Shell Bell peers up at Sherlock with confused eyes, but does not cry or squirm or otherwise display anything resembling her earlier distress.
"Better. But..." She pauses, thoughtful.
"I don't feel like - like I just got screamed at by a harpy - anymore - I guess that wears off - but I'm still thinking about the content."
"I'm - I think this is a template thing but I don't know how strongly - I'm so very wrapped up in what I want. All the time. It's just everyone else's luck that a lot of things I want have to do with them, and that most of the things I want that have to do with other people are nice things. And that was harpy-ammunition and I felt bad about being selfish and I was trying to do something else and I couldn't figure out how, and I'm not sure if that's good."
"Besides thinking about what I want all the time. I know you don't, at least not the way I do. I couldn't translate myself into that - mental language, though. About the closest I managed was feeling bad about everything I liked so I would want it less. I couldn't even make sense of wanting to do things for you without that being about me wanting it first."
"...you could say that I prioritize others before myself because it is what I want to do," Sherlock says thoughtfully.
"You could say that. But the - order of priority is different. My wanting to do nice things for other people fights it out on a level playing field with wanting ice cream; I mean, they're rarely incompatible and the first one's usually stronger but they're not different kinds of things on the immediate level. I don't think I would say that about you."
"And then wanting things felt awful and I couldn't figure out what else to do except cry and try to escape from anything that might make it stop, because if it stopped I would go back to unabashedly wanting things, and that would make me a horrible person."
"I couldn't tell myself you were lying. You weren't saying anything. But the harpy was still winning. So I had something in my head that I couldn't explain or dismiss - and it was a nice thing but under the circumstances that wasn't less confusing than a bad thing would've been."
"I don't know. There is nothing here I can solve. I don't think it would improve matters any if you began thinking like I do."