My phone rang.

A short while had passed and still the image left on my phone pestered my every thought. Surely, I hoped, Sherlock's call would alleviate all that.

"Hello? Where are you? Lestrade doesn't look too pleased."

My description of the man was not unfounded. Two officers took notes by the door as he addressed them sternly, each aware of the situation with Gregson and equally wishing they were anywhere else.

Sherlock gave no answer.

"Hello?"

Again, No answer came. All that could be heard was a single sigh and a deep humming.

I hung up, assuming he had pocket dialed me. I was left flustered and unknowing on what to do when the same number called back almost immediately. I gathered the strength to move my thumb and listen on. I heard Sherlock sigh. For certain, it was the same thoughtful noise he had made continuously in the pass when thinking on the case, much to my annoyance.

"You alright back there? You keep sighing." Spoke a voice I didn't recognise.

"It's nothing, driver. Just thinking about a friend of mine."

Driver? Where on earth was Sherlock off to? I had learnt quickly that he was one to depart at a moment's notice, but this time it was too strange. His call and the changes on my phone made that clear. I left the detective discussing something with his subordinates, closed my bedroom door behind me and listened on. All I could interpret from Sherlock's actions was that he wanted me to hear this.

"In trouble are they?" The driver asked. His voice was unclear past the hum of the car.

"Sort of. They have been hurt, you see, something from their past. It keeps coming back to them. Round and round it goes, like a ring."

There was a moment of silence.

"Uh-huh." The man said, seemingly uninterested now.

"It's hard to say anything without hurting them. Only they know what's going on in their head, what barriers they've put up… what demons they carry," The driver didn't answer. "Just up here, there is a café nearby."

A café? Had he found a lead, I thought. Unless… it was something else. A call left for me to hear, a seemingly useless image on my phone…

"Ham and eggs… the old crone." I whispered.

I was about to leave my room when my foot collided with a small box protruding from under my bed. I knew what was inside, yet there was now a small note sticking out of the lid.

What may happen today, we might need this.

It was Sherlock's handwriting, and the ink was fresh enough to leave a small smudge when I touched it. My heart began to pound so fast I thought I would pass out. My father's pistol had been decommissioned, and Sherlock knew that. He wasn't one to forget anything. I slid the box back under my bed and rushed to the living room, only to find the detective gone. No car was outside and only Mrs Hudson remained to inform me on what had happened. All she knew was that Lestrade had left to find his colleague Gregson.

I paced and paced, mirroring the very action that had driven my nerves to a detestable state. I felt like the weight of the case had been slammed purely on my shoulders, as if I was suddenly some great part of this hidden scheme of his. Was it his twisted way of drawing me back in? I hated the notion, and yet I could not escape it. I was meant to do something, but what? He had left me with nothing to go on, nothing but a note and the image on my phone.

If he was in trouble, he could well need my help.

With that thought, something stirred in me. All logical thoughts turned into a rush of adrenaline, and soon the box under my bed was empty. I knew if I ran, I could be at the café in minutes. I took off with my father's firearm in my back pocket, concealed by my shirt. My phone remained in my hand with Sherlock's crackled words continuing from wherever he had hidden his own.

"I guess I just hope that he will find his way eventually," Sherlock said. "That is all we can do. Hope – hope that we can bring a change from the events of our past, for the sake of our future. Hope drives us to our final destination, after all. In your case, quite literally."

The call ended. I cursed him. Whatever he was doing, it was a stupid and dangerous thing, I was sure. He had been brazen enough to converse with the murderer over the wedding ring, and then he took off with nothing but cryptic messages and a phone call that chilled me to the bone. I found myself progressing faster and faster still, driven on by something more than fear. It was strange indeed, and my heart pounded on. Little thought of what I would do when I arrived at the café came to mind, for I was fully devoted to the moment. There was no time to think on what I was to discover.

Fate decided that I would not reach the café after all. In the alley through which we had pursued the nimble crone was a parked taxi. Two figures stood alone in the grim confines of the isolated street.

One held a gun to the other.

I had to focus on not panicking. I held my hand to my mouth in an attempt to stop any involuntary sound from escaping, lest I drew attention to myself. My phone was away now, and my fingers rested against the harsh brickwork as I concealed myself around the corner. Only one voice between them sounded familiar.

"Clever. Such a clever punk, aren't you?" The gunman's voice was American. "I read about you, helping out the cops. I couldn't help but find out who you were. After our chat at the coffee shop, I knew they were closing in. But you, you were intriguing."

"I see we have a shared interest in pretense, though mine is of a less crooked intent."

