A/N: Surprise! This isn't a one-shot. Warnings for extended Shakespeare metaphors, angst and an actual plotline. I know; I'm surprised too. There's more written but I reluctantly decided it had to be saved for the next chapter, so feel free to follow.

Also, review. It would make my day.

Mycroft does not return, but sends an impersonal, black-suited pawn in his stead. John does return, late the next morning. He evades the pawn outside the door, not before a brief argument and the ping of a text alert. Big Brother still watching, then. Upon gaining entry John begins the conversation with a game of Let's Pretend. It has been so long since Captain Redbeard that I go along, if only for the novelty.

Or perhaps this is his way of catching desperately at the straws of the past. More interesting, John. I did tell you.

"What are you up to now, then?"

"I'm—"

"Let me guess. Bored."

"Correct in essence."

"So what's lying here on the sofa supposed to accomplish?"

"I could form a similar query regarding getting up."

"Sunshine? Fresh air? Maybe, I don't know, get something done?"

A languid gesture. "As you can see, John, I am in fact…"

"Half-dressed?"

"Accomplishment. There you go."

"Get off the sofa and have dinner with Mary and I tonight."

I pretend to consider. "No."

"There's an Italian place around the corner from our house. Prawns. Garlic. Homemade alfredo."

"Mm. Better than Angelo's?"

John wavers at this disloyalty, and then remembers the game. "Yes," he says firmly.

"Fresh basil, too. Drop by later."

His eyebrows draw together, the John equivalent of a double take. "Really?"

"Mmm."

John recognizes dismissal when he hears it. I am glad of it. My head still aches, and the room is darker when he's gone.

Mycroft's pawn shifts his weight and stifles a yawn, stepping back in front of the door. The lock slides into place as John's tread retreats down the stairs. Even now, I am not entirely incapable of gratitude. Mycroft's Christmas gift to me was a weighty one. The scant seconds of reflection afforded me prior to Magnussen's death have evolved into an overabundance in the weeks since, and it would take a great degree of oblivion not to realize that house arrest is far better than I could have hoped for.

House arrest and the interaction of friends. He knows me too well. Knows the itching restless fits alternating with lethargy. Despite his affected scorn for my 'goldfish', he knows precisely what keeps my mind from consuming itself.

And this is good fortune on more than one level, because Mycroft knows about her.

He told me.

"I suppose the handcuffs are entirely necessary."

"To the armed guard waiting outside the door, yes."

A battered key skidded to a halt in front of Sherlock. The detective glanced up with a raised eyebrow.

"But not to you?"

Mycroft watched the long fingers slide the key into the lock with practiced ease. This wasn't the first time the authorities had had cause to question his little brother's loyalty.

"No."

"I'm almost touched."

"What a time for you to turn human at last. What made you do it?"

Obviously Mycroft wasn't referring to this outburst of brotherly affection. Sherlock sighed and ran freed hands through his dark curls.

"What do you expect, Mycroft? 'I'm sorry and I'll never do it again'? You know better than that. In any case," he added as a careless afterthought, "I'm certain some of your colleagues will be glad to get out from under his thumb."

Mycroft slammed his hands on the table in front of Sherlock. For the thousandth time he wondered if his little brother really was the sociopath he claimed to be. Life had always been a game to him, an endless cycle of frantic activity, its only purpose the ultimate evasion of boredom. And, so, apparently, was death.

"Don't lie to me, Sherlock! The greater good has never been your motivation."

Sherlock turned his head and fixed a lazy gaze on his elder brother.

"Maybe I've changed."

The logic was almost twisted enough to be true. Sherlock Holmes tracked down killers for the same reason that other people bungee jumped off cliffs or leapt from airplanes. Of course when he got around to committing murder, there would be an altruistic motive.

"Can you not so much as feign regret, Sherlock? Are you really—" he broke off.

Sherlock watched calmly. "Why, brother. Is this sentiment?"

When Mycroft didn't answer, Sherlock went on. This time real rage threatened to choke his words.

"Let me tell you something, brother, that you don't seem to have grasped," he hissed. "Magnussen was the most twisted criminal in all of England, for all he rarely broke the law. He was the embodiment of all that I have ever hated, and not because I am a sociopath," pronouncing the word with a distaste that left Mycroft stunned. "Not even because he threatened, kidnapped and very nearly killed the only man who has ever called himself my friend. No, it is because Magnussen, himself, was the quintessence of everything wrong with our race, with those who call themselves human, and make an occupation of slamming doors in the faces of anyone different.

