Author's Note: Hey guys. Thanks for being really understanding. Also thanks for the reviews. I managed to get this done a day earlier than expected so I must be doing a bit better I guess. This wasn't what I was going to do now but the loss made me delay things a little bit and I actually like what I came up with for this chapter. I hope you do too. Please read, review, and enjoy.

Disclaimer: Clearly I don't own Sherlock. The show is the baby of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, while Sherlock Holmes itself is the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.

The First Time Mycroft Admitted To Fears

She might not be able to attend work but at least Anthea could attend this work related party. Mycroft didn't particularly want to go, not that he ever wanted to go, but this was one of those yearly ones where it was imperative to go and important to go mingle and network. It also meant going out. It meant that Anthea could put on a dress, no matter how huge and not at all appealing it looked on the rack, but on some nice make up and talk to people. She could be Anthea and have some fun. Of course she couldn't play her free drink game with Mycroft but it wouldn't hurt to be sober at one of these events for once.

Anthea would give herself some credit here, she thought she could still scrub up quite nicely. Even with this bump in the way of her usual figure Anthea was sure her face at least could still turn a head or two. Maybe she couldn't hold her own against the likes of Charlotte right now but she still looked good and was still confident in herself. Then again that could just be her ego not falling into line with reality. Mycroft said she looked beautiful but you could never really trust the opinions of someone on the asexual spectrum. Their answers couldn't be compared to the answer of people with typical sexualities.

The event was less dull than Anthea expected it to be without the assistance of alcohol to lighten things up. Maybe having all her mental faculties in complete working order made these conversations easier to follow and far more interesting. This was probably the best work she'd ever done networking at one of these things. She needed to find Mycroft to tell him all the good work she'd done. Even on maternity leave she was an awesome personal assistant.

It was a little early in the evening to find Mycroft already sitting in a quiet corner by himself. He hadn't been here long enough yet for the crowd and the lights and the noise to overstimulate him yet. From Anthea's experience it took quite a while for Mycroft's brain to not be able to handle it anymore and usually if it happened earlier it was because of higher than average levels of alcohol. Alcohol sometimes kept it at bay and sometimes enhanced it.

As Anthea approached Mycroft slowly looked up from his glass of scotch. With weary eyes and a tired aura surrounding him, Mycroft gave Anthea what could only be described as a bitter sweet smile, bot happy and sad at the same time. His eyes were only a little out of focus, there couldn't be too much alcohol in his system. But how quickly did that stuff officially take to kick in?

"Hey." Anthea smiled back sweetly.

"Hello." Mycroft said, his eyebrows dancing up and down but his expression not at all amused.

"You okay?" Anthea asked, looking Mycroft over carefully. He rolled his steel eyes.

"I'm fine, my dear." He said. Anthea knew better than to take first words to heart. She raised her eyebrows.

"Need some company?" She asked. Mycroft shook his head.

"No, keep socialising." He gave her that fake half smile.

"I can have a break, you know." Anthea tilted her head to the side, playfully. "I've done a lot of good networking. I can stop for a bit."

"I know, I've seen." Mycroft hummed, this time a little bit of something close to happiness coming through his tone. "By all means, don't break your momentum on my part." He flicked his wrist towards the crowd, dismissing Anthea and pushing her on.

"Only if you tell me what's wrong." Anthea pouted to add a playful touch. Mycroft's lips twitched and he almost gave a real smile. There was a pause as the genius chose his words carefully.

"Quiet reflection." He replied. Anthea waited for more; that was not enough. Mycroft knew she was waiting so he continued. "I had a rather interesting conversation with some dignitaries from Belgium. I'm taking a moment to reflect." Anthea frowned. The visitors from Belgium? Anthea had talked to two of them. After seeing that she was pregnant they were all over showing her photos of their kids. They were harmless. Politicians with young kids who were missing home. No one dark.

Ah.

Maybe Anthea got it.

She nodded.

"Okay." She breathed. "If you need me come find me, okay?"

"Absolutely." Mycroft said, shaking his head almost in complete contrast to his words.

Later and Anthea went to find Mycroft and she didn't even have to try. He was still in the same spot which was unusual for him. He'd had a number of scotches since the last time Anthea saw him but other than that he was in the exact same position. It worried her to see him like this, not as much as it might worry her to see someone else like this, but the concern was there. She came over and sat down silently next to him. Mycroft looked her way but said nothing, turning back to staring at the glass in his hand.

"You okay?" She asked. She knew Mycroft had heard her but he didn't reply. His index finger just tapped on the glass. She tried to take a better look at his face. His eyes were glassy. Maybe he'd had more scotch than she thought. This had to be worse than one little conversation bothering him. "Is it all the people?" Anthea asked. "Are you over stimulated? Do you want to go outside?" She touched his arm. Mycroft shook his head.

