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Mycroft Holmes carefully folded the newspaper and put it on the side desk with the glaring headline 'SUICIDE OF FAKE GENIUS' on the underside. Steepling his hands under his chin he contemplated the board. All the pieces were in place now: bank accounts in various names, safe houses all over Europe and some abroad, contact points and drop boxes, codes and fake papers. Operation 'Fairy Chess' was go. The 'Phoenix' had died and could now begin his deadly game. Whether he would succeed or end up being taken behind enemy lines remained to be seen. Mycroft sighed. Even a brain like his could not predict the outcome. Yet. But it had to be done. There was no other way. Or was there?
Mycroft had not been at home for the last forty-eight hours. With Sherlock on the run and the whole set-up hanging in the balance, he had spent the night in front of his surveillance monitors. Very early in the morning Sherlock's tapped phone had sent one text message, and received one in return.
"Come and play.
Bart's Hospital rooftop.
SH"
One of Mycroft's men had made the fake phone call to lure John from Sherlock's side.
"I'm waiting... JM"
Mycroft's agents were in place.
Transmission from Sherlock's phone was very clear. The corresponding surveillance footage was grainy, however; the CCTV cameras being too far away. Mycroft could hear and record every nuance of Sherlock's final dialogue with Moriarty. So, the key code was a fake then. Mycroft wasn't quite sure whether he was relieved rather than disappointed. When he had heard of the snipers set on the three targets, he had informed his team, giving the order: "Eliminate, if possible." But with little hope of success. Short of keeping them in protective custody for an indeterminate length of time there was no protection whatsoever against a dedicated sniper. And how appropriate, Mycroft had thought with an aborted bitter smile, that there was no sniper for him.
When Sherlock had first stood on the edge of the roof, forced into suicide in exchange for the lives of his friends, Mycroft had found his fists cramped so tightly that his nails had drawn blood. Then Sherlock had stepped down again and Mycroft had been able to relax. Next his brother had tried to outmanoeuvre Moriarty in a desperate bid for his life. When a shot had rung out and one of the figures on the roof went down, Mycroft had jumped up so hard that his chair had toppled back. The desperate moans filling his ears seconds later had convinced him though that the lone man on the roof was Sherlock - still alive, but doomed. This was… unexpected. Neither of them had planned for Moriarty to die today. Mycroft surely hadn't planned for Sherlock to follow him. What exactly had Sherlock planned - and not told him?
In the end they had both over- and underestimated the man. They had planned for every contingency they could think of: attack, seduction, destruction, blackmail, Moriarty trying to force or lure Sherlock to the dark side - just not for some weird kind of suicide pact.
Sherlock had stepped up to the parapet again. Then John had returned, far too early. Listening in to Sherlock crying as he tried to sever his ties to John, destroying their relationship and setting him free to go on with his life alone, Mycroft's heart would have broken, had he believed himself to have one.
The last time Mycroft had heard Sherlock cry, he had been seven years old and inconsolable when Mummy was leaving again after an all too brief stay at home. He had slung an arm around his little brother's twitching shoulders and had drawn him close. "You mustn't care so much, Sherlock," fourteen year old Mycroft Holmes had said. "It will only hurt you if you do." Since then snarling and snapping had become Sherlock's response of choice when hurt.
One moment his brother had been standing on the edge of St. Bart's rooftop, his silhouette with arms spread wide like featherless wings reminding Mycroft of the posture of the ultimate sacrifice. The next he was gone. No bargaining with gravity. Now, in the thundering silence after the fall all Mycroft could hear was the echo of three year old Sherlock's triumphant voice, "Look, Mycroft - no hands!" dashing around the house on his trike, dark mop of curls and all, and CRASH! there went the Ming vase, shattered into a thousand pieces.
*****
When watching the TV coverage of the ceremonial function on the occasion of the recovery of Turner's masterpiece 'The Great Falls of the Reichenbach', Mycroft had nearly choked on his tea upon witnessing John's and Sherlock's dialogue after the official had presented Sherlock with a pair of diamond cufflinks.
"Diamond cufflinks. All my cuffs have buttons," Sherlock had grumbled.
"He means thank you," John had translated.
"Do I?"
"Just say it," John had ordered.
"Thank you," Sherlock had said meekly.
All those press conferences had had one purpose only: to prepare a hunting ground for James Moriarty, to dangle the bait before him and let him snap it up. The bait being, of course, Sherlock. Had John ever wondered why his friend was suddenly prepared to face the cameras?
It had started not long after that. Three prominent break-ins in one day, Moriarty's arrest and subsequent court case. Mycroft knew that Sherlock had desperately hoped the legal system would do what he had not and put Moriarty behind bars, but it was not to be. As soon as the man walked free without having offered any evidence whatsoever to prove his 'not-guilty'-plea, it became clear what he was doing: Restoring his street credentials, advertising his power. Surveillance had shown Moriarty entering 221B right after his release from custody, leaving again only ten minutes later. Sherlock had sent Mycroft an encrypted text in the code they had agreed upon based on chess moves: 'Queen's Gambit'. Mycroft had promptly increased the security details for all involved.
While Moriarty had vanished from public view as well as from Mycroft's radar after the trial, life at Baker Street had gone on as usual as far as he was able to discern from the reports. In the end they had had to wait for more than two months and then suddenly everything had happened in time lapse mode. Sherlock, after having been able to help the police in an abduction case Mycroft had gently pushed his way, had fallen under suspicion of having been involved, which had led to an arrest warrant being issued for him. At the same time a big kiss-and-tell story regarding Sherlock by THE SUN's Kitty Riley had been announced. Sensing that Moriarty was finally coming out and making his move, Mycroft had not interfered.
Neither he nor his brother could have foreseen when meeting after Baskerville that the madman would kill himself in order to win the game. But thus it was. The best laid plans and all that… All their planning had been vague at best, relying on the moves of a crazy genius whose actions were entirely unpredictable. How his brother would now proceed, Mycroft had no clear idea yet.
Of course something had to be done now regarding John. Mycroft would make sure that Sherlock's half of the rent would be paid, so he could at least stay at the place they had inhabited together for the last eighteen months. John currently had no job and no girlfriend, having been entirely wrapped up in Sherlock's endeavours. How must it feel, Mycroft wondered, to have something that bright in your life and then have it ripped away so spectacularly? He would certainly grieve for quite a while, infatuated as he was, especially since he had had to witness Sherlock's fall – another imponderability they had not planned for.
Much like Watson himself. In January 2010 Mycroft had been alerted to the fact that Sherlock had found himself a new abode, with someone who owed him a favour - a group of people steadily growing in number - as Sherlock's landlord on Montague Street had finally tired of violin solos in the middle of the night, strange visitors at all times and a general disregard for normality. And apparently he was looking for a flatmate? Mycroft had hardly dared believe his eyes upon reading the report. A more unlikely person to share a flat with he could not imagine.
