Fic: Playtime
Title: Playtime
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4810
Disclaimer: Sherlock and its characters belong to people much more brilliant than myself.
Summary: It starts with a phonecall. (Sherlock/Dollhouse).
A/N - Thanks to my lovely Beta red_chapel. Any mistakes left are my own.
“This isn’t right. He can’t be the killer, why can no one else see it?”
Sherlock was pacing the flat exasperatedly while John looked on. “Well, you’ll find proof, I’m sure.”
“When?” Sherlock wheeled round, fixing John with an intense stare. “Any proof there was burned in that house fire. I have plenty of proof for me, but nothing those idiots at Scotland Yard will believe. ‘It wouldn’t stand up in court, Sherlock’.” he grumbled, in a startlingly accurate impersonation of Lestrade. “I need to think.”
John rolled his eyes and stood up. “Fair enough. You want a cuppa while you do that?”
“Mm.”
John wasn’t sure whether the noise was one of scorn or assent, but he decided to make Sherlock tea anyway. He went out into the kitchen and put the kettle on. He tapped a rhythm onto the kitchen counter as he waited, trying to ignore Sherlock’s mutterings in the other room. This case was getting to him more than usual because for once Lestrade wasn’t taking his word as gospel. The evidence against the prime suspect was overwhelming, but Sherlock was insistent that the man in question was innocent. John paused when he heard a mobile ring-Sherlock typically only texted, so a phone call was almost a surprise-and wandered into the lounge area again. Sherlock was glaring at his phone from the other side of the room as though it was doing something offensive. John sighed.
“Oh for God’s…here.” He picked up the phone and passed it to Sherlock. “You talk into the mouthpiece. I’m sure you can figure it out.”
Sherlock glared at him, but took the phone anyway. John turned back to the kitchen with a triumphant smile. All of a sudden, he heard a crash behind him and turned to see Sherlock sprawled on the floor, his head bleeding. Evidently he’d fallen and hit it on the coffee table.
“Sherlock?” he dashed forward instantly, his doctor’s training taking over. He cupped the other man’s face and peered into his eyes, checking for concussion. “Sherlock, are you alright?”
Sherlock smiled at him a little vacantly.
“Did I…fall asleep?”
“What?” John’s eyes flew to the cut on Sherlock’s forehead. Had he hit it harder than it looked? “Does your head hurt? Sherlock!” He held up his hand with three fingers raised. “How many fingers?”
Sherlock glanced at his hand, then back to John’s face. A frown creased his brow. “Did I fall asleep?” he asked again, more insistently.
“Shit.” John breathed. He reached for his phone, dialling 999. “No, you didn’t fall asleep, and you’ve got to stay awake now, OK? I need you to…yes, hello?” He straightened as a woman’s voice came on the line. “Ambulance. It’s my flatmate, he’s had a fall and-”
“Hang up the phone, Doctor Watson.”
John turned to see Mycroft standing in the doorway, his eyes fixed on Sherlock.
“I’m sorry?! Look, he’s hurt, he needs-”
“Hang up the phone. I can take care of him.”
“How?”
“Just do it. Please.”
John thought about arguing further, but decided against it. “Actually, I’m sorry; his brother’s just turned up. We won’t need an ambulance…yes, I’m sure…honestly, everything’s fine. No, I won’t need the police. Thank you.” He hung up and turned back to Mycroft. “Well? Why shouldn't I call them right back? He’s got a fucking head injury; he needs a hospital.”
“No.” Mycroft shook his head. “He needs me.”
“Really? Because unless you've got a doctorate in medicine lying around somewhere that you forgot to mention, I really don't see how you can help him.”
“Trust me.”
“Why? For God's sake, Mycroft, he could be seriously hurt. Now is not the time for one of your little power trips, or manipulation attempts, or whatever the hell this is-”
“Doctor Watson.” Mycroft interrupted firmly, a strange tension in his voice. “I assure you that nothing is more important to me than my brother's well-being.” Carefully, he knelt down beside the fallen man. Sherlock blinked at him.
“Did I fall asleep?”
Mycroft smiled gently at him. “For a little while.”
“What-” John was silenced by a look from Mycroft.
“I need you to come with me, alright?”
“Where?” Sherlock asked.
“We can give you a treatment. Would you like that?”
“I don’t…” John began. Sherlock glanced at him curiously.
“Yes,” he said. Mycroft took his hand in his, and Sherlock looked back at his brother.
“Everything is going to be alright.” Mycroft said softly.
“Now that you’re here.”
Mycroft smiled again, but there was something else behind his eyes, some hidden sadness. “Come on then. We’ll get you that treatment.”
“I’m sorry.” John stepped forwards, arms folded. “What do you mean, ‘treatment’? And where are you taking him? I'm his doctor, I want to know. Now.”
Mycroft hesitated. “It’s best if you don’t ask questions. I promise you he’ll be fine.”
“No. No way. I’m not just going to let you whisk him off and do God-knows what. I’m coming, too. ”
Mycroft looked at him steadily for several seconds. John looked back, refusing to back down. Eventually, Mycroft sighed. “As you wish.”
********
They pulled up next to what appeared to be an office block. Mycroft turned to smile at Sherlock. “Here we are.”
“What are we doing here?” John asked, frowning. “He needs a medical facility, not-”
“You’ll see, Doctor Watson.” Mycroft sounded strange, but John didn’t have much time to dwell on it as the car turned into an underground car park that John could swear hadn’t been there a few moments before. They exited the car and Mycroft directed John to the lifts.
“Mycroft, seriously, what the hell are we doing here? Sherlock!” He turned to his friend, hoping for some sort of recognition. Sherlock smiled blankly back at him.
“Hello.” He started humming to himself, idly picking at a thread on his suit. John glared at Mycroft.
“Look at him.”
“I don’t need to. Wait a moment, Doctor Watson, everything will become clear. Oh, and one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry.”
Before John could respond to that, the doors opened into a large, open-plan room. A black chair sat in the middle, hooked up to what looked like various computers. A young, dark-haired woman was typing something and frowning at one of the monitors. She looked up when the lift doors opened, her gaze darting between the three of them. Then she rolled her eyes.
“Why are they here? What happened this time?”
Mycroft glanced at John. “Sherlock needs a treatment. He’s been wiped. Remotely.”
Her mouth fell open. “But how…?”
