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Mycroft Holmes is now ten years old, and no one but Mrs. Crowle remembers. Well, he thinks she remembers. He is trying to be kind – his mother, when she is not busy with Beatrice, always tells him to be kind, especially to those littler than him1, and he presumes the instruction applies here – and this time Mrs. Crowle gave him marzipan to bribe him out of the kitchen instead of the usual heels of bread, so it really does seem like she remembers it is his birthday.
Or she just gave him marzipan because it was close at hand when he came wandering, and she’d wanted him gone more than she’d wanted to go looking because just then Mr. Crowle was fresh from the outside and kissing her cheek.
Or it is because it is his birthday, and she remembers.
Or.
He is not surprised to be forgotten. Little Bea’s cough wasn’t going anywhere, and the party that evening has the house overstuffed with fresh staff, and Sherlock keeps escaping the nanny2 to go see what their father is doing so it is easier to just let him stay in the study.
Mycroft, being the eldest and newly ten, needs no such supervision. He takes the marzipan outside to eat it, as the winter chill is not yet so full as it will be by nightfall, and finds a perch on the garden wall where he won’t bother anyone except Mr. Crowle, coming back outside to continue his work, and that’s not really bothering because the man only winks with their shared secret.
The marzipan is so sweet that it burns his tongue. He has to force himself to eat it in slow, simple bites, and the longer he takes the more he can mold what’s left, leaving trails of his fingerprints in the sugar and almond. It leaves his fingers sticky. He knows no one is looking, and sucks them clean.
It is his birthday, after all.
Every month, their father measures him and Sherlock against the same doorframe, notching the wood with a pocketknife for every new inch. Once Beatrice can stand, she will get her own notches. Their father is so proud when Sherlock and Mycroft grow, he will be incandescent seeing how Beatrice will trail them, so many years behind.
Hands clean and sky a lovely winter grey, Mycroft stretches his arms and legs along the wall, pointing his toes in his shoes. He is certain he is taller than he was the day before. When his father next measures him, maybe even when his father next sees him, he will know, and he will be so proud. He might even tell Sherlock to go bother someone else, because it is Mycroft’s birthday, after all, and pull Mycroft close to show him what he is working on.
He might.
Mycroft sneaks back inside long enough to grab his book from the nursery3, not wanting to linger in the stiff air of things that must still be done. His mother kept battling between if she wanted that evening’s party to be grand or private, and has settled on a mixture of the two, so the house must be both gilded and cramped. She flits about with Beatrice tucked against her to be sure everything is just as it should be. His little sister, when she is not coughing, blabbers her own opinions, which their mother listens to with serious concern.
Currently, they are debating what must be done with all of the extra chairs that need to fit in the dining room. Many of his mother’s friends have been invited, and few of his father’s. Mycroft has been promised a cousin. He knows which one it will be.
Outside, though, on his stone wall hidden beside greenery, it is quiet. He is reading a history of England’s Kings and Queens, and left off with James I, who he likes especially because there was the Gunpowder Plot, which is ever so exciting. He reads, and feels he can smell the smoke from what-might-have-been still rolling through England, all the way from London.
It is hours later when, curling into himself against the cold, Mycroft hears the nanny calling for him.
“I’m here,” Mycroft says, tucking the book around a finger to save his place4 as he returns inside.
Mrs. Ambrose rushes to him to check his temperature. Her hair and dress are a mess from Sherlock’s recent tugging. “Oh, you’re so cold, you foolish boy, you might have caught a fever.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I must have lost track of time.”
“You must be careful, Mycroft, I won’t have you getting sick.” She is already turning away with a frown. “Where is your brother? He was just here.”
“I’ll help you look for him, Mrs. Ambrose.”
“No, you need to go get dressed. Your father wants to see you before the guests arrive.” She flaps a hand, bending to check under furniture for a giggling fool. “Sherlock Holmes, come out here now or I’ll smack your little bottom.”
