A/N; Sup readers. Funny story...this is a Sherlock Holmes oneshot I wrote way back in the day before I ever even started posting stuff online, and I just recently found it and decided to put it up for kicks. Will anyone read it? More importantly, will anyone review? The answer is up to you! ( cue cheesy drumroll )

Disclaimer; Sherlock Holmes and all related affiliates are the property of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle whom I LOVE.

The Fixed Point

I feel compelled to explain that, what with my nearly infinite capacity for thought, both kinetic and recollective, it is a very unusual occurrence indeed that I am unable to call something to memory, if it is of any significance whatsoever. And yet I have discovered that it is utterly impossible for me to remember what thoughts were running through my head the night before he left.

I distinctly recall every other minor detail of the evening. It was a Tuesday, bleak and drizzly with a Northerly wind, the embers of the fire were nearly extinguished, my pipe was approximately three fifths of the way smoked, and it was ten thirty-six exactly. I was in my dressing gown, slouched rather boorishly far down in my favorite armchair, my eyes half-lidded and gazing unseeingly into the glowing hearth. My friend and colleague, Dr. John Watson, had retired some minutes ago, offering the entirely un-needed explanation of his having to rise early the next morning. Did he honestly think I had forgotten, that I didn't know why he need get an early start?

Of course I remembered. I had, in the back of my constantly firing mind, thought of little else for nigh six weeks. Was the actual, miserable day truly upon us?

I remember what I said to him. I told him that he was quite right, that it was essential he get premium rest that night and that I hoped I would in no way disturb him should I myself elect to remain awake for some hours longer. He assured me that I wouldn't, and said his goodnight. I wished he would skip the pretense and simply say what the word really intended; goodbye.

After that, I can only speculate as to what I spent the rest of the night brooding on, for my thoughts from that point on register a complete blank in my memory. As I have said, this is not wont to occur with me, and I am rather baffled as to why in this particular instance my accute mental faculties should fail me so.

But whatever I may have thought about, it evidently made not the slightest bearing of any importance, because the next morning arrived bright and clear and exactly on schedule. Watson entered the drawing room, his overcoat buttoned and his shapely felt hat in his hand. His suitcases were out of sight, but I deduced from the slight lean to his left side that he had just relieved himself of a heavy burden on the opposite arm, and so the luggage was probably already at the door.

"My cab's arrived, Holmes," he supplemented with an air of casualty that was clearly forced.

Ha. As if I hadn't already seen it through the curtains.

I waved my hand in his direction, a perfect gesture of nonchalance. "So it has."

There was a moment of silence that I felt no inclination to break. One might say I was behaving unfairly cold toward Watson, but at that point in time I am ashamed to say I was more bitter towards my friend than I had ever been. There was a strange, gnawing sort of emptiness in my chest, but I ignored it and turned back to the morning paper, lifting it so that Watson was completely obscured from my vision.

The poor doctor shifted on his feet, favoring his bad leg. After it became clear that I was not going to speak any further to him, he turned toward the door.

"Do call on us for dinner, if you ever find the time," he said hopefully.

"Certainly," was my curt reply. The gnawing became more vicious.

After another moment, Watson sighed, so quietly that he may have believed it went unnoticed; but the sound of it seemed to echo in my ears. It was so unbearably final.

"Goodbye, then, Holmes."

Perhaps it was the sigh, or the weary sound of his voice that did it, but whatever the cause my facade of bitter coldness was blown apart in an instant, and the emptiness in my chest erupted into near panic. I am ashamed to this day at how terribly the idea stung me, that he was really leaving and that nothing I did could prevent it. Somehow I managed to quell the feverish desire to spring from the chair and physically forbid him from leaving the room, and instead my whole being seemed to sink into diminished obscurity. I wanted to fall through a hole in the floor and never resurface.

"Goodbye, Watson."

And he left.

I heard his slight gimp on the creaking staircase, his warm farewells from our landlady, Mrs. Hudson--a trifle warmer than my own, I realized with a pang--the opening and closing of the front door, and then, silence.

Calmly, I rose from the table, laying the paper aside, and watched through the window as Watson stepped into the cab. His luggage followed, and the driver cracked the reins and the team was off with a rattling lurch down Baker Street. I watched until the hansom disappeared around the corner; and then it was gone.

The gnawing in my chest returned with a vengeance, and the air in the room was horribly still and vacant; it screamed of everything that had gone unsaid between my friend and I. What ought I have said to him? More than I did, certainly. What had I wanted to hear from him? That he had changed his mind, and decided to stay? What ridiculous thing had I been waiting for? Why hadn't I spoken up like a man and given him a proper goodbye, instead of hiding like a coward that I knew I wasn't behind my newspaper, and shrugging him off as if he were some paltry acquaintance I had never much cared for? Why the devil was I acting this way?

I stood at the window for quite some time.

They were very strained, those last few weeks between Watson and I. Whereas only a short time before, our rooms at Baker Street had been filled with cheery banter, engaging conversations over our topic de jour, earnest inquiries over my latest seemingly unsolvable case, and even, on occasion, a burst of laughter from some witty or humorous remark....now, our lodgings were quiet and sullen, almost devoid of talk save for the congenial attempts on Watson's part. I, admittedly, did nothing to help alieve the tension between us.

Thinking back on it now, did I ever tell him how I truly felt, or what I truly thought? No...I don't believe I did. If I had, we would almost certainly have had a row, and left on worse terms than we did. No, I didn't voice to him my anger, my incredulity, my selfish sense of abandonment, or my seething jealousy.....ah, the jealousy.....an emotion I had never truly experienced before. It was as new to me as it was potent and apalling. I never said even one honest word to Watson about my feelings; but then, it is very unlikely that even such an endearingly unobservant person as he could not have seen the truth in my cold mannerisms, my stiff disregard for his company, my pointed and almost unending silence.

I am positive he saw through my hollow congratulations. But what else could a friend say when he receives news such as that?

I'm stricken...nay, devastated, that you are leaving me?

I need you more than she does?

I wish that you had never laid eyes on the wretched woman?

No, of course not. I had no choice but to mechanically voice my warm wishes for his happiness, to clap him on the back and smile falsely and then proceed to go about the next month and a half as if he did not exist.

It sickens me to think of it, how easily Watson must have seen through me. I have never been so disgusted with my own behavior before.

Why does it affect me so? His going away?

For all my intelligence, for all my riddle-solving capacity, it is a question I am utterly incapable of answering.

It is Friday, two days after Watson left, and my first opportunity for distraction comes in the form of a murder case brought to my attention by the good Inspector Lestrade of London Scotland Yard. I try to absorb only the essentials from his babbling conversation as we ride together in the hansom, but of course he inevitably raises a question on the very subject I wish to avoid.

"Say, Holmes....where's old Watson lit off to? He's usually jumping at the bit to accompany you on jobs like this."

