Chapter Text
On a bright summer afternoon when he was eight years old, while Mycroft lost himself in his well-worn copy of Phaedrus and Mummy and Father shouted at each other in the conservatory, Sherlock Holmes ran to the ancient oak at the very edge of the grounds. He shucked off his shoes and socks, climbed into the branches, and imagined himself in the crow's nest of a pirate ship on the open sea. Behind closed eyelids, he scanned the horizon, searching for slow ships laden with cargo for the taking. He clung to the rough bark, leaning into salt air over rocking waves.
He never could ascertain exactly what it was that made his hand twitch from the branch – a beetle, a spider, or a muscle spasm were all maddeningly equal possibilities – but he would always remember the sickening second of improbably dangling, unsupported, before crashing toward the ground. He would remember the snap of his arm beneath his body and the wave of nausea when he forced himself upright, sitting with his back pressed to the tree trunk. He would remember staring at his shoes, at his socks thrown haphazardly over the leather. If he could reach them, he would put them on because his toes were really quite cold now, but reaching would require motion, and the ground was still moving even though he most assuredly was not.
It was nearly dark when Mycroft found him, silent and pale, withdrawn behind the walls of what he would later call his mind palace. Mycroft never asked him what he had been doing, what he had been thinking. Mycroft didn't need to ask. Nor did Mycroft need to tell him to leave behind his childish fantasies and focus his mind on reality, on cold facts, on science and reason.
A lifetime later, Sherlock doesn't need Mycroft to tell him to cut his ties and concentrate on destroying the web Moriarty left behind. He needs two things: money and information, both easy enough to obtain with a minimum of fraternal communication. In a hostel in Florence, Sherlock strips out of his Savile Row suit and leaves dressed in jeans and a buffalo check shirt. In Paris, he poses as a Canadian student, and in Toronto, he is French. He spends an unanticipated extra three days in Los Angeles, applying ice to his swollen ankle and aloe gel to his sunburned face. Between São Paulo and Johannesburg, he dyes his hair ginger and dons a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. In Phuket, he shaves his head and wears saffron robes. In Oslo, he puts on the wire-rims and a blond wig and goes by the name of Sigerson. He wants to keep the leather jacket he wears to several coffee shops in Amsterdam, but it turns out to be a fair trade for some necessary assistance in New York. Mexico City is sweltering; Dubai is searing. Both render Prague bitterly cold by comparison. He burns through false identities and disposable phones and far, far too many cigarettes.
His last lead brings him to Monte Carlo, where he finds a new Spencer Hart suit waiting in the hotel room, already perfectly tailored to his current measurements. The clothes he left hanging in the wardrobe at 221B would hang off his frame now.
Monaco is a dead end. Drifting without destination for the first time in months, he paces the boardwalk as boats sail calmly in and out of the harbour. At a metal café table, he sips coffee and picks up a sun-warmed abandoned issue of The Riviera Times. A tiny little story several pages in catches his eye. He folds the paper neatly, the relevant details filed in his memory. He pulls his latest phone from his pocket and sends a brief text.
At the hotel, he cuts his hair with dull scissors and bleaches it brittle white. He drowns the phone before dropping it in the bin.
He knows where his final target is. It is, at last, time to go home.
London at night is everything he remembers, and then some. He walks the familiar streets, a single bag slung over his shoulder, surveying every direction for what has changed and what has not. He turns onto Baker Street and stops outside the black door with the brass numerals that gleam dully in the lamplight. If he sways a bit when he looks up at the dark windows, it must be because he craned his head just a little too far back. He slips his key into the lock, steals up the seventeen stairs, nudges the door open with unaccustomed caution. He refuses to theorise ahead of the facts.
The flat is empty. No one has been here in months. His things are still here, but only his things.
"Oh, John," he breathes.
An electronic chirp sounds in the darkness. He follows the sound to the kitchen, where he finds a small sheaf of bank notes, another new passport, and a mobile phone with a single text message on the screen.
