A/N: Hello! I'm sorry it's taken me so long to put this up. I have all but the final chapter written up, but with a highly active 10 month old and life kicking me in the teeth, it's easier to sit down and write then it is for me to type this up. And then there was the niggling feeling that the story was too fluffy and needed some kind of drama. Which considering its prequel, doesn't make a lot of sense. So, it's going to stay fluffy. Thanks to my beta for holding my hand through my drama of getting this chapter to you. She is a saint and I love her.

A minor warning for the boys having dirty thoughts. They are grown men after all.

And because I live with a musician I tend super research musical terms. The endpin is the bar at the end of a cello. And the fall is the cover for the keys of a piano.


When they pulled up to the house, Greg let out a low whistle.

"So, this is what happens when you get into politics?" The house wasn't particularly large per se, but it was grand.

"Sort of," Mycroft said, pulling out his keys. "The house, like the piano, has been in the family for generations. My great-great uncle, for whom I was named, owned it. He didn't have any children so passed it to my ancestor. It was used as the town house when they came to London from their estate in Yorkshire," he explained as he led the way through the house. "When my father finally died, may that bastard rot in hell, Sherrinford got the estate in Yorkshire and I got this place."

Greg blinked at the aside comment about Mycroft's father rotting in hell, but all thoughts on that vanished by the following sentence. "What did Sherlock get?"

"Satisfaction in knowing his abuser was dead."

Well, damn, Greg thought. That explained how Sherlock was, more than Greg would have liked to admit.

Mycroft opened a door and Greg gasped. It was the music room and it was gorgeous. It was decorated in warm browns and reds and it immediately felt like home. There were other instruments in the room, but the main focus was the grand piano. It was a brilliant carved mahogany. Set up next to it as if placed there for the sole purpose of their playing together was the cello. It was a cherry red that blended perfectly with the style of the room.

While it didn't block out the thoughts of Sherlock being abused by their father, it did make Greg want to put it to the side for now and to ask Mycroft about it later.

"This is lovely," he told the politician and then walked up to the piano. "When was this last tuned?" He didn't want to start banging on the keys and have it be out of tune.

"I tune it twice a year, like clockwork," Mycroft said, running his hand down the length of the instrument.

"That's a lot for something that doesn't get played."

"I never said it didn't. Only that I don't."

Greg was a little disappointed that he wouldn't be the first in decades.

"Whenever I have parties here," Mycroft went on to explain. "The piano is central to the entertainment. It's either hire a professional, or any idiot who had a couple weeks of lessons will get on the thing and mutilate whatever song they think they know. There is just something about pianos and guitars that do that to people. And as it is too beautiful an instrument to leave to such a fate, I hire a professional."

Greg laughed. He sat down and ran his hands over the closed fall. "It certainly is lovely."

After a minute or two of Greg staring at it Mycroft coughed. "You know it plays better if you can reach the keys."

Greg huffed out a small chuckle and raised the fall. The ivory was faded but well loved. He watched Mycroft prop open the lid and then hit middle C. The note rang clear and bright in the room.

"Exquisite," he breathed out the word like a sigh. "I am insanely jealous, Mycroft."

"You are welcome to it anytime you wish," Mycroft offered.

"You mean that?" Greg asked in shock. The politician nodded. "Thanks. It'll be good to get back into practice again." He warmed up his fingers and then pressed them to the keys. At the sound of the instrument's beautiful tone, he closed his eyes and began to play. He couldn't have name what piece it was but it impressed his companion.

"You play quite well, Gregory," Mycroft told him as he slipped into the next song. The Piano Man by Billy Joel. The politician grinned.

"Any pianist worth his salt learns this one. It's the first song people ask if you know how to play." The Inspector began to sing.

"He says 'Son, can you play me a memory
I'm not really sure how it goes
But it's sad and it's sweet and I knew complete
When I wore a younger man's clothes…'" Greg trailed off at the la de das and continued sans lyrical accompaniment.

Mycroft smile was soft and fond. "You aren't old," he said, correctly guessing Greg's message.

"I feel it some days. Between these young guys coming in with their new gadgets and ideas and the piling up of cases, it's hard not feel like I should just pack it in." Greg abruptly stopped and stood up. "Enough about me, I want to hear you play."

Mycroft blushed and moved toward the sidebar. He chose an endpin stopper and picked up his bow. He put the stopper in his pocket and ran rosin over the strings. Greg watched this all with fascination.

"What's the disc for?" he asked, nodding in the direction of Mycroft's pocket. Mycroft put the resin down and walked over to where the cello was set up.

"It's to keep the cello from slipping on the floor and to prevent the endpin from poking holes in my hardwood floors," he explained as he got himself situated.

He pulled the bow across the strings and he closed his eyes against the sound. He began to play.

Greg assumed that Mycroft would get more tense as he played, but instead the tension bled out. The younger man swayed in time with the music, he became one with his instrument and Greg couldn't shake the feeling that he was seeing the middle Holmes brother with all his walls down. The Inspector wasn't sure how long he watched the other man, but finally Mycroft stopped.

Mycroft opened his eyes to the sound of applause and blushed deeply as he remembered that Greg was there.

