Chapter Text
The door of the hidden bunker broke in with a crash, and MI6 forces poured in, weapons at the ready, determined not to be taken by surprise by whatever desperate devices and evil engines Moriarty’s people might have hidden away here. Sirens whooped throughout the underground complex. The first ten minutes were a frenzied chaos of rattling weapons, fleeing personnel, blood…
Once the first large control room was taken, things slowed. The commander of the unit paused, then, evaluating the situation. They held the command center and now held the advantage of being able monitor much of the underground complex. The majority of the staff were now dead or held captive. However, there remained a stubborn and deadly few now locked behind barriers armed with who knew what, waiting like cornered rats, determined to make a fight of it even now.
Even a quick assessment of the effort and investment put into this place suggested it had been of importance to Moriarty—a source of power in some sense….
“Sir!”
The commander looked over, finding her security analyst bent over an array of displays and monitors. “What, Shandy?”
“Place is rigged to blow, sir.” Shandy’s hands raced over the banks of keyboards and switches. “Trying to shut down the automatic self-destruct, but…”
“Do we retreat?”
“I’m not… No. No, I’ve got the basics now. Keep ‘em out of the inner rooms, though—some of them have independent systems as well.”
“Will do. Put together a detail to deal with that, though. We’ve got to search the entire place eventually. The amount of effort Moriarty put into hiding this place, it’s got to hide something special.”
“Yes, ma’am. Let you know as soon as we can proceed, ma’am.”
She nodded and returned her attention to her surroundings. It was a plain, ugly place—concrete walls bare but for logos numbers and arrows painted in thick, glossy industrial enamel in primary colors. It appeared to be a lab of some sort, though it wasn’t her area of expertise to assess these things. Chemistry, maybe? Bio-weapons. She shivered, wondering what project Moriarty would consider worth the amount of time and investment the network had put into this place.
Hour after hour the teams cleared the way into the innermost, most highly guarded rooms, and found the hidden threat.
The boy, no more than eighteen if that, looked at them, big-eyed, fighting down terror with a fragile, fierce discipline that broke the commander’s heart. He was a tall ginger, at that beautiful, horrible gawky stage that reminded her of lanky colts and adolescent pups not yet grown into their paws and school boys kicking around hacky-sacks to practice their footie moves. He stood as tall as he could manage, head high, and swallowed hard looking at the arrayed warriors in their black assault uniforms, bristling with weapons.
“Please,” he said, softly. “Please, don’t shoot.” He held his hands out and up….
A pup not grown into its paws, the commander thought again as she looked at those long, slim hands. The boy was trying so hard, but his hands shook in spite of him.
“Please,” he said again. “I won’t fight. I don’t want to be here.” His voice cracked, then, as he said, “Please, just call my parents. I want to go home.”
She stepped forward, cautiously. “Shhhh, son. Shhhh. No one wants to hurt you. We’ll take things nice and slow, one step at a time, so no one panics. All right?”
He nodded, eyes grateful. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good,” she said. “Now, I need you to step away from that desk, so we can see all of you. My people are trained to worry about hidden weapons, so stand clear. Tell me, son—what’s your name? Who are your parents?”
He moved warily out into the middle of the little room, hands still up and shaking. “Mycroft,” he said, softly. “Mycroft Holmes. My parents are Sigur and Moria Holmes of Surrey.”
The commander looked at the boy, feeling her world spin.
“Ah,” she said. “Ah…yes. All right…Mycroft. I’ll…see what we can do for you.” Then, as her people eased into the room to check for weapons and take custody of the boy, she tabbed her com unit.
“Anthea? Danville, here. Yeah, no, things are going fine. But—we’ve got a bit of a situation…”
oOo
Sherlock swept through the halls of Babylon-on-Thames, his Belfast sweeping around his calves, his temper a brooding presence like a storm on the horizon.
“Tell Mycroft I’m not amused. The least he could do is tell me why I’ve been called here.”
Anthea was impervious to his sullen growls. “Sorry, but we need your unprepared response,” she said. “We’ll brief you later, after you’ve taken a look.”
“Ridiculous. I’m perfectly capable of reserving judgement no matter what outrage of illogic you present.”
“I’m sure you are,” she said, cheerfully. “Still, it will be quick.”
“Not much to see, then?”
“You tell me,” she said, and tapped at a door.
“Come in?”
Young, male, a teen or young adult by the voice, polite, a bit unsure of himself…the voice oddly familiar in ways that sent odd winds blowing through the corridors of his Mind Palace…
Anthea opened the door and gestured Sherlock in. He swept past her, eyes scanning the room already.
He stopped, then.
“Oh.” He swallowed. “Oh.”
The boy looked at him, frowning. “Who…?”
Sherlock swallowed. “Mike?”
The boy’s eyes narrowed, his brow furrowed—and then it hit, and he sat, heavily. “Sherlock? Is… Billy, is that you?”
Instead of answering Sherlock swirled, glaring into Anthea’s face. “That--,” he snarled. “That—that has to be…that has to be a fake. What have you done with Mycroft?”
She glanced apologetically past him. “Mike? Sorry about this. We’ll be back in a little while.” She grabbed Sherlock by the elbow and pulled him back out of the room, closing the door behind her. “Come on, then. Mr. Holmes is waiting for you upstairs in his office. We needed you to see Mikey, there, first, though.”
