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There is a photograph of two boys, one aged twelve and the other five. The older boy is wearing navy blue trousers, a white, long-sleeved shirt rolled up to his elbows, blue braces. His hair is straight, dark brown; he is tall, but his body is just slightly short of plump. The little one is dressed almost exactly the same, except that he is wearing shorts and his braces are red. His hair is all black, unruly curls, his legs painfully thin, marked with scratches and bruises. In one hand, he is carrying a small wicker basket.
The boys have their backs to the camera, and their faces are hidden from view. They are standing on a rough stone path, overgrown with weeds. On a slight rise, a large, run-down, eerie house looms in the near distance against a darkly overcast sky. The camera catches them in a moment of uncertainty, even fear; you can see it in the line of the younger boy's body as he clutches his brother's right hand, pressing his right temple to his brother's hip. The older boy bends toward the little one, as though listening intently to a whisper, his left hand resting lightly but protectively on his back.
There is no such photograph; although the moment that it captures actually happened, there was no one else present there, no third person to record it for posterity.
But for all the years they live, the two boys will swear that this photograph exists. They never tell each other this. They never tell each other that they have both looked for it many times.
They never let on that they each want to be the one to find it first.
They grow up strong, beautiful, brilliant men who harbour few delusions. And this – the existence of this photograph -- is the only delusion that they will ever share.
Anthea is waiting for him when he emerges from the garden, clad in his beekeeper’s suit and hood. She’s put on a bit of weight, and her face has gone a bit doughy, but she remains an attractive woman; time's been kinder to her, he supposes, than it is to most people.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Holmes. Would you come with me?”
Sherlock scowls. “Oh, hell,” he says impatiently, detaching the hood from the neck and sliding off the chin strap. “What does my brother want with me now?”
She hesitates a beat, and her eyes hold an expression that he’s never seen there before. “He doesn't know that I'm here.”
In the car, she tells him that the cancer has spread through the colon wall and into the liver, lung and lymph nodes. She says he is hooked up to machines that enable his failing organs to function; but not for long.
He listens, his face grim as he looks out the window. “Then that explains his silence.”
She tells him that his brother continues to work from his bed, tapping away on a computer until his strength gives out. Governments, multilateral agencies, think tanks continue to consult him; their problems are too grave and too great, they cannot allow themselves to be deterred by his declining health.
“Mycroft has always had a disproportionate sense of his own importance in the world,” he mutters. The words are cutting, but she notices that he says them without his usual heartfelt vehemence.
She says he asked after Sherlock the other day. “Not for me to call you, mind you. No, he said you would be too busy. He just wanted an update on whether you were doing well. If you were enjoying the farm. And your bees.”
“Always meddling.”
“I want you boys to take these muffins to Dr. Bell up on the hill.” Their aunt pushes a basket of the baked goods down the counter toward them.
Mycroft’s eyes widen in alarm. “Dr. Bell?” he asks, trying to keep his voice even. But it cracks just enough for Sherlock to notice.
Sherlock adores his big brother, thinks he is the best, smartest, bravest boy in the whole world. He quickly picks up on this undercurrent of anxiety in his voice. He glances up at his aunt, who is bustling about the kitchen, paying little heed to Mycroft.
“Yes, Mycroft, Dr. Bell. Take Sherlock with you. I need to run into town and I won’t be able to watch him.”
This seems to spark even greater alarm. “Take Sherlock? Up to Dr. Bell’s?” Mycroft looks at his brother. “Can’t you take him with you? It’s probably better if I go alone.”
The woman is clearly irritated by now. “I can’t, Mycroft. I have so many errands to run today, and he’s always running off and getting lost. You know how he is.”
“Or I could leave him here. With Maureen and Yorke.”
“Maureen is coming with me, and Yorke will be working in the garden all day. They won’t be able to watch him. You’re being silly. I know what people around here say about him, but he’s a perfectly nice man, and a gentleman.” She shuts the door of a cupboard with a loud bang, betraying her annoyance. “Do be responsible and look after him, won’t you? There’s a good boy.” She leaves the kitchen, calling after Maureen, and that’s the end of that.
