The Fall of Avalon, a sherlock fanfic

A/N: For Mugen, who says, and I quote, "loves my creepy-shit like no other."

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Slowly, so slowly, she wrapped her shaking arms around her waist. Her breath shivered from her lungs and into the air of the grimy motel bath. Her skin felt too tight, too wrong, and it was all happening too fast.

She gulped dryly, her head starting to swim in the heat. Cool sweat slicked down the planes of her back, her thin undershirt sticking to the peeling wallpaper above the tub. She tried to breath through it and found it hard with the sounds of taxi-horns blaring and street merchants screaming. The noise wafted in through the small window above the dirty toilet, loud and obnoxious. Her head fell back, gently hitting the wall. She closed her eyes and pounded it a few times, softly and slowly as she reached out to turn on the shower head.

Lukewarm water splashed weakly from overhead, frustratingly hot against her flushed skin. It slowly chilled, bringing with it a sweet relief that had her muscles uncoiling one by one until she finally felt like she could breath again.

She sat there, her arms folded over her stomach and her back sticking to the wall. Her long legs splayed out over the rim of the bathtub, her boot-covered heels tapping out a half-hearted rhythm against the old porcelain where they hung lax. She only turned off the water when it stopped being cool enough.

Starting to shiver she groaned, pushing her way out of the bath and onto her feet. She stretched, feeling the blood run sluggishly back into her cooled limbs. Water sloshed out of her top and jeans, spilling down her legs and pooling in her boots. She squished with every step, but it was a good discomfort, a welcome relief from the oppressive heat of the Indian day.

She stripped carelessly and her hair dripped down her back. She shivered with the sensation.

She steadfastly ignored the slender white stick in the sink where she had left it, its little pink plus sign glowing in the yellowed light.

From there it all came too fast.

She was in India, running her fingers over silky lengths of fabrics, the smell of sweat so cloyingly sweet on the back of her tongue. The incense smoke coiled through the air like a lazy serpent as she stood before the gods of old, paying her respect, the alien feeling of fear fluttering in her chest.

She was in Russia, the thick fur still wet with bloody fat as she wrapped it around her shoulders, her stomach beginning to swell and her breath coming in hot puffs that filled the fridged air.

She was in Africa, scratching at a bug bite on her arm and taking another dose of quinine, her sun burnt hand dipping into the too-warm water as she shifted, trying to get the parasite to sit right inside. Then, in a hut so hot that her vision swam, she laid back on the reeds and the wiseman's hands were as soft as old leather when he touched her stomach.

He left behind a henna-dark stain that didn't wash away (not that she really tried) and she still can't recall what he said to her before letting her sleep the night and then sending her off up the Amazon.

In Egypt it got harder to move and she couldn't grab her ankles and fold herself in half without feeling like she needed to throw up. She could still kick down doors and stop a heart with a swung fist but it wasn't enough and she was weak and she wasn't weak. She was scared of the dark again, her arms wrapped loosely around her bulging stomach to protect It from sights unseen.

She hated and loved It in equal measure.

Hated It because It made her weak made her care made her feel. Loved because It was hers and nothing had ever really been hers and she liked it and It listened and It loved it when she sang and talked to It.

So she toddled down the dock, her sweater stretched tight over her belly, a backpack slung over her shoulders and humming quietly as she stepped into the desert.

She though about having it there, amid all the death and sand. It would have appease her artistic-side that she had ruthlessly squashed years before, for something of life to come from something of death.

But ultimately she decided that she doesn't want that for It, and It didn't seem to like the shifting dunes anyway.

It did, however, like the stormy darkness of northern Europe just fine.

She grunted, pushing herself up higher on the bed and breathing through the contraction as it came. She timed it on her watch, waiting for it to end with the next roll of thunder.

Rain onslaught the old house, lightening illuminating the darkened room with shocks of white. The sparse candles throughout the room flickered but held as she rocked her heels impatiently, her toes curling and her teeth biting into the soft juncture of her thumb and first finger. Tears pooled in her eyes.

Her muscles loosened and she could take a deep breath. Quickly, she heaved herself off her back and onto her knees, the nest of pillows under her spread legs. She gripped the old wooden headboard, bowing her head as another spasm tightened her muscles. She didn't have any time to think and she didn't try, letting her body tell her how to curve her back, when to bear down, when to stop, when to breath.

