BBC Sherlock - Mrs Hudson

In the time Doctor John Watson had spent with Sherlock Holmes he had learned many of the man's strange little idiosyncrasies.

The habit of sticking the post to the mantelpiece with a knife he discovered on the very first day. The emergency pack of cigarettes concealed in a small Persian slipper behind a stack of books took a while longer (It was unopened; much to Sherlock's pride the detective was doing remarkably well with quitting smoking.) The fact that, when Sherlock has exhausted himself with a case, his sleep is silent but on the rare occasions when he sleeps just for the sake of it he snores like a particularly troublesome drain unblocking took still longer to discover.

John had thought that he had found out all that there was to know about the detective in the near two years since he had first moved in with Sherlock. Although, he willingly admitted with a great deal of amusement, today had most definitely proved him wrong.

He had learnt three things today. One- You should never EVER let Sherlock have candyfloss. Two- If, through unforeseen circumstances, he has ingested some by himself then for the love of God tie him to something to limit his movements for otherwise he will wreak pure and utter havoc for as long as the e-numbers last. Three- He owns virtually no summer clothing, not particularly helpful in the middle of a London heat-wave . . .

The first two points were discovered as the result of a case that took John, Sherlock and Lestrade to a travelling circus and fair on the trail of a contortionist murderer. Upon apprehending the individual concerned, although only after a remarkably undignified, Monty-Pythonesque chase through the big top of the circus during a performance which resulted in Lestrade tripping over a clown's oversized feet and John nearly knocking out the Ringmaster, they decided that they had earned a break.

Although Sherlock would never admit it he LOVED places like this. His eyes flittered about the carnival eagerly. It appealed to the deeply-seated dramatic flair that he always denied possessing. It was all showmanship, distraction, illusion, sleight-of-hand, deception and he had learnt much from various circus acts over the years.

John's love of the carnival was far simpler. It brought back childhood memories of days out with his parents and, if he was truly honest, he was seriously trying to figure out if he was too big for the helter skelter. For the sake of nostalgia as he was passing a stall he quickly ducked away from Sherlock and brought a bag of candy floss.

"Good grief, how old are you?" Sherlock gently mocked as John returned.

"Shut up. You dragged me out of bed at five o clock three times this week. I've earned some gratuitous sugar consumption." John said, tearing open the bag and shoving some in his mouth. It tasted shit, like sugary wire wool, it always did but still it brought back happy memories and he smiled at the bag as he chewed. Standing in the middle of a fair, on a beautiful sunny day, a completed case behind them, life doesn't get much better than that.

Lestrade ambled up, looking slightly dishevelled and covered in greasepaint. "Bloody ruddy arsing sodding clowns!" He growled. "Next time a case looks like it's going anywhere near a circus, tell me. And then I'll run away and hide . . ."

"C'mon Lestrade." John said, happily. "We still got him, cheer up. Have some candyfloss."

Lestrade looked at the bag and, despite himself, his mouth twisted into a wry grin. "How old are you exactly?"

John tried to ignore Sherlock's snicker. "Don't judge me, it's nice."

"No it's not, circus food is never nice. You eat it 'cos it's there and 'cos it makes you go nuts on sugar." Nevertheless the detective retrieved a clump of it and stuck it in his mouth.

"So why are you eating it then?" John felt forced to ask.

"'Cos I'm not allowed to drink on duty and I need SOMETHING after that debacle." Lestrade explained, his voice muffled by the candyfloss. "Never before have I had a mime imitating me whilst I am attempting to read a suspect his rights . . ."

During this exchange Sherlock too had received a small amount of the pink fluff on his fingers and was looking at it curiously.

John looked sideways at him. " . . . Sherlock, have you ever had candy floss before?"

"No, I must admit I haven't." The detective looked at it quizzically for a few moments more before putting it in his mouth and chewing. Then he paused and raised his eyebrows at the men staring at him. "I know I'm not chewing with my mouth open, nor do I have anything on my face so will you please desist from staring. Me simply eating something should not warrant such close scrutiny."

