They didn't meet regularly after that, but John and Mycroft fell into a routine of seeing each other every few weeks. They didn't actually talk much, but they both found a certain ease in knowing the other man missed Sherlock Holmes as much as he did. It wasn't exactly comforting, any more than survivors of Nazi internment camps find comfort in their shared experiences. Yet, having someone else who knew was a relief—even if the two of them had nothing else in common.

Except … John didn't know that Mycroft had a secret.

Mycroft hadn't known right away, that Sherlock had survived. The two brothers had worked together on their plan to bring Moriarty down. The stories Mycroft had told the criminal had been told with Sherlock's blessing. They had both known the character assassination was under way—though the Richard Brook twist had come as an unwelcome surprise, as had the snipers set to take out John, Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade. Sherlock had been forced into jumping and Mycroft had not known.

He hadn't known until he received a text message in the wee hours of that very (very) long day. Mycroft had agreed to keep the secret and had agreed to help keep the others safe—especially John.

It had made John's extraordinary gesture of basic humanity that much harder to bear. So far as John knew, the circles under Mycroft's eyes were there from lack of sleep due to grief—not because he was using every power he had to track down Moriarty's ring to help Sherlock. The weight loss was because he was so busy he couldn't find the time to stop for regular meals.

It was true that he missed his brother, but Mycroft was overwhelmed by work, not grief.

He still found John's company a surprising comfort, though. Even better, John's concern over the health of (he thought) a grieving brother had given the man some purpose. He had spent the last eighteen months of his life looking after the well-being of one Holmes; now he was just transferring some of that. Not that Mycroft could ever replace his brother in John's life, nor would he dream of trying. It was simply that he knew John was the type of man who needed someone to care for, and in the absence of patients, a family, or—god help him, Sherlock Holmes—checking up on Mycroft's sleeping habits at least made him feel connected to … something.

As lies went, it was one of the easiest ones to manage in this whole mess until Sherlock could come home.

#

What Mycroft didn't realize was that John was not a fool. He might not be an ultra-observant consulting detective with Holmes DNA, but he had picked up a few things in the year and a half he'd lived with Sherlock. And as a doctor, he observed a lot more than people thought.

Just like Sherlock ranted about how ordinary people saw but did not observe, John couldn't believe the signs people missed. The skin color of a diabetic, or the way a cancer patient's skin grew slightly translucent. There were signs of medical problems right there, every day, and nobody outside the medical profession ever noticed. Finger nail color, the shade of white in a person's eyes, skin texture, weight, breathing … to an observant doctor, walking the streets was like one vast free clinic.

Accordingly, he noticed that, yes, Mycroft was losing weight and not getting enough sleep. But he also could tell that the cause was not grief. He couldn't even enumerate the exact signs to himself (he was no Sherlock Holmes), but … he knew.

Somehow, some way, Mycroft was not mourning for Sherlock.

Oh, John had never expected to see the man prostrate with grief, or curled in a weeping ball in a corner somewhere. Mycroft was a politician and a master at presenting exactly what he wanted people to see. Even his pique with Sherlock was often only visible to one who knew him well. But still … John could tell that, whatever was worrying Mycroft, it wasn't grief. There was too fine an edge of that very specific Sherlock-related frustration he'd seen so many times when Sherlock would refuse the simplest of requests. Siblings had buttons for aggravation to press that nobody else in the world could find, and there was only one person who could be pushing Mycroft's—and they were being pushed now.

He didn't know what, exactly, was going on behind Mycroft's office doors, and wouldn't dream of prying. (Well, not since he was sure he wouldn't learn anything. Nobody could keep secrets like Mycroft.)

But what John did know that there was a secret, and whatever it was, it gave him hope.

That alone was worth seeking out Mycroft's company—the mere possibility that Mycroft was working so hard, not because he had lost Sherlock but because he was trying to save him.

If that was true, it was well worth John's time to encourage him to sleep and eat properly. He knew Mycroft thought he was the one who needed help (and he didn't deny that missing Sherlock was a crushing weight of emptiness every single day). But still … if Mycroft was secretly helping Sherlock, John would secretly help Mycroft.

And if, at some future date, the secret no longer needed to be kept a secret?

He would be there to see it.

#