My roommate spoke with such lack of the fear that burned at me. I couldn't fathom if it was hidden to a degree that was unrecognisable, or if he really was so confident of his abilities that it didn't faze him. My hand fell slowly to my back pocket.

"You don't know a damn thing about any of this, kid! You say you know who I am, but these people!? They were scum, plain and simple as that. If there was justice in the world, they would have died and been left to rot below us long ago, and Lucy would still be where she belongs… with me."

I knew the name. It was the woman from the photograph. The owner of the wedding ring.

"True, I may not know the pain that brought you here, but I know what people brought an end to the woman you loved. I know of the wounds she carried from the man she was forced to call husband, and the last place they brought her to. I understand all of it, sir." Sherlock's voice was not judging in the slightest. My fear dissolved into confusion, until the man's next words.

"Turn around."

My breathing became rapid. I couldn't let this happen. If Sherlock had left those messages for me, then maybe this was my time.

Sherlock did as the man said, his head bowed.

"Put it down!"

They were confronted by the sight of me holding my father's pistol, aiming it at the man's chest, my arm's struggling to stay straight. He was startled and began to turn his own weapon in my direction. As quick as a flash, Sherlock held out his arms.

"Calm yourselves! There is no need for any of this. Good sir, you did not intend for any of this to go as far as it has. This boy is an innocent. He has lost someone dear to him too, and he is only trying to protect me."

My weapon would not stay still, even with both hands gripped firmly on it. I stared at the other man with an unbreakable gaze. It had been a great desire of mine since this madness had begun that I would never see him face to face, but now that I could see the culprit, I couldn't turn away. He was just a man. No monster was he. This was no image of a hardened criminal with no shred of a soul. He was just a person brought to heel by the life he had led. One hand gripped his weapon, and I could see that his arm was equally failing to hold still.

"Please sir. Lower your weapon." Sherlock requested calmly.

"Why should I? Your friend doesn't look like he intends to."

"He will. I promise you that."

"Promises!? I need more than that. All I have ever had are promises. I couldn't keep any of them, and none I received were ever anything more than attempts to prove how pathetic any chance I had of a decent future ever was."

The task of recording Sherlock's words in this present is a monumental one. My surroundings had been carried off in a tempest of emotions until only I and the murderer were left in the void. His words however, are as easy as remembering this morning.

It was kill or be killed, gun to gun, with no knowledge between us as to the nature of our weapon, real or not. Was this what my father had in his last moments? He was an army doctor, and knowing that I had always pictured him on the field of duty, attending to a fallen comrade when some wicked fool had taken it upon himself to end his life, and leave me and my mother to a world of torment. The truth of this would never be known to me. As I felt the pistol in my grip in its decommissioned state, I couldn't help but feel that lies had been stripped away from it. My own father could have done the very same thing to the enemy, evil or no. Ending a life was ending a life, and even a man's way of life and intentions leave their killer no less than that. I didn't want to see my father the way he could have been. The sight of Enoch Drebber came back to me, and all I could do was give in to it all.

The gun fell as I lowered my arms. I looked at the killer no longer and waited, but no sharp pain or deafening noise came for either of us. The next time I looked across the alley, the man's own weapon was resting on the floor. His face was pensive and did little more than switch gazes between me and Sherlock Holmes.

"Watson," Sherlock said with a gentle voice. "Let me introduce you to Mr Jefferson Hope."

The dank alley way was suddenly flourishing with flashing lights. Doors clicked open as men came rushing towards us.

"Your timing is admirable Gregson. Our mystery, at last, has come to an end."

The man was cuffed immediately and gave no resistance to that fact. I was hasty to return my father's weapon to my back pocket in fear of their unknowing reprisal. As events took place, I was surprised to find Sherlock beside me, watching on. It was almost comforting for the first time for him to be there.

"You have a lot of explaining to do at the station, sir." Gregson said to our culprit.

"There will be no need of that. I am quite happy to tell it all right now. I am not one for delaying, and neither is nature."

Gregson growled, but Sherlock was quick to step in.

"Actually Gregson, this is quite true. Give the man his time, for I fear it is of the essence."

The detective was visible annoyed, but still a tad curious at the same time.

"John here is studying to one day become a doctor. Here is a chance to see how far your knowledge carries you so far. Could you identify this for us?"

Sherlock approached Jefferson Hope, and I followed suite.

"Could you place a hand to the man's chest for us?"

The same shake we had both experienced in our moment of locked weapons was still present in Mr Hope, but his face showed no sense of fear or unease. With him cuffed, I risked touching his chest, above his heart. The man made no objections. I realised in time that this was not of nerves at all.

"This… he has an aneurysm!" I gasped.

