I apologise for the LONG delay. I'm over-worked and under the ground (six feet under, in fact). This is a bit of a rushed part so excuse me for the poor grammar and / or content. Thank you all for reviewing and being patient :-)

Continuation of the diary of John H. Watson MD, 15th December 1884

"My father", Mycroft began, "had the strongest sense of duty of any man I have ever encountered." He paused for a moment, reaching for his snuff box and weighing it up in his hands without taking a pinch. "This, in retrospect, is probably why I have shirked all positions of obligation that have passed my way while my brother has embraced so many."

"There was his duty to the army, to his tenants, to his sons," he looked down once again at the trinket in his hands as if it held answers to all of the mysteries in the universe. He raised his eyes, looking, unseeing, at a spot just beside my head, remembering, "but the one he felt most keenly of all, the one duty he took with him to his grave, was the one to the only woman he ever allowed himself to love."

6th January 1854, Metlock Hall, Devonshire

"William, do stop fussing" she reprimanded but with a smile in her voice. The tall man flashed her a brief smile of acknowledgment before promptly ignoring her demands and leading his heavily pregnant wife to her chair. Elizabeth's eyes were soft as she gazed into her husband's; cupping his cheek, she ran a thumb down its angular surface. "I'll be fine," taking his other hand in hers, she placed it on her swollen stomach, "we both will."

When the baby made its presence known with a resonant kick, young Mycroft Holmes, observing from his window seat, perceived a glistening in his father's eyes which, in those of other men, would have implicated tears, but not in this case. In this particular case the glimmer was put down to a trick of the light. Mycroft's father never cried.

"I'll send down for some warm milk and honey" the Holmes patriarch spoke in a soft voice that was almost not his own. Elizabeth smiled her ready smile once more: "thank you". William left reluctantly, his son maintaining his silent vigil in the corner of the room.

SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH

Mycroft remained silent for several seconds following his recollection. When he did proceed, it was in a tone I had never heard from him before. "This was" he said "the last time I ever saw my father." His voice seemed strained, like butter spread over too much bread, and he sounded, for the first time in our acquaintance, almost exactly like his younger sibling... like his younger sibling after a nightmare.

For his part, Mycroft looked to be as perplexed by the words and sounds coming from his mouth as I was. He visibly gathered his wits about him before continuing his narrative with an action rather than words. I took the silver box he proffered gingerly, since my hands were somewhat unsteady, and opened it.

Inside it was a picture of the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Ebony hair framed the most exquisite of faces; long eyelashes flowed down onto elegantly defined cheekbones which framed a regally aquiline nose, which would have looked unseemly in a lesser setting, but here the effect was startling. My eyes sought the full lips of the woman before me and I forced myself to swallow as I imagined them to be full of life and colour.

She could have been a statue, a most divine statue, but a statue none-the-less, were it not for the eyes. Even in this faded sepia one could tell that these soulful eyes were the brightest of blues, shining with gentle mirth. These eyes were her dynasty to Mycroft while the rest of her features... my breath hitched. The rest of the features that I considered so angelically sublime had all been passed on to her youngest son, my very own Sherlock Holmes.

"Even as a young boy, he looked so much like her." I had grown somewhat accustomed by this time to the Holmes' uncanny ability to anticipate my thoughts but still my eyes snapped up to meet those of Mycroft. "He couldn't bear to look at him, not after..." Mycroft sighed and shifted his corpulent body into an upright position. When he next spoke, he was gazing out of the window, the exact same position I had espied him in when I first witnessed his deductive prowess.

"My mother took her own life, doctor, not long after Sherlock was born." My mouth dropped open a notch but I closed it abruptly as Mycroft turned. "He blamed himself, of course. He had failed in his duty. And then there was Sherlock; the vision of his mother, with the same sweet temper... fragile... but with his eyes; a reminder of his wife and a reminder of his failure." Blue eyes met mine "my father was a good man, Doctor. But he died alongside our mother."