There are some additional notes at the end about this chapter. Many thanks for the lovely reviews, it's very kind of you!

Usual disclaimer - characters belong to ACD and their modern incarnation to Moffatt and Gatiss.

Fear

John returned at twenty past six. Sherlock observed him unseen from behind the window curtain. The doctor was walking with a military stride – the gait he always reverted to when he was bone tired. Unlike others, who might slow their stride or start to limp, John would automatically revert to the firm rhythmic pace that had no doubt carried him safely through long marches in Kosovo and Afghanistan. As he watched, Sherlock wondered absently whether this was a common characteristic in ex-military personnel or just peculiar to John.

His flatmate was holding four bulging Tesco carrier bags. At some point during the day, he must have remembered that he now needed to shop for two instead of one…or else this was his regular shopping day. It didn't used to be – as Sherlock recalled, the doctor had never been that organised.

The front door opened and closed briskly and John walked up the stairs with that same, firm stride. Sherlock noticed the moment that the doctor opened the door and hesitated, for just a fraction of a second, at the sight of his flatmate. Something like surprise flashed over his pale, tired face before he smiled a cheerful greeting and walked through to the sparkling clean kitchen to unpack.

Sherlock stood in the archway, watching as the shopping was removed from the carrier bags. Bread and milk; some fruit and vegetables; eggs and bacon and cheese; pots of fat-free yoghurt; packets of rice and pasta and red split lentils. Staples. Healthy choices.

The John he remembered had had a terrible lifestyle for a doctor, who really should have known better. He couldn't cook much and relied far too heavily on baked beans on toast, scrambled eggs and a pile of takeaway menus when all else failed. Not that Sherlock cared how his flatmate ate, just as long as he wasn't nagged into eating in the middle of cases.

This John was trimmer and more muscular. It made sense, of course. He was a busy man, what with his full-time job and his voluntary work with the homeless, so a good diet was a must. Meals would be regular and regulated; he almost certainly attempted to consume the recommended five portions of fruit/veg each day – Sherlock shuddered at the very idea.

His suspicions were confirmed as John put some of the vegetables on the kitchen unit along with some tins and packets, putting aside the ingredients for a vegetarian chilli even as he continued to place the perishables in the fridge. Sherlock noticed that there was no hesitation in the way that John placed each item in a precise location in the fridge without more than a quick glance: the yoghurt at the top, the bacon lower down. A habit, then. This had become his kitchen. His fridge. No longer any sign of caution in opening doors, out of fear of encountering a body part.

"You know, you could help me unpack instead of just standing there," John grumbled, half-heartedly.

"I don't know where anything goes."

John snorted his amusement. "Hardly rocket science, Sherlock. The cold things go in the fridge, the bread goes in the bread bin, and the tins go in the cupboard."

"I don't want to ruin your system," he replied, watching his flatmate carefully. It was clear from John's teasing tone that he didn't really mind that Sherlock wasn't helping, and in fact he confirmed this by the way he moved around the kitchen in a proprietary manner.

"Tea?" He asked as he filled the kettle. Without waiting for a reply, he snagged two mugs off the mug tree and dropped tea-bags in them in the same easy manner. "I'm making chilli if you're eating tonight. I wasn't sure if you'd be in. Thought you might be out and about, getting reacquainted with things. Did you see Lestrade?" His voice was mild, but Sherlock sensed the underlying tension.

"No. I didn't go out."

John gave a casual one-shouldered shrug, but as his head turned towards the fridge, his mouth was a thin line of disapproval. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything, there was a knock at the door.

"Yoo hoo! John, are you there?"

Sherlock's head shot around to see their landlady enter the flat in her usual bustling manner.

"I thought I heard you coming in, dear – oh!" She paused at the sight of Sherlock, her hands fluttering to her chest in a familiar gesture. "Oh, Sherlock, of course you're here too. I'd forgotten."

It was on the tip of Sherlock's tongue to say 'well, where else would I be?', but he swallowed the words, distracted by the unusual coolness in her tone. "Mrs Hudson," was all he managed to say.

