A/N: Sorry for taking so ridiculously long with this, everyone—I had no intention of deserting it indefinitely! And many thanks to all for the kind reviews; I only hope I've wrapped things up satisfactorily enough.

P.S. One thing that was worth the wait? Game of Shadows! : )

III: Quite Like an Apparition

Watson blinked languorously at the welcome sight in front of him, letting his eyes fall closed again.

"Holmes."

"I must say, dear friend," and the grip on Watson's hand tightened—"I was starting to fret a little there."

Watson gave no indication as to whether he heard, and Holmes drew closer. He glanced quickly about as he did so, suddenly feeling very vulnerable indeed.

"I said, my dear Watson, you gave me quite a scare!"

"Not so good at it either, are we?"

"What is that."

"Being able to," the doctor heaved slightly, "tell if a man's dead or not?"

Holmes's lips pursed in approval, despite his still-racing heart. "No, I suppose not."

"You all right, Holmes?" Watson's voice was low, the lilt of it familiar and casual as though he were merely exhausted and mumbling to Holmes in a half sleep.

"Yes, quite."

"You sure?" His moustache moved against the ground, eyes still shut.

"Yes, I promise you. A bit the worse for wear but looking rather better than you at present, I dare say."

"Oh." Watson breathed another small huff. "I'm glad."

"Of course you're glad, Watson; I know you love me so."

Holmes thought he saw the corner of Watson's mouth lift a fragment, but the longer he stared at the face he thought had been stilled forever, the direr it looked once more.

"Watson? Watson."

"Hum."

"I'm not—I'm going to need you to tell me as much as possible. Are you able to move? Do you think you managed to break anything?"

"No," after a moment's hesitation. "No, I don't believe so." Dimly aware he should be trying to keep his eyes open, Watson peered out again. Although his friend's medical talents were no match for his own, it struck Watson that he had never seen the resourceful singularity that was Sherlock Holmes look quite so worried—which of course could hardly bode well for him, given he was the object of inspection.

"Irene is unhurt, then?"

"Yes, she's fine. I advised she be on her way for her own safety."

"Good."

"Lucky for us both, old chap, you were there to warn us."

"Is there much, Holmes?" Watson inquired abruptly.

"Much what?" asked Holmes in return, knowing what he was getting at right away.

"Much . . . blood," Watson replied with obvious strain, and Holmes was at once remorseful of making the man speak the needless syllables. He skimmed the visible damage again, the meagre light afforded by their location impeding any sort of proper assessment. What constituted 'much,' Holmes knew it was surely 'enough'—enough to seep through three layers of clothing; enough to make quite a formidable presence in its obscuring of the critical skin of the neck. If the carotid artery had been nicked in the slightest . . . feeling an involuntary grimace pass over his face, he guiltily sought Watson's reaction, but the doctor clearly hadn't caught it.

"To be candid," Holmes attempted brightly, "I feel rather fortunate to find you in the condition I have. You fairly flew," and his eyes automatically went to the grisly stain above them.

"Yes," said Watson, "I feel as much."

"Though well done on the landing, man. One twist in the wrong direction and we likely wouldn't be having this conversation right now."

"And we shouldn't prolong it," Watson appended, wincing. "Holmes, you need to . . . the case—"

"Forget the case," Holmes muttered quickly.

"Holmes," the response came molded by a small smile, "don't be ridiculous."

"Correct me if I am mistaken, Watson, but weren't you the one who once advised me to leave this case alone?" Holmes demanded, and even in his failing state Watson could see the wheels turning behind his friend's eyes at the suggestion, forging different chains of events and circumstances that all ended in a place far from the pain and the close, terrible darkness of the present.

Watson shook his head minutely. "I was wrong," he assured his companion. "I'm glad you took it."