Diogenes. MH
He rolls his eyes. As if he needed to be told. He types a terse response before shoving the phone into his pocket. He counts out the cash on his way down the stairs. At the kerb, a cab responds quickly to his raised hand. Same as ever. He moulds his reflexive smirk into a pleasant smile and ducks into the car. The cabbie nods in greeting. Sherlock searches the reflection of the man's eyes in the mirror for recognition and finds none. He relaxes into the seat, watching the buildings flicker past, updating his mental atlas without conscious thought on the matter.
The car pulls up outside the club; Sherlock tips generously with Mycroft's funds. He steps over the threshold. Few members are present at this late hour. One is sleeping. The two who are awake don't bother to look up from their newspapers.
In the Stranger's Room, Mycroft is seated behind a large wooden desk, a glass of brandy in front of him, infuriating in his placidity.
"Where is John?" Sherlock spits the question through clenched teeth.
"You should rest. You've had a long journey." Slate eyes rake over him.
Sherlock waves the suggestion away. "You know how I hate having to repeat myself."
Mycroft circles the rim of his glass with his index finger, taking his time before answering in the bland tone of one completely unconcerned. "Dr Watson is quite safe," he finally says.
"That's not what I asked."
"He isn't your concern."
Wrong. Sherlock's eyes narrow. "What aren't you telling me?" he asks.
He gets a hint of a raised eyebrow in return. "A great many things, on a great many topics, as you are no doubt aware. Would you care to be more specific?"
Sherlock digs his fingers into his hair, which is too short and damaged for his habitual ruffling. He resents Mycroft for being the only one who can give him the answers, for being the only one who can even know he's asking the question. "You know where he is."
"Sherlock, you need to focus. He is a distraction."
"He is a distraction," snarls Sherlock, "because you won't give me the information I require about him."
Mycroft takes a sip, swallows, says quietly, "Dr Watson left Baker Street some time ago. He," a pause, as if Mycroft needs time to choose his words, "did not take your death well. How do you think he will take your resurrection?"
Sherlock closes his eyes for a beat. "He'll understand."
"Understanding is one thing. Forgiveness is something else."
"You don't know him."
"Do you?"
Sherlock clenches his fists at his sides. Venting rage at his brother has always been about as satisfying as punching water; Mycroft just absorbs the force and carries on regardless.
Mycroft sighs. "I can arrange a meeting for you, after…."
"No." Sherlock cuts him off. "Not after. Now."
As if he were not already fully cognisant of the time, Mycroft studies his pocket watch. "I think he would appreciate a full night's sleep more than anything else just this moment, don't you? Would a meeting tomorrow satisfy? Or, rather, today, but sometime after sunrise?"
Sherlock nods tersely and stalks across the room to a settee that looks uncomfortable and feels less comfortable than it looks.
His back is still turned to Mycroft when the insufferable man says, "And you will let me speak to him first." It isn't a question, so Sherlock feels no compunction about leaving it unanswered. He crashes into long-overdue sleep, and when he wakes up, he is alone.
Sherlock waits in one of the pair of leather-upholstered chairs that normally face Mycroft's desk. The chairs are turned toward each other now, reminiscent of the arrangement of their mismatched armchairs back in the sitting room of 221B. He drums his fingers on the armrest, falling into the rhythm of Sarasate's Faust Fantasy before catching himself.
He knows that Mycroft could opt to deliver his undoubtedly well-prepared speech to John anywhere at all – an expensive restaurant over lunch, an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city, in the car while the driver simply circles the block. He also knows that Mycroft will not choose any of those locations, that he will wait to deliver his speech until he has John here, in his territory. If he actually expects that Sherlock will stay out of the room for the discussion, well, Mycroft must be slipping.
Mycroft enters the room with brisk steps, eyes narrowing and the corners of his mouth turning down when he catches sight of Sherlock, but there is not so much as a hitch in his purposeful stride. With his next two steps, he raises his eyebrows and flares his nostrils with a half-suppressed sigh. He does not stop moving until he reaches the drinks trolley at the far wall. John stomps a few paces behind, eyes burning into Mycroft's spine, shoulders squared, arms rigid. Mycroft plucks a bottle from the trolley and begins to pour.