“Mikey? Mikey?!” He paced down the halls toward the elevators at the end of the corridor, moving at near light-speeds. “That—that can’t be real. That can’t be… That can’t be right.”
“I take it he’s convincing.”
“He’s Mike. I…he’s just like Mike.”
“So he matches your memory.”
Sherlock, comparing the boy to the Mike in his Mind Palace, fought down the panic. “No,” he said, fear rising up. “No—he doesn’t match my memory, damn it. He corrects it.”
Eleven-year-old Sherlock had never seen or understood his eighteen-year-old big brother had been so very, very young, and unsure of himself, and alone. Remembered-Mike ruled his rooms of the Mind Palace like a dictator, angel and devil, sinner and saint, torturer and savior—a vast, brooding, challenging beast.
The Mike who’d looked up at him just now, though, was just a child. A shy, reserved, controlled child…
Memories even deeper than those of the Mind Palace whispered that the second Mike was the true one.
oOo
“He’s…convincing, is he not?” Mycroft asked, studying his brother’s face.
“He’s fucking real,” Sherlock growled, moving restlessly in Mycroft’s office, refusing to stop or sit. “What the hell is he? Are you playing with clones, now? One lifetime as the British Government isn’t enough for you?”
“He’s not my project, brother-dear. And—he may be a clone. It’s the most obvious answer. He’s certainly my genetic match. We’ve already done the gene sequencing, and there’s really no question he’s my exact twin in all details. Genetically he is me. But—if he’s my clone, well. There are…unexpected complications to the situation.”
Sherlock turned and froze him with a piercing look, furrows forming over his nose and brows. “Do stop beating around the bush. If he’s not your project, whose is he?”
“He was found in a hidden top secret lab of Moriarty’s, during a recent raid.”
Sherlock sat, then, finally, legs collapsing under him as he plummeted into the huge wrought-iron armchairs in front of Mycroft’s desk. “Moriarty?”
“His lab. His project.”
“Moriarty. He’s cloning people.”
“One assumes, yes.”
“That would explain quite a bit.”
“Perhaps. He’s eighteen, Sherlock. To all indications he’s aging normally. He…remembers eighteen years of experiences. If he’s what he appears, he’s been alive for eighteen years of existence.”
Sherlock nodded, thinking. “No—it’s not like he’s your double. Far too much hair. They could hardly slip him into your place. And he wouldn’t explain Moriarty’s reappearance.”
Mycroft ignored the hair comment. One could expect no better of Sherlock. “It’s worse, Sherlock. Later, I need you to speak with him. Extensively. But—insofar as I can determine, his memories are mine.”
“You mean somehow someone researched you and programmed the kid?”
“No.” Mycroft rubbed his face, wearily. “Let’s try another approach, and work up to this. He’s got an appendectomy scar that is, in every way we can determine, the exact and perfect double of my own. His fingerprints are mine, when even a genetic twin’s would not be. He has a crooked little finger that exactly matches the skew of my own, from when I broke mine trying to bring you down from the old oak at Mummy and Father’s. He has the same chip I had on my front secondary left incisor—the one I had fixed in my final year at uni. He does not have any of the scars I have acquired in the years following my eighteenth year. Not the cut on my knee from where I fell on a broken beer bottle. Not the damage from the cobra-bite and the mangling the idiots attempted to treat it. Not the scar from the bullet I took in Gdansk. No scarring from my heart surgery. Yet he does have the scar hidden under my hair from that time you pushed me into Father’s file-cabinet. You remember? The time we never told Mummy and Father about? That scar, for what it’s worth, exists on no record whatsoever. No one should know about it but you and me, Sherlock.”
Sherlock blinked. “Oh. That’s…unnerving.”
“Isn’t it? Now add in that the boy can explain how he got that scar. He remembers it in perfect detail. He can quote you. Do the words, ‘I was just trying to see if head wounds really do bleed more than other wounds” ring a bell, brother-mine?”
Sherlock twitched. “You…you never told anyone that story. Did you?”
“I did not.”
“Not even under drugged interrogation or something?”
“Never. Really, Sherlock, be realistic: what are the odds anyone would even think to ask about that sort of thing? About a scar no one can see and which isn’t on record?”
“Low.”
“Frankly, I’d consider the odds lower than the Marianas Trench is deep.”
“So you’ve talked to him and think he’s real?”
“No. I haven’t talked to him. My people have, and I’ve listened to every word and reviewed every video—but I’ve been delaying actually meeting him until I’m more sure what we’re dealing with. That’s where you come in, Little Brother. If anyone other than me can detect he’s a fake, it’s you.”
“You want me to question him?”
“I want you to do whatever it takes to work out what he is. Because right now I’m left with the completely unsettling belief that, somehow, in some way, this boy really is me at the age of eighteen.”
“Impossible.”
“So I would have thought.”
Sherlock sighed. “How do you want me to handle it?”
“For now? Talk to him here. But—eventually? Take him to Baker Street. With John married you have the spare room, and informal contact on a daily basis increases the odds of your being able to catch him out if he’s a fake.”
Sherlock wrinkled his nose. “Mycroft, I didn’t go through the past thirty-some years just to share quarters with you again. Especially with you as you were when you were eighteen.”
