As our train continued to Paris, I put on my coat once more and covered myself in the blanket. I considered feigning sleep, but it was still far too early in the day for that. Besides, Watson knew that I'd had a full night's rest.

As if sensing my distress,Watson opened his eyes and said with concern, "You're restless, Holmes. Is it your morphine craving? Will you be all right?"

"Yes, yes. I'm fine," I said, "I--the breakfast helped." I did not want him to come closer, for I feared that if he soothed me by caressing my arm, he might also be tempted to start kissing me again. His madness is unpredictable.

"Good." Watson watched me carefully before judging that I was not ill. "Do not worry about Paris. We can spend our time devoted to your full recovery. Perhaps we should visit the Eiffel Tower."

"The Tower? Why?"

He shrugged. "Oh I think the fresh air will do you good, and I understand there are restaurants there from which we can enjoy the view."

I nodded. "Yes, if you wish." Dining in public would certainly prevent him from going too far in touching me.

"I do. We can also go to a concert or opera if you wish. Perhaps the Louvre or other sites." He said with a smile, "You could give me a tour of every place you went on your cases with le Villard, and you can tell me again how much you love me and not him."

"I do love you," I said. "But you speak as if we should linger in Paris for days."

"Yes it is somewhat of a detour from our plans, but I think it will be worth it, Holmes. I could romance you properly, unlike in London."

"Romance me, Watson?" I was puzzled. "But--but you said that I was romancing you before, and you objected to it. You said I was tempting you and breaking your heart."

"I know, but I said that when I didn't understand your love for me. When I thought there was no hope for us to be together."

"Be together?" I grimaced in apprehension. "You mean... sodomy?"

He nodded, still incredibly calm. "Holmes, it doesn't have to be intercourse, if it scares you. There are many ways we could make love, and I have no wish to hurt you. Besides, I won't rush you," he assured me. "I am hardly experienced in homosexual relations either. We can learn these things together."

"But I don't want to learn these things. I do not want to have sex with you."

Now he looked confused at last, which was a relief.

I told him, "I love you purely, chastely--"

"You certainly didn't kiss me chastely!"

"But I did!" I insisted. "You kissed me differently at the end, but before then, it was wonderful. I did not kiss you with lust. It was not about Greek love, or anything so degraded and low. It was to show you my love and devotion, to speak to your heart without words. Tasting you and smelling you and knowing you totally. Sharing your breath and being one with you."

"That's all that sex is," he said.

"Don't be absurd. It's not beautiful at all. It's invasive and filthy and disgusting--"

"No it's not, Holmes. All those things you said about our kisses, that's what sex is. Lovemaking. A total union with someone else, body and soul. Knowing them completely and intimately. It is expressing your deepest feelings without words."

I shook my head and scoffed, "Then why do animals do it, if they don't have souls? You are speaking of a physical act, purely for procreation. It is only the lustful desire which deceives your mind into thinking it is something higher. If lovemaking is so grand and pure, then men wouldn't do it with prostitutes and mistresses and even themselves alone."

Watson stared at me for some moments before asking, "Is that what you thought of my marriage to Mary? That I felt no love for her, and it was only animal instinct that made me touch her?"

"No, you loved her, but the sex was something else--"

"We had sex often," he said, interrupting me. "Many times. Not purely for procreation, but for pleasure and intimacy. Yes, there are many people out there having sex without love, but that's all it is--sex. It's just like there are different kinds of kisses. The chaste kisses of your grandmother and le Villard for example, and then the kisses you give to me. They are different in quality and intensity, due to the people and the emotions involved. That is how it is with sex. Some sex is only lust, but some sex is lovemaking. It is beautiful and tender, and it shares your soul with your beloved. You do not know this because you look at it from afar with your cynical eyes. And you have no experience of it yourself, do you?"

He looked at me rather piercingly and I found it unsettling that he, for once, was analysing me. I told him, "I may have no experience of sex, but I do know myself, Watson. I have never felt such physical desires for anyone," I paused, hesitant to hurt him, but needing to be clear, "not even yourself. The idea of being in bed with you, of being naked and intimate, does not appeal to me at all."

He did look hurt, but also bewildered. "But the way you kissed me..."

"I told you it was not lust. Not for me."

"I know, but it felt like--" He sighed and frowned. "I do not understand you anymore. I thought I understood now that you loved me the same as I loved you, but..." He sat forward. "And you really were not trying to romance me?"

"No, if you mean trying to seduce you. I told you, Watson, I would never assault you or degrade you."

"It's not an assault!" he insisted, "not if your lover desires you."

I shrugged, conceding that consent does make a difference, though I still could not imagine wanting such things myself. "Very well. Please stop looking at me like that Watson, as if I am abnormal. My brother Mycroft is the same as me, and he is quite happy."

"I don't mean to offend you. All right, that's how you feel, but then why--? I mean, you let me kiss you and caress you. On May 4th, you begged to sleep in my bed and you were not afraid of me."

"We were not naked, and I stopped you from too much intimacy."

"But you do like some touches," he said. "You put your hand on my heart, to feel my heartbeat."

I nodded. "To know that you forgave me, that you would still love me even if you should leave for Germany."

"I know, but it was irrational, unwise. You knew I loved you, wanted to touch you physically. Why risk it? Why--?" He suddenly broke off and had an idea. "You didn't used to let me kiss you."

"Of course I did. As soon as I told you I loved you."

