.

John Watson was sleeping, therefore John Watson was boring. The train had been keeping a steady pace along the slowly winding tracks so Sherlock figured the doctor wasn't missing much anyway. As they were finally arriving on location, he could at last awake the overworked doctor without risking him being prematurely upset with the detective.

'John, are you awake?' Sherlock asked casually as he shook his friend awake, mindful of his ingrained army reflexes, often awoken before the man himself.

'No.' Sherlock smiled at the closed eyed answer. John then rolled his head against the back of the seat and trailed his eyes open lazily. 'Are we there yet?'

'Just about. Slept enough, John?'

'No.'

This time, Sherlock made sure to frown. 'You really never are very nice in the mornings, John... Or late evenings. Or afternoons, for that matter.'

'Fine, ta, I get it, play nice...' The train was finally halting at the station. 'What are we doing here, Sherlock?' he asked, looking around as if trying to recognise the location.

'Meeting my brother.'

'Couldn't we have met Mycroft back in London?' John's gaze sharpened suddenly, worried now. 'Are we being followed? Is that why we had to leave London?'

'Forget London, John. We came here to meet my other brother, Sherrinford.'

John blinked, unsure he heard right.

'You have another brother, Sherlock?' He asked, double-checking. Sherlock didn't bother complaining about repeating himself. He seemed perfectly happy to savour his moment of success in dazzling John once again. Sherlock nodded, demurely, therefore. John blinked again. 'There are three of you?' the doctor insisted. Another nod. 'And your brother is called "Sherrinford Holmes"?' John persisted.

'Do keep up...' Sherlock disengaged at last. Then suddenly: 'Why?' he sensed something.

'Nothing. Not an ordinary name, that's all. But then again, nor is "Sherlock". Or "Mycroft".'

'Sherrinford is not an ordinary person either. Spent the last three years among the Tibetan monks.'

For a second, John glanced at the landscape outside, stopping to a standstill. It rang a bell. Then he understood. Along Sherlock's tear down of Moriarty's network, he traveled through Tibet, Sherlock had mentioned once. It made more sense, now. That after exiling himself from his beloved London, Sherlock would end up approaching this lost brother. Family. Common ground. That somehow made John a bit happier about those hard times on Sherlock (and John, in a different way). That Sherlock had been close to people that cared about him as he deprived himself of his beloved Baker Street home was a relief to John. Just a pit-stop in the desperate and dangerous fight that had almost run him down in ways that even today Sherlock would evade recounting to John.

'What made him come back, then?' was the natural extension for John to ask. He tried to pretend he didn't notice how close it was from asking why Sherlock himself had chosen to return when he could have found refuge with family in far away Tibet.

Sherlock rolled his shoulders exaggeratedly. 'Mummy asked Sherrinford to drop by more often. She seems to think he's the perfect son...'

John laughed good-humouredly. What an insight to the genius siblings. So ascetic and incomprehensible at any time of day except when they bickered at each other like any family might do. 'Sherlock, are you jealous of your brother?'

He frowned a bit too much. 'No.'

'Right', John played along. 'Wait a minute, if you came here to meet your brother, that is fine, I'm glad you are engaging in family matters, but, honestly... what am I doing here?'

'Helping me save Sherrinford's life, John.'