Mycroft studied his brother, and was amused. He risked a tight smirk. “Look at it this way, brother-dear. This time around, you’ll be the big brother. Won’t that be a treat?”
Sherlock started to say something rude and obnoxious in reply…only to slowly drift into fascinated trance as he contemplated the complex shift in power implied. Eventually, in a voice both intrigued and shaken, he said, “Oh.” Then, only slightly more tartly, he said, “Very well. If I must. But you’re paying for his expenses. As I recall your pizza-habit in those days was as bad as mine for cocaine a decade later.”
“Of course we’ll pay expenses,” Mycroft snapped. “He’ll need clothes, and a computer and a mobile…if he’s going to go out in the world, he’s going to need the basics. We won’t make you pay for that.”
“You just want control.”
Mycroft rolled his eyes, exasperated. “Make up your mind. Do you want me to cover expenses, whether it gives me control or not, or would you rather pay out of pocket?”
Sherlock grimaced. “All right, all right. I’d rather you paid, especially if you want me to get him decent tech. Credit card?”
Mycroft fished in his top desk drawer, and drew out one of several he used for business purposes. “Here. It’s got a limit, and they report hourly on use. I’ll freeze it if I see you using it to buy new lab equipment. Much less human body parts…”
“Spoilsport.”
“I’m also going to bring Lestrade in. That way you’ve got a confidant and ally, should you need one.”
“You mean I’ve got a watchdog and a handler.”
“I mean he’ll keep you from dressing the boy like a chav.”
“Don’t trust my taste?”
“Don’t trust your sense of humor, brother-mine.” Then, just as Sherlock started to pout, Mycroft sighed and smiled, ruefully. “Sorry. Really, sorry. The truth is, shopping with you can’t possibly do him as much damage as shopping with Mummy did. Just turn him out in something besides plaid shirts and trainers? And for the love of God, don’t put me…him in anything like that lime-green anorak Mummy got me in ’85? He’s lived through that trauma; it would be good to spare him any further shocks.”
“You remember the year?”
Mycroft looked at him, and said, “Lime. Green. Anorak. Need I say more?”
Sherlock considered, grinned, and said, “No. I grant you, ‘85 was a very bad year.”
“It was a very bad look.”
Sherlock snorted. “On you they were all bad looks. But what the hell—sure. I’ll give it a try. I can’t possibly be a more rubbishy big brother than you were.”
Mycroft raised one brow—but did not deign to differ. Sherlock would find out soon enough that the role of big brother was more fraught that he knew…
oOo
Lestrade, meeting Sherlock and “Mike” at the front door of Babylon-on-Thames, cocked his head, fascinated. So this was what Mycroft had been like as a boy? Somehow he wasn’t what Lestrade had expected, and it wasn’t just that the kid was dressed in simple jeans and trainers with a perfectly ordinary blue t-shirt for a top.
One got used to the stately, distant presence of Mycroft Holmes doing his imitation of an ice sculpture: cool, clear, dazzlingly brilliant…and ever so slightly wet. This boy, though—the elements were there, if you looked for them. The eyes were intelligent and aware, but distant reserve in the man changed to uneasy shyness in the boy. Stately hauteur was converted to desperately held dignity in the gawky younger version. The poise of the man proved to be nothing more than the fierce refusal of the kid to give in to panic.
Part of him, seeing the kid, saluted Mycroft—both man and boy. If this was what Mycroft was in his heart and his memory, then he’d worked a perfect sort of alchemy in growing up and maturing. He’d turned soft carbon into shining diamond through the pure pressure of his own will. It was an accomplishment Lestrade could respect.
Later he would kick himself for failing to notice Sherlock’s attitude toward the boy, but at the time he was too busy taking in the surprise. He greeted Sherlock almost absently as they came down the pavement, then held his hand out to the kid, smiling. “Hey. I’m Greg Lestrade. I’ll be your backup contact when Sherlock’s busy, or just just get tired of dealing with the prat. And you’re Mike, right?”
The boy looked at him carefully, taking his time, blue-grey eyes assessing every detail. The wide mouth quirked and he gave a hesitant smile, holding his own hand out and taking Greg’s. “Actually, I’ve been thinking of switching over to ‘Mycroft.’ It’s my real name, and it seems more…dignified, somehow.”
Before Lestrade could answer Sherlock drawled, “What you mean is it sounds pompous and prissy, just like you.”
Lestrade frowned, unsettled by the malice. It was bad enough when Sherlock and Mycroft—adult Mycroft—needled each other, but adult Mycroft was more than able to hold his own against his brother. It was one thing to see Sherlock act the aggressor with an adult who could match him. It was another for him to initiate hostilities with a kid.
“Sherlock…”
The boy straightened, taking his hand back. He sighed. “Don’t mind me, Inspector. He’s always like that.” He shot Sherlock an uneasy, unhappy glance. “I… Do you…? I mean…you know Sherlock’s my…brother? Did they tell you things are a bit…strange?”
Sherlock narrowed his eyes at the kid—a mean, sulky look.
Lestrade’s mouth tightened as he watched the byplay, but he nodded, eyes sober. “I know what’s going on. Full briefing. Sherlock’s your younger brother. Only, yeah. Things are a bit strange.”
Sherlock sniffed. “Just because you don’t like having the tables turned….”
