A/N: Another companion piece to both It was Greg and Blood, Skin and Gratitude.

He doesn't call their parents, not for a long time. He considers it several times, and each time slips his phone back into his pocket and takes out another cigarette. If his mother could see him now, she'd kill him for the amount he's smoked in only a handful of hours.

Then again, she might not care too much, might not even notice, not with Sherlock lying in there.

His motives for not calling are both selfish and cowardly, he knows. He doesn't want to have to tell them that their younger son is dying, or very possibly dying, because someone went and put a bullet in his chest. Just because he's survived the surgery – albeit not by much – it's no guarantee that he's going to live. He knows that much from what John didn't say, his voice breaking when he tried to force out the words that there's every chance of brain damage or worse.

Brain damage. The phrase is grating in Mycroft's throat as he murmurs it to himself, standing outside the hospital doors. Brain damage and Sherlock shouldn't be in a hundred miles near each other, never mind in the same sentence. If his brother lives, but isn't the brilliant man that he has always been (and he is brilliant, though obviously not as brilliant as Mycroft himself is) it would be like some bizarre nightmare. How could that be real? How could all of that intelligence vanish?

Of course it could. It's part of the science that Sherlock loves so much, the medicine that's made his fiancé the man that he is. His heart stopped beating – not just once, but three times – meaning it's astounding that his heart is even beating now, and that's not accounting for the resultant lack of oxygen getting to his brain. Medicine has never been a forte of Mycroft's, and still he knows that that is anything but good news.

But for Sherlock to be brain damaged doesn't bear thinking about. To lose his intelligence, possibly even the memory of intelligence, to become a shadow of himself. It's nauseating, but he'd still be Mycroft's brother and Mycroft will still watch out for him.

It's not the first time he's had to worry over such possibilities, after all. There was that time, about fifteen years ago now, with the cocaine overdose. The longest night of Mycroft's life, if he's being honest with himself. He didn't call their parents then until he was sure that his brother was in the clear either.

The thing is, he's not sure that his brother will be in the clear this time. He's seen him, seen the inducement of hypothermia in a last ditch attempt to protect that brain, seen the tube forcing air into his lungs, the other tubes draining blood and other fluids away from the surgical wound, seen John's face, normally so closed in such a crisis because he's compartmentalising and working as best as he can, laid bare now with tears in his eyes.

Mycroft's read about the hypothermia treatment a little, in the last hour since it's become relevant knowledge to him. It's best implemented immediately after the restoration of a normal cardiac rhythm, though it can be effective if induced several hours later. Sherlock was at the scene, and then in the ambulance, and in the emergency room, and then had to be rushed to surgery. Of course it couldn't be induced immediately.

John knows so much more about these things. Understands the terminology far better. It is his field. No wonder his face is so openly worried.

And what's there for Mycroft to do now? Sherlock's life is out of his hands. The Yard has arrested his possible murderer. It's too soon for him to intervene there. He doesn't even know what to say to John, and can't bring himself to go back to his brother's room and see him like that, not yet, anyway. And Lestrade is gone home to change out of his blood-stained clothes. What's left for him to do to block the worry from his mind, which doesn't involve calling their parents yet?

He can't bear the thought of the tears in his mother's eyes, or the twitching of his father's face as he tries to hold himself together. Though they'll have to know, soon.

He could tell Anthea to call them for him, and send the plane to bring them home from Milan. They'll prefer, though, if he calls them himself.

He can't do that. Not yet. Not when he feels so helpless in the face of such a crisis. Him. The man who can order assassinations without any emotion, helpless now to do anything at all.

Well, there is one thing he can do.

He stubs out the cigarette in his hand and takes out his phone. Dialling his driver's number, he puts the phone to his ear and waits.

"Sir?"

"Bring the car around. I need to go to Baker Street."

And after that, he'll call his parents. Maybe.