Her body hadn't betrayed her yet; it wouldn't now.

As it was, the feeling that trilled through her that told her something was happening made her breath stutter in her chest. She reached down with a hand, crying and clenching her eyes as something tore, and caught the hot slippery thing as it slid free from her body.

She trembled, afraid to look down for a moment before she shook herself and hefted the squirming thing up to her breast. The sweat on her body already started to cool she fumbled under the pillows for the eyedropper she had gotten. Sucking the gunk from It's nose and mouth was easy enough once she pried her hand from the headboard.

She let the quiet, breathing thing rest on her chest as she traced the corded rope of arteries from her to it gently, feeling her own pulse pounding away. She was slumped against the headboard, exhaustion pulling at her limbs.

Her fingers circled It's naval for a moment in awe before she noticed the small member resting between It's legs.

A son.

She blinked. She had a son.

Gently rocking her son she cupped the lukewarm bathwater with her hand, scooping it up and pouring it carefully over his tiny body. He watched her with solemn eyes half-hooded with sleep.

He was endlessly fascinating to her as she rubbed his soft skin gently to get the mucous membranes off of him, her attention sometimes pulling her away from her task so that she could rub her nose along his cheek and through his wispy hair. He let her do as she would, content to rest in her arms with his cheek to her breast, full of milk and sleepiness.

Through the cracked door she caught sight of the still steaming mound of placenta sitting on the bed and made a note to plant it as soon as she could before her attention gravitated back towards the baby in her arms.

He curled his fists, his small bones shifting under his skin as he did so. She held him, watching quietly, utterly devoted.

And still, things kept spinning, throwing her head into a blur as the world rushed dizzily around her.

But Mycroft, Mycroft was always there.

And for him she tried. She tried, harder that she could ever remember, to stay. With him.

But sometimes, she still missed things.

Oh, he was safe, she didn't worry about that. But he was growing up and she felt like she was missing it.

And she was.

And she hated it.

"Mummy?" Mycroft asked, the accent that he had picked up from the village a walk away coloring his childish voice as he tugged at her pant leg gently.

She paused, rocking back on her heels to meet his eyes.

"Yes?" She wiped her dirt stained palms on the grass, tightening her ponytail and giving him her full and undivided attention.

"Where's my father?"

Guilt, she realized, staring at her slumbering son.

She was guilty.

She pressed a fist to her lips, swallowing around a suddenly tight throat as she recalled the feeling from her youth as it roared through her.

She recalled earlier that day in the garden, when Mycroft had looked at her with innocent eyes that were so familiar but really weren't.

She could barely tell him anything, and that made her feel stupid. Incompetent. Crazy.

It made her feel like a failure.

"Mummy, don't cry," Mycroft whispered, crawling into her lap and wrapping his small, small arms around her neck.

She brushed at her cheeks, feeling the tears for the first time.

Mycroft was brilliant. He was sharp and he was smart and he was hers.

She loved him. More than anything.

And then she saw Him.

And He looked so much like Her that she had to have him.

So she did.

And then she killed him.

When Mycroft was nine she got pregnant again.

Another boy. Another love.

Sherlock.

Sherlock had her eyes.

Sometimes, in her more lucid moments, she wondered where they got it from.

Their genius.

Because watching Sherlock toddle after the mesmerized Mycroft, his eyes so sharp and his effort so keen that she felt she could cut herself on it, and seeing Mycroft's calculating gaze as he planned out his brother's future and knowing that he could do it made her wonder.

She couldn't remember much about before. Didn't think she wanted to. Didn't think she could.

She had had money, she knew. And connections. And she had been feared/revered/hated by many, many people. It was what had gotten her place to place and the too-large manor in the countryside.

But she knew that she wasn't even half as intelligent as they were. Hell, most of the time she wouldn't have even known what day of the week it was except that Mycroft kept a meticulously marked calendar in the kitchen where everyone could see it.

She was stupid. So where did they get it from?

"Where do you go?" Sherlock asked her once.

She couldn't answer him.

And like before, her boys grew, and it was too fast. So fast, that she almost missed it.