Mycroft…Mike… No. This wasn’t going to work. He looked at the young man. “Do you mind if I call you My? It’s not as serious as ‘Mycroft,’ but it’s more adult sounding than Mike, or Mikey. I just—I tend to shorten names. I doubt I’ll be able to stick to ‘Mycroft.’” Which was a lie, but at least it was a diplomatic one. He just couldn’t call this boy ‘Mycroft’ without his brains melting.
The kid gave a shy smile, and nodded. “Yes. I think that’s all right.” He glanced at Sherlock uneasily again. “Where are we going next?” he asked, quietly.
“Clothes.”
“I can probably get by with what I’ve got,” My said. “They brought my jeans and things from the bunker when we came. I’ve got about four days worth, and then we can wash them.”
“You look like a yoick. Bad enough you’re fat and pink and ginger and speckled. You don’t have to dress like ordinary people.”
The boy blushed crimson…and, yes, Lestrade thought, he had a redhead’s pale, clear skin and freckles.
“You look fine,” he said, “but I do think you’ll want some new things. You’d look sharp in a blazer and chinos.”
It wasn’t Mycroft Holmes’ “bespoke suit” look, but then an eighteen year-old kid couldn’t carry off Mycroft’s bespoke suits. This kid, though, might manage blazer and nice trousers and a well-chosen shirt. Maybe even a snappy hipster waistcoat. Anything to help that shaken ego. The boy’s pride was clinging to a cliff-edge by its fingernails already, and Sherlock was stomping on his fingers.
They piled into a cab. Lestrade managed to force Sherlock into the front, citing his long legs—though the boy’s were longer still. He and My sat in the back, and he watched as the boy’s eyes grew big and shocky as the modern City rolled by.
“Changed since the last time you saw it?” he asked.
My nodded, never looking away. “Yes. A lot.”
“When were you last up to the City?”
“Last year. I mean, ’86. Interviews for uni.”
“I thought—“ Lestrade cut himself off. The boy didn’t know about his adult self, yet. For all he knew he’d been kidnapped by The Doctor and dragged forward in the Tardis, skipping decades. He had no idea his adult self held degrees from Oxford, where he’d attended as a student at Baliol.
The kid shot him a glance, then, storm-blue eyes speculative. He waited to see if Lestrade would say more.
Lestrade gave an uneasy smile, but stayed silent. This was going to be trickier than it had seemed going in. This boy was no slouch. He’d catch on if Lestrade were not careful.
My turned back to the window, then, taking in the modern City: the Gherkin, the Broadgate Tower, the Eye….
“This is all changed,” My said as they drove past Bishopsgate.
“IRA bombing in ’93,” Lestrade said. “Rebuilt since then.”
My looked at him again, steady and thoughtful, but saying nothing.
He was a funny looking kid, Lestrade thought. Not ugly, exactly—indeed, kind of sweet in his peculiarity. He wasn’t as beaky at eighteen as he’d be as he approached fifty, but he still had a long, sharp nose, set into a rather neat, shield-shaped face with clever, bright little eyes, like a chipper bird. The combination of small eyes, long nose, wide mouth and sharp chin gave him the look of a friendly anime gremlin—an illusion only increased by the shock of blazing bright hair.
Indeed, while he’d be called a ‘ginger,’ his hair was really the bright color of fox fur and autumn leaves and polished carnelians, and what he had was dense, with a soft, deep wave. Lestrade bet the boy’s first sweetheart had been just plain destroyed by that hair—then wondered if the kid had even had his first sweetheart, yet. With those calm, shy eyes it was hard to guess.
“Stop ogling Mikey,” Sherlock said, from the front seat, voice fierce. “Just because he’s ugly doesn’t mean you have to stare.”
“He’s not ugly,” Lestrade protested reflexively, then realized with stunned amazement that Sherlock had never really meant the boy was—it had been sheer spite. The look in Sherlock’s eyes was bitter jealousy and resentment. “Sherlock…”
Sherlock’s blue eyes shuttered, then went limpid in innocence. “I’m sorry, Mikey. I didn’t mean it. Just teasing.” The voice was so cheerful and unthreatening.
Lestrade glanced back at My. The kid was scowling and shaken, caught between anger and hurt. He pulled into himself with a scowl that stripped away all the charm that had been there mere moments before. “How long till we get there,” he asked, sullenly.
Lestrade, looking back and forth between the two brothers, suddenly realized it was going to be a very long day…
oOo
“When are they supposed to be here, John?” Mary called from upstairs in John’s old room.
“Anytime in the next hour,” John called back, “depending on traffic and any side errands they think of. How’s it going?”
“I’ve got it clean and I’ve managed to pile the boxes on the side of the room. Hid them under a sheet. If the boy’s here long we should arrange for Sherlock to sort through what he’s been storing up here and either get rid of it or store it somewhere else. Maybe down in the basement apartment?” She came down the stairs and stood in the door, looking like a comic housewife from an old fifties movie—a big flowered kerchief tied over her hair, dust over her apron, and the baby on her hip.
“Maybe we could clean up the basement apartment and get it fixed up and let the boy have it,” John said, smiling at the sight of “his two girls.” “Kid’s not going to have it easy living with Sherlock.”
“I didn’t know Sherlock had a cousin,” Mary said. “He never said.”
John shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I didn’t know he had parents until last year.”
“Well he and Mycroft didn’t hatch from an egg.”
John rolled his eyes as he bagged the last of the really scary stuff from the fridge. “Couldn’t prove it by me. Here—dump that on the landing to go down to the bins, will you? I’ve got to wipe out the fridge and pile in the new groceries. At least the kid will have real food for the first week, not human body parts.”
They worked together quietly for the next forty minutes, cleaning and dusting and tidying as best they could while leaving most of Sherlock’s piles and heaps and experiments intact. Mary looked around, and her eyes went a bit sad.
“Maybe we should invite the boy to stay with us,” she said, looking at the walls, with the ugly Victorian-style wallpaper, and the spray-paint-and-bullet-hole smiley face, and the surveillance photos pinned to the wall. The furniture was worn, the room dark but for the two front windows half-draped with crimson velvet from some prior century. “It’s not exactly…well…cheerful, is it?”
“He’s a boy,” John said with false confidence. “He’ll be fine. Boys don’t need décor.”
“Like you’re not the one who fussed over what carpet to put down,” Mary said, chuckling.
The door opened, below, and there was a clatter of feet and a murmur of voices. Mary and John gave a quick glance around, then moved to stand near the fireplace, making room for Sherlock and his guests to come in.
John studied the boy with interested eyes, seeing instantly the family resemblance. He didn’t look much like Sherlock, but there was no question he was related to Mycroft, he thought. Indeed, the poor kid would probably look almost identical once he finished bulking out. Right now he had traces of baby fat of the sort you saw on raw recruits before basic training blasted away the remaining softness. And the face? John wanted to laugh, imagining Mycroft that young: skin so soft you knew he still only had to shave a time or two a week, freckles like a turkey egg, and hair so red John found himself wondering if even now Mycroft dyed his to a darker rust brown to look more respectable.
He was dressed in fresh new clothes—John could tell from the crisp, smooth finish and the uneasy posture of a boy not at all at ease in his new raiment. He had chinos in navy blue so dark it verged on black, and an only slightly brighter blazer worn over a blazing white polo t-shirt open at the neck to reveal a long Holmesian throat and the tender curves of clavicle. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets, and he shuffled his feet in flawless new loafers.
He smiled at the boy, and held out his hand. “John Watson,” he said. “Pleased—“
“You cleaned,” Sherlock cut in. It wasn’t a compliment.
“Well, yeah,” John said. “You asked me to.”
“I asked you to get the place read for Mikey to stay,” Sherlock said, sourly. “Push the boxes to the side of the upstairs room. Clear a drawer in the dresser. Make sure there’s a spare tooth brush. I didn’t mean you to clean. If I wanted it clean, I could have him do that.”
John blinked. “Um…”
“He’s not Cinderella, you know,” Mary said, laughing, then smiled at the boy. “Mary—John’s wife. And the baby’s Em.”
He smiled politely, if a bit stiffly, and nodded. “Mi…My. I’m My. My Holmes.”
“Like Mycroft?”
“Shit,” Sherlock said, then glowered at John. “Don’t bring him up.”
The boy went pale, freckles glowing. “I….”
“My, go make tea,” Sherlock said.
My looked around, confused. Lestrade, taking pity, dropped the boxes and bags he was carrying onto the floor, and pointed. “That way—there’s an electric kettle on the counter, or was the last I saw. Mugs in the cupboard by the sink, tea sachets in the first drawer to the left.” As soon as the boy went, Greg glowered. “Didn’t you tell him?”
“He’s not classified high enough.”
“When did that ever matter to you before?”
“Oh, do stop twittering. I’ve kept all the important secrets.”
“What are you on about?” John asked, annoyed. “What’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Sherlock snarled, as Lestrade said at the same moment, “The kid’s Mycroft.”
John blinked, stunned. Mary, always a bit quicker on the uptake, said, “Wait—what? He’s Mycroft?”
“It’s complicated,” Sherlock said, scowling at Lestrade.
“I’ll say,” Lestrade grumbled. “God. I thought you two were bad as adults. It’s a wonder your parents didn’t kill you, Sherlock.”
“What about him? It’s his fault.”
“You know, I really don’t think it is, sunshine…”
“You just like him better than you like me.”
“Sherlock—listen to yourself! For God’s sake, I know My’s eighteen—but what the hell age have you reverted to? Six? Eight?”
“He started it.”
“Sherlock…”
“Well if he weren’t such a stupid, stuffy stick…”
“Sherlock!”
Then the boy was standing in the kitchen doorway, red and miserable, kettle in hand. “Excuse me. But…how do I turn it on? I can’t find the switch.”
“Don’t be so stupid,” Sherlock growled. “Do make an effort.”
“Sherlock,” the other three adults said, all ready to smack their friend by then.
He huffed, rolled his eyes, and shook his head, looking heavenward. “The things I have to do! Fine. Go on, Mikey, I’ll come show you since you can’t work it out for yourself.”
John could see the boy’s face go tight and cold and angry, jaw tight and teeth clenched—an expression he’s seen so often on Mycroft’s face that he knew instantly that Lestrade was telling the perfect truth. Somehow, some way, this boy was Mycroft Holmes at eighteen: gawky, inexperienced, barely even hatched, but still, Mycroft Holmes, with all the brains, deviousness, pride, and peculiar honor he’d learned to associate with the man. Hardly a likeable man—but one who demanded some respect.
