FIC: Relapse (Sherlock BBC)

[unsentimentalf]

Title: Relapse
Author: Unsentimental Fool
Fandom: Sherlock BBC
Rating: PG13
Word count: 5,500
Summary: Jim Moriarty is in secure detention. The secret of the keycode is within Mycroft's grasp. But Mycroft has a secret of his own, and it is about to play havoc with this interrogation.

Relapse (on AO3)/

Mycroft closed the file with a little more force than necessary. "Enough warnings. Send an agent in to sabotage the plant. Next?"

There was a beat of silence. He looked up. "Problem?"

"The operative made three recommendations. Section B of the report." There was slight puzzlement in Anthea's voice. "Do I take it that they are rejected?"

Recommendations- yes. He'd skinned through them. "Accepted"

She blinked. "Sorry, Sir. I must be having a slow day. Number two isn't compatible with the sabotage. Is it just the other two accepted?"

"Obviously." What was wrong with the woman today? No signs of lost sleep, problematic sexual encounters or health worries. "Order some coffee and pull yourself together."

She nodded, picked up the phone. "Coffee for one."

"Two." Mycroft overruled.

"Two." Again that puzzlement. "Was there a problem with that one?"

He looked down at the full mug on his desk, still just steaming. It annoyed him in its triviality. He had better things to do than this.

"Cancel the coffee and call a car round. I'll be at Midas for the rest of the day."

"Yes, sir." This time he was pleased to note that her voice was emotionless.

Mycroft watched the figure curled up unmoving on the bare mattress in the cell as Greggs concluded his report.

"...ready for interrogation in another three days, maybe four."

Mycroft could see bruises already darkened on the naked flesh. He knew that in four days there would be no patch of skin still unmarked. In four days Jim Moriarty would be broken and desperate to talk. In four days anything could happen. He would deal with this now.

"Get him some clothes and put him in the interview room."

When Mycroft opened the door, Moriarty lifted his head from where it had been cradled on his arms. He was wearing a cheap tracksuit three sizes too big for him and there were lines from stress and sleep deprivation around his eyes but he smiled.

"Mycroft Holmes. An unexpected pleasure."

"Surely not?" Mycroft didn't believe that Moriarty had ever been ignorant of who his kidnappers were.

"I've read your manual and you're breaking the rules. No senior interrogator in the first six days, unless it's time critical. Do you have a crisis on your hands, Mr Holmes?"

Mycroft returned the smile with a tight one of his own. "I'll ask the questions."

"But will I answer them? If you're too impatient to play by your rules you're going to have to play by mine instead." Moriarty sounded smug.

Mycroft twitched an eyebrow, irritated. "I'll tell you the rules. You'll have clothes, food and a bed, if you co-operate. And then release. I take no interest in your crimes, Jim, however bestial. My only concern is national security."

"Bestial?" Moriarty was apparently insulted. "Food and clothing? Someone hasn't done their research properly. You really know nothing about me, or you wouldn't try to buy me with such trifles."

He stood up, unzipped the tracksuit top, tossed it across the table, followed swiftly by the bottoms, then sat down again, naked.

"It will take a long time to starve me into compliance. You want your answers now. Shall we try going through those rules again, Mycroft? You know what I want."

Bruises in purple and red across the hairless chest and down the plump, unmuscled arms, none old enough to have faded to yellow yet. Mycroft caught himself staring at the deep, mesmerising colours, looked back at his adversary's face. Dark brown eyes with far too much intelligence in them. Mycroft would have to play well to win this.

"Do I know?"

Moriarty flicked his eyes upward. "I've been telling all your people. Come on. Keep up."

He'd said nothing but "Sherlock", over and over, until this conversation. For a moment Mycroft seriously thought about arrangements to pick his brother up and hand him over, then he reconsidered. Moriarty could snatch Sherlock off the street himself any time, even, no doubt, from this captivity. What he wanted was something that only Mycroft could provide.

