Chapter 3: Room to Let Go

CHAPTER SUMMARY:

A darker trip down memory lane, part 2 (aka the "long list of her mistakes and failures").

Mummy Holmes works through some of her issues and tries to come to grips with the past. But is it safe to let go of her fears with Sherlock in the house?

BEGINNING NOTES:

Trying to write in this massive heat wave was madness but it's finally done! Phew!

I wanted to find a theme song for this chapter because I felt it deserves one. But I was unable to find fitting lyrics about the struggles of motherhood. I will start with Lara Fabian's "Broken Vow" instead, because - although it's a song about an entirely different life situation - the beautiful chorus conveys the bittersweet mood of past regrets and future hope and most importantly, the integral theme of letting go.

Do listen to the song before reading to get into the right mood!

And then - brace yourself for a long read!

"I'll let you go

I'll let you fly

Why do I keep on asking why?

I'll let you go

Now that I found

A way to keep somehow

More than a broken vow."

Lara Fabian: Broken Vow

Mrs. Holmes pushed the sturdy kitchen door open and entered the living room. She saw her husband lounging on the burgundy sofa, reading the same newspaper Sherlock had been holding in his hands mere minutes ago. She had no idea when he had come to the kitchen to fetch it. He gave her a shrewd look and nodded towards the front yard.

"They popped out."

Her questioning eyebrow was met with the look of smug delight on his face which appeared on the not too frequent occasions when he had managed to deduce his wife's thoughts on his own. He quickly hid it behind the raised cover page of the Guardian.

"I knew it!" She huffed to herself. It didn't take a genius to guess what her sons were doing outdoors.

The red candles in the quartet candelabra flickered as she marched between the fireplace and the trunk serving as a coffee table and made a beeline for the double windows looking out on the front yard. If she was a bit unsteady on her feet, she put it down to the emotional turmoil that was still rocking her foundations. When she peered out, she glimpsed a wisp of smoke spiralling above two heads. Mycroft and Sherlock were standing side by side on the gravel path, their backs to the cottage. They were talking companionably and seeming for all the world like... brothers. She had rarely seen those two actively seeking each other's company and even less these days. After Mycroft's snide remarks in the kitchen, she couldn't believe seeing them together like that. Although she strongly disliked their smoking, the unusual sight made her burst with pride and she almost teared up.

Mycroft had been driving his mother up the wall all morning, making her really feel the stress of trying to organise the "Christmas for a Normal Family". They never did this and there were perfectly good reasons why.

Hearing Mycroft continually complain about Christmas had made her see red again. Everyone knew he wasn't fond of the festival but spending the holidays with his parents and a convalescing brother shouldn't have been such a trial. He had to keep bringing up how much he was forced to endure and how much he suffered by being there, just to spite his little brother.

As if it was the worst thing in the world.

Like a child jealous of the extra attention and fuss his little brother was getting, Mycroft tried to deride him at every turn, begging to be heard. Noticing that Sherlock himself didn't rise to the bait in his current state of mind, he had taken it out on her, instead.

Clearly, Mycroft still held a grudge against her, after all these years. She could sense that something chafed him, but didn't really understand why. She had always seen and appreciated the brothers for their own unique abilities. If Mycroft was praised for his superior intelligence and Sherlock for his lesser achievements, why should it make Mycroft feel inferior? In a fit of pique, Mycroft had once told her that no matter how great things he had accomplished, no matter how smart he was, he would always end up playing second fiddle to his little brother's drama. He would always be overshadowed, never enough. Sherlock and his problems used to take up too much room at home, his chaos always the centre of attention.

What do I need to do to get noticed around here? She could still hear the teenage voice tinged with jealousy that went beyond ordinary sibling rivalry.

Mrs. Holmes guessed having a disabled sibling had left a permanent mark on the other one, in ways she couldn't fully fathom. She had done her best to avoid comparing or favouritism. She had tried to be fair, never imposing her dreams on Mycroft or demanding him to fulfil the filial duties Sherlock couldn't. Apparently that hadn't quite worked out if Mycroft was still rankled by her actions. By focusing on Sherlock's issues all these years, had she unwittingly neglected Mycroft's? Had her worry over Sherlock made her blind to Mycroft's needs, even recently? Perhaps she had never paid as much attention to him as she should have. Perhaps Mycroft's behaviour was her own fault, after all. If that was the case, she blamed it on the circumstances.

To counterbalance the loss of her academic career, Mrs. Holmes found a vocation for worrying. When it came to her children, she could have been characterised as a lioness. Sherlock's vulnerability, especially, evoked a sense of fierce protectiveness in her. For a parent of a special needs child, worry and stress were constant companions. And she had developed both into a form of art.

Unlike on the rather dusty corridors of academia, life on the streets of Holmesville never got boring or predictable. The situations Sherlock ended up in and the things he did were unimaginable, not something people would usually do, and she had no way to prepare for them. The only rule was to always expect the unexpected. And that - in a nutshell - was the best and the worst about it. Even as a stay-at-home-mother, she was never bored, too busy trying to anticipate what would lay around the corner. But the downside of it was that she could never fully relax either. She doubted that Mary or any other ordinary parent would feel the need to be on full alert, 24/7, as if expecting all hell to break loose at any given moment. Even the periods of relative stability were only the calm before the storm. Surely, that kind of consuming, gnawing, excessive fear was not what mothers were supposed to feel about their children.