I force a wry smile and swallow the urge to say something sarcastic. My sarcasm is always wasted on Lestrade, anyway.

"Suffice it to say, the good doctor is no longer sharing rooms with me at Baker Street."

Lestrade's face twists for a moment as if in intense concentration.

"Ahh, yes, I believe I remember....he's gone and married that Miss Morstan, hasn't he? The woman involved in that extraordinary case a few months ago?"

I can bring myself only to nod. The dark edges of a sensation I would rather not feel begin to creep upon me, and I hastily change the subject. I do not want to think about Watson. Why should I? People have left my life before, and the disposition of solitude is not unfamiliar to me. Lord, I think I know more about it than any man on the island. I've spent more or less my entire life managing without a single companion to my name. Why should there be any difficulty in doing it now?

The case. I have only to focus on the case, and all will be well. I shall consume my mind with work, and leave no room for pointless dwelling on traitorous military doctors.

Scarcely an hour later I return to 221B Baker Street in rather an ugly mood. My 'murder case', on which I had placed so much stock and hope of escape, turned out to be nothing more than a foolish accident. Those blundering imbeciles at Scotland Yard honestly cannot tell the difference between when a man has been willfully bludgeoned by an assailant, and when he has been kicked to death by a startled horse? Simply because a man is a rancorous foreclosing agent and has many local enemies does not mean that he is unquestionably a target of murder.

And so I am left, at present, with nothing to occupy my mind. This is not an idyllic situation.

Mrs. Hudson presently ascends to the drawing room with a lunch tray in tow, but I dismiss her as politely as I am able. I have no appetite at the moment, and the idea of eating simply to pass time is one which has always been inexcusably vulgar to me. Once Mrs. Hudson has left I replace my overcoat with a dressing gown and settle on the sofa, gazing absently out the windows which open onto Baker Street. It is not yet noon, and already my day seems a pointless waste. I watch as numerous people hurry by on the cobblestoned road below, some alone, some in pairs. I try to engage my mental facilities by observing the passersby and determining where they are going, or where they have been, by small signs they may bear on their clothing or person; but alas, this activity has long since ceased to amuse me. Not only is it entirely too easy to properly occupy my train of thought, but it also seems horrificly without purpose.

Without meaning to, my thoughts stray randomly away and a small smile tugs at my face. Watson never grew tired of that game; my stating some obvious deduction or other about him, and he starting in fascination and eagerly wanting to know "how in blazes" I figured it out. Even after nearly a year of residence with him, by which time he certainly knew my methods backward and forward, his tired, war-worn hazel eyes would light up with astonishment, glowing with that most genuine of expressions; true, unadulterated curiosity....

I start abruptly and order myself to stop. I am doing exactly what I forbade myself from two days ago when my friend left.

My friend.

Hm.

Friend, indeed.

My 'friend' seemed to have no trouble at all in abandoning me. How could he not see what he was doing? I made it pathetically obvious enough. Or perhaps, rather, he did see, and the fact is that he did not care. Did not care that I was being undone, decimated; that I had inexplicably become terrified of returning to that state of life which for so many years I not only endured, but chose and wanted to endure....

Was that it? Have I actually become afraid of loneliness?

Impossible. Sherlock Holmes knows no such figment as loneliness. I know solitude. I seek solitude. Even in childhood, I have never really desired nor taken pleasure in the company of others of my species. I do things in my own right, by my own schedule, and to my own liking, and I have no cluttering ties to friends or relations to hinder me.

I am alone. And I enjoy it that way.

...don't I?

Blast. I can feel it beginning. That invisible weight in my stomach....those shadows lingering in the corners of my mind.....

....slowed pulse, shallower breathing, doubts, miseries, all swarming in at me from every direction....

It is a sensation I know all too well. I am on the verge of sinking into one of my characteristic bouts of dark depression and severe lethargy; my little episodes that I have so affectionately nicknamed the "Black Fits."

Ah, well. They come when they come. I have had no serious work to do for going on two weeks; I had hoped that Lestrade's murder case would deliver me from the inevitable, but sadly, as that prospect was for nought, I suppose I am indeed greatly overdue for just such a fit. The absence of mental stimulation always brings about the worst of me.

Yes, boredom. That's it. That's what's causing this lull that settles over me now. The fact that this is the first such depression I am experiencing alone in almost a year has nothing to do with it.

Nothing at all.

The inexplicable lethargy that accompanies the Black Fit is already upon me. I slide lower on the sofa, feeling rather more tired than I should at scarcely twelve noon. I am also aware that the sun beaming through the windows is not as radiant as it was when I first came home. In fact it is now nothing but an annoyance.

Muttering curses uncommon to my speech, I rise and shut the drapes, casting the room in a dull semi-darkness. Lying back on the sofa, I contemplate the idea of simply sleeping for a spell. That is what my day shall consist of, shall it? Sleep. The great Sherlock Holmes, scourge of crime in the British Isles, keenest bloodhound in the whole of London; sleeping the day away, no better than a slothful bum lying in the street.

Four days since Watson's departure. No new cases.

Mrs. Hudson has become a source of constant annoyance to me. She knocks at the door all hours of the day, forever protesting that I need to eat. Why should I eat? I have never felt less hungry.

At the moment, however, the drawing room at 221B Baker Street is dead and silent, save for two noises; the crackle of a feeble fire in the hearth ( the days have taken a chilly turn, though I would not bother about a fire if not for my insufferable landlady insisting I shall catch pneumonia ) and the drone of my violin as I scrape half-heartedly at the

strings.

The violin. Such a lovely instrument. Why do I play it? I only defile its beauty.

Although it isn't as if there is anyone here to listen. There is Mrs. Hudson, but I doubt she can hear the music over the sounds of her own voice. I have actually had to lock the door to have any privacy from her at all.

The violin screeches a tinny note. I let it fall limply from my hands and clatter on the floor. I am sitting the wrong way in my armchair, with one of the arm-rests beneath my bent up knees. The evening twilight filters in orange bars through the cracks in the drapes.

I wonder absently what Watson is doing at that moment.

Out on the town, perhaps, enjoying a pleasant evening with his wife. He now has no amateur detectives with late night stake-outs and acid splashes on the desk and fits of depression and shrieking violins to bother him; not any more. Perhaps he and Miss Morstan...or rather, Mrs. Watson....are having dinner right now, talking to each other over a candlelit table.

Mrs. Watson. Or Mary, as the doctor pleaded that I call her.

I shall never call that woman Mary as long as I live. I do not even wish to call her Mrs. Watson. It only reminds me that she has stolen my friend's name. I am not a man of hatred, and as a rule I avoid it as one of the baser human emotions. But I can say without regret or hesitation that I hate that woman.

Damn the day that accursed creature came into our rooms at Baker Street. Damn the day Watson first took sight of her, with her simple gray clothes and her watery gray eyes. Miss Morstan. The soft, quiet, unthinking slug of a woman. What does Watson see in her? What do men see in women?

