On Sunday morning, Jamie got up early and padded into the kitchen barefoot to make himself a cup of tea. As cold as the floors were in this old Victorian house in February, he enjoyed the ability to walk around not having to wear his boots. The flat was as chilly as it was silent, so he draped the afghan over his legs when he settled on the couch and then flicked on the lamp beside him. The pool of yellow light made the room seem warmer in the cold winter darkness. Jamie picked up a catalogue and began thumbing through it idly.

John was having far too much fun taking the piss out of him for having furniture catalogues and it had been odd to realise he'd never had to actually buy anything new. Before he'd joined the army, he'd lived with some mates and everything he'd owned had been purchased from the Oxfam or Red Cross shops. Since then, he'd been in the service and had been overseas three times. Between his first and second and second and third tours, he'd gone back to Edinburgh and stayed with Ellie and her kids. After the third tour had been abruptly cut short, he'd been shuffled into the halfway house following his release from the hospital.

And now here he was, thirty-seven bloody years old and having to buy new furniture for the first time. He was emailing Ellie constantly, asking for her opinions because everything looked good to him and he was more interested in if it was comfortable rather than if it matched. The idea of buying things in sets seemed odd. He knew Ellie was laughing at him via email – and on Skype when she rang so the kids could see him even if he had to type his replies – but it didn't matter. She was helping him, too.

John had done well enough for himself, but John had just gone and bought whatever had caught his fancy and that was that.

He didn't have to worry about whether or not someone else would like it.

It was so bloody complicated. Even beds were complicated – Jamie was bewildered by this. A bed should be a bed. He'd spent the past year and a half on narrow beds with thin or uncomfortable mattresses – at Bastion, in the hospital, in the halfway house. He was baffled by the world of options: memory foam, pillow-top, independent coils. Didn't people know what the rest of the bloody world slept on? In some places, a mat on the floor was a luxury. He'd slept in far worse, on bare freezing ground in a ditch, on hard floor in his tiny shared bunk at Bastion in the baking summer heat, in the back of Humvee, covered in dust and sweat and engine grease. There were times he'd been grateful for his narrow army cot. Now he had to decide between sizes and styles and types of frames.

It was mad.

Occasionally he thought about asking Tricia for her opinion as well, but decided against it. It was bad enough that Ellie was laughing him. But Tricia would grin that devilish grin of hers and very pointedly not snicker and then probably tell John, who would tease him even more.

He was a grown man, a master mechanic, a former soldier, and had survived an explosion that should have killed him. He could bloody well pull it together enough to buy furniture for one flat.

Chin up and quit your moaning, he told himself. You're complaining about nothing.

He finished his tea and put the catalogue away with a sigh; these things needed to be sorted out sooner rather than later, but not today. He had to eat, shower and get dressed in time for Mass; he'd missed last week altogether because of John's birthday. Somehow, the idea of turning up hung over didn't appeal – he was certain the priests would have opinions about that, even if God forgave, and the music wouldn't have helped the headache. He'd needed to sleep all that off to go meet John's mum and sister, too.

He got up and went back into the kitchen and flicked the light on, pulling out some food and set himself to cooking. He fixed himself another cuppa while he was at it, then sat at the table and ate in silence, moving Tricia's care package a bit. He'd done it up the night before and the letter had been the last thing to go in. They communicated by email, of course, but he'd always loved getting handwritten letters from Ellie and her kids when he'd been overseas. Sometimes it was just nice to see familiar handwriting.

Tricia's immediately family consisted of her father who remembered who she was only on a very good day. It wasn't hard to see why she and John were so bloody close – they'd both lost a sibling in one way or another, although Harry was doing much better now, according to John. The rumours that she and John were shagging had reinforced for Jamie how many people were just sodding idiots and couldn't see what was right in front of them. He wished he'd paid more attention to the way things were between himself and Tricia, though.

Stupid waste of time, he told himself, then shook his head. No sense beating himself up – he couldn't change it. Back then, there had been what he thought of as practical considerations, too. She was a captain; he'd been a sergeant. Even though she hadn't been his CO, she still significantly outranked him, which would have made things complicated. She was obviously way out of his league: she was a doctor, she was a captain, she was gorgeous.

