I am so sorry I have taken so long with this. This time I'm not going to promise to try to update every week as I know it will probably never happen. I'm sorry but I'm so busy at the moment with school and uni stuff I can't honestly say when I'll next update and it will probably stay that way until Christmas. Thanks for sticking with this and being patient and I will update as often as I can.

Nb. I This takes place in the afternoon of the cousins arrival after they have gone through all the required pleasantries of greeting Sherlock and Mycroft and Sherlock and Mycroft's parents.

Nb. II Marie is the head cook.

Sherlock stalked around the kitchen sulkily, getting under everybody's feet and annoying Marie no end. He had been hiding in the kitchen for most of the afternoon trying to avoid his cousins attentions - he had been following Charlotte and Eleanor around as they completed their daily chores but Charlotte had chased him away with her broom. Sherlock wasn't keen on crossing paths with his cousins; he remembered the last time they had visited they locked him in a cupboard for the best part of an hour before Mycroft noticed he was missing and let him out. It wasn't an experience Sherlock cared to repeat and so he was reduced to finding somewhere to hide.

Mycroft was no help. After greeting their cousins with a blank expression and an impassive tone, he had vanished into his room and locked the door behind him. No amount of hammering on Mycroft's door had persuaded him to open it and let Sherlock take refuge inside. So Sherlock had no choice but to stay with the servants knowing that his cousins wouldn't dare to lock him in a cupboard with adults around, even if the adults in question were only servants.

There was one flaw in Sherlock's brilliant plan; he was bored. The kitchen was definitely lacking in entertainment. Sherlock had tried to entertain himself but Marie had stopped him playing with the knives and had confiscated the matches he had found. Eventually, after he had looked in every cupboard, peered in every pot and pan, and been pushed aside by every kitchen maid he decided that he definitely needed to find a game to play. He thought wistfully of Mycroft's chess set and came to the conclusion that if he was really quick he could probably retrieve it from the nursery without disturbing any of his cousins.

Nemeth stalked around the nursery like a panther, tense and frustrated, she was waiting for someone - anyone - to do something wrong – just the slightest thing – so that she could pounce on them and release all the pent up frustration. Zachariah and Sherrinford, recognising the symptoms had wisely disappeared; Zachariah to the large grounds and Sherrinford to who knew where. She snarled as she caught her reflection in the window. Two weeks. Two weeks she had to stay here. The time seemed immeasurable, stretched out in front of her. The thought didn't improve her temper.

Furiously she stomped her foot and then noticed there was no one around to see it. This thought incensed her more. It's not fair! she screamed in her head. This didn't give her much satisfaction.

"Not fair! Not Fair! NOT FAIR!" she screamed out loud, stomping her foot. Nemeth threw herself down into a chair and glared at the empty room.

"I'm BORED!" she announced to vacant nursery. When no one replied Nemeth scowled. Then she noticed a chess board. It looked as though Sherlock and Mycroft were in the middle of a game. A wicked smirk flicked across Nemeth's face. She flounced over to the board and moved a piece. Noticing this gave her a kind of vindictive thrill she moved another and another until the board looked completely different.

Nemeth revelled in the mischievous thrill of it for almost a minute until she realised that Mycroft and Sherlock would just continue playing with the board as it was and never realise what she had done. With this knowledge Nemeth walking slowly around the nursery searching for something else to ruin. It had to be something obvious. She was having a horrible time here and she was going to make sure that everyone else did too.

She stepped on something and shrieked in pain. She looked down and saw a line of toy soldiers. Angrily she kicked them and watched in satisfaction as they scattered across the floor. She picked one up and threw it across the room and watched it as it soared through the air and hit the wall near the window with a tinny thud. As Nemeth stared at the spot where it had hit the wall her gaze wandered towards the window and an idea for a good game slowly formed. She smirked and collected all the toy soldiers up in her arms.

Sherlock dashed up the stairs and down the corridor. He almost threw open the nursery door as he usually would, when he remembered that he was supposed to be quiet. Making a special effort to be quiet, he gently nudged the door open and slipped through the gap. Nemeth was already in the room, kneeling on the window seat, staring through the open window. As Nemeth was about the same age and size as Sherlock, he wasn't bothered by her presence.

He darted towards the chess set and gathered it and all the pieces up in his arms. He was about to leave when he heard Nemeth laugh and turned to see what she found funny. It was then he noticed that next to her on the window seat was a pile of his toy soldiers. As he watched Nemeth picked up one of the soldiers and threw it as hard as she could out of the window.

In his outrage Sherlock accidentally let go of the chessboard and it and all the pieces fell to the floor and bounced and rolled across the carpet. A small part of Sherlock's brain noted that Mycroft would be furious when he found out as he had instructed Sherlock to be careful with the chess set. The majority of his brain however was focused on the fact that Nemeth was throwing his toy soldiers out the window.