It wasn't completely paralysing, not like she didn't get anything else done for fretting about the future. Rather, it was a dormant awareness at the back of her mind, being on standby like the firefighters, ready to put out the inevitable fires at a moment's notice. But in the long run it stressed and limited her, taxing her resources. It kept her feeling inadequate, poised for possible failure, preparing for the unpreparable. How much more energy would she have left to expend if she hadn't spent all this time being worried?

In Sherlock's early childhood, she realised that whatever happened in the confines of their home would not be a problem. It was the outside world that posed a threat. As long as they stayed in their little cocoon, far away from other people, Sherlock could safely be himself and thrive. But safety was an illusion. How could she ever let him venture out in the great wide open without getting hurt? How could she ever protect him once he unfurled his fragile wings and exited his bubble? How could her son learn to defend himself when she wasn't there? The part of her that knew how much he would enjoy having the world at his fingertips, uncovering its wonders and mastering all there was to learn, wished him Godspeed. But his boundless curiosity combined with a total lack of self-preservation was a dangerous mix.

The instinct of an overprotective mother made her hold on tight, acting as a bulwark against the stormy seas of human relationships. Because a child didn't understand that seeing the world came with a price. It also meant being seen. And a child didn't know about the dangers of being seen wrongly, judged and misunderstood in the eyes of others. He didn't know about social rules and boxes and labels, the invisible boundaries between normalcy and otherness that would corner him as soon as he got in contact with other children. He had no idea of the risks and traps of that interaction, of doing and saying the wrong things. He was yet to know the pain of liking others and not being liked back, of being rejected and worse. The inevitable outcome of being different. It had broken her heart in anticipation.

Mrs. Holmes would have homeschooled Sherlock to keep him safe from harm, but it soon became evident that his intellectual abilities required a larger playground than what she could offer. Her instruction or even hiring a private tutor would not be enough to satisfy his thirst for knowledge. Keeping him at home would only hinder his talents. So Sherlock followed in his big brother's footsteps into the school system and she watched him go with her heart in her mouth. How could she ever send him to school without apprehensiveness?

With Mycroft, watching him grow and letting him go had been bittersweet. But underneath, she was always certain that when she let him go, he would be okay. There was no such assurance for a child with special needs. With Sherlock, she couldn't be sure that he would be fine, that he could be depended on to make it on his own. Even though he seemed to manage, there was no guarantee that his unchecked words or impulsive actions wouldn't take him somewhere stupid or unsafe. There were few social skills to back it up, no friendships to give him confidence and a sense of belonging to somewhere else than his home. And yet, he couldn't stay there forever, she had to let him go like any other child and let him learn for himself, even if the thought terrified her.

There was no way she could be there for him all the time, even if she tried. Once he had left the safety zone of home, there was no one to watch his back and stand up for him, nobody to fend off the bullies that he seemed to attract wherever he went. Despite Sherlock's acuity, he was still surprisingly gullible when it came to things like praise, manipulatable by the abusers he mistook for friends.

By the time he went to school, worrying had more or less become Mrs. Holmes' day job and it gave her a new sense of utility. Quite frankly, she didn't know any other way to be anymore. She couldn't quite explain why her presence was necessary at home after both sons had left for school. Call it a safety net, if you will, something to cushion the fall with, to lower the threshold for Sherlock to come back if (and when) things got too hard to take. Even when he was gone, she remained on the alert. Perhaps it was her own reluctance to let go but she had to be prepared for any eventuality, in case she was needed.

When Sherlock was little, his mother had sworn to protect him till the ends of the earth or die trying. But that vow became increasingly difficult to keep over the years. Mrs. Holmes thought it would be bearable, as long as she could still keep tabs on him, even from afar. As long as she knew where he was and how he was doing, at school or in Cambridge. But then Sherlock ran away to London against her wishes and vanished from her sights. While he slipped off her radar, he gravitated towards his big brother who shouldered some of the weight of her worries and took on the role of mothering. Mycroft promised her to keep an eye on his little brother but when it came to Sherlock, promises were bound to be broken. Not even Mycroft's growing resources were enough to keep him safe. When she found out they had been keeping things from her, huge things that upset her and shattered her world, it seemed that she didn't know her sons at all anymore. What had happened to her bright little boys?

In hindsight, the demanding baby time had been the easy part, before Sherlock reached the age where the impulsive behaviour, risk taking and the need for the adrenaline rush could actually lead to something far worse than scratches, burns or broken arms. Before he crossed the line from an-accident-waiting-to-happen to mortal peril. Having a special needs son with an addictive personality and a lifestyle that continually put him in the line of fire, she never seemed to run out of reasons to stay worried, even when Sherlock grew up. The worry only changed shape. The older he got, the more serious his escapades seemed to become, warranting her fears.

While Mycroft concentrated on building his career and making his parents proud, Sherlock struggled from one crisis to another, causing his family heartache at every turn.

