A/N: This takes place prior to chapter 15 (Big Bang) and is the original balcony incident referenced in chapter 18 (Mycroft & the Potted Plant of Doom).
"MYCROFT!"
It was just past 5pm on a Friday evening and Mycroft Holmes had just arrived home. He'd barely got inside the door before he heard the voice of his little sister practically screeching his name. Having just enough time to put down his briefcase, he deftly caught the five-year-old who predictably launched herself at him. Mycroft held her close as she wrapped her little arms around his neck and nuzzled her face against his neck with a contented little sigh.
"Well, this is quite the welcome home," Mycroft chuckled, kissing the top of her head. "I'd feel quite flattered if I didn't know better. You want something from me, don't you poppet? Something I'm going to say no to. Am I right?" He settled Rose on his hip, picked up his briefcase and carried both into his study.
"Alright, what is it you want?" Mycroft asked as he sat down and put Rose in his lap.
"Will you play with me? Please?" She looked up at him with an eager little face that made him feel all the more guilty for not being able to say yes. At least not straight away.
"I can't just yet. I need to finish up some things for work," Mycroft said gently, rubbing her back to soften the disappointment. He wasn't the least bit surprised when Rose made a little noise of protest and began playing with a button on his waistcoat. "Why don't we sit together for a few minutes?" he offered. "You can tell me all about what you've done today and then after supper we'll do something together. Does that sound like a good compromise?"
"I suppose," Rose said with a sigh. Despite her seeming reluctance at accepting his offer for a quick cuddle she snuggled close and launched into a detailed report of everything she'd been up to that day. Most of it Mycroft didn't quite catch, his mind elsewhere with much bigger problems, but he heard snippets of it that included playing with Louise and something about a film they'd watched together.
"You've been a very busy girl," Mycroft commented, kissing the top of her head. "I need to get back to work now, if we're going to do spend time together after supper."
Rose's eyes lit up. "Can we have a tea party?"
"May."
"Huh?"
Mycroft chuckled. "It's may we have a tea party."
"Oh." Rose frowned a bit, scrunching up her nose as she absorbed the correction. "May we have a tea party when we play later? Please My, please? We haven't had a tea party in forever and Sherlock says he won't have tea with me because he doesn't want to wear the fairy wings again after you laughed at him last time."
"Well I'm certainly not wearing fairy wings, or strange floppy hats or anything else your clever little mind thinks is necessary," Mycroft warned. "If you can accept those conditions then yes, you may host a tea party that I will attend."
"Conditions accepted!" The little girl kissed his cheek and slid off his lap to let him work.
Mycroft immediately retrieved items from his briefcase and began examining them, effectively tuning out everything around him.
"MY!" Rose called from the hall. "Mycroft may I borrow your brolly, please?"
"Mmm hmm, that's fine dear," the brother in question answered absentmindedly.
After retrieving Mycroft's brolly from the stand by the front door, Rose bounded up the stairs. It would be the perfect brolly to use for her experiment! Ever since watching Mary Poppins that afternoon at Louise's house, Rose had been curious to see if she could fly, too. She and Louise had had a serious discussion about how they might experiment and find out if they were magic like Mary Poppins but sadly, Louise lived in a first floor flat. Rose, however, lived in a three story house with balconies for each of the bedrooms on the second floor. She promised her best friend that she would conduct an experiment and let Louise know about its results and since Mycroft couldn't play with her just then, why not do it now?
Brolly in hand Rose went into her mother's room and retrieved a bag similar to Mary Poppins's in the movie. The pattern was different but a carpet bag was a carpet bad, surely! She then brought the items to her playroom and threw a few things in the bag that any good nanny would need: a baby blanket, a couple bottles and a few small toys. Once she had everything necessary, Rose opened the doors to the balcony outside her playroom and stepped out onto it.