Sherlock walks over to where Mycroft is sitting and climbs into his brother’s lap. His entire face is an unspoken question.
“Yes,” Mycroft answers, reading his brother’s thoughts easily. “I would rather go alone. Do you think you could stay here? Amuse yourself for an hour or so while I head up there?”
Sherlock shakes his head. “You’re scared, Mycroft. Why?”
Mycroft takes a deep breath. “He’s … he’s a very strange man, Sherlock.”
“You’ve met him?”
“No. But I’ve been coming here long enough to know what people in town think of him.” Mycroft smiles wanly. “I have to say, it’s not very good.” It is an understatement, of course. For all of Mycroft’s prodigious intelligence, he is still a young boy; all the gossip he’s heard about corpses being unloaded at the back of Dr. Bell’s house for heaven knows what kind of experiments does not make him enthusiastic about the idea of trudging up that hill to that huge, dilapidated old house.
“Is he a bad man, then?”
The older boy shakes his head. “I don’t know. I wish I did. But he’s certainly … different.”
Sherlock steels himself. “I’m coming with you, Mycroft.”
“I’d really rather you didn’t, Sherlock.”
“Don’t be silly,” the little boy scoffs, those blue-gray eyes flashing defiance. “Somebody has to be there to protect you.”
Mycroft has fallen asleep with his laptop still open on the overbed table. Sherlock takes a seat by the window, his back and limbs sore from the long drive. He’s become an old man; when did this happen, how?
And now his brother has opted to live out the rest of his days at home rather than endure the sterility and soullessness of a hospital. The television set in the room is tuned to a 24-hour news channel. The machines he’s hooked up to hum quietly, a somber leitmotif to the endless jabbering of the news anchors.
Mycroft stirs, opens his eyes.
“Sherlock?”
“Someone should take that infernal computer away from you.”
Mycroft looks at the computer screen. “One likes to feel useful.” He reaches for the remote control lying beside the laptop and switches off the television.
“No one more than you. The most useful man in the Commonwealth for nearly half a century, isn’t that about right?”
Mycroft shoots him a wry smile. “Working with bees has apparently made you more, not less, venomous, brother dear.” He winces suddenly in pain. Sherlock half-rises from his seat but Mycroft waves him back quickly. “It’s nothing. Sit down. You’ve had a long journey.”
Sherlock sits down again with some hesitation, poised to move if his brother requires his assistance.
Mycroft studies him for a few moments. “You are not well, either.”
“The diagnosis is Parkinson’s. It is still manageable, as long as I continue the medication.” Sherlock holds out one hand for Mycroft to see. “Still very, very steady.”
Mycroft looks satisfied for the moment. “How is John?” he asks.
“I’ve neither seen nor heard from him in a while.”
Mycroft frowns. “I suppose he has his family to attend to.”
Sherlock shrugs, as though this were a matter of little importance, fully aware that his brother can see through the act. “Where are the boys?”
Mycroft’s two sons are grown men now, blazing trails in the world. One of them, Gregory, is the spitting image of Sherlock at the same age. “They came to visit last week. I told them to go on with their lives, and that I would let them know if they were needed.”
“How selfless.” The way Sherlock says it, he might as well have said, how stupid.
Mycroft manages a chuckle. “Now, now, Sherlock. You know how it is with young men. You were one, once. So much to do. So little time to waste.”
Sherlock nods in agreement, then gazes at his brother. He’s lost so much weight that he’s practically skeletal; most of his hair has fallen out, and what’s left is fine, short and white against his pale scalp. His skin has the yellow tinge of jaundice, and his abdomen is swollen: clear signs that his liver is failing him.
As always, Mycroft follows Sherlock’s thoughts as they progress with the movement of his eyes up and down his body. “Liver dialysis has failed, and I’m too far gone for a transplant,” he confirms, almost cheerfully.
