Holme Again

17

It was as I was digging up the potatoes in the garden with Tony that I received the news. My house has been bombed. My mum had been inside at the time. As I stared up at Mycroft in shock, from my position bent over the spade, he revealed how she had been found barely alivealive, trapped under a pile of wreckage, and had been rushed to hospital. The doctors had done all they could, but it had been too late. She had died five hours later.

I slowly let go of a breath that I hadn't realised I'd been holding.

"Are you- are you okay?" asked Toby cautiously. " Sorry, really stupid question, sorry, sorry. "

I replied calmly, in a measured voice, "Shut up."

"Yeah," he whispered, and lowered his head to the ground.

" Well, " I said, "well, I- damn, I can't think of a joke to make."

Unexpectedly , Toby started crying. Softly at first, then rapidly increasing in volume until he was practically howling. I looked to Mycroft for answers, mystified, but he only have me a shrug and a small sky smile. Then his face clouded momentarily, before resting on a sort of questioning expression. Probably. I couldn't tell really, but he tilted his head to one side slightly, so I assumed that was what it was. He was probably asking if I was okay, or whether I'd start crying like Toby. I paused a moment, then shook my head. Mycroft glanced back at Toby for a second, then turned on his head and walked off towards the house.

In silence, I continued to dig up the potatoes.

"You seem very calm, for the situation."

Mycroft and I were having dinner on the same day of the news.

I shrugged at my roast chicken.I

"Most people... but then again, you're not most people, Magnus."

I shrugged again.

"Well, we'll move on from that then, shall we?"

We finished dinner in silence as it began to pour with rain.

When I got up to my room that night, at ten o'clock, I played my guitar through the night, until three am.