There's something familiar about her, but I've never seen her before. John, too, is staring at her, slack-jawed. He looks like he's about to pass out.

"Er... we don't... we're not..."

She smiles and waves her off. "It's alright, love. I know the difference between criminals and decent people in a spot. If you were burglars, you wouldn't have turned the computer on - you would have just taken it."

It's irrational, but when her voice turns out to sound so much like Mrs Hudson's, I immediately feel safe. "Thank you," I breathe shakily. "We only wanted to send an email to my brother, and perhaps use the telephone and the bathroom."

Her smile is quickly becoming the most radiant thing I have ever seen. Besides John's smile, obviously. "Of course, dear. Are you in a hurry, or can you stay for a cuppa and tell me what's happened to make you two well-dressed gentlemen break into an old woman's house to use the computer?"

John, at the mention of tea, exhales noisily. "You might be the best woman I've ever met."

She chuckles knowingly; she thinks we're together. I know I should correct her, but the knowledge that we're still close enough for people to make that assumption makes me glow with pride instead.

"Well, you sit down, then, and I'll put the kettle on. I'm Abigail - have you eaten?"

As she busies herself in the kitchen, John turns to me. "Did that just happen?" he says in a low voice. I'm wondering pretty much the same thing, so I reach down and pinch the back of his hand. "Ouch!"

"Yes," I can affirm. "That just happened."

We sit down at the kitchen table; John tries to help Abigail make tea, but she shrugs him off rather violently.

"So," she says cheerfully, plonking a mug in front of each of us. "Who are you, and what's happened to you?"

John takes a sip of tea and sighs dramatically. "I'm John, and this is Sherlock," he introduces. "We're -"

"Oh!" Abigail exclaims. "Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson! I know who you are - my sister Martha's your housekeeper, she talks about you all the time. The detective with the consulting business."

Of course she's Mrs Hudson's sister. I can't believe I didn't see it before. "What? Martha Hudson?" John repeats incredulously. "You're Mrs Hudson's sister? God, Sherlock, we must be the luckiest people alive."

"Lucky?" I repeat cynically. "And Mrs Hudson's our landlady, not our housekeeper." I try and fail to keep a straight face.

John laughs weakly. "Yes. Lucky. Don't even try to pretend you did this on purpose."

I shrug. "So," Abigail repeats sternly. "What's happened to the two of you to bring you all the way out from Baker Street looking like you've been sleeping on the streets for three days?"

So John explains right from the beginning; from Perry and Carter and the bookcase right down to parking the van and needing to contact Mycroft. Of the two of us, he's the storyteller, so I sit back and listen; before long I've closed my eyes to better listen to the benediction of John's voice.

"Are you all right, Sherlock?"

I let my eyes flick open again. It's strange, but I'm tired again, and all my limbs feel heavy and sore from last night in the alley. "I'm fine," I sigh anyway. I shouldn't love it so much when John worries about me. "We need to -"

John almost spills tea all over himself as the doorbell rings; Abigail clutches her nightdress tighter around her body and tuts irritatedly. "Who's calling at this time of night?" she says indignantly, getting up.

"It'll be the police," I tell her. "I hardly need to remind you that you haven't seen us."

She tuts again and gets up. "Don't you worry, love. You two go into the bedroom and strip the bed. I'll be in in a moment with some clean sheets for you. I'm coming!" she screeches towards the door.

"Sorry, what?" John asks, standing up too.

"Well, my bed's a double, and the spare's only a single. You two deserve a good night's rest. Off you go."

For a moment he looks like he's going to argue. I really hope he doesn't. Sleeping in a proper bed, with John, seems beyond a dream. Then he smiles gratefully. "Thank you so much, Abigail."

"Yes, yes," she tuts. "Now go on, go!"

So we do; she trots off to the front door and I hover, catching her indignant it's very late, officer, I was almost in bed and Carter's dry growl. Then John grabs my arm and drags me towards the bedroom. My heart sort of flutters, like an excited child bouncing on the balls of their feet.

After a few moments she totters back into the bedroom, laughing gently. "Policemen are not what they used to be," she laments. I raise an eyebrow coolly. She's clutching a set of fresh linen, a pair of grey cotton pants and black pyjama trousers. "You two are going to shower before you sleep in that bed," she instructs. "And I'll wash your clothes, so you sleep in these - they're a bit old, but they'll hold up. That suit and your coat will need to be hand-washed and pressed, dear -"

"I'll do it, Abigail, don't worry," John cuts in.

I stare at him indignantly. "I can wash my own clothes, you know."

