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Wednesday 11th July 2018
That morning, and dressed in a dark suit, which makes him look like another shadow emerging from those in the dreary corridor he’s marching through, Mycroft tries to think logically about his problem. A trace of light hangs around the collar of his shirt and is further enunciated by the cadet blue tie he’s wearing that has diamonds outlined on it in white. Brightness spills like an eager child from the half-open door that he is looking to walk through. It sends some dust into sharp relief. Using his umbrella he opens the door a little wider and then, when he sees that the way is clear, does a twirl, so that he can deposit his umbrella in the holder that’s near by without any further ado. A few strands of his auburn hair come undone and he absentmindedly pats at the top of his head with one hand. Much of his focus is on the fact that there is a navy blue umbrella in the holder. Trying to ignore the sigh, which tells him that his cover is blown, he deduces that the umbrella is a new one, which belongs to the main occupant of the room. He thinks for a moment how well the navy umbrella goes with his black one, before he inwardly tells himself off for getting distracted and maintains a state of seriousness. He turns towards the main part of the room and the lights, which are always on in this office hit him like fresh rain upon his face, making him blink. Once he’s gotten over getting momentarily dazzled he focuses on the three heads that have turned his way. Knowing who had just sighed Mycroft tries to send one of the non-complaining figures out with a swift jerk of his head. “David don’t go,” the Home Secretary and the woman who had sighed utters. Mycroft frowns. She may be classed as blind, but aside from having eyes that are a trifle cloudy looking they are very ordinary. Not shielded by glasses they seem as determined as he has ever seen them be. Her face is framed by a bob hairstyle-she’d used to have it longer and resolutely tied up, before she’d gotten fed up of it getting in the way, whilst she’d been trying to do paperwork and re-styled it. She’s dressed smartly, wearing a grey double-breasted checked jacket to match trousers that are also the same colour, a black belt and a white top that has a hint of femininity about its lace collar. The only thing that lets her down is the slight smudge of black pen that Mycroft can see upon the side of her hands and her fingernails, which are slightly chipped. Bobbi, the guide dog-a yellow Labrador who likes him a lot if the hairs that he always gets on his clothes are anything to go by-and who had been the other life form in the room not to sigh at him-a rare thing indeed according to Sherlock-wags her tail at him from her position on the floor to the side of the desk. She has a yellow jacket swung over her breast and hip and looks to her mistress for permission to greet him. The Home Secretary waves her hand, knowing what her dog wants, and sighs again. Mycroft gives Bobbi a bit of a sympathetic look, not knowing why the Home Secretary is making such a to-do when it should be them both. Bobbi scrambles up, her claws shifting slightly against the carpet that is just larger than the size of the desk and helps to give the Home Secretary a clue as to how close she is to it. The dog goes halfway to Mycroft. He gives her a quick pat, trying to keep some distance between Bobbi and his clothes through creating a shield with the magazine that he is carrying. He sends her with a pointed finger back to her mistress. Bobbi moves that way, turns and then does so again, before she sits down ruefully. Her body emits a bit of a thump as her bony bottom comes into contact with the floor. “I'm afraid it won’t be possible for David to stay F/N. I have some urgent business that I need to discuss with you privately, as I'm sure that you’re very much aware of…” he lets those final words trail off warningly. “David and I need to be getting on with this paperwork,” the Home Secretary says stubbornly, tapping at it with one of her less than polished nails. Her heart skips a beat in apprehension at what Mycroft has to say. Mycroft makes an irritated noise inside his throat; before he nods that David should still leave. The young aide, with his spiky, wild brown hair, thick-rimmed glasses and who had not been Mycroft’s first choice to help his protégée-his clumsiness having let him down-looks between them both a little nervously, before being driven by Mycroft’s larger experience he ignores what his boss had said and makes his way out of the office. “I would rather you didn't give commands to people who should be under my control,” the Home Secretary tells Mycroft testily. “I don’t think you’re in any position to bargain,” he asserts his dominance. There’s a rather cool silence between them for a moment, before the Home Secretary picks up their conversation again with the words, “I was rather hoping that you wouldn’t be around until later.” “I'm sure that you were,” Mycroft says dryly, making his way towards the desk stealthily and coming to a stop, so that the chair is just behind him. Instead of sitting down on it however he complains, “You’ve really upset the apple cart now,” and lays the magazine down upon the desk. As he does so he can smell the Home Secretary’s raspberry shampoo. Perhaps in an attempt to keep on track and not let his mind linger on the scent he raises himself up and hopes that she can differentiate the new shape of him. She glances uneasily in the direction of the magazine however, knowing what it must contain… “Let’s get this over with then. Since you’re so unhappy with me,” she says, feeling that she can speak that way to him. They are not new to one another after all. She might have only been in the position of Home Secretary since July 2016, but Mycroft and she have known one another since she’d been elected as an MP in 2010’s General Election. She had been a determined, but mostly shy twenty-eight back then and in desperate need of a mentor. He, had surprisingly filled that role. She is now thirty-six and he forty-nine. She bends to supposedly give a calming stroke to Bobbi’s ears, but Mycroft knows that it is really she who is seeking comfort. Still, he can’t help but say, “Get this over with indeed. That’s what you seem so keen to do with the career that I’ve carefully tried to carve out for you. Not that you’re grateful for it”- “Of course I'm grateful for it.” “You’ve got a funny way of showing it.” Sarcasm is all over his words and the little wriggle that he gives to his shoulders. He hopes that she can pick it out. With a huff he throws himself back into the awaiting chair. “In any case gratitude is not, my dear, deciding to fulfil a selfish ambition that I hadn’t even realized you wished to pursue the day before the President of the United States is due to land in the country we both serve.” She swallows, but looks insulted all the same. “You should have told me that you desired to be a magazine star. I wouldn’t have personally been able to make it happen for you”- “Mmmhmm, like you don’t secretly keep up with men’s fashion,” the Home Secretary teases him, as she tries to turn the mood into a lighter one, “You forget that I’ve touched the sleeve of some of your suits Mycroft. I know they’re expensive,” she finishes in a sing-song voice, wagging a finger at him. “One doesn’t have to keep up with fashion to buy an expensive suit,” he informs her prissily now, thinking that she’s being petty. In an act of his own drama he lifts the magazine and drops it back down again from a small height to the desk. Bobbi raises her head and looks at him, wondering what all the ruckus is about. With a small frown upon his face he waves a hand at her, swearing in the next moment that she rolls her eyes at him. Mycroft’s own roam thoughtfully away from both mistress and dog and he stares down at the magazine cover, which is now angled his way. In front of a dark background on a small, white plinth sits the Home Secretary. Her legs crossed, h/c hair styled neatly around her face even though it does come down in triangular spikes, Bobbi lying by her feet, it has the potential to be a nice photograph. That is if it weren’t for the controversial dress that the Home Secretary is wearing. Black and white it is styled to look like several newspaper articles that have been layed out. All are from left-wing sources and all condemn the forty-fifth President of the United States of America. The headlines are the most prominent of course. They discuss the wall, Muslim travel ban, the suspicion over Russia’s involvement in the election and the criticism of the FBI and journalists to name just a few. Inside the article the Home Secretary had made it clear that though she would be carrying out her official duties over the course of the Trump visit she would not be welcoming him with open arms and if it had been her in charge then she would not have been so quick to invite him. “Setting yourself up as Prime Minister when it is far too early to even”- “You know as well as I do that it probably won’t happen. Not soon. Not ever.” Mycroft’s eyes flash at the way that she so casually tosses the dream he’s begun to dwell on aside. “No it won’t,” he huffs, “Not with all this going on. In any case, after you’ve done such a thing, it should come as no surprise to you that the real Prime Minister wishes to see me as soon as the visit by the US President is over.” The Home Secretary stiffens, but looks resolute. Mycroft eyes her steadily, seeking the reaction of both fear and regret-the body language that will make him change his mind and still be a knight for her. “Probably to have a courtesy chat with me, before she sacks you. She knows that I have worked hard to get you in this position, as do a lot of people around here.” He’d been oddly taken with her maiden speech and the potential she’d shown then, as well as the way that she’d reminded him of his brother with the way that he’d known she’d need help to achieve what she wanted. All those things had combined and niggled away at him until one day he’d relented and told her to follow him gruffly when he’d seen her in the Houses of Parliament. “The choice I'm faced with now is what I will tell the Prime Minister during that conversation. That is partly dependant on how honest you are. I presume you picked a day for the interview where you knew I would not be able to interfere with it?” “I tried to,” the Home Secretary murmurs reluctantly. He snorts at her feeble attempt to hide things from him. “You should not have done it that way. Nor should you keep antagonizing America,” he refers to her previous Twitter spats with the President. “We are mere china upon a table to them and could be batted off with the easy swipe of a paw.” “So just because they are bigger than us I should know my place? Never stand up to the bullies of the world? More to the point I am a reluctant magazine star, as you would probably have guessed if you’d used that brain of yours. How many blind people do you know who would willingly want to be on the cover of magazines when they can’t even see themselves clearly?” “You are an exception with that rule, as you are with most”- “They could have made me look ridiculous,” she overrides him, not getting the exact depth of his meaning. “You made yourself look ridiculous,” Mycroft growls, both frustrated with her for not understanding and being glad for it. He’s embarrassed about how much she’s been on his mind lately. “But it was worth it,” she ignores his attempts to do her injury. “Worth it to stand up and call Trump out, to tell him that he is not welcome here, to say that I feel the need to condemn him for the way that he takes little care when he speaks on Twitter about our country. It was the best chance that I could see I was going to have to stand up for us.” “You should have been patient then. Played the long game. Instead of risking our country’s relationship with America.” She looks infuriated. “I know”-he takes a breath now and tries to cool down-“That it annoyed you when Trump said that you weren’t doing enough to combat terrorism, when he said that you couldn't see what all the specific problems are.” He doesn’t tell her that it had annoyed him too nor about the fact that he has mini heart attacks every time she does something like this-out of fear more than anger mainly-and had practically had a cardiac arrest when he’d seen the magazine article that morning, “But you cannot go reacting in this way. Never mind Donald Trump’s response to it, which won’t help our relationship with America at all. Do you know what all your colleagues and the British press will be reporting about you over the next few days, before you get sacked?” “I’ve gone over all the options in my head,” she tells him efficiently. “Well, I wish you’d gone over them with me. I could have saved you the bother and told you not to do it in the first place. They’ll be saying that”- “I know,” the Home Secretary lets out a huff of impatience and Mycroft’s eyebrows go skyward, “They’ll be saying that I'm power hungry. I’ve already got suspicions that the ‘Daily Mail,’ who, as you’ll probably remember said that I’d only been given this position out of sympathy”- Mycroft does remember the burning anger he’d felt that day. He’d been so proud of her, impossibly so, the feeling had practically engulfed his chest and gone nuclear at the sight of her stood in the Houses of Parliament. Proud that she’d come this far. Proud of the fact that they’d come this far together. He remembers nervous beginnings on both his part and hers. How she’d rather huddled in his office like a penguin, the white cup-in pristine condition apart from it having become stained with tea over the years-between her hands. Bobbi had been on guard because of all the tension that had been between them. Mycroft himself had not drunk anything because the Home Secretary had, had his only teacup. He’d had glasses for scotch of course, but hadn’t dared to bring that particular drink out. He hadn’t wanted her to go thinking badly of him, not when he only tended to drink at the end of the day. He’d known too that she’d be able to smell the alcohol or hear the twist of the bottle cap. She’d already figured out that he smoked-only occasionally, he’d told her quickly-from the odour that had been on his coat. One day however, when he’d seemed particularly stressed and she too hadn’t had a good day she’d asked him with a bit of a smile if it would be a good time to break out the scotch? He’d been startled and then impressed when she’d deduced that he probably had such a thing. He was old-fashioned and traditional for one thing and she might have smelt the hint of the drink upon his breath and heard the chink of the bottle being hurriedly put away when she’d unexpectedly visited him late one afternoon. He’d asked her why she hadn’t thought the bottle could have been anything else. She’d told him with a roll of her shoulders that she’d worked out it was a smaller bottle from the different sound it would have made to a larger one and concluded that it was more than likely scotch from there. Their budding relationship of mentor-pupil had almost been scuppered however because the Home Secretary’s parents had very nearly put her off being taught by him simply because he was a man and they’d thought that he couldn't be trusted. He’d had to work hard to change things. After all that the ‘Daily Mail’ article had felt like a shove in the chest. He’d tried to keep it from her, tried not to ruin her day, that momentous occasion. He’d gone up to her with a bounce in his step because he’d known that although she wouldn’t be able to see him clearly his movement would affect the tone of his voice. He’d lifted her hands up to his face-the only time he’d ever done such a thing-and she’d protested slightly and asked if he’d been aware, and that she hadn’t wanted to offend him, but blind people weren’t all that bothered about what people looked like. It had been the sudden shock of it though he thinks, rather than her genuinely not wanting to be touched by him. At least he hopes that it had been the surprise of him touching her when he wasn’t really a tactile sort of person and she’d probably picked up on that by then rather than the fact that he’d repelled her by doing so. Yes, he’d drawn her hand up to his arm and helped guide her through the Houses of Parliament during the interim between Bobbi and her old guide dog Charlie, but that had only been a brief thing. A reassurance more than anything else because he’d known that she was grieving. It had lasted long enough though for a spark of something to run through him and make his fingers nearly let go of hers at the sensation that had been much like static electricity coursing through him. When he’d touched her after she’d been made Home Secretary and had drawn her hands up to his face it had been more like a current had run through him. Comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time. It had seemed to be that way for her too, for the cold metal of his ring had made her shiver. He’d apologized and then frozen when she’d cut off such a thing when she’d traced the thin bows of his lips. Her fingers had seemed to both reassure and tease him there with their light touches and oddly enough he’d wanted more. Wanted to cover her hand up with his and press it to his skin, but he hadn’t had the guts to. ‘You’re smiling,’ had been what she’d said though when her fingers had sketched out enough. Mycroft remembers it still-the lilt that had been in her voice. The twisted shock and pleasure of it all, before her expression had changed to become a sombre one and she’d told him that he didn't have to pretend for her benefit, as she’d dropped her hands from him. Even though he’d become more aware of his thudding heart-the sound of which he’d heard in his ears-and the people that had been all around them he’d wanted to re-claim her hands for his own. Though their coldness had surprised him he’d felt lost without them, as the current had been fractured. He’d still felt something akin to attraction pulsing between them, but had wanted more. Wanted to comfort her when she’d told him that she’d already known about the article, that she’d heard people talking about it on the way in that morning. Mycroft had rued whoever those people had been to make her be so internally focused on what should have been a happy day. The sound of the Home Secretary softly speaking now however makes him come out of the past and into the present again. “…The ‘Daily Mail’ will probably say that I’ve had enough sympathy and it shouldn't be extended any further.” She brushes her hair back, so that it falls behind her ear. A couple of persistent strands remain in front of it and she doesn’t seem to be able to feel them. Mycroft becomes a pillar of wobbly indecisiveness. “Let me,” he says clumsily at the exact same time that her hands rise, having finally detected the out of place hairs. Still, he has started now so he moves forwards and delicately pinches her hair back until it’s in its place.
