Author's Note:

Whoa, three favorites! Thank you to everyone who's subscribed, reviewed, and favorited!

More thanks to the wonderful teenelizabeth, who's been checking out each chapter for errors before I post. Love you, hon! *hugs* Btw, she has a collection of SH drabbles: "Case 100." Go check them out!

To my reviewers:

Pearlmaidenredskyla: Thank you, my dear. …Lol, very cute. ^^ Well, thank you very much! I've actually been worried about Holmes & Watson's lines—as in, hoping that I'm keeping their speech accurate to their own time period. Glad to hear you think I'm doing so well! (And the next chapter of Destiny's Call is being worked on between my beta and myself! It should be up by Sunday.)

Haiza Tyri: Thank you! I love time-travel stories, too—it's one of my favorite concepts, I think (this isn't the first time-travel fic I've ever done, either, lol). Thank you for the corrections as well—I'm trying to be as historically-accurate as possible, but I'm no expert, so some things do slip past me. On the tea thing, though, would it really matter how Victorians termed the tea? I mean, wouldn't Watson still know black is such and respond to how Kathleen calls it? Just… thoughts. And, y'know, I did think about the seatbelts, and I was going to look it up to see if they had seatbelts back in 1904 (and if they did, what exactly they were called), but I forgot to do it! *cringes* Methinks some research and editing are in order… So, thank you for your observations, and if you catch any further problems, please let me know and I'll try to fix them! (And thank you for liking the story enough to think it worth improving!)

Brazeau: Thank you! There's a lot more Watson/kids interaction to come, and I'm going to enjoy doing that. =D

==Chapter III==

The Wonderful World of Computers

To err is human—and to blame it on a computer is even more so.

—Robert Orben

(Holmes)

No sooner had Christy Duran come forward to clear away breakfast than Kathleen pulled us over to the computer desk. "First lesson," she announced. "Booting up a computer—or powering it up, if you prefer." She pointed to one large button on the large, boxlike machine, and to another button on the flat, black machine that looked rather like a picture frame. "Do you see the similarity?"

Watson merely blinked, but I said, "They both have the same symbol: that circle dissected by a vertical line."

Kathleen nodded. "On just about any indoor machine nowadays, that's the power button. If it has that symbol, that means that you press it to activate the machine."

I nodded back. "Sensible."

"That should be easy to remember," Watson murmured, in a rather relieved tone of voice.

"Uh-huh." Kathleen pressed the button on the box, and then the frame—the frame instantly came to life, displaying the word Dell in large, bold lettering. "This is the computer, and this is the monitor," she explained, pointing to each. "The computer is where all the work takes place—all the data input and output—and the monitor is where you can see it all. And this—" she pointed to a device that looked very much like the keys of a typewriter—"is the keyboard. The keyboard is the control unit of the computer, and it's also where you type, like a typewriter. The other way that you control the computer is by touching the monitor, and I'll show you how in a minute. Monitors didn't used to be like this just fifteen years ago, but nowadays, they're touch-screens."

A blue background flashed up on the monitor, bearing five different small pictures. Kathleen raised her finger to the screen to touch the second picture from the top, then growled—seemingly at herself—and said, "That's the user menu. A computer can have several different user systems on it…" She trailed off as she took in the blank looks of myself and my companion. Her posture drooped, and she drummed her fingers on the desk. "Okay, in the early days of computers, you could have only one user system: one place on the computer where you could do your business. For the past couple of decades, however, computers have given you the option of creating several different 'work places.' I.e. if you had a small family, you could have a work place for every member of your family, and each work place would be fitted to their own personal tastes and needs. This computer is the family computer, so it has five different users on it: one for myself, one for the family—which is the user we're on right now—one for Dominic, one for Christy, and one for Jeremy."

"Dominic?" Watson repeated.

"My oldest," Kathleen explained. "The one who's out of the house. He was an adoption."

"Ah."

Our hostess proceeded to educate us in the usage of the computer, and her remark that I "would like it" was a severe understatement. I was completely fascinated with this marvel of technology, and could hardly wait for our lesson in using the thing to be finished so that I could start using it myself.

