He was busy at the moment, so very busy, but he had seen the stunned reactions on his monitor. How could he not? He did have cameras. But despite many claims, he did have a heart, a soul, feelings. He did worry about what this would do to his brother, he did, but there was something more.
He was worried more about what it would do if the other man was forced to stay.
Predictably, his phone rang. He could see the younger man on the monitor, after all. He looked a myriad of emotions as his flatmate left.
"HOW COULD YOU!"
The voice at the other end of the phone sounded anguished.
"Calm down."
"Change the orders! Fix them! I'll do anything!"
Sherlock Holmes was begging. He was pleading. It was something the consulting detective didn't do. But the man was doing it, things he never did, for Doctor John Watson.
"Don't make him go, don't let him leave. Fix it." Deep breathing, obviously trying to calm down. "Help me, Mycroft. Please."
Mycroft Holmes sighed, rubbing his head. What Sherlock wanted him to do wasn't impossible. He didn't want his only friend to be redeployed, which made sense. Who would want that for someone they cared about? Who would want that at all for a good man like John Watson?
But Mycroft knew something had changed since That Night. Yes, that incident received capital letters, because he had almost lost his family, his only family, at that bloody public pool. He had retrieved both of them and they hadn't found James Moriarty (and they had tried. Mycroft had made and was still making an extensive effort). What had changed, Mycroft didn't know, but John Watson hadn't seemed the same since. It was subtle, the change, so subtle that even Sherlock hadn't noticed it.
He had seen it, though. And John Watson had looked so elated when he had gotten the orders to return, who was he to deny the doctor?
But how could he deny his brother, his only family?
He couldn't. Not when his brother was normally so proud that he never accepted help, never asked for it. He could not deny him.
"All right, Sherlock. All right. I'll fix it," Mycroft said.
It was one of the few mistakes that either Holmes brother had ever made.
It was also the worst.