It has often disturbed me that I know so little of what my friend and colleague was like as a very young man. We did not meet until well into our twenties, and I supposed I was content to think of him as having always been that way, fully formed, as if he had sprung from somewhere already autonomous and functional.

However, imagination can assist me here, as well as assumption. I assume that many of the traits and eccentricities that mark him out today beset him in his youth. I believe he was, if possible, even thinner then. He was an avid boxer, graceful fencer, voracious reader, though on admittedly narrow topics, and a staunch bohemian. I believe Montague Street was a transformative time for him. He spent most of it in waiting for clients to seek him out in need of his services. He roamed the streets by night, wrote monographs by day, and guarded his youth and energy for future use. I suspect also that his yearning for recognition caused him to be reckless with himself and others. Not only emotionally, for Holmes has never been one to care about stepping on toes, but he seemed more willing to expose those of his acquaintance to danger through his inattentiveness. The danger hidden in the everyday occurrence was not yet apparent to him. This is what Kit Rushford taught him. Or at least her attack served as his first dire lesson.

Her friend's telegraph on his crumb-covered breakfast table put a pin through his brain.

Mr. Holmes,

I am writing on behalf of my friend Kit Rushford. It is my understanding that it was her intention to visit you yesterday on a matter of some importance. She was found this morning in a battered state outside the stage door of the theatre and has been moved to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. As she is alone in the world, and I can think of no one else to inform, I am hoping you can shed some light on this tragic situation.

Yours sincerely

Lucy Tilby

He saw immediately from the shaky signature at the bottom of the small square of paper that Miss Trilby was well-educated, left-handed, and in heart-rending earnest.

Holmes did not even take his frock coat on the way out the door but hurried down the public street on the way to the hospital in his shirtsleeves.

What a disconcerting thing it was for Kit Rushford to regain consciousness in a drab and overcrowded hospital ward to find Sherlock Holmes sitting cross-legged on a wooden chair by her bedside. With his cross tie askew and his hair hung loose on his forehead, he had the unsettling look of a hunting bird waiting to descend upon its prey.

She took in her prone position in the narrow metal bed in the corner, one of many in a double row with their headboards faced against opposite walls. The sheet under her felt gritty, the sheet over her clammy and frayed. A line of tables ran down the center of the room, where it terminated in front of a set of double-doors covered in chipped green paint. These tables where piled with equipment: metal chamber pots, jars of foul-smelling ointment and hastily folded bandages. Nurses bustled in and out occasionally, in light blue uniforms and white aprons, giving the inhabitance of the beds a cursory glance over before moving on to another ward.

Kit winced at the sour smell of sickness in the air. Someone was moaning farther down the row on her left. A hacking cough sounded as well, rising intermittently over the quiet sobs of someone across the room. The coal dust encrusted windows gave in very little light.

"Miss Rushford," Holmes said, bringing her back to herself, "you have awakened."

"Mr. Holmes. Perceptive as ever, I see." As the fog in her brain began to dissipate, the pain crept in to replace it. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to suppress a cry.

When she opened them again it was to see he wore a faint smile. "I'm glad to see that even a head injury has not affected your caustic wit."

"It has affected my mood, though." Her breath shuddered in and out. "I have not the patience to deal with you, Mr. Holmes. You will please do me the favour of going away."

Holmes edged forward in his seat, eyes roving her face. "You are angry, then?"

She issued a short bitter laugh. "I am in agony. It is very close to being the same thing." She tried to shift then, but found her arms pressed to her sides, tucked in by her blanket. Her pale face turned to him, childlike with sudden fear. "Why do my fingers feel so hot?"

"You don't remember the events of last night?"

"I remember you sending me away."

He recoiled as if struck. He fought to keep his voice controlled when he replied "It was wrong of me to do so. Please allow me to make amends."

"I have no interest in your guilt, sir. Please. I am very tired. I do not need your protection now, Mr. Holmes. It does me no good."

"I'm afraid that's not quite true, Miss Rushford."

Her face under the bruises became paler still, and she moistened her lips with her tongue. She knew something was wrong. She could feel it in her stomach. She could feel her pulse pounding in her back, flaring in her armpits and temples. Even so, the look on his face frightened her more than the pain. He was too serious, too solicitous. She tried to move again, to pull her hands up from her sides, but a surge of pain held her still, caused her to swallow reflexively.

"My hands are on fire. Did I fall?"

"You were attacked. I'm sorry to have to tell you, but I believe you may still be in danger. At least, I can't rule it out until I look into the situation further. Can you tell me what you do remember?"

She considered this, but the memory of his sitting room door slamming in her face made her cautious. "Shubert."

He let out an explosive sigh, dragging his fingers through his already messy hair. "Bloody stubborn woman."