Or he would. Someday.
When Sherlock had swanned into the kitchen after the boy, he stalked over to Lestrade. “Explain.”
“Damned if I can,” Lestrade said. “No one can. He just is. They found him in a bunker Moriarty’s people were running. That’s all anyone knows.”
“Moriarty.”
“Yeah.”
“And you let him live? You haven’t locked him up? If he’s Moriarty’s he could do anything.”
“He’s just a kid,” Lestrade said, wearily. “Eighteen years old, and God, he’s lost.”
Mary jigged the baby on her hip, studying Lestrade. “Looks like you had a hell of a day.”
“You would not believe.” Lestrade leaned wearily against the door of the flat and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. “Sherlock’s been like a freaked out border collie all afternoon, yipping and nipping and harrying the kid. I don’t know what’s got into him—it’s like he can’t control himself, he’s so determined to get a rise out of his brother. And the harder he pushes the quieter and tighter and colder the boy gets until he flips and says something that slices like lasers. Just—horrible.”
John thought back to one of his first meetings with Mycroft Holmes. “You can imagine the Christmas dinners,” he said, and shuddered. “God. No. I never wanted to know…”
Mary frowned. “Should we leave them alone?”
“Don’t know what else do to,” Lestrade said. “Sherlock’s supposed to be evaluating him—trying to figure out if he’s a fake or something. That means we can’t split them up.”
“Then…what?”
“Warn Mrs. Hudson?” Mary suggested. “I do think she could probably rein Sherlock in if she had to.”
Before John or Lestrade could respond, there was a squall, and then the sound of a sharp slap—then a sudden scuffle began, fast and furious.
“Shit,” Lestrade said, and stormed for the kitchen.
Later they agreed that, if you had to have Sherlock Holmes and My fighting, it was just as well to have a copper/Mi5 agent, a former Army officer, and a CIA ex-assassin on the premises to break it up….
“No,” John shouted in Sherlock’s face, shoving him onto a kitchen chair. “Sit.”
“He hit me!” Sherlock shouted, face red.
“You hit him, too.”
“He hit me first. He slapped me. On the face.”
John looked. There was the trace of a palm mark over Sherlock’s right cheek. He sighed. “All right. I’ll talk to him. But you stay there.” He crossed the room, joining Lestrade and Mary, who had penned Mycroft in the corner. The tall redhead had gone ice cold and silent.
“Ok,” John said, wearily. “He says you slapped him—and it looks like you did. Got any excuse?”
My met his eyes, chin high, mouth tight. He shrugged. “He’s a pest,” he said, and went silent.
“Pest isn’t good enough,” John said. “You can’t hit people—even people older and bigger than you.”
The eyes went even colder, and sardonic as all hell. “I’ll remember that,” My drawled. “First time anyone ever said that around me.”
“Somehow I find that hard to believe.”
“John…” Mary said, voice tense.
“I mean, you can’t go picking on people and get away with it just because you’re littler,” John continued. “Look, mate, I’ve been there. I know it’s easy to go all innocent and pretend it’s not your fault. People think because you’re the little one people must have been picking on you. But you can’t pull that stunt. It’s bullying—even if it doesn’t look like it.”
‘John,” she repeated, tugging his sleeve, “Sweetie, shut up? Please?”
He turned and frowned. “Come on, Mary—you know it as well as I do—look at you. Little tiny thing like you. No one believes you’re the one making trouble.”
“John…” She sighed and looked at My. “My—what did he do to you?”
He scowled and wouldn’t meet her eye. “Nothing.”
“My…”
“Nothing,” he said again, sharply. “He didn’t do anything. Nothing serious. Just went on at me, things like that.”
Lestrade, watching, said, softly, “Take off the blazer.”
My met his eyes, then, where he wouldn’t meet Mary’s. “No.”
John heard the tension in his voice, then, and felt his stomach drop. “My—come on. Blazer off.”
The boy set his teeth, prepared to fight—and then surrendered. He slipped it off.
John flinched.
“It’s nothing,” Mycroft said. “He just pinched me.”
“Yeah,” John said, “but it looks like he knows how to pinch.”
There’s pinching, he thought, and then there’s pinching. Sherlock appeared to have caught a fold of skin between finger and thumb and twisted—hard. Two dark bruises were rising, ringed with hot, feverish-looking red.
“It’s just a pinch,” Sherlock whined from the kitchen chair. “Mycroft slapped me! And then he tried to push me up against the wall.”
John and Mary and Lestrade looked at each other. Mary looked at My, and said, softly, “Is he always like this?”
The boy shrugged. “He’s just a little kid. He’s not responsible. I’m supposed to know better.”
“I told you it was his fault,” Sherlock grumbled, sulking.
“Crap,” John said, and wiped his face in both hands. “Oh, bloody god-damned crap.”
oOo
“Yeah,” Lestrade said over the mobile. “I’m staying over tonight. We’re getting the basement room ready for My—Maybe with a storey between them and Mrs. Hudson keeping watch Sherlock will have a chance to think it through. I don’t think he even really realized what he was doing—he just… I don’t know. Reverted. He had you there just like when he was eleven—and he acted like he was eleven. I don’t think it helped that we all kind of like the kid. You know Sherlock—territorial and jealous to the end. But it was like the St. Stephen’s Day Murders: get family together and watch them all turn into the little brats they used to be. Sorry. We just weren’t ready for it. I don’t think Sherlock was, either.”