Admittedly he didn't actually play with the toy soldiers any more and the only thing they were useful for was experiments (although he had been forced to stop after accidentally setting the nursery on fire when he had been trying to see how long it would take for one toy soldier to set alight). But that didn't matter as they were his toy soldiers and Nemeth had no right to throw them out of the window.

He leapt at Nemeth furiously, pushing her roughly. She fell sideways and Sherlock hit her hard with his fist. Nemeth shrieked furiously and attacked him viscously with her nails. She pushed him hard and Sherlock fell to the floor. As he fell he grabbed hold of her arm and she fell to the floor on top of him. She screamed as he hit her and clamped her teeth around his arm and began attacking him again with her nails. In response Sherlock yanked a fistful of Nemeth's hair causing her to holler.

The door flew open and Zachariah and Sherrinford ran in. Sherrinford lifted Nemeth off of Sherlock and Zachariah yanked Sherlock up by his arm.

"What are you doing?" demanded Zachariah as he shoved Sherlock back against the wall. Nemeth, sensing an opportunity, burst into noisy - and completely fake - tears.

"He - just - just - attack- attacked - me." she gasped in between tears. Zachariah and Sherrinford turned as one to glare at Sherlock. Zachariah kept Sherlock pinned against the wall and no matter how much Sherlock struggled he couldn't get free.

"Stop wriggling!" snapped Zachariah keeping his arm across Sherlock's chest. Sherrinford bent over the sobbing Nemeth, trying to comfort her while Zachariah watched.

"It-hurts!" gulped Nemeth. Sherrinford glared furiously at Sherlock choosing to ignore the bruises and red scratch marks beginning to appear on Sherlock's arms and face.

"Go with Zachariah, Nemeth." Sherrinford said softly and Nemeth allowed herself to be gently led away from the room by the hand. She made sure she was still sobbing and just before she left the room she turned around and smirked at Sherlock. Sherlock was left alone in the room with Sherrinford. Sherrinford took a step closer to Sherlock.

"Do not hurt my sister again." hissed Sherrinford threateningly. "Or else you'll find yourself in another cupboard." Sherrinford turned, then turned back and punched Sherlock across the cheek, not with his full strength but enough to hurt. He turned and stormed out the room slamming the door behind him. Sherlock stood frozen for a second in shock and then he ran out the room, angry tears pouring down his cheeks.

He ran to Mycroft's room and pounded heavily and repeatedly on Mycroft's door. After a minute Mycroft opened it a familiar exasperated expression on his face.

"Can you not play on your own for one after-" Mycroft began and then stopped when he saw Sherlock, "Whatever happened to you?" Sherlock sniffed, ducked under Mycroft's arm and ran into the room. Mycroft closed the door and turned to face Sherlock who was sitting on the end of Mycroft's bed crying, half out of misery and half out of anger.

"Well?" asked Mycroft as he pulled the chair at his desk round to face the bed. He sat down and watched as Sherlock made an effort to compose himself.

"Sherrinford hit me." he said as he dragged his sleeve across his eyes to wipe away the tears. Mycroft raised an eyebrow.

"What did you do to him?" he asked. Sherlock looked outraged for a second before he shrugged and said quietly,

"I hit Nemeth." and then he hastened to add, "she was throwing my toy soldiers out the window." Mycroft sighed.

"You don't even play with your toy soldier Sherlock." he commented as he assessed the numerous scratches and bruises adorning Sherlock's person.

"That's not the point!" snapped Sherlock.

"No it's not." murmured Mycroft. He sighed again, "Sherlock you have got to learn to pick your battles. If you had thought about it you would have known that Sherrinford and Zachariah would defend their sister," Sherlock looked as though he was about to interrupt and Mycroft hastily added, "even if she does not actually need defending. If you had stopped to think you would not have walked into a situation which you had no control over and ended up coming out of it the worst."

"So I should have just let them get away with it?" sniffed Sherlock.

"No, I'm not saying that. You could have come to me. Or you could have waited and taken revenge on them tactically using intelligence. You're so much more intelligent than normal people Sherlock, you've got to learn to use it." Sherlock looked at him with wide eyes.

"So we are going to get them back?" he asked

"Of course." Mycroft replied with an uncharacteristically sly smirk.

Aw Mycroft ended up quite sweet this time. He also came up with some quite good advice which was, naturally, completely wasted on Sherlock.

Although I can understand Nemeth and Sherlock fighting (as some young children are always getting into scraps and I can imagine Sherlock and Nemeth constantly bickering and getting on each others nerves and it ending up in a fight) I debated for a long time whether Sherrinford would be cold-blooded enough to hit Sherlock and as you can see I eventually decided that he would. Although I don't think he's necessarily cruel, just trying to look after his little sister and trying to make sure that Sherlock didn't hurt her again.

Also, this turned out a lot longer than I thought it would be and so I've decided to split it up. There will be another part of around the same length.

Thanks for all the reviews. I really appreciate tem. I try to reply to all reviews but I often get mixed up and if I miss one I'm really sorry.

Thanks for reading. See you next time.