And then Dr. John Watson had entered the stage. Unlikely cupid though he was, it had been mild-mannered, moon-faced Mike Stamford who had introduced them. A hasty but nonetheless thorough background search found Dr. Watson to be of middle class origins, an army doctor, formerly trained at St. Bart's (therefore the connection to Stamford), retired Captain of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, wounded in action, with a psychosomatic limp, an intermittent tremor in his left hand and trust issues.
Mycroft had arranged a meeting. Anyone moving in with Sherlock(!) had to be evaluated regarding the potential risks to public safety. Also, an inside source might come in handy. Ah, John! Mycroft had found him to be a pitbull of a man, quietly trembling with repressed aggression. "May we expect a happy announcement by the end of the week?" he had taunted (only half jokingly). John was not impressed. John also was not scared. The thing John mostly was, was angry. Very likely they would be at each other's throat by the weekend. John also refused his money, offered to spy on Sherlock, which Mycroft had found quite baffling.
What on earth this man had seen in his high-maintenance little brother, apart from being attracted to the danger that surrounded him, Mycroft could not fathom. From childhood Sherlock had been a study in contradictions: Running around with a red silk scarf from Mummy's wardrobe round his head and brandishing his wooden sword pretending to be a pirate, climbing the highest trees (or rather crows-nests) to look out for sails on the horizon or sitting in deep contemplation in front of a beehive or a pool full of tadpoles or immersed in a book. When Mrs Christie would send Mycroft to fetch his brother for dinner it was likely that Sherlock would ask in profound surprise: "Dinner? What happened to lunch?" "Lunch was ages ago, Sherlock," Mycroft would tell him in fond exasperation. "Sorry you missed that, but I couldn't find you."
Why Sherlock would be willing to share his space with anyone, let alone this unlikely candidate, was equally puzzling. And why at all? The rent wasn't that high, so the reason given did not convince him, even if Sherlock didn't make much money. All he had to do was to tell Mycroft and he would have raised his allowance in order to enable him to pay the rent. Mycroft had never denied him anything as long as it was sensible and not to do with drugs. Could it be that he felt… lonely?
But within the next few hours John had killed a man to save Sherlock from himself - Mycroft was sure, although he couldn't prove it - because the little fool had been altogether unable to resist the temptation of proving his own cleverness by swallowing a potentially poisoned pill. When Mycroft had finally arrived at the scene, having been notified by Lestrade, he had found Sherlock and John walking down the street (the doctor's cane notably absent), quietly laughing, visibly comfortable in each other's company. The reason for their spontaneous bonding was perhaps that they had both experienced a darker plane of existence, equally real but even more true, and set apart from the reality most people lived in.
Mycroft had never understood Sherlock's compulsion to chase criminals through dark back alleys (on foot, no less!) when there were the endless and delicate problems of global politics to be solved. He had once, very shortly, pondered making Sherlock his head of operations - but had let that idea go as swiftly as it had come to him as that would require duties he did not wish to inflict upon his brother. Not that Mycroft had to resort to ruthless solutions very often. Most people could be convinced, persuaded or manipulated to see things the way he wished them to. But there were irredeemable idiots, sometimes, who would not leave off murdering their fellow countrymen, foreign dignitaries or journalists or stoop to even more severe atrocities. And such undesirable individuals had to be taken care of. One could say he had a vested interest in those, given his family history. But, to Mycroft's certain knowledge, Sherlock had never killed a man and his wish to preserve this kind of innocence had been stronger than any practical considerations. Add to that the fact that you could never be sure that Sherlock would follow orders.
In any case, Mycroft had raised Sherlock's and John's surveillance status to grade three, active.
Upon reading Sherlock's debriefing protocols the day after the serial killer shooting - as a matter of fact any paper and/or digital trail regarding his brother was sent to his desk ASAP - the name 'Moriarty' had turned up for the first time.
In the following weeks Sherlock and John had settled in nicely, solved a few smallish cases, and apparently even shared their income as indicated by the use of Sherlock's bank card by John Watson. Sherlock Holmes doing cozy domesticity was a thing Mycroft felt entirely unable to imagine, but no bloodshed occurred. What exactly was going on at Baker Street 221B?
Renewed searches of the location when the inhabitants were out did not turn up evidence of any kind. They did not share a bedroom, so that was out of the question. The living room looked reassuringly Sherlockian with the odd medical journal and a few unpaid invoices strewn into the melée. Also, surprisingly, a scimitar, found under Sherlock's armchair. The kitchen cabinets did now contain a few food staples, but still no one in their right mind dared touch the fridge.
By then the good doctor had taken up a job and - apparently - had found himself a lady friend. That 221B had been involved in the case of the missing empress hairpin and the surrounding antiques smuggling case connected to Chinese triads was something Mycroft had only learned after the fact. "Not my case, Dimmock's," Lestrade had pointed out, when questioned. Sebastian Wilkes, that middle class social climber who had once stalked Sherlock at Oxford until he had found someone more popular and more amenable to his flatteries, had been his client. For the first time Sherlock had made some serious money with his detecting gig. The twenty five thousand pounds from Shad Sanderson Bank had been enough for John to give up the job - though not the lady - to concentrate on tagging after Sherlock.
*****
Lestrade was surely going to be demoted, if not retired. Nothing to be done about that right now. Mycroft's own position - the visible part of it - was a bit impaired at the moment. When crossing Whitehall before coming to the club, there had been averted heads, mumblings, greetings withheld. Among those who had no idea about his true status, the name Holmes was not exactly popular at the moment.
It did not mean a thing. Mycroft had long known that being a genius meant being lonely. Perhaps he had been born with that knowledge. It also meant responsibility. He never forgot that. And power. He did not view himself as very ambitious. But who was to make all the important decisions, if not the most advanced intellect? And how was it that Sherlock's comparable intellect never seemed to grasp something so obvious to Mycroft? Instead, he always felt utterly betrayed by most people's inability to follow his thoughts and did not hesitate to express his disdain, where Mycroft only felt benevolence towards the people entrusted to his care. Britain was his stewardship and he would take care of her, at all costs. If he had to sacrifice the one intellect equal to his own he would do so - albeit with a heavy heart. Sentiment. Silly.
When a panicked Lestrade had called Mycroft twenty-four hours ago to let him know that Sherlock had resisted arrest by taking John(!) hostage and fleeing, Mycroft had known that their plan had reached its critical state.
"Rest assured everything will sort itself out shortly," he had told the man.
"Mr Holmes, you don't understand! I had no choice but to arrest your brother – orders from higher up – and I was sure he could have disproven the allegations, but by running he has made everything worse! We're out there now in full force, looking for him and someone is going to spot him. I don't know what to think anymore. You have to do something! He can't go to prison. He wouldn't last a week. You know that."
"Detective Inspector, please calm down. What about the riots in Croydon?" he had asked.
"Croydon?"
"Yes, smashed windows, burning cars, that sort of thing? You need to be there, not chasing a single man through the city. The Home Secretary's orders should have reached your superiors by now. Relief units are to be deployed outside the city."
