It was the first time we had shared a room in a hotel since —
I suppose that was why I dreamed of it again. The dreams had left me since his return to Baker Street. I had not yet given in to his many arguments for my return, but even in my quiet rooms across town I slept deeply at last—knowing that there was a fire once more in the sitting-room hearth at 221B, and music was being played on a solo violin through the lonely wee hours, and the world was set right.
I had not moved back, but I had agreed to accompany him once more on cases. I could trust my happiness that far. So now we were in Cornwall, and staying at a hotel, and there was murderous intrigue afoot. And while I had been so very glad to follow him about in daylight, and leave the past in the past, my sleeping mind felt otherwise.
I dreamed I woke in Switzerland alone. I knew he was gone. His bed was cold. I could not stay in that silent room. Through moonlight and mountain shadow I walked the path to Reichenbach, where I’d left my heart. His walking stick still lay abandoned on the ground, his last letter open near it, bleeding dark ink onto the rocks in the mist of the falls.
I sobbed, then. There was nothing else to do, no other way left to serve him. I cried his name without hope of an answer; my voice was swallowed by the shadows. I was still sobbing when I woke—but not alone; a trembling hand was clutching my arm, and a voice I had longed for was pleading roughly, “John—John! My God, John, stop, stop, I can’t bear this.”
It was enough. My sobs turned to gasps of release, grief waking to its living relief, hanging over my bed in kind distress. I reached out to him; felt him warm and real and in reach; pulled him down to me. He surrendered easily: collapsed against me and buried his face in my hair. His breath in my ear made me gasp again in gratitude. Horrors had found me, but so had he. And he was clinging to me too.
It was simple, then, to kiss him.