Like the years he spent flirting with every imaginable drug available with near-fatal results, until Mycroft forced him into rehab and tried to prove to him that none of those would be the perfect match.

Or like the past two years that she had spent on mental tiptoe because of Sherlock's absence, laboriously keeping up the act of a grief-stricken mother to those who thought she was, flinching inwardly every time she heard Mycroft's personal ringtone heralding an incoming call, possibly informing her that her role would become permanent.

And incredibly reckless ideas even after his return, like breaking into someone's highly guarded office just to be shot in the chest and almost getting -

The red-eyed monster inside her reared its ugly head again.

Better not finish that thought.

After everything that had happened, after everything Sherlock had been through, Mycroft's attitude towards his brother simply made their mother upset. Mrs. Holmes thought they had become closer after Mycroft brought his little brother home from his undercover mission but their relationship had become strained again after his shooting. There seemed to be a new edge to their interaction but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. As their mother, she couldn't bear to see that fragile fraternal bond become any more frayed than it already was. She needed the brothers to get along, instead of always fighting, because seeing it broke her heart. And the present moment offered her the perfect way to make them bond again.

Without giving her emotions further thought, Mrs. Holmes strode straight to the front door and yanked it open. She popped her head out of the door, putting on her best "you surprise me" act, like only mothers could.

"Are you two smoking?"

She barked it from the doorway, knowing full well that they were, and tried to sound more offended than endeared by the idea (not altogether difficult, considering the strain Sherlock's body had been under recently). If she had meant to say something more, her sons' immediate and childish reactions made it unnecessary. Both Holmes boys jumped and spun around when their mother caught them in the act, their smoking guns disappearing behind their backs with lightning-fast reflexes. The older one negated everything with his usual deadpan delivery, while the younger naturally blamed it all on his big brother. Her accusation was blocked by a brotherly wall of denial.

Their identical reactions told her everything she needed to know about the effectiveness of her strategy.

Nothing unites like a common enemy.

Hiding her blossoming smile under the sternest glare she could muster, Mrs. Holmes quickly shut the heavy door and retreated into the living room to giggle.

Her husband looked up from his newspaper. "What's so funny?"

"Can you believe it? Those two trying to hide their smoking from me, like bumbling teenagers, still afraid of their mummy. Some things never change," she chuckled, more to herself than her husband.

He took a sip of his punch glass and kept watching her from the corner of his eye but didn't say anything. A quiet, calming presence in the background, like he'd always been.

It took only a second for Mrs. Holmes to sober up, as a familiar photograph on the window sill next to the door caught her eye. It had been taken by a local photographer decades ago. A serious three-year-old sitting uncomfortably in his birthday picture, in a crisp white shirt, a huge purple bow tie and criss-cross braces, decidedly not looking at the camera, squinting against the background light and squeezing a furry toy dog in his lap as if it was his lifeline.

Mrs. Holmes picked up the photograph and caressed the glass tenderly. She could still remember that day, could picture the little boy crumpled in front of the fireplace afterwards, his chubby cheeks still red and stained from the stress of the photo shoot. He had sat there shaking, staring mesmerised at the crackling fire, the steady dance of the flames slowly calming his frantic heart. That had been the first and the last time they had ever taken him to be photographed. It had become clear that if they wanted a new picture of him, they would have to drag him into it.

Some things have changed.

Whenever she clipped Sherlock's celebrity photos from newspapers and added them to her secret journal nowadays, she winced in sympathy, remembering how much he had detested being photographed. Maybe the flashes of the cameras didn't push him into a meltdown anymore, but his stiff posture told her that he didn't exactly enjoy them either.

It astonished her that the vulnerable little boy in the picture had survived alone and unchaperoned out there for two whole years. She might have been proud of the way he had finally asserted his independence if she wasn't still in a bit of a shock about it all. There were no words to describe the terror she had felt when Mycroft had coldly announced that Sherlock would have to go underground for an undefined period of time to take care of a perilous mission "of national and global importance". Mycroft had assured them that it had to be done and that everything would be perfectly under control. Sherlock himself hadn't even called her to say goodbye, probably knowing the storm she would kick up. He'd only sent her a short text, apologising in advance for the abrupt departure and hoping to see her again when it was all done.

Mycroft had warned his parents that the tabloids might cover the story a bit differently. He had insisted that whatever they wrote, they ought to know it wasn't true but act as if it were. Despite his strict instructions, Mycroft had omitted the tiny detail that "go underground" actually meant "fake your death and die in disgrace". In the wake of the tragic events, a mother's journal had been filled to the brim with pictures of her 'deceased' son. Collecting every single photograph she found became her holy ritual, as if letting them go might jinx her chances of ever getting to see him again. She had refused to go to his fake funeral for the same reason.

Mrs. Holmes could only trust that the brothers really had everything under control but, once again, worrying was the only form of control she had left and she held on to it for dear life.

The Holmeses had a tendency to flamboyance, to overdoing things. Mrs. Holmes sometimes wondered why this had to apply even to Sherlock's special interests. If he had to be obsessed about something, why couldn't it be something simple and harmless, like trainspotting or collecting books? But no, it just had to be a morbid fascination with crime scenes and dead bodies. Combined with his penchant for extreme solutions, it was always going to be a recipe for disaster. She had known from the start that it wouldn't end well.

