Mrs Hudson paused at the door of 221B, listening to sounds from inside. She wasn't scared, or nervous of walking in on something intimate (a rather scathing set down from Sherlock had put paid to that theory) but when Sherlock had a gun in his hands, it was better for her, and her wall, if she didn't walk in unexpectedly.
Silence. She'd knock, but if Sherlock was in one of his moods, it was best not to give him warning.
She gripped her feather duster tightly to her and pushed the door open- and when no icy rejoinder spewed forth, hesitantly poked her head round the door. A flat, empty but for the skull she could have sworn she'd stolen last week and hidden in her freezer, greeted her.
The living room wall seemed to have survived any major damage this week, and so had the two bedrooms. But the kitchen...she shuddered. A Petri dish contained some form of green mould that had been there for nearly a week, with some pale pink substance she didn't want to consider too closely dripping steadily onto if from a burette. Admittedly, it was an improvement on last week, when she had discovered a heap of something she could swear had attempted to get away from the tap water. And the week before that, when she had been greeted by a human head suspended in what she hoped was vinegar.
But still! The boy was getting downright cheeky, leaving feet in the freezer, and she shuddered to remember the time she'd opened the microwave to find an eyeball staring back at her.
She'd mentioned it to Sherlock of course, and the cheeky sod had told her that if she didn't go snooping she wouldn't find these things! She didn't snoop! She just... tidied up a little. Those boys would go haring off at any hour, leaving the flat looking like a bomb had gone off. So she put a few things away, because... well if she didn't do it who would? Someone had to take care of him, and that doctor was as bad as he was.
She'd be the first to admit he could be scary, with his icy stare and icier rage, but she remembered when he'd been referred to her by Lestrade, her sister's daughter's brother in law. He'd only been a boy then and now was forever, at least to her.
And he was good to her, most days, making her soothers when her hip played up, and that first time, making sure her brute of a husband stayed gone. She was fond of him, she really was, bad tempers and all. And that mind... it still amazed her, and she was glad he was staying with her, however much she complained about the state of the kitchen. She only did it because he expected her to. Somewhere along the way it had come to mean more than a simple argument. It was her way of making sure he was alright, like the snooping...tidying...was to make sure he was eating, if not enough, then something.
Sometimes she wondered if the Doctor ever realised just how good he was for her boy. He was somehow calming and supportive at the same time, when Sherlock was running a mile a minute, seconds away from crashing. She remembered the first time she'd met him, stood outside with a cane in his hand and it hadn't struck her till later how much calmer Sherlock appeared with him, more centred.
So yes, she flicked a duster around occasionally, and yes, sometimes, and she would like to stress that it was only sometimes; she went to the shops and got a few essentials, because honestly, the two of them never seemed to eat. Sherlock was far too thin as it was, always gadding about London like the world was ending, and Dr Watson was no better, running off after Sherlock like he hadn't a care in the world!
She never mentioned these cleaning expeditions, not after the eyeball incident, and neither did Sherlock, but then he never mentioned anything unless he could help it. But it made her feel better.
What she would never know, because Sherlock would never tell her, was that when the two men would come home in the evening, Sherlock would look round him and smile, just for a second. His skull was missing again.