I.
25 December 2014
Christmas Day
II.
What? Where am I? Why am I asleep at my parent's house? I never fall asleep in a room with other people present. Something is wrong.
IV.
Mycroft blinked his eyes and his vision began to clear. The homeless man in the maroon sweater pushed a glass of water toward his hand.
"Here, take some water. It will help with the dry throat," he said.
Mycroft ignored the glass and pushed himself to his feet. His mother was asleep in a chair.
"Mummy, Mummy, wake up." He felt the pulse on her neck.
Mrs Holmes turned her head toward him and patted his hand. Her eyes were still closed. "Mycroft, there you are," she said. "I must have dozed off."
Mycroft looked back at the man whom Sherlock had brought into their house, and then he glanced at the punch heating on the stove.
III.
Me, Mummy, Man who drugged us, - Kitchen ...
IV.
"Mary!" Mycroft said suddenly rushing out of the room.
He glanced at his father sleeping on the couch as he passed through the living room but he did not stop. He opened the door to the study and rushed in to find Mary sleeping soundly in a chair. He stared down at her rounded belly and her chest moving slightly up and down. Then he turned at the sound the door opening. The man in the maroon sweater had entered.
"She's doing fine. I made sure that it wasn't enough to hurt the little one."
"Where's Sherlock?"
"Gone. I don't know where."
II.
Of course. He's gone to see Magnussen, the fool!
IV.
Mycroft stepped back into the hall and looked at the coat rack noticing two coats and a scarf missing. He reached into his pocket then and pulled out his phone.
"Mycroft Holmes, here. I need a pick-up from my parent's home. Priority one. The address is on file. I also want a fully armed response team at the gates of Appledore as soon as possible. Code Five Five Alpha."
"Acknowledged."
Mycroft closed the phone. He put on his own coat and scarf, then he took a moment to check on his father's health before passing through the kitchen and out of the back door of the house.
"Mycroft? His mother asked, "What's going on?"
"It's Sherlock!" he said letting the door shut behind him.
Mycroft strode out onto the lawn, and looked up at the sky impatiently as he put on his gloves.
The chill cold air helped him to clear his mind from the effects of the drug.
III.
Nearest airport, ten minutes away. Official pilot would take two minutes to notify, Six minutes to get to the helicopter and begin a check. Then again it is Christmas. He's probably having an eggnog, so make it eight minutes. Counting the delay the helicopter won't get here for another twenty minutes. DAMN!
Luckily the tactical response team was already on call. Give the caller five minutes to get through chain of command. The team will be getting their orders just about now. They'll go by ground transport. So, thirty to fifty minutes at best to get there. It being Christmas, the traffic should be light, so favor the lower estimate...
II.
Charles Augustus Magnussen. Why did I ever believe that Sherlock had lost interest in the case. I know how single minded he can be. What is he going to do? What ever it is, I know it's sure to be something stupid.
Wait! Where did I put it?
IV.
Mycroft rushed back into the house. He searched the kitchen table moving the bowl of potatoes and the cake in his search for the thing that he knew wouldn't be there. Mummy was on her feet now accepting a glass of water from the strange man.
II.
Wiggins, his name is Bill Wiggins...
IV.
"Mycroft, what in heaven's name is going on?" Mummy asked, "And where is Sherlock?"
"Mother, have you seen my laptop?"
"Why no. Didn't you have it on the table?"
Mycroft left the kitchen to search the rest of the house. He could hear his mother behind him call out, "What about Christmas Dinner?"
After a brief look through all of the rooms on the ground floor, he left the house through the front door. He walked through the gate, closing it behind him and stood on the grassy field across from the house. He could clearly the see the marks made by a helicopter landing earlier in the day.
II.
Civilian certainly. To be specific it was the kind used by the media.
Sherlock is such a fool!
He plans to sell my laptop to Magnussen for his silence.
Idiot! Doesn't he know by now that Magnussen doesn't work that way?
Magnussen is a spiteful man.
Mary Watson pointed a gun at him. He won't forget such a slight. Besides, he must know that the data will be automatically corrupted if the wrong password is used.
Sherlock wants to see the Appledore vaults. If the vault was that easy to find, we would have raided it by now. We've done ranging tests, sound waves through the ground, and found nothing.
Doesn't Sherlock realize that it can't possibly be that simple? No of course he doesn't realize that. He is a dragon slayer blindly rushing forward to save the life of the murdering wife of his best friend. He's going to get himself and John Watson killed.
Where is that Bloody Helicopter?!
IV.
As if on cue the sound of rotors came from the direction of the rooftop. Mycroft turned toward it and waited as the pilot located a spot and landed. The rotors slowed but did not stop as Mycroft walked toward it. He climbed in and the helicopter rose into the air.
"Where to, sir?"
"Appledore. You have the coordinates?"
"Yes sir."
"Then get a move on!"
"Yes sir," the man said pushing the lever so that they visibly shifted forward.
II.
A helicopter came for them, so Magnussen sent for them himself. Meaning that Sherlock arranged this meeting in advance. When?
His flat was too closely guarded for a meeting to have slipped by me. He must have arranged it while he was still in the hospital.
Magnussen has no plans to deal. Of that I am certain. He has allowed Sherlock to come to him because he enjoys torturing people. He set fire to John after all. At least the evidence points to him. The three assailants seen by the CCTV in front of Baker street were later identified as men in his employ, and that bonfire was funded by his newspaper.
