Chapter Text
Lockie
There was an echoing, pulsing silence. Lockie lay on his back on the floor, blinking. Albie, to punctuate the matter, flopped his bottom onto the cot. “Bollocks”, he said bitterly.
Graham just sighed and looked at Lockie. “You’re just a little Bad Luck Magnet, ent you?”
All things considered, Lockie couldn’t really deny it.
They tried all manner of things—collectively rattling the metal bars; lifting the entire door (which dislodged a great quantity of ancient rust that trickled down on their heads); and, finally, shouting very loudly out the tiny window for the better part of ten minutes. None of these efforts were more effective than the other. Things took a turn for the dire when Graham noticed, when deciding to go back to using mechanical means, that the tools Lockie had been holding had both skittered out onto the floor outside the cell.
The hoof pick was easy—Albie, his arm a little longer than Graham’s, could reach through the bars far enough to snag it and pull it carefully back to them. On its own, though, it could accomplish little. They needed the screwdriver.
They pondered. Lockie wasn’t particularly good at pondering; he tended to go for the “first option is likely the best” approach. Occam’s Razor* and all that, as Mycroft was known to say. Well. Words to that effect, anyway.
Graham, though, was definitely a pondering sort of man. They spent the next solid half-hour on multiple unsuccessful attempts at reaching the tool—Albie took off his shirt and flailed the fabric carefully, able to touch but not move the screwdriver. Graham took off his belt, then, and did much the same, but only managed to inadvertently flick it further away. At the eleventh hour, though—well, eleventh minute, perhaps, though it seemed much longer to Lockie—Albie looked to the ceiling for inspiration, and took in a sudden breath. “The bars,” he said, gesturing to the row above the door. “Ent they different, up there at the top? Bigger, like?”
Albie shimmied up first—he was much lighter than Graham, after all. He managed to get his arm through, all the way up his shoulder and a bit more, but that was all, try though he might. He looked down at Graham, preparing to lever himself up in his turn. “No, mate—you’ll never fit, ye great tit.” He looked down over his friend’s shoulder. “But he might.”
Graham carefully picked Lockie up and handed him off to Albie, who helped Lockie fish his leg through and sit, wedged tight, tight, tight, between the ancient iron uprights. Then Lockie turned his head far to the left, shoved hard enough to the side that it took skin from his cheeks and chest, but then he began to tilt, too far, scary far, further to the left. And then he fell.
He didn’t quite hit the stone floor. Graham, shockingly fast for a big man, shot his arm through the lower bar and managed to snag the back of Lockie’s shirt, just enough to stop the trajectory of his head towards the paving. Not for long, as Graham’s arm, pulled by Lockie’s weight, slammed into the crossbar hard enough to break his grip. It was enough, though—Lockie landed with a smack, but only hard enough to set up an outraged protest from his bruises, and on his back, not his head. He couldn’t prevent a bit of a yowl, but managed to sit up and give Graham a searing look. “You dropped me!” he said accusingly.
Graham dropped to the floor on his bum, wiped his face with one big hand, and laughed. “Aye, I did, but I caught ye first,” he said. “Thank God.”
After they’d pulled themselves together a bit, both Lockie and Graham got up (Lockie rather slower than usual) and looked at each other. “Arright,” Graham said briskly. ‘Try that handle, just in case.”
Lockie dutifully did, with expected results—the handle mechanism wasn’t engaged with the lock components. The handle just flipped loosely back and forth. Graham and Albie both sighed. “Right, then, lad—can you try your lockpicking magic from that side, then?”
Lockie dutifully picked up the screwdriver again, with similarly useless results. He angrily tossed the tool through the bars, where it clanged against the back stone wall, then turned to his horse pick. And that—he could almost, almost reach the internal workings. But never quite get there. That tool he finally just dropped to his feet, then suddenly looked around the room in dawning glee as their relative positions dawned on him.
He briskly scuffed the horse pick under the metal rail and into the cell—he was escaping. He wasn’t mean. Then he spun on his heel, ran down the hall to the office and slammed out the front door with his captors’ shouts ringing in his ears.
Mycroft
While Mycroft was gurgling in shock and digging his heels in furiously to keep from being yanked unceremoniously out of his own house, Andrew huffed and shot out his hand to grab the rigid arm that was currently attempted to strangle Mycroft. “Let him go, you tosser,” the agent said.
