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“May I ask you a question, doctor?”
Watson arched a brow at the gypsy woman as she leaned against the rail car wall and slid down to settle. “I cannot promise that I know the answer, but you may.”
There was a snuffle from Holmes as the man shifted in his sleep, burrowing in closer to Watson’s warmth. Still shaky from how close he’d come to losing the man’s wild spark of life for good, Watson gave into the urge to run his fingers through the wild mane of hair despite the watchful gaze that was fixed on the movement.
“You are meant to be on your honeymoon, yes?”
A huff of reluctant amusement escaped him and he nodded. “Yes. That was my destination before Holmes drew me into this madness.”
She nodded in return, still watching the gentle way his hands and fingers swept over Holmes, unwilling to relinquish the man under them entirely lest death snatch him away after all.
“How long have you loved him?”
His fingers stilled for a moment before he took a shuddering breath and closed his eyes. “Sim…”
“I have eyes, doctor. And they’ve seldom borne witness to such a love as the one that you bear for him and that he returns in possibly even greater measure.”
He’d deflected such inquiries before. His close friendship with Holmes had come under scrutiny before. The eccentric detective got on with so few people that anyone he regarded with fondness was given a great deal of curiosity and Holmes had managed to aggravate nearly everyone he’d ever come into contact with. Being subject to crude remarks and innuendo were part and parcel of accepting Holmes in his life.
There was no censure in her voice though, no judgement or disgust or hate. Only bafflement.
Perhaps if he hadn’t had to feel the strong heartbeat that still had the power to drive his life flutter to stillness, he could have deflected the questions in her eyes as easily as he’d always deflected them from others.
He took another shuddering breath and resumed the careful strokes through Holmes’ hair. “I may not necessarily agree with all of the rules of modern society, Sim, but I still have to live in it.”
“Are those rules truly more important happiness?”
“I love Mary. I can be happy with her. I will be.”
Her nod was slow, but accepting. Then her eyes drifted to Holmes. “And can he be happy without you?”
Watson’s fingers tightened in Holmes’ hair, but he didn’t respond.
There was no point.
It didn’t take Holmesian genius to know the answer to that.
~*~*~
the end