Sherlock ponders this a while. “Why didn’t you call me sooner?”
“I did not wish to inconvenience you.” He lifts an eyebrow. “Which reminds me. I must have a word with Anthea.”
“Only if it’s to thank her for coming to me,” Sherlock says, a hint of warning in his voice.
Mycroft sighs. “I suppose I would have asked for you sooner or later.”
“No, you wouldn’t have, you insufferable prat.”
They make their way up the stone path slowly, Mycroft on his longer legs stopping every few moments to wait for Sherlock to catch up. It was sunny this morning, but the weather has very quickly turned; dark, fat clouds are rolling fast across the sky, and the house looms up ahead even more ominously, set against the vast grayness of it.
“We need to hurry, Sherlock,” he tells his little brother. “We don’t want to get caught outside if it rains.”
Sherlock’s just five, but already he catches the words that Mycroft won’t say: we don’t want to have to stay at Dr. Bell’s any longer than we have to. It’s in Mycroft’s eyes, in his furrowed brow, in the way his mouth is set in a grim, straight line. The child looks past his brother’s tall figure to the house, and Mycroft can actually see the terror spreading slowly over his delicate features.
“Do you want to go back?” he asks gently, one hand already reaching for the basket of muffins. “Let me go on alone.”
But the little boy is stubborn, and yanks the basket away from his brother’s reach. “No,” he says in a small, but very determined voice. “I said I’d come with you and I –“
He’s stunned into silence by a loud crack as a bolt of lightning tears a blinding gash in the sky; it’s followed closely by a peal of thunder that they can feel in the air around them, in the very ground beneath their feet. Sherlock clings with tiny, cold fingers to his brother’s hand, leans against his hip.
“Shall we turn back, then?” Mycroft bends to whisper to the frightened child.
“It’s going to rain soon. We’re too far to turn back.”
Mycroft quietly curses himself for forgetting to bring an umbrella; in this countryside, at this time of year, the weather is disgustingly unpredictable.
“All right, Sherlock. Come on. If we hurry, we can get to his porch before the rain starts.”
Over the next few weeks, Sherlock rarely leaves his brother’s bedside. When the nurses come to give him his sponge baths, he waves them away, electing to do it himself. He insists on learning how to change colostomy bags and IV drips, how to insert a catheter, how to administer certain medications. He applies himself to these tasks with the same razor-sharp focus and proficiency that he used to apply to solving crimes. He surprises Mycroft by being, not only careful and thorough, but also ineffably gentle. His hands, mercifully, remain steady.
He instructs the staff to set up a cot for him in Mycroft’s room; when Mycroft suggests that he would sleep more comfortably in any of the five rooms along the hall, and that he is not a young man any more, he glares at his older brother with that old, familiar peevishness, effectively silencing him. The cot is not particularly restful, but then again, it’s barely used. Sherlock has never outgrown his erratic sleep patterns, unlike Mycroft, who from childhood has always needed at least six hours every night.
When Mycroft is asleep, Sherlock is surfing the Internet, reading books, speaking to medical experts in different time zones. They all say the same thing: that Mycroft has already asked these same questions, and that they can only provide him with the same answers.
One night, Mycroft wakes to find Sherlock reading on the cot, his head of thick silver curls bent over a book.
“The answer isn’t in there, Sherlock,” he says quietly.
“Well, it has to be somewhere,” Sherlock snaps at him.
They stand at the porch together, and Mycroft looks down at him.
“Are you afraid?” he asks, unable to completely keep his voice from quavering. Sherlock nods, his eyes too big in his small, fine-boned face. The rain begins to fall, a slight shower at first, then a full-on deluge whipped around by a cold, fierce wind. They’re sprayed with a fine mist even under the shelter of the wide wood awning.
“Don’t be,” Mycroft says, squeezing his brother’s small hand and giving him his most reassuring, big-brother smile. “I’m right here.”
He raises his hand to knock on the door, but it opens even before his knuckles can come in contact with the wood. They’re both so startled that they step back, Sherlock cowering behind Mycroft, Mycroft throwing a protective arm over his brother’s shoulder.