The past tense with which Watson referred to himself, while appropriate in the given context, made Sherlock bristle. "Well, I only wish that Fate had got things in their proper order," he remarked, "with the medical doctor administering to the otherwise capable, formally unlicensed of the two. How was it you characterised my knowledge of anatomy in those first days of our acquaintanceship—'accurate, but unsystematic,' I believe it was?"

This appeared to elicit another ghost of a smile, but the only observation that mattered to Holmes was that Watson was being far too quiet, whether out of fear his voice would betray him or out of complete and utter lack of physical strength: the likelier of the two scenarios, and, naturally, the considerably more worrisome.

"Watson. You know the grand gift of silence I spoke of the other day? Yes, well I must confess I find it most dreadful; I'm afraid I was only humouring you. We'll have none of that now."

Being discovered by his good friend, Watson mused, was at once fortunate and uniquely problematic. Whenever Holmes was on a certain path, invariably he could not be steered from it, but under the present circumstances Watson knew he still had to try.

"As I was starting to say, I want—it isn't safe for you to be exposed like this, Holmes. I'm sure not even Lestrade is apt to miss this one, and the police will be along shortly to help me on my way."

"The police?" Holmes gave a curt, rather high laugh. "For you now, to be placing your confidences in the police . . ."

"Please, Holmes. Surely you recognise the priority of the task that lies ahead of you?"

"I do indeed."

"Then you must leave at once."

"Watson, don't be daft. It hardly suits you."

"It does to some degree," Watson observed.

"No, though you have got it half right: we certainly should be making our way out of here. While I have reached a fair estimate of how much time has passed between losing you in the explosion and the moment I came to myself, there is no way of knowing which party is to happen upon us first. Now, you may just need to give me some direction on the order of things."

In the ensuing silence Holmes moved first, releasing the doctor's hand at last as he shrugged out of his pea-jacket.

"See to it that the bleeding is stopped first and foremost, you say? Yes, I'm going to have to agree with you."

He hesitated over the surface of Watson's own jacket, wondering if he was imagining things or if the blood there had spread since last he looked. Nothing was going to do any good unless he could see the source of the bleeding itself, and yet every means he arrived at doing so brought with it a most undesirable possibility. What if Watson had indeed broken something—or, if a bone was in such a precarious state, a certain movement caused it to rend upon contact? What if the layers of clothing beneath Watson's coat were burned to the skin, and, in the gloom of their surroundings, he did not glimpse it before peeling the fabric away?

Holmes coughed fitfully into the crook of his arm. It was suddenly exceedingly difficult to think . . . perhaps he had hit his head harder than he realised? That was plausible, though he also considered the fact that, were it anyone else in front of him, action almost certainly would have been taken already. A most embarrassing reality to concede, permitting emotions to guide—or, in this case, hinder—judgment, but there it was. For this was no stranger's bloodied form before him, and it was no stranger's face turned there upon the ground. Even the brown herringbone of Watson's Harris Tweed was enough to transport Holmes back to the time he saw it last in the sitting-room at Baker Street.

"I wonder, should— I must confess, it is not readily—"

"You more injured than you're saying, Holmes?" Watson interjected.

"What?"

A raven's caw sounded high above them, its presence momentarily distracting Holmes while also lending a timely reprieve from the doctor's question. He turned back to the task at hand.

"Since we do not truly know the extent of your injuries, Watson, I shall not make any movements too drastic. I don't wish to move you yet in case of any head, neck, or spinal injury, but we do need to make sure the bleeding is under control and maintain your temperature." He paused one final time. "Just a bit of pressure, old boy, here it comes now."

Holmes pressed his bunched jacket down onto the centre of the blood-stain as forcibly as he could bear. Watson gasped softly in response, twisting feebly beneath Holmes's hands.

"I'm sorry, Watson, heartily sorry . . ." Holmes felt as though all language had suddenly devolved into a mindless rambling he could not control. "Surely you endured worse in Afghanistan?"