“Oh.”
“You know how I can’t bear untidiness,” Mycroft is dismissive of the Home Secretary’s surprise and tries to ignore the own skipping of his heart. Her hair had felt so soft in between his fingers. He’s betting that he’d be able to smell raspberry upon them if he were to raise them to his face now. “I do know that,” she smiles at him. Like the setting of the sun however her face grows solemn all too quickly and Mycroft’s heart sinks with it. “I don’t think David Blunkett would have ever come in for such strong criticism if he’d done what I have though,” she says, referring to a previous Home Secretary who had been blind too, but had perhaps benefited more in their environment simply because he’d been a man. “He would have probably been applauded for speaking common sense. The question of firing him wouldn’t have even arisen.” Her hands push against some of the papers on her slightly untidy desk. Some folders look as if they might fall from their perch in the in-tray and he half gets up to sort them out, not liking the thought of her catching against them and taking a tumble. She hears him doing such a thing and smiles. “In any case, whether it is common sense or not”- he tries to get back on track. “Oh come on, you know it is,” she urges him, “How often have you suggested that Britain is becoming weaker and a more embarrassing country? Having to crawl to America in the hopes of a trade deal, so that we might have one foot in the world after the calamity that is Brexit?” She’d almost quoted him word for word there. “How often”- she lowers her voice in an urgent whisper-“Have you made the suggestion that though you’re a Tory at heart my colleagues have royally helped to screw up the country and you long for strong leadership?” “Never mind about them,” Mycroft is defensive, ruing that he’d spoken such words to her during a special Conservative Party Conference 2017 version of what had become a growing number of their so coined, ‘Brexit brunches.’ They’d been suffering from having consumed an unusual amount of alcohol the night before. Theresa May’s disastrous speech had been to blame for that. At least that’s what they’d excused it as. The truth is perhaps that they hadn’t wanted to depart for their separate hotel rooms. They’d known that they’d be heading back to London the next day. “We’re talking about your mistake now, which is far from the first by the way.” A glow of defiance lights up her expression, before it smoothes over again. “I think the best action you can take now is to resign”- “I am not resigning,” she informs him stubbornly, as he’d almost known that she would. He sighs. The world would be much simpler if everyone could listen to him. “If she wants to fire me then that’s”- “She is the Prime Minister,” Mycroft reminds her, “She holds the highest level of office in this land and you’d do well to remember such a thing. By not letting her sack you and taking matters into your own hands through resigning it would, as I was trying to say, send the right signal. It would show that you’re apologetic, that you realize sometimes you have to do better on tampering down your own personal opinions for the good of the country and you’re sorry that you hadn’t managed to do so this time. We will draw up your resignation letter together. With my help you will then find your next post, hopefully one that you can behave in better. You might be lucky enough to rise to a senior position again if you do that, but I am afraid that before that happy chance might occur I will have to”- “Create some distance between us?” she sparks with raised eyebrows, before she mutters stubbornly, “I am not resigning. It was my duty to do what I’ve done.” “You really do yourself no favours you know. Sometimes I wonder if”- he pauses inelegantly, his speech for once running away from his mind. “Yes?” she prompts him. “What is it?” He swallows, knowing that she won’t like to hear this. “I wonder if I haven’t really helped you out, not in the long-term.” “As we've been through you helped get me here and I am grateful for it,” she’s patient, but senses from his pause that Mycroft is unconvinced. “You were the one who went to the Prime Minister and vouched for me,” she tries yet again, “Said that despite my age I should be given the opportunity. You made her choose me instead of Amber Rudd because you said that I was the more interesting pick.” “Yes, but all that seems to have done is made you complacent. I quite swear sometimes that you seem to think that I'm your…your safety cushion”- he reddens from being reluctant to compare himself to anything that has padding in it and is glad that Sherlock is not here to hear him do such a thing. He watches the tightening of the Home Secretary’s jaw. It’s true what he has said she knows, but only to a point. She listens to him talking. “…I was rather hoping that giving you such a high position of authority would smooth out your edges. Instead it seems to have made you worse than ever and what I'm trying to tell you is: sometimes I wonder whether you get yourself into all these scrapes because I am here to defend you and you believe that nothing bad will happen to you because of it. Even now you seem to think that I will rescue you, but I am not as powerful as you think.” He draws a breath. “It’s a similar thing with my brother. He believes still I know, even after what happened with Eurus, which is quite touching really, that if it comes to it then I’ll be able to find him a route marked exit and I can’t have you thinking the same. One person believing that folly is quite enough thank you.” He doesn’t believe that either of them properly realize the pressure they put him under at times. “Mycroft,” she’s quick to get in there as he takes another breath, “I know how you like to compare me to your brother, and in a way, even though you always seem to do so as an insult or a warning, I am flattered by it because I know just how fond you are of him. The thing is however is that you know what my story is. I have been blind since birth.” Mycroft nods automatically now. “I have gone through many phases. Phases of learning how to navigate around the house I grew up in, the larger world, school and Bristol University. This place. I have had many people treat me like I am incapable. Like I am deaf and dumb as well as blind. I have been bullied and harassed, mostly by adults and in particular by unhappy constituents who would rather not have to deal with a blind lady as their MP. I know for a fact that David does not read out all the letters and online messages that I get, but I know too how many cruel ones there have been because I have counted his intakes of breath. I have often tried to find such messages myself later, so that I have a slight idea of what I am up against. I know you too have tried to shield me from things. Whilst I appreciate your attempts to protect me and get me on the straight and narrow like you do with your brother I have been in this big, bad world longer than you have known me for. I have quite gotten over the hate, which is directed at me and many of the difficulties. I have come too far however to be quiet now that I am in a place where I might actually be able to make a bit of difference in this world.” Why does it have to be you though? Mycroft feels like asking her. Why, just like his brother, does she feel the need to take on the wrongs of the world? Have neither of them ever heard of self-preservation? He swallows. “I know of course that you have overcome many things in your life and of course you make as much difference as you can in your role, but this situation is quite a different one I assure you and if you were to resign”- “It would have been wrong for me to do anything else,” she ignores his last sentence entirely. “I don’t think you understand,” Mycroft is despairing. He rises to his feet and paces about in the restrictive space, which he creates for himself. His foot brushes against the edge of the square carpet, as he walks. He looks at her as much as he can during the period. “This is not me warning you that if you make one more mistake I will be unable to cover you, this is me telling you that you’ve already made that mistake”-
“But”-
“I cannot rescue you!” He swings back around to her, eyes flashing, enraged by both desperation and fear. “What about that do you not understand? I cannot save you. Not this time.” His hand accidentally knocks against the in-tray and sends it and its contents clattering down to the floor. Both Bobbi and the Home Secretary jump. “Bugger. Sorry.” Mycroft crouches, not really knowing whether he is apologizing for his language or for what he has just done. He puts the files back as tidily as he can in the in-tray, which he keeps on the floor for the moment. “I have tried to do so many things for you, but I cannot get you back. Not from this,” he frets, carrying on putting the files away. “I listened,” he stresses, trying to remind her, as he stands up, just how good to her he has tried to be. How she should remember that and not what he is unable to do for her now no matter the guilt it causes him. He replaces the in-tray on the desk and can feel his back protesting as he does so. He faces the Home Secretary. “I listened when you told me not to interfere in the Mayor of London’s decision to allow that wretched excuse”- “For what? For democracy?” the Home Secretary leans forwards, hands upon the edge of her desk. “That is democracy Mycroft, and I'm sure you only listened to me because it made sense for you to. You knew that people would have claimed it was the oppression of free speech if we’d overruled it and then we would have all looked sillier than we already do!” “The embarrassment that will be flying outside the Houses of Parliament on Friday is not democracy.” Mycroft jabs a finger in the air. “It is a shame that the people of our country feel the need to resort to that.” “Yes, it is a shame,” the Home Secretary bristles, “A shame that right now the bullies, the loudmouths, seem to be running the world, but though you might not like it, as we've been through before many a time, we live in a world of social media, an age where the President of the United States gets off from using Twitter, so I'm sorry but I think the people have every right to resort to using similar childish techniques. If that means launching a baby Trump blimp balloon then so be it because that is all they have Mycroft! That is all their power enables them to do! To create the most memorable protest that they can”- “Well, it’s certainly going to be that,” Mycroft quips. “But I can do more than that and I need to be taking the opportunity to do so,” the Home Secretary overrides him. “You should not be doing any more.” Mycroft feels frustrated. “You’ve done quite enough as it is already.” There is a moment of silence between them. “I know you are just trying to do your job,” the Home Secretary tells him more quietly, her head lowered towards her lap in thought. “I know it cannot always be easy-trying to clear this place up.” That, Mycroft thinks somewhat wryly, is an understatement if he’s ever heard one. “But I hope you understand why I felt I had to do it and if you really can’t and you think that things have gone quite too far between us...” he hears a laugh echoing through time. Her laugh, the morning after last year’s party conference in the cheap café they’d ended up in-Mycroft had tried to drag her elsewhere, but Bobbi had led them diligently to it with a mischievous grin about her doggy face and Bobbi’s word had always been final on these things. Still, Mycroft had made the most of it and gone on to give commentary about the dismalness of the café-how it could surely be used as an ice rink in winter because of all the grease that was inside it, how a waitress was actually wiping down tables with the stuff, and then, mid-tirade the tomato sauce had made a sound like Bobbi blowing wind, before it had splattered all over the sleeve of Mycroft’s suit. The Home Secretary had, had to laugh. She’d been beside herself with it and he’d fallen for her again and again, more completely than he had done before. He'd wanted to lean across and kiss her, but he hadn't had the guts to. “ ‘Then so be it?’” he questions, as he comes out of the memory to see her serious face in the present. “It’s not that I want to leave you, but you are rather restricting my options to do anything else. You were right earlier. I have to create some distance.” He lets out a huff of breath and sits down again. The chair lets out a squeak as he does so. “It’s all this damn business with Eurus.” The Home Secretary swallows. “I am still under watch because of it.” She scowls, hating the thought of him being under a fog of suspicion when he’s worked so hard and there are others with far looser morals that have had no such burdens placed upon them. “Sherlock hasn’t been doing too badly since then.” She nods, feeling encouraged by such a thing. “You know yourself however that there have been little blips, moments where I have had to cover for him.” She nods again, as she does know such a thing from all the times where Mycroft has been more stressed and muttered about having visited his brother without getting the result he’d wanted. “He’s in Sweden at the moment and I…I'm starting to get a little anxious about him to tell you the truth.” The Home Secretary swallows. “He’s been in contact,” he tries to reassure both himself and her, “He seems to be more willing to do so after the thing with Eurus. I think he understands now how much I worry about him and why I do such a thing, but I'm starting to wonder if he’s getting in over his head. He’d never admit it freely to me of course, especially since he does not want me to worry any more than I need to, but that does come with the problem that he’s less likely to tell me now until it’s too late. I cannot let it be too late however. He’s got John I know, John who has done so much for him, more than I have ever been able to, but”- he bows his head, before he lifts it up again. His hands are tangled upon his knees. She feels uncomfortable and as if he has just done himself a disservice with his words. “I have to put him first, put my family first”-she stiffens up in spite of herself-“That is my duty. As much as I like to mentor you…I will not be able to continue our relationship beyond a mere professional one if this is how it’s going to be. I cannot risk my own position and feel that vouching for you; in this circumstance, would be a step too far for me. Do you understand?” “Yes,” she replies a little hesitantly, trying to keep her heart in one place and not let it fall to the floor like a feather. “I think I do.” Mycroft lets out a breath. “That’s why I would prefer it if you resigned,” he gets back to the idea again. “We would be in a much better position then. We could take a break from one another, whilst you got settled in your new role. I could focus on Sherlock and then, once Sherlock would hopefully be back in the country again and if I heard tell of a position that might suit you we could work together.” He really doesn’t want to give up on her completely. “I just cannot, at the present time, watch and put out both your fires and his, not if putting out your fires would cost me my career and make me less able to look after-to monitor”- he teeters on the edge of something. “The people who are really important in your life?” she tries not to feel hurt. Of course his family are more important than she is to him. She’s always known that. Yet… part of her had hoped, after everything they've been through, all the ups and downs, laughter and the times when they’d both needed more encouragement that maybe she’d become important to him too. “Well, yes, I suppose you could put it that way,” Mycroft doesn’t feel all that comfortable about the way she’s worded it, but feels too relieved that she seems mostly understanding about the thing to call her directly out on it. “However, even with all that said, it is a shame to me, a great one in fact, to think that when we have such incidents like the novichok matter occurring in