A/N: Scroll past the ramble-y author's note if you don't want to read it. I won't judge you...more harshly than you deserve. ;)

Hello, all!

Finally, after many hours of thinking, researching, editing, and beating my head against my desk, my novel-length fic is finally complete. Ta-da!

But before I can share it, I have to thank the fantastic people who made it possible:

-SheWhoScrawls, for being a valuable wealth of knowledge.
-My good friend Cole, for being my biggest fan. I would never have finished it without your support.
-My TAG teacher, Mrs. Kiburis, for being fantastic and understanding of my insanity.
-And last but not least, my mom, for keeping Holmes in character and pointing out the tiniest inconsistencies that I completely missed. She should've been a detective, I tell you...

I can't make guarantees about how often I will post new chapters, but the whole thing is written, so there will be none of that waiting-for-years-for-the-next-chapter. Y'all are welcome.

Without further ado, here's the first chapter:

Chapter One

Watson

In the year 1895, Mr. Sherlock Holmes was consulted about many an outré and fascinating case, but no case from that particular year stands out in my mind so starkly as this one. It was one of the few times that my friend admitted that he was anything less than superhuman, and one of the fewer times that I had been given the privilege of having a glimpse into his deeply-buried soul and mysterious past. Not only was this case of a personal nature, it was unusual in the fact that the only clients were ourselves, and arguably Holmes's brother Mycroft and two Scotland Yard Inspectors.

I am amazed that my friend gave me permission to publish this case at all, and more astonished still that has he agreed to add his own account to the story, though the whole affair would hardly make sense without it.

The events of which I speak began on an average Wednesday morning in April. Holmes and I were steadily working our way through one of Mrs. Hudson's magnificent breakfasts and various morning papers.

"Anything of interest in The Times?" asked my friend from behind The Pall Mall Gazette.

"Well," I answered, "On Friday, there's to be a wedding between the Duchess of —"

"Watson!" he snapped, putting down his paper to glare at me.

I blinked innocently back at him. "My sincere apologies, old fellow. Did you mean of interest to you?"

Holmes snorted in a very undignified fashion as he snatched a pair of scissors from the table and began to cut a section out of the paper. "So was there?"

"What if I was going to read that paper?" I asked, completely ignoring his question.

"What would you have wanted to read?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"I don't know," I answered, deliberately irritating him.

"Then how do you know that you wanted to read it?" he asked exasperatedly, though I could tell he really wasn't irritated at me. At least not very much.

"I never said I knew I wanted to read it; I only asked what you would have done had I wanted to," I countered slyly, turning a page in my paper and scanning my eyes down the page for anything that would interest my friend. "Hmm. This message is a little odd," I said, pointing out a small section in the agony column and handing the paper to Holmes.

"That could be something, but it could just as easily be nothing," my friend replied thoughtfully. "It appears to be the first message sent; look at the wording at the start of the message. We shall have to wait and see what this mysterious "P" says in the next few days, or weeks. Or months, possibly."

We returned to our perusal of the newspapers, and a couple of minutes later, Mrs. Hudson entered the sitting room, a telegram in hand. "It's for you, Mr. Holmes," she said, handing it to him. She glanced down at our progress on the breakfast front (and scowled when she saw Holmes's pipe lying on the table) before sweeping from the room.

As Holmes ran his eyes over the telegram, his thick brows knotted together, and he handed it to me. Looking down at it, I read:

COME TO MY ROOMS IMMEDIATELY SHERLOCK STOP IT IS A MATTER OF GREAT PERSONAL IMPORTANCE STOP MYCROFT STOP

"It must be something paramount if Mycroft wants you to meet him at his rooms," I said, handing the telegram back to my friend, who set it on the table next to our half-eaten breakfast.

"My brother does not alter his habits lightly," said Holmes. "Only something very significant could have thrown him out of his usual orbit." He started toward the door leading to the hall, but before he had taken two steps, he glanced back at me over his shoulder. "Aren't you coming, Watson?" he asked, and I am willing to swear that under his usual phlegmatic tone, he sounded a trifle disappointed.

"If it's all right with you," I replied, rising to my feet. I had erroneously assumed that my friend would not want me to come along if it was a personal matter, and so had remained seated at the table.