"No, I mean, you would let me kiss your cheek and your hand and arm, but you wouldn't let me kiss your mouth. From the first night, you would always turn away from me if I tried to. You told me you didn't even like Agatha kissing you when you were pretending to be a plumber. But just this morning at the hotel you let me kiss your lips. I thought you were only having pity on me, because I was jealous of her. And then here on the train you let me kiss your lips again because I was jealous about le Villard. But then I kissed your mouth, and you kissed me back. It wasn't just pity or letting me kiss you. You enjoyed the kisses, really."

"Yes, Watson." I felt a little frustrated to have to repeat myself, but his madness seems to require it.

"But you didn't before," Watson said. "That's my point. Before today you didn't want to kiss like that, but once you experienced it, you liked it. You surprised even yourself I think."

I shrugged. "I didn't know it would feel that way. That I could know you better."

"Then perhaps you would feel the same about sex? If we made love, if you experienced it for yourself, perhaps you would enjoy it. You wouldn't find it disgusting or frightening. Couldn't we try it? Nothing invasive if you don't want to. It can be an experiment, to learn what you like and you don't."

"Watson, I don't want to."

"Please, Holmes. Just once. If we try it once, and you don't like it, I will certainly stop. I won't ask again, and I won't try to convince you anymore. It's just, leaving the possibility unexplored will drive me crazy."

"You are already crazy," I said in frustration. "This whole conversation--this is madness."

"I know," he said simply. "But we have done mad things before. Have pity on me, Holmes, for one night. I would rather you break my heart, than to never know and never try."

I didn't know how to argue with him. "But you are hoping that I will return your passion. What then, Watson? We stay in France forever and live like your orderly Murray, or Oscar Wilde's friends? Or we go back to London and become deviants cut off from respectable society? Might I remind you that sodomy is a crime and a sin? Did you not promise me to seek a doctor to cure you of this?"

I was quite stunned by his answer. He shrugged casually, almost flippantly.

"Isn't murder a crime and a sin? And yet we let that noble lady shoot Milverton and get away with murder. Milverton's other victims had probably sinned as well, and yet we saved them all by burning their papers. We decided that Milverton's sins were more deserving of punishment."

I stared at him, aghast. His madness clouded his reasoning beyond anything I had ever expected.

Watson continued. "If you do break my heart, Holmes, then certainly I will try to get cured, so that I can forget my desire for you and live with you as simply your friend again. Though you will have to promise not to touch me anymore."

"Not touch you at all?"

He nodded. "If you want me to still live with you and not have to marry to get away from the temptation. You must compromise as well, Holmes."

I considered that idea miserably. It would be no better than being cut off from him in Germany again.

"Holmes, you said once that if I did succumb to temptation, with some other man, that you would protect me from scandal or prison. You would condone the sin with a stranger, but not between us?"

"I would always protect you!"

"I know. And I would protect you." He looked sad. "If I had only known that was Moriarty at Reichenbach, I would have killed him then and there. If I had known all these years that Moran was hunting you, and that he was Moriarty's man, I would have dragged him out of his club and murdered him. And you think I should worry about the damnation of my eternal soul? I didn't even think you were religious."

"I'm not, Watson. But there are some things that are basic to all societies. Ethics and morals are logical to even rational minds."

"Yes, and all societies say murder is wrong. But I would cross that line for you, would have even before you came back from the dead. Before I felt this desire. If you don't feel this desire for me, I will accept it, but I just need to know for sure."

"And you can't trust my word alone?"

"No, not with your ambiguous kisses and touches. Not with your inexperience. I once thought I was incapable of these things as well, but now I am hopelessly, passionately in love with you."

"You think I don't love you the same, just because I don't want to--because I can't--" I could not go on, I was so miserable. My only love, my dearest friend, could no longer be mine because he'd become corrupted by this madness. I found myself in tears, trying to tell him that of course I would kill for him. I would die for him, though that is a sore subject between us. I wish almost that I did die in truth, instead of falsely, at Reichenbach. Then I never would have wounded him so deeply and broken him.

"Holmes." He came over to me and embraced me, stilling my tremors and kissing away my tears. "My darling."

He had never called me "darling" before. I was still incapable of speaking, and could not repeat the endearment to him.

He sat close, stroking my hair and pulling me into his lap again. "I know you love me. I know, I just..." He trailed off and sighed. "I wish we could be happy. That I could be what you want, or that you could be what I want."

I lay against his shoulder and managed to speak, "Don't want you to be someone else. I want you. The way you were, before."

He shook his head. "You see? You don't want me as I am. I'm not sure what you want. Someone to kiss you and hold you and share your bed, but not your body. Not your whole self. I don't know what that is, but it's not a chaste friend."

Certainly the word "friend" seemed inadequate given that even Lestrade was like a friend to us now, and Watson has friends at his club or from his military days. We were more special than that to each other. We were intensely devoted. He was my beloved. I whispered, "My darling" to him, and found that indeed it was pleasing to say.

He looked touched and kissed my lips again, softly now, watching my eyes. After a moment he said, "Let us not argue anymore. We can sort this out at home. Right now, you're still unwell, and I need to doctor you to make up for these three months apart. Let's just have a pleasant day in Paris, and I can comfort you."

I nodded and let him ignore his own illness for the moment, so that we could be at peace for a while. We said no more until our train arrived in Paris, and we cleaned ourselves up. We could not be alone for some time and needed to look respectable again..