John laughed. "Honestly, you two! You're acting as if you haven't seen him for three years, Mrs H. Don't pretend you haven't spent all day catching up. I know what you two are like." The words sounded casual, but Sherlock noted the way his smile faded into a slight frown of concern.

"Oh – well yes, of course we have." Sherlock glanced quickly at Mrs Hudson, who was looking at him steadily. There was something about her eyes… "It's just – I wasn't used – he gave me a turn, that's all."

John seemed to relax a little. "He gave me a shock too," he admitted. "Just for a moment, when I came in. I can't get used to seeing him here again."

Sherlock looked between the two of them. Yes, John had looked a little shocked when he came in, but only for a second – and it was only surprise. But Mrs Hudson's face told a different story. He looked at her again with renewed interest, noting that her eyes hadn't left him… but there wasn't the usual gleam of pride in them. It took him a moment to place the emotion…

It was an expression he remembered seeing in her eyes, just a few years ago, when she thought her abusive husband would be released from that Miami prison to torment her again. The husband he had sent to his death. It was an expression of fear.

John coughed, drawing her attention once more. "Oh - John dear, that nice young man called this afternoon. You know – the one with that hair and all the nose studs. Said something about a cut. He wouldn't come in and he wouldn't show me, but he was limping."

John heaved a great sigh, his eyes alight with good humour. "That'll be Robbie. Only you could call a petty thief a 'nice young man', Mrs H. I wonder what it is this time. Probably barbed wire again. OK, I'd better go and see to him."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, dear - I didn't think to ask him where he would be."

He shook his head, as he gulped down his scalding tea. "No matter. I know where he hangs out." He shrugged on his coat again and grabbed his medical bag. "I may be a while, Sherlock, so go ahead and eat if you're hungry."

"Robbie…" Sherlock was trying to place the boy.

"No, I don't think he's one of your irregulars." John seemed to anticipate the question. "I met him at one of my drop-in clinics in the Salvation Army Hall – you know, one those 'no questions asked' sessions. He's a walking disaster area – thinks he's an accomplished thief but always manages to catch himself on a bit of wire or some broken glass. I dread to think how much of his DNA is spread around London's crime scenes." He shook his head, grinning, but Sherlock noticed his weary eyes and the slump of his weak shoulder. And it was a dark, drizzly night out there.

"Do you want some company?"

John stiffened in surprise at this unexpected offer, but then shook his head. "Best not. Robbie and his mates don't take that kindly to strangers. They only accept me because I'm useful."

He nodded his thanks to Mrs Hudson as he left the flat.

Strangers?

Sherlock was so disconcerted by the use of that word in relation to him and London's homeless community that it took him far longer than it should have to notice that Mrs Hudson was still staring at him.

"He works too hard, that one," she said, looking away to frown at the stairs as the downstairs door slammed shut. "All day at work and his early clinic, and now he's off again. And it's the same every day. Most weekends too. It's not right. It's far too much for a younger man, let alone him."

He said nothing in response - how could he when he had no real notion whether John worked too hard or not? Surely it was up to John to decide?

His mind was more occupied by two concerns at present: the first being why, after this morning's uncharacteristic nerves, he now felt reasonably calm in the presence of his landlady. Possibly it was the sudden nature of the encounter. He had scarcely had time to react. Now they were finally together, she seemed more agitated than he.

He was also struck by that note of fond concern in her voice; those warm tones that spoke of the motherly instinct to protect and support. It was the same instinct that prompted her to make frequent trips up the stairs in her slippers, carrying a plate of fresh-baked biscuits or a pot of stew that she had 'happened to make too much of'.

Before he went away, that motherly concern had been directed at him, and John was merely the lucky individual who benefitted from Sherlock's general lack of interest in food...but now, it was directed at John.

"Why did you lie to him?" he asked her.

