Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock.

It had been a month, exactly, since Sherlock's jump, and Mycroft would like to be able to say he was over it but he wasn't.

He was fine, of course. He went to work. He... went to work. More of the same. Sherlock hadn't been a part of his daily life, so in a way it wasn't much of a change: surveillance of him was the express job of a small department under Mycroft's control, not Mycroft's own. He could only be fine because there was hardly a change in his daily life. And it was certainly easier without his little brother wreaking havoc upon London.

Although crime rates had gone up a bit.

But anyway, he was fine. He had Sherlock's phone, kept charged and the plan paid for. Just in case. And, even if he was deluding himself (which he knew he was, thanks, he'd even admit it if asked, but so what if he wanted to hold out a little bit of hope that his baby brother hadn't committed suicide for no apparent reason?), he would keep at it. It was nice to have a little piece of his brother. John Watson got to keep the trademark scarf so Mycroft felt entitled to the phone. The phone was better, anyway: it was the way they had always communicated, all their lives. When Mycroft had gone away to boarding school, when they had still been friends (best friends), they had called each other every night. It had been Mycroft's only comfort and, he suspected, Sherlock's as well. And recently, when Sherlock would rarely deign to be in the same room as him, the phone had been all Mycroft had.

And maybe, possibly, he was keeping the phone because John Watson still texted it, and Mycroft liked to read the little messages that told him, clear as day, that there was someone who had loved his brother as much as he had.

They started two nights after Sherlock's funeral, which Mycroft didn't attend, and he'd almost had a stroke when the dead man's phone had pinged in his pocket. For one horrible, glorious moment, Mycroft had hoped that his brother was alive, and he'd torn the phone out of his pocket with less composure than he'd ever done anything in his life.

The caller ID said, simply, 'John.'

(i hatre u)

He hadn't replied. Of course he hadn't. But he hadn't had to, because after that he had received one text per night from his late brother's flatmate, at around the same time each night.

(About what I said last night. I didn't mean it. I was really drunk. I could never hate you.)

(I miss you. I can't believe how much I miss you. It's so quiet.)

(You can come back, you know. I'll hide you- I know you're not a fake. We'll get your name cleared and you'll be solving cases again in no time.)

(I believe in you. Have you seen that spray paint/flier campaign? I'm not the only one. Come back.)

(Please come back.)

(Miss you.)

(Mrs. Hudson made your favourite today. I took the leftovers. If you come home right now they'll still be good.)

(I hate my job. Endless, mindless. Maybe I'm not cut out to be a civilian doctor. Couldn't even keep my own flatmate from leaping off a roof.)

(Do you mind if I just keep texting you? Stupid, I know.)

(Visited your grave today. Left flowers. Sorry.)

(Lestrade has been trying to get me to help with some new cases. Serial killer today. I said no.)

(Your brother didn't even come to your funeral, you know? Well, you probably deduced. It's good, though, because I don't know what I would have done to him if I'd seen him.)

(Long day at work. Came home and you weren't there.)

(Threw out the jar of eyeballs. Sorry.)

(When I woke up this morning, I had forgotten you were dead. Was surprised when I came downstairs and you weren't there.)

(I slept in your room last night. Why is it always so clean when the rest of the flat is a wreck?)

(That experiment with the roses finally finished. Blue.)

(What do I do with the violin? They need to be played, don't they?)

(I tried playing it. Bad idea.)

(I was cleaning and I found your journal. You kept a journal?)

(I stayed up all night and day reading it. Your journal is incredibly boring, except for when you wax poetic about one thing or another. You liked bees?)

(You were right. About all of it.)

(You should have told me. Why didn't you tell me?)

(I miss you.)

(Come back.)

(It's just not right without you.)

It had been a full month, as of tonight, and there was no text.

Mycroft stayed up late. Not... waiting for anything, exactly, and definitely not for a text from his dead brother's best friend. He just had little else to do and his club was closed, which meant he was sitting in his chair at 1 AM. Totally incidentally.

