I pushed my way through the crowds, trying not to cough from the thick fog swirling through the air. The likes of which I had not seen in years, the pea-souper made the people around me appear no more substantial than drifting shadows, and I struggled even to see my own feet. I usually preferred to stay inside on days like this.

I could not, however. The virus currently sweeping the city had put every healthy doctor on call. Still-healing ribs or not, I could hardly sit comfortably at home when the hospitals were overflowing with patients, and the lead physicians at both Charing Cross and St. Bart's had thanked me far too many times for being willing to help. Most of their normal staff had fallen ill with the first wave.

At least Holmes had not forced me to argue him away from the door. Just before the epidemic had truly started, a message from Mycroft had sent my friend to the continent, and he had not yet returned to continue the hovering he had started after Daud's attack. So many weeks after my injury, I did not need to spend all my time inside. I would have gone stir crazy if Mycroft's message had not come when it did.

My stick slipped on a wet cobblestone, and I paused to let the sharp pain ease. While I had rather enjoyed the solitude, I could admit that Holmes would have been partially correct. Healed enough to return to work did not mean healed enough to spend a double shift on my feet. An early start at Charing Cross followed by a long afternoon and evening at St. Bart's had left me exhausted. My ribs throbbed each time my cane lost purchase, proclaiming their protest in a manner that soon compelled me to slow down. I had no wish to be confined to bed again.

Not that it mattered. The organization Holmes traced had proven itself far too skilled at staying in the shadows to find even one person in less than a week. I should have the flat to myself for at least a few more days—plenty long enough to recover from a tiring shift.

That familiar door finally appeared through the fog, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps I would conveniently oversleep tomorrow. After nearly twenty hours of soothing fevers and treating coughs, I could use the rest. I would not be able to pull two such days in a row.

The door clicked shut behind me, small noises indicating Mrs. Hudson still worked in the kitchen. She would bring a late supper soon, based on the delicious scent permeating the flat, but I took off my coat without calling a greeting. She never wanted to talk in the last few minutes of cooking, and my eyes were too heavy to want a conversation, anyway. I might well fall asleep before she came upstairs. It had happened before.

Though not if I had another patient. My fatigue fell away in a rush when a hacking cough carried from the sitting room.

"Holmes?"

No reply, but the sound came again, deep and rough to announce it had started several hours ago at minimum. My coat landed in a pile as I cleared the stairs as fast as my leg would allow. How sick was he to have returned this early?

"Holmes!"

My friend sat at his desk, his back to the room, and a flick of his hand waved off my urgency. Feigned preoccupation with an index hid his face.

"I am fine," he grumbled on hearing how quickly I entered. "It is just a cough. Everyone in France is coughing right now."

"Everyone in London, too." I caught sight of fever-flushed cheeks as I stopped beside him, and the back of my hand landed on his forehead. "You are already running the fever. How long have you been coughing?"

He tried to brush my hand away. "It will pass. The French police captured Louis just before I boarded the train."

My medical bag landed on the floor beside him, but I indulged the question. "Who is Louis?"

"The messenger that gave Daud the order to target us as well as Sir Chadwick." He frowned. "Your bag was not in its place when I arrived. Did you return to your rounds?"

"No." On call due to an epidemic hardly qualified as 'rounds.' I dug my stethoscope free. "How long have you been coughing?"

"Day or two. It is probably a cold." His frown deepened. "Then why did you leave early this morning and go to both St. Bart's and Charing Cross? You are going to aggravate that break."

So much for not arguing with him. "My ribs are fine, and a cold does not come with a fever. When did that start?"

"I do not have a fever." He shifted away from my stethoscope. "What part of 'It is just a cough' makes you still want to examine me?"

"Your cheeks are flushed," I returned evenly, retrieving the thermometer as well. "Your forehead was warm against my hand, and you can't hide your fatigue. Half of London currently has a cough and fever from the virus going around. Now hold still."

