The bin suddenly shakes as the lid is flipped open. Hands close around my black, plastic prison and lift it out. Set it on the ground and fiddle with the knot at the top until it's undone. The hands close around my middle and squeeze gently, probably to be certain that it's me. Then I'm lifted from the bag and what a blessed relief it is to see Mycroft peering at me.

He glances up at the windows on the first floor anxiously as if he's afraid he's being watched. Seemingly satisfied that he isn't, he sets me down on the ground for a moment while he ties the knot back onto the bag and sets it back into the bin and flips down the lid.

Mycroft picks me up around my middle again and walks quickly into the house through the back door that leads to the kitchen. His hand is squeezing too tightly but I don't care because I can see again – the little details that Sherlock always goes on about – I can see them all. How many freckles Mycroft has: fifty-seven. He has a callus on his right middle finger from writing a lot. Blue biro pen judging by the faint ink stains on his fingertips and palm. Oh, no wonder Sherlock loves this. I feel positively giddy.

We pass Father's office and as the door is slightly ajar I see him snoring at his desk; we creep silently onwards so as not to disturb him. I want to feel angry with him but I can't bring myself to. He's just another grown-up – deluded as they all are when it comes to something like toys and how old their children should be when they part with them. It's a flexible thing, growing up. As a bear I watch it happen all of the time. There are no hard and fast rules. So I'm not angry with him, but I am scared of him for the exact same reason.

The main reception area is as big and grand as it was when I last saw it. I don't know why I expect there to be something different about this building since I've only been in the bin for a few hours at most. But I haven't been downstairs in almost six months. A house that is lived in becomes a home and a home is always changing. But now with Nanny gone Father just hires an anonymous cleaner once a month. I heard her pottering about when I was gathering dust in Sherlock's room. When she was vacuuming she was careful not to move anything in the rooms. It's like this house is frozen in time now; like the real flowers in the vase beside the coat rack that are now replaced with plastic ones that will never die.

None of the three people who live here really live here at all, I see that now.

Father lives in his office. He eats there – ready meals or a Chinese takeaway on a good night, his bedroom that he once shared with Mummy is abandoned so Father has moved a fold-away bed down into his office. He spends time abroad too, leaving suddenly with a "Look after the house, Mycroft," thrown over his shoulder.

Mycroft retreats to the library for a few hours after school every day just because it offers him peace and quiet. He stops at a little coffee shop on his way home and gets his tea. If he's in a good mood he'll bring something home with him for Sherlock. He buries his nose in knowledge so he can achieve more and more and more.

Sherlock, when he's not at school, retreats into his own mind. It's a glorious place, he tells me, all organised into rooms with different colours of paint on the walls allocated to different topics. He does his homework sitting on his bed with his legs crossed. Homework doesn't take Sherlock very long. And if he's hungry he'll either have the doughnut that Mycroft brought home with him that day or he'll go downstairs and have some of Father's takeaway/ready meal leftovers because he always has enough for two. Sherlock spends time in the woods just outside the boundary of the garden. He took me there a few times. There's a stream and towering trees and a bridge that we used to hide under. Sherlock would start pretending to be the troll under the bridge and he would laugh so much when he managed to scare someone...

Mycroft takes me upstairs and I expect him to stop at Sherlock's bedroom door, to knock, and to hand me back to my friend. But instead I look at his face with its fifty-seven freckles and know that he isn't going to do that. For one, Sherlock hasn't talked to me for a good few months now. Two: there's always the threat of Father throwing me into the bin again and I certainly don't want that. But I want to see Sherlock again. I would happily sit on his dresser for the rest of his days, gathering a mountain of dust, if it meant that I didn't have to be in the dark.

We bypass Sherlock's room. Mycroft's is distinctly tidier and even if there was a mess in here I'm sure it would be a tidy one. He hasn't spoken a word to me yet and I know he won't. He chooses to believe that he's too told for bears and there's little I can do to change that. He sets me on his bed and sniffs his hands, grimacing at the odour of bin. Then he chuckles. A little giggle that is threatening to grow louder if he doesn't compose himself.

He plonks down onto the bed beside me and the springs protest. He stares straight ahead and says, "Sentiment." He looks at his hands.

"You're the last tangible thing we have of Mummy now, T... Teddy," he continues, much to my surprise. "Father never sleeps in his room anymore because he's sold the bed. And the jewellery that was Mummy's once, her clothes... Father hasn't worked for months, not really. He still has all of those papers on his desk but those aren't international documents – they're unpaid bills. Months and months of them. He can't afford to feed Sherlock and me, let alone himself. Granny Holmes has been giving us money. Enough to get by. I haven't told Sherlock... I don't think I will either. He's too young to understand. The money we're living on now is our inheritance. That's why I go to the library so much, Teddy, because I need to know as much as I can and be as good as I can or there's no future for us. I just need the money to last until high school ends. Then I'll get a job. A good one..." He trails off, clearly thinking.

He sighs, "I don't know why I told you all of that, Teddy. It's almost as if you can actually understand I word I'm saying." He brings his fingers to rest on my head where my ear used to be. "I suppose you can't even hear me."

A chair rattles downstairs, followed by a crash as it falls down. It is accompanied by a muffled thud as Father hits the ground too. "Mycroft!" he calls, almost loud enough to shake the house itself.

Mycroft picks me up and dashes over to his wardrobe and opens the door.

Oh, no. I don't want to be in the dark. Never again.

Mycroft sets me down on the cold wood, beside a pair of his rarely used shoes.

Please, Mycroft, please don't make me stay here.

He closes the door and the darkness settles in around me again.

Please.

Waiting, it is what teddy bears do best. When our best friends give us a hug for the first time, we always wait for the next one. We're always ready. We're always waiting. While our best friends sleep in the dark hours, we wait for dawn.

We watch our best friends grow up and we're always waiting for the day when the talking stops, when the dust gathers. We don't give up then. We just wait until we're needed once again.

And we're always needed once again.

It might take days or it might take years. But we wait because it's what we do.

This fact doesn't make the waiting any easier.

Through the wood I can hear voices sometimes. I'm not a child, Mycroft. Show me your arm. Mummy would be so very upset to hear that you are doing this to yourself. Go to Hell. You can't just leave like this, Sherlock. I don't miss him now and I never will. Only some water damage. New job in London. You're coming with me so I can keep an eye on you. Keep your nose out of other people's private lives, Pinocchio.

For the eighteen long years after the final voice stills, I spend indistinguishable days and nights listening to the same sound: the creaking of an empty house.