* * *
While his other self had been speaking, Sherlock tucked his head into Skye’s shoulder with a sigh, more felt than heard. Now he lay, feeling his heart pound and his body flush as his spouse did amazing, and completely invisible, things to him.
“Minx,” feathered into Skye’s ear.
* * *
Skye bit her lip to stifle the giggle. “So you’re going to take a break, then tackle boosting the rest energy of the brane tomorrow?” she addressed the other continuum.
“Yeah, probably,” Chadwick agreed. “Or maybe a day or two after that, even. Or maybe not; I dunno. I gotta admit, Holmes is right. I’m dead on my feet. And he’s not much better. It probably IS wiser for us to get some rest before tackling the brane. That’s gonna be tricky enough as it is.”
“Good plan,” Skye concurred.
“A good plan,” she heard a low voice pant in her ear, “would be to end this conversation quickly, Wife. Else it will shortly be interrupted by what is likely to be a very…loud…fantasy, fulfilled.”
Skye bit her lip again, harder this time, as outright laughter threatened.
“Guys,” she called softly, “Sherlock’s fallen back asleep on my shoulder. Can we continue this later?”
“Sure thing, Skye,” Chadwick agreed amiably. “Since you’d just woke up, it was bad timing on our part, anyway. Y’all take your time and we’ll pop back later, probably in a day or so. I’d like to tag up with you once more before we boost the brane.”
“Okay. Catch you later,” Skye concurred.
An almost palpable silence emanated from the hall, and a sense of something missing—but no pop, hiss, or whiff of ozone was detectable.
Moments later, Skye’s fantasy was enacted once more—most emphatically.
* * *
The pair sat quietly in their office upstairs, several levels above the Chamber. “If he was asleep, I’ll eat my laptop,” Chadwick snickered. “WITH its recharge cable.”
“They certainly seem to…enjoy each other.” Holmes chuckled wryly.
“They’re married, Holmes.” Chadwick barked out a short, bitter laugh. “Newlyweds, to boot. It’s what newlyweds do. My parents ‘enjoyed’ each other right up until the end.”
“They are in love.”
“Very much so. Though, from what I’ve gathered, they—or at least he—doesn’t verbalize it much.”
“Then how does she know?”
“There are other ways of saying it, ya know, Holmes.” Another barking laugh. “‘Enjoyment’ is one way.”
“I find it intriguing,” he admitted. He tipped his head and stared thoughtfully into space. “His heart is quite given over to her. Yet it does not seem to have affected his observation, nor his faculties of reason, in the slightest.”
“No,” Chadwick agreed. “You know, I asked her about that the other day—I think you’d stepped out to the men’s room for a minute.”
“Oh?” Holmes wondered curiously, schooling his face into a bland expression. “And what did she say?”
“That he’d learned to integrate the two. And that in the process, he’d gradually realized something.”
“What?”
“The fact that he cared for Skye—and Watson, as a dear friend—actually enhanced his deductive abilities,” Chadwick shrugged.
“What?!”
“Yeah,” Chadwick nodded. “Because he cared about them—and didn’t want them hurt—it ramped up his skills and abilities. Probably an adrenaline rush or something. Think about when he rescued his wife the other day. He practically WAS a tesseract, he moved so fast.”
* * *
The detective rose to his feet in astonishment, and now stood there, wide-eyed, as sudden comprehension dawned.
“Dear God,” he breathed. “Of course.”
Chadwick watched him in bemusement, but his mind was distant, working on the ramifications of this revelation. Finally, abstractedly, he turned toward the door.
“I shall return shortly. I find I need a pipe to contemplate this,” he murmured, and she stared.
“Pipe? But you haven’t smoked in two years!” she protested. “You gave it up.”
