Title: Paddington Station
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (ACD)
Rating: G
Length: 410 words
Summary: Watson is once more trying to find Holmes at a station

It is not unusual for me to meet Sherlock Holmes at a railway station, and therefore I should be quite used to it.  However, it is never an easy process.  His mind works in such a fashion that I can never be sure exactly what he intends. 

For example, the message he left for me this morning said, ‘Watson, take the 11.45 to Exeter.  I will meet you at the station.  Holmes’

I am therefore at Paddington Station, with a ticket to Exeter in my hand.  It is, of course, entirely possible that we will not be going as far as Exeter, merely that I am supposed to be on the train, but I dare not risk waiting to buy my ticket until after we have met. 

For one thing, it is possible we will not meet up.  In the normal course of events, two friends would arrange to meet in a particular place, or there is an accepted meeting point, like beneath the clock in Waterloo Station.  Holmes does not come into that category.

For a start, he may be in disguise.  I have already checked the various waiting rooms, from first class to third class, for if he is travelling as a workman, he would use the correct waiting room.  As it is, he was in none of them and I occasioned some strange glances when I looked in at the third-class waiting room, and therefore made a hurried exit.

I have strolled past the various stalls selling hot drinks and paused to peruse the books in the new W H Smith’s.  I have even bought myself the latest yellowback novel to pass the time on the journey should I fail to meet up with him.

I am now resorting to watching passers-by and trying to identify Holmes amongst them.  So far, I have followed a lady who was wearing a hat which I thought resembled one belonging to Mrs Hudson, and which Holmes may have appropriated.  It turned out to indeed be a lady, who looked at me fiercely and I was forced to apologise and say I had mistaken her for the wife of a friend.  I’m not convinced she believed me.

A glance at the clock tells me that I should make haste to board the train, or I will miss it.  I hurry to the platform and enter the first-class carriage, to see Holmes already sitting there, reading a newspaper.

“Watson, what kept you?”