His Sister's Keeper

by shooting-stetsons

A very long one-shot from Mycroft's POV, in the years leading up to A Study in Lullabies. Features Girlock.

I recall many things, not only due to being of a higher intelligence level than most of my peers, but also because I was born with a photographic memory. It can be an unusual combination of blessing and curse at times. Much of the time I am the voice of reason, the order amongst chaos, the calm in the storm of 21st century London; in a world where people cling to their technology like a security blanket to remember their own birthdays, I am a god. However, the rest of the time I am haunted, haunted by this-used-to-be-here, why-isn't-that-straight, oh-god-has-someone-been-in-my-things through every waking moment. My assistant claims I can be quite the nightmare in arranging my office.

The true curse, however, is not just the remembering or the hindsight. It is the fact that no matter how well I can picture the past, I will never be able to change it, or predict the future. The world will keep turning.

When I was seven years old, my mother became pregnant with the bundle of terrorism that would eventually become my sister, Sherlock. I remember specific details of the pregnancy, of course; not only because of my gift but because my poor mother suffered through all nine agonizing months. She was hale and fine during my gestation, according to Father, but she became delicate carrying my sister. I remember being young and precocious, sitting with my mother, holding her hand as she winced with pain.

"Little Sherlock is going to be quite the football player, Mycroft darling," smiled my mother breathlessly before grimacing. She craned her swanlike neck up to my father, who was seated behind her on the settee. "Is she supposed to be kicking so hard?"

Father smiled sympathetically, rubbing his large hands in slow circles over my Mother's distended abdomen. "I'm afraid even if she were atypical - which she isn't - there's not much we can do about it, my love, other than make you comfortable and try to rock her a bit." Even as he spoke, Father cupped my mother's stomach in his hands and began moving them in a rocking motion. After ten minutes or so Mummy was able to sleep.

"Why does Sherlock hurt Mummy?" I remember asking Father later.

Father smiled, continuing to rock my sister even after she had allegedly stilled. "She doesn't know any better. She's getting bigger, which makes Mummy's insides seem smaller, and she has to stretch out a bit. Don't be angry with Sherlock for turning in her sleep." And because Father said so, and at that age the words of my father may as well have come from the mouth of God, I took them to heart.

"I won't, Father," I promised. I inched my way around the settee and placed my hands beside my father's, learning how to comfort my sister before she'd even been born. "I won't ever be angry with her, ever."

Three weeks later Sherlock was born. I had sat very patiently with Grandmere in the parlor while Mummy and Father were at the hospital, but fell asleep sometime either very late or very early. Father didn't call with the good news until mid-afternoon the next day; Sherlock had finally come into the world, and she and Mummy were fine.

Grandmere and I took one of the family cars to the hospital. I recall being oddly nervous as I shuffled into my mother's room, my face flushed and palms sweaty. Mummy smiled at me, looking more tired than I had ever seen a person look before. When I was seated in the chair at her side Father placed all six hot, squirming pounds of my new baby sister into my arms. I had never seen a new baby so close before; she was really very red and wrinkly, but knowing that she was brand new and very much mine endeared her to me.

"She's going to be a handful, our Sherlock," beamed Father as he knelt beside me stroking the new baby's downy black hair. "You'll have to look after her, son, at least when Mummy and I can't."

At that moment Sherlock opened her eyes, not quite as sharp silver as they would be when she was grown, and though I had read in several books that babies could not focus their gaze on anything for several days if not weeks, it was as though my sister were staring rift into my eyes. She looked very serious for someone so very small.

"I will, Father. I'll look after her. I'll keep her safe."

And that was when I began to worry about Sherlock. I never really stopped.

As she grew, so did my ever-watchful eye over Sherlock. From the moment she was able to walk she preferred to run, dashing from one side of the nursery to the other and squealing delightedly. I hovered over her, getting the best exercise of my life in making sure she didn't trip and get hurt. When she was bigger I took her exploring in the garden, refusing to relinquish my hold on her hand even as she squirmed and tugged in resistance. Sherlock wanted to see everything, hold it, smell it, taste it, never destroy it, but simply observe. The only way I could imagine letting her do so was to observe with her. And as I did, I learned, and as I learned I remembered. I stored away every color, every smell, every prickly thorn and every fuzzy caterpillar, into my impressive mind to probably never be used again. But to see and feel everything was Sherlock's greatest of joys, and it was my duty to keep her happy.

Sherlock was a hurricane on good days and an apocalyptic hellfire on bad. She was a relentless barrage of tantrums, a wall of noise and destruction threatening to drive my patience into the ground. Whenever I could feel my last dregs of calm beginning to wane, however, I was reminded of my sister's constant state of awe for the world around her. For her, a new mystery lie around every corner, a new puzzle to be solved in everything she touched. It was impossible to be angry when I looked upon the unmitigated wonder in her crystalline eyes as she held a honeybee in the palm of her hand.