"An aortic aneurysm if I am correct," Sherlock added.

"That's extremely dangerous." I said brazenly. Jefferson showed no care for our words and was unmistakably aware of the condition, and its threat.

"Indeed," Sherlock began to pace between myself, and the police force with their culprit. "At first I had thought it part of his ploy during our first meeting out the café, a man so enthralled in his performance as an old woman that he was able to deduce the level of an uncontrolled tremor, but as our meeting progressed the more I came to realise its involuntary nature. It was evident again when we had the pleasure of being driven to Scotland Yard by our culprit."

The moment came to me in an instant. The shaking hand of the man I had handed the money to, it had been too small to be significant to me. Such a trifling thing, and yet to Sherlock it had been as relevant as the ring at Lauriston Gardens.

"I recognised the license plate as identical to the vehicle from the picture I had taken outside Halliday's private hotel", Sherlock continued. "A strange coincidence, and yet the discovery of your vehicle was of another nature. On two instances the culprit was able to escape in a moment's notice, each time in a taxi with no questions asked. A taxi that must have belonged to that person. It was the very vehicle that had been outside in the rain the night of Enoch Drebber's murder. Your vehicle's size matches that of the shape left on the dry road. One of many, yes, but your tires carry the same distinct mud from the overgrown and unkept street quite unlike those around it. Lauristen Gardens is, after all, a street oft disregarded."

The excitement Sherlock would carry himself with explaining his theories had been utterly replaced with a determination of furious deductions. It was a great performance of his mind and all I could do was watch on, locked in the mystery unfolding before me.

"Once your vehicle had been located, all it required was to learn of your usual routes throughout the city. A simple idea, yet time consuming for one individual. Fortunately, there was not one individual on the case," Sherlock did not evaluate on this point, but I was sure of what 'network' of little detectives he was referring to. "When the time came, and with all pieces to the puzzle put in place, all it took was this moment. All that was needed was a simple wave to the murderer, a taxi journey, and my friend Gregson ready to pounce."

After all that, Sherlock Holmes really did have it all planned. Yet, why was I there? It didn't make sense to me.

"It's… unbelievable," I whispered. "You did it."

"Elementary, Watson." He turned to me with a smirk.

"But… why? Why do it? Who was Lucy?" I asked Hope. What I had heard before revealing myself was still playing on my mind.

"I know the police don't care why I did it. All they want to know is that I ended their lives. If you think I'm a beast for what I did, then know that I am a saint compared to the dead I have left this week," The coldness with which he said such words proved his conviction to me. "We were to be married, my sweet Lucy and me. Her father trusted me, and we had known each other from a young age. But where she had grown up, and where I had come from were our weaknesses. In his desperation for money, her father had been dragged into an unsavoury group, one with an extreme conviction. To mark the bond, he was forced to marry her to one of their members. The idea of my Lucy being dragged to the alter with that monster Stangerson… I had never felt anger like that, but it didn't end there."

An officer took notes, and Sherlock and I listened on intently.

"He beat her. He raped her. He put her in hospital. There was nothing in him that can prove to me that he was a human being. When her father tried to escape his debt to them, when he continually denied them, they took matters into their own hands. They don't punish the person who betrays them, they are worse than that. When I heard of Lucy's death… I knew what they had done, Drebber and Stangerson. Two trusted doctors, experts in their profession. No one would suspect them. It was as easy as that for Stangerson to kill the woman he had sworn to be with before God… that Demon!"

The man's temper rose, and I was shocked to see blood begin to trickle down his nose.

"And so, unable to let the men that had taken your beloved get away with their falsehood, you hunted them to the ends of the earth." Sherlock interjected.

"Those scum were not men!" Jefferson spat. "They got wind of me tracking them, they fled like the rats they are until I found them here. I worked as a taxi driver to map out the city and find the best place to trap them."

"And that is when you caught these rats in your trap," Sherlock said. "In fear of their lives, Drebber and Stangerson split up. Feeling the reaper knocking, Drebber turned to drink to cope."

"The fool was always a drunk." Hope corrected him.

"His nature caused him to make advances on an innocent young woman at Charpentier's Boarding Establishment, and in that chaos you took advantage. He called a cab to visit a pub, and in the driver's seat was the very man he had been fleeing from. Isolated and forgotten, you drove the man you hated to Lauristen Garden's, and gave him a choice."

Hope snickered.

"The idiot didn't even know it was me until we were alone in that room. I was going to shoot him, but… I couldn't. Even after everything, I couldn't pull the trigger."

His face was pained, and I found myself able to sympathise.