Kathleen noted my enthusiasm and laughed. "Ho boy, the great Sherlock Holmes is going to turn into a computer junkie. What have I done?" She threw her hands into the air melodramatically, eliciting a laugh from Watson and a scowl from myself.

"Computer junkie?" I echoed.

She sighed, still grinning. "Relax, Mr. Holmes—it was just a joke. Computer junkie basically means you're addicted to using it. But don't worry: I'm a computer junkie, and it never hurt me." She flashed Watson a reassuring smile, who simply raised an eyebrow and shook his head.

Watson was the first of us to use the computer, saying that once I got started, I would likely be at it past suppertime.

Well, I certainly could not argue with that logic.

At last, I had my turn and attacked it like I would an intriguing mystery—which, in all fairness, it was. I decided to start by browsing the databanks of Wikipedia: rather mindlessly at first for enjoyment, then more seriously as I began to look up subjects of more import. It would take too long to list everything I saw that first day, and I fear I would bore you, dear reader, as well. But what I learned that day, by turns, intrigued, shocked, and horrified me.

I brought myself "up to speed" on world history, learning of the First World War that had been brewing quietly even back in early 1904, continuing on to the Roaring Twenties and the depression that followed, and then World War II. The Holocaust was so apocalyptic that I was almost surprised that the world had not ended soon after—and so senselessly horrific that I felt physically ill. What logic there was behind it was utterly evil. At one point, I could no longer handle the descriptions I was reading, and stopped, pushing my chair back and closing the tab.

Kathleen's words about the world getting uglier had been, if anything, another understatement. Even I, who had seen many terrible crimes in my career and witnessed firsthand the depravity of the human nature, could not fathom how such horrors could be committed so coldly. Pray God that the hundreds of thousands of victims were avenged in the next life.

I continued on through my search of history, going through the reformation of the nation of Israel, the Korean War, Communism, the Cold War, the Space Race that ended in America landing men on the moon, the Vietnam War (the idea that it had not been a true war since a state of war had never been declared was ridiculous and served only, in my mind, to mock the men who had fought for Vietnamese liberty), the Berlin Wall, the rather dubious end of the Soviet Union, the '90s, the disaster of 9/11, the new Afghan war (which invariably put me in mind of Watson), and—to my surprise—the Second American Civil War. In reading through this last event, I discovered that my own hostess had been a war hero—not of the United States of America, but of the Sovereign States of the Constitution, or the SSC. I also discovered that Kathleen Duran had her own article on Wikipedia, and I clicked on it, scrolling down immediately to read more of her wartime involvement.

Officially, she was now a retired Colonel of the now-disbanded SSC Air Force—unofficially, but more importantly, she had been a spy in the USA during the war. While her children were shipped out to family living in Israel, her husband, Dr. David Duran—an army physician—joined the SSC Army out West, while Kathleen remained behind in New York to continue her fight against crime and help the SSC behind enemy lines. Her service as a spy, however, ended short about midway through the war when she was found out—the article did not say how, but I could guess that it had taken quite a lot to uncover Kathleen Duran's allegiance to the seceded states. She was sentenced to death for treason, but rescued by her own husband and a Special Ops team. From there, she entered the SSAF and quickly worked her way through the ranks, achieving the rank of Colonel but refusing the commission to become a General.

Both husband and wife came out of the conflict with honors, each bearing a Purple Heart for valiant service.

Curious as to how the civil war had ended, I clicked back to the main article. The Sovereign States were reabsorbed into the United States, but not through defeat—the SSC won the war. There was a good deal of political and ideological information surrounding that outcome that I did not fully understand, and I decided to ask Kathleen sometime to explain it for me. I returned to her article and started reading from the beginning.

(Watson)

While Sherlock Holmes spent the afternoon lost in what Christy Duran lightly termed "The Wonderful World of Computers," I explored the large Duran house. It was truly a beautiful home, subtly affluent as Holmes had observed, but just right for a large family. Kathleen showed me to the two guest rooms where my friend and I would be staying, then left me on my own to wander her home. I learned that the sitting room was now called the "living room" in the States, and it was there that I first visited.