She turned her head to look at him again, and he was struck afresh by the fearful expression in her eyes. Why fear? "I didn't know what else to say, Sherlock. Why didn't you answer the door this morning? I know you were here."

"I – I'm not sure…" he said, slowly.

"Three years," she said, equally slowly. "Three years, Sherlock. And all that time, I mourned you."

He expected to see anger then – it would have been natural - but there was nothing of that nature in her expression. Just fear and…was it disappointment?

He recognised that emotion well enough, having seen it reflected in his mother's eyes more times than he could remember. He had never expected to see it in his landlady's face.

There had been a time when he could do no wrong in her eyes. She'd started out as another of his private cases – a rich British woman living in Florida with her mafia husband. It had been an unusual case – unusual enough to get his attention during what was otherwise a quiet time among London's criminal element. In his experience, most Mob wives wanted him to prove their husband's innocence. Mrs Hudson was the first wife to ask him to ensure her husband's guilt. He had done that with ease and, taking a rare liking to his lively, garrulous client, had helped her to 'liberate' as much of her husband's fortune as possible and spirit it out of the States back to London.

And, for some reason, he'd kept in touch. He didn't really know why at the time. It may have had something to do with the fact that right from the start she'd treated him like a difficult but strangely loveable son. He wasn't used to being spoken to with that degree of familiarity. He couldn't remember the last time someone had told him to straighten his collar and speak 'with bit a more respect, young man'. At first, it had amused him. Later, he had sought it out – occasionally visiting the old lady in her new house in Baker Street as a way of briefly forgetting his current difficulties in the face of her friendly interference and mindless chatter.

She'd used her money to buy the house with its three apartments and had let him know that if he ever needed somewhere to rent… He'd got the flat for under the going rate, but she still needed enough rent to live on, and central London flats were expensive. Having achieved the miracle of finding someone who was prepared to share the costs with him, he'd settled happily into 221B Baker Street.

A strange friendship had developed between the socially awkward consulting detective and his friendly, chatty landlady. She was one of very few people for whom he felt any genuine affection. It was natural for her to mother her 'boy', and while he'd affected to scorn the sentiment, he'd actually enjoyed the attention in a strange way. He knew he was too cold and distant to inspire much affection – attraction, yes, possibly lust, and in the case of Molly Hooper, hopeless fantasy, but not the basic love and care of a parent. And yet, strange though it seemed to him, that was what she offered.

She'd been more of a mother to him than his own mother, inasmuch as that meant anything at all. He realised now that it had never occurred to him to wonder what he meant to her…

…"She's not coping particularly well."

Mycroft was reclined in the expensive leather armchair in his home office, with a glass of his favourite whiskey, after a hard day spent terrorising UK politicians and international diplomats alike. Or whatever it was that he did all day in that office of his.

Sherlock shrugged absently, his eyes on the CCTV images of the man following John. Sebastian Moran. Old colleague and sometime friend of John's, by all accounts, at least until that trial. What was his motive in following the doctor? Mycroft's minions could trace no link to Moriarty. Could it be unrelated? But in that case, why John and not some other ex-soldier?

He realised, belatedly, that Mycroft had spoken and looked up. "Hmm?"

Mycroft gazed into his tumbler, shaking the golden liquid gently. "I was just saying that your housekeeper seems to have taken your death a little to heart."

"Not my housekeeper - my landlady," he murmured almost automatically before glaring at his brother. "What do you mean?"

Mycroft paused deliberately, as he sipped his whiskey with a gentle exhale of satisfaction. When he spoke, it was in a light, unconcerned tone. "She has been visiting your grave every day for the last eight months. I doubt Dr Watson knows about it. I have not enlightened him."

Sherlock put down the photographs, frowning as he considered this new data. "She didn't do that at first. No more than once a fortnight. It's a new pattern."

"Indeed. It would seem that her visits have increased just as Dr Watson's have ceased." His brother raised an eyebrow as he continued gazing into his tumbler, adding, "It's a shame that I am not in a position to warn him that it would be prudent to make an occasional visit, to avoid attention."