I remember being convinced that Sherlock had a social disorder when she was six and I thirteen, begging Mummy to take her to a specialist in both the hopes that my sister would get help and that I would be wrong for the first time in many years. Though I knew she didn't mean to be, my sister was cold and unattached to anyone outside the household, and even to our parents she was uncomfortably distant. When something upset her, and I tried to make her explain instead of simply dropping to her bottom and screaming until her throat was raw, she compared her feelings to neon lights and black-top driveways. She asked me to teach her how to do autopsies on dead animals she found in the garden.

Her schoolmates hated her and her teachers feared her. Many Fridays when I would walk to the primary school to fetch Sherlock I happened to overhear mothers complaining that she once brought a dead bird to class, and gave her classmates nightmares after explaining how everything was consumed by maggots post-mortem, even their grandparents and someday their parents. I knew, of course, that Sherlock never meant harm by it, that she'd wished only to educate her fellows in the hopes of finding an equal her own age, but no one else seemed capable of understanding.

Mummy and Father's friends loved to remark on what a doting brother I was, how careful I was with my delicate little flower of a sister, how she was my little princess. I bore the trifle with as much patience as I was able. Sherlock was as much of a princess as she was delicate in those days, which is to say that she was tough as nails and just as resilient. I was always careful to divide my affection equally among my family, though how I doled out that love and affection was a different matter. Mummy and Father were adults, confident and comfortable in the lives they were leading; Sherlock was a little girl still learning what it meant to love another human being, still grasping the concept of being loved in return. I had to show more love for her than I did for our parents to make her understand that I would do anything for her, anything to keep her safe so maybe one day I could stop worrying.

The so-called specialist pointed out many different disorders Sherlock could have had, ranging anywhere from mild Asperger's to full-blown sociopathy, all right before my sister's eyes. As Mummy started to cry and Father went dangerously quiet, I took Sherlock by the hand and shepherded her to the lobby. I then demanded to see the supervisor of the facility and did the only thing I could do as an overweight teenager with photographic memory. I cut him to ribbons, tore him apart inch-by-miserable-inch, undressed him and exposed his darkest of secrets to everyone in the lobby before demanding that the specialist who saw my sister be removed and disgraced in the medical community immediately.

That was the day I discovered my own power for words, not because the supervisor complied with my demands (though comply he did), but because Sherlock tore her hand free of my grip and ran as far from me as she could, silver eyes wide with terror. She would never look at me with the same naked trust as she had before then.

As Sherlock grew older things regrettably did not improve, especially not once I'd gone to university. In an attempt to make our separation bearable, Sherlock deliberately started fights that dug into my skin like barbs, just where she knew it would hurt the most. To make it easier on her, I went along with the farce, confident that she would be back to her old self when I returned for Christmas.

Over the four months I was absent, Sherlock had apparently succeeded in convincing herself that the farce was, in fact, a reality. I would not be granted a proper conversation with my only sibling for nearly two decades, not even after Grandmere and Father died when she was respectively thirteen and nineteen.

However, just because we didn't speak doesn't mean I didn't continue worrying about her, or looking after her. When I procured my position in the government I used my CCTV access to its full advantage. It opened a whole new world to my unknowing eyes. I spent days at a time at the monitors, feasting on the sight of my beloved sister stumbling her way first through boarding school and then university, endearing herself to some professors, blacklisting herself to the rest, attempting to impress her peers in he only way she knew and accidentally turning them all against her. I watched as the rugby team backed her into a corner of the campus and beat her, watched as Sebastian Wilkes taunted her, seduced her, bedded her, and called her a freak the next morning at breakfast. I watched the woman who only hours ago was a squalling infant in my arms bring a blade across her own wrists, watched her stick a needle in the crook of her arm, watched her bow low over a table decorated with a thin line of white powder and come up laughing. I watched my sister dance her way right into the devil's arms, black hair blazing.

I tried many times to intervene, especially when Sherlock dropped out of university midway through her final year, but the mere sight of me seemed to drive her mad. She would tear at her own skin, her hair, those curious hands ripping apart everything she had once loved about the world, all while she screamed at me to "Beware the psychopath!" My own hateful instincts made me flinch away when Sherlock pinned me with her iron gaze. Made me turn and leave the disgusting little flat on Montague Street.

When it all became too much to bear on my own, I called Mummy. When I next checked the CCTV footage, Sherlock was clean. I could breathe again, even as our mother berated me for letting my sister get into such trouble to begin with. I took the blame upon myself for not keeping Sherlock safe, and resolved never to resort to calling Mummy again. I made arrangements with Scotland Yard, knowing my sister's affinity for noticing minute details and compiling logical answers from chaotic data, for her to start as an assistant to one of the Detective Inspectors. If all had gone well and Sherlock had been able to keep her nose clean, strings could have been pulled and she could have become a Detective Sergeant within two years, even without formal training.