The man is old, possibly in his early 70s, his hair gone completely white. His clothes are worn but not dirty, and over them, he is wearing a leather apron, streaked with blood. He is tall and sturdy, his face calm, his eyes alight with a ferocious intelligence. He towers over the boys as he steps onto the porch.
“Have you brought my muffins, then?”
Mycroft takes a severe turn for the worse around the end of the third week. The pain has become insufferable, and he’s already up to the maximum dosage of morphine. He drifts in and out of consciousness; at one point, he hears Sherlock’s thundering baritone in the hallway as he berates one of Mycroft’s doctors. When he wakes again, hours have passed, and it’s already dark outside.
Sherlock is seated in the chair by the window, head in hands.
“It’s all right, you know,” Mycroft tells him.
“No, it isn’t.”
Mycroft begins to cough violently, the cancer wringing the air from his lungs. Sherlock springs up to adjust his oxygen. The coughing goes on and on, and blood bubbles up to Mycroft’s lips. Sherlock rips a small towel out of a drawer by the bed, wipes his brother’s mouth, then helps to ease him back onto the pillows.
Mycroft is drained, weary, the weight of long years, of untold cares, of illness, bearing down on him mercilessly.
“We’ve grown old, brother dear,” he whispers.
“We were born old, Mycroft,” Sherlock smirks. “Our bodies have merely caught up.”
Mycroft laughs weakly. Sherlock studies his face, seeing the agony written across it.
“Are you afraid?” he asks quietly.
“We are rational men, brother. But I must confess that I am.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“What do you think?” Mycroft struggles through every breath. “I’m afraid of what I don’t know.”
Dr. Bell has set aside his bloodstained apron and is seated at the kitchen table with the boys.
“For a moment there, I thought you were going to throw rocks at the house,” he says. His voice is low, soft, with a distinctive Scottish lilt. “But then I saw the basket, and I knew your aunt had sent you.” He slides the butter dish toward them, his movements deliberately slow so as not to frighten the five-year-old. Mycroft sees and appreciates this immensely.
“Children throw rocks at your house?” he asks.
Dr. Bell shrugs. “They’re afraid, I suppose. They don’t understand what it is that I do here.”
Mycroft glances at the sink, where the apron has been slung carelessly on a rack. “What exactly is it that you do here?” he asks, handing Sherlock a piece of buttered muffin.
“I am a retired surgeon,” he answers. “I was a lecturer at the medical school of the University of Edinburgh. Occasionally, I am consulted by the police on cases of a … rather baffling nature.”
Sherlock puts the piece of muffin on the plate in front of him and leans curiously toward the doctor. “Consulted?” he asks. “Why?”
The doctor trains his full attention upon the little boy, and Sherlock feels like he’s been caught in the glare of a very powerful spotlight.
“Let us go back three days. You are playing in the field beside the stream. You are flying a kite, but the wind isn’t strong enough. The kite won’t rise high enough, and it snags on a tree branch. You yank the string hard and it breaks, but not before it slices your finger open. The cut bleeds considerably, but like any little boy, you are more concerned about getting the kite back, so you attempt to climb the tree -- very likely a silver birch. But it is a young tree, and while you are a very small fellow, one of the branches breaks and you fall."
"Now you have both a deep cut on your finger and scrapes and scratches on your legs. It had rained earlier that day, and your clothes are dirty because you’ve landed in a puddle. You know you will be scolded for coming home in this state, so you think it best not to exacerbate the situation by returning even later than you usually do. You decide to abandon the kite until your brother can help you retrieve it.” He pauses for dramatic effect, then smiles kindly. “How did I do?”
Sherlock gets up, kneels on his chair and puts his elbows on the table, his eyes fixed intently on Dr. Bell’s face. He is practically vibrating with excitement.
“I want you to teach me how you did that.”
