Mycroft closed his eyes and pressed his folded hands together under his nose as another scream pierced the air. He had resolved not to interfere but the anguish in each cry lanced his soul. Finally, even as the distress reached a crescendo, he almost thought he would be able to withstand it. However, the tremulous whimper that followed shattered his composure. With a growl, he shoved the doors to his bedroom open with both hands. They slammed loudly against the walls. Daylight cast his shadow into the space. The stout doctor tending to his wife and his assistant nurse squinted at his intrusion from either side Anthea who reclined on their bed.

"Mr. Holmes!" Dr. Lecroix exclaimed. "Your wife has not given birth yet. She is still very much in the throes of labor!"

Mycroft glowered at the stocky, grey-haired man wiping what appeared to be crimson fluid off his hands just below where he had rolled up his sleeves. Mycroft felt blood drain from his own face before his eyes shot to Anthea. Even with her dark brown hair tussled and her brow damp with sweat, she was heartbreakingly beautiful. However, she looked in absolute agony with her eyes squeezed shut and fistfuls of their bedding in her grasp. Her gentle smirk was nowhere to be found. Guilt stole his breath. He never should have left her side. The doctor rushed forward upon seeing the look of intent on his face.

A hand halted his advance. "You cannot be in here. It is not proper, sir!"

Mycroft looked down at the flustered doctor and the equally perturbed elderly nurse at his elbow. Both of them had lips jutted out in disapproval. The doctor pushed his spectacles up his nose while shaking his head. Mycroft shrugged him off.

"Remove your hand, Doctor, lest you find yourself needing a physician. This is my home and that is my wife. Hang propriety!"

Dr. Lecroix huffed and dropped his hand but stepped closer all the same. He adjusted his silver waistcoat over his rotund belly.

"Mr. Holmes, I must caution you," his chin wagged emphatically as he spoke. "You have never seen anything like this. It is not for the faint of heart-"

Mycroft snorted. "Are you serious? This is something women have been bore witness to for centuries! I think I can handle it."

The doctor's brows raised. "Fine, Mr. Holmes, fine. Have it your way but mark my words, you cannot un-see what you are about to see. Now, close those doors! I am trying to keep a calm atmosphere."

At that moment, Anthea opened her eyes and raised her hand shakily towards Mycroft. He hastily closed the doors, rushed to her side and pulled a chair up next to their bed with its ornately carved headboard. His wife attempted to sit up but her arms shook with the effort. He urged her to lie back down.

"I am so sorry, my darling," he kissed the top of her head. "I should never have let them keep me from you."

Tears streamed down her face. "No, my love, do not fret. I am fine . . . aaaarg!"

She cried out again and her body heaved forward. Somehow, his hand ended up in hers in a death grip and she cried out again. Her tone was different this time. She sounded as if her entire being was being wrenched apart.

"Oh, I know this cry very well!" Dr. Lecroix exclaimed. "The baby is coming."

For the first time in his life, Mycroft felt completely superfluous. He did his best to withstand her painful grip and whisper words of encouragement. However, he was terrified, as much for her health as at his own helplessness. If the fates deemed fit to take Anthea from him, there was nothing in his arsenal that would assist him. He could not bargain with, outwit or manipulate anyone to ease her burden. He simply had to rely on her strength to carry her through. He inhaled a shuddering breath. That thought fortified him in that moment. His wife was as resilient a woman as he had ever met. If she could not come through this, he could not imagine any woman surviving such an ordeal.

"Uuuuunh!" She grunted.

"Mrs. Holmes, the head is right here," Dr. Lecroix advised. "One more push ought to do it . . ."

Then, everything seemed to happen at an accelerated pace. Anthea bore down a final time, a head with a thick matt of hair appeared and then a full formed human emerged. The doctor turned the child upside down, gave it a couple good thwacks on the back and its cries filled the room.

"Well done, Mrs. Holmes!" The doctor beamed. "You have produced a strapping son for your husband!"

It barely registered to Mycroft that the baby was a boy. In fact, the information was neither here nor there in terms of importance. Relief flooded through him for Anthea's sake. While he had never known her to be overly observant, he had heard her pray many a nights for the safe delivery of their child, whatever it may be. Her fervent wish had been that the child be healthy and if his lusty little cries were any indication, he was a very healthy little boy indeed. If there was one thing Mycroft feared more than Anthea's death, though, it was having her lose something so precious to them both.