“I don’t know.” He sounded angry. “I was hoping you could tell me. All I know is he answered a phone call, and then…so? Can you?”
She shrugged. “I’ll have a look, no promises though.” she looked at John. “So I get why Sherlock’s here, but why-”
“This is Dr. John Watson. Sherlock’s flatmate.” Mycroft interrupted. “He’s worried about him.” Mycroft glanced at John. “Meet Mary Morstan. The UK’s answer to Topher Brink.”
She smiled, a pretty pink blush staining her cheeks. “I’m hardly in the same league, really.”
“Nonsense, my dear,” Mycroft interjected. “You’re exceptional.”
John cleared his throat. “Sorry, but…Topher Brink? Remote wipes? Is any of this supposed to make sense?”
Mycroft looked sheepish. “I apologise. Please, follow me, I’ll explain everything.”
“I’ll get started, shall I?” Mary asked. Mycroft shook his head.
“Perhaps wait until after I’ve spoken with Doctor Watson.”
“I’m not leaving him!” John said quickly.
“We’ll just be through there. He won’t leave your sight, I promise. I just…” He looked at Sherlock for a moment. “It’s better he doesn’t hear this. He won’t understand, but he’ll pick up on your distress and it might upset him.”
John considered this for a few moments, then nodded. “OK, fine. Tell me what’s going on, Mycroft.”
Mycroft gestured for John to follow him over to the other side of the room. He pulled the sliding glass door across so that Sherlock could no longer hear them. Mycroft looked back at the man sat in the chair and sighed.
“Well?” John asked angrily.
“That man isn’t Sherlock Holmes.”
John blinked. Whatever he'd been expecting Mycroft to say, it wasn't that. “Excuse me?”
“He’s not Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes doesn’t exist. Not anymore.”
“What are you talking about?!”
Mycroft closed his eyes, as if in pain. “The man you know as Sherlock Holmes is what we call a Doll.”
“A doll.”
“An ‘empty’ body, imprinted with a consciousness. They’re mostly used for recreational purposes - creating a friend, a lover, whatever the client desires. Occasionally they’re hired out for less legal activities-”
“I know what a Doll is, Mycroft, I haven’t been living under a rock. But the Dolls aren’t real!”
Mycroft gazed at him steadily for a few seconds, arms folded. “Says who?”
John gaped at him. “Says common sense! If there was really a house full of…full of…zombie-fied humans who could be turned into anyone else, it would be huge. You’d get journalists ordering Dolls and writing stories about it-there’d be proof!”
“You think the government can’t screen people? Or prevent stories from being leaked? This is the real world, Dr Watson; we’re prepared for any eventuality. Sherlock Holmes does not exist. The man in the chair through there…he’s…a blank slate. Tabula rasa. He’s no more ‘Sherlock Holmes’ than you are.”
“This…” John shook his head. “No, this is crazy. This is science fiction.”
“If only that were true.” Mycroft sighed. “I’m his handler. I watch out for him, keep him as safe as I can-”
“How can he not be real? How can any of it be real? You don’t just find empty bodies lying around!”
“No, these people sign contracts.” Mycroft agreed. John gaped at him.
“They…what?”
“We find people, desperate people, people who have nowhere else to go. They sign up to us for five years. After that, they are given their body back and a substantial amount of money.”
John's heart was pounding in his chest. This couldn't be real, couldn't actually be happening. Only an hour beforehand he'd been sat in his flat with his best friend; a completely normal day. And now he was being told said friend wasn't even real. That in fact every thought in his head, every emotion, every decision had been put there by someone else. Something else Mycroft had said suddenly occurred to him. “Lestrade said he’d known Sherlock five years.”
Mycroft's expression froze. “Yes.”
“So…” John looked through the doorway at the man sat in the chair. “What happens to him now?”
Mycroft shrugged. “Nothing. I don’t know how he got wiped clean, but it’ll be easy enough to imprint ‘Sherlock’ back onto him. He might lose a week or so of memories, but other than that he’ll be fine.”
“What about the body’s actual owner though?” John was still hoping this was some sort of joke. A very elaborate one for which he could see no point, but…it had to be. This couldn’t be real.
Mycroft stiffened. “There is no other owner.”
“But you said-”
“He died.” Mycroft clenched and unclenched his fists, staring down at the floor, refusing to look at him.
“Oh.” John paused, a thought occurring to him. “Um, when you say ‘died’, did you…I mean, you didn’t…?”
Mycroft shook his head. “Drug overdose. It was his own fault. He was a junkie and a thief and it was his own stupid fault that he died.” He sighed heavily. “His name was Ben. He was my brother.”
********
“He was all I had left. Our parents died many years ago-car crash, nasty business. He was in the car with them. He watched them die.”
“No, but, Sherlock’s gone home several times…”
Mycroft shook his head. “He always tries everything he can to get out of going home for holidays. Sometimes I let him; it’s easier that way and he’s always so pleased to have got out of it. I’ve never let him miss a Christmas though. Every year I bring him here, we wipe him for a few days, and then put him back with memories of an exasperating but loving family Christmas.” He frowned, his eyes growing distant. He sagged back against the wall. “How I envy him those Christmases. I can remember my parents perfectly, but he gets to see them. Every year, he thinks he spends time with them. It’s not a faded, decade-old memory. It’s real, and new, and I can’t share it with him.”
John swallowed. He felt like he was intruding on something private - and was, he supposed - and the last thing he wanted was to press Mycroft in his grief. But there was still so much that didn't make sense. “I still don’t understand.”
“Ben was always a troubled boy. He was intelligent, startlingly so, but he wasted it. He spent his teenage years getting high and building a substantial criminal record. Failed his GCSE’s miserably and didn’t even consider getting a job. He used to steal money from me to go on binges.” He ran a hand down his face. “Then, one night, he overdosed. I don’t know if it was deliberate - God, I hope it wasn’t - I found him the next day, stone cold with the needle still in his arm. It was…devastating.” his eyes seemed overbright and he looked away from John, pushing himself away from the wall and standing in front of the glass door separating them from the man in the chair, one hand raised to press on the glass.
John remembered the times he’d found Harry passed out on the floor, too drunk to even have bothered moving to the sofa before collapsing. One time, she had stopped breathing. She’d recovered, but John could still remember the terror that had drowned him. He knew what Mycroft meant.
Mycroft cleared his throat and turned back round, having got himself under control. “Like I said before, he was all I had. I couldn’t let him go.”