Looking back now, those just seemed like bullshit excuses.

Well, things could change. Things had changed. Nothing was happening, not exactly, not yet. But they'd been talking like it was. Where to live, if they wanted kids, how many, how to raise them, religion, money, work schedules, all of it.

When he'd come home, he'd come home to nothing, really. A tiny flat in a halfway house, a meagre pension, no real job prospects given his injuries. He'd settled into limbo without realising it, happy to wait because he was waiting for her. It had been mind numbing but he hadn't thought about it, hadn't known that at the time.

Now he had a job and was making good money and would have his own flat soon. He wasn't just waiting, he was living. He was getting ready. When Tricia came back in autumn, she'd have someone to help support her until she got a civilian job, which he didn't think would take her very long. She was a good doctor – brilliant, really. And she'd have somewhere to live.

Somewhere with matching furniture.

Mycroft found Sherlock in the same conservatory in which the younger man had greeted their mother the day before. Sherlock glanced up when his brother came in and sat down beside him. He refused to be put off his light lunch by Mycroft's presence – he hadn't asked Mycroft to come see him, after all. And he was enjoying sitting in the rare February sunshine, kept warm by the well insulated windows that looked out onto the snow covered gardens. The paths had been shovelled, of course, but the trees and flowerbeds were gently blanketed by winter white.

He had played in the snow in these very gardens as a child. Sometimes he remembered this, nothing more than images or impressions from when he was very young. He thought he could recall Mycroft teaching him to make a snowman when the snow had had the right consistency but he found the memory suspect. It was difficult to imagine Mycroft wanting to do anything physical outside. Perhaps it had been their cousin Dorian, who was Mycroft's age.

Now the gardens were silent and still. It was deceptive; a casual glance might suggest that there hadn't been a child playing in them since Sherlock had been young. But there had been, and very recently. Just this past Christmas. Mycroft hadn't gone outside to join in, but Sibyl had. So had Sherlock. Mycroft clearly imagined that Sherlock had only done this to garner more favours from his brother, because that was how Mycroft viewed everything. Generally this was true – Sherlock did little for his brother unless he could get something in return. But spending time with his nephew wasn't about Mycroft, it was about David. He enjoyed seeing the boy when he was in London or Buckinghamshire during his school holidays.

"This complicates matters," Mycroft commented lightly. He crossed one leg over the other, his shoes spotless and gleaming.

"Does it?" Sherlock asked.

"I will need to have people watching Angela and David now."

"I suspect that you already do and always have, and that Angela has some of her own people doing the same. Not to mention keeping an eye on you."

"Hmm," Mycroft said noncommittally, arching an eyebrow.

"And I suspect you've already asked for her assistance with this."

"She's heard the name Moriarty before as well. Less than I have, I believe, but even once is enough in our circles. Her contacts in Scotland are far more extensive than mine."

Sherlock glanced up from his tea, cocking an eyebrow in return, an amused expression dancing on his lips.

"Mycroft Holmes admitting that his influence is less than complete?" he asked.

"Oh please," Mycroft replied, waving a hand and looking mildly annoyed. "You already know that. No need to act quite so delighted about it."

"On the contrary, I feel every need to do so," Sherlock said, setting aside his plate and smiling.

"Clearly your contacts among the criminal classes are much better than mine," Mycroft said. "You demonstrated that quite well at tea last night. How often to do you speak with Moriarty and yet you never deemed it necessary to tell me?"

"It wasn't necessary, not until now," Sherlock replied, keeping his tone light. "As for how often I have contact with him – far more than I would like. Usually not by my own choice."

"An admirer, Sherlock?"

Sherlock snorted.

"I suspect so, but you needn't worry, Mycroft. He's hardly my type."

"Ah, then he isn't French. I didn't think so."

Sherlock rolled his eyes, sighing inwardly.

"Oh, please," he said. "And no, he is not French. Surprisingly, the world is full of attractive men who are not French. Although classifying Jim as attractive is inaccurate unless you find psychopathy and the unreliability that accompanies it to be appealing. I do not. He's Irish, Mycroft, although he moved to England when he was nine."