I was actually rather surprised she made it through the first two weeks of fetching coffee and files for DI Parker. However, she'd come on too strongly in her efforts to be recognized. When Parker sent her to get photos of crime scenes, Sherlock would rip open the envelopes on her way and attempt to solve the case by the time she reached the office. Even if she did manage to make a breakthrough in a case, Parker would insist that she had simply overheard him discussing the case with DS Lestrade and made intuitive leaps.

"Isn't that what you do?" Sherlock shouted at him after three months of repeated nonsense and DI Parker taking the credit for work she had done. "You take the information I give you and make grandly asinine assumptions that are only half-true!"

DI Parker threw his coffee that had luckily been sitting stone-cold for half an hour into her face, then demanded she leave Scotland Yard immediately. If it hadn't been four degrees outside she probably wouldn't even have stopped for her coat before stomping home and sticking a syringe into her arm. We were back with the devil, it seemed, but the cocaine had changed to morphine. I had never seen my sister sleep so soundly.

Four days later, after a few called-in favors, DI Parker "resigned" his post at Scotland Yard to be replaced by Gregory Lestrade, the DS I had noticed actually listening to Sherlock the few times I managed to catch him on camera. His promotion hadn't been my decision to make, but it was fortunate at least. He offered Sherlock the assistant's position again, but my sister refused, insisting that she wanted to be a detective. There was only so much a fresh DI could do, however, so he mangled some paperwork and named Sherlock as a consultant. As I watched Lestrade fudge up the forms, I smiled. The world's first Consulting Detective. It seemed appropriate for my brilliant sister to literally be one of a kind.

Sherlock bloomed in her work with Lestrade, even if she did rub elbows with DS Donovan and Anderson from forensics. Finally, my beloved sister was getting something resembling steady work, and enough wages to pay rent. Though after a few weeks, it was obvious she wasn't using her wages to pay rent; I remained in charge of those fees. The drugs were still holding their number two position of importance in her life, number one being what she dubbed The Work and number three being the needs of her own body.

For four years, four nerve-wracking years I watched from afar as my sister struggled to keep The Work and her drug life separate. I had to have my assistants start looking after her, she was getting into so much mischief. DI Lestrade knew - of course, the man was a perfectly efficient detective, after all - how Sherlock spent her hours and days away from the Yard; judging solely by the amount of weight she lost and how ill she always looked, anyone could tell. Anderson and Donovan were resentful that my sister was still allowed a job with her habits while if they so much as showed up at work hungover they'd be reprimanded; I could discern as much easily by the tightness of their eyes. That, and the way they fucked like rabbits in the barracks. Still, they bit back their retorts as much as possible, because their little team was quickly rising in repute among the Met from my sister's efforts.

Then, of course, she had to go that one step too far, as usual, and show up to a crime scene high as a kite. I knew it would happen eventually, my Sherlock always did love when she was the center of attention. Still does, as a matter of fact. Regardless of her state, regardless of how it could ruin her career, Sherlock took a hit and pranced off to look at dead things with all the glee of a child at Christmas; in the past, she would always claim the case wasn't interesting enough, giving her time to sleep the drugs off. Poor Lestrade gaped, horrified at the possible consequences of his best consultant showing up in such a state. Donovan and Anderson glared, and Sherlock bolted obliviously down the street after the criminal who had returned to the scene. She'd gone a mere three blocks before her heart gave out and she collapsed.

My assistant - at the time Julianna - informed me immediately of Sherlock's hospitalization. My sister had had a minor heart-attack at 25 years old.

Never had I felt such terror in my life as the few hours when Sherlock was unconscious. Though the paramedics had been more than capable and saved her life, I couldn't bring myself to let go of my sister's hand, couldn't stop shaking, couldn't stop watching her in case she tried to slip away again.

When she finally woke up and saw me at her bedside, I don't doubt that, had she the energy, Sherlock would have thrown something at me. Instead, she lay quiet as I explained what had happened. Two days later, when the risk of her having another heart-attack from substantial shock was lower, I also informed her that she was not to go back to the drugs or I would call Mummy again (I wouldn't, but to this day Sherlock does not know that).

DI Lestrade, who had come knocking just as I informed her of this, shrank back against the wall until I gestured for him to have his say. "I'm afraid the higher-ups have gotten wind of what happened," he said gently, floundering over where to put his hand and settling it on Sherlock's bony calf. "They've requested..." I shot him a sharp look and he hastily altered his speech, "that you take some time off before taking another case. To recover."

Sherlock's monitors started going off, not because she was shocked by such news, but because she was angry. She glared daggers at the both of us as nurses trotted in to see what the fuss was about. Naturally, the DI and I were ushered out, being the cause of such distress. I thanked him, called him by name, and left for the day. I would return tomorrow, to my sister's consternation but my own comfort.

After another few days' observation Sherlock was allowed out of the hospital and already made ill by withdrawal from her precious needles. I remember exactly how long she resisted - five days, three hours, and fourteen minutes - before shooting up again.

