Prompt: The Pandemic. Include a pandemic or a reference to a pandemic in your work today. Rant about Covid here in any way you want – frustration, boredom, grief – and remember that Victorians knew all about quarantines and epidemics that took entire families.

also modified from my initial thoughts on Nenia458's prompt, though the epidemic they provided didn't touch England

A familiar chorus echoed down the street, then nine bells tolled the hour. I breathed a tired sigh. Finally.

"Hannah."

She nodded once, her own relief evident. "Yes, Doctor."

Leaving me with tonight's final patient, long strides carried her to the full waiting room, where her announcement prompted a symphony of groans and complaints. Resolve never wavered.

"Take a teaspoon of this twice a day for three days," I told the young man in front of me, ignoring the few arguments from the waiting room to display the cloudy liquid I dripped into a small bottle, "then once a day for another three. It might upset your stomach, so keep yourself to simple foods for the duration. Any questions?"

He shook his head, then hesitated. "Does it matter if I take it at mealtimes? I know some stuff you have to take with food."

"This one doesn't matter." Only fatigue prevented me from smiling. I did not often have a patient with even superficial knowledge of my normal directions. He had no other questions, however. Two other simple instructions, plus the papers to accompany them, saw him out the door. I made no effort to leave my chair.

Fourteen-hour days, every day, for weeks, and still this outbreak showed no signs of stopping. If anything, it increased. The early hours of the morning found a line fifteen or twenty deep outside my door, and only ordering people out as the clock struck nine gave me any time to eat and sleep. I would not be able to do this forever.

At my age, I probably should not do it now, but I had not yet reached the point of giving up. Not when I could always help one more. A deep breath propelled me to my feet, and I stumbled my way toward the kitchen. I needed to eat before I slept.

My body said otherwise. A shoe scuffed the floor behind me, then I caught the barest hint of sweet, pungent familiarity before my vision tunneled.

Waves crashed on the beach, rhythmic white noise that soothed my exhaustion and suggested the salty tang of the sea. Gulls traded their screeching cries. A gentle breeze whistled through the trees. I rather liked this dream. I could pretend I vacationed in Sussex with Holmes despite not seeing him in weeks.

And had not heard from him in nearly as long, strangely enough. I should probably wire him later, if only to make sure his bees had not turned on him. Such an insinuation would surely earn me a letter in reply. He might even use some of that letter to tell me about his days. They would undoubtedly prove far more interesting than a never-ending stream of patients.

Patients. I probably had patients outside. A line of them, waiting for me to help as much as I could with my quickly depleting supplies. I needed to—

Wait. Sensation bloomed, followed by intense nausea. Was…was I a patient?

I did not remember feeling ill, but nausea grew in a churning, roiling wave. Gentle hands rolled me over just in time to dry heave into a large bowl. Right. I had skipped luncheon and not reached supper. I had nothing to expel. I soon relaxed into a sofa's soft cushion.

That I distinctly remembered not having in my practice. Where was—

Sussex. Steely grey met my searching gaze, and crashing sea registered as reality a moment later. I lay on the sofa in Holmes' sitting room. How had I gotten to Sussex?

"Are you awake now?"

Yes, but my mouth proved entirely too dry to form words. I drained the glass before I could speak.

"How?" Did I get here? Also, how long had I slept? He would easily hear both questions, and I did not care which he answered first.

"You had been ignoring your mail." A silent query refilled my glass, though I sipped this one. "I told you that if you did not reply in two days I would start searching. I entered just before you collapsed. It is two hours before noon the next day. When did you last eat?"

"Breakfast," I admitted, the growl of hunger a direct contrast to the nausea still threatening. I had not found time for more than two meals a day in well over a week.

As he had guessed, by the frown he leveled at me. One hand nearly dropped a plate of cold cuts within reach.

"How many times did you order me to eat during a case?"

"Far more than the sum total of luncheons I've skipped," I retorted, a smile removing any hint of sting from my words. "Considering you skipped every meal rather than one of three, I don't see how you have room to remonstrate."

He merely harrumphed. With my second glass of water half gone, a pitcher—most likely tea—joined the plate on the nearby table.

"Your maid hung your sign on the door, estimated date two weeks from now," he continued, deciding to ignore my point. I made no effort to hide a grin. "She helped me pack a bag, and I borrowed a motorcar from Mycroft to bring you here. You can give it back when you return to London."

Which need not be anytime soon, that ordered. Trying to leave any earlier than those two weeks would probably result in Holmes stealing some incredibly important part of the engine and saying the 'car needed repairs. He had done it before.

Not that I could say anything, considering I had tried the same tactic on one of his rare trips to London. He had needed barely ten minutes to find the luggage I had hidden with my own, and less than that to sift his clothes from mine. The ruse had only "worked" in that he saw the hint for what it was and "found a case" in my sitting room—one which delayed him a whole day. I doubted I could pull such a plan again.

Though I might not need to. He rarely troubled himself to travel, and we both knew the other always wished a longer visit. Given his way, I would have taken the second bedroom years ago, when he first moved here. He knew I would visit whenever he wanted.

Well, almost whenever he wanted. We both also knew that my ability to travel decreased during a city-wide influenza outbreak.

An outbreak for which he now checked me for symptoms. Long seconds passed in silence as keen eyes studied everything from the amused scowl I displayed to the way I swallowed against my churning middle. Only when he had undoubtedly read my thoughts in addition to listing my symptoms did he finally lean back in his chair, propping one ankle on the other knee.

And dropping a handkerchief.

I stared, ignoring some simple question meant to start a conversation in favor of the realization blooming beneath a dozen inferences. Holmes never carried a handkerchief anywhere but in his breast pocket, and then only if he thought it might prove useful for anything but its intended purpose. Handkerchiefs were for picking up dangerous or otherwise sensitive clues, offering to weeping females, bandaging an injury, or wiping a young Irregular's face, none of which he would need to do here. And even if he had, he would not store such a tool in his jacket pocket, where it could fall out and disappear.

Which meant he did not want to grab that handkerchief by force of habit. That bit of cloth had a single use that made it unfit for anything else, a single use it had probably already accomplished.

Sweet, pungent familiarity. The events in my exam room came rushing back, from my patient's exit to the scuff of one shoe against the floor. Holmes' story had hinted that I had collapsed just before he could startle me in mischievous greeting, but my own memories demolished that deduction.

I had not smelled my friend, or even an intruder. I had smelled ether.

"Holmes!"

He lunged from his chair, ducking the pillow I launched across the room. The slammed door did nothing to ease my frustration.

After decades of arguing about not using me for an experiment, that confounded detective had drugged and kidnapped me from my own practice. That explained both my dry mouth and the nausea that had woken me, just as it explained the lack of hovering I normally battled when truly ill or exhausted. I would pay him back for this.

And he had given me a fortnight to formulate a perfect idea. Perhaps I would finally show him just what I had learned in my medical chemistry courses.

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