"Mr. Holmes, you are being ungentlemanly."

"Very well, I admit it Miss Rushford, I am not a good man. But I am a brilliant one. Please let me help you."

She considered him again. Somehow his arrogance was disarming. "I remember leaving your rooms," she conceded, as she struggled with the faint memory. The air here was so close and stifling, her hospital issued gown was over-starched, and rubbed against her neck painfully. "I remember making it back to the theatre and completing the evening show. I don't remember anything out of the ordinary there."

"Which theatre?"

"The Royal Olympic, it's at Drury lane -"

"And Wych Street, where it meets Newcastle. I know it."

"I live on East Tenter Street. It's a fair walk from the theatre, but the houses are respectable, and I am able to afford a room over a tailor's shop."

"Near the police station?"

"Right across. You know Whitechapel, then?"

"Minutely. It has a large criminal element."

"It was a large working-class element as well," she said.

Holmes gritted his teeth. She was an obstinate woman when she dug her heels in. It should have been irritating, but he found he admired her for it. And those damn regular features of hers were growing on him as well. He had been sitting here for hours, with nothing more to do than stare, and he had found in her relaxed face something that drew him. An open innocence that became more pleasing the longer he looked. Now that she was awake it was her pain he saw, in every involuntary twitch or pause. By some inexplicable sympathy he felt it too, and wished, perhaps for the first time, that he was better equipped to sooth. He would steal that pain from her if he could, even at the risk of his own comfort.

"I usually go by way of Fenchurch Street, but yesterday I went by Eastcheap."

He shook his head, drawing himself back to the conversation. "What frightened you about Fenchurch?"

"Nothing. I wanted a change of scenery. I was going to skirt around Trinity Square and go up Coopers Row to John Street. I…well, I was still upset from our exchange that afternoon, and I wanted the extra walk. I had just come abreast of Gunpowder Alley when it happened."

"Gunpowder Alley doesn't join John Street."

"No. It runs parallel. There are several narrow paths through though if you know where to look. And I'm positive several of the row houses are empty, and act only as tunnels from one street to the other, to facilitate a quick escape" She blushed slightly. "The doorways are often inhabited by…working people."

Holmes' eyebrows raised. "Miss Rushford. How daring."

"You are patronizing me again, Mr. Holmes. I have eyes. I can see people come and go. I have never been down those alleys myself, but that doesn't mean I don't know what kind of trade goes on there."

"My apologies," he had the decency to look contrite. "Please continue."

"But that's all. I had just turned onto John Street when I thought I heard a door close. I felt something behind me. There was a hand I think, on my back, a fist, perhaps. I remember hearing breathing, and something against my neck. It tickled."

"Fabric?"

"Hair I think."

"Long and soft?"

"No. Short. Prickly. I had a flash of my father as he tucked me in when I was a child."

"Did your father have a mustache?"

"He did."

"Did you smell anything?"

"Tar. Citrus I think."

"Go on."

"There's very little else. It all happened so fast. My violin smashed…" She shuddered again at this, a violent spasm running through her.

Holmes moved before he could check himself, laying the back of his fingers gently against her cheek. Despite her lack of colour her flesh was fiery hot to his touch. "Do you need someone? I mean, do you want me to get someone? A nurse?"

She shook her head. Her chestnut hair was tangled under the back of her neck, and the hospital gown settled in the hollow valleys of her spare frame. Her collarbones jutted out at the opening of the collar. The pulse at the base of her throat jumped visibly beneath her skin. She looked away from him, and Holmes could see tears glistening unshed in her eyes. Despite her delicate frame, she was deceptively strong. He swallowed away a sudden parched feeling in his throat and gently moved several strands of hair away from her face. His touch brought her eyes back to his, and a small frission passed through her, this one having nothing to do with pain. She had never seen a man look at her that way before. It was something naked and possessive, and she felt her blood hum in recognition. Holmes must have felt dangerously affected as well, because in the next instant he dragged his eyes away from her and fixed them to a spot on the wall above her head.

"Are you absolutely sure that the violin was destroyed?" He asked, easing himself away from her and crossing his arms over his chest.

"I saw it go to pieces," she confirmed.

"Interesting. That is significant."

She lifted her arms again, and this time was able to get them out from under the blanket, holding her hands up to look at them for the first time. "Oh, my God." She started into a sitting position, staring wildly at the bandages covering her fingers from sight.

"Please, Miss Rushford. Do not distress yourself unduly. I have talked to the doctor. He says it looks worse than it is. "

"Oh, God. Will I play again? When will I be able to play?"

"Your string hand is badly strained, but with proper rest and gentile practice it should come to function much as it did before. Your bow hand is another matter. It is broken in several places."

He saw the ramifications of this settle on her. "How long will it take to heal? Will it heal?"

