Sherlock Holmes, eight years old was told that he had another brother.

"If he- he would be ten years old now"

The walls were white painted but strangely painted and decorated with different and strange patterns and designs. The 'He' from her mother indicated everything he needed to know. There was a cradle near the window and basic foniture for a nursery room wich was covered with white blankets to protect them from the dust. There were clear signs that the room have been locked for a long time, the blue carpet on the floor was dirty and the only footprints on it was from his mother and his own. The window was closed but the curtains were open, letting the sun shine over the cradle during the day. That sunlight made the white fabric of blankets's cradle yellow and the teddy bear over it was dusty. No one entered that room for at least a year to Sherlock's deductions, judging why the density of the dust. He walked around the room making mental notes about the things he was looking. Clearly that room was prepared with certain level of feelings. Strong feelings.

There was a little piece of white fabric with a embroidery name on it with blue thread.

"His name was John"

It was unfinished in the last letter. His mother walked towards the door again, maybe she wanted to leave, but Sherlock didn't. It was something entirely new for him. There was a Holmes before him, a brother he never met, a brother who died maybe before birth. Why he never knew about it? Why no one told him about it? But he wasn't clever for the Holmes genes only. His mother was as clever as him, maybe more. She could read all those questions in his youngest son face just looking into his eyes. If he wanted answers, he would have them. There wasn't any point to hide something like that to him, not anymore.

"We never told you because we think you were too young to know about it. In a few days it's going to be eleven years since his death"

"How he died?"

Sherlock Holmes wasn't showing any emotions across his face, wich didn't surprise his mother at all. She knew perfectly that his son wasn't an emocional boy. He was rational, and he rarely shown any emotion or feeling to the others. It was something she only experienced once or maybe two times since he was born.

"Doctors couldn't tell me. I couldn't feel him kicking inside me for a whole day. Your father took me to the doctor and he said he died. Only a week before the birth date"

He nodded and took his mother hand with his. She understood the action and closed the door behind her but this time, she didn't it locked it using the key. His son understood that it wasn't necessary to lock that door again. It was a way of letting those feelings about her son dead away.

Sherlock made his way to his room and closed the door behind him. He changed his clothes to his pyjamas and lay on his back, looking directly to a random point on the ceiling remembering all those things he went throught that week trying to figure out what was behind that door. He passed a hand behind his neck, touching his dark curly hair still amazed to know that he had another brother. A brother who died before he could met his parents, his brother Mycroft. Before he could met him.

He closed his eyes trying to sleep, when something as dangerous as a bacteria, an infection, possesed his mind. His parents would have had him if John hadn't die? Was he a replacement? Sherlock's blue ice eyes were wide open while thinking about that. Should he care about it? The lack of what people used to call 'friends' or maybe 'a closer brother' made him talk with himself always. He closed his eyes and fall asleep with the moonlight shinning trought his window.

And he forgot everything he knew about John Holmes. At least for that night.

The day came, and all the four Holmes were standing in front of the familiar pantheon in the cementery. It was the first year Sherlock attended to his un-born brother's grave and all of them were silent. In front of him was a golden plate with an inscription on it.

'John Holmes. Dear son, you will be always in our hearts'. The plate was posh and it seemed like his parents had a person who had been taking care of it because it was shinning like if it was brand new, when it had eleven years old now. After a silent moment, the Holmes's family returned to the car and the driver took them to their different locations. The first was his father at the Parliament and then Mycroft at Harrow. For his mother's insistence, Sherlock took home education with a tutor from Eton. If everything went good for the young child of the family, he was going to attent to Harrow or maybe Eton the following year. Saying 'if everything goes good' from his mother's lips meant that if Sherlock was ready to affront, face and deal with other children. Everyone knew that the kid had some trouble at the moment of socialise with other children of his same age. It was clear since he was in kindergarten. For some reason, he always seemed to be behind them, not in intellect. He was behind them in what psichologist loved to say 'social skills'.