"The people are fine… for once." Mycroft looked up into the party. He looked tired and sombre. "No one here is particularly annoying and I'm the noise and the images are all quite…" He paused, his brain not working as fast as it usually does. His brow furrowed as he tried to think of the word. He shook his head. "Well, I can keep up with all the information being thrown at me." He kind of smiled at his own folly. Okay, so that wasn't the problem. So then what was up? Anthea straightened her shoulders.

"Is it me?" She asked quietly, pointing at herself. "Would you be happier if I left?" The look that fell onto Mycroft's face, you'd think someone just slapped him. He looked in complete surprise and hurt. He turned to look at her.

"No." He said breathlessly. "It's not you, it'll never be you." He freed one of his hands from his scotch glass and touched her on her knee. "You are always perfect." He said. Anthea smiled, looking down and fighting off a blush and maybe a laugh at the same time.

"And you've had a bit much to drink." She said. Mycroft looked at his glass and only now under fine scrutiny noticed this particular glass was empty. He placed it down.

"Even so, I speak the truth." Anthea laughed. She squeezed Mycroft's hand and then pushed it gently off her knee in case the wrong person saw it. Not like people were going to talk more than they already were but they liked keeping their private lives a little private.

"Do you want to go?" Anthea asked again, smiling a little. Mycroft shook his head.

"You're having fun, I dare not rob you of that." He said to his empty hands.

"I don't come here for me, sir." Anthea crinkled her nose playfully. "I come to these things for you and because it's in my contract." Mycroft didn't speak but the goofiest grin came onto his face as he stared at his hands. For once it was so obvious just how much he didn't believe Anthea and just how amusing he found it when people tried to lie to him. His expression alone made Anthea laugh. She knew he loved being smarter than everyone. "Okay, I'm having fun this time because I need to but usually I come for you." Anthea tapped him on the shoulder quickly.

"And so I don't bring someone like Charlotte," Mycroft mentioned. "And for free drinks, and for an excuse to flirt, and for free food, and all those years you used it as an excuse to dance with me, and when James is invited you like to use it to introduce Jamie to people, and you like to have an excuse to buy a nice dress."

"Oh, shut up. It's mostly for work." She laughed.

"It's half for work." He said. Then he stopped and frowned. "Maybe. Could be more or less, I can't seem to make an exact calculation at this moment." Yeah, the alcohol will do that.

"Maybe we should go, then." Anthea said. Mycroft pursed his lips and shook his head.

"Go do another round of conversation, get some more fun out of it, then we'll go." He said. He looked over at his empty glass then looked up around the room.

"I want to leave if you're uncomfortable or… upset, Mycroft." Saying upset to Mycroft felt awfully like saying a swearword. Mycroft shook his head again.

"Socialise some more." He said, nodding to the crowd. "We'll leave when you come back." There appeared to be no arguing with him.

Anthea made her last go around the room as quick as possible, only talking to people she really wanted to talk to or people she'd somehow managed to miss until this point. She did what she was told to do and she certainly had fun but she kept it brief. Really, Anthea had done what she'd set out to do and have a work related evening where she could hold adult conversations and prove that she was still pretty. After this these people meant almost nothing to her but Myc did. He'd been in a weird place since that conversation with the Belgium visitors and she wanted to get him home.

When she came for him, in the same spot, he had another half a glass of scotch in his hand. This was not typical Mycroft Holmes behaviour. Mycroft liked to be in control of his head. Luckily though when Anthea expressed her wishes to leave Mycroft immediate put the glass down and began fumbling for his phone to call Walter. This would have been easier if Mycroft let Anthea drive there but God forbid Mycroft Holmes not turn up at one of these events driven by a private driver. Anthea got her phone out and called Walter before Mycroft even found the number in his phone.

It was strange. Even in the town car Mycroft appeared to be sulking. He sat quietly to himself and stared out the window. Anthea and Walter made eye contact through the rear-view mirror, sharing their concerns with each other.

"Okay, Myc." Anthea sighed, rolling her eyes. "Now we're alone will you tell me what's wrong?" She asked. The genius, head resting on his hand as he looked at the streetlights, hummed.

"Walter is here." He said. An excuse and not a good one.

"Walter has heard us have huge fights. Walter calls you kid occasionally. Does Walter count?" Anthea asked. Mycroft hummed again.

"No." He replied.

"So?" Anthea asked. Silence. She took a breath. "Talk to me Myc, we're honest with each other, remember?" Mycroft shifted. He leaned his back against the car door and looked at Anthea poignantly. Or as poignantly as a drunk genius could. He took a deep breath, kept studying her and exhaled.

"Do you know how much James loves Hope?" He said. Anthea laughed, the build-up of suspense to end on such a question catching her off guard and causing such an emotional response.