"I have never ever seen you eat anything." Lestrade said.

"Don't be daft, of course you-"

"Nope, I've seen you drink tea and that's it. Anderson's lost the bet, he thought you survived purely by ingesting tea, coffee and the blood of the innocent so he owes me twenty quid. Oh and Sally thought you ate the stuff you nicked from the morgue to experiment on so she owes me . . . Thirty. Okay, looks like I'm doing better today than I thought."

Sherlock took another clump and stared at Lestrade. "Your team believes me to be cannibalistic? I have now officially lost what little respect I had for them in the first place." He shoved the pink fluff in his mouth and chewed eagerly, seemingly enjoying the chemically, sugary taste. "No logic in eating human flesh, it is remarkably low in nutritional goodness, not to mention rather chewy."

Lestrade gave him a nervous look.

"Or so I have been told." Sherlock added, smirking at the discomfited policeman. He swallowed and licked the remnants of sugar from his lips, pleasantly surprised at how much he liked the taste.

"You can generally get him to eat pizza." John advised, angling the bag towards Sherlock for him to take another handful. The detective immediately did so and grabbed a larger handful, a slight smile becoming evident on his face as he ingested more of the pink sweetness.

"Pizza?" Lestrade genuinely couldn't imagine Sherlock eating anything, so the mental image of Sherlock with a Dominoes carton seemed extremely surreal.

Sherlock licked the sugar from his fingers and eyed the bag of candyfloss, meaningfully.

"Seriously? He eats pizza? Like a normal person?"

"Yeah, it's one of the few things he'll eat without thought, that and toasted sandwiches, bizarrely enou- Oi!" This last was directed at the subject of his and Lestrade's discussion who had promptly snatched the bag from John's hands and run off, cackling in a highly disturbing manner.

There was a brief pause as they watched Sherlock dart away, then John turned to Lestrade with raised eyebrows. "Apparently he likes candyfloss too."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Good grief, where has he gone?" John complained, looking around him.

Lestrade and he had been wandering around for about twenty minutes now, searching for Sherlock.

"This is going to turn out like the time he drank a six-pack of Red Bull in one go, I just know it." Lestrade said, despairing.

"What?!"

"Before your time. He went absolutely nuts and I had to handcuff him to the chair in my office to keep him still. Then he kept spinning the damn thing round really fast so we had to handcuff the chair to the desk as well. After that he sort of crashed and fell asleep for about thirteen hours and one of the Sergeants and I had to wheel him back to his flat still cuffed to the chair."

"Bloody hell." John said, fighting the urge to laugh at the mental image of Lestrade pushing an unconscious Sherlock along London's streets in an office chair. He scanned his surroundings. "Okay, I have officially no idea where he's gone."

"Where who's gone?"

They turned around to find Sherlock standing behind them, cuddling an enormous toy panda and smiling at them in a slightly manic manner.

"About time you showed up and  . . . hang on, where'd you get the panda from?" Lestrade asked.

"They chucked me off the dodgems for doing unlawful manoeuvres, they wouldn't let me on the Hamster Wheel because apparently I was too tall so I went and won this at the shooting range." Sherlock said happily, his dark hair standing up at odd angles and his words coming a little bit too fast. "All that practice on the wall in 221b helped after all."

"I didn't hear that . . ." Lestrade sighed, rubbing his eyes.

"YOU should have had more candyfloss, Mr. Grumpy." Sherlock berated him, tapping the detective smartly on the nose with a long thin finger.

John bit his lip in an attempt to stop himself from laughing at the gobsmacked expression on Lestrade's face at this uncharacteristic behaviour of Sherlock's. "Well I would have done if someone hadn't nicked the whole bloody bag!" The policeman felt compelled to point out.