our country, a Home Secretary who is capable aside from these little incidents, and, if I may say so, a not too poor role model for our society, that someone like that might have thrown her career away merely because she chose to do a poorly timed magazine interview.” The Home Secretary bows her head, not knowing what to say about it all. She feels both happy and sad by his words. Disappointed that she hadn’t been able to see any alternative to the option like he probably would have done she knows when she thinks about it now. Happy that he can find it within himself to praise her that much. Mycroft clears his throat, shifts his position and grabs at the magazine again. He pulls it back to him, whilst Bobbi looks on watch. She does not know what is happening, but senses that there are things being discussed, which neither party are happy about. “I have told you what I think and how I best feel you should play the situation,” Mycroft continues, before he stands. “You have one of two choices,” he tells her, “You can either choose to resign, as I have suggested and we will work together a little more, as well as pick up in the future when it suits the both of us better, or, you can choose to carry on with this path where you are protester as well as Home Secretary and hope that the Prime Minister enables you to. If you choose the latter, more riskier option then I am afraid to say that our relationship will have to be terminated at once.” She seems gripped by indecision. Her hands cling onto her chair. She swallows and says shakily, “I-I cannot resign. No matter what the Prime Minister might choose to do I cannot walk away from this job by my own hand, not when there might be some time left for me yet. I'm sorry Mycroft. I really do appreciate everything you’ve done for me.” He swallows. “Right, well, like I have said,” he attempts to summarize, just in case she does not know the severity of what she has just decided upon, “I think you a more than adequate Home Secretary. Your problem lies in picking your battles and knowing when the battle is more than just a short-term one. You do however have potential inside you. I have seen you take the stand in the House of Commons enough times to know such a thing.” His mind wanders back now. Not to her maiden speech, but to what had appeared to be a normal sort of Wednesday. Prime Minister’s Questions had just come to its end. He’d kept an eye on its proceedings from the back of the small crowd of latecomers near to the door of the House of Commons and had snorted when Bobbi had rolled onto her back and tilted her head to keep one sly eye on the Prime Minister. Theresa May hadn’t looked amused by it all, but his heart had skipped a beat when he’d caught sight of the Home Secretary, as she’d tried not to smile at the sound of her companion’s snuffles. Mycroft and the Home Secretary had planned to meet in the foyer later. He’d had some other matters to attend to first however, and lunch of course. Then he’d returned to the Houses of Parliament. The Home Secretary had been stood in the middle of all the tourists who had taken photographs and MP’s that had scuttled about. Her handbag and laptop case had been over one of her shoulders, whilst Bobbi’s lead had snaked down from her hand. He’d met with her, before they’d started to drift down one of the closest hallways as they’d sought out some privacy to further discuss things. They’d talked animatedly, whilst his dark coat had swished, and Bobbi, who had long been used to hearing such whispering by then, had trotted by their side quite happily. Suddenly she’d stopped however. Mycroft had frowned down at the dog. The Home Secretary had taken a moment longer to realize that something had been amiss. It had only been when Mycroft had placed a warning hand upon her arm, as she’d tried to move off that she’d faltered. “What’s”- “Shh”- He’d spun around at the sound of a disturbance, whilst he’d still kept an eye on the Home Secretary and Bobbi. One of his hands had been stretched out towards them, whilst his other had held his umbrella out like a weapon in front of him. His fist had been white around it, as memories of the incident with Eurus had returned. He’d seen the governor, as he’d shot himself and the red of the blood that had stood out starkly against the white-blue atmosphere. He’d witnessed Sherlock as he’d held a gun his way and imagined the whirl of the bullet, as it would have looked had it ever come towards him. It had only been when he’d heard John roughly telling him that they needed to be soldiers-his own way of telling him to get a grip if you like-that the memory had exploded from him and he’d focused on what had been the present again. Something was being shouted between their security and the figure at the end of the corridor. He hadn’t been able to make any of it out. The words had all smashed together like a stone that had been flung off a mirror. The Home Secretary meanwhile had seemed more afraid by his mental absence and the lack of response from him as she’d repeatedly murmured his name than by what was happening. He’d shushed her and she’d seemed pleased by it-usually she seemed annoyed. A moment later both of their security people had swarmed around them. Mycroft had grabbed the Home Secretary by the arm in the melee and held onto her sleeve. He hadn’t wanted to lose her. Once it had been checked and deemed secure they’d been pushed through a door that had been three places down and had been clearly one of the only offices to still be unlocked. He’d stumbled against the Home Secretary and had worried about damaging her more than an attacker would have done when she’d lost her balance. Bobbi had thankfully helped provide a barrier to her fall and the Home Secretary had managed to straighten herself, though she’d had to grab onto Mycroft’s arm to fully do so. “Stay away from the windows and put something up by the door,” they’d both jumped at the sound of one of the male voices of their security. “What’s going on?” the Home Secretary had turned to Mycroft when the door had slammed a moment later and left their security outside. The fingers of her hand had flexed, as she’d removed it from him. He’d taken the handbag and laptop case from where they’d dug into her shoulder and put them both to one side, before he’d glanced at her. “A terrorist incident I believe,” he’d been honest with her. He’d seen no reason not to be. “I meant with you,” she’d told him quietly and he’d felt stupidly in awe and touched by the moment, before he’d gotten himself together again. “That is of no consequence right now.” “It is if it’s going to have an impact on what’s currently happening to us,” she’d said just as resolutely and he’d pretended not to hear her. He’d looked around. In the small, damp office, which had contained little more than an overflowing desk with its computer and paperwork, a couple of hard wooden chairs and books that had been stuffed with notes in shelves that had been off to one side, Mycroft had grasped at her arm and coaxed her to turn left. Bobbi had looked at him encouragingly. Spurred on by her, but with his heart still pounding, his brain had tried to figure out what exactly had been happening and where they might be safest-even with the security who had acted as a barrier outside he hadn’t wanted to take any chances. He’d led the Home Secretary and her faithful companion to the blank stretch of wall that had been in front of them. In between two of the shelves and away from the window it had been a spot that could easily be made more hidden. As they’d stopped before it and had heard the sound of the emergency services, which had included an air ambulance gathering outside, as well as the frantic muttering of their security people, Mycroft had told her, “There’s a wall in front of you. Can you feel it?” She’d stretched out the arm that he hadn’t supported and that also hadn’t been wound around Bobbi’s lead and had nodded when her palm had come to rest upon the wall. “I want you to slowly turn around again,” he’d kept his voice low, terrified of anyone somehow getting past their security and bursting in, before he’d gotten her settled. He’d felt annoyed too that it had been difficult to hear things clearly. “That’s right. Reach back and place both of your hands against the wall. Slowly slide down it to the floor.” She’d let go of Bobbi’s lead in order to carry out the action and he’d helped her do such a thing. Then he’d quickly taken off his coat. He’d wrapped it around her and had hoped that she would bury herself inside it if anyone had come. “Mycroft”- she’d said, and it had seemed to him as if she was both comforted by the musky smell of cologne, mint and cigarettes that the coat had held and frightened by what the implications of him giving it to her might mean. He’d been touched at the thought that she might have wanted him to be protected too, but had quickly come out of his addled state of mind as she’d drawn her knees up to her chest. “It’s all right,” he’d reassured her, as he’d started to see that the truth of the situation had begun to dawn upon her, “Bobbi’s here by you.” He’d lightly guided her hand to the dog, which had settled down in a shielding stance that half-covered her mistress’s far side. “Feel her?” “Mm.” The Home Secretary had stroked at the top of her companion’s head. She’d felt better from the contact with the creature that usually acted as her eyes. “It’s going to be all right,” Mycroft had re-iterated softly, as he’d taken on the same sort of tone that he would have done after a young Sherlock had been bullied. The same tone when all the monsters had seemed to be coming to get him. At that moment though it had seemed like they might be coming to get them instead. “What about you? Are you going to be all right?” With a creaking of his knees Mycroft had straightened up and ignored her questions. The Home Secretary must have seen the shape of him diminishing for she’d asked, “Where are you going?” “I won’t leave the room,” he’d tried to put her at ease, “I just need to try and barricade the door like security told us to.” He’d moved one of the wooden chairs in front of it. He’d known that it wouldn’t hold anyone off for long, but a moment would be better than nothing and would hopefully give them more of a chance to be prepared, along with the shouts of their security. He’d moved the other wooden chair in front of the Home Secretary, so that if anyone had come then the attacker or attackers-and Mycroft hadn’t liked to think about that-would have hopefully not noticed that there was anyone else there after they’d killed him. Mycroft had felt grateful that Bobbi had been there as a last resort. He hadn’t wanted the dog to be injured, but he’d known that she could put the assailant off and help the Home Secretary escape uninjured if all their security and he were killed. “I'm just going to see if I can make out anything from the window,” he’d told the Home Secretary. “Didn't they tell you not to?” He’d felt as equally responsible for her though and had moved across there slowly. The sound of it all had been louder then, like it had been happening right inside his inner ear and not outside. As he’d ducked down and peered out he’d been able to witness the sight of the air ambulance that had been just outside Parliament. It had been quite a bizarre thing to see. He remembers blinking and just taking it all in for a moment. When he’d looked at the wider scene he’d noticed that it had looked chaotic. There had been people, first aid equipment near such people and cars parked untidily too. “What’s going on?” the Home Secretary had asked him in a nervous voice. “There’s possible casualties.” She’d sucked in a breath. He’d noticed the way that her hand had gripped more reassuringly onto Bobbi as he’d glanced around at her. “It’s hard to tell,” he’d amended, trying to not make it sound that bad. “The emergency services would have probably been called to the scene in any case.” He’d moved back to her and had settled down on the side that had not been occupied by Bobbi. He’d been in the perfect position to spring up if need be and had kept one eye on the chair by the door and his umbrella-his own Bobbi if you will. John’s words had run through his head again and he’d tried to focus on what he might have to do. The adrenalin had pumped through him. “I'm trying to remember”- she’d waved a hand, whilst she’d swallowed profusely. He’d known that she’d been trying to calm herself and hadn’t patronized her. “Emergency protocol?” he’d prompted. She’d nodded. His hand had curled up next to hers as he’d gone on, “The first thing that they would have done would have been to evacuate the Prime Minister.” She’d nodded at that. Her breathing had gotten somewhat steadier. “They probably would have taken her back to Downing Street,” Mycroft had mused, “Unless they had some idea that, that would not be a safe option. The deputy speaker would have adjourned Parliament. There wouldn’t have been any point in carrying on. They’d probably have kept those that are already in it inside the Commons Chamber. Others like us would have taken up sanctuary in offices or anywhere accessible.” She’d nodded again and he’d thought that it was possible she’d been comforted by the thought of others being in the same situation as them. He’d been too logical to be subdued by such a thing however, but had felt glad if it had soothed her. “The building will be in lockdown and we will simply have to wait until our security tell us it’s all right to move. I think we would have already been aware if there was an intruder in the building. We would have heard something…” he’d trailed off. He hadn’t wanted to discuss the idea of there being more than one attacker with her, though he’d felt like the fact had probably already occurred to her too and she’d been trying to avoid it. “This is just a pre-caution,” Mycroft had wrenched himself out of his thought, “That’s all.” She’d swallowed and nodded. They’d sat there for a time longer. “What was going on in your mind earlier?” the Home Secretary had finally asked him curiously. Mycroft had taken a moment. He’d wondered if he should tell her or just politely sidestep the question. No doubt she’d been reminded then of the time that he’d been quieter in their weekly appointment together. It had been just after Sherlock had supposedly died. She’d sought out Mycroft’s hand and touched at it then, as she’d believed him to be mourning the loss of his brother. He’d felt moved by the gesture. She’d said that there was no need for a discussion between them. That they could leave it for that week, as there had been nothing urgent on the agenda and since that had further stirred things up inside him it had all come spilling out just as she’d made to let go of him. The truth that his brother had really been alive and he was still worried about his safety. Her hand had found the top of his and squeezed. She’d only seemed a little surprised that he would go to such lengths to protect Sherlock. She’d accepted it well though and although he’d felt both better and worse from telling her and had sworn her to secrecy he hadn’t been able to help but think, in that new situation, even with the possible terror attack that had been going on outside, that perhaps she’d take the news of what he’d kept hidden from his family until the autumn before last just as well. He’d confided in her. She’d listened intently and snuck her hand into his halfway through. He’d found he’d clutched onto it particularly tightly when he’d told her of how he’d been prepared to risk his own life, so that Sherlock could keep his best friend. She’d given him the steady support of her presence throughout, not gasping or reacting particularly, and when he’d finished by saying how he’d flashbacked to that time when the current situation had arisen and apologized for not reacting more swiftly she’d shaken her head, but had been quiet. “I thought you might have already known?” he’d asked her hoarsely. He hadn’t told her that he’d feared how she might feel about such a thing for some time now. Wondered what