But the days, those days were she could sit on the back porch and watch them play in the yard, Sherlock sometimes letting out a delighted screech when he found a particularly interesting bug and Mycroft hovering, fondly, over his shoulder, pointing and teaching.

Those, she thought as she sipped her water. Those were the days that she fought to remember the most.

"Do you want to leave?" she found herself asking, dinner hot on the table and the boys, her boys, eating quietly, waiting to chatter for when they would be in the parlor, her in the corner curled up with a book.

Her words sent a silent chord through the air, and Mycroft's eyes grew wide, Sherlock stilling in his seat, his fork clinking against his plate as he gapped at her.

She shifted, wonder what she had done wrong. Didn't children go to school? Didn't they leave to grow up? She couldn't remember her childhood, but surely her lessons weren't enough for her brilliant, brilliant boys to sustain themselves on.

Didn't they need more?

Sherlock looked at his brother, imploringly.

"Mummy," Mycroft said slowly, straightening in his seat, "do you…want us to go?" he asked quietly, his voice tight.

She frowned tilting her head wonderingly.

"No," she said, shaking her head, confused. "I just thought…" she trailed off, blinking, looking down at her lap.

"I just thought that you would…want to?" she asked hesitantly, looking back up.

Mycroft looked stricken. Sherlock, as confused as her-like he hadn't a clue that there was anything else out there beside their house and the small town nearby.

"Mummy-Mummy, no!" Mycroft croaked, leaving his chair to circle around the table and attach himself to her chest. His arms were tight around her shoulders, and, wonderingly, she patted his back. What could he possibly be upset about?

Sherlock looked uncomfortable in his seat, as confounded as she.

"Boys?" she called, stepping inside the door, shaking out her loose hair. The wind had ripped away her hair tie, and she hadn't bothered to chase it. It left her hair trailing down along her thighs, tangling in the bags she held.

She heard the clamor of feet from upstairs and wondered what they had been doing, probably playing in the library-no, no, Mycroft was too old for playing, wasn't he? She couldn't recall.

But she could feel the excitement curling in her breast at the bags she held. They would love it, she was sure.

Shutting the door with her foot she walked to the kitchen, dumping the bags on the small table and slipping out of her jacket, her skirt fluttering around her knees and her loose sweater warm from the heat of her skin. She fluffed her hair, tossing her jacket onto a hook and reaching out to start the tea.

The boys loved their tea.

"Mummy, mummy, you will not believe what I-"

"Mummy, you're back early, how was the trip into town?"

"-it was amazing and you have to see it!"

Their words tramped over one another until she held up a hand, laughing, pulling them into a loose embrace. She glanced at the calendar from the corner of her eye and was relieved to find that she hadn't lost a day.

She smacked a kiss against each forehead, ruffling hair as the kettle started to whistle.

"It was lovely, and you'll have to show me as soon as we're done here, alright?" she soothed, reaching up for the teacups.

"What's in these?" Sherlock asked, inquisitively, his bright eyes locked on the plain bags littering the table.

"It's not groceries," Mycroft chimed in, leaning over his younger brother's shoulder.

"And you're not ruffled enough to have-"

"You shoes-"

"That mud found outside Mr. Miligan's-"

"Enough," she chided, shooing them away with cups of tea, pulling the bags towards her.

"It's for us-"

"Of course it's for us-"

"Who else would it be-"

"Yes, yes! They are for you!" She watched as they sent each other satisfied glances. "But they need to be opened in a certain order, else the effect isn't right, savy?" she asked, pulling the first bag over to her.

"For Mycroft," she passed over the first brown-paper wrapped bundle, "and for Sherlock." She passed the second one.

They shared a look, carefully unwrapping their parcels. She leaned back to watch, smiling.

"Er, this is great, mummy," Mycroft said at first, hesitantly holding aloft his picture frame, the glass empty. His second one sat, still wrapped in it's own paper.

Sherlock's nose crinkled as he thought, his own lying before him.

She couldn't help it, she laughed.

"Silly gents!" she giggled, pulling out the second presents, "those are for these!"

With a flourish, she presented them their envelopes.

Sherlock let out a gasp, his mouth hanging open-his primary education certificate in his hand.