Mrs. Holmes refused to take his son to teraphy because she insisted her son was a normal child, and he was just shy. So from that day he had home classes and took a variety of signatures that other kids were impossible to attend for the difficulty of them. He was fluent in French, German and even Spanish. He took advanced classes in Biology and he liked Medicine. According to his father's words, he would be the first Holmes specialized in such area. To Sherlock, being a Holmes wasn't anything special. For him they were a family like the others, maybe different because his father, his father's father and his father's father's father and he could continue, worked for the British Government. It was like when a Holmes died, another one was ready to occupy his place. And he didn't want that, he wanted to be himself. He loved to see bees and study how they produce honey and how was their organization. He was interested in human blood and how you can know everything about everyone just looking their faces, their hands and the way they stand.

No one kept him away of what he liked. Not like his father said to him that he was proud about his bees knowledge or about his deductive skills, but he accepted his son's choices and he used to bought to him everything he needed to his experiments. They even built a little laboratory for him outside the house. It was an old greenhouse that he insisted on changed it for him. He couldn't kept his experiments in the kitchen when one of the maids fainted after seeing a dissected rat over the counter, so Mr. Holmes hired a few men and after weeks, the laboratory was finished. It had a large counter with the latest mycroscopes and all the laboratory elements and equipment he could ever need. It was an early Christmas for him.

But everything changed for him seven months later. It was an fourteen of April to be exactly. A warm and spring day in that part of London when his parents arrived together after an event from the Government. Sherlock never read the papers or watched news, for him it was a mundane thing to do and with that statement it was clear that he ignored some important facts like who was the Prime Minister or what was happening in the world. His father was talking about visiting some places for his political campaing and he had scheduled a visit to a orphanage in the South side of London. His mother always went to those places with him and Mycroft was attending school, so he knew he was going to be the ears to his father about his political issues during dinner.

"It can be a good opportunity to do a good press, Richard"

Mrs Holmes could sometimes be recognized for being a little bit superficial, but she was a woman with a good heart. The maids, the driver, all the service personnel respected her and cared about her. Maybe she could sound strict about her orders, but she always thank them for their hard work on the house and she was always there for them. Elizabeth knew she was overprotecting her young child, but she couldn't help it. Sherlock deduce it was from the similitudes they shared. While Mycroft was the exact copy from his father Richard Holmes, Sherlock was the copy of his mother. Dark curly hair, pale skin and blue eyes.

They finished dinner in silence, and after a hot cup of tea Sherlock was upstairs in his mother's room playing the violin. His mother sat in her favourite chair listening carefully at her child. He always played beautifully and she could never hear a wrong note coming from his fingers. He just played perfectly.

To Elizabeth Holmes, her son Sherlock was perfect.

A few days later, Sherlock was having his usual Biology class when his parents returned soon before lunch from their scheduled events. He really was enjoying the class, today Mr. Kessington was teaching him about the brain cells and their functions when his mother interrupted them saying that she and Mr. Holmes needed to have lunch with the presence of their son.

"You can come tomorrow, Mr. Kessington"

The boy twisted his mouth in protest, not saying a single word and walked straight to the dining room. His parents were sitting there with papers in their hands and his mother was reading them carefully. His father was only signing them with his favourite black pen when his son arrived, not finding any food. He could tell Sherlock was going to ask why they ended his Biology class for a non-visible lunch, when he sat in front of them. The papers and documents were relocated into a white folder with a name on it. A name he couldn't read, but he saw with the mess of papers a picture of a boy about his age. He had blonde thick hair. He wasn't smilling at the moment of the photo, but judging by his expression he wasn't happy. He couldn't say a word from him. The photo looked a little bit cheap, and it was in black and white. Behind that photo was a name writen with black ink. John.

Who was John? Why his parents had papers and a photo from a boy named John?

Those questions were important to Sherlock. Eventually something strange was going on, because his father was at lunch time at home, when he never left his office to having lunch with his family. And his mother supposed to be having lunch with her friends, most of them wifes of other's members of the Parliament or sometimes with the Queen herself.

One of the maids started to put the dishes over the table and his mother put the white folder in the chair next to her.

