The last and longest chapter! Enjoy!


The night was too dark, too foggy, too cold. But it was more than just a combination of these elements that made the night so formidable -- it was the air, the feeling one got when one breathed a little too deeply, something in the smell, in the touch of tiny drops of moisture on one's face. It was the strange, ghostly quality to the night that made every sound seem muffled, and made a man feel alone in a city as big as London.

There were many downsides to coupling a dangerous profession with an all-too-apt imagination. He had known of too many honorable, decent men, who had on nights like this had decided to leave the world of their own volition. Men who, on the outside, had perfectly happy lives -- degenerated into mere bodies that turned up in the Thames, or in dark alleys, or in the upper rooms of abandoned houses.

Dear God, what have I done, he thought for the dozenth time... or the hundredth? He didn't know. That was another thing about the night -- one couldn't tell how long it had been. The moments bled into each other so as to become indistinguishable. They might have been doing this for an eternity, and he would have been unaware of it.

Mary sat with her face pressed to the glass, her eyes darting back and forth, examining every street and alley, lingering on each passerby that even remotely fit the height and weight descriptions. Everyone was bundled up, so it was often impossible to see faces. They could have passed him already without knowing.

But he, Sherlock Holmes, had found a plausible theory, an explanation, and he was not about to let it go. For both their sakes he put more confidence into it than he felt. It had to be the answer... had to be.

If only Watson had not done something utterly foolish...

"Don't you think he might be down that way?" Mary asked, interrupting his dark reflections. She gestured out the window.

He shook his head. "No, not there. I know where he's gone."

She blinked at him. "You do? Where?"

"Vaguely," he said with a wave of his hand. "I know at least where he's most likely to go, and we haven't reached it yet."

"Where?" she insisted.

He waited a moment before answering. "Down by the river."

"Down by the..." she repeated, before stopping and staring at him with a frightened expression. "Oh Mr. Holmes, you don't think he would..."

So she had only now come upon the possibility that he had been entertaining ever since she had arrived and told him that his Boswell was missing. He didn't answer her question. He just looked at her. She fell into silence, and her head sank back against the back of the seat.

"Oh please, God," she murmured. "Not that."

They rattled on in relative silence. After a few more blocks, Holmes ordered the cab to stop. He got out, and Mary made motions to follow him, but he raised his hand.

"Miss Morstan, I cannot allow you to accompany me through this part of town at night. You must wait here."

She glared at him. "Mr. Holmes, I told you that you would not be able to get rid of me. I am coming. I know that I am safe enough with you." She began to descend to the street again.

"But my dear lady, we have no guarantees of what his condition will be..." He stopped, realizing the foolishness of uttering that last statement.

"When we find his body?" Mary asked bitterly. "Is that what you mean?"

He had no answer.

"I don't care what condition he's in, Mr. Holmes. I am coming. I have done this to him, and I will be there when you find him. We will find him."

This time when she exited the cab he did not stop her.

"Follow me closely," he said. She nodded.

They made their way through the darkened alleys, Holmes leading them on at a brisk pace, and Mary somehow managing to keep up with his long stride. They could hear the river somewhere nearby, but for the moment it was hidden by warehouses and other buildings.

After about twenty minutes of zigzagging, Mary broke the silence.

"Do you still think he is somewhere near here, Mr. Holmes?"

He nodded. "The other two times he has been in a similar mood, he has always ended up here.

"You've had to go looking for him before?"

"No... the mud on his boots."

"Ah."

They continued on, deeper and deeper into the maze of alleys, which became increasingly difficult to navigate as the fog grew thicker. Twice they heard noises they could not identify, and they would both stop and stand tensed, listening. Only after the noises had died away did they continue on. Once a street urchin brushed past them with a murmured, "Sorry, gov'." Still nothing.

And then, after they had been going for nearly three quarters of an hour, the corner of a building became visible through the mist. And leaning against the wall with his back towards them, a man.

Holmes recognized the coat and hat immediately. A few seconds later, he heard a quick intake of breath from his companion, followed by a pair of pale hands that latched tightly onto his arms. He looked down to see her looking up at him questioningly, her face white, her lips pressed nervously together.

