Family

by: Shadow Chaser

Author's Notes:

In which Q discovers he has a long-lost sister, Sherlock is a little more human, but both agree that Mycroft is still a smothering idiot and clearly not the smartest.

Story:

"How could you Mycroft? Our only daughter?!" Mrs. Holmes was livid and Mycroft could only press his lips together in an effort to suppress his instinct to apologize. He had made Mummy cross again and he could see that Sherlock was not going to help him this time. "What else have you been keeping from us?!"

Mycroft trembled internally at the shrillness of Mummy's voice. She had a way of stripping his defenses and he could feel himself laid bare – it was the same gift that Eurus had, but it was more maternally and a part of him always submitted to it. And in that moment, he realized that he had hesitated and Mummy's sharp eyes stared at him, narrowed.

"I presume this is where you tell us that our youngest son is still alive and did not die when he was studying abroad at university?!"

He cleared his throat and tented his fingers lightly together as he glanced towards Sherlock who only blandly stared back. His brother had made it clear that he would receive no help from him. "...Yes..."

Mummy huffed crossing her arms as she glared daggers at him, "Well, I never!"

Her name was Eurus Holmes and Q could instantly see her genius evident by the light in her eyes and the way she observed her surroundings. The physical resemblance she had to him was also remarkable. He could almost imagine his own glasses framed upon her angular face, making them similar enough that at first glance one would mistaken them for twins.

"...Sherlock, why don't I..."

"Unlike my own complicated explanation, I believe you have the simpler explanation which is, that you were too young to remember Eurus," Sherlock sat next to him, reclining in one of the chairs of the main office that had monitors set up to watch Eurus in her specialized prison named Sherrinford.

"Huh," Q sat back, rubbing his chin as he stared at her. He was utterly fascinated at how lively her eyes were, drawn into their intelligence even in the form of black and white monitors. "She's beautiful..." he murmured, peripherally aware that Sherlock had turned to stare at him. Q leaned forward a little, "There's a light in them that you can clearly see, that she's aware of. See? She knows so much and so little, but..." He trailed off as he studied her as she paced a small circle around her spartan cell. "Look, Sherlock, look, you said she played the violin, but do you see the small twitches of her fingers? Of the muscles in her arms?"

"I've been trying to communicate and help heal the mental fractures of her mind every few days in between cases. I come here to play the violin for her and with her," Sherlock replied. Q knew that his brother knew he was not mentioning her physical appearance when he had called her 'beautiful'.

"She's communicating now," Q gestured towards the monitors and glanced at his older brother, "See?"

"Q?" there was a curious undertone in Sherlock's voice, but Q did not quite pay attention to it as he stared intently on Eurus' fingers and the subtle body language she exuded. At first glance, it almost seemed that she had no body language, and was not even attempting to communicate, but Q's sharp eyes picked up on the finer details.

He was fascinated by the fact that he had a long-lost sister he did not remember ever meeting, but based on Sherlock's explanation it did make sense. The only thing of his childhood he really remembered was a conflagration and sharp ozone burnt smell then of Mummy's perfume and the clutching warmth. Everything after that was at the cottage they inhabited and even then it was with Mycroft and Sherlock. There was the vague giggle of a girl's laughter that occasionally flitted across his mind, but he had thought it was a classmate or a neighbor's child's laugh. Perhaps it was Eurus' laugh that he remembered and had replaced his memory with someone else's. Whatever it was, it was a fragment of a deleted memory from his mind palace.

But, he was mostly fascinated at the moment at the complex, but simple code she was twitching out with her fingers. A quick glance at Sherlock told him that his older brother could not discern the message. He studied the twitches of her fingers for a moment, the room falling into a relative pleasant silence. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw that Sherlock was now studying Eurus' finger movements, trying to also figure out what she was saying with her fingers.

"She knows you're here," it was an effort to keep the smugness out of his voice as he managed to figure out the twitches and the seemingly random pattern based on the melody she was playing. It had been a little harder than he liked, due to the fact that it was not a known melody that she was playing, but one of her own composition. "But she knows...that you are watching her on the security cameras...?" He frowned a little as he figured out the last twitches of her fingers. "Sherlock, she knows you have a guest – did you tell her I was coming?"

"No..." Sherlock replied and Q turned to see his older brother staring at him for a long moment before reaching out and shutting the feeds down.

"Sherlock?"

There was something that warred between pity and compassion as Sherlock stared back at him. "It makes sense now...why Mummy and even Father kept a close eye on you," his brother started cryptically, "why Mycroft took a heavy interest in you-"

"I remember Mycroft always staring and being rather aloof, Sherlock...I don't think that's interest on his part until, well, you know of things now..."

"And, upon reflection, perhaps its after the death of Victor that you and I were playmates, all against Mycroft and his meddling," Sherlock tapped the tips of his fingers together into an elegant steeple. "But...I think that maybe Eurus would have turned out more like you if I didn't outright ignore her back then..."