Sherlock paused for a minute, thinking, then he held out the toy. "Would you like a panda instead?"

" . . . No thanks."

"Good." Sherlock said, smiling smugly and hugging the cuddly toy tight to him again.

John spent the entire duration of the journey back to Baker Street grinning widely at the sight of the tall, dapper detective sat next to him on the train, his chin balanced on the top of the panda's head, chattering happily to John about random deductions he was making about the fellow passengers.

When they eventually reached the familiar doorway of 221b it was to find The Baker Street Irregulars sat on the doorstep outside, eating ice-cream cones. They had been playing backing music in a concert earlier today and as such had a bundle of instrument cases propped carefully against the wall beside them.

"Hey Uncle Sherlock." Ophelia grinned up at him. Then her eyebrows quirked upwards. "Why are you all wet?"

"Just a slight misunderstanding, nothing to worry about." Sherlock said, pushing his damp hair back off his face.

"He pissed off a clown with a bucket of water." John explained. "I'm never taking him to a circus again."

"His reaction was completely disproportionate."

"You loudly deduced how he was using his clown make-up to hide Herpes marks on his face!"

"As I said, disproportionate."

"Hang on, hang on . . ." Ophelia said, staring at her uncle. "Glassy eyes, manic expression and general air of insanity as well as the random acquisition of a cuddly toy panda and I know you're still off the cocaine. . . Uncle Sherlock, have you been eating lots of sugar?"

Sherlock hid behind the panda. "No . . . ?"

Ophelia's eyes slid to John.

"He nicked my bloody candy floss." John grumbled.

The Irregulars burst out laughing as Sherlock peeked sheepishly over the top of the panda's head at his flatmate.

"Alright," John sighed. "Let's get you in and get you out of those wet clothes. And I'm going to put some shorts on, it's boiling here."

Summer had come unseasonably early this year. The case had taken them to the North Norfolk coast and the cool sea-breeze had been delightfully refreshing but back here in the heart of London there was no such respite and the air felt powdery thick and as hot as snot. Although to be fair, the memories on the unusually severe winter of a few months previously were still fresh and so complaints were minimal as they were still appreciating the sunshine.

When the doctor emerged from his room a few minutes later, clad in a T-Shirt and stone-coloured Bermuda shorts, it was to hear a great crashing and banging coming from Sherlock's own bedroom.

He knocked on the door. "You alright? It sounds like you're doing ship-building in there."

Sherlock's door opened and John was greeted to the sight of Sherlock standing there in his dressing gown, looking mildly puzzled. "My summer clothes have gone."

John nearly felt compelled to point out that no one would think Sherlock had ever owned summer clothing in the first place. Hell, he wore his suits so often that even seeing the detective in jeans was practically a calendar event. "When did you last see them?"

Sherlock padded back into his room, John tagging behind, as he began rifling through his drawers, tugging stuff out. "I last saw them a few months ago when I was looking for material on which to test the relative combustibility of different fabrics." Then he paused and looked up, thick eyebrows raising as something dawned on him. "Ah . . ."

"You burned all of your summer gear, didn't you?"

Sherlock nodded, the candyfloss removing his natural reticence and even letting him look a mite embarrassed at John's observation.

John rolled his eyes. "Hang on." He disappeared and returned with a pair of loose, knee-length khaki shorts and a T-Shirt. "Give these a go."

John joined the teenagers in the kitchen where they were fixing a jug of iced water, a glass of which John gratefully accepted.

A minute later Sherlock ambled through and everyone burst out laughing.

He looked completely different to the suave, collected detective they were used to. His pale, skinny legs stuck out from the baggy shorts, his large feet and faintly prehensile toes tapping out a beat on the floorboards. He had forgone John's T-Shirt and was instead wearing one of his own white shirts with the top few buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up. His hair scruffy, shirt rumpled and his face wearing a rueful expression at the departure from his usual look, made him virtually unrecognisable from the neatly-pressed figure they knew so well.

