I was enjoying a nice quiet Christmas at home having declined several offers but I just wanted to be by myself. After the years of noisy, hateful Christmases it was nice to enjoy the solitude. My phone rang and I knew exactly who it was.
"Oh dear lord, we're not going to have Christmas phone calls now, are we?" I stood and looked out the window. "Have they passed a law?"
His voice on the other end seemed hallow. "I think you are going to find Irene Adler tonight."
"We already know where she is. As you were kind enough to point out, it hardly matters."
"No," he told me. "I mean you're going to find her dead." And then he hung up on me. I turned away. I texted John to call me when Sherlock left he flat.
"So I heard. Is she really dead?" No hello, how are you?
"Ever straight to the point, John." I sighed. "I'm not sure. I called around and found one that may have matched her description, I've sent it over to Barts."
"Oh. Is that why Molly left? I thought it was because Sherlock stormed off after finding that gift on the mantlepiece."
"No, she was the only on call tonight." I paused but forced myself to say the words. "John, I'm worried. I'm afraid he might resort to drugs or cigarettes tonight."
"Well, the cigarettes aren't too bad. But the drugs… yeah I see your point." He paused for a minute. "What do you want me to do?"
"Search all his usual hiding spots, make sure he can't get to either one tonight."
"Ok. But what are you going to do?"
"I'm going to offer him a cigarette."
"See if he's upset enough to take it? See if he's vulnerable enough to go that route tonight?" He didn't sound pleased with the plan.
"Exactly."
"Good luck." He sighed resigned.
"You, too." I hung up and stared down at my phone.
I met Sherlock at the doors of the hospital and we walked in together. As we entered the morgue, I explained, "The only one who fitted the description. Had her brought here, to your home away from home." We walked up the body to where Molly Hooper stood on the other side.
"You didn't need to come in Molly," Sherlock told her.
"It's okay, everyone else was busy with… Christmas." She waved her hands over the body. "The face is a bit bashed up, so it might be difficult." She pulled back the sheet from the face.
"That's her isn't?" I asked him.
"Show me the rest of her." He said, voice gone cold.
Molly pulled back the rest of the sheet and he quickly glanced her over. "That's her." And with that he strolled out of the room.
"Thank you Miss Hooper." I turned to leave but she stopped me.
"Who is she? How did Sherlock recognize her from… not her face?" I merely smiled at her and left. How could I explain that she was one of those people that showed off her body to anyone and everyone, really? I exited to find Sherlock merely looking at out the window. I walk up and hold the cigarette out to him.
"Just the one." I told him.
"Why?" his tone was suspicious.
"Merry Christmas." I hedged.
He took the cigarette and held it up to his lips. "Smoking indoors, isn't that one of those… one of those law things?" I lit the cigarette.
"We're in a morgue. There is only so much damage you can do." Sherlock took a puff. "How did you know she was dead?" I asked.
"She had an item in her possession, one she said her life depended on. And she chose to give it up."
"Where is this item now?"
Sherlock turned to look down the hall and I followed his glance. Down through the glass in the door I could see a family mourning the lost of their loved one.
"Look at them… they all care so much." He paused and glanced at me. "Do you ever wonder that there is something wrong with us?"
"All lives end, all hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage…" I paused and looked at him, wanting to call him dear brother but it didn't seem to fit with the not caring lark, so I finished lamely, "Sherlock."
Sherlock turned to sneer at the cigarette in his hand. "This is low tar."
"Well," I shrugged. "You hardly knew her."
"Huh." He stalked off. "Merry Christmas Mycroft."
"And a happy New Year." I called after him. Once he disappeared through the double doors I called John.
"He's on his way. Have you found anything?"
"No. Did he take the cigarette?"
"Yes."
"Shit." He turned briefly to speak to Mrs. Hudson. "Well looks like he's clean. We've tried all the usual places. Are you sure tonight's a danger night?"
I walked toward the exit, "No but then I never am. You have to stay with him, John."
"I've got plans." I rolled my eyes.
"No." I paused before the door and hung up. I strolled out knowing full well John would stay with Sherlock. Look after him like I never could. I heard later that Jeanette broke it off with him because he needed to stay with my brother. If she couldn't help being jealous during a time when even normal people would have stayed then she had no business dating someone as caring as much John in the first place.
