Chapter Text
Mycroft was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman and the undertaker. Mycroft had been the consummate rationalist and a life-long agnostic, so the clergyman’s involvement might be thought surprising. He was, however, a traditionalist down to his marrow. His detailed funeral instructions called for the full Church of England send-off, complete with a bishop and the St. Paul’s choir singing a tasteful rendition of Bach’s cantata number 198.
Dead as a doornail, Sherlock remembered thinking six years ago, as he sat beside John in the pew opposite her Majesty, the Prime Minister, and the heads of MI5 and MI6. Why a doornail, Sherlock asked himself? He went into his mind palace to look at his copy of the OED. It was that or weep, and he refused to cry like a child again. He had cried as Mycroft died in his arms on the bare wood floor of that horrible room.
Mycroft had reached up a shaking hand to touch Sherlock’s wet cheek.
“Sentiment, brother mine?”
Sherlock grasped the hand, but his throat closed. He looked down to where John was frantically pressing on the wounds in Mycroft’s thigh. Femoral artery.
John shook his head minutely and went back to work.
“Myc, hang on…please,” Sherlock choked out.
“Fieldwork. Not my natural milieu. Next time, you…”
Mycroft sighed. Then he was… not there. There was no next time. He saved others, himself he could not save, Sherlock thought as the choir sang the Agnus Dei. He went back into his mind palace to chase down the quote. Mycroft saved Rosie from foreign agents trying to pry information out of him to carry out a terrorist attack, but he paid for it with his life. Instead of listening to the bishop natter on with his platitudes about Mycroft, duty, country, and eternal life (ridiculous), Sherlock put the time to better use to plan his exit from London and from John and Rosie’s lives.
Rosie almost died because of John’s association with Mycroft and Sherlock. They had dangerous enemies and dangerous secrets. This time Rosie had been kidnapped to try to extort information from Mycroft. Next time it would be something to do with Sherlock. A high-profile case, a madman, a drug lord seeking revenge. As long as Sherlock maintained a dangerous profession and a reputation, John and Rosie would never be safe. He would put a stop to the risk as soon as possible. He owed Mycroft that much, so that his sacrifice would not have been in vain.
He remembered standing at Mycroft’s grave as the casket was lowered, six years ago today, the Eve of All Saints. As he stood there, he had run through several plans in dialog with the Mycroft in his mind palace. The idiot might as well make himself useful in absentia, since he had managed to get himself killed in an irritatingly heroic way. He should have left the heroics to Sherlock. Sherlock should have died instead. He would gladly have died for Rosie, for John. For his brother.
“Well, Mycroft,” he thought as a young priest said yet more useless words about eternal life and dust… Sherlock was momentarily diverted. Did the Bishop only do the show-piece, then? Where had the young priest come from? But back to the issue at hand. “I could just make it a sure thing. As you have demonstrated, death is a final solution to blackmail and manipulation because of sentiment. If I’m dead, Rosie and John won’t be in danger. Drug cocktail? No? I can hear you spluttering down there.” John was dropping a handful of earth onto the coffin. Sherlock glanced down at his hands. Dirt. He must have done it as well, but he had no memory of it.
“If you don’t like the suicide idea, I could easily do enough drugs to develop a plausible estrangement from John. Stage a major blow-up that would make the tabloids. ‘Hat Man and Robin part ways. Family Man Watson condemns Junkie Detective!’ No? Serious criminals know not to trust the tabloids?”
He and Mind Palace Mycroft had continued to bat around ideas through the grave-side nonsense and through the reception at Mrs. Hudson’s. He must have done some muttering out loud because Molly latched onto his elbow and offered him a cigarette. Molly hadn’t smoked in ages. She must have bought them especially for him. He was, he thought, fortunate in his friends. He would have to leave them all. And soon.
“I can’t stay in London, can I?”
“No, little brother,” he heard Mycrot's regretful voice. “You have to give up the Work. You’d never manage it in London. You have to give up all of them as well, your little family, if you want them to live. Remember what could have happened to Molly. Better a clean break.”
By this time, Sherlock had escaped to the roof with the pack of cigarettes and lighter he had filched from Molly’s purse. They had already toasted Mycroft with some quite decent Scotch Lestrade brought and eaten Mrs. Hudson’s spread of delicate finger sandwiches and cakes. John had taken a fussy Rosie home to his flat a while ago, so Sherlock didn’t have to worry about being interrupted.
“What will I do, My? I could give up the drugs for the Work. I could give them up for John. I know you want me to stay clean, but…. What will I do with myself?”
“First things first. Where is the first question. Take yourself out of London, and it will seem natural for your contacts with John to become fewer and fewer. It happens to friendships all the time. John refused your suggestion that he and Rosie move back to Baker Street. He needs to concentrate on his work and his daughter. He feels even more wary about living with you or even working with you after what just happened. He won't quite admit it to himself yet, much less to you. You needn't quarrel with him. Just let the relationship fade. That is the most painless alternative, Sherlock.”
