Martha Hudson, though sweet and motherly and all the rest of it, was occasionally quite a bit more devious than most people assumed, especially in making those she cared about happy. There was that time at Carol's daughter's wedding when she'd pretended her hip had gone out so that she'd have an excuse to introduce the nice young man standing beside her to her niece when he helped her to a chair. They'd had their own wedding a year later, and their last Christmas card had announced the birth of their second child, a little girl.

There hadn't been anything since then that required a special touch until Sherlock. More specifically, Sherlock's utter lack of—well, anyone, really. In the years she'd known Sherlock, she had never seen him with another person for any length of time, nor heard him mention anyone he was seeing or even from his family. Her mothering instincts always kicked into full gear when Sherlock was around, and they couldn't stand to see him so alone all the time. She'd been at a loss as to what to do—Sherlock wasn't really the kind of person to be set up, after all—until four months ago.

In all honesty, she could have afforded to give Sherlock even more of a discount than she actually had, enough that he would most likely have been able to pay for the flat on his own: she'd received a sizeable sum when her husband passed and the shop was lucrative enough for her needs. When Sherlock had texted her with an inquiry about lodgings, though, she had seen an opportunity to finally do something about his perpetual solitude.

So, when she suggested 221B, she kept the rent just that bit above what she imagined he could afford based on where he'd been at the time: just high enough that he would need someone else's input. And he'd shown up not a week later with John Watson; and her efforts were rewarded when Sherlock had shouted that 'Dr Watson would take the room upstairs.'

Now, when she made her weekly check-ins under the guise of bringing up some biscuits or milk, sometimes she'd see Sherlock smiling fondly at John's grumbles as he tried to scrub chemical stains off the dishes. Or sometimes she'd peek in to ask Sherlock if he'd be working on that murder she'd seen in the papers and find them sleeping curled up together on the sofa under a blanket, the telly still flickering softly in front of them.

And as she watched them grow and thrive together, she couldn't help every now and then giving a small, satisfied smile and congratulating herself on a hand well played.

Okay, this was inspired by a line in the seventh installment of 'Magic One Shots' by grannysknitting: "…Mrs Hudson's concerns that her lodger was all alone." I read it and thought, well, I've read about the meeting being Mycroft's doing, Stamford's doing, even Moriarty's doing…why not Mrs Hudson (albeit indirectly)? And, behold, the result. I also had a particular scene in mind from the movie Hitch while writing the first paragraph; you can probably guess which one.

This is neither beta'd nor Brit-picked, although I tried my best to mimic what I've seen as far as the latter is concerned. I'll be happy to make any adjustments necessary on that account if someone points out a problem to me.

Thanks for reading!