Thanks to everyone still following this story! I have officially designated it a crossover, so as to avoid lengthy apologies for each chapter. This chapter features both incarnations of our protagonists. I hope you will enjoy it; do let me know what you think. :)

(Victorian incarnations)

Sherlock Holmes could scarcely describe himself as a busy man, and it was at times like these, sitting in his armchair with his arms loosely at his sides, his thoughts almost entirely blank, that one could almost call him lazy, if one did not know him. Even Mrs Hudson, who knew him, scolded him for his inactivity between cases – "There are jobs to be done, I can't do everything", "Why don't you cook this evening? Come on, Mr Holmes, you need to eat", "Have you ever read Dickens?" – and, now that he was back and very much in demand by Scotland Yard, she didn't much like to see him sitting around doing nothing, especially when she thought he ought to be spending time with the friends he had so dismayed following his supposed death.

But she could not say a bad word against him, not now, and so kept her thoughts to herself, sitting in the chair opposite his – Watson's chair, Holmes noted with just a hint of annoyance. They regarded each other with as much affection as was due at that time, and for a long while were silent, merely revelling in being in each other's company once again. Sherlock Holmes wouldn't before now have classed Mrs Hudson as a friend. He didn't tend to class many people at all as a friend. But he had to admit that he liked her very much, and that she must consider him a friend, even if that wasn't reciprocated.

At length he emerged from the daydream that so absorbed him, and said: 'What have you done with my second-best pipe?'

'Second-best?' asked Mrs Hudson distractedly.

'I took my first best with me,' Holmes shrugged. 'My second-best I left on the mantelpiece... You've done something with it.'

Mrs Hudson furrowed her brow for a moment. It seemed a long time ago now. 'It's in a box. In the attic...'

Holmes stared at her. 'Why?'

This particular question always surprised Mrs Hudson when it came from Holmes's lips. Usually he was the one doing the explanations, except in rare times like these, when it was about the relationships between humans and their fellows.

'I didn't want to...' The words failed her. 'I thought it would be...' She sighed. 'Oh, Mr Holmes, consider it merely a gesture that I thought of as appropriate at the time, a gesture that cannot be explained in words.'

Perhaps Holmes frowned at her then, but he did not pester her. 'Can I rescue it?'

'I thought it ought to stay there,' said Mrs Hudson quickly. 'I don't want to be reminded –'

'Perhaps,' agreed Holmes, and this agreement surprised her. 'Perhaps my second-best pipe doesn't suit me any more. Am I a different man? Perhaps.' And with that he disappeared back into his contemplation.

He was a curious man, Mrs Hudson thought, as she regarded him with the affectionate eye of a mother. He claimed to have changed, and yet he was more like himself than ever, frank, good-humoured, a little childish. He even sat in the same way in his armchair. No matter what he might have thought, he would never change. Not really. He would always be Sherlock Holmes, the same Sherlock Holmes, even as everything else changed around him.

(Modern incarnations)

Sherlock Holmes was settling into his armchair, clad in the warm blue dressing-gown that he had missed greatly despite himself, when he heard a knock at the door; recognising it as the eager and yet slightly tentative knock of Mrs Hudson, he invited her in, and beamed as he caught the smell of tea emanating from the tray in her hands. He thanked her with a cheeriness and politeness that was somewhat unusual for him, and as he sipped his tea he studied her absent-mindedly before saying:

'Is that another of the other John's books?'

'What? – Oh, yes.' Mrs Hudson put the tray down to reveal the book she had been precariously clutching: The Empty House. 'I thought I would show you it. You might find the beginning interesting.'

A smile played about Sherlock's lips as he read the title, which very quickly made him think of The Empty Hearse, that madcap group of conspiracy nuts who had turned out more correct than even they might have thought. He wondered if it was just coincidence. Then he opened the book and began to read it: and, absorbed, he did not stop until he had finished the entirety of the short story.

'It's curious, isn't it?' said Mrs Hudson at once as he placed the book on the coffee-table.

'I suppose,' said Sherlock.

'You're so similar,' she went on.

'Well, we would be,' Sherlock commented. 'We're the same person.'

'You think so?'

'I know so. I can tell if I'm reading about myself.'

'Don't you think it's just remarkable, though?' asked Mrs Hudson, unable to contain the excitement she felt at such a bizarre matter. 'That you and John existed in the 19th century, and led very similar lives?'

'History repeats itself,' said Sherlock vaguely.

They were silent for a while: Mrs Hudson was by now used to the long breaks in any conversation with Sherlock – either he would run out of things to say, or get distracted by something in his mind palace and not emerge for minutes, hours, sometimes even days. At last Mrs Hudson, changing the subject, said: 'Have you been to the supermarket like I asked?'

'Supermarket?' Sherlock said in a naïvely ignorant fashion – Mrs Hudson couldn't ever tell if he was putting it on.

'Oh, Sherlock,' Mrs Hudson sighed. 'I asked you to get some things from the supermarket. You'll need to go down before dinner, otherwise you won't have anything to eat.'

'Last time I went to the supermarket,' Sherlock said, thinking for a moment, 'was in Serbia. I was hunting a gang member. I cornered him in the frozen food aisle.'

'What did the customers think?' asked Mrs Hudson.

'I don't know. One of them fainted, and another ran off screaming,' Sherlock told her. 'Though I think that might have been my beard,' he added, and a twitch at the corner of his mouth told her that this was an attempt at a joke.

'Well, you won't find gang members in Tesco's,' Mrs Hudson assured him.

'I'm not going there,' said Sherlock darkly. 'I haven't been since I got arrested for shooting their self-checkout. I had a good reason,' he protested a moment later. *

At the recollection of this incident, Mrs Hudson burst out laughing. 'Oh, Sherlock,' she said, 'never change.'

Sherlock too smiled; then he nodded towards The Empty House, and said simply: 'I'm not sure I've changed since the 19th century. And I'm not planning on doing. I like being Sherlock Holmes.'

And they both grinned.

*For the full story concerning this incident, see my oneshot Home Alone.