"So instead, you put Drebber in a position where life hung in the balance for both of you. Two pills, only one survivor. You gave him the choice that Lucy had no pleasure in receiving, one leading to life and the other death. Your nose is dripping, sir." Sherlock told him.

Hope wiped his face with one finger and gazed at his own blood.

"It is here, where you watched Drebber die before your eyes, choking on his own mistake. You were the man with nothing to lose, a man dying a slow death. Knowing this, you wrote a deceiving message upon the walls with your own blood."

"Rache…" Gregson whispered.

"It was a quick idea. I hoped it would give me more time to finish what I had started." Hope spoke.

"That being to hunt the last person who had wronged you."

"I gave Stangerson the same choice, but the coward he was, he tried to escape. I couldn't hold back as I had with Enoch. He was a drunken fool out to get what he could. Stangerson on the other hand, he was a demon. I pulled out my knife and tore into his chest. A bullet was too slow. He had to feel it for what he did to Lucy. If I'm honest, I was surprised to find that his heart was beating at all," Hope chuckled through gritted teeth. "My mistake was leaving the ring behind. I'd shown it to Drebber, screamed at him. I'd tried to get through to any humanity he had for him to feel what he had done to Lucy. He cried, and I was surprised. He kept begging for forgiveness and shouting 'I am sorry' over and over. I was sure it was the drink. Either way, that didn't matter. Sorry and pleas don't bring back the dead. I wonder how he would have reacted had Lucy pleaded to him."

Every time hope spoke of Lucy, his voice fluttered from stone cold to that of pained whimsy. I could tell that the good memories he had were poisoned by her eventual fate. I thought of my father, and as much as I tried to see past it, all memories were poisoned.

"You may well have escaped with your deeds had you not been so careless. Lucy's own wedding band was too dear to you to let it lie in dankness. You attempted to retrieve it, only for you to be discovered by a local officer. Your performance as a drunk was as convincing as the old crone that, I'll admit, even deceived me for a time. Yet, it did not avail you. It was my tug, and pull you towards me it did."

The more I listened on, the more the idea of Sherlock Holmes being a charlatan became utterly ridiculous. His boasting that I had taken as arrogance did little to describe the true genius on display. That moment, all became clear. I had doubted him from the beginning, but in his triumph I saw someone that I had grown a seed of admiration for. If only a seed.

"Twenty years… so long it's been, but at long last, I can pass on knowing I kept my promise to my dear Lucy. My condition won't have me be free for long, and no prison cell can compare to where I am going. I may not see my beloved in the new life, but I'll die knowing that for any punishment awaiting me, the darkest pit of hell has swallowed those bastards whole, and I brought them to it. You're just a kid, so you still have a lot to learn. I hold that I am just as much an officer of justice as you wish to be."

I took one last look at the man called Jefferson Hope. He was not at all how I had imagined our killer. In his own way, he believed he was doing the justly thing, and I felt myself struggling to blame him for it.

"Sherlock… he did it for the woman he loved."

"He did Watson. That he did. The human nature makes it hard to brand him a criminal, but we have not the right, nor ability to overlook his crime. The law is clear, and often that clarity stings."

I watched the team of officers take Hope away. Gregson looked quite pleased with himself.

"Why did you only bring Gregson and not Lestrade?" I asked my roommate, the alley now returning to its original bleakness.

"I couldn't risk having their competitive nature obscure the last piece to the puzzle. Don't worry, Watson. I'm sure they will both take the credit for all that has gone on."

It didn't seem fair, and yet I could see the unmistakable glimmer of a smile breaking through Sherlock's calm demeanour. It was a job well done.

"I… Lucy… it doesn't seem right, any of it. He did what any of us would do if pushed far enough." I said, overcome by the emotional strain of all that had happened in the last week.

"It's like a cauldron," Sherlock answered. "That anger can boil over if not held back, and burn everyone around you. It's natural to lament the loss of someone we love, and easy to become blind to the people that remain to help."

Sherlock began to walk away, his hands behind his back.

"What are you saying, Sherlock?" I shouted after him, lost in his last words.

With a sly look, he turned just enough to draw eyes on me.

"You're not carrying your cane, Watson."

A sharp sound escaped my lips, but nothing more. I felt vulnerable all of a sudden. I hadn't even thought of it in my rush. It was a first.

"Well… all this excitement has me parched. Boscombe Valley Café should still be open for an hour more. I have a great craving for ham and eggs!"

I stood alone by the taxi, with my roommate disappearing into the evening fog. Two ways remained, one in front and one behind me. Sherlock's world of madness was just that, and I was much better off stepping back and returning to the safety of Baker's Street, grabbing my father's cane and drifting off to sleep in my warm bed.

Why did I follow on into the mist?