A year later, Lestrade had to remade his opinion that he would never be happier than at the exact moment Mycroft said ´I do´in that soaked-through with emotion voice of his. But he was wrong.

"Obviously, if you don´t want to..," Mycroft already started to backpedal.

"Mycroft, of course I would like to raise children with you!" Greg shouted.

"Good." Mycroft grinned. "I´m not sure I can be a top notch parent, given my... background... but you would be brilliant enough for both of us," he added confidently.

"Are you kidding?! Any child would adore you!"

"You think?"

"I know! So how would you like to do this? Oh, we have to get a surrogate for you... the Holmes genes must not be extinct."

"Perhaps the world would be a better place without so called ´Holmes genes´."

"Nonsense. People like you are the only ones able to stop total obliteration of life on Earth."

"Because they most likely caused it in the first place," answered Mycroft half-seriously. "But if we were to preserve these genes, we must make absolutely sure to save the genes of the ´Holmes handlers´too."

Anthony Sherlock Lestrade-Holmes was born on the New Years Eve. Lestrade thought for himself that the kid must have inherited a flair for dramatics from his uncle, to have its birth announced with a giant fireworks spreading on the sky of London. Mycroft´s only thought for an astonishingly long moment was a repeated: You have a son.

He could not believe it. This beautiful, fragile thing was his son. He discarded all fears he might have had about not loving him enough; because right now he could not choke a word, that´s how much he was taken. Never. What kind of an animal would hurt this beautiful baby? Not Mycroft. Never Mycroft.

"He´s so... small," he whispered wetly as soon as he could. Greg smiled brightly.

They´ve discussed who´s genetic material would be used first (and they agreed that whatever happens, they would certainly have at least two children, so it was merely a question sequence). In the end, they opted for the use of board games. As Mycroft argued that they could not play chess, as he would obviously win, the decision was made after a very exciting game of Snakes and ladders, provided by amused John Watson. And Mycroft won anyway.

So when Anthony opened his eyes, they were blue. Or possibly greenish grey, Greg wasn´t sure. But they were Mycroft´s eyes, looking like two small universes. They lacked the soft sadness which never seemed to leave Mycroft´s expression, except for a very short time of pure bliss after climaxing (at this point, Lestrade chimed himself mentally - he was looking at his newborn son for the first time, he was not supposed to think about shagging).

And really, the boy was more Mycroftish every day he grew - and Lestrade loved it, and loved imagining what Mycroft must have looked like at this age based on Anthony.

Lestrade´s (or technically Lestrade´s, as Mycroft made very evident) turn came about a year after Anthony was born.

"My, our surrogate just called," phoned Greg with a grin pasted to his face.

"What´s the matter? Is something wrong?" worried Mycroft. She should have passed the time with the most danger of spontaneous miscarriages by now, he counted in his head immediately.

"There are two."

"What?"

"There are two babies."

"Really? Two Lestrades?"

"Lestrade-Holmeses."

"Anthony will adore having twins in the house when he will be older. All the experiments he could conduct," Mycroft smiled.

"You Holmeses!" tuted Greg, but didn´t really mean it.

So there were five members of the joint Lestrade-Holmes household. Dark haired, pale skinned Anthony, who resembled his uncle Sherlock in appearance except for the curls, and who was as clever as his father. He was secretly people-oriented, Mycroft noticed, though. Even if his son did not enjoy parties much and often preferred to listen patiently in the corner, he functioned as a kind of a counselor to his friends. He loved explaining theories to his peers.

Anthony soon showed interest in physics, scorning his uncle in jest for choosing chemistry instead. "Physics looks for the big picture, uncle," his son said to Sherlock once. "You are getting lost in the details." The funny thing was, that Anthony actually believed that there was some principle, a mysterious set of rules to this world. And he wanted to understand it. And he wanted others to understand its beauty.

And then, there were the two younger children - a beautiful, long haired and musically talented Sophia Jane and the only extrovert of the family, easy-going Nicholas Adrian. There was nothing more beautiful than listening to Sophia´s clarinet after a long day. There was nothing which would make both Greg and Mycroft more proud than listening Tony and Nick´s banter, Nick getting lost in possibilities and Tony working them out and discarding them one by one, until only two or three remained.

Mycroft used to be a bit worried about Nick, whom he felt a bit lacking follow-through in his innovative ideas. But then a school magazine got into his hands with Nick´s name in the colophon. And then it appeared in the local news. By the time this occurence became regular, it was clear Nick was doomed to become a journalist.

And quite a good one. He was in charge of a regular column about the impact of science on everyday life by the time he started university. Well, at least he did not do political news. Nick´s favourite uncle was John, of course. Mycroft supposed Dr Watson´s quick way to fame as an author (if you were to count the blog as a piece of literature) appealed to his younger son a great deal.

Weirdly enough, Soph was the shiest one in the family, often closing herself in her room adjoining the garden, to come back to life a day later, a hand written musical sheet clutched in the gentle hand, and on its heartbreakingly beautiful music. Her parents often wondered exactly how much creativity is dormant behind the brown eyes.

