Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or original storylines of Sherlock Holmes or the BBC television series Sherlock. All content except this particular story belongs to the BBC and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Thank you to all reviewers and to all of you are reading this despite its being many weeks overdue. The move was fine but then I had to move into my uni halls and settle in blah blah blah. This is the end of this story and hopefully you enjoyed it. Please, feel free to press that little button at the bottom which says 'review'. I will love you forever since I am currently suffering from Fresher's flu and major homesickness so a little pick me up would be nice.
Thanks Tia_Pixie
John trudged up the stairs to 221B having left Mrs Hudson downstairs in her own flat. He wanted nothing more than to have a nice cup of tea and fall into bed however, even that small luxury was denied him as he entered the stark kitchenette. Every surface was covered in half full cups of tea and coffee, the contents of the coffee pot seemed to have been distributed across the entire floor and…yes. Even the milk was empty; in fact, even the glass bottle marked 'Hydrochloric Acid' was empty. He gazed nervously around him, some of the cups seemed to still be warm but he didn't fancy a trip to the emergency room on top of everything else today.
"SHERLOCK!" He yelled, pinching the bridge of nose and clenching his jaw. No reply came - he wasn't really expecting one. It seemed he was expected to be at the good detective's beck and call but his flatmate had other ideas for himself. He could go and search him out (he was probably sat in his bedroom bouncing off the ceiling and with a pack of nicotine patches anywhere he could get them to stick) but John found he really couldn't be bothered with it. Sighing, he wandered back to the landing calling "Mrs Hudson? You couldn't make me a cup of tea could you?"
"Not your housekeeper, dear."
Watson sighed, feeling completely hopeless – honestly was it such a great ask to have a cup of tea in his own home? Suddenly a shuffling sound came from the bottom of the stairs and she frowned fondly up at him.
"One biscuit or two?"
As soon as he heard the doctor's bedroom door shut, Sherlock slipped from the shadows behind the door in the downstairs flat and slid gracefully into a chair, resting his head on his hands.
Mrs Hudson (to her credit) recovered from the shock of seeing Sherlock where there was previously no Sherlock, very well. After the initial jump and "Oh my good gracious", she set about making tea for herself before settling herself at the table and handing over a dainty cup of steaming liquid to Sherlock. She sipped daintily, pointedly ignoring his penetrating gaze which was fixed on her. Finally, he too picked up his cup and drank from it, still not taking his eyes off her.
"I shan't ask how you got in." Her eyebrows raised in a slightly scolding way. "Or why you didn't come with poor John to the…"
"Poor John hadn't any need of me. He had you." His tone was light but she thought she heard an almost accusing undertone. The brows indicated her further disapproval and he returned to sipping his tea in silence. Sherlock was a man so rarely plagued by any emotion, that she found herself surprised at the faint pink tinge in the young man's cheeks.
"Even so, I told you he would need you and you weren't there, dear. He was quite upset with you when he came down this morning." Again, her tone was only a little scolding, like one explaining to a small child why an act was wrong after their first offence.
"Why? I never met the woman so why should I have gone to grieve for her?"
"Not for her dear, for John."
"Mrs Hudson, I –"
"No, Sherlock. You ought to have gone." Suddenly, she seemed quite stern. It was an odd feeling for one so used to being spoken to with either derision or awe, to be…told off like a child.
Mrs Hudson gazed at the slumped shoulders and quite spectacular pout gracing the normally impassive features before collecting his cup and turning to the sink. She expected that he would stride back to his own rooms now to sulk (or rather to 'think') with as many of those patches as possible until a new case came in and he could be the one in charge again. She was therefore shocked to say the least when she heard the whispered confession from behind her.
"I don't know what to say to him."
She turned just in time to see a faint tremble in his lower lip before he raised eyes to her that were somehow defiant and vulnerable at the same time. She felt her frustration dissipate; nobody ever knew quite what to say to someone who was grieving but for Sherlock? She might just as well have told John to run a marathon and throw a javelin. Sighing and dropping her dishcloth, she sat down again. Blue eyes followed her every move, he looked hopeful and she wondered where the Sherlock everyone else knew had gone.
She looked at him encouragingly, willing him to go on but it seemed he had nothing more to say. She could tell he was trying and good grief he hated failing. She reached out one hand and placed it gently on top of his, he dropped his gaze to it, eyebrows knitting together in confusion.
"You don't always have to say anything, dear."
He seemed to consider this for a few minutes and suddenly the detective was back and the hopeless young man was gone.
He jumped to his feet, grabbing as he did so, the milk jug and the sugar from the table. Holding onto them with one hand, he collected tea and teacups from the counter. He pushed the door open with one foot, and proceeded through it yelling:
"Thank you, Mrs Hudson. John will return these in the morning."
She blinked, smiled then returned to her washing up, tutting to herself as she did so.
It must have been the early hours of the morning when John Watson finally re-emerged from his bedroom, red eyed and still in his shirt and trousers. He had removed his tie and jacket almost as soon as he got in. Turning his laptop on, he considered briefly writing his blog but after staring blankly at it for an hour, he gave up and moved to his bed. Picking up a photo album from the bookshelf he lay exhausted on top of the sheets. He thumbed through it, stopping now and then to look at pictures of himself and Harry as children then teenagers and finally adults. He noticed with a pang that even as teens, their joint photos grew less and less frequent until - when he had reached one of them at her twenty-first birthday party (with girlfriend number one for both of them) - they stopped completely. After that, there was the occasional one of Harry in her punk phase with piercings and brightly coloured hair. One of her and Emma, her first serious girlfriend, dressed in leather boots but sporting t-shirts that declared 'Meat is murder!' on them, he tried to laugh but it came out choked and he settled for smiling instead. Finally, he came to Harry and Clara's wedding, both of them looking truly beautiful and beaming at the camera. He tried to recall where he was when it was taken – as her only sibling he surely should have been in the family photo? Again he felt his stomach clench with guilt, he was at the wedding but not in the official photos…he toyed with the idea that he had been the cameraman but knew it wasn't true. The final photo in the album was taken in the hospital just after he had been flown back to London. He was smiling grimly and leaning away while she tried to put her arm around him, the photo had been meant for their mother to show her that he was all right. He gazed at his sister, she had left Clara a few weeks earlier and had already given him the phone that Clara had given her – he wiped tears from his eyes and wondered whether she had been drinking and/or suicidal at that point or whether it was only recently. Not that it mattered.
He jumped abruptly when he heard footsteps, which stopped outside his door, watching and waiting to see if the great detective would come inside or ask him how it had gone. Anger exploded in his head when the steps receded down the steps to the kitchen. Leaping up, determined to give him a piece of his mind, John stormed to the door and flung it open. He had to stifle his yell as he almost walked straight into a very dishevelled looking Sherlock. Blinking and wiping his sleeve across his eyes, he said abruptly:
"For God's sake Sherlock, it's half past three in the morning! I was sleeping, what on earth are you doing?"
Sherlock's steady gaze bore into him as he huffed, waiting for an answer that was not at all the calm response that he got.
"No you weren't. Good night, John."
John blinked dumbfounded when a cup of tea, just the way he liked it was pushed into his hands and his flatmate turned on his heel and slipped down the stairs again to his own room.
Would the wonders never cease? Sherlock Holmes had learned to make tea.
The miracle transformation was short-lived though since when John arose late the next day he was faced with a kitchen still covered with tea, a leg of lamb quietly decomposing in a saucepan covered in what smelt faintly like his high school chemistry lab and a note which read:
We need more tea.
And milk.
Also, Mrs Hudson would like her teacups back.
SH
