Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock Holmes he belongs to Sir Srthur Conan Doyle, I also don't own Sherlock he belongs to Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat. Word.

Mary Morstan was visiting The Beatles merchandise store in Baker Street, London. It was therefore not a huge coincidence that she walked past the window of 221b and saw a sign saying: "live-in maid needed, room to let, inquire within."

So she did.

In the living room were two men and a lady. The latter was voicing her opinions on the storage of body parts in her teacups. One of the men (the shorter, cuter and knitted-jumper-wearing one) took out a notebook and pencil.

Just so you know, Mary was short, blonde and pretty, but pretty in a naïve kind of way, she was 23 but looked 16.

"John Watson, pleased to meet you, that's Sherlock Holmes, he's pleased too." Sherlock smiled, though it was quite possibly the least genuine smile she had ever seen. He was far taller and leaner than John and had a perfectly formed face, and when I say perfect I mean perfect, like without-a-fault perfect, like James Dean perfect, anyway...

"So what's the case?" said John.

"Sorry?" said Mary.

"The case, isn't that…"

"Oh do shut up John, she's not here with a case, she's here to let the room," said Sherlock.

"The room? What room?"

"Three days ago Mrs. Hudson said she was thinking of getting a live-in maid to let the downstairs bedroom. Mary, was it? Has obviously just moved here from Australia, she doesn't want to stay with her family for any longer than she has to, she's going to be working at Camden School for Girls, teaching English, and she needs a place with low rent, hence she's here about the room. Mrs. Hudson, tea!"

"How could you possibly…" said Mary.

"The fact that you are wearing a coat on what can only be described as a warm summer's day in England and your accent makes you obviously Australian, though its subtlety and your complexion tells me that you are partially British, probably one of your parents, therefore you probably have family in England who you have no doubt been staying with, you only arrived a couple of days ago but you're already looking for somewhere else to stay, so you can't like them all that much, you visited Camden School for Girls school this morning, there's a map of the grounds in your bag, so you're probably going to teach there since you're obviously too old to attend, there's also a copy of Macbeth in your bag, so you're probably an English teacher, you've taken the hem of your jeans up yourself and your coat is one size too big for you, therefore you probably buy your clothes second hand, why else would you buy clothes that don't fit you? So you haven't got much money to afford a flat of your own so you need somewhere cheaper, a live-in maid. Was I wrong?"

"That was incredible."

"You might want to take a couple of days to think about it" John said as he led Mary to the front door. But she had made up her mind already.

The next day she found herself in the same living room with a stack of papers to fill out and a detailed account from Sherlock of which bus route she took to get there and what she had eaten for breakfast.

"I'm starving Sherlock," said the ever polite and lovely John, "Mary would you like to come to dinner with us and we can get to know each other?"

'Us' thought Mary, 'oh no, not again.'

'Dull' thought Sherlock.

"I'd love too" said Mary taking her oversized coat in one hand and her book-carrying bag in the other and following her new roommates out the door of 221b Baker Street.

"So, what do you do then?" Asked Mary when they had sat down for dinner.

"Consulting detective" said Sherlock without taking his eyes off the window.

"A what…"

"When the police are out of their depth…" filled in John.

"Which is alw…"

"They come to us" finished John.

'Us…there was that word again,' she thought.

"What about you," asked John, "Why did you decide to move to London?"

"Well I…" Mary began; prepared to launch into the speech she had given to everyone she'd met so far in England.

"Boring, where are the menus?" Sherlock cut in again.

"Did you leave any broken hearts behind you in Australia then?" Asked John, apparently not phased by the constant interruptions.

"No, she's been single for at least a year," said Sherlock, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"How could you possibly…" started Mary again.

"You've been planning this trip for a while; obviously you wouldn't want a boyfriend to tie you down to Australia. Also we looked at your Facebook page last night"

"That's funny; I could have sworn I set it to private"

"You did. Ah menus"

And so it was that Mary Morstan moved into 221b Baker Street, into the room that had "just had the rising damp fixed" according to Mrs. Hudson, and where she began the nigh impossible task of cleaning the house.

"Just do what you can," Mrs. Hudson had said "anything is better than nothing."

John was unfailingly sweet and welcoming and Sherlock lost some of his icy tendencies when Mary started bringing him breakfast in bed and cooking dinner every night. John was exceedingly pleased to find food in the fridge rather than just "experiments" and Mrs. Hudson felt a little tingle of joy every time she heard the vacuum going or saw the washing had been done.

Fairly soon packages from Australia started arriving on the doorstep full of books and DVDs and John kindly offered to put up shelves in Mary's bedroom for their storage.

She didn't stand a chance.