The nurse wiped the baby boy down and then placed him high up an Anthea's chest against her skin. "Best way to calm the lad is to warm him on your skin, Madam."

Anthea looked stunned as the baby's cries quieted. She cradled his tiny head with a shaking hand. Her eyes were large as she gazed down at his scrunched face and head which was shaped like a cone.

"I-Is this normal?" She whispered. "His head . . . is it supposed to be pointed?"

Dr. Lecroix laughed. "The baby's head is soft. It deformed to navigate its way into the world, Mrs. Holmes. Do not fret, in a few minutes, it will be round once more. Now, we are not quite done. You need to push out the after birth. Mr. Holmes, this might be a good time to look away."

He sniffed. "After witnessing that? Seriously, doctor, what could be worse . . ."

Mycroft's words died on his lips. The emergence of his son had been an awe-inspiring thing of beauty. What followed was indescribable horror of which he would never recover.

"Dear lord!" He gasped, his chair rattled beneath him.

He nearly fainted as the placenta was expelled. He had seen things on the battlefield less disturbing.

The doctor harrumphed. "I told you, Mr. Holmes."

Mycroft glanced back to Anthea. His revulsion for the fleshy sack was forgotten as he appraised her waxen features.

"My dear, are you alright?"

"I am fine, husband," she whispered, she could not take her eyes off her son, "just tired, I think."

"Mr. Holmes," the doctor interjected. "She is hemorrhaging. She has torn. I need to start stitching her now."

Mycroft's heart sped up as his anxiety renewed. Anthea grew paler with every passing second.

"W-Would you hold him a moment?" She asked in a ragged tone.

"O-Of course."

The nurse swaddled their son and placed him in Mycroft's arms. He blinked down at his tiny son with his plump lips and button nose and reality hit him like a speeding locomotive. The moment could have been ripped from the pages of his internal diary. He had held his baby brother like this, almost exactly like this so many years ago, and Sherlock had looked just the same. His eyes darted from his boy to his fading wife. He swallowed as his chest began to ache. Dr. Lecroix had set about stitching his wife but her head lolled back against the pillow. Dark smudges appeared under her eyes. He had never seen her look so drawn.

"Doctor?" He asked anxiously.

The doctor ignored him and muttered under his breath as he worked.

"Doctor?!"

"A moment, Mr. Holmes!" His voice was harried. "I am attempting to save your wife's life."

Mycroft leaned forward towards Anthea. The air in his lungs burned.

"My darling, please, stay with me."

Her eyes rolled back in her head and she closed them. Her breathing seemed very shallow.

"How . . . is . . . he? How is my baby?" She mumbled.

"He is excellent, my love, but he needs a name. What did you want to call him? I-I cannot recall our conversations about it-"

He thought she went unconscious then but her lips moved.

"Do not lie to me. You . . . you remember . . . everything . . ."

He scooted his chair forward and freed one hand to stroke her face. She felt cold.

"Anthea? Anthea?" He pleaded. "I do not remember. Please, I need your help."

Mycroft's eyes prickled. His fingers trembled as he brushed the hair from her face. His breaths howled like a sandstorm in his ears. He looked down at the snoozing newborn cradled in his left arm. Again he was struck by how much the boy reminded him of his younger brother. Sherlock's fate was indeterminate at that time. A telegram that had arrived early that morning from John Watson in Port Hammond informing him that Sherlock was missing but then Anthea had gone into labor. He'd had to choose between his brother and his wife, a contest she won hands down. Yet, now she was slipping away and Mycroft's whole world crumbled around him. He hardly knew how to breathe as it seemed he was about to lose everything.

"A-Anthea?"

Her lips moved again but she didn't speak.

"My darling . . . my love, you cannot leave me alone like this," his voice broke. "I-I w-w-will not survive it. Please, please, you must try. I cannot . . . I . . . this will break me."

Anthea did not respond but then the doctor exclaimed a triumphant cry. "I have stopped the bleeding!"

Mycroft looked up, bewildered. "She is unconscious!"