There it was again, a flash of something gut deep in him that urged him to offer the comfort of an embrace, a kind word, anything to take the panic and dismay from her. Preposterous really, he chided himself, that such inanity should come to him now. "The outcome here in a public hospital is uncertain. These places are more aptly referred to as gateways to death, rather than institutions of healing," he pressed on. "The best thing would be a private clinic where a specialist can re-break your hand and set it properly."

"I haven't the money for a private clinic, Mr. Holmes."

"Evidently. Neither do I."

"Then I am lost."

A bare half-smile quirked the side of his mouth. "You do certainly have a feminine flare for the dramatic. On the contrary, Miss Rushford, if the hospital system refuses you proper official help, then it is up to me to offer it to you unofficially."

"I am not letting you go anywhere near my hands."

"I should say not. I mean to take you to someone who knows a great deal more than me."

She took a moment to consider this, glancing over the other crowded beds to see if any of the nurses were on the ward.

"Mr. Holmes, do you mean to kidnap me?"

"I mean to abscond with you."

"It is the same thing."

"And yet absconding sounds less vulgar. Come, if you can walk, then I suggest we go." He waited. "Can you walk?"

"I believe so. You want us to parade right out the front door?"

"Unless you wish to make use of the window."

"And is there a plan in place for after we leave?"

"Miss Rushford, I may live in squalor, but I have family members in high places. Now, I have your clothes bundled here. Can you dress yourself?"

"Do I have another option?"

"I could assist you. My research into bruising time in the freshly dead has led me to make extensive studies of the corpses of both male and female victims. I am as clinical a bystander as you will likely ever come across."

She tried to hide her expression of alarm, which was followed quickly by a quizzical scrunching of her brows. He seemed to be in earnest. Of course he was. There he sat, a hopelessly rude, arrogant, socially inept, beautiful man, with a touch as seductive as the devil, and a penchant for studying the bruising time in the freshly dead. There was no justice in the word.

"As much as I appreciate the sentiment Mr. Holmes, I believe I would prefer to try my utmost to dress myself."

"Very well."

He jumped from his chair. There was a folding screen a by one of the tables, and he brought this over to her and spread it as wide as possible, leaving her clothing at the foot of her bed. Kit swung her legs out gingerly and pausing every few minutes to let the throbbing in her lower limbs subside, struggled through the intricate process of fastening her clothing about her. Not for the first time, she sent a silent prayer heavenward for her simple taste in style. During the whole endeavor, Holmes stood sentinel on the other side of the screen. She could hear the creak of one of his polished shoes and he shifted his weight from one leg to the other, and the rhythmic sound of his quiet shallow breathing.

The hansom rumbled along the roughly paved streets of the theatre district. The smells of street food, warm horses and humanity drifted to them through the open windows of the cab. There was a stiff wind from the Northwest that afternoon, and the smell of the curdled Thames came to them accompanied by the cries of a group pf ragged children as they ran down the street, pursued by a red faced grocer, puffing and groaning as his apron flapped out behind him, sweating and laboring after them.

Her shoulder bumped his again and his eyes came in off the scenery, where the surroundings were slowly giving way to the more mellow streets of upper-class neighborhoods.

Kit kept her hands curled tightly in her lap, the bandages making it impossible for her to brace herself and stop any sideways movements as the cab rocked and jostled them along. She noticed that every time she was thrown helplessly into him a muscle jumped at the corner of his jaw, and he shifted another imperceptible inch farther away from her.

Kit felt strange noticing such things about him, since he seemed to shun any kind of recognition of parts of himself that did not stem from his brain. It made all her discoveries about him at this close distance guilty secrets. He had a small swirl of hair at the nape of his neck that was only visible now that he was without pomade, and where the rest of his hair was raven, this small rebellious swirl was fawn. A small straight scar peeked out from the underside of his left sideburn, ending in a deep indent close to his earlobe. The smell of his aftershave was provocative, but whether it was more pine or sandalwood she couldn't decide. She could also tell that he shaved himself. However studious he was, it was obvious that his face was not maintained by a barber, making the choice of aftershave his own. She wondered what it was about this particular scent that appealed to him.

"Who is Lucy Tilby?"

She stared, worried that something of her thoughts might have snuck onto her face. "She is a friend of mine from the theatre."

"A fellow musician?"

"Yes. We sit beside each other."

The hansom pulled to a stop and Holmes jumped out onto the street, leaving his hand on the open door to bar her way.

"No, please stay here. I will go inside and get him. Today the mountain will come to Mohammed."

"Where are we?"

The street was crowded with somber stone buildings, swept clean of debris, with high mullioned windows and imposing doors daring anyone to approach without proper breeding and accreditation.

