At least, Sidney thought so.
She was walking down the street back toward 221B Baker Street,barely leaning on her cane. Her other arm was slung through Sherlock’s as she laughed, recapping the antics of the evening.
Antics that she remembered.
Kind of.
Because they’d just happened to her.
Hadn’t they?
Opium was a helluva drug.
Wasn’t it?
Shehadtaken opium. Shewashigh. Evidenced by the fact that while her knee was hurting like a bitch, she didn’t care. She had that telltale all-over-warmth that came with, well, an opiate drug. Though she’d only ever taken the prescription meds that the doctor had given her when she’d shattered her wrist in a tennis match in college.
Oh, she’d done her fair share of weed. Still did. But hard drugs were a line too far for her. Until now. Until she had a badly-stitched and poorly-healed knee injury from a goddamn war she hadn’t even been alive for, let alone fought in.
She remembered smoking the opium.
She remembered going to the bar with Sherlock. Insisting that theygo outon the town.She remembered him arguing with her, and her heading out without him, only to have him on her heels a moment later.
She also remembered winding up at a pub, doing several shots and putting back a few pints before getting involved in a bar fight that she couldn’t honestly say whether or not she started or simply finished.
But shehadfinished it.
Which was impressive. And out of character for “Sidney.” But maybe not for “Watson.” And the cane had done most of the work, to be fair. Most importantly, the heavy silver and steel topper of it.
But she’d wound up with a few punches to the side that she’d feel in the morning.
It wasn’t until she got to the bottom of the interior stairs leading up to the “B” portion of the renowned “221B” that she realized she…yes, she remembered going down the stairs, in the same way that she remembered going to the bar, but she…had no idea how to go back up themwith a bad leg.
Furrowing her brow, she looked down at the first stair like it might as well have been one giant leap for mankind.
“Oh, come now, old boy.” Sherlock rolled his eyes from halfway up to the next landing. “I’ve seen you take far more punches, and put back far more glasses, than what you’ve taken this evening. You cannot possibly need me to carry you.”
“No. I’m fine. Just. Physics problem.” She chewed her lip. Well, okay. Cane first seemed like a bad idea. Cane last? No, that’d be a terrible idea. Bad leg last? Bad legwiththe cane?
She settled on “bad leg with the cane.” Splitting her weight between the cane and the railing, she moved her good leg up a step, then lifted the cane and her bad leg. It was slow going, but itwasgoing. And it meant she wasn’t toppling down back toward the front door.
Though between the booze and the opium, that was still a possibility.
I should really be in a worse state with how much I remember doing. Honestly, with my comparative bodyweight, I should be throwing up or unconscious.
And I remember the size of the guy I fought. He should’ve been able to knock me out in one hit.
That wasn’t reallymein those memories, was it?
As she went up the steps, one slow-ass step at a time, she let out a breath. Now that she focused on them, the memories weren’t…really vivid. They were like the memory of watching a movie. Like they’d happened to someone else.
By the time they reached “their” flat, Sidney had come to the very slow and rather upsetting realization that she wasn’t just in a story, she wasin a book.Literally.
Scene changes and all.
Missing sections and all.
And she thought getting blackout drunk was bad enough. Collapsing onto the sofa in the parlor—or living room, or whatever thefuckfancy people in that time period called their rooms, she put her head in her hands and simply began to cry.