“But then why didn’t you just bring him back? Why make him Sherlock?”
“Because Ben had never let me back him up. We need the brain imprint for it to work, we can’t just imprint with nothing to go on. Ben was gone.” He paused. “And then I heard about the Holmes project.”
“The what?”
Mycroft regarded him. “This would be a lot quicker if you’d stop interrupting me.”
John signalled with his hand. “Fine.”
“Back in the 1800s there was a man named Sherlock Holmes. He was brilliant, the finest mind any generation has seen before or since. The day he died was a bad day indeed for the British police force. For the past fifty years, the government has been trying to…well, bring him back.”
“How? Surely he can’t have been…backed up or whatever…there wasn’t the technology. Was there?”
“No.” Mycroft admitted. “But by using an amalgamation of different minds, building them on top of each other…we can attempt to recreate his mind.”
“And it took them fifty years to make anyone that brilliant.”
Mycroft’s mouth twitched into a parody of a smile. “Not quite, Doctor Watson. It took them that long to make anyone that brilliant and still retain their sanity.”
“What?”
“The Holmes project was started in 1956. Since that point there have been precisely 48 ‘Sherlock Holmes’s-my brother included-and every single one until him was completely…wrong. The risks involved in combining different imprints, different minds, can be catastrophic if done incorrectly. The project was on the verge of being shut down until I came on board.”
“You fixed everything. By turning your brother into a guinea pig.” John spat, angrily. The sympathy he'd felt when Mycroft was talking about the loss of his family was evaporating quickly. The idea that, to Mycroft, his brother was just another resource to be used...it was what Sherlock always accused him of, but he'd never meant it. He glared at Mycroft, who met his gaze steadily.
“I donated my brother’s body willingly, yes, but that’s not the reason. Sherlock Holmes is a hero, no matter how much he denies it. And I merely hypothesised that in order to maintain his sanity he needed what every hero needs. A nemesis and a companion.”
“A nemesis…you?”
Mycroft snorted. “Hardly. Sherlock likes to be dramatic, but he doesn’t hate me all that much really. No, I’m talking about Moriarty.”
“Moriarty was a Doll?! People died because of him, are you telling me he was under your control?”
“One of our earlier attempts at recreating Sherlock Holmes. Brilliant, yes, but quite insane. We scrapped the imprint and started over but, well, when we realised the need to create an enemy, who better than a psychotic version of himself? An equal?”
“People died.” John said flatly. Mycroft nodded.
“And many more will live because of Sherlock. I think it’s a fair exchange.”
“He almost killed us! In the swimming pool, last year?”
“Ah.” Mycroft looked almost embarrassed. “That was an oversight on our part. He managed to get away from his handler. You were never supposed to be in any danger…and you probably wouldn’t have been if Sherlock hadn’t been such an idiot and moved much more quickly than our schedule.”
“OK, so Moriarty is your little plaything. What about the companion?”
Mycroft stilled. “Yes.”
“So…someone else we know is a Doll? Molly? Mrs Hudson? Lestrade?”
“Dr Watson-”
“Surely not Anderson or Donovan, he hates them-”
“John!” Mycroft interrupted forcefully, and John fell silent. “John,” he said again, gently, “John, you aren’t this stupid.”
“I’m…” John shook his head. It felt suddenly like he was underwater. He couldn't hear properly, couldn't think, couldn't breathe properly. “No, I’m not a Doll. I have a life. I have a family!”
“Yes. You do.”
“So I’m not a Doll!” even to his own ears he sounded desperate, begging Mycroft to shake his head and tell John he'd leapt to the wrong conclusion yet again, or course he wasn't talking about him, he'd meant someone completely different. John was being stupid. Of course.
Mycroft let out a breath. “Not in the traditional sense, no. You are John Watson.”
“So what the fuck are you talking about?” This has to be some sort of hallucination he thought hysterically, Sherlock's infected me with something and I'm home asleep on the sofa because, oh God, this isn't happening to me. He felt like his brain was working faster than it ever had before, running everything Mycroft had said through his mind and trying to find something, anything, that would prove this wasn't true.
“You always did say it was a miracle you survived your injuries.”
John blinked slowly. “I was lucky. It…the bleeding…I got lucky! I didn’t…I mean, I’m not…dead. I’m not dead!”
“John-”
“Besides, I was never backed up either!” John said triumphantly. “So how could I be a Doll? You don’t have my memories and you said-”
“We do.” Mycroft said quietly.
“-that you had to…what?”
“We do. Have your memories. You’re fully backed up, have been ever since you enlisted, more or less.”
“But how…?”
“Britain’s been ‘backing up’ her soldiers for years. Think about it, skilled men and women going into combat, trained to fight, to be doctors or mechanics or anything. And then they get killed. It would be such a waste of potential.”
“So, what, you bring them back from the dead?!”
“Of course not; don’t be ridiculous. That would be an ethical nightmare.” Mycroft grimaced. “But we have to be prepared. Look at what happened in World War Two, the country almost ground to a standstill. What if something like that happens again? But what if, this time, we could enlist people and have them ready for combat instantly? Just imagine. The lazy couch potato who’s never done an honest day’s work in his life, given the knowledge and skills to be a surgeon in a combat situation. The pole dancer who dropped out of school when she was 15-years-old, learning to repair military vehicles in less time than it takes to make a cup of tea. We don’t need to imprint the whole person, John. Just their skills.”
“So why me? Why do I get to live above the others?”
Mycroft smiled, turning his head towards the man in the other room. “A moment of sentiment on my part, I must admit. Sherlock-the original Sherlock, I mean-had a close companion. It was this companion who recorded everything Sherlock did; his writings helped to gain us an insight into the workings of Sherlock Holmes’s mind. His name was Dr. John Watson.” Mycroft smiled at the look of shock on John’s face. “I know, quite the coincidence. We were all set to use one of the regular Dolls, come up with the characteristics required and set it all up. Then your name came up on a database-deceased-and, well…I was drawn to you. I wanted to give Ben his own Dr. Watson.” Mycroft sighed, raising his eyebrows. “My superiors weren’t happy about it; I had to pull quite a few strings, but eventually they released both your body and your imprint to me. It was a simple matter to repair the main damage to your shoulder and to restart the major organs. Then it was simply a case of creating memories of a recovery in hospital. A seamless rehabilitation.”