Mycroft goes where he is bid, feeling flush with prickling warmth and nerves, though he is ten now, and almost a man, really.
His suit for the party is a cranberry shade, chosen special by his mother so all of her children will match, though only Mycroft will be staying at the party through dinner. It takes a few minutes for his fingers to warm up enough to do all the buttons, and by the time he’s combing his hair smooth, Mrs. Ambrose has arrived chasing a running Sherlock. That boy is always running5.
There’s blood at his little brother’s mouth, the cause of which he displays with a wide grin when he sees Mycroft. “Look, I lost a tooth.” The fresh gap is right in the front, giving him a lisp.
Mycroft snorts. “Yes, I can see that.”
Mrs. Ambrose grabs Sherlock’s chin to keep him still, spitting on her handkerchief. “He swears he didn’t pull it out himself, but it’s far too early for such things.”
“I didn’t!” Sherlock tries to wriggle free, batting at her wrist. “Mycroft, make her stop!”
“You’re bleeding.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You are.”
“No--” Sherlock scrunches up his face against Mrs. Ambrose’s efforts, but she still manages to clean him to satisfaction. “Hurts.”
“Then don’t pull out your teeth before they’re ready.” She lets him run off again, his attention grabbed by the book Mycroft was reading6. “He wouldn’t tell me where he’s hidden it either.”
“Father might know.” Mycroft smooths his waistcoat into place. His suit is stiff wool for the season. Already, sweat gathers at the back of his neck, curling those little hairs. “I’ll be sure to ask him.”
Her sigh is over-tired. He pities her, as he often does. “Hurry along to him, then, there’s a good boy.”
Mycroft obeys. The house echoes with a clock chiming for five and servants being told their tasks.
His father’s valet is just leaving as he comes up to his parents’ room, and the old man7 holds the door open with a wink, so Mycroft is suddenly certain that his father remembers his birthday.
His father is a flitting man. He is always smiling, always put together, and yet something of him reminds Mycroft of his butterflies, one not yet dead as it is pinned. He fidgets with his suit, brow furrowed, until he notices his son behind him in the long mirror.
“Mycroft,” he says, and smiles, and something settles in Mycroft’s gut as his father turns and opens his arms. “Look at you, a little gentleman.”
“Thank you, Father.” Mycroft tucks himself deep into his father’s embrace. He smells sharp, lingering with the chemicals from his experiments. Like metal and electricity and something that makes Mycroft not feel quite so old anymore.
Dropping to a crouch, his father puts his hands on Mycroft’s shoulders. Rooting him to the earth, to England, to his mother’s land and his mother’s house. Mycroft straightens his back so his father might notice his new height, and there is a glint in his eyes that lets Mycroft know that he does. “Now, my boy, are you ready to meet all of your mother’s friends?”
Mycroft beams. “Yes, Father.”
His father gives him a stern look, though Mycroft knows he is not really mad, only teasing. “And you’ll be on your best behavior? All charm and good humor?”
“Of course, Father.”
His father pats his cheek before standing. “Help me chose my tie, won’t you? I can’t decide between red and green.”
“Mother dressed us all in red.”
His father nods as he passes the two ties over for Mycroft’s inspection. “Then should I match the three of you?”
Mycroft seriously considers the options. He chews on his cheek until his father taps it, reminding him, and so he hides his disappointment with himself with, “yes, Father, I think red would be best.”
“The little gentleman has spoken.” His father takes the tie back. He twists it expertly around his collar, and then lifts his eyebrows for Mycroft’s approval. He gives it happily. “Now, there is something I wanted to give you.”
“Oh,” Mycroft says, trying to keep his voice still, because he is ten.
He is ten, and it is his birthday, and his father remembered, and he can still taste marzipan in his back teeth.
His father retrieves a little box from the mantle, crouching again to offer it to Mycroft. He is careful not to tear the brown paper. Inside, to his delight, is a notebook, the cover deep blue leather embossed with his initials. It warms to his hold, binding soft and easy to fall open to show lined paper.