That was when she encountered a problem. The balcony had a railing and it was a tall railing at that. There was no way she could just jump from the balcony and go flying. Sticking her tongue out of her mouth a tiny bit as she thought, Rose easily came to a conclusion. The bag was hoisted on top of the tall railing, quite a feat in and of itself considering her rather small stature. The umbrella was much easier to deal with as Rose could hook it onto the railing itself. That left just her to get on top of the railing.
Given her size, it took the determined five-year-old several minutes to climb the railing, trying first this and then that to boost herself up. Finally she was on top of it, feeling incredibly triumphant at having accomplished such a difficult task. Rose picked up the brolly and opened it up, holding it in her right hand, then grabbed the carpet bag with her left. "One… two… three!" On three Rose stepped off the railing.
An ear piercing scream drew Mycroft's attention away from his paperwork. He shot up from his chair, intending to go ascertain the problem when the issue made itself known to him. The screaming came closer and Mycroft looked over at the window just in time to see Rose plummeting to the earth, her tiny body landing with a sickening thud that was followed by frantic tears. His heart stopped for a few seconds before Mycroft ran outside, expecting to find Rose's body mangled and broken.
"Rose! Rose! Oh my god." Mycroft knelt down beside his crying sister, her body mere inches from the pavement. "Don't move poppet, don't move at all. Where does it hurt? SHERLOCK!" he bellowed for their brother. Rose was crying too hard to answer him properly and Mycroft ran his hands gently along her limbs, feeling for cuts or broken bones. Belatedly, one he ascertained that she was uninjured, he heard Rose saying something through her tears.
"I'm not Mary Poppins!" the little girl wailed.
Mycroft frowned. What the hell did that mean? It was only then that he saw the carpet bag nearby and the broken umbrella. His umbrella, very much broken. "Rose, what are you on about?" he asked, helping her up from the grass.
The little girl reached for him and Mycroft readily took her into his arms, hugging her close. "I'm not Mary Poppins and I can't fly!" she sobbed out. "I wanted to fly like her My!"
It took him twenty seconds or so to fully process what she was saying and the implications of it and by the time he'd finished processing, Mycroft was furious. He held the little girl at arm's length and gave her a very stern look. "You were trying to fly like Mary Poppins… And where exactly did your attempt to fly originate, Rosenwyn? Are you telling me that you jumped out of a window?"
Rose recognized her big brother's tone as one that Mycroft always used when he was very unhappy with someone. "I didn't jump out a window, I jumped off the balcony," she explained. Her eyes widened as Mycroft's face went red.
"You jumped off the balcony railing to see if you could fly like Mary Poppins?! With my brolly?!" Mycroft shouted. He didn't wait for her to respond and instead turned her to the side and landed a few hearty smacks to her bottom, completely ignoring the tears that started once again. "Oh, don't worry, I'm going to give you something to really cry about," he threatened. "You go upstairs to your bedroom right this minute and wait for me Rosenwyn. GO! NOW!" He watched with satisfaction as Rose took off running into the house, refusing to feel badly that he'd made her cry.
By the time Sherlock had got outside, it was clear that Rose was somehow uninjured despite her fall from two stories up. It was nothing less than a miracle, he was certain. The middle Holmes remained outside, watching his siblings and moved out of the way as Rose dashed into the house. Sherlock knew that look on his brother's face and it had never boded well for his bum.
"Mycroft, no, you can't," Sherlock spoke up, his tone a bit pleading on Rose's behalf. "You can't spank her." A few swats over her clothing were one thing but Mycroft had that look on his face that indicated a long session across his knee with a bare bum was in Rose's future.
Mycroft stood up and looked at Sherlock, an eyebrow raised challengingly. "I can't? I don't really think I have any other choice. She just jumped of a second story balcony, which to me screams, I need a sore reminder that that was a particularly poor choice. What else would you have me do?"
The younger Holmes brother rolled his eyes. "I highly doubt she was thinking any such thing, other than you were being mean and shouted at her, which you know upsets her. And… well, she's going to cry!"
"Yes, that's generally how someone responds to a smacking," Mycroft agreed, sighing heavily. He didn't like this anymore than Sherlock did.