"You want information about my brother."

"Bravo!" Moriarty clapped, slowly

"Why?"

"Wrong question." Moriarty settled back in his seat, seeming unbothered by the bruises against the hard surfaces. "National security doesn't need to know. Do your job, Mr Holmes, and look out for your little brother after hours."

Mycroft looked at his watch. Six twenty five. "It's after hours now, Jim. Answer the question or the deal's off." There was a deep red bruise along one collarbone only, annoyingly unsymmetrical. He would tell Greggs to tidy that up. It was distracting.

Moriarty tipped his head on one side, then the other. "You have my terms, and you're the one in a hurry. I'm done here." He closed his eyes, put his head back down and apparently fell straight back to sleep.

Mycroft told his driver to take him home, but he was too restless to settle to anything in his flat. Moriarty's bargain must be met, somehow. He needed that information. Jim's smiling face, the discoloured skin, hovered in front of his thoughts.

Around seven pm he set out to walk through the parks, going north, towards Baker Street. There must be a way of finding out from his brother what Moriarty wanted with his personal information without revealing what Mycroft was doing. This route took him past Speakers Corner and, slightly out of breath from the fast pace that he'd set, he paused to listen to the orators.

It usually amused him for a couple of minutes, watching men who thought that standing on a soapbox made them politicians, as if real politics had anything to do with their ill considered fantasies. Tonight the scruffy young man in front of him merely irritated him.

"Men in suits!" the man declaimed. "Bankers, bureaucrats, accountants. Leeches, all. They've never done a real day's work in their life. Under a true socialist government there will be no bureaucrats." He was glaring straight down at Mycroft. "You and all your ilk. First against the wall..."

Ilk? Lovely word. Silk, milk, ilk. He ought to turn away, but the stupidity was infuriating.

He called up to the man, loud enough for the tiny audience to hear, "How exactly is your socialist utopia going to manage its resources? Administrate its borders? Elect its politicians? Collect the data to make informed decisions?"

"Villages don't need bureaucrats. We need to make the world one village. It's cities that are toxic, that breed men like you!"

Mycroft snorted disdain. "You were brought up in Greenwich, you failed to graduate from the LSE and now you live in a squat in Bow. What do you know about villages? Your particular brand of idiocy is London-bred." London bred. London bread. London London London bred.

"How the fuck did you... You're an undercover cop! Fuck you, pig! He's a fucking pig!" There was a rumble of hostility from the crowd, which seemed to have come from nowhere as soon as the argument got personal.

"Mycroft". The word in his ear startled him for an instant.

"Go away, Sherlock. I'm busy."

"You're about to get lynched. I give it another twenty seconds at the most before bottles fly. Is this some clever undercover operation?"

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm just going to explain to them..."

"I feared as much." Sherlock wrapped an arm around Mycroft's shoulders, called up to the podium, "My friend here's had far too much to drink already this evening. I'm taking him home."

"Your friend's a fucking wanker!" the speaker called back down.

"That as well." He steered an indignant Mycroft towards the road and hustled them both into a cab.

"You know I don't drink." Mycroft sat upright and hissed at his brother. "What's the meaning of this...this kidnapping?" He knocked on the glass. "Let me out, immediately!"

The cabbie pulled over, grumbling, and Mycroft scrambled out, Sherlock following. A few steps along the pavement Mycroft felt his brother's hand on his arm, the tight fingers relaying Sherlock's discomfort at the repeated physical contact.

"You were on your way to see me when you got distracted. Come and have some tea, Mycroft. We have cake, I believe. You can tell me all about your debate."

Mycroft frowned at him. Sherlock being civil was extremely suspicious, but he needed to find out about Moriarty's plans. Maybe it was best to stay with his brother for now. "What sort of cake?"

"Lemon."

Lemon cake sounded nice. He'd not got round to eating today; too busy with important stuff. Midas turns everything to gold. Mustn't tell Sherlock about Midas. "Very well." He was bored of standing still; he set out down Baker Street at a healthy jog, amused at the way Sherlock kept up, coattails flapping.