“It is important for a man to have somewhere to record his thoughts,” his father explains. “Free his mind for new ideas.”
“Thank you, Father,” he says, and means it, running a finger down the page.
His father clasps his shoulder. “Best we don’t keep your mother waiting for much longer. You know how she can get.”
“Should I get Sherlock?”
“Smart boy,” his father winks.
Mycroft goes, and has to help distract Sherlock so Mrs. Ambrose can do up the final buttons. Their father comes to the door to help where he can, and soon the three Holmes men are dressed and coming downstairs to meet their mother and Beatrice, who have moved their fussing to the tree .
“Cordelia,” their father says, sliding up to take the glass ornament from her, “my darling, I think you can be done.”
“They didn’t do it right.” She twists around him to adjust another ornament, cheeks high and red as her gown. Beatrice dangles in her hold, swinging with wide-eyes at all the colors. “All of the greens are together, and there are not nearly enough blue.”
“It looks beautiful,” their father says.
“It does,” Mycroft parrots, earning a grin.
“You’ve done a wonderful job with all of this.” He cups the back of Beatrice’s head. “Darling, when did you last sit down?”
“No time.”
“Mycroft, fetch your mother some water.”
Mycroft obeys.
Sherlock, ever eager, tugs at their mother’s skirt. “Look,” he says, mouth wide, and that is what makes her change focus to gushing over his newly fallen out tooth.
“Oh, Sherlock, look at you.”
Their father enlists Mr. Crowle to help fix the ornaments. Sherlock presents the lost tooth for admiration, because of course he always had it. Beatrice ends up with the water spilled down her front, and Mrs. Ambrose summoned to dry the little girl off before guests arrive, though there are already strange horses on the drive.
It is his birthday, and Mycroft is left to remind himself to stop biting his cheek because his father is too busy with his youngest child to notice this time. He hates that he keeps going, and he doesn’t stop until he tastes blood.
All too soon, there are strangers in the house.
His mother’s guests arrive with much giddiness and gushes of winter chill. They are all so eager to see Cordelia that the fact his father is also there comes second, though his father smiles through it all. Mycroft is greeted just like his father, with hand shakes and knowing smiles, while Sherlock and Beatrice are fussed over like babies.
Sherlock shows off his tooth to everyone, and is praised by most for growing so big.
Mycroft gets little relief when his aunt and uncle arrive, as the two sisters are not eager for reunion, and the two husbands left to commiserate. But it is also Christmas, so there is something of good cheer in how they embrace and coo and bemoan how long it has been.
The cousin, a reedy boy not quite a year older than Mycroft named Frances, wrinkles his nose with disgust at Sherlock’s tooth, and Mycroft is quick to give him a nod of apologetic understanding.
Frances comes to Mycroft’s side with much relief. “We almost brought the baby. Mother was distraught at leaving her. Father had to drag her from the house.”
Mycroft nods. He can see a tightness at his aunt’s smile, hard-won against her sister’s joy. “She wouldn’t have wanted to come.”
“No,” Frances agrees.
They are not quite friends, but as the only two children of a similar age, they are always left together8.
Both cousins are surprised, then, when another child arrives perched at her father’s arm. The man is wealthy, and the girl dressed like a doll, already smiling and rosy-lipped.
Mycroft’s father rushes over to be the first to greet this new man, smoothing his hair on the way. This, then, is one of his father’s guests. One of the few, for a scientist who brought nothing to the marriage but ambition.
“Richard,” his father says, shaking hands hard. “So good of you to come.”
The man laughs, and he expects the world to laugh in time. Mycroft’s father obliges. “Of course we came, Silas. An honor to be invited, truly.”
His father bows to the daughter. “And Miss Brook, lovely as ever.”
“Mr. Holmes.” She bobs a curtsey in her green velvet.