***
I graduated from Oxford at the bright young age of nineteen. And I was immediately picked for an internship at a local government office. I couldn't have been more thrilled. Sherlock on the other hand….
My twelve year old baby brother had started to throw things. At the wall mostly. But sometimes he would aim them at me. The lamp was a particular loss.
"Sherlock!" I called as ducked a flying book. I looked at it as it slid to the floor. Common Sense by Thomas Paine. I wished Sherlock would have a little of that right now, I thought as I straightened up.
"You can't!" He screamed back. "You can't leave!" His voice was starting to squeak. "Don't leave me with him!" He didn't have to say who he was. I knew.
"He's not so bad now. He goes to work and actually notices that someone's in the room."
"I don't care!" He pick up a vase and I threw my hand up.
"Not that! That was mummy's! She gave it to me!" He looked at it and a cruel light entered his eyes.
"Mummy gave me that violin too." His voice was a harsh whisper. I gulped. He let it drop from his fingers and the crystal shattered on impact, it's pieces skittered across the floor. I closed my eyes.
"We are even now, Mycroft." His tone held a dangerous edge. Where was the little boy that came running after the other boys teased and hurt him? I looked into those harsh cold blue eyes and knew he was gone.
"Sherlock…" my own voice held a dangerous edge of its own. "That was extremely childish."
"But I am a child Mycroft."
"Doesn't mean you should act that way." I chided.
"How should I act? Like you? All important in everything. Must be smarter than everyone else. Better. Not caring who I step on to get my way. Is that who I should act like Mycroft? Or should I act like father?"
"Sherlock…" I tried to warn him off that path but he went down it anyway.
"He wanders around unable to think or eat or drink because she died."
I closed my eyes. "Act however you wish." When I opened them again he was gone.
***
- A jumbo jet. Dear me, Mr Holmes, dear me. -JM
I stared at the message for a moment unsure if I understood it correctly. How did he know? Who could have told him? I put my head into my hands. There was only one person that could have figured it out. But how did Sherlock get ahold of the information? I sat in silence as the waves a despair wash over me in torrents.
It came me to me in pieces. The MoD man, Irene Adler, Jim Moriarty. My stupid lonely brother. I'm not sure when my valet put the drink down by my elbow. But I took a long slow sip, trying to understand what had happened. If only I hadn't dragged him into this.
I should have known that he would be easy prey for someone as skilled as her. She had brought one of the most powerful families in the world to its knees without a thought, how could I think that Sherlock could withstand that? Because I knew I could. But I had relationships before. Sherlock had never had a girl interested in him simply because he was clever.
Girls went after his looks and then were turned off by his mouth. Deducing away like their feelings didn't matter. And then here came Irene Adler, sent to tempt and sway him. Give him a puzzle and watch him dance. He fell for it. He had no defenses against her charms.
I was willing to bet even John would have seen through her in the end. But Sherlock never gave him the chance. I had heard about the little ploy she pulled with John and how John stood up for Sherlock, forcing her to tell him she was alive. John was willing to overlook whatever misgivings he had about her because he thought Sherlock was interested in her.
Dear loyal John. And it became the downfall of a plan that had been set in place for so long. We could have done it. It nearly worked in Germany. I was sure this one would have been perfect, no mishaps. No bodies found in boots of cars.
One line of one email and we were done. I sighed. It was time show Sherlock what being clever had done. I sent my man out again. This time with a boarding pass. In his name.
***
After his fifth school transfer I decided to take matters into my own hands. I pulled him out of school for a year. He could afford to lose it. He had high marks in everything. Even if you couldn't get him to repeat it afterwards. Except in chemistry and anatomy. He liked those. But he was still constantly bullied.
I brought him home and had the maids clear out on of the larger guest room and put in athletic mats. My waistline was starting to become horrendous and I figured we could both get some use out of this. I could loose the weight and he could learn to defend himself.
He stubbornly stuck his hands pockets as he walked into the gym room as I would start calling it after that day.
"What's this all for, Mycroft?" His voice was starting to crack as he entered manhood.
"For you mostly, though I do plan to get some kind of benefit from it."
"Meaning you're fat." I rolled my eyes.
"And you need to learn how to defend yourself. You will learn three things. Fencing, because it is a gentleman's sport and it will teach you grace, to control that rapidly growing body of yours."