The fact that Sherlock had taken an interest in Jim Moriarty didn't actually surprise her much. It had been too familiar, just one more compulsion of his: obsessive and all-embracing, as terrifying as any of his previous addictions and certainly as deadly. It had taken his perception away from other things, making him hyper-focused on this one mission to the exclusion of everything else. It followed a formula of his usual thrill seeking, one she had witnessed too many times before. She recognised a pattern when she saw one and it had made her anxious.

To her, Moriarty had been just another bully, another person who considered Sherlock to be in his way and was willing to harm him. And to Sherlock, he was just another hit, another obsession. As she saw it, Sherlock didn't go after him merely because it was something that he was supposed to do but because he was stuck on it and couldn't let go until it was finished.

She thought about all the horrible things people had said about her son after the suicide, thinking the worst of him, like they had been doing all his life. All the unspeakable trash she wasn't supposed to read but read anyway. The same tabloids that had nurtured his fame had turned against him overnight, hostile and defaming. And that unthinkable exposé by the abominable Kitty Riley. Just thinking about that name still made her blood pressure soar sky-high.

People had always misjudged and misunderstood Sherlock, not able to see past his facade, not willing to give him credit for his abilities when all they saw on the surface was the freak, the other. In a way, that's what she had been fighting against all his life, trying to protect him from the way other people saw and treated him. That was nothing new to her, only it had been on a whole new level. It had been painful to see them tear his whole character to shreds, trying to undermine his intellect and identity and to undo all his achievements. Having the world turn against the idea of him being a genius detective, when she knew it was all a lie, had been almost as crushing as not knowing if he'd ever be able to return and prove them all wrong.

They had wondered what dark secrets or personal tragedies were buried in the consulting detective's childhood. What kind of parents could have spawned a calculating, heartless monster like him? What went so wrong in his upbringing that it led to a drug-crazed youth and a fraudulent career? There seemed to be a consensus in the press that it required some deep trauma in an early age to make him what he was. It was the same 'blame the parents' nightmare all over again, more than thirty years later, and it had broken her heart into a million little pieces.

Even after brushing aside the fact that he wasn't what they claimed he was, the accusations still stung. She knew they were all lies - would have known without Mycroft telling her so in advance. Sometimes growing up different in a world that couldn't stand it was tragic enough.

Yet, a part of her had been irrevocably tainted in the process, making her even more self-conscious of her flaws as a mother. In her mind she knew it wasn't true - she had tried her very best, always - but a wounded mother's heart was hard to silence.

She couldn't forget or forgive the press, not even after Sherlock had returned as a celebrated hero once again.

Those two years had been the darkest in her life, living with the stigma of having a supposed murderer in the family, facing shame and confronting hostility from friends and neighbours. If Sherlock had made up the criminal mastermind, he had also committed all the crimes and killings attributed to the man. As long as people thought it was the truth, she had to play the role of a grieving, disgraced mother in public. Mycroft had said they might be watched and she couldn't risk blowing her cover.

The longer the masquerade went on, the line between what she felt and what she should have been feeling if it was real got blurry. Pretending to grieve was easy as the shock and loss were real. But there were also elements of groundless doubt and guilt that smouldered in the dead of night, making her dread his deeds in the dark. For how did she really know what Sherlock was up to out there?

She read stories of radicalised youth, of mothers whose children had run off after Isis. She could relate to their pain, of not knowing where their loved ones had gone and what they were doing. Her biggest fear was that her vulnerable son, with deficits in his moral reasoning, might be drawn into the world of crimes, be manipulated by Moriarty's people and become more like them while he was away, living the life of the underworld. She tried to immerse herself in his reality but Mycroft refused to disclose any information of his whereabouts or undercover activities and she was left to her own imagination. But it was unfathomable, thinking of him all alone in the world. Despite the growing collage of images in her journal, all she could picture was the little boy with riotous curls, holding her hand.

And then he had returned - no light in his eyes, new scars on his back - and all her doubts had morphed into shame.

Pretending not to know the truth and partly not knowing for real had taken its toll. Those two years had left her with a need to dodge all Sherlock-related topics, for fear of giving out too much, or reacting the wrong way. It had led to avoiding people and crowds, ducking questions and curious eyes. Even after his return, the habit had prevailed. This was the first time they actually had other visitors than their closest friends or relatives.

A piece of wood crackled loudly in the fireplace and set off a tiny burst of sparks. The sound pulled her focus back to the present. Mrs. Holmes looked at the dying hearth and frowned. The fire was beginning its downward spiral and was in desperate need of stoking. Mr. Holmes stood up from the sofa and beat her to it.

Just a moment ago, as Mrs. Holmes had marched through the living room with a veil of unwanted memories suddenly clouding her eyes, she had almost bumped into Doctor Watson. He had been standing beside the fireplace, staring at the flames and fumbling with something in his trouser pocket. The man had looked distressed. She had noticed that the Watsons were barely on speaking terms and she suspected it had something to do with her son. Mary was a lovely girl, but having witnessed the profound change in Sherlock ever since John Watson came along, she couldn't help thinking that his marriage was regrettable. Seeing cracks in it so early on made her hopeful, but surely such thoughts were indecent.

