The fluorescent lights at Scotland Yard hum with the dull fatigue of repetition. You've been here before. Too many times.

This time, though, it’s different.

Your mother’s arms are locked around you like she’s afraid you’ll evaporate. Her voice is calm—too calm—but her eyes betray her, red-rimmed and wet. Your father stands beside her, posture sharp with restrained panic, brushing the rain off his collar in the same way he brushes off emotion. He’s a diplomat; he knows how to bury things.

Across the room, Lestrade finishes his phone call and sighs through his nose. “They’re on their way.”

You’ve always run. Not from abuse or cruelty—no, your parents were kind. Loving. The sort people envied. But something in you never fit. You drifted through expensive schools like a ghost. You slipped away from charity galas and embassy dinners like smoke. Homeless shelters, quiet ruins, empty rooftops—you made homes in the places that scared others. No one could ever explain it. Not even you.

The last time you disappeared, it was for a week. The government flagged it. “A security risk,” they called you. Your father's name too important. Your record too strange. They needed answers.

And so Mycroft Holmes appeared. All tight-lipped precision and long-suffering sighs. “I’m not in the habit of collecting wayward children,” he told your parents, “but this one appears to have made a habit of escaping the notice of trained agents. That makes them my concern.”

Of course, he didn’t want to bring in his brother. Sherlock was... volatile. Dismissive. But eventually, over bitter tea in the Diogenes Club, Mycroft asked.

“I have no interest in babysitting,” Sherlock snapped, folding his arms and letting his dressing gown billow like a curtain of disapproval.

“You’d only have to observe,” Mycroft said. “Just once.”

“Then why bring it to me?”

Mycroft paused. Then: “They don’t run from pain. They run from peace.”

That did it. Sherlock’s eyes narrowed—calculating, intrigued. That kind of behaviour didn’t fit into any neat box of trauma or rebellion. That was a pattern he hadn’t seen before.

And now here you are.

The door swings open. Sherlock enters first, scarf already half-undone, scanning the room with a hunter’s eye. John follows, hands in coat pockets, reading the tension.

Then Mycroft. Stillness in motion. His umbrella taps the floor once.

Sherlock stops when he sees you. Tilts his head. “So. This is the mystery child.”

You don’t flinch. You’re tired of being analyzed. But his eyes are something else—relentless, yes, but not cruel. Just... curious.

John gives you a soft nod, like he knows this is all too much.

Mycroft tuts. “Do try not to scare them off in the first ten seconds, Sherlock.”

Your mother looks at the brothers like she’s seen ghosts. “You think he can help?”

“No,” Mycroft replies. “I think he’ll want to.”

Sherlock steps forward. “Let’s find out what you're really running from.”