WARNINGS: Anyone who has not read the ACD!Holmes story 'The Red-Headed League' but would like to should approach the mid section of this story with a little caution. I think we're pretty good other than that
The general opinion regarding the loss of a loved one seemed to be that 'these things get better with time'. It was certainly a logical hypothesis. Mycroft had no doubt that it applied to many, if not the majority of people.
Unfortunately, Mycroft never had been the sort of man to pander to the whims of the masses at the expense of being contrary, no matter how much he wished for that not to be the case.
As such it really shouldn't come as all that much of a surprise that when he eventually looked back on that period of his life, he'd consider the first couple of months following Iris' passing as, by far, the easiest part of the whole experience.
That's not to say that it was a nice experience, it wasn't, it was one of the darkest moments of both his and the boy's lives.
They'd been heartbroken, of course. Mycroft lost count of the number of nights he or one of the boys had cried themselves to sleep.
It had come as a shock too.
Iris and Mycroft had attempted to explain to the boys what was about to happen before it did, they'd tried... but those sorts of discussions, no matter how long or frank, never really seem to do enough to prepare a person, especially ones so young, for the loss of a loved one.
Mycroft himself, who was neither young nor ignorant to the loss of loved ones, still found himself constantly and brutally reminded of the finality of death.
It was a miserable time to be sure... but there was nothing complicated about it, or uncertain, or changing. It was constant, pure and simple misery, consistent to a fault. And though the matter in question was by no means a desirable one, there is always a sense of security in consistency and the known.
Which is ironic really, because the one consistent thing about consistency itself, is that it never lasts. Whatever solace one finds in it is not only a false one, but fleeting too.
As it turned out, Mycroft Holmes was not an exception to that rule.
Two months into their new existence as a 'family unit minus one', almost to the day, the security of consistency took its inevitable flight. Mycroft and his sons finally reached the edge of their plateau and were cast off the cliff therein, from plain misery to depressive desperation.
Ironically, this particular day started off relatively uneventfully.
Mycroft woke with a crick in his neck, the sun in his eyes and the hem of Iris' favourite evening gown brushing against his cheek.
Many would consider waking up inside one's own wardrobe an unusual way to start the day. However Mycroft, over the last couple of months, did so with surprising frequency.
Sooner or later it was going to have to come to a stop, of course. In time, the smell of her perfume would fade (to be perfectly honest, he wasn't entirely certain that it hadn't already and he had just begun to imagine it instead). One day the once familiar brush of fabric would feel foreign against his skin and eventually, the notion of hiding away someplace small, dark and safe would feel more ridiculous than comforting.
Mycroft was a sensible man, he knew all of this to be true.
As such he had forced himself to faze the habit out, from the nightly routine it had started out as, to just every few nights, until it eventually became a mere coping mechanism for after setbacks.
Last night, there'd been a setback. Mycroft groaned softly at the mere memory of it.
The twins had refused to go to sleep until their Mum tucked them in. They'd reasoned that they'd been really good lately and then proceeded to beg Mycroft to tell Mummy that so she would come and see them, just for a visit, a really short one.
Thankfully, Basil had gone to bed earlier, having tired himself out at school, and so could not partake in Harry and Alfie's tearful pleading to bring Mummy back home.
After being forced to explain to his sons, again, that she couldn't come back, and then sit and watch as they cried themselves to sleep, Mycroft had been feeling a little emotionally overwhelmed.
Deciding that it certainly counted as a setback, Mycroft had slipped from their room, padded straight across the hall into his own, grabbed the quilt from the bed and crawled into Iris' corner of the walk-in-robe.
Sighing, he closed his eyes for a couple of moments longer. He'd have to get up eventually, whether he felt ready for the day or not. But not just yet. For just a few moments, Mycroft reached up and ran his fingers over the hem of the gown, picking out from the texture of stains and the occasional frayed edge memories of parties past and moonlit walks that were as much a part of it as the fibres that made the fabric.
But as was their way, the minutes kept rolling on by, and as was his, Mycroft rolled on with them.
With one last caress of the slick, midnight blue fabric, he slowly got to his feet once more, pushed the wardrobe door the rest of the way open and groggily shuffled out to rejoin the world beyond and start the day.
Basil, ever the early riser, was already up, watching Doctor Who re-runs in his pyjamas with a bowl of cereal in his lap and the blasted dog by his side.
"You may tire of it you know," Mycroft murmured as he leaned down and pressed a kiss against the top of the boy's head, "If you continue to watch it so religiously."
"You still like it," Basil pointed out around a mouthful of processed wheat, "And you've watched it since the seventies."
With a smile tugging at his lips, Mycroft conceded that this was true.