He found himself surprised at his lack of irritation towards her, in that moment. Ordinarily he would have done his best to extricate himself from her grasp, but now... now they shared the same thought, almost the same emotion, and he thought that in her shoes, he would not have acted any differently.

He nodded firmly to her, and then raised his face to the figure slumped dejectedly against the bricks, still unaware of their presence.

"Watson."

No response.

"Watson, it's too late for you to be in this part of town. You ought to return to Baker Street."

The figure did not turn around, but a miserable echo of his voice, rough-edged and bitter, came to them through the swirling shreds of fog.

"You came looking for me." His shoes scraped in the gravel and he shifted, but he did not turn around. "I can't see why."

Mary's grip on his arm shifted fitfully. Holmes sighed.

"My dear fellow, this is no time for -- "

"Can't you see that you were right in what you said?" Watson interrupted irritably. "Why shouldn't I be here? And why should you, of all people, come to find me, hmm? Why?"

"We came to find you because no one in his right mind should be down here alone."

"We?" This time the question was neither sarcastic nor rhetorical, but painfully open, almost frightened. He turned, almost spasmodically, and stopped, stupefied.

"Mary..." Ever so slightly, he moved backwards, pressing himself into the wall as if he wished to melt into it.

Mary didn't care. She let go of Holmes's arm and walked toward her fiancé, her hands extended.

"John, please come back with us. I've been so worried about you, after the things that woman said -- curse the day I met her, that she would say such horrible, horrible things about you, to your very face!" She stepped close to him, running her hands along the collar of his coat, letting them linger there tenderly.

"I thought you would think me a fiend," he said. "I should never have written something so... so callous, so stupid."

She looked up into his face. "I don't," she said. "And I don't think that you're some sort of god, either. I see you as the man you are, and I love you, John. Please come back with us. Please, for my sake."

Watson looked back at her, his eyes filled with love, but the love did not banish the bitter remorse, as she had hoped... as they had both been hoping, Holmes supposed with a bit of an irritated shock, wondering how long he had been secretly entertaining romantic notions without his permission.

Watson smiled at her ruefully, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "And I... I love you, dear Mary, devotedly -- if you will still have me." He raised his eyes to look into those of his fellow-lodger. "But I'm still wondering how on earth you convinced Mr. Sherlock Holmes to accompany you."

Mary looked back at Holmes, those blue eyes once again questioning, with the air of a child innocently wishing to know. "He..." And she didn't have an answer.

They were both looking at him now. Or rather, Watson was almost looking at him. But not quite. Somehow his eyes were averted, as if his gaze made it most of the way and then at the last moment veered off to the side.

"Didn't he tell you what I did?"

This had to end. Holmes stepped forward, his boot sounding on the cobblestone with an air of authority, like the striking of a judge's gavel. "Enough, Watson," he said loudly, not caring who heard. Then softer, "Enough. You must come home, my dear fellow, and I'd rather not drag you there."

"But the case, Holmes! The case that I ruined!"

"I unsay all that I said about the case. Your fiancée obviously does not care about it, and neither do I."

"Holmes…"

He stepped up to Watson and laid a hand on his shoulder. "I was wrong," he said quietly. "I should not have been so hard about it."

In a moment of mutual vulnerability their eyes met, and they understood each other, and that all was forgiven. But almost before it was begun Holmes cut it off with a sudden appearance of a good-humored smile, not quite brave enough to let it the moment linger.

"And now, let us make a jolly threesome and return to Baker Street, shall we? I don't believe I've ever told you about the case of the sunburned plumber that I solved before your time, and it has points that might interest Miss Morstan."

A quick, half-unbelieving smile flashed over Watson's face.

"But Holmes, we can't keep her out so late…"

Mary gave the nearest cousin to a snort that a polite lady could give. "I don't care. I'm already out horribly late, and if I remember correctly, I've been so before in the company of you gentlemen. I'm sure Miss Plumber won't mind."

"But…"

"John, I don't care."

Somehow, Holmes got the sense that she didn't just mean about keeping her out late.

And that was the end of the matter.

The end!