A Matter Of Trust
by elfin
http://www.sundive.co.uk/

The house:

I put my hand on his chest and see blood on his jacket.

"Oh God, Watson...."

How could he die when his trust in me is shaken?  How could he leave
me without knowing how much his company means?

He groans, shifting against the wall, in pain.

I spread my fingers over his shirt.

Oh, God.

"Go."  His voice is rough, clipped.  "Get him."

How can I leave you?  I'm torn.  I can't let him get away, yet if you
die here alone I will never forgive myself.

"Go!"

I can't.  John, please.

He looks at me, eyes dark with shock.

"Please, Holmes."

Will you ever call me Sherlock?"

In agony, I leave.


the moor

I've never been this close to panicking.  I've never been this close
to death.

I underestimated him.  It's a failing of mine.

I try not to meet Stapleton's mocking gaze.  I try not to struggle
against the powerful forces pulling me down.  I try not to think about
Watson.

I don't want to die without him knowing.

A bullet in the brain would, I'm thinking, be preferable to choking on
the clogging mud clinging to my clothes, sucking at my skin.

When the shot comes, it's Stapleton's brains that splatter over the
cold, damp ground.  I look up, but my eyesight is fading as my body
concentrates its efforts on trying to stay above the cloying dirt.

"The problem now is how to get you out."

Watson!  I blink away the lights dancing behind my eyes and see him
shrugging his jacket off.  What's he doing?  But however mad his idea,
he's the only chance I have.  Trying not to seem desperate, I cling to
the blue arm, pulling myself out as he uses all the strength of his
one good arm to save my life.

Finally, I get purchase on the ground and claw my way out of death's
grip.  I want to holler, but I can't find my voice.  All I can do is
collapse on his legs and gasp for air, pulling oxygen into lungs that
have been painfully crushed.

After a few fiery breaths, I realise that underneath me he isn't
moving.  I try to raise my head but my blood is like lead in my veins.
  Instead, I manage to stretch my arm up and rest my hand on his chest
to feel his heartbeat under my palm.  It's racing, but he's alive!

The relief is the last thing I feel for a short time.


The Train:

"The answer to your question is no."

I smile.  He doesn't trust me.  But he still has faith in me, and
that's what's important.

He has accepted my dinner invitation too.

For the rest of the journey, we travel in silence.  But he glances up
almost as many times as I do, and when we catch one another, we smile.

When we reach London, we haul our bags off the train like a pair of
invalids.  He with one arm in a sling, me under doctor's orders not to
put myself under undue strain.

I can't help but regard him with affection when he attempts to lift
both our cases with one hand, and he sees me.  I don't think he knows
what to do with me at the moment.


Baker Street:

He may not trust me with our cases, but he trusts me with his heart.
He is the first and the only one to do so.

"You take too many risks with the lives of others, Holmes," he told me
over dinner.  He's right.  But I won't admit it.

"I shouldn't play with your life," I responded by way of an apology.

Very rarely were our lives so dangerous.  I may play with madmen and
murders, but I don't play with mortality.

When we returned to Baker Street, we bade one another goodnight but we
didn't part company.  We stood in the hall and for an instant it
seemed to me that I'd never laid eyes on him before.  The dark look in
his eyes, the shape of his open mouth, these things were alien to me.

No longer.

We didn't speak.  We still haven't spoken, even now he's lying next to
me.  I wonder what we'll say to one another in the morning.


fin

                         elfin prod @ www.sundive.co.uk
     E21 www.eclectic21.co.uk @ Cult TV 2003 www.culttv.org
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