“You had no right…”
“On the contrary, I had every right. The moment your heart stopped beating you became the property of the British Government, for us to do with you as we wished. It’s the same for everyone who enlists, not that they know it, of course. And 99% of the time it’s an irrelevant clause and we release the body back to the family as soon as possible. But every now and again…well, we need to test certain things. We need to update systems and the like. And no one's going to question one more man missing in action. It’s a tragedy, yes, but not suspicious in the slightest.”
“It’s sick.”
“It’s necessary.” Mycroft snapped.
“So basically what you’re telling me is that I’m alive because of my name?”
“Essentially.”
John nodded, suddenly feeling curiously blank; as if in the face of so much anger, so many conflicting emotions, his body had just shut down. “So it’s chance then. This whole thing is insane. You’re insane!”
Mycroft tutted. “Oh, dear. I did think this wasn’t a good idea. I wish you’d stayed at the flat.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“No.” Mycroft stared at him for a few moments, calculating. “You really care about him, don’t you? Sherlock.”
“Don’t you mean Ben?”
“No. I mean Sherlock.”
John’s shoulder slumped. “Yes. I do.”
“And see that, that is why I was right. Before this Sherlock, every attempt at recreating him went mad. The longest anyone’s lasted has been four years. Ben had lasted five, but even he was going that way until he met you. He’s showing no sign of cognitive damage and it’s been almost two years since you met. That means he’s been going strong for seven years. Don’t you see? You work, you and him. It works. It’s something about you…I don’t think it would have worked with anyone else.”
“You’re not going to-”
“Even in Doll-state he trusts you.” Mycroft cut him off. John paused.
“How could you possibly know that?”
“I asked if he wanted a treatment…and he looked to you. That’s not part of the programming; that’s him.” He swallowed. “There’s a thesis about the Dolls, you know, about how the body retains an echo of the original personality no matter what happens to it. Like a person’s soul, I suppose. It’s quite a fascinating read, really, developed from research into donor organs and the like. I wonder now if it’s true. Ben would have liked you, I’m sure of it. You’d have been just his type.” He smiled. “I hope it is true, that he is still in there somewhere. My brother: the world’s greatest detective, helping the Met to catch the worst of the worst.” His smile twisted. “He’d hate it.”
Without another word he slid open the door and walked to his brother’s side. He nodded to Mary, who glanced at John, then pressed a button. The chair Sherlock was sat in reclined and then there was a flash of light and his back arched in pain. John swallowed heavily.
“So, he just wakes up and thinks everything’s normal.”
“Yes.”
“What happens to me?”
Mycroft looked at him, almost pityingly. “Well, that’s really up to you. We can wipe this whole experience from your mind; replace it with Sherlock in hospital for a head injury. Or we can wipe you completely; you become just another Doll that works for the house. Or we can kill you.”
“I don’t want any of that. I don’t want to forget!”
“I can’t risk my brother finding out the truth.”
“I won’t tell him. Please, Mycroft. You know this isn’t right. You know it isn’t.”
Mycroft looked conflicted. “I don’t have a choice.”
John looked back at Sherlock. He’d stopped writhing, but his eyes were still closed. “I don’t want to live like this.”
“Excuse me?” Mycroft looked taken aback.
“I love Sherlock. I love this life. But I can’t willingly go back to it knowing that it’s a lie and that I won’t even realise. It’s not fair. I’d rather end it all now.” He swallowed hard. “So I pick option three. Let me go.”
“You won’t be able to change your mind. You’ll die, John.”
John smiled. “I’ve been dead for two years. I just borrowed a little extra time.”
“And I can’t change your mind?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
Mycroft nodded gravely. “So am I. Truly.” he glanced at Mary, who nodded. “It’ll be quick,” he promised.
“Thank you. When will it-?” there was a sharp pain in his neck and John winced in surprise. Mary had come up behind him with a needle. His eyes flew to Sherlock. He hadn’t meant for this. He’d thought Mycroft would give him more time, let him say goodbye. But this was good. This was better. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to the still-unconscious man. And then everything went black.
********
Mycroft stood in the corner of the private hospital room, glaring at the occupant of the bed.
“Really, Sherlock, I’ve warned you about this. You exhaust yourself to the point of collapse and then you wonder why I worry about you?”
“Oh, shut up, Mycroft. I’m busy.”
Mycroft stepped forward and plucked the police files out of Sherlock’s hands. “Oh, no. It’s your own fault you’ve forgotten the case details. I’m not going to let you overexert yourself.”
“Why are you even here, anyway?” Sherlock snapped, glaring. “Where’s John?”
“Maybe it would be a good idea for you to move in with me again. That way I can keep a regular eye on you and-”
“You must be joking, you overstuffed warthog. As if I’d want to live with you! And besides, I live with John. We share the rent. He needs me.” he folded his arms mulishly.
Mycroft shifted slightly. “Sherlock…about John…”
“Yes, what is it? Where is he, anyway?”
“He’s…he’s not here.”
“What?” Sherlock eyed him sharply. “Why not?”
“He-”
“Because I went home to get some of your things, you idiot.” John walked into the hospital room and put down a large bag, shaking his head fondly. “You know you’ll need stuff.”
Sherlock glared at him. “I don’t need any ‘stuff’, because I’m not staying.”
“Oh, yes, you are.” John sat down beside the bed and laid his hand next to Sherlock’s, almost but not quite touching. “You scared the hell out of me, collapsing like that. You’re staying here until I say so, OK?”
Sherlock shifted his hand ever so slightly so their fingers brushed. “Fine,” he grumbled. “But you can go,” he shot at Mycroft. Mycroft inclined his head.
“Certainly. Goodbye, John.”
John didn’t look at him. “Yeah, bye.”
Mycroft left without a second look, powering through the corridors until he reached the private car park where his driver was waiting, door held open in readiness.
Mycroft sat back in his car and pulled up the CCTV from Sherlock’s hospital room. John was still sat by the bed and Sherlock was smiling at him, a totally open and unguarded smile. It was the smile Ben used to have before he got messed up in the drugs that eventually caused his death.
This was the third time John had found out the truth. Every time, he asked Mycroft to just let him die. Told him that death was preferable to the reality of his situation.
But John kept Ben-Sherlock- grounded. He worked well with him.
He made him...happy.
And so Mycroft was never going to let that happen.
He regretted nothing.
