A/N: I can only apologise that the hiatus, instead of being short, turned out to be horribly, horribly long. I've gone into the final year of university and the work load is much larger than I anticipated, as well as the usual job/voluntary commitments and the other bits of day to day life we all have to deal with. I still love this story and I still want to see it through to the end- the idea was to cover their entire marriage into old age- but it may have to be fewer chapters, jumping more years between the updates. And… I can't even promise regular updates. I hate to be one of those people that updates really irregularly, but I don't want to commit to a schedule I won't be able to keep up with and continue to let down the readers every time I miss one. Needless to say, I'll do as much as I can. I'm sorry everyone! :(

All that aside, please enjoy this update, in which Mycroft goes on an adventure ;)

Twenty-Seventh Cup: Birthday

"Do you know what Edith's last words to me before I left this morning were, Sherlock?"

"No. Do tell me. I'm so extremely interested."

"It was a strict instruction to not be late home." Sherlock didn't reply, so Mycroft continued, sounding somewhat more peevish than he would have cared to admit. "The children will be disappointed."

"Oh, don't get domestic." Sherlock snapped. Mycroft decided not to justify this with an answer, and they fell into silence.

Of course, Mycroft had known today could not run smoothly. He'd known it the moment he had received his brother's text, before he had even reached London that morning.

I need your help, it had said. Come at once.

To Mycroft's knowledge, this was only the third time in his life that Sherlock had ever asked him for help. The first had been when he was very young, for something inconsequential- fetching something down from a high shelf. Mycroft couldn't for the life of him remember what it was, but it was something illicit, that mummy had told Sherlock he couldn't have; hence his show of really needing his brother's help. The second occasion was the one and only time Sherlock had gone too far with the drugs he had, like so many students, dabbled with; he had been on the brink of an overdose and had called Mycroft about some insane conspiracy theory, completely out of his mind. Mycroft had, naturally, gone straight over to his brother's dorm room, hoping to find him still there, hoping to calm him; Sherlock had grasped his arm and asked, frantically, manically, for Mycroft's help in bringing 'them' down, the 'them' he hated, the 'them' that they could only defeat together. He hadn't made any sense. All logic had fled from him.

Mycroft wasn't sure what his brother could remember of the episode, but Sherlock had come off the drugs cold turkey after that. The addiction, the un-indulged cravings, had lingered behind, but without satisfaction. Instead of changing to the tube at Marylebone, Mycroft hurried out of the station and round the corner to Baker Street. The door to his brother's flat at 221B had been standing ominously open, and for a moment he had almost been worried, but Sherlock had been lying, thinking, on his settee, entirely unconcerned about anything that was going on in the world around him; particularly about his brother's flurried arrival.

Mycroft had frowned at him, but refused to rise to the bait presented by Sherlock's languid glance in his direction, closing the door, making himself a cup of tea and settling into John's armchair before finally asking why Sherlock had seen fit to bring him there. As it turned out, it was his language skills that were in demand. Sherlock's client was a Japanese man, come to London in despair about the disappearance of his sister. He had believed- and Sherlock agreed- that the Yakuza, the infamous Japanese mafia, were to blame. Mycroft had not been altogether surprised at this. His department had suspected for some time that a Yakuza cell was laying roots in London, but it had not yet been prudent for them to act; the matters were small, and best left to the police. Japanese, Italian or American; it did not do to upset the modern mobs. Sherlock's case had taken a more interesting turn in recent days- now his client, too, had disappeared.

"Then I'm afraid your client is dead." Mycroft had told him. "Surely you didn't need to bring me here to tell you that."

"No." Sherlock shook his head. "Not dead, not yet. They still have too much to lose, there must be some reason they want the sister, I imagine they are using her to try and convince him. But there was no sign of him being forced away, at least not from his flat. There was a note. I need you to translate it." He handed Mycroft a scrap of paper, with a short sentence or two scrawled on it in badly-copied hiragana. Mycroft raised an eyebrow.

"This is your writing. Another book code?"

"Something similar." Sherlock waved the question impatiently away, eager for his translation. "Just tell me what it says."

"You have a laptop, Sherlock, and a smart phone. Couldn't you just use Google? Why bring me all the way here?"

"Read it and see." Sherlock snapped.

Mycroft sighed and read it. He was sure of the characters, but it was nonsense.

"What does it mean?"

"Nothing." Mycroft answered, flicking the paper with his fingers. "It's gibberish. There's a 'to', that means 'and'."

"Thank you, Mycroft, you've been as useful as Google translate."

"Clearly, it's in code." Mycroft answered irritably. "I take it you did think of that?"

"Of course." Sherlock scowled. "I thought it was some sort of substitution, swapping one character for another, but without knowing the language it's impossible to work out."

"Did you go up or down?"

"What?"

"Their alphabet is tabular, Sherlock, and they work in columns. Most likely they've substituted for the character above or below. A simple enough code for your client, one even a child could crack- if they knew the language, but much more difficult for foreigners. Now, that 'a' must be a particle- if we assume that it's 'wa'…"

Within a very few minutes, a different message was lying before them.

"Okane o haraimasu so de nakereba imouto san wa nakunarimasu. You must pay the money or your sister dies." Mycroft handed the paper back. "Entirely common place."Sherlock scribbled the translation on the note, looking rather pleased. His smile was distasteful to his brother.

"Really, Sherlock, do try to contain your delight. A woman's in trouble."