After a few minutes of silence, during which no further information regarding Mrs Hudson appeared to be forthcoming, Sherlock gritted his teeth and asked, "What does she do?"

"Absolutely nothing." Mycroft took another delicate sip. "She sits on a nearby bench for an hour each afternoon. Even when it's raining. Doing nothing."

Sherlock frowned again. "What makes you think she's visiting my grave?"

His brother favoured him with a withering look.

He continued, undeterred, "It might be someone else. Her sister died last year. And she lost a baby when she was first married and was on good terms with her first husband when he died."

Mycroft gazed into the liquid in his glass, as if it held the answers. "Her sister was cremated and the spouse and deceased child are both buried elsewhere."

Sherlock stared at the CCTV images. "John doesn't know." He couldn't know about it, or he would have tried to intervene before now.

Mycroft nodded towards the images as he gulped down his drink and set the tumbler aside. "It would appear that Dr Watson has other problems. Have you enough data from those? I have matters to attend to – off the clock, as it were."

It was a clear dismissal. Sherlock pushed the photographs across the desk as his brother stood up.

"Why are you telling me this?" His eyes narrowed and he glared at his brother in sudden suspicion. "What motive could you possibly have in revealing such irrelevant information?"

Mycroft shrugged, but Sherlock fancied he saw just a flicker of sorrow in those cold grey eyes. "No ulterior motive, I can assure you. I thought you might wish to know."

Sherlock wrinkled his nose in confusion. "Why would I want to know that?"

His brother gathered the images together and slid them into a file. "I merely thought it might be a comfort to know that you haven't been forgotten."…

…Sherlock recalled this conversation now, as he looked into the careworn face of his landlady – his friend – his…mother? The potential for uncovering some previously hidden but deeply-felt emotions that he could not fully comprehend made him uncomfortable, and so he launched into the, by now, familiar mantra in an attempt to ward them off.

"Mrs Hudson, I do understand that you must have been shocked to hear -."

"Do you?" Her eyes were wide in her face, and the fear was back – it reminded him uncomfortably of the time he had rescued her from the violent thugs seeking Ms Adler's phone. But fear of what? "Do you really understand how I felt?"

He stared at her in confusion. "Well, obviously I don't really -."

"You're not a parent, Sherlock."

He frowned, a little floored by the interruption and unsure how to respond to this non-sequitur.

Her face quivered a little. "Well, come to that, neither am I. There was a baby once. A boy. I never told you before, but you probably know it anyway – you always did know everything about me. The facts anyway, although you were never so good at emotions that didn't relate directly to murder, were you? Well, anyway, they let me hold him just for a moment before they took him away. Said it was easier that way. Said I shouldn't keep dwelling on what wasn't meant to be – and anyway I was young and healthy and there would be others. Well, there weren't any others, but that's another story." Her eyes dropped to the ground and she wrung her hands restlessly – a familiarly nervous gesture. "I never even got a chance to name him. They buried him with my husband's name – Archibald Pitt. I suppose they thought that was the name we had probably meant for him."

He stood, silent and deeply uncomfortable. What was expected in this situation? Should he put a hand on her shoulder – attempt some form of physical comfort? He fervently wished that John would return, illogical though that was, since he'd only just left. The doctor would know what would be appropriate – it was instinctive for him to care for the bereaved and the distressed. A visual memory rose of John's comforting arm around her shoulders after her assault by those Americans.

He was just lifting a tentative hand when she removed the necessity of it by looking back up at him, her eyes dry and hard.

"What I was going to say before I got distracted was that if you had been a parent, you'd know how it might feel to hear that your boy had killed himself. Yes, I know – not my boy, not really, but sometimes it felt as if you were my boy. Foolish of me, but there were times… It probably never meant anything to you of all people, but I had no one left apart from Hilda, and I…" Her voice died away and she fiddled with her pearl necklace in an agitated manner. "I would have been a good mother. I know I'm not very smart, but I would have done that well. When you think of all those bad mums you see these days - screaming at their toddlers on the bus, too busy with their texting to pay any attention. It's not fair. Well, anyway, when you and John moved in, it felt as if I could – you know. Just for a while. And you were so clever – so smart. I was so proud of you, Sherlock. As proud as any mum."

