Chapter 1: All Systems Go
Sherlock:
Sherlock Holmes stared out the window of the jet plane that was to carry him to his exile, and wondered how long it would be before his brother called him back this time. Sherlock was perfectly aware that he was not going to have to endure the permanent exile and probable death of his official sentence, and he was looking forward to letting his genius loose abroad for a while before Mycroft found a use for him and had him hauled back again.
Mrs. Hudson, had she been aware of the way the elder Holmes boy moved his brother around at will, would have called it shameful and unfeeling. She was half right, Sherlock reflected; Mycroft's actions were in no way influenced by the messy human emotions that Mycroft so thoroughly disapproved of. Mycroft's hatred of sentiment was second only to his hatred of chaos. And unlike Sherlock, Mycroft didn't even seem to experience boredom. Well, not anymore. Unbidden, the image of twelve-year-old Mycroft, already wearing a suit and tie everywhere, fixing his five-year-old brother with a look of annoyance and saying "For heaven's sake Sherlock, do stop being so willfully boring all the time." He would usually follow this by forcing sherlock to solve increasingly difficult puzzles, only to waltz in, smash them up, and do it himself in half the time.
He stopped doing this after Sherlock got frustrated enough to set fire to the cat.
No, if Sherlock was any judge, the only emotion Mycroft Holmes allowed himself was loyalty. Loyalty drove him to endure the torture of a Drury Lane production when their parents were in town. Loyalty drove him to officially hold only a low-paying position in the government he technically ran, and to choose the country of his birth as his domain instead of the more powerful countries of Europe.
Oh, and one other emotion, too...
The planes engines fired up, and Sherlock's eyes moved to look one last time at John Watson, his...his friend. Even after all this time, the word felt foreign on his tongue. My best friends, John and Mary Watson, he thought. I really don't deserve them.
Sherlock hoped that John had correctly interpreted the carefully coded message he had given him moments before.
"William Sherlock Scott Holmes. That's the whole of it."
"The Game is never over. There are just some new players now."
"He was a rubbish big brother."
And, of course,
"Sherlock is actually a girl's name."
John had seemed pretty clueless, but then, that was what John generally pretended to be. But was it real this time…?
Then John caught Sherlock's eye, gave a stiff nod and a salute, and Sherlock knew he had gotten the message. He could trust the Watsons to carry out the Plan.
As the jet rose above the clouds, Sherlock allowed himself a smile. The Plan advances.
"Your move, brother mine," he murmured. "Your move."