The Reply

by ~iAes

Holmes,

I received your letter at half past eight in the morning on the 21st of September. It has taken me perhaps nine months to reply to you, almost to the very day, perhaps because I could not fathom the proper response. Your subtle references to the difficulty of your situation at Baker Street residing with myself is, to say the least, slightly insulting, and for more than one reason (which, I am certain, you have already deduced). I shall begin with the most obvious.

For one, you assume that I would reveal our personal correspondence at all. I am humiliated to think that I have yet to demonstrate my loyalty in your eyes when in mine I am so clearly counted among your (few) truly trusted friends. Why you should ever imagine that it would even cross my mind to publish or share our letters is practically blaspheme, and you should be ashamed of your own pigheadedness. How can a man who professes to possess such unbounded love continue to labor under the impression that even his closest confidant and partner cannot keep a secret? Do you think that I am so bound by society's richest (and most corrupt) ideas that I should rather betray a years-long friendship than face the idea of a single dispatch? Your pride (and, I must also add, insecurity) is most unattractive.

You are a hypocrite of the most despicable sort, Holmes. You seek to deceive those you cling most dearly to and relish the thought of revealing an unpleasant truth to an ill-suspecting stranger, yet when you yourself are faced with an inconvenient set of mind you immediately run from it, preferring to watch it unfold as a spectator. What ill-advised moral teachings brought you to the conclusion that witnessing an event is better than participating in the sport? You leap into your cases as a man possessed and then when confronted with your own mind you shrink from the task. Did it not ever occur to you to approach your own problems with the vigor you so obviously reserve for your career? What separated one dilemma from another, other than your emotions? I am aware that you profess your indifference to these supposedly weak pastimes, however the letter you posted to me nine months ago speaks quite clearly to the contrary. You have given me your confession, and now I must make my own case, as clearly as the jury will allow me to.

While it is true that you have placed yourself in considerable danger of arrest (theoretically, at least, if we assume that I am completely insufferable) you fail to consider that you also place me in danger by posting me at all. I am not complaining. I am writing you now to state to the contrary: I would much rather knowingly engage in the dangerous activity of love than work blindly, abandoned with no explanation other than a companion's undisputable selfishness. While you labor under the impression that you are saving both of us more pain by departing, I have come to the conclusion that you are aware, by now, that your original goals are unachievable in our current position. Were you to simply return I would be satisfied, but not until then.

The pain I have experienced over the past months has been close to unbearable. You know of the pain I felt in my breast when I thought you dead, your body forever sunk to the depths of the Reichenbach's treacherous waters; you are aware of my opinion that I should never experience more poignant an ache than the thought of you, deceased, drawn from my embrace by the cold waters of enmity—yet I know now that the pain of death is nothing when rivaled with the pain of rejection. When you left, you chose to ignore my own needs in favor of your own, thereby guaranteeing our own distinct unhappiness for months, or perhaps years, to come.

I should at this point mention the sad news that followed your unceremonious departure. Mary died two months after you left.




Perhaps you will receive this news with a joyful heart—perhaps not. I have faith in your unfailing moral character that you will not exercise your sarcasm in the face of the grief I have endured at the loss of both you and my wife, God rest her. I also have faith that you will forgive my hesitation to reply, as the ground lay still smooth upon her place of peace. But now is the time to speak of my life, not hers. It has completely fallen apart, Holmes. You would perhaps compare the state of my own rooms to your chemistry lab—in disarray, with a bare method binding things together and dust around the edges where I no longer care to look. The past is too much with me, and you are too much not.

You are aware that I never penned the sad tale of Reichenbach. I shall do so now to remedy the public's cry for your presence and perhaps stave off the inquisitive visitors to Baker Street while I effectively mourn your loss. But while you are wandering alone and forlorn (for so you think yourself, my dear friend) I beg that you do not think me content, or resigned—and most of all, do not ever mistake me for happy.

Always yours,
John Watson, M.D.