Midnight Serenade

Mycroft and Greg had gone to bed hours ago, just like she had. Yet a mere three hours later and she was still awake, sleep escaped her. Instead she was sat in front of Mycroft's piano, her fingers producing the melody that had been echoing in her mind for days now.

Juliet could feel the slight breeze from the open door which she had closed and hear the breathing of Mycroft Holmes. She didn't acknowledge him instead she continued playing until the melody finished. "I know your there Mycroft, didn't your mother ever tell you that staring is rude" she mocked, leaning back on the stool slightly and sliding over so that Mycroft could sit with her. He sat down the satin of his dressing gown and pyjama's brushing against her arm slightly. Juliet was sat in some similar pyjama's that he has purchased for her in case on emergencies, and today was most defiantly an emergency.

"I'm sorry if my playing woke you" she apologised, running her hands through her hair before fastening the tangles into a messy pony tail.

"You didn't wake me" he said simply, resting his fingers on a high C and sighing "Your father loves you Juliet, I think you should try your best to remember that."

Juliet rolled her eyes, expecting this conversation. "It doesn't seem that way sometimes." She said in response, she knew how feeble it sounded but to a seventeen year old girl knowing your dad loved you would help any situation. "He went through my room."

"I know" Mycroft admitted, sighing loudly "It may not have been the smartest thing he has ever done but I can understand it."

"So you condone it?" she asked, her voice colder than she had anticipated.

"No, you are no longer a child and deserve your own space, that is entirely your own. He was merely attempting to get information that he didn't know how to get from you."

Juliet rolled her eyes at him. "He was checking my rooms for signs that I had been sleeping with my boyfriend, if he asked I would have told that that isn't the case." She smiled as it dawned her that the conversation was getting surprisingly awkward. "But we don't have to talk about that now." She added.

"Tell me what's wrong then" he breathed, his hand settling on three keys.

"Over the last few months he's become distant, even more so than usual. He's been forgetting me, avoiding talking to me and not listening to what I have to say. He has become unreasonable." She explained, ducking her head down slightly. "I know that he is a self-diagnosed sociopath but he loves my dad, and I always thought that he would love me. It just doesn't seem like that's the case, I know that they were expecting a boy, so I was a shock to them, I thought that he would be able to love me still."

"He does love you, a lot more than you think, he just doesn't know how to show it, he only knows how to be himself."

"Do I disappoint him?" She asked, raising her head enough to see Mycroft's brown eyes.

"Why would you think that?" he answered with a question, very Holmes like.

"Because I'm normal, average, an idiot." She said harshly.

"What makes you think you are all those things?"

"Because I'm not the same as him and you, I'm not a genius, I haven't skipped years, I'm not already in university."

"And why is that?"

"I think that because I am in my final year of sixth form, the correct year for someone my age and not already finishing Oxford, like you or him. I have picked up other lessons to challenge myself but am not a genius, anything that I have I keep hidden so I can fit in. I keep it hidden so I'm not ridiculed by my peers any more than is necessary." She snapped "My mind is dormant because I keep it so, because I don't want to end up like him, I want to love people and feel things. I want to feel emotions, emotions that he can't show. I do not want to be him but I want him to be proud of me."

"Perhaps then you know that only Sherlock can put your mind at ease about these things." He said simply, standing up. "Now to sleep I think, you do have school tomorrow and I work."

Juliet merely nodded and allowed him to lead her back to the guest room. She laid down and fell asleep after placed her head on the pillow.