A/n: Hello all! :D This is a Mycroft chapter, starting from three years ago. I tweaked something from chapter three (no wife, no kids, sorry). Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: Not mine.

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My Absence, Hardly Worth Noting

Chapter 6

My baby brother killed himself. Mycroft sighed, placing the paper on the table beside him. Clasping his hands together, he slouched and took a deep breath. He called John, said he was a fraud, and jumped off the ledge. Surely, he was not fraudulent. Sherlock may have been stubborn, impudent, and difficult, but he was no imbecile. How could Moriarty have driven him to these lengths?

Clicking the play button on the tape that recorded Sherlock's last words (a cell phone bug he only used for instances in retrospect), Mycroft heard John's words fill the room, " Hey Sherlock, are you okay?" Concerned, obviously. On his way to St. Bart's. Running.

"Turn around and walk back the way you came," his brother's flustered voice commanded, tears evident in his voice. He's protecting him...

"No, I'm coming in," John insisted quickly.

"Just. Do as I ask. Please," Sherlock partially begged, his frustration evident. Sherlock was protecting John from Moriarty.

John's voice continued, "Where?"

"Stop there."

"Sherlock."

"Okay, look up. I'm on the rooftop." He really does jump...

"Oh God."

"I-I-I can't come down, so we'll just have to do it like this."

"What's going on?"

"An apology. It's all true."

"What?"

"Everything they said about me. I invented Moriarty." I have never heard anything more absurd...

"Why are you saying this?"

"I'm a fake." Lies.

"Sherlock -"

"The newspapers were right all along. I want you to tell Lestrade, I want you to tell Mrs. Hudson and Molly. In fact, tell anyone who will listen to you. That I created Moriarty for my own purposes." What could he possibly intend to achieve by telling John to do this?

"Okay, shut up, Sherlock. Shut up. The first time we met - the first time we met, you knew about my sister, right?"

"Nobody could be that clever."

"You could." You are.

Pause. "I researched you. Before we met, I discovered everything that I could to impress you. It's a trick. It's just a magic trick." John's mentioned it to me, Sherlock didn't even know he was coming when they first met. Even if Stamford had sent Sherlock a message ahead of time, there wasn't a chance in hell he would have checked it.

"No. Alright, stop it now."

"No, stay exactly where you are. Don't move."

"Keep your eyes fixed on me. Please, will you do this for me?" He needs a witness to his death...He faked his own death.

"Do what?"

"This phone call it's...it's my note. That's what people do, don't they? Leave a note."

"Leave a note when?"

"Goodbye, John." Sherlock tossed his phone to the ground and took the leap.

"No. Don't -" The call cut off.

Moriarty killed himself. There was no body, no copious amounts of blood that we could abstract for DNA, but he's dead. Sherlock wouldn't have jumped if there were no other options. There were assassins on Baker Street, so John and the landlady could have been threatened. If they were threatened by Moriarty and Moriarty was too dead to call them off, Sherlock's only option was throwing himself off that building. This was the end of the game after all. By jumping, Sherlock protected John, but he needed John to bear witness. He faked his death; he needed a witness to prove it actually happened, give it some legitimacy. But John didn't see it happen exactly, he was hit by that cyclist...sent by Sherlock, I'm sure. In fact, I didn't even see the end. A laundry truck obscured my...That's how they took his body! And they replaced it with something else. Now, with whom would Sherlock fake his death? Ah, Miss Hooper it is.

Mycroft stood from his place on his chair and retrieved Sherlock's phone, which was the one object of his brother's that had been entrusted to him. Flipping through the contacts, he found Molly and dialed the number.

After a single ring, Molly answered the phone. "Sherlock, are you alright?" Her voice sounded panicked and concerned. Something's amiss.

"Miss Hooper, it's Mycroft," the elder brother corrected her. "Now, if you don't mind, would you tell me what sort of deal my brother struck up with you, and by the sound of your voice, just what exactly went wrong."

Mycroft heard a sigh on the other end of the phone. "He contacted me a few weeks ago, claiming that I needed to sign his death certificate for when he 'killed' himself and help him escape. I was more than willing to be needed...Single-handedly, he moved all the cameras in the area, arranged for the bike to slam into John before he could see his crash, and something to do with a laundry truck. When the body came in, I signed the certificate, but I wanted to test the blood they used just out of curiosity...I took a sample from his clothing, and the blood was Sherlock's. Sure, he could have intended that...But when I turned around and tested the DNA...everything was Sherlock's...it had - it had to be his body. I called the laundry truck driver, Alex Fletcher, only to hear his cellphone ringing in the morgue with me...The truck never showed up. I was- I was hoping it was just something to fool me, too...But...he actually d-died..."

"So my brother planned to escape, but the truck driver met his end before he could be of any use...And you're positive that it was Sherlock's DNA?" Mycroft asked, remembering the case of Irene Adler, who had managed to falsify her basal DNA records.