Watson did not reply, instead pulling in more laboured breaths that seemed horribly magnified above the quiet crackling of dying fires all round them. Struggling weakly, his left leg briefly shifted to form a number "4" with the rest of him—a sight which Holmes registered in abject horror. John Watson was not going to become Blackwood's fourth.

"Come on, then. Stay with us now, Watson, stay with us."

A low groan escaped the injured man, which Holmes found at least preferable to the eerie rasping: as long as he could keep Watson's voice in his ears, it might just follow that he would be able to keep Watson with him.

"I would give you some morphia for the pain, but as it happens I am quite without," he lamented. Carefully, Holmes pulled his coat back to survey the effect, but it was difficult to ascertain whether his efforts were even helping, let alone making matters worse.

There is nothing more I can do for him.

In an instant, another recollection of Watson's voice came to mind; something that Holmes had more than once heard his friend declare over the years and heard so clearly now that the acknowledgement left his lips before he realised his mistake.

"Come now, Watson, hush."

Having made no further utterance that he was aware of, Watson frowned through the haze of pain threatening to take him again into unconsciousness which, although appealing, he knew he had to resist at all costs. He suspected that Holmes's condition really was more severe than he let on, and the thought of anyone with ill intentions discovering them in such a combined defenceless state was enough to fill him with a solemn, pervasive dread. He squinted up at what he could see of Holmes from where he lay.

"Which is it to be, conversation or quiet?"

Holmes sighed raggedly, turning into his shoulder to combat the perspiration that was dripping into his eyes. "There's a good fellow. Though again, I'm afraid we're going to have to render you far more eloquent in this chapter of the account I have no doubt you will eventually place upon record."

"I saw him," murmured Watson, sounding quite delirious. "So very close . . ."

"Who? It was Blackwood?"

"Before it's too late, Holmes. You've got to stop him."

"I'm not sure why you insist on speaking as though you are soon to be relieved of your duties to me, Watson? The only thing you will be bidding adieu to-night is the very spot on which you lie, to make a full recovery."

"He departed by boat. From the distance, I could only see—"

Sherlock held up his hand to stop the forthcoming account. "I have no need for the details at this juncture."

"Holmes." Watson felt the shortness of his tone more than he heard it. If the man honestly thought he was going to let him keep his idle company, while Blackwood escaped unchallenged?

Holmes, for his part, took encouragement from the new charge in Watson's voice, as it sounded so very like him on any ordinary day. "Not to worry; we shall catch up to that scoundrel soon enough! I give you my word on that."

"I don't think I'm going anywhere with you to-night, old chap."

"It's not often you are mistaken, Watson, but mistaken you are this time round. Would you care to make a wager on it?"

Watson opened his eyes very slowly, then closed them once again. "He tipped his hat to me, Blackwood did."

"I'm not going to catch him now, Watson; that much should be obvious to you." Holmes's response was steady but clipped, the offhand remark having flooded him with a new and blinding fury. To gesture so nonchalantly to a man, knowing full well the calamitous result about to befall him . . . Blackwood may not have held his 'loyal dog' Watson in so high a regard as he, but that was Blackwood's mistake and Blackwood's mistake alone. The devil was going to pay for this, dearly.

Meanwhile, Watson's head rocked to and fro against the ground. "That is just my point," said he. "The distance he has put between himself and us only grows in these precious minutes ticking by."

"And yet the farthest and most arduous distance to-night was that which I travelled just now, in the time it took to find you."

"By Jove!" cried Watson; "you really have suffered some kind of massive head trauma."

"Oh, I suppose I am sounding uncommonly sentimental, yes, but believe me: there is nothing that fills me with a duller terror than the thought of spending a lifetime without you at my side." This was, in fact, the very notion that Sherlock Holmes had been endeavouring to suppress ever since he awoke to that ghostly moon and Watson was not there. Determining their next move was an elusive undertaking at best when his mind kept leaping to the worst possible outcome, that in another day—if not mere hours, minutes—he may very well find himself alone.

