We do what people do. Put the kettle on and make tea. An act which is more about the ritual, the pause, the chance to reset the situation, than about the resultant hot drink.

Neither of us really drink tea. After the kettle has clicked off, John looks at me, and then gets the jar of instant coffee down from the cupboard. I nod.

I sit on the living room floor with my back against the settee. John brings the drinks and sits beside me, a couple of feet away. I hold my mug, sip, and convince myself that the racing heartbeat is the consequence of this bitter black liquid. John is holding his mug against his lips, not drinking, just clasping the hot cup to him.

We let the silence go on until there is calm in the room again. A long time. And then I lean back my head against the settee, not really comfortable but it will do, and close my eyes. John is watching me. I know that he will stay awake, suspicious of more lies. And this is comforting. He cares enough to stop me. I always thought he did, but this, unasked for, is proof.

"Thank you," I murmur without opening my eyes.

He grunts.

I sleep. He watches. And nobody leaves.

August. London is bent under the weight of a humid heat we have not experienced for thirty years. The Tube is unbearable. Bus seats are damp with other people's sweat. Every fountain in town is a magnet for topless men and empty beer cans. And with doors and windows left open by a population desperate to get fresh air into the house, criminals are having a festival of theft.

"Nothing interesting though." I am at the table in the living room, beside my own open window, the day's papers spread out before me. We have been indoors all day, sheltering from the heat. At last, as evening draws in, a slight breeze is entering Baker Street. "Unless the National Gallery leaves the back door unlocked, we're in for another tedious day."

John says, "Hah," and puts my coffee down on top of tonight's Standard.

He is standing close to my chair. His hand comes into my line of vision and taps the newspaper, an article I have already seen, about surveillance using subcutaneous tracking devices.

He says something about the device and my arm, but I am transfixed by his hand. Square fingers, fine hairs on the back of his hand, very short fingernails, neat half moon in his thumbnail.

I pick his hand up and move it off my paper. An unconscious touch. Like we always used to. Weeks and months have brought us back, more or less, to where we were before. There are still silences and still many things we do not say – but that is little different, either.

John still hovers. "Let me take a look."

"What?"

"The arm." He touches his own bicep in explanation.

I roll my eyes and unbutton my left shirt cuff. John turns back the fabric and I feel the dab of his fingertips on my skin.

"Hmmn," he says, rubbing his fingers over what was the wound. "God you botched this."

"Did I? I thought I did rather well."

"Only in that you didn't kill yourself or end up with an infection, so, yeah, pretty good by eighteenth century medical standards, yes."

"Redo it for me then. Make it neat. Make a different shaped scar."

He ponders that. Rolls my sleeve down, warm hands, and buttons the cuff for me.

I wait.

"Your scars are your own," he says at last. He is still holding my wrist.

For a dizzying moment, I imagine that he is going to press my wrist to his lips, kiss it, then place his mouth under the cuff and kiss there, his eyes on mine, dark and meaningful. This is one difference: now I have these visions, of John, and me. But I am keeping my promise to myself. I will not involve myself with John. Even if I am now thinking of his mouth on my skin.

I start to blush and have to freeze so as not to draw his attention to it.

He does not kiss me. Of course not.

He does something even more extraordinary.

He draws circles on the inside of my wrist with his thumb, staring down as he does it, watching his thumb caress me.

I know I am staring too. I turn my head to look at him but he is fixed on my wrist, thumb exerting a little pressure, dragging on the fine skin, rubbing over the tendons and the map of blue veins.

Heat shoots through every part of me.

He finished buttoning my cuff ages ago.

Then he stops. Looks at me. I am flushed, breathing shallowly. He turns back to my wrist and rubs again before sliding his thumb deliberately under my shirt cuff. He wraps his fingers right around my wrist and rests there.

When I look at his face again his eyes are closed. His lips are pressed tightly together too.

"John?"

He shakes his head.

I cannot bear not to understand what is happening. I touch his wrist, burning hot, then place my right hand on his left cheek. He makes a noise like a laugh or sob, eyes still closes. His lips smile but it seems like pain.

His cheek is rough. "Please tell me what's wrong," I say.

His eyes open. "You never say please."

This is untrue. I cannot be bothered to prove it now though. "What's wrong," I repeat, without the please.

"You," he says, and his voice falls away. "Since you came back. You're all wrong...not wrong. Different."

He grips my wrist hard. "Not bad," he adds. "It's not a criticism. It's just hard to deal with. That's all."

None of this makes sense but his fingers are still on me and he has not flinched from my hand on his cheek.

I flex my fingers, stretch them a bit into the hair at his temple. He closes his eyes again.

"Sherlock," he says, a sigh. Of course: John never made any promises. And, remembering his declaration in May, quite the reverse.

"Look at me," I tell him, drawing my hand away.

He does. I cover his left hand with my right, on my left wrist. Squeeze. He squeezes too. We remain there slightly contorted like this, looking into each other's eyes, holding hard onto each other, as things fall into place.

I know, at this moment, that I will kiss him. Not immediately but I will.

I know fully and completely that I will undress him and make love to him and use myself up in showing him that I understand the euphemism and the difference between it and sex.

I know that he is thinking about taking me to bed, too. His face is warm, his eyes have a soft smile to them, and he is breathing through his mouth.

I know that this is not what I missed about him when I was gone. We did not have this, before.

I must tell him.

"Friendship," I say. "Friendship first, foremost, between us."

He tilts his head.

"I didn't love you for the sex," I add. "I loved you for yourself. For myself. Us."

God, this is why I am so inexperienced in these areas. It is because I am so bad at it.

John smiles. "I never thought it was about the sex," he says. "Given that we weren't having any. But it is very nice to know you loved me at all."

I am dumbfounded. "Of course I did!" I exclaim, offended as much as anything. "How can you not know that?"

He grabs my arms as I move to fling myself away in a fit of hurt and anger. "Maybe because I didn't understand all the ways you were telling me," he says, and lifts me to my feet and slides his arms around my waist. He lays his head on my shoulder, butting the right side of my chin, and says, "I never told you either. Until. " He shrugs against me. Until I came back. "-Did you know?"

"No," I admit. "Not until."

He nods, his face in my shirt. "Then this is lucky," he says, mumbling. "And we should probably treat it very cautiously."

He lifts his head. Looks at me with bold eyes, smiling: looking like John again. "Do you do cautious?" he asks with a grin.

I have one hand on the back of his neck and the other in the dip of his spine. "I do very cautious," I say. "Probably. I don't know. But that's my intention."

"Good."

"Good."

I let him go and walk to the window. The talking has dissipated the tension, although I can feel my breathing and heart rate are all over the place. "Dinner," I suggest.

"Ok," he says.

We get our keys and phones, and shut the window. We'll eat out – I know a place – and chat about everyday things, and save the rest for later. There is time.

But –

"I'll see you downstairs," I tell him, stepping back into the flat. "Forgot something." He nods and clatters down the stairs.

I stand by the window with one hand on my violin, and take steady breaths. John. But it will be all right. We can do this and it will not break me, or him, or us.

I realise that I am crying again, without shame, as I did on the Welsh hillside where I first learned to live in my body. But here, now, with John close by and the promise of a greater adventure ahead, I realise that I am also smiling.

The End

Author's note: that's it for this story. I hope you liked it. There may be more of this Sherlock as he's one of my favourites. Also slightly BAMF John. So we will see. Sef