In the flat he turned the skull over in his hands, put it down, walked around the room, picked it up again. Sherlock was taking far too long with the tea, but here it was. And cake.

"Are you still taking your medication?" Sherlock asked, pouring.

That was not an acceptable conversational gambit. "Not your concern." Mycroft said sharply.

"You're high, Mycroft, and I doubt that you're on drugs. It's a necessary question."

Ridiculous. He wasn't high, just surrounded by annoying people and his brother the worst of them. He took the cup, paced around the room again, balanced the skull on top of the teapot. "Yes, of course I take them."

And that was stupid, too. One or two bouts of illness many years ago, almost certainly no more than a reaction to stress, and here he was, permanently medicated and labelled. Sherlock had loved it, of course- his big brother diagnosed insane. Defective. No wonder he watched avidly for any sign of Mycroft becoming ill again. Mycroft always took his medication absolutely as instructed.

"You ought to see your doctor."

"Don't be stupid. There's nothing wrong with me."

Even while still a child Sherlock had taken the opposite side to the rest of the family over this. His father believed that Holmes's were eccentric, brilliant, geniuses. Not mentally ill. Their mother had suggested that Mycroft was just a bit upset and showing off. Sherlock at fifteen had been the one who had visited the ward bearing research papers on brain scan patterns and on the latest medications. Sherlock was the one who refused to let it go even when he'd been symptom free for years.

And now Sherlock was trying to make one bad mood into an excuse to have him locked up again, sabotage his work while he was detained, steal his reputation and establish himself as the premier Holmes. Mycroft looked down at the untouched cup in his hand, suddenly aware that his brother might stop at nothing- nothing! He threw it across the room, the thud on the carpet loud in the silence, the liquid spilt dark.

"You think I don't see straight through you? I'm leaving. Don't try to stop me, I warn you! I have powers about which you know nothing!"

They both turned at the sound of the door. John gestured apologetically at the other stairs. "Just going up... Sorry to disturb you."

"Wait," Sherlock said. "Talk to Mycroft."

Mycroft hissed at him. "Got your doctor confederate already, Sherlock? Why don't you just tell him to sign the papers and be done with it?"

"What papers?" John had stopped in the middle of the room. "What papers, Sherlock? What's going on?"

"Don't pretend he hadn't told you before, Dr Watson! I'm sure you've had endless fun laughing about it!"

"Sherlock?"

Sherlock sighed. "I don't discuss your medical history with anyone. Not until it's absolutely necessary." He turned back to John. "Mycroft is unwell. I am concerned about his welfare since he won't consult his own doctor."

"You're an opportunistic vampire preying on your own flesh and blood!" Mycroft retorted.

"Wait, both of you. Unwell how, Mycroft? What are the symptoms?" John asked.

"Not unwell. Merely in a poor temper, which Sherlock's attempts to kill me had not improved. What did you put in the tea, Sherlock?"

"Sugar!" Sherlock snapped. "As for symptoms, I found him arguing with the morons on Speakers Corner."

John shrugged. "Lots of people do."

"Mycroft doesn't. Nor does he run along Baker Street, throw my best crockery around or accuse me of attempted fratricide. He's hypomanic, John. He's been hospitalised before with the same condition and he's a danger to himself and others."

John frowned at Mycroft, who had decided it politic to sit down. "You look a little agitated, I suppose, but arguing with Sherlock will do that. How do you feel?"

"Absolutely fine!" He swung up onto his feet again.

"Any thoughts of harming yourself or other people?"

"One," He glared at his younger brother. "But that's more of a treasured fantasy."

John was considering him, carefully. "Do you think Sherlock, or anyone else, is trying to harm you?"

Coming from Sherlock's camp that was so obviously an attempt to trick him that Mycroft stifled a laugh. "You'll have noticed that my brother takes remarks excessively literally at times. It's a symptom of his "condition"."