"I'll rescue her." Sherlock dismissed with an airy wave of his hand. "Her brother too, if they're still alive. It just means that I was right about-"

And at that moment the door had shattered in with a blast that could only have come from some sort of light explosive. It certainly made a good mess of the carpet, and the settee would probably never be the same again. Mycroft downed his tea, getting up in time to turn and face the threat, which turned out to be a lot of very large men with guns. Sherlock's eyes were darting between them, calculating. Mycroft watched him carefully, prepared to let his brother take the lead for once and follow whatever course he took.

Clearly Sherlock had not had the same faith in him, however, as, after a brief consideration of his brother he sighed and put his hands behind his head. Mycroft followed suite, feeling slightly insulted. He might have been a little older, and perhaps a little domesticated, but if Sherlock could fight them off he could too. Unfortunately it seemed the men had no intention of accepting a peaceful surrender. One of them had pressed a pistol to his forehead.

It was strange, but in that moment, Mycroft had not been thinking noble thoughts of his wife and children and how much he loved them, he had been thinking only of not flinching, not showing fear, not giving them the satisfaction. Perhaps the man was impressed, because instead of killing him there and then, he rammed the butt of the gun into Mycroft's temple, knocking him out in a most undignified way. When Mycroft had come to, he had found himself securely tied to a chair, a few feet from his brother. He could feel congealed blood on his temple. There was blood on his lapel too. This was his best suit. Mycroft had thought the Yukuza had more class than this.

The main problem was, they had now been awake for (by his estimate) the best part of an hour, and his brother was still obstinately refusing to escape.

"Sherlock, I promised Edith I would be home by five." He tried again, in his most measured and reasonable tone. "The children are expecting me."

"This is my case, Mycroft, I've been working on it for months! You aren't ruining it now!"

"And exactly how are you working on it whilst tied to a chair, Sherlock?"

"We are in their secret hideout, Mycroft, I've been trying to get in for months, I'm not leaving until I find out what I need to know."

"You are tied to a chair! How is that instructive?"

"I'm biding my time." Sherlock dismissed. "Don't be difficult."

"Edith will be most displeased." Mycroft said.

Sherlock tutted. "Oh, can't you just be spontaneous for once? Why does everything have to be routine?"

"I have to go home because-" Mycroft broke off, impatient but not sure what he wanted to reveal. Then again, he didn't know what choice he had. He sighed and continued. "I have to be home on time tonight, Sherlock, because it is my birthday. The children have made me a cake and they want to sing Happy Birthday."

"Oh." Sherlock frowned. "It's not your birthday, is it?"

"Yes, every year."

"Oh."

They fell into silence again for a moment.

"Has your daughter made you one of those ghastly cards like she did for me?"

"Yes."

"Oh." There was almost sympathy in that sound. He was probably still finding glitter around his house from his own birthday card months before. "Is she still… pink?"

"Unbearably so." Mycroft admitted. Rosemary was only getting older. The hope that she would grow out of all things pink and sparkly was beginning to fade.

"When is she eighteen?"

"Not for another ten years, Sherlock."

"Really? I thought she was older." He frowned again. "What about the baby?"

"The 'baby' is four. He's starting school in September."

"I can't keep track of your domestic circumstances."

"No-one is expecting you to, Sherlock, but it would be nice if you at least made some effort to care about your nephew and niece, my children, particularly when you are ruining their evening-"

"I'm not ruining it! The Yakuza is ruining it!"

This was getting out of hand. Mycroft took a few calming breaths.

"I promised to be home by five. That means I need to get the train by half past three. What time is it now?"

Sherlock considered the patch of light coming through the window high above their heads, tracking down the wall. "It must be about half past eleven, possibly noon." He decided.

"Fine. Then I will go along with your little adventure, Sherlock, but we must be out of here by three. That means I want to start escaping no later than half past two. Is that understood?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Oh, very well." He suddenly grinned. "But you get an adventure, Mycroft! Happy birthday!"

Ooooooooooooo

The problem with adventures was that it did make one horribly late for dinner. Sherlock was in a good mood- he had solved his case (the client, it turned out, was incidental in a much larger investigation Sherlock was conducting), seen both of the hostages safely out and into the arms of the police, and had, to his happiness, once again out done Lestrade. He did not seem to mind the fact that they had been beaten, attacked and pursued for most of the day and that they were now forty-two minutes late arriving back at Mycroft's. Sherlock hadn't been intending on coming with him, but changing trains to confuse those chasing them, and the need to lie low for twenty-four hours had made it a necessity.

"Stop complaining." Sherlock said. "We made it, didn't we?"

"Yes, we 'made it', long after we were expected." Mycroft replied. "At least try to make yourself presentable, would you?"

Sherlock looked down at himself in apparent confusion, as if the dirt and tears on his clothes had made no impression on him, nor his scraped hands or his only-just-stopped-bleeding, probably-broken nose. He took out a handkerchief and made some attempt at cleaning himself up, before putting it away and smoothing down his hair and collar. He still looked dreadful, but Mycroft was aware he probably didn't look much better himself. He took out his door key and went inside.

The children were delighted to see them both. Edith was more alarmed than anything. But in testament to his wife's strength of character, she did not let that ruin the night for the children; who were very happy to have their cake admired by their father and had a great deal of fun attempting to teach their uncle Makaton. It was only after the children had safely been put to bed and Sherlock had disappeared into the spare room that Edith turned to her husband with her eyebrows raised. Mycroft found he had absolutely no idea what to say. He could only hope his next birthday would be quieter.