It’s a long and difficult night, and Mycroft is fading fast, but not fast enough to escape the agony. At one point, he reaches out for Sherlock’s hand, and it’s there, ready for him to grasp.
“Sherlock,” he sobs as pain engulfs him.
Sherlock holds his brother's hand tight. “Do you remember, Mycroft, the summer when I was five and Mummy and Daddy sent us to visit Aunt Mary and Uncle Richard?
He nods, unable to speak.
"Do you remember that decrepit old house on the hill?”
Mycroft relaxes slightly as the wave passes over him. He can feel his life ebbing away, returning to shore weaker each time. “Dr. Bell’s house. Of course I remember.”
Sherlock puts one hand over his brother’s heart, feels its erratic fluttering under its cage of flesh and bone. “I was so afraid. But being with you … made me less so.”
“Yes.” Mycroft’s body twists again, another massive wave of pain breaking on the shoals of his broken body. “Sherlock, I’m afraid.”
“Mycroft.” Sherlock’s voice is calm and steady. “You remember that house. Do you see? We’re on the path now. You’re afraid, but it’s all right.”
“I can’t see anything, Sherlock,” Mycroft says hoarsely. “I don’t know what I’ll find there.”
“But I’m right here, Mycroft. You’re not alone. Remember how it all turned out? Remember Dr. Bell? How scared we were?”
“Dr. Bell. Yes. He was a good man.”
“One of the best men you and I have ever known. Do you see? We were scared for nothing. Going up the path was the best thing we’d ever done. It helped to make us who we are. Do you regret it?”
Mycroft shakes his head. His hands are already cold, his heartbeat down to almost nothing. Sherlock fights his rage, fights his own mounting panic, because this is not about him. This is Mycroft’s time, and for all the years that he fought his brother, chafed under his control, railed against his meddling, Sherlock knows only too well that all of that started that day, on that stone path, in the gathering storm, in the deepest fears of their childhood, when Mycroft took his hand and assured him that he would not face those fears alone. And this -- this moment, these last few weeks, cleaning up Mycroft’s piss and shit, wiping his fevered forehead with cool, damp cloths, reading medical texts until his eyes gave out, haranguing doctors on Mycroft's behalf – this is what Sherlock owes, what he has been so unforgivably, inexcusably slow to repay. This is his debt of gratitude and service. For every time that Mycroft had smoothed his way in life. For everything he had ever set aside to come running when Sherlock fell into the abyss of addiction. For every single time he mopped up Sherlock’s vomit and cleaned him up after he’d found him passed out from a cocaine high. For every single favour he had ever called in and every string he had ever pulled and every resource he had ever reallocated to ensure Sherlock’s safety and well-being.
“Walk up the path with me, Mycroft. One last time. Look. I’m here, I shan’t leave you. Shall we see what’s up on that hill?”
Mycroft looks up at his brother – his mad, beautiful, dazzling brother – and he smiles.
“All right, Sherlock. Come on.”
Weeks after the funeral, Sherlock is looking through Mycroft’s private papers, meticulously catalogued and arranged by Anthea. He is searching for something, a photograph that he was certain he’d find among Mycroft’s things.
He telephones her in the middle of her work day, but she is happy to hear from him. He describes the picture to her, and he asks if she has ever seen it among his papers and records.
“No, Mr. Holmes,” she says quietly. “But I think I know which photograph you are talking about.”
“Ah. Then you have seen it.”
“No. But your brother described it to me in the same vivid detail as you have. Several times, many years ago.”
“And?”
“He was under the impression all along, that you had it.” Anthea pauses. “He had hoped that you might someday share it with him.”
Sherlock is silent for some time.
“Mr. Holmes?”
“I'm sorry, Anthea. Never mind, it’s all right. Thank you.”
When he hangs up, he notices that the tremor in his hand is a bit worse today than it was yesterday. He’s glad this did not happen earlier - at least, not during the time that he was caring for his brother in his final days.
We were born old, Mycroft. Our bodies have merely caught up.
He takes his violin case down from a shelf.
He might as well play, while he still can.