I didn't want to freeze her bank account, really I didn't, especially when Sherlock was out of work and her fridge was abysmally empty, but I could see no other course to tempt her away from the poison in her blood. Calling Mummy had not worked, threatening her had not worked, giving her an outlet for her brilliance had not worked...taking away her money was all I had left.

Optimism is a dangerous thing. Even at 33 I was still just the same university student, biding his time before his baby sister stopped pitching a fit and returned to reason. I truly believed in some recess of my heart and mind that Sherlock would realize there was no way to keep up her habits without money to support her and come home to me. Our relationship could be salvaged. I could take her by the hand and we could explore the garden of London together. I would take her to the garden of bloody Eden if that was what it took to make her better.

For two months she took petty cases from her website, barely surviving on the money until a few very interesting missing persons cases and a scandal cover-up in Belgravia put her well-stocked in cocaine, morphine, and even rent. The funds stretched her through the next two years, and still I watched.

On Friday, May the first of 2009, I checked the CCTV and found my baby sister, who had been a heavy warmth in the crook of my elbow a mere breath before, backed against the wall of a seedy pub in Tottenham with her bare legs wrapped around the legs of a dark-haired stranger. I could only assume it was in exchange for cocaine, because my mind's ability for inductive reasoning had let out a pained shriek and gone silent.

The image of my sister stripped bare from the waist down while some abominable stranger plowed into her was burned, forever, into my blasted memory. I found my way into a cab and pulled my limp bedraggled sister from the mouth of the alley, remembering all of it and yet still seeing the CCTV footage playing over and over in my mind's eye. Never again, I vowed. Sherlock would never again turn to the drugs.

I instructed my driver to take us to the nearest medical facility. Then she was shipped to a very private, very discreet rehabilitation center where no one would ask questions. No patient there had ever gone back to their old ways. To this day I don't know how they operated, but I can hold testimony to the fact. Several times over the four-month course of detox and rehabilitation therapy I attempted to visit my sister, but was barred even with my clearance level. For four months I was subjected to waiting while my increasingly-fragile sister was cooped up behind soundproof doors, having god-knows-what sort of therapy done to her.

I worried constantly. I worried myself sick and was confined to bed for a full day, leaving Marie to look after things. I had never felt so distinctly helpless before. Certainly when I was younger there had been periods of weeks in which I wouldn't see or hear from Sherlock, but Mummy had always kept me well-informed of her status at school. In this, I had deliberately isolated Sherlock from my watchful eye, deliberately handed her over to the beasts and turned my back.

What if they didn't understand her? What if she hurt herself? What about the fluorescent lights and blacktop driveways and microwaves? I couldn't translate Sherlock's needs into something "normal" for the personnel to latch onto if I wasn't there. They would despise her, maybe even abuse her if I wasn't there to make them see the wonder in her eyes when presented with something new. They would never know my sister at her greatest, and they would never care if they did.

The thought that there were people in the world who did not unconditionally love Sherlock Holmes made me want to curl up under my desk and go to sleep until things made sense again.

To return at least some small semblance of control to my life, I had the most important of Sherlock's things moved from her flat on Montague Street to my home, and the rest either disposed of or put into storage. It was a regulation of the rehabilitation facility that no recovering addicts live on their own for at least a month after being released. I would tell Sherlock it was longer, and keep her safe, and look after her like I used to. She would see how I cared, how I worried, how I loved her to the point of pain, and we would rebuild. Even then I hoped such foolish hopes.

Sherlock was handed over to my care September 4th. She was thin to the point of looking terminally ill and ready to shoot me. When I embraced her, however, she clung to whatever bits of my jacket available to her scrawny hands, starved for an affectionate touch. Her bones felt delicate as a bird's under my hands.

I asked her physician why she looked so unhealthy, when their center was meant to make her better. He gave a shiny white smile and patted Sherlock on the bony shoulder.

"Our girl here seems to have had a touch of trouble keeping her food down," he told me in a voice so condescending I was reminded of Sherlock's psychiatrist all those years ago. Of course it wasn't the same man; I would have remembered, but still my mind screamed out against his voice. "But we seem to have gotten that sorted, haven't we, Sherlock?"

My sister's empty eyes turned up to look at me from their seep sockets. "I have cancer," she announced.

The breath caught in my throat at the first words Sherlock had spoken to me in months. Surely the staff would have told me if she were being serious. Even so, I couldn't help feeling a thrill of fear, recalling with perfect clarity the days and weeks Father spent in hospital, wasting away of the dreaded disease as the tumor in his stomach grew larger.

The physician's hand tightened over her shoulder. "Now Sherlock, you know that isn't true; we've talked about compulsive lying."

Sherlock silently shook her head, even as the doctor continued to speak with me about her treatment as though she were not present. I kept much of my concentration on what he was saying, but one hand remained on my sister's arm to remind her that I was on her side in this.

