...It was not until we had come safely home to Baker St., the sky outside approaching dawn, that Holmes made his first fatal error.

"Well, Watson, another case for your readers," he said, reaching to take off his coat, and as he did so he faltered, and winced.

I remembered immediately the second shot, the one I thought had missed us, and my heart lurched in alarm. "Holmes! You are not hurt?" I exclaimed, springing forward to take his arm.

"Of course not, Watson," he said with a faint smile. "Merely grazed." And he struggled in my grasp.

"Let me see," I said.

"No!" he said rather loudly. "It is nothing. I will bandage it up in private, if you don't mind."

"Holmes, I am a doctor --" I began.

"I am quite aware of it, my dear Watson," he snapped. "I'll thank you not to doctor me, for once, if you please."

"Take off your shirt. I won't be a moment."

"Watson, you are being melodramatic and irrational, and if you'll only be so kind as to let go of me --"

My alarm increased. "Come," I said, "You must not let even a small wound go untreated." I reached for his side, where he had clasped his coat tightly round him with his free arm. He pulled away from me with a fierceness I had not expected, and the force of his always a surprising strength set me off-balance. I stumbled backwards, and caught myself on the ottoman.

We stared at each other. For an instant he looked apologetic, and I half-expected him to laugh at his own behaviour and conceed to let me examine him. But he only turned away.

"You are hiding something from me," I said aloud. "I have not lived so long with you that I cannot tell, Holmes. Tell me what is wrong."

He did not answer, but kept his face towards the fire. At my words he seemed to slump a little, and I knew that I was right.

"It isn't needle tracks? But why would you hide those from me? I already know about the cocaine..." My mind raced. Could Holmes be hiding symptoms of some medical disorder? Could he be ill? I could not bear it if he were...

"It isn't the needle tracks, Watson," he said gently, facing the fire. "And I am not hiding a sarcoma or a lesion, as you are probably fancying."

I got up and approached him, put my hand on his shoulder. He flinched almost imperceptibly under the weight of it.

"You know me so well, my old friend," I said. "You read my mind. How is it that I know you so little?"

"Probably because I do not wish you to know me, Watson," he said. It was the most honest thing he had ever said to me. His vulnerability shocked me more than any of his strange behaviour that evening. I moved to his side, so that if he turned he would face me. In the firelight his profile looked bare and stark, like a rough sketch of a man.

"It's my stories, isn't it?" I asked. "My writing about you for the Strand. That's what keeps you wary of me. You needn't be, you know, Holmes. You know I would never break your trust."

"I'm not afraid of what you would write about me if you knew me better," he replied. "You are an honourable man." And again he punctuated his words with a faint, ironic smile I could barely understand.

"Then let me treat your wound," I said softly. "You are my dearest friend. And you are hurt."

He hesitated a long time. Then at last his hands came up, and he began to undo the buttons of his shirt. One by one they came loose, the fire casting shadows on the pale flesh that emerged. It was no more of him than I had ever glimpsed beneath his dressing gown, or beneath the robe he wore in the turkish baths.

But the firelight cast such strange shadows, and I stood at such a close angle to him, that his body looked strange to me beneath the coat and suit and shirt.

His fingers reached the last button, and still I had not moved from his side. He had never shown such trust to me before. He pulled the tail of his shirt out of his trousers, and turned at last to face me.

"You see, Watson," he said in something bravely close to his normal speaking voice. And he pulled the shirt open.

It took me a long time to realize what I was seeing. It came to me in pieces. The firelight played on the plane of his throat ... the flat angles of his belly ... the shallow, sloping curves of his breasts.

"My God, Holmes," I said, and sat down in the nearest chair.

He closed his eyes and put his head back, like a pagan sacrifice waiting for the knife. As he did so I found something to focus on: the thin line of blood low on his side.

I got up and went to the mantle where I had left my medical kit. In the time it took me to retrieve cotton swabs, alcohol, and other tools, he had not moved a muscle. His face was blank. I went to him and knelt, dipping the cotton in alcohol, and when I touched it to his skin he gasped.