"I do." She nodded vigorously. Mycroft pouted his lips, unimpressed with this answer. "He's all about that little girl." Anthea added.

"I don't think you do." Mycroft replied. Blearily he looked down at his hands. "I don't think that anyone, unless they can see what people are thinking the way I can or the way Eurus can," He left out Sherlock. Was that on purpose? "Could tell just how much James' life now revolves around the small girl." Mycroft frowned at his hands and looked back up. "Even before she was born he loved her more than you should for a live baby let alone a zygote." Anthea forced back a small laugh as Mycroft grimaced. It was a funny thing to say but now was not the time for that.

"James and Jamie were pretty excited from the very first moment." Anthea said something just to see where he was going.

"And John!" Mycroft widened his eyes and slid down a few centimetres in his seat. "Do you see how he's changed his life for Rosamund? Not because he had to but because he wanted to." Mycroft was beginning to talk with his hands. "Mary. I've known Mary for longer than John. She loved that baby before it was born, too. She never ever appeared to me as one of those people. I could have told you that you would end up talking to your abdomen, but not her." He shook his head. He lulled into silence, staring at nothing, thinking. Anthea waited to see if he would say more but he didn't. In fact he might be in danger of falling asleep. Anthea didn't know what to say. She could see where this was going and she didn't like it but if Mycroft was this distraught he needed to say it.

"And the guys tonight talked about their kids." She added. Mycroft nodded lazily. Anthea took a breath, pushed her hair out of her face, and tried to continue. "So, what's the point, Myc?" He shook his head. "Myc?" Anthea pressed.

"If I keep talking I won't be able to stop." He murmured. Anthea swallowed the lump in her throat.

"If you don't say it you won't feel better and neither will I now." She said. Their eyes met. Mycroft pouted. He slid further down in his seat like a reluctant teenager.

"Why is it they all love their children so much and I don't?" He breathed out. "How is it possible that they were already in love with their children before they came and all I fear for mine is fear and… and… something I can't think of the bloody label for right now." His hands rubbed at his temple lobes. Anthea shrugged. She had to say something. But what?

"Myc-"

"No, no, it's not that. It's not that I do love them and I don't know what that feeling is because I've been through all that… annoying confusion and I'd know it anywhere." He screwed up his face. "Anywhere. I see it everywhere now." It was clumsy but Mycroft managed to drag himself back up the seat. "I won't say I loved you from the moment I saw you because that's stupid and cliché and a lie but I can see how I loved you for so many years. All that time you were in love with me and I was in love with you but I thought it was just me wanting you around. All those pains in my chest, all those lumps in my throat, it was all you." He was ranting and frustrated, not to mention drunk, but it made Anthea's breath get stuck in her throat nonetheless. I still get that stupid pain in my chest every time I make you laugh and I hated it then and I hate it now but I can see what it is now. That is not how I feel about this child." And there was the blow that allowed the air to come out. Anthea rubbed her arm and shook her head.

"To be fair I don't think you feel the same way about your kids as you do about your partner." She offered quietly.

"No. It's supposed to be deeper." Mycroft said, pushing his hand hard against the upholstery of the car seat. "Mummy would trade Father for any one of us and she loves him dearly. Jamie would let James die if it meant saving Hope. Look at Jamie's stepfather towards children that aren't even his blood. It's a real thing and I just don't feel it and I don't know why!" His head lulled back. Anthea could feel her eyes swelling with water. She tried to blink them back. Her heart was aching and not in the good way Mycroft had described moments ago. "I don't know, maybe I'm more like Eurus than I realised. Maybe I was right about it being safer spending my life alone." Now Anthea didn't know who she felt the pain for; herself for hearing all this, the baby for not having the perfect family waiting for it, or for Mycroft feeling once again like he didn't belong. The tears began falling without Anthea's permission. She sniffed and used her thumbs to try and stop tears falling. Mycroft looked up to see this. "See?" Mycroft held his hand out to gesture to Anthea. "I've made you cry. I've made the most beautiful creature in the world cry because I don't know how to be human." Anthea laughed despite the tears.

"It's okay, Myc."

"It's not okay." He shook his head. "It's never okay to hurt you and I do it all the time and by not loving your child I'm hurting you and it more and it's unacceptable." He'd be embarrassed of how that sentence was worded if he even remembered it later.

"No, it is okay, Mycroft." Anthea said. She sniffed and wiped away the last few tears. "This is why we're doing the month thing. You're not a normal person and that's okay."

"It's not okay." He whispered with a pout. Anthea laughed. She pushed playfully on his arm and then rubbed it lovingly.

"We've always done things our own way. The fact that you're worried about your feelings is enough to say you'll make a decision that's right by me and the baby." She tried to soothe him although she did feel that way. His expressing his feelings did hurt, she wouldn't lie to herself, but he was worried about it. He cared.

