Chapter 6: We Never Get an Answer
…In the grey of the morning
My mind becomes confused
Between the dead and the sleeping
And the road that I must choose
I'm looking for someone to change my life
I'm looking for a miracle in my life
And if you could see, what it's done to me
To lose the love I knew could safely lead me to
The land that I once knew
To learn as we grow old
The secrets of our souls
Question, © the Moody Blues
Mycroft Holmes sits at his desk with his head bowed and his face in his hands; his hands shake slightly as he rubs at his eyes. His office is quiet; no one else has come in today; he hasn't bothered to turn on music of any kind. He is still attempting to shake off the shock of his brother's back-handed, barbed compliment from earlier today. He allows the responsibilities of his station to sit upon his shoulders like a cape; the worries over what remains of his family sit atop his head like a golden crown: Sherlock and John the jewels, amethyst and sapphire. He will never admit it out loud, but since John appeared all those years ago, he has become part of their family. By taking their relationship farther, Sherlock and John only cemented the deal. Mycroft knows that the next step won't be far behind; but then again, it did take them almost four years to acknowledge how they felt about each other. He shifts a few papers on his desk, not really paying any particular attention to any of them, just allowing his fingers to have something to do while he moves through the halls of his mind.
As he walked away from the entry to the penthouse toward the lift, he very clearly heard the thunk of something metallic striking the back of the door. He is about ninety-nine point nine percent certain that the object was a knife, most likely one of the set that sits on the kitchen counter just to the left of where Sherlock had been standing during their argument and subsequent revelations. He does not believe that it was intended to be a weapon raised against him, but rather a protective device, a message from Sherlock's mind to Sherlock's body—a threat made in a flash of anger for allowing his emotions to show through his proverbial armor; before now only John Watson has broken through that self-imposed steel cage. It is another step on Sherlock's journey into greatness, he feels.
Mycroft opens his eyes and stares at the expensively hand-matted and framed photograph that sits dead-center of the otherwise empty white wall opposite his desk. It is a large poster-sized print of a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean; underneath the photograph is a line of white text that reads "No Man Is An Island." Mycroft has detested the print since it was first given to him as a gift; his feelings about the poster do not make the sentiment any less true. He considers the print for a moment, trying not to think about the unfamiliar flash of jealously that welled through his body as he saw his brother's eyes track John's movements through the sitting room until the older man was out of sight in the kitchen.
Of course, he really has no clue as to why he offered them the penthouse in the first place. He tilts his head back to rest on the chair, letting his eyes slip closed for the first time in two days. Mycroft tells himself that is only exhaustion that is causing his mind to dwell on such unimportant details; he cannot stop himself from considering just how different his own life is since his younger brother reappeared. Just because he knew part of the scheme to bring down Moriarty and the consulting criminal's league of previously unknown assorted baddies didn't make it any less shocking the first time he saw Sherlock in over a year. Even he had to admit that Sherlock was different in ways Mycroft could not define. Giving him Grandmother's violin today was possibly an attempt to bridge the gap between them.
From there, Mycroft thinks about the last two lovers he had liaisons with at the penthouse: a man almost as young as Sherlock and later, a woman close to his own age. The man lost all interest in Mycroft soon after he was no longer needed to be arm candy; Roger spent the night on the couch in front of the television. Mycroft slipped out long before morning to keep up appearances. He was not emotionally hurt by Roger's idiocy as much as disappointed, as the man had been someone he had looked up to in his younger years. Well, that ship has certainly sailed; at this point, Mycroft can barely even recall what Roger looked like, except that he was fairly tall and with Egyptian ancestors somewhere on his family tree. It is a lie, though, because sometimes at night Mycroft can see those brown eyes boring into his soul as Roger told him that sometimes lies are better than the truth, no matter how many people get hurt.
The woman, Paige, stayed the night with Mycroft. She was petite, neatly dressed in a scarlet formal and white fur wraparound when they met at the ball that evening. They ran through the entire Kama Sutra in twelve hours and Mycroft awoke refreshed with a song on his lips and a fresh new feeling of hope in his heart. His heart crashed, however, when he found himself alone in the big bed. He found her standing on the balcony, her pale face streaked with tears as she admitted she was married and had only been hunting for a fling because she had argued with her husband over having children. Said husband had apparently left a score of text messages on her mobile and she was sorry, but she was returning home to him that very day. Always the gentleman, Mycroft let her go without a word.
It was exactly a year later, standing on that very balcony that Mycroft learned Paige had murdered her husband in cold blood while he slept one night. Apparently her need to become pregnant overrode her ability to use her brain. She would be locked up for a long time to come; not exactly the sort of life she pictured, surely.
Mycroft scratches the back of his neck with his neatly manicured fingernails, bending his neck and head towards the top of the antique desk. He stands, returning the black leather upholstered ergonomically correct chair into its rightful place. He snatches his mobile from a stack of files and grabs his umbrella from where it leans against the door frame. His suit jacket hands on a hook on the back of the ebony door; it gets folded neatly over his arm. Mycroft opens the door by pressing his thumb over the pad beside the handle; he tilts his head slightly as he listens for the tiny click that says the door is open and secure. As he leaves the office he is all too aware of the figure he cuts as his long legs eat up the corridor as he strides out of the building. He is sure is looks powerful in his dove grey three piece suit, his dark red hair styled neatly and his leather wingtips shined within an inch of their lives.
In the underground parking garage Mycroft deftly keys in his security code on the pad under the handle on the door of his white Jaguar, his personal car. He snorts a little to himself when he considers that Sherlock thinks he rides around all day in glossy black limousines and sedans; truthfully, he only does that when he needs to impress someone or he has other business to attend to that cannot be stopped just because he needs to be in three places at the same time. He may be a lone wolf, but he is also a wolf in control of his own destiny.