Baker Street Lodgings

I.

Mrs Hudson had become used to a lot of things in her life.

She had at one time been a young and inexperienced wife who was barely able to cook a leg of lamb let alone run a household. But having a determination that rivalled her ignorance, she set herself the task of learning as quickly and as well as she was able. Bobby, god rest him, had bourn her early mistakes with good humour. That in the end was what she missed about Bobby the most: his rueful smile coupled with his phrase of, 'Oh my dear heart, what have you done?' in such as way as it was both exclamation and endearment. He'd been a plain man with a wonderfully expressive mouth and eyes of an unusual sea-green. The deep blue and clear jade of his irises mixed, a perfect balance of tart and sweet, just like his humour.

It was, she knew, a weakness of hers, a chink in her everyday armour of shrewd practicality. Anyone who reminded her of her two children (whether Alice's unreasonable but sublime artistic passions, or Freddy's astute Engineer's mind so obsessed with figuring out how everything worked) or her husband (with that greengage and gooseberry jam personality – sharp at the edges but soft at heart) was granted liberties she would never permit anyone else.

It went, she realised, a very long way to explain why she had not evicted her current tenant.

II.

Upper Baker Street was fashionable, in a metropolitan and nouveau riche sort of manner. Close to Marylebone Station and next to Regent's Park: in some ways it straddled perfectly the old money and blood of England and the new industrial wealth of the Empire. For his part, he would have been happier in Soho or Southwark - half a parish away from the old Rookery of St Giles - amidst artists and prostitutes, market men and thieves.

But to do so would have made Mycroft unbearable.

Sherlock Holmes did not approve of compromise – certainly not in his own case at any rate. It showed a weakness of intellect: compromise demonstrated an inability to come up with a more satisfactory solution. However; where Mycroft was concerned Holmes had long since concluded compromise was its own victory.

Firstly, with Mycroft possessing an advantage in years (and therefore experience) as well as a lazy sort of deviousness he himself had yet to perfect, winning outright was rarely a realistic happenstance. Secondly, there was no one living on earth who knew Holmes better, which meant Mycroft knew above anyone else how to make himself most vexatious to his younger brother should he choose.

Lastly and most importantly, living in lodgings his brother tacitly approved of was present peace and later leverage purchased at a very cheap price indeed.

III.

"Mrs Hudson?"

The voice, although imperious, lacked its usual bite. (He had never quite forgiven her for 'ruining' his experiment back in March on the limits of human lung capacity. Or, as she saw it, finding him fully clothed, semi conscious and half drowned in the bathtub, and letting the water out.)

"Yes, Mr Holmes?"

His back was to her, he was still bent at what must have been an uncomfortable angle over the dining table, intent upon something which – from her perspective – looked likely to set his hair alight. She gathered up the two stray teacups she could see and put them on the supper tray. It didn't cause her to bat an eyelid or pass comment on the fact the supper tray was on the floor, having forfeited its rightful place on the table to whatever it was that currently held Sherlock Holmes' attention.

She briefly considered enquiring why the dish that held the potatoes now held the poached fish (minus parsley and roasted almonds), why the server that had held the fish was upside down, decorated with precariously balanced buttered potatoes, and where the cruet of hollandaise sauce had vanished to. Experience warned that any forthcoming answer more elaborate than a wry snort would either confound or worry her, so she held her tongue.

"Mrs Hudson I require tea, also crumpets – no, best make it scones - raspberry preserve. And cream."

"It's nine o'clock in the evening," she pointed out. "And you ate next to nothing of your supper." Honestly, it was as bad as living with a child.

"On the eighteenth at 1 o'clock - post, meridian, time." He spoke in a mildly distracted manner, like a tutor harried by a particularly slow pupil.

She'd been taken in by that infallible tone before; these days she liked to check he really did know what he was talking about. "That's tomorrow."

A slight tilt of the head with its shock of black hair and a shifting of the shoulders beneath the dark red ragged house-coat. "Is it?" He sounded genuinely puzzled.

Exasperation and amusement lit her eyes. "Yes."

"Hm."

A usual person – a normal person – would have said please. Would also have furnished her with such facts as the number of guests attending tea on the morrow and whether it was to be a formal or informal affair. The trouble was, Sherlock Holmes was anything but ordinary – extraordinary to the point of unreason and the most singular of individuals. (Or at least she rather hoped he was exceedingly singular; the thought of the world containing another like him was terrifying. After all, they might meet, and then what? It didn't bear thinking about.) For her lodger, the answers to all her petty questions were perfectly clear, and as such he didn't bother to waste breath in elucidation.

Mrs Hudson counted slowly to ten in the privacy of her skull. "How many people will be attending this tea, Mr Holmes?"

"Hm?" He twisted round, eyes wide, taking in the detail of everything he saw in an instant, focus broad and sharp.

She realised he was surprised she was still there, his attention had been swallowed again by his scientific tinkering, he'd dismissed her from his thoughts and as such she'd ceased to exist.

A second passed as he divined her query, either through memory or some more arcane method. (The fact her keychain hung to the right perhaps, she thought sarcastically.) "Only one. Your new lodger."

Her eyebrows raised.

He smiled, slightly rakish and charming. "Pending your approval of course."

"Of course," she echoed.

The Prendergast boy, a medical student at St Barts, had moved in at the same time as Mr Holmes but had moved out again within a term. (She could still remember how he had stood, with his coat over his arm, hat and bag in hand, looking earnest and awkward. "I am so very sorry to be a nuisance – well, inconvenience to you, Mrs Hudson. But I really can't stay here another night. I am, frankly, in fear of my life. He has no malice in him," and here he'd gestured with his hat upstairs, clearly meaning his fellow lodger. "But I won't allow a lack of criminal intent to be the death of me. I'll be leaving directly." A beat. "You run a lovely house, Mrs Hudson. Please don't hesitate to send word to me should the rooms become available." The polite but almost comically stern way he spoke left no doubt he meant 'without Holmes'.)

As such she didn't hold out high hopes for this new potential lodger; either he would not be able to stomach her current tenant, or – and here was a discomforting thought – he would, because he'd be just as bad. And then no doubt the house would burn down or Mrs Hudson would send herself to Virginia Waters for a rest cure.

Some days, it really was a wonder to her that so many people had met Mr Holmes and lived to tell the tale. Then again, with that brain of his, no one would ever find the bodies...