Bell transfers herself to Sherlock's sofa and leans her head on her shoulder.

Sherlock closes her book and snuggles up.

"You don't have to decide on what you want me to do about the pretending right away," Bell says.

"I do not know what to decide or how to decide it," says Sherlock.

"Then it's good that you don't have to figure that out in a hurry, isn't it?" Bell maneuvers through the snuggle to wrap her arms around Sherlock's middle and press her face into the back of her shoulder.

"Can I help?"

"Possibly," she says.

"What do the gaps in knowing-what-to-do look like?"

"I am not very good at wanting things," she says. "I don't have much practice."

"You don't? Want things? What, in general?"

"Not easily," she says. "I have priorities but they largely revolve around making sure Tony is alive and happy. I enjoy things but I don't often make significant decisions based on what I anticipate enjoying."

"Why don't you make significant decisions based on what you think you'd enjoy?" asks Bell, puzzled. And snuggled. "...What's the threshold for significance you're using?"

"Decisions on the level of what to read or make for lunch are not significant. Decisions on the level of whether to take over the world are. I am not always sure about the range in between."

"That reminds me. If we manage world takeover, do I get to be Empress? Like the other mes?"

"I see no reason why not," says Sherlock. "Provided you are a good one."

"The people I've talked to seem to think that other mes are. I don't know how much like them to expect to be. Do you not... I don't know. This is probably an ill-advised example, but you wanted the surgeries from the Capitol, didn't you, even if they were inflated by your terrible ex-friend? That doesn't seem very much about keeping Tony alive and happy." Pause. "...I don't suppose that's why you have hangups about wanting medium-sized things? Because your terrible ex-friend used that one to do terrible ex-friend things?"

"...yes," she says. "That seems likely. And I was a child at the time. I was able to articulate what I wanted but not to measure its cost."

"Is your terrible ex-friend still around in some capacity such that you still actually need to worry about him?"

"...Kraken."

"Yes," says Sherlock. "Quite."

"That is terrible. Wow. Okay, so he's worth worrying about - do you think he's still motivated to be terrible at you? Is he still occasionally terrible at you?"

"He is frequently terrible at Tony."

"Eegh. Do I want to know? Can it be helped on net by the cunning application of fire?"