One night, H sits up and forces himself to speak without sarcasm, "What--what do you two friends talk about? You and Miss Morstan?"

W gauges H's look carefully, seeing that he clearly wishes to be let in, at whatever humble price, and W answers, "We are both orphans now. I talk to her of how she feels without family, with having to make her own way in the world. We talk of being independent, but of enjoying the company of close friends who feel like a tender family by heart, if not blood. We talk of her memories of her father the Captain. I tell her some of my memories of the war in Afghanistan, for she insists that she is not faint of heart, and would like to know what kinds of things her father may have experienced while she was a sheltered girl in the boarding school in Edinburgh.

"We talk of Edinburgh. We talk of her radical ideas about women's education, for which she was often rebuked by her headmistresses, and which inspired her to take up employment as a governess when she found herself alone in the world. After advertising in the newspapers, she made friends with Mrs. Forrester, who held similar views, and thus began working to correct all the mistakes her own headmistresses had imposed upon her and other girls. Mary has also spent some time devising a curriculum for the boarding establishment that Mrs. Forrester wishes to found for the upbringing of many more girls. Mary is tireless for this cause."

H frowns to himself slightly. "A most remarkable woman. No wonder you have an interest in her."

W looks a bit irritable. "You never deduced such things about her yourself?"

"No," H shakes his head, blinking. "I had no necessity, nor wish to-- I had other things upon my mind." H glances away strangely, almost sadly.

W thinks that he might comprehend H's true meaning. He does not press. W rises, "We are only friends, as I said. She is most gracious, despite you and I having lost her treasure for her." W retires to his room to think.

That December night, coming home quite late from speaking to Mary, W can find H nowhere about the flat. W searches the rooms, anxious. As if it weren't bad enough that W remained troubled and undecided about what he would do, despite the long discussion!

H arrives at last, covered in snow and not sufficiently dressed for such weather.

"Holmes!"

Looking sad and worn, H pulls away from W's ministrations and heads for his room. "You cannot expect me to wait at home for you all night. I have my own business, don't I? My own contacts to make. Investigations among the criminals and loiterers and drifters and poor wretches of the street. Do you think I have nothing of importance without you?"

H's voice betrays him, and W tries to touch him. "I never said--"

Pushing away. "You have no need to. Please leave me to myself." H retreats to his room and quickly tries to undress, shivering and sneezing meanwhile.

W follows him in and intervenes, trying to cloak H in blankets and place him in bed.

H resists. "Leave me!"

W holds him down. "Stay, while I light the fire and get my medical bag." He starts to rise to go to the hearth, but sees H's cocaine bottle and his morocco case lying on the night-stand. "Holmes, you haven't--?"

H forcibly pushes W from him, turning over in bed. "I will not hear this now. I will not! --As if you'd even understand, at all..."

This--more than even Mary's arguments today--this lonely look of pain upon H's face made W at last feel resolved about what he would do.

W fought his way close to H again and kissed him, quite hard. H was stunned for a moment, during which W continued and ventured whispering, "How could you doubt my love, my devotion?"

H stammered, "Watson, you--?" Then he frowned darkly and struggled again. "Do you take me for a fool? Suddenly comforting me during my breakdown, my illness? Your feelings for Miss Morstan have been quite evident, already..."

W pressed his weight against H stubbornly. "Whose bed am I in now?" he insisted. "Whom did I just spend hours confessing my feelings about to Mary tonight, asking her what I should do? Whom have I been worried sick about these past forty-five minutes?"

"You--you would never have told her any such thing. What have you done--asked her to marry you? Finalised arrangements to move out before the New Year? Asked her for some nice girl to fix up with me?"

"Holmes!" W kissed him adamantly, impelling his love upon H, whether H would believe him or not. "How must I prove myself to you? Take you out in the street and kiss you against our front door, in front of every gawking passerby? Take you violently on Inspector Lestrade's desk? Or just--take you?" He ardently disrobed H down to nothing beneath the blankets, ripping some garments as he did so, due to H's continued struggles.

"You--you wouldn't--! You're not--" H became ever more breathless under W's kisses and his touches. At last, when W rose from bed only to hurriedly cast off his own clothes, H blinked at his beauty, aching. H's arms were open when W returned to the bed and resumed loving him. H kissed back, sighing and touching W hungrily.

As they heatedly embraced and tasted each other, H blinked to see W reaching an arm toward the night-stand. W opened the morocco case and shook the syringe out onto the floor, then knocked down the cocaine bottle to smash on top of it. W went back to biting H's nipple without a word.

H sighed, realising that this would be the price for W's confession and commitment to H, both made despite the grave consequences they would face, should they ever be caught. H accepted the bargain with little further thought about cocaine, knowing that he had only just begun to feel an addiction creeping on him lately, anyway, and Watson would help him through it.

They made love with a moaning, groaning passion, like remorseless sinners. H hissed, "...serve Lestrade right if we did, on his desk... I earned him that desk by solving just four cases."

W withdrew his mouth from H's erection to reply. "Perhaps you ought to have spent that time earning yourself rank in the police. --As a chief inspector, or higher, think of what you might do with impunity."

H laughed, but soon descended into sounds of quite a different tone. "Oh! Harder, Watson, harder!"

Thus did H finally believe in W's love, and did W follow Mary's advice to "tell him! Tell him with all your heart!"