"But… but…" Sherlock tried to protest.
"No Sherlock, there's no 'but' to this. Either I do something now or I do nothing and she tries it again and hits the pavement next time rather than the grass. Or who knows what else she'll think up to do and get hurt?"
Sherlock scowled. "But she's little. She's really, really little Mycroft. Far too little to spank."
"And she could be very dead; very little and very dead, if I don't make it perfectly clear that this is unacceptable," Mycroft responded. "I'm not going to injure her and you know that. She'll have a sore bottom and learn a good lesson but she'll survive it. You can cuddle her and tell her what a mean brother I am afterwards if you're that concerned."
"I will then!" Sherlock decided with a nod. He was less than pleased with Mycroft but knew he could do nothing to further plead Rose's case. Rather than stick around and hear his little sister get spanked, he hurried off to the dining room to distract himself with a loud experiment.
Mycroft took a moment to himself in the yard, now that his heart rate had returned to normal and could practically feel the adrenaline bursts subsiding. She had come so close, so very, very close to death and didn't even realize it. He'd faced a great many frightening situations in his life but nothing had terrified him as much as seeing her little body on the ground. Taking a deep breath, Mycroft picked up the carpet bag and his broken beyond repair brolly and went inside to deal with his mischievous little sister.
Climbing the stairs with far more reluctance than he had expected to feel, Mycroft finally reached the door of Rose's bedroom and knocked lightly before letting himself in. He was pleased to find her sitting on her bed waiting for him, for once having chosen to listen to him the first time he told her to do something. Children were exhausting and he questioned the sanity of parents who had large numbers of children, whether or not those children were as active or clever as his Rose.
"What in the world were you thinking Rose?" Mycroft asked as he sat down beside her on the bed. "You could have been injured or even killed! You were lucky you didn't slam into the pavement. In fact I have no idea how you managed to avoid it!"
The little girl snuggled up to his side and Mycroft wrapped an arm around her. "It wasn't really that high," Rose told him quietly. "Maybe it would work from higher up, if I had more wind power? I was experimenting and I thought about the roof, but then I remembered Sherlock told me you do tests in little steps. That's why I thought the balcony would be better to see if I could be Mary Poppins. Then, if it worked, I was going to try the roof if I could find a way up there."
Mycroft stared at her, his mouth hanging up for nearly a full minute before he regained his ability to speak. "That is nowhere near comforting Rosenwyn Aramantha! You do not job from balconies or roofs or anywhere else! That's dangerous Rosenwyn! You're going to kill me, do you realize that?"
"I really thought it would work My," she whimpered, still sounding far more upset about not being Mary Poppins than the fact that she put her life in danger.
Mycroft extracted her grip on him and set her on the floor, looking down at her sternly. Immediately Rose looked down but he tipped her chin up and held onto it. "I am very, very, very angry with you Rosenwyn. What is the number one rule in this house that everyone has to obey?" He gave her an expectant look.
Rose whimpered just a bit. "Be safe."
"Yes, be safe," he agreed. "And make safe choices. Do you honestly think it is a safe choice to jump off a second story balcony?"
A little sigh escaped her this time. "I didn't think about it like that."
"Clearly not. It's my job to remind you that it is important to think about those things. That you must stop and think before you decide to do something and remember what is safe and what is not. Because you broke the most important rule, you're going to have a spanking," Mycroft explained.
"But I already got one!" Rose protested, looking up at him with a pout.
For a few seconds Mycroft's resolve almost faltered as her sweet little face looked up at him that way. It didn't help matters that Rose had recently had her haircut a bit shorter and with all her curls resembled a dark haired and, in his opinion, cuter version of Shirley Temple. Then he remembered how terrified he'd felt before realizing she was, amazingly enough, unhurt.
"No, you had a few swats over your clothes, not a proper spanking," Mycroft told her. "You're going to have a proper spanking over my knee because you did something so very, very unsafe. That way you'll remember to think about safety the next time you get an idea in that clever little mind of yours." He hugged Rose tightly and kissed the top of her head.
