Chapter Text
The knock on the door is wrong.
Hamish freezes, halting his quest to identify the location of his recently removed monitor on the family pet skull. “Look, we’re friends of your parents, can you let us in?” A heavy fist thumps against the door. “We know you’re in there.” Internal panic grows inside as he calculates the odds of Mrs Hudson being currently incapacitated.
The arhythmic banging beats stronger, matching Hamish’s increasing heartbeat.
Hamish scoops the skull up in his arms, shakes his head, blinks, trying not to shiver in fear. If he can just buy enough time, maybe Uncle Mycroft will come. He carefully tip toes upstairs, trying to time the creaking stairs with the banging on the door, and ducks inside his parent’s bedroom.
“Just kick it in,” a thinner, more nasal voice says. Hamish flinches and slides the bedroom door shut.
Downstairs, mens’ voices call “Hello?” The first voice coughs, deep echoes inside his chest. “Watch out!” A sharp crack of metal breaking wood signals that the lock has been broken open.
“Look, kid, we don’t want to hurt you.” Two sets of footsteps thud on the living room rug. “We’re from the government. and just want to have a little chat.”
The government? Hamish hugs the skull tight to his chest, pressing his right ear tightly to the door.
The nasally voice hisses, “What are you doing?”
“Trying to talk the kid down. He’s not stupid. If he raises a fuss, we’ll end up buried in paperwork all of next month for sloppy retrieval.” Deep voice raises his volume. “We’ve got a badge, if you want to see it. Nice and official.”
A shiver of fear went down Hamish’s spine. If Uncle Mycroft had sent them, they would have used the safeword, not a badge. Hamish glances behind him at and spots a mobile on the bed. He breathes out, calculating if he could reach it without alerting anyone of his movements.
“Just search the flat,” Nasal voice says. “There aren’t too many places a six year old can hide.”
Deep voice coughs again, the sound echoing in the flat. “Goddamn dust everywhere,” he wheezes. Hamish frowns. Father was going to be so upset when he came home and found out that someone had messed up his dust collection experiments.
Nasal voice says, “I’ll do the downstairs then, since you’re too busy coughing your lungs up.”
“Fuck you,” the deep voiced man coughs. Heavy footsteps begin to thump up the stairs. Hamish lunges towards the bed, climbing on top to grab the phone and refusing to let go of the skull.
The door BANGS open.
“Ah, there you are,” says deep voiced man. Hamish glances up. Deep voice man smiles at Hamish with only teeth, no eyes, a white mask obscuring the upper half of his face.
Hamish dives under the bed, clutching the mobile tightly in his left hand. He slides the screen open and texts “help kidnapper” to Uncle Mycroft.
“Shh, don’t scream,” the man continues. Plastic wrapping crinkles. “This won’t hurt at all.”
Hamish curls into a tight ball, squeezing the skull against his stomach. Uncle Mycroft will be here soon. Dad and Father will be here soon. Everything will be okay, they promised.
Deep voice man lifts the blanket and grabs Hamish’s arm, squeezing tightly. Gas hisses. “Nighty night!”
Mycroft’s office has never looked more inhospitably formal. All except one of the window shades are drawn shut, leaving a square of early morning sunlight painted on the dust-free surface of Mycroft’s ornate wooden desk.
Sherlock vibrates with tension as he paces back and forth in front of the single window. “You didn’t tell us,” he spits. “You didn’t stop them either.”
Mycroft looks to where John is sitting across from him an overstuffed armchair, looking distinctly uncomfortable.
“I was not aware of this altercation until it was too late,” Mycroft states. His fingers tap the millimeters of air above the desk surface. “When I did become aware, I was informed by my superiors that I was not allowed to get involved.
John keeps one eye on his husband and one on Mycroft. His right hand clenches and unclenches where it rests on his leg.
“Oh please, when has that stopped you from meddling before?” Sherlock freezes by the window, looking outside. “This has your department's fingerprints written all over it.”
“Hamish’s kidnapping” Sherlock doesn’t say. Mycroft reads the tiny cracks in Sherlock’s mental state through the wrinkles and dust smears on Sherlock’s coat.
Mycroft gives a flat smile, the same smile he gave to John when he lied about Irene being dead. “I assume you’ve heard about the recent destruction of China?” he deadpans. Recent being around seventy years ago.
