He came to me later that night. I looked up, and Holmes was standing in my doorway, wearing his nightclothes, as I had seen him many times before; but the hesitation in that long, slim form was new. It looked strange on him. Then he straightened those bladelike shoulders, and came to stand by my bed. I kept still, as if he were a ghost and would vanish at the touch of a breath.

"Watson," he said.

"Sit down, Holmes, please," said I.

He sat woodenly on the edge of the bed. I sat upright against the headboard, a foot from him. He bent forward and rested his chin in his hands.

Thus we sat in silence. At length I could no longer help myself; I reached out and traced one finger down that smooth neck. He shuddered and closed his eyes. I repeated the gesture and watched his face clench slowly in the service of some unnamed emotion, as if in the depths of his soul something was struggling. His breath caught. I watched fascinated, uncertain, as if this were not mine to see: Sherlock Holmes fighting against himself.

I stilled my hand. "Holmes," I said. "This doesn't have to be."

"I don't know," he said. "I don't know." I don't think he spoke to me. I think that at that moment he was not even in the room; I think he was in some other place, some private and barren place of his own making. Then he turned to me slightly, and reached out, and I gathered him in so that he was lying cradled against my chest, his head on my shoulder. I held him still until his breathing was even, though his heart beat high and fast against mine. One of us was trembling. I will never know which.

"Your pulse is fast," he said.

"Not unusual," I managed, "given the circumstances."

His long fingers came to rest on my wrist.

"Yes," he said. "Elevated." One finger began to linger along the bones of my wrist, then slowly drifted upwards. When it returned along the skin of my inner arm I could not help but gasp. He was leaning out from me a little now, watching his finger and my arm, bent intent as I have often seen him over a particularly tantalizing piece of evidence. It made me dizzy, to finally have that concentration trained upon myself. He touched a sensitive spot and I hissed involuntarily. "You like that," he remarked, sounding almost detached. I could not manage a retort.

He looked up. His eyes were dark, his colour was high. I could see his pulse in his throat. When I kissed him he went tense, but soon he was pushing me back against the pillows, taking my lower lip between his teeth.

He pulled away and looked me in the eye. "This will change me," he said with certainty. I reached to cup his face, and he closed his eyes under my hand. "It will change us both, my dear," I said. He nodded very slightly. "Come, Holmes," I whispered. "Let us undertake this together."

When he opened his eyes the gleam there sent a thrill through my blood. "Watson," he said. "Have you your pistol about you?"