It seemed that Sherlock was almost compliant, if not truly willing to come to my home and stay. She didn't make a fuss or even scowl at me as my assistant helped her into the car like an invalid. She did look very ill. I thought my worries would be over when she left rehabilitation, but it seemed that I was nowhere near finished.

Within days it became clear that, though healing her body, the rehabilitation venter had taken my sister's life. There was no fight left in her, no shine of curiosity or craving for a puzzle. She sat quietly in her corner of the sitting room, staring out the window to the garden and fiddling with her hands, only speaking when spoken to, only remembering to eat when food was placed before her and then looking ill for hours afterward. She didn't even mock me, or call me fat; I craved even the barest of insults if only for the light to return to her eyes. There was no desire for a new puzzle, not even the ennui that plagued her in times of stagnancy, nothing. She had been robbed of her pride, her passion, her very soul, because of me.

Having watched my sister's despondence for a full week, I could bear it no longer. I called Detective Inspector Lestrade and outright begged him to give Sherlock something, anything, to stimulate her brilliant mind. The DI overcame his surprise at me knowing his mobile number very well, and was at my home in under an hour with a cold case he was revisiting.

"Would you take a look?" he asked gruffly, just as shocked by Sherlock's appearance as I had been. I knew the DI had been fond of my sister in the years they worked together, perhaps even fancied himself in love with her at one point, and I trusted him implicitly to look after her when I could not.

Slowly, as though thinking it over very carefully, Sherlock reached out a hand for the file. From my place at the door I could see a familiar shine in her eyes. She was curious.

Lestrade stayed for two hours while Sherlock mulled over the sparse information in the file and finally threw it aside, declaring that it had been the nanny.

"Really? That's fantastic, Sherlock!" praised the DI earnestly. I couldn't have thanked him enough with all the riches in the world. "What about this one, can you do another?"

She looked utterly flabbergasted to be asked that, as though Lestrade were asking her if she'd like to continue breathing. "Of-of course!"

And so it went through the rest of the afternoon. I was even able to get some work done as the pair holed themselves up in the sitting room, solving murders and drinking all my tea. I made it back downstairs just as Lestrade was preparing to leave.

"Can I bring some more cold files along tomorrow?" he asked, packing up his briefcase.

Sherlock shook her head, hair having been tied securely back for the first time in over a week. "Can you bring a case? A proper one?" she replied from her place on the floor, confidence returned to her posture and voice like a miracle.

The DI grinned. "I'll see what I can do for the criminal classes overnight, yeah? Cheers, Sherlock. Mr. Holmes." He nodded politely at me and allowed my assistant to show him out while I stayed with Sherlock in the sitting room.

"I need some proper clothes," she told me gravely, plucking at the lumpy jumper she'd been wearing for several days. "Did you bring my things from Montague Street?"

As she spoke, Sherlock yanked the jumper off over her head, waiting for an answer, but I had gone beyond hearing. I was frozen, staring at Sherlock's slightly-distended midriff under her thin t-shirt. She hadn't been lying.

"Sherlock-" I began, but she cut me off with an unexpected embrace.

"I know you called Lestrade," she said, subdued, her arms a heavy warmth around my shoulders. "Thank you, Mycroft. This is the first I've felt normal for a long time."

I couldn't speak, couldn't reply, so taken aback by this affection that I had been starved of since I was a very young man. I clung to my sister for as long as she would allow, letting joy obliterate my fear until I no longer remembered it. She had simply gained weight, that was all. After so much time, after so much waiting and worrying, I had my sister back.

Jane was more than happy to let Sherlock borrow clothes from her until I could have her measured for a new wardrobe. Sherlock somewhat disagreed with the patterns, but took them for the time being if she would be allowed back onto crime scenes.

The next morning I made Sherlock eat breakfast with me, when usually I would allow her to eat in her room or after I left for work. She was looking peaky, and complained of a stomachache when I inquired. All at once my fears from the night before rushed back, and living nightmares of watching my sister waste away to the same disease that killed our father awakened. "You need to have your post-exam within the week," I told her. "I'll schedule an appointment for tomorrow."

Perhaps she remembered Father as well, for she agreed without argument and went to the sitting room to wait for Lestrade's call.

I fought with anxiety throughout the afternoon's work like a mother leaving her child at school for the first time, trying to convince myself that Sherlock could make it through one day without me by her side. There may not even have been a murder at all, and Lestrade wouldn't call on her but to bring more cold cases. Everything would be alright.

Lestrade called me midway through the afternoon to tell me that Sherlock was at the hospital. He'd been able to see that she was in pain throughout her inspection of the crime scene that had cropped up early that morning, but had resisted saying anything in front of Anderson and Donovan to save her pride. As soon as they had cleared out, however, he'd asked if she needed help. More alarming than her obvious discomfort, to me, had been how readily she'd apparently said, "Yes."