"Good God Uncle Sherlock, you look about my age!" Ophelia giggled, covering her mouth with her hand.

"It does work in a strange way though." Squid said, carefully propping his keyboard up by the door, next to Ophelia and Banjo's guitar cases.

"What was wrong with the T-Shirt?" John asked.

"Too tight in the shoulders." Sherlock said, draining a glass of water with a relieved gasp.

They had opened the windows of 221B as wide as they could go, and a slight breeze was just starting to creep in. Gladstone and Dante, ignoring their efforts to remove the heat, were contentedly dozing in a bar of sunlight. Nevertheless, despite their endeavours, the flat was still uncomfortably warm and as a result everyone had kicked their shoes off and were only wearing enough clothing necessary for the state of modesty.

They heard the front door open and click quietly shut below.

"That must be Mrs Hudson." Ophelia guessed.

"Her flat must be even hotter than ours, she's only got a few little windows and they won't get much air in." John realised.

Sherlock jogged to the stairs and leaned over the banister. "MRS HUDSON!" He bellowed. "Do you want to come up? It's much cooler up here."

There was a small pause and then they heard their landlady's shuffling footfalls on the stairs. A moment later her head peeked hesitantly round the door. "I'm not disturbing anything, am I?"

"Only Uncle Sherlock high on sugar." Ophelia grinned, toying with Sherlock's violin and tuning it. "Lovely dress by the way, Mrs Hudson."

Mrs Hudson was wearing a dress of light lavender linen. "Thank you my dear, well I was meant to be going out but turns out now I'm not so I got dressed up for nothing." The old lady said, slightly glumly.

"Oh? Where were you going?" Ophelia played a gentle, inquisitive trill.

"And why was it cancelled?" Joey asked, handing her a drink.

"Well, Mrs Forsyth and I were meant to be going out for an evening of dinner and dancing but she got a call just a moment ago to say that her poor little nephew's been taken ever so ill, bless his little cotton socks, and her daughter needs her to baby-sit her other little girl whilst she takes the poor lad to the hospital. Oooh, you do look ever so dashing in your shorts by the way, Sherlock. You too doctor, so she had to cancel on me." Mrs Hudson gave a small sad sigh. "I honestly don't mind, she couldn't have known the poor little mite would be taken sick but that doesn't change the fact that my birthday plans have been-"

"BIRTHDAY?!" Everyone in the room immediately yelled.

"You didn't tell us it was your birthday." John said, sounding faintly injured.

"Yeah, we'd have sorted something out too if we'd known." Ophelia said. "Why didn't you tell us?"

The lady shifted slightly under everyone's scrutiny. "Well, I didn't want to impose . . . I am only your landlady after all . . ." She said, embarrassed.

"Only our landlady!" Sherlock protested. "Mrs Hudson, if you were ONLY our landlady doubtless we would have been evicted and most probably arrested a long time before now!"

"We're not having you sat on your own downstairs on your birthday." John said, firmly.

"Hell no!" Banjo interjected. "I mean, that's just low."

"Seriously, how depressing would that be?" Joey pointed out.

Sherlock was pacing, muttering to himself, searching through the dark recesses of his brain hard-drive for all his information on birthdays. He KNEW he'd stored it away somewhere but he'd only rarely had cause to use it. "Birthdays, birthdays . . . Cards, presents, dinner, dancing, food . . ." Then he stopped and his eyes widened. " . . . CAKE!"

"Do you even have a birthday cake?" Joey asked.

Mrs Hudson shook her head.

Ophelia's hand lashed out to point at her uncle and his flatmate. "Permission to borrow your kitchen?"

"Permission granted." Sherlock said.

"What he said." John said.

The Irregulars immediately charged into the kitchen, nearly tripping over each other as they went.

"Hang on!" Sherlock darted after them. "SQUID, DON'T TOUCH THAT IT'S POISONED!"

