Mycroft was sitting in the drawing room of his mansion, staring emptily into the roaring fireplace. He had just received news that Sherlock had been shot and brought to the hospital. It was quite serious. The doctors weren't sure he was going to make it.
The Holmes-family was not known for their strong family bonds. In fact, they spent most of the time pretending the bond didn't exist at all. And it wasn't like Sherlock hadn't been hurt before. But this was different.
This time it was his fault. Sherlock had been working on a case Mycroft had pushed on him when he got shot. He didn't even want the case, but Mycroft had been so adamant about it that he finally caved. Something he never did.
The grip around the glass of brandy tightened, and so did the furrows on his forehead. His baby brother…
It didn't seem that long ago that Sherlock was running around in their childhood home, a small seven year-old boy with jet black hair and missing front teeth, making a lot of noise and annoying Mycroft, who were trying to read, and shouted after him that he needed to shut up.
But too abruptly, the noise stopped, and for a second, so did Mycroft's heart. The silence was deafening. Mycroft left his book and went out into the hall. There, at the bottom of the stairs, he could see a small figure lying on the floor, blood pooling out from underneath the black curls. Never before had Mycroft felt so horrible, and in order to protect himself from ever feeling like that again, he shut off his heart. And until now it had been working.
He came back to the present when he realised that Anthea had just entered the room.
"Sir, the car is here," she said, while texting rapidly on her phone. She looked up, and noticed his expression.
"Are you alright?"
Mycroft forced his face into the usual vacant stare.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," he answered. Anthea looked unconvinced, but didn't press the matter. He grabbed his umbrella, got into the car, and drove off to St. Bart's. When they arrived, Anthea stayed in the car while Mycroft headed inside. He walked straight past the gift shop. There was no way he was participating in the foolishness that is the tradition of bringing sick people presents. As if Sherlock would magically get better by giving him a cheap bouquet of flowers.
When he came to the door to Sherlock's room he had to pause and take a deep breath. He didn't really know what to expect. He sighed, and pushed the door open.
It was worse than expected. Sherlock was lying with his eyes closed, and he was surrounded by machines and wires and bloody bandages. Mycroft didn't know if his eyes were closed because he was sleeping or because he was unconscious. The constant beeping of the heart monitor told him he was alive, and that was all he needed to know. He couldn't bring himself to care about the rest.
When Sherlock was seven, he was rushed off to the hospital with a fractured skull. And Mycroft was convinced it was his fault for shouting at him, although his mother said it wasn't.
And even though over 25 years had passed, when Mycroft looked at Sherlock lying in the hospital bed, he could only see the little boy with a bandaged head crying in pain, and not the 34-year-old with a bandaged abdomen, probably so drummed out on morphine he couldn't even feel pain if he wanted to.
A nurse came in with an over-the-top bouquet of flowers. From the pink card that followed, Mycroft could recognise the handwriting of the hospital's mortician, Molly Hooper.
The nurse jumped a little when she realised he was in the room.
"Heavens, I didn't see you there! Are you a relative of Mr Holmes?"
"Yes. No! I…I'm his brother," Mycroft answered, not at all as composed as he usually was. The nurse smiled a little.
"It was touch and go there for a while, but your brother is going to recover, don't you worry."
Mycroft had no idea what to say, so he said the only think that came to mind?
"Can I have a moment alone with him, please?"
The nurse excused herself and exited the room. Mycroft looked at Sherlock. He was going to be fine. He's going to make it this time too. Yet, he felt strangely empty.
"Caring is not an advantage," a small voice echoed in his head. If Mycroft had been a normal human being, he would have been overcome by guilt by that thought. But he wasn't, and neither was his brother.
"Sherlock," he said, his voice hoarse all of a sudden. "I'm sorry."
And then he bent down and ever so slightly grazed Sherlock's forehead with his lips. "I'm so sorry," he whispered into his hair, right above a familiar jagged scar. "For everything."
Then he stood back up, regained his composure, walked out of the room, and never returned.
Sherlock woke up a few days later, and the first thing he notices was an umbrella resting against the wall. He rolled his eyes before he was too surrounded by nurses and doctors to see anything.