I left my office immediately for the hospital, fearing the absolute worst, and was then obscenely relieved when the nurse told me that my sister did not have a tumor reaching critical size, but was having Braxton Hicks contractions. However, once my relief had swelled and abated, it was replaced by confusion and concern. Sherlock was pregnant. It should have been impossible for a fetus to survive in such an inhospitable environment as the womb of a woman suffering addiction and withdrawal, but by some stroke of fate it had. My sister was eighteen weeks pregnant, almost exactly as long as it had been since the night I saw her on the CCTV. I couldn't comprehend it; she was only a baby herself just the day before, wasn't she? But no, of course not, for I remembered every moment of the years, from the day she was born and then.

Needless to say, Sherlock did not take to the news well.

"I'd rather have cancer!" she shouted before burying her face in her pillow. Standing in the threshold of her bedroom I let out a sigh, still so very relieved that she would live another day safe from the suffering Father went through. "Mycroft, I don't want it!"

"I know, Sherlock." I sat on the edge of her bed and rested a hand on the back of her head. "No one says you have to keep the child. There's always adoption."

I'll always remember the look on Sherlock's face as she pulled it out of the pillow, fiercely contemplative as she huddled clenched fists under her chin, lips slightly puckered. "What if it's like me, Mycroft?" she asked me softly. She looked nothing short of stricken. "No one would ever want it, no one would understand it. The only reason anyone knows what I mean half the time is from the therapy Mummy put me through, and you translating when it's too much. No one would ever love it. I would be alone forever."

Never once taking my hand from its steady stroking of Sherlock's dark curls felt like being a child again, and yet I knew I couldn't lose myself to memories just then. "Then perhaps I shall take it," I suggested without a moment's thought. Sherlock's sharp eyes focused from their place at the wall to me in an instant. "I could raise the child." I had no idea what I was thinking, suggesting something like that, but I was already doomed to my fate, judging by the look on Sherlock's face.

"You would do that?" she asked shrewdly. "Why?"

"Because I love you, Sherlock," I said earnestly, needing for her to understand that first and foremost. Even as an adult woman, she seemed to forget that there were people in the world who cared about her. "I love you and I understand you and I would never shun you, nor will I shun your child." It was difficult to swallow, but I carried on. "I'll raise it as my own; no one will question if it resembles you, and I'll-I'll say its mother died. I'll do it, Sherlock."

Instead of replying she pulled me down onto the bed, curled her arms around me like she used to when she was small, and fell asleep. I would take that as an agreement.

The weeks beyond were not easy on my sister. Pregnancy was hard on an ordinary woman, and Sherlock was barely yet recovered from her addictions. She could hardly make it up a flight of stairs without needing to catch her breath, was more consistently fatigued with every bit the child grew, and had horrible head and backaches.

Though I remember every day that passed, I couldn't mark them down with milestones like many expectant fathers did. My sister was very secretive during her pregnancy, seeking privacy as though she were ashamed of her condition. The only reason I knew the child started kicking was because I caught her scolding it under her breath one afternoon. "Will you stop?" I made sure she took her vitamins, and scheduled my work around doctor's appointments to ensure that the baby was in perfect health despite its rough beginnings. It seemed, however, that in the face of her efforts to convince me she didn't care for the child, I could tell that until the specialists said the baby was fine, she had been concerned.

Sherlock wanted to work for as long as was possible before the baby came, but DI Lestrade would hear none of it when it came to visiting crime scenes. He became a somewhat permanent figure in my home, as he continued to bring evidence and photos of crime scenes to her, and eventually ended up staying for dinner as he and Sherlock worked into the night. The Detective Inspector, I knew, was divorced, and had very limited custody over his children. By spending time with Sherlock he was reliving happier times with a wife long gone, and was glad to dole out advice whenever he could. I even came home several times to find the DI helping Sherlock with her aching back, the softest expression on his face. He wasn't in love with her, not anymore; I would be able to tell. He saw Sherlock the same way as I did.

It was one of those nights, when I was home early and Lestrade was over with a fresh case, a fierce triple-murder with no sign of a murder weapon. I was going over some paperwork, but my gaze kept being drawn by Sherlock's repeated fidgeting on the sofa. She was nearly seven months gone by then, and probably feeling uncomfortable. The sparse weight she had gained in the three months since were a relief, but only a small one.

"Sherlock, by god, you look like a three-year-old in need of the toilet," I finally couldn't help myself saying, accidentally interrupting Lestrade and Sherlock's conversation about blood splatter analysis.

My sister scowled at me, looking equal amounts irritated and unhappy. "Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure that junkie was a professional rugby player, because this baby won't stop kicking me," she snapped back.

Lestrade snorted from his end of the sofa, scooting a bit closer. "Can I?" he asked cautiously, gesturing toward her distended belly. She waved carelessly and looked determinedly the other way as he settled his hand there, feeling for only a moment before letting out a whistle. "I dunno about rugby. I'd say football." He chuckled at his own joke and patted Sherlock's knee. "It's a good sign, anyway. Means it's healthy. D'you know the gender yet?" He sat back, looking from her to me inquiringly.