He pressed the hand not holding the cigarette to his chest. The least painful alternative. Mycroft was right. But, God, it hurt. He sighed. “Sussex?”
“Too close. He would want to bring Rosie on the weekends. Might I remind you that you own Grandmère’s properties now.”
“The Paris atelier?”
“Hmmm.” The Mycroft-voice hesitated. “Paris might be difficult.”
“Drugs?”
“That, of course. And crime. Always just as tempting for you. You might be recognized. It wouldn't help John or Rosie for you to be in the papers again. Best to lay low for a while. No, I was thinking…”
“Èze.” His own internal voice blended with Mycroft’s.
In spite of the pain in his chest, something stirred. Some bit of life and hope. “I loved that place.” His grandmother Vernet had owned a cottage on the cliffs in the remote village in the south of France. It was empty.
“The fact that Èze was founded by Saracen pirates in the thirteenth century should still appeal to you.”
Sherlock smiled and took a drag on his fourth… no, fifth… cigarette. It was reassuring to know that the Mycroft in his mind was a snarky as ever. His grandmother, a notable artist, had bought the cottage perched on the cliffs overlooking the sea in the 1920s. Although it was technically part of the French Riviera, it was well north of Cannes and the tourist madness. It was still small and a bit remote. She had bought and renovated the ancient stone building as an escape from the summer heat and competitive rivalries and scandals of the Parisian art world. He spent many summers there as a child. She taught him to make croissants and bouillabaisse. She regaled him with local pirate legends as they wandered the cliffs. She allowed him to drink pastis when he was eight and lied to his parents about it afterwards. She loved him in spite of, or perhaps because of, his quirks and difficulties.
“Art in the blood, mon trésor, takes many forms. It also skips generations, mon étoile. Your mother and Mycroft have my blood, but not my art. You are the artist.” He was always her treasure, her star, her little cabbage, her rabbit. Rarely Sherlock. (“Shearluck. Pah. C'est un nom pour un barbare. Quels sont-ils penser?”)
“But I can’t paint, mamé.”
“You have not the eye, it is true. But you have ears and hands and voice. And soul, petit.”
Sherlock remembered standing on the cliffs beside her warm bulk, the perfumed, herbal wind of the coast whipping his hair. He hid his face in her soft cotton skirt. “Am I really your favorite,” he whispered, hardly daring to hope. Mycroft was everyone’s favorite.
A hand lightly stroked his wild hair. “Of a certainty," she said.
That house was his. It had been his since she died.
“But what would I do there, My?” Exiled. Away from John. Away from everything and everyone he knew. It was a high price, but one that he would willingly pay.
“How do you feel about bees, brother mine?”
*****
And so it was six years later. Mycroft had been right, loathe as Sherlock was to admit it even in the depths of his mind palace. He now lived a fairly contented, if not happy, life in Villa Amandier. His grandmother had named the cottage for the flowering almond trees that surrounded it. Èze was still a remote village, thinly populated by artisans and a few restauranteurs and the odd innkeeper who managed a living from the few tourists who managed to find their way up into the mountains from the delights of Cannes and Antibes. Some in the village worked at the Parfumerie Fragonard lab and store. The village church was lovely, and the botanical garden was stuffed with the exotic plants possible because of the microclimate of the area. He rented and renovated a tiny shop in the village at 7 Rue du Barri. Coeur de Cire, proclaimed the sign in letters of gold above a green door. Heart of Wax. There he sold his honey and the candles he made during the winters.
Sherlock tried to keep himself occupied in as innocent a way as he could manage. He sang in the choir of the village church and played violin there on major festivals. Mind Palace Mycroft found this vastly amusing, but there was little to do in the village. He tended his bees, he made honey. Without the need to concentrate for cases, and with John’s voice in his mind, he began to cook and actually eat. He made his grand-mère’s daube when autumn came and her Brioche des Rois for Epiphany. He crafted candles that were becoming recognized as works of art, he played his violin, he sang, he read. He avoided even such transparent crimes as the village afforded. He stayed away from Paris and the lures of drugs, high-profile mysteries, and sex with strangers or prostitutes. He didn't even try to pretend that all of those things did not tempt him. Increasingly, he missed being touched by another human being. He had gotten used to touch: John's occasional, awkward hugs, Greg's hand on his shoulder, Molly's pecks on his cheek, the feel of Rosie's small arms around his neck. He knew that being touched by a stranger would cure none of this longing. He missed John. He missed Rosie, and Molly, and Lestrade.