"Ah…"
"When my brother contacts me, I will persuade him to come in. Everything will be fine."
"If you say so, sir," Lestrade had answered haltingly.
"I do. Don't worry."
*****
Perhaps he had done it all wrong. From the very earliest he had tried to educate Sherlock to the fact that sentiment would only impair his rationality. Caring was not an advantage. Mycroft had come to understand this very early on and he had tried to pass this knowledge on to his younger sibling. But perhaps Sherlock had needed something different?
Must be all this artistic temperament from the French side of the family, he mused. Thank god he had been spared this. But Sherlock had got it in spades and it had made dealing with him much more difficult. Sherlock had been an affectionate and enormously gifted child, but ever so highly-strung. Having been born two months after their father's assassination on his last posting in India - and four weeks early at that - had not made things any easier, of course. Their overly sensitive and highly artistic mother had bequeathed her younger son all the characteristics most unbecoming to a calm and calculating mind, only to abandon him (and Mycroft as well) to the care of nannies and tutors to withdraw to their French estates and into her grief about her late husband.
Sherlock had been fully literate when four years old. Mycroft had seen to that. By then he had climbed into Mycroft's bed in the middle of the night, "Mycroft, Mycroft, there's a giant squid under my bed!" And Mycroft had hidden all the Lovecraft books on the upper shelves of the library. He had started his violin lessons at the age of five and prep school a year later.
But boarding school did not suit Sherlock and though he had been able to instigate friendships in the beginning, it soon became clear that he seemed to be unable to maintain them. "They don't like me, Mycroft. Why don't they like me? It's not my fault they're so stupid!" Of course it was extremely dull to be the most clever person in the classroom (teacher included), but there was absolutely no need to let anyone know about this fact. And of course your peers would hate you, if you made them aware that they were not, in fact, your peers.
Mycroft had tried to explain to him that being very, very clever meant to be alone, as you would rarely find people able to follow you. But that didn't matter. Alone was fine. Alone made you able to detach yourself and see the broader view of everything. But Sherlock didn't like to be alone. Sherlock wanted to be loved. In his mind's eye Mycroft could still see his brother's serious little face looking up at him, waiting for an explanation for all the 'whys' and 'hows' on earth - only to be awarded another lecture on rationality above all else. It must have started there. Or even earlier, when he had abandoned him to a school system that did not fit his needs.
Perhaps they should have tried to install him in some extra programme for specially gifted children, some music school or other, but then Mycroft had always found that prep and public schools enabled you to form the kind of relationships you would benefit from for life, and he just couldn't see why Sherlock had been unable to share his point of view.
The nature of the artist again, Mycroft assumed. What if he had chosen differently? And even as a teenager he had been the main force behind every decision made within the Holmes household, dear Mummy being far too flighty to be of much help. Of course, he himself had been too immature then to understand exactly the inner workings of Sherlock's psyche and how far they differed from his own. Entirely possible his brother would be a famous violinist today, beloved by an adoring public. He did so love to perform for an audience.
There must have been some bullying at school at some point, as Mycroft remembered seeing his little brother with blackened eyes and bruises on more than one occasion when meeting up for holidays. Boarding schools could be brutal places, he knew, though not from personal experience. Mycroft had always been able to adapt. But Sherlock had not told and he had not asked, as by then they had already started to drift apart. And he had done nothing to prevent it. Why? No more whispered midnight conversations about the Voyager program and what the probes might find in outer space. Around the age of ten Sherlock had abandoned literary fiction in favour of textbooks and science magazines.
Puberty hit - though late for such a precocious child - and Sherlock had shot up impossibly long limbed with flawless skin (not a pimple in sight, he remembered with a certain envy), his voice had dropped an octave and Mycroft had trembled at the idea of crushes and heartbreaks and how he was supposed to deal with that kind of folly. But by then Sherlock must already have decided that he was a breed apart that would not mate with lesser mortals, so nothing ever came of it. Certainly that should have given him pause? Mycroft had fleetingly wondered if he was supposed to do something about that, but the notion of taking his little brother to some high-class and very discreet gentlemen's club, the kind which he very occasionally frequented, to have him acquainted with certain facts of life, had not appealed.
*****
It was perhaps Sherlock's questionable sexuality - still a riddle in and of itself - which had turned the Adler-Affair into an unmitigated disaster from start to finish. If he had thought his summoning John and Sherlock to Buckingham Palace would make his brother more pliable to his demands, he had found that Sherlock had countered this move by turning up at the Royal Residence clad in nothing but his bed sheet. The moment he had turned the corner and found both men seated on a brocade sofa giggling like schoolboys, he had known he was in for trouble. He was proven right, when Sherlock had decided to throw one of his temper tantrums in front of HRM's equerry. Only John's timely intervention had rescued both of them from complete ridicule when Mycroft had nearly stripped his brother of all dignity, and made Sherlock put on his clothes at last.
Only in retrospect did it occur to him that he had not heard the sound of that laughter in years. And never so genuine.
The 'amusing anecdote' of this incident would make its round through the higher echelons of government by midday and had consequently led to his cruel remark in front of John and Harry. "Sex doesn't alarm me." "How would you know?" This from the man who habitually kept his brother's secrets as close as his own. But it had always been like that. They antagonized each other until one of them did something unforgivable. Usually he, Mycroft was honest enough to admit to himself.
However, the idea of a power play with the most distinguished family in Britain had been enough of a lure for Sherlock to take on the case he initially refused. His claim that he would return the treacherous device by evening had impressed Harry. "Quite a handful, isn't he?" he had asked. Mycroft had answered with the sort of vacant smile that usually made people abscond within seconds.
And then the business had turned into a complete and humiliating calamity for Mycroft when Sherlock had failed to deliver, because the woman had drugged him, taken the phone and vanished. Yes, he had agreed to the CIA assault - though he wished they had not gone about it in typical cowboy fashion - but he had not wanted to risk the phone being in Sherlock's possession long enough for him to figure out its secrets, because the embarrassing photographs had been but a smoke screen for the actually far more dangerous contents. Perhaps, if he had trusted his brother, the subsequent unfortunate disclosure could have been avoided.
When he had turned up at Baker Street the next morning, he found to his surprise that Sherlock Holmes did do domesticity after all. He and John were seated at the table, Sherlock still in his red silk dressing gown, looking slightly worse for wear, while Mrs Hudson served them breakfast - a happy little family of three.
Of course Sherlock had figured out that there were far more interesting contents on the phone Adler had managed to keep hold of and Mycroft had had to stare him into submission to make sure he left off and didn’t get involved in the future. Sherlock had slunk away - however, Mycroft did not make the mistake of taking his capitulation at face value.
When Mycroft had left, accompanied by the mocking tune of 'God save the Queen' from Sherlock's violin and an indulgent grin from John, he had understood that he had been effectively replaced and his hold on Sherlock was waning. His brother had found himself the perfect handler.
The apology he owed had been long and arduous indeed. HRM was not amused.