"Plus, my own selfish considerations aside," he added, fighting the emotion that rose within him, "as you will recall I did not, regrettably, make a very good first impression on Miss Morstan. How do you think she would greet me if the next time we met, you were not there as well?" A cheerless smirk punctuated the question, and Holmes tucked his pea-jacket more securely round his fallen comrade.

The mention of Mary and the tender action from Holmes, his stunning revelation: all sent a pang of grief through Watson beyond the agony of his physical wounds. His mission of getting Holmes away from here and to safety looked to be an increasingly hopeless one, but perhaps a different approach would convince him yet.

"While I am unable to leave with you now, this isn't good-bye," Watson assured his companion. "I shall no doubt find assistance soon, and we may celebrate your inevitable solving of this case with a proper reunion."

"What are you not telling me," pressed Holmes, after a deliberate pause. "Something's more serious about your condition than you've indicated, isn't it? Why else would you be so bent on trying to run me off?"

"Because it happens to be your wisest course, old boy. If our positions were reversed, I'd—"

"You'd what, Watson? Leave me here to—" Holmes brought a trembling finger to his lips. "You would not budge from my side, just as I am doing now. Of that I have no doubt."

"This has been a trap designed for you from the start," replied Watson at last, his voice soft and thin again. Fading. "Pray do not fall into it."

Holmes sniffed, running a finger beneath his nose as he gave the area round them a brief survey to see if there was anything at all that might prove useful. As the black cloud of their predicament began to settle over him and his mind made yet another leap to that dreadful, unthinkable possibility, he tried not to entertain remembered passages from Edwin Morris's treatise on shock at the sight of his grievously injured friend, but they plagued his thoughts all the same. The descriptions of patients observed and lost were pushed more firmly to the recesses; the general symptoms not quite as disturbing, but foreboding nonetheless.

A deathlike paleness will steal over the countenance, followed by sickness and vomiting, which are the earliest symptoms of severe shock, and afterwards succeeded by an abundant perspiration, and the whole frame becomes shaken by an universal tremor, which is truly alarming.

Regarding his patient intently, Sherlock forced himself to look past the unnatural fatigue clouding the typically bright eyes and noted for himself the sheen of sweat on Watson's brow, the unmistakable shivering from beneath the coat that covered him.

The pulse is small, feeble, and slow, the patient is perfectly senseless, and the respiration scarcely perceptible.

Holmes lifted Watson's wrist, seeking the pulse through skin that felt suddenly icy to the touch and then moved to feel the same at his neck, fixing his eyes on Watson's face while his fingers pressed through blood-stained skin and waited.

The pulse becomes more and more feeble, irregular, and intermitting, the extremities become cold. A cold perspiration hangs upon the face, no re-action takes place: the heart, losing its natural nervous stimulant, soon ceases to act, and the patient expires.

Holmes's heart clenched as he stared helplessly into this aberration of Watson's visage, the barely comprehending stare, the eyelashes falling over even that wisp of a connection in sheer lassitude.

Syncope will occasionally occur after but slight injuries, and the patient soon rallies: if, however, it follow severe injury, it is a most dangerous symptom, as it denotes that the shock is powerful and permanent.

Continuing to hold his friend's gaze drowsily, it occurred to Watson that the intervals in which his eyes stayed closed were getting progressively longer. Holmes was likely calculating this measurement for himself, but it was not to be helped on either end. Watson's most immediate realisation was that his ears were positively ringing. The odd memory struck him that just last week he had been taking a bath, lying with his ears below the water's surface and listening to the sound of his own heartbeat as clearly as though there were a stethoscope to it.

Ah, to be soaking in a bath at Baker Street right now. If only he were there, instead of here.

Watson's eyelids drooped heavily.

"No!" Holmes pitched forward, his long fingers clutching. "No . . . come, Watson, you must keep looking at me."

