It was a normally dismal day of weather in London. Torrents fit to drown a frog hissed from the heavens, running the sickly yellow pollen of spring into puddles both massive and small along the cobblestones. Smog continued to belch from the smokestacks of factories alternately close or distant. People hurried to and fro, ducking into closely built houses or huddling under store awnings as they awaited the rain's passing. Eventually, the streets were found to be bereft of occupants, save for one densely cloaked figure.

By the brisk walk and glimpses of a green dress under her traveler's hood one could infer her gender. By the carpetbag in her hand, it could be deduced she was on a journey. From the peeks of her tired, relieved face as she rounded the street post onto Baker Street, it was clear that journey was reaching an end.

She tilted her head, drops of water pelting her pale cheeks, to look at the numbers on the lanterned arches in front of the houses. Finally, she stopped under 221 Baker Street. She checked a pen-mark on her wrist to be sure of the numerics, and climbed the seventeen steps briskly. At their summit, she pulled the doorbell and shifted nervously on her muddy heels. Faintly, she could hear what sounded like muffled shouts, tempered pleadings, and once possibly the sound of glass breaking. This did nothing to calm her anxiety.

After a full minute, the door opened. A harried looking woman with wisps of hair escaping her tight bun and an anger-pinched face met her. "Come in, come in," she beckoned impatiently. Our weary traveler crossed the threshold into the foyer and relinquished her sodden cloak to the harried woman's quick hands. Her carpet bag, well-worn, thudded to the carpet.

"You must be Mrs. Hudson," ventured the traveler, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and attempting a friendly smile.

"And you are Sera Dubois," asserted Mrs. Hudson irritably. "Yes, yes introductions out of the way. Now let me show you around quickly, I must catch the 3 o'clock train or I will surely go-"

"Mrs. Hudson!" barked a man, coming into view. He was unshaven, with wild dark hair and half-open shirt, suspenders off his shoulders, and cuffs unbuttoned. His eyes were heavily lidded over shocking oceanic blue. Sera took a step back at what he had in his hand, gasping in fear.

"Holmes! Put that gun away!" snapped Mrs. Hudson. "You've damaged enough property without killing someone!"

Holmes looked confusedly at the revolver in his hand. Then, with a look of one approaching a tiger with a thorn in its paw, he crept forward and said slowly, "Mrs. Hudson, I apologize for not calculating the risks associated with my experiment to include your room being just below mine. I thought I was doing you a favor by not shooting at the walls again..."

"Favor! FAVOR?" spat Mrs. Hudson, advancing menacingly. "The only favor you have done me is enlightening me to my psychiatric affliction." She now hovered just below his nose, glaring up into his unkempt face. "By the saints, that is surely what ails me. To think, I stayed here ten years, putting up with your insanity!" she actually screamed the last word, her voice going up several octaves.

"Now, see here," started Sera in a soothing tone. She has preparing to step between them when Mrs. Hudson whirled around.

"No! I am late for my train." Mrs. Hudson took a coat and cowl down from the coat rack, whipped them on, and stooped to pick up a large suitcase. A clattering of hooves came from the street, and a loud neigh. "That will be my cab," said Mrs. Hudson with obvious relief. She opened the door.

"Wait! Mrs. Hudson, wait!" called another voice from the house. A man with a cane, meticulously shaved mustache, and proper English waistcoat and jacket rushed onto the scene. He caught the exiting woman's elbow. She shoved him off hard and said, almost desperately, straddling the threshold, "Dr. Watson, this is Sera Dubois. She is my replacement."

"But, but..." stuttered the doctor, glancing to Sera.

"Perhaps she will be of a better disposition to deal with you and your crazy friend's antics!"

"Be reasonable, good lady. Surely you don't mean..." started Holmes.

"Oh, but I do, Mr. Holmes," replied Mrs. Hudson silkily. She turned squarely to face them, drew a breath, and bellowed loud enough to echo down the street, "I QUIT!" Then she spun on her heel, tripped down the stairs, and disappeared into the waiting cab, leaving the trio in the doorframe to their unforeseeable fates.

Watson sighed dejectedly and closed the door. It felt like the storm outside had somehow transferred its restless energy inside. Sera was vaguely aware of Holmes putting the pistol in his waistband and turning to go up the stairs with a shrug. "Oh, no you don't," said Watson hotly. "You have some explaining to do, Holmes."

"There is nothing to explain," replied Holmes with a neutral voice. He flicked a spec of something off the banister. "I have been telling you for days of Mrs. Hudson's impending termination of employment. You ignored my warnings."

"Wait, you read our correspondence?" asked Sera with shock. She was quite ignored.

"Naturally, I steamed the letters open before she got them," said Holmes quickly as though this were commonplace. "But that is quite beside the point."

"And the point is?" prompted Watson with growing annoyance.

"The point is you knew this would happen sooner or later," shrugged Holmes. "Why such surprise?"

"I am surprised that you shot at our landlady!"

Holmes looked a little put out. "I assure you, I did not shoot at her. If I had shot at her, I would doubtlessly have hit her. Though my aim is nothing compared to yours, of course, old chap. The circumstances that might have put her in my sights, however, are beyond me."

"HOLMES!" exploded the doctor, making Sera jump. "Then why in heaven's name was she driven to leave our employ under the pretense of having narrowly escaped death by bullet?"

