Pancreatic cancer. Until I turned to my books and the Internet, I had only the meanest knowledge of the disease. I understood the pancreas's basic role and biological functions, of course (it being the organ responsible for insulin, glucogon, somatostatin, and pancreatic polypeptide secretion, as well as assisting digestion in the small intestine) – information retained from first year biology. And from common knowledge I understood this to be one of those more ominous diagnoses that are rarely followed by successful treatment. Beyond that, however, I was ignorant.

After a night's research, I was reasonably well-informed. I understood, for instance, that the outward signs of the disease, such as fatigue or nausea, are often overlooked, leading to late-stage diagnosis and subsequent complications of treatment. Given how little time she spent with us, it was no wonder neither I nor Mycroft, both of us I will admit being highly observant, had noticed anything out of the ordinary. Another day put me on much surer academic footing, prepared to converse easily in scientific and medical terms with her doctors should the need arise.

Well into my second day of reading (having moved on to various medical journals and recent research), Mycroft interrupted me, standing in my doorway – following our mother's announcement, we had both lodged ourselves in our old bedrooms in her home – to chide me as he'd done so often in our youth.

He asked, "What is it you expect to discover in your books, dear brother?"

"Data before deductions, Mycroft," I answered. "Or aren't you familiar with the scientific method? Too busy climbing the ladder of international intrigue to be bothered with your mother's illness?"

I looked up to find him smiling a wan, mirthless smile as he returned, "Whereas you are too busy with your mother's illness to be bothered with your mother. For your information, I have just returned from escorting our mother to her Children's Charity gala. She's asked after you. You missed dinner."

That he mentioned it informed me he felt I'd misstepped. Today I would ignore him. As I was, I responded to defend myself, though with evident irritation. "I didn't notice the time."

"We did call for you."

"Obviously I didn't hear."

"Well, she's waiting for you now, if you can tear yourself away from your reading." He started to go, then stopped to add, "You have the aptitude for it – medicine. I'll never understand why you don't pursue a career in medical research, as I've encouraged you to do."

Eager to be rid of him, I quipped, "Perhaps it's because you encouraged me to."

He glared at me with measured indifference and blissfully departed.

Wishing not to ruffle any more feathers, least of all those of an ailing woman, I descended the stairs to the foyer and proceeded to the sitting room where Mother was sipping at her nightly cup of jasmine tea. She looked up at me and greeted me with all of Mycroft's warmth, "You missed dinner."

I took the chair across from her and fixed my eyes on the window. "I'm sorry, I was researching."

"Researching what?" she asked idly.

"You know what." She did that to irritate me, asking questions when she knew the answer.

She sighed through her nose, a sign of resignation. "Have some tea."

"I'm fine."

"I had Maddie fix you a plate at dinner. It's in the fridge, you can warm it up."

"I'm not hungry."

"Have you eaten at all since I gave you the news two days ago?" she asked. Her tone drew my gaze – it was… motherly. Not her usual, 'do as I tell you.' Softer than that. Laced with concern. It wasn't unfamiliar but it was rare, even more so for being directed at me.

"Of course," I lied.

She tilted her head forward to level her eyes at me, much the way Mycroft had long ago learnt to do. "You won't find anything in those books, Sherlock."

"Other than potentially useful information?"

"Certainly not a cure for my cancer."

I looked away, and argued with myself that I had in fact not been looking for a cure in my textbooks – though my more recent reading selections had included the latest research on pancreatic biopsies, gemcitabine treatments, and tumor glucose metabolism. It seemed possible that I had subconsciously been searching for a cure without realizing it. "Being well-armed with scientific data and medical knowledge can only help prepare us," I voiced. "Help us be ready to take the appropriate actions at the appropriate times –"

She interrupted me to say, "Death comes for us all, Sherlock." She said this with a certain understated bite that never failed to sting. The sentiment of course didn't bother me, but hearing her say those words, at that moment, lent the statement an unnatural weight. Admittedly, I had to grapple with it. She, meanwhile, went on. "You've always been a very intelligent young man," she said, merely stating a fact. "So I know that you know this is true. And you'll accept it. That's all we can do."

Ah, she was back in form. All 'do as I tell you,' a dearth of empathy. She set her cup on the tea tray and rose, sighing. "Have your dinner, Sherlock. You should take better care of yourself."

I kept my eyes on the tea tray as she went slowly past me, but she paused as she went and touched my shoulder. I reciprocated without thinking by reaching out to hold her forearm. To my surprise, she responded with her own uncharacteristic gesture, transferring her fingertips to the side of my face, where she allowed them to linger for a moment. This prompted me to look up, and I found her lips pressed together in a slight smile. She was shaking her head – it was barely perceptible but I certainly noticed. I opened my mouth to say something, though I no longer recall what I had planned to say, but her fingers slid along my jaw and back to my shoulder, which she patted lightly before departing to prepare for bed.

