Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Seeing Mycroft is like seeing a ghost.
He is so, so much like his father.
It chokes her, and she fights to breathe, and she is his mother so he never sees the fear and the pain in her eyes as she brushes down his lapels and straightens his tie. She might not remember much, but she remembers enough.
She is so afraid.
0
Mycroft occupies a minor position in the British government.
She snorts. Yeah fucking right.
And she's the model for perfect mental health.
She learns of it at Christmas dinner, and Sherlock is watching her with careful, pale eyes. He has not started his downward spiral into drugs, still thinks that the world will somehow become welcoming of him in all of his brilliance and flame.
She blinks. Her knife and fork are aloft, and her food tastes like sand and blood and expensive, pestilent brandy, has all evening. Ever since her boy walked in in his tailored suit and his new bearing, his head held just the slightest bit different, a reaffirming of, yes, I am the wolf in this world.
She knows it. Has seen it. Had seen it.
It makes her want to be sick, want to stab her knife through the tabletop, through her hand, through her butterfly rib-cage.
God, how had this happened?
"Y-es?" she says slowly, wondering what the hell she is supposed to say.
The room is silent, and they are watching her, waiting. Wondering, too, what she will say.
She realizes then, what Mycroft wants, and it makes her hurt. He wants her approval. She doesn't know if she can give it.
She sets her utensils down, smoothes her hands down her skirt, wishes she had kept the knife.
"Are you happy, Mycroft?" she asks carefully.
He smiles, nods. "Yes, mummy, it's a lovely position."
She smiles back. It feels like her face is made of glass, her cheeks grinding together.
"Good," she says, keeping her voice soft, kind, when all she wants to do is stand and scream. How had this happened?
A cold thought. Her heart worked to beat as she swallowed a sip of water, mind racing. Had someone found them? Is that why Mycroft had-why he was…?
But, no, she thought, looking her son over, her thoughts hidden deep inside her chest where no one could see, not even her boys. Especially her boys.
She couldn't taste the tang of blood, of honey and gold and harsh metal on his skin, swimming in his pores.
He was untouched by Them.
It was a small comfort.
0
That night, her chest is so tight that she can't breathe. Her boys are in bed, and the house is silent, the usually clinks and moans of the old wood as quiet as her mind is not.
She is becoming panicked. She had fought so hard to avoid this, she thought, forcing herself to sit still in her chair by the fire.
Her finger itch for ivory, for horsehair, for rosy wood and slender strings.
Could she just-?
She swallows, and her mouth is dry.
She can't help it, it feels as though her skin is tearing itself off, piece by piece the longer she sits.
She stands in the dark, and moves to the music room, the air whispering over her skin.
She doesn't want to wake them, but she can't, she has to, she needs to-
Her fingers are on the keys, and, slowly, she begins.
The song is soft, slow, the notes gentle on the night air. It is as black as pitch, but she doesn't need to see, not to play. Never to play.
It's fairly haunting, but it makes things just. Stop. Her head doesn't buzz with pain, her mouth doesn't feel as though cotton and blood are filling it closed, her throat doesn't work to swallow, her lungs to breathe. She just plays, and that is enough.
God, let that be enough.
0
She doesn't know how long she sits there, playing the song out of memory, out of heart, but when she hears the footsteps in the hallway, her wrists are stiff and her feet are cold.
She is still wearing her dinner dress, the fabric like ice where it now brushes her skin. She shivers, but doesn't really feel it.
It sounds like-
"Mummy?"
shit.
Breathes. "Mycroft."
Pauses in her play. His way is lighted by candle and she squints at the light.
Dawn is beginning to creep in the far, picture windows. Damn.
They are silent, and he moves into the room. The feeling is back in her chest, filling her bones and joints, making her ache.
He blows out the candle, puts it on the floor.
"Mummy, are you-?" he can't say 'well.'
She thinks she has never been 'well.'
She can't breathe but makes room for him to sit beside her anyway.
He is taller than her now, and she was always so tall. She hesitantly touches him, slides into his side. She feels his heart beating under her ear and thinks of how easy it would be, how quick, and then no girl would ever be her, would never feel the bite of soft carpet, hard wood, the smell of sex and death and blood and pain-
But he is her son.
She tries to breathe.
"Have I ever told you…of your father, Mycroft?" she chokes on the words.
He is as still as death beside her.
"No, mummy, you have not."
She breathes a laugh.
"That is because I…Mycroft, you know that I am not…"
"Yes, mummy," he sounds pained, "I know."
She nods. She had thought so.
"I, I can't," she blinks.
"Mummy," he says softly, "you don't-"
She jerks away, glares up at him. He is shocked silent.
"Yes, Mycroft, I do."
She stands, walks to the windows, presses her forehead to the cold glass.
"Do you remember Sherringford?" she asks, looking out into the backyard, the bare trees clacking in a soft wind. She can feel him watching her. Her son's eyes keen even in the low light. He was always so smart.
"Yes," he says carefully.
She keeps her eyes on the sky.
"Your father was…nothing, nothing like him." She turns, and glides on the air as she walks to where her son now stands, behind her, his hand atop the piano.
"He was cold. He was the blackness between stars. The icy embrace of death, of space. He…he hurt me. So much. I, I only have flashes, here and there…and he frightens me, Mycroft. He scared me then, and he haunts me now. He, you, I…" she tries to think, to put into words.
"You looked so like him, last night," she finally whispers, her voice a gust of wind in the room. "I could hardly breathe. Your carriage, your look, your suit…"
She looks up, and Mycroft is white, his eyes dark. "I looked, and I tried to find you, my son, and all I could see…"
"Mother, I," he breathes, taking a step towards her. She is before him, and she takes his face into her hands, kisses his cheeks, touches his forehead to hers. Looks him in the eyes.
"Hush, love, I just wanted you to know," she says. You deserve to know. "I love you. You are my son." Not him. Never him. "You are brilliance and light and warmth. This," she reaches down, taps his chest, "this is your kingdom, your castle." He nods, slowly, "Keep it safe, please, Mycroft, keep it safe," she breathes into him.
They are silent, and she can see that he understands. God, he gets it.
Then she turns, and walks away.
Her mind is at peace.