Welcome, all. I am glad you are here. Please, enjoy.
All prompts will be at the end of the stories. This story takes place during the events of "The Noble Bachelor."
Mrs. Hudson crossed her arms. "Mr. Holmes, you are requesting an elegant dinner fit for a Lord, make it for five people, and complete the whole project within four hours?"
"Yes, thank you," he replied, and turned to leave.
"Mr. Holmes!"
"Utilize your best judgment," he called over his shoulder, then paused and turned.
Mrs. Hudson breathed a sigh of relief; surely the detective had come to his senses and was going to apologize for his ridiculous demands.
"Oh, and Mrs. Hudson, do look out for the doctor, won't you?" he asked softly. "He's sorely depressed by his current immobility and needs some distraction. I'm planning to bring the denouement of this case to him so he may take part, thus the visitors I am expecting, but I'm afraid it might not be enough. So do keep an eye, won't you?"
He bounded off without waiting for an answer, and suddenly Mrs. Hudson couldn't quite bring herself to be angry with him.
Neither was she about to make his ridiculous dinner, however. Checking on the doctor, though, that she could do. After making arrangements for the dinner to be brought in and making a note to add the receipt to Sherlock Holmes' rent, she quietly stepped up.
The doctor was sitting and brooding darkly, a look of slight pain and discontent on his face and his wounded leg still propped by the fire where it had been all day. The poor man had come down from his room late that morning, nearly falling down the stairs from the pain he was in. Sherlock Holmes had come to his aid without comment, practically carrying him to the living room.
She hadn't said anything, either, though it had worried her immensely. She and Sherlock Holmes had both walked the thin line between being helpful and grating all morning, and though John Watson was a generous man he was understandably increasingly agitated.
She entered the living room like normal, which is to say she had a tea tray in hand to justify her snooping. Like normal the doctor went to rise in order to greet her, his face nearly immediately turning into a shock of pain.
"Damn!" he hissed as he collapsed back down, then his eyes went wide. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Hudson. I'm sorry, I…" he trailed off, putting his head in his hands.
She huffed, pouring him a cup of tea and walking over to him, waiting until he'd finished feeling sorry for himself and then pressing the cup into his hands. "Don't you worry, dear, I've heard much worse from men who had far less of a reason."
"Thank you, Mrs. Hudson," he murmured.
"I'll miss you around here, you know," she said. "So will he, though I doubt he'll say it."
"Did you know he told her not to marry me?" Watson murmured darkly.
"What?" Mrs. Hudson exclaimed. "That scoundrel! Why I ought to…"
"No! Not him, Mrs. Hudson!" Watson exclaimed. "Not Holmes. I apologize, my mind was elsewhere. It was Mr. Forrester."
"He did?" Mrs. Hudson asked, aghast.
Watson nodded, the look on his face somehow more pained than when he'd tried to rise. "She considers them family, you know," he murmured. "She calls Mrs. Forrester 'mother,' and Mr. Forrester and the rest of the family are so fond of her. Well, she asked him for his honest opinion, and he gave it. He told her that marriage is for better or worse, in sickness and in health, but that she didn't have to sign up for worse and for sickness from the outset, that she should think about the extra responsibility she'll need to take on during days like today."
"Oh my," Mrs. Hudson murmured.
"She told me she did consider it, and that she loves me, but I can't put it out of mind," Watson murmured. "And now the wedding is only weeks away and here I am completely stagnant like some layabout completely undeserving of her."
"Doctor," Mrs. Hudson said gently, "Mr. Forrester's reluctance to endorse you completely was certainly not grounded in malice. After all, you must go into marriage with both eyes open."
"I suppose so," Watson sighed.
"And you, sir, are not some undeserving layabout; if that were so you'd be no tenant of mine. You may insult yourself, sir, but don't you dare insult me!"
Despite her harsh words, Watson smiled very softly. "Of course, Mrs. Hudson," he said. "I apologize."
"As well you should," she replied haughtily, and she left him with a slight grin on his face and plenty of hot tea in his cup.
When the food began to arrive she said nothing, only left him to ponder what it meant; that man loved a good mystery almost more than the detective did and it would be good for him to have something to wonder about. When Mr. Holmes arrived home she informed him she had, indeed, used her best judgment, and informed him of how much it would cost. To her surprise he simply smiled and thanked her and bounded up the stairs like he'd known all along what course she would take. The cheek of him!
The case must have ended well, she decided, because once the visitors left Sherlock Holmes played a happy tune on his violin. She knew he was playing mostly for the doctor, but his tune wouldn't have been as light if things had turned sour with his investigation.
The doctor seemed in better spirits the next day as well, though he was still in quite a bit of pain. When she brought him a letter from Mr. Forrester, however, stating how happy he was Mary would soon be wed to such an upstanding man such as him and praising all the characteristics he admired about him, Watson became happier than she'd seen him in some days. If he ever wondered about it, he never did ask why the letter arrived without any postage, and after the thorough scolding she'd given him, Mrs. Hudson doubted that Mr. Forrester would ever tell him.
For the prompt from cjnwriter: Mrs. Hudson rises to the occasion.
I adore the conversation between Watson and Mrs. Hudson in the Clive Merrison Holmes radio adaptation of Noble Bachelor; that inspiration definitely showed up here :)