He raised an eyebrow at Sherlock. One up to him. "Now if you'll excuse me, Doctor, I'm going home." He needed to escape this place before Sherlock made another attempt.

"John!" Sherlock's voice was deep. "He is quite obviously unwell. It would be irresponsible to let him wander around in this state."

John shook his head. "He's a little restless and irritable, I can see that. But he appears entirely coherent. We don't section people for heckling Socialist Workers and certainly not for making jokes about your tea."

He turned to Mycroft. "Sherlock knows you well and you know how observant he is. If he thinks you're starting to get hypomanic and you've got a history of it then he may be right. I suggest you arrange a couple of days off work, get some exercise, plenty of sleep and we'll pop round and see how you're getting on tomorrow. And give me or your mental health team a ring if things feel like they're getting out of control."

"Take two aspirin and call me in the morning!" Sherlock was derisive. "Oh, and try not to start World War Three. Have you any idea just how dangerous a delusional man with his hands quite that deep in government could get?"

Mycroft took the opportunity to run down the stairs as they argued, waving down a taxi as he reached the street. The idea of taking time off work was ridiculous; Moriarty wouldn't wait. He certainly didn't need more sleep; he was wide awake. Ill? Far from it.

One problem was solved. Sherlock clearly harboured plans for his downfall and was therefore a clear risk to national security. Mycroft's duty was obvious; to get the keycode data from Moriarty. Setting his two enemies against each other was the only sensible course. In the back of the cab he pulled out his phone, called for a driver. He was going straight back to Midas.

He paid off the cabbie and paced up and down the pavement, squinting at the swirling headlights, waiting for the car, eager to be on his way. Soon the keycode secrets would be in his hands. Had Greggs had done something about those uneven bruises yet? He glanced at his watch again. Hurry up hurry up hurry up. There was no time to lose. None at all.

The night shift was in full session when Mycroft arrived. He sat up in the control room and watched the performance on the screen. Without sound, it looked almost like dancing, as Moriarty was tossed back and forth between the two men.

The control room operator was glancing at the visitor surreptitiously; Mycroft realised that he had been humming a tune to put to the fluid movements. He sighed. Time was that the civil service had standards. "Schubert," he informed the man impatiently. "Ta ta ta ta ta".

"Yes sir." The operator returned his attention to the screens.

Moriarty was on the floor now, kicked once in the head. Mycroft sat bolt upright. That wouldn't do. He needed the prisoner able to think straight. "Enough," he commanded. "Interview room. And get me a coffee. Black."

This time Moriarty was bleeding; raw patches where boots had ripped skin, gashes from a beating with a sharp edged object, a nosebleed that dripped, unstemmed. Mycroft counted the steady beat of the splashes onto the desk while he gathered his thoughts, but it was Jim who spoke first.

"Not here."

"Does this place frighten you?"

Moriarty shook his head, annoyed, and a drop of blood flew sideways. Mycroft reached out to wipe the anomalous spot away from the table edge with the edge of his handkerchief, watched the red spot spread across the white silk. Pretty.

"You'll want this off the official records." Moriarty glanced at the camera. "Your information and mine."

Midas had the highest level of security, but still Mycroft did not want a word of this getting back to Sherlock. It would be safest if he were the only one who knew about the keycode, as well. Fortunately he had a secure office in the building.

"This is rather more comfortable." Jim picked up the only file on the desk, started to leaf through. His nosebleed had nearly stopped. "Is this really all you know? Your brother deduced more than this in the first ten seconds of meeting me, and he had half a dozen snipers as distraction."

"Put that down!" There were guards outside the door but no-one to witness what went on in here. Mycroft felt a sudden thrill of fear. He should have ordered handcuffs at least. He could call the guards in now, get Jim restrained.