Mycroft, similarly, was speechless, his primary and secondary certifications before him.

"I, mummy, how?" Mycroft stuttered, fingers ghosting over his pages.

"Well, what do you think we've been learning?" she asked amusedly, leaning back in her seat.

"But aren't there-"

"Yes, which you passed with flying colors," she explained slowly.

"Does this mean I don't have to go to school come autumn?" Sherlock asked, studying his page.

"Yes, Sherlock," Mycroft cut it, rolling his eyes, "it means that you don't have to go."

She clucked her tongue. "Mycroft," she said softly, warningly.

Her eldest blushed, ducking his head.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

Sherlock carefully set his paper onto the table before looking up at her. "Would you like to see my frog now, mummy?" he asked with all the seriousness of an eight year old.

She stood, nodding. "Of course, dear," she said, brushing a comforting hand over Mycroft's shoulder as she passed, following Sherlock into the back yard.

She smiled as she left.

"You're leaving?" Sherlock screeched, his face turning red as he glared, agast, at Mycroft.

"Yes, Sherlock, I'm going to university," Mycroft explained slowly, looking at his younger brother carefully.

"You-you, you can't leave! We need you!" Mycroft's lips pursed.

"Mummy needs you! How can you leave her?" Sherlock screamed, stomping his foot.

Mycroft winced.

"Sherlock," Mycroft tried again, reaching out a hand.

"No! Don't touch me! I, I hate you!" Sherlock turned and ran up the stairs, leaving Mycroft standing in the foyer, looking lost, broken.

She stepped forward, gently touching her son's back.

"He will probably come around, you know," she tried to comfort him. From the look on his face, it didn't work.

"No, no, I don't think he will," Mycroft said slowly, looking unseeingly up the stairs.

Sherlock leaves too.

She has dreams, horrible, bloody dreams where she wakes up, craving a knife in her hand, tasting bone marrow and sweat.

The boys come back, every year, once a year, at Christmas time.

She makes sure that she is always there those nights, not wanting to miss a moment of them. Even if she remains absent for months in advance, nothing keeping her in the present, content to float through the days in a daze, planting and cleaning and playing the violin or piano or cello.

She sets the table and prepares the food and they laugh and talk and they are on their best behavior, keeping their snipes to a minimum and their insults suitably veiled that she almost, almost doesn't catch them.

But she is their mother, she always sees.

And she wonders at the fact that they, so alike, so loved by the other, can think they hate each other so.

But they will figure that out on their own-they are smart boys, after all.

She realizes that she hasn't left her little plot of the world in years when she gets The Call and goes rushing off to London, the city of iron and blood that thrums life through her veins and makes her want to smile feral grins at all the little mice running around, doing their business. Living their tiny, worthless lives.

Pathetic, the voice in her head that she doesn't recognize sneers, gnashing at the bit as she rides the Tube to the hospital that she doesn't recall the name of, where her son, her beautiful, tiny bright brilliant boy, lays.

Sherlock.

So she walks to the front desk, gives them the name, and watches as the mice scurry before her, their little hearts beating with the age-old threat of predatordangerrunrunrun.

She rides the lift and walks down the hall and waits until the man guarding the door is suitably distracted by the too young nurse manning the night desk pregnant, doesn't know, boyfriend is abusive, wants out, will do anything, chats him up. She slips inside, and is confronted by the image of death superimposed over her son.

Track marks litter his pale, thin arms. New over old over even older. His eyes are ringed in purple and black and his hair is limp, long, untrimmed, uncared for over the thin pillow.

His body is skeletal under the blanket.

And she can't think, can't feel, why did this happen why had no one told her why whywhywhywhy.

She makes a sound, a soft, mournful sound in the quiet darkness of the room and steps forward, gently moving him over on the bed and sitting, touching his fingers.

His is like a paper doll, so thin, so translucent in the harsh florescent lights that she can scarcely believe that this is her son, that this is the boy she had raised and loved and still loves even though he is a colossal, massive, fucking idiot.

She breathes, leaning over to touch her nose to his razor-sharp cheek. She breathes him in, the stale sickness of his mouth, the blood still crusted behind his ear, the sterile disinfectant of the hospital sheets clinging to his skin, the dirt from his apartment, and there, the musk, the subtle sent of her son. Of Sherlock.