The eyes he sought opened, revealing plainly the desire and effort to do as instructed, but still the peaceful—too peaceful—look of detachment remained. Holmes nodded slowly, his affect grave.

"I need to get you to hospital."

"Holmes, go."

"I'm not going anywhere, and neither, dear Doctor, are you. I may be rather lacking when it comes to most military virtues, but any man worth his salt knows not to leave his fellow soldier behind on the field of battle."

"You pledge your loyalty to me, and yet you refuse to grant me the one thing I ask."

"Then, pray come up with a better request. It is as simple as that. I must say, I did like your talk of our next engagement—perhaps we should settle on discussing such plans. We never did make it to the opera? Of course, there may be another concert at this point to consider. I would very much like for Sarasate to return so that we might appreciate his talents once again; perhaps with an even greater selection of German music than last time. You know if it were up to me, I'd be happy to see a programme that featured nothing but." Holmes was quite unconsciously rolling Watson's fingers in his hand as he continued to glimpse their surroundings in agitation.

"That would be pleasant indeed," Watson replied, trying desperately not to shake so and give Holmes further cause for concern but also keenly aware of the prognosis he himself would make, were someone to present him with the kinds of symptoms that he was experiencing now. His fingers moved languidly within Holmes's grasp. "I am glad you are here with me, dear friend." Watson did feel just a bit guilty for taking comfort in Holmes's presence, knowing the distress—and apparent physical harm—his friend was currently suffering himself, but this did not alter the truth behind the statement. He only wished that he could somehow persuade him to pursue Blackwood after all. If anyone could stop a man as confounding as Lord Blackwood, it was indeed Sherlock Holmes.

"Yes." Holmes averted his gaze. "Well, I suppose we haven't had to deal with this sort of thing in, oh, so long," he remarked absently.

"Holmes, if you would . . . please tell Mary—"

"Watson? Gift of silence. Suddenly, it is in great demand again."

The doctor took an uneven breath. "I, I just—"

"'Pon my word! And to think I was accusing myself of being maudlin. What of Gladstone, my boy? Hum! Shall I give him a hug for you as well the next time I see him?"

Watson could not help but smile at the image of Sherlock embracing the hapless pup, although the motion only served to pinch the shrapnel along his jaw.

"If Gladstone had any sense whatsoever, he would know to keep a safe distance from you."

"Ay. I suppose the same could be said of you, eh, Watson?" Holmes's own smile at the welcome moment of humour promptly fell away. How desperately he wished to apologise for having dragged Watson into all of this, but that of course would imply a concession that he was not, in fact, leaving here with him—an unacceptable solution, to say the least.

"Don't feel badly about this, Holmes."

"What is there to feel badly about? As we've already established, my dear fellow, you could very well have been blown to pieces just now, and yet here you are by some good fortune to lend your talents to the remainder of the case."

"All the same. I'm very glad that you did not make to-night's outing a solitary one. Fortunate indeed, considering you managed to 'forget' your revolver yet again." Watson's tired eyes sparkled with a familiar gleam, but the jest only provoked a look of passing injury across Holmes's countenance.

"Yes, well." Holmes swallowed. "I promise you, I won't be leaving it behind again."

The light in Watson's eyes welled, then, as a hundred memories of Holmes and the notion of their coming to an end swept through him all at once. He affected a wan smile, knowing the futility of trying to deceive the one person who could not be deceived. "It is better you did this time," he insisted.

Holmes shook his head, not trusting himself with words.

"Now, then." Watson shuddered in obvious discomfort. "The time has come for us to part ways."

"I believe we've covered this."

"Holmes, I won't—" Watson stopped short, his tone markedly hoarse as he continued on, "I won't tolerate you, you meeting any avoidable misfortune on my account. It's unconscionable."

"You worry about your conscience, Watson, and I shall concern myself with mine."

The echo of approaching shouts and heavy footfalls wafted through the streets to both of them then. Idly, Holmes wondered if the source was in fact much closer than his ears let on.

