The doorbell rang insistently, but with a sense of resignation. I shuddered, wrapping my shawl more tightly around me. Three years. Three years since that drunken night in a Lancashire pub had turned my life upside down, culminating in a morning in a village church and a wedding ring on my finger. Sherlock Holmes, my husband. A genius, a sociopath, an insufferable man, and, dare I say, a man I was deeply attached to.

The door opened and Mrs. Hudson appeared before me, her face a picture of weary melancholy.

"Mrs. Holmes," she murmured, ushering me into the house.

"He's in his study. He's particularly unwell today."

"Particularly?" I replied, taking off my coat.

"And when is he well, Mrs. Hudson?" She merely sighed. The house was in its usual state of chaos, with scattered books, test tubes, and dried insects under glass. And the smell, that signature cocktail of tobacco, formalin, and something elusively chemical that always betrayed my husband's presence.

I knocked on the study door.

There was a pause, then a sharp, irritated voice: "Come in."