she might have been thinking about him during their meetings. She’d shaken her head again. “I’d heard whispers that something might have happened, but nothing concrete.” Mycroft had nodded at that and felt glad that although she’d no doubt been curious she’d refrained from asking him about the matter any sooner. “I'm sorry that you had to deal with it all on your own Mycroft. No one should ever have had to take on such a burden.” “Wouldn't you have? For your family?” She’d remained silent at that and, being reminded that she wasn’t particularly close to anyone in her family aside from her parents; he’d slipped his phone out of his pocket awkwardly and checked that it had been muted, before he’d seen if he could find an authentic news report on the current situation. It hadn’t taken him long to find some more detail. “Someone seems to have driven into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge.” The Home Secretary had let out a soft exclamation at that and he’d touched reassuringly at her hand, whilst he’d still focused on his phone. “There’s casualties, but they’re not sure how many. The car careened into the wall outside New Palace Yard. One of the police officers on guard appears to have been injured.” Mycroft’s face had turned grim-that must have been who he’d seen them working on. He’d lifted his head up and had just listened for a moment. Things seemed to be eerily silent. There hadn’t even been any shuffling from their security. All he’d been able to hear was the soft breath of the Home Secretary and himself. It had sent a shiver down his spine. As if she’d been uncomfortable too she’d moved closer to him and had gripped onto his arm. There hadn’t been any time for either of them to say anything further. They’d heard shouting and both of them had startled and let go of one another, before they’d held on more tightly. Mycroft had quickly deduced, “Armed police officers. They’ll be checking that there are no intruders. Our security will talk to them I'm sure, but I’ll have to be ready to go to the door and let them in. They’ll want to double-check that the place is secure.” The Home Secretary, as she’d feared a trap, had made a sound of protest in her throat. “I won’t let them in until I'm sure that we’ll be safe,” he’d told her, “But try not to be frightened and don’t duck beneath my coat unless I tell you to. They’ll need to see your face.” She’d nodded. He’d gestured Bobbi to keep low, but to keep an eye on things all the same and then had made his way to the door. The exact words are a blur in his memory now, but he remembers avoiding giving his identity and that of the Home Secretary’s until he’d been reassured by his own security enough times that it was safe to do so. He’d weighed their tone, just in case, and when he had not detected that anyone had forced his guards to tell him it was safe he’d let them in. His heart had still thudded though and he remembers raising his hands automatically and the empathetic glance that one of the officers had sent to the Home Secretary and Bobbi whose lip had curled up into a bit of a snarl. The officers had nodded at Mycroft, told him to stay in the room and set up a chair back against the door, before they’d gone on their way to search the rest of the building. As he’d confirmed that it was him again he’d settled back down against the Home Secretary and felt her body as it had started to tremble violently. He’d pushed his own body instinctively against hers in an attempt to steady her. “Shh.” He’d rubbed at her hand soothingly and made firm strokes, before he’d separated the fingers and put them back together again. It had been the same sort of thing he’d done for Sherlock after a nightmare-sitting by his brother’s bed, as he’d clutched onto his hand and hummed. Whilst the Home Secretary hadn’t fallen asleep her breathing had become less erratic. “Sorry,” she’d told him, and he remembers that vividly because he’d been surprised by the thing. “It’s just…you never think it will happen to you and I’ve tried not to think about how I would react to an event like this, beyond trying to remember what I needed to of course, but being unable to see so clearly…if you hadn’t been with me…” “You would have been fine,” Mycroft had growled. He’d checked that his coat had been around her firmly as he’d sensed that she had been going into shock. “You would have still had your security people and Bobbi would have led you somewhere. She alone would probably have sent anyone who tried to attack you fleeing.” “Yes,” the Home Secretary had tried to discreetly wipe at her eyes, “She is pretty fierce.” Mycroft had drawn her to his side and held onto her shoulder. He’d felt calmer from having her nearby, but a little anxious too about how long such a thing might last. She’d taken the news regarding the day with Eurus and the role he’d played before remarkably well, but what would it be like when they got out of there? She’d let out a breath and had startled him when she’d rested her tired head against his shoulder. “Sorry,” she’d breathed. He’d made some soothing administrations against her arm. She hadn’t needed to apologize. They’d waited there and then when the Home Secretary had grown calm enough she’d sent a text to her parents using the VoiceOver feature on her phone. She’d told them that she was safe and they should not worry about her. Mycroft and her had listened to what they could hear of the activities outside and had occasionally checked Mycroft’s phone for more specific updates. They’d murmured together, their heads and hands close for most of the time. Mycroft had already started to come up with an action plan and how the Home Secretary might respond to it. They’d stayed sitting, but had changed angles and they’d been sat in an upright position when they’d heard from their security, at five o’ clock, that the building was starting to be evacuated and people were being escorted out in groups of twenty. Two of the last to go they’d been stiff and tired at the time, but Bobbi especially had seemed keen to get away from the damp smelling office and to be on the move again. They’d set off as quickly, but steadily as they had been able to. Their security had flanked them close by and warned them not to make any sudden movements. Mycroft had kept a protective arm around the Home Secretary for the most part, though they’d had to raise what they could of their hands when they’d gotten outside. His umbrella had been in one hand, whilst her things had been upon his shoulder. She of course had still got Bobbi to handle and had been cocooned in his coat. She’d relied on both him and Bobbi to guide them the short distance to Westminster Abbey-where people were being held because they still weren’t allowed home. They’d entered the rumble of chatter that was being conducted in the hallowed place and Mycroft had felt the Home Secretary withdrawing a little and becoming more frustrated as the sound had distracted her from where she was going and put her off from moving about as much. He’d sat her down carefully and had stayed with her as many MP’s and Cabinet Ministers had popped over to make sure that she’d been all right and was being taken care of-both sides might usually go at it during Prime Minister’s Questions, but they were oddly caring and human towards one another when things occurred from the norm. None of them had stayed with them very long however as soon as they had seen that Mycroft had been with her. Known for his secretive ways of getting things done around Westminster the sight of her with him had either assured them or frightened them enough to guarantee their privacy. Mycroft had been glad for whatever reason it had been. They’d finally been released around seven and had let many of the others go before them, so that they could have the peace and solitude of being able to walk out of Westminster Abbey without the push and pull of so much of a crowd. “The stained glass windows look beautiful,” Mycroft had told her as they’d made their way up the aisle-their security had hung back again and done what they usually would. Mycroft had tried to appreciate what the Home Secretary could not and might have done after such a day if she hadn’t been so limited with her sight. “All their colours are shimmering in the light that’s filtering through. It seems like we have a fine evening after a torrid day.” “Mm.” She hadn’t much responded to that, though her head had turned up towards his. “You’re probably tired. Let me get you home,” Mycroft had stopped admiring the scenery and had really focused on what the Home Secretary had needed. “You don’t have to,” she’d told him, and he’d felt as if she hadn’t wanted him to think that he had to take care of her any more than he had done already that day. “You’re tired too. I can find my way from here. You have to be back in a few hours.” “We both do,” he’d told her seriously, before he’d gone on slightly apologetically, “I'm afraid that whilst neither of us might feel like it, it would do the people of this country some good to hear from their Home Secretary as soon as possible. We can however,” his voice had lightened, “Try to pick up a bottle of wine on our way.” “That sounds good,” she’d told him. They’d gone back to hers. He’d accepted his coat when she’d returned it to him and had tried to ignore the waft of her flowery perfume, as he’d layed it out over the back of the settee. He’d gone on to pour the wine, whilst she’d fed Bobbi and gotten some notepad paper. He’d set up her accessible laptop on the coffee table and then between them they’d thrown around some ideas, whilst she’d sat on one side of the settee, one leg beneath her, body turned to him and wine glass more often in her hand than not. Bobbi had been faithfully near by. Whilst he himself had leant back into the other side of the settee, long legs stretched out before him. His hand had occasionally rustled at his hair, as he’d urged his tired head to think and not let what had happened and what could have happened that day take over his mind. It had been like that after the day with Eurus and it seemed like it was going to be that way again. The more hours that went by the bigger that everything seemed to grow. If he had not been with the Home Secretary…if she’d wandered outside-he’d known that she often counted steps from place to place or used what she could see of shapes and furniture to help her, but one never knew how someone would react in that situation and how the already limited sense of her sight might be affected in her panic. If the attacker had managed to penetrate the Houses of Parliament…she’d been in the foyer just moments earlier for Christ sake. She could still have been waiting for him if he’d not arrived when he had done. Yes, she’d had her security who surely would have acted and Bobbi, but neither of those things were impenetrable when it came to a gun or a knife Mycroft had known darkly. Footage of the attack had played on low in the background as they’d spoken and worked. On the odd occasion he’d seen the Home Secretary twitch as she’d picked up the odd word that had triggered off a memory of the day and he’d discreetly tried to lower the volume. She’d caught him doing such a thing on one occasion and he’d suggested that they turn the news off entirely, but she’d shaken her head and hadn’t wanted to. The wine had steadily gotten less in its bottle, as they’d both taken comfort from its soft, fruity embrace. Whilst the light from the laptop and the lamp with its brighter than usual light bulb on one of the side tables had been all that had illuminated their increasingly weary faces. “Your speech after the Westminster terrorist attack,” he says in the present, pulling himself out of the memory, “I know we composed it together, but the way that you read it out with such conviction, not that I ever doubted you would, but the Churchill quotes in particular…I found them quite moving F/N. It took me back to a time when we had far more spirit in our country.” He does not confess that he’d had a little tear in his eye at the time. The Home Secretary both feels embarrassed and happy. “What?” He worries that she might have known he’d cried and think him less of a man for it. “Are those your concluding thoughts on me?” She’s a bit rueful. “ ‘Can help compose and give a meaningful speech, but is rather useless at keeping her opinions to herself?’ It reminds me of those reports you used to do.” “I still do reports,” Mycroft tells her with a firm gentleness, before he clarifies; “Now they’re just in my head.” “We haven’t really changed all that much.” She sounds melancholy. “I am sorry that we can no longer work together,” Mycroft murmurs softly, feeling similarly, “But if you have made your choice then”- “I have,” she says, her expression trying to be neutral and nothing less than determined. It would be silly to do anything else she knows, especially when she is so early on in her career and feels as if she has much more to give. “I have made mine…” he remembers the beginning with her inside his office, the cup between her hands, the Westminster terror attack, her body close to his, her scent left upon his coat, the way she’d done that speech and all the potential and hopes he’d had for her. All the dreams. A lump surfaces inside his throat. He recalls getting home the night after the terror attack. He’d gone to his bedroom with his coat still on, taken it off and just smelt it there in the dark. As her perfume had wafted around him he’d cried about what could have happened that day, not knowing that just a few miles away she had been curled up, as she’d tried to remember the feeling of being comforted by him, so that she might have calmed down. It had been perhaps the impact of that day that had made the choice he’s deciding upon now grow bolder in his mind, but really he thinks that he should have known this was coming from the very moment he’d taken a chance. A chance to tell her to follow him, as he’d swept past her and she’d successfully followed the shape of him to an empty meeting room, as he’d hoped she would. He should have known that it was a mistake though and would only lead to further mishaps by him and his sensitive heart. That it would hurt to say goodbye to her and he should have just avoided it altogether. “I better take my leave,” he says, “Good day.” “Good day,” her voice echoes back to him.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Thursday 12th July