Mycroft’s father ushers man and daughter to be introduced to the rest of the Holmes’ family. Mycroft and Frances gape between her, and each other.
“Did you know?” Frances hisses.
“No.”
Mr. Brook is left laughing with Mycroft’s mother and aunt1, while his father delivers the daughter to her fellow children.
“Finally, this is my eldest son, Mycroft. And my nephew, Frances.”
Both boys bow their chorus of Miss Brook to her answering curtsey. She is of similar age, but taller than them in that nasty habit of girls to spring up before boys.
“Melissa,” she says neatly, sounding like London. “A pleasure.”
His father clasps him on the shoulder, nodding to Frances. “You all will become good friends, I hope. Mycroft, why don’t you tell them what you’ve been reading lately?”
They are left a trio while the adults circle amongst themselves, laughing. Melissa blinks at Mycroft in expectation of his conversation.
Mycroft clears his throat. A girl is different than a cousin, even if she were not a stranger he is meant to entertain. He is ten. It is his birthday. He can still taste blood leaking from his bitten cheek and cannot stop himself from tonguing the raw flesh. “I have just started a chapter on William and Mary. Do you like history, Miss Brook?”
“Some.” Her attention flicks between them. “My governess prefers I do not read much, but my father disagrees.”
“My father is much the same,” Mycroft nods. “What do you like to read?”
“Lately, I have been taken by poetry. My father is attempting to find me a copy of Whitman.”
Frances leans forward. “The American?”
“Just so.”
“Did you know there’s gold in California?”
“I’m aware, yes.” She turns to Mycroft. There is red high in her cheeks just like his mother. “Might you fetch me a drink? I fear the cold has left me with a dry throat.”
“Of course.” He leaves cousin and stranger to their talk of gold, slipping through to the punch.
Their fathers have converged on the tree to give his mother much praise, though she herself is crouched in front of Sherlock, dabbing at his mouth, which is bleeding again from the tooth. Mycroft does not think before tilting his path to them. He will help here, and then he will fetch her drink, and it will be done.
“I can help him,” he whispers just so his mother can hear, already reaching for Sherlock’s arm so he does not flee once attention is off him.
“Would you, dear? That would be so lovely.” Their mother passes over the handkerchief and kisses both cheeks before she drifts away.
“You’re mean,” Sherlock tells him, though Mycroft tries to be gentle as he cleans. It is not so much blood this time. Just a newly closed wound being prodded too much.
Still, he scolds. “You need to stop messing with it. And stop showing off the tooth, you’ll ruin the dinner.”
“No, I won’t. Mother said she’s proud of me.”
“I know she did.”
“So I don’t need to stop.”
Mycroft pinches his little brother’s arm to make him yelp. “Well, you still should stop.”
“Won’t.”
“Then I’ll tell Mrs. Ambrose it’s time for you to go to bed.”
Sherlock crinkles his face. “She won’t listen to you.”
“She will if I tell her you’re being naughty, which you are.”
From behind him, there is young laughter. He hears his cousin in it, and the stranger, together. He hopes his father has not heard. Hopes the man has not turned to see, and notice that Mycroft is not there. He is with his little brother. He knows without looking that he has done wrong. It rises in him like bile.
He taps Sherlock on the brow, just above that scar that was his fault, really. “So will you stop being naughty?”
“If you’ll play with me.”
“Go play by yourself.”
“Meanie. Bea always plays with me.”
“Bea is eighteen months old.”
“Exactly.”
“Play with her, then.”
Sherlock’s face brightens as though the idea had somehow not occurred to him, despite him being the one to mention their sister, and Mycroft releases him to find her. When Sherlock trips up an older woman by the punch bowl, she only laughs, though Mycroft still apologizes for his brother with no one to hear.
By the time he has gathered punch and made to return to his fellow children, his mother is already clapping for attention to beckon everyone to dinner, which means Sherlock and Beatrice must be bid goodnight with opulent affection. Mrs. Ambrose has to shush Beatrice the whole while, as she is either fed up with being stared at or hating that she must leave. He can never tell with her, just that she cries.
