"Rebooked" (221b, Rated G, Holmes Minor Monthly Prompt)

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Title: Rebooked
Author: gardnerhill
Form/Wordcount: 221b
Characters/Pairings: Dr. Watson, OMC
Rating: G
Warning: None
Summary: Everything has a season – and everyone is Sherlock Holmes in his own specialty.
Author's Notes: For the April 2017 Holmes Minor Monthly Prompt, “Renewal.”

***
Dr. Watson approached the desk. He smiled, almost abashed as if he hadn’t finished a lesson for a stern schoolmaster, and hefted the object in his hand. “For some reason I just wasn’t able to finish this in time.”

“Ah, it’s the weather.”

Watson laughed at the instant diagnosis. “How so?”

“Take it from an old hand at the stacks, sir.” The man smiled and hefted his stamp. “Best time for non-stop bouts of reading is the winter – you’re at home by the lamp staying warm at the fire and all is dark and cold. The only thing that gets you out of your chair is to fetch a cup of tea. But then spring comes, and the days are longer and warmer. The blood stirs, and a body wants to be out and about, walking in the park or through the street in the evening instead of sitting by the fire reading – and when the two weeks are up…”

How absurdly simple.

Watson finished the man’s phrase. “…Why, then, that book you borrowed is due back and you’re only halfway through it instead of finished.”

The librarian beamed. “Put it another way, sir? You’re far from the only one.”

Grinning, the doctor presented his tome to be restamped for another fortnight. But the librarian’s explanation did make him feel better.