This was a strange way to sit, intimate in a strange way, comfortable and, well, irregular. It seemed fitting, after everything else. Watson leaned down a little, still stroking Holmes's hair, letting his fingers slide down to the back of his neck. "I don't always understand," he confessed, "but I like trying to learn. Just so long as you forgive me when I make mistakes."

He wasn't sure whether who was more to blame, if either of them at all, for the mess of the last week. Perhaps no one, just the sort of inevitable misunderstanding that happened between any pair of lovers.