Chapter 7

Mycroft looks up and straight into a pair of soft brown eyes. "Doctor," is the only thing he can say. The Doctor smirks. "Yes, it's me, hi!" "What... how did you heal my brother?" The Doctor's face goes stern. "Honestly, it was close. You should have called for my earlier." "Called for you?" "Yes, don't you think I can hear you?" "I... didn't know..." "Oh, I am sorry," the Doctor says, "so sorry. I should have told you!" "It's ok," Mycroft says, his brain still not up to what is happening at the moment. "You saved him, that's all that counts, I guess." The Doctor smiles broadly. "Tea," he states, "you should always go for tea first!" Mycroft frowns. "You didn't cure him with tea." "No, of course not, he's not a Time Lord, I had to get the poison out of his system first. Who poisoned him, by the way?" "He did."

"What?" The Doctor stared at Sherlock, wide-eyed. "You poisoned yourself?" The detective didn't say anything, but suddenly became really interested in his tea. "Yes, he did," Mycroft answered for him, "he got bored and started taking drugs." The Doctor's eyes went even wider. "You humans... sometimes I just don't get you."

"But how did you save him?", Mycroft asked again. The Doctor took a device out of his trouser pocket, which looked strangely like a screwdriver. "I used this device to track down the poison...," he frowned, "...drugs in his blood and then replaced them with glucoses." "With this?", Mycroft asked, "What is it?" "A sonic screwdriver," the Doctor explained, "it tracks down every poison, disease or wound." "And it has glucoses in it?" The Doctor laughed. "No, I got glucoses in it." Sherlock chuckled. "Obvious." His brother scowled at him. "Of course, it's obvious, but where did the 'poison' go, Doctor?" The Doctor smiled. "Where do you think it went?" Mycroft's eyes went wide. "Into you? But wouldn't that harm you?" "Oh, just a bit," the Doctor shrugged, "Time Lords can take quite a bit of pain."

He stepped away from the kitchen door he had been leaning against and walked closer to Mycroft. Sherlock started to get up. "And what are we doing now? You'll take me somewhere, Doctor?" His brother pushed him back down. "You need rest!" Sherlock landed back on the couch with a huff, glaring angrily at Mycroft. "Your brother's right," the Doctor said, stepping even closer to Mycroft, softly touching his cheek with his right hand. Sherlock made a snorting sound. "Stop flirting with him." Mycroft cleared his throat and moved away from the Doctor's hand, looking at his feet in embarrassment.

"Humans," the Doctor shook his head. Sherlock chuckled. His brother frowned at him. "Did I miss a joke?" The Doctor grinned. "You're so easy to make uncomfortable." Sherlock took the sleeve of his coat and pulled him closer. "My Doctor," he said. The Doctor laughed. "Just like old times, eh?" "No," Sherlock said, "now YOU can sit on MY lap." "Sherlock," Mycroft interfered. "What?" The detective raised an eyebrow. "He doesn't want you to flirt with his lover," the Doctor said. Mycroft suddenly had to clear his throat again. "Stop saying stuff like that."

Later, they had breakfast together and Sherlock really seemed to be all better, as he was even eating with appetite, something Mycroft had never seen before. The Doctor was in a brilliant mood as well, making jokes every now and then and flirting constantly with the elder Holmes.

Of course he wasn't serious with the flirting. He couldn't be. Mycroft was very aware of the fact that this man – being? Alien? – was much more than met the eye. Even though that alone was almost more than Mycroft could take. Now he had time to examine the Doctor closely, he couldn't stop looking. The eyes were the most striking feature. Currently, they were gleaming with joy, but still, if they looked directly at you, they seemed to look straight into your soul. And then this smile! Mycroft couldn't get enough of it and even though he usually didn't show his feelings, even when only with his brother, he couldn't stop laughing when the Doctor did. Finally, there was the hair, amazing brown hair, matching the eyes. Mycroft wished he only could touch it, run his fingers through it, hold on to it...

"Mycroft," Sherlock said. Quickly, his brother turned to the detective, afraid too much of his feelings had shown in his face. But this time Sherlock didn't want to mock him. In fact, he looked quite alarmed. "What is it? Are you not feeling well?" "I am tired. How can I be tired when I've only been awake for 2 hours, 23 minutes and...," he glanced at the kitchen clock, "...45 seconds." "Probably the side-effect of the treatment," the Doctor said, "I guess you will sleep for about 6 hours, 18 minutes and 30 seconds, if you go to bed now." Sherlock scowled at him. "There is no way you can know that!" "Wanna bet?" They shook hands on that and, within half a minute, Sherlock was back in bed.

"Wow," Mycroft remarked, "nobody has ever sent him to bed so quickly... except when he was a baby, of course." "Yep, that was me as well," Mycroft stared at the Doctor in disbelieve. "But then I kinda 'cheated' on that one," the Doctor explained, "I speak baby, you see." "You speak WHAT?" The Doctor laughed. "God, you should see yourself when you're not getting something..." "So you have been there right from the beginning...?", Mycroft interrupted himself, before he could say something embarrassing again. The Doctor nodded. "Why?" "Because he needed me. Theoretically, someone like him isn't able to survive in this world. Or at least not to stay sane in this world."

"But I should be helping him with that. I'm his brother, after all," Mycroft said, suddenly sad. "Oh, you do help him," the Doctor said, "you are a great big brother, who cares about him a lot and not everybody has that. He's quite fond of you, you know. Even if he doesn't always let it show." "But I couldn't save him." The Doctor put his hand on Mycroft's in a comforting way. "Well, you did call me... and you did all you could do, sometimes that's all that counts. Besides, I would have felt quite useless otherwise." He winked at Mycroft, who had to laugh at that.

After being silent for a while and just enjoying the comfort of the Doctor's hand on his, Mycroft asked: "Do you ever feel useless? Like you could do so much during your day, or week, or month, but it wouldn't make any difference in the end?" He sighed. "Oh, probably not. You're probably out there, saving lives on end. Every day a good deed, isn't it?" The Doctor gave his hand a soft squeeze. "No, I'm not. Sometimes, there's nothing I can do and things just... happen. But I know what you mean. You think that you're not important, that, if you didn't do the things you did, somebody else would do them. But let me tell you one thing: I have met thousands, millions of people, but I have never met one who wasn't important."

Mycroft put all of his courage together and asked: "And what about us? What about the other night?" The Doctor looked at him blankly. "What do you mean?" Mycroft didn't answer as once, his thoughts swirling in his head at 1000 miles per hour. Then he asked: "You can move in space... and time?" "The Tardis can, yes," the Doctor confirmed. "You want to see her?" "No, I will do that later." Something like mischief lit Mycroft's face up. "Tell me, Doctor, how many times have we met?" "Only once, as far as I remember, but why are you... oh, OH but OF COURSE!" Hope mingled with the mischief on Mycroft's face. Could it be that they didn't just have a one-night-stand then? Could it have been part of something... more?

The Doctor smiled at him. "You obviously know something I don't. But keep it to yourself for the time being. I don't like spoilers."