For a man who once claimed sentiment was a chemical defect found on the losing side, Sherlock Holmes standing in front of you asking that question was... bewildering.

"Elisa, will you marry me?" The words broke the hush of Baker Street like a gunshot — sudden, unexpected, and impossible to ignore.

You looked up from your book, caught mid-sentence, the cozy comfort of the armchair still warm beneath you. Rain tapped softly against the windows, and the fire crackled — unbothered by the emotional earthquake now blooming in the room.

Sherlock was standing there — coat discarded, robe half-tied over his wrinkled dress shirt, like he hadn’t quite decided whether this was a domestic evening or a declaration of war. His eyes, however, were steady. Calculated. Serious.

The man who flinched at hand-holding, who deflected feelings with sarcasm and distraction, who once told you “love is an illusion for the weak-minded” — that man was now waiting for an answer.

No ring. No kneel. No preamble. Just the question, stark and clinical, as though he were presenting a hypothesis.

And yet, this wasn’t a game. Not for him.

You remembered the last few months — the way he had let you in more than anyone before. The stolen looks when he thought you weren’t watching. The moments he’d sit beside you in total silence, doing nothing, because you were enough.

And now, here he was. Awkward. Brave. Terrified.

He wasn’t asking because he needed you to say yes. He was asking because he wanted to know if someone could choose him — the man beneath the intellect, the logic, the machine.

He was giving you the mystery of a lifetime.

“Sherlock…” you whispered, book lowering to your lap. “Why?”

And his answer — dry, soft, entirely him — came without hesitation:

“Because I’ve already eliminated every other variable. You’re the constant.”