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It was late spring of the year 1893, as afternoon ceded to evening, and my last patient had been departed some minutes when Annie knocked again, ducked back apologetically, and the doorway of my consulting room was eclipsed by the form of Mycroft Holmes. I had not seen the man since before that fateful trip, when he had assumed a cabbie's disguise for his brother's sake. I had written him, in Switzerland's wake, and he had sent a card after Mary's death, but mutual and stilted condolences had been all. He looked exactly as I remembered him, if a few years older and a few pounds heavier, and that penetrating, assessing look found me less than prepared to meet it.
"Mr. Holmes! I trust this is not a medical visit?"
He tilted his head. "Not at all, Doctor. I wonder if you would do me the honour of coming to supper with me."
I must have been a picture of confusion. "Of course. Give me a moment."
I changed for the evening as swiftly as I might, aware of myself and the image I must present in a way I had not been in months. I could guess at some of what he must see. I had gained weight, but unhealthily, and lost muscle by the way every action seemed to require more than past effort. I did not doubt that 'widower' was writ large across my countenance to such a man, and 'lost child', and I hoped that 'depressive wretch ' and other, worser things were not writ likewise.
But whatever he could see of me, he did not detail it, and his countenance held no judgment. "Perhaps we might walk."
Indeed the evening air was, for London, surprisingly clear, and the wind was in our favour, blowing the breath of the Thames away from us. Walking beside Mycroft Holmes was both like and unlike walking beside his brother. He was of a similar stride and walked with purpose, but without the spring - sometimes the trudge, stomp, or near dance - that had animated my friend's movements. But even as I was conscious of drawing the comparison, so I became aware that Mycroft perceived my doing so, for that small quirk had returned to the side of his mouth.
By halfway through the meal I came to realise I had been doing all the talking, and Mycroft Holmes guiding me to continue with a deft subtlety of conversation.
"You are a social creature, Doctor. To what should I take offense? I am glad to see you improved." He slid the side of his spoon into the pudding, and tasted it, eyes tracking someone behind me for a moment, before returning all that focus to my person. "And though I am not a sociable man myself, I can appreciate the benefit of good company on occasion."
"But what made you seek me out at all?"
He waved one huge hand and took a sip of his wine. "Merely an impulse."
I doubted that very much indeed, but it was hardly arguable.
We parted at the corner, the bulk of him beside me no longer quite as strange. "Whatever my brother thought, neither he nor I have ever been able to claim omnipotence." The watchful, satirical note in his eyes had gentled, and his grey gaze, no less penetrating, became something very like the look of an older brother. "Be yourself again, Doctor. Those who love you would desire it."
He departed back to Pall Mall, and I was left feeling as though I had confessed a great deal and been absolved, yet with all the confusion of not knowing exactly what had been said.
While I doubted my own problems had been sufficient to cause Jupiter to leave its orbit, Mr. Holmes' advice was sound, and speaking to him had woken something in me that was willing to fight again. I began to go out socially once more, renewed my acquaintance with some of the men from my club, and with the club itself, though I stayed well away from the gaming that would once have drawn me. Mycroft was right, I was a social creature, and the society of other beings made a palpable difference to my heart.
Most unexpected of the friendships I regained was that of Inspector Lestrade, who I met quite by accident one night as I was returning from a house-call at the Wellington end of Park Road. Running feet, and a voice calling out gave me pause, made me step back out of the pale circle of the lamplight, but when the caller halted in front of me it was the Inspector himself.
"Doctor Watson! I thought I recognized you."
"Why, Inspector Lestrade! How do you do?"
"How do you do, Doctor. Forgive me stopping you, only-- Are you on your way to a patient?"
"I have just come from one, in fact."
"I wonder then, if you could see your way to helping us with a small matter fished out of the boating pond. Our medical consultant at the Yard won't be able to look until tomorrow, and I'd as soon know if I need to be chasing someone tonight."
Regent's Park was familiar, even in the dark, and my eyes looked for the path towards Baker Street out of instinct before I recalled myself and looked to the dead man.
With the help of Lestrade's constable, a thickset man named Bixby, I turned the body on its face and pushed hard with all my weight behind it on the back of the torso. Air and gasses hissed out, bubbling a little, but there was no great rush of water. Barely a trickle. The man had not drowned.
Lestrade's exclamation of triumph caught me aback, but his hand on my shoulder made me laugh in surprise. I had always imagined he must regard me as a mere addendum to my friend, whom he had come to consult. It was a humbling honor to find otherwise.
One afternoon, without allowing myself to think otherwise, I turned my steps towards Baker Street. It was just as it had ever been, not unaltered but unchanged in every meaningful aspect- save one. Mrs. Hudson was so happy to see me that I felt a flash of guilt at having abandoned her so entirely. She drew me in, and I followed her to the warmth of her familiar little parlor. It smelled the same, homelike, and with the smell of something cooking just beginning to drift through from the kitchen. The taste of her spice biscuits burned in my chest like brandy, so loaded was I with conflicted emotion.
I would not go upstairs. Those 17 steps were a world apart, visible but out of reach as if cordoned off by velvet ropes. Something from another time, something I needed to protect. I could not have borne to see those rooms emptied of my friend's life.
In the end I fear I took leave of Mrs. Hudson in a muddled hurry, needlessly rushing to be anywhere else. She pressed a little paper twist of biscuits into my hand, and I could feel every joint of her fingers, so small against my own. I longed for the illusory simplicity of 1881 with all the fierce and stupid intensity of nostalgia.
In a strange, suspended state I returned home; and when I reached that questionable haven, I found a note waiting for me, from Inspector Lestrade. If I had the time, would I like to come round to a little house on --------Street, he would greatly appreciate a medical opinion on the body found there before the coroner's wagon came.
I did not take off my coat, merely ducked next door to ask Anstruther if he would mind taking my patients for the rest of the afternoon. His glare of long-suffering amusement made me smile at the memory of previous desertions, and I hailed a cab with a lighter step. This was not merely my friend's legacy, nor a shadow of things lost. There was a curiousity and a thrill to the investigation, even if only in the medical sense, of these crimes themselves. The mystery of it had seeped into my blood, and it was in me now, even without him.
The game was still afoot.