"Yes, but she is not lost yet. Hurry now," Dr. Lecroix shouted at his nurse. "Find some more blankets! Fetch some broth. We need to get Mrs. Holmes warm and replace her fluids."

Mycroft stood from his chair. His son squeaked in protest.

"Is she going to recover, doctor?"

Dr. Lecroix removed his glasses and wiped his brow. "I cannot say. We are not out of the woods yet, Mr. Holmes. Mrs. Holmes has lost as much blood as ever I have seen a woman let after birth. God willing, she will pull through, but you had better prepare yourself for the worst if she does not rouse soon."

"Whispering! Whispering! Every time you return, it is another round of whispering. What is going on?"

Molly leaned over the table where Chief Constable Lestrade and Doctor Watson sat in corner of the Hammond Inn. After informing her that they had not yet found Sherlock during their latest search, they appeared to have resumed their contentious exchange from earlier in the day. Molly was fed up with the pair of them. Answers were not forthcoming. She still had no idea why she had been abducted nor why they had come to Port Hammond. She pulled her hands back from the table and crossed her arms. Her fingers would not stop trembling because, worst of all, she did not know where her husband had gone or if he was even alive.

After a restless night in the room she had been abducted from in the first place (albeit with armed guards stationed outside her door), she was tired of pacing a hole in the wooden floor. She hated feeling so useless. An entire regiment from New Westminster searched the Hammond area for Sherlock while she was forced to sit and wait. Every time Molly had approached her rescuers, they would hush their tones. Something was going on, something besides her abduction, the appearance of Irene Adler and the fire by the Fraser.

The two men looked warily at one another then up at her.

"We . . . we are just concerned about Sherlock," John stammered.

"Rubbish!" Molly replied sharply. "If I did not know any better, I would say you are conspiring against him."

John whacked his hand on the table and sat forward. Lestrade sighed, loosened another brass button on his uniform and imbibed in a mouthful of ale.

"I am not . . . ," John lowered his voice, "I am not conspiring against my best friend. If anything I am trying to thwart this plot against him. Oh, and you as well, might I add?!"

Molly crossed her arms over her chest and raised an angry brow at Lestrade. "What is your excuse for all this subterfuge?"

The officer choked on his drink. He coughed and blinked at her with rounded eyes. Guilt skittered across his brow.

"Do not look to me, Mrs. Holmes! I am also on your husband's side but I am bound to uphold the law. That is, I must observe the proper processes regardless of my own personal views."

She narrowed her eyes at Lestrade. "What is that supposed to mean? What interest does the law have in my husband besides his protection?"

"Nothing!" John replied for him. "Nothing you need to worry about at present, Molly. Really, we must focus on finding Sherlock. He needs your thoughts and prayers."

Her nose wrinkled in distaste. "Thoughts and prayers? Hmph, a code for apathy and inaction if ever I heard one! Have you read the scriptures, John? If there is a God, he is not our coordinator. He is our companion which means he can only offer us assistance when he is brought along with us. If I do not care enough to get involved and try to affect change, why should God? So, forgive me if I find no solace in loitering and lamenting about the situation."

Still, no explanations were offered. Lestrade downed his drink, donned his hat and made his excuses. John just shook his head, apologized and promised he would check in with her later. Molly turned on her heel, grumbled and stalked back to her accommodations where a young man in a navy-blue uniform guarded her room.

"You going to rest now, Mrs. Holmes?" He enquired.

She puffed an angry breath from her lips. "Something like that."

However, the moment Molly stepped into her room and glanced at the empty bed she was supposed to have shared with Sherlock, she decided she could not spend another minute waiting for news of his fate. Her eyes fell on the leather saddle bags that he had packed for the night. She fished through them and extracted a pair of trousers, an extra cap and a shirt. Then, she stripped out of her dress and quickly changed into his clothing. The garments hung off her but she managed to roll up the hems for a better fit. She plated her hair, flopped the cap on her head and assessed herself in the mirror. If she kept her head down, one might assume she was a young squire or groom. All she needed to do was sneak out to the stables and slip away with Toby. She wasn't quite sure what her plan would be after that, but she would rather do anything than twiddle her thumbs in her room.

She was startled by the rattling of the window then. Her heart jumped into action and her eyes searched around for some way to defend herself. She was about to call for her guard when the window pane slid up and a dark head of hair poked inside.