The following morning, and just as he wakes, Mycroft remembers a part of the evening after the terror attack that his memory had not touched upon the previous day. It had been just as the Home Secretary and he had been getting more tired. Mycroft had, had his head tilted back against the settee. He’d been too temporarily sated by the wine and company to worry about what might have happened that day. Suddenly though the Home Secretary had told him softly, “Maybe he was right.” Mycroft’s head had jerked upward. His eyes had spun to find her. She’d been sat quite tightly in the corner of the settee, back ramrod straight, her hands knotted, a small frown upon her face, head bowed. It had made him alarmed to see her in such a state and he’d sat up straighter himself. He’d known instinctively who she’d been talking about-earlier her laptop had read out what Donald Trump’s Twitter response to the Westminster terror attack had been because Mycroft hadn’t had the guts to. He’d rued going online and looking at other people’s reactions and views in order to try and give the Home Secretary’s speech the right shape. Trump had attacked her and had seemed to blame her gender for the attack. He’d said that she was not strong or the right person to be dealing with the problems that faced the United Kingdom. Said that a man would have taken a harder line, and perhaps he’d been painting her in the same light as Angela Merkel there, who had famously since 2015 welcomed migrants into her country. “He isn’t right,” Mycroft hadn’t said it to be nice to her. It had come from his gut. She made her mistakes, they all did, but there was something that seemed to overall want to do the right thing and have the right intentions about her, even though her methods were sometimes questionable. “Maybe not with everything, but it’s possible that I'm not the person the country needs right now,” she’d told him uncertainly, “ We cannot ignore it just because it was said by someone we don’t like. Maybe the people need someone who’s more experienced and I…” “Yes?” he’d prompted her softly. He’d needed to know what exactly had been on her mind then even though he’d been able to guess at some of it. Needed to know, so that he could turn things around again. “I don’t honestly know how best we can tackle terrorism.” “Who does?” Mycroft had been unnecessarily flippant. “It’s just about keeping an eye”- “Of course,” she’d looked a little frustrated with him and had gone on persistently, “We need to make sure that the right kinds of people are coming into our country, skilled workers, people who are willing to contribute, we especially need to make sure that, that quota is still high enough with Brexit coming up, but we are so constrained financially…even if no mistakes are made all it takes is one person…” she’d sounded a little choked up at that point and his hand had twitched, before it had decided not to grasp at hers. “One person who has been let in or who has grown up here to do something, as quick as what happened today. As far as we know all it took was a car and some knives. Objects people can get from anywhere. As much as we need to keep a state of constant vigilance it’s stupid to think that the security services can watch everyone, and though people keep telling me that I need to put more money into policing I…where is the money that I'm supposed to be putting in? Where is it Mycroft?” He’d put a calming hand on her knee. “Do you really think you’re the only one to have such doubts?” She’d appeared sceptical at that, as if she hadn’t believed that such a thing could affect him. He’d let go of her, before he’d said, “I wasn’t sure whether to tell you about Eurus today”- “I know,” she’d accepted the thing quickly, “But that’s”- He’d raised a hand. She’d been able to make out the shadow of it in front of the light and her speech had ceased. “It’s no different, please, let me…” He’d looked off to the side of her. “I was…a little unprepared for how you’d react to it I think.” Her brow had furrowed. “I did not want you to be disappointed in me.” He’d left out the part that Sherlock himself had urged Mycroft to tell the Home Secretary even though she didn't have the right security clearance. Lady Smallwood was one thing, but Mycroft knew that his brother thought it preferable that many people could keep an eye on him in all aspects of his life and not just one. The Home Secretary’s forehead had smoothed. “If anything I think even more highly of you now.” She must have sensed that Mycroft had looked at her unbelievingly, for she’d gone on, “You have been braver and truer to yourself than I could have ever imagined you’d been throughout the years.” He’d relaxed. “Did you really think that I was going to shun you?” she’d sounded exasperated with him. “I did not know. I hoped that things could continue in this vein between us.” Mycroft had smiled. His heart had jumped a little. “Going back to your current situation though I need to make the point that anyone else in your job would be left with the same facts and data as you, but they might analyse it differently and come to a more dangerous conclusion for our country. Do not listen to people like Donald Trump who do not have that information out in front of them and should not be interfering. Go with your gut and more than that be aware that everyone has doubts. Even me.” He’d been so afraid of losing her that night, so afraid that the little things he’d gotten used to like their meetings, their evenings at hers drinking wine as they’d commiserated over Brexit together would become things of the past. Yet now he has walked away from her. Done the exact same thing that he hadn’t wanted her to do to him, to her. His stomach squirms about it all and he instinctively reaches for his phone that’s on his bedside cabinet. He wonders if he should send her a message, apologize and re-iterate again that he’s only left her because of his family, that, that is the only reason he’d ever do so. It doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t like to talk to her occasionally though, he thinks reasonably, or find out what she’s doing. His mind berates such happy thoughts however. Isn't it easier to stay away from her? He’s gotten too close, far too close, because he’d decided to care and he knows, he of all people knows that caring isn’t an advantage, but now he wants to keep being in touch with her. What would have been the reason for putting them both through his reaction yesterday if he goes back on his word now? Besides, he thinks dismissively, it’s not as if he doesn’t have a busy day ahead of him. He has the President of the United States to be meeting off Air Force One for one thing. He cannot allow his mind to be littered with thoughts of the Home Secretary. If she wants to be fired then that is her choice. He has been involved enough with her. Trying to ignore the bubbling worry in his mind and treat her as a distraction he gets on with his day. He does some work at his office in the morning, takes numerous calls in between and even has to jog down the hallway to deliver some papers to another official, before they can leave the building. He feels like texting the Home Secretary at that point-tired his defences are lowered-but desists after remembering all too clearly the current situation that is between them. Instead he has his lunch. * He’s driven down to Stansted Airport and arrives there in the early afternoon, in plenty of time for the Trumps. When he sees Air Force One coming into sight-one can hardly miss it to be honest it stands out like the city outline on the landscape-he can’t help but mutter underneath his breath, “So it begins.” He wonders what the Home Secretary would make of such words. He thinks that she’d probably smile. Then he frowns momentarily because of the way that she keeps being on his mind. He quickly fixes a smile on his face however, as does US Ambassador Woody Johnson, though Mycroft senses that, that might be a more genuine one, as Air Force One comes into land. Johnson does seem like the type of man who would do and say anything Trump wanted him to after all and Mycroft has been aware, when he’s had meetings with him in the past, to take the shoe shine polish that Johnson tries to apply to America with a pinch of salt, to not almost get into a game of, ‘Top Trumps’- Sherlock has educated him about that game-with him about which country is better because he’d find it difficult to control himself and he doesn’t think that showing the US Ambassador’s head on the spear of his umbrella would do him any favours to the Prime Minister. He also tries to limit what he says in their conversations because he’s all too aware that Woody Johnson’s reports back to Trump are thorough and in-depth. He straightens himself up and becomes the perfect picture of decorum again-how his acting skills have helped him over the years! His mind does start to drift however when it takes an age for Air Force One to just come into the right position and he finds himself twirling his umbrella. This does have the added benefit of annoying Woody Johnson. “Think I’ll have to confiscate that from ya,” Woody says in his American accent only half-jokingly when Mycroft’s umbrella has caught the attention of the corner of his eye one too many times. Mycroft offers him a thin-lipped smile and gives his umbrella one final flourish, appreciating the unpleasant twang that it sends Woody’s lips into, before he keeps his umbrella protectively in between both his hands from that point on. He’s not having the dreaded man take his umbrella away from him. * Mycroft studies Trump’s trademark hair and Republican stripy red tie as the US President leaves Air Force One. Flashes of cameras the press have brought with them go off, capturing Donald Trump’s width, which almost seems to push Melania close to the edge of the air stairs they’ll be walking down once they've done their obligatory posing and waving at the top of them. Mycroft wonders what reaction Donald would have if Melania got flung over them and if she were to land on the tarmac with a striking splat that would cut off her scream. He’d probably just shrug his shoulders and carry on walking, rather like he is doing now. Mycroft has to smile at the President’s obvious fear of falling, clutching onto the barrier and looking down for all he’s worth. He does show some care towards his wife in taking her hand however, but Mycroft can’t imagine they have a particular harmonious relationship-especially if the rumours that he’s heard about them having separate bedrooms are to be believed. The stain from all the fast food Trump has consumed seems to have effected the pallor of the President’s skin too, even more so than his tan, and Mycroft wonders now if it is similar to the devastation caused by the soft drink ‘Sunny D’ some years ago, which had caused the skin of some children to turn yellow. He hopes that it is only the nuclear codes he’s brought with him though and not the button, which will summon another can of Coke. They have enough obesity in this country. Mycroft, feeling sure that his jacket is snugger all of a sudden, adjusts both it and his stance. He blows out a breath and thinks that it is a wonder that Trump’s teeth look so intact considering his age and poor diet. As the whites of them glisten his way Mycroft suspects intensive work has been done. If you took it all away, he reasons, Trump would probably be left looking like one of those Californian Sea Lions-slick, tanned and not much else. Though, Mycroft concludes, both Trump and Sea Lions can at least do tricks. It would probably be best for them if Trump could do fewer. Trump’s smile falters, as if he knows what Mycroft is thinking, and his eyes move on from him. Mycroft feels glad for it. He hadn’t wanted to shake the President’s hand. He knows he should be neutral in his job, but that might have been one act too far for him. Especially when, his brain unhelpfully reminds him, it is partly down to Trump that he and the Home Secretary are having to part ways. After all she would have never done the magazine interview or had so many outbursts without Trump being in the picture. A little voice in his head asks him if he really believes such a thing though. If he really thinks she would have been as focused, as he’d want her to be without Trump or if it is just in her personality to pick a fight? Confused about his feelings and how he should be getting them into order so that he can act on them, he wanders off around the edge of the runway once he’s seen Woody and the Trumps-it really does sound like one of those awful sounding bands Sherlock had been briefly into for a time in his youth-into Marine One-the helicopter, which will take them to Regent’s Park, the home of Woody Johnson’s official residence. He feels a sense of relief when his phone vibrates to get him out of his contemplative state and he sees that it’s Sherlock. “The satsuma’s arrived then?” is the first thing that his brother says. “Sherlock!” Mycroft’s first reaction is to be appalled by his brother’s words, before he adds softly, “Yes, he’s here.” He thinks about Sherlock’s words for a moment. “A satsuma is not perhaps the worst thing to compare him to either…like something you’d find lurking at the bottom of a stocking with a black imprint though, as if coal has rubbed up against it to represent his heart.” Mycroft finally comes out of his musings and feels grateful that Sherlock has been patient with him. “How are you?” he asks his brother keenly. “Putting my mind to the task as ever…” Sherlock is a little evasive. “Aside from the obvious what’s going on there? You sound thoughtful.” Mycroft chuckles. “When am I not?” he asks. “I heard something about the Home Secretary…a magazine?” Sherlock pushes, as if he doesn’t already know. “Yes,” Mycroft is curt. He doesn’t want to discuss that. Not before his thoughts are fixed. “I assume that you’re sorting it out then?” There’s a silence. “Mycroft?” “I cannot go on sorting out her messes forever Sherlock,” Mycroft is regretful, but he knows it’s true. Common sense is making him see such a thing, as it so often does. “Like you do with mine?” “Hm?” “I said, ‘Like you do with mine,’” Sherlock raises his voice now, before he goes on, “There’s no finality with you fixing what I put you through, nor Eurus, so why should this be any different? Or are you going to make me be glad that I’ve rung you so that I can persuade you otherwise? I thought it might be time that you were stupid about something. You do know that it will hardly harm you to keep your already small circle of people that you care about to the size that it is? You don’t have to be like me, but”- “No, I can’t see myself ever adhering to the same policy you do. Where if I pick up a stray they automatically become my family. By the strictest sense of the word Sherlock she is not family,” Mycroft says with a forced kind of patience. “Have you ever considered that your definition of family is too narrow Mycroft? You respect her don’t you?” Sherlock goes on breezily. “Certainly,” Mycroft replies. “Care for her?” There’s a pause. “I’d say that you’ve been like a brother to her, except”- “Except what Sherlock?” Mycroft is frustrated. “Except that I don’t think it’s really a brother you want to be to her is it Mycroft?” Sherlock asks him slyly now. Mycroft feels thankful for the breeze that flutters down the runway and lessens the condition of his unusually red face. “I fear that you have miscalculated brother mine.” “No,” Sherlock says casually, as if he might be inspecting a nail, “I think I’ve got everything right this time.” “How unusually modest of you. Whatever the case,” Mycroft shifts his position, “I'm afraid that I'm going to have to depart from this call. It’s a busy time for me over here you know, what with the”-he lowers his voice, but takes on a sense of mischief-“Satsuma visiting and all.” “In that case then I will just say this. I am not quite sure why you would let someone who you don’t seem to mind working with, who on the contrary you quite seem to like”- “Sherlock”- More embarrassment from Mycroft’s end. “Why you’d let someone like that be sacked. You have the power to save her don’t you? No matter what nonsense you are spouting about her not being family when you’ve done everything you would do for me for her. Or perhaps you are letting her go, before she can become any more entangled in your heart? Perhaps you are merely using Donald Trump as a get out clause to facing your emotions in which case I’d suggest”- “Sherlock!” Mycroft raises his voice. “I was quite surprised,” Sherlock carries on, as if his brother hasn’t just shouted down the phone at him, “As I told you before when you did not find yourself a goldfish during my absence. It was two years after all and I rather thought that something might happen between the Home Secretary and you. Might have counted on it in fact. Hoped that you might be able to confide in someone…if you were holding yourself back because of the Eurus issue”-Mycroft swallows-“Then I see no reason, what with everything now being out in the open, for you to do so any longer.” “I still have the same responsibility towards you, towards Eurus. Nothing has changed in that respect.” “Everything has changed”- “No”- Mycroft is defiant. “I know now,” Sherlock is equally so, “Our parents know now. I am capable of visiting her, not from my current location I grant you, but she is all of our responsibilities. We all have a part in her life. You are my big brother, but we are both hers. As for myself John is quite adept at performing the motherly role in your absence. You have wasted close to three years when you should have probably had a conversation with her, as soon as the incident with Eurus occurred.” “I