"He practically lived in the lab some days, used his own DNA as a guinea pig sometimes. There's more than plenty just laying around for genuine comparison..." she trailed off, depressed by the subject. Sherlock was dead. "Is that all, Mr. Holmes?" she asked on the verge of sobbing, cringing at the name.

He had heard enough. Wishing the woman well and promising to remain in touch for any developing information, he ended the call. Sherlock's phone chirped its anguish, having only a small charge left. Surely the British government could overcome its rifts, quibbles, and troubles to locate one measly cell phone charger. Mycroft ventured to find his own for the slim chance that the slots fit, using the movement as a distraction to prevent tears from spilling down his face.

He's actually dead...My only brother, and it's my fault. I gave him Sherlock's life story, I saw the signs. I knew what he wanted to drive him to...I just thought he'd be able to get himself out of it, like he always did. What went wrong? Moriarty may have been delusional, but he still had allies. Who else would have removed his body and cleaned the blood from the scene? Who else would have made sure that the driver of that truck was killed and replaced? But why would they drive up to the curb where he was about to fall? To help him jump...How could I have been so daft? I've really screwed up.

Moriarty's dead, and he's made it certain that his existence couldn't be proven. Dammit Sherlock, why did you decry yourself? There was some shadow of a doubt remaining after Moriarty's trial, that there was something strange about the ruling. But even those jurors, threatened clear as day, may prove as evidence against you. When the actor Richard decided he had been paid by you to act as his arch rival, you were painted as a liar. No matter what crimes that man committed, they've all landed firmly in your lap because he was "controlled" by you.

Setting the phone on his desk beside him a little harder than he should have, Mycroft sat down and set to work. If he wanted to get anywhere to prove his brother's innocence, even after death, he would have to start with the dead Alex Fletcher and whomever removed Moriarty's body from the scene. Though Mycroft was as brilliant as his brother, his crime-related deductive skills were no where comparable to his younger brother's. Let alone with complete access to barely-serviceable police records and contaminated crime scenes. Sighing, Mycroft called Anthea, telling her to use any means necessary to learn any information about Moriarty's allies and the death of Alex Fletcher.

o-o-o

"Mycroft!" his mother called when she heard him enter the house. Hanging his coat on the rack, he placed his keys in a dish near the entry and walked into his living room, which was decorated in stodgy antiques, bereft of much human contact. His mother was still wearing black mourning garb, and her pale face poked out among her wild black locks. Though she was now in her sixties, she hardly looked it, her youth persevering. Sitting down beside her on the dusty couch, he caught a glimpse of her face, which was raw from crying. On her lap and sprawled over the coffee tables before her were photo albums, full of pictures of her children. "Wasn't he such a cute little boy?" she asked, smiling at the picture of the toddler, whose hair tumbled down his eyes as he looked up at the camera with a grin.

"He looks just like you, that's why," Mycroft replied tenderly, looking at the picture below that one. Sherlock was staring into the fish bowl from the other side at age four, his head and eyes enlarged due to the curves of the simple bowl.

Sighing, Mrs. Holmes closed the album and turned to her remaining son. "Now don't you go leaving me now, too. I'm already mad enough at Sherly. What could that boy have been thinking?" Her voice cracked towards the end, wavering between sadness over the fact, anger over the action.

"Don't worry, Mummy, I won't," Mycroft breathed, pulling her into a hug. He wanted to tell her that he was trying to protect his friends, that he had a plan to live, but didn't want her frustrations to vent out on those still living and ever-pressing what-ifs. Her son didn't die in vain, Mycroft knew. As much as he knew history, Britain's own past, he wanted to deny the thought that a great man could die so simply by accident.

"Good. I just wanted to make sure you made it home alright...I'm off to bed, so save your global upheavals for the morning, will you dear?" Standing, his mother ruffled his hair and somberly smiled. Within moments, she started for the guest room, leaving the mound of photo albums on the table.

Mycroft extracted the one from the bottom and turned to the first page. The first was a picture of himself at age seven, holding a still-pink baby Sherlock. Smiling, he flipped the page over, and saw more pictures of himself with his younger brother. Mycroft recalled that he had taken it upon himself to protect his darling little brother, the age difference wide enough to ease much contention. Eventually, in place of his mother or the staff, he became the chief executor in the boy's raising. Though he may come across overbearing, Mycroft always acted in what he thought was the boy's best interests despite Sherlock's constant scathing rebellion. Together with his own intellect and Mycroft's hovering, the young boy was oftentimes isolated from others, just as Mycroft preferred. If he had listened to me, he never would have gotten himself into this mess...If I hadn't exposed his mess, he never would have been where he is now...

o-o-o

For months on end, Mycroft scoured sources, spread his resources thin to find a hint of Moriarty to prove his brother's innocence. To his dismay, even with his expansive network, his power, his money, he couldn't find a trace. It's like Moriarty's allies no longer existed, just disappeared right off the map like the man's body. This was the gravest error he had made in his life, and he would be damned if he didn't exterminate what was left of those who led to his brother's demise.