These events were followed by a severe relapse of substance abuse, probably a result of having been injected with some recreational drug by Adler. When John had called Mycroft to inform him that he had found Sherlock high on cocaine upon coming home earlier than expected from some private business and demanded his medical file, he had offered to deal with the problem in the tried and tested fashion. John had been livid and told him in no uncertain terms to leave them alone, he would take care of it.
*****
At university - Cambridge, of course - Sherlock had mainly read biology, chemistry, music and languages, adding different lectures as his fancy took him. As a matter of course he had blown up the lab, and it went without saying that he just had had to find certain plagiarized passages in the physics department chair's doctoral thesis, and the memory of that brouhaha still made Mycroft shudder.
He had him transferred to Oxford, where within the year he had hacked into the university's computer's main frame just to show that he could - an incident Mycroft had managed to present as rather helpful in the prevention of future hostile invasions to the university's board.
He then spent the end of term holidays with his only friend from Cambridge, Victor Trevor, at Norfolk where he uncovered a case of blackmailing related to the embezzlement of ships' funds which said friend's father was involved in. Trevor senior committed suicide. Thanks to Mycroft, his career by then firmly on track, the case never made it to the press and a major financial scandal could be avoided. The friendship did not survive, as Victor held Sherlock responsible for his father's demise.
By the end of the following year Sherlock had been busted for drugs' possession when a lab mate had given him up in order to negotiate better terms for his own arrest, and had been expelled from college without a proper degree.
After a stern lecture on the dangers of drug abuse and its consequences - and did he really want to waste his life like that? - Mycroft had offered his brother shelter in the family's townhouse in Kensington, but was informed that Sherlock would prefer living on the streets to being supervised by him. And how could he have expected otherwise? So he had found his brother a tiny bedsit in the city, where he could live comfortably, if modestly, from the proceeds of his trust fund until he had sorted himself out.
The next unforeseen occurrence had been a notification by one Detective Inspector Lestrade that Sherlock had been delivered to hospital after having been picked up literally out of the gutter, overdosed on heroin.
Mycroft, now absolutely at the end of his tether regarding all things Sherlock, had taken matters in hand. DI Lestrade had been persuaded to conveniently mislay the paperwork relating to Sherlock's arrest and hospitalisation - which he agreed to only after Mycroft had promised him that draconian measures would be taken - and Mycroft's agents, a few SAS men, he knew from some former operation, one of them with medical training, had taken hold of Sherlock, conveyed him to their family mansion in the country and cleaned him up cold turkey-style, being not too gentle about it.
Mycroft had been there for all of it - not in the same room, but right next door - a silent witness to the fighting and screaming, the struggling and cursing, the sobbing and the icy silence afterwards. It was not a happy memory.
Of course it had been very unfortunate that Mummy had chosen exactly this weekend to come home from France and walked in on something she referred to as 'torture'. Sherlock, by then a wild-eyed, quivering mess, had taken the chance to run off to rough it on the streets of London and it had taken them weeks to catch up with him again. By which time they had to repeat the whole process all over.
Perhaps it hadn't been the kindest approach even if it was the most reasonable one, he had thought at the time. Therapy was not really an option, if that hapless school psychologist at Eton, who had actually attacked Sherlock with his own riding crop after the boy had turned the tables and unveiled some unflattering truths about him the man had obviously been unable to face, was any proof. Mycroft could imagine quite clearly what specialists, outwitted by a stroppy twenty-something running circles around them, might be tempted to do, involving methods of therapy long since happily abandoned. Although sometimes Mycroft suspected that a lobotomy would actually be a kindness to his brother who never had a moment's rest from his raging brain.
But the kingdom could not relinquish an intellect like that. It must be put to use. Mycroft had offered Sherlock his patronage on more than one occasion. If he could but harness this brilliant mind and make it work for him, they would be an unstoppable force. However, Sherlock had refused any approach from his side and fought for his freedom to live his own life.
At best it could be called insensitive, Mycroft admitted to himself now. At worst it had been downright brutal to subject his brother to this when he had been at his most vulnerable. Riven and confused by the permanently disparate demands of his brain and his heart, Sherlock had sought temporary relief from a conflict he had no means to solve - only to find Mycroft forcefully barring his only exit.
Mycroft had had severe misgivings about how his brother had made a living and funded his habit during that time. It was only later, after Sherlock picked his pockets for the first time, nicking his wallet, but thankfully leaving him their grandfather's watch, that he had come to understand that Sherlock had more clever ways to survive than the most obvious one.
He was well aware that Sherlock resented, even feared him since then. It had been the final rift.
*****
After the second withdrawal Sherlock had let Mycroft know that he wished to go to France to visit their mother, a plan Mycroft approved of - especially in view of the incident she had had to witness a few months earlier. When he had called a week later Mummy informed him that Sherlock had left for destinations unknown. A polite request to the French authorities produced the result that Sherlock had left for South America using his French passport, as unlike Mycroft he held dual citizenship. Further enquiries showed that he had taken a plane to Bogota. From the airport he had taken a bus going inland - after that all trace was lost. Mycroft could not but regard this as the ultimate act of defiance and had blamed his brother when he - not even thirty at the time - had found the first grey hairs at his temples.
During the next half year Mummy would occasionally get a postcard from somewhere in Peru, Chile or Argentina as Sherlock apparently travelled southwards, then Uruguay, Brazil, Venezuela as he made his way back north again. Then one day Mycroft received a fax from the authorities in French-Guyana informing him that his brother had left the country heading home. He had been just in time to advise customs at Heathrow that they were to let his brother through unchecked and to pick him up at the airport himself.
Sherlock had been looking more haggard and ragged than Mycroft had ever seen him with curls down to his shoulders and tanned to a light golden brown, a startling contrast to his light eyes, wearing torn jeans and a colourful vicuna poncho.
"I trust you've had enjoyable holidays, dear brother," he had said through a thin-lipped smile as soon as his men had made Sherlock get into the car with him. Sherlock, barely settled in the seat next to him, had tried the door handle which, of course, didn't give.
"Very enjoyable thanks to the fact that I was five thousand miles away from you and your goons," Sherlock had answered.
"But it won't surprise you that your choice of destination had me a bit unsettled," Mycroft had continued while his man Miller in the front seat had systematically unpacked Sherlock's backpack searching for drugs.
"You won't find what you're looking for," Sherlock had said, "I'm clean."
"Then you won't mind proving that, will you?" Mycroft had said lightly while the car proceeded to his personal GP's practice.
"You can go in willingly or I can have you dragged across the street," Mycroft had said, when Sherlock had made no effort to get out of the car. With a deep sigh Sherlock had gone and submitted to his x-ray and drugs' test.
Later that evening at their townhouse Mycroft's GP had informed him by phone that the test had come up negative, a result Mycroft had not expected, truth be told.
