Work to Keep

By Alone Dreaming

Rating: K+ or PG for a harsh word and Holmes

Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock Holmes (the premise or the character) nor do I own Guy Ritchie's interpretations. If I did, this would not be under fanfiction.

Warnings: One harsh word, Holmes being Holmes, mention of a legal medical drug

Dedication: To Steph for getting me hooked. Again.

Author's Note: I have many other stories I should be working on right now but I simply had to write this one. Please forgive any mishaps in grammar, spelling, or facts. I have only seen the movie once and I self-beta; a dreadful combination, to be sure. Otherwise, please enjoy this rather random fill-in-the-blank.

He leaves Irene Adler sitting there for various reasons but all of them are branches of one main stem which he barely admits to himself and will never admit to anyone else. It's only logical to leave her on the roof, so that Lestrade or whichever constable deigns to show up can fetch her and arrest her properly. This is not his duty, after all, as a private investigator; his job entails upholding the law and solving the mystery, not manhandling the culprits afterwards. So, Irene can stay where she is.

On a more personal note, if he leaves her there alone, she will be able to escape without any implications about their relationship. No prying eyes will watch her pull the key from between her breasts so she can work her way out of the cuffs. By the time anyone reaches her current location, she will have had plenty of time to flee far away, maybe back to New Jersey, or whatever best suits her. It's the best scenario for her to get away without any obligations, any questions being raised, any mayhem being caused.

Of course, on a deeply personal note, he cannot stand the thought of her dwelling in a hole for her involvement in this. Yes, she used him and abused his trust. Yes, she conspired against the crown and the country. Yes, what she had been involved in was evil—not in the biblical, magical sense, but rotten all the same—and, no doubt, had it succeeded, would have changed the entire world for the worst. However, she had never said she'd changed her ways and any fool, or any fool who knew as much as he did, would've realized long ago that she was playing him. She deserves respect for how far she reached, how much she achieved and how unabashedly good she is at all of it. In other words, he leaves her there so someone as clever—maybe more clever—than himself will not suffer the pains of being trapped in prison.

Oh, and he loves her. But that is something no one else will know.

A different branch of reason, and one that holds him as tight as Irene does, can pose both as an excuse to Scotland Yard and a true anxiety. Somewhere, below his exhausted form, is his Watson—nay, Watson, for Watson belongs to no one except for Mary—in battle with Dredger. Though Watson can handle himself well while in top physical condition, the Doctor is far below par and Dredger is a formidable opponent. The image of Watson overwhelmed by the man, gravely injured, or worse, dead, has him speeding back to the nether region of parliament, praying he'll be on time, or that the inept police force has arrived, or, at his most illogically hopeful, that he'll find Watson sitting on the man's back, laughing at his panic (which he will work to cover) and at his doubt.

The facts make that impossible. The image of his friend lying unconscious on the hospital bed, raw wounds standing out like little red beacons on his back and neck, begins the pile of evidence. In addition, there's Watson standing over him, arm bound to his body, exhaustion tracing grooves in his features. Winded Watson with the growing bags under his eyes, limping heavily on his war wounded leg and favoring his old shoulder injury which is exasperated by the events of the last week; Watson putting on a brave face, a warrior's face, a face that he used in Afghanistan no doubt, so he can pursue Blackwood without guilt as his injured friend faces off against a veritable giant.

The only plausible outcome is grim and he rounds the corner where he left his brother to find the tunnel completely populated by Scotland Yard's finest, three of which are manhandling a half-conscious Dredger towards whatever holding cell will fit him. Watson has vanished in the masses as people investigate the machine—ingenious little piece, his mind observes, as he pushes past, how it would be nice to take it apart and see how it works—and no one quite notices he's returned. His mind, wound and wired on adrenaline, betrayal, lust and fear, jumps from topic to topic, conclusion to conclusion, slowing the world down and addressing every situation, person and item within a five foot radius. However, it purposely avoids the main point.

He cannot find Watson.

It takes his stumbling over someone to get himself in order and, by then, Constable Clark has seen him and approaches as only a man with many unimportant questions might. He tries to get away but finds his legs have become strangely sluggish and he can only take minimal shuffling steps.

"Holmes," Clark pants. "What the bloody hell happened?"

Generally, he enjoys this part of the game. He likes strutting, revealing, pointing out how incredibly obvious everything is and how incredibly stupid the Yarders are. It alleviates his most depressing moods to watch their faces light up with sudden understanding as he tears apart their weak hypotheses and singlehandedly destroys whatever self-esteem they have as inspectors. But he's already done it for today, done it to the man who made the plan up himself. He has no energy to redo it for Clark, especially when seventy five percent of his capacity has fixated on procuring his companion.

"In short, my good fellow, quite a number of things which undoubtedly you will not figure out on your own and I will happily iterate at a later date," he says. "For now, I have a most pressing matter to deal with…"

Clark follows him as he trudges—nay, he does not trudge, he simply walks at a moderate pace to conserve energy and to avoid further injury—along, not understanding the blatant need for him to be left alone. "Did you get Lord Blackwood?"

