A/N: This will eventually be a series of one-shots, each showing glimpses of Sherlock's relationships with other characters. Basically just fluffy. I have ideas for Mycroft, Angelo, and Molly; I'm not sure if I want to do John or Lestrade, but I guess we'll see. I'm trying to stick with characters shown in BBC verse and not bring any new ACD canon into it, but any ideas you might have would be welcome! This one, of course, is Mrs Hudson.

Prompt for this one: Henry Hall's It's Time To Say Goodnight, a slow waltz popular in the 1930s. Makes me cry every time.
-for you!

Mrs Hudson glances at the clock again. It's eleven-thirty, an hour since Doctor Watson – always steadfast in his habits – retired to the upstairs bedroom. She knows she should be heading that way, too; she's not as young as she used to be, and her bad hip has started to throb from the exertion with which she's been tapping her foot for the past three hours. But the banging and crashing and general mayhem of Sherlock upstairs is missing, and that always makes it hard to sleep.

She worries about him so. She tries not to, of course, knowing that it's futile. She can mother him till the cows come home and he'll never listen. He's a grown man, too, she knows he can take care of himself. And everyone else, for that matter; he'd been an absolute sweetheart in Florida over that little business with Mr Hudson. But there have been times where he hasn't looked after himself, she can tell, so it's nice to keep him close.

Doctor Watson's good for him, too. Such a gentleman, the young doctor, and a firm believer in the liberal application of Earl Grey and chocolate digestives. A man of her own heart, indeed. But sometimes it takes a mother's touch, and of course men of such different temperaments cannot be expected to get along all the time.

The bang of the front door is startlingly loud; she jumps and looks at the clock again. 11:53. The door flies on its hinges, slamming against the wall and bouncing back to close sharply behind the whirlwind that is Sherlock Holmes. She breathes a sigh of relief that ends with a catch as she hears the flump of a body hitting the closed door.

She can't help herself; she opens her door and steps out into the hallway. She's got too much invested in the boy by now. "Sherlock, dear," she begins, but stops when she sees his face.

It's been all-ruddy-go for Sherlock since August, and he's hardly stopped for breath in the last six weeks. Because Sherlock doesn't stop for breath. He usually doesn't have to. Right now, though, his usually pale face is positively ashen, and the detective really does look to be on his last gasp. "Good heavens, dear, what've you done this time?"

Sherlock looks at her and his formerly shining grey eyes are dull and alarmingly blank. "I'm fine," he lies blatantly, attempting to take a step forwards and staggering, his eyes unfocussed. She rushes forwards to catch him.

"I'm a lot more intelligent than you give me credit for, dear," she defers, effectively picking him up an carrying him into her flat. He flops down onto the sofa. "Tea," she insists, leaving him for a moment to fill the kettle. When she comes back, his eyes are closed and his face twisted into a hurt expression that nearly breaks her heart.

"Sherlock?" she pats his face gently and he opens his eyes; she sits down beside him and takes his face in her hands. "Sherlock, dear, when was the last time you slept?"

He blinks at her a few times, fatigue seeping tangibly out of every pore in his face. "Tuesday," he guesses quietly. "Or maybe Wednesday. I don't remember."

She sighs. "Tea," she repeats. "And a bit of cake. Then sleep." He makes a vague noise that sounds like assent. She sets a cup of tea and a large slice of tea-cake in front of him and watches him stare at them for a while before he starts to pick at the cake and take a few hesitant sips of tea. "I think you should tell me what happened, young man."

Sherlock takes a bigger gulp from his teacup, staring blankly into it. "I was too late," he says hollowly. "You remember the man who came yesterday, the footballer? Tall, blonde, well-built… well, his wife was being threatened, she had some stuff with her past she wasn't telling him, and the threats were in this code… it was nothing I'd ever seen before, and by the time I figured out they were death threats he'd already been murdered."

"Oh, Sherlock, love," she can't help but whisper at the lost look in his eyes. "You can't save everybody."

"I know," he snaps, draining his tea and reluctantly shovelling the last of the cake past the pale cupids-bow. Bless him, but she's never seen him eat with actual gusto, always with an expression that says he's rather not. "But I thought… this code, they looked like children's drawings. I didn't think they'd actually murder anyone. If I'd been a little bit quicker, he wouldn't have died and she wouldn't be in hospital. It can't have happened half an hour before I got there."

People think Sherlock Holmes is heartless. They don't know him. He shuts things out as best he can, but things still hurt – when people use his friends against him, when people he knows get hurt, when he doesn't make it in time. For a moment in this new loss, Mrs Hudson thinks Sherlock might be about to cry. She quickly presses his head to her chest and holds him like a mother rocking a small child. Sherlock doesn't have any family, except that tall thing with the umbrella who always seems so unwelcome. He stiffens as he finds his face suddenly buried in his landlady's bosom, but soon relaxes into the embrace. "You need to sleep, love."

Sherlock sniffs. "I don't know if I can."

"Shh," she counsels. "Lie down."

He nudges his shoes off and flicks his feet up until his head rests on her lap, the rest of his long, pale body stretched out on the sofa. She strokes his head gently; his body is actually trembling with fatigue. She remembers, oddly, her husband, those nights when he would come home exhausted and shaking and she'd always blamed the work, not knowing of the adulterous, violent double-life he was leading. He would lie on their bed, and she would rock him and sing him to sleep. Usually when she thinks about it she feels nauseated, but tonight with Sherlock's head in her lap the old lullaby plays relentlessly in her head, and of course if slips through her lips before she can stop it.

"It's time to say goodnight, and it's time to close your eyes
Let's put out the light, till the dawn breaks through the skies

"While long shadows creep, may your dreams be sweet and bright
In a moment you'll be sound asleep, it's time to say goodnight."

When she looks down, the consulting detective is asleep, soft child-like breaths pooling on her knees. He looks positively adorable in the arms of Morpheus, she decides, all the worry he carts around with him during the day wiped blank from his delicate face. She smiles, and gently edges her way out from underneath him.

She knows Doctor Watson will worry when he wakes up and his flatmate still isn't there, so she fishes in the depths of her purse to find the cellphone she never uses and sends him a text.

Sherlock sleeping here tonight. Don't worry. –Mrs Hudson

She digs a tattered blanket out of the linen cupboard and throws it over Sherlock's tangled limbs, tucking the edges around him tenderly. Under her touch, he wriggles contentedly, the edges of his delicate lips turning up in a smile just like a child being kissed goodnight. In a final gesture of motherliness – for some reason the consulting detective draw them out of her in spades – she bends down and presses a kiss on his forehead.

As she reaches the door to her bedroom the cellphone chimes in her hands. She looks at it and smiles; the words drift from her lips before she can stop them. "Bless you, Doctor Watson." It seems he hasn't been sleeping without Sherlock either.

Mrs Hudson, you're a saint. -John