I stop in apallation at my own thoughts. When did I come to despise women so? When did I cease to notice such things as soft tresses of hair, the gentle turn of pink lips, the sensitive voice full of concern, the lithe, supple curves of the feminine creature....when did I stop seeing them? Why did I stop seeing them?

My minds tries to bring up vague blurs of the past, things I have long since forced myself to forget. Shadowy images....my childhood....my father and mother....the inside of locked rooms, and the faint whispers of wind through the thistles....

Get these things out of my head! These damn accursed things I do not want to think about!

Why did Watson leave? Could he not see that he was abandoning me? Condemning me to the horror of being left alone with myself?

He thought nothing of it. There was nothing to think of. The world is nothing. I am nothing.

Perhaps it is not women I hate. Perhaps it is humanity itself.

I curl in on myself in the armchair. The Black Fit has me in its clutches, and I cannot do anything except squirm.

My mind is wandering through a void, grasping frantically but finding nothing to hold on to. What is the point of intellect? Watson was fond of saying to me that I must be in possession of one of the greatest brains of our generation. What is my brain? My brain is a waste of space. For all it's capacity and intelligence it has never brought me any happiness. It has done nothing for me; if anything it has ruined me. It has made me an island. I care for no one, because no one thinks on the same plane as myself; and because I care for no one, I have no one. I am selfish. I am an enigma. Who wants a thing like me? Who, in all my life, as ever wanted me?

Someone did. Just one man.

And now he has left me, too.

I fling myself from the armchair with such recklessness I practically sprawl on the floor. Getting off my knees, I try to walk calmly to the mantle over the fire, but I fail and take it at nearly a run. I am not thinking as I grope along the mantle-piece, at last finding and seizing the morocco case. I have often turned to my seven-percent solution while in the grip of the Black Fits, but never before have I gone for it like this. I am barely thinking. I do not want to think. I want stimulation, blind, meaningless stimulation, because stimulation will help me forget.

I manage to calm myself enough to take a few steadying breaths, and casually roll up the long sleeve of my dressing gown. I force my long, thin fingers to stop fidgeting, and I firmly extract a plug of the liquid into my hypodermic syringe. I scout out a clean pioneering ground on the blue vein visible through my skin. With the steady hand of an experienced user and the cool, collected manner that I command myself to wear, even when in the throes of such depression as this, the needle sinks in.

The sensation of the needle piercing the skin is delicious. It slides through as smoothly as a knife through butter, and a sigh escapes me as I watch the clear liquid drain from the capsule of the syringe. Calmly, I draw out the needle, clean it, and replace the morocco case on the mantle.

I am scarcely back in the armchair before I feel the euphoric effects of the blessed cocaine. It has been almost four months since last I employed the use of the narcotic; I refrained from using it during the entire time of my indifference towards Watson. Perhaps it was sheer stubborness that kept me going then.

But the clutches of this Black Fit are more unbearable than any I can presently recall, and my only answer is the drug. Even now, as I sink slowly into the chair, it is pulsing through my system, rescuing me from the burden of conscious thought. My mind greedily sucks on the artificial stimulation, the mental alertness that floods my being and causes my heart to race. I become tired and energized at the same time. I am doing nothing but sitting in an armchair, and yet my body pulses and thrives as if I am physically engaged; I am welcomed by the same sensation I feel when on the trail of a treacherous thief, or a loathsome blackmailer, or a murderer whose stolen, innocent blood is still fresh.

Watson slips from my mind. I let him go. I bask in the cocaine.

Two weeks since Watson's departure. No new cases.

I sit upright in bed, peering thinly at the volume of criminal text in my hands. I soon tire of it and toss it aside. I have read it all before, anyway. It clatters to the floor and joins an ever-growing collection of others. I estimate that a third of my vast book collection is scattered on my bedroom floor.

It is five o'clock in the morning. Mrs. Hudson has not awoken, as of yet, and I plan to relish these precious hours without her presence. She is an absolute plague to me recently. Upon her nearly vicious insistence, I consumed one egg and a cup of tea yesterday, and lay down in bed last night on her forced pretense of, "getting at least a few hours decent sleep." Bah. I care nothing for sleep or nourishment. It is, at least, a relatively simply matter to ignore Mrs. Hudson's protests of my pallorous complexion, weakness of exertion, constant stumbling, etc. etc. Exactly when did our landlady become such an insufferable busybody?

At any rate, I did not sleep last night, but rather sat up leafing through my collection of volumes on crime. With every turn of the page, I am struck anew by the horrific destitution of originality that has befallen the world of modern crime. Oh, to live in the days of criminal lore, when villains were thinking, reasoning masterminds of wickedness and deception! To be hunting the trail of a true criminal genius, instead of some clumsy pickpocket who knifes a man on his way to the docks! It makes the duration of the Black Fit even harder to bear than usual, to think of the bland, watered-down tricks and indiscretions devoid of any imagination that pass for crimes these days.

I reach to pick up another book, but it is scarcely in my fingers before I've dropped it. My nerves have become so haggard these days, it seems I have never a moment when I am not shaking or twitching.

Fortunately, I can always seek relief in the cocaine bottle. For days now it has been my only companion, comforting me and striking from my mind all the ghosts of memory that still seek to torment me. I have almost managed to forget why I was struck with this miserable stranglehold of depression in the first place.

I roll back the sleeve to inspect my white forearm, and find with some annoyance that their is no prime spot to make the injection. I push the sleeve further up, to my elbow, and smile triumphantly when I find a yet untapped portion of skin. The needle enters; the cocaine does its work. I sigh with relief and satisfaction, putting away the syringe but leaving the sleeve of my dressing gown curled. For a single inquisitive moment, I size up the exposed appendage.

Observation. I used to so adore its application. But it has been some time since I have truly put the skill to use. I attempt to test it now, to see if my skills remain sharp or if they have been dulled by this infernal drought of cases in which I find myself stranded.

The pale skin on the underside of my right arm is sickly and discolored, mottled with purple and yellow bruising from wrist to elbow. Without realizing it, I inject myself in neat, organized lines trailing up the vein, so that the puncture marks form orderly rows.

After a moment, I roll down my sleeve. I glance at the clock. Five ten.

There is nothing for me to do today, as usual. This Black Fit of mine has weakened me into such slums of boredom and depression that indeed, the only respite I find, the only window which makes the whole ordeal even bearable, is the cocaine. I should be feeling the peak effects of it now; the pleasant rush of false mental stimuli, the euphoric waking coma that will settle over me for a few hours.

But the relief does not come. I wait a few moments, collapsing into my armchair and staring impatiently at my own wrist, as if to hurry along the cyclical passage of blood and narcotic through my veins. I feel a slight lifting of the blackness and quickening of the heart, but it is nothing like the surge of blissful awareness simultaneous with forgetfulness that I have come to depend on. I lean back in the armchair, brooding like a hen.

