What would Holmes do without Watson's understanding and sympathy? *sigh* The dialogue between them is so very delightful - mercurial, despondent Holmes on one side, Watson trying to buoy up his spirits on the other.

And - hurrah! - a mind-reading episode - and all nicely explained and deduced too! Perfect :)

In fact, all the observations and deductions in this story are quite excellent and entirely plausible, especially regarding the engaged couple - the sort of thing which anyone might see, but only Holmes draws the obvious conclusions.

Thoroughly enjoyable :) Onwards to Part Two.

Poor them - that sounds like a horrible situation! I'm glad Watson's efforts seem to be working. Loved how Holmes challenged Watson deduce something himself.

“That was an uncharacteristically painless encounter.” LOL. Sorry, couldn't help it ;)

"One elderly gentleman [...] became perturbed enough to charge at them with his heavy-looking stick." - Well, it had to happen sooner or later... :)

you and your crack reviews XD jk

*cannot resist making fluffy post-writing comments*

what i love about our collabs, is that we roleplay. no one else does it that way, and it makes our fics so much...in the moment, if that makes sense. probably not. but since so much of *us* is in it, it makes them all the more special :D

Good Lord, that's brilliant.

First off, if PGF murders me because I'm spending my evening drooling over this instead of writing TWH like I'm /supposed/ to be, I'm blaming you entirely. Both of you. :D *hides from PGF*

My word, it is a long one! *bounces excitedly* I love it! And your third-person POV is perfect, I don't know why but it definitely is.

The first thing that grabbed me was the bit about the cigar in the coal-scuttle - a tiny detail we don't hear much of but was there nonetheless; Watson calmly taking one from a random spot just cracked me up despite the black mood.

Their reactions are spot-on, not that I expected anything less! And, coming from depression myself, you definitely hit both it and the coming-out-of it right on the nose; it's a horrid thing to try to shake.

The deducing was like a basketball game where the ball moves too fast to keep up - I had to read it twice to get it all and it sounded far more sound than some of Doyle's stuff does. :)

Then the bit about women being a mystery was simply hysterical! Wonderful job, and certainly well worth waiting for! Thank you! *hugs*

*runs off to click bcbd's profile*