He grudgingly let me listen to his heart and lungs, then look at his throat. He did not sound congested, and his throat appeared normal, thankfully. The worst of my patients today had experienced trouble breathing after coughing themselves raw due to fluid settling in their lungs. I made a mental note to ask Mrs. Hudson to stock up on honey, but he shifted in place again when I handed him the thermometer.

"I told you I do not have a fever."

I breathed a laugh. "Prove it."

Frustration became truer irritation, but another coughing fit halted his reply and left him too breathless to continue. Once it eased, he placed the glass without protest.

"Just over a hundred," I read five minutes later, allowing a small smile when his glare turned more petulant. He despised being sick. "You are in the beginning stages."

He tried to harrumph. I waited for the resultant cough to pass before I continued, "Settee or your bedroom. Choose now, because your fever will start climbing within a few hours."

It should have started climbing before he got home. Most of my patients had reported the cough and the fever starting about the same time, not two days apart. I let myself hope that meant he would have a mild version.

"I feel fine." He turned toward his desk, one hand again waving me away. "I need to finish—"

The word broke in half as he quickly grabbed the edge of the table. My stethoscope bounced off the ground to let me prevent him from falling.

"You need to lie down," I corrected. "How much water have you drank today?"

Far less than he should with a fever, his silence answered. I changed my grip to better support him.

"Come." He scowled at me when I plucked the pen from his hand, but steadying him out of the chair garnered only a token protest. "You know that ignoring an illness only makes it worse."

"I am not—ignoring an illness," he grumbled, his gaze on his feet when another dizzy spell tried to steal his balance. "Merely putting it off until I can record my notes. I do not want—to forget anything. You know that case is not over yet."

"You can update your notes from the settee." I shoved a glass of water into his hand. "Drink all of that and as much as you can of a second. If a low fever is affecting you this much, you are probably dehydrated."

He grumbled something about overbearing doctors but did as I bid. Only after he started sipping his second glass of water did I retrieve his notes, pen, and ink from his desk. He leaned into the pillows to study me as I limped across the room.

"You do not hide fatigue as well as you believe you do," he informed me between swallows. "Are you ill?"

"I have been on my feet all day, Holmes, and I'm not the one running a fever. Don't worry about it."

He still stared at me. "When did you leave this morning?"

"Early." Several blankets formed a decent bed for him, and I started setting up another in my chair. "Do you need anything?"

He would have harrumphed again if a cough had not come first. "Are you ever going to stop being so stubborn?"

"Are you ever going to stop ignoring illnesses?"

That cough started as more like a laugh. I smiled in response.

"I did not aggravate my ribs," I promised. "I am tired from a long day, and I will probably sleep about as much of this evening as you do, especially if your temperature stays low for a while. You are the first I've seen whose fever did not immediately spike."

He hid his face in the glass but made no answer. Footsteps sounded on the stairs before I could question him.

"Why do I hear coughing, Mr. Holmes?"

"He went to France to get sick instead of waiting for it to find him in London," I said lightly, tucking a blanket in such a way as to support my back. "That smells amazing."

"You forgot to eat at midday, didn't you?"

I released the laugh Holmes smothered. "Yes, I did, but that has no bearing on how good that chicken casserole smells."

"I thought you would want something warm and filling after such a long day." She glanced up as I abandoned the blankets to cross the room, smiling in response to my own grin when I saw just what else she had piled onto that supper tray.

"You thought rightly, and some days, I believe you must be able to read my thoughts from the kitchen. How did you know?"

A large container of honey took its place beside another pitcher of water and the sturdier dishes better suited to clumsy fingers. "What else would you want when that cough makes the neighbors cringe in sympathy?"

Holmes' grumble carried from the settee. "It is not that bad."

He punctuated the denial with another round. That one devolved into more of a spasm, and I watched over the plate I filled.

"When you can say that without coughing, I might believe you." The plate clattered on the end table I dragged in front of him. "Eat something and keep drinking that water. With your symptoms progressing so slowly, we might be able to keep you from growing as sick as my other patients today."