Nothing changed, other than Mycroft beginning to get short of breath. Andrew slid his hand around the young man’s rigid fist and shook it, hard, while Mycroft’s head rattled back and forth. “Ellis,” he barked. “He’s sixteen!”
The hand released with a last, vicious shove, and Mycroft slid thankfully to his knees against the doorpost, panting. “Aye, well he’s still a little shit,” the young man—Ellis—said darkly.
“Sometimes,” Andrew chuckled. “But he has his reasons for part of it.” He helped Mycroft up. “We have a bit of a situation. C’mon inside and I’ll tell all, and you can do the same. Best we don’t spend any more time where folks can see us.”
They settled in the kitchen for one of the stranger conversations Mycroft had ever encountered. He, himself, sat in one of the chairs he’d tugged to the corner of the room and glared—even after the explanation that these were Andrew’s former squadmates, he wasn’t feeling much in charity with them. He did, however, feel his face heat with shame when they explained their interactions with and attempts to help Lockie, who would never have been out of his own like that but for Mycroft’s hideous temper.
But they still shouldn’t have tried to manhandle him. He returned to glaring.
“So, you’re sayin’ that your MI5 leader sold you out, then?” Ellis asked slowly, at the end of Andrew’s recitation.
“Well, basically,” Andrew replied. “I mean, he likely wouldn’t see it that way. It’s possible he didn’t even make the original choice, but he certainly went along with it once someone told him. Not known for his warm and caring attitude, is Mr. Vernet.” He looked over his shoulder at Mycroft. “And, to complicate matters further, he’s this one’s uncle. I also know Mycroft’s dad, who’s sort of an adjunct to the Security Services, so I came here looking for help. But his dad isn’t in the country right now, so we’ve had to enlist outside aid to get a secure way to contact him. We’re waiting for our resource to get back right now—he went to Ireland to pass on a message and gather intel. Should be back sometime tomorrow—likely a bit late, so we’re going to bide here and stay out of harm’s way in the meantime.”
One of the other two young men—Harold, Mycroft believed, though he hadn’t really been listening to the hurried introductions after he was released—looked around. “So where’s the wee lad, then?” he asked slowly. “Seems like he should be somewhere safe, all things considered.”
Andrew chuckled. “He is, actually—though I doubt he would agree with you. He’s at the police station—they found him wandering about and collected him, and, on thinking about it, we decided it was the best place for him in the short run.”
Ellis blinked. “No, he’s not. We were just there—just two hopeless blokes locked in the old cage cell. We let them out when we heard them shouting from the green. We asked about him, actually—if they’d seen him. They said no. Had no idea who we were talking about.”
Lockie
As Lockie bounced out the door and tore along the trees at the edge of the village green, he was already running through options for where he could stay, within several parameters:
- He couldn’t go home—it was clear something was very wrong, and Mycroft would never have left him at the police station unless he felt he had no choice. Much though it irritated him (and how desperately he longed for his own bed), the house was out of the question unless something changed.
- He couldn’t go back to the Layabouts’ tent—the Idiots were sure to check the area around the green and the village first (after, perhaps, going to the Holmes house. He wished them joy of trying to get past Mycroft’s stubbornness).
- He couldn’t just wander about—the Granny Network was extremely strong in Holmwood, and if he was seen often enough, someone—likely several someones—would start making phone calls, asking what he was doing out on his own.
- He couldn’t go back to the Hamilton’s stable or their other outbuildings, either—the likelihood that the Idiots would question the Layabouts was far too high.
That last thought, though, niggled something in his brain. He was tired still, and getting hungry, so he wasn’t thinking as clearly as he normally did, but it was—
Oh, of course--Daddy’s workshop! It was perfect—absolutely safe, quite comfortable, and close enough that he could possibly keep a (secret, and hopefully safe) eye on whatever was going on with Mycroft. The shed-like building, attached to the old greenhouse that was now rarely used, had once been a gardener’s "cottage", so it even had a tiny upstairs loft/bedroom and miniscule kitchen. Daddy occasionally used both when he was working late on a knotty problem in one of his tiny creations, so there would be at least some food—biscuits and crisps, perhaps a sandwich or two in the little fridge (or, best of all, a tiny tub of ice cream), juice.
