Chapter Two

Somehow the "once upon a times," as they'd been called even when Sherlock and Mycroft were children, became a tradition with Enola. On the almost rare occasions he was around at the appropriate time, she would accept no one else putting her to bed but Mycroft, and she would demand a fairytale in the process. So Mycroft would smile tolerantly, tuck her into bed and sit on the floor at her bedside, telling her a story. He spoke of the mage's simple explorations of the forest with magical creatures, of the knight's bouts of slaying dragons that flew through the shadows of the city, of the king's troubles in court. But always, always, no matter the dragons, or the wars, or the briar thickets or witches, at the end of the stories, the king, the knight, and the mage gathered together under the cover of darkness. They were together, and all was well.

Mycroft was thirty, and Enola three, when their father took ill, and his mother called him home – "Only for a week, Myc, I promise, then your father will be fit as a fiddle" – to help her keep up with things. Leaving Anthea and a whole host of other assistants in charge of his affairs, Mycroft twisted his schedule around like a pretzel and carved out the needed week to go to the countryside.

Where "keeping up with things" turned out to mean "looking after Enola." The toddler was three, and into everything – truly becoming someone who wanted to explore every inch of her home and grounds – and Mrs. Holmes simply didn't have the energy to keep up with her and look after her sick husband. So Enola fell to Mycroft for the week, and he didn't mind admitting that he'd mostly enjoyed the somewhat exasperating task. She was never still, and after a couple of days he figured out that he could take her outside, release her into their mother's flower garden, and himself sit on the outdoor bench with his laptop, working while she remained in sight and delighted in whatever outdoor novelty she'd discovered.

Occasionally she would excitedly present him with something, squealing over the ladybug on her chubby hand or shrieking over the slug she'd seen in the daisies. Outdoors, she was generally loud, all the better to keep an eye on her, as far as Mycroft was concerned.

So he was never as confused as when she crept up to him, on literal tiptoes, and pressed a finger to her lips, hissing, "Shhhh…" with bright eyes as she took his hand and tugged.

"What is it?" he murmured, grinning indulgently at her excitement as he kept one eye on his laptop.

She glowered, slapping a hand over his mouth and tugging on his hand again. Stifling a sigh around her hand, he slid his laptop onto the bench and allowed her to lead him towards whatever had caught her fancy. A patch of the rogue wildflowers that grew unbidden on the edge of the garden, apparently, he realized, noting in amusement that, in her childish caution, she was still walking on tiptoes towards her destination.

She pointed to the flowers, whispering in awe, "F'r'ee!"

"Free?" Mycroft mouthed, confused at the baby talk as he peered along the length of her arm to where she was pointing. He knelt down beside her to get her perspective. All he was wildflowers, a millipede weaving among the dandelion stems, and a purple monarch butterfly resting on a bunch of Queen Anne's lace … and then understanding dawned. Fairy. She was saying "fairy" because in the fairytales he told her, butterflies were also fairies.

"F'r'ee!" she repeated, her restraint nearly depleted as she all but danced with glee at her brother's side. She was eye to eye with him for once, and whispered solemnly to him, he whom she considered an expert on these things, "Is it a f'r'ee?"

Mycroft almost told her the truth. No, Enola, it's a butterfly. All those fairies I ever told you about are butterflies. He could tell her about butterflies, tell her of patterns and species and classifications and colors and cycles – things that would currently bore a three-year-old to death, but might one day lead to her becoming a lepidopterist.

Only… he didn't. He took one look into her eyes – brimming with childish glee and the light that has so come to characterize the mage in his stories – and he couldn't.

Instead he touched her gently, his hand engulfing her little shoulder, smiling lovingly as he whispered gently into her ear, "Yes, Enola, it's a fairy." After all, in her eyes, who's to say that it wasn't?

His baby sister's thrilled laugh was the purest thing he'd heard in a year, and he spent the rest of his trip obligingly filling her head with the fairytales that she adored.

During Mycroft's longer visit that week, Enola had apparently become accustomed to going to bed with a fairytale, because that first night he's back in London, his mother called him.

"What is it?" he asked, instantly worried, thinking his father might've taken sick again.

"It's Enola," his mother sighed over the phone. "She's refusing to go to sleep without a 'once upon a time.'"

Mycroft snorted before he could stop himself. "Honestly?"

"Oh, very much so." Now his mother's tone was slipping over into exasperated, and he knew what she was going to ask before the words even left her mouth. "Just a short one, maybe, over the phone? She really does have to be going to bed."

Mycroft sighed, rubbing his temple and refusing to acknowledge the happy curl of warmth in his chest at being needed – wanted, even, by one of his siblings. "Very well."

And just like that, just like he wondered if they might, 'once upon a times' over the phone become a nightly occurrence.