I disregarded the responding growl to dish my own plate. Mrs. Hudson quickly noted the way I leaned on the table.

"Are you ill as well?"

I shook my head. "Tired. I cannot begin to count how many patients I saw today, most of them with raging fevers. Just when we got one under control, the next patient spiked." I glanced at where Holmes slowly finished his notes around small bites of casserole. "Turn away any visitors tomorrow. Anyone for Holmes can leave a message I will read when I can, but I won't be able to leave him alone until that fever goes away."

She quickly agreed. "Do you need anything specific?"

I used a bite to think before I answered, "You might make sure we have enough herbs. I used about half my supply today."

"You know I can hear you."

Mrs. Hudson's agreement did not cover Holmes' irritation, but the complaint's resulting cough meant he could not quite manage a true scowl.

"Of course," I replied once he breathed normally. "You struggle to speak without coughing, though. Eat your casserole."

Another cough answered me. Those were growing more frequent. Mrs. Hudson picked up the empty tray before I could form my request.

"Do you want tea as well?"

"Please."

She closed the door behind her, and Holmes looked up as I slowly made my way to the armchair.

"Go to bed."

I ignored him. He knew better than to think I would leave him downstairs alone, especially when I had already specified that when his fever started climbing, it would do so rapidly. I needed to be available when it did.

"Is your leg trying to buckle?"

I shook my head as I sank into my chair. Fatigue more than anything else necessitated my cane. My chest hurt more than my leg.

"Can you talk enough to tell me what happened in France?" I asked instead of saying as much.

An aborted grumble released the "of course" he did not try to voice, but he still took two bites before answering quietly.

"Mycroft's information led to a small shack on the outskirts of town." A lower volume obviously helped control his breathing. He sipped from his glass. "Louis had chosen it as a hideout. I spent the first two days watching from the shadows. When I knew enough of his schedule, I involved the local police."

The last word caught to suggest another cough. He cleared his throat, then took a large drink. I refilled his glass as he continued around smaller bites. "By the fourth day, they knew enough to arrest him, but Louis spotted an officer that evening. He disappeared before dawn."

The account paused as Holmes scraped his plate. I simply waited. He did not hide the desire to cough any better than I hid my fatigue.

"Louis only saw that officer because the man's loud cough drew attention," he finally continued, "and that same cough gave Louis away early this morning. I found him in a hidden room beneath the shack. He was not coherent enough to realize he was under arrest, and they would have taken him straight to hospital."

Holmes had hurried to board the next train, I realized, knowing he might fall ill as well. His cough had probably started about the time Louis went underground.

"With what will he be charged?"

"Conspiracy, espionage, and several counts of accomplice to murder," he answered. "I found enough information to link him to many of Daud's victims, but the three he killed himself I could not prove."

"Did you find any other leads?"

A gesture indicated a "maybe," but the cough he had been suppressing forced its way free. Long seconds passed before he could breathe again.

"You need to stop talking," I acknowledged. "Have you finished with your index?"

It returned to the shelf at his nod, as did the ink and pen to his desk. I shifted the water, another scoop of the cooling casserole, and the container of honey within reach as he adjusted the blankets.

"Sleep," he ordered somewhat hoarsely. "I will be alright for a while."

I made no reply, needing to be sure. Only when my thermometer proved his fever had not changed did I claim my chair.

"Mrs. Hudson should be bringing an herbal steam soon. Wake me if you start feeling worse."

He would not promise that, and my frustration prompted a twitched grin. I waited for him to settle before letting my eyes close.

Sleep claimed me immediately.

For anyone curious/trying to find the story mentioned, Daud's attack is detailed in Indian Illuminations.

Many thanks to those who have reviewed in recent days! I appreciate every one!

Fireguardian: Thank you! and I do believe you're right. I will never understand how Watson can ignore Holmes staring at him. I refuse to work with my back to a walkway because I can't focus if someone is (or might be, lol) staring at me.

Corynutz: So glad you enjoyed, and thanks for coming back! Though that does sound like an interesting tv show :)