"Despite what some think, I take no pleasure in the presence of death for its own sake. Nor do I enjoy killing, as I now know firsthand."

In the sudden silence, Mycroft could have sworn he heard Sherlock's breath catch slightly.

"But I rid us of him, and that I do not regret."

With something like a sigh, Mycroft settled into the chair across the table. The room was dark, apart from a light shining almost directly overhead, failing to penetrate the shadows only where the paneled walls met. The table at which they sat was square and carved from the same dark, polished wood. Despite the lavish surroundings, the scene was cliché enough that Sherlock barely bit back the wry comment that would have escaped him under any other circumstances. Today, for once, he'd put his brother through enough.

"Three hours, Sherlock…" Mycroft dragged a hand across his brow in a gesture of uncharacteristic weariness, stilling his features with an effort. "Three hours ago we were smoking in the garden. Since then you've killed a man in cold blood. This man, in particular. In front of nearly two dozen witnesses. You know I can't sweep this under the rug."

Sherlock sighed and leaned back, folding his hands. "I don't expect you to try."

"Then tell me why you did it." Mycroft's words were granite.

Sherlock met his eyes evenly. "I've told you why."

Mycroft leaned forward and dropped his voice, though he'd had the soundproof walls swept for bugs before the helicopter had even left the manor.

"I know about Mary."

The words dropped softly into the space between them. Beneath the light's blinding glare, his brother's expression didn't change. Only Mycroft Holmes could have read fear in the slight dilation of his pupils.

Sherlock recovered almost instantly. "I suspected as much. So tell me, brother mine, why is a CIA-trained, freelance killer more useful to you alive than dead?"

Mycroft tapped his fingers on the tabletop. "Call it a wedding present."

Sherlock snorted.

"To be more accurate, I spend less on nanny fees this way."

"Mary doesn't spy on me," said Sherlock dismissively. "I would be able to tell."

"I didn't hire her to spy on you, Sherlock!" Mycroft gripped the edge of the table, his knuckles whitening. "As it happens, that woman was the only thing keeping John Watson alive for the past two years. And since I don't compensate him nearly enough for his babysitting services, I was willing to keep Miss 'Morstan's' little secret so long as she kept to the straight and narrow."

"So you absolved a former assassin in order to protect your little brother? That really is sweet, My. I never knew you cared."

Mycroft clenched his jaw. "Backfired a bit when you turned up with a bullet through your chest. Her freedom very nearly ended then."

Sherlock waved this away. "We met under…awkward circumstances. It was for the best, really."

"I'm aware." Mycroft leaned forward. "Thanks to your efforts, Mary Morstan's hands are free of Magnussen's blood. I do hope you're pleased with the trade-off."

"Better this way."

There was silence in the room. Then Sherlock spoke again.

"You really think…"

"What?"

"You think I couldn't function without John Watson."

Mycroft exhaled.

"Yes, Sherlock, I think he keeps you off narcotics and more or less in one piece. As such, I considered it unwise to allow him to succumb to grief in your absence. I'm sure you've realized by now the emotional turmoil your little charade caused."

"I'm not a child, Mycroft."

"He went away for a month and we found you in a drug den."

"Working on a case!"

"So you say. It may help your case, anyway."

"As the lab results will clearly show, I am clean. I wasn't high when I shot Charles Augustus Magnessen, much as you may wish to believe otherwise. I put a bullet through his head—yes, Mycroft, in cold blood, along with every other overused prosaism you care to employ—very simply because he was the most malicious viper ever to crawl the face of the earth."

"And?"

"And he threatened my best friend."

Sherlock's voice dropped an octave, and Mycroft felt again that thrill of horror, the fear of and for the man sitting before him, amounting to a plummeting sensation in the pit of his stomach. Much as he hated to admit it, he had felt himself falling, for a moment, earlier that night…falling despite firm steel beneath his feet and the whirring helicopter blade above.

Sherlock; of all people the one who should understand. Sherlock, the last man who would ever understand.

"Not much of a defense. After all the trouble I go through to keep you alive." A hand came up to meet the receding hairline as Mycroft's despair at last seeped into his voice, crumpling his masklike features. "You do realize, Sherlock, that there is nothing I can do."

