"You all right, old chap?" Holmes's voice…somehow he had heard his desperate, dreaming plea for help.
More likely he'd been loud in his distress. He nodded, half-hidden into the pillow. "I woke you, didn't I?"
The hand tightened comfortingly around his still-shaking fingers, and he clung to it as a life-line until the memories faded.
"No…oh no, my dear fellow, not at all." He wasn't fibbing; he could tell when Holmes was fibbing. His voice didn't quiver like that when he was fibbing. "I heard you…calling for me."
Holmes was sitting on his bed…could see the lingering terror he knew wasn't hidden in his face. Reading his expression, Holmes spoke softly, laying his other hand over his friend's. "My dear chap, after everything that happened, there is no shame in being afraid."
He was unconvinced, and probably looked it; for Holmes's hands clenched suddenly, his face drawn and hollow as he gave a small shiver.
"Do you have any idea how often I was frightened this last week?" Holmes whispered. "It is far less shameful for a man to be afraid of his sleeping imagination, than afraid that his folly may have cost him the dearest thing in all the world…"
He wasn't fibbing – when Holmes was fibbing his steel eyes didn't glint with moisture, and his voice certainly didn't break.