"No need." Moriarty had turned with remarkable speed considering his injuries and was inches from Mycroft's face. "We have a bargain. Hold to it and I'll be as meek as a lamb." He didn't look remotely lamb-like; his sparse five day stubble was caked in blackening blood. He hadn't said what would happen if the bargain was broken.

"Very well." Mycroft pulled the file out from under Moriarty's hand. "Sit down and we'll start." He glanced at his watch; nearly midnight. He felt wide awake, sharp, ready to work. "Tell me what the keycode is."

A harsh laugh. "That's the end of the story. Start at the beginning, Mr Holmes. Start with me."

"And who are you?" He'd found no trace of the man prior to four years ago; no records, no biometric matches, no acquaintances, nothing.

"I'm Jim Moriarty. My turn." He cocked his head on one side, considering Mycroft. "What age were you when you first realised that your brother would always try to eclipse you in everything?"

He knew the answer without need for thought. "Eleven."

"Tell me about it."

Mycroft could think of no reason not to go on. Just a childhood story; nothing of value, in exchange for what he needed. "Sherlock was five years old. I'd taught him to play chess in the school holidays; I was a good player for my age, captain of the school team. I offered to spot him a queen, to make the contest fair, but he was too stubborn to take it. He just lost, over and over, getting more and more angry each time. Our mother tried to explain to him that he wouldn't be able to win until he was older and maybe we should play something easier. He looked at me with those narrow eyes and agreed, far too meekly.

"At the start of next holidays he dragged me into the library, to our father's precious chess set before I'd even got my coat off. At first he seemed to still be floundering; he lost a piece and started to cry, and I felt so sorry for him. I went a bit easy on him after that."

Mycroft still winced at the memory. "By the time he'd played out the obscure gambit he'd learned by heart from one of our father's books I was in a hopeless position. I demanded a rematch, but Sherlock picked up my king and tossed it into the fireplace. "Chess is a stupid game," he announced. "Boring. And I'm the winner forever now, My." He got beaten for destroying the chess piece, but he didn't care. He never cared about that."

Moriarty nodded. "Your question."

"What was your name, before you became Jim Moriary?" He would get real information, and Jim would get nothing but anecdote. Moriarty was a fool to play this game.

"...He's never accepted the diagnosis, of course. Sherlock can't be anything but perfect. Anything he can't do has to be unimportant." Mycroft slammed the pen down on the desk, continued to pace around the room.

Moriarty made a small noise of agreement. "Yet he knows, doesn't he, that you're his master in so many things. He resents that." He stood up, but only to adjust the blind against the sun.

Mycroft nodded. How peculiar that Jim Moriarty should be the one person who truly understood just what a trial Sherlock had been to him over the years.

"I virtually brought him up, you know. Father had no time for small children. Mummy couldn't cope with a child like Sherlock, and nor could any of the nannies. He ran wild when I wasn't home. Wild like a goat, yellow eyed and braying. Goat Sherlock." The image amused him and he put his hands to his head for sharp little horns, danced around the room. "Maaaa. Maaaa. Give me everything I want, now. Maaaa."

Jim laughed with him. "How did you control your young kid when everyone else failed?"

"I took the time to do it. Everyone else just wanted Sherlock to behave and fit in so they could get on with their lives. I gave him all my attention. All of it. I used to read him bedtime stories, you know." He smiled at the memory. "Once upon a time."

"Really? I wish I'd had an older brother like you. What did you read to him?"

"Fairytales, when he was small. Witches and children and princes and fairies. He loved those, but when he was six he found out that they weren't real. He screamed for a full three days, and he never let me read to him again." Something occured to Mycroft, "Do you know the stories, Jim? I could read them to you, if you like."

"That would be lovely, Mycroft. You can read to me at bedtime. It must rankle with him still that you were the older and wiser one. Is that where his malice comes from?"

"He was a brat then and a brat now. I still have to look after him. There are three cameras trained on 221b and a permanent security detail in the flat across the road. That's a lot of resources, just for him. He isn't appreciative though. Not a bit of it."