"There is nothing I expect. As for defense, there can be none—I wasn't high, and nor was I raving, much as you may like to think it."

"That may not be your call to make anymore."

For the first time Sherlock recoiled. "Is that a threat?"

"A threat?" Mycroft laughed hollowly. "No, little brother, we are beyond threats. This is reality. There is not a prison in England you haven't helped to fill. Our hands are tied, yours as well as mine."

In spite of himself his brother's fingers curled, digging into his own arm. "The options?"

"Your choices are to plead mental instability—which, to be frank, few would doubt—and submit to the restrictions that come with it, or to accept the job offer we discussed."

Sherlock's eyes lingered on the grain running through the smooth tabletop. When he raised them again Mycroft felt it like a blow to the gut. There was no question that some light had been snuffed out, something fragile collapsed.

"Well then, there's hardly any question, is there?"

Mycroft made his voice hard. "Death was temporary once. I suspect it won't be so again."

"No." Sherlock stretched and yawned, catlike, rotating his wrists to shake off the lingering stiffness of the restraints. "I suspect not."

He fell silent for a moment.

"So troublesome, these goldfish."

"That's the part I don't understand. I know you miss John. Why would you care about Mary? Why give everything up for the woman who shot you?"

Sherlock's voice was flat. "Because whatever hurt I have caused John in the past, I wish to repay in full. Because whatever else happens, John Watson deserves real happiness. My life consists of dodging death threats that one day, despite your best efforts, will catch up with me. Mary will always be there for John."

"And what about me? What of our parents? John Watson is not the only person to whom you owe affection."

Both brothers fell silent, Mycroft wondering if familial affection was a concept that had ever entered Sherlock's mind. He opened his mouth again, but Sherlock cut him off.

"Then, my dear brother," his voice carried the slightest suggestion of huskiness. "I offer you my most sincere apologies."

Mycroft closed his eyes. In the silent room the gunshot echoed a thousand times over.

"What else?"

"What?"

"There's something else."

"There is nothing else, Mycroft."

"You're hurting him now. He's losing you again, and little brother, this time it will probably be forever. So." Mycroft stood again, leaned forward on his palms. "What else?"

His brother finally met his eyes. "I made a promise."

"You promised to murder a villainous psychopath?"

Sherlock Holmes grinned mirthlessly and held out his wrists for the cuffs.

"You should have been at the wedding."

On certain occasions it is only possible to distinguish trips to my mind palace by the aftermath. The little fiasco last week was an extreme example, but there are other, subtler clues. Mycroft appearing at my side unnoticed (the day following a subdued evening of takeout with John and Mary) is one of them. Whatever his other competencies, my brother has all the stealth of an African bull elephant, a comparison that I consider voicing aloud if only to wipe away the look on his face. To judge by the depths of smugness in his expression, he has been standing there, unnoticed, for several minutes at least. But by the time I realize this it is far too late to pretend otherwise.

"You know, brother," Mycroft remarks, taking a seat uninvited, "Sometimes I do wonder how you survived a two-year stealth mission."

I snort. Keep wondering, brother mine. But for once there are more pressing concerns than repartee.

"Mycroft. Why are you here?" The latest file on Moriarty arrived only this morning; hence the most recent bout of pondering. Unlikely there's been additional news since. If that were the case, it would be urgent; my brother's obvious lack of haste rules that out.

"No news on your old friend," says Mycroft with a lazy wave of his hand. "If there were, he'd probably have taken over the country while I stood waiting for you to acknowledge my presence. No, this is a social visit, little brother."

There's no point even bothering to restrain a groan at that. Mycroft settles back in John's chair and regards me over steepled fingers. I can hardly be so blind as not to recognize the conscious parody.

Oh no, brother mine. You don't want to go there.

But a battle of mannerisms sounds tedious at best, at this point in the morning, so I settle for the second-best method of annoying my brother. Guaranteed.

"Come on, Myc, I've been doing my homework and everything." The file slips off my chest onto the floor as I push myself into a sitting position. Mycroft spares it a glance.

"Anything?"

"No. You?"

"Nothing like before. Unless the network is more nebulous than ever."

"He doesn't have a network anymore." I drum my fingers impatiently on the table. "I must have toppled half the drug rings in Europe, to say nothing of the more organized crime—it's not just Moriarty, they're all working with splinters now."

