A/N: This story is third in a set, beginning with "I Can't Lose You", middling with "Memoir of an Abduction", and ending with "Once Upon a Trial", which, as I hope you were already aware, you are reading now. Also, this story is somewhat a response to the completely reasonable point that Mary has had all of about two lines in both previous stories together. As ever, I own neither Holmes nor Watson, nor the little misses.

This story begins, I suppose, as the last ended: at home, yet not at ease.

I could embark upon this narrative from many points: the arrest, which made its way into all the newspapers; the unbearable investigation, which seemed to last forever; any of the many visits made to the prison, each over too soon; or even the trial, which could have had its own account. But I believe the point in this particular story from which all the others flow, and thus the most appropriate point from which to jump in, as it were, would be the fight.

It had been some two weeks since the harrowing events of my last recounting, and my dear friend and I were well on the mend. The heavy bruises still lingered about my face, and they made Mary shudder to look at me. At first, I had been barely able to recognize my own face staring in horror back at me from the mirror. Now, though the swelling had died, I appeared absolutely jaundiced by the yellowed mar which enveloped my countenance.

I had been to see Holmes more often in the intervening weeks, more often than not on business. The stitches in his shoulder, where the bullet had entered, had been torn out no less than three times, and I had marched dutifully into his lair on three separate occasions to repair them. At first the explanations seemed reasonable, or at least what seemed to pass for reason where Holmes was concerned, but that was far too good to last.

He had refused from the outset to take any sort of rest from his work, and the first case upon which he had set himself had ended, as was so often the case, in hand-to-hand combat with a man who could have used the old boy as a toothpick. Of course I exaggerate, but not by as much as one might think. As Holmes grappled with the giant, his stitches tore which, to hear him tell the tale as I have, could have cost him his life had he not his formidable wits about him. He had used his good arm to remove his belt, used his belt as a lasso, latched on to a nearby chair, drug it to him, splintered it against the ground, and thrust the largest remaining stick of wood into the man's leg so quickly that, Holmes would say, had there been any witnesses to the act, they surely would have disbelieved it themselves. But of course all this left the man with his shoulder in a bleeding ruin, and, as quickly as he had set foot upon his own carpet, had called upon me.

Then things had begun to get far-fetched. The second urgent call came upon me, as so many had in the past, in the dead of night. I felt a certain sickening déjà vu as I opened the door to find one of Holmes's Baker Street Boys upon my doorstep. I looked at the boy, and he at me, and I went to gather my things, needing now not a word of explanation. I felt just slightly ludicrous, following the boy through the town with my medical kit in one hand and a loaded gun in the other, but there were few witnesses to the contradiction at that hour. We found our target wearing a mad grin and holding up a small key to the dim light of a streetlamp. He was standing outside a church, that mad, bold, brilliant look on his face. A priest sat handcuffed to the lamppost. The man, Holmes had informed me eagerly, was not, in fact, a priest at all, but a charlatan, an imposter, a conman. It seemed the man had been performing marriage ceremonies without license or permission from the governing body of the clergy, with which I will admit some lack of familiarity. He gestured broadly to the man, who only glared up at us in silence. He had tried to take the man unawares, he explained, posing as a groom to be, but the fraud had somehow sensed at his game, and attempted to flee. Rounding a corner, Holmes had been taken unawares as the false clergyman smashed a small table against his shoulder.

I noticed as he spoke the large, dark stain upon his shirt. It had been hidden by the oppressive darkness, but knowing why I had been called upon, I had at least the sense to look for it. Try as I might, though, I was unable to find any further sense in his story. "Holmes, why the devil would anyone impersonate a priest?" I will admit that in the lateness of the hour, my voice had a certain peevishness to it that only he could ever bring out in me.

Holmes looked down at his prisoner, who stared insolently back up to him. "Do you know, Watson, that some men are surprisingly uncooperative when they have been handcuffed to a lamppost? I must admit that I find the man's reticence to speak with me on the matter quite perplexing, especially when I do believe I've most of it solved already." He looked down at the man. "Do stop me if I have you wrong."

Holmes proceeded to tell me the story of Randall Young, a thief at the end of his twenties who had, some eighteen months ago, disappeared from the London underworld. Young Randall, it was said, was one of the up and coming crooks of the city, invincible and uncatchable. It was said that he was ruthless and heartless, and in fact there had been several deaths at the scenes of crimes attributed to him.

Scotland Yard had, some time ago, asked Holmes to give Mr. Young a bit of his attention, see if he couldn't track the lad down. Holmes had begun inquiries, and had indeed nearly caught the blackguard, until he had disappeared completely, not to be heard from until this very night. The story had an ending like a campfire tale, but Young hadn't once stopped Holmes, rapt though his attention was. "Now let me see. You knew someone was getting close, you knew you had to disappear." Holmes paused a moment, 'hmm'ing in thought. He looked up at the church, down at Randall, cuffed still to the lamppost. "Convenience."

"Beg pardon, sir?" Randall seemed as confused as I.

"You didn't choose the church. You were desperate for a hiding place, and they offered you some sort of crime of convenience."

The young man snorted. "There was a priest never showed up the day before I came passin' in. I was all up in black, and they mistook me for 'im. Old man came right up to me, told me I was late and that I had best get myself in back with the others. Fell right in with 'em, performing ceremonies by week's end. Rather got to likin' it, I'm sorry to say."

I looked up from Young and over to Holmes. "Shall we escort the young man to the Yard then?"

"And with all haste. We must have him behind bars before the sun rise."

"Why sunrise?" I asked, earning one of his more common looks of exasperation mixed with condescension.