“Yes?” John frowns.
Mycroft steeples his hands, sliding his palms back and forth. John will never be a genius, but he isn’t completely ignorant of current events. He will understand the sacrifices demanded of war, right? Mycroft sighs, his whole shoulders shrugging for effect.
“The safety of our whole planet could depend on the genius of this one boy.” Surely John understands that the needs of an individual are outweighed by the needs of the many.
“But he’s only gotten his monitor recently taken out,” John protests. “How would they even know?”
“They have access to resources I do not have access to.” Mycroft tilts his head, folding his fingers together. This is the closest he will come to an apology; they all know Mycroft resents admitting to being outmatched. “Regardless, the International Fleet has deemed it appropriate that Hamish should be inducted into their Battle School Program.”
John clenches his fists. “Well, it certainly was nice of them to ask us first,” he says. He gives Mycroft his fuck-you smile. “We do not give permission for Hamish to enter the Program.”
“And we never will,” snarls Sherlock. Sherlock still looks out the window at the London skyline, as if his powers of deductions could zoom in on the location of his son.
Mycroft gives a polite smile, one that doesn’t reach the eyes. “The fate of humanity is more important than your desire to keep your son safe, Sherlock,” he says. “Keep the big picture in mind, would you?”
“He’s just a boy,” Sherlock protests. “He should be doing boy-” He waves his hands and turns around to glare at Mycroft. “Boy, things!”
John chuckles. “Hamish’s version of doing boy things is interfering with your experiments to document how upset you get.”
“That’s besides the point.” Sherlock crosses the room to loom over John in the chair. “And it upsets you too.”
Mycroft coughs politely. Sherlock and John turn to stare at Mycroft: Sherlock’s eyes still burn laser-like while John’s are an amused blue steel. “Is that all you wanted to discuss with me?” Mycroft asks. God forbid they start have a domestic in his office.
“No,” John says. “Though I don’t suppose you’ll listen.” John stands up. “You promised you would stop interfering after we got married. I suppose you think this is some sort of karmic justice for us not letting you be more involved.”
Mycroft looks away from John’s steel eyes. “John-”
“Don’t.” John straightens, every inch the soldier. “There are plenty of other children whose parents would gladly let them join Battle School and the International Fleet. Out of all the children they could have asked, our son was the one who got forcibly taken.” John glances up at Sherlock’s face. “Though I suppose we ought to be flattered that they think so highly of your genetics.”
Sherlock blinks and frowns.
Mycroft closes his eyes and recollects his thoughts. He tries again. “Hamish will receive the best education that money can buy. He will be trained to fully utilize his intellect and will be surrounded by peers who think at the same level.”
John shakes his head and says, “Nope. Hamish will be turned into a pawn for global politics. I-” Sherlock slides his right hand into John’s left. John takes a deep breath. “We. We have had enough of playing those games, if it’s all the same to you.”
“You cannot get your son back,” Mycroft says. Mycroft presses his lips together in a thin line. “I’m sorry, John,” he doesn’t say, because John won’t accept such a plebian apology. Mycroft looks up at Sherlock.
His brother’s face is carefully and unsettlingly blank. Sherlock taps John on the shoulder.
John nods. “Afternoon,” he says, as if this was a normal exchange in which Sherlock would snipe about Mycroft’s diet from the sofa while Hamish sat in John’s lap to watch the conversation bounce back and forth.
The door quietly clicks shut behind them.
Mycroft sighs, shifting uncomfortably in his desk chair. He presses the buzzer to summon Anthea to his office.
“Yes, sir?” she asks, entering the room. She smiles at him, cool and composed, as if Mycroft hasn't summoned her for the upteenth time to help manage his two walking headaches.
Mycroft rubs his temples. “I don’t think they’ll forgive me,” he says. Anthea nods. Mycroft closes his eyes. “When is my next appointment?”
“In two hours, sir,” she says. She slides a tablet with the relevant briefing information onto his desk. “Whisky is in the cupboard behind you.”
“Thank you, dear.” Mycroft nods, dismissing her. Anthea exits, tapping out follow up notations on her data pad.
Mycroft pours himself two fingers of alcohol into a little glass. He raises it in a silent toast. To the prodigal son. He takes a sip. May he bring peace and joy to our planet.