This is a re-write of IAmNotOneOfThem's story, Blindness Gives a Vision. I claim no credit for the original idea and plot, which belongs to her nor the characters, which belong to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the BBC.

- Amelia

Sherlock is born blind. This is a stated fact just like the elements in the periodic table or that birds have got wings. At least for the Holmes family, that is.

This boy, Sherlock, was born in a freezing winter evening, as opposed to what most parents who were told their baby was due in April would expect; his arrival to this world, though messy, was just as welcome. Even when he cried out shrilly in protest, oxygen grazing his lungs for the first time, the only response he got was a sleepy smile from the exhausted woman laid on a hospital bed, a sigh of relief from the bearded man who stroked her hair, and an awed beam from the ginger 7-year-old boy shaking with excitement. And their expressions remained like that for the following two days, exhilarated and sated as the bags under their eyes grew darker whilst adrenaline kept them awake. And what happened on that second day, you may ask? Well, on his 49th hour, Sherlock Holmes opened his eyes for the first time. Eyes that were the colour of the sea in a stormy day; pupil-less eyes that were reminiscent of fog fighting its way through a forest. And the scared whimper Mrs Holmes lets out is something that Mycroft will never forget.

"Premature babies are often at risk of … not fully formed irises … blended sclera … surgical procedures are not available in the case of…" Meaningless, granted; they simply weren't, and wouldn't be as cheerful anymore. Mr Holmes left the room in a huff, and the atmosphere that settled in… well, that wasn't very nice, was it? But that was expected, of course it was expected. The crying mother, the innocent questions of the brother, and the unexpected stop to the baby's sobs and whimpers as he fell asleep, oblivious to the world around him.

Days later, after a lot of book-raiding and endless library visits, and looking at the soft mess of blankets that hid his brother from the world –isolated, his adult mind will correct viciously, decades afterwards—the little ginger boy (Mycroft to you, reader) came up to his parents and with all the seriousness a jittery 7-year-old child could muster, he looked at his Mum and said,

"I will. Take care of him, I mean." And to his Dad, he asked, "Can I be his tutor?" And the watery laugh they both gave as a response was enough for him to nod in acceptance and walk towards his room. His hands are shaking, but that's irrelevant. That's adrenaline and a sign of the grieving process, would-be challenge that he's turned his life into with that request. He doesn't know that yet, and never will, but it's nice to pretend the uneasiness in his gait and shallow exhaling are his way of showing the generic white paint in the walls that he is a happy child, and that the world as he knows it hasn't rotated on its axis so much that he isn't sure what is his world anymore.

And so, he walked on through corridors until he found the pastel coloured bedroom, with its mahogany wood planks and light yellow walls, and he bent down to touch the bars in the cradle. "I will be your eyes," he promised his brother, with a moonbeam and a blanket for witnesses. And who knows, but these words might have been the push to rattle the world's hinges again and make it so that it fit to these surreal siblings and their minds, that were, perhaps, too unique for their bodies.