Thank you so much for your lovely comment! I’m so happy you liked the story. Yes, once I stopped to think about it, I felt that the First World War must have been devastating for Mycroft. Coming as it did at the very end of a long career, it not only rendered his life’s work void, but it showed him how misguided his empire-building had been and the terrible human cost it carried. The guilt must have haunted him.

Thank you so much for pointing out that parallel between the informal extended family John built with Mary and the one he, Sherlock, and Mycroft create here. I hadn’t consciously thought about those two storylines bookending each other, but they do. Just as the Forrester girls will always be in some sense the children Watson and Mary never had, I think that Mycroft will be a brother to Watson as well as Sherlock. And perhaps, by supporting and caring for Mycroft, Watson might even be able to put to rest his lingering regrets about Harry’s death, and have a second chance to avert that kind of tragedy.