Rose was a bundle of nerves as she waited for Mycroft to arrive. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea. What if he got angry with her again and said something terrible? Or would he behave himself since they'd be in public? That was her hope, at any rate. The true underlying issue, Rose reflected internally, was whether or not he would ever be happy with who she was.
"You're fine just as you are, you know," Sherlock commented. He looked up from the book he was reading and gave her a bit of a smile. "Though it certainly wouldn't hurt if you were better behaved," he stated with a wink.
"That really never stops being sort of creepy," Rose said, giving him a smile in return. "But thanks just the same. Is it ever strange being able to interpret what people are thinking at times?"
"Often it's rather annoying, because most people are alarmingly stupid," he admitted. "It does have its usefulness though. And I don't interpret, I deduce." Sherlock looked up when he heard footsteps on the stairs. "Mycroft," he greeted, giving his brother a significant look. "I do believe Rose is all ready."
"Better put on a coat, it's a bit chilly out," Mycroft advised his sister. "You clean up well."
"Your face!" Rose exclaimed. "Wow. Just… wow." She scowled at Sherlock. "See what you did? That is not nice. Shouldn't hit your brother, you know."
An eyebrow quirked. "Just brothers, or should I not assault people in general?"
"Just brothers," she confirmed. "Take it on a case by case basis with the general public." Rose retrieved her jacket and left the flat with her oldest brother.
After opening the door for her, Mycroft got in on the driver's side of the car. The air was almost crackling with tension as he pulled away from the curb, prompting him to let out a sigh.
"I like your car. It's new, yeah?" Rose asked.
"Very, six months. I don't drive it very often; the tube or cabs are usually more convenient."
"I know how to drive now. I can drive a manual transmission too. I learned while I was staying in Luxembourg, a friend taught me."
Mycroft frowned. That hadn't been a destination he'd have thought Rose would be interested in going to. "What was there? I mean, what made you go there?"
"That was what made me go there. I didn't really know anything about it, so I thought, why not check it out? Can't use that license here though, it's not under my real name. I'll have to test here as well. Then again, I don't have a car so perhaps there's no point," she admitted.
"You're not practicing in this car, let me tell you," Mycroft hurriedly told her. He could envision the chaos already.
She fell silent after that and he couldn't help wondering if he'd managed to say something wrong already. Why did raising girls have to be so complicated? It really wasn't fair. It also made him reevaluate any plans to potentially marry or have children of his own; he wasn't entirely convinced he could survive another teenager. "Ah, here we are. Baker Street is rather centrally located," he said. "It's valet service as well."
She stepped out of the car and waited for Mycroft to give his keys to the attendant so they could walk into the restaurant together. Within just a few minutes they were being escorted to their seats.
"I think we need some rules for this meal," Rose said quietly, after they sat down. "We have to try and really listen to each other and we cannot say anything hurtful. And if you do, I will pour my drink on you and leave. I don't have to sit there and listen to you tell me hurtful things again."
"That's fair," Mycroft agreed. Their server stopped at the table just then, inquiring about drinks. He selected a white wine from the list and was more than a little surprised when Rose indicated she would take the same. He didn't say anything, but his eyebrow quirked and he gave her pointed look.
"Or, you know, coffee would be better instead. And cream, please," Rose decided, blushing a bit.
"I wasn't aware you drank," Mycroft murmured.
"On occasion, not regularly. I am legal age for it." Her tone was a bit defensive.
"I'm not criticizing you. Though I would hope you exercise caution and do not drink yourself into a state where you blackout and end up who knows where," Mycroft admitted. "You seem very defensive."
Rose frowned. "Wouldn't you be, after what you said yesterday? I'm willing to talk with you and try to work this out, but it's going to be a very long time before I forget what you said. That was so hurtful and I don't think you really grasp that, not fully."
When their drinks arrived, Rose fixed her coffee and Mycroft seized the opportunity to speak. "You're right, I don't know how that made you feel, not truly," he admitted. "I very much regret saying what I did. It was completely out of line, said in the heat of anger, and not the least bit reflective of my true feelings of you Rose."
"I don't know if I believe that. I can't be what you want me to be, Mycroft, because that's not who I am. I'm not a politician or an aspiring lawyer, or whatever else you want from me. I have a hard enough time being me I can't be someone different for you. I'm very out of place in this world so much of the time and that's difficult, especially when I can't seem to fit into my own family." The words came out in a bit of a rush, as if Rose was trying to get everything out before she could forget it, or could be interrupted.
Mycroft nodded, looking thoughtful. "I'm not sure I follow you, Rose. Can you expand a bit? Why do you say that you're out of place?" It had been a very long time since she'd been so open with him and he began to realize that Sherlock was right. He had been too distant and Rose hadn't felt she was able to come to him because she felt he wouldn't listen or didn't understand.
"I just don't fit in with, well, almost everyone," Rose responded. "I'm almost twenty, but I'm well ahead of most twenty year olds in terms of education so I have a hard time relating to them and their life experiences, because I went through all those stages a long time ago that they're going through now. And I don't really fit in with anyone who is older than me because of the age gap and the lack of life experiences that they have and I don't. It's hard to be so in-between, too old for people my age, too young for people on my level academically.