"So, it seems a repeat of 'holiday in the country' won't be necessary," Mycroft had told a moping Sherlock. "Which is fortunate, as I can hardly spare the time at the moment. Tell me then, what do you intend to do with your life now, Sherlock? Try another university, perhaps, if I can make anyone take you in?"
When Sherlock had coolly informed him that he intended to take up residence in London and demanded access to his funds, Mycroft had very nearly lost his composure.
"Don't defy me again, Sherlock," he had threatened, showing his teeth.
"Or what, Mycroft?" Sherlock had asked in the same fashion.
*****
So he had installed him in a small flat on Montague Street. But Sherlock Holmes on the loose in London was obviously prone to all sorts of mischief, which was why he had had him under surveillance ever since. Discreet searches of his premises, undertaken on a regular basis by Mycroft's agents or DI Lestrade, turned up no incriminating evidence however, just small notes left in the usual hiding places: "Not here!" taped to the underside of his sock drawer, for instance, and "Nor here!" glued inside the lid of the toilet's cistern.
When they had to meet - mostly at Christmas when Mummy breezed in from France and wished to meet her offspring - they were stiffly formal, trading underhanded barbs over the shining white damask of the dinner table, decked out with French porcelain, sterling cutlery and Waterford crystal. By then the little brother Mycroft had once known had become a stranger hidden behind a wall of sarcasm too thick to be penetrated.
When their mother had died in 2009 – an entirely accidental overdose of barbiturates her physician assured them – they had buried her in the family cemetery in France. The house and grounds went to Mycroft, being the elder, and the money left to Sherlock was placed under his custody as well. He subsequently increased Sherlock's allowance, but full discretionary power would be his only after full five years of being verifiably clean of drugs.
The only thing they took home with them was their mother's violin, a priceless Stradivarius. Mycroft had given it to Sherlock saying, "I think she would want you to have that." Sherlock had not spoken a single word for the entire trip. But he had clutched the violin case to his chest in a white-knuckled grip.
Occasionally, on mild summer evenings when the windows of the flat on Montague Street were likely to be opened to the breeze, Mycroft would go there and sit in the car with the windows rolled down to listen to Sherlock playing, the faint notes trailing down to him like a path into a past now lost forever. He had always liked to hear Sherlock play, had not even minded the screeching and wailing of five year old Sherlock's practising. Sometimes he wondered if Sherlock remembered that. If he remembered there had been a time they had been close.
Meanwhile Sherlock seemed to keep himself entertained by walking the streets of London at all hours of the the day and often at night. He appeared intent on memorising the underground, travelling all lines from start to terminal stop. A procedure he repeated with the bus lines. At first Mycroft could make no sense of it, but as he observed the pattern, he concluded that his brother was walking a grid, cartographing the city into his mind. Why he didn't rely on the London A-Z like everyone else was beyond him.
By then Mycroft had found, much to his chagrin, that Sherlock was keeping tabs on him as well. There simply was no other explanation why Sherlock was always gone when Mycroft tried to visit unannounced. One minute he was confirmed to be in his flat by Mycroft's lookout, the next he was gone - a hot cup of tea steaming on the table and the last note of his inherited Stradivarius still quivering on the air, when Mycroft entered with his spare key. Mycroft never discovered how he perpetrated this vanishing act.
Although fastidious like a cat in his personal grooming since childhood - a trait he shared with Mycroft - Sherlock was messy, borderline infernal in his housekeeping. Books, maps and newspapers cluttered every available surface in his living room with the odd binoculars, compass and magnifying glass thrown in, while his kitchen resembled more a laboratory than a cooking facility. The only place of tranquility was his bedroom where he kept his wardrobe in immaculate order. No signs of friends or lovers.
Mycroft had once tried to leave him provisions, as Sherlock's refrigerator always showed a lamentable lack thereof, but the very next time, when he opened its door, he found a dead cat and a note telling him, "Stop cluttering my fridge!" Mycroft followed this instruction.
At the same time Sherlock resumed his fencing lessons, abandoned when leaving Oxford, and started practising something called 'Bartitsu', which appeared to be some long forgotten and only recently revived form of martial arts. He seemed to be preparing for something, but as to what Mycroft was stumped - a condition he intensely loathed. No use in trying to break into Sherlock's laptop for clarification though. That wretched thing was encrypted to a level none of Mycroft's people had ever managed to crack.
"If you'd come and work for me, I could provide you with excellent training, you know," he said one evening upon entering the flat and being for once lucky in his endeavours to catch his brother unaware. Sherlock, lounging on the sofa in pyjama bottoms and a dressing gown, the mouthpiece of a nearby bong in his long delicate fingers, flinched once, but managed to quash his flight response. "But I don't want to work for you, brother dear," he drawled, seemingly bored. It was a good performance, Mycroft had to give him that. "I could make you," he remarked, delicately sniffing the air thick with the aroma of marihuana. "No, you couldn't," Sherlock had said through clenched teeth, closing his eyes and relaxing into the cushions by sheer force of will. Mycroft had left then. He did not succeed in surprising Sherlock again. The bong did not make a reappearance.
Then Reggie Musgrave, an acquaintance of Sherlock's from Oxford, contacted him and the next thing Mycroft knew his little brother had found some missing historical artifact hidden at the Musgrave estate for over three hundred years. It was quite the archaeological sensation. Surprisingly Sherlock stayed out of the spotlight, seemingly content with the outcome as such.
It was around that time that he had started wearing tailored suits and shirts instead of the jeans and duffle coats of his student years. If he was aware that his billowing greatcoat was quite distinctive on surveillance monitors he never let on. And he still was able to go unnoticed whenever he needed to be, as most times he just disappeared from view as soon as he stepped out of the front door on Montague Street. How he managed to evade Mycroft's cameras was anyone's guess.
At the same time his ridiculous website went live and now Mycroft finally realized what it had all been about. "Consulting detective?" he had asked incredulously. "You are aware that we have a police force? People paid to do the work you offer?" when 'accidentally' bumping into Sherlock somewhere in the city. "Of course, but they aren't any good at it," he had said, giving Mycroft a one-shouldered shrug. Nonetheless, Mycroft had contacted Lestrade to let him know.
Sherlock had started working on his own when he found something that tickled his curiosity in newspaper articles or TV reports, often recklessly risking his life, but always being lucky enough to escape any personal danger unscathed. He followed his earlier pattern of never publicly claiming his successes, instead letting the police officers have their fifteen minutes of fame, staying in the shadows behind the scene. By then Lestrade and a few of his colleagues had started consulting him on their more baffling cases, and his recognition in certain circles had quickly grown, although not his popularity. He hardly made any money and was mostly living hand to mouth, but he didn't seem to care about financial success. He was now often found at St. Bart's where he had managed to gain unlimited access to the labs and mortuary by which means Mycroft was not entirely sure.