“No,” Mycroft said, wearily. “No. I probably should have thought, but it’s been so long since I was eighteen—since he was eleven. It didn’t occur to me that he’s start treating me the way he always did.”
“God, he was a little brat.”
Mycroft made a face. “Don’t feel too sorry for me. I was a brat in my own way. Vain, bossy, and private. A tease—you probably didn’t see that part, because I…because the boy’s off center and afraid right now. But I used to be quite good at taking the mickey out of Sherlock. Taking the piss out. I used to drive him crazy, and he was too young to counter—and the wrong personality entirely to do what I would have done, and simply retreat and go cold. And it drove me mad that he couldn’t keep up with me—not physically, not mentally. I wasn’t always kind.”
“Yeah, wlel—I know Sherlock. I’m willing to bet he was perfectly happy to be not-kind first, and pin the blame on you.”
“Yes. But, truly, it wasn’t one-sided.”
“Your parents didn’t do all that well with you, did they?”
“They expected me to be adult enough to deal with a child seven years my junior. It’s not like I didn’t have the advantage in all respects.”
“Mycroft? Look. You can eat all the guilt you like later. Right now? Put some thought into how you’re going to manage this—because I honestly don’t think Sherlock’s ready to be a big brother, yet—all his habits were built when he was a little brother. A bratty, angry, jealous little brother. The trouble is now he’s decades older, heavier, stronger, trained in martial arts—and he’s got the upper hand. Only his subconscious isn’t factoring any of that in, yet. He needs time…and some kind of buffer zone. You’ve got to figure out how to give him one.”
Mycroft made a face, but nodded, even knowing Lestrade couldn’t see it. “Yes. Fine. You’re right, of course.” He grimaced. “Big Brother to the rescue, I suppose. Thank you for dealing with it, Lestrade—and thank you for staying the night. Having my young self killed might solve any number of our problems, but I must confess I would regret it. If nothing else, until I know how he got here or who he really is, I’d as soon keep him around. He’s living evidence—and I’d like to keep him that way.”
When they’d worked out the specifics for the next day, he hung up, and stretched at his desk, feeling far more tired than the day seemed to warrant. He stared across the room.
Goodness. He’d forgotten how Sherlock could pinch. Half his life before he’d moved away to uni his arms had been covered with bruises—black and blue, plummy purple-red, greenish ones that were fading, pale yellow ones almost gone. Pinches on his arms, kicks on his shins. Never sure whether he could crawl into bed without finding it full of frog spawn or folded up as an apple-pie bed. His favorite books stolen, his tapes used for “pirate rigging,” and nothing he could do about it, because if he told Mummy and Father they said it was normal and that Sherlock loved him and it wall all jealousy and wanting attention, and to play with Sherlock more and that Mycroft was the big brother, and on and on.
And in truth, he loved Sherlock. He always had since they’d put the baby in his arms. Beautiful, mad, sweet, funny Sherlock. An angel. A devil. A brat, a tattle-tale, a tag-along.
He’d forgotten the pinches, though. It had been so many years; years filled with shared missions and foreign operatives and drug overdoses and criminal cases and…
He’d forgotten what it felt like for Sherlock to grab on tight and twist hard—and what it felt like to lose his temper and lash out, only to have Mummy and Father storm in and remind him that he was the oldest. The biggest. That it was his job to take care of Sherlock. That big kids didn’t hit their little brothers…no matter what.
“He hit me first, Mummy,” Sherlock would sob, eyes clear and innocent and blue as a summer lake and dripping tears. “He hit me!”
All the guilt and frustration and misery rolled back, as though the decades had never passed.
Big boys didn’t hit their brothers. After all, it was only teasing—only a pinch. Sherlock just wanted attention—he loved Mycroft.
Big brothers take care of their little brothers. No matter what.
oOo
My walked through the big building DI Lestrade said was where MI6 was headquartered these days, Lestrade pacing along beside him.
He liked DI Lestrade. He liked John and Mary, too—but he felt cautious of them. They were, somehow, Sherlock’s. The big, strong, powerful new Sherlock, who acted like his baby brother, but who fought like ten devils and who seemed to rule all of London—to own it as his own perfect kingdom. A Sherlock who was apparently famous, now.
In comparison My felt so much smaller, and lost.
“We’ve got a half-hour to kill,” Lestrade said. “How about we go to the canteen and grab some coffee and sarnies?”
My nodded, silently, and then followed. DI Lestrade went through the line chatting with the servers, exchanging friendly words with other people in line. At first My thought he must know everyone…then he realized the man knew almost none of them. He just had a way with him—easy and relaxed, smiling. My’s heart beat seeing it. He could never do that. Strangers made him pull into himself like a turtle into his shell…
And now everyone was strange; only Sherlock familiar, and even Sherlock changed.
They sat at a table with a view out over the Thames.
“When did the Ferris wheel go up?” he asked the older man as they ate their sandwiches.
Lestrade frowned, thinking. “Don’t remember when they started building it. Remember when it opened, though: 2000. Millennium. Big deal.”
