Chapter 9: London's Calling

"I need to go back to London."

Nobody could have been happier than the ninth Earl of Stockport upon hearing those words spilling from Sherlock Holmes' lips. Although he was quite sure that the "high-functioning sociopath" was a good guy, he just couldn't stand the arrogant bastard, and he was ecstatic at the prospect of having the house to himself, again.

That wasn't to say that he wouldn't take the man in again if Violet asked him to. She'd been furtive about asking him in the first place, anticipating a solid refusal when she should have known that she'd but needed to say the word.

But though he liked Violet and would do anything for her, it was the fact that Sherlock had accepted her as family without a second thought that prevented Oliver from throwing him out.

The Earl knew that after her mother died, there'd been no-one that Violet could claim as family. Her father was 'in absentia'; she'd had no uncles or aunts or cousins to call upon and her mother's parents; the 'honourable' Lord and Lady Sherringford had refused to acknowledge her existence until a year after she'd been taken into care. And even then they couldn't stand the sight of her.

He first met her when she'd run away from the boarding school that the Sherringfords had sent her to and hacked into his account via a computer in a public library.

He was a Dreadnaught – the best of the best – and no-one should have been able to do that to him. He'd tracked her down and found her on a mate's scummy sofa, alone, without family or connection to the world. Her mother was dead, and her father – well…

He never had any intention of becoming a father figure – he wasn't responsible or boring enough to be anyone's father. At first, he'd just wanted to be a friend. He had so few himself, that he knew precisely how precious they were. Now, however, he wanted more but he dared not ask for it; he was too old, too jaded and just a bit too juvenile for her. Yet it hadn't taken long for him to realise that he'd follow Violet Sherringford anywhere – he'd follow her through the gates of Hell, if need be.

Now, she'd eagerly decided to arrange a trip to London. And so London was where they would go.

…

It didn't take a genius to work out that the Earl of Stockport was not a stingy man, Sherlock reflected for the eighteenth time since he'd gotten into the chauffeur-driven Mercedes, three arduously monotonous hours ago.

That was another thing he hated about Manchester; it was far too far from London – from anywhere interesting. Here he was, Sherlock Holmes, reduced to deducing Reg the driver in between bouts of deducing the owners of the cars around them. God help them if they got into a traffic jam.

He supposed that he rather should work out a way of explaining things to John. The idea of their reunion brought a swirl of conflicting certainties. The first, that he couldn't wait to see John, was most prominent. He wanted to tell him about all of his adventures around the globe – no measly sight-seeing for him, no. He wanted to explain why he faked his death, why he made John, Mrs Hudson and the others – if there were others – hurt.

He would never be an expert on the social niceties that occupied everybody else's waking thoughts, but even he was sure that making your best friend watch you 'commit suicide' was "a bit not good".

He didn't exactly relish the idea of being punched in the face by the army doctor.

It was another interminable three hours before he recognised his old stomping grounds trailing, little bit by little bit, past his window, and he still hadn't worked out quite what he was going to say. And when the car pulled up outside 'Speedy's Café', he supposed that he may very well just have to wing it – which wasn't a comforting thought, but then, since when did Sherlock Holmes ever need comforting? (Don't answer that).

So, he muttered a cursory thanks to Reg the driver, and got out of the car. He fished the key to his flat out of his pocket and strode up the steps to the front door of 221b. The gleaming, black front door still held all of its old scars – marks of his adventures and misadventures, and there was no sign that the locks had been changed.

In his peripheral, Sherlock could see a curtain twitch and he felt the corners of his mouth lift. Even if John had left Baker Street, Mrs Hudson hadn't. He remembered once exclaiming: "Mrs Hudson leave Baker Street? England would fall" and he remembered meaning it. She was one of the few people he trusted; she wasn't quite as scatty, naïve or as stupid as she appeared.

So Sherlock Holmes was not completely surprised when she opened the door, smiled and said fondly: "I did wonder when you were going to stop all this nonsense about being dead." He merely gave a mild frown and asked how she'd known.

She ushered him inside and up into the flat he'd once rented with John, exclaiming about the frosty wind and what it did to her hip. He could tell from the way she wasn't looking at him, and the way she kept rambling on, that she'd been instructed not to tell him how she'd known. That meant that someone had told her. That was alright, though; he could wait.

"Now, you sit down, Sherlock, love. And I'll get us a nice cup of tea-"

"Coffee, please, Mrs Hudson." He interjected.

"Black, two sugars, yes dear, I remember. You know, I'll only be doing this the once. I'm your-"

"Landlady, not housekeeper, yes, I know." Sherlock smiled slightly, looking around the sitting room.

Almost everything was as he'd left it. 'Jack' the skull was still on the mantelpiece; he'd refused to call it 'Skeletor', as John had because he'd surmised that the man it came from was more likely to have been called 'Jack'. The jack-knife still pinned his final demands and interview requests to the mantelpiece. The yellow smiley-face with the bullet holes were still up on the wall. Even the slipper where he'd hid his secret stash of cigarettes was in place by the fireplace.