John would never know, after all.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4810
Disclaimer: Sherlock and its characters belong to people much more brilliant than myself.
Summary: It starts with a phonecall. (Sherlock/Dollhouse).
A/N - Thanks to my lovely Beta red_chapel. Any mistakes left are my own.
“This isn’t right. He can’t be the killer, why can no one else see it?”
Sherlock was pacing the flat exasperatedly while John looked on. “Well, you’ll find proof, I’m sure.”
“When?” Sherlock wheeled round, fixing John with an intense stare. “Any proof there was burned in that house fire. I have plenty of proof for me, but nothing those idiots at Scotland Yard will believe. ‘It wouldn’t stand up in court, Sherlock’.” he grumbled, in a startlingly accurate impersonation of Lestrade. “I need to think.”
John rolled his eyes and stood up. “Fair enough. You want a cuppa while you do that?”
“Mm.”
John wasn’t sure whether the noise was one of scorn or assent, but he decided to make Sherlock tea anyway. He went out into the kitchen and put the kettle on. He tapped a rhythm onto the kitchen counter as he waited, trying to ignore Sherlock’s mutterings in the other room. This case was getting to him more than usual because for once Lestrade wasn’t taking his word as gospel. The evidence against the prime suspect was overwhelming, but Sherlock was insistent that the man in question was innocent. John paused when he heard a mobile ring-Sherlock typically only texted, so a phone call was almost a surprise-and wandered into the lounge area again. Sherlock was glaring at his phone from the other side of the room as though it was doing something offensive. John sighed.
“Oh for God’s…here.” He picked up the phone and passed it to Sherlock. “You talk into the mouthpiece. I’m sure you can figure it out.”
Sherlock glared at him, but took the phone anyway. John turned back to the kitchen with a triumphant smile. All of a sudden, he heard a crash behind him and turned to see Sherlock sprawled on the floor, his head bleeding. Evidently he’d fallen and hit it on the coffee table.
“Sherlock?” he dashed forward instantly, his doctor’s training taking over. He cupped the other man’s face and peered into his eyes, checking for concussion. “Sherlock, are you alright?”
Sherlock smiled at him a little vacantly.
“Did I…fall asleep?”
“What?” John’s eyes flew to the cut on Sherlock’s forehead. Had he hit it harder than it looked? “Does your head hurt? Sherlock!” He held up his hand with three fingers raised. “How many fingers?”
Sherlock glanced at his hand, then back to John’s face. A frown creased his brow. “Did I fall asleep?” he asked again, more insistently.
“Shit.” John breathed. He reached for his phone, dialling 999. “No, you didn’t fall asleep, and you’ve got to stay awake now, OK? I need you to…yes, hello?” He straightened as a woman’s voice came on the line. “Ambulance. It’s my flatmate, he’s had a fall and-”
“Hang up the phone, Doctor Watson.”
John turned to see Mycroft standing in the doorway, his eyes fixed on Sherlock.
“I’m sorry?! Look, he’s hurt, he needs-”
“Hang up the phone. I can take care of him.”
“How?”
“Just do it. Please.”
John thought about arguing further, but decided against it. “Actually, I’m sorry; his brother’s just turned up. We won’t need an ambulance…yes, I’m sure…honestly, everything’s fine. No, I won’t need the police. Thank you.” He hung up and turned back to Mycroft. “Well? Why shouldn't I call them right back? He’s got a fucking head injury; he needs a hospital.”
“No.” Mycroft shook his head. “He needs me.”
“Really? Because unless you've got a doctorate in medicine lying around somewhere that you forgot to mention, I really don't see how you can help him.”
“Trust me.”
“Why? For God's sake, Mycroft, he could be seriously hurt. Now is not the time for one of your little power trips, or manipulation attempts, or whatever the hell this is-”
“Doctor Watson.” Mycroft interrupted firmly, a strange tension in his voice. “I assure you that nothing is more important to me than my brother's well-being.” Carefully, he knelt down beside the fallen man. Sherlock blinked at him.
“Did I fall asleep?”
Mycroft smiled gently at him. “For a little while.”
“What-” John was silenced by a look from Mycroft.
“I need you to come with me, alright?”
“Where?” Sherlock asked.
“We can give you a treatment. Would you like that?”
“I don’t…” John began. Sherlock glanced at him curiously.
“Yes,” he said. Mycroft took his hand in his, and Sherlock looked back at his brother.
“Everything is going to be alright.” Mycroft said softly.
“Now that you’re here.”
Mycroft smiled again, but there was something else behind his eyes, some hidden sadness. “Come on then. We’ll get you that treatment.”
“I’m sorry.” John stepped forwards, arms folded. “What do you mean, ‘treatment’? And where are you taking him? I'm his doctor, I want to know. Now.”
Mycroft hesitated. “It’s best if you don’t ask questions. I promise you he’ll be fine.”
“No. No way. I’m not just going to let you whisk him off and do God-knows what. I’m coming, too. ”
Mycroft looked at him steadily for several seconds. John looked back, refusing to back down. Eventually, Mycroft sighed. “As you wish.”
********
They pulled up next to what appeared to be an office block. Mycroft turned to smile at Sherlock. “Here we are.”
“What are we doing here?” John asked, frowning. “He needs a medical facility, not-”
“You’ll see, Doctor Watson.” Mycroft sounded strange, but John didn’t have much time to dwell on it as the car turned into an underground car park that John could swear hadn’t been there a few moments before. They exited the car and Mycroft directed John to the lifts.
“Mycroft, seriously, what the hell are we doing here? Sherlock!” He turned to his friend, hoping for some sort of recognition. Sherlock smiled blankly back at him.
“Hello.” He started humming to himself, idly picking at a thread on his suit. John glared at Mycroft.
“Look at him.”
“I don’t need to. Wait a moment, Doctor Watson, everything will become clear. Oh, and one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry.”
Before John could respond to that, the doors opened into a large, open-plan room. A black chair sat in the middle, hooked up to what looked like various computers. A young, dark-haired woman was typing something and frowning at one of the monitors. She looked up when the lift doors opened, her gaze darting between the three of them. Then she rolled her eyes.
“Why are they here? What happened this time?”
Mycroft glanced at John. “Sherlock needs a treatment. He’s been wiped. Remotely.”
Her mouth fell open. “But how…?”