Sometimes he missed Sherlock Holmes. He, too, had been left behind in London. He kept his hair cut short and dressed mostly in dark jeans and pullovers. The locals knew him as Will Vernet. He missed Baker Street and Mrs. Hudson, who passed away two years ago in her sleep of a massive stroke. He didn’t return for the funeral, even in disguise. He was sure she understood, but John hadn’t. It played nicely into the planned distancing. John sometimes mentioned bringing Rosie over to visit in the occasional text or email, but he was busy at work. Rosie was busy with school and friends and, increasingly, sports. Their friendship gradually seemed to dwindle to past fondness, infrequent emails, and Christmas cards. It had all gone according to plan. If Heart of Wax was more than just the name of his shop, it couldn’t be helped.
Sherlock stood before the glossy black door of his cottage in the gloomy October twilight. The first week he lived there, he painted the old wooden door a shiny jet and installed a brass knocker in honor of the door to 221b. He was back from one of his days at the shop, selling his wares to locals and tourists and silently deducing them, a habit he hadn’t even tried to break. There was no doubt that Mycroft was dead, of course, but he stood looking at the knocker anyway, bemused. It was straight. He always (always) left it crooked, and he always thought of Mycroft when he did it. He touched the brass, wishing intensely and unreasonably, that Mycroft had been the one to straighten it. Nonsense, of course. The postman. The wind.
He went in, locked the door behind him, and dropped his keys with a clatter on the small, antique pine table by the door. He shivered. It felt unusually cold and damp in the little house, even for the end of October. He turned on lights, built up a fire and threw on some sprigs of dried lavender. He thought about making something for dinner, but he didn’t have the heart somehow. He poured a large measure of calvados into a heavy crystal tumbler and drank it while he gazed at the fire. Then he poured another, took a sip, and picked up his violin. Bach’s Chaconne, he decided. It was that kind of evening.
“I was always fond of that piece, although I would argue that it’s a trifle over-dramatic.” The voice came from behind him. Not Mind Palace Mycroft. That was…. Sherlock felt the blood drain from his face.
“Yes, speaking of overly-dramatic, it is I, your dead brother,” Mycroft drawled. He sported his usual Anderson & Sheppard three-piece suit. He looked like himself except for the fact that he and the suit were both translucent. Sherlock could distinctly see the brass pans in the little kitchen shining through him.
“Not possible,” said Sherlock.
“I would have said the same, of course, but in the interests of time shall we skip to what I taught you about evaluating evidence?”
“When you have eliminated the impossible…,” started Sherlock.
“…whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth.” They finished together.
“You are not dreaming, drunk, nor high. Let me assure you that I was as surprised to find that spirits continue beyond death as you are. Yet here I am.”
Sherlock swallowed past the dryness in his throat and carefully put down the Stradivarius. His hands were shaking. What does one say to one’s dead brother?
“I’ve missed you,” he finally said. It at least had the virtue of being true. “Why now? If you could have come to me before, why…?”
“I had my own penances to do. Yes, yes… heaven, hell, purgatory. All quite real. I was astonished. Although Dante got it wrong about.... well, I digress. The powers-that-be looked kindly on the manner of my death, so they have allowed me to watch you for a time before I go on. May I say that I am proud of you? You’ve sacrificed. You have made a new life. They are pleased with you.”
“Who the hell are ‘they’?”
Mycroft waved a hand dismissively. “Hard to explain and irrelevant at the moment. You’re not happy, Sherlock.”
“I didn’t expect to be,” Sherlock replied. Mycroft’s face softened.
“Neither is John,” he said. “Neither is Rosie. It appears we both miscalculated, Sherlock.”
“No, we didn’t,” Sherlock hissed. “They. Are. Safe. That is all that matters to me. You were right that caring is not an advantage. Look where it landed you.”
“Indeed,” said Mycroft, “but not in the way you mean. They said you wouldn’t take my word for it. You will have to see for yourself, as always. I can’t stay much longer. Is that grand-père’s 1900 calvados you’re swilling, brother mine? I must say I miss eating and drinking, alas. But I am to say that you will be haunted by three spirits tonight. Pay attention, Sherlock, and do use your heart as well as your head. Your future, John’s future, Rosie’s future all depend upon it.”
“Three spirits? Don’t be ridiculous, Mycroft! This isn’t 'A Christmas Carol,' for Christ’s sake.”
Mycroft rolled his ghostly eyes. “In case you haven’t kept up with the calendar, this is, in fact, the Eve of All Saints. Anyone knows that’s when spirits visit the earth. That is why you can see me tonight, although I’ve been in and out of your life since I died. Dickens was an idiot. We don’t do visitations on Christmas Eve, of all times. We’re all celebrating elsewhere on that particular day. The music is… divine. You’ll love it. Well, I must go. You won’t see me again in this life, but I trust you won’t need to. I’ll see you later. Much later, I hope.” He grew ever more translucent until Sherlock could barely make out his outline.
“And Sherlock,” said the faintly Mycroftian contour between Sherlock and the kitchen.
“Yes, Myc?”
“I loved you, you know. Always. From the first moment I saw you.”
“I loved you, too,” Sherlock said to the empty air.