"Let's hope you're right." Mycroft is expressionless. And then, because half a minute's meaningful and semicourteous discourse is apparently too much for him, he leans forward. "And how are you really, Sherlock?"

Briefly I wonder what it would be like to be someone for whom déjà vu is an occasional occurrence, rather than a state of being. Relaxing, probably. "I'm fine." Then, allowing a tinge of irony to creep into my tone, "And you?"

Mycroft ignores this last, studying me again. "You do seem better."

"Seems? Nay, I know not seems."

Impossible to resist a jibe from the one play that, irritatingly, has stuck in my head since Harrow. Les Misérables aside, Mycroft respects the classics.

His mouth actually twitches. "Are you going to finish?"

Never let it be said that I can't oblige. When the mood strikes.

"'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good brother, nor customary suits of solemn black, nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath, no, nor the fruitful river in the eye, nor the dejected 'haviour of the visage, together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, that can denote me truly. These, indeed, seem…for they are actions that a man might play."

"I remember that performance," Mycroft reminisces drily, by way of applause. "You've always had something of a flair for drama. Though I did imagine you had, ah, deleted that."

"We're not all obliged to hide backstage." With a meaningful glance at his middle. Then, just for the sake of conclusion, "'But I have that within which passeth show; these but the trappings and the suits of woe.'"

"Indeed."

"Indeed, that's what you're expecting to hear, isn't it?" I suppress a yawn.

"And your resemblance to the young Prince grows by the day. I always was a bit concerned you identified so deeply with the character."

I scowl. Leave it to Mycroft.

"Having sympathy for Polonius, are we?"

He says nothing.

"Let's clear up this extended metaphor once and for all," I say to the ceiling. "Hamlet got it wrong in two ways. First, I think we can both agree that preemptive is more effective than a revenge strike. Next, he didn't check behind the curtain."

"Was Magnussen a Claudius, then?"

"You tell me." I fix Mycroft with a stare. "He was all set to dethrone a king."

After a long moment, Mycroft clears his throat and looks away. "How does our good Horatio?"

I glance toward the stairs. "John is fine. And Mary."

He nods.

"I don't need a nursemaid, you know."

"No?" He raises an eyebrow.

"No. What I need is a lead on our friend Fortinbras. Which I would certainly have by now, if you allowed me to leave the flat."

"Would you?" asks Mycroft slowly.

"I know Moriarty better than your people do. Better than anyone, in fact."

"You don't always have to play the lead. Learn to direct, brother mine. It may prevent inconveniences like this in the future."

The future. "Oh yes. I'll brush up on my Ukrainian at the same time."

His voice drops unexpectedly, hardening. "Can you really be too blind to realize the opportunity this presents?"

I push myself up straight, incensed. "Opportunity?"

His voice is ice. "How many killers have such a chance to win a pardon?"

"How many friends have you seen strapped in Semtex and held at gunpoint?" I snap back, all too aware of how the tables have turned. I used to admire fire, the unsteady, revealing flicker, the way it alters molecular composition and makes such interesting shapes in the darkness …but in the pause, my mind is overtaken in choking memories of the night I learned it is no substitute for sunlight. It takes a long moment—longer than usual, under my brother's watchful eye—and several rapid breaths to fight off the invasion, free my lungs of the drifting tastes of chlorine and gunpowder, and continue.

"We're not dealing with an opportunity, Mycroft, we're dealing with a madman. The game has cost too much. This time I will end it."

"As ever, methodology is where we diverge," says Mycroft in a weary tone. "I've offered you what freedom I can, Sherlock. That doesn't include the right to get yourself kidnapped by a serial killer out of boredom."

I almost crack a smile. Now that brings back memories. Flashing lights, silver-haired disbelief, and an innocuous, wool-clad figure, among whose talents dissimulation holds no place.

Once, that didn't matter. Now it does. The thought wipes the smile from my face and I get up and pace to the window, feeling Mycroft's eyes on my back.

"This silence isn't like him, Mycroft." My voice is unexpectedly low, my reflection pensive and insubstantial against the glass. Outside a pigeon flutters by and leaves a loose feather behind. I watch it drop, spiraling, to the ground, the sun glinting off the smooth silver-grey like the scale of a fish. A red herring.

Mycroft's voice comes from behind. "You believe he is trying to 'lull us into a false sense of security'?" The tone reveals contempt at the very thought. As well it might.

"No, of course not. He would hardly have revealed himself if that was the case."