"When have I ever made the right decision?" Mycroft continued to pout. Anthea smiled. She leaned in closer so her arm was against his.

"When you asked me to move in but I said no? I realised you were right." She said. Mycroft frowned.

"That doesn't count. You were being stupid and I just let you be stupid and work it out yourself." Sometimes inebriated Mycroft said things that sounded so much like Sherlock or Eurus.

"Maybe you're just being stupid now and we need to let you be stupid and work it out later." She teased, leaning her head against his shoulder. Mycroft hummed.

"I don't think so." He said. "I've had long enough to realise my stupidity by now and I haven't. Therefore it is now a constant state of… stupid." He had tried to use a synonym and failed. Anthea laughed then sighed. Her chest still hurt but it was lightening.

"I think enough time is a month after the baby is born." She hummed.'

"You're so patient." Mycroft sighed. "You're wasted on me." Now her heart ached hard again.

It was no surprise to Anthea to find Mycroft in the morning now holding a cup of coffee like it was his life blood. He was sitting at the kitchen bench with the lights off and most of the blinds and curtains drawn. Broody and over the top, perfect for him. It made Anthea smile wryly.

Anthea walked into the kitchen and turned the lights on. Unlike someone else Anthea was fine and needed the lights to see. Mycroft flinched at the sudden burst of light. Anthea laughed quietly as she got out the orange juice and poured herself a glass. She'd much rather Mycroft's coffee. She stood behind the counter and looked at the miserable Mycroft as she took a sip. He was watching her too. Mycroft let go of the cup of coffee and rubbed at his brow.

"Alice," He sighed. "About last night." Anthea hummed and shook her head, trying to tell him it was okay. He continued anyway. "I don't know what overcame me, I don't usually behave in such a way and overindulge." He grimaced. "I do not like losing control like that." Anthea licked her lips, pursed them, and put her own glass down.

"You know what overcame you." She corrected softly. Mycroft's nose twitched, his lip lifting into a faint sneer of disappointment towards himself.

"I suppose I do." He replied. "What I mean to say is that I didn't mean to express it so much. Or at all, really." Anthea shook her head.

"I'm glad you did or you'd just keep feeling bad or feeling worse." She tucked her hair behind her ear and forced a smile. Mycroft's mouth remained in a straight line.

"But my dear," He looked at her carefully. "If I remember correctly you teared up." Anthea laughed breathlessly.

"I did." She nodded a few times in the following moment of quiet. "But I probably needed to do that, too."

"I doubt that." Mycroft scowled. Anthea resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

"Emotions can't just be avoided forever." She told him like a parent lecturing a child.

"Want to bet?" He quirked an eyebrow and gave Anthea a very fake confident smirk. She crinkled her nose.

"I do." She nodded. "Eurus and Sherrinford." She said. The best example anyone could think of about how running from problems and emotions can just make them worse. Something that taught Mycroft and Sherlock to be more open with each other and their loved ones. Mycroft's smirk disappeared. He looked down at his coffee. "What do I win?" She cocked her head to the side. Mycroft didn't answer. Anthea reached over and touched his hand. The genius looked up and caught her gaze. His mouth broke into something close to a real smile when he saw the gentle smile on her face.

"Satisfaction, I'm afraid, is your only prize." He said.

"I'll take it." Anthea patted his hand one more time before returning to her previous position.

"You have to admit I could have handled last night far more gracefully." Mycroft said. Anthea pushed her lips together and took a deep breath, overcome with Mycroft's naivety in the area of emotional conflict.

"Emotions can be messy, Myc." She shrugged. "And with drunk people it can get really messy." She widened her eyes. "That was actually really clean." Mycroft scoffed in his throat.

"If you say so, my dear." He hummed. The genius swallowed nothing. "I'm still sorry, though. For saying anything that might hurt you." And there was a pang in Anthea's chest. The poor, foolish genius. It was good he didn't want to hurt her, it was great even! But he really needed to learn to let himself feel these things. He needed to learn that it was okay to hurt someone a little bit if it lead to healing or better understanding. He needed to learn that his feelings mattered as much as anyone else's. He needed to see how many of his and Anthea's problems over the years came from them not always being honest to their emotions. They were in love with each other for years and they did nothing.

Anthea leaned over and grasped Mycroft's hand one more time and spoke to him from her soul.

"Never apologise for speaking your heart."

Author's Note: So? What did you think? Let me know. I am pretty happy with it given how scattered my brain is right now. Thanks to our guest reviewers last chapter: Avery, Guest, and Owl. Thanks to all of you reading this. I'm hoping to aim for six days for the next chapter, too. I'm trying to force myself to get back into some normal habits and I'm not ready to socialise a lot yet… So this is a good place to start. So hopefully see you then.