I.

Mrs. Hudson was making her way carefully up the stairs with two heavy bags of groceries (for "her boys" as she fondly referred to them when chatting with her friends) when the door at the top of the stairs banged open. "I'm going out" she heard John Watson say. "I need some air." The door crashed closed.

"My goodness," she thought, sliding over to hug the wall as best she could, hoping that John would see her before crashing into her in his headlong flight down.

He did. "Mrs. Hudson," he said, shortly, before slipping past her (completely ignoring the fact that she was a small old woman with two large bags of food-gracious, the manners) and slamming out front door. She could hear his quick steps fading away on the sidewalk.

"They do need to be more careful about the doors," she said to herself as she reached the top of the stairs, wondering at the damage done each time one or the other took it into his head to make a dramatic exit-a fairly frequent occurrence.

She was frustrated with both of them. The fighting-Lord have mercy, the fighting. Constant bickering-they clearly had no idea she could hear every word. Even in the middle of the night. Often in the middle of the night-those arguments mostly revolving around Sherlock's habit of playing that blessed violin from midnight until the crack of dawn. Shouts of "Sherlock!" would rouse her out of her night's rest, followed by, "I have to play, it helps me think. I must think!"

Mrs, Hudson's friends at her book club had been commenting on how tired and worn out she'd been looking lately, but how in heaven's name was she supposed to sleep with all the ruckus above her head?

She knew what it was about, of course. She was old, but she wasn't stupid as to the ways of the world, no matter what her boys might think. She'd been married. She'd had boyfriends-she had one now, as a matter of fact, and it isn't like she was actually going to her sister's every weekend. Even if that's what she told the boys. It wasn't any of their business, though Sherlock, that terrible child, probably had some idea.

Sexual frustration. That was their problem, and she knew the house would be quite a bit quieter (or at least noisy in a more amusing way) if they could just work that out between them.

But stubborn-good heavens, the two of them. She had a strong feeling that left to their own devices, they'd never get it sorted.

"Time then," Mrs. Hudson thought to herself as she struggled with the door handle to their flat, "for a chat."