"Not at all. He hates you for it, Mycroft." Jim shook his head, sadly. "It's hard to believe after everything you do for him." He blinked slowly, dark-eyed. "I find it hard to believe that anyone could hate you at all. You do so much for your country and your family, and what does Sherlock do? Party tricks, that's all. What's he done for you? Nothing, because he hates you. Because he's jealous."

Mycroft nodded. Jim had it exactly. "He tried to kill me yesterday. Kill me dead, dead, dead. I was too clever for him, though." The thought of his murderous brother was bringing tears to his eyes.

"Poor Mycroft. Don't worry, you'll always be too clever for him." A comforting arm slid around his shoulders. Jim's breath was warm on his neck. So warm, so soft... "You're really nice." Mycroft announced. "I like you."

"I can be very nice indeed. Would you like that, Mycroft?"

Of course he would.

"Come here then, pet." And Moriarty tugged him firmly down onto the leather couch.

"Wait a moment... there." Jim's gentle hands adjusted his jacket. "Now you look properly official again." A swift kiss on his cheek. "Open it now."

The guards were poised for action. Mycroft looked at them, forgetting for a moment what he was going to say. Oh, yes. "Release the prisoner!" He giggled a little, because it was funny to call Jim a prisoner now. They weren't moving. "Go on! Release him!" What was it like? That film. Release Roderick, with a lisp. He'd laughed at that film, only not where anyone could see him, because it wasn't dignified. He had to be dignified. He tried. "Release Moriarty!"

They said "Yes sir" then, like they were meant to, and Jim went with them. That was all right then. Jim was all right. He was all right. It was all rather good. He sat in his office and filled in forms with different coloured pens. He liked forms. He made up a little song about forms and sang it to the next person who came, who was Anthea. Anthea asked him to come for a drive in the car. Anthea lived in a tiny townhouse in Kingston with two cats and a number of non-resident lovers, all security vetted, but they went to a rather nice house in the country instead and he met some doctors and they made him take some tablets that he didn't want and then he felt very sick indeed and went to sleep.

"How's Midas?"

Anthea sat with her hands in her lap. "You ordered him released."

Dear God, yes. He had. Just after... "Did he say anything?"

"Not at the time." Her eyes met Mycroft's, flickered away. "There was a rather explicit message left next day on your answerphone, however. I thought it wise to erase it but I have a transcript in the safe."

"Destroy it." He needed no reminders. He stifled a yawn. Damn drugs. "I'll be back at work in a week."

"The doctor says at least six," she said quietly.

"One week. Keep tracks on Midas, if you can."

"He's already disappeared, I'm afraid."

Of course. He had what he came for. And more besides.

The car had brought Mycroft home at midday every day this month. Three hours a day was all his doctors would permit. He would have protested more, but after three hours he was too exhausted to think straight. He couldn't afford any more catastrophic errors of judgement. He was millimetres from losing his job as it was, even though no-one except possibly ever-loyal Anthea knew what had happened behind his office door.

He unlocked his door, dropped his umbrella in the stand and headed for the shower. When he emerged, wrapped in his dressing gown, he opened the bedroom door and stopped.

Jim Moriarty, propped half naked face up on his bed. The scrapes and bruises were gone, the marks of the beating faint and silver.

"Hello, lover." Jim's voice was high and sweet. "How are things?"

"What do you want?" He'd left his phone in the bathroom- careless.

Moriarty smiled. "You never replied to my message."

"I never bothered listening to it."

"Oh, harsh. And after we were so intimate. Do you treat all your boyfriends this way?"

Mycroft shook his head, thinking about the alarm button in the hall. Five steps backwards. Did Moriarty have a gun?

"I don't need one. I've got a friend lurking behind your coatstand."

"What do you want?"

"How about a bedtime story?" Moriarty patted the bed next to him. "You did offer."

