It was early afternoon when I finally opened my eyes. Outside it was overcast and foggy. The fire had burnt low in the grate and the room smelt strongly of rich tobacco smoke.

"The sufferer awakes," commented Holmes with a smile, as he saw me sit up and rub my stiff shoulders. "Watson was worried. He could not make head nor tail of what was the matter with you."

Of course Holmes made no reference to whether or not he gave a damn, but then I didn't expect him to – it wasn't how he worked.

"I believe there's some toast and coffee waiting for you, if you would care to have it," he said with a small bow. I smiled and thanked him, charmed this time without irritation. It was true, just as in the books. Holmes was aloof, calculating, eccentric, laconic – but always a gentleman.

Watson was at the table as before, reading. He looked up, warm concern having replaced his earlier disquiet about me. "How do you feel now?"

"Better, thank you."

He pulled up a chair for me and poured out a cup of coffee. I was about to butter myself some distressingly pale toast, when I stopped.

"Something wrong?" asked Holmes, sharp as ever.

"No; maybe. I don't know." I tried to explain, without sounding completely demented. "I just suddenly thought of Persephone."

"Who?" Holmes evidently knew as much about legend as he did about Thomas Carlyle. (Although given Carlyle's all-pervasive popularity of the time that had to be a lie – he might as well have claimed to never have heard of Dickens.)

"She was a goddess in Greek mythology. She was taken to the land of the dead and had to remain there for half of every year because she ate six pomegranate seeds."

Watson looked confused at the seeming non sequitur. Holmes understood and laughed.

"I know it's not the same, but I don't know what effect anything I do might have. My being here might change history, or change something..." I ended lamely, as I remembered that Mr Sherlock Holmes was supposedly just a character in a book. "Dr Watson? When you published 'A Study in Scarlet' did you write under your own name?"

"Not exactly. I have a literary man, an editor of sorts. It's perfectly common for periodicals to..."

"Conan Doyle," I interrupted, unsure what to think any more.

"Well, yes. Scotsman. Good chap. Why?" he queried.

I looked resigned and heavenward as if seeking celestial aid. None was forthcoming. I sighed. Gods this was awkward. "I have always considered - as does everyone else in my time - that Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes were fictional characters from the mind of Mr..." I corrected myself. "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle."

"Well really!" he gasped, and laughed until he had to sit down, quite helpless with mirth.

"Although many literary followers and scholars play 'The Great Game' – I mean they... they..." Why had I opened my mouth? Ah yes, to insert my foot. At least I hadn't said 'Sherlockian' yet. "They like to pretend that you both existed and that the cases are fact." I looked at the floor and my bare feet upon it. "People all over the world still send letters here, asking for your assistance."

This time Holmes laughed until he nearly choked. "Marginalized as fancy yet still sent missives crying out about the importance of missing dogs and farthings – the worst of both worlds!" When he had recovered, he asked, "So how, as far as you can tell, did you get here? I don't believe it was intentional."

"No," I agreed perhaps a little too vehemently. "It wasn't. I was walking down Cambridge Road; it is just a little way from where I live..."

"You left your house in a hurry. Why?"

His train of logic escaped me for a moment, until I realised. "The lack of coat and boots?"

"Quite so," he said, with a flicker of impatience.

"Yes, I had a quarrel with my parents about the amount of work I was doing..."

"You're hoping to attend Royal Holloway University?"

At that point I felt the cold slap of surprise that everyone else must routinely feel at Holmes' deductions. How in the hell did he know that? "Um... yes. Anyway, the argument was of no importance."

"Everything," he corrected, "is of importance."

"If you are trying to suggest that a member of my family sent me here to the past, then I'm afraid you're mistaken. Even to me, time travel is a thing of fiction and theory, not reality. In the back of my mind I still wonder if I am staggering down Kew Road, talking to myself and utterly out of my head."

"Is that likely?" Holmes asked with interest from beside the fire, re-lighting his pipe with sugar tongs and a hot coal.

"It is possible, but not probable," I quoted with a wry smile.

"Hmh. So what happened?"

"I was walking past a small church and I suddenly felt very ill - much as I did this morning. I sat down at the side of the road waiting for the pain to pass. When I looked up again, I was outside Baker Street station with no idea of how I'd got there. I still felt dazed, so I headed for Balcombe Street where a friend of mine lives. When I could walk no further, I rang on the nearest doorbell. I seem to recall the door being opened, and then I collapsed. All rather melodramatic, I'm afraid."

"Quite so," said Holmes sternly. "You gave Mrs Hudson a shock; she was most upset..."

I looked askance at him – he was one to talk! He chose not to acknowledge my expression.

"...On the other hand, you made my day considerably more interesting and saved me from the vice which so annoys my friend Dr Watson."

I took this to be a reference to his cocaine habit, a view confirmed by Watson's muttered comment of, "Holmes, the game's not worth the candle. It will kill you one of these days."

"He's right you know," I offered, trying not to sound too sanctimonious. "Keep it up and you're likely to get gangrene or brain damage. Oh, and tobacco gives you lung cancer and heart attacks."