"I will need all of your information on him," Mycroft snapped.

"And you will have it," Sherlock replied. "We have a meeting scheduled for Tuesday afternoon."

Mycroft simply nodded. He was unsurprised by the announcement – he did the same to Sherlock whenever he wanted to meet with him, but it was far better than being escorted to some shadowy parking garage late at night. Sherlock had hated when Mycroft had done that to him when he'd been in university. Of course, he knew Mycroft had disliked being forced to track him down at Charles' flat. But fair was fair. And it was entertaining to discomfit his brother so much.

"The serial killing cabbie," Mycroft said. "Was that you?"

"I'm hardly a cabbie," Sherlock replied. Mycroft sighed, giving him a put upon older brother look.

"Was he one of yours?"

"No," Sherlock said coldly. "I would not endorse that sort of nonsense nor tolerate it from any of my people. It's too blatant and can be too easily tracked down – as we've seen, since the police were able to identify and apprehend him. If I were to send someone to commit a string of staged suicides, the police would not ever have been able to determine that they were really murders."

"You know, hearing that does not at all make me feel better."

"Yes, because you hadn't though precisely the same thing regarding yourself," Sherlock commented.

"Hmm," Mycroft said. "But you are still my little brother."

Sherlock sighed.

"I'm thirty-two, Mycroft. I do not qualify as 'little'."

Mycroft gave an infuriating small shrug and Sherlock resisted the urge to snap at him. This took quite a bit of effort and he was certain Mycroft had picked up on some of it, but he was not sinking to that level. Picking a fight would only reinforce Mycroft's opinion of Sherlock's status.

Little! he thought with an inward scowl. Thirty-two years old, six-foot-two and he calls me 'little'!

He made a mental note to arrange a sudden shortage in Britain of Mycroft's favourite coffee for the next two weeks due to shipping delays. He had enough contacts in British customs that EU regulations could suddenly hold up delivery.

"Very commendable of the police to identify and catch this killer," Mycroft said.

"It was, wasn't it?" Sherlock agreed.

"And was that you?"

"Mycroft, I think you're in need of a holiday. Go to Frontignan for a week or two. You're seeing conspiracies everywhere. I don't even know if this cabbie had anything to do with Jim and now you're fitting me in as – what? The informant? Why would I want to be an informant?"

"You want to bring Moriarty down," Mycroft pointed out.

"Yes, I do. As I said, however, I don't know if he was connected to Jim. It's possible he was a lone psychopath. How many other cabbies do you suppose branch out into murder? I suspect they always know some quiet place in which to dispose of a body."

"As do you, I imagine."

"And you," Sherlock sighed.

"You wouldn't tell me if you'd been involved anyway, would you?"

"No," Sherlock agreed. "So you will get the same answer regardless. Less stress all around for you to simply accept it. And less stress is better for your health, which I know is a concern. Although I must say, you've lost two pounds since I last saw you. The diet must be going well."

"It is indeed," Mycroft replied. "What's your next move, Sherlock?"

"The same as yours, Mycroft. Security. Eyes on those close to me, those whom I trust." He paused, withholding another sigh. "This will require your assistance."

Mycroft raised his eyebrows but looked more curious than condescending this time.

"Your own guards must be more than adequate," he commented.

"Yes, in the areas in which I operate. I'm not concerned about coverage here or on the continent. Nor am I particularly concerned about those high up in my organisation – they're well versed in taking care of themselves, although extra security is warranted. But I know Jim operates in Afghanistan. I suspect my refusal to do so may be problematic for me now even if it has not been in the past. Mycroft, do you have people there that you trust, really trust?"

"Yes," Mycroft replied simply.

"How much do you trust them?" Sherlock pressed. His brother had very specific and well-defined levels of confidence in those who worked for him. The distinctions were many and Sherlock needed to know how deep the trust ran, if it would be sufficient for his needs.

"With my life," Mycroft replied. "Or Angela's or David's."

Sherlock let out a slow breath. That was more than enough. And he knew that when it came to his wife and son, Mycroft would not lie about how he protected them.

"Good," Sherlock said. "Let me tell you what I need."