"Mycroft hopes for a girl," shrugged Sherlock. "I don't care."

I was watching Sherlock carefully as she attempted to look as though she was unattached to the whole affair. There was a tenseness in the corners of her mouth, and a cant to the way she was clenching her jaw between sentences. I put my pen down, stood, and moved to the sofa, wanting to feel for myself. I had so far respected Sherlock's desire for personal space, but if she was letting Lestrade take liberties - if I were to be raising the child - then I wanted to be a part of this.

The child seemed healthy and strong, judging by its movements against my palm; I grinned at the DI, because Sherlock seemed uninterested. Then a particularly strong kick came against my hand, and my sister stiffened as though she'd been punched in the gut. Realization dawned on me far too slowly. "Sherlock, it's hurting you," I concluded.

Sherlock rolled her eyes at me. "I'm growing a parasite, Mycroft," she spat, pushing my hand away, "and it thinks that my diaphragm is some sort of gravity-defying trampoline; of course it hurts!" She suddenly gasped and went white, lurching forward with a grimace despite her attempt to brush me off.

It was almost too similar, and for a moment I wondered if I were trapped in some sort of loop where I was meant to relive that afternoon with my mother at the age of seven for the rest of my life. I reached out and numbly took Sherlock's hand while Lestrade took initiative, climbing behind her in the corner of the sofa to support her back. This close, I could clearly see how carefully my sister was breathing, holding the bottom of her stomach in one hand. She really was the spit of our mother.

"Is this okay?" asked Lestrade, kneading the pads of his thumbs into Sherlock's lower back.

She grimaced further and slapped his hands away, gasping at another strong kick. "It's not her back; it's the baby," I interrupted. I explained briefly the technique Father had used nearly 30 years ago to comfort my mother during her pregnancy and Lestrade mimicked the same movements, gently rocking Sherlock's stomach between his hands, making her lean against his chest in a very rare moment of need. I heaved Sherlock's feet up onto the other end of the sofa and planted myself on the floor, one hand remaining on her ankle in what little support I could offer.

She jerked underneath my hand as she let out another gasp; her exhale sounded suspiciously like a sob. "Why does it hurt so much?" she choked out, hiding her face in the back of the sofa.

I gave her leg another gentle squeeze. "The baby's just growing, Sherlock," I told her, remembering the explanation Father gave me when I was seven. "Your insides are seeming smaller, so she has to stretch out a bit. I'm afraid even if she were atypical - which she isn't - there's not much we can do about it other than make you comfortable." She didn't seem to believe that, but didn't put much concentration into arguing the point with me. I noticed her hand, and how it had fisted tightly into Lestrade's trousers.

"I think he's settled down now," Lestrade whispered after several nearly twenty minutes, but never ceased the calming movements. I would have been confused by his volume if I hadn't kept such a close watch on Sherlock's face and saw her dozing off in the respite. She'd not been sleeping well. "Christ, her back's all knots. Is it always this bad?"

I shook my head, feelings helpless. "I've no idea; she never tells me if it is." It had been one thing to see my mother go through such pain before and know that there were other adults more capable than myself to care for her. To see my sister, to whom I had always been the designated provider and protector, in such misery, and to need someone else to bring her comfort, was heartbreaking.

After another five minutes of quiet from both Sherlock and the baby, the DI hefted her up into his arms and I led the way to her room. He rested her on her side and, almost as an afterthought, stuck a spare pillow between her ankles before respectfully stepping back. I wish I knew how to repay him for his unrelenting kindness to my sister, even when she didn't know how to do so without a snide remark.

Though I kept as watchful an eye as ever over Sherlock, I still could not be with her all of the time to make sure no more problems arose. I held vigil over my home's security cameras when I could, and had Anathema look out for her when I had work. Sherlock started losing weight again, the baby pressing against her stomach and making her queasy. Rather than walking from one place to another, she tottered and leaned against the walls for support. I was very afraid for her.

I prepared a small nursery from one of the unused offices in my home early on, knowing with some dread that Sherlock very likely wouldn't carry to term. It was rather similar to the nursery Sherlock and I had both been raised in, with bright sunshine-yellow walls and the cradle from the family estate in Sussex (it had taken some trickery, but Mummy had not been alerted of Sherlock's situation; it made getting the cradle without her finding out very difficult, but not impossible). I even had old photographs from our childhoods hung on the walls, one of mother placed beside a more current shot of Sherlock to show their paralleled beauty.

A few times during the nights I heard Sherlock shuffle unsteadily into the nursery and sit in the mahogany rocking chair, rocking for hours. I never dared ask what she was thinking in those nights, though I should have, many times over. Perhaps then the disappointment would not have been so great when Sherlock told me she intended to leave as soon as the baby came.