He stared at the fire for a while. Drank some revolting but very-old brandy for a while. Read a novel very briefly before tossing it into the fire, then staring at the fire some more. Then he took out the phone and gave it a turn at being stared at, even longer than the previous things.

Even if he hadn't known his brother, he would have been able to deduce nearly everything about him from the one object he held in his hand— he was a Holmes, after all. He knew that its owner had money, for example, from the way it was (poorly) treated despite its expense. It was a very new model but the buttons were already showing signs of wear, so the owner was a chronic texter. The scratched screen told him it had been occasionally thrown about, probably from boredom. Dozens upon dozens of contacts, so a business man in one way or another, but only three numbers called more than a few times: John Watson, Gregory Lestrade, Mycroft Holmes (listed as Dear Brother). A lonely business man.

The picture he got from the phone was imperfect, though, because there were a few items not even Mycroft could deduce from it. Sherlock's brilliance, for example, and obviously that was an important one. His stubbornness. His willingness, apparently, to die for those he loved...

Mycroft put down his glass suddenly, stuffed the phone into his pocket, and stood furiously.

It didn't make sense.

It hadn't from the beginning. Sherlock. Such an ass. So, as he'd said, brilliant and stubborn. Mycroft could accept that he had come to care about John Watson, but he would never be able to accept that Sherlock wasn't too stubborn to kill himself, no matter the reason. And that he wasn't brilliant enough to think of a way out of it, if he was ever forced to.

He couldn't accept it... but he had seen the body himself.

Mycroft wobbled on his feet for a moment, which he told himself was from too much brandy, before he managed to steady himself.

While he hadn't run DNA tests on it and blood typed it and ordered an autopsy, he knew his brother and that was him. He had given him baths when they were children, and when they were adults and Sherlock was so far in withdrawal that he wouldn't do it himself. He knew from his cameras 90% of the new injuries Sherlock had sustained, which ones would/had scarred, and those scars were there, too.

By force of effort, Mycroft pushed all thoughts from his mind. Today was no different from yesterday, just because it had been a month, and he mustn't dwell on speculation. On false hope.

He tried to think of nothing as he prepared for bed. He had to be awake in a few hours, preferably alert without the assistance of caffeine, and this bloody phone wasn't helping. He really should get rid of it before this developed into a full-blown obsession.

He wasn't tired. He lay in bed anyway, though, hands folded up over his gut and very much alone. It was dark in his room thanks to blackout curtains and he couldn't even see the ceiling, which was a shame because he would have liked something to stare at.

Sherlock's phone pinged and the ceiling he previously couldn't see was suddenly lit faintly with blue.

It was four in the morning. Far, far later than John Watson ever texted Sherlock's phone. Mycroft felt a moment of stupid, groundless hope that maybe Sherlock was texting his own phone and, this time, he didn't instantly answer it. Just for a moment, he allowed himself to hope that maybe Sherlock was brilliant enough and stubborn enough to outsmart Moriarty who did nothing more than point a gun at his friend's head and tell him to jump.

He held onto that hope for as long as he dared, and then he slowly reached for the phone.

'John.'

Tears leaking from his eyes and slipping back and pooling in his ears, he flicked his thumb to open the very-late text from the only living person who loved Sherlock as much as Mycroft did.

(Just one word, Sherlock. Please. Just one.)

Mycroft's underused heart twisted round and then clenched in his chest, taking his breath away. His vision was blurred by saltwater. He impatiently wiped it away with his free hand, and for a long, long time he stared at the text.

Then, slowly, he tapped out a simple reply, his grammar and syntax a perfect replica of his brother's, indistinguishable even to Sherlock's closest friend.

He was done.

His thumb hovered over 'send.'

This person had been important to Sherlock; he wouldn't have wanted Mycroft to do anything cruel to him. So, was this cruel? Was it better to have hope, even false hope— faith— than to have none?

Mycroft hit send.

(I am alive. SH)