daylyn

Title: Living with Ghosts
Author: Daylyn
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes
Pairing: Holmes/Watson
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Not mine, although actually in the public domain. No profit is intended.
Warnings: AU (Sherlock Holmes is a ghost); Character Death (um… Sherlock Holmes is a ghost).

Summary: Watson remembers.

Author’s Note: Many (many) months ago, nlr_alicia said that she wanted to read something along the lines of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, but with Holmes and Watson. This story immediately popped into my head. I could see it all, from beginning to end. It just took me a while to write it.

Sadly, Alicia seems to have disappeared from the fandom. I do hope she comes back someday, and reads the story she inspired.

Thanks to my beta reader the_callum for all the editing, comments, suggestions, and encouragement. You rock, my twin!



Living with Ghosts
By Daylyn

I could hear the familiar din of hospital sounds as I lay in the stark, sterile bed. My labored breathing echoed through the dark ward. Sleep was elusive. I lay there, my mind racing, as thoughts and memories danced through my head.

The night nurses were speaking quietly, their voices an almost soothing lull. I realized with a start that they were discussing me.

“Oh yes, that’s Dr. Watson,” one of them was saying. “I remember him from when I first started working here at St. Bart’s. He was always very kind to the staff, as I recall. Of course, I think he was pretty close to retiring from practice around that time. It was right after the War, you know.”

“Dr. Watson,” said the other nurse, who sounded younger. “Why does that name sound familiar? Was he well known here at the hospital?”

“Not really,” said the first. “He was really better known for his work as a police surgeon, and he had a private practice too, I believe. However, it is a little known fact that he was the real author of all those Sherlock Holmes tales.”

“That’s where I heard the name!” the second one exclaimed. “I read those stories when I was young. I hadn’t known that Dr. Watson was a real person. Was Holmes real too?”

“I believe so. But he had died years and years earlier. Most of the accounts were fiction, written to honor his friend.”

“I didn’t know that. Did Holmes die like that one story said—at that waterfall in… Switzerland, I think it was?”

“No, that wasn’t it. I think he actually survived that like the stories said. But he died soon after his return to England. Sorry, I really don’t remember.”

Their voices drifted onto another topic, but their words lingered like a stab wound, painful and poignant. Holmes. Dying.

I remembered.
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