"I'm sorry My," Rose said softly.
"I know poppet, I know. But there are consequences for our actions, for everything we do, and this is the consequence for not being safe. Each and every time you do something unsafe, I'm going to spank you, so that you learn to stay safe. I do it because I want you safe, so very much," he whispered in her ear. With gentle movements he put Rose face down over his knee and was immediately struck by how different it felt from having Sherlock in that same position. It wasn't just the size difference between the two, or the age difference, but yet it felt like a very distinct sentiment. Perhaps because Sherlock was merely his brother while Rose, for all intents and purposes, was his little girl. His to raise, cherish, care for and teach, and teach her he would.
Rose started to cry, far more anxious at this new experience than anything else. Her tears went up in volume as Mycroft steeled his resolve and flipped up her denim skirt and then bared her bottom. "It is very, very important to stay safe Rose and make safe choices." The emphasized words of his impromptu lecture were accompanied by firm swats.
"Ow! Owie My, ow!" Rose cried out. "I'll be good!" Her little hands grabbed on to the leg of his trousers.
Mindful of her size and her obvious distress at this new form of an already disliked punishment, Mycroft set the total number of swats at twelve and despite her tears he proceeded to apply the eight remaining swats, tempering the strength behind them significantly. He struggled far more than he'd anticipated to block the sound of her crying, but Rose's tears made it clear that she was getting the message. By the time he finished, Mycroft had a very upset little girl with a sore, red bum over his lap. He felt like an absolute brute, but didn't regret his decision to make this lesson a particularly memorable one, and lessen the chances she'd ever use the roof or balcony for further flying experiments.
"If you ever climb up on that railing again for any reason whatsoever, I will ground you until you're twenty and spank you every single day in perpetuity," Mycroft threatened as he picked Rose up and cuddled the crying five-year-old to his chest. "Promise me that you will never, ever do that again Rose."
"Promise! I'm sorry, I'm sorry My! Ow, ow, ow!" The little girl sobbed. It was truly the most tragic day in her whole entire life. Not only was she not Mary Poppins and could not fly, but now she'd had a very big spanking! She scrunched up the material of Mycroft's shirt in her hands and pressed her face against his chest.
"I know poppet, I know you are," Mycroft replied in a soft tone. Now that the smacking was done it was time for soothing, a task he'd become surprisingly well equipped for since Rose's arrival in the world. "I know poppet. You're a very good girl," he said, kissing the top of her head. "Should we rock a bit? I think we should rock a bit. I love you very much Rose and I just want you safe, always."
Righting her clothing once more and cradling her in his arms, Mycroft carried her to the rocking chair in her bedroom and sat down, immediately cuddling her even tighter to his chest. While one arm held onto her securely, he began to gently rub her red bum. Despite knowing the spanking had been well earned, completely appropriate for the situation, Mycroft still felt like a brute.
"Shh, shhh," he murmured. "Cry it all out poppet. You'll be alright, I promise. I love you, do you know that? I love you very, very much, even when you do very ridiculous things," he soothed, the words for her ears and her ears alone. "You're my good, brave girl poppet." He kept up a soothing litany of praise and reminders that he loved her, spoken in a gentle tone. Combining the soothing, soft tone, and rocking, Rose was soon fast asleep in his arms.
Resting his cheek on top of her curly head, Mycroft closed his eyes and continued to hold her, unwilling to put her down just yet. He had come so close to losing her today and the terror he'd felt had taken him by surprise. Mycroft had always loved her but today had taught him just how deep that love was. In that brief span of time between seeing her fall and rushing outside to find her lying on the ground in tears, he realized that the world would be a much darker place and hardly worth saving without her in it.
For this little girl, Mycroft realized, he would do anything and everything. He would only have one chance to raise her, one chance to be the best replacement for their father that he could be, and vowed silently in that moment to always do his very best for her. He might fail sometimes, but he was going to give it all he had and Mycroft hoped more than anything that it would be enough.