Mystrade - Christmas in the Cotswolds - from The Personal Journal of Mycroft..

Chapter 7

        I rushed outside only to remember that I'd had my car drop us for the day. I had no way to drive anywhere. That, however, meant that Greg couldn't have gone far either.

        How could I have done this? How could I have let myself snap at Greg?  Sherlock. That's how. It was all because of Sherlock. Who did he really think he was fooling with his act? He wasn't fooling anyone, and he was completely ungrateful. I'd found him. I'd pulled him out of his stupor, not just last night, but what felt like hundreds of times since he was just a child. Did he ever bother to thank me? No. Every time, he chose impertinence, deriding me at any opportunity.

        That certainly wasn't any fault of Greg's. What did he mean by that, though - blocking me from Sherlock? He knew how upset I'd been. Why did he choose to protect him? If he really loved me the way he claimed to, shouldn't he be just as angry with Sherlock as I?

        No sooner did I reach the small iron gate than I caught a glimpse of Greg in my periphery, propped up, seated in the snow against the side of the house, cigarette hanging out from the side of his mouth. I walked toward him in silence and stopped a few paces away, unsure of what the best words might be.

        "Fag?" he offered, holding the box up in the air.

        "Thank you, no," I said, shuffling my feet in the snow. What could I possibly say? I should have thought it through before walking over to him.

        "I just needed some air," he explained, pushing himself up to his feet and walking away from me, toward the back of the house.

        I approached him, placing a hand on his shoulder, "Greg. I didn't mean that."

        "Ya' know - we say that don't we? People always say that they didn't mean something - that it was just said in a moment of anger. But the truth is if it comes out that quickly in a moment of anger, it's been harboring in there for a long time."

        That made sense.

        "I don't want to talk about this right now, anyway," he said, throwing his half-finished cigarette into the snow. "We're being incredibly rude to your Mum."

        "She told me to find you. Please let's talk?"

        "I don't want to. We're going to go in there, pretend this hasn't happened, enjoy your parents, and we can deal with it later." He began walking toward the front door. "You know," he said, pausing and turning back toward me, "the worst part is, you know how I feel about you. You know how I've always felt about you. Whatever you were accusing me of in there - you know how completely idiotic the entire implication is."

        "Greg, I wasn't...."As I expected, he didn't let me finish. "Later!" he insisted, opening the front door.

        Even as a child, I'd never been one for fantasies and imaginings. Sherlock had been. He favored pirates of course, but I could recall he also had a wooden toy box he'd insisted for years was a time machine.

        If I had H.G. Wells' time machine or even Sherlock's little toy box, I would, without question, go back to that silly tree lighting ceremony in Bourton-on-the-Water. If I could just get back there, standing with Greg in my arms, and never move from that spot, maybe I'd have a chance to finally comprehend the word, "happy."

***

           

        As Mummy boiled the third kettle of the day, I found myself seated between Sherlock and Greg. It may have been the most uncomfortable I'd ever felt.