He snorts. "I'll do it," he repeats. "You have the first shower, and I'll write the email to Mycroft and start washing, and then you can finish that and use the phone while I'm in the shower."

Well, I have to admit that makes sense. John's more likely to be polite in an email - and, to be honest, would probably do a better job of my suit - than me, whereas my voice is probably necessary to kick Mycroft into action, not least because I know John calls Mycroft all the time since I came back to ask for advice on how to treat me, whereas the last time I asked for his help was almost three years ago, so he'll know it's serious if I do it. And a shower sounds absolutely incredible right now. "Okay. Thank you."

Abigail scrunches her face up at me in an expression that quite clearly says, you two are adorable. I return her smile in as much of a long-suffering, yes-that's-my-boyfriend manner as I can.

John rolls his eyes and follows me into the bathroom; to my dismay, the laundry is linked to the bathroom by a doorway with no door. "Right," John says briskly. "Trousers, jacket and coat in one pile, shirt, pants and socks in the other." He doesn't say strip, but the demand sort of hangs in the air anyway, making it entirely impossible for me to obey the unspoken order without embarrassing myself.

When he's gone, I get out of my clothes shyly, making sure there's no way he could walk past the doorway and see me. I'm not usually self-conscious about my body, but then, I've never shown it to anyone who's caused any kind of reaction in it before.

He comes back into the room when I'm in the shower, the half-frosted door firmly shut behind me, steam billowing onto the glass, to pick up the two piles of clothing. I jump and automatically move to cover myself, but he pointedly doesn't look in my direction.

Then we've got a problem. The shower glass is frosted from about my chest downwards, but trying not to think about the fact that if John would only look up, he'd see me naked and staring at him, is like the whole don't think about elephants routine, which really doesn't help the increasingly desperate situation downstairs, as it were.

Fuck. I slide down until I'm sitting in a foetal position in the shower, with my head on my knees and my erection throbbing insistently between my legs. I stifle a groan - why does this have to happen now?

John hears the noise anyway. "Sherlock? You okay?"

My cock jumps at the sound of his voice; I bite my lip until I taste blood to stop myself from making any kind of noise. "Sherlock?"

"I'm fine," I manage, even though I'm not. I've never needed him to know as badly as I do now, but how can I tell him and still expect him to share a bed with me tonight?

That thought doesn't help either. This throbbing, twitching problem between my thighs isn't going anywhere on its own. The warmth of the shower is so comforting and inviting - but there's no way I'll be able to keep quiet if I get rid of it that way, and besides, I can't just masturbate in Mrs Hudson's eighty year-old sister's shower with John in the same room.

Ohh, fuck. My head hits the wall of the shower - that thought somehow propelled my hand to wrap around my erection without say-so from my brain, and the contact, the friction, the pressure, starts to eat away very quickly at my self-control.

No. With a sigh, I force myself to stand up and turn the water to cold.

A while later, after we've emailed and phoned Mycroft - using rather more instances of 'please' and 'sorry' than I would have on my own - eaten, at Abigail's insitence, and consumed about a million cups of tea, all while studiously occupying my mind on what needs to be done rather than the fact that John and I are both dressed only in one loose-fitting item of someone else's clothing, we collapse into bed.

I find it strange how tired I am again, but I think suddenly that if I could always sleep like this, beside John, then I could maybe get used to sleeping every night.

He lies on his back, so I arrange myself on my side for the best view of him. He's bound to fall asleep faster than I will, and then he won't notice me staring; he looks so beautiful when he's asleep.

"Well," I say once we're settled and John reaches up for the lightswitch. "It's good to know there are still people out there prepared to believe the best of people instead of always assuming the worst."

"Mmn," John agrees. "Even if they are all eighty years old. I still can't get over the fact that she's Mrs Hudson's sister. I mean, of all the houses in Surrey."

I murmur acquiescence; I have to agree that it's astronomically lucky. I'm perhaps luckier now than I've ever been; maybe another set of circumstances would see me less grateful to be clean and comfortable, but no matter the circumstance, I'll always feel this lucky to be in bed with John. Last night in the alley we'd been wrapped around each other, but somehow this feels more intimate, between the sheets together, warm and clean and at least half-naked.

"John," I can't stop myself from murmuring. "I'm really glad you're here with me."

His hand reaches out until it finds my shoulder under the covers, then trails calloused fingers down my arm. I shiver and bite my lip; I was never the hair-trigger type - well, I was never any kind of type before John, but now I find I have to fight to stop myself from responding to his touch.

His fingers find my hand and he slips his palm into it, soft and warm. "Me too, Sherlock," he says quietly. "Me too."