"Watson, a priest being led into Scotland Yard is bound to raise at least questions, at most outrage. Imagine trying to answer those questions, Watson, telling the people of London that an unordained minister has been performing marriage ceremonies for a year and a half. Imaging the uproar such a situation would generate. Imagine the chaos." As he said this last, his eyes gleamed with his particular brand of madness. His eyes focused on me once again. "But of course first I shall need my wound tended."

We remained outside despite my protest, loathe as Holmes was to part with his prisoner. Apparently there are no good spots to chain a man up inside a church. As I worked, I found my eye inexorably drawn to the man sitting still by the side of the post. He seemed, now that I looked more closely, some passing familiar, and I wondered if I had ever seen one of the ceremonies he had performed. I wondered who in the wide city had been married without being married. I couldn't imagine how the church would go about fixing his little mess, but then it didn't concern me overmuch. But one thing did. "How did you know," I asked, glancing down at the man.

"Pardon?"

"How did you know my friend here wasn't just another groom, taking a look about at churches?" Holmes glared at me, but said nothing as I sewed him back together.

I could see the man's smile from the corner of my eye as he spoke. "I asked 'im bout the missus to be. Now, I seen dozens o' men hear that question, and ain't a one of 'em ever froze up like him there." He laughed, and Holmes glared at me anew.

It was actually rather surprising, given Holmes's not inconsiderable experience with lying to criminals. Perhaps it was because the man was possibly a true clergy member. Or perhaps Holmes could not, in any circumstance, picture himself a wife. It didn't matter overmuch, aside from being interesting to me, and so I let it drop. I finished my task, admonished Holmes for his recklessness, and sent the pair on their way to the Yard, setting myself off and back to my bed.

And upon the third occasion, I admit to some doubt as to the necessity of his actions. As I stepped into his room, I noticed the signs of recent activity, including the blood on the misplaced sofa. He told me, as I knelt before him to open my bag, that a fit of action had inspired him to change his surroundings, the logic being that it would help to adjust his thought processes. Mrs. Hudson, who had been doing her best upon my arrival to tend to him, gave an exclamation from her post in the corner, shaking her head. She had long been of the opinion that, no matter the danger he put to himself, he would be his own undoing. Never before had I been tempted to agree, but the evidence against him was beginning to stack. Now, dear reader, I will not put to paper that I suspected he had done this on purpose. But I will also not deny it. I stayed for some time to assure myself that he would not slip into shock from the loss of so much blood in such a short time, a concern which grew with each visit, then excused myself for the night.

I returned on this occurrence to find Mary in the sitting room, sitting in the light of a single lamp, waiting for me. I took in the scene within an instant, and the look on her face told me exactly what would come next.

"How is he, John?" she asked, her cold voice speaking of little concern.

I shook my head. "Foolish," I said in answer, as I often did when she asked after him. "He tore his stitches again. Moving the furniture, no less. The man will put himself to an early grave if he continues on this way." I set my bag down next to the door and prepared to go up to our room.

"John," she said, stopping me at the base of the stair. "How long will you continue to be at his beck and call?"

I could not see her face, but I imagined I knew what I would see, were I in a position to. It would be set in the recently familiar pattern of anger and distress. "I am not…Mary, the man tore his stitches. I am his doctor."

"And I am your wife. All I wish to know is when I will merit the fullness of your attention."

"You certainly have it now," I told her with, I will admit, a heavy touch of sourness to my voice. I stepped away from the staircase, sure in the knowledge that I would not be going to bed any time soon.

"When you married me, you swore to put me first in your life. I'm tired of having to fight for your attention!"

"When I married you, you said you loved who I was and what I did. This is it, Mary, this is what a doctor does. Morning, noon, night, if someone needs me, I'll be gone."

"This is not about your practice, John, you know that. This is about him."

"This can't be about him. I've barely seen him in the last weeks but to bandage him up!"

"Really? The nights you come home late from the office, all the time you spend away from our home, and you tell me you haven't been to see him?"

"And what if I have? If, on occasion, I choose to take a meal with him, or to spend an evening out, where is the harm? The man is my friend Mary."

"And I am your wife, John. Although, perhaps a man like yourself was never meant to marry." She stared hard at me, anger radiating from her.

"Mary, how can you say that?" I asked, moving toward her.

She jumped from the chair, avoiding my effort to calm her. "How could you, John? When Mrs. Hudson told me that you'd come back to Baker Street, after all the time you'd been gone, I could barely believe it. I rushed over to see you, only to hear you tell him that you were never meant—Edmund would have never treated me this way," she cried, as she turned and ran up the stairs, leaving me standing alone.

I had of course heard the name before, but never since we had been married had she ever mentioned him to me. I had always suspected that she held her life with me in comparison to what it might have been…I had always hoped I was being paranoid or silly. But now I knew. I would probably never measure up to Edmund, the fiancée who had been stolen away from her shortly before we met.

Her words had hit me like a physical blow, and I stood stock still in the middle of the room, unsure of what to do. As I stood there, I thought, of all things, what our neighbors would think. Our fights were occasionally of a volume and magnitude to command the attentions of our neighbors; I could see it plainly upon the faces I encountered the mornings following on my way through the town. Some judged me; some pitied me; some would even go so far as to attempt a manner commiseration, shaking their heads with some condescending, knowing look. It made me dread my morning trek to the office.

That was when I made up my mind. Mary needed time to clear her head, and I would give it to her. I knew she wouldn't be down the stairs before morning, and it wasn't as if she would miss me overmuch, not after all that.

I left her a note on the table beside the door. Gone early to the office, it said. It was only partially a lie.

It feels so great to be writing again! I've been putting this one together for a while, but I'm still softening out the edges, so this one may have a sketchy update schedule for a while. But fear not! There shall be more!