"Exquisite," Greg breathed.

"Thank you. Sherrinford says that the only way Holmes men know how to express their emotions is through their music."

Greg cocked his head to the side, "What does Ford play? Not the double bass, I hope."

Mycroft chuckled as he put away his bow and stopper. "No. Could you imagine? No, he plays piano like you."

"Makes sense, I guess. Did you chose your instrument?"

And that opened the floodgates for Mycroft to talk about his childhood. They talked for hours. Somewhere in the house a clock struck three. Greg looked at his watch in shock.

"Is that really the time? Christ, there aren't going to be any cabs to be had this time of night and if I don't head home soon, I'll never get any sleep and Liya will kill me if I show up looking like a zombie."

Mycroft battled with the choice between offering to take Greg home or inviting him to spend the night for all of two seconds.

"Why don't you stay?" he said as nonchalantly as he could muster. "I have a spare room you can use."

Greg blinked. "What about a change of clothes?" He was pretty sure that nothing Mycroft had would fit him.

"Two options there; you could either wake up early enough in the morning to go home to shower and change, or you can have my PA pick up something and have it by morning?"

The Inspector thought about it for a moment. "Fine, you can send your PA to get me my things, but no pants. I don't think I could look her in the eye knowing she'd been through my underwear drawer."

Mycroft chuckled. "Fair enough." He shot off a message to his assistant and turned back to Greg. "Here I'll show you to your room." The older man nodded and then followed the politician through the house.

Mycroft opened a door. "Here's your room. The guest bathroom is across the hall and my bedroom is two doors down on the left, if you need anything."

"Pajamas?" Greg asked, smiling.

"Of course." Mycroft went to his room and pulled out a pair of black cotton sleep trousers and matching top. He returned with his acquisition to Greg's room.

"Here, they may be a little big, though," Mycroft blushed.

"Thanks, I'll see you in the morning."

"Goodnight, Gregory," Mycroft replied.

Mycroft lay in his bed looking up at the ceiling, on hand tucked behind his pillow, the other resting on his stomach. Just a couple doors down from him was his…he wasn't sure what he should call Greg. It went far beyond friendship and the term "crush" seemed so juvenile. There was infatuation, but still that lacked depth. He was afraid that there was only one word for how he felt about the silver-haired policeman.

Love. He closed his eyes. His love.

From what Mycroft had seen and deduced, it wasn't as though Greg was disinterested. Quite the opposite, in fact. The problem lay in how deep those feelings went. Was he just interested in a quick shag, light dating, or more? Mycroft himself geared very much toward more. Of course he'd take whatever Greg offered.

The Inspector was the only person that he'd met (outside his family circle) that didn't feel like a goldfish in comparison. He supposed that John would fit into that category as well, but John had been Sherlock's from the first time they made eye contact in that small lab at Saint Bartholomew's Hospital all those years ago. And Greg was special. Mycroft very much wanted to get up and walk those scant steps to where his love lay sleeping and slip into his bed, never to leave.

He fell asleep to the image of Greg wrapped in his arms.

Mycroft awoke to the sounds of banging in the kitchen and the smell of freshly brewed coffee. He hastily put on his bathrobe and made his way to the where the sounds were coming from.

There was the silver-haired man standing in the kitchen making eggs in basket. He had done away with the shirt and the trousers hung loose on his hips. Mycroft gulped and that alerted the Inspector to his presence. He smiled when Greg started when he realized Mycroft was there.

"Morning, My!" He greeted the tall politician warmly. "Coffee's in the pot. I've already had my cup, though I might go for another." Mycroft smiled again as he poured his coffee.

"Holy hell, My, that is amazing coffee."

"Go ahead," Mycroft said nodding to indicate the pot. Greg grinned and poured himself another. He breathed in it before taking a sip.

"I'd kill for coffee like this, to be honest," Greg muttered as he went back to making breakfast.

"I'll have my assistant send you a bag to your office and another to your house on Monday."

"Monday? Oh, you are a cruel, cruel man, Mycroft Holmes. Do you have a middle name?"

Mycroft hid his grin with his cup. "Edmond."

"Jonathan."

"Duly noted."

Greg went and finished the eggs in a basket and after Mycroft pointed out where he kept the plates, served the two of them.

"Thank you," Mycroft said taking a bite of toast.

"It's the least I could do," Greg replied. "I don't think I've slept this well since my early days on the force."

"I'm pleased to hear it."

Greg looked at his watch. "How much time do you think we've got before we go?"

Mycroft sought the clock on the microwave. "Not too much, why?"

"Damn, I was hoping I could get a shower."

Mycroft's mind shuttered to a halt at the thought of Greg naked in his guest bathroom. He imaged the way the water would slide down the wide expanse of the policeman's chest. How his bright silver hair would turn tarnished in the onslaught of the water. He covered his rising blush by taking a sip of his coffee.

"Sorry," Mycroft said regretfully.

"Oh well, I guess I'll go see what that sneaky assistant of yours brought and get dressed."

Mycroft nodded. "I must get dressed as well." And he followed Greg out of the kitchen.