"I say - I've never heard of any correlation between..."

I wasn't about to enter into a medical debate on the properties of tobacco with a Victorian doctor – there was a waste of time if ever there was one. I shrugged. "Well it's true none the less. The amount you both smoke it's probably more damaging than the cocaine and opium combined. But since they haven't criminalize smoking yet I'll stick with Dr Watson on this one – ditch the needle."

I don't think Holmes was used to being lectured, and certainly not by an eighteen year old girl. He stared at me for some moments, before uttering a short, sardonic laugh. "In alio pediculum, in te ricinum non vides," he accused softly, the Latin version I think of 'people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones'. Fair play, since he hadn't said a word against my own brand of self-destruction. "Hm. I have never yet encountered anyone whose clothes and views were so contrary to all that's to be expected. My dear young lady, you are a mass of contradictions."

I smiled, relieved he wasn't angry and deciding to take his comment as a somewhat backhanded compliment.

"I have been thinking while you slept, and now, if you are quite well, I believe it is time for us to take a cab."

"But where on earth to, Holmes?"

"My dear Watson, can you ask? We must go to Cambridge Road. I can deduce no more curled up by the fire. It is time for a little more practical analysis. Besides," he shot at me with a crooked smile, "I'm told on great authority that smoke is bad for the lungs and fresh air will do us all good."

"Perhaps," grumbled the doctor, as he put on his coat, "you should talk to Wells."

"Who?"

"An old acquaintance of mine, writes novels. He's an imaginative fellow, as taken with science-fiction, Holmes, as you are with science-fact."

Holmes dismissed the topic with, "Never heard of him."

"Wells?" I asked, trying to remember what the 'H.G' stood for. "Uh, Herbert George Wells?"

He nodded. "You two are very like minded. Insane, both of you." And then, "How do you know of him?"

"Oh, I've read his books too."

"No sister of mine would ever read such rubbish," muttered Holmes, looking at me as I stood up and taking in my whole appearance once more - a cross, I suppose, between a pallbearer and a street urchin. He shook his head and muttered something else which probably also began, 'No sister of mine,' and ended, 'would ever dress like that'.

The cab journey passed uneventfully although there'd been some debate at the offset as to whether a hansom was a suitable mode of transport. (Watson claimed – for my sake - it wasn't. Holmes remained reticent. I demanded to know what was wrong with me being in a cab? The good doctor looked uncomfortable. Low on patience, Holmes hailed one so I could see for myself.) Hansom cabs it turns out have more in common with chariots than a grand coach and four, having only one horse, two wheels and very limited seating arrangements.

"They go at quite a pace," Watson told me, obviously still concerned for propriety and my sensibilities.

"Faster than seventy miles an hour?" I enquired sweetly.

Dr Watson opened his mouth and closed it again, somewhat thrown by my air of equanimity.

"Stop lagging, both of you," Holmes commanded. And then to the cabby, with a slight note of vinegar, "Botanic Gardens at Kew – we're apparently in no hurry."

After the three of us had squeezed into the two-seater, Holmes displayed his remarkable ability to 'switch off' his mind and occupy it with the most simple of things. The first half of the journey passed in silence, while the second half was taken up with an argument as to whether Bach's Toccata et Fugue could be played sufficiently on one violin. Having heard a modern version played in just such a way, I argued in its favour, while Holmes evidently felt that his solo recitation never did full justice to the piece.

"I take it you have heard Toccata et Fugue attempted by a solo violinist?"

"Yes," I told him, neglecting to mention that there was also a guitar, a keyboard and an orchestra mixed into the background.

"It never is quite the same," he sighed. "The violin does not have the power or grandeur of an organ for which the music was written."

I had to cough to stifle my laughter. The idea of Sherlock Holmes playing the organ to help him concentrate flung up one of the silliest images my mind could create. It looked like something out of a bad Dracula film. "I would have loved to hear you play Bach, Mr Holmes. It is a pity I'll not stay long enough."

"Ah, that remains to be seen. Since you do not know how you got here, Miss Morris, it may not be possible to find out how to send you back."

"I have faith, Mr Holmes," I said, trying to remind myself I was not a pious maid in a penny-dreadful. But I couldn't help it – I did have faith. Sherlock Holmes had accepted my case and so Sherlock Holmes would solve it.

The cab was now driving at a decent clip along Kew Road. "Could we stop a moment?" I asked, as we passed Victoria Gate. Watson rapped with his cane on the roof, and the cab slowed to a halt.

I looked across the road. "I live at number 266. Gods, my house does look very new. It should be all of twenty years old, I think – the gates!" In my time nothing separated the drive from the pavement, but here a set of delicate wrought iron gates leant the whole place a certain forbidding grandeur. "Makes it look like a manor house," I muttered with some approval. "Cambridge Road isn't far from here. Shall we walk? I'd like to see what else I can recognise – perhaps graffiti myself a note on a wall or two." I wasn't exactly honest about my reasons and my flippancy was an outright sham: I was beginning to feel slightly sick, and hoped the walk would make me better.