"Not even to prevent your demise?" By this point we are both long accustomed to ignoring the irony. I wonder how many victims the East Wind really loses, in the end.

"Nothing would offend him more than my perishing at my leisure," I say at last, turning my back on the window and the heavy lock. Newly installed, I can only suppose to stand between me and the familiar freedom of the pavement beneath. "But that's beside the point. Planes can be hijacked, cabs rerouted, ambushes prepared on nameless foreign streets…even under your supervision. Even after my decimation of his network. If I was all Moriarty wanted, he would have me. No, he tipped his hand at our last meeting, and he's playing the same game as before. It should be familiar to you, Mycroft; Magnussen brought the same challenge before the Iceman."

Mycroft raises an eyebrow at that. "Placing money on the hope you have a heart?"

Long odds indeed, but the gamble has been made before.

"This little pause isn't to let us catch our collective breath, and it isn't for the sake of fooling us either. Quite the opposite, in fact: he's building the tension purposely. He's put money on the table, and now he's raising the…"

"Sherlock?" Mycroft says sharply, and I realize that I have trailed off, my eye catching on something beneath his feet: a recent scratch mark in the wood, formed when I scraped John's chair back into place six months ago. When alone protects me [him] was no longer an option.

Of course. Of course.

"If it was just me, I could disappear."

The words drift slowly, disconnected from me, in the way my eyes no longer seem to see what rests before them. Mycroft's voice when it next comes is at my side.

"Yes, that's rather obvious, little brother."

"No, Mycroft," I snap at him. "He's already won round one, don't you see? Bringing us back here. It wasn't just me he wanted. I'm no good to him without…"

Three snipers. Three bullets. Three victims.

No.

A flash of crimson, flaring shock, and an empty shell bleeding out onto a cement rooftop. Another memory, twined into the present moment. Because once again fully fledged realization mingles with the lingering taste of alarm, sparking a rush of something I can't put a name to. Couldn't. Before.

[At some point time abandoned its usual linear pattern and coalesced into a Before John and an After John, and in quiet moments both of them flare like bursts of light behind the eyes]

For a long time now the second corpse, the second megalomaniac bleeding out onto the concrete, has obscured my view of the first. But there was a first. Not deleted, not forgotten, and now that the question of icy fear overtaking misplaced relief is relevant again I vow to make the long-cherished sight a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But I won't play his game this time. I'll play mine.

"What do you think it means, Mycroft, when a left-handed man offers his right for you to shake?"

Mycroft frowns, puzzling this out as though I've said something cryptic, and finally descends on the obvious.

"You think we're in danger here?"

What an idiotic…

"Of course we're in danger," I snarl, resisting the urge to hurl something at him out of sheer annoyance. "We were in danger from the moment the world realized we were more than an overweight government intern and chemistry-obsessed cocaine junkie. No, Mycroft, for a long time the question has been, who else is in danger?"

"What are you asking me to do?"

"Tighten your security. Moriarty will be expecting that, so don't just tighten, double it. Screen every agent personally. I want a revolving, protective network surrounding everyone closely connected with me. He may be powerless now, but I won't take that risk. Cameras, checks and balances, find a safe house if need be, just do it."

"Who?"

"John, Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson. Mary. Molly, he won't overlook her again. Our parents. And yourself, I suppose."

His mouth twitches at that.

"Mary will be your greatest ally, listen to her. The timing is inconvenient, with the baby due any day, but that can't be helped. I want her armed and dangerous at all times. John too. Give back the gun you confiscated—actually, on second thought, give him a different gun."

Obvious isn't even the word. Transparent is more like it. He'll be expecting it, all of it. Doesn't matter.

Amid the murk of plotting, measure and countermeasure, an unconnected memory flits to the surface. Hard to linger on, even now: a day of sunlight, champagne and a dangerous degree of candor.

I live in hope of the right case.

In spite of the lurking threat and my earlier remonstrance to Mycroft, I have to dip my head to swallow a grin. Jim always did like to watch me dance.

Mycroft is quick to point this out.

"This is all very well, Sherlock, but it doesn't solve anything. Most of the protections you mentioned are already in place, as Moriarty will be well aware. You're gambling on the hope that you're not playing into his hands again. And where do you intend to be while all of this is going on?"

"Until we know more, everything is a gamble." I turn away, but not before flashing him my brightest smile. "How do you feel about Russian roulette?"