The exchange between Mycroft Holmes' administrative assistant and Mycroft's brother was of gladiatorial intensity. A clever entrepreneur could have sold tickets. Unfortunately, no such sales had occurred. Only John Watson and Molly Hooper had the privilege of watching the event—and both were long-since accustomed to Sherlock's duels. They huddled against one wall of the room, mainly trying to stay out of the line of fire.

"Mr. Holmes did not want you involved, Mr…..Holmes." Mycroft's assistant smiled a bland, sugar-and-cream smile, clearly expecting that claim to resolve things.

"Of course he didn't," Sherlock replied. "If he'd wanted me involved he'd have immediately contacted me and ordered me to keep out of it. After all, he knows me." He was, even more than usual, a sculpture in arrogance, standing tall, head high, coat shouting, "I'm so cool only Neil Gaiman could describe me—and then only on a good day."

The look the assistant shot Sherlock was toxic. "So nice to see that kind of bond between brothers," he said, "I'm sure it saves you both quite a lot of misunderstanding. Now that that's settled, if you could please sign over power of attorney to us, we can finish this all up."

"No."

Mycroft's assistant had the harried look of a man who had found one Holmes brother to be a serious career challenge, and two to be a crashing professional debacle that had the potential to give him bragging rights in an elite club consisting of the captain of the Exxon Valdez, the manager of the Fukushima nuclear plant, "Way-to-Go Blackie" of Hurricane Katrina notoriety, and all the many damn-fool military strategists over the centuries who'd looked at Afghanistan and assured their nations' leaders it was a piece of cake. "Mr. Holmes, I assure you, this is what your brother would want."

"Are you sure Mycroft chose you for this position?" Sherlock asked, peering intently at the prim bureaucrat sitting behind the desk in the office the hospital had lent him.

He frowned back at his superior's brother. "Yes, of course. Why?"

"He must have chosen you for your bovine predictability...nothing else explains it. Need I repeat what I said previously?"

"Er…"

Sherlock sighed gustily, and rolled his eyes. "No wonder Mycroft's always overworked. I told you—if Mycroft had wanted me to be involved, he'd have told me to stay out of it. What does that tell you about our relationship, Mr…?"

"Beemish. And it tells me, Mr. Holmes, that you are given to defying your brother."

"Yes. And?" Sherlock said, encouragingly. When the penny failed to drop he gave a melodramatic groan. "Mr. Beemish, you've gone about this all wrong. If you had wanted me to sign over power of attorney, you really should have told me Mycroft did want me to serve in that role—indeed, that he demanded it. As it is? Frankly, this entire situation is just too much of a temptation. So I'm sorry, but I shall retain control over my brother's health and well-being for now." He spun in graceful slow motion and moved to open the office door.

"Wait, Mr. Holmes!"

Sherlock seemed almost frozen, barring a curious cock to his head. "Waiting. You have something to say?"

"Her Majesty will take action, if necessary."

"I doubt it, Mr. Beemish. Her Majesty is cautious in her use of power, and I doubt she'd interfere with a private legal matter. I find it interesting that you were willing to make that threat, though. What is going on? And please, don't say 'chickenpox.' I assure you, Mycroft and I both had chickenpox."

"It is chickenpox, damn you," Beemish said, temper breaking like waves against the stony cliffs of Sherlock. "I wish it wasn't chickenpox. I might be able to do something if it weren't chickenpox. For the love of God, Mr. Holmes, would you please cooperate? Your brother is a very important man, and this is a matter of national—no, international importance. We need Mycroft Holmes to live."

Sherlock turned back, then, and asked, very quietly, "And if Mycroft needs to die? What then, Mr. Beemish? And who decides? Her Majesty? The Prime Minister? You?" When Beemish failed to answer, Sherlock nodded, eyes cold. "Yes. I thought so. No, I think I shall retain power of attorney for my brother, Mr. Beemish. Now, if I understand correctly, I'm to be inoculated." He gave an utterly false smile, chirped, "Pip-cheerio, then!" and glanced commandingly at John and Molly, drawing them into his train as he exited the dull little room with a flourish.

John and Molly raced along after his stalking figure, barely managing to keep up—John marching double-time, and Molly just plain loping to hold even. One elevator and three corridors later Sherlock finally came to a halt—suddenly, without warning, in the middle of an empty waiting area. John and Molly just barely managed to avoid crashing into him.

Sherlock seemed to draw in on himself. "Where am I going?" he asked, softly.

John and Molly exchanged concerned glances. "Down to the lab for blood work," John said. "They need to test you for varicella, and they're going to give you an immunization."

"And the lab is where?"

"I'll show him," Molly said to John. "My first job was here at the Royal. I know my way around. You see if you can find Dr. Lund and learn anymore, so you can prepare Sherlock for him."

"Prepare him for Sherlock, more like." John grumbled. He grimaced at his friend and former flat mate. "Do you really have to act like a porcupine all the time? You're just making things harder, you know."

"Your confidence in my abilities never ceases to amaze me," Sherlock replied in an arid voice. His heart clearly wasn't in it, though. He'd roused to do battle with Beemish, but with no victim to bait and harry the energy seemed to seep out of him.