Q frowned. He was not offended or angry at any implication that his brother had said and compared him regarding Eurus Holmes. Though he did not know the full story, he knew that there was more than likely a very good reason their long-lost sister was locked up at Sherrinford and kept in isolation without anyone to talk to. But it was what was not said that bothered him. "Sherlock, what did Eurus do?"

"When Mycroft took over Sherringford after Uncle Rudy passed, he had set forth explicit orders that Eurus was not to be analyzed or even communicated with. It turned out that she had a gift of sorts, of manipulation and making people do things just by talking to them," Sherlock's eyes had a distant quality to them, but Q noted the sharp chipped emotion in them. He instantly deduced that Eurus had somehow hurt Sherlock. But it was not physical judging by how hale and healthy his brother moved, and surmised that it was a mental hurt of sorts.

He pressed his lips together, stifling the urge to come to his brother's defense even though he knew that whatever Eurus did, had already inflicted its damage upon him. Q did not like seeing his older brother hurt, especially if it was done by someone whom they called family. The fact that Q had no memory of Eurus made it even more unsettling as he found himself unconsciously already distancing Eurus – for all of her fascinating qualities that he had seen upon first glance – and seeing her not as a long-lost sister, but rather as someone who was outside of the family dynamic – someone that needed to be watched, analyzed and potentially neutralized.

"Naturally, they disobeyed," he said instead and Sherlock nodded once.

"It is not what she did, Q, but rather, what she is capable of doing," Sherlock flicked a quick look at him and Q almost did not catch it until a second later of its meaning.

"She caused a death," he stated.

"Several, actually, 'for context' according to her words," his older brother shrugged, almost nonchalantly, as if he did not care, but Q knew better. Sherlock had witnessed several of those deaths and had been powerless to stop it. For whatever Eurus did, it was part of the psychological manipulation of his older brother. Eurus had killed without a second thought, or perhaps without even a care in the world because it was done to hurt someone, to manipulate them into doing something. And if Sherlock's last words regarding what Eurus did were 'for context' that made it even more chilling and gave a very plain picture of his only sister's psyche.

And Q realized what Sherlock's thoughts were at the very moment, especially judging by his earlier words regarding seeing certain things in a different light. "I suppose saying that I'm not like Eurus is a moot point?" he asked.

Another person would have retracted any implication made by such words, especially when compared to the obvious sociopath tendencies and general nihilist mentality Sherlock had implied towards Eurus, but his older brother did no such thing and instead, stared at him. Q grimaced as he acknowledged the comparison – it was why he liked Sherlock a lot more than Mycroft. When Sherlock confronted something, it was there for him to self-analyze and not implied, hinted, or smothered like Mycroft was usually prone to do.

"You're thinking that perhaps if circumstances were just a little different, if I had not been watched by Mummy, Father, and Mycroft so closely in my childhood, I would have turned out like Eurus?"

"I would have liked to have thought that if we did not become playmates in our childhood, things might have turned out like Eurus," Sherlock said quietly as he turned the feeds back on again. From Mycroft, it would have been the most arrogant and asinine statement that would have riled Q completely up, but from Sherlock, it felt like cold water in his face.

Q pressed his lips together tightly, anger filling him. It was not anger at Sherlock – though there was the slight irritation that he did not know where it came from – but rather that such statements had to be said all because of whatever Eurus had put his brother through. He was starting to dislike his long-lost sister more and more and he knew the sole reason why. Because he could literally start to see himself in Eurus' shoes – or lack thereof judging by the video feed – if Mummy, Mycroft, Father, and Sherlock had not been there. Perhaps if he had just been a couple of years older, he and Eurus would have become playmates or even worse.

He knew why he saw himself in Eurus' shoes, because it was what he did during the years he was supposed to be studying at university, but had been under the employ of MI6 and their covert operations work. He had manipulated, toyed with the emotions of others, killed without a second thought and the only thing that separated him from Eurus was that he did it for Queen and Country. That latter part was due to his upbringing.

Then came the mission that forced him to disappear and he was only successful at that because of Mycroft's accidental interference. He resurfaced after a few years as quartermaster of MI6 and made the decision to utilize his employment to put up a barrier between himself and any of Mycroft's future meddling. It was also then that he had learned about Sherlock's re-occuring drug problems and the fact that he had become a consulting detective. Q had to admit that he had at first, utilized Sherlock as a secondary barrier against Mycroft, siccing his brother upon his other brother in order to keep himself hidden, but it had started to rebuild the bonds of childhood he had ruthlessly cut and discarded when he had become a double-o.

He supposed in hindsight, killing Max Denbigh in cold blood without even a second thought in front of Mycroft and Sherlock back then might have eventually triggered such a comparison to Eurus. And considering that his brother knew he was a double-o...their reputations for operational status and ruthlessness was unparalleled. One almost, or rather, had to be somewhat of a sociopath in order to have a license to kill he supposed. Bond's manipulation of women and men and the seemingly careless way he discarded them was akin to collateral damage when he successfully finished his missions. Q knew that there was some evidence that Bond did care for those he seduced and left – both as bodies and as living beings – but whether it was a veneer or part of his duties as a double-o was left up for interpretation.

