Time to meet your big brother!" she coos.

Mummy scoots over to the side of the hospital bed and pats the newly created space as he hops up to join her. To join them, he mentally corrects himself. Mummy and Sherlock.

She carefully places him in Mycroft's arms.


Mycroft knew Mummy was concerned that he would be jealous about the loss of attention. She had talked to him at length...endless variations on a theme... about how love didn't just run out. That there was an endless supply of it. More than enough for Mummy and Daddy and My and the new baby. How he was going to be The Big Brother, and that that was a very special job. She had kept him involved in the process... explained to him where babies come from, how they grow, how they come out. He got to feel Sherlock kick and shift positions, and even got to see the ultrasound. The technician had been impressed by how much he knew about sound waves, and this made him very happy indeed. That was also the day Mycroft found out that Mummy was having a little boy. Just like him. Only, of course, he was seven now. Not so little.

"Is that a penis?" Mycroft asked the technician, pointing at the screen.

The technician blushed, caught off guard by the frankness of such a young child. "No. That's just the umbilical cord. That is how the baby eats while it's in your mummy's tum."

Mycroft huffed at the condescension.

"We can't see from this angle, My. Maybe if the baby moves a bit." As if on cue, the baby shifted, and the technician pointed out to the mother that it was, indeed, a boy.

"Are you sure? The labia can look like a scrotum. It protrudes too, in infants." He continued his investigation of the screen.

The technician was rather annoyed at having her competence questioned by a young child, regardless of how precocious he seemed, but tried to take it in good humour. "Yes, they can look similar, but it is far more common to think it is a girl and it actually turns out to be a boy."

"Because you just didn't see all the parts clearly, so you assumed they weren't there," Mycroft said, mostly to himself, satisfied.

"Mycroft, if you use 'you', the lady will think you are talking about her."

"I'm not," he said.