"I tried to wake up Alfie and Harry," Basil announced, twisting around to face Mycroft the second an ad break permitted him to do so. "They won't get up. They're acting like babies."
"Don't call your brother's names," Mycroft scolded gently.
"I wasn't," Basil pointed out, "I was saying their behaviour was infantile."
"Basil," Mycroft grumbled, although he feared the amused smirk tugging at his lips countered that intended affect, "Go easy on them today."
"Any particular reason why?"
Sighing, Mycroft announced, "They had a bit of a trying night."
Bowing his head, Basil asked, "Was it about Mummy?"
Smiling sadly, Mycroft pressed another kiss against his son's auburn hair, murmuring, "Don't you worry about it," before continuing in a deliberately more upbeat manner, "Now, you finish that off quickly. I need you in the shower, a short one, as soon as I run a bath for those two."
"I know, I know," Basil sighed, picking up his spoon once more.
"That's my boy," murmured Mycroft before setting off to conquer the first challenge of the day.
The twins, unlike their big brother, were not morning people. It was a trait they strived to remind all those they felt needed reminding, each and every morning. As such, it was with a great show of protest, involving a good deal of wriggling, a bit of kicking, a lot of moaning and just a little screaming, that they were coaxed out of Morpheus' iron grip on that soon to be fateful morning.
"Daddy I don't want to go to school," Alfie whined, rolling about so he was positively cocooned amongst his sheets.
"Daddy, I don't want to either," Harry murmured from the bed pushed to the opposite side of the room.
"You both like it when you get there," Mycroft insisted whilst he worked at unwrapping Alfie.
"We do not," Harry mumbled, although he was beginning to sit up, which Mycroft took as a good sign (although it could go either way).
"Don't be ridiculous, of course you like it," he chuckled, "And you've got Show and Tell today. I thought you wanted to tell everybody about Uncle Sherlock's last case. What did you call it, the...?"
"The adventure of the Red-Headed League!" Alfie cried, leaping up from within his mound of bedding in his excitement, almost collecting Mycroft as he went.
Harry, as always, followed his brother's lead, crying, "When Uncle Sherlock and Doctor John stopped a real-life bank robbery."
"Well I'd call it more of a heist personally," Mycroft muttered, unheard by both his sons who'd somehow managed to go from near unconsciousness to jumping on the bed in a moment.
At least they seemed to have put the night before behind them, which was one thing.
"And then Uncle Sherlock whacked him with the riding crop and-"
"Yes, it is a thrilling tale isn't it?" Mycroft called out of the enthusiastic recitations of Sherlock's brilliance.
True to form, the boys immediately chorused, "Yeah!"
With a smile, Mycroft continued slyly, "And you wouldn't want to deprive your classmates of that story would you?"
"Well, no," Alfie conceded, plopping back down on his mattress.
"I suppose we could go," Harry obligingly announced, clambering up beside his brother.
"Good to hear it," chuckled Mycroft, "Well you'd best both start getting ready, shouldn't you?"
"Okay," they grudgingly chorused.
"I'll run you a bath so you can have a quick wash," Mycroft announced, "You didn't have one last night. Come along."
Grumbling mutinously but complying nonetheless, the boys slid off the bed and did as they were told.
With a satisfied nod Mycroft turned to leave but was stopped before he'd reached the door by Harry's rushing forward and grabbing his hand.
"Daddy! Can we take Cerberus to the park this morning?"
"Please Daddy, please," Alfie pleaded, clutching Mycroft's other hand.
Glancing down at his watch Mycroft hesitantly announce, "Well... we may have half an hour to spare for the park," Alfie and Harry cheered, "But only if you're really, really quick this morning."
"We will be," Harry promised.
"Like lightning," Alfie insisted.
And true to their word, they were out the door in a flash.
Shaking his head, Mycroft followed.
"They're waiting for you in the ensuite," Basil announced.
"So I gathered."
"They seemed alright," he commented as he wandered past Mycroft on his way to deposit his bowl into the kitchen sink, Cerberus at his heels.
Scrubbing tiredly at his face, Mycroft replied, "They're just at that age I suppose. They tend to bounce back from everything."
When Basil walked back out, he was frowning.
"You think they still don't understand. I can try talking to them if you want?"
"Basil," Mycroft murmured, crouching down before the 10 year old, "You mustn't worry about these sorts of things. That's my job. You and your brothers are my responsibility, not yours."
"What if I want to help?" Basil asked, tilting his chin up defiantly.
Smiling, Mycroft gently squeezed his son's bony shoulders and replied, "I appreciate the offer, but you really must leave this to me."
Basil huffed.