Her arrival had startled the doctor out of his thoughts. He had given her a small smile, but underneath it, he had looked uneasy to see her. Quite frankly, she felt the same way about him. She had been appalled to find out that Sherlock hadn't revealed his suicide plans to his best friend. His schemes had hurt her, even though she had known that his suicide was faked. She couldn't possibly imagine the agony John Watson had been through because of her son. She didn't know which was worse, the grief of a misled friend or the fear of a waiting mother. But it didn't matter in the end; they both got their share of pain anyway.

Mrs. Holmes had recognised the doctor when they had visited Sherlock at Baker Street after his resurrection. But she hadn't introduced herself, partly because Sherlock had been so eager to get rid of them but also partly because she had been ashamed. She had felt guilty for not being able to protect Sherlock and could only guess how crushing the guilt must have been for his flatmate, if he believed Sherlock had taken his own life for real. She always felt like apologising on Sherlock's behalf when she saw the man. She doubted her son had managed to do so convincingly enough. Quite frankly, she was surprised to see the doctor still by his side, although she was infinitely grateful for his friendship and support. Being friends with her son came with a price. Sherlock's obsessions would always take precedence over any relationships and although he meant no harm by it, things usually led to it anyway. It was just the way he was. The people that cared most about him took the biggest blows.

John and Mary were about to become parents for the first time. Mrs. Holmes hoped the three of them would be able to sort out their problems - whatever they were - before the baby was born.

She placed Sherlock's childhood photograph back on the window sill and sighed with longing.

Wouldn't it be lovely to hear the pitter patter of tiny feet in the house once more?

Mrs. Holmes was aware that getting grandchildren was never a given. Rationally, she knew it was very unlikely to happen in her case. It was a part of parenting that she would probably never get to enjoy. She didn't want to give room to wishful thinking but sometimes a stray thought got away, spiraling down that path. Considering the motley crew gathered in her home now, she couldn't help wondering that if her sons had been family-oriented instead of the aloof geniuses that they were, their Christmas dinners might have looked very different indeed. Not having grandchildren to pamper was another lost dream, another lost chance. The secret, motherly grief that she felt about it would never fully dissipate.

Just then, the front door opened and one of the aloof geniuses sneaked in. Both parents turned to look at their son. Mycroft walked across the room, the tarnished air of ash and tar trailing behind him. It reeked of secrets. Mrs. Holmes wrinkled her nose and gave him a sharp look of disapproval. Mycroft merely shrugged with an innocent smile on his face and brushed past his father towards the kitchen. She could have sworn he was humming a Christmas carol.

Mrs. Holmes narrowed her eyes and stared suspiciously after her son. She didn't like their smoking one bit. It had been their first form of teenage rebellion and the bad habit had apparently remained long after adolescence. The lingering smell reminded her of all the other things they had kept from her, of all the external influences she couldn't protect them from.

Mycroft had naturally been the first to take up smoking and Sherlock, worshipping the ground beneath his feet, had followed his lead years later. Unfortunately nicotine had become the first port of call on his way to stronger substances. By trying to appear cool and grown-up in Sherlock's eyes, Mycroft had unwittingly sown the first seeds of addiction. If he had known that people with autism who had above-average IQs were more than twice as likely to become addicted to drugs as their peers, he might have thought twice about encouraging his little brother. Mrs. Holmes sometimes wished Mycroft had taught Sherlock how to gamble rather than smoke. Playing for stakes would have been preferable to gambling with his life.

All teenagers rebelled like they were supposed to and she'd had more than her fair share of it. Both her sons had found their own ways of putting distance between themselves and her motherly care. Mycroft had used his outward achievements to get as far away from her as possible whereas Sherlock had turned inwards, instead. The more she had cared, the more they had rebelled, widening the gap between them.

After following on Sherlock's heels for years, trying to anticipate each obstacle and smoothing his path, it had been difficult for her to retract her claws and give him room to grow. The more she clung to him, the more he fought to break free. And the harder it was for her to let go, the more important it was for Sherlock that she did.

Smoking was only the first rebellious step on his way to freedom. As she learned years later, it only grew worse from there. It was almost as if Sherlock had rejoiced in making bad choices, failing everyone's expectations just to prove a point. Resisting the binding rules and structures in his life, put up to protect him. Doing things she didn't approve of, like quitting his promising chemistry studies and running away to London, choosing streetlife and substance abuse over a respectable career. Whether he did it all on purpose or not, his failures made her fail, too.

But she wasn't the only one.

Mycroft, with a guilty conscience over introducing addictive stimulants to his little brother's brain, tried to compensate by taking the main responsibility for his rehabilitation. Over the years, he reaped what he had sown, bearing the brunt of Sherlock's animosity for meddling with his affairs. It altered their sibling dynamics irreparably. It also didn't help that they both were willful, determined to have their own way.