Mycroft supposed he, and mainly Greg, have given to their children all that was possible. He hoped all three considered their childhood a happy one. They were all given the best education possible while attending it from home, until they reached the age of going into university. Anthony studied physics, obviously. Soph was on a good way to became the most famous female composer of classical music of the twenty-first century.

And Nick, ever the enigma, kept the tension for several weeks until admitting his studies of French and Spanish. Mycroft thought he could have chosen a less easy language (he himself would have chosen Arabic, if he had the time to study languages). But Greg stood by their son, supporting him in this decision and Mycroft must have admitted he had no right to project his wishes on their adult (or almost adult) son.

As the time of happiness approached and then passed second decade, Mycroft found himself wondering when the blow will come. Statistically, if he were to work with his past, these were decades of eerie calm.

And then Greg died.

At first, it seemed impossible.

The man Mycroft got his strength from, the man he needed, the man he loved... was gone. Shot. Dying in a dirty alleyway.

And Mycroft did not know. Irrationally, he thought that he would feel if something was wrong with Greg, wherever he was.

But he did not feel anything. He was at a boring conference, his phone turned off. He found out an hour later, when the ambassador finally stopped chatting about his daughter.

He turned his phone on. Full voicemail. Hundred of texts. But... why none of my assistants came and told me? But none of them ever managed to get close to Anthea´s abilities.

This can´t be.

No, Mycroft. It unfortunately IS possible. You are experiencing a shock reaction. Your brain is trying to protect you from too big a blow.

IT IS NOT DOING A VERY GOOD JOB!

He wanted to yell at the world. How is it possible the stupid bafoon of an ambassador lives, and Greg is dead?! Or why didn´t Mycroft´s inept assistant take his partner´s place.

Why didn´t I die instead of Greg?

And suddenly, it felt like he was, indeed, dying as well. He couldn´t breathe. He was vaguely aware that his chest should be rising and falling down, but it stayed tight, and no air was making it to his lungs. His throat constricted. His eyes welled with wetness and he hated it, hated being this weak, having no control over himself... But when his legs gave way, he realised that the pain he was feeling physically was nothing against the sandpaper working its way through his emotions.

"Mycroft! There he is!"

Sherlock, and John behind him. He did not deserve this, this small mercy of seeing his relatives at the moment of his demise, when Greg died and there wasn´t even a CCTV camera to look into for Mycroft to watch later.

"Mycroft! Come on, you have to breathe. Slowly, come on! In, out."

"What´s this? Is he..."

"Panic attack. Come on, Myc..."

At the sound of his nickname from John Watson´s lips, he raggedly took in breath to choke out a sob. Noone called him like that, except for Gregory.

"He´s gone," he mumbled lamely.

"We know," answered Sherlock, crouching next to him.

"Tony, Nick and Soph are on their way to St. Bart´s right now. You should be there too," added John.

"Why?"

"They need you."

"I can´t... I can´t."

"Mycroft..."

"Please... It should´ve been me... dying... he would know what to say to them. But I..."

"You need them too, Mycroft," said Sherlock suddenly.

"They´re my children! I am supposed to support them, not vice-versa!"

"DO IT, then!" Sherlock shouted. "Do you think I don´t care? That John doesn´t care?! He was our friend, too. But this... wailing... is not gonna solve anything! So either you hide here, or take care of your offspring when they need it!"

"...I´m sorry," Mycroft whispered after a while. "Let´s go."

He thought that this blow would be his last. That he can´t take any more, that without Greg he would die. But worse things happened - he lived. He was doomed to the same of survival from day to day he experienced before he met the detective inspector.

He tried to pretend around his children that he was all right. Tried to support them as well as he could, but he failed miserably. Especially Soph was hard struck and extremely aware of each of his little lies, every ´fine´he used to divert their focus elsewhere.

Eventually, the children left back for university and left him in the house full of memories. As far as Mycroft knew, Anthony busied himself in his work and Nicholas wrote a series of articles about insufficient control of illegal trade with guns.

And Sophie found solace with her new boyfriend. The elder Holmes wasn´t angry. Peter looked like a good fellow. He reminded him of John Watson in his stubborn support of ones he loved, something Mycroft found himself incapable of.

Peter, a moderately successful businessman and a very conservative fellow, asked for Sophie´s hand five months, three weeks and four days after Greg died. They married two months later.

Mycroft was happy for her. And proud that all three of his children seemed to get through this difficult time relatively unscarred. But as for himself, he was lost.

He was too weak for this. Mycroft had no doubt about the fact that were it him who died first, his beautiful husband would have managed to heal and do a lot of good for his fellow. A widower Greg would have used all his suddenly free time to support people in need, helping, doing charity work, whatever.

But Mycroft did not have it in him. He tried work to help. He persuaded Anthea to send him on dangerous missions in person, but all bullets always missed him. And he could not kill himself - not because he would care about angering any kind of deity, or because he wouldn´t be able to carry on - but because he had no right to hurt his children even more.

He wondered how long until body finally wore down enough.

Author´s note: An epilogue will follow as a final chapter. I am sorry there is no happy end. There was never going to be one.