Now, if you'll let the good doctor take a look at you."

It did not take me long to discover that Holmes was suffering from a sprained ankle and a set of nasty grazes on his right forearm. I assumed that we must have gotten there very shortly after he fell as the blood had not yet fully clotted. By the time I had completed my examination, Mycroft and I had arranged Holmes against a tree with his foot propped up against a nearby root so as to reduce any swelling. Holmes wore a look of disdain throughout the entire procedure, though some of the anger I had seen on the platform had faded from his eyes.

I gave Mycroft a questioning look. "Is the nearest medical care really two miles away?" I asked, hoping he had been speaking hyperbolically.

"It is," he replied.

"Then how is it you walked…?"

"I believe you mean 'why,'" Holmes murmured from his seat against the tree. "And the answer is quite evident."

"Our father is a professor at Oxford University," Mycroft said by way of explanation. "To walk the streets of Oxford is to invariably be recognized as the children of a professor. This, of course, creates a certain amount of… expectation for our behavior."

"So to counter this," Holmes said, picking up the narrative. "We often went to High Wycombe as children so that we might enjoy some anonymity and behave as we chose." He flashed a look at Mycroft. "Which usually consisted of Mycroft eating more sweets than he ought."

Holmes' elder brother opened his mouth, no doubt intending to proclaim Sherlock's indiscretions, then decided the better of it and simply nodded.

Meanwhile, I was developing a plan of action for Holmes' health. If medical supplies were two miles away, I would have to work with what I had on my person or risk further injury on Holmes' part. I thought back to my experiences in Afghanistan and, with a little sigh, I removed my coat.

"Watson, what on Earth are you doing?" Holmes asked as I began to take off my waistcoat as well.

"Making you some bandages," I replied as I donned my overcoat again. I quickly located the seam on the waistcoat and began picking at the thread so that the fabric would tear neatly. "As we are, indeed, two miles from any other medical care," I explained as I worked out the thread. "It is of the utmost importance that those grazes be cleaned and bandaged before you develop an infection."

"That is your favorite waistcoat," he noted. I looked up from my work to see him gazing at me solemnly and not without some surprise.

I began to get angry again. In truth, it was my favorite waistcoat, but that did not hold a candle to my concern for Holmes' health. "Do you really think?" I growled as I tore off a strip of fabric. "That I care more for a waistcoat than you?" I shook my head and focused on ripping myself another strip of cloth. "You judge me too harshly, Holmes."

A heavy silence fell between us with only the sound of my labors punctuating it. Mycroft looked between the two of us in a way that reminded me of how he'd arbitrated between Holmes and his father. The very thought made me feel sick.

Finally, Holmes broke the silence with a soft chuckle. "Ah, Watson," he said, gazing at me with a fond smile. "You are, as ever, kind-hearted to a fault."

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