*****
When the disappearance of a minor MI6 employee together with the Bruce Partington plans - and heads had rolled because of the stupidity of letting this critical information get onto a memory stick - had given Mycroft an opportunity to visit Baker Street himself, he had been able to gain some firsthand impressions. Upon entering his brother's new flat he had found the broken window panes of the living room, caused by the supposed gas leak in the building opposite, covered by plastic foil and glittering shards of glass littering the carpet. A quick inventory of the premises - rather quaint and humble, Mycroft had decided - showed the usual jumble of work-related books and papers and two armchairs facing each other in front of the fire place. What might they be talking about, his brother and his new flatmate, sitting there of an evening, the fire slowly burning down to ashes?
Then Sherlock had turned up, impeccably well-groomed and dressed, and, picking up his violin, had taken the seat opposite Mycroft. Plucking a few discordant notes to show his disapproval of Mycroft's presence in his space, he had stared at him, openly defiant.
"Where's John?" Mycroft had asked.
"You tell me," Sherlock had answered, indicating he knew full well they were being observed.
"Shadows in paradise?" Mycroft had asked with a cruelty he hadn't bothered to suppress, as his toothache had made him cantankerous this morning.
But by then John had already burst in, calling out on the staircase, "Sherlock, are you all right?"
The conversation that followed had not gone well. Sherlock had flatly refused to help him regarding the missile plans, claiming he had another case to work on.
"Don't make me order you," Mycroft had threatened, making it very clear that he had the power to make Sherlock perform, whether he wanted to or not.
"I'd like to see you try," Sherlock had said, feeling safe in the knowledge that he had John as an ally now.
On his way out, accompanied by the angry shrieks of Sherlock's violin, Mycroft had wondered how to use this newly founded dependency.
When John had visited him in his offices in the afternoon to 'gather more information on the Bruce Partington plans' - a ridiculous attempt at stalling while Sherlock wasted his time running after some mad bomber who was not of any consequence right there and then - he had called him back from the door.
"A word, John?"
He had stopped and turned around, slowly.
"When I visited this morning, I could not help but noticing the state of your wall. I gather he has been bored?"
"Out of his wits," John had said.
"A thing you might want to know about my brother, should you continue living with him: When he gets bored, he will try to escape. And one of his favourite means of escape is a seven percent solution of cocaine, intravenous. I trust you have already noticed that he has severe problems with substance abuse?"
John had looked grim, Mycroft recalled.
"And you're telling me this because...?"
Mycroft had shrugged. "Oh, you might want to be on the lookout. Though he is very adept at hiding his stash."
John had stepped back from the door, stopping halfway to Mycroft's desk. "Do you expect me to rifle through his things now?"
"Not at all," Mycroft had said, "if it doesn't bother you."
It had been the first of many similar conversations. In the end it did bother John enough.
Three days later in the morning Sherlock and John had turned up to hand over the memory stick. Both were suspiciously tight-lipped about the incident. "So glad you could find the time in your busy schedule," Mycroft had said instead of 'thank you'. By then he had had already read the mad bomber-file Lestrade had provided him with. Another mention of 'Moriarty'. According to his brother a 'consulting criminal'. That Sherlock had actually been prepared to hand over the memory stick for John's freedom had led to a serious argument. "The plans were useless, I had made modifications," Sherlock had assured him haughtily. Mycroft had instructed the financial department to transfer another twenty five thousand pounds into his brother's account for 'services rendered'.
For quite some time now Mycroft had been vaguely aware of some entity lurking in the fringes where criminal activities and political terrorism overlapped. A possible connection? That had led to an assignment to all secret service agencies available to him: "Moriarty - activities/connections? - Priority ultra".
*****
Sherlock's call at Christmas notifying him of the Adler woman's demise had come as a surprise to Mycroft. That his brother had been able to identify her body, if not her smashed-up face, had been another one. Considering the woman's occupation as a dominatrix and Sherlock's battered looks after their encounter, Mycroft suspected that he had missed essential details of the goings on at the Adler residence.
When Sherlock had taken the cigarette offered him, proving without doubt that Irene Adler's death had affected him in ways Mycroft had not foreseen, he had had to rely on John again to prevent a danger night. He could not imagine his brother in love. But then, he had been wrong on so many counts already. Perhaps Sherlock had contemplated the possibility of an association with her after he had found her to possess an intellect equal to his own?
Letting his associates know the phone was in Sherlock's possession had been a mistake. Another one. On new year's eve the Americans, already resentful for their defeat at Adler's house a few months prior, had taken off without further notice to try and wrangle the phone from Sherlock, which had ended in disaster. Again. After that he had had a hard time keeping them in check and only his influence and position had saved 221B from further assaults. He had let Sherlock have the phone. After all it did not matter where it was as long as it was safe. And he'd made very sure of that.
Meanwhile Mycroft had received a lot of intelligence regarding James Moriarty from various sources. Sadly, none of it was very detailed. But all of it was alarming. No crime was too petty, no political intrigue too complicated. He had his fingers in all the pies and his network was nothing short of global. Why was such a man interested in a private detective working in London, even if he had thwarted him on more than one occasion?
A few months later he had received intelligence that a very much alive Adler had been sighted in Paris. Followed a short time later by the fatal text from Moriarty himself to let him know that Bond-flight had been betrayed. There was only one source this information could have come from and the situation had become deadly for Sherlock and dangerous for Mycroft as well. The things he had had to consent to to save his brother's life! Promises, compromises and concessions. The Americans demanded Sherlock's head on a platter and for a second or two Mycroft had nearly felt inclined to let them have it, had it not been for the fact that he had had to admit to his own failures. To throw his emotionally unstable and sexually inexperienced brother in the path of a woman who made her living by exploiting men's desires had not been his wisest move.
However, in the final confrontation with Adler they had found that it was not her own agenda she was enacting, but Moriarty's. And not only Sherlock had been his target, but also Mycroft himself. The man seemed desperate for his attention. That surely could be arranged. Then Sherlock had risen like a phoenix from the ashes. Humiliated beyond anything someone as fiercely proud as he could be made to endure, he had finally figured out the phone's code and saved not only his country, but also his own life and quite possibly Mycroft's career.
Sherlock applying his brother's guidance to follow his brain instead of his heart should have made Mycroft proud of him - if he could have believed him. Seeing those two sleek alien creatures engaged in a mating dance, equally prepared to rip each other apart or to couple and take over the world, had been a disturbing experience. The passions slumbering under that icy exterior were better not awakened.
Mycroft was well aware that he was an alien, too. But one well versed in mimicry. Most of the natives would take him for one of their own. "Mycroft Holmes? Charming fellow, if a bit old school."
Now that Sherlock had found Irene untrustworthy, he was doomed to singlehood again, a stranger on a strange planet, very far from home. Sherlock still needed to connect, still felt a yearning for companionship, however unconsciously. So, thank God for John Watson, Mycroft had thought. At any rate the lesser evil. Especially as the man had seemed to have made Sherlock his priority, losing one female companion after another due to Sherlock's eccentricities.
"If you're feeling kind lock her up, otherwise let her go. I doubt she'll survive long without her protection," Sherlock had said upon leaving. Well, Mycroft had not felt particularly kind that night. He had seen her out himself with the utmost politeness, quietly saying "Godspeed!" to the rear lights of her limousine as they vanished around the corner.