They were particularly determined to leave their parents in the dark. Mrs. Holmes was certain that Mycroft habitually concealed things from her, or disclosed only the bits of Sherlock's life that suited him. When confronted, he resorted to either downplaying or downright lies. She wasn't sure whether it was a sign of loyalty towards his little brother or an urge to protect his mother from too much information. But Mycroft didn't understand that guessing burdened her more than knowing the true state of things. Whenever she interfered, both brothers kept pushing her away, trying to throw her off the scent. They never told her anything willingly, unless it was a matter of life and death. Getting the truth out of them was like trying to get blood out of a stone. But "getting shot on a case" or "dismantling a criminal empire" weren't good enough for her; she needed to hear all the gory details.

There were always some silly excuses, like "It's confidential", "It's classified" or "I'm an adult now, it's none of your business, Mummy". They didn't realise that no matter how old or independent they got, it would always be her business, national security be damned. That's what mothers were for.

In their eagerness to take care of things by themselves, they rarely stayed in touch, unless they wanted something from her or had bad news to deliver.

Mrs. Holmes mourned the lack of contact and wished they would call her more often. But not the kind of phone calls she had become used to in the past. In her nightmares, her remaining role was to keep waiting for the phone to ring, be it on holiday on the other side of the planet or at night in her own home, telling her that "It's Sherlock" and that her world had collapsed, once again. Things would always fall apart, eventually.

By now, she had received so many of those calls that she thought nothing could floor her anymore. Yet Sherlock's unexpected request to come home for Christmas nearly had. And to top it all, Mycroft had promised to visit them, too.

She had been too eager to say yes, touched by the fact that her darling boy had actually wanted to come, after he had been shot, after so many years. She had jumped at the chance of having them both home and hadn't even stopped to question why they were accompanied by a couple who didn't even talk to each other and a low-life whose only purpose seemed to be to shock his hosts. What were they actually doing here?

But here they were, the brothers having a heart-to-heart on Christmas Day, smoking and bonding as if it was something they did on a daily basis. With or without her prompting. As much as she had enjoyed seeing them side by side, she couldn't shake off the feeling that something wasn't quite right. Mycroft had been way too content after the fraternal encounter, much more jovial than a few glasses of punch should account for... It was all so strange, so uncharacteristic of them.

"Some things never change."

Mrs. Holmes compared what she had thought with what she had just seen and gasped, as another alert started blaring in her head. How clear, how wrong, how glaringly obvious: those two were never like that. It just didn't add up.

Something is going on.

The sudden realisation whooshed into her head, making her dizzy and she had to hold on to the adjoining china cabinet to keep herself from wobbling.

Her sons were definitely up to something.

A sudden premonition filled her with dread that this would be the last time she would ever get to see them like this.

Her husband heard the commotion and looked up from the sofa where he had settled with his newspaper again.

"Are you alright?"

"I... I just… wish they weren't..."

"...smoking?" He hazarded a guess, filling the end of the sentence for her while she struggled to finish it. He mistook her sudden distress as being upset about their bad habits.

Always conspiring to leave me was how she meant it, but she didn't have the heart to make the already brittle Christmas mood any worse by getting him worried, too. She only shook her head slowly, more as an effort to dispel the wooziness than to correct him.

"Come on, they're both grown men. As much as you'd like, you can't make decisions for them anymore."

"As if I ever could..." Mrs. Holmes sighed. She let go of the cabinet and pinched the bridge of her nose.

There's the rub, she thought bitterly.

That exactly was the problem.

In a situation where she didn't get a say in the lives her sons had chosen to lead or the dangers they had chosen to face, worrying was her only form of control. And the less she could control, the more she worried. The worry had grown with each departure, with every step they took away from her. The further they had slipped from her sphere of influence, the more furiously she had clung to the remnants of her motherly power, especially in Sherlock's case. But it had been a losing game from the start. She had to let him go: to school, to university, to London, abroad, underground. And the growing distance meant growing ignorance. Although Mrs. Holmes was proud of Sherlock's competence, the loss of information was hard to bear. The only way to keep total track of Sherlock's adult life would have been to put him under legal guardianship but his disabilities weren't severe enough to grant it. Even if he kept things to himself, there was nothing she could do about it.

Not for the first time, Mrs. Holmes wondered how little she actually knew what was going on in her sons' lives these days. Ever since they grew up, they had stopped sharing their thoughts with her and started keeping secrets. As independent adults, they were naturally allowed to play their own games and make their own decisions, even if they ended in disaster. She knew she had no right to claim it, but she was saddened by the fact that they didn't confide in her anymore. If they did, many of the catastrophes over the years could have been avoided.

If she could have her way, they'd learn to be more co-operative, relying on their family instead of fighting each other all the way. Life could have been so much easier if they were more flexible instead of headstrong. If they resorted to honesty instead of lies, openness instead of all these schemes. But by now, she had given up hope that her example could have any effect on them.

They were what they were and she couldn't change it if she tried. But as their mother, she was responsible for making the most of what she had. And once again, she had the nagging sensation that it wasn't going to be enough.

Mrs. Holmes tried to convince herself that if the brothers hadn't always kept her in the dark, if only she had known about the things that went wrong, she could have done something to prevent the next disaster. But was that really true? Deep down, she knew it was a lame excuse. She wasn't fooling anyone but herself.