"Sh-Sherlock!"

Though, she hardly recognized him as he climbed in through the window. His hair was wild and matted, his clothing was thoroughly soiled and underneath a layer of dried mud, he looked unusually pale. His light jade eyes drank her in a moment before he let out a long breath and marched in her direction. An instant later, she was crushed in his arms

"My God, Sherlock!" She cried. "Wh-Where have you been?"

"Sh, Molly, I do not want anyone to know I am here."

For a moment, they held each other. Then, he lifted his head and gazed down at her as if attempting to memorize every minute detail of her face. His fingers touched the side of her face as if she were a delicate piece of centuries-old lace. She felt just a whisper of his pads over her cheek before he removed the cap from her head. His lips trembled.

"Forgive me, I am a mess," he rasped.

A tear ran hot down her cheek. "At this moment, you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen."

His lips parted and he frowned slightly. "I was about to say that. You have stolen my words."

Molly clutched bunches of his loose shirt in her hands. "Oh, I hold no special license over such flattery. Feel free to reciprocate-"

Before she could finish his head swooped down and he kissed her as if starving. A large hand pressed her small frame against his lean form. She threw her arms around his neck and launched herself up on her toes to return his ardent embrace. She too was famished. She was also desperately relieved and a sob bubbled up in her throat. Sherlock pulled back and cupped her face.

"Hush, darling, I am here now. I am here," he breathed against her lips. "I am sorry I did not come earlier but I needed to avoid being seen."

"Why?" She prodded.

He kissed her again briefly then let her go and began rummaging around in his saddle bags. He looked at her again, then his eyes travelled her entire length. He squinted.

"Are you wearing my only change of clothes?"

She put her hands on her hips.

"Do not change the subject," she admonished him under her breath. "John and Constable Lestrade rescued me last night after that smarmy Mr. Davidson and his equally repugnant friend dragged me from my room. We saw Redbeard at that house fire. We had no idea if you were dead or alive, Sherlock, but they and a whole regiment has been searching for you since yesterday. Your friends are terrified for you. Surely you want to relieve their suffering . . ."

Sherlock scoffed.

"I am well aware of all of this. I have been hanging about trying to ascertain what transpired. Do not fret for John and Greg," he snatched up a piece of paper and waved it around with a half-smile. "We will leave a note before our departure."

He was oddly energetic. His movements were frenetic and jerky as he jotted down a few words. When he was finished writing his note, he smacked it down on the nightstand and spun around as if searching for something. She did not understand him at all.

She shook her head. "Departure? We are leaving?"

Sherlock's brow twisted up. "Of course. Lestrade has come to arrest me."

Molly's mouth fell open. "What? Why?"

He stopped as he went to brush by her. His eyes narrowed as if he hadn't given it much thought yet. Then he shrugged.

"I am not sure. Possibly assault or trespassing but I suspect it could be for the murder of Gertie Friesen. Who knows? Who cares really? Lestrade is always trying to arrest me for something. Never fear, it usually works itself out."

She stopped his advance towards the window with her hand. He blinked at her several times.

"Are you mad?" She whispered harshly.

He tilted his head. "Me? Were you not planning to sneak out of here in my clothes? Where were you going, by the way?"

"To find you!"

His lip poked out.

"Hmm, I suppose you were trying to avoid detection. How fortuitous. This will make our escape easier," his hand slid up her arm. "I must say, men's attire suits you."

She did not think there existed another man in the world who could be as appealing as her husband when his eyes hooded. Even covered with filth, she wanted nothing more than to stretch alongside him naked. He seemed aware of her thoughts then. His hand moved even further up to tug her braid gently.

"And this," he murmured, "this I like even more."

She shakily clutched his hand. "You make my head spin!"

The corner of his mouth twitched. "I should hope so. Now, enough chatter, we need to leave at once. I have arranged for us to catch a freight train. Do you have everything you need?"

Molly scratched her forehead. She was thoroughly confused.

"Toby! What about my horse?"

Sherlock smiled. "He has already been reunited with Redbeard. They await us in the bush near the Hammond station."

She resisted his tug towards the window. "Wait, where are we going?"

Her husband wagged his brows.

"We are going to the one place no one checks when a person is missing," he smiled. "We are going home."