"Please Basil," Mycroft pleaded, "Just take care of yourself okay. Let me worry about everyone."
For a long moment, Basil remained unmoved. Eventually though, reluctantly, he gave a quick nod.
Smiling sadly, Mycroft gave his shoulder one last reassuring squeeze before letting his hands drop.
"We'll be alright Basil. I promise."
"I know," Basil murmured.
"Good. Now. I'm going to run those two their bath, then you can have your shower and be quick, we don't want to use too much hot water."
"I know dad," Basil grumbled good-naturedly, a smile tugging at his lips.
"Of course you do," chuckled Mycroft, "Now you go get you uniform ready."
"Alright," Basil sighed theatrically, before trudging off to his room.
With a sigh and a couple more pops of his knees than he would have liked, Mycroft stood and headed back to his room.
The twins were true to their word and whizzed through the morning routine with as little amount of fuss as possible. Basil, likewise, had everything ready by the time Mycroft had finished his own shower. And not twenty minutes later they were out the door with the hell-hound posing as a cocker spaniel in tow and off to the park.
Mycroft had always been a truly excellent actor.
Not in the dramatic, front of stage, look-at-me sense of course. That was, by far, Sherlock and Sherrinford's territory.
No, Mycroft preferred to work behind the curtains. And though everybody pays no attention to the man behind the curtains, there is in fact a great deal of acting to be had there as well.
His current, well-(and truly)rehearsed and going on 24 year old act was that he was completely fine, in control and on the ball. Some times it wasn't an act. Most of the time though, 'Mycroft the man' wasn't nearly as on par with or as impressive as his reputation.
This particular morning was a species of the latter kind.
So in keeping with his act, Mycroft didn't let on in the slightest that he'd spent the last ten minutes, before he really was due in the office, sitting in his car attempting to come up with some plan as to how he was going to convince Basil to stop trying to force himself to replace his mother (he knew his son, and though they'd made progress earlier, he wasn't fooled. Basil was a determined boy and he had a protective streak a mile wide) or some new way of breaking it to the twins that it really wasn't a matter of behaving themselves well enough or pleading with him hard enough, Mummy was just not going to come back.
Instead he strode through the doors of his department, head held high and umbrella swinging, the very picture of confidence and power.
"Ah there you are," he called upon spotting his PA, "Beatrice of yesterday and...?"
"Carys."
"-of today. Good morning. What have we on the agenda today?"
"Good morning sir," she replied, following him into his office without so much as glancing up from her Blackberry. "A babysitting job first up I'm afraid. Cameron's got a teleconference with Miliband. You're going to have to sit in on this one, considering what happened last time, and ensure that they play nice... or at least-"
"Keep from saying anything that would get the Daily Mail's fingers too itchy," Mycroft finished with a long-suffering sigh as he unfastened his coat, "Understood. Next?"
"Tea with the Queen at 4."
"Always a pleasure, never a chore."
"I have it on good authority that she's feeling a little left out of the loop, so be sure to fill her in on some of the juicy gossip."
"Right you are."
"You've received another threat from our favourite trouble group."
Mycroft genuinely perked up at that.
"The Animal Rights lot or the money-laundering ring we sniffed out from the Treasury?"
"The money launderers I'm afraid," Carys replied, and bless her, she actually did appear quite regretful.
Sagging somewhat, Mycroft sighed, "Pity. The Animal Rights fellows are far more interesting."
"Very true sir," Carys replied, "I'm afraid the threat itself was rather unoriginal too. The standard 'We have friends in high place. You don't know what you're dealing with. You will rue the day Etc. Etc. number."
"How dull."
"Indeed sir."
"Perhaps if we ignore them long enough they'll send a letter bomb."
"One can only hope sir," Carys replied with an amused smile, "MI5 called as well sir. The Director would like a word."
"Joy of joys," muttered Mycroft, before rubbing his hands together and announcing, "Well, first things first, the Prime Minister's play date. I shall head over to Downing Street now. You take care of matters here and let me know if anything major comes up. Understood?"
"Absolutely sir."
"Marvellous. I suppose I'll be back by one then," he announced, re-fastening his coat and picking up his umbrella once more.
"Have fun sir," Carys called as he walked back out through the doors.
"I'll certainly try."
And with Act 1 Scene 1: The Office - complete, Mycroft swiftly made his exit.
Which was incredibly lucky, because if he'd dawdled for a moment longer, he'd have still been standing surrounded by the pride of Her Majesty's Civil Service rather than in a deserted parking lot when he received a purely innocent text that managed the feat that some of Britain's most ruthless politicians had been attempting to achieve for over two decades – making Mycroft Holmes' infamous act, falter.