When Sherlock was at school, she had known about the bullying but still couldn't be there to prevent the tears on his cheeks, the bruises on his body, the cigarette burns in his clothes, or the scars in his soul. Each mark of abuse had been a sign of her failure, as unerasable as it was unforgivable.

She had known that Sherlock was struggling, had seen the warning signs but couldn't save him from the angst that hit him much harder than the average teenagers, leading to depression, self-injury and suicidal thoughts.

She had found out about the drug use but could do nothing to stop the mosaic of track marks appearing on his arms or keep him from sliding into addiction to escape it all.

No matter what she had promised, she couldn't keep his bullies at bay at school, in the university, at work or anywhere, couldn't shield him from any of them. Least of all from Moriarty - the biggest bully of all - who had taken the humiliation to the next level, making Sherlock fake his own death to get rid of him.

She couldn't run after him forever to keep him from getting hurt on cases or spare him the pain of being tortured or shot. She would have done absolutely everything to keep him from suffering but there were things even unconditional love couldn't fix.

Mrs. Holmes had sacrificed her career to keep Sherlock happy and safe, had given up everything to protect him. It was her sole mission in life and yet she had failed pitifully, time and again.

Had the sacrifice been worth it when everything went awry anyway? What use was protection when it failed to protect? What good did worrying do when she couldn't change a single thing with it?

In the courtroom of her heart she was as good as guilty. Knowing and not being able to help almost equalled willful abandonment. All she could say in her defense was that she had been certain of her own commitment but had forgotten to factor in the element of time. No matter what she had promised, she couldn't keep Sherlock from growing up, sheltered in a vacuum forever. She couldn't save him from the mistakes he made or the life that intervened. There were too many things beyond her control. But no matter how she tried to justify it, she had still let him down. She had cared so much but had constantly failed him in so many aspects of his life that she had lost count by now. Therefore, to say that she had "given it all up" to be there for Sherlock bordered on hubris.

Was it any wonder if she avoided the topic, if it was hard for her to talk about it? It wasn't because she didn't want people to know about Sherlock's disorder. It wasn't because she was ashamed of him, never of him, but because she was partly ashamed of her own role in it all. Of the things she couldn't or didn't do. Or did when she shouldn't have -

Like neglecting Sherlock's big brother. She couldn't even save Mycroft from getting tangled up in the same web of worry and caring, stretching their relationship too taut. The shared responsibility had lightened her load but burdened him to the point of bitterness.

A broken vow was all she had to show for her sacrifice.

A pervading sense of failure washed over her and she started shaking with the dawning conviction that it would only ever get from bad to worse and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. As surely as the sun set, she would fail them again.

She lifted a hand to her mouth, fighting back the tears. A sob escaped her lips.

"Are you quite sure you're alright?"

Mr. Holmes stood up from the sofa and rushed to his wife. He placed his newspaper on a stool next to the windows. He was by her side in seconds, crowding her personal space. She closed her eyes and turned her head in shame, but not before her husband had caught a glimpse of the storm rising inside.

My younger son is full of scars and traumas, the older one full of resentment. And nothing I can do about any of it because they won't let me help. What a dysfunctional family we are.

"Hey," he said gently and took her by the shoulders.

"Is this about the book?" Her husband asked, knowing how gloomy thinking about the past always made her. She gave a mirthless laugh, admitting his insightfulness.

You know me too well.

She swayed a little and he pulled her into his embrace. Her tears left a wet patch on his cardigan.

Although Sherlock was sombre and subdued, only a shadow of his former self, Mrs. Holmes had still been caught in the whirlwind of chaos that had breezed through her home in his wake. It had already lifted the cobwebbed sheets off her painful memories, revealing the dark forms underneath. They sat fast on the floor of her mind's attic. The doubts, the apprehension. The Guilt. Pushing them aside now felt as cumbersome as trying to drag heavy antique furniture across the floor. They refused to move.

"Whatever it is you're thinking, don't. Let it go. Stop beating yourself up," he whispered into her ear.

"Open your eyes. Love, look at me."

Mrs. Holmes sniffled and slowly opened her eyes to look at his. Her husband could still see the pain and darkness in them.

"Did we," she whispered. "Did we do enough? For both of them?"

Her husband wasn't sure what she meant. He gazed long and hard in her fiery eyes, as if trying to gauge the depths he would have to cross in order to reach her. The pleading look she gave told him everything he needed to know.

"We did everything we could at the time. And nobody has done more than you. You know that. You've done enough simply by wanting what's best for them. As much as you'd like to believe it, you're not all-knowing and all-powerful. There's only so much you can do. Don't be too hard on yourself."

"At least they're both here now. That's proof enough," he added as an afterthought, when she didn't seem to respond.

Mrs. Holmes let his words sink in. Inside her mind, emotions came and went like the dark clouds that they were. She tried to distance herself from them and just watch them fly by. The storm wouldn't last forever. It never did.

Asking "what if" was a waste of breath but the question had been on her mind all day. If she didn't have the answers, maybe her husband would.

"Do you ever wish they had been… ordinary?"

"Being your sons, they could be nothing short of extraordinary," he told her with an assuring smile, knowing she needed to hear it.

"Sherlock's fine now, they'll both be great. I wish you didn't keep worrying like that, my dear. We're all here together, it's Christmas. What could possibly go wrong?"