"You know full well that I was... unwell at the time. Nothing I said was reliable"

"Unwell?" Jim smiled, all teeth. "Uninhibited, perhaps. And unreliable? Do you really think that mania changes how you feel? You want him to love you like you loved him, when he was a child. And since he won't, you hate him. Don't fret any more, Mycroft. His utter destruction is in hand, now, thanks to you."

"That's not what I want." Mycroft felt oddly empty at the thought.

"Yes it is. You told me so. Just before you offered to perform oral sex on me, I believe. I had rather a good morning, all things considered." He licked his lips, deliberately salacious. "You bobbed up and down with startling rapidity. Another thing it seems your little bout of crazy was good for."

Mycroft drew himself up inside the dressing gown. "You can't embarrass me with that, Jim. I know that mania impairs judgement. And control."

Moriarty laughed. "And what is Mycroft Holmes without judgement or control? A tangled mass of desires and antipathies, desperate to be loved, seething with old resentments. You were perfect, My. Absolutely perfect." He flung himself back on the bed. "I love it when a plan comes together."

"You took advantage, that's all." Mycroft had a cold feeling in his gut, nothing to do with the gunman in the hall. "You were fortunate."

Jim shook his head at him. "Come on, Mycroft. Think it through. The same pharmacist every month- that was terribly careless of you."

He'd been ill, several weeks ago, just after he'd picked up his prescription. Flu, he'd thought, but the symptoms weren't quite right. Withdrawal symptoms. Which meant..."You arranged Midas."

"I have people close to you; it was easy to tell when you started to get high." Jim tucked his hands behind his head. "Sweet, yes? Now I could probably spare five minutes if you feel like a repeat performance." He patted his groin. "No? Then I must be off; Sherlock won't destroy himself, you know. Though, of course it will seem like it. That bit's clever."

The numbness was lifting. Moriarty was going to hurt Sherlock. Hurt his little brother, and he had to stop it at all costs. "Wait. I'm prepared to negotiate."

"Of course you are." Jim rolled up onto his feet. "You've got all that overwhelming sense of responsibility back now you're mostly sane again. But you have nothing I want, Mycroft. Not your boring state secrets or your pathetic uptight angst. Certainly not that soft and clumsy body of yours. All I wanted from you was Sherlock, and you gave him to me free of charge. The only thing you get to do now is watch me rip him apart."

He walked quiet and feline out of the bedroom and Mycroft heard the front door close. Mycroft went for his phone, to warn Sherlock, but he dropped it without dialling. He couldn't talk to his brother; not now, not ever again. Sherlock would know there was something awry, wouldn't rest until he'd deduced everything. Everything. Then he would hate Mycroft with good cause, now and forever, without a shadow of a doubt. He wouldn't stay silent either; he would bring his brother down over this, and then Mycroft could protect neither of them.

Mycroft would have to act from a distance, from now on. He told himself that could do that. He had the resources. If necessary he could co-opt John, who would do as he was told and figure out nothing. He knew that he would miss Sherlock terribly, irritating as his brother was, but that was the price for his betrayals. He prayed that it would be the only price.

They'd warned him that serious depression often followed hypomania. This crushing misery had nothing to do with chemistry, though. He had been beaten, not just by Moriarty but by his own nature, and his own blind arrogance about what he was.

Relapse. Such a little word for everything that he'd done. He didn't know yet how he was going to live with that and with what he might do next time. With who he was. All he knew was that he couldn't give up, not yet. Sherlock needed him now as he'd never done before and this time his big brother couldn't let him down.

Mycroft rang Anthea, still at the office. "Increase the surveillance on 221 and surrounding area. I want to know everything that happens in that street, however minor."

"Yes sir."

She called back a couple of hours later. "I think you should come in and look at this, Sir, if you can. We have multiple known personages."

"Send the car." Mycroft dressed, precisely, picked up his umbrella and coat. The battle for Sherlock had started, he had both hands tied behind his back and all he could do now was try desperately not to lose.

The End