“I am afraid I require a bit of...” Holmes paused, seeking to explain. He sighed. “It is not tobacco, but a Native herbal blend I found at the trading post where you used to purchase my tobacco. It is actually healing to the system, I have it to understand, and there is some evidence that it may actually counter the effects of tobacco use upon the system. It is exceedingly rare for me to make use even of it these days; I think I have not used it in almost a year. Sometimes, however, when the mental need comes upon me, it is...beneficial. But I am thus able to still keep my promise to you.”
“Okay,” she agreed, understanding. “We have time. We got the deterioration halted, and we can actually manage to properly prepare, for a change, before we tackle bumping up the energy in the affected brane. I’ll hit the couch in the corner and take a nap while you’re gone, like you wanted.”
“Capital.”
* * *
At the door, he turned back. “Chadwick?”
“Yeah?”
“Before I go, I…there is something I need to know, a datum I require in order to factor into my contemplation. Perhaps two separate bits of data. But…they are very personal in nature.”
“When did that ever stop you?” Chadwick shrugged again, wryly this time. “You may fire when ready, I guess.”
“The first thing I should like to know is,” Holmes internalized the wince, “in your estimation, how much is the other Chadwick like you? Psychologically, I mean.”
“Mentally and emotionally?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, quite a lot, I’d say,” Chadwick decided after a moment’s thought. “You’ve seen us finish each other’s sentences a few times. And I know what she’s gonna do about as soon as she does, because it’s what I’d do.”
“Like the fright over the beta burns?”
“Exactly.”
Holmes’ breath hitched, though he managed to avoid revealing the fact to his companion. She would have dropped everything, come running, and examined me for injury, he realized. Even now, after…everything. It led him to his other datum.
“And the other thing I should like to know,” he began, then hesitated.
“Is what?” Chadwick pressed.
“Once, you…confessed…to a certain…fond regard, for me.”
“I said I loved you, Holmes,” she corrected quietly.
“Yes,” he said, noting the past tense with some sadness, watching her with dark grey eyes as she watched him in turn, “you did. But…do you still love me, Chadwick?” he asked simply, watching her steadily, unaware his eyes were drawn and his forehead creased in pain. “Or have I completely destroyed that tender regard, in the intervening years?”
She averted her face suddenly and swallowed, as soft color suffused her cheeks.
“Do you remember what I told you at lunchtime, that day we…?” she began hoarsely. “That…last day…?”
“Yes,” he recalled immediately, the memory of the dreadful day branded indelibly on his mind, in its every painful detail. “You said you had enough love for both of us, and you only requested time to…readjust your expectations.”
“That’s probably the best answer I know how to give you, right now.” She nodded, continuing to avert her face. Holmes left the door and came to stand beside her chair.
“Still? After all this time?”
Chadwick shrugged, tossed a rueful, slightly wobbly smile over her shoulder, then sighed.
“One of your favorite words for me has always been ‘loyal,’ Sherlock,” she dared to call him by his given name, just this once.
“It has,” he admitted, instantly noting a mode of address he had not heard in several years, not since that decisive day, and realizing with a shock how much he had missed hearing it. “May I ask another question?”
“If I said no, would it mat
ter?”
“Yes,” he said, heart aching, and immediately silenced, turning to go.
“Go ahead and ask it,” she sighed, and he stopped.
* * *
Then, to her chagrin, he came and stood directly in front of her face, then crouched down so he could look into her eyes.
“Why did you never grow angry?” he asked softly, holding her gaze with almost magnetic intensity. “Why are you still here at my side? I had thought—half-expected, even perhaps feared—you would turn from me…”
The scientist exhaled in pain, and tears filled the tired sapphire eyes, but as usual she did not let them overflow.
“Because I’m not suicidal,” she told him bluntly, “and it would have killed me, as surely as a bullet to the heart. There wasn’t anybody else left, not after Caitlin died in the tesseract accident. I knew I had your friendship, even if I couldn’t have your love, and I was willing to take what I could get just to know you were here. It’s pathetic, I know, but true.”
They were silent for several moments, watching each other. Finally Holmes spoke once more.
