I never loved myself like I love you

7

John nods. Smiles, somewhat sheepishly.

"Although eloping for two weeks is not your smartest decision," Mary adds. Sherlock really cannot help the glare he sends her way. Her smiles grows a little and she shrugs a shoulder.

Sherlock doesn't bother to hide the grimace on his face as Miss Hudson continues haranguing him. He's reaching the end of his patience and at this point he fears he will say something that will drive those three away as well.

"Did you not think about the consequences of your actions? About the immense grief your loss would have caused? And you have the nerve to just disappear for two weeks—with William Moriarty, no less!"

No, he hadn't thought about it at all. All he had thought about when he decided to jump was how he couldn't allow that red thread connecting him to William to snap, consequences be damned. Not after chasing it desperately, for incredibly too long. It's as he had told Mycroft—it was either both of them, or neither. He knows losing William would be his breaking point. He cannot live in a world devoid of him.

He had cut all ties, the night he had killed Milverton. Had stopped dancing to William's tune. But he hadn't been able to sever that last string. He was hanging onto the thread that connected them.

Sherlock adopts his usual neutral, bored expression. ""Though the strings that played the melody survive, the one who inspired it is gone." Tell me, Martha... when the one attuned to my soul will no longer be here... who else remains that could hope to understand this tune? The fact you have a problem with the nature of my relationship with Liam—if I can even call it so yet—is of no concern to me. It changes nothing, least of all my undying affection for him."

God knows he doesn't approve of William's chosen method when it comes to reforming the country. He can't turn a blind eye to everything that he has done—to all the people he had killed. But he can understand it, just as easily as he had pulled the trigger to end Milverton's life. Because underneath all that spilt blood, underneath the murders, the manipulations, the sins committed, lay hidden William.

Liam, who was kind and selfless enough to paint himself as the villain to bring about change merely because he could not stand to see people suffering at the hands of inequality any longer.

Liam, who liked to use his mind to offer advice and help people.

Liam, who loved Durham and its university and his students with all of his heart.

Liam, who is the first impossible thing Sherlock's ever had.

Liam, who is the only constant among all the unknowns in Sherlock's wavering heart.

Liam, who has somehow managed to warm his heart and set it aflame.

This was the man he fell in love with. Not William James Moriarty. Not the Lord of Crime. But Liam.

It was always Liam.

And the way Miss Hudson stares at him with such contempt that Sherlock has half a mind to get up and run if only to escape her scathing, ruthless temper, will not change it.

"Sherlock Holmes, after how long you've lived under my roof, I would have expected you to know I have no such objections and am no busybody. As far as I'm concerned, have at it!"

Again, Mary speaks up, although with a little bit more confidence. "What Martha is trying to say is that she is not objecting to a man preferring men. To be more precise, her problem lies in the preference of Mr Moriarty in particular."

It strikes Sherlock, then, that he has just gained the perfect opportunity to escape this situation.

"He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it," Miss Hudson says. She looks between the three of them as if expecting an answer, but neither John, nor Mary, and especially not Sherlock, delivers any. Sherlock can feel, however, a sting of annoyance at those words, fanning the embers of the fire William's departure had caused.