“I don’t know.” He sounded angry. “I was hoping you could tell me. All I know is he answered a phone call, and then…so? Can you?”
She shrugged. “I’ll have a look, no promises though.” she looked at John. “So I get why Sherlock’s here, but why-”
“This is Dr. John Watson. Sherlock’s flatmate.” Mycroft interrupted. “He’s worried about him.” Mycroft glanced at John. “Meet Mary Morstan. The UK’s answer to Topher Brink.”
She smiled, a pretty pink blush staining her cheeks. “I’m hardly in the same league, really.”
“Nonsense, my dear,” Mycroft interjected. “You’re exceptional.”
John cleared his throat. “Sorry, but…Topher Brink? Remote wipes? Is any of this supposed to make sense?”
Mycroft looked sheepish. “I apologise. Please, follow me, I’ll explain everything.”
“I’ll get started, shall I?” Mary asked. Mycroft shook his head.
“Perhaps wait until after I’ve spoken with Doctor Watson.”
“I’m not leaving him!” John said quickly.
“We’ll just be through there. He won’t leave your sight, I promise. I just…” He looked at Sherlock for a moment. “It’s better he doesn’t hear this. He won’t understand, but he’ll pick up on your distress and it might upset him.”
John considered this for a few moments, then nodded. “OK, fine. Tell me what’s going on, Mycroft.”
Mycroft gestured for John to follow him over to the other side of the room. He pulled the sliding glass door across so that Sherlock could no longer hear them. Mycroft looked back at the man sat in the chair and sighed.
“Well?” John asked angrily.
“That man isn’t Sherlock Holmes.”
John blinked. Whatever he'd been expecting Mycroft to say, it wasn't that. “Excuse me?”
“He’s not Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes doesn’t exist. Not anymore.”
“What are you talking about?!”
Mycroft closed his eyes, as if in pain. “The man you know as Sherlock Holmes is what we call a Doll.”
“A doll.”
“An ‘empty’ body, imprinted with a consciousness. They’re mostly used for recreational purposes - creating a friend, a lover, whatever the client desires. Occasionally they’re hired out for less legal activities-”
“I know what a Doll is, Mycroft, I haven’t been living under a rock. But the Dolls aren’t real!”
Mycroft gazed at him steadily for a few seconds, arms folded. “Says who?”
John gaped at him. “Says common sense! If there was really a house full of…full of…zombie-fied humans who could be turned into anyone else, it would be huge. You’d get journalists ordering Dolls and writing stories about it-there’d be proof!”
“You think the government can’t screen people? Or prevent stories from being leaked? This is the real world, Dr Watson; we’re prepared for any eventuality. Sherlock Holmes does not exist. The man in the chair through there…he’s…a blank slate. Tabula rasa. He’s no more ‘Sherlock Holmes’ than you are.”
“This…” John shook his head. “No, this is crazy. This is science fiction.”
“If only that were true.” Mycroft sighed. “I’m his handler. I watch out for him, keep him as safe as I can-”
“How can he not be real? How can any of it be real? You don’t just find empty bodies lying around!”
“No, these people sign contracts.” Mycroft agreed. John gaped at him.
“They…what?”
“We find people, desperate people, people who have nowhere else to go. They sign up to us for five years. After that, they are given their body back and a substantial amount of money.”
John's heart was pounding in his chest. This couldn't be real, couldn't actually be happening. Only an hour beforehand he'd been sat in his flat with his best friend; a completely normal day. And now he was being told said friend wasn't even real. That in fact every thought in his head, every emotion, every decision had been put there by someone else. Something else Mycroft had said suddenly occurred to him. “Lestrade said he’d known Sherlock five years.”
Mycroft's expression froze. “Yes.”
“So…” John looked through the doorway at the man sat in the chair. “What happens to him now?”
Mycroft shrugged. “Nothing. I don’t know how he got wiped clean, but it’ll be easy enough to imprint ‘Sherlock’ back onto him. He might lose a week or so of memories, but other than that he’ll be fine.”
“What about the body’s actual owner though?” John was still hoping this was some sort of joke. A very elaborate one for which he could see no point, but…it had to be. This couldn’t be real.
Mycroft stiffened. “There is no other owner.”
“But you said-”
“He died.” Mycroft clenched and unclenched his fists, staring down at the floor, refusing to look at him.
“Oh.” John paused, a thought occurring to him. “Um, when you say ‘died’, did you…I mean, you didn’t…?”
Mycroft shook his head. “Drug overdose. It was his own fault. He was a junkie and a thief and it was his own stupid fault that he died.” He sighed heavily. “His name was Ben. He was my brother.”
********
“He was all I had left. Our parents died many years ago-car crash, nasty business. He was in the car with them. He watched them die.”
“No, but, Sherlock’s gone home several times…”
Mycroft shook his head. “He always tries everything he can to get out of going home for holidays. Sometimes I let him; it’s easier that way and he’s always so pleased to have got out of it. I’ve never let him miss a Christmas though. Every year I bring him here, we wipe him for a few days, and then put him back with memories of an exasperating but loving family Christmas.” He frowned, his eyes growing distant. He sagged back against the wall. “How I envy him those Christmases. I can remember my parents perfectly, but he gets to see them. Every year, he thinks he spends time with them. It’s not a faded, decade-old memory. It’s real, and new, and I can’t share it with him.”
John swallowed. He felt like he was intruding on something private - and was, he supposed - and the last thing he wanted was to press Mycroft in his grief. But there was still so much that didn't make sense. “I still don’t understand.”
“Ben was always a troubled boy. He was intelligent, startlingly so, but he wasted it. He spent his teenage years getting high and building a substantial criminal record. Failed his GCSE’s miserably and didn’t even consider getting a job. He used to steal money from me to go on binges.” He ran a hand down his face. “Then, one night, he overdosed. I don’t know if it was deliberate - God, I hope it wasn’t - I found him the next day, stone cold with the needle still in his arm. It was…devastating.” his eyes seemed overbright and he looked away from John, pushing himself away from the wall and standing in front of the glass door separating them from the man in the chair, one hand raised to press on the glass.
John remembered the times he’d found Harry passed out on the floor, too drunk to even have bothered moving to the sofa before collapsing. One time, she had stopped breathing. She’d recovered, but John could still remember the terror that had drowned him. He knew what Mycroft meant.
Mycroft cleared his throat and turned back round, having got himself under control. “Like I said before, he was all I had. I couldn’t let him go.”