"And you never seem to support the things I like about myself: my dancing, my hobbies, potential career paths, the friends I do have. None of it. You are always so disapproving of me and I make myself miserable trying to do what you wanted me to do. And that's why I left, because I was so unhappy." By this time, tears had gathered in her eyes and Rose attempted to blink them away.
For a few minutes that seemed to last an hour, their table was silent as Mycroft tried to digest everything Rose had told him. Finally the server arrived to take their food order and then left once again. Mycroft had no idea what to say or where to begin, so he reached out and took her hand, squeezing it gently.
"We all have to make our own place in this world," he finally said. "It's not easy, and we all go through the process that you're experiencing now, and have been experiencing for a few years," he admitted. "And it was never my intention to make that process more difficult or to make you feel as if who you are, as a person, was not good enough and therefore unable to fit into our rather dysfunctional family."
"We're very dysfunctional I think," Rose interrupted, giving him a tiny smile.
"I've never been unhappy to have you," Mycroft continued. "You confuse me very, very much sometimes, because you are so different from Sherlock and I. I'm not always certain that I make the right choices where you are concerned. What I am certain of, is that you are the only thing that unites the three of us as a somewhat dysfunctional family. Do you realize that? The only time Sherlock and I ever cooperate about anything at all, or even attempt to, is when you are involved because we care about you far more than we care about being contrary with one another."
Rose sighed. "Now see? That's a lovely thing to say. So why did you say something so terrible to me, if you didn't even mean it? That doesn't make sense."
"I cannot answer that, because I truly don't know," Mycroft answered truthfully. "I was angry and lost my temper."
"Not good excuses-"
"I know. I could also blame it on a long and difficult day and a multitude of other things, but I'm not going too," Mycroft assured her. "Because you're right, none of those are good excuses. I was angry though, I think I have been very angry since you left, and since you came back. Somewhere along the way I've lost you and that is a difficult thing to deal with. Again, not a good reason to be cruel, but I can't offer you a reason that isn't there that might be easier to hear."
She studied him for a moment before sipping her coffee. "I don't follow. And please don't frown at me; I'm not trying to be difficult. But I lost me, or disappeared me… neither of which is grammatically correct, but what I mean is that I chose to leave. Or is that not even what you're referring to?"
Mycroft sighed and down a large swallow of his brandy.
"I know this isn't easy for you," Rose said quietly. "To talk about this; about me; about feelings in general. But I need you too. I can't compartmentalize things the way you do."
"I know, and that's why I struggle with you sometimes," he admitted. "Because I'm not certain that I'm doing what you need me to, or being what you need me to be, especially when it comes to sentiment. What I mean, specifically, is that I believe I started losing you a while back, before you left. I don't know why it happened and I have no idea how to fix it."
Rose smiled. "And that's the part I'm good at. Fixing, speaking, and all that mushy stuff you aren't good at. I don't expect you to do things that aren't at all you, but I miss the way we used to be, when I was younger. When you told me you loved me on a daily basis, even if it wasn't always in words. I need you to do those things again and I…"
She took a deep breath to steady herself. "And I need to know you haven't stopped caring about me because I've done something wrong that I didn't even know I did. We're not the same and we haven't been in a long time. What did I do?"
Her willingness to accept the blame for the distance that had grown between them, prior to her vanishing act, touched Mycroft more than he could express. But he tried, all the same. "To put it in the most simplistic terms possible, you grew up. You started getting older, Mother passed on, and I don't know anything about girls."
Rose let out a giggle, which she tried to cover with a cough when Mycroft's eyebrows rose. "So sorry. Please continue."
"I mean little girls, or rather, you as a little girl," Mycroft clarified. "No one tells you how to parent, Rose. No book can ever explain adequately how rewarding and difficult being a parent can be. While I know I am not your actual parent, I'm the closest thing to it that an older brother can be. And if there's no adequate book to understand parenting, let me assure you there is no book at all that even mentions being the older brother raising a little sister much younger than himself."
"So what you're saying is its trial and error and always has been?" Rose asked.
"Essentially, yes. I've worked it out as I've gone along. Sometimes I've done well and other times I've done poorly. And girls are so much different than boys. Not that Sherlock is normal by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a very different dynamic. You've always needed a lot more than I even thought you did and think, in an effort to try and let you grow up and not be cosseted, I pulled away too much. Since then, things have gone slowly downward until you disappeared," Mycroft explained.
"You know, that actually makes a lot of sense. And please don't think that I ever thought, or do think now, that you don't love me. I know you do and I know you want good things for me. But I need more than your good intentions, yeah? Together, we need to work on getting closer again, like we used to be. We need more talking like this, and we need more affection in general. You might be ok without it, but I'm not," Rose confessed.
Mycroft nodded, looking thoughtful as he considered her words. "I would very much like us to be close again. I cannot promise things will be a bed of roses, but what I can assure you is that I don't want to us to be estranged."
Rose stood up and hugged Mycroft tight, kissing his cheek before resuming her seat. "And that is just what I was hoping to hear. I won't expect you to be perfect, I promise. We just have to try, the both of us. Now, where did that server go because our food is taking forever and I really might just expire any minute if it doesn't come soon!"
"Never have outgrown that over dramatic streak, have you?" Mycroft chuckled. A part of him, though he would never admit it aloud, hoped she never would.