He sees Frances and Melissa walking in together, one of her pale hands at her throat for want of a drink. The cup in his hand is slick with condensation, and he does not get it to her.
To his own surprise, Mycroft is seated by his aunt, who is never up for much conversation with her nephew.
Mycroft’s mother, meanwhile, is a ruby made of eagerness and wine. There are games amid the meal – tossing smiles and hiding coins – that she manages with ease, now that she is at the head of the table, backlit by fire and garlands of popcorn and cranberries.
He coaxes some words out of his aunt by asking about her garden that year, a passion both sisters share, but whether it is leaving her baby or just being at her sister’s house, his aunt’s mood does not improve10.
Elsewhere at the table, Frances is entertaining Mr. Brook, and Melissa captivating his uncle, and it is all well done.
The dinner is good. A Christmas feast mingled with the intents of a dinner party, rabbits roasted succulent since turkey is saved for the day proper. Just as he knew it would be, the marzipan is shaped into little mimics of other fruits, laid amongst the rest as decoration. He is eating his fill until there is the bite of his father’s attention, static down his spine, and his appetite wanes.
He wishes, almost, he could slip up to join Beatrice and Sherlock in the nursery, even if it would mean Mrs. Ambrose insisting on wiping their faces for them. He need not talk to his siblings unless they started poking him, and Mrs. Crowle remembers it is his birthday, so would have brought him something special to share with them.
After all is eaten, the men and women separate as is their due, with the children left to trail their mothers because they are not quite either. It is only some minutes later, seated in his own chair by the fire in the parlor with cold tea in hand, that Mycroft wonders where Miss Brook has gone.
Frances is picking at the thread on the arm of his sofa. He catches Mycroft’s eye when he feels the other boy staring, but only wrinkles his face and looks away.
“I should love to see them,” his mother is saying, bright-eyed between her friends and only half-heartedly including her sister. “So grand.”
“The largest ever, I’ve heard,” Mrs. Dalton adds, a regular visitor to the home. “Must be so very loud, all that water.”
“Quite loud,” his mother agrees.
When Mycroft stands, his aunt notices. “Mycroft?” she asks, quiet, a hand towards him.
That time, he rights his balance and intent easier. “Aunt, did you know where Miss Brook is?”
“Who?”
“What, darling?” his mother calls, diverting attention of the room, and he is so very glad he grew in the night so he can feel sure when he next speaks.
“I am going to look for Miss Brook. I worry she got lost on the way.”
His mother blinks, looking around the room with the wonder of a fed cat. “Oh, what a wonderful idea. So thoughtful, darling. Yes, go look for her.”
“I find I am sorry,” Mrs. Dalton leans forward, “that her father did not bring that Miss Charles.”
“Oh?” his mother asks. “Who is she?”
“A soprano, so I’ve heard.”
Mycroft bows to his aunt, and leaves. The hall is blissfully cold and quiet, lit only by the candles in the tree, so there is something of old soup in the air, or the tea he left behind. It is the first time he feels free to breathe in some hours.
The men, as he can hear them, are outside, enjoying a bracing chill with their liquor. They are quite raucous, and he turns away from the strength of it on instinct, as though shielding from a wind.
It is his birthday, and he would much rather be alone in the night with his book and something sweet, and he knows that is wrong, but the pain of biting his cheek does not convince him otherwise.
There are not so many places for the girl to have wandered. The kitchen, with Mrs. Crowle directing hired maids in cleaning and preserving. Upstairs, trailing portraits and suppressed giggles of Sherlock and Beatrice. But then, from his father’s study off the hall, there is shuffling like a trapped bird. Even he is not allowed inside without supervision so no delicate work is disturbed, but he toes the door open to check. He is right to.