He nodded appreciatively and I forged on, "Next will be boxing as most of the bullies you face are brawlers and learning how to dodge and fight back will deter even the most determined of bullies."
He took his hands out of his pockets and tucked them behind him as he was interested now.
"And finally a form of martial art known as bartitsu which will combine the two pervious styles to make them more fluid."
Sherlock furrowed his brow. "I've heard of that, it's cane style fighting that was popular at the turn of this century."
"Very good, Sherlock."
"No one uses it anymore, so why teach it? And there's not much use for carrying around a cane unless you're old or invalided."
"Ah but what is a cane but a simple piece of wood. The night stick or an umbrella would serve as well." I stopped to think… "Yes an umbrella would serve rather well in fact."
During that year, I dropped nearly forty pounds and Sherlock gained muscle on his lithe form. Once he was back at school I assumed I wouldn't be getting anymore phone calls from schools. I couldn't have been more wrong.
"Mr. Holmes?" I knew that tone.
"It's about Sherlock isn't it?"
"Yes, Mr. Holmes. Your brother broke a boy's finger."
"Miss-"
"Haroldson."
"Miss Haroldson there is something you must understand about my brother. He was been bullied his whole life and there is no way that he would hurt someone who hadn't tried to do him him harm."
"That's what he said. But-"
"But nothing Miss Haroldson. You have his school transcript- read the damn thing!" I hung up. But I made sure to be there when school got out. He saw me and looked around for an exit. Finding none he walked my direction.
"Gaining weight again, Mycroft?"
"Very funny Sherlock. I heard you to got into fight again."
He looked behind him and then at his feet. "He stole my chemistry book. He was going to cheat. I tried to take it back but his friends tried to stop me. I merely slipped by them and well… I didn't mean to break it. I'd never tried twisting someone's finger before." He looked ashamed.
I looked at him strangely. I saw a bit of pipe in the gutter. I went to pick it up. I looked at it a moment, testing its weight. I returned to my brother.
"Sherlock, I want to you to try and bend this." He scoffed at me.
"This stupid."
"Humor me." He rolled his eyes and took the pipe in his hands. With what appeared to be very little effort on his part he bent it in two. He stared at it shocked.
"I- I-"
"That is what you did to that boy's finger only bone isn't as strong as steel." He dropped the pipe as if it was hot. He took a step back. And then two. And then he was running. I sighed. I bent over to pick up the discarded pipe. I looked at it and then straightened it back out before tossing it back where I found it.
I feared for my brother's strength now. I was an adult that had worked for years to learn that trick because it was a trick. But he- he did it the first time. He really was that strong.
***
I entered the plane to find my brother frantically searching the passengers.
"The Coventry Conundrum. What do you think of my solution?" He continued to look around. "The fight of the dead."
"Plane blows up midair, mission accomplished for the terrorists, hundreds casualties but nobody dies."
"Neat, don't you think?" I told him. "You've been stumbling around the fringes of this one for ages. Or were you too bored to notice the pattern?" I watched as he frowned in confusion and some of the pieces fell into place for him. "We ran a similar project wit Germans awhile back. I believe one of passengers didn't make the flight. But that's the deceased for you, late in every sense of the word."
"How's the plane going to fly? Oh, of course, unmanned aircraft, hardly new."
"It doesn't fly. It will never fly. This entire project is cancelled. The terrorist cells have been informed that we know about the bomb. We can't fool them now. We've lost everything. One fragment of one email and months and years of planning," I shrug trying comprehend how it happened, "finished."
"Your MoD man." He still didn't get it. He still didn't know it was him.
"That's all it takes. One lonely, naive man desperate to show off and a woman clever enough to make him feel special."
Sherlock scoffed. "You should screen your defense men more carefully."
Finally I snapped. "I'm not talking about the MoD man, Sherlock! I'm talking about you!" I slammed my umbrella down to enforce the point. "A damsel in distress. In the end are you really so obvious? Because, this was textbook." I take a deep breath to try and calm myself. "The promise of love, the pain of loss, the joy of redemption. Then give him a puzzle and watch him dance." I twirled my umbrella nervously.
"Don't be absurd!" He scoffed.
"Absurd?" He must have been being deliberately obtuse. "How quickly did you decipher that email for her? Was it the full minute? Or were you really eager to impress?"