“But then why didn’t you just bring him back? Why make him Sherlock?”
“Because Ben had never let me back him up. We need the brain imprint for it to work, we can’t just imprint with nothing to go on. Ben was gone.” He paused. “And then I heard about the Holmes project.”
“The what?”
Mycroft regarded him. “This would be a lot quicker if you’d stop interrupting me.”
John signalled with his hand. “Fine.”
“Back in the 1800s there was a man named Sherlock Holmes. He was brilliant, the finest mind any generation has seen before or since. The day he died was a bad day indeed for the British police force. For the past fifty years, the government has been trying to…well, bring him back.”
“How? Surely he can’t have been…backed up or whatever…there wasn’t the technology. Was there?”
“No.” Mycroft admitted. “But by using an amalgamation of different minds, building them on top of each other…we can attempt to recreate his mind.”
“And it took them fifty years to make anyone that brilliant.”
Mycroft’s mouth twitched into a parody of a smile. “Not quite, Doctor Watson. It took them that long to make anyone that brilliant and still retain their sanity.”
“What?”
“The Holmes project was started in 1956. Since that point there have been precisely 48 ‘Sherlock Holmes’s-my brother included-and every single one until him was completely…wrong. The risks involved in combining different imprints, different minds, can be catastrophic if done incorrectly. The project was on the verge of being shut down until I came on board.”
“You fixed everything. By turning your brother into a guinea pig.” John spat, angrily. The sympathy he'd felt when Mycroft was talking about the loss of his family was evaporating quickly. The idea that, to Mycroft, his brother was just another resource to be used...it was what Sherlock always accused him of, but he'd never meant it. He glared at Mycroft, who met his gaze steadily.
“I donated my brother’s body willingly, yes, but that’s not the reason. Sherlock Holmes is a hero, no matter how much he denies it. And I merely hypothesised that in order to maintain his sanity he needed what every hero needs. A nemesis and a companion.”
“A nemesis…you?”
Mycroft snorted. “Hardly. Sherlock likes to be dramatic, but he doesn’t hate me all that much really. No, I’m talking about Moriarty.”
“Moriarty was a Doll?! People died because of him, are you telling me he was under your control?”
“One of our earlier attempts at recreating Sherlock Holmes. Brilliant, yes, but quite insane. We scrapped the imprint and started over but, well, when we realised the need to create an enemy, who better than a psychotic version of himself? An equal?”
“People died.” John said flatly. Mycroft nodded.
“And many more will live because of Sherlock. I think it’s a fair exchange.”
“He almost killed us! In the swimming pool, last year?”
“Ah.” Mycroft looked almost embarrassed. “That was an oversight on our part. He managed to get away from his handler. You were never supposed to be in any danger…and you probably wouldn’t have been if Sherlock hadn’t been such an idiot and moved much more quickly than our schedule.”
“OK, so Moriarty is your little plaything. What about the companion?”
Mycroft stilled. “Yes.”
“So…someone else we know is a Doll? Molly? Mrs Hudson? Lestrade?”
“Dr Watson-”
“Surely not Anderson or Donovan, he hates them-”
“John!” Mycroft interrupted forcefully, and John fell silent. “John,” he said again, gently, “John, you aren’t this stupid.”
“I’m…” John shook his head. It felt suddenly like he was underwater. He couldn't hear properly, couldn't think, couldn't breathe properly. “No, I’m not a Doll. I have a life. I have a family!”
“Yes. You do.”
“So I’m not a Doll!” even to his own ears he sounded desperate, begging Mycroft to shake his head and tell John he'd leapt to the wrong conclusion yet again, or course he wasn't talking about him, he'd meant someone completely different. John was being stupid. Of course.
Mycroft let out a breath. “Not in the traditional sense, no. You are John Watson.”
“So what the fuck are you talking about?” This has to be some sort of hallucination he thought hysterically, Sherlock's infected me with something and I'm home asleep on the sofa because, oh God, this isn't happening to me. He felt like his brain was working faster than it ever had before, running everything Mycroft had said through his mind and trying to find something, anything, that would prove this wasn't true.
“You always did say it was a miracle you survived your injuries.”
John blinked slowly. “I was lucky. It…the bleeding…I got lucky! I didn’t…I mean, I’m not…dead. I’m not dead!”
“John-”
“Besides, I was never backed up either!” John said triumphantly. “So how could I be a Doll? You don’t have my memories and you said-”
“We do.” Mycroft said quietly.
“-that you had to…what?”
“We do. Have your memories. You’re fully backed up, have been ever since you enlisted, more or less.”
“But how…?”
“Britain’s been ‘backing up’ her soldiers for years. Think about it, skilled men and women going into combat, trained to fight, to be doctors or mechanics or anything. And then they get killed. It would be such a waste of potential.”
“So, what, you bring them back from the dead?!”
“Of course not; don’t be ridiculous. That would be an ethical nightmare.” Mycroft grimaced. “But we have to be prepared. Look at what happened in World War Two, the country almost ground to a standstill. What if something like that happens again? But what if, this time, we could enlist people and have them ready for combat instantly? Just imagine. The lazy couch potato who’s never done an honest day’s work in his life, given the knowledge and skills to be a surgeon in a combat situation. The pole dancer who dropped out of school when she was 15-years-old, learning to repair military vehicles in less time than it takes to make a cup of tea. We don’t need to imprint the whole person, John. Just their skills.”
“So why me? Why do I get to live above the others?”
Mycroft smiled, turning his head towards the man in the other room. “A moment of sentiment on my part, I must admit. Sherlock-the original Sherlock, I mean-had a close companion. It was this companion who recorded everything Sherlock did; his writings helped to gain us an insight into the workings of Sherlock Holmes’s mind. His name was Dr. John Watson.” Mycroft smiled at the look of shock on John’s face. “I know, quite the coincidence. We were all set to use one of the regular Dolls, come up with the characteristics required and set it all up. Then your name came up on a database-deceased-and, well…I was drawn to you. I wanted to give Ben his own Dr. Watson.” Mycroft sighed, raising his eyebrows. “My superiors weren’t happy about it; I had to pull quite a few strings, but eventually they released both your body and your imprint to me. It was a simple matter to repair the main damage to your shoulder and to restart the major organs. Then it was simply a case of creating memories of a recovery in hospital. A seamless rehabilitation.”