"The Diogenies Club. I sent a telegram to my brother Mycroft this morning to warm him that I might be in need of his help. Since women are not allowed inside, I will go in a fetch him for you. If I can convince him to move from his chair."

He motioned for the cabbie to wait and then bounded up the stairs two at a time.

Kit closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on anything other than the throbbing in her arms. She willed herself to move the fingers of her left hand. She felt the fingers flex and release several times, but her right hand remained stubbornly motionless. The pit opened up inside her again, and she could not draw her mind away from it, no matter how hard she tried. Her only hope seemed to be in trusting this scarecrow of a man from Montague Street. The thought was unsettling to say the least.

The carriage rocked slightly as the door was pulled open. Holmes came into sight for a brief moment, before a hand shoved him out of the way, and then a bundle of scarf and overcoat and thin grey hair was heaving into the seat next to her, easing down a corpulent frame and smoothing his overcoat over his knees. Kit looked up into the laconic grey eyes of this older Holmes, who leaned his gold-topped cane between his legs.

Sherlock stayed out in the street; one hand braced against the cab door. "Miss Rushford, this is my brother Mycroft. If there is anyone who can help us, it is he."

Mycroft Holmes inclined his head slightly. His rounded features gave him the look of a favored grandfather or uncle. He had the long square Holmes forehead, regular hooded features, and florid cheeks. His eyes lacked the manic energy of his younger brother. His voice when he spoke had more gravel in it.

"When I received your note telling me that you had gotten a girl in trouble, Sherlock, I rather assumed you meant it in a more common sense. But I see once again you were obtuse."

"Mycroft…" Sherlock started, before the elder Holmes waved his brother into silence.

"Mycroft?" Kit echoed.

"Yes my dear. I'm afraid Sherlock and Mycroft are two of the more normal names in our family. Our older brother's name is quite absurd."

"Older brother?"

"Sherlock here tells me that you are in need of special care."

"As I'm sure you can see for yourself, brother." Sherlock put in from the street. He pulled a silver cigarette case from the pocket of his waist coat along with a small box of similar design filled with matches. He lit the cigarette and replaced both cases in their original pockets. He inhaled deeply, and the smoke trickled out his nose. "Miss Rushford is an exceptional violinist and must not lose the use of her hands."

Mycroft's eyes flicked from his brother to Kit, noting her reaction to the younger man's words of praise. She suddenly felt what it was like to be a bug under a microscope.

"Really, Sherlock, your egoism and eccentricity does push me a trifle too far some days. The pair of you look like wandering gypsies. And now I am to be drawn into this sordid affair?! To clean up your mess, brother mine, once again?! Does this have anything to do with that detective agency you are trying to make a go of? Because I told you that was nothing but foolishness!"

"You sound like Father," Sherlock pouted.

"And you are acting like Mother. It is insufferable."

Sherlock threw up his hands and walked away from the door, back onto the pavement, smoking furiously.

Kit eyed the door handle at her side. "I'm sorry gentlemen. I think I should leave and go back to the hospital. I'm afraid I am feeling rather faint."

"Wait." Mycroft stayed her with a hand on her shoulder. "Good lady, please accept my apologies. My brother's foolishness makes me forget my manners sometimes." He settled back into the seat again, pressing his lips together in thought, measuring her with those hooded grey eyes. Finally, he nodded, almost to himself. "I do know a man. And my influence would not be lost on him. We will go together my dear, and get you seen, although I cannot promise anything other than this. If he agrees to take your case then I have no influence over the outcome. Still, he is a talented man. You could see no better in the city."

Kit's eyes flooded with gratitude. Before she could utter a word of thanks he had turned back to his younger brother. "Are you coming Sherlock?"

"No. I am bound for the theatre. That is where the data is, probably being trampled and obliterated as we speak."

"You shan't go like that? Where the devil is your coat? And to what atrocious treatment have you subjected your hair?"

"Calm yourself, Mycroft. I shall stop by Montague Street first to change and gather my things. I can be of no further use to Miss Rushford at the moment. I will meet you at your home later, brother."

Kit tried to hide her anxiety. Foolishly, she had started to imagine that Holmes might stay with her throughout the coming ordeal.

"Goodbye Mr. Holmes." She tried to keep he voice even and unaffected. "And thank you."

He bowed to her, not meeting her eye, then stepped back and closed the hansom door firmly between them.

Mycroft merely chuckled and shook his head. He reached out and patted her shoulder in his disarming way. "Don't worry, my dear. Sherlock believes that every problem in life is one to be considered, and then cast off as soon as solved. He hasn't yet learned that you never solve people. You and I will visit this specialist immediately, and then my brother and I will have a discussion as to exactly what his role in this whole matter will truly be. Come. For now, we go to Brook Street."

He tapped his cane on the roof of the cab and the horses jolted them into movement once again.