Colour photographs adorned the empty wall space, and I studied the older images, depicting a much younger Kathleen and her deceased husband. Mr. Duran—I did not yet know his Christian name and profession—had been a tall man roughly Holmes's height, well-built, handsome, and several years older than his wife. As I continued my study of the photos, I came across one where Mr. and Mrs. Duran stood in what was obviously military uniform, though I had no idea how to interpret the emblems on their attire. Beside the frame hung two plaques for honor in service: one to a Major David A. Duran, M.D., and the second to a Colonel Kathleen A. Duran, S.S.A.F. So, her husband had been an army physician like myself, and Kathleen herself—a woman!—had been a Colonel, and was still one for all I knew!

I pressed on through the pictures, a veritable family history in photo form, and eventually hit upon the period after David Duran had died. It was a family portrait, but lacking the father—and despite the smile on her lips, the look in Kathleen's brown eyes was a look with which I was all too familiar. Loss, and a gnawing heartache that never completely healed.

I was struck by the difference between the vibrant, daredevil Kathleen in the early photographs and the older, haunted Kathleen some fifteen years later. To see her now, she had obviously come a good way along in her healing, but the hurt remained. In that moment, my heart went out to her.

I moved on to the next photograph.

(Kathleen A. Duran)

How do you handle coming across two men, widely believed to be fictional, from the Victorian Age? Much less taking them into your own home?

By taking it just one step at a time.

If I tried to think the whole thing out, it would make even my gifted brain spin. So I chose not to and, for once, decided just to go with the flow. These men obviously needed a helping hand, and I'd be doggone if I wasn't going to give them that hand.

It was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen, though: two men looking as if they'd just stepped out of the Granada TV studio, look-alikes—not identical, but close enough—to Jeremy Brett and David Burke. And then they start talking like they truly were the parts they looked.

My mind instantly ran through the possibilities. That they could be Stirling's men in an elaborate trap for me was impossible—there was no point to it. That they could be conmen was also next to impossible, for the same reason. That they were lunatics was much more probable, but how could certified lunatics get their hands on complete Victorian attire? The only possibility left was that they were absolutely who they said they were, and that was a fascinating and thrilling conclusion—so much so that I purposely left room for margin of error. I would not let my excitement cloud my judgment, even if my instincts were telling me to trust them.

I would not rule out time-travel as unfeasible. Science fiction is one of my loves, and throughout my career, I've seen some pretty strange things myself. Just because there was no concrete record of time travel other than the distinct possibilities of the prophet Daniel and the Apostle John in the Bible, did not mean that time-travel was impossible.

Now I found myself in the singularly interesting position of being a sort of caretaker for Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson. It was a challenge I relished, though I might not have been so excited had I known what I would have to explain to them that night. Blissfully unaware of the coming confrontation, I left the two capable men to their own devices and settled into the den to type up my report on my latest case for Chief Investigator Michael Warren in New York City.

(Watson)

The sun was hastening towards the West when I at last came upon the family library. A wonderful library it was, too: stocked, it seemed, with every sort of book a public library would have. I discovered that book-binding had also changed, no longer done solely in leather and paper, but in what appeared to be some sort of celluloid, as well. I was skimming over the well-filled classics section when I stopped short, astonished.

Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Works.

For a few moments, I was frozen. Then, slowly, I reached up for the enormous volume, resting it on my right forearm and carefully opening it. "By… Sir Arthur Conan Doyle," I read aloud, frowning. My editor was to receive credit for my work? Doyle knew how much my stories meant to me!

I stood there for a moment, quite angry. Then, pushing my anger back, I leafed through the pages, stopping at the table of contents. A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four, "A Scandal in Bohemia"… I perused the list, and, quite unexpectedly, came across several titles with which I was unfamiliar, "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane" and "His Last Bow" among them. Flipping to the end as quickly as I could, I began to read "His Last Bow." The story was set a good decade after our disappearance from 1904, a seemingly pre-war story—I had not yet learned of the World Wars as my friend was currently doing.

I set the book down on a nearby end table and began to pace the room slowly. These unfamiliar stories were all set after 1904, and there seemed to me to be two logical conclusions. The first was the most obvious: that Holmes and I would indeed return to our own time and continue on with our lives, and these future cases were just that—part of our future. The second rode upon the heels of the first, though quite different: that Holmes and I would not return, and Doyle had taken the liberty of continuing to give the public more Sherlock Holmes stories, fictional though they were.