The whole thing is almost comical. I find myself laughing hysterically sometimes, when I am in the greatest frenzy of the drug.

Humorous, how far Sherlock Holmes has fallen.

Would that all of London could see their magnificent amateur detective now!

Before I know what has happened, I am shaking awake, having dozed off in the armchair. I look at the clock. Only six-thirty.

Sighing blackly, I contemplate finding my violin and scraping at it for a while; but I soon lose the gumption even to rise from the chair. What is the point of playing for an empty sitting room?

It is then that my blank, blood-shot eyes fall upon the white scrap of paper resting on the tabletop.

I stare at it for a few long, lazy moments. Who on earth would write to me? I have no outstanding cases which require correspondence with a client, and I have not in living memory ever received a social letter. How, even, did the letter come to be there? I puzzle at it for a moment, then snort very uncharacteristically in self-disgust. Has my mind truly eroded that greatly in only two short weeks, that I cannot even solve as simple a problem as this? Of course Mrs. Hudson has brought it in while I slept. She is an early riser, waking every morning punctually at six. This letter must have arrived by the evening post last night, and she knew better than to disturb me at that hour when I happened to be in a particularly venemous temper; so she has waited until this morning to bring it in.

I discover with some amusement that it is a laboring task to drag myself out of the armchair. I sidle, somewhat dizzily, over to the table, and take up the letter in my hands.

A cold burn sears the inside of me as I read the return address. The letter is from Watson.

I stare at the envelope in my hand, a dim, fuzzy strain of thought trying to force its way through my mind. Watson. My friend. My former friend. The one I have been trying so hard to forget. The cause of this Black Fit that has lasted now for a record length of time. The source of all my anguish.

I fumble at the desk to find the letter opener, and at last retrieve it not from one of the drawers, where I first looked, but from the interior of "A Brief Synopsis of Criminal Dimentia" resting on the mantlepiece. I am by no means a tidy individual, and I had forgotten that I had been using the letter opener as a bookmark.

My hands shake as I slit the envelope, and I nearly cut myself. I struggle to keep still as I smooth out the folded letter and begin to read.

My Dear Holmes;

First off, I should like to confirm my previous prediction that your presence would be

truly missed at the wedding. I should so have liked for you to have been there; Mary agrees.

I understand how deeply you dislike social occasions, but it would have made all the difference

in the world to me; though please don't think I bear you any grudge.

And secondly; how in the world have you been, old boy? You seem to have proverbially dropped

off the face of the earth. Mrs. Watson and I are quite settled in our new abode, and I was very

much hoping that you would feel up to visiting us some time. I've missed your company a great

deal, Holmes, and Mary laments very sadly that she has not had the opportunity to befriend you

more intimately. I've told her all about you, of course, and she's said she considers you a

fascinating individual she should very much like to become better acquainted with.

I can only suspect that I haven't heard from you due to some devilishly intricate case you've

become engrossed in. I know you far too well, Holmes; chances are you've neither slept nor eaten

for two days, and you've been valliantly dogging the backalleys of London like a bloodhound,

sniffing out some detestable rascal who has undoubtedly----

With a strange, guttural noise in my throat that is a combination of contempt and despair, I crumble the sheet of paper and fling it away from me like an article of rubbish. It bounces off the wall and comes to rest unmovingly in the corner of the room.

The gnawing emptiness in my chest; the horrible sensation of such pain and loss as I have never experienced and wanted so badly to tune out; is back. I had managed to keep it at bay for nearly two weeks, with the help of tobacco and incessant use of cocaine, but this....this biting piece of mockery.....is too much.

Watson speaks as if nothing is wrong, as if nothing has changed. Nothing has changed! He honestly does not see it, does he? He is oblivious to the hell I am suffering, the corroding depression and misery that his absence has wrought.

Then that's really it, isn't it? The reason why I have diminished so?

I tried to fool myself, tried to turn my magnificent intellect against itself to convince me that Watson's going is not what has me in such shambles. Magnificent intellect, indeed! I am a fool! A hopeless fool!

I depended on Watson. Oh, how I grew to depend on him! He was not just my friend; he was my first friend, the only one I've ever truly had. I didn't know what to think of him at first....why was he so kind, so jovial, so genuinely interested in me? Why in blazes did he care about me so much? Why did he want to even come within ten feet of such a cold, selfish, inhuman machine as myself? I never found the answers to these questions, but day by day I came to welcome his friendship; to drink it in with a thirst and a desperation I had never even known I had.

Watson was my friend. My only friend.

And he has left me.

I cannot go back to it. God, help me, I cannot go back to it! Not speaking to another human being for days on end....spending every night that was not occupied with work alone in some lodging or another, reading or brooding or fiddling with my damned chemicals....enduring the Black Fits alone....feeding like a parasite off the relief of the cocaine bottle, because it is indeed the only relief I am able to find....

And above all, the loneliness. The unbearable, crushing loneliness. I hadn't known what to call it before. I had foolishly labelled it solitude, noble solitude; solitude was a preservation of dignity; and so I ignored, even welcomed, the ghastly effects it produced in me.

Watson! Watson saved me, and then destroyed me, and even now knows nothing of any of it.

And now he writes to me to say that he wishes I had been there at his wedding!

I am selfish, and jealous. So disgustingly jealous I cannot bear to even think about it.

This time I do not search for a good place to insert the hypodermic needle. I do not even bother to find the vein. I jam the syringe in so haphazardly a line of crimson blood rolls down from the puncture, and I have not even withdrawn the needle from my skin before I have blacked out on the floor.

Nineteen days since Watson's departure. Not a bloody case to be had.

It is rather humorous, the fact that during a lifetime of relative health and well-being I never received even one letter of a social nature, and now in two and a half weeks of mental and physical disintegration I have received three.

Watson's first letter has not moved from its crumpled place on the floor. His second and third lay unopened on the table. The third is, to be perfectly accurate, not actually a letter but a telegram, arrived just this morning. And I have not had the desire to read even that.

The needle is in my hand. The needle; my only companion nowadays. I broke down and shouted at Mrs. Hudson last night; it is possible that I may have lobbed a sugar bowl in her direction, as there are the shattered remnants of it there on the carpet near the door; at any rate, she has left the house for the time being, and I have heard nothing from her. So much the better. Now there is no one to constantly badger me about eating.

I fill the syringe and insert it in my right arm. The cocaine pumps into my bloodstream, and I am completely aware of the desperate, haggard way in which I gaze expectantly down at my own limb. I am no better than the filthy sluths that fill the opium dens; if anything, I am worse, because whereas they are blissfully ignorant of their own shortcomings, I know fully well that I am only using my opiate as a crutch, and a swiftly failing crutch at that.

Sherlock Holmes may be the greatest fool who ever lived, but he is not unintelligent. I know perfectly well what addiction

is.