From the shadows behind Sherlock I heard her say, "I think it was less than five seconds." Sherlock whirled around.
"I drove you into her path. I'm sorry. I didn't know."
"Mr. Holmes," she purred walking forward. "I think we need to talk."
"So do I." Sherlock told her. "There are quite a number of things I'm not clear on."
"Not you junior, you're done now." She brushed past him. "There's loads more. On this phone, I've got secrets and pictures and scandals that could topple your whole world. You have no idea how much havoc I can cause and exactly one way to stop me. Unless you want to tell your masters that your biggest security leak is your own little brother."
I didn't bother looking at Sherlock. I already knew the hurt, shock and shame that was now etched into his features.
***
That was the school he ended up graduating from. My father even took the time to show up. But instead of the usual graduation gifts, pens, briefcases, a car, anything like that my father gave him a coat. In the middle of July. But it was beautiful. The most amazing thing I had ever seen. It was a dark charcoal grey of the finest wool. It was a bit too big for his slender frame but as he put it on, he stood a little straighter.
College brought new torments for my brother. The bullies no longer used force. They used ostracism techniques instead. Excluding him from things. But now my brother was a handsome young man. And for the first time he had girls throwing themselves at him. Not that he understood what they were doing.
We were having lunch. He hated these but I forced them on him at least once a month when he finally got into a school that he could stay at all those years ago. I kept them up through his college years because he didn't seem very well adjusted even as an adult. He had no social graces and seemed not to be able connect with people at a personal level.
We were ordering and the waitress was pretty red head with freckles on her nose. And she flirted with Sherlock as though he was the last man in the world. He smiled at her but it was tolerant smile. Once she was gone he turned to me.
"Was she flirting with me?" He asked. I blinked. Well at least he recognized that she had been.
"Yes. Didn't you find her pretty?" I certainly had.
"Yes of course her features were pleasing." My eyebrows shot up.
"Pleasing? You didn't find her attractive?" My voice threatened to crack and I cleared my throat.
He frowned. "No." I was genuinely surprised. "I mean, she has a boyfriend. It was on her bracelet. And she is a cheerleader and a stereotypical one at that. All bubble no substance." I looked her over again and saw the same things he had but that shouldn't effect her attractiveness and I told him so.
"They all have so much needs and wants. Hell Seb, my roommate, his girlfriend demands so much of his attention that his grades are dropping faster than his fly when she's around."
"So you aren't interested in girls. So what about boys?" He looked at me confused.
"Why would I be interested in boys, if I wasn't interested in girls?" Dear god, he really didn't understand.
"Gay?" I made my meaning clearer.
"Oh. No. I'm not gay either. Sorry. I just-" He looked away.
"Sherlock what happened?" My voice booked no argument.
"I tried having sex."
"Tried?"
"As an experiment. All the boys in the dorm kept going on how fantastic it was so I tried it."
"And?" I was curious, I'll admit.
"Apparently one needs to feel attraction to have sex and I couldn't get it up." I could feel his shame.
"There are drugs that can be used…" I started but he just shook his head.
"I give up Mycroft. I'm not like everyone else. I don't want to be. I will abstain. It doesn't interest me anyway. It seems like a rather messy ordeal. Physically and emotionally."
I decided to change the subject. "How are you classes going?"
"My professors hate me. I'm far too clever, they tell me. They also don't like being told about their personal lives that I read on their clothes. My dorm-mates find me annoying. I could tell who was shagging whom. Like I cared."
"Is there anything that makes you happy Sherlock?" His eyes lit up.
"Yes, I was doing our deducting game at orientation and one of the fathers told me it was clever. Had me read him. He's the chief inspector in one of the outlining cities. He told me I had the mind of detective. I don't want to be a cop. But a detective… like those silly shows my nanny use to watch. But far more clever…." I could hear the excitement in his voice.
"How would you get paid?
"Oh who cares! It's interesting! I've tried solving cases before."
"Yes I am aware you tried to get the police to investigate the Carl Powers case further."
"He had to have been murdered, Mycroft. Where were his shoes?"
"It wasn't important enough to the police, Sherlock so it shouldn't be important to you. Besides you just said you didn't want to be a cop."
"Not a cop. A detective." I shook my head.