need to be there for you both.” “You’ll never find a better time to have a goldfish in your life Mycroft. I don’t quite know how distracting you think one more person will be-especially when it’s a person who you already spend a lot of time with-but whilst the rest of the world and our jobs are difficult our personal lives are remarkably stable. Why wait any longer? Deny yourself that part of life when you are perfectly capable of multi-tasking? Let her go now and be thinking back in years to come, ‘if only…’ Why not give yourself that one thing? Let yourself have one thing? You know that I would usually not say it, but if you’re really going to be ridiculous and make me”-there’s an unhappy grunt at Mycroft’s end-“Have you never considered that if the worst did occur and something did happen to either Eurus or I, then a-a goldfish and one of her calibre would be quite the companion and support to you. If only you would let her be…please don’t ever make me repeat that.” Mycroft can quite picture his brother pulling a face. “The strain would be too much for us both if you ever said such a thing twice,” Mycroft agrees, not knowing whether he’s touched, he has indigestion or he’s merely feeling apprehensive from being on the edge of this precipice. “I do think however that she would have quite approved of your little speech.” “Who?” Sherlock asks him curiously. “The Home Secretary,” Mycroft replies curtly, his face feeling like waves of heat are rolling off it. Sherlock does not need to say anything further. He just disconnects the call with a little click. Mycroft wonders about his brother’s words. He is scared, that much he can be certain of in just a moment’s freedom to think. Scared about messing up in either direction if he should try and proceed with the Home Secretary in a more personal direction now. Scared about crossing the rules that he has always tried to keep in place…He does believe though, simply because of the high-regard he holds her with and how much he wants to get things right here, that he should try and have another conversation with her in any case, before making his mind up. This is one of those turning points in life and one he could regret forever. He doesn’t admit to himself that he just wants to see the Home Secretary again. Make sure that she is okay after their harsh words yesterday. Contemplate the possibility of them being together in a more romantic fashion for one last time because of…common sense. Common sense will probably trickle down from the guttering of his brain, take over his body and make him quite unable to do anything else but walk away from her. Sighing, and wishing that his life didn't always have to be so tragic, he turns his back on the runway, makes his way briefly back to the office and then returns home to get ready for the night ahead-a dinner at Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Churchill and just a short one and a half hours away by road from central London with one hundred and fifty guests and the Prime Minister. * Whilst the Prime Minister-dressed oddly in the colour of the opposition and not the colour from the Stars and Stripes that he would have gone for had he been in her place-and her husband Phillip stand facing the driveway in which the Trumps will be shortly driven down-they've just arrived by helicopter-he finds himself rather hidden in the back of the crowd of fawning Cabinet Ministers. They have all been granted a rectangle of space in the shadow of the steps and building and many of them bounce around as if they’re on a school trip. As if they've already had too much to drink to help them with their acting they are giggly and merry. Mycroft suspects naivety though. A lot of them will not be acting. A lot of them won’t see what he suspects is going on here. That they are being trampled over by the tanks of fascism masquerading as bravado and something new without even knowing it. This is not new though, but dangerous. Dangerous ideas are poking their heads out into the open again, and that is not ‘Project Fear,’ or even scaremongering, that is unfortunately the truth. Why do the ‘real’ leaders, Mycroft frets, like the Home Secretary his mind can’t help but supply him with, doubt themselves? Make it harder for them to actually do any good? Whilst the worst kind…the worst kind currently have orange skin and pose as your friend and someone who is simply doing right for their country and a ‘Great job,’ but still, despite all that, cannot risk interfering, cannot stop themselves from opening their mouth about other countries. His mind takes him back to his own words that he’d spoken about the Home Secretary just yesterday. Hadn't he accused her of a similar thing? Of not knowing when to be quiet? What makes her so much better than Trump? But then he sees them both in his mind and it is obvious. It’s that intention again. That integrity, that truth. Whilst Trump speaks out to further his own agenda and to fulfil all the election promises he’d made during his campaign the Home Secretary will often speak out to her own detriment. She doesn’t care about her own self-preservation. His eyes go to her. There is a little gap around her, as if no one wants to be accused of injuring a blind person should she take a fall, but Bobbi fills it in well. The dog sits by her mistress patiently and is better behaved than any human there, whilst the Home Secretary seems grave. Her hair floats slightly away from her face and he catches half a frown upon her lips as she moves her head to stop it from seizing up in between listening to the ongoing proceedings. At the moment that consists of the Welsh, Irish and Scottish guards playing different music. He sees the back of her three-quarter length black dress with its halter neck and lace sleeves and thinks that rather unlike her twittering companions she is more aptly dressed for a funeral. He feels pride that she seems to be on the same wavelength as him and finds himself adding it to the constantly growing number of things that he likes about her. He looks quickly away again however when he realizes that he’s tracing the line of her shoulders with his eyes. He’s supposed to be thinking about the matter rationally. Not getting carried away because of what she looks like and what she has come to mean to him, but with the full on perspective of a boss with an employee. She might be better than Trump, and really, that is not setting the bar too high right now, but is she someone worth putting himself at risk for? Undecided he looks back at her when the Trumps arrive. She stiffens slightly, as if she can sense the need for everyone to be on their best behaviour right now. He catches her jumping when the Welsh, Irish and Scottish guards strike up merriment, louder than the din that they've been making so far. If he were beside her he would have reassured her and perhaps made her laugh, as he would have come up with nonsense lyrics and whispered them into her ear. He looks at her. Perhaps because he will have to pretend, once they part ways-and Mycroft reminds himself now that it probably will be, ‘once’ and not ‘if’- that she only exists in terms of being an acquaintance. He will have to learn how to be blind around her. To not notice her, unlike the Mays who are fawning over the Trumps right now and carefully trying to notice everything and anything they can do to make their guests feel welcome and at home. Embracing fascism out of desperation, it really is the worst…Mycroft’s eyes go to the Home Secretary’s shoulders, whilst he can still see and he tries to quieten his mind, as he drinks in the sight of s/c goose pimpled skin. He gets distracted a moment later though when he feels his phone vibrating in the inside pocket of his tux. Almost swearing at having to look away from her in one of the last chances he’ll get he discreetly slides his phone out to see what’s going on now. Donald Trump, in an interview to ‘The Sun,’ which has been conducted by a journalist with all the calibre of Kitty Riley by the looks of it, has apparently said that Boris Johnson would make a good Prime Minister-something which has perfect timing after Boris has, only in these past few days, quit as Foreign Secretary-and that the US post-Brexit trade deal with the UK, which this whole spectacle is in aid of, is off if the Prime Minister keeps going about the exit route from the European Union in this way. Mycroft swears softly and is sure that the Home Secretary detects it for her head twitches like an insect’s antennae in his direction. He feels a controlled sort of anger course through him at the sight of Trump smugly grinning at the Welsh, Irish and Scottish guards. He has had everything he wanted from this visit-a way of avoiding the protesters, all the pomp and ceremony that he could have scraped from them considering it isn’t a state visit and tomorrow he’ll be able to meet the Queen- no not him as Sherlock would like to joke-but Her Majesty Elizabeth II. All, it looks now, without being willing to provide a certainty of the one thing they’d really like from him in return-a trade deal. Mycroft thinks that the country he loves so much is even more desperate than he could ever have imagined. He looks at the Home Secretary. It is time for them to move though and so he weaves his way inside the building after the Prime Minister, the Trumps and the Cabinet Ministers, managing to cut through some of the slower lot and causing Bobbi to wag her tail as he quickly passes her to get behind the Prime Minister and her guests. He wants to be the one to tell the Prime Minister about what has just broken in the news. Even though the full interview won’t be out in the paper until eleven o’ clock he relishes the thought of telling her only this-that is the most fun he is able to have in the circumstances-to be able to tell her that Trump doesn’t want to play ball, that she has gotten the fanfare and big dogs out for nothing. He has to occupy himself with watching May do even more fawning though, as she presents the US President with an illustrated ancestral chart of his Scottish heritage and feels sick because of what he knows. His forehead gets a sweaty sheen about it and he keeps his clammy hands close to his trousers. The Prime Minister gives him a look with those beady eyes of hers, as if she knows that he has bad news and is telling him not to approach and give it to her right then. He heeds her and waits until dinner, whispering the news over the smoked salmon starter. He sees the Prime Minster’s jaw tighten and feels a spark of satisfaction, even when those steely ambitious eyes fall on him, before he moves off again after her curt nod. He takes his place at a table that’s off to one side from the main one. He has not been granted a place at the Home Secretary’s table and does not fit in with the other Cabinet Ministers whose careers he has helped blow the scandal away from, so he contemplates in silence, whilst they talk around him. He spends the main of Hereford beef fillet and potatoes fretfully brooding about the country he loves so much and which seems in dire straights. Around the pudding course of strawberries and cream and needing a break from the misery he’s contemplating he glances at the Home Secretary, taking a chance to look at her once more. She’s talking to David who is acting as extra support to her this evening, as well as some of the other Cabinet Ministers. She’s got some cream on the edge of her mouth. Mid-way through conversation she licks it off. It makes him shudder and almost distracts him from Donald Trump completely. Yet, he thinks, staring at where the cream had once been still, if he vouches for her it is precious good that she carries on in the same way or they’ll be in the same position they are now every week and they’ll be trying to ride out as much controversy as the White House. All right, probably not that much, but enough for him and his beloved country all the same. He finds that whilst he’d thought he’d been focusing on the wider problems facing their country, a basic version of himself has also been scurrying around in the background trying to come up to a solution to the challenge that he has with the Home Secretary. He studies its findings now. The little miniature version of himself has come up with a third option. One where he vouches for the Home Secretary, stays on as her mentor and she keeps her job, but they find a better way of her toeing the line and still talking about the issues that are most important to her. Would she find that a satisfactory outcome? He knows he would do if he could make it work. After all it is probably foolhardy of him to believe that he has any hope of convincing her to resign now. Would what he’s thought though be a happy alternative? He swallows, liking the thought of being able to stay in touch with her, but still not feeling sure whether he should really be looking into such a solution. Is he doing what’s right for the country or simply being indulgent and doing what’s right for him? Sherlock would probably say that he’s earnt the right to be a little more selfish, but he’s so used to not being such a way that he finds it difficult to be anything else. It worries him-being indulgent and then everything going to hell. Still, he knows that if he is to get this properly resolved then he needs to talk to the Home Secretary. He cannot go to meet the Prime Minister tomorrow being all fingers and thumbs. Whatever he decides he has to express it confidently in front of her. With that in mind he seeks the Home Secretary out after dinner, whilst all the Cabinet Ministers and business types try to suck up to America in any way that they can. Bobbi wags her tail at him and licks at his hand, as if to say that she forgives him for not saying hello to her before. “Good evening,” he tells them both, wiping Bobbi’s spit upon his trousers and feeling a little apprehensive about the conversation that is to come. “Oh,” the Home Secretary looks puzzled, before her face smoothes out again. “Hello. I wasn’t sure whether I would be speaking to you this evening. I was trying to get Bobbi to lead me out, but she must have led me to you I guess,” she sounds about as confident as he is right now. “Actually,” he admits, “I rather came to find you.” Her lips part in surprise. “David not around?” Mycroft asks, pretending to be casual, even though he knows full well that the man has just gone to the bathroom. “He said that he’d catch up with me. It’s not much of a strain,” The Home Secretary tries to joke with him, before her mouth opens and shuts. She doesn’t seem to know what to do about the situation with him and whether she should be pointing out the fact that only yesterday he’d been distancing himself from her. “Mm. Why don’t we go for a walk?” he suggests. She’s a little hesitant and guarded when she finally decides to mention, “I thought you wanted to end our ties?” He’d hoped that she would refrain from speaking about it so soon. “I thought we needed a bit more of a talk,” he tells her carefully. “Me too,” she confesses, “That is,” she says, her hands fidgeting a bit around Bobbi’s lead, “I don’t think I said everything I needed to you yesterday.” “In that case then we better proceed.” He draws her hand up to his arm. “Forgive me, but it’s quite busy,” he murmurs when she shivers a little. “Of course.” She seems a little apprehensive still about things, but despite the darkening sky she relaxes once they step outside. Her shoulders visibly slouch and that makes things a bit easier in Mycroft’s mind. It is pleasant enough too with the little threads of air that weave amongst them. Knowing that she’ll be finding it harder to distinguish everything though he grasps at her hand to help her down the steps, whilst remaining half-turned towards her. Bobbi waits patiently beneath the step that they’re on, as they make progress. Once they've landed on ground level without injury they make their way slowly down part of the drive. Mycroft absent-mindedly lifts her hand back to his arm again. “I'm quite happy that you feel as if you wish to say more to me.”
“Oh?”