She lit no candle to see by. only parted the curtains so there is a shaft of winter moonlight on the array of bugs his father left pinned on his desk. Like a ghost, or a shadow, she is made so thin by the dark she might vanish when he blinks.
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” Mycroft says, before he can stop himself. It sounds so much like a whine he might have stepped out of her sight if she were not so quick to look up and see him in the doorway.
“I’m just looking.” She is also too quick to speak, whisper and excuse bit into one.
“Still.” He has to commit to it now, making himself swallow, stand tall.
She doesn’t move except to pull her hand back to her chest from where it nearly touched a butterfly wing. “My father said that your father is a scientist.”
“That’s right, yes.”
“What kind of science?”
“All sorts.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“You’re not supposed to be in here.”
Still, she does not move. “Are you going to be a scientist when you grow up?”
“I shouldn’t think so,” he says.
“I think I’d like to be a scientist.”
“Girls can’t be scientists.”
“I know,” she snaps.
Voices rise behind Mycroft like a wave, and he turns with ringing in his ears to see the men all laughing their way back inside. The rest might have missed Mycroft stood there in the dark, but Silas is not that sort of man, and he frowns at his son. “What are you two doing here, then?”
That is all the warning that Mycroft gets before Melissa curtsies beside him in a gush of velvet. A moment ago, she was inside the study where she should not have been, and now she is next to him as though she always was. His face burns. If he weren’t ten, his eyes might have begun to water, but he is ten, so he makes them stop.
She is the one who explains. “He was just giving me a tour, sir. Father.”
Mr. Brook moves to the front of the men, all staring at the children like a pack of dogs. “Darling, what have I told you about snooping?”
Mycroft’s father laughs, all good tidings and cheer. “Curiosity is welcome in this house, especially from its guests.”
Mycroft swallows hard. He does not quite know where to look. Now, the dark is cloying. “Yes, Father, of course.”
“Your work is very interesting, Mr. Holmes. Have you made them yourself?”
“Some, yes.” Mycroft’s father glances at the rest of the men mingling in the hall, then gestures the Brooks inside the study. “Mycroft, light candles, won’t you, there’s a good lad?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Do you have a favorite, Miss Brook?”
Her answer is immediate, rushing over to a side shelf and the jewel beetles in their little glass bulbs. “These are very pretty, sir.”
He goes to her, crouching. “Quite beautiful, yes. Did you know, in India, they make jewelry out of these beetles? The most delicate of pieces.”
Mr. Brook laughs, settling himself in a chair by the dampened fire. “You know, Silas, I’m off to India in the spring. Perhaps I’ll find you a necklace of them, darling. Would you like that?”
She is a swan on the Thames, pleased and easy just where she belongs, though this is Mycroft’s mother’s house and Mycroft’s father’s study. “I’d like that very much, Father, thank you.”
“And in the meanwhile,” Mycroft’s father says, selecting one of the bulb jars, “why don’t I give you this, and you can start your own collection to rival mine.”
“Oh, thank you very much, sir.” She kisses him on the cheek before another curtsey.
“You are very welcome, Miss Brook.”
“You’ll find, Silas, that daughters are easy to spoil,” Mr. Brook laughs. “Once I’ve gotten started with her, I find I cannot soon stop.”
“If their thanks is always so lovely, I do not think I will mind.” He stands, finding Mycroft stood with spent match by the curtain. He is not relieved to see his eldest son, even as he basks in a job well done, but he taps on his own cheek to remind Mycroft not to bite. “Now, don’t you two have a tour to finish?”
Mr. Brook turns to Mycroft with some surprise. “Oh?”
Mycroft is the marzipan, molded back into place and left stained with fingerprints. “Would you like to see the library, Miss Brook?”
When she looks at him, he knows she is disappointed to be left with him. “I would be very interested to, Mr. Holmes.”
Their fathers trade their children for the rest of the men, though this time Mycroft remembers to grab a candlestick to light their way. The little flame catches on the vibrant green of her jewel beetle, making shudders of gold.