He headed straight home, coming in the back way, from the nature preserve side, so he wasn’t spotted on the road out front. He stopped briefly in the stable to say hello to his pony and Mycroft’s gelding, then winnowed down the narrow walkway into the greenhouse and through to the back side of the workshop, dark and somewhat dusty.
The first thing he did was turn on the tiny space heater—it was bitterly cold in the little building at the best of times, and Daddy ran the heater most of the time until, oh, mid-June or so, as a rule. But the small space warmed up quickly enough, and there was a second heater upstairs in the bedroom. He stood in front of the glowing box, rubbing his hands together briskly like Mummy had taught him, enjoying the toasty waves wafting towards him.
Once the room was good and warm, he checked out the food offerings, pleased to see that things must have been recently restocked. There were three (only slightly stale) sandwiches, a wedge of cheese (cheddar, Lockie’s favourite) and an apple in the fridge, along with a bottle of grape juice. There were several packets of crisps—he decided to save those for later, just in case. He made himself a plate of half of a ham sandwich, a bit of the cheese, and the apple, and poured a plastic mug full of juice, then ensconced himself on the ratty sofa to eat next to the heater.
It was bliss. He ate all of it, and dutifully cleaned up after himself. Soon enough, though, his jaws cracked in an enormous yawn, and he thought about the small bed upstairs. He stopped in the little toilet long enough to wash his face and hands, then trudged up the narrow stairs, turned on the other heater, climbed under the (slightly dusty) duvet, and closed his eyes with a contented sigh. He could worry about Mycroft tomorrow, after all.
Mycroft
Their little group broke up, finally—speculation got them nowhere, in the end, as they could do nothing until Brindle got back. Mycroft campaigned vigorously to begin another search for Lockie, but was overruled. “We know he’s not in danger,” Andrew said reasonably. “I suspect he’s hiding somewhere near the house—anywhere the police aren’t likely to find him, especially since they lied about having seen him to this lot. They’ll be looking hard, certainly—not a good look for them if they lose him and Mycroft’s Mum and Dad find out. But he’s so little, he can’t get very far. And he probably knows a lot of safe places, when you come right down to it. I mean, he came up with that barn all on his own. He might even be there now, but if we all go after him we’d call attention to it—and to us.”
Mycroft reluctantly offered to allow Ellis’ group to camp out in the house; he wouldn’t offer bedrooms, but there were ample sofas and plenty of floor space, as well as lots of extra blankets. To his relief, the offer was declined. “We got jobs to do, early in the morning. Got a lot of mowing, both by machine and by hand, near the churchyard and the green. Likely take a couple of days,” Ellis said evenly. “And the barn we stayed at is pretty convenient to that. Don’t think the tent’s a good idea right now—those police types are likely to be looking about for the little ‘un. Don’t want to be answering too many questions when everything we say is a lie.” He looked to Mycroft. “And your brother may be there—one of us will call the house to let you know, if you give us a number. There’s a phone in the groom’s office.”
Mycroft was, well, not content with that, but held out a certain amount of hope after the former soldiers left that he would shortly get a call—maybe even have a quick conversation with his baby brother. When the phone finally rang, though, all hope was dashed—Lockie wasn’t at the barn, and there was no evidence that he’d been since their last visit. Once again, Andrew dashed any idea of Mycroft taking off to look on his own, and Mycroft hated both the agent and himself for ultimately agreeing. He trudged off despondently to bed, but was still awake, staring into the darkness, when the first birds began to chirp outside his window.
He finally dozed off just as the sun began to rise, but was jarred awake soon thereafter by the phone ringing from the downstairs landing. He hurtled recklessly down the stairs only to be beaten to the punch by Andrew, who answered much more circumspectly than Mycroft would have done.
“Holmes residence,” the agent said calmly. He listened, smiled, and handed the phone off to Mycroft. “You’re up.”
It was, surprisingly, Brindle, hours before they could have reasonably hoped to hear. “Mycroft,” said that warm, loved voice, and Mycroft found himself relaxing for the first time in more than 24 hours. “Before I say anything else, I am fine. Because I know you’ve been obsessing about unlikely threats,” he said with a knowing chuckle. And yes, Mycroft had been. “I’m calling to let you know I will be back sooner than expected. Our Irish friends insisted on meeting up at the farm late last night, rather than my driving up towards Derry. So I will be flying back at noon.” He paused, clearing his throat softly, in a way that made Mycroft suddenly aware that there was more to this conversation than he’d realized. “I should be there by, oh, four PM, I suspect. But, you know, you should both feel free to just stay home, have a leisurely day, watch some telly. I may need to call you later, and it would be a shame if you missed my call because you were out.” There was a long, pregnant pause, before Mycroft realized Brindle was waiting for his agreement.