Molly and John hesitated a moment, sharing the sort of worried, telepathic looks parents share over a sick, cranky child. It was clear that neither was sure what to do to help. At last Molly shrugged. "Let's go, then, Sherlock. There's an elevator down the corridor on your left. John, you've got my mobile number. Let me know if there's any change."

"Will do, Molly. Sherlock, please don't bully Molly or the nurses? Just let them take the blood sample and give you the shot, so we can get on with all this."

Sherlock did rouse slightly at this, proclaiming, "I do not bully Molly!"

"Yes, you do," John with amused exasperation.

"No, I do not."

"Molly, just take him, will you?"

"Molly, tell him I don't bully you, or I'll tell him—"

"See," John said, cutting him off. "There you go again. Molly, you're a saint. Sherlock—just shut up, please, and go get your shot. We don't want both you and Mycroft sick."

Sherlock grumbled most of the way down to the haematology lab, where a nurse was waiting with sampling tubes and a varicella immunization shot.

"Coat off, shirt off, hospital smock on. I'll have to take your vitals first, too." The nurse was calmly prepping, drawing over an old-fashioned blood pressure cuff, a new-style thermometer, and a tray with phlebotomy sampling needles, sampling tubes, a length of rubber tubing, and the injection.

"I am not getting undressed," Sherlock said, with the outraged resistance of a middle-school boy being forced to undress before mere females.

"Sherlock…"

"I am not getting undressed," he said again, more firmly.

"She's got to draw from a vein," Molly assured him. "And the shot's intramuscular. Sherlock, you know this sort of thing. You're in St. Barts at least once a week, and I know you read the journals…"

"For things that impact my cases!" he protested. "And I'm not 'in St. Barts.' I'm in the morgue. There's a difference."

The nurse was getting frustrated. "Mr. Holmes, I was called in here on my evening off just to deal with you. Apparently you're special." It was very clear that being special did not rate high in her books. "If you can't cooperate with a simple blood test and take a shot, I'm wasting time I could be spending re-watching Downton Abbey."

In answer Sherlock merely hunched deeper in his coat, practically tucking his hands into his sleeves."

"I can do it," Molly said, quietly, looking at the nurse. "I've done it before. Just leave it all and I'll take care of it."

"Can't do it," the nurse snapped back. "My signature has to go on there, and I need to be the one who signs it off on the lab pick-up." She gave Sherlock a very ancient look, and continued, "They're even sending someone special to pick up the sample."

"I'll do it for Molly," Sherlock said, still sounding like a sullen tweenie boy.

"Maybe if you stay here and watch?"

"She can't watch," Sherlock grumbled. "She can come back when you're done."

Molly sighed, and pulled the nurse over to one side of the room. "He's going to keep us here all night if we don't play along," she said under her breath. "Look, let me do the job—then you can check it all and sign off on it. The thing is, it's got to be done, and it's got to be done fast. I'm guessing they're going to rush through the testing, and they're not going to want to wait."

"It's just a varicella titer," the nurse said. "I mean, really. Just a chickenpox-immune…and he's getting the shot, for goodness sake."

"He's getting the shot if he lets us. We need him to cooperate. Unless you want to be the one chasing him around trying to make him take off that coat. Look, they've got bloody Whitehall people grinding their teeth over this."

The nurse growled a frustrated little growl, deep in her throat. "Oh, for the love of…all right. If you think you can get him to behave, I'll go down the way and have a cuppa. I'll be back in about ten minutes, and…well, if you've got it done, we can both sign off on it. That way no harm, no foul." She shot a final glare at Sherlock, and left the room.

"Well played, Molly," Sherlock said, darting toward the supplies laid out for use. "Here, help me—I need to know if all this is clean or if someone's tampered with it."

"It's all sealed, Sherlock," Molly said with some frustration of her own, as she joined him at the counter. "Needles, sample tubes, even the shot. It's fresh from the factory. If it has been meddled with I won't know."

"Damn." Sherlock looked around the room, eyes leaping from item to item. "I can't risk it. Will there be spares?"

"I should think so," she replied. "This is their blood-work lab. I'm less sure of the immunization."

"Look—Look. Try to find spares of everything—if you can, find enough sample tubes for duplicates. I want to have this tested myself. I don't trust Mr. Beemish and his friends not to fix the game."

She went through the lab like a whirlwind, eventually managing to collect a complete set of the needed tools. "We're running out of time. Coat off, shirt off, and if you give me trouble it's on your head, not mine."

It was the set-up for any number of possible scenes—if they'd been in a romance novel or a filmed rom-com. As it was, she barely noticed Sherlock stripping rapidly out of coat and shirt. She was too busy setting out her own duplicate tools in order.

"Ok, blood pressure first—"

"One-seventeen over seventy-seven."

"Did you take your own?"

"No, we're not bothering. No time."

She nodded. "All right. All right. If you say so." She slipped the tubing around his upper arm, and they quickly waltzed through the rituals, ending up with two sample tubes for varicella testing. A second later she'd pushed the plunger home on the immunization. "Done."