She sighed. "So you can imagine how I felt when John called me on that awful day. I thought I'd never stop crying. You drove me mad sometimes, but I loved you anyway. Three years of thinking of how you must have suffered to do what you did. And then to hear that it was all just a trick. I should have guessed – you've always been such a clever man."

He took a deep breath and began again. "I didn't want to cause any distress, but I had to do it – I had no choice -."

She raised a hand, stopping him. "Oh, no, you don't need to explain to me what happened. John has told me everything – all about the snipers. To think – that nice man who came to fix the electricity was aiming a gun at me the whole time." She shivered. "It must have been terrible, Sherlock. To be standing on that roof, knowing that the three of us were in danger. I don't know how you managed to concentrate on your trick. I know I couldn't have."

"That's the –." He stopped quickly, realising he was about to say something that John would definitely include under the category of a bit not good, but she picked him up on it anyway.

"You were going to say that that's the big difference between us, weren't you?" She peered up at him, inquiringly. "That you would be able to forget about the dangers to us; put them out of your mind so you could focus on what was important, while I wouldn't be able to do that. Do you think that makes me weak?"

He hesitated before venturing cautiously: "In certain circumstances, it is a disadvantage to be distracted by one's feelings for others."

She smiled, gently. "You see, I don't agree with you there. I know people think I'm just a foolish, gossipy old woman. Your brother definitely does, you probably do too, and maybe even John, although he doesn't realise it. I mean, I can understand it, because of the way I go on and on, and – well, I know I don't seem that bright."

He felt a strange roughness in his throat – an odd inability to swallow. "I have never thought that of you, Mrs Hudson."

"Really? But you still think I'm weak because I care about you. Was I a liability to you, Sherlock? Do you think that was why that horrible man used me to attack you?"

"No," he burst out, suddenly. "It was nothing to do with you caring about me. He targeted the three people that I cared most about."

She sighed, seeming unsurprised by this revelation. "I thought so. I was a liability, then."

How could he get her to understand that it was his feelings that had been the real liability? He sought desperately to provide some kind of comfort. How on earth did John go about this kind of thing? "Mrs Hudson, you should know that -."

Rather to his surprise, she interrupted him again, as if uninterested in any comfort he might provide.

"You see, it's easy for me to imagine that you didn't give me a single thought in those three years. That man decided that you cared about me, but I think he was wrong. Or if you did, you must have decided that it was a weakness. Because I couldn't have done what you did. I couldn't have left someone to mourn me for three years without trying to leave them some kind of message – some hope. It would have killed me."

Her eyes had closed on this last sentence; they opened again, quickly, and she fixed Sherlock with a steely glare. "And before you start talking about how difficult it was for you during those three years, you just remember who you're talking to, young man. I've been through a lot too, so I know." Her eyes took on a far-away expression as she counted on her fingers. "Mum dying in the Blitz, being brought up by my sister, struggling to find enough food during the rationing, losing my baby and then my first husband at Suez. A shiftless, unfaithful second husband and a violent third husband. All those years of misery. But in all that time, I never stopped caring. I don't believe that makes me weaker than you – in fact, it makes me stronger. Because I think it was actually quite easy for you to forget all about me while you were away…wasn't it? And it wouldn't have been easy for me – or for John."

He had no notion of what to say. She was wrong – oh, so wrong - but he couldn't seem to find the right words.