“I feel as if I need to know more of your thoughts, before I proceed to meet with the Prime Minister tomorrow,” Mycroft is prompt. “Right.” The Home Secretary seems all the more nervous. She swallows, draws her hand away from him and they turn to one another. Mycroft gazes down at her. “If it is my thoughts you want then…you don’t seem to have any idea, at least you didn't yesterday, why I feel the need to speak out so much?” “I…suppose I don’t see why it has to be you no.” Mycroft eyes her carefully. He is surprised when she almost laughs at him. “Well, who else will do it then if I don’t? All through my life, and I guess this is what I started to tell you yesterday, but all through my life I have learnt, from trying to adapt to place to place that a lot of my needs can’t be guessed. I have to tell people if I want something because they can’t read my mind and can’t predict what will work for me, so when I want change in other areas I take the same approach. I can’t just hope that one day the world will wake up and realize it without me”- “Whilst I can understand that there are certain ways of”- Mycroft almost spills his idea out in his hurry just in case David should return and he should find it difficult to get back on track once the foolish man has been dismissed from them. “Perhaps,” the Home Secretary’s voice rises above his, “I have also been inspired by the way that a certain gentleman stays true to himself by protecting his family, by putting them first in what can be quite a selfish world, particularly in this game,” she’s a little bitter, “I aspire to have the same level of integrity and think that he has to take some of the credit or blame for that.” Mycroft is just about to reply, despite the fact that he feels incredibly warm and flustered and his plan has almost slipped into the melting ice of his brain when David joins them, skidding to a stop behind them and sending up a bit of gravel as he does so. Mycroft and the Home Secretary turn around; Mycroft still trying to process what has just been said to him. He forgets it a little though when he catches sight of the state of David’s tux. The man is even messier than normal and it sends the ice in Mycroft’s brain re-solidifying. David’s hair, which the man himself has clearly tried to flatten has now sprung up in the heat-it is as if he is doing an odd impression of Trump in fact-and unlike Mycroft’s own perfect bow tie, which has been aligned to perfection, David’s black one is loose. Mycroft had seen Trump’s own bowtie be wonky earlier and feels an uneasy itch about him. Their imperfections have reminded him of his thoughts earlier and the Home Secretary’s own follies. He looks at her and cannot help but remember how incensed he’d felt when he’d first seen the magazine cover and how he still feels irate about such a thing. That she’d done something so unnecessary and put them all in this mess when he’d been trying, so trying, to keep everything neat and tidy. He hears Sherlock’s voice telling him just as quickly how he and the Home Secretary get along and how foolish he would be to lose her inside his head. He hears the Home Secretary’s words about integrity. Had she meant such a thing or had she done it to try and get him to appeal to the Prime Minister? Like she has just said it is a selfish world after all. He hears Sherlock calling him a coward, telling him that he is just afraid of letting her proceed to be in his life and to stop, for God’s sake, stop using Donald Trump of all people as a human shield! Mycroft’s hands clench. Either path he faces fills him with uncertainty and misgivings. “Everything all right?” David asks, only a slight cloud crossing over his typical breezy fashion. He seems to have noticed Mycroft’s suddenly stormy demeanour. “I am not quite sure why you had to come here tonight David,” Mycroft blusters, trying to re-attach his emotions to the jetty of calm reason so that he might be able to persuade himself to sever all ties with the Home Secretary. In the meantime he turns all his frustration upon the man in front of him, “Bobbi is doing quite a fine job of escorting the Home Secretary by herself.” “He came, under my request,” the Home Secretary seems disapproving of Mycroft’s behaviour, “I didn't want any one feeling like they had to speak to me if I looked like I was on my own. David solved that problem.” She is as efficient as ever and cool with him. It makes Mycroft suddenly feel bitterness towards her. He is becoming a grumpy old man and everyone who is younger than him seems to have an answer. He is particularly unhappy that David has such a thing when he is incapable of dealing with his own problems. “Mm,” he offers, “In any case it is no good you trying to both blame and flatter me over this mess. I cannot go begging to the Prime Minister just because you should bat your eyelashes at me,” he tries to hurt her. “I have never batted my eyelashes at anyone in my entire life,” she seems appalled now, “You might like to recollect that it is you who has been going back and forth between leaving me out in the cold and-and otherwise.” Mycroft swallows, not liking to think of the ‘otherwise’ because it stirs up all kinds of nonsense feelings inside him and gets him further away from that jetty again. “I’ll be quite glad when all this is over just so that you can finally decide. Whilst you’re considering you might like to know that it doesn’t bother me either way.” “No?” He places his hands upon his hips and looks at her frostily, as he wonders what he’s been agonizing over all this time if she does not care. “So it wouldn’t matter to you then if you were fired and unable to have such a platform to talk about the issues you love?” “Like I’ve said,” the Home Secretary shrugs now, half-folding her arms around the tangle of Bobbi’s lead, “I’ve been adapting my whole life. It would be no problem for me to live without you and the mess that this position brings. I would just find another way to speak about what I want to.” “Oh, would you now?” Mycroft asks her, wondering who she thinks would employ her without a glowing reference and if she were to leave this career very publicly. Sherlock’s voice inside his head tells him that many would be queuing up to do such a thing. Tells him that he’s being a fool. “Yes,” she’s equally disparaging. “David,” she says a little more loudly, “If you could escort me back to the building? I think I’ve had enough, 'cool air,' for one evening.” She holds her hand outstretched ready. Mycroft doesn’t need Sherlock to deduce what she means by, ‘cool air.’ Looking uncomfortable David does what he’s been asked to and carefully avoids the piercing glow of Mycroft’s scalding blue eyes, as he does so. “To think,” Mycroft finds himself calling after them without being able to help himself, “That I was going to tell you how nice you look in that dress too.” Without even turning around she makes a hand gesture his way that Sherlock would be proud of.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Friday 13th July 2018
The night after Blenheim feels like a hangover and a worse one at that because he does not have her to share it with. She is not curled up at the bottom of the bed like she’d been that hazy morning after Theresa May’s disastrous conference speech. He cannot sit up blearily from his own position and come to realize that they had made it no further than his hotel room and must have sat down there in a drunken kind of tiredness for a moment only to fall asleep. There is no awkwardness and Bobbi suddenly acting as a very interesting focal point. There is only Mycroft stirring in an indistinct fashion when his alarm sounds. One-handedly he slaps it off and both groans at the early hour and at the glass of scotch that stands almost empty upon his bedside cabinet. The way it seems to loom over him reminds him of all the harsh words and feelings of the night before. His mouth feels dry and it feels like someone is repeatedly whacking his head with the most boring paperwork imaginable. He slumps with a moan further down against the pillow, which he’d dragged away from the headboard the night before. He feels like it’s he who has really done it now. He who has blown things, not her. He pulls his grey-white duvet, which is all ruffled like storm clouds, further around him. The sunshine that pierces through the gaps in his curtains is hateful. He considers how unusual it is for him not to have woken up before the alarm. He does not feel like going into work, not feel like possibly seeing the Home Secretary again or having to decide about her fate with the Prime Minister. He doesn’t feel like doing any of it at all. He stays in bed a few moments longer, clutching onto his pillow and savouring its soft texture, trying to summon up a daydream of the Home Secretary, but then the dreaded common sense trickles through him, before he can and so he gets up. * Once he is dressed and has drunk some orange juice more than eaten the toast he’d made for himself-he’d taken a great big bite out of the bottom corner of it, before he’d decided that no, that alone might be enough for him to vomit and abandoned it by the sink-Sherlock sends him a text. Unfortunately for Sherlock, Mycroft is far from being in a good mood still and such a thing does not improve when he sees that even in Sweden, Sherlock has managed to fashion himself a ‘Mycroft’ blimp that he’s made out of some balloons stuffed inside a waistcoat. Mycroft is not amused either to see that the waistcoat is one that Sherlock must have stolen from his personal collection, before he’d left for Sweden. Mycroft cannot say what Sherlock had been intending to do with it, but its no doubt been used now as a tribute to the baby Donald Trump blimp balloon that will be flown by protesters in London that day. I'm glad you’ve still got your sense of humour intact brother mine, Mycroft sends, But please don’t go letting anything happen to that waistcoat. It’s a very expensive one and one that I have been looking for, for a while now. Far from making Sherlock gulp his brother seems quite relaxed about it in his reply: You worry too much. How are things going with the Home Secretary? Obviously, I worry too much. If I didn't then we might all be in quite different situations. Mycroft muses, not liking to think about it too much, but his mind inevitably comes up with different scenarios-Sherlock dead, his life wasted as a drug addict, Sherlock alive, but in prison or Sherlock still dead after he’d been naïve with Moriarty. He sees himself in mourning. Eurus causing chaos and embarrassment, putting his job at risk a lot earlier…without him worrying, and he finds it quite ironic now, he might never have met the Home Secretary at all or never been in the right frame of mind to notice her, to pay attention. The Home Secretary, Mycroft. What did you say to her? Mycroft sighs at the text from his brother, which tries to keep them on track. Or the track that Sherlock wants them to keep to at any rate. How do you know that I said anything that can be construed…unpleasantly? Because, brother dear, you’re clearly trying to avoid the topic. Sherlock replies all too knowingly.
I suppose I am because if I do then it will make me very cross. She was very rude to me last night Sherlock. It made me wonder why I am considering vouching for her at all. It was no way for someone employed by Her Majesty’s Government to behave.
She won’t be the first to be rude to you. Sherlock informs him. In any case I'm sure she only did so because you deserved it and that you know quite well why you’d like to stand up for her. In an attempt to distract his brother from partaking in a discussion of awkward feelings that’s likely to leave them both needing to have a shower just to de-contaminate afterwards, Mycroft goes on to give Sherlock a quick account of what had taken place the previous night, focusing particularly on the Home Secretary’s rude hand gesture. John’s been reading this over my shoulder all this time and he says that you’re a, ‘Bloody fool’ and wonders if you did not learn anything from Mary’s death? I think in this case I have to agree with him. You’re just using the hand signal as an excuse to not face up to your fears, as you have been with Trump. You must tell her how you feel before anything else should happen. I don’t have to tell you how lucky you both were in Westminster that day. Kindly tell the doctor ‘Good day,’ and to keep his nose out of my business won’t you? You might like to do the same, Mycroft suggests, feeling ganged up upon. John says that’s a bit rich coming from you, Sherlock retorts. I suppose you agree with him? Mycroft tentatively asks his brother. Sherlock sends Mycroft an emoji that is winking and has its tongue sticking out. Mycroft rolls his eyes, but pays attention in the next second when Sherlock responds to him, All right, he’s gone now, but you need to apologize to her. Mycroft makes a noise of protest. He hates doing things like that. In any case shouldn't it be the Home Secretary apologizing to him? She’s the one who’d been rude after all. That would be the best thing to do if you want her to accept your feelings, let alone return them herself, and you know what the best apology would be don’t you?
I am not going on my hands and knees in front of the Prime Minister just to do what the Home Secretary has obviously wanted me to do in the first place.
Firstly, I don’t appreciate the visual image you just gave me there. Secondly, even without the way you feel it would be of benefit to you to keep hold of someone you don’t mind working with, as it would make your own job a lot simpler. Thirdly, the Home Secretary, as she would probably tell you herself right now, gave you a compliment just before you blew up at her and basically insinuated that she’s using her feminine charm to proceed in her career. You used her gender against her. Whilst you won’t be the first to have done so I'm sure she’ll have had enough of that by now. Mycroft knows that’s true and he swallows, remembering how he himself had warned the Home Secretary near the beginning of their time together-though she’d briskly informed him afterwards that she’d been aware of such a thing-that people would use her gender, disability and anything they could against her if that would make them look better and her worse. He’d never expected to be one of those people though. His stomach churns in discontent. I have more than just my relationship with her, but the country to consider, he tries to remind himself that he’s been looking at it from a sensible position by trying to do what’s best for them all and not just him. Oh good. There was I thinking you were just taking your injured pride into account and forgetting how you view her overall. Mycroft does not like how Sherlock seems to be suggesting that he should be looking at his relationship with the Home Secretary from a larger angle and does not reply. * You need to speak with my brother, Sherlock’s text sounds less desperate and determined when read out in a female, robotic voice. Why do I? The Home Secretary sighs. She does not mind Sherlock texting her. Really she doesn’t. She’d first received his number when Mycroft had, had to go out of the country for one of the Brexit talks and Sherlock had randomly, and in a supposedly bored fashion, gotten in touch with her asking if she had known when his brother would be back. She’d asked him then how he’d gotten her number, but he’d ignored the fact. Then she’d asked if something had been the matter and he’d paid that no attention too. She’d gotten in touch with Mycroft to notify him about the incident and he’d profusely apologized to her and scolded Sherlock for harassing a busy Cabinet Minister when he’d gotten back from his trip. Still, the fact that he’s gotten in touch with her today, when she’s tired and annoyed about how both Mycroft and she had behaved the previous night, not to mention stressed about losing her job, for it’s obvious now, after her loss of temper, that Mycroft will not be vouching for her in front of the Prime Minister today and she’s too proud to go begging to him, well Sherlock could have picked a better time, especially to talk to her about Mycroft she thinks. My brother, you probably view him as being quite a strong person F/N. A wise stalwart who has mentored you. The Home Secretary swallows. Right now she’s not sure what she thinks of Mycroft. She listens to the fizzle of the headache pill she’s about to take as it dissolves in the water and then swallows it in one go once the noise has become less and less. But the truth is he’s an idiot and not as strong as he’d like to make out he is, the robotic voice reads aloud, whilst she swipes a hand over her mouth and thinks that she knows that last point in particular from everything that Mycroft has confided in her, He’s a bloody fool who cannot cope with change and is probably about to make one of the biggest mistakes of his life and one which he will regret for the rest of his life just because he cannot cope with adjusting the mental path he’s been on for so long. The Home Secretary lets out a little nervous laugh at that. Are we even talking about the same thing? she asks.