“Oh, of course,” he said, with an ease he was far from feeling. “Nowhere we need to be, after all.” It was, oddly enough, true. But it was also clear that Brindle had just issued a warning—one he didn’t dare communicate on an open phone line.
Brindle rang off after a quick, nondescript (well, nondescript to Mycroft, anyway) chat with Andrew. As he hung up, the agent turned and raised his eyebrows at Mycroft. “Well. That’s a little…unexpected,” he said slowly. “I mean, nothing dire—he didn’t use any of the code words—but clearly something has come up that means we need to stay least-in-sight.”
Mycroft managed to stop himself from bleating out “code words?”, but it was a near thing. “Yes, but—don’t we need to do something? Is Brindle in danger? Are we?”
“In order: No. No. And maybe,” Andrew said. “Though I think if there were a definite threat Brindle would have phrased things differently. More likely he’s just being cautious because the Irish contingent are paranoid. Though typically that’s justified, in their case. Inattentive people don’t survive long in Derry.”
In the end, they did pretty much as requested. Had breakfast (that Mycroft cooked; he needed something to do with his hands, after all); read the newspapers and magazines that had accumulated by the front door; had a meagre lunch; fitfully watched a nature documentary (Mycroft) and a comedy special (Andrew).
Brindle didn’t show up at 4. Nor at 4:30. By five, Mycroft was ready to claw at the curtains. “What should we do?” he demanded. “There must be something we can do.”
Andrew shook his head. “Wait. That’s what we do. You know what traffic’s like this time of day. They could be—”
He was interrupted by a quick knock at the door. This time Mycroft got there first, and yanked the door open to behold Brindle, speaking over his shoulder to a tall blond man in camouflage fatigues** and boots. There was nothing for it: Mycroft launched himself into Brindle’s chest, finally able to breathe fully again. Brindle fished an arm around Mycroft’s shoulders, tutted, and ushered them briskly inside while Andrew shut the door behind them.
Brindle addressed himself to the top of Mycroft’s head, currently tucked into his chest. “I would have told you if I was in any danger, child,” he said mildly, rubbing Mycroft’s back soothingly. “But now,” and he gently detached his godchild, “we do have things we need to discuss.”
They settled in the kitchen with tea and biscuits. Brindle introduced the blond man (“Colonel James Winslow. But you likely know of him as Wee Manus’ father”) and they shook hands all ‘round. “I’m that grateful to you,” the Colonel said to Andrew, clinging to his hand a little longer than was customary. “I want you to remember that. You saved my son’s life—could have just left him there in that carpark, and some creeping IRA bastard, or Ulster Defence fanatic, would have done for him to serve their little story.”
Andrew shook his head. “For all I know, the ‘story’ may originate with the British side. I can’t be sure, and nor can you. That’s the fundamental problem.”
The Colonel nodded. “Aye, and there’s news on that front—it’s why I’m here and not in Derry. And why we must hurry, in whatever we do—I can’t be seen to be missing for more than overnight. Gave out a story that I took a run down to meet an old friend at the Dublin ferry from Holyhead—that should hold, as it’s sort of the truth, though the friend cancelled at the last moment. The ferry didn’t cancel his ticket, though—I checked the manifest. Doubt it would occur to whoever’s looking to go further than that.”
Which, Mycroft realized, just spoke to how serious all of this was—that Winslow believed someone might be tracking their commander’s movements. But it didn’t answer the question of why the Colonel was here.
Brindle, apparently reading his mind, stepped in with a response. “The Colonel is missing a man,” the older man said. “Not AWOL, not ill, not captured—just not around, and no one can say why, but it would seem that orders have come down from on high not to make an issue of it despite the Lieutenant from the man’s unit requesting an official inquiry. And it should be said that this man is not known, officially, as part of Special Services, but is rather a normal sergeant in the transportation group.” He gave a delicate pause. “Ostensibly.”