"I would prefer to say he got himself," he answers, pausing, astute eyes picking up one conman, one virgin, one man who cheats on his wife and another who wishes the cheater would cheat with him. "Hanged, I mean. If you proceed up towards the soon to be completed bridge, you, like most of the city, will find him."

Clark nods his thanks and departs before he can ask whether Watson's been transported to the hospital already. He stops to lean against a wall and finds himself slouched down to the base of it, trembling slightly against the onslaught of physical malaise. He would much prefer to be in the sitting room with Nanny bringing dinner and Watson scribbling some idiotic nothings about their latest case. But that will never happen again, regardless if he finds his friend immediately or later, regardless if Watson has survived or died, because Watson has moved on.

He cannot. Upon meeting Watson, his polar opposite in so many ways from hygiene to feminine preference, he discovered that solitary lifestyle did not suit him as well as he'd initially thought. He'd been under the impression that he was meant to live alone, forever, merely because he'd never found a person who would put up with his idiosyncrasies. Then Watson had limped into his life, pale, haggard, freshly discharged from the army, and completely blown those conclusions away; Watson, in short, had proved to him that he simply hadn't met the right person yet.

Because Watson did not mind when he went into dark moods which left him hovering in their sitting room for days on end, the blinds shut, occasionally blowing things up for the sheer joy of watching them explode. He did not mind that the dog often ended up on the wrong side of drug tests, nor did he mind the violin sounding at any hour, day or night, in key or off key. He only showed concern and friendship, and worked supremely hard to make things right. An awkward chuckle escapes him as he plucks at his shirt, trying to even out his breathing; the man did not even fuss when his nicest clothes ended up with ink stains, food spots and holes in them because, for some unknowable reason, Watson actually likes him.

He needs to find him alive because he cannot move on.

Someone's sitting next to him, has been sitting there since before he arrived, silent, trembling. He feels camaraderie with this individual, certainly, as he takes control of himself once more and plans to get to his feet. No doubt this officer, or sewer rat, or poor, law abiding citizen has had a long day as well. He turns his head, not really preparing to say something because he's a bit of a failure in the area of comfort, but feeling as though he ought to at least look at his fellow man so he can understand how he would appear in a mirror.

It's an unexpected but not unthought-of surprise.

"You," Watson whispers, taking in a ragged breath, eyes closed, "got him then," wheeze in, "I suppose?"

"Indeed, I think this time Lord Blackwood is officially deceased," he replies, a smile overtaking his lips. "Though you may, of course, go proclaim it yourself, should your reputation need bolstering."

Watson chuckles then coughs, his face a disconcerting shade of white under sweat and mud. "I do," wheeze in, " believe once," cough, "is enough," pause, "for this," cough, "lifetime."

They sit together in companionable quiet, if not silence; Watson's uneasy breathing and his own loud mind interrupt it, along with the sounds of the scene being processed. This is brotherhood, he decides, as Watson lets out a tiny groan and shifts against the wall. Quiet without guilt; quiet without purpose; quiet that simply is silence but not meaningful; it is something he gained by agreeing to move to 221B with a man he did not know and it is something he does not want to lose.

Watson lists to the side so that their shoulders touch and interrupts the peace. He frowns at the short cropped hair and pained countenance, suddenly remembering that Watson is a wounded man. He'd lost track of that information—he blames it on a lingering concussion—in the bliss of coming upon his friend uncrushed by huge fists. But he's now strictly reminded that Watson should be in a hospital, resting, and if not there, at home, asleep.

"You seem to have fared quite well against the giant," he comments, hoping to get a stir out of Watson.

Watson's response is a tremble, a combination laugh and reaction to the pain that laughter causes. "Yes…he shan't…forget me soon…I wager."

"I expected to come down here and find you in several pieces," he jokes, because it makes the frightening reality seem like nothing more than a faint imagining.

Watson's head lolls uncomfortably against him. "Losing…faith in me?"

"No," never, "it's just a matter of physics and odds, my dear."

There's no response to this, and an empty pit replaces his stomach. He reaches out with his free hand and catches the pants of a passing Yarder. "Excuse me," how awkward, don't they still have a warrant up for his arrest? "I'm afraid I'm in dire need of a cab to the hospital."

And things go devilishly hazy for a bit and the pit in his stomach grows into a several fathoms deep cavern which he hovers at the edge of and stares into, as though watching it may stop it from being so damned disconcerting. He sits quite passively as they tend his cuts, and tut at his general ignorance to cleanliness, and fuss over his lack of food and sleep and proper attire; as that emptiness threatens to consume him. They check him for concussions and internal hemorrhaging, and he checks himself against the expanding void in hopes that it will not eat him alive.

