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Dear Sherlock,
If you’re reading this, we’ve just got married.
It still seems strange to say. You and I, getting married. In twenty-four hours, I’ll be married to one Sherlock Holmes of 221B Baker Street, the world’s only consulting detective. It’s like a dream, even now, even though we’ve been planning for weeks. You’ll probably think I’m romanticizing again, but really, Sherlock. We’re getting married. Now, if any time, is a time to be romantic.
I say it’s like a dream because it seemed--still seems, sometimes--so far outside the realm of possibility. It’s a dream I didn’t even dare to have for years and years. I didn’t want to take for granted what I had by daring to ask for more.
When I first understood, really, truly understood, I thought we’d wasted all that time, but I see now that I was wrong. It wasn’t a waste. That was time I spent falling in love with you. That was time I spent figuring out that I didn’t ever want to live without you. That was time I used to build up the courage to take the risk and reach for you. The first time I kissed you, I already knew this was forever.
You and me, against the rest of the world.
Through all those years, it was always going to be you, in the end. I’ve told you before that I loved you nearly from the start. Now I’ve finally got a way to show you.
In the box I’m giving you with this letter is every little thing I’ve ever written down about you that I kept private. Things I intended to revisit or things I couldn’t bring myself to send, or to publish. Emails I started writing to you and never finished. Blog posts I started that turned into something too personal for the public. Texts I didn’t have the guts to send. A couple of handwritten odds and ends that I’d saved years ago, when you were away, and then couldn’t let go. And I put in a few things I sent to other people, from going through my sent messages and emails, that I thought you deserved to see.
I’m giving this all to you now so you never have to doubt me, Sherlock. I love you. I’ve loved you almost from the moment I first saw you at Barts. I have made some bad decisions over the years, including some decisions that made you feel like I didn’t want you in my life, or like I couldn’t ever have loved you as anything more than a friend. I think you deserve to know that that was never true. You deserve to see it in my own words. You deserve to see what I was thinking.
I’m giving this all to you so that you know me, wholly and completely, with every horrible thought and selfish hope. We’re married now (hopefully) so you should know it all, everything. I’m not perfect and I know you know that, but I want you to see it. I want you to see the darkest parts of myself. You deserve to see that.
I thought long and hard about whether to include the things I put down when you were away. When you were dead. And when Mary was still in our lives. In the end I decided to include it, not to make you feel guilty or sad or anything, but because it’s part of us. It’s part of what happened to bring us here today. It’s part of the whole of our story and I don’t want to pretend like those things didn’t happen, so it’s all here. Some of it is difficult. I’m sorry about that. It was a difficult time for both of us. But there’s so much more, too, that happened afterwards, and if you start to get bogged down reading it just look at how much has happened since then, and think about how much more of the story we’ve left to go together. Then come find me. I’ll remind you how far we’ve come.
We’re getting married tomorrow. Well, by the time you read this, we’ll have already gotten married. I hope. I have threatened both Mycroft and Greg to leaving us off every case for the last week so we don’t get caught up. (I know you know his name, you say it in your sleep sometimes.) (Yes, you do talk in your sleep. No, I won’t tell you what else you’ve said.) We’ve hired extra security. We vetted every single person involved on every single level. We couldn’t have been more safe if Mycroft himself had sifted through the cake batter by hand to ensure no one baked in a razor blade.
But if there’s anything I’ve learned over the past couple of years with you, it’s that even when things go wrong (and they do go wrong), everything will work out in the end. If we’re not married by this time tomorrow, we’ll have another go at it another day. As long as we’re together, everything else is just details. Whatever happens tomorrow, married or murdered, I’ll be right beside you.
I think you suspect that I’m writing something more important that just another blog post, because you’re giving me a wide berth, which I appreciate but I hope you don’t go snooping tonight and ruin the surprise. Do you know, by the way, how hard it is to keep a secret from you? Molly’s been helping me. I understand she’s been keeping everything I’ve been printing off and putting together in a folder in with her clothes. Certain clothes. Clothes she assured me you would not have the audacity to go through “again.” Stay out of her intimates, Sherlock. You can snoop through mine. I might even have something lacy in there for you to find.
You’ve just picked up your violin and you’re playing that song I like. The one you keep telling me the title of and I keep forgetting. Someday I’ll have to write it down so I can stop asking you. The fire is starting to burn low and you’ve got on that burgundy shirt and seeing as it’s our last night as fiancés, I think we’d better enjoy it before married life makes us dull and boring.
I love you, Sherlock Holmes. We’ve got the rest of our lives for me to show you just how much.
Yours always,
John