"Capital. What do you think, Watson?"

"I agree, provided Miss Morris is well enough."

I was comfortable with Holmes' leaps of logic, but coming from the doctor, they left me startled.

"You are shivering, my dear, and your face is quite pale."

"How careless of me," exclaimed Holmes, "you have no coat. You must be frozen..." And before I could protest he had leapt neatly from the hansom and pulled off his thick great coat, draping it over my lap with an off-hand flourish.

"I couldn't possibly, I'll get it muddy..." I'd borrowed Kieran's coat in Norfolk and drowned in it without guilt, but even Norfolk had tarmac – London in 1888 had copious amounts of mud.

Holmes was already paying the driver. He threw back a casual, "It matters not," and then began striding away. Watson hurried to follow.

I struggled into the coat and stepped out onto the pavement, before remembering that young ladies were supposed to wait for a gentleman to help them alight from carriages.

Watson – lowering the hand I'd inadvertently scorned - looked a little bemused too, although whether it was because of my independence or because Holmes' coat was indeed far too long for me, I couldn't tell.

"The game is - no doubt - afoot," he said with a smile. "Come along, or at his pace we shall lose him."

"Follow your spirit, and upon this charge Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'," I murmured.

We eventually caught up at the corner of Mortlake Road.

"The bookshop!" I stared in amazement. It didn't appear to be open for business, but its sign was painted above it in fresh golden letters.

Lloyds of Kew. Books.

"Found something you recognise?" asked Holmes languidly as I hurried to peer in at the window.

"Yes, the shop, it's still the same – still t-there..."

"Are you quite all right?" enquired the doctor, sounding a little worried.

"No. This – this is the third time - why am I felling so ill?" I knew my voice was petulant but I couldn't help it.

"Travel sickness," Holmes announced. "If the motion of the waves at sea may produce such an unpleasant affect upon the inner ear, think then what traversing time might do. I would be very surprised if one did not feel sick. Ah, here is your Cambridge Road."

I followed him around the corner, uncertain of what we'd be likely to find. (A bright, shimmering stargate-style wormhole would have been nice and obvious, but I wasn't betting on it.) We found a quiet road lined with ordinary houses - completely unremarkable.

My breath froze in my lungs and Watson caught me by the shoulders as I fell. I felt like I'd just been swung at with an ice-carved cricket bat. With his help I staggered back, out of Cambridge Road, and the pain subsided to a dull and sickly ache. The doctor sat me down on the front step of the bookshop.

"That," I announced weakly, "was not nice."

"Holmes, her pulse rate is higher again, and her fingers are white with cold. May I suggest Miss Morris doesn't go until..."

"It's not Morris," I said, leaning back against the door and trying to stop shivering. "My name's Emma Morrison." I have no idea why, but at that moment it seemed more important than anything that I should be known by my true name. I wasn't sure how to explain the matter of the dogtags, so I didn't. I had a notion that I had just furthered Holmes' opinion that women were devious and fickle, but I didn't care.

Nor, it seemed, did he. "The church, half way down, is that where you said you last were?"

I nodded carefully. "I think so."

"If I am not mistaken, which I very rarely am, that is where you need to be." He was about to search his pockets, when he realised I had his coat. "Is there some tobacco in there?"

I searched and eventually came up with a pipe and a twist of tobacco, although unfortunately, no matches.

"Blast," he muttered.

It is one of my favourite memories of Sherlock Holmes, seeing him standing there (dressed faultlessly save for his coat,) with an unlit pipe between his teeth, looking perplexed.

I smiled, and then stopped as a sense of guilt bleached some of the pleasure away. I'd gatecrashed their rooms, taken up their morning, had fits of the vapours, necessitated over an hour's drive and had nothing to give for it. "Sir, I know you often solve cases for no fee save your expenses, but I am afraid even those are beyond me." I checked my jeans pockets as I spoke, just to make sure. I had lied. I did have some money - five pence to be exact. I grinned. "All my worldly riches," and handed him the little silver coin.

Holmes studied it carefully, as did Watson. "Extraordinary," he commented.

But that wasn't enough. There needed to be something else. What? After a moment's thought, I unclasped the necklace I wore. It was a thin chain to which I had attached a whole manner of little charms. A tiny bone dice, a crescent moon made of onyx, a bell, a silver sword, a shard of quartz and other such oddments. I chose the silver sword and snapped it free. It was about an inch long and had a bead of garnet set in the hilt. I gave it to him. "It will go well on your watch chain – at least until Ms Adler gives you that sovereign," I mused, sotto voce.

I was procrastinating. If I didn't go, I would never leave. I stood gracelessly, took off the coat and returned it to its rightful owner. "Thank you for everything that you have done for me. I really am very grateful, especially since I've probably been a very poor guest. I hesitate to ask for any more favours, but there is one..."

"Miss Morrison, it would be a pleasure."

"Write to me? I need some proof, something to show me this was real..."

I did not wait for a reply, I did not really want to hear one, I just ran. Ignoring the pain, ignoring the shout behind me, concentrating only on the little church half way down the road.

I passed out before I reached it.