Chapter Text
There was a cough.
It had started in his lungs a few months ago. It was a bothersome thing. It wasn’t even a full cough. It was a constant thing puffing up like a spasm in his lungs. He didn’t even open his mouth when it happened.
At first, it was just a little thing. He was able to ignore it for a good long while. Later, it became a constant. A thing that was always there.
By the time he got around to seeing a doctor, they told him the cancer was far too advanced for surgery. It had spread considerably because it was now in his blood. They could only offer experimental treatments that showed promise; maybe they could extend his life by a few months.
Six months, if he was lucky.
Maybe.
The fun really began when he researched the treatments that might extend his life. Every single medication and so-called treatment would turn him into an idiot. There was no hope to work and undergo medical treatment. The treatments were guaranteed to lessen his quality of life. The pain was unavoidable; and he was assured that there would be pain. A great deal of it.
In the end, he decided that it wasn’t worth a few additional months or even a year of life, if he wasn’t mentally present to enjoy it.
Enjoyment came only from one thing.
Work.
He only had his work.
His family was long dead. He’d never developed a significant relationship with another human being. There had never been children. No one would mourn him.
And then the real blow came.
It was a normal day. It was almost seven in the evening and he had been called to a meeting. An odd enough occurrence that he hurried to the conference room. He’d expected an emergency situation, a terror attack, a coup in another country, a stock market crash…something.
Even more perplexing, he was met with a spectrum of looks from dour to happy.
The announcement was made that his successor had been made. In one week’s time the transition of power would be complete and he would be fully retired.
“How on earth are you justifying this idiocy?”
The reply given to him was, “Due to your health concerns, old boy. You haven’t been yourself, Mycroft. You’re forgetting things. And quite frankly, the medications that you will be on to treat-
“I’m forgoing treatment.”
“That’s too bad. They’ve made such advances in the last years that-
“Spare me!” Mycroft said harshly. “I neither want, nor need platitudes and justifications.” He looked around the room. “Let’s call this what it is. A coup. You all see your chance for advancement and the knives are out. I’m what’s standing in your path to changing laws and scrambling for coins. Cutting deals. Securing more power.”
Mycroft stood to his full height. Age had bent him over. His hair and fallen out long ago. He was highly aware at that moment that he’d recently lost a considerable amount of weight.
He coughed…as usual.
He felt his mind scramble desperately.
He walked to the window that he had so often looked out of over the course of his career. London sprawled out beyond the glass.
“If my services are no longer needed, so be it. I shall be ready to go in a few days to ensure a smooth transition of power.”
“Mycroft I’ve known you for years. The idea that you would willingly walk away from your office-
Mycroft wasn’t listening. He was already walking away.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Mycroft didn’t go home. He never did.
He spent his time at his desk. His memory had been eidetic all his life, but he could no longer rely on it. He knew that he was better in the mornings than he was in the evenings. He highlighted every case that he wanted to review. He downloaded everything onto a portable drive.
Mycroft pocketed the portable drive and then went out to his P.A. All of his P.A.s had been men.
The latest P.A. arrived immediately, “Sir? Do you need something?”
“Yes,” Mycroft said easily without bothering to stop. “Bugger off, traitor!”
Mycroft walked passed the man and began what he knew would be a long journey.
Mycroft stopped at the office of one of his biggest rivals. They’d never seen eye-to-eye.
Mycroft walked passed the secretary.
The woman P.A. scrambled after Mycroft insisting, “Sir! Sir! He’s on the phone!”
She followed Mycroft in.
Mycroft stood in the man’s office. He was on the phone.
Sir Patterson waved at his P.A. He quickly ended the call.
Sir Patterson stood smoothing his tie down as he buttoned his jacket.
“Mycroft,” he said smoothly. “This has nothing to do with me. I assure you-
“No,” Mycroft said with a wave. “I’m not here about that Jeffery. I’m here to ask you questions. I’m here to find out what you know about the past.”
“I know there are rumors that you’ve had issues with your memory-
“Shut up,” Mycroft said easily. “I’m not here as a senile old man. I’m here wanting to ask questions to answer what I don’t know.”
Sir Patterson shook his head saying, “I wasn’t sure there was such a thing.”
Mycroft walked to a chair and sat down carefully setting his body into it. “Why were we always on opposite spectrums of….
“Everything?”
“Precisely,” Mycroft responded.
“Thinking back,” Sir Patterson said taking a seat. He became quiet for a while. Finally, he said, “I suppose because there has never been any give and take with you. You’ve always been such a hard liner. Nothing is ever so black and white. It always felt as if there had to be someone to play your devil’s advocate. And then, after enough time had gone by….”
“It became a habit.”
Patterson nodded.
Mycroft reached out and patted the man on his knee. “In that case, you’ve done a fine job of it.”
Mycroft re-ran memory after memory through his mind.
“Mycroft?” Sir Patterson inquired.
Mycroft held up a finger.
When he was done thinking it through, he turned to Sir Patterson and said, “It’s Wendell. He started all of this years ago. After I made him my Personal Assistant, he began to do favors for ‘friends.’ Friends that were able to advance through his little network.”
Mycroft turned to Patterson, “Let me guess, my replacement?”
It wasn’t a question.
