Chapter Text
Mycroft blamed himself for the fall of Sherlock Holmes. He knew Moriarty had been planning something nefarious for his brother when the only thing that would make him talk about the code was information about Sherlock. When Moriarty's plan went into motion, Mycroft could only watch as his brother burned.
He hadn't seen Sherlock face to face in months. Not since the incident with The Woman. The last time he spoke to him, Sherlock was asking to use his clearance to get into Baskerville. Mycroft regretted that the only times they spoke were for business. They were both too stubborn to forgive each other for what happened in the past.
Mycroft had tried to warn John before everything happened, but the slow wit of the average man couldn't stop what was about to happen. Not even Sherlock Holmes could.
Meeting John in the Diogenes club for the second time was a surprise. Mycroft hadn't been expecting John to be clever enough to figure out that it had been him that had basically sold out his own brother for information. He knew asking John for forgiveness was asking too much, the look John gave him afterwards said that much.
The third time John visited him, he didn't even bother going to the back room. He burst into the building, tracked Mycroft down, and punched him square in the jaw. He was yelling profanities as the guards drug him out of the building. That was a day before Sherlock's funeral.
After the funeral, Mycroft kept an eye on John. He watched as his brother's best friend spiraled into a depression. He went back to his military lifestyle. Back to to post war John that met Sherlock all those month's ago. He had moved out of 221B and was barely making due with his military pension and working full time in a small clinic. None of the bigger named clinic's would take him because of his association with Sherlock.
After a month of observing him, Mycroft had him picked up and brought to his home. John sat there silently as Mycroft tried to talk sense in him. Mycroft explained that he was keeping 221B ready for him, paying Mrs. Hudson the rent. He said it was the least he could do for John.
John had gotten up to leave when Mycroft was done talking. However, before he left, he rounded on Mycroft to make one last venomous remark. “If you cared at all, you would have cleared his name. With your power you could have at least done that much for your own brother.”
Mycroft wished that was true, but his higher ups forbade him from clearing his brother's name. As long as Sherlock was a fraud, then Moriarty wasn't real. He was ordered to dispose of James Moriarty's body and make sure Sherlock's name was never cleared. It was times like these that Mycroft Holmes wish he didn't have to deal with the politics of his position. However as a man with as much power as he had, he couldn't afford to let his emotions rule his decisions.
Sherlock Holmes was a necessary sacrifice to secure the safety of his country.