She'd been planning this for six months. How she'd managed to keep it from her brothers, Rose really had no idea. Though she saw less of Sherlock these days, and Mycroft for that matter, and when she saw My it generally went the way of shouting. But it was time and she was well prepared: two fake passports in addition to her real one, enough clothing for a week, and enough funds to keep her going for four months, if it took her that long to find a job. Where would she go? Anywhere but here would do. And anywhere or anyway that kept she and Mycroft apart. Whether or not Mycroft knew it, Rose knew they needed their space desperately if this wasn't going to end in some sort of emotional bloodbath a permanent familial split.
Rose had messed things up, and she knew it. When Sherlock had finally moved out, she'd pushed every button she knew to get him back. There was something so empty about the house when he wasn't around. It didn't feel the same and she almost couldn't describe it. But she'd pushed Mycroft too far in her attempts to make Sherlock decide to move back in and something had broken between them. Trust, communication, affection, it had all slowly drifted away more and more.
Rose wasn't sure. They hadn't talked like they used to in a really long time, so the truth of it all never really came out and no matter what she'd done, things hadn't been repaired. Had she done the wrong things in order to repair their relationship? Perhaps. Rose really didn't know. They didn't talk much at all anymore. Mycroft worked late and was irritable and impatient, or so it seemed to her. So she'd closed up a bit, and slowly more and more, because if she didn't expect anything, it didn't hurt when she didn't get it. She knew he still loved her on some level. He always would, but… it was different.
Things could have really and truly been solved had the two Holmes siblings, who really did love one another deeply, had bothered to open up and really speak honestly. But that wasn't Mycroft's way, never had been, and Rose couldn't pour her heart out to him if she wasn't certain how he'd respond.
With her bags packed, Rose took one last look at her bedroom, knowing she wouldn't see it again for several months at least. With enough clothing for a week, and her money and passports safely hidden among that clothing, and two books to tide her over, she was ready. Taking a deep breath, Rose placed the letter she'd written to her brother on the end of her bed. It was cliché, she knew it, but he'd find it there and that was the important part.
There was one thing she hadn't packed that, at the very last minute, Rose decided she just couldn't leave behind. Without a second's hesitation, she picked up her Teddy; Mycroft had given it to her the day she was born. When she was little, she'd never slept without it. Sometimes, she still slept with it, when she didn't feel well or had nightmares. She couldn't leave Teddy behind and quickly stuffed the animal into her bag and hurried out of the house and into her cab.
It was just after 1am and Mycroft was finally home. The house was dark and quiet and he had every intention of going straight to bed. First and foremost, however, he wanted to peek in on Rose and make sure she was home and asleep. He hadn't received any texts from her saying she'd be elsewhere, but it was hard to know with Rose anymore. She had seemed so unhappy lately and he was certain it was because he'd forced her to attend law school. Rose desperately needed some direction in her life, and profession, and law school would give her both. Despite all the tears, he'd been quite certain he was making the right decision.
Mycroft crept quietly up the stairs and stopped when he reached the first door on the right at the top of the landing, he pushed it open carefully. Rose was not in her room and he heaved a huge sigh. God only knew what she was up to.
He flipped on the light and entered the room. The room itself gave him pause; first, because he immediately saw items were missing, namely Teddy which always sat on her pillows, and secondly because Rose's phone was sitting at the foot of the bed beside an envelope.
Mycroft was certain his heart stopped for a moment before he went to her bed and picked up the envelope, removing the letter.
Dear Mycroft,
If you've found this, you must already know I'm gone. You're probably very angry with me, as usual.
We're not the same anymore and we haven't been for a really long time. I'm sure it's my fault; I'm very good at making a mess out of things as you so often remind me. I know I'm spoiled and disobedient and a horrible brat. I know you meant those things when you said them, each time you said them. They weren't meant as our Holmesian form of "I love you." I know I probably deserved them; no, I know I deserved them.
I'm not entirely certain what I did specifically, or when I did it, to make you so unhappy with me. I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of, a lot of things I never should have done. I've given you plenty of reasons to be disappointed in me, I won't deny it. But I wanted to change. I wanted to make things right between us because this hurts. Sometimes, I think I've made you hate me.