"I already have a place in mind," she said when I opened my mouth to inquire further. "Do you remember Mrs. Hudson, and her case in Florida four years ago? She's got a place on Baker Street and says she can give me a deal."

I paused over my slightly-wilting salad, pain encroaching in my chest with every breath. Of course Sherlock would not want to be around the child once it had been born. She had no desire to keep it; that much had been obvious on the first day she was aware of her pregnancy. During the later weeks, however, I had almost wondered if she was beginning to form some sort of bond with her unborn child. She would spend hours alone in the nursery, looking at the photographs of our parents and us together as children. I already mentioned having caught her talking to the child once or twice when it kicked too much; if I arranged myself near the air-vent in my office, I could sometimes catch murmurs of her voice traveling through from the room above, sounding more soothing than demanding, rapt and absorbed like in the middle of a story.

Still, like something beautiful and wild and broken, I could not keep her beyond how long it took to heal.

Christmas was fast approaching by then, along with Sherlock's due date; we'd pinpointed it to the first Friday in February. So consumed was I by this much more significant date - nearly there, just a bit longer, just hold on a bit longer - that I had forgotten the holiday altogether until Sherlock "offhandedly" mentioned how DI Lestrade did not get to have Christmas with his children, and then told me that if I wanted anything I would have to tell her or she would not bother.

I very honestly told her that the prospect of having a child of my own was gift enough. She went very quiet, made me help her up off the sofa, and went to her room for the rest of the evening. I should have known, but instead dismissed it as fatigue, and invited Gregory to our minimal festivities. He happily accepted.

Christmas morning, hours before Lestrade was due to arrive, I gave Sherlock a simple cheque, the money required for her lease on the Baker Street flat. She carelessly gave me a new umbrella, beautifully crafted and with a secret compartment in the handle. Then I knew.

"You want to keep the baby."

Staring stubbornly at the general area where she knew her feet must be, Sherlock nodded.

It was the first and greatest row Sherlock and I ever had. I was in shock, unable to believe that she would go back on the terms we had come to. "You'll never be able to afford it since you've stopped taking wages from the Yard," I insisted. "The money I gave for your flat won't support you and a child, Sherlock, not even by half."

"I'm already looking into a flatmate," she replied quietly, hands clenched between her knees. "Mike, from Bart's, he's helping me talk to some people."

It was a battle, but I schooled my expression into the same stern look Father used to give Sherlock when she got into mischief. She squirmed in her seat, though whether that was me or the baby was unclear. "What sort of person would want to flatshare with a new baby, Sherlock? Have you thought about this at all? You won't be able to continue your work with a child to look after."

"I've been working with Lestrade throughout the pregnancy and can continue doing the same."

There was heat in her voice, something tightly-coiled and ready to spring. I was reminded of a wildlife documentary when a lioness is challenged. "You're not ready to be a mother, Sherlock," I continued. "You can hardly care for yourself, let alone an infant."

"I will if I need to!"

"You would get bored!"

"Not with this!" shouted Sherlock, slamming a fist down onto the arm of her chair. "This is something interesting, and new, and completely unprecedented! Every single day would be something learned and every night would be something taught. If anything, this child will save me from those wretched fits of ennui I had as a girl." I knew it was the closest she would ever get to telling me she loved the child, and yet it did not soften me toward her arguments in the slightest.

"No, Sherlock," I snapped, voice unexpectedly reverberating around the sitting room and making Sherlock flinch. "You think that now, that it will be fun, that it will be interesting, but you are an optimistic fool. You have all the patience of a four-year-old in want of a new toy; what will you do if the baby has colic? When you get angry, you hit and throw things; would you even know when to show self-constraint when the baby gets older, and needs discipline, or would you just slap him and leave it at that? You don't educate; you ridicule! You have succumbed to the sociopathic tendencies that Doctor Harper saw in you all of those years ago! I have defended you, lied for you, protected you from harsh judgment, but I will not allow this child to be put into danger by living with you."

I wish I could take back every word.

Sherlock already had her phone out, and within twenty minutes a befuddled Lestrade was at the door, looking confused and hurt when he saw me at the door. He wouldn't say what Sherlock told him in the text; in fact, he would speak to me at all. He just helped Sherlock gather together her sparse few things and took her from my home, likely to either the Baker Street flat or his own.

I spent my Christmas alone, but that hardly mattered in the grand scheme of things, especially not when I walked past the open door of the nursery and saw a photo of Mother and Father, and one of the prints I'd requested of one of Sherlock's ultrasounds had been taken. I was filled with such a bitterness and sadness that for the first time in my life I nearly resorted to violence. All that would have stoppered my pain was to destroy everything in that damnable room, rip the paper border from the walls, tear the curtains down, and pull apart the cradle until it was a pile of splinters at my feet. Instead I folded myself into the rocking chair and stared at the ceiling, formulating a plan to get the nursery things to Baker Street without Sherlock shooting me.

It was over. I was through fighting.