"I swear he's in ever such a funny mood today." Mrs Hudson noticed, watching Sherlock's disappearing back.

"Yeah. For future reference, he should at all costs be kept away from candyfloss . . ."

There was a crash from the kitchen and then a rather worrying cry of 'quick, it's escaping!' from Banjo.

Sherlock suddenly appeared, wearing oven gloves and holding something clutched in his hands. He darted out of the room and up the stairs to his bedroom.

John and Mrs Hudson looked at each other. "I don't know about you . . ." John said.

"But I really don't want to know."

"Exactly."

Sherlock reappeared, wiping his forehead in relief. "It's fine. It's back in its tank and I've put a book on top so it can't get out again." Then he froze. "Presents!" And hurtled back out of the room and up the stairs again.

"No, the recipe says you've got to soften the butter in the microwave first before you add the sugar." They heard Squid say from the kitchen.

"Erm . . . There's a brain in there." Banjo noted, and John was faintly disturbed at the lack of alarm displayed by the young man upon his discovery.

"Is it in a sealed container?" Ophelia asked.

"Yeah, an air-tight specimen jar."

"Then just pop it in the fridge for now."

There was some shuffling, the sound of the fridge door and then the whirrrrrrr-ding! of the microwave.

Mrs Hudson didn't seem especially bothered either; she only said "Oh, I do hope he's going to disinfect the fridge when he's done."

John felt like pointing out that it would probably be HIM disinfecting the fridge after all but chose not to.

Sherlock came thundering back down the stairs, bearing an enormous parcel tied in newspaper. "Sorry, I didn't have anything else to wrap it in."

Mrs Hudson just took the huge parcel with a bemused yet happy smile. "Very kind of you Sherlock, is it alright if I open it now?"

". . . I don't know, you'll have to ask someone else. I'm not very good with birthday etiquette." He admitted sheepishly.

"It's fine." John reassured both of them. "Go on Mrs Hudson."

Sherlock it turned out, in a fit of inspired altruism, had decided to give the panda he had won that morning to Mrs Hudson.

She let out a peal of delighted laughter upon discovering what it was. "Oh wonderful!" She enthused. "Never would have expected something like that from you Sherlock."

"I am a man of many mysteries." Sherlock said, bowing dramatically, his theatrical flair being used to full effect this evening. "By the way, Chinese takeaway alright as a birthday dinner?"

"Sounds lovely." Mrs Hudson said, beaming widely as her evening took an unexpected turn for the better.

"Ooh look I've found some glycerine." They heard Banjo say from the kitchen.

"Doesn't matter. The recipe says that you don't nee- BANJO PUT THAT DOWN!"

There was a small explosion and Banjo was propelled out of the kitchen at some velocity, his momentum somehow causing him to flip over the back of John's armchair before landing in an upside down heap on the seat.

Sherlock, Mrs Hudson and John stared, open mouthed, as Ophelia hurried out to check on him. Upon ascertaining that he was alive and only mildly stunned, she gave him a sharp slap up the back of the head. "NITRO-glycerine the label said, you great unholy prat!"

" . . . Hwugh?"

"Right . . ." Sherlock strode forward and hauled the teenager upright. "I'm the only one who's allowed to destroy the kitchen. You are hereby banished from until they're done. "

" . . . Gngh?"

Sherlock held up some money and a Chinese takeaway menu. "The takeaway is the last building on the end of the road when you go right. Just get some stuff that you think everyone would like."

There was a momentary pause, then something occurred to Sherlock.

"You do know which way's right, don't you?"

Banjo thought for a minute, then pointed.

He had a 50:50 chance, and he still got it wrong.

Sherlock pulled an irritated face, then he sighed. "Back in a minute. I'm going with him."

"Gjnfh?"