Nearly a year after Sherlock's death, two of Moriarty's men were exposed, but the most the elder Holmes could extract was the fact that Moriarty existed, that he was evil. This was enough to strike a chord of interest in many news stations, questioning the suicide of Sherlock Holmes. Though many believed it was Mycroft's own efforts to cleanse his family name, others thought there was more to the young man's death than what appeared to the eye.

Before long after the news, Mummy Holmes fell ill with depression and heartbreak. Her son was still dead and now it seemed that his hand was forced in his own suicide. Her poor baby. Why hadn't they noticed sooner? When they could have helped him?

As the months passed, the fad over Sherlock's suicide receded into the backdrop once more. Less and less information was at Mycroft's disposal, and for the first time in his life, he felt as if he wouldn't get what he wanted. The one thing he wanted the most. That's always how it works...How cliche.

His mother grew sadder as the days piled on and Mycroft's visits became far more frequent, his business trips cut short upon her permanently moving in. Every day, he tried to comfort her, but failed; he knew he couldn't replace her youngest. Mycroft was boring, safe, while his younger brother was always in the spirit of adventure, looking for his next amusement. There was something about him, that danger, that just made everyone who cared for him want to look after him. He was dazzling. He was Mummy's favorite, and Mycroft hated him for it. He hated how a dead man could have such power over the living.

Sherlock never tried; he always lived on fanciful underpinnings. He never seemed to care about his own worth, constantly throwing himself amidst danger and in the way of harm. Mycroft, however, worked his life to get where he is today; yet, he couldn't overcome the brilliance that was his brother. Climbing higher and higher, he still couldn't reach the level of a man born seven years his junior. He loved him, he raised him, but he was by no means evidently superior. So in turn, Mycroft was cold, condescending, castigating, and vitriolic at best. He envied his brother, loved him, respected him, but he couldn't beat his pride down for a moment to show it. Selling his life's story to the one man who had the power to destroy him was childish at best, and Mycroft couldn't help but hate himself for it.

Weeks wore on, and his mother refrained from breakfasts. Then lunches and even whole dinners. She was too upset, too worn out to even notice her own atrophy. One morning, when Mycroft entered her room to deliver food that would remain untouched, he found her dead. Within days, he had her buried next to her youngest son on a typical, dreary London morning. Besides the pastor and Anthea's respective onlooking gaze from afar, Mycroft had been the only one to attend.

When he returned home, Mycroft settled on his couch and buried his face in his hands as if he were hiding his tears from the world. For the first time since childhood, Mycroft cried. Not only had he had a hand in the death of his precious brother, but that sadness carried over to his mother as well. In essence, he killed them both. Caring is not an advantage. Now that he had no one to care for, he was surely unstoppable, right?

Burying himself in his work, Mycroft used it to distract himself from the sad reality that was his life and days quickly turned into months without a single night's sleep. Doing more and more of his loathed legwork to occupy his time, he had more irons in the fire than he ever had before, but he still didn't feel accomplished with himself. It wasn't enough, and no matter what he did, he was bored. Half of his fun in a day was spent watching over Sherlock and seeing the reactions he gave as he squirmed to escape his elder brother's sight. The other half was encountering interesting people, Mummy, and possibly the stray abduction of John.

Life was boring. Reclining his his desk chair, Mycroft fiddled with his fingers, unsure of what else to do. It's like he won the game, but there was no one left to congratulate him, no one left to mock him, no one left to flip the table and scream about why he cheated. He had all the power he wanted, but there was nothing fun to do with it.

The phone on his desk rang, and Mycroft eyeballed it suspiciously. Two people knew the extension to this phone and they both were dead. Once Mycroft plucked up the phone and pressed it to his ear, there was no sound on the other end. Was he just imagining it? Setting down the phone back into its cradle, it rang once more. Taking it up in his hand, he answered wearily, "Hello?"

"Mycroft," a familiar voice began with slight irritation.

His eyes widened in complete shock. "Sherlock?"

"You made me call twice."

End of Chapter 6

A/n: To all of you who were wondering, this isn't entirely my theory as to how Sherlock got out alive. I just kind of wanted to make him seem like a bit less of an ass while keeping true to the collection's timeline (with a few minor looked-over discrepancies that I will not spoil). I've whiteboards full of the plot of this so I hope it turns out. As it currently stands, that ring on Mycroft's finger isn't a wedding ring in terms of the show, and I didn't really want to deal with a wife and kids (whose only reason to exist would be for Mycroft's own self-image). Anyhow, please review! I really want to know what you all thought of my take on Mycroft for this story, so please, please, please indulge me. 'Till next time!