I sat for some time longer, allowing my thoughts to wander in the silence, considering the events of the past three days: the mystery of Mother's unexpected invitation to supper, her inevitable revelation, and my ensuing two days of (what I now understood to be) fruitless research. I had been so eager to dive into my books that I had quit London without any real consideration – I'd just sent to King's College library for the texts that I needed. A wasted effort and the accumulation of useless knowledge.

Eventually I went to the kitchen for the cold dinner plate. I ate in my room upstairs, my medical texts shut and abandoned.

Force of habit drove me from bed early the next morning – at my own place in London I was accustomed to late nights and later mornings, but I'd never had the luxury of lying in at my mother's home. Mycroft was, true to form, at the kitchen table, already in his suit, with the paper and a plate of eggs. Maggie was busy at the stove preparing bacon.

I ignored them both and went for the coffee. "It is considered polite to exchange pleasantries with those you encounter first thing in the morning," Mycroft reproached me, "particularly those who are making your breakfast."

I asked over my shoulder, "World in a state of disarray without you, Mycroft?" He sighed and turned the page of his paper, and I smiled. A weak victory, but a victory all the same, I felt.

Maggie was my mother's housekeeper of several years, whom I was accustomed to seeing on my occasional visits. Like Mother, she was fonder of Mycroft than of me. (Mycroft was and is more interested in people, and so they in him, than I had ever been.) And I also gathered that she did not appreciate my academic zealotry in the wake of my mother's recent announcement.

Still, I took Mycroft's point that she was fixing, for the third day in a row, breakfast for four. "Good morning, Maggie," I said. She replied with a perfunctory smile. "Don't worry," I told her, "I'll be returning to my lodgings downtown today. There'll be no need for you to concern yourself with me any longer."

I had come to this decision the previous evening, having been unable to identify any compelling reason to continue to subject myself to my family's presence, or they to mine.

My announcement caused Mycroft to set down his paper and regard me with what seemed to be a measure of surprise. "Quitting camp so soon, little brother?"

He said it with a particular tone that indicated more than merely an off-hand interest – clearly he disapproved. I lifted my brow at him as a challenge. "Problem?"

He smiled patiently, lips pressed tightly together. "Given all that is still transpiring," he said unhurriedly, "I had rather hoped you would be with us longer."

"What for?" I asked. "There's no pressing need for us to be here, aside from company, and Mother has never required that." I sipped my coffee and attempted to sweep the matter aside. "Besides, I have exams to prepare for," I said.

"You've never prepared for an exam in your life."

"Final exams," I emphasized, trying to drive the lie home.

Mycroft looked away, running the tip of his middle finger along the rim of his coffee mug, and I rolled my eyes. Evidently I was not going to escape the issue so easily. "There is such a thing as moral support."

I suppose I made a face to that remark, which Mycroft glanced up in time to notice.

"It's possible it may do you as much good as it will her," he pressed. "Especially seeing as your time together is now somewhat limited."

I crossed my arms and narrowed my eyes at him. "Oh, I see. This isn't about 'Mummy' at all – it's about me. It must be grand for you, having all the Holmeses together under one roof again. Have you missed playing the parent after all these years?"

Mycroft pursed his lips, frowning, in an excellent imitation of one of Mother's favorite expressions. "It does seem to me to be our last opportunity to reclaim something that we once had," he said. "There are only the three of us, you know. I realize that you lack even my own limited capacity for sentiment, but surely the fact that our mother is dying means something to you."

Sipping at my coffee, I paused to echo, "Death comes for us all, Mycroft."

Maggie's gasp was almost loud enough to fill the room. She further exclaimed at me with indignation, "Mr. Holmes!" I did not bother to turn to regard her.

Mycroft's expression had turned stony with what can only be labeled disgust, or possibly anger. He chastised, "That is quite enough, Maggie," without releasing me from his glare. Then, resuming his normal air of politeness, he inquired, "And what about Mummy? Have you discussed your plans with her? Or are you uninterested in her opinion?"

"No, I have not informed Mother." During our exchange, Maggie had finished preparing the breakfast tray and now stood staring at me dumbfounded with the silverware in hand. I took it from her and continued, "I thought I'd do it this morning. Perhaps over breakfast." I set my coffee down next to Mother's and snatched some extra toast and bacon to add to the plate for myself.

Mycroft called after me as I left with the tray, "Kindly remember that she's unwell, Sherlock. Try not to upset her." I let the statement hang. Mycroft, of course – the good son, her favorite – never upset her.