I was aware of him staring at me as I swabbed the blood away from what proved to be a deep graze: a few inches more and it would have been grave indeed. I would need the sutures. I worked at the wound, trying to ignore the soft curve just above me, the fierce hawklike eyes fixed on me, the hand that came to rest, gently, on my shoulder as I finished the stitching.

I could see his flank tremble at the touch of my breath.

"There," I said, stepping quickly away. He let his hand fall from me. "Good as new," I added, and heard my own voice break. He began to button the shirt. I went to sit on the sofa, staring at the fire.

I thought I should tell him that we would never speak of it, that this evening had never happened, and that his identity would rest as safely with me as with the dead. But there was too much I did not understand. And, suddenly, too much that I did.

Of course: Holmes, lean, clean-shaven, a master of disguise, never seeming to be attracted to either women or, truth be told, to men... And I had watched him, to see if that was his inclination. Wondered, at times, if it were my own... I had wondered at the strength of my attraction to him. I had only felt this way for men a few times in my life, and never so strongly. Of course: it all made sense. And then I thought of what must have driven him to this, this secret life, and I thought of the life women in our society must lead, and I felt a sorrow all new to me rise up in my chest.

I did not have the words to tell him, at first. It was Holmes who broke our silence.

"We had to leave so suddenly on Eddington's trail tonight," he began as I whirled in the fire with my thoughts. "I had not the time to bind myself. I haven't much of a bosom, the bindings are not really necessary --"

"Holmes, I have lived with you a long time, I have tried to learn something of your methods," I interrupted him. "Let me try to apply them."

He fell silent and I continued, sitting hunched on the sofa, my elbows on my knees. My voice fell into the silence between us; I had the feeling that I was telling the most important story of my life, to the most important audience.

"Suppose there was...a young girl, and she was cursed, as some women and girls are cursed, with an intellect which had no match, and which would bear no shackles. She educated herself, for the most part, by slyness and subterfuge, but as she grew older she could not bear to pretend, as women must, that she had no mind -- that she could not see through everyone she met. And so she decided, at last, to master the art of disguise -- to live a disguised life, forever hiding the truth of her sex, masking her body so that her intellect could live unmasked."

When I raised my eyes Holmes was staring at me intently. "Very well done, Watson," she said faintly. "I had not expected you to understand so much."

"I am always so moved by your faith in me, Holmes," I said sharply. "I do know something of what it means to be a woman in Victorian England."

"How could you?" she asked harshly.

"Because, for the years of our aquaintance, I have had to contemplate the life of a homosexual in Victorian England."

She turned pale and fairly gaped at me.

"Although now I see that interpretation of circumstances is not a valid one," I finished, and blushed.

She ran a hand through her thin hair and sat down rather quickly on the chair near the fire. Silence enclosed us for some minutes.

"Watson, there is nothing of me that is womanly, save my body," she said at last. "You know me that well, at least. I have none of the womanly instincts or virtues within this breast. I am a man, in every sense that is important."

"I know," I said, looking at the floor. "I love you as you are, Holmes."

She made a faint, familiar sound of impatience. "You would not speak to me like that, were I as you until recently believed me to be. If I were male, you would not profess yourself to me. This was my greatest fear, Watson. That if I were to reveal myself to you, as I have long wished to, I should soon find you opening doors for me -- standing when I stood -- curbing your tongue in my presence..."

"Quite the opposite!" I burst out. "You have revealed to me the nature of your body, may I not in turn reveal to you the nature of my heart? I do love you, Holmes," I continued, "I always have."

"No," she said numbly. "It cannot be."

I dared to look at her again: sitting tensely before the fire, her long fingers clasping the knees drawn up to her body. Her sharp profile backlit by the fire, the light glittering in her eyes. She was as I had always seen her, but I thought of the hidden terrain I had glimpsed, and a rush of fire went through me. This, too, was familiar: it was nothing I had not felt in her presence before.

"Holmes," I said softly, "I know you would never have revealed your secret to me if it were not for some purpose. If you did not love me. Come to me, Holmes -- come and claim me. For I am yours. I have always been."

As I spoke I closed my eyes; for a long moment I lived in a dark world of uncertainty. Then I felt a lean hand on my cheek, and I looked up into the wet eyes of my friend, Sherlock Holmes.

"My dear Watson," she said, and bent her lips to mine.