“You had no right…”
“On the contrary, I had every right. The moment your heart stopped beating you became the property of the British Government, for us to do with you as we wished. It’s the same for everyone who enlists, not that they know it, of course. And 99% of the time it’s an irrelevant clause and we release the body back to the family as soon as possible. But every now and again…well, we need to test certain things. We need to update systems and the like. And no one's going to question one more man missing in action. It’s a tragedy, yes, but not suspicious in the slightest.”
“It’s sick.”
“It’s necessary.” Mycroft snapped.
“So basically what you’re telling me is that I’m alive because of my name?”
“Essentially.”
John nodded, suddenly feeling curiously blank; as if in the face of so much anger, so many conflicting emotions, his body had just shut down. “So it’s chance then. This whole thing is insane. You’re insane!”
Mycroft tutted. “Oh, dear. I did think this wasn’t a good idea. I wish you’d stayed at the flat.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“No.” Mycroft stared at him for a few moments, calculating. “You really care about him, don’t you? Sherlock.”
“Don’t you mean Ben?”
“No. I mean Sherlock.”
John’s shoulder slumped. “Yes. I do.”
“And see that, that is why I was right. Before this Sherlock, every attempt at recreating him went mad. The longest anyone’s lasted has been four years. Ben had lasted five, but even he was going that way until he met you. He’s showing no sign of cognitive damage and it’s been almost two years since you met. That means he’s been going strong for seven years. Don’t you see? You work, you and him. It works. It’s something about you…I don’t think it would have worked with anyone else.”
“You’re not going to-”
“Even in Doll-state he trusts you.” Mycroft cut him off. John paused.
“How could you possibly know that?”
“I asked if he wanted a treatment…and he looked to you. That’s not part of the programming; that’s him.” He swallowed. “There’s a thesis about the Dolls, you know, about how the body retains an echo of the original personality no matter what happens to it. Like a person’s soul, I suppose. It’s quite a fascinating read, really, developed from research into donor organs and the like. I wonder now if it’s true. Ben would have liked you, I’m sure of it. You’d have been just his type.” He smiled. “I hope it is true, that he is still in there somewhere. My brother: the world’s greatest detective, helping the Met to catch the worst of the worst.” His smile twisted. “He’d hate it.”
Without another word he slid open the door and walked to his brother’s side. He nodded to Mary, who glanced at John, then pressed a button. The chair Sherlock was sat in reclined and then there was a flash of light and his back arched in pain. John swallowed heavily.
“So, he just wakes up and thinks everything’s normal.”
“Yes.”
“What happens to me?”
Mycroft looked at him, almost pityingly. “Well, that’s really up to you. We can wipe this whole experience from your mind; replace it with Sherlock in hospital for a head injury. Or we can wipe you completely; you become just another Doll that works for the house. Or we can kill you.”
“I don’t want any of that. I don’t want to forget!”
“I can’t risk my brother finding out the truth.”
“I won’t tell him. Please, Mycroft. You know this isn’t right. You know it isn’t.”
Mycroft looked conflicted. “I don’t have a choice.”
John looked back at Sherlock. He’d stopped writhing, but his eyes were still closed. “I don’t want to live like this.”
“Excuse me?” Mycroft looked taken aback.
“I love Sherlock. I love this life. But I can’t willingly go back to it knowing that it’s a lie and that I won’t even realise. It’s not fair. I’d rather end it all now.” He swallowed hard. “So I pick option three. Let me go.”
“You won’t be able to change your mind. You’ll die, John.”
John smiled. “I’ve been dead for two years. I just borrowed a little extra time.”
“And I can’t change your mind?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
Mycroft nodded gravely. “So am I. Truly.” he glanced at Mary, who nodded. “It’ll be quick,” he promised.
“Thank you. When will it-?” there was a sharp pain in his neck and John winced in surprise. Mary had come up behind him with a needle. His eyes flew to Sherlock. He hadn’t meant for this. He’d thought Mycroft would give him more time, let him say goodbye. But this was good. This was better. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to the still-unconscious man. And then everything went black.
********
Mycroft stood in the corner of the private hospital room, glaring at the occupant of the bed.
“Really, Sherlock, I’ve warned you about this. You exhaust yourself to the point of collapse and then you wonder why I worry about you?”
“Oh, shut up, Mycroft. I’m busy.”
Mycroft stepped forward and plucked the police files out of Sherlock’s hands. “Oh, no. It’s your own fault you’ve forgotten the case details. I’m not going to let you overexert yourself.”
“Why are you even here, anyway?” Sherlock snapped, glaring. “Where’s John?”
“Maybe it would be a good idea for you to move in with me again. That way I can keep a regular eye on you and-”
“You must be joking, you overstuffed warthog. As if I’d want to live with you! And besides, I live with John. We share the rent. He needs me.” he folded his arms mulishly.
Mycroft shifted slightly. “Sherlock…about John…”
“Yes, what is it? Where is he, anyway?”
“He’s…he’s not here.”
“What?” Sherlock eyed him sharply. “Why not?”
“He-”
“Because I went home to get some of your things, you idiot.” John walked into the hospital room and put down a large bag, shaking his head fondly. “You know you’ll need stuff.”
Sherlock glared at him. “I don’t need any ‘stuff’, because I’m not staying.”
“Oh, yes, you are.” John sat down beside the bed and laid his hand next to Sherlock’s, almost but not quite touching. “You scared the hell out of me, collapsing like that. You’re staying here until I say so, OK?”
Sherlock shifted his hand ever so slightly so their fingers brushed. “Fine,” he grumbled. “But you can go,” he shot at Mycroft. Mycroft inclined his head.
“Certainly. Goodbye, John.”
John didn’t look at him. “Yeah, bye.”
Mycroft left without a second look, powering through the corridors until he reached the private car park where his driver was waiting, door held open in readiness.
Mycroft sat back in his car and pulled up the CCTV from Sherlock’s hospital room. John was still sat by the bed and Sherlock was smiling at him, a totally open and unguarded smile. It was the smile Ben used to have before he got messed up in the drugs that eventually caused his death.
This was the third time John had found out the truth. Every time, he asked Mycroft to just let him die. Told him that death was preferable to the reality of his situation.
But John kept Ben-Sherlock- grounded. He worked well with him.
He made him...happy.
And so Mycroft was never going to let that happen.
He regretted nothing.
John would never know, after all.