And I know perfectly well that I am addicted to cocaine.

It began about four days ago, the realization that I was not getting the height of relief from the narcotic that I was accustomed to. I experienced the rush, the stimulation, the sense of peace and euphoria; but it was not complete. At the back of my mind the strings of depression still tugged, where before they had been totally severed by the drug. My next injection, thirteen hours later, was even less satisfying. And so it continued with the next injection, and still the next.....

Today I awoke from the most ungodly nightmare I have ever experienced. I had this nightmare, and yet I do not believe I ever truly fell asleep. It is the Black Fit; it has still not gone away, and I am sure that if it persists much longer it is going to kill me.

I need the cocaine. I am frantic. If it does not work this time, then I am lost.

I continue to stare at my arm, and before I even know what is happening I am screaming to it, as if it were a sentient thing that could hear me.

"HELP ME, DAMN YOU!"

My arm, of course, says nothing.

I must have surely gone mad at this point, because the fact that my mouthless limb does not respond fills me with vehement rage. Worse is the slowly dawning dread of realization that the cocaine is doing nothing; nothing at all. I feel no rush, no stimuli. I have finally numbed myself to my only hope of escape.

I watch myself as if through binoculars as I seize the bottle from its morocco case. I replaced it only yesterday, as it had at last been emptied; today it is nearly full. Like a madman blinded with desperation, I plunge the hypodermic through the cap and begin to draw up the clear liquid. I continue until the tube of the syringe is filled to absolute capacity.

For the first time in all my years of using it, I let out a cry of pain as the needle slides into my skin. In one final burst of motion---the last act of my dying soul---I inject the cocaine; all of it. It is a tangible sensation as my vein swells with the sudden gush of foreign fluid.

I tear the syringe away and drop it. It rolls on the carpet, then lies still. A trickle of blood runs down my forearm.

I stare straight forward with grey, half-lidded eyes devoid of any life. They lost their life a long time ago.

There is no euphoric rush from the drug, but then, I believe I knew that would be the case.

Then, however, something happens that I do not expect in any degree.

I feel it initially as an awkward, hollow sensation in my gut, as if all of my internal organs have spontaneously vanished. Then I become mindful of a noxious burning in my esophagus; and then, with violent abruptness, I double over and am ill. It is not so much the vomiting that alarms me....it is the fact that at the moment I have no idea what is happening.

Seeing as there is precious little content in my stomach at present, the retching does not last long. I stagger on my feet for a moment, and am overcome by a sick dizziness; the room is swaying under my feet like in the holds of a ship.

The last thing I am aware of is an intense stab of chest pain accompanied by immediate shortness of breath, as if my heart has just been punctured by a sharpened instrument; and then, I feel nothing.

~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~

It is nine thirty in the evening when a swift knock raps at the door.

I glance up from my novel, turning curiously in the direction of the sound. My wife Mary, bless her heart, was so tired from our day's outing that she has already gone to bed and left me in the sitting room beside the fire. The knock comes again, and I hastily rise from my chair to answer the door. Who on earth could be calling at this hour?

I peer cautiously through the peep-hole to discover that it is a young express messenger, a lad of no more than fifteen or sixteen. I unlock the door and open it.

"Express telegram, sir," the boy rattles off mechanically. "Courtesy of the West London Messaging Service."

I accept the yellow envelope from him and flip a shilling into the air as tip. He catches it, tilts the brow of his hat in appreciation, and turns away down the stoop.

I eye the envelope suspiciously as I shut the door and stroll back to the fire. An uncertain weight of dread and nervousness settles in my chest at the sight of the postmark. It is from 221B Baker Street.

With a thrilling heartbeat and wild anticipation, I tear open the letter, hoping against foolish hope that it does not bear ill news of my friend, Sherlock Holmes....yet what else could it possibly say?

My throbbing heart stops throbbing; in fact it stills entirely as my eyes scan over the single line printed on the telegram.

Dear Dr. Watson,

It is Mr. Holmes. He has undone himself. You must come at once.

Martha Hudson

I stare in horror at the cryptic message. 'Undone himself'? What does Mrs. Hudson mean? Is he in danger? Has he fallen sick?

A horrible shadow of blackness, the likes of which I have never felt, settles over me as I think of my three unanswered letters, and the dark fits of misery and depression that Holmes is so vulnerable to.

Undone himself.

She cannot mean....

.....suicide?

Without a word of notice or a moment of hesitation I am out the door.

Mrs. Hudson flings open the front door at Baker Street before I am even up the stoop. There is a wild, frantic look about her that I have never seen; her eyes are wide with fear and her lined face is white as a sheet. She clutches a thick dressing gown round her shoulders, and utters a strained cry of both relief and despair as I bound up the steps two at a time.

"Thank heaven you've come!" she moans, standing aside to let me through the door. "It's dreadful, doctor, just dreadful!"

The deep root of dread does not lift from me at her words. She hurriedly shuts the door and I follow her up the stairs.

"What's happened?" I plead, struggling to keep the desperation from my voice. "What's he done?"

"I don't know where to begin," the poor woman cries. "He's ill, Dr. Watson, fitfully ill....he's not improved at all like we'd hoped, and oh, Dr. Watson, he has been shooting himself full of that miserable narcotic day and night!"

My heart seems to leaden, but at the same time I breathe an ironic sigh of relief; Holmes is, at the very least, alive then.

"What made you send the telegram?"

"I'm afraid he's at last done himself too much of it, Dr. Watson. I was in bed and heard him screaming something, all by his lonesome in the sitting room, and moments later I heard him cry out and there was a sound like a body falling. I rushed in straightaway and found him on the floor. I couldn't budge him an inch in my terrified state, and I didn't know what else to do, so I sent a messenger for you."

Dear Mrs. Hudson's voice is continually breaking up all the while she speaks, until she degenerates into nothing more than frightful sobs. We finally reach the door of the sitting room.

"Take heart," I say to her as strongly as I can. "You've done everything you could, Mrs. Hudson. It was the wisest choice in the world to inform me first."

She only lifts a hand to cover her mouth.

As frantic as I am to get to Holmes, I confess my nerves are a wreck, and I pause as I lay my hand on the doorknob. I inhale deeply, and steel myself against whatever awful images of my friend may confront me on the other side of the door; and enter.

Whatever mental preparation I just attempted does nothing at all; I feel the color drain from my face as I walk in to see Sherlock Holmes, my closest friend for nearly thirteen months, lying flat on his face, spread limply over the carpet in the sick paleness of unconsciousness. He has been ill, and fainted directly afterwards. I have seen it far too many times before to mistake it now; he has had a dangerous overdose of cocaine.

"HOLMES!" I cry, dashing toward him. It is an involuntary reaction only; of course he cannot hear me.