The detective's face brightened. "Yes, your presence could be most advantageous," he said as he tossed me my coat and headed toward the door. I spared my unfinished toast only a momentary wistful glance before hastily donning my coat and following my friend down the stairs.

When we reached Mycroft's rooms, the elder Holmes brother was pacing up and down the comfortable sitting room, his hands clasped behind his back, a cigar dangling from his mouth, his brow furrowed and the watery grey eyes beneath fixed on the ground before his feet. He looked slightly dishevelled, with his shirtsleeves pushed up to the elbows and his greying hair hanging down in front of his face. His pacing was disconcerting, to say the least, as I have always associated Mycroft with thoughtful lethargy rather than feverish action. I glanced at my friend, and was in an odd way reassured that I was not the only one completely taken aback by Mycroft's strange appearance and behaviour. We had only a few seconds to stare blankly before the subject of our bewilderment motioned us to the couch with a flabby hand as he seated himself in a chair opposite us.

"Good morning, Doctor," he said cordially, though I detected an undertone of anxiety in his voice that increased my uneasiness almost as much as his pacing had done.

"Good morning, Mr. Holmes," I replied.

"Do call me Mycroft, Doctor," Mycroft returned kindly, before facing his brother. "I know how you despise unnecessary pleasantries, dear brother, so I shall skip to the facts," he said. Mycroft spoke much more quickly than was usual for his slow and methodical personality. "There was an attempt to poison my food yesterday afternoon."

I half expected my friend to make some gibe about his brother's weight, but he remained —thankfully—silent.

"The man who endeavored to poison my luncheon was apprehended—I know you're going to ask for particulars, Sherlock," he added, holding up his hand when Holmes leaned forward and opened his mouth, "but it won't be necessary." I frowned and with my peripheral vision, I could see my friend doing the same. "I called you here, because the poisoner—Rowe was his name, I believe—told the police early this morning who had paid him to do it. Inspector Lestrade contacted me immediately, and I in turn sent fo—"

"Mycroft, get to the point!" Holmes snapped exasperatedly. "We did not leave our excellent breakfast only half eaten to listen to you ramble." I suspect he mentioned the breakfast more as an appeal to his brother's nature than disappointment about leaving the flat on a mostly empty stomach.

Mycroft sighed tolerantly, but at the same time he seemed to tense, as though preparing to say something he dreaded saying but knew he must be said. "Rowe claims to have been hired by Roderick Cauldwell." The name meant nothing to me, but my friend blanched.

"The same Cauldwell as—as before?" he asked, his normally strident tone hushed to a tense whisper.

"Most definitely," Mycroft replied gravely, pulling a large white handkerchief from his pocket and mopping his large brow with it.

"Have the police located him?" asked Holmes as he fidgeted with something in one of his coat pockets.

"No. He seemed to have been warned about the police, and gone into hiding before they arrived."

Holmes swore.

"Sherlock!" Mycroft reprimanded, but the detective ignored him and glowered at the fading carpet between his feet.

"If you don't mind my asking, who is this Mr. Cauldwell?" I asked cautiously. Neither of the Holmes brothers answered me for a moment, and an almost tangible silence filled the sitting room.

"He was involved in a brutal knifing case five years ago," said Holmes finally. "The main suspect, in fact, but there wasn't enough evidence against him."

I frowned, trying to remember. It would have been during my marriage and, as I had seen a good deal less of my friend in those days, it was more than likely that I was not involved in the affair he mentioned at all. "Have you ever told me about this case?" I asked uncertainly.

"No," was Holmes's monosyllabic and conversation-ending answer, and he turned back to his brother, leaving me feeling more than a little taken aback. While my friend had never been an overly amiable person, he had been far warmer (at least to me) after his Return, and even before then, it was very rare that he would cut me off without any explanation whatsoever. "Mycroft, is this everything you have to tell us?" Holmes asked.

"I have only one more thing," Mycroft answered, wiping his brow again. "Please leave this case to the official police, Sherlock. For all our sakes." His watery grey eyes were fixed concernedly upon his younger brother as he spoke. I glanced at Holmes, who was clenching both his fists and his jaw.

"Of course," he finally answered in a cold, lifeless voice.