Anthea's dedication to her duties as Mycroft's bodyguard was evident by having every one of his brother's staff at her beck and call with cold efficiency. Even Moneypenny before she retired her double-o status, was a known sniper who did as she was told without hesitation – especially after she shot Bond in the middle of their mission.

And he knew he could not defend or even try to play off any sort of explanation to Sherlock because his brother had worked with some of the other double-o's in the program when he had hunted the last of Moriarty's network down all those years ago. Sherlock knew how the double-o's operated and the fact that Sherlock knew his youngest brother was a double-o – albeit one with the license to kill but was not a field agent – gave weight to his comparison.

Q sighed quietly as he stared down for a long second before looking back up at Eurus' image. Her fingers had stopped twitching and she was now staring unblinkingly at the cameras, seemingly awaiting their verdict as if she could sense what they were doing in the office. "I suppose I could have turned out like her," he murmured, "but at least she's now getting the attention that I received from you when I was younger."

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Sherlock nod absently. "Would you like to meet her?"

Q stared at Eurus some more before he reached out and quick depressed the button that would shut the camera off and turn it back on twice in succession. The reaction from Eurus was almost instantaneous as her eyes widened minutely. She was clearly interested and Q knew that when Sherlock met with her later in the day, she would be able to read some of the conversation they had from his brother's body language. If she was as intelligent as Sherlock said, being able to manipulate people just by talking with them, then she would more than likely pick up on his hinted presence.

"No," he shook his head as he glanced over to his older brother, "maybe in due time, but I think she would be better off just having your attention for a while instead of being forced to compete."

If Eurus was himself without Sherlock's guidance, then he knew that if he made his presence known to his long-lost sister, it would be detrimental to not only everyone, but mostly to Sherlock. He and Sherlock had an understanding against Mycroft – and he guarded that with unbridled jealousy. If Eurus exuded the same jealousy, Sherlock would be hurt again and that was something Q would not inflict upon his own brother. No one was allowed to hurt Sherlock if he could prevent it.

Sherlock's expression brightened before he shut the screen off to the video feeds. "Well then, you definitely do have to meet someone-"

"Sherlock..." Q sighed. The obviousness of moving the conversation into less fraught waters was evident, but neither did he say anything else.

"Mycroft did the idiot thing and told Mummy and Father that Eurus was dead-"

"Oh no..." Q knew exactly where this was going and groaned, nearly cradling his head into his hands. "Sherlock, you did not-"

"No, I did not, but Mycroft-"

"Dammit!" Q cut his brother off as he closed his eyes and pinched the middle of his brow in an effort to try to stem the headache he knew was coming. "He did not-"

"Would it help to know that Mummy was very, very cross, and that Mycroft has continued his streak of upsetting her?" Sherlock asked and Q wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

"That helps," he admitted, "but really? Sherlock, and Mycroft should know this since he's the one who pulled me out of that mess – by accident of course – that there is a reason why I was considered dead to Mummy and Father."

"Well, I did that when I went to dismantle Moriarty-"

"You told Mummy and Father you were alive so that they did not come the funeral, Sherlock," Q pointed out and Sherlock conceded his point with a brief nod. "Though you did deserve everything after you decided to tell Dr. Watson you were alive, mind you."

"Then call this a form of petty revenge," Sherlock was clearly feeling both mischievous and a bit childish as Q saw him kick up his feet onto the office table.

He sighed again. "Fine," he said, feeling a little generous and also because he knew Sherlock had manipulated him with some guilt about what Eurus had done to him in order to get his way. He would have done the same if their roles had been reversed, but probably be a lot more subtle. Theatricality was Sherlock's specialty, though Mycroft did occasionally add to the drama of the moments. "I'm not telling them anything, Sherlock, even if you and Mycroft come up with absurd excuses for me being alive," he pointed out.

That deflated Sherlock a little as he saw his brother pout a little. "Spoilsport," Sherlock almost stuck his tongue out, but refrained from doing so.

"I'm going to tell them to leave me alone. This is just a courtesy, Sherlock, because you guilt-tripped me into doing this," he warned and was rewarded with a brief smile.

"Thank you, Q," if there was always one thing Q could count on was that his brothers knew how much he valued his title at MI6 and thus always sought to address him by it, even in the privacy of an office such as this. Though, Q knew he would eventually hack his way in and erase all audio files and some of the tapes regarding their implied familial relationship, he appreciated both of his brothers' sentiment nonetheless. Their parents, on the other hand...well, that was another battle he now have to prepare to fight.

But for now, he was content with his family and with the discovery of a long-lost sister he never knew he had

~END~