I drop to my knees beside his long, thin form, his steel-grey eyes shut rather peacefully in mockery of his true condition. I quickly place two fingers over his jugular to feel for a pulse; it is a combination of exultation and horror when I find it; exultation because it is indeed there, but horror because it is speeding and erratic. His heart is convulsing and quivering in overdrive, stimulated to the point of failure by the cocaine. Even in his unconsciousness, his limbs and fingers twitch sporadically, giving him much the appearance of someone being repeatedly jolted with volts of electricity.

"Oh, Holmes," I mutter, tracing the line of his pronounced jaw and marvelling in the awful irregularity of his pulse. "Holmes....what have you done to yourself?"

Well....first things first. I must get him off the floor and to his bedroom where proper care can be administered. I realize that something is disturbingly wrong when I roll Holmes to his back and prop him up into a sitting position.

Holmes has always been a thin man, and his extreme height only adds to his gaunt appearance. In fact, I've always privately thought that he had rather the physique of a very athletic flagpole. But as I support his torso now with my hands, I am shocked at the emaciated state he has dwindled to. I count silently as I run my fingers over his rib-cage; each of the bones protrude with frightening clarity.

I work carefully to hoist the unconscious Holmes into my arms, and am struck again by his malnourishment as I find that it takes almost no strength to carry him to his bedroom. My friend has become positively skeletal; I have no accurate gauge of his previous weight, but if forced to estimate I would say he has lost nearly fifteen pounds or more.

Holmes' bed is untouched, and there is a layer of dust on the smooth coverlet. I daresay he has not properly slept in days, if not weeks. The longest I ever knew him to go without rest was a solid ninety-six hours; but I am almost sure that this time he has peaked himself beyond that. I lay his thin body on the bed. His eyelids flutter with the spastic effects of the cocaine, but otherwise he does not stir.

Each of my medical instincts screams at me to take immediate action; but I must confess that at this moment, I stare down at Sherlock Holmes not as an analytical physician, but a horrified friend, and it paralyzes me. What on earth has made Holmes do this to himself? I had thought that I knew his character as well as any man could at this point, but now I see that there was something I overlooked; some terrible fissure, a point of weakness in his seemingly impenetrable shield of strength and cold indifference. It is impossible that Holmes has overdosed by accident; his mental accuracy is too sharp for such an error.

The familiar dark shadow overtakes me again. Surely.....surely my theory could not be correct?

Surely Holmes could not have attempted to kill himself?

Why?

Why would he do such a thing?

All of a sudden, Holmes' body seizes up, his spasmodic jerking worsening until his chest finally gives one last violent jolt of defiance; and then he lays still.

"HOLMES!"

Fool! Imbecile! Why did I stand there watching him??

"Holmes!"

I put a hand over his chest, and my blood runs cold. No heartbeat.

I lay the heels of my palms together over Holmes' sternum and begin delivering compressions. One, two, three, four, rest.

He does not move.

One, two, three, four, rest.

His body is limp, his already pale face swiftly draining of its last vestiges of color.

"Blast it, Holmes!"

One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two.....

Wake up....wake up....

One, two, three, four....

He lies motionless.

"Blast it all, Holmes, I WILL NOT LET YOU DIE!"

~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~

Darkness.

Stillness.

Quiet.

Wait. It isn't quiet.

There is a sound breaking through the silence.

My body feels rigid and numb, and it is a struggle even to flicker my eyelids open. Once open, the darkness still pervades my vision, but the incessant noise continues. Were I in different sorts, I might have frowned disdainfully at the perpetrator of the nuisance.

A voice, speaking. I try to clear my buzzing head as dim light very, very slowly fills my vision.

"DAMN IT, HOLMES!"

I narrow my eyes. The voice comes to me like the voice of a ghost, something I have long since buried and fought to keep underground.

"HOLMES!"

I'll be damned. It is Watson.

No sooner do I recognize his brusque, mildly Scottish-tinged accent than my eyes at last adjust. I am in my bedroom; rather dark, but for the two kerosene lamps burning. I lay on my back, looking blankly up at the ceiling; and beside me stands Watson, his bright hazel eyes looking down at me with an expression I am completely unable to read. His square, moustached

face is ruddy and breathing heavily.

"Holmes!" he ejaculates in a noise somewhere between a cry of relief and a bark of anger.

I turn my head to return his gaze. What do I say to him?

"Watson," I say cordially, my voice issuing out in a hoarse croak I do not recognize. "You've strained your neck just recently, I see."

I've gone and said it without even realizing. The rush of impulses that the familiar game stirs in me is astounding; I want to swear and laugh at the same time.

My slip infuriates Watson, however, who firmly decides upon the former of the two.

"Damn you, you blasted fool! What have you done?" he demands rather shrilly.

I narrow my eyes. Although the light is dim, it still seems to have instilled in me a pounding headache. Watson's questioning does little better.

I groan. "To be truthful Watson, I haven't any idea. Let us save time and have you simply enlighten me as to the facts."

He does not take this well. Perhaps I have gone too far.

"Oh, I will enlighten you as to the facts!" he snarls bitterly. "You have only half-killed yourself, is all! You've been destroying yourself for nearly a month! Starving yourself, refusing sleep.....and injecting yourself with your damned seven-percent solution up to three times a day, from what I have heard!"

I look curiously at the thick, solid form of the military doctor as he seethes at me. I have never seen Watson like this in all the time I have known him. It is somewhat of a shock. But then....how on earth did he know all that?

Without any hint of warning, Watson seizes my right wrist, extending my arm its full length, and roughly pushes back the sleeve. He utters a small sound of anger and repulsion, running his fingers gently along the skin and inspecting it with both the interested precision of a doctor and the horrified transfixion of a friend. I must admit, dutifully, that my injecting arm looks rather worse for the wear. The whole underside of the appendage is darkened with yellow and purple bruising, and the almost humorously neat rows of red incision marks march cordially along the vein like a line of soldiers. Watson mutters to himself as he examines it, finally snorting in disgust and tossing my arm back to me.

"And now this!" he continues, gesturing to me with one hand. "Do you not understand, you great self-centered dolt? You've finally gone and overdosed, and just now almost given yourself heart failure! Holmes, do you not understand that if Mrs. Hudson had telegrammed me not five minutes later, you could be dead right now?"

Dead.

The word takes a moment to register in my mind.

Through all of this, did I ever think of death? No...I don't believe I did. I never allowed myself to move far enough ahead to think of it. I kept myself trapped in the present, the inescapable present of my misery. Death...that might have been a way of release.....

But no. Beneath the guise of bravado and confidence, Sherlock Holmes is a lonely coward. I had never the conscious thought of suicide, and I should never have been able to bolster up the courage to intentionally kill myself, anyhow.

I have not answered Watson, and he utters a sigh of frustration. A long moment of silence passes between us, I on the bed and he collapsing into a chair beside it.

My eyes stray to look at him there. He looks exhausted, and my quiet astonishment at seeing him in Baker Street once more is replaced by pangs of guilt. I have never seen the dear man more haggard.....is it truly all on my account?