“You have never grieved any of them. Not your parents, not Caitlin, nor any of the others who died in the sabotage attempt.”
“No.”
* * *
Then a blazing light went off in the detective’s mind. “Great Scot, you lost me that particular day of which we speak, too, did you not?”
“In a way, yeah. I lost…what might have been.”
And suddenly he knew what the difference was between his Chadwick and that of the other continuum. “You lost hope.”
“I guess.” She shrugged.
“And you have never grieved for any of it.”
“I never had time. Too much has always rested on my shoulders. It’s a luxury I couldn’t afford.”
“Why not?”
“For pity’s sake, Sherlock!” she exclaimed in frustration. “You, of ALL people, should know THAT! If I let all that go, I’d come apart at the seams! I’d be worthless for days—weeks! Maybe permanently! I probably couldn’t function, let alone think with anything like the clarity needed to solve the little problem we’ve had downstairs! So I took a page out of your book, and shoved ‘the softer emotions’ aside. In the end, I’ve gotten fairly good at it, I think.”
Holmes sighed, deeply troubled.
“Over there,” he waved a hand at the floor, indicating the Chamber below their feet, and thereby denoting the alternate continuum, “he learned from her—to integrate his emotions with his intellect. But here, you learned from me—to isolate them.”
He looked deeply into his companion’s eyes, seeing the dull, dispirited gaze, and contrasting it with the bright, vivacious glow he had always seen in the other Skye’s eyes. My Skye used to look like that, he remembered. Before I turned my back on the priceless gift she gave me. Before our world began to fall apart—literally.
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” she averred. “Maybe if you’d done the same thing he did, we wouldn’t have been able to recognize what was happening to the continuum. Wouldn’t have realized it was even destabilizing, let alone fought to stop it.”
“I wonder,” he murmured thoughtfully. Holmes rose to his feet, turning for the door. “All right, Skye, I am going to smoke my pipe now. I should not be gone long, and I will return straightaway I am finished.”
“Okay. If I’m not here, I’ll be downstairs puttering.”
“No,” he said firmly, “you will not. You shall remain here and rest.”
“But I—”
“No, Chadwick,” he said emphatically. “You need rest before we do another thing. You will run yourself into the ground otherwise. I will not have it.”
“And what are you gonna do about it?” Chadwick’s temper flared.
“Call Morris and Roberts and have you escorted from the premises, if necessary.” Holmes folded his arms calmly. He returned to her side and laid a light hand on her shoulder. “I am not trying to be difficult, my dear. I am trying to care for both you, and the continuum. If you are insufficiently rested, and in your weariness you make a mistake…”
“Point taken.” Chadwick sighed, and subsided. “I’ll be here on the couch, then. I may not be able to sleep, but I’ll try to rest.”
“Good girl. I shall return shortly.”
Chadwick moved to the couch in the corner as Holmes left the office.
* * *
Sherlock left Skye napping on the sofa in the sitting room, put on his jacket and muffler, and stepped into the garden in the back of the cottage, where he sat quietly on the old stone wall. There was nothing in particular on his mind, though he lit his pipe and smoked it with some vigor. He was simply allowing his wife the opportunity to reclaim the sleep of which he’d deprived her the previous night, while he himself enjoyed the fresh air of a relatively mild winter’s day. There was a peace within the detective this particular afternoon such as he’d not experienced in some time. Perhaps since I arrived in this continuum, he considered.
“Yes,” he murmured aloud, “for if I correctly understood Skye, the danger is over.”
“It is, we believe,” he heard his own voice reply from somewhere nearby, and he raised an eyebrow.
No crackling, no champagne corks, and no whiff of ozone, he observed. They have, indeed, fine tuned the tesseract.
“Good afternoon, Brother Me,” Sherlock greeted his alter ego whimsically. “How are you and Dr. Chadwick, now the crisis has been averted?”
