Chapter Text
In the weeks and months and years that followed that night, I often wondered if it would have been different had I known it would be the last time. Would I rather have had a premonition of what was to follow, or would I have rather been as I was, ignorant and happy and in love? I suppose a universal truth is that we never really know these things until the time has passed. The last conversation, the last press of a hand, the last time you carry a sleeping child to bed. Would we savor these moments if we knew, or would the knowing spoil them? I thought of this often, those lost years. Ultimately, of course, we cannot choose how our hearts are broken; we can only choose how to go on.
Holmes’s mood had been variable during our trek across the Continent, but as that was true of Holmes at the best of times, I thought little of it at first. During the day he was curious, vivacious, exclaiming over the beauties of the scenery, and peppering hosts and guides with questions as we made our way through the mountains, spending a night or two at one lodging after another on our aimless journey. At night he withdrew, and I could tell that he was struggling to find the right conditions for that contemplation which came so easily to him at Baker Street. I left him alone; he had never welcomed my intrusion when he was in one of his deductive trances. Playing a game of invisible mental chess against perhaps the one opponent in the world worthy of him was wearing him down.
We had been together on difficult cases and in dangerous spots before, but this time there was no case to solve, no problem to unravel, no clue to detect. He was fighting an unseen enemy for his life. We had been sleeping mostly in separate rooms, not wanting to attract attention with the suspicion of scandal, and though we were together every waking moment, I had rarely felt farther from him.
By the time we reached Meiringen, his earlier energy was gone, and we had spent much of the day in silence. The proprietor of the Englischer Hof apologized profusely, but he had but one room and one bed available. Perhaps in a day or two he would be able to provide more spacious accommodations, but for now, if the gentlemen would bear with him? Holmes nodded without speaking and reached out his hand for the key.
The room was indeed small and stark, but the bed looked comfortable and large enough for two, the sunset blazed through the bay window, and Herr Steiler had said something about stewed rabbit for supper. We could be happy here, I thought, if he would simply allow himself a moment to breathe.
“Hungry, Holmes?” He waved a hand at me from the spot he had already claimed in the window seat.
“No, no. You go down, Watson. I’ll be all right.” I knew how little use it would be to argue, so I went. When I returned, he was still in the window seat and the room was smoky with the haze from his pipe. Smoking was at least a good sign that he was on the trail of something, so I undressed in the silent chill without disturbing him and went to bed.
I do not know what noise may have wakened me, but when I opened my eyes, bright moonlight illuminated the room, and Holmes was exactly where I had left him, still fully dressed, his knees pressed to his chest. The haze had cleared, and as I blinked awake, I could see that the pipe had disappeared. The stillness of his hands struck me as unnatural. Even in the deepest thought, Holmes’s hands were always in motion, whether he was smoking, gesticulating, or tapping his fingers in agitation. Now, however, he was statue-like, hardly even breathing, and the sight chilled me.
“Watson.” I had not stirred, but some subtle change in the air must have alerted him.
“I have been considering, and my conclusion is that this was a mistake. I should not have brought you here.” I slipped out of bed and crossed the room to him. Finding the window seat not large enough to admit two grown men, I knelt down next to him, the cold wooden floorboards squeaking slightly as I did so.
“You mean the danger.”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever known me to shrink from danger?” The moonlight played over his face and I perceived an expression upon it that I had never seen before. Could it be fear? I reached out my hand and gripped his bent knee, my thumb aimlessly stroking it in little circles.
“Holmes, you need not bear this alone. You are not alone.” I thought I saw moisture in the deep grey eyes before he turned his face away. “You are never alone. You know that, Holmes.” I stood then, and took his hand. “Come to bed,” I said, “it’s freezing in here.” It was unusual of him to let himself be led, but he willingly rose and came with me.
Shivering, I retreated beneath the quilt and watched him undress down to his shirt before sliding in beside me, facing the wall. I was grateful for the warmth of him, and twined my legs around the long form almost too tall for the bedstead. He reached back to find my hand and held it to his chest, running his long fingers over mine. We had not touched like this since London, and a wave of comfort washed over me. It was not just the pleasure of what we did in bed that drew me to him, but the way he saw into me, observed the deep places of my truest self. He did not woo me with words of flattery; that would have been impossible, abhorrent to his nature. He observed, he deduced, he evaluated, and whatever was within me, he found it good. How could anyone, seen in that way, fail to love the one who perceives? My soul and my body both ached for him.
“Where have you been?” I whispered. I felt, rather than heard, the wry chuckle.
“Not here.”
“Come back to me.” He turned to face me and we lay for a moment with our foreheads pressed together. More hungrily than I would have expected, given the past days of pale passivity and depression, he kissed me.
My god, how I loved him. How I wanted him. I wrapped my hand around the back of his head, tangled my fingers in his hair, pressed our bodies closer. I hitched my leg over his with a slight hiss as my hip cramped, and his fingers found the sore spot, massaging and pressing the knots away as he had done so many times before. His cock was hard against mine and I ground into him and then reached down to stroke us both at once. He groaned and I thought I saw the flicker of a smile twitch the corner of his mouth.
“Your hand is cold.”
“I can think of ways to warm it up.” I stroked us again and was rewarded with a moan and a bead of slippery liquid at the tip of him. He thrust into my hand and we found our rhythm together. I loved that I was the only one privileged to see him this way, eyes half closed and lips half parted, cheeks a little flushed. “You’re so beautiful,” I said. The flash of a smile lingered a split second longer than the one before.
“My Watson,” he murmured. I have lived that moment again and again in my mind, our bodies close and tangled, my hand between us, bringing us off almost at the same moment, our breath slowing as we held each other. He fell asleep before I did, and I imagined as I listened to his soft breathing that this was the beginning of something, the first day of a life we would make for ourselves. It would not be Baker Street, but it would be home.
“It is strange,” he had told me once, in a rare moment of confession, “but I do not seem to feel desire in the way I observe most men do. They are attracted, they lust for the body, and a communion of the spirit comes later, if at all. But for me, without a true intimacy of the mind, I neither love nor desire love.”
“And has it happened before,” I asked, “this intimacy of the mind and body, with others?” A smile, a shake of the head, a door closing.
“I was young once,” he said, “before we met. And perhaps I did not know myself as well as I do now.”
If I had known what lurked outside in the void beyond, if the rush of the falls had somehow whispered to me what was to come, could I have kept him there? Could my love have been enough to hold him? But of course, he had known. It was what he had wrestled with in the darkness that night, trying to find any other outcome that fit the facts. The final clearing up of the final problem. He had known where the morning would take him, and he had gone toward it all the same.