Holmes livened up considerably as he explained, "I have been working for days on this gun, Watson." He pointed the revolver, causing the other two to duck with alarmed exclamations. "I have taken the traditional elephant hunting rifle, broken it down, and married its phenomenal power with the compactness of a simple pistol." He seemed pleased, the most pleased Sera had seen him since walking through the door. "Whilst enacting your latest request that I not shoot holes in the walls, I decided to shoot at the floor instead. Having no inkling whether the power of the weapon was truly like its elephant hunting father, I underestimated its potency. The bullet went through the floor and nearly through the unfortunate Mrs. Hudson."

"Holmes," groaned Watson, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Yes, Watson, that is my name," snipped the untidy man. He climbed a few more stairs, then said over his shoulder, addressing Sera, "We eat dinner at six. I will not be joining you."

"Y-yes, Mr. Holmes," replied the new servant, drawing up straighter.

Silence descended on the foyer. Watson, perched on his cane, shook his head. "I apologize about him. Should you decide to stay after all this, you will doubtlessly have to take his apologies through me."

"Oh, that's alright," said Sera automatically.

"No, it's not," said Watson sternly, glaring up at the ceiling. Rapid violin scales were drifting between the floorboards, reaching a feverish tempo. "He's on the needle again," he sighed to himself. "When he gets bored, he...Anyway, it is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Sera. It is Miss, right?" He customarily kissed her hand.

"Very much so," replied Sera. "And from what I can infer, you are Doctor Watson?"

"Yes. Let me show you around. Here. I can take that bag." Watson hefted the bag with his non-cane arm. A clinking sound came from within, muffled by clothes.

"You packed glass? I hope it did not break and ruin your clothes during travel." He led her to her room, previously Mrs. Hudson's. Watson set her bag on the bed and, with another sigh, threw back the covers and fished in a hole in the feather mattress. With an air of victory, he tossed and caught a metal slug in his palm. They simultaneously looked up at the ceiling again, and found the entry point.

"She must have just finished making the bed," inferred Sera.

"Lucky. Quite lucky," murmured the doctor. He tapped his cane once and walked from the room, favoring his leg. "Don't worry, I will have Holmes patch it up. I will leave you to get settled, Miss."

"Mrs. Hudson seemed to think I would not be here long. She instructed me to only pack for a week."

"Ah," said Watson. After a moment of thought, he said with a wry smile, "And perhaps she was right. I do not want you to stay any longer than you wish. And that increment of time shortens with Holmes' every appearance."

Sera opened her mouth to, much to her surprise, defend the man who had caused her employment. But she closed it again. No sense in judging what one does not know.

"Do not be mistaken," continued Watson. "Holmes is a dear friend, and the brightest of my peers. It's just that his methods leave something to be desired in the fields of morality, courtesy, and sometimes decency."

And from the looks of it, safety and hygiene can be added to the list. "You make an opposing duo," said Sera with some shyness.

The doctor returned her smile. "Perhaps so." He stopped at the door. "Just take today off, Miss Sera. It is only fair after so long a journey and so harrowing an induction."

"Thank you, Doctor," said Sera, nodding. Now she was alone. She sat on the bed for a moment, collecting her thoughts. She had taken two trains and three Hansoms all the way from the other side of England to get to Baker Street, and when she caught sight of her face in the vanity mirror across from her seat she could see it reflected. Her pine-green eyes had dark purple smudges under them, and her rose lips stood in stark contrast to her pale cheeks. All in all, though, she could have fared much worse. She might have gotten robbed, or accosted. She felt between her breasts for the skull knocker her brother had given her: a short metal rod lobed at both ends and wrapped in leather with a hand strap. She took it out and set it on her nightstand, then set about to unpacking the carpetbag.

After hauling the thing all over creation, and to more than a handful of countries during her various jobs, it felt like it should have held more. She took out the two dresses she had. The first was her finest with embroidery, ruffles, bows and lace in moss green. The second was her work dress, black and with a white apron. A few undergarments were thrown into the top drawer of the askew dresser, and all that was left was her jars. She found a small messenger desk tucked in the corner, and opening it, she brushed aside stray stationery and envelopes exactly like the ones she had gotten over the past three weeks. Satisfied with the amount of space, she dipped her hand in the bag several times, pulling out jars of all sizes and shapes in various shades of brown, blue, green, and clear. After checking each stopper and label, she arranged them as they had been on her shelf at home. Browns, for cosmetic implements, in order of the Latin names of the most prominent herbal ingredient. Blue, for ailments, according to what they cured and then by potency. Green, which were all small and all seeds she intended to plant, alphabetically. Clear, the raw ingredients she used for her...concoctions.

Content that all was set right, she surveyed the room with her hands on her hips. Bed, dresser, vanity, desk, and chest at the foot of her bed. She decided to put what few valuables she had in a sock in her drawer, after noting the scratches around the keyhole of the chest's lock. In had been jimmied on more than one occasion, and Sera was fairly certain it had been Holmes. She hoped she could withstand the prying that was sure to come, according to Mrs. Hudson.

Her thoughts turned to her new job. In the long line of jobs she had possessed over her twenty three years, this was the tamest. She had two men (well, she hoped for two) to cook, clean, wash and mend for. Seeing as it was four o'clock according to Big Ben's gonging in the distance, cooking seemed most important. Although Watson had given her the rest of the day off, she imagined that setting a good impression superseded that. She decided to cook an easy pot pie that would smell up the house and, with luck lure the reluctant Holmes out of hermitage.

She found Watson reading in the parlor. "I'll be going to the market for a few things, now that it's stopped raining."

" Very well. Do be home by dark, London can get rough at night."

Sera agreed and set off.