"Doctor Watson, I'm sending your next patient in."
"Thank you, Sarah," I mumbled absent-mindedly, flipping over my schedule to the next patient's file.
MR. S. HOLMES, it announced.
RECENTLY UNDERGONE HEART SURGERY FOR SNAPPED CHORDAE TENDINAE. APPOINTMENT FOR ROUTINE CHECK UP OF HEALING OF THE HEART.
I froze.
The clinic door swung open.
Tall as ever, swathed in his worn scarf, coat collar up like armour, eyes cast downward so his lashes left spidery shadows over his pale skin.
Mr. S. Holmes.
My Sherlock.
My throat constricted, I watched as the man before me shrunk and morphed into an old gentleman, a Mr. Sheldon Hartford, a patient who had been seeing me for months for his physiotherapy sessions after he had broken a leg falling from the balcony of his flat. He had tripped and fallen while watering his geraniums, but his story and initials still seared at my mind strongly enough that I could not overcome the hallucinations his file triggered every Thursday he visited.
And every Thursday evening Mrs Hudson would remark at the redness of my eyes and the bruises under my knuckles.
And every Thursday I'd pretend I was fine, just like he had before he'd left me.