Her eyes were steady on his. "Do you know how I really felt when I heard you were still alive? I was scared, Sherlock. At first, when I heard it on the news, I was so happy – it seemed like a miracle. I remember phoning all my friends. But when you came back here, to Baker Street, it felt different. More real… This morning, I stood there in my flat and I thought 'how can I go up there and talk to him when I'm scared of what I will see in his face?'. That's how I felt. I thought you would try to behave like nothing ever happened, and all I'd be able to think is 'well, it's all an act, isn't it?' Because it was – wasn't it? All those hugs, those cheerful greetings, those times you used to come in after a case and help yourself to my biscuits, just like a son would. All that casual affection – and yet you could leave me to grieve you without a single thought. Well, it couldn't have been very real in the first place, could it? The way you can cut it off, just like that, whenever it doesn't suit you to care. It frightens me, Sherlock. It terrifies me to know what you're capable of."

She paused, her eyes wide with fear again. "That's how I felt this morning. You have no idea how difficult it was for me to walk up those stairs. And then you didn't even have the decency to open the door." She shook her head, slowly, almost wonderingly.

He swallowed again; his throat felt like sandpaper. "I don't know why I didn't answer you this morning. I was… I suppose I was…tired." His voice petered out. The excuse sounded weak and pathetic to his ears. It certainly didn't fool her.

Her next words were very quiet. "I thought I knew you, Sherlock. I thought that my boy would never have been so cruel. Not to me. Not to Martha Hudson. Not after all we've both been through. I was wrong. I never knew you at all." She shifted slightly, as if preparing to leave. "You should cook him a meal, by the way," she added.

He was startled. "What?"

"John." She gave him a critical look, no trace of fear now. "He works far too hard, and he hasn't had anything to eat."

He hesitated. Was she suggesting that he…? "You could make something for him," he decided. That made much more sense.

"Not me. You."

"But I -." He shrugged and gestured at the kitchen, hopelessly.

She glanced meaningfully in the same direction, at the little pile of ingredients John had gathered together. "You could make him a meal. Show you actually care about someone, just for once. You can do anything you set your mind to – you always could. You've always been such a clever man. The question is, will you?"

She gave him one last, hard look and left the flat, her footsteps sounding heavy and frighteningly weary as she descended the stairs.

Sherlock went into the kitchen and gazed rather blankly at John's ingredients for a while. Eventually, he shrugged and went back into the lounge. His armchair was in its usual place, and he perched on it, bringing his feet up and leaning his chin on his knees.

The flat was cold. John had said that the heating was on the blink again, but Sherlock had forgotten to lay the fire earlier and couldn't be bothered to do it now. Too much effort and it would take too long to warm the room up now. When it came to personal comfort, John was the one who always looked ahead.

She was wrong, of course. Completely wrong.

She had not come to him in conscious, uninterrupted thought, but she had in a million fragmented ways. In sudden images at the most unlikely moments…

…She came to him in the wife of a luxury yacht business owner at an exclusive party in the French Riviera, at which Sherlock was waiting tables – a clearly abused wife with a nervous habit of fidgeting with her priceless diamond necklace…

…and in the fond, indulgent smile of a fierce-looking babushka sitting opposite him on a Siberian train, as her adult sons bantered with one another…

…and in the tiny Chinese woman who rushed down the street after her husband early one morning, in a western Sichuan village, clutching his wrapped lunch and loudly berating him for forgetting it…

…and in a hundred, briefly glimpsed women in cities from Paris to Phnom Penh, with just that same shade of hair dye or that bright, chatty voice or that perky, proud angle of the head…

And each time, his heart would stutter and he would open his mouth automatically, his lips silently mouthing the syllables of her name…

…The door downstairs banged shut, and Sherlock gave a start. How long had he been sitting there? His legs felt cramped in his current position, and he lowered his feet to the ground gingerly.

The door opened suddenly and John came in with a sigh. "Well, that's that. Barbed wire, of course. Silly kid." He shook his head. "I'm sorry I'm so late - I thought I might as well do a quick round of the area as I was there. Found another case of pneumonia and had to call an ambulance. And then of course it was the usual rigmarole of having to go with them and fill out forms for him. Not that I knew many of the details. First name and a rough age calculation was the best I could do."