"No, thank you," says John. As the amber liquid splashes into the third glass, Sherlock watches the expressions cross John's face in rapid succession: irritation that Mycroft is ignoring him; confusion that Mycroft is pouring three drinks for two people; realisation that there must be someone else in the room. John's face, that wonderfully mobile, expressive face, freezes as he turns his gaze to the chair.
"Why don't you have a seat, John?" Mycroft asks, calm in the way that only he can be, turning from the trolley with a glass in each hand.
John's mouth opens, but no words come out. His expression melts into surprise at finding himself seated in the chair he was about to refuse. John looks down at his lap, clearly puzzled at the way his legs have just betrayed him. Excruciatingly slowly, his eyes track upward to meet Sherlock's.
"Hello, John."
"On second thought," says John, valiantly attempting to control the shaking in his voice, "I think I will have that drink." Before the sentence is out, Mycroft has pressed one glass into his hand and set the second on the end table next to Sherlock's chair.
John raises his glass to his lips, still staring.
Sherlock steeples his fingers under his chin and waits. He would like to hear his brother's version of events, but Mycroft says nothing, just retrieves his own drink from the trolley and sips.
"It's you." John sounds half-strangled, and it throws Sherlock off balance. He inclines his head, biting back the word Obviously. He is unsure what bothers him more: that he miscalculated John's reaction after all, or that Mycroft accurately predicted it. John sets the glass carefully on the table beside his chair and flexes his fingers. Sherlock flinches, mentally chastising himself for doing so. He expected anger. He could understand anger. He could accept anger. From John, he could even accept anger expressed as physical violence, or he thought he could.
Still seated in the chair, John shakes his head and settles his hands in his lap. Not going to punch him, then. At least, not at present. Sherlock reads several possible questions, containing some very colourful language, in John's shifting features before the steady voice Sherlock has missed more than almost anything finally asks, "Someone going to fill me in here?"
Relief floods through Sherlock. This is the John he knows. Mycroft was wrong, and Sherlock doesn't even try to keep from smirking as he says, "You see, I told you. He's fine."
"Sherlock," says John, tripping a little over the name. Sherlock adores that warning tone when it directed at anyone else; he finds it less agreeable now. John's eyes smoulder with controlled fury. Sherlock's words die in his throat.
"You can bicker with your brother later," John says. "Right now, someone needs to explain how the bloody hell you're here, but I have a feeling that if you try to explain, I'll knock your teeth down your throat before you finish."
Sherlock clamps his jaw shut. He is rapidly revising his assessment of how much of John's anger he can accept.
John stands, turns away from him. Sherlock swallows hard against the ache in his chest. "Mycroft, you said you had things to tell me. Start talking."
Sherlock knows it's a bit not good to take pleasure in his brother's discomfort, but it's really not the moment to break the habit of a lifetime. Mycroft’s words: He did not take your death well. Had John been so affected? Sherlock had expected John to grieve, of course, but the man had been a doctor in a war zone. It was hardly the first time he'd witnessed death, even the death of someone he knew, someone he considered a friend. He must have developed coping mechanisms.
Sherlock knows full well that not all coping mechanisms are entirely healthy.
"There is rather a lot to say," says Mycroft, setting his empty glass on the desk. "You may want to sit down."
"If you think telling me what I want right now is a good idea, you may want to think again."
Sherlock stifles a laugh.
"Very well," says Mycroft, and he begins to explain. He tells John about the things Mycroft knew, and about the things Sherlock knew, and about the things they kept between them in order to draw the spider out of the web. He tells John about the plan Sherlock devised, filling in the facts John doesn't know, answering the questions John doesn't even know to ask. When he reaches the part about Moriarty on the roof with a gun and the snipers with their three targets and Sherlock with his impossible magic trick, John drops into the chair, his elbows pressed into his thighs. Mycroft pauses. John waves at him to continue, then covers his face with both hands.
Sherlock begins to rise from the chair, reaching one hand toward John, who glares at him before closing his eyes. Sherlock sits back down and watches John take deep breaths. He waits for John to speaks, waits for him to look up, waits for some response.