So here we are, back home. I will go up to bed in a minute, and perhaps eventually Sherlock will be sprawled under a blanket on the sofa. He dislikes his bedroom since Moriarty slept in it. He was never keen on conventional bedtimes anyway and now he has a reason to avoid that room.
Since we got back I've dropped a couple of hints about sleeping alone, or more accurately, about us sleeping together, but he has not responded. Either he never noticed them (not very likely) or he is not interested in a repeat. That would be a pity. We were good together.
But I am competing with the only person he ever loved. I don't intend to be an Irene replacement - never could be - don't want to go anywhere near that idea - but just by sequence, it has been her, and then me. No other women friends in between that I've been able to detect. So maybe it's a big deal to him. I get that.
He's my best friend. I trust him. He would not do something to hurt me on purpose. So this is not a ploy to deny me more intimacy. At most it is a ploy to dilute the situation back to how it was before - and that's fine.
And it may not be a ploy at all. Maybe he is just being sensible.
Sometimes, though, I can be reading, or sifting through papers, and I feel Sherlock watching me. When I look up, he makes no show of hiding it. Just looks at me, hollow eyed, and then turns away.
It's fine. We're friends. We've had a lucky escape. Neither of us is going to push for a declaration.
And maybe he is still processing it. I don't know.
I walk up behind his chair and put his coffee down on the red desk next to him. He mutters "Thank you," and does not look up. I peer over his shoulder at the scraps of the note left by this new kidnapper, and try to make sense if it - try to think laterally, to escape what is linear and obvious and to make the deductive leaps that Sherlock does so easily.
I must have been standing here four or five minutes, sipping my own coffee, staring at the heap of paper on the table. I have nothing. But it helps to know the evidence, even if its meaning is unclear. Then I can talk to Sherlock about it and maybe my conversation will spark something in him.
As I stand frowning, Sherlock's hand shoots out and grips my wrist. I jump. He holds my wrist for a moment, then lets go. He never looks up. No eye contact. "You OK?" I say. He waves his fingers and carries on peering at the papers.
I wait. His hair is sticking up all over his head. His sweater has a hole in one shoulder where he's been practising how the kidnapper must have rolled out of sight under a parked car. His mouth is pressed tightly shut. No words while he is thinking.
I let it be. Almost. I pause as I turn away to my own reading, and say, "I'm here if you need me." A reassurance, or if he chooses, another big hint.
No reply. That's all right. We exist in silences, and anyway, I am certain he heard me.
The End.