“We all know there are few, if any, that can identify all the players in Northern Ireland,” Colonel Winslow rumbled softly. “But there’s something rotten here. And I am here because I know what this lad looks like, and am highly fucking motivated to keep you safe. Because I can’t think of anyone else this man would be searching for, given that he went missing the day after your corpse was not found in that building. If he’d just gone missing, and our lot was breaking down doors looking for him, I’d assume he was innocent, and had been taken--it happens, y'know? But none of that has occurred, which likely means someone very highly placed has given him something to do. And the ‘bombing incident’ with the Dunleavy killings is the only major scuffle that fits the timeline.”
“But do you really think someone would know to come here?” Mycroft asked, suddenly frightened for how far this might extend—did someone know about his family connection with Rudy, know about Holmwood? Had Andrew been wrong, and he had been seen on his way, tracked somehow?
The answer was reassuring, to a degree. “I would be very surprised,” Brindle said. “Now, I don’t doubt at all that this missing soldier is indeed likely looking for Andrew. But I don’t really believe that he would have any information that would lead him here. Colonel Winslow, though, along with the rest of the family, strongly thought that we needed to be sure. So here he is, and we will spend the duration of his brief stay coming up with a workable plan for Andrew’s relocation.” He looked over Mycroft’s shoulder at the agent. “It will be overseas, my boy—and likely for some considerable time. I’m sorry, but I can see no other way, unless Siger Holmes comes up with a workable alternative.”
“Ah well,” Andrew said, “I could always fake my death, I suppose. But I think the powers-that-be might find that a little too convenient, considering the timing. Canada it is.”
Brindle frowned. “You will not be the one choosing,” he said repressively. “We will likely present you with one or two options, and they will almost certainly be in out-of-the-way places.”
“Canada isn’t out-of-the-way?” Andrew asked innocently, before grinning and offering the Colonel more tea.
“Tea” morphed, ultimately, into a takeaway dinner from the sandwich shop in the village. They ate it in front of the fire in the front parlour. Brindle, now that his other errands were completed, took the opportunity to drive quickly back to his own house (with its secure phone line and the codes he’d gathered) to send an encrypted message to Siger Holmes, with a request for a call back at 9 am the next morning. “It only makes sense,” the older man said when Mycroft protested the delay. “It’s after business hours—he won’t see the message content until he gets into the office in the morning anyway, since I intentionally didn’t flag it as urgent. Don’t want to raise any red flags.” And Mycroft, reluctantly, had to agree that that made sense.
Brindle always made sense. It could be very irritating.
They were sitting, idly chatting while worrying, at about 8 PM when there was suddenly a tremendous BANG against the front door. Mycroft’s feet started to move before his brain engaged; Andrew nipped that in the bud, shoved him roughly out of the way, and fished a gun Mycroft hadn’t realized he was currently carrying out of the back of his trousers while moving quickly to the door, followed closely by a suddenly dangerous-looking Colonel Winslow.
At a silent signal Winslow yanked the door open while keeping one hand on the metal door handle, as Andrew leaned out carefully from the other doorframe, gun barrel leading the way. The agent poked his head quickly to either side, looked out across the yard and the drive, and finally looked down, making a surprised noise.
“What?” Mycroft barked, trying to force his way around Brindle. “What is it?”
“Rocks,” Andrew said absently, handing a fist-sized rock over to Winslow, who held it up against a large shallow dent in the old wooden front door. “Threw that one to get our attention without getting too close.” He was looking down, suddenly bending carefully to pick up something. And that revealed three things—one, yet another rock, this one flat, suited to hold the other two objects in place on the front steps: a piece of curled, lightweight shiny paper, and another heavier sheet, bog-standard office paper, with writing on it that made both Winslow and Andrew freeze and turn over the curled piece, then turn to look at Brindle and Mycroft in what looked an awful lot like horror.
Mycroft fought again to beat Brindle to the door, and failed because Brindle briskly shot out one foot and tripped him. But in the end it didn’t matter, as the older man looked briefly at the curled sheet, went deathly pale, then held it slowly out to Mycroft. Before he could take and unfurl it, though, Andrew held up the other sheet and read the brief message on it: “I have someone you care about. You have someone I care about. Let’s have a little chat, shall we?”
And, when Mycroft unfurled the little sheet of shiny paper, he discovered he was holding a Polaroid photo of a small bed in a tiny room. And sound asleep in that bed was his baby brother.