After Sherlock had dragged Banjo out of the house by the scruff of the neck, the cake-making process proceeded with rather more competence and speed than had previously been in evidence. Soon the mixture was in the oven and the teenagers ambled through, chatting to the birthday girl as they did.

As the conversation steered away from him, John sat back and, for the first time ever, seriously considered their landlady.

He always forgot how small Mrs Hudson was, much smaller even than his own relatively diminutive frame. And how chatty. She was nattering away to the teenagers at quite an impressive rate, her loquacity the common affliction of many elderly people who lived alone. When they got a rare chance to speak to people, they really went for it. John remembered many a time when Sherlock and he had passed her on the way out and she had attempted to begin a conversation before tailing off rather sheepishly as the oblivious detective swept the two men out the door.

Sometimes they didn't even see her. Sometimes they would communicate only through Sherlock bellowing down the stairs to her.

"MRS HUDSON! John and I are off to Dartmoor! Something about a dog, we'll see you in two weeks!"

Or,

"MRS HUDSON! Do you have a fire extinguisher? And can we borrow it? Sort of now?"

Or,

"MRS HUDSON, WHERE THE BLOODY HELL HAS MY SKULL GONE?!"

John also remembered the many times when they would stagger in the door in the dawning hours of the morning, exhausted and disheartened. And there would be shuffling footsteps and a small figure in a flowery dressing gown would appear and, upon ascertaining their moods from the expressions on their faces, hesitantly offer a cup of tea.

On very rare occasions they would even accept and, even if her efforts at distraction felt awkward to begin with, eventually they would begin to feel a tiny bit better. They would go to bed still miserable, but now with stomachs comfortably heavy and warm with tea and biscuits and they slept better than they would have otherwise.

Or then there were the times when they would burst in the door in a flurry of energy and, upon coming to greet them, the poor, bewildered lady would be swept off her feet by an elated Sherlock who would kiss her on the forehead and loudly and gleefully detail the closure of a case.

He thought of the way she would nip and get them odd bits of shopping in an attempt to keep Sherlock from accidently starving both of them to death during a distracting case, the way she would lovingly pick the lint off Sherlock's beautiful coat and helpfully offer John some of her medicinal marijuana on the days when his leg got too bad.

(In a fit of curiosity and agony he had actually tried it once. Sherlock had later returned to find John having a conversation with the smiley face on the wall who was apparently called Derek and had invited John to go paintballing with him the following Tuesday. Sherlock then had a quiet word with Mycroft and Mrs Hudson subsequently got given a new prescription for more effective painkillers.)

Even now their landlady was giving a highly-interested Ophelia a brief explanation on how best to make brownies (dark chocolate cocoa instead of milk), before, in a fit of maternal instinct, attempting to tame Joey's mass of curly hair. The little lion-maned girl just sat there and listened in amusement as Mrs Hudson soon discovered such a feat was impossible.

Sherlock and Banjo returned, laden with bags of food and Sherlock dramatically predicting the contents of the fortune cookies. Banjo still looked even more dopey than usual but he was able to grunt with more eloquence now and smiled and waved at everyone before slumping on a chair.

John watched as Mrs Hudson immediately leapt to her feet to distribute plates before being ordered back into her seat and being forbidden from doing any work in lieu of the occasion.

Yeah, Mrs Hudson deserved a good birthday, he decided.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The cool evening breeze took the harsh edge off the day's heat, curling lazily through the open window into 221B.

They were all slumped around the room, surrounded by takeaway cartons and cake remains. (Despite the initial debacle it turned out to be remarkably edible, although as a precaution John waited five minutes after everybody had eaten theirs with no ill effects before he ate his own. No suspiciously brain-like material turned up in the mixture and it didn't explode so all in all Mrs Hudson's birthday cake was a rousing success.)

Sherlock was slouched low in his armchair, long legs stuck out in front of him, feet resting on Banjo who was curled up dozing in a heap on the floor. He took a sip from his glass of wine and cocked his head to one side, staring at Mrs Hudson.