"Try to set things up so she won't know we made substitutions," Sherlock said, already buttoning up his shirt.

"Already thought of it," she assured him, as she put things away in their proper places. "So—what are you worried about?"

"I don't know." The annoyance in his voice was potent. "I just know that something is wrong. Mycroft and I had chickenpox."

"Some cases are misdiagnosed. Some people don't get full immunity. Stuff happens."

He grunted an agreement that was utterly unconvinced. "Or this could all be some form of game. Given the circles Mycroft plays in, that's a more likely answer than chickenpox. At least—it's more likely than ordinary chickenpox."

She frowned, then, leaning back against the counter as they waited for the nurse's return. "You think someone's infected your brother with something weird?"

"Weird, altered, manipulated. Anything and everything. If you can imagine it, someone's doing it somewhere. Mycroft plays with some very rough competitors, in a very big arena. Molly, slip those samples in your pocket and have them run over at St. Barts. Remember—I want results I can trust. Oh-how long does it take the immunization to work?"

"I doubt anyone would trust it much sooner than three days. A week would be more certain. They're going to make you dress like you're in a plague zone until then." She looked at him, curious. "Sherlock, did you know I could do all this myself? I mean, most of the morgue techs couldn't, you know."

In answer he shifted to his drown-'em-with-facts voice. "Molly Hooper, graduated with a BSc in nursing from the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery, City University of London, 2001."

"You deduced that?"

"No. I read it on your diploma in your office—five years ago. It's not magic, Molly, it's observation. You don't hide your degree. I know the certificates you've earned, too."

"So you knew I could take over for the nurse."

"I was counting on it."

"What if I'd missed the cue? Or if she'd refused to let me?"

"I'd have done something else. Now, when we're done here, I want you to go directly to St. Barts. I want that test done, and I want the answer as soon as possible. Lives may depend upon it—including mine."

She nodded. "By the way... Why me? Why not John? He could have done all this with less risk. People don't argue with a medical degree."

"Because, I need John elsewhere—dealing with Dr. Lund, dealing with Mycroft's people, dealing with the hospital. And…because, Molly Hooper, sometimes a lion can be helped by even a mouse."

"Squeak," she said, smiling…then turned to greet the returning nurse.

Sherlock walked alone back to the ICU ward. Even with John doing everything possible to smooth the way, it was almost another hour before Sherlock stood in Mycroft's room at last, shrouded in a singularly hideous quarantine coverall, with his hands encased In surgical gloves and his nose and mouth protected with a surgical mask.

He'd been running on nerves, anger, and adrenaline up until then. He looked at Mycroft's body. His brother was not dead, but also not entirely among the living. He was flaccid and limp, propped into a sitting position to improve his breathing, with IVs running into his veins, and sensors gummed to his chest. His skin was covered with entire flocks of crusted sores. He seemed stripped of his dignity, as completely stripped as he was stripped of his bespoke suits and hand-made shoes. Sherlock observed that even Mycroft's capacity for regal authority could not survive an ugly hospital gown, unkempt hair, and unconsciousness.

He took a step closer to the bedside, ignoring the bodyguard posted at the side of the room, who reached inconspicuously for his weapon, just in case. Another step brought him to the bed itself. He leaned against the metal rails put up to ensure Mycroft couldn't fall out of bed. He took his brother's right hand. It lay in his own, limp and oddly fragile. An IV needle was inserted into the vein on the back of his hand, and taped down to keep it stable. His brother was in his late forties, pushing ever closer to fifty; even in health, his hands showed the first spattering of age marks. Now Sherlock couldn't even see those for the pox-spots that marred Mycroft's skin.

"His ring," Sherlock said to no one in particular. "Where's his ring?"

"They'll have had him take it off when they knew they might need to be doing a lot of work on him. They'll have it put it away for him—probably locked up for safe keeping." It was John who answered. Sherlock hadn't even fully realized John had come in with him—which was unheard of. It hadn't been as important as observing Mycroft.

Sherlock looked at his brother's hand. It had obviously been mere hours since he had been aware and awake. His hands were clean, even with the spots that covered them. The nails were perfectly manicured. His brother kept himself immaculately—and that only made the spots stand out more clearly.

"What do you need me to do," he asked the room.

"He may be able to hear you –but he won't respond," came Dr. Lund's deep voice from the doorway.

"I wasn't speaking to him," Sherlock said, without turning. "I was speaking to you. You have had me brought here for my brother's sake. What do you need me to do?"

"I need you to give us permission for a variety of life-support treatments. Nothing that traps you or your brother: he and I had time to review his wishes, but he was willing to have us put in a drainage tube to help clear his lungs. We'd also like to put in a feeding tube and catheterize him. Those are the main things."

Sherlock nodded, silently. He put Mycroft's hand carefully back on the mattress, taking a moment to push the IV tubing to one side to ensure Mycroft wasn't tangled in it. He turned to face Lund, sensing more than seeing John move into place at his side as though he were a battle companion guarding his flank. He met Lund's eyes.

"Very well. I'll sign."