Her interest in the library is polite, but dimmed, and when Mycroft returns them to the mothers and their tea, he must pay close attention to every step so he does not fall away into the dark.
------
1. It had been late in the summer, just after Little Bea was born, when his mother finally felt well enough to take her daughter out to see the world made damp and glittering with morning dew. Because their father been gone for business, she’d woken Sherlock and Mycroft too, and all still in their pajamas they had walked down to the little stream. Sherlock spent the whole time rubbing his eyes to see better, small fist twisted in their mother’s robe so he did not wander.
By the water, Mycroft was the one who found the rabbit nest. Three little kits, all curled around each other in a bed of grass and fluff from their mother, too small even for their eyes to be open.
“Mother, look, baby rabbits,” he whispered, not wanting to frighten them, though speaking was enough to catch Sherlock’s attention and send him bounding over to see what his big brother found. “Don’t,” he warned Sherlock, hand on shoulder.
“Be careful,” their mother said, turning to see. “We must be kind, remember?”
“See?” he hissed to Sherlock. The little boy stuck his tongue out, so Mycroft did too after checking their mother wasn’t looking.
Instead, she came over to watch the rabbits, kneeling without care for her nightgown. Little Bea was curled, wide-eyed and still so new, in her own nest of blankets, her face shielded by their mother’s loose hair. She looked very much like the baby rabbits. Her little curls of hair were even the same tawny shade.
“Touch?” Sherlock asked, pointing.
“You can’t,” Mycroft said. “Just look, Sherlock.”
Sherlock pouted. He was always pouting when Mycroft told him what to do, even if their mother or father said the same thing only moments later.
Laughing, golden, their mother tucked Sherlock close to her side. “He’s right, Sherlock, no touching. They don’t need our help.”
“Mama,” Sherlock said, “gone.”
“She will come back,” their mother assured him. “She’s out finding her own food, but she won’t have gone far from the babies, don’t worry.”
Mycroft was not cold. He did not wrap his arms around himself. He did not sniffle. He only stepped closer to shift their mother’s hair off of Little Bea’s face so his sister could see better. The touch made her cry.
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2. Though he is now ten, and really does not need a nanny, she is an oft worried woman named Mrs. Ambrose, and Mycroft has found it easier to let her fuss over him because at least he will do what he is told. return to text
3. While he was nine, on one of her easier days, Mrs. Ambrose declared that he is too old for the nursery now. Ever since, his own room is being readied just down the hall when his mother can find the time. The door has a lock to keep Sherlock out, and one big window tucked inside of a tree to cast the room in emerald. return to text
4. He has reached William and Mary, who come just after another revolution, and rule together, which intrigues him very much. He thinks his mother would like them too. return to text
5. Once, when he was barely still seven, Mycroft woke to a crash. Sherlock, who'd escaped his crib, had run straight into the wardrobe, splitting open his forehead. Immediately, his little brother wailed, and Mycroft went running for their mother. She covered Sherlock in kisses and scolded Mycroft for not keeping a better eye on him, and Mycroft had apologized even though he'd been asleep. He looks at his brother and often only sees the scar. return to text
6. If it is his brother's or mother's or father's, it is far more interesting than anything ever intended for him. Only Beatrice is free for now, though Mycroft has caught Sherlock eyeing a toy after she is done with it, trying to tell what he is missing. return to text
&. He has never been fond of any of the Holmes children, even Mycroft, and has only stayed on these many years because he was first the valet of Mycroft's grandfather, but holidays can lighten anyone's spirits. That, and the sherry two men share before being sent away. return to text
8. Such will be Beatrice's and the little baby's fate, and Sherlock will be left alone because the baby meant as his companion never came. return to text
9. He has never heard his aunt laugh, but it sounds just like his mother and what he remembers of his grandfather, so he wonders if that is why. return to text
10. The two sisters make horrible mirrors of each other, even if one married well and the other is older, so won the house and inheritance. return to text