He shrugged off his coat and hung it up. Sherlock noticed that the cheap material was soaked through. Raining heavily now, then, and it was late – almost half past ten. He had been sitting in his chair unaware of the passage of time for almost four hours.

John shivered in his damp jumper and walked into the kitchen. He barely glanced at the ingredients on the unit before putting a couple of slices of bread in the toaster. "Jesus, it's cold in here. You been sitting there all evening?"

He gave Sherlock a curious glance as he busied himself with making tea.

"Yes."

John shrugged. "Nothing new there, then. Tea? Will you eat anything?"

Sherlock gave this some consideration. When had he last eaten? Not since last night, when he'd picked at that Chinese takeaway, too overwhelmed by his return to Baker Street to enjoy it. At the thought of food, though, his stomach cramped with nausea and he decided not to risk it.

"Just tea for me."

John frowned, but didn't pursue it.

"You said 'strangers'".

"Mmm?" John was too busy putting the kettle on to pay much attention.

"Earlier. You said that that boy Robbie and his friends didn't take too kindly to strangers. What did you mean by that?"

"What – the strangers bit? Oh – I see." John stuck his head into the lounge, frowning. "Well, I suppose you are a stranger to a lot of them. Three years is a long time on the street, Sherlock – you know that better than anyone. Robbie's only sixteen. When you jumped from that roof, he was probably still at home, fighting with his stepfather and pissing off his teachers."

Sherlock bit back the obvious rejoinder: that this hadn't been a problem in the past. His reputation as a generous purchaser of information received had usually preceded him. Everyone on the street knew the name of Sherlock Holmes, even if they had never met him.

"It bothers you that they no longer know you, doesn't it?" John had come into the lounge to perch on his usual chair. He peered at Sherlock in a manner that appeared both interrogatory and yet strangely gentle – a combination that only served to offend Sherlock's sense of pride.

He wrinkled his nose, fastidiously. "Why would it bother me? It's a simple matter of building up the contacts once more – a task that wouldn't challenge even you, so is hardly likely to cause me any trouble." He leaned back to grab the top book from a pile of teetering volumes and settled down in his chair to read, contriving to ignore his friend.

A flicker of his lashes showed John sitting very still for a moment, an odd look on his face, before he got up and returned to the kitchen to continue preparing his late night snack.

Some additional notes that I didn't add to the beginning as they were a bit spoilery about the chapter.

First of all, I just adore Mrs Hudson, especially as portrayed by Una Stubbs. And I also love the fact that she's a family friend and Benedict sees her as a sort of second mother, which means that those little moments of affection between Mrs Hudson and Sherlock are utterly natural to Una and Benedict. I think that, in the last episode, not enough attention was paid to the fact that Sherlock genuinely cares about her, even if he doesn't seem to most of the time. And she's always appeared to be confident in his affection for her. Also, she's not as woolly-headed as she may appear – as A Scandal in Belgravia proved. I really hope she plays a central role in the new series.

I also love Una – always have done, for years before Sherlock. For me, she epitomises the best of the British acting world – she's a real 'working' actor, not a pampered film star, so she does what she does purely for the love of it (and pragmatically as a living too). I really hope and pray that Benedict continues to work within that world from time to time, and doesn't go all 'Hollywood' now that his star is rising over in the States – it would be a massive loss of a great actor if he did (no offence meant to the American film industry, but I'm think I'm right in believing that studio power restricts creativity to some degree?). I'm so pleased that he agreed to stay in Cabin Pressure, for instance – I mean, what a contrast to go directly from recording a small (but utterly brilliant) BBC radio comedy show to promoting Star Trek (he literally ran from the recording theatre to get a flight to Japan)!

Anyway, enough preaching! For the above reasons, it took me a while to write this. I owed it to Mrs Hudson to try to keep it perfectly in character (or as perfectly as I can make it, anyway). I hope I succeeded. Of course, I don't know an awful lot about her past, so the three husbands and the stillborn son are just my speculation - for all I know, she has a completely different back story!