The door to the isolation ward shut quietly but the click was the most deafening sound he could ever remember. There was a finality to it, the proverbial final nail in the coffin. The surrounding silence along the corridor now crowded around him, pressing on his lungs and mind, giving rise to a sudden claustrophobia. He wanted to rush out of the building, at least find a balcony where he could see the rest of the world carrying on as if nothing cataclysmic had occurred.

But then for them it hadn't, Mycroft acknowledged.

He finally reached his own private bastion, locking the door on his way in. He filled a glass with whatever bottle was handy and stood in front of his window. The view wasn't bad, but then he hadn't had any wish to open that electronic curtain and view the actual world from where he sat; he did that anyway.

It was a bitterly cold but perfectly sunny day with blue cloudless skies.

Perfect contradiction, just like his inner turmoil.

The deed was done; he had negotiated the best deal he could, what with the facts being what they were. A killer could only get so much leeway, no matter how noble the result of that drastic action. A dragon had been slayed but in today's world, no one felicitated the hunter. He blamed himself for not seeing through the subterfuge Sherlock played that Christmas morning. How could he have ever thought his parent's home, his family could be the emotional blanket enough to cocoon…to protect his brother? He had slipped, and the price was indeed steep.

If he thought his day had been rough until now, he was about to be proven wrong. All decisions were in place, all schedules finalised. Now all that was left was to crush the people he loved the most…he had to call his parents.

Never did Mycroft feel so lonely, isolated and defeated than when he admitted his inability to protect his younger brother from his demons. Especially when his stoic parents refused to blame him. Maybe it would've been better had they done that, he knew how to deal with disappointing others, angering others. Their defeated acceptance further gutted him.

He was surprised that the sun was now so low in the sky. Life went on, things moved as they did. He now realised what they meant when they said that ruling them all was the loneliest job in the whole world.