I want to speak to him. Oh, God, I want to touch him and know that he is solid and real, that he is not a figment of my imagination dreamed up to assuage my gnawing loneliness and slippery descent into insanity. God, I must know he is real.

"Watson," I say presently.

He does not open his eyes, and he rests his forehead in his thick knuckles. "What, Holmes?"

"How is it you happened to sprain your neck?"

He opens his eyes. He primarily looks annoyed, but the same old flicker of amusement is not missed in the smiling twitch of his moustache.

"Now, Holmes, how in blazes did you deduce that? Yes, yes, I know your methods, but you have been unconscious but for five minutes, and you seem barely to have opened your eyes at all."

"My dear doctor, how much visual comprehension could it require to simply observe that the collar of your shirt is wrinkled and minutely more soiled on the right side? You have been massaging your neck with your hand rather frequently. Pray, how did you strain it?"

The words pour out of me with such rapidity and eagerness I am nearly ashamed. How desperately have I been wanting a conversation exactly like this, with Watson beside me and the void in my mind at last filled?

Watson merely smiles; a tired smile. "Once again....so candidly simple when explained. I was stacking a suitcase on an upper shelf of my closet and braced it on my shoulder; I turned too swiftly and strained the muscle."

I do believe that, for the first time in almost twenty days, I am close to smiling. I begin to sit up in the bed, but Watson is upon me in the blink of an eye.

"Don't you bloody think it!" he commands, forcing me back down by the shoulders. "Honestly, Holmes, have some common sense! You are not to exert yourself for at least a day; you have nearly had a critical heart failure! It is a miracle you are conscious as things are!"

There it is; the first smile I have had in what feels an eternity.

"Ah, but my constitution has always been unnaturally resilient, you know."

Watson's eyes light suspiciously. "Speaking of your constitution....when exactly did you eat last, Holmes?"

I do something very unlike me. I squirm. Watson stares angrily.

"Can you even remember?"

By Jove, I can't. When the devil was it?

Watson shakes his head. "I knew it. You have been starving yourself."

I feel a mild indignation, tinged with shame.

"I have not," I defend childishly. "I simply....have not been hungry."

"You are a fool," the doctor repeats firmly.

I laugh. A real, honest laugh, not the hysterical shriek of a morbid cocaine-high. "So I am."

Watson abruptly stands and begins a medical examination of my abdomen, probing the area with his fingers and silencing me with a sharp glare.

"Skin and bones," he declares bitterly.

Strangely, I laugh again.

"Funny to you, no doubt," he growls. "Wasted away to practically nothing....you've never had a wit of sense when it comes to the care of your own person, do you know that? It's a bonified miracle you haven't made yourself ill long before this!"

"But I have."

Watson pauses, his expression changing. He looks at me with puzzled features.

Why did I blurt that out? Moreover, why do I want to say more, to talk and talk and never cease?

"I have been ill my entire life, Watson," I drone in perfect seriousness, never breaking his gaze. "An illness with no cure....no hope of reprieve...."

"What the devil are you talking about?" he interrupts. There is a definite note of fear in his voice.

I wave him off. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing."

Watson shakes his head again. "You need some nourishment, Holmes. I am amazed you have not keeled over yet. I am going to my practice straightaway, the moment I can call a hansom. I am returning with bottles of intravenus and you are going to be fed intravenously, whether you like it or not."

My chest seizes in panic....or perhaps that is cardiac arrest? Either way I know that I cannot bear for him to leave.

"NO!" I cry. Watson turns around to face me again. His face is blank in surprise.

"Please..." I murmur, caring nothing now for dignity or eloquence; "Please, Watson....not again...."

"Holmes," he whispers. "What do you mean?"

"Alone," I croak. "I cannot....not...not again...."

The dear doctor stares in utter confusion until a dawning of realization passes over his face. He takes a step nearer to where I still lay, weak and immobile, atop the bed.

"Holmes, why did you do this?" he asks, his voice low. "Why now? I know you have always had a mild addiction to the cocaine; I was sure you would never truly harm yourself; but why now have you suddenly overdosed? Why have you not eaten or slept?"

I smile wryly. Dear, naive Watson.

"Surely," I mutter. "Surely, doctor, you cannot be that unobservant?"

Watson stares.

There is something unreadable in his face.

Then he turns and exits the room.

I feel a cold emptiness in his wake, as if the fingers of the Black Fit are creeping towards me again out of the recesses of Hell. A strange, nearly inaudible sound escapes me, and I wonder for the first time how much it would take to make Sherlock Holmes cry. This must be something close.

But in scarcely sixty seconds, he returns. In his hands are clutched three white pieces of paper; one crumpled ball, and two unopened envelopes.

"Holmes," he says quietly, gently. "You did not read my letters."

I look at him. I am mute, for some reason. A strange stiffness is in my chest, and I am quite sure it is not an effect of the cocaine. My eyes burn curiously.

"If I had known," Watson whispers, closing his eyes, and speaking more to himself than to me; "If I had only realized....how far...."

The burning worsens when his hazel eyes reopen, and they are shining mysteriously.

"Holmes....I have missed you. Truthfully."

The stiffness becomes stronger, and I have trouble breathing.

"Please read the letters."

Watson extends the three papers to me, and I see that he has slit open the envelopes. He places them beside me on the bed and turns once more for the door.

"You are not to try and stand," he commands firmly. "Mrs. Hudson is in the next room. Inspectors Lestrade and Gregson are with her, and your brother Mycroft as well; she called them in a short while ago. If you try to rise, they have orders to restrain you. I have disposed of your cocaine and the syringe; I don't care what interfering liberty I've taken, or what personal rights of yours I have trampled; I will no longer stand by while you poison yourself. I am going now to explain the situation to Mary, and I'll be back in twenty minutes with the intravenous."

I watch him in silence, unable to draw a breath.

"I will stay the night, Holmes."

He opens the door, and is gone.

I stare at the place where he stood for a long time. The unfamiliar sting behind my eyes never leaves.

Slowly, with hands trembling violently ( perhaps from my near death experience, but more likely from something else ), I raise Watson's first letter-the one I never finished-and smooth it out, reading from where I left off.

.....sniffing out some detestable rascal who has undoubtedly perpetrated a most heinous and

masterful crime. But then, of course you will catch him. Ever the vigilant, eh old boy?

Holmes, I am afraid there is a somewhat painful subject I am wont to address in this letter,

and I pray you won't think me underhanded for attempting to lighten it with a pretense of

friendly communication. We did, I am sure you realize, not part ways on the best of terms. I

do not by any means want to guilt you, friend, but you were very cold to me at my departure.