"Holmes, please," Watson's voice was on the point of breaking, and Holmes looked down with no small amount of dismay to see, even in the shadows, a glimmer of tears standing in his friend's eyes. "I'm begging you," he whimpered.

Holmes clasped Watson's hand tightly. "It's all right, Watson," he said, striving for a firm voice of his own in the face of such unmitigated despair. "Everything's going to be fine."

The advancing sounds grew louder as Inspector Lestrade and the rest of his men began to descend upon the scene, all marvelling at the utter devastation of the wharf. Constable Clark turned a corner adjacent to the factory and stopped. Was that movement there, towards the end of the dock?

"Mr. Holmes!"

Holmes lifted his head, spotting the silhouetted figure that had paused in the distance. Through the rising smoke, it looked quite like an apparition.

"Sir!" called Clark.

Holmes returned his attention to Watson. The face that was so anguished mere seconds ago was now perfectly, indifferently, still.

"No!" he choked out. "Watson, no . . ."

Clark took off running. "Mr. Holmes!"

"Please don't do this, my dear Watson—for God's sake, Watson, no!"

From some far-away place the doctor was moved to respond, and he opened his eyes. A single tear slid over the bridge of his nose, dropping the last two inches to the ground.

Holmes nodded, as much to himself as to his friend, his own eyes squeezing shut in blessed relief. Blinking wearily, Watson finally gave a halting nod back. Holmes staggered to his feet just as Clark approached, his cape settling round behind him.

"Mr. Holmes." Clark's eyes trailed to the figure that remained. "Is—"

"Still with us, Constable."

Clark's face was grim. "We have an order for your arrest, sir."

"You have a?"

"Lord Coward has issued a warrant for your arrest, sir."

Holmes's lip quirked and he cast his gaze immediately downward, waiting for the expected chiding that he had surely been told as much. Watson, however, presently looked as mortal and ebbing as ever—the blood staining his coat and neck rushing into Holmes's vision as though he were only first glimpsing it, the silence of his non-response ringing in Holmes's ears like a knell.

Looking back to Clark, he could feel his eyebrows drawing up and together in a treacherous collusion against him.

"Now, you can't do much for us in jail," Clark spoke gently. "And somebody's got to stop Blackwood. Somebody's got to put an end to this, once and for all."

It was our last case together, and I wanted to see it through to the end.

Holmes closed his eyes, and saw Blackwood. Watson. The girl on the altar. Lestrade. Irene. Irene's gun-wielding client.

Watson.

"We've got him now, sir. I'll personally see to it that he receives the utmost care."

Holmes looked down once more and found the brave doctor fighting ponderous eyelids to maintain his limited view of the street between the two men. The desire to protect, in the face of having to leave, his imperilled saviour swept through Holmes all over again, so much so that he very nearly had to resist the urge to bend down and start petting the poor man's head in a mad fit of affection.

"Yes." Holmes's gaze returned to Clark at last. "And I'll personally see to it that you see to it, Clarky. I am, after all, trusting you with my most trusted companion."

"By all means. Now just get out of here, sir. And may I suggest you seek some medical attention yourself?"

Sherlock gave a rueful smile, and Clark's own lips thinned as he nodded in silent understanding. The detective's chief purveyor of medical attention was, of course, there at their feet. Holmes shrugged.

"Go, sir, go." The constable wiped at his moustache, glancing about for the rest of the approaching police force.

"Thank you, Clarky."

Holmes determined the nearest viable escape route in an instant and promptly hurried down it. Stopping short, he turned and gripped the side of the building, permitting himself one last peek at the growing swarm from the wall's edge.

I shall see you soon, Watson.

The detective headed off into the waning night.

THE END

Come on, come on
Oh what a state I'm in
Come on, come on
Why won't it just sink in?

That help is just around the corner for us
That help is just around the corner for us
Oh, that help is just around the corner for us

~ coldplay, "help is round the corner"