I wondered which conclusion was true, and decided to discuss it with Holmes later. I found several smaller volumes of my stories (including an aged-looking The Boys' Sherlock Holmes copyrighted 1936, which edited out all reference to Holmes's use of cocaine) and concluded that the Complete Works was a collector's item, and the smaller books were for actual enjoyment. I was delighted to find a book titled The Pictorial History of Sherlock Holmes, containing the original Sidney Paget drawings from The Strand as well as photographs from dramatizations. It was another enormous book, and I settled down on the room's one settee to enjoy it.

(Kathleen)

I was curled up on the couch in the den, absorbed in a Star Wars novel, when Christy swung into the room, announcing that it was dinnertime. "Mr. Holmes is still on the computer in there," she added with a smirk.

I laughed. "I'll be right there, hon." I tossed my book onto my desk and hurried over to the dining room, where the kids were settling in and Sherlock Holmes was, indeed, still surfing the Web. Dr. Watson arrived a few seconds after me, took one look at his friend, then shrugged apologetically at me. I grinned and shook my head, motioning him over to his seat. I moved on to the computer desk and lightly leaned my right forearm on the computer, bending over to see Sherlock's expression of intense concentration and his current topic of interest—forensics. I wondered if he even noticed my presence, then figured that he did—after all, I could pull the same dead-to-the-world act while I was absorbed with something and still be conscious of the world around me. "Hey," I said quietly, smiling. "Dinner."

"Mm," was his only reply.

I rolled my eyes and—hesitating only momentarily over whether or not this would be a stupid move—reached down to turn the monitor off. He jerked to life then, glaring up at me with an intensity that few people could match. Fortunately, I was one of them, and I remained very calm. "Dinner," I repeated with all the finality suited to my twenty-thee years of motherhood.

"If it is all the same to you," he said coolly, "I should like to continue my research."

"You may," I agreed, "after ten minutes. Just ten minutes of break-time, Mr. Holmes, and then you can come back, okay?"

Thankfully, the kids were too busy in filling their plates at the buffet table to notice the altercation, but Dr. Watson's worried gaze was upon us. I tried one more time. "Mr. Holmes, please. Missing meals isn't exactly healthy."

"I seem to have lived through many a missed meal," he returned icily.

I sighed. "Fine. Whatever. Just…" I tightened my jaw and looked away, "just be careful what pops up on that screen, all right? I don't want the children to see something they shouldn't."

I glanced down in time to see the hard lines in his face soften somewhat as he turned the monitor back on. "Very well."

I shook my head and joined the rest of the gang at the table. "Aubrey, do you want to pray?"

(Holmes)

Most of the children had gone to bed when Kathleen and Watson passed by the dining room, discussing the practical details of our stay here. "Mrs. Duran," I called over my shoulder, not rising from my seat at the desk. Kathleen and Watson reappeared in the doorway.

"Yes, Mr. Holmes?" she asked, a bit irritably as she approached. "Don't forget, I have kids that are trying to get to sleep."

"My apologies," said I.

"What is it?" she sighed, folding her arms and leaning against the table.

I inclined my head toward the monitor behind me.

She looked over my shoulder, and her face hardened and paled simultaneously. "Yes?" she said in a tone to match her expression.

I leaned back slightly. "I have come upon several incomplete points in your illustrious history, Colonel Duran—perhaps you would care to enlighten me?"

"And if I refuse?" she said flatly.

"Come, come, you already know so much of mine and Watson's personal history that it is only fair."

Watson stepped into the room, a cautious look in his hazel eyes.

For what might have been fully half a minute, Kathleen Duran said nothing, her eyes distant. At last, her tough exteriour seemed to crumble, and she turned back to me, with a brief glance at Watson. "Come on to the living room," she said wearily. "I'll tell you all about it."

Author's Note:

The 1936 copyrighted The Boys' Sherlock Holmes is absolutely real, right down to the cocaine being edited out of SIGN (and yes, it is in my possession—you gotta love antique stores!). The Pictorial History of Sherlock Holmes is also real, and in the possession of teenelizabeth (I envy her…).

The idea of the Second American Civil War is inspired by both real life (yes, real life) and the alternate-history novel When the Almond Tree Blossoms—an excellent read (so go read it!).

Please review!