Everything had been kept, though none of it had been used, judging by the thin skin of dust that coated everything. Intriguing.

Even his chair was coated in minute flecks of grey. And John's…

It had been sat in within the last 12 hours, from what he could deduce. His eyes traversed the room and landed at the desk where John often wrote his blog and saw that a laptop (15 inches – obsolete model – made within the last year – light scratches on the side) sat there, in plain, unashamed view.

Moira had done her job, then. John knew – and if he'd posted the news, however obliquely, to his blog (Sherlock checked his phone; John had, indeed posted it), then others knew that Sherlock Holmes was back in London.

It was precisely what he needed to draw out the mind behind Emily Strange's assassination. He knew this mind. He knew this mind very well. He ought to; he'd been acquainted with it for over two years.

The tinkling of china brought his mind away from the tantalising prospect of eradicating the last traces of Jim from the world and back to Mrs Hudson's coffee.

"I take it you've noticed that John came back, last night. He seemed very pleased about something. Did you say something to him?" Mrs Hudson enquired, her eyes dancing (she really needed to cut down a little on those herbal soothers but perhaps now wasn't the time to suggest it).

"No, Mrs Hudson. I asked one of my associates to do the honour." Sherlock murmured, taking up his coffee, still standing "Speaking of which, two of them will be turning up, later today."

"What time?"

"Around five o'clock, I'd imagine."

"Oh, well, that'll be nice. Having a full house after all this time…" Mrs Hudson said brightly, though the smile on her face fell a little from her eyes. "Everyone was terribly upset, you know, when they thought you'd died. Especially John. I hope you plan on apologising to him-"

"What about you?" Sherlock asked sharply, his grey eyes shrewd as he looked over his landlady.

"Me?"

"Yes, you. You said that you knew that I wasn't dead – how did you know? Well, you didn't know, did you? Someone told you – not outright, maybe – so you inferred it. It wouldn't have been Mycroft-"

"Yes, well, your brother has been very good about the whole thing. He's been paying your rent for the past two years-" Mrs Hudson rambled.

"Please don't change the subject, Mrs Hudson-"

"Someone's been asking about the availability of the flat, Sherlock. Every month, on the sixteenth, for the past year."

"Did they give you a name?"

"No. I mean, I was a bit silly, at first; I just said: "No, the flat's not for rent, I'm afraid." And they just thanked me and hanged up. The second time, I asked them their name and they just said that it didn't matter; they were just a curious about this flat.

"You don't know what it's been like." Mrs Hudson said softly, "For the first week, we couldn't move for reporters. The week after that, it was the curiosity seekers – the tourists, wanting to take photographs of where the late Sherlock Holmes: 'conman extraordinaire' lived." She raked him with an admonishing glance that would have done his mother, Violet Rutherford-Holmes, proud.

"I had to." Sherlock said simply, "It wasn't safe for me to remain on the radar." At this Mrs Hudson gave a wan, if knowing smile. It seemed Mycroft had known and told Mrs Hudson when she asked him about the phone calls (because of course that's what she'd do), impressing on her the importance of keeping the whole thing secret.

Just then, the front door opened with a crash and a muffled curse. Mrs Hudson flinched, but Sherlock had been expecting this. Mrs Hudson shot out of her chair (surprisingly sprightly for an old lady with a bad hip) and went to warn John.

"Perhaps it's best if you watch some TV for an hour or so" Sherlock suggested, his voice low, his face an expressionless mask. Mrs Hudson gave a slight nod, an apprehensive smile and hurried out of the door while Sherlock turned to look out of the window and began sipping his coffee.

"Mrs H?" the intruder's bemused tones carried up the stairs, presumably wondering why the landlady was in his flat. "Upstairs." She murmured, making Sherlock roll his eyes. The performer in him didn't want his former flatmate to have warning. He wanted to surprise him. Then again, perhaps it was better this way, he reflected as footsteps, sure and slow, sounded on the stairs and on the threshold.

"Bloody hell."

Sherlock's mouth twitched in a barely suppressed grin. "Hello, John."

Author's Note: Ok, I know this is a bit late. In fact, I found it really hard to write because I wanted to give 'Dracula' a little bit of limelight after last chapter's revelation, yet I also wanted to get something done (that is, I wanted Sherlock back in 221b).

Anyway, here's hoping I've done an ok job (I hope Mrs Hudson isn't too much of a dotty old lady, because I think her character is so much more knowing and interesting than that, in a Joan Hickson Miss Marple kind of way.)

Ah well, here's the beginning of the Sherlock and John reunion that we've all been waiting for, I hope it will meet your expectations. I do have to say, though, that I might be a few days in knocking that out, as I have a 2000 word poetry essay on T. S. Eliot that I've been heinously neglecting, so apologies about that.

The Soundtrack to this one is: Letter between a Little Boy and Himself as an Adult by Abney Park-another band that I love dearly and doesn't get nearly enough coverage. }-)

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