“Well, perhaps I should restate—the crisis is not wholly over,” Holmes admitted. “We have stopped the ongoing deterioration, but have not yet reinforced the membrane. There is no longer immediate danger of spontaneous collapse, though there will be some risk when we fortify the brane. And Chadwick is resting upstairs in our office—as, I assume, she is within the house, as well.”
“Indeed,” Sherlock agreed. “Their labours have been great, and they have earned a respite. So you have come to speak with me in private.”
“I have.”
“I suppose it is necessary, though I cannot say I relish it.” Sherlock drew a deep breath, then let it out reluctantly. “Let us get it over with, then.”
“Consider the matter as thinking aloud, rather than intimate discussion with another man,” Holmes suggested. “That is, essentially, what you are doing, after all.”
Sherlock pursed his lips consideringly, then nodded. “Very well. It seems an acceptable stratagem. Pray proceed.”
“Your Chadwick—your wife, now. You are in love with her.”
“Well, I am.”
“Why?”
“I have come to the conclusion that the whys and wherefores of love extend into matters metaphysical,” Sherlock acknowledged, then chuckled ruefully. “They are only partly amenable to reason and rational explanation. Nevertheless, I suppose it might be said she is my complement, one of the few people—and the only woman—I have ever found who understands me in toto. She needs not to ask me a single question, Sherlock—nay, not so much as a single word, to know what I am thinking, what I am feeling, what I want, what I require. And I,” he pondered, letting his gaze grow distant, “I can do the same for her. It is a singular relationship.”
Puzzlement was evident in Holmes’ tone when next he spoke. “Complement—she is your opposite, then? In other than gender?”
“No, no,” Sherlock shook his head. “Oh, I suppose in the matter of certain skills, it might be said so. Betwixt us, we do have a deliciously broad range of knowledge, skills and talents. It proves quite useful at times. No, she is in fact, very much like me. In the early days of our friendship, for so it was initially, I used often to make the mistake of trying to compare her to Watson. There are some similarities there, I suppose, especially in the greatness of heart; but she is decidedly more like me than Watson. When once I consciously grasped that fact, it was the key to fully understanding her—at least, insofar as one human may understand another.” He paused thoughtfully, t
hen added, “Somewhere along the way I discovered…” he shrugged. “She is part of me, Sherlock, and I, her.”
“You feel incomplete without her.”
“You know better than that,” Sherlock reproached. “I cannot, nor will not, speak for my wife, but I am far too independent to apply such a statement as that to myself. I am a complete being, in and of myself—as is she, I might add. One half must be added to one half to equal one, and neither of us is half a person.”
“No, that is true,” Holmes agreed. “My observations indicate each of you is a full, rich person.”
“Precisely,” Sherlock nodded. “No, I should say, not that she ‘completes’ me, but rather that I am more complete with her. The equation is not additive, or even multiplicative, but exponential.”
“Ah,” Holmes answered, understanding. “The whole greater than the sum of the parts.”
“Exactly.”
“And so how does this explain the depth to which you desire her?”
* * *
Sherlock settled back down on the stone wall, shoved his now-extinguished pipe between his lips, and said nothing. Insofar as an observer could have told, he did not hear the question.
“Remember, Sherlock, you are carrying on a conversation with yourself,” Holmes reminded his doppelganger with amusement, then grew serious. “In truth, I am trying to understand how you came to be so…ARE you as happily married as you appear?”
An eyebrow rose; then grey eyes twinkled.
* * *
“Capital, Brother Other Me,” Holmes’ voice smiled. “I am…pleased for you.”
“But you do not understand how the difference came about?” Sherlock confirmed, getting out his pipe tool and busying his hands with the process of re-igniting his pipe.
“The data is insufficient, you understand,” Holmes answered.
“Of course. But if I may, what has triggered this sudden need to know?”
“Observation,” Holmes sighed. “The similarities, and differences, between my Skye and yours. And the discovery that, after all this time…dear God, man, she still loves me.”
The Case of the Displaced Detective Page 115