"How was your class today, Sherlock?"

His father looked at him, waiting for an answer and the boy could only work a fake smile to his father and told him he was doing it well and that Mr. Kessington was a good teacher. He really wanted to yell at them and kick the floor asking why they had to interrupt and finish his class when he was delightfully interested with the brain cells work-

Mrs Holmes smiled at him sincerely and they ate in silence. Sherlock's eyes were on them, and their hands. His mother's sleeve had a blonde hair different from all of them. His father's hair was brown with a few white hairs mixed on his head. Her mother had curled and black hair like him. It couldn't be from Mycroft since he was at school. Mr. Holmes right hand had a dark stain, maybe from a stamp, but it definetly wasn't from his black pen. The stain wasn't as dark as the pen's ink. He even didn't attend to his office today, his coat was still on him and he never took it off.

The familiar silence of every meal they shared fall over them, while most of the maids were upstairs cleaning one of the rooms, but Sherlock couldn't tell wich one they were cleaning. He could see how the maids passed the door carrying different things upstairs, such as blankets and boxes. But when they finished lunch, and Mrs Holmes started to pour out tea one of the maids interrupted the scene. She was almost smiling at the masters as she announced that Charles, the driver, was back at home from his task.

"He is here, Mr. and Mrs. Holmes. Shall I bring him here?"

"No Clara, take him to the living room and please, prepare some milkshake for him"

Clara, the youngest of the maids made her way to the kitchen, living alone the couple and their son. Sherlock looked up to his mother and then to his father. They looked at each other and stood up from the table. Mrs. Holmes took the white folder from the chair beside her and sat next to his son and explained everything to him. She never used easy words with him. Sherlock could be an eight year old kid, but he was able to understand most of the words the adults managed.

After a visit to one of the famous Orphanages in London, they met a young kid named John. The first one interested in him was Mrs. Holmes after watching him reading some books about Biology.

"He had the same book as you"

He was reading it alone, sitting on the floor far away from the other kids. His blond hair fell over his forehead and he was deep concentrated in his reading when she approached him. One of the ladies who work there told them his story.

"His parents died in a car crash and his sister is an alcoholic. She almost kill him in an accident"

John had been living in the Orphanage more than three years. He wasn't a trouble at all, according to the teachers and the staff, he was a very bright boy, but he was very lonely. They looked at the label upper his tiny bed. He was born the same day their son died, but obviously a few years after. He had Sherlock's age. And his name was John.

The word 'adoption' never went out from Mrs. Holmes's mouth, it wasn't needed. His son knew perfectly his mother's heart, and he knew she was the one who suggested the adoption of the young kid and his father, Mr. Holmes took advantage of it for his political campaign and to please his wife. But it seemed like they haven't think about him. What could his son Sherlock think about it?

Sherlock Holmes, eight years old nodded to his mother's words and looked at the white folder. There was a few papers with the signature of his parents there. He also knew the adoption process was difficult, but being a Holmes and sometimes being the British Government made some things easier.

"Let's go and meet him"

He walked between his parents when they arrived to the living room. It was one of the most biggest rooms in the house with very posh furniture and delicated flowered curtains. It had a few sofas and chairs and a tiny table in the centre. There was also a little table near the window with different bottles of whisky and licuor and glasses and some family pictures over the fornitures. When his mother opened the door, Sherlock met John.

This boy, John, was sitting in the middle of the sofa holding a book in his left hand. He was wearing a modest t-shirt, a white jumper and a pair of jeans. His eyes met Sherlock's and for two seconds, wich were more to the boys, they looked at each other.

They walked throught the living room until they were a few steps away from each other. John smiled at his new parents and they smiled at him in return. Sherlock could see that his parent's smile was genuine and full of warm. It was a smile he had seen a few times before. His mother was almost going to cry when Clara, the young maid made her way to the tiny table and left a plate with tea for three, a milkshake and some cookies. The youngest Holmes frowned at the plate. They never ate cookies, not chocolate cookies.

"Hello John. I'd love to introduce you to Sherlock, he's our son"