"So which birthday is this one then? How old are you?" He asked.

There was a wave of protests.

"C'mon Uncle Sherlock. NEVER ask a lady how old she is!" Ophelia objected.

"Besides, you're Sherlock Holmes." John teased. "For shame if you can't figure it out for yourself."

Sherlock rolled his head back and groaned, rubbing his eyes. "You could have said that before I had the wine."

"No, no." Mrs Hudson said, smiling. "I'm curious. How old do you think I am, Sherlock?"

The detective's quicksilver eyes focussed on her and he pouted slightly, considering. "Sixty . . . four?"

She let out a delighted, musical laugh.

Sherlock's eyebrows shot up. "Sixty six?"

Shake of the head.

" . . . Sixty seven?"

"She's 73, Sherlock." John said, smiling.

"She told you." Sherlock accused.

"No I didn't." She said, smugly.

Sherlock gaped, then shook his head. "Then . . . how?"

"I simply applied your methods." John said, smugly. "And being a doctor helps."

Sherlock looked at John, then eventually he smiled and took a sip of wine, mumbling into his glass "My God, I've created a monster . . ."

"To be fair, you don't look 73." Ophelia said, toying with her uncle's violin again.

"Very kind of you dear." Mrs Hudson said, "This has been a lovely evening I must admit. I can't thank you all enough."

"It's not over yet." Sherlock said, in a sing-song voice.

Everyone looked at him, curiously. He was staring at the ceiling, one long-fingered hand conducting invisible music, a slow smile on his face.

"We have managed to almost recreate your original plan for the evening, fine dining etc . . ." Sherlock said, gesturing to the takeaway detritus and plates.

Ophelia's eyes lit up. "I know where this is going, Squid get your keyboard!" She hissed in her friend's ear.

Sherlock's lean frame rose from the chair, the folds in his white shirt glowing amber in the sun set, he smiled down at their landlady. "However, I seem to recall you had other plans for the evening as well as dinner . . ."

John's face split into an irrepressible smile at the look of delight on their landlady's face.

Sherlock held out his hand to Mrs Hudson, his eyes twinkling. "I know I drive you completely insane, I know I make you worried sick, I know I'm rude, distracted and opinionated and I know that this won't make it any of it better but . . . as both an apology and as a birthday gift . . . may I have this dance, Madam?"

As the little old lady got to her feet Ophelia and Squid began to play in the background. A soft tune with all the innocent tenderness as a child's musical jewellery box. He had never known Ophelia could play the violin before but she handled the instrument with all the competence and skill as her uncle, watching her uncle and Mrs Hudson fondly.

The music drifted gently around the couple, Sherlock holding the little old lady to him, one of her hands resting on his upper arm, the other held in Sherlock's hand and cradled to his chest so as not to stretch her arm uncomfortably. Their eyes were half-lidded, smiling, just turning languidly with the rhythm, Sherlock occasionally guiding her into a slow, elegant twirl.

Mrs Hudson's heart was swollen with pure happiness; never in a million years would she have imagined that she would be here, surrounded by people who had dropped all their plans for the evening so she wouldn't be alone in her birthday. She was now full of chocolate cake, the proud owner of a cuddly toy panda and being held securely in the warm embrace of one of the two men who she considered honourary sons.

Sherlock protectively tightened his grip on the little old lady, his thin fingers curled over her shoulder. He absently noted and catalogued all the details, the heavy violet and lilac blend in her perfume, the way she spared the leg with the bad hip joint, the way her cheek was resting just over his heart. But mostly he just enjoyed the opportunity for once to give something back to their poor, long-suffering but much loved landlady.

As the last soft notes soared like nightingales taking wing, Sherlock gently twirled Mrs Hudson away from him and lowered his mouth to kiss the back of her hand.

"I hope to have the honour of dancing with you next year as well. Happy birthday Mrs Hudson."