When he had been informed of Adler's execution by a terrorist cell in Karachi, he had cross checked this intelligence as thoroughly as possible. Then left it to John to decide whether to tell Sherlock the truth or the gentle lie he had invented - because he didn't wish to cause his brother renewed heartbreak - of her being accepted into a witness protection programme in the US. It had not registered at the time - only now in retrospect - that he had begun to defer to John in regard to caring for Sherlock.
*****
Moriarty had been seized in Rome by MI6 and delivered to England. Mycroft had had him evaluated by three profilers from different agencies who had all agreed at having never met a mind as brilliantly deranged as his. Unfortunately neither threat nor violence would make him talk. But his forces had assembled and started a campaign of vengeance, taking out the head of MI6 Italy, where apparently intelligence of his capture had been leaked.
For Sherlock the time was slow on cases and therefore potentially dangerous, so Mycroft had been pleased to learn that he and John had left for Dartmoor on the trail of a gigantic hound. He failed to be amused, though, upon finding that Sherlock had abused Mycroft's very own clearance card to access Baskerville. Up to then he had not even noticed it was missing. He had not hesitated to inform the Baskerville authorities that his clearance was used without proper authorization. Sherlock apprehended by the Baskerville military forces would give Mycroft enough leverage to make him consent to the plan slowly forming in his mind. He had sent Greg Lestrade after them, partly for firsthand information of what was happening and partly to help keep Sherlock in check as John was an unreliable ally at best, ever too prepared to go along with Sherlock's hare-brained schemes.
As had happened so many times before, a streak of uncanny luck had helped Sherlock to avoid the trap and leave Baskerville unfettered. Twenty four hours later he had had the audacity to call Mycroft and demand renewed entry to the facility. It was then that Mycroft had demanded a confidential conversation as the price for his agreement. The fallout from the Baskerville affair had been a bureaucratic nightmare Mycroft could have done without.
When Sherlock had breezed into his offices after his return from Dartmoor, Mycroft could not help but notice how much better he looked lately. He had gained a little weight and, although still pale as milk, he seemed not as wan as usual. Life with John did suit him, obviously. He had always been a fire consuming itself, but this fire was banked now, still shining through, but less fatal. Mycroft still remembered the time Sherlock had been hospitalized for sheer malnutrition after he had fainted at a crime scene.
"So, Mycroft," he had drawled, "where are the hoops you'd have me jump through?" But it had been without real venom, his usual rancour dimmed. And Mycroft had realised that for the first time in his adult life Sherlock had not only been content, but very nearly happy. John had provided something Mycroft could not offer. He would take all that away from him now and send him out into the cold, alone. What a brotherly thing to do.
"Have a seat, Sherlock," he had said, gently, "this will take a while."
Sherlock had taken the seat opposite him, crossing his legs and folding his coat about him with casual elegance.
"You may be interested to learn that I've recently had a few conversations with an acquaintance of yours - James Moriarty?"
Sherlock had tensed.
"Not least regarding the unfortunate rearrangement of our flight schedules. We are especially interested in a computer key code he brags to possess which can apparently open all doors and invade all networks. But while he is quite willing to talk about past endeavours, he seems to have inhibitions as to his future plans. At least as far as business is concerned."
"Oh, you should insist," Sherlock had said, arching an eyebrow at him.
"We have. We have indeed," Mycroft had assured him, still feeling slightly repulsed at some of the things he had had to authorise.
"The only subject he is willing to talk about at any length is you. He is, for whatever reasons, quite obsessed with you. He seems undecided though whether he wants to… hm, seduce you or kill you. He is, however, sure that he wants to 'burn out your heart'. Quite the romantic, I'm afraid." Mycroft had had to listen to many deeply obscene fantasy scenarios spun for the sole purpose of getting a rise out of him (he hoped). They had not.
"How amusing," Sherlock had answered with icy composure.
"This is not a joke, Sherlock," he had said, letting the flint shine through. "By the way, what does he mean by 'burning the heart out of you'?"
"He means to go after John," Sherlock had said without hesitation.
"Hm. Anything I should know?"
"Not your business, Mycroft!"
"I make it my business, Sherlock. We have been unable to make him talk except for his charming plans for your future. And we will not be able to get to the key code or to dismantle his network without him. Without you. So, I have decided to give you to him. You will be the bait for his trap."
Sherlock had sat frozen, his eyes glittering. "Trap? What trap? You have him already, for God's sake. Put him into Pentonville and throw away the key!"
"We could have done that, of course - the problem is that he is not alone. As you well know. He is incredibly well connected, at the centre of a veritable spider web of crime and terrorism. We need them all, Sherlock, the whole network. And the code. I do want that code. That's why I let him go."
"You let him go? People will die!"
"Collateral damage, Sherlock," Mycroft had said. "People are dying every day because of his organization. Drugs' and weapons' smuggling, human trafficking, dealing with critical information and God knows what else. As long as he's preoccupied with you, he may even let his other endeavours rest a while."
"So, you're selling me downriver, Mycroft? I think not."
"I am so very sorry I have to ask this of you. I mean you no harm, Sherlock, I never have, but this is a question of national security and I have no choice. If someone can do this, anyone at all, it's you. Moriarty being as obsessed with you as he is, you are singularly positioned, there is no one else."
"Do what exactly?"
"I have no idea. The first move must be his. Become his friend, be his lover, let him hunt you down and expose himself in the process. I don't care, just get me an in!"
"And if I decline?"
"You can't. I'm drafting you. You're mine. To use as I see fit."
Utterly still Sherlock had stared at him, pale as ice, his eyes burning brightly.
"Sherlock, a brain like yours, it doesn't belong just to you. Think of it as a national resource. I can't allow you to play cops and robbers all over London, however exciting you may find it. This has gone on far too long, you just reacting to anything he throws at you. How long is it now? A year? And have you been able to pin anything on him? So far you've failed spectacularly, wouldn't you say?"
How fragile his pride, how easily shattered, Mycroft had thought, observing the minute display of distress on his brother's features. The slight tightening of the lines around his eyes and mouth, the quick lowering of the eyelids, the fractional bow of the proud head. After everything that had happened between them Sherlock still craved his approval. So rarely obtained, so hard to come by.
"Time to grow up, brother mine. It's time we combined our efforts. And for what it's worth, I don't believe that John will be his first target. I think he will go directly for you. He was very interested in your past, childhood, student years et cetera."
"And you let him have that?"
"I have made modifications," Mycroft had assured him primly. "I just wonder what use it will be to him. But don't you welcome the opportunity to bring him in yourself? Isn't that what you relish? The thrill of the game?"
"It's not a game anymore, Mycroft," Sherlock had said, sounding suddenly tired. "If I have to trade my life for his I will, but I'd rather do it on my own terms and it better be worth it. And there's one thing - John mustn't know. He won't let me go alone."