Though you never said it outright, I fear I know the reason. You are angry, or perhaps even

jealous or threatened, over my marriage to Mary. You are the most stoic man I have ever known,

Holmes, and I would never have thought you to possess a jealous bone in your body-what had you,

with such unmatchable talents of your own, to be jealous of?-but I am afraid I can read your

silent signals in no other way. Holmes, do not brood over such a silly affair. Surely you

understand that I love Mary, with ever fibre of my soul, and that my happening upon her was

the luckiest chance in the world, and that I owe you a great debt as the root cause of it; but

my marriage does not detract from our friendship! It is not as if I have died, dear boy; I've

only moved a scant three blocks beyond the tracks!

I do wish you would pay us a visit. You being my closest friend, Mary has, as I have said a

great desire to know you better, and she has expressed this wish to me on numerous occasions.

If, when you have no other pressing engagements or cases, you would just stop in for dinner or

a cup of tea some evening, it should mean more to both of us than you might imagine.

I hope this letter finds you well, and that any unpleasantness that passed between us that

morning might be forgotten.

Your friend,

Watson

Heavens, the burning in my eyes is a nuisance. I cannot for the life of me will it away.

I gaze at the letter in my hands, my head propped ever so slightly on the bed-pillow.

So Watson did know. At least, he knew a fraction of it. I realize now why he did not appear to think much of abandoning me; he believed me to be strong. Strong! He thought I was only jealous out of childishness; how could he know that it was out of fear, and loneliness, and desperation that I was bitter towards Mrs. Watson?

Mrs. Watson. Never have I wronged anyone so deeply in my mind. Someday, I believe, I should like to be better acquainted with her.

She is, after all, the wife of my only friend.

I take up the second letter, the first of the two which I never endeavored to so much as glance at.

My Dear Holmes;

I have no doubts, my friend, that with your inhumanly accute powers of observation, you

could not possibly have failed to notice Mrs. Hudson watching your behavior very worriedly,

and sending me several messages to the effect of her concern; and so I am sure you expected

a letter of this nature sooner or later.

Holmes, Holmes; I fear that for all your cunning, for all your vast brain power and marvelous

abilities of reasoning and deduction in criminal matters, in matters of common sensibility, you

are greatly wanting. I am sorry that it has come to spying on you, but after Mrs. Hudson's first

short note of concern I requested that she keep a close eye on you, and alert me of any drastic

developments; and she has sent me several letters describing your self-destructing behavior. She

reports that you have had no new cases to occupy you, and I of course know that that means you are

trapped in the grips of one of your ghastly bouts of depression. For this, I am truly sorry; I wish

I were there to try and lighten your spirits, but then I suppose my presence and, to a greater

extent, that of my wife, would be at present most undesirable to you. You always were a rather

solitary fellow, Holmes. But I must be quite firm in stressing that no degree of depression or

boredom in which you find yourself is an excuse for refusing to eat, man! According to Mrs. Hudson

you have scarcely eaten one full meal in the course of more than a week, and are becoming thinner

and ghostlier with each passing day.

I have only your best interests at heart when I say that if you persist in this behavior, I will

have no choice but to take action, Holmes. I will simply not permit you to go on in this self-

destruction; I will not even begin on the subject of your intolerable cocaine usage, except to say

that if you persist in abusing it in the way I have heard I will take steps to stop you. Yours is

a mind too brilliant to ruin with such petty weaknesses as narcotics, and our friendship is too

valuable a thing to be tainted by so vile and common a demon as addiction. Mark me, Holmes, if you

refuse to save yourself, then I will do it for you.

Mrs. Hudson is to telegram me if my direct help is needed. I pray, Holmes, that it does not come

to that. For the love of heaven, man; try to think of those who care about you!

Your friend, through all times of trouble,

Watson

P.S. I have told Mary only the barest of your troubles, and though I know you do not particularly

favor her, I thought it might help to know that she sends her love and best hopes.

I gaze at the post-script with a horrible feeling deep in my gut. I am a wretch, an awful, jealous, selfish wretch.

I am afraid to read the third of Watson's letters, afraid that it will only worsen this constricting sensation of guilt and shameful misery; and yet I reach for the envelope with eagerness, and shake with anticipation as I unfold the paper. The telegram is, of course, much shorter than the other letters.

Holmes;

Have received a message from Mrs. Hudson tonight. Fears you are near a break down, and

wishes me to be prepared for the worst. For heaven's sake, Holmes, stop this madness before

you truly harm yourself or another. Was told about the sugar bowl. Good Lord, Holmes, we only

want to help you. Can't you see that? Believe you will be hearing from me shortly.

Watson

I have the spontaneous and cruelly ironic urge to laugh as I reread the line about the sugar bowl. Good Lord, did I really do that? What sort of monstrous person have I become? A grown man, throwing a three-week long tantrum like that....

But then....it all felt so real, so dark and heavy, the weights that settled around me when Watson left. I never even tried to reason them away; I simply allowed them to crush me. That could not all have been my own childish fabrication, could it? I may be a fool and a coward, but I have never been one to delude myself.

I hear Watson's faint voice from outside on the street, hailing a cab. I hear the hushed and murmuring tones of the small crowd in the next room; Lestrade, Gregson, Mycroft, ( wonders, he has actually come! ) and dear Mrs. Hudson.

The kerosene lamps flicker.

And without warning the burning behind my eyes is suddenly extinguished by a steady flow of tears.

My God, I have deluded myself after all. I have been doing it all my life.

An audible sob escapes me as the tears stream from my eyes and roll down my temples, staining the cotton pillow case. How long is it since I last cried? It is truly a monumental thing that I have been reduced to such displays of emotion, even in the privacy of my own bedroom.

But then, I have never really come to a deduction such as this, have I?

Thousands...no, millions of inferences and conclusions drawn in my lifetime....and only now have I made the one that ever truly meant anything.

As if waking from a trance, I suddenly become very aware of intense, cramping pains in my stomach; I am hungry, for the first time in heaven knows how long. Despite the obstinate tears ( that apparently flow from an inexhaustible reservoir ) I smile at this reappearance of my humanity...I was quite sure I had lost it. I roll onto one side, laying rather like a sleeping child, in attempt to relieve or at least dampen the sharp hunger pangs.

Watson will return soon, and I shall undoubtedly spend the entire evening under his meticulous care, all the while being berated for my foolish carelessness in regards to my own health. I have a very distinct feeling that I have seen the last of my narcotic scapegoat; the cocaine is not an escape for me any longer. Perhaps my dear friend will even recruit the others in the sitting room, and compile a sort of impromptu intervention on my behalf. I smile again, weakly.

Either way, he will come back. Watson will always come back; I see that now. It is elementary.

And he is beside me, in the chair, when I fall asleep.

A/N; To anyone who actually made it through that entire thing, wow. I salute you. Remember, reviews make me smile! P.S. For anyone confused by the title, it refers to a quote from the last of the 60 Sherlock Holmes short stories, in which Holmes refers to Watson as "the fixed point in a changing age." Thought it seemed appropriate.