“Have you been on?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“Did you like it?”
He grimaced and grinned at My. “Not much.” He lowered his voice, eyes twinkling. “Don’t tell—but I hate heights.”
My gave a quick, sharp laugh, then smothered it. He managed a little smile, and whispered, “Me, too. Don’t tell?”
“Shared secret,” Lestrade agreed. “Just us two.”
My nodded, and looked back down at his lunch. Now that he was away from Sherlock and John and Mary, he felt a bit less insecure. He liked Lestrade. He almost trusted him. He at least trusted him enough to risk the biggest question of all…
He swallowed another bite of sandwich, then said, softly, “My parents—they’re dead, aren’t they?”
Lestrade stopped, stunned. “Um…I don’t know….” He thought about it, and said, “Here—I can call Sherlock.”
“No!” My ducked his head. “I don’t want him to know I asked.”
“Why not?”
“He’ll know I was…” He stopped.
Lestrade made an odd grumbling noise, and sighed. “Shit. Yeah. Ok, he’ll know you were afraid. And he’ll pick at it, and pick at it, and pick at it, won’t he?”
My nodded.
“Yeah,” Lestrade said. “He’s a bit of a brat.”
“You all like him, though,” My said.
“Yeah. But that doesn’t mean we don’t know him.” Lestrade picked up his drink glass and swirled it around, setting the cola fizzing. “Look—he’s not that bad these days. Not usually. I really think it just threw him. Give him a chance to think it through and I think he’ll be ashamed. OK?”
My nodded, because you always had to nod when people told you about Sherlock—that he was ashamed or that he loved you or that it was just to get attention. There was no real point trying to ask what to do about it, because what it usually boiled down to was “put up with him, don’t fight back, and love him anyway.” He was used to it…and he did love his brother.
He thought back to when Sherlock had been little—only months ago, before he woke up in the little room attended by the stranger scientists. Little Sherlock, who’d follow him through the fields, and help him with biology projects and ask him to tell ghost stories and then run off screaming so loud My could only laugh—and then come back the next night begging for more. He missed that Sherlock terribly, pinches and pouts and tantrums and all…
“Well,” Lestrade said, patting his mouth dry, and gathering up his tray. “Time to go up, then.”
“Who are we going to see,” My asked.
“Someone special,” Lestrade told him. “One of the smartest people I ever met. He pretty much runs all the important things here—he’s one of the planners. One of the best.”
“What’s his name?”
Lestrade met his eyes, and smiled. “I think I’ll let him tell you that,” he said. “I don’t think I’m cleared to pass it on, you see.”
My frowned. “Cleared?”
Lestrade shrugged. “You know something weird has happened, right?”
“Time travel,” My said, soberly, thinking of grown-up Sherlock and Mummy and Father probably dead. It was frightening to think grown-up Sherlock might be his only family, now.
“We don’t know,” Lestrade said. “I mean, I do agree it looks like it. But we really don’t know. We do know something very strange happened, and we don’t know what, or how—but we do know that the people who had you are…well. They’re…they’re the bad guys. All right?”
“Criminals?” My asked, seriously. “Bad guys is sort of baby talk.”
“Criminals, yes,” Lestrade said. “But—Look. The thing is, they’re the kind of criminals even MI5 and MI6 get a bit spooked by, OK? Terrorists, killers. That’s sort of why I say ‘bad guys.’ Because we really just don’t have words big enough, so we might as well use the little ones.”
My felt sick. “Oh.”
“Yeah. So—we would really like to know what happened, and why you’re here, and how they brought you. Right?”
My nodded.
“So—anyway. You’re kind of a big deal. And I’ve probably already told you more than I’m cleared to—but at least now you understand why I have to be cleared. Right?”
My, thinking through all the implications of seriously bad bad guys with time travel shivered and nodded. That was frightening. Really, really frightening. More frightening than thinking he had no family but grown-up Sherlock who hated him.
Lestrade smiled, apologetically. “So—let’s get it over with. I can’t tell you who he is---but he can. So let’s go up and meet him, right?”
My swallowed, rammed down the tension at meeting yet another stranger—this one a really important one—and followed Lestrade to the elevators.
They went up to what almost had to be the very top storey. Then Lestrade led him through a big office filled with the odd, science fiction office equipment like something from Star Trek, or Doctor Who. Then through a smaller office with even fancier equipment presided over by a beautiful woman. Then Lestrade opened one last set of doors, and guided My through into a big office that was all light and shadow and space and mystery, and he looked into the eyes of the man who was master of this place---
And his own eyes looked back, and My wanted to throw up.
The man was old, and balding, and dressed like a cartoon of a toff—the kind of idjit Mummy and Father joked about after county events. He was plain, with a big nose. Worst of all—he was…
Something. It sent shivers down My’s back. He was wrong. He was terrifying. He was creepy. Worst of all—he was My.
He was the man who’d stolen My’s future, eaten up everything My had ever dreamed of being, and turned it into himself.
The man smiled a prissy, tight little smile, eyes cold and distant, and held out his hand.
“I see you’ve already deduced who I am,” he said. “My regrets for our secrecy. Let me welcome you to your future.”
My hated him.
He hated him with all his grieving heart.
This was his future, and he could think of nothing worse.