Sir Patterson’s grey head lowered a bit. He let out a sigh. “Everyone has felt his strangle hold, this new emerging administration. There isn’t a person that doesn’t owe him. Whereas you’re not willing to negotiate at all, he’ll negotiate with everyone…if it benefits him.”
Mycroft went to stand. It took effort. Sir Patterson helped him.
Once his feet were firmly beneath him, Mycroft said, “Thank you for your time, Patterson.”
“Mycroft, whatever your thinking, don’t do it. He’s too well protected. He’s too well entrenched.”
Mycroft bothered to turn to the man. He smiled and asked, “What’s the best way to stop a problem?”
“Confront it directly?”
“No,” Mycroft easily corrected. “You stop it before it becomes a problem.”
With that Mycroft left.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
He slept that night because he needed a clear head. He needed his mind to work properly.
The next morning, he went through the portable drive. He refreshed his memory on all the pertinent details that had happened since he took the job. That meant going through all major political events, terror plots, and all world-wide events which impacted his decisions for the last fifty years.
When the small alarm on his phone went off as a reminder, he stopped. He knew that he’d start to get fuzzy with time. He needed to work as fast as possible.
He called one of his cars. He wanted to go to his office at the Office of Transportation. He had business.
‘Professor Holston Stapleton Stamitoles-Trotman certified nut and accidental genius,’ this is how Mycroft thought of him. Mycroft took the elevator down to the very bowels of the building. He’d always seemed a bit suspicious in his claims. It always felt as if he’d been trying to con his way through his career. Occasionally, the man was astoundingly brilliant when he wasn’t entrenched in debaucheries and scandals.
Mycroft couldn’t help the smile. As the years went by, Professor Stamitoles-Trotman had gone from a bit eccentric to almost completely barking mad. From occasionally drinking from a secret flask, to being a complete drunk. From having an occasionally inappropriate slip, to being a completely disgusting individual.
Five years ago, Mycroft took him completely off the payroll. As far as the world was concerned, Mycroft had fired him and retired Stamitoles-Trotman into obscurity. In reality, Mycroft had been paying the man out of his pocket and funding his latest project.
His greatest project.
Mycroft got off the elevator.
Standing ahead of him was one of his secretaries Alice Haddock. She was crying. She looked guilty. Her dark brown hair was shot through with gray these days.
Mycroft simply said, “They know.”
Her eyes quickly filled with tears.
“You told them where I was,” he said simply.
“My son. Sir, they have-
He waved her words away.
“Buy me time!” he commanded. “I need fifteen minutes!”
Mycroft walked faster.
“Yes, sir! I’ll will!” she called after him.
Mycroft went the end of the hallway. He stopped at the biometrics scanner. He scanned his eyes and hand. He gave his verbal password: “The game is on.” The computer analyzed it. Once done, he quickly locked out the computer at the door hoping that it might buy him a few minutes.
On the other side of the door, Mycroft called out, “Holston! Holston! Where are you? You lunatic!”
A small old man, with a shiny bald head came out of seemingly nowhere with a letter opener in his hand. “Who are you?” the old man demanded. “I’m armed!
“I don’t have time for this Holston! Gather your brains, man! We have ten maybe fifteen minutes before big men show up to stop us!”
Holston pointed at him and said, “Mycroft!” The man looked a little worried as he confirmed, “Yes, you are Mycroft.”
“Yes! The man that pays for the beer and the kerb crawlers that you think I don’t know about! Now, turn that damnable machine on!”
The little man scuttled about saying, “One-way. One-way.”
“Did you set it?” Mycroft asked.
The much older man struggled for a moment as if the thoughts were fighting him. “The further back you go, the shorter your time there. Fifty years is the edge of what I dare to do, Mycroft. Anymore and you won’t live long enough to do anything.”
Mycroft didn’t like hearing those words. Still, he said, “Beggars can’t be choosers. Do it! And, hurry!”
Mycroft walked forwards and sat at the center of a machine that spanned half the room. At the center a thing that looked like a glass coffin tilted back. Wires, conduits, and copper wrapped magnets littered the outside and stretched out in various directions creating a thing that looked like a prop out of a horror story, or an imaginative modern art exhibit.
Mycroft didn’t hesitate to climb up into it. He felt a bit like a rotisserie chicken.
Like the mad scientist that he was, Holston put on a, eye protective mask with dark tinted lenses. With the white lab coat and his tooth gapped grin, he looked absolutely insane.
“One way!” Holston yelled out.
He started the machine by throwing a series of switches. The power in the entire building and the surrounding neighborhoods was rerouted for this one act.
The little man became a whirl of activity.
Mycroft felt as if there were a thousand ants scrawling on his skin. His hands and feel balled up as the electrical current amped up. It felt as if it were slowly increasing ever more and with it the ants turned into pain. A constant and even pain spanned the entire surface of his body.
He couldn’t stand it as the current began horribly contract his muscles. He began to cry out at the intensity of it as every muscle on his frame curled and twisted at the same time. Just as he thought that he’d die from the agony of it, the pain ended.
A moment later, Mycroft was unceremoniously dropped back onto a wet concrete floor. He lay on the ground in groaning. His body hurt. He was wet and cold. His entire body felt as if he’d been put through a grinder.
Mycroft opened his eyes and saw the night sky above.
Lifting his head was too much to ask for, so he turned his head to one side. He was at a construction site.
Despite the pain, he smiled and hoped that he’d gone far enough back to effect change.