"Mycroft?"
"Yes, Eurus?" He's sitting on a metal chair that's been placed just outside the three foot limit of her elephant glass cell in Sherrinford.
"Do you love me?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Because love is a social contract forged to emotional triggers set up during childhood."
"I'm your brother. I leave you to your deductions."
"But that's just it. According to what I've read, siblings can love each other but they also can harbor great resentment and anger. It's difficult to tell these things on a theoretical level. I require context."
"Why does it matter?"
"Oh, I see."
"What do you see?"
"You don't want to show love. You want to be like Uncle Rudy pretended to be. Cold and callus and clever and all the other 'C' words that I can't think of now. Why am I here?"
"What do you mean? You know why you are here."
"No I don't. You took me away from home. You isolated me from physical contact. Didn't you read Ardiel and Rankin's paper on the importance of touch in infant emotional development? You are depriving me of positive human contact."
"Of course I am, after what you did to that nurse."
"She was just data, an experiment. I didn't mean to break her. Humans are so fragile, and their emotions are so hard to understand."
"So, you are no longer human."
"Was I ever human, brother? There. You flinched, but not at the word 'human' you flinched at 'brother', so you do care about me, probably because I am family, but you wish you didn't. Caring is such a disadvantage in the end, isn't it my dear brother?"
"You need to stop harming the people who come to help you."
"Why should I? I'm your sister and you won't stop harming me. Maybe if Sherlock were here, he would treat me better."
"Doubtful. Sherlock is...he's not like he was. He's different. He wouldn't be nice to you."
"Why not?"
"He's rewritten his memories. He doesn't even remember those times."
"Really?"
"Another casualty of your mind games. If you want to know why we keep you here, simply reflect on your past. How many people have you killed? How many people have you harmed with your little tricks? You need to learn to control yourself."
"I don't use my 'tricks' as you call it, to control you."
"That's because I know what you're doing."
"I don't need tricks to control you. You came during your holiday to visit me. You come here out of a sense of obligation because I am your family. You care deeply about your family, deeply enough to not have me killed for hurting your precious underlings. And yet, you are also conflicted. You think that caring makes you weak, and that is why you avoid relationships. That, and the fear that one day I will find your pets and twist them. You model yourself on uncle Rudy, who was an excellent strategist and spy and was known to have no heart. You're wrong though. You're very wrong about him."
"Uncle Rudy was far from perfect. I have no illusions about the man. He tried so hard to be the model British Government worker that the pressure was too much for him. All those evenings sitting in bars, dressed in ladies clothing, pretending to be someone else when who he was became too hard to bear. No, I don't want to be him."
"You don't want to be a laughing stock, you mean. You know what they said about Rudy. How they laughed behind his back."
"He held this country together!"
"And you are loyal to him because he is family."
"You know that Rudy wasn't mother's real brother. He and her actual brother were childhood friends, and when his parents were killed, grandfather adopted him. He isn't a blood relation."
"Not to me or Sherlock, but he is to you. Certainly you knew that Uncle Rudy is your father?"
"Eurus …."
"You didn't know? Honestly? Even with that picture of him in your house? The one that you look more like every year?"
"How do you know about that picture?"
"I stayed there, in his house for one night before he took me to that place. That first place where they were mean to me."
"The place that you burned down."
"You would have burned it down too if you were ever permitted to come there."
"Yes, I saw there was a resemblance, but... I thought it more likely to be grandfather's indiscretion. I thought that Rudy was truly his son. If Rudy and Mummy aren't related, why would they hide…?"
"Why would Uncle Rudy and Mummy hide the fact that they'd conceived a child together? He was her brother, by law at least. It would be a scandal. Surely you recognized how much he favored you above the rest of us, taking you under his wing, telling you all his secrets, giving you his house."
"Why are you saying this? Why are you telling me this?"
"It's a Christmas present, the truth. It's all I have to give you. I don't have anything of my own. I don't own anything that I have. Does that make me a slave?"
"You're not a slave."
"Then let me go free."
"You know I can't do that. I won't."
"In order to save those people that you don't care about from my evil powers. Yes, I remember, as if 'good' and 'evil' are anything other than flawed concepts when you see confining your own sister as 'good'."
"Are we discussing philosophy now?"
"All that I'm saying is that family bonds have some currency. You asked about my tricks. I don't need tricks because you are family, and that makes a difference, to you at least."
"It doesn't make a difference to you?"
"Why should it? What has family ever done to me, except fear and confine me. If you were in here, Mycroft, and I was out there, I wouldn't hesitate to kill you."
Mycroft lowers his eyes and they sit for a moment in silence.
"And you wonder why you are the one in a cell."
"Murder is irrelevant. Pain is existence. Your life is an open wound, like Uncle Rudy's, in love with his sister, watching his child being raised by another. Trying to help. He thought imprisoning me would help, but maybe he was simply getting revenge on her for leaving him."
"I'm not like Rudy. I'm not in love with you."
"That's not what I asked. I asked you if you loved me. I think you might have loved me once, before you became afraid. Do you think that Sherlock is afraid of you? Do you think that in the hidden chambers of his mind he cringes at the sight of you, cries at the sound of your voice?"
"What is the point of this discussion, Eurus?"
"I just can't make you out. You come to visit me, to talk to me, only you. Why do you bother? And yet you do, month after month, year after year."
"And the point of this is? You point out that I am family and therefore can be manipulated, so tell me. What is it you want?"
"Can't we just talk for a while? It happens so rarely."
"Eurus. Time is precious."
"No it is not. Time is torture. I wish that I could take Time and eat it. Chew it and break it until all the hours of my life were gone. I want a knife that cuts up Time."
"What do you mean?"
"I'll say it in simple words so that someone with your limited intelligence can understand. Brother, I'm lonely and bored. Can I have a violin?"
"I am not in the habit of giving prisoners gifts."
"But I gave you one. I told you who your real father is. I'm sorry if it upset you. I'll give you another then. I'll solve some of those silly government problems that you like to work on. Will that be good enough to earn me a prize?"
"If the work is of merit, I will consider your request."
"Can you stop with the uncle Rudy impersonation now? You know you're going to get it for me. Guilt will do it if love does not."
"I will bring you the work tomorrow, and if I deem it adequate, I may consider giving you a violin. What kind of violin do you want?"
"It's a gift, big brother. Let your heart guide you. I'm tired now." She turns away from him and lies down on the bed.
"Good night, little sister," Mycroft says as he rises to his feet and takes himself and the chair outside.