"Oh, anything and everything, if you ask Mikey," Mrs. Holmes sighed.

Her husband took a firmer hold of her shoulders and made her look straight in his eyes.

"Then don't ask the Grinch, ask me. I'll tell you that it's Christmas Day, we're in the middle of nowhere. Nothing is going to happen. I know you love Christmas. Don't let him ruin it."

She mulled it over. Clearly, the fear of failure came from a place of hurt. Mrs. Holmes thought she had made her peace with the past years ago but somewhere deep down, there was an unprocessed wound that the book had reopened. She knew things weren't as bad as her mind wanted to paint but the inner turmoil made it hard to see past the pain. She made a mental note to work on it - perhaps she could get rid of the memento and the painful memories attached to it as soon as her strange guests had left the house. It was high time to let go of sentimental clutter. Keep the best, discard the rest.

Mr. Holmes maintained eye contact until he had managed to elicit a small smile from his wife. He nodded towards the front door.

"If smoking is the worst thing they can come up with, you have no reason to worry. Come on, let them have their vices, we can find our own."

Chivalrously, he offered his wife his right arm.

"M'Lady, shall we go and get some more punch?"

"No. I… I should…" Mrs. Holmes blinked twice, frowned and looked puzzled around the living room, as if suddenly wondering why she was there at all. Then her wandering gaze spotted her husband's half-full glass on the coffee table.

"But yours is here," she pointed out. Gently, she pushed him back towards the sofa.

"Do finish it. I should go back to the kitchen anyway. Everyone must be getting hungry."

"There's no need to fuss like that. We have enough food to last a week. Sit down for a while and take it easy, I'll get you some…"

But she was already off to the kitchen, still running on adrenaline and knowing Mycroft would be useless there with his fancy waistcoat and government secrets.

Mrs. Holmes pushed through the door again and went to pour herself another glass of punch before she joined her older son at the table. A quick inspection had ascertained that all was well in the kitchen.

She sat down heavily in Sherlock's favourite armchair in the corner and put the glass down on the table. She saw Mycroft trying to suppress a big yawn and it spread to her like a contagious smile. She felt drowsy all of a sudden. No doubt the constant onslaught of emotions was wearing her down. Her husband was right. She deserved to sit down for a while and take it easy after all the pre-Christmas hassle. No need to worry, everything would be perfectly fine. Sherlock was home from the hospital. Surely they were on the safe side now and could spend Christmas together with no more drama. With their continued support, there was no way he could end up in trouble here. But she would keep her eyes open, just in case.

Even Mycroft seemed more content although he was still guarding his precious laptop as if it contained the Crown Jewels. Silly boy. Why did they always need to drag their work with them? Placing her potatoes on the wretched gadget had been her little revenge for bringing the work home even at Christmas. If he didn't understand to let go of it, she would remind him to make room for more important things.

Surely, she could let go of her fears for tonight and focus on the task at hand. This wasn't about herself, this was about making her guests feel welcome. They were not a threat to flee from. She should just embrace the challenge and enjoy having them here, her sons especially. Like her husband had said, at least they both were here. That fact alone meant the world to her. They both meant the world to her. She wanted Mycroft to know it, too. She reached out to where he was sitting next to her and patted his hand affectionately, hoping the simple touch could convey the thousand things she longed to say to him.

"I'm really glad you came."

Mycroft gave her a scrutinising, curious gaze but didn't pull away. It was a rare thing that he allowed her the touch these days. She basked in its familiarity, wishing things hadn't changed so much between them.

When did you become as cold as ice? Is there a way to make amends?

Mycroft slowly nodded in agreement, as if he had heard her thoughts.

Encouraged, Mrs. Holmes leaned back in her chair. She could finally relax and share this moment with her older son while she waited for the kettles to boil, before the rest of the ensemble joined them. She grabbed her glass of punch on the kitchen table and saluted him before lifting it to her lips. He did the same. The taste of sweet strawberries hit her palate. It reminded her of childhood summers. Simpler times. Happier times. Carefree. It made her feel lighter, as if she could reach a part of her younger self just by tasting it, unencumbered by the emotional baggage of adult years. Maybe it was time to make new, happier memories. For all of them.

Punch is just like chocolate, Mrs. Holmes thought and beamed at her son.

There's always room for more.

END NOTES:

And so it ends.

There's a lot of emotional baggage in this chapter and Mummy Holmes is triggered by sensory cues in the house. I owe some of the ideas and the sensory approach to Emily McDermott. Check out her blog, Simple by Emmy, if you want to simplify your life and let go of the clutter - sentimental, aspirational or just clutter - in it.

Also thanks to Ariane deVere and her invaluable Sherlock transcripts, once again.

Raising a child is hard, raising a special needs child is harder, and raising Sherlock Holmes… well, I'll leave you to your deductions.

This story is dedicated to all mothers whose children are a bit more special than others, including my own mum. I am a younger sibling of a disabled person and many of the issues and emotions in this story reflect my own experiences. Being finally able to finish this story after keeping it hidden in my archives for almost a decade means a lot to me, so feedback would be highly appreciated!

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed the story!