Is this what it will be like? He questions himself as they settle him in a room—just for the night, dear—and pull the blankets up his chest. Will Watson's decision to marry leave him on the precipice of nothing so that every day is that blankness until the end of his existence? He has difficulty remembering if it was this way before Watson arrived or not, and even if it was, before Watson he'd never had anyone he considered a friend. Plenty of acquaintances and people who called on him but no one he trusted himself to. Indeed, he doubts that he can compare the impending future with the past at all because the circumstances are so drastically different.

He still ruminates on it when they bring Watson into the room with him, quiet, grey and sickly. The nurse comes over and clucks like a possessed fowl about him sleeping off his exhaustion and he informs her she should stop trying to behave like such a concerned citizen when really, she cannot stand her job. This sends her off in high dudgeon, exactly as he wanted, and allows him to slip from the bed to sit at Watson's side. He aches, though dully as he's under the influence of painkillers, and he can sleep just as well sitting as he can lying on a lumpy, uncomfortable mattress. The closer he can stay to Watson, the less the hole in his chest chews on him and the less he has to concern himself about where the hole may whisk him away to.

They have given Watson morphine despite the labored breathing, assuming the pain is the cause of the gasping; there's a slight stutter in the way he's taking in air which disturbs. He's all too familiar with the strange heaviness morphine creates against one's ribs, the difficulty it makes for each life giving gulp, but he cannot ever recall having to put so much effort into getting air. As he listens, he craves the good doctor's opinion on his own condition; though the thought of two Watson's overwhelms him, it would be lovely to have someone as trustworthy to assess his friend's health.

And maybe that is what he needs to find, he concludes, shifting to take his weight off a sore spot. Perhaps it's time to produce a replacement Watson, someone equally caring and unassuming, someone who lives and lets live; he could put an ad in the Times for it and await the arrival of the right candidate. The thought passes and makes him wonder what sort of painkillers they've put into his system. There's no replacing Watson, ever, he thinks firmly as his feet tremble on the metaphorical edge. Because the reason Watson is special is he's the only person that has ever gone through the trouble of staying and being a friend.

"Mmm?" Watson mumbles from the bed.

"Mary?" he offers.

Watson sighs a little. "I should hope…not…" Languid eyes roll towards him. "I asked her…to stay safe…for me…"

"I had wondered why she didn't rush to her darling doctor's side," he ribs.

Watson closes his eyes again. "She's a good…woman…Holmes. I love…her."

"Of course, you do," he says, feeling the hole widen. "Hence why you can't seem to find a ring."

A shallow bitterness mitigated by drugs and tiredness tangles his friend's expression. "Had one. Lost it…unfortunately…"

In a fight he ended up in during this investigation, no doubt, his mind solves. "Well, perhaps fate's decided you two simply aren't meant to stay together."

"Maybe," Watson acquiesces. "Or…maybe…fate's telling me…she's the one."

It doesn't make sense and he tells Watson so only to receive a slight twitch of the lips. "Holmes…the only meaningful…relationships…I ever had…I…worked to achieve…and work…to keep…" His eyes open revealing opiates and sincerity. "And will always…work on…because… they keep me…strong."

"I believe they've given you something that's addled your brain," he informs his friend. "And I advise you sleep it off and complain at the first possible instant. Doctors are incorrigibly inaccurate in their deductions."

Watson blinks once, then twice, then says, "You know… this is not… the end, right?"

"Is this a religious enlightenment or a death bed confession?" he quips. "I like neither, Watson, and will not stand for you leaving me alone in this dark, Godless world should you find the church or trip into the afterlife."

A hand paws his arm, grasps it firmly as an infant, "It's not… an end… or a beginning…it's just another part of the same adventure…"

"I have never approved of you romanticizing reality."

There's a sudden touch of panic. "You…understand?" A slight cough punctuated by a throat clearing. "I…will not… lose you… I will keep…working."

"Is this a proposal, old chap?" he jokes but upon seeing the urgency in his fellow's face, he adds, "I am quite astute, Watson. Get some sleep and don't fret about it. We'll speak more later."

The morphine takes Watson to Morpheus and he leans back in the chair, keeping Watson's hand balanced on his forearm. It anchors him against the maelstrom that's threatening to toss him into the dungeons of his darkest, most antagonistic moods, and with it holding him steady, he considers Watson's words. He knows in a few hours the ward nurse will reappear, annoyed but falsely cheery, and find him dozing. She'll ignore the fact he's out of bed—serves him right to get a crick in his neck, considering how rude he was—and give the doctor a cursory once over—just to make certain he's getting the appropriate doses of morphine—before fading into whatever busybody activities her job requires. And he also knows, that by that time, he'll have come to a solution for the crevice in his stomach and the bizarre discomfort of his emotions.

Already, his mind's drifting towards a large diamond which resides in his trouser pocket and considering how lovely it would look on a delicate hand.

I wrote this because I felt that a) Watson truly recovered a little too fast for it to be believable and b) Holmes seemed to change his attitude rather suddenly. I hope you enjoyed.