Chapter Text
“Moriarty.”
There was a long silence that followed his name before he answered.
“Holmes.”
Mycroft Holmes was not a man who was accustomed to being summoned anywhere, but given the circumstances, he was willing to make an exception. When the letter had arrived from Albert, requesting to see him, he had almost dropped everything right there and then, and flown to the Moriarty's current residence. But he hadn’t. Instead, he had done as the letter asked, taking a cab there in the evening, after the furor of the street had died down and the lamps had been lit. The door was watched, of course, but there was no reason that Mycroft couldn’t pass the men from the Yard by, utterly unchallenged, so he did not hesitate until the door had closed behind him.
It was then, and only then, that he allowed a brief flutter of anxiety. He took a breath, and stifled it.
Albert James Moriarty did not look up as Mycroft entered the room. He was sitting on the settee, limp and quiet as a doll, like a true puppet whose strings had been cut. Mycroft had often made that metaphor, of Albert as a puppet willingly dancing for his criminally brilliant brother, if only in his mind. The memory was noxious now.
Even after Albert finally spoke, if only to mutter his name, he did not look up. Mycroft shifted, unsure, for once, if he should take a seat or remain standing. Albert solved the problem for him, gesturing towards the winged armchair across from himself, and Mycroft took a seat, waiting for Albert to speak. Waiting for someone else was yet another thing Mycroft was not accustomed to.
There was a grief here, so heavy it was almost palpable, weighing against every available surface, a grief so deep that Mycroft could only stare into its vast, abyssal depths. He could see himself reflected back, Albert’s grief echoing his own. In the end, they had both lost little brothers, maybe. For once, Mycroft was unsure of what to say.
“Albert…” he murmured.
Albert looked up, finally, and Mycroft almost wished he hadn’t. Those green, green eyes, usually as changeable as the sea, were still, no more lively than the emeralds they were often compared to. Stones, clear and dead, were set into the sunken, exhausted face of one of the few men Mycroft Holmes might consider a friend. Mycroft took a deep breath, steadying himself.
“You wrote to me,” Mycroft continued, ignoring the twinge of discomfort that empty stare brought.
“I did,” Albert said, his voice soft and papery as autumn leaves. He did not speak again, and Mycroft wondered, momentarily, if Albert was gone, as his brother was, far beyond the places Mycroft might be able to reach him.
“What did you need?” Mycroft prompted, his own voice lowering to match Albert’s tone.
Albert turned his head, his face impassive. “I’m resigning,” he said.
Mycroft sighed. He had been expecting this, at least.
“No,” he said calmly, “Resgination rejected.”
That, at least, seemed to startle Albert enough that a spark flickered in those eyes. And Mycroft was relieved, because even if that spark was annoyance or anger, it was proof that Albert was still there, somewhere.
“What do you mean, no?” Albert asked, his tone slipping.
“I mean, no.”
Mycroft and Albert stared at each other. Albert was confused, somewhere behind his fugue of grief, but Mycroft was certain. He would not let Albert go.
“I’m not letting you go,” Mycroft repeated aloud, leaning his cheek against his propped-up fist.
Albert blinked, the glimmer of anger kindling in his green, green eyes.
“I’m no use to you,” he argued.
“Not true.”
“I’m disgraced.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t leave the house!”
“Debatable.”
Albert was sitting up properly now, his eyes fixed on Mycroft. Mycroft, for his part, held that dear emerald gaze, impassive.
“What do you want from me?” Albert sighed, cracks threatening to break through his flat tone. “Why won’t you just let me go?”
They weren’t really talking about Albert’s position in the burgeoning MI6. Mycroft sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb. How to explain this in a way Albert could accept?
“You need to atone,” Mycroft said, his voice sharper than he’d allowed it to be until now. “You meant to die with your brother, I understand that. But you did not. And so now, you must atone.”
Albert’s face twisted with more emotion than Mycroft had seen from him in a long time, and there was a part of Mycroft that breathed a sigh of relief.
“I mean to atone,” Albert said, his voice stony, even as his eyes danced with a fevered light. “I will. Don’t worry yourself about that.”
“Not by dying.”
Albert collapsed as if struck. It hadn’t been a hard guess; the signs were all there: the palor, the distance, the hopelessness that clung to Albert like perfume. Death would be, to a man such as Lord Moriarty, the only logical conclusion. The only solution.
Mycroft could understand it. But he could not allow it. Mycroft had to bear the cross of his own family history, and by God and the Queen, Albert could learn to do the same. Mycroft would not be letting go of Albert James Moriarty, not a chance.
“Albert James Moriarty,” Mycroft thundered, finally getting to his feet, crossing the distance between them to loom over him. “You are alive. You might wish you weren’t, but you are. And you will live, whether you like it or not.”
Albert stared up at Mycroft, anger and despair and something unnamebly tender tumbling in those emerald eyes. His generous, expressive mouth trembled, despite the frown.
“I am not letting you go,” Mycroft murmured.