As I made my way up the stairs toward Mother's room, I pondered our exchange of the night before. It was certainly the most sympathetic conversation we'd had for years, excluding the significant discussion of three nights previous, in which we had of course all deftly avoided any emotional divulgences – we Holmeses are well-experienced in that. The previous night, though, had been noteworthy. Such contact was a rarity for us. As a boy I recall Mother's hand often gracing my brother's shoulder – not in comfort, for we rarely needed it even as children. Her primary mode of contact with me was to straighten my school uniform. So my thoughts lingered on it – not merely as an action to be scrutinized and deduced, but also for all of the psychological connotations it raised in my own mind (which I would have preferred to set aside, but they remained there unbidden all the same.)

I was primarily engaged in wondering whether our forthcoming conversation would adhere to our distant status quo or if we might further venture into the uncharted waters of familial attachment. Seeing as she was dying, the latter might not have been such an outlandish assumption.

I turned right at the top of the stairs toward the master suite. There was not yet any light under the door, so I trod softly as I opened it and entered. I prompted gently, "Mother," knowing she preferred to be woken in the morning but knowing also that she would have been worn after her charity outing. Normally it would not have presented an issue, but now…

"Mother, Maggie fixed you breakfast," I said. "It's morning."

That was normally sufficient to rouse her. Yet the room was still. I called for her again as I set the tray down.

My eyes hadn't yet adjusted to the low light, but the total silence was ominous and informative enough. I moved to her side – probably trying not to suspect what I must have already expected, or possibly hoping not to be right.

Away from the aroma of eggs, bacon, and coffee, I became aware of another less appealing odor. My hand went to my face, either because of the smell or general apprehension, I can't say.

At the bed, I touched her arm. Still. I grasped her wrist. Still. It was only then that I reached for the lamp.

Bathed in soft lamplight now, there was no question. She had drawn and exhaled her last breath hours earlier. No longer Mother – merely Mother's body.

It is difficult to describe what I was experiencing then. Shock seems too simple a word. The fact is that while I had abandoned my project of absorbing as much as I could of the relevant literature, I had not yet come to terms with her impending demise. I had certainly expected to have a number of months yet to achieve this.

Denial is, according to some psychologists, the first stage of grief. But denial is pointless – she had been dying, and now she was dead. Why, though? Still reeling from shock, my mind sought to grasp the finality of it, and I needed to know the why and the how. The cancer wouldn't have acted so quickly. Stroke? Pulmonary embolism? A complication of her medications? I stood at the bedside in a measure of horror, wracking my brain reviewing all of my biological knowledge and all of what I had learned in the past two days in order to understand how this could possibly be...

I reached out to her again – I can't explain why. Why does anybody do anything? Some actions are surely dictated by the subconscious, such as the previous night when I'd taken her arm and she'd touched my face. One hand went to her shoulder, the other went to her hand – and in her hand I felt something hard, round, plastic.

An empty prescription bottle of temazepam, I discovered, prescribed to her by her regular physician two days earlier. Only two days earlier. Intentional overdose. Premeditated overdose – five days after her diagnosis, one day after informing her sons she was dying, she had returned to her doctor to obtain this prescription… That was another blow – I had never, would never have considered it, would not have thought her open to suicide.

Staring at the bottle, after the initial shock subsided, it was in retrospect the obvious answer – and it explained our previous conversation, as well. That lingering look, the shake of her head – "Take care of yourself, Sherlock…"

I am not aware of everything that transpired past that point. I sat with her hand in my own, not looking at her face. Trying to swallow away the uncomfortable lump in my throat. Not trying to stave off the tears spilling down my face – crying, after all, is a normal biological response to perceived psychological loss, and, I reasoned, if one is going to weep over a loss, it might as well be over one's mother's suicide. Six months or a year from then, after the slow agony of the cancer's progression and the eagerness for death, it might have been another matter. And really, with my father long dead and gone from memory, when would I ever have the need to grieve or mourn again?

I must have cried out at some point, though I am unaware of having done so, because I could hear quick, heavy footfalls on the thick rug on the stairs, followed by Maggie and Mycroft's swift entrance into the room. I avoided looking at them, but could see at the edge of my peripheral vision Maggie hurry to the opposite side of the bed before immediately bursting into tears and Mycroft reaching out a hand to lean heavily against the doorframe.

Mycroft told me later, in passing, that I had sat by her bedside for more than an hour, and that I had squeezed her hand hard enough to fracture one of her metacarpals. That was at the reading of her will, prior to the cremation. He doesn't like to talk about those few days, but when he does he calls her action "heroic." I have never bothered to apply a label to it. And true to my word, that afternoon, after the coroner had removed her body, I packed my things and returned to my room in London. Mycroft still encouraged me to stay – he seemed to think it would be healthier for me to linger in her house, and help oversee the logistics of her departure from this world, to work through my grief. I declined. Mycroft could take care of the arrangements. He was her favorite, after all. The world would continue spinning, even with one fewer mother in the world, even with one fewer Holmes.