He kept himself well occupied for two days after I let him out of bed, and I began to hope he would be able to occupy himself until he was healed enough to take another case, but the weather conspired against me. The rainstorm had turned into a full blizzard, and five days after his injury, it finally rolled out, leaving us snowed in. Baker Street was a winter wonderland devoid of movement, and Holmes had run out of stuff to do. When he continued fidgeting for over an hour and I could see he would much rather be pacing, something he could not do until his stitches came out, I knew what could come next. The possibility of him sinking into a Black Mood forced me to enact one of my fallback plans.

"Watson!" He stormed his way into the sitting room where I was seated by the fire. "Why do you keep hiding my things?!"

I turned to another page of the paper I had picked up in a hurry, hiding the smirk on my face behind its pages. "I have no idea what you are talking about."

"Then why is your paper upside down?"

Blast his perceptiveness. "Because I am not reading the paper," I admitted, finishing with, "I am reading the magazine I have in it."

I was a horrible liar, and we both knew it. I fought to keep my voice steady, rattling off the half-truth while hiding my face behind the paper. I must have succeeded, for his voice gained a suspicious edge.

"What magazine?"

I dared to peek at him over the paper, one eyebrow raised.

"Are you sure you want to know that?" I asked, then looked back at the paper, though I kept him in sight as I let his active imagination do the work for me.

He colored spectacularly and hurriedly returned to his room to continue his hunt for his dressing gown.

I lowered the paper with a grin, revealing his favorite pipe I held in my lap, and looked around for a place to hide it.

After noticing the signs of his growing boredom that morning, I had managed to palm his pen when he left the room for a moment. From there, I hid another item as he searched for the first, frustrating him to no end that he had not caught me in the act when he knew as well as I did that I was hiding his things as soon as his back was turned. I, for one, was having a blast with this prank of mine. It had been much too long since Baker Street had had a prank war. This might remedy that, I believed.

"Aha!" I heard from the other room, and I limped my way back to my chair, not wanting him to catch me shoving his pipe into one of the clean chemistry beakers.

He stalked into the room a moment later, his stride nearly back to normal as it grew closer to when I could remove his stitches.

"How, pray tell, do you think my dressing gown ended up tucked into bed without me?" he asked with a sly grin.

I had to fight not to laugh. "Probably the same way your tobacco ended up in the sugar bowl," I replied, holding the paper high enough to cover the grin I strove to keep out of my voice. "You did have that client's daughter in here a couple of weeks ago. Perhaps she released several of the fairies about which she continually talked."

The snort of derision barely carried to my hearing, and my grin widened for a moment despite my efforts. I kept the paper up, not wanting him to know just how much amusement I was getting from hiding his things. My shoulder let out a twinge of complaint, however, and my grin turned into a wince. Folding the paper, I set it aside now that he could only read suppressed discomfort in my expression.

With a glance at the winter wonderland out the window, he seated himself across from me, moving gingerly as he used his injured abdominal wall, and started picking at the bandage still on his hand.

"Leave that alone, Holmes."

He growled at it, casting a glance at his violin, and I knew why he was having such a hard time staying occupied. He wanted to play, but the burn would prevent him for another week, at least. The lack of music grated at him, I knew.

I understood, after all. My gaze drifted to the viola in the corner, but if my shoulder refused to steady the paper, there was no way I would be able to bow.

He chuckled. "What a pair we make." I raised an eyebrow at him, and he continued, "My hand, your shoulder."

I smirked, following his train of thought, but made no reply, looking around for something else I could use to occupy him while I waited for him to notice his missing pipe, book of D's, and today's copy of the Lancet.

"It is alright, Watson."

I turned, trying to decide to what he was referring now.

He read my expression. "You do not need to occupy me. Read your book."

I colored. Of course, he had known what I was doing. I had expected no less, but he rarely called me out on it. I hesitated in my reply, however. I wanted little more than to sit in front of the fire, but this method of occupying him at least had the benefit of amusement for me, and it kept him from growing bored.

"Watson," he repeated when I made no answer. "I have plenty to do. Do not worry about it. You do not need to occupy me."

I studied him, trying to decide if he was being truthful or just placating me, and he twitched a grin before getting up to rummage through his case notes.

I opened a long novel with a faint smile and leaned back in my chair, content to sit near the fire until the weather stopped making my old injuries complain, and I soon lost myself in an adventure by the sea.

"Watson!"

I chuckled into my book, knowing he had just found the commonplace book I had shoved into a random case file.

"I told you the fairies liked you," was my only reply. He grumbled and returned to wrecking my filing system.

And so finishes my longest story to date. Happy Independence Day to all my American readers. Hope you all enjoyed, and don't forget to review! :D