Over the last year I've tried so hard to do exactly what you asked me to do and try to become the person you wanted me to be, even when it made me desperately unhappy. But nothing has changed. If anything, we're even more unhappy then we were before. You don't trust me, and haven't in some time. You don't believe I ever make good decisions and need to be watched 24/7 like some sort of ticking bomb. And to be honest, I'm sure I've given you plenty of good reasons to think so.
But no matter what I've done, I never meant to push you away Mycroft. Ever.
But I can't live like this anymore. You have me followed and your people don't even try to act like they aren't doing it. You've spoken to my friends and intimidated the ones you didn't like. You search my room on a regular basis even though I don't keep anything in there I shouldn't. I try to talk to you about this stuff, try to talk to you at all, and you don't even hear me.
We can't do this anymore. Maybe it doesn't hurt you, but it hurts me. I don't want us to be this way. We need space. Or at least I need space, to think about things, to reevaluate my life, and I need to do it all on my own. That's why I left and why you're reading this. I need to live and breathe and sort myself out. When I'm done doing that, I'll come back. I'm hoping that if I figure who I really am and what I want and think about all the choices I've made, that I'll be a better person and you'll forgive me for all the things I did. Then we can start over and you can trust me again and we'll respect each other and love each other again the way we used to when I was little.
Please, please don't look for me Mycroft. Don't try to find me and bring me home. This is my one chance to grow up on my own terms and change. I have to change, My. If neither of us do, we really will end up hating each other. So please respect this request and let me make my way for a while on my own, without interference. I'll reach out if I need you, but I've got a plan and I think I'll be okay. I promise I'll come home, but not until I'm ready.
Tell Sherlock I'm sorry and that I love him very much and that he shouldn't look for me either.
I promise, I'll come home someday. I just don't know when that someday will be right now. Even if everything I've done in the past few years says differently, I really do love you My. And I know, deep down, you still love me too. So don't stop, please.
Goodbye,
Rose
It was as if his legs wouldn't hold him up any longer by the time he'd finished reading and Mycroft sank haphazardly onto her bed. "What have I done?" he whispered, staring at the letter. Things had been bad, and had been for a while, even he knew that. What he hadn't known was that he'd made her feel isolated and… unredeemable. Had he really held on to all that anger at some of the completely mad things she'd pulled over the last couple years and let it build a wall between them? Mycroft hadn't thought so, but now he wasn't so sure.
He wasn't sure of anything at all, with a few small exceptions. He knew he loved her and he knew he had to find her, no matter how much she thought she didn't want him to. This couldn't go on even a moment longer. How, how had things gone so badly?
His little sister, his Rose, that he'd raised and loved since the moment she was born, who meant more to him than anyone could possibly ever imagine, was gone. No matter whose fault it was, it was his responsibility to make it right. It was his job, not hers, to fix this. Mycroft knew he would never know another moment of anything remotely resembling peace until she was home safely. Then he, the defacto parent, could make this right. Make certain Rose knew he loved her as much now as he had the first time he'd held her. Tell her that that love would never change no matter what she did.
Mycroft had always said caring wasn't an advantage. All lives end and all hearts are broken, so caring was not an advantage for anyone at anytime. That certainly felt true in that moment, when he was certain his heart was breaking. But what he always left out of that little gem of wisdom that ruled so much of his life was that caring was not voluntary and could not always be controlled by a carefully cultivated icy exterior.
Somewhere along the way he'd lost sight of the privilege it had been to raise Rose. To remember that despite all her faults, she was a teenager no different from any other. In moments of extreme exasperation, he'd said words he hadn't meant and then not taken them back, while she had taken each of them to heart. Caring for her and about her could not be controlled; while initially voluntary- he hadn't actually been asked out loud to raise her after all- from that first moment it had been something beyond his control. At once a great sense of duty, responsibility, care and privilege; often filled with moments of absolute joy that made the darkness of the world he inhabited fall away. And he'd lost sight of all that, let himself subconsciously feel as though she were a burden in an already overloaded life full of massive never ending responsibilities that were only exacerbated by her seemingly constant misbehavior.
But what if it hadn't been constant misbehavior? What, if like all the Holmes siblings, she hadn't quite been able to put her sentiments into words and had been trying to reach out for him and get his attention and instead of looking past her behavior he'd merely punished and pushed her away? Why, god, why hadn't he asked? Why hadn't he paid more attention? Rose had never really been a horrible child, not like legitimately horrible children. Why had he merely resorted to shouting and, in effect, ignore the problem?