"He won't. I promise. This will get very unpleasant, very soon. Moriarty wants to play and play with you and he won't play nice. So, you have to play him. You will have to think on your feet and adapt as necessary, but you're good at that. And you will have carte blanche and full support, anyone and anything you need, wherever and whenever. You have my word."
They had discussed the arrangements to be made regarding Sherlock's back-up and had decided on a chess code, as they were both excellent players, although Sherlock - being far more detail oriented and usually too impatient to plan more than three moves ahead - had never been able to beat him. Mycroft never lost sight of the larger picture.
When they had finished, Sherlock had leaned forward, placing his hands flat on the desk, his light eyes never leaving Mycroft's. "They must all be protected," he had said. "All of them. John, Mrs Hudson, Lestrade, Molly - if anything happens to any of them, anything at all, I will not overthrow Moriarty's organisation, I will overtake it and make your every minute a living hell, Mycroft. Because I won't play nice either."
And with that he had got up and strode to the door, pose regal as ever.
Mycroft had stopped him. "I have taken the liberty of making you an appointment with my dentist," he had said to the rigid dark-clad back. "He will make certain adjustments to one of your molars. I would wish for you to have a way out, if circumstances should turn too… stressful."
Sherlock had not wavered. "Text me," he had thrown over his shoulder, while putting on his gloves. The tail-end of his blue-black coat swishing around the corner as he left had been the last Mycroft had seen of him.
"I am so very sorry, Sherlock," he had said to the empty room.
*****
Molly Hooper had called him only half an hour after the fact to inform him that his brother had regrettably ended his life by stepping from the roof of St. Bart's. Could he please come and officially identify him? Mycroft had been there an hour later. When the morgue assistant had led him into the viewing room, little Miss Hooper had stood guarding the shrouded figure on the slab. There was something different in her stance from the last time he had seen her. Back and shoulders straight, head held high, gaze fierce. She was clutching a size eleven scalpel in the hand hidden in the folds of her lab coat and he had fleetingly wondered what she meant to do with it in case someone would attack Sherlock or her, but had felt strangely touched nonetheless. This was not the little mouse, hopelessly infatuated with his brother. This was a lioness protecting her cub. She had watched him warily as he approached.
"Ready?" she asked.
He nodded. And with a swift, secure move she had uncovered his brother's body to the waist. Marble white, dark hair in wet ringlets around his bloodless face, bruised blue shadows under closed eyelids, pale lips. His long, pale hands crossed above his unmoving chest. Naked and helpless as the day he was born.
He had first been informed of the new family member's pending arrival by his parents - still happy then, still laughing - and Mummy (beautiful/serene) and Father (proud/happy) had lovingly comforted him after his indignant protest of "No one asked me!"
So, he had read everything about human pregnancy he could find in their library going along with the stages of development of the embryo. Then Father had been killed by a sniper's bullet, a political murder, leaving Mummy gutted and nearly insane with grief. The premature delivery - though the books deemed four weeks harmless - had had Mycroft worrying.
When Mummy had come home from hospital with the newborn infant, pale and wan and confined to her darkened bedroom, crying, crying endlessly and without hope, the care of the baby had been left to the ad hoc employed nurse and Mrs Christie, their housekeeper. Mycroft had waited a week or so and then at bathing time had very thoroughly inspected his newborn brother.
Sherlock, though tiny, had been perfect. From the crown of his head downed with fluffy black fuzz to his tiny little toes, ten as should be. Mycroft had counted them, along with his fingers. Each toe and finger appointed with a perfectly oval nail fine as a petal. Ears translucent as shells, slanted eyes with lashes like black silk, a diminutive nose and bow-shaped pink lips like their mother's. He even had minuscule nipples, a tiny curlicue of a belly button and a small penis - a fully formed human being, able to grow into a man.
When he had been allowed to feed his brother his baby bottle under diligent supervision, their mother not being able to nurse him, the infant had looked up at him and mewled, sounding just like one of Mrs Christie's kittens. The tiny mouth had made sucking movements in expectation of the dummy, his eyes a startling light-blue and so aware.
He had seen other babies, of course, friends' and relatives' little brothers and sisters, but had never paid them much attention. This one was different. This one was his to protect and care for and teach and shape into the little brother he wanted him to be.
"This is my brother," he had said, his voice hoarse, suddenly not sure if something had gone horribly wrong. "When…?"
"I'll do the autopsy myself," she had said. "Certificate of death by tomorrow morning."
He released a breath he had not known he had been holding.
"Doctor Hooper," he said with new found respect.
"Mr Holmes."
*****
How was it that his brother, his supposedly friendless brother - and Mycroft suddenly remembered every time he had snorted a derisive laughter when John Watson had mentioned the words 'Sherlock' and 'friends' in the same sentence - inspired such fierce loyalty in the few people he cared about?
What did they see? Could these ordinary people really value the brilliant complexity of Sherlock's mind? Fascination - yes, he could understand that. John certainly had been fascinated by his brother from the first time they met. Infatuation? Yes, of course. Mycroft abstractly knew that his little brother had grown into a rare specimen of male beauty. Molly Hooper and Irene Adler (as a few others in the past) were proof of that. But there was something else. Something he could not name.
He had indeed done it all wrong, Mycroft saw with sudden clarity. In his attempt to shape Sherlock after his own image he had failed him. All he had achieved was to alienate him and to condemn him to a solitary life that did not suit his artistic nature. And by that he had formed him into the very man capable of following in Moriarty's footprints.
Mycroft thought of Lovecraft and his mad old gods and the books he had hidden so many years ago. Perhaps there had indeed been a tentacled monster under Sherlock's bed all these years, lurking, waiting, biding its time to unleash chaos into the world. Sherlock's reputation was ruined. This morning, when he had stepped off the roof, THE SUN's headline had screamed that he was a fake and a criminal. There was no way back for him now. He could only move in one direction and Mycroft could only hope that chaos would not devour him whole.
Sherlock taking over Moriarty's empire could prove fatal. Criminal genius though he was, Moriarty had still been pedestrian in his methods, relying on blunt force, threatening or bribing people to do his will. Sherlock would be far more subtle and even more dangerous. He would not brag about some key code, he would just use it - all the secrets his and all the power. And if he ever had to be stopped… That was not an assignment Mycroft would be able to commission. He thought of the gun in his uppermost desk drawer and felt a chill run down his spine.
But why had he needed Sherlock to be like him? Mycroft asked himself. Because he had needed that one soul to share his solitude? To not be totally alone himself? The damage was done now. No way back. You could not undo the effect of nearly thirty years of conditioning. All he could still do, if he got the chance, was to make amends. It was time to set him free.
If there was hope, it was because of John and the friendship that bound them. John had given Sherlock what his own brother had not: acceptance, companionship, quiet support and praise. If he would come back, it would be because of John. Mycroft just hoped he would not have to return to an empty house.
Mycroft stood. Time to go home. Tomorrow he had a funeral to plan.