It was most likely a test of loyalties for Mary. He probably wanted to know if she would try to rescue him or not. But now he surely knows that John is an even better lever to control Sherlock, and since my outburst, he knows that Sherlock is the lever to control me. What will he ask me for, I wonder?
IV.
The sun began to sink below the horizon casting its ghastly red light across the trees. Mycroft checked his watch. It was 3:56. The response team texted that they were only five minutes away.
II.
Drugging his own parents and flying off to confront Magnussen on Christmas day. This is a new low even for Sherlock. Good God! What was he thinking?
But that's the problem, isn't it? He wasn't thinking. He hasn't been thinking clearly since he got back to London. He takes weeks to solve cases that he once would have solved in a day. He accepts John's answers to problems instead of digging for them himself. He has become a much poorer detective, and why? Because of emotion. Because of love. None of this would have happened if Sherlock didn't love John Watson.
I never thought that I would say it, but he was better before he met John. He was arrogant, callous, reckless, and apathetic but not desperate. This is a desperate play to protect John's wife in order to protect John. It is foolish and poorly thought out, and I don't know how I'm going to save him this time. Selling state secrets is treason, punishable by life imprisonment or worse given his status as intelligence agent. A spy that can't be trusted soon becomes a dead spy.
I could, perhaps. claim that I told him to do it, to see if Magnussen would buy State secrets. It wouldn't get him jail time, he's far too powerful for that, but we might be able to use it as a tool to get some information from him. That is, if he accepts the offer. But why would he ever agree? He must know that we have a GPS tracker on that laptop. He would smell the trap a mile away.
Oh Sherlock! You have no idea what you are getting yourself into, do you?
IV.
"Sir, the team has arrived at Appledore, they are asking for their orders."
"Tell them to go in, full stealth mode. No deaths, if possible, but they must extract Sherlock Holmes and John Watson at once. I'm emailing a picture to their commander now."
"Yes sir," The man said before forwarding the commands."
Mycroft pulled up a picture on his phone that he had taken that afternoon. Sherlock was standing beside the fireplace, and John was at his side, his hand gently touching his shoulder. Sherlock's head was tilted slightly toward John, and John was looking up into his eyes with that adoring gaze that he seemed to reserve only for Sherlock. He hesitated. Less than an hour before, the world had seemed peaceful, even boring. Now, it was turning upside down. He pushed send.
"Sir, we're coming up on it now," the pilot said, and Mycroft looked out of the window to see a well tended estate and the spiral topped house of Charles Augustus Magnussen.
Mycroft looked for a black coated figure as they passed over the glassed-in roof. He finally found them, three figures on the veranda near the steps. He turned on the megaphone.
"Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, Stand away from that man!"
He could see the soldiers clad in black with infrared sights and rifles spreading out to come at them from from both sides. Magnussen and John were side by side. Sherlock was near the door. They could land on the lawn and carry them out before the police arrived. He would think of how to explain it later.
He spoke again. "Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, step away!"
Sherlock walked forward to stand beside John as the gunmen caught sight of them. If they injured Magnussen what would happen? Certainly there would be a scathing article about the British police state attacking harmless citizens. Only then did Mycroft realize that the response team probably thought that they were here to shoot his brother and John. He could see the soldiers putting the guns to their shoulders. Magnussen walked forward waving his hands leaving John and Sherlock standing together behind him. They were far too close to Magnussen for his tastes. Then again, ten miles would have been too close for Mycroft. He called again for them to move away.
"Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, Step away from that man. Do it now!"
A sense of dread and panic came over Mycroft then. Panic of the kind that he hadn't felt since...
It was Easter break. He had been home from school less than a week. Sherlock was barely four years old, but he was already following Mycroft around everywhere. There was something, a compass that he had bought, and Sherlock kept pestering him to show it to him. He was so annoyed with him that he left the house.
When he returned and walked up to his room, he noticed that the door was open. The house was silent, and that was not at all what he expected from a house with Sherlock in it. A horrible dread filled him then. It rose from his abdomen until his entire body was tense with an unfocused fear. He approached the door and walked around the corner to see his pet snake Oroboros on the bed wrapped around something black and curly, and sticking out from the coils was a tiny hand holding a shiny new compass.
Oroboros was squeezing his brother to death, and Mycroft was panic stricken. Looking down at his brother now, he was gripped by the same fear. Sherlock had got himself caught up in the coils of a snake again.
As Sherlock walked toward Magnussen, Mycroft had a moment of complete clarity. He knew exactly what Sherlock was planning to do, but he froze just as he had then, and so he watched in horror as Sherlock pulled out the gun and shot Charles Augustus Magnussen in the head.
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IV.
The body made a graceful arc as it fell, landing on the concrete with a sound that was completely drowned out by the echoing gunshot.
"Orders sir... they're asking for orders. Do we take him down?"
"Do not fire!" Mycroft said. "Do not fire on Sherlock Holmes."
Sherlock put his arms up as the gunmen converged upon him. He was a man who had given his future to protect his friend's future. A man who had killed another man, but all that Mycroft could see was the little boy who had followed him everywhere. The little boy who had wanted to be just like him. The little boy he loved.
"Oh Sherlock, what have you done?"
The men took them away then. Cuffing Sherlock's hands roughly behind his back before leading him around the building to the waiting van. John was also taken away. Mycroft pulled out his phone and called a containment team to deal with Magnussen's body.