He stood in the Churchyard. The warm evening buzzing with fireflies and lawnmowers. The late sun was still warming the wall and a gentle breeze was fluttering the leaves on the Oak tree. Mycroft looked down at the white marble. Outside the Churchyard his driver was waiting for him. The slick, modern car, with its tinted windows and bomb proofing looking ridiculously out of place in the Village That Time Forgot as Mycroft referred to Midsomer Wenlock.
He sat down on the grave, not caring if the grass and dry earth ruined his suit or not. He could always buy another suit. He pressed play. The recording of the emergency call. He must have listened to it a thousand times, perhaps more. And every time he became less certain and more convinced of what he was hearing. A voice beyond the grave. And yet he was here at the grave, and there was nothing.
The stitches had healed, leaving a neat scar that would fade to a thin white line above his eyebrow, barely noticeable. John Watson had missed his vocation as a plastic surgeon, or perhaps a tailor? The blinding headaches had subsided. The scans had all come back clear. Mycroft had been told he was healed, everything back to normal. Only nothing was ever going to be normal again. Every time he went into the locked room, every time he opened his watch, every time he looked at Sherlock. Every time he pressed play. Every time he knew he wasn't normal. His life wasn't normal. Nothing ever had been or ever would be.
He knew he was crying now. A tall thin man, all long neck and legs and gingery brown hair, like a Giraffe, sat on a grave sobbing. If any of his employees could see him now. If Sherlock could see him. That carefully constructed Ice Cold reputation would be melted to nothing. Nothing. Like the rest of his life. He reached into his pocket. The envelopes. All neatly addressed in Mycroft's copperplate handwriting. It was all settled. Mycroft wasn't a man that left any loose ends. He looked at the headstone once more, and then at his right hand and the thin gold band on his ring finger. The ring that told the whole world, very subtly of course, that he was a widower.
Finally he looked at the knife in his hand. Apparently it was quite a nice way to die. You bled, you slowly lost consciousness. You didn't wake up. Logic told him that there was nothing afterwards. His long buried heart told him he didn't care. Even if none of it was real. He just did not care to watch the rest of the world going on around him. The knife slashed easily through his skin. He never realised just how red blood actually was in quantity. Bright red blood that began to stain the grass and earth dark. There was a brief moment of panic. And then Mycroft noticed for the first time, just behind the white headstone, close against the wall. A smaller Headstone, older, faded. He smiled as he read it.
"HERE LIES MY HOUND: BASKEVILLE. FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH"
It really was going to be an awfully big adventure. Mycroft slumped forwards, still smiling and never heard the fast running feet, or someone's outraged cry of:
"You utter selfish bastard."