Holmes was far more listless and unsociable in the cab on the way back to Baker Street than was usual for him. He alternated between biting his nails and drumming his fingers anywhere within his reach, and scowling at the drab world beyond the cab window. All were sure signs of nervousness and a very, very dark mood.

I was full of curiosity about this knifing case and Cauldwell person, but knew my friend well enough to see that this was most definitely not a good time to ask him any the unusually strained silence, excepting the drumming of the detective's fingers and usual sounds one hears on a damp spring morning in London.

When we reached 221b, Holmes immediately retreated to his bedroom with only his shag tobacco and violin for company. I did not see him again until dinnertime that evening, when he emerged looking unkempt and bearing clear signs of an unstable emotional state.

Naturally, I was both surprised and concerned about my sometimes automaton-like friend, who rarely showed any emotion whatsoever, save the rare bursts of anger toward particularly repulsive criminals, and the occasional sign of affection toward myself. To see my friend in such a state of upheaval was even more alarming than seeing Mycroft pacing restlessly. For Holmes's sake, as well as my own, I squelched my curiosity and silently vowed not to ask any questions related to the events of the morning. Such questions would get me nowhere with my friend, and most likely alienate me from him altogether, which was the last thing I wanted to do.

Dinner was a quiet affair, and my friend did no more than tentatively pick at his food. In all probability, the only reason he came out of his bedroom at all was to ease my mind about his state of health, both physical and emotional. While I found this slightly backhanded gesture touching, I was still very worried about him.

After about ten minutes of Holmes's teeth grinding, finger tapping, and lack of appetite, my patience finally ran out.

"Holmes, whatever it is that's bothering you, you can tell me," I said emphatically. "It doesn't take your deductive talent to tell that something Mycroft told us has upset you greatly. And it isn't simply the fact that there was a failed attempt upon his life."

My words and tone of voice arrested his attention enough that he ceased his grinding and tapping, before throwing me a black look which might have caused a man with less backbone to crawl into a dark corner and hide, but friend's mood swings no longer alarmed me like they once had. "You don't have to tell me what it is—" here he snorted and made a very juvenile I'd-like-to-see-you-try face "—but I am always here if you want to."

As Holmes pushed back his chair and drew himself up to his formidable height, I could see that cursed aloof mask slide over his sharp features. "I am perfectly fine, Watson," he said coldly. "I haven't the faintest idea what you are talking about, so do cease to concern yourself about me, there's a good fellow." He gave a strained and very obviously false smile before stalking the few steps from the table to his bedroom door, and locking it behind him. Sighing, I contemplated what I could possibly do for my unfortunate friend.

"Did he even touch his food, Doctor?" asked Mrs. Hudson in a half-worried, half-irritated tone when she came up from the kitchen with dessert (a very delicious-looking pudding, but the exchange with my friend had sapped my appetite) and saw that I was the only lodger at the table.

"I'm afraid not, Mrs. Hudson," I replied as she set the pudding on the table.

"Is he ill?" she asked in a tone of motherly concern.

"As far as I know, physically he is perfectly fine, but something he learned this morning seems to be bothering him and he refuses to tell me what it is."

Mrs. Hudson nodded as she picked up my relatively empty dishes and Holmes's heavily laden dinner plate. "Just you keep doing the best you can. I'm sure he'll come round soon enough," she said, and left me to my dessert and dark musings.

It was obviously something about this Roderick Cauldwell and what had happened five years ago that was the cause of my friend's agitation, as he had been completely calm and collected until Mycroft mentioned that name. The name "Cauldwell" wasn't in any of Holmes's reference books (I had done a bit of investigating earlier in the day). Of course, he could very easily be mentioned in some of the documents Holmes had stored in the bookcase and trunk in his bedroom, and I would be none the wiser, as those papers were very strictly off limits for me.

I had considered inquiring of Mycroft about this Cauldwell fellow, but something about doing so seemed extremely underhanded and dishonest to me. If Holmes didn't want me to know, then I would not make it my business—unless his health became affected, in which case it would be completely irresponsible, both as his friend and his physician, to ignore it.

I absentmindedly finished my pudding, which I ate more for Mrs. Hudson's sake than any appetite. I trudged up the flight of stairs to my room, from whence I could hear Holmes's disconsolate and sometimes absolutely depressing violin improvisations wafting from below well into the night.