Her throat is tight, and voices are being raised outside.

"Didn't I tell you…" "Bloody idiot…" "One instruction, one…" and,

"Oy, who are you?" that one is directed at her, a quiet hiss in the silence of her son's prison.

She pauses, leaning up and looking over at the silver-haired Detective Inspector, married, divorced recently, no more than six months, no children, lives alone, knows her son, man and staring as he goes quiet, his eyes wide, watching her watch him.

"Yes?" she drawls out, her finger still as light as air on her son's.

"I-ma'am, you can't be, I mean-" he stuttered, drawing himself up under the weight of her gaze, steeling himself.

"Ma'am, you can't be in here," he says firmly. She wonders if he really thinks he can take her.

Thinks, nah.

"I'm sorry, Detective Inspector," she demurs, watching as he flushes prettily, "but really, I should be saying that you can't be in here," she finished, ice cold.

"Pardon?" he asks, bewildered.

"Mummy?" comes the quiet question from behind him.

"Mummy?" he parrots back.

"Mycroft," she says silkily, watching as her son flinches as he closes the door behind him. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Thank you, I'll be taking that," she says firmly when the nurse comes in to bath Sherlock on the second day. The nurse nods cautiously, leaving the tube of warm water, the towels, and the sponge at the foot of his bed and giving her a weak smile as she exits.

She had drawn the curtains the first night, and so doesn't worry as she pulls back his blanket and undoes his hospital gown.

With slow, sure strokes she washes him, her mind racing with the overdose, lucky we got to him in time, hello I'm Lestrade, Sherlock helps out on some cases, and mummy, I'm sorry, I thought, and, he needs help, and why did he do this, and he was bored, mummy, what else?

Sherlock lays, quiet and compliant and still under her fingers as she finishes his bath, pats him dry, and folds him into a new gown and a pair of socks with little knobbles on the bottom.

She grins at those. He would hate them, were he awake.

Serves him right, she thinks, tucking him in gently and settling his hand with the I.V. atop the covers carefully, making sure it's taped down securely. She brushes his damp hair with her fingers, teasing out the knots and letting it dry on the towel-covered pillow.

Wake up, Sherlock, she thinks.

We need to talk.

She hasn't slept in days and the D.I. is starting to look twitchy around her.

Mycroft hasn't left either, but at least he had caught a nap sitting by Sherlock's bedside. She has had nothing of the like.

Lestrade watches her, and she feels his eyes and thinks about crawling under the covers with him and tasting his darkest, deepest parts…but brushes the thought aside. He seems like a good man, and she would hate to kill him.

He goes with her for tea, and sits with her in the quiet café, watching her drink the horrible tea. She doesn't tell him that she hates tea, prefers water, but can't bring herself to. He seems like a nice man, with his large, dark eyes and quick, boyish grin.

He almost reminds her of Sherlock's father, and the thought makes her shy away from her mind and all it's pitfalls.

They go back to the room, and it's Day 5, and she is beginning to feel the need for sleep and not just the silent meditations she has been doing when she hears the shouting.

Sherlock is awake.

The nurses are trying to restrain him and he's shouting about something and Mycroft's voice is as stern as a whip and it's too loud and Lestrade is touching her elbow God damn it all.

"Silence," she says, and the room falls quiet, eyes watching her.

She dismisses the nurses and the doctors and tells Mycroft to take a hike and says thank you to Lestrade and shuts and locks the door.

Sherlock is as pale as death in his bed, his eyes huge in his thin face.

"I will speak, and you will listen," she tells him. "Nod if you understand."

He nods, slowly, his eyes pained.

"Have your drugs, your poisons, your violin, and your life. Use them to skive off your boredom and rot your mind for something to do. It's fine. I understand. But God help you if you ever do this to me again, Sherlock. I will kill you myself and you will never leave me again," she finished with a low whisper, staring into her son's eyes and watching as shame and guilt fill them.

He swallows.

"What happened to my father?" he asks lowly, his voice a rasp.

She smiled, and it wasn't a pretty smile. It was the smile of a beast, a hunter. A killer.

She patted his hand. "What do you think, dear?"

They had to get it from somewhere, right?