This was by far the most monumental mistake he had ever made in his life, bar none in past, present or future. There were endless means of analyzing this letter and every little action that he and Rose had made over the past few years, since Sherlock had finally moved out. His mind raced through them all, unable to stop itself from doing so, with each equation ending in the painful realization that he and he alone was at fault and that his little girl might never come home again.
"Oh god," Mycroft moaned in genuine heartache. "What have I done?"
Twenty minutes later Sherlock asked the same thing, slamming his elder brother against the wall and looking as angry as Mycroft had ever seen him. "I. Told. You," he said through gritted teeth. "I told you something was wrong, I told you that you were pulling away too much, that you weren't looking beyond the surface of things. How could you let it get this bad Mycroft? HOW?"
Sherlock grabbed him by his shirt front and pulled him forward a bit before slamming him against the wall again. "I would break every bone in your body right now if we didn't need you and your capabilities to find her. We better find her Mycroft. She's out there all alone, god knows where. Our Rose."
He released his grip on Mycroft and began searching Rose's bedroom for any clues of where she might be heading. Mycroft went to his office, intending to do everything within his considerable expanse of powers to find Rose and bring her home safe and sound.
Ten Months Later
"I thought you said you were never sure if it was really a danger night?" John asked the voice at the other end of the phone call.
"This time I'm certain," Mycroft said firmly. "Stay with him John. Discreetly search the flat if possible. Don't let him out of your sight."
"Why? Why are you certain this time when you've never been certain before?"
"Because this day means something to us… to Sherlock," Mycroft stated, sounding tired.
John frowned at his phone. "What does that mean? What does this day mean? I'd be better able to help him if I knew what the hell you were talking about."
"We don't talk about it," the other man snapped. "And don't ask him about it!"
The phone line went dead, leaving John feeling confused. What could possibly make this ordinary day one that could push Sherlock back into drugs? Granted, he'd noted the man was a bit off today. Or rather, a bit off for Sherlock. But it was 20 December, a day like any other, surely.
He'd been almost too quiet and spent most of the day, John was certain, in his mind palace. He looked over at the figure on the couch, wearing a dressing gown, curled up on his side facing the back of the couch. A lot of time in his mind palace. There hadn't even been a single experiment or even a mention of one all day.
"Sherlock… is everything alright?"
The man on the couch never moved, but he did reply, "Yes, John."
He sounded tired and if John didn't know the man better, he'd swear Sherlock even sounded a bit… sad? Nostalgic? Something was going on, but how far could he push him? "You're sure?"
"Quite."
"And you'd tell-"
"BE QUIET!" Sherlock bellowed.
That, John decided, had in fact been far enough. With a sigh, he headed into the kitchen to make tea.
Across town, Mycroft was nursing yet another brandy. He was going to be well into his cups before the night was out, he was certain of it. A man was allowed excess every now again, he supposed. Not him, never him, but today was Rose's nineteenth birthday and he still had no idea where she was or if she was safe, or if she was dead.
He'd never thought that ten months later he'd be sitting here, alone in the house with his brandy in front of the fireplace in what could only be classified as exquisite pain. Not a day went by that he didn't think of her, that he didn't worry about her, that he didn't strain to listen for the tiniest sound that might mean she was in the house. Only it never came, day after day after day.
Rose knew him well apparently, well enough to successfully hide from him and his vast network of resources for ten months. He, however, did not know her well enough to even find new avenues of clues to her whereabouts. She'd used her passport the night she'd left, her name was on a flight manifest and her face on the CCTV footage at Heathrow. She'd been spotted at an airport in Vienna, again on CCTV, and then vanished into thin air.
Her name never came up in any databases, facial recognition wasn't able to locate her through the various spy networks and satellites he may or may not have had legitimate access to. Mycroft had spent considerable time and resources trying to find her, but there'd been nothing. How she managed it he had no idea, and he might even be proud of her cleverness if he wasn't so utterly frightened for her.
Yes, tonight was most definitely a danger night, for Sherlock and for himself, as the day of their beloved sister's birthday passed without her presence. Mycroft had hoped, and even prayed, despite the fact that he didn't really believe in a god or higher power, that she'd come home today. He'd even bought a card and present, just in case.
Part of him wondered if he'd ever see her again, and as the clock chimed exactly midnight, he closed his eyes and offered up yet another prayer, begging whatever or whomever would listen to him, to bring his little girl home today. "Let today be the day," he whispered.