About him seeing the Prime Minister regarding you today.
The Home Secretary’s face grows distinctly more solemn. Right, well, I know Mycroft tends to be the sort of person to take decisions seriously Sherlock, but I don’t think this is a big of a deal to him as you’re making it out to be. It’s perhaps quite lucky for her that she doesn’t bear witness to Sherlock tugging at the ends of his hair in frustration when he sees her text and letting out a growl of fury, which instantly attracts John to him. You are both stupid in the most mundane of ways. Sherlock sends a moment later.
Sherlock what?
Sherlock? * She does not come across Mycroft that working day and though she considers sending him a text or some sort of message about the brief conversation that she’d had with Sherlock she decides against it. * After frowning at the way Donald Trump poses in a chair that had once been used by Churchill and trying not to think about how the Home Secretary would be equally furious to see such a thing Mycroft watches the press conference that takes place between May and Trump outside Chequers. He grimaces at all the hand holding and thinks about the meeting he himself will have with the Prime Minister at the end of the day. He could say to her that he won’t be standing in the way of her firing the Home Secretary-especially after last night it is an idea that he could hardly blame himself for doing after all, but still one that makes him unhappy-or he could keep standing up for the Home Secretary and risk his own career for an option that seems closer to being the right one the more thought he gives to it. It is not just because Sherlock seems to think so, though his brother has made some astonishingly good points, but rather because the more his headache wears off and the closer that he gets to the time where he will have to decide, one way or another, what to do about all this, he is becoming more resigned to the fact that, his personal feelings aside, giving her another chance might be the right thing to do. Not just for him, but for the country. The people need a defender now and they won’t get a much better one than her. More than that the government needs as many talented people as they can get to steer them through these difficult waters. He thinks about being true to himself, as he watches the fakery between May and Trump and thinks about what the Home Secretary had told him about trying to keep to a high level of integrity. He wonders if she’d really meant that she’d been inspired by him as Sherlock seems to think that she had. His brother hadn’t even questioned the thing! Mycroft watches May forgiving Trump so easily for slighting her and the country, claiming that it’s just, ‘the press,’ as if she is against them as much as Trump is. Whilst he would usually be on board with the Prime Minister doing what she’s just done for the sake of diplomacy he cannot help but acknowledge, as he gets used to the fresh choice that he seems to have made in his head, that these are different times now and he’ll have to get used to it and face them whether he wants to or not. Though of course he knows he should be neutral he cannot help but feel it would have been nice to call Trump out a little bit this time, that perhaps, when all is said and done, that might have been the right attitude to take for the country and that is something that he knows the Home Secretary would have done. He cannot help but like the idea of her as Prime Minister. Even though he knows it would be an upward battle and she’s reckless and it would mean a lot of running around for him, it would also mean that he’d actually helped achieve something in his career other than just protecting Sherlock and Eurus. Helped leave the next generation. He’d still have to keep watch of course, but he’d be able to rest easier for the most part, as he’d know that she’d consider things carefully and do what she could do for his family. Still though, can she get that far? Can they? This is very new territory to him. It’s like a new world-considering taking the plunge with her. He listens to Trump and May and nearly feels sick at hearing Trump’s line about America having the ‘highest level of special’ relationship with Britain. He cannot let that smarmy man win! He is decided then isn’t he? He will vouch for the Home Secretary! * A little calmer and with hours having passed Mycroft watches how Donald Trump’s bulk almost hides the Queen and winces. She looks like a puppet, as she peers around him. The man should not be ahead of her! Though the Queen looks a little serious and all knowing about the thing she too keeps a polite silence. Mycroft is almost fed up of all the good manners that are flying about. He glances at his watch. It is almost time for his meeting with the Prime Minister. He watches Trump breach protocol for a second occasion. “To hell with common sense,” he mutters, still feeling firm with the decision he’d made earlier. His country and his Prime Minister might not thank him now, but perhaps eventually they will do. He just has to go on hoping that it is all for the greater good and that he can go on to make things work for the Home Secretary. You should use your umbrella to steer Trump behind the Queen, Sherlock sends, no doubt laughing in disbelief, as he watches the proceedings from Sweden. I'm playing the long game brother mine. When are you not? Sherlock quips. Is the Home Secretary involved in your ‘long game?’ She might be, Mycroft sends cryptically, and he cannot hear the exclamation of, ‘Thank God,’ that Sherlock lets out in Sweden over the din of the TV at Mycroft having come to the right conclusion. Women like flowers, he can’t resist interfering for the last time in this particular issue.
Noted.
* Carrying a bunch of flowers and feeling slight embarrassment at doing such a thing in front of the Home Secretary’s security, as well as his own, Mycroft presses the buzzer that evening and hopes that the Home Secretary will allow him into her apartment and into her life once more-Trump has left for golf in his mother’s country of Scotland. “Hello?” her slightly suspicious voice asks him over the intercom. He swallows and hopefully shifts the flowers against his arm. “It’s me-Mycroft. May I have a word with you?” The Home Secretary takes a moment and Mycroft wonders if she thinks that quite enough words have been spoken between them already. Finally she lets out an all too familiar sigh, as if she knows what she’s about to do and lets him through. Eager, but apprehensive Mycroft makes his way past her security to her apartment and takes a deep breath, before he knocks on the door only to find that it’s already open. It has been left on the latch for him. “You should really have left it shut until I”- “If you’ve come here to criticize me again. Treat me like I'm some stupid woman who’s incapable of ”- the Home Secretary seems to be at the end of her tether with him, as she sits on the settee with her shoes off and knees up to her chest. A half-drunk glass of wine is in front of her on the coffee table. “No, I”- Mycroft breaks off, as he rues how things are going so far. Bobbi wags her tail at him and that cheers him up slightly. At least she seems glad to see him. He puts the umbrella next to where the Home Secretary’s navy blue one is in its holder and, whilst he’s still thinking, thrusts the flowers uselessly in her direction. “I got these for you,” he says, trying to make amends. “Lilies.” She nods coolly, grasping at her wine and taking a sip. “Yes, I can smell them. I suppose they rather suit the final night of my career. Perhaps the final night of our friendship too.” Mycroft’s heart palpitates more than it has ever done at any of her mistakes and he knows, even more so, that he has completely made the right decision then. “I was rather unhappy with the way you treated me in front of David last night. You embarrassed me. Made me look like a fool”- “I'm sure he’ll forgive you,” Mycroft says churlishly. The Home Secretary scowls, as if to say that, that is not the point. Mycroft gets a hold of himself. “In any case I'm sensing some sort of hesitation on your part regarding our relationship?” He moves to carefully lay the flowers down on the coffee table and tries to remind her that he is trying to make amends. The rustle of the flowers though makes the Home Secretary’s nose wrinkle and Bobbi sneeze. “Sherlock was in touch with me this morning.” “Oh?” Mycroft tries to be casual about it, but inside his heart is thudding. Has Sherlock perhaps revealed something about the nature of his feelings to her? In that case he supposes that he should be quite grateful that she hasn’t refused to see him. He would have liked the chance to tell her himself though and to discuss it properly at the time. He wonders now if that’s why Sherlock had suggested the flowers. Whilst she seemingly ponders how to tell him about it he tries to keep himself busy. He drapes his coat across the back of the settee-despite the warmer weather they've been experiencing recently he’s still taking no chances. He fetches a glass from the kitchen and pops it onto the coffee table. He is just in the middle of pouring himself some of the sweet-smelling wine when she tells him, “He seemed to suggest that perhaps…perhaps what you were going to say to the Prime Minister today was more important a matter to you than what I’d initially thought…less of an obvious choice then. That maybe we were both…being stupid about something.” Mycroft lets out a chuckle at that, that is far too jolly. His grip almost slips on the wine bottle and he decides to just have half a glass, so that he doesn’t spill it everywhere because she doesn’t know! She still doesn’t know! His brother hasn’t told her after all! His heart increases its pace now and his palms suddenly have the grease of his own nerves upon them. He touches the wine bottle back upon the table, moves his glass as delicately as he can, so that it’s further across the coffee table and sits down with a bit of a thump. Sensing his change in direction she shuffles her position. Her knees touch at his and she opens her mouth, before she quickly swings them away again. “I can only apologise for the disruption to your day. I’ll have to tell my brother off for pestering you again and calling you that another time, but did he clarify what he thought we were being stupid about?” The Home Secretary shakes her head. “Perhaps I should tell you what the Prime Minister said first?” The Home Secretary looks nervous and licks at her lips. “Maybe you could tell me about what you think Sherlock meant by his words?” It is Mycroft’s turn to be stubborn and he shakes his head. “Later perhaps. When I spoke with the Prime Minister though”- he sips at his wine suddenly, his throat feeling dry. He lets out a groan of pleasure without being able to help it. The wine has a kick to it, which is excellent for a Friday. He tastes a bit more of it again, before he forces the glass back to the coffee table and attempts to get his mind back on track once more. “You really are intolerable.” Mycroft flinches and glances her way. He quickly folds some of his fingers with his others to stop himself from reaching for the wine again. “Making me wait when you’ve already put me through hell these past few days. Now you come here, bring me flowers that represent death and drink all my good wine and you still won’t tell me what’s going on. I know you like to be dramatic, but this is my career-” “How about I tell you what I told the Prime Minister first?” He watches her, thinking that might be the better option. His back is pressed close to the settee and his legs are crossed. “I don’t want a blow-by-blow account of the death of my career,” she’s quiet as she looks at her lap. “Don’t blind people like that either?” he teases. “I think it’s just me,” she tells him, her tone lighter. “Of course it is.” After staring at it in a moment’s consideration and trying to build himself up to do it Mycroft tentatively takes her hand. Her breath jumps. A tingling sensation like Morse Code emits between them. “What are you doing?” “Trying to make amends.” Mycroft, taking the chance that he does not usually have when her hand is just upon his arm and they are on their way to somewhere, looks down. The sight of their joined skin makes him swallow. His hand almost dwarfs hers. He wishes that she could see it more clearly and begins to describe it to her. “My fingers are longer and larger than yours, as you’d expect a man’s to be I suppose…” She nods, feeling more at ease despite the way that things seem to be changing between them. She can probably feel relaxed though because in the very first meeting of theirs he’d described what he’d looked like, saying that it was only fair that she knew when he did about her and complaining in a rather unmasked fashion about his ‘overlarge nose.’ Though she’d appreciated the act of him giving them a more level playing field at the time she’d asked him to describe an attribute that he wouldn’t usually to get him off the subject of what he doesn’t like about himself. He’d gone for his jaw line. He hadn’t been able to help but tell her of course that it wasn’t as firm and strong as he would have liked it to be. She’d almost laughed because he could have said anything to a blind woman, but there he’d been, so honest and disparaging about himself. She’d sensed a note of pride in what he had told her about it too though, as if he hadn’t thought it that bad considering. It had made her smile. In the present now Mycroft notices that her lips are stained with wine and his own throat feels as if he could do with more of the stuff. He goes on though, lest she get cross with him again, “Mine are freckled, slender, piano-player like according to my mother, though I have never”- she clutches onto the ends of his fingers and it makes his breath hitch inside his chest, for she’s telling him that his weaknesses don’t matter, that she’d honestly meant what she’d tried to tell him last night, he’s sure that she is. He doesn’t have to worry with her. “Yours are more of a blank canvas, hardly work-shy”-he notices the mark she has at the side of one hand and her slightly stark blue veins-“But fresher”-again there is that press of her skin against his. Not trying to ramble on he begins to stroke at her hand now, already stimulated by her little movements against him. It sends a pleasurable squirming to his chest when he sees her breath falter again. “Intolerable…” she forces herself to say once more, though Mycroft senses that she means it less this time and it makes him smirk a little. “I digress,” he tells her, “I do apologize. In any case I told the Prime Minister that as frustrating as you can be”-the Home Secretary grins-“It is good to have people questioning their leaders and that means me too.” He can see her holding her breath. “What you said yesterday about integrity…I know it may not have looked like it at the time, but it effected me and made me think about how I could best be true to myself.” “Most people don’t have such an adverse effect to compliments though, but that’s just you isn’t it?” “It is,” he murmurs, feeling regretful and she thinks that she might have to try and change that. “I am sorry for any hurt that my behaviour caused you.” “Next time a mere thank you will suffice.” “You’re going to pay me a compliment again then?” He cannot help the hope that he feels. A twisted smile of pleasure crosses her face. “Get out of here.” She pulls her hand out of his and hits the back of his wrist with it, before she allows her fingers to slide inside his again. His curl around hers like a shield. “Like you did with me you speaking out against any issue you feel strongly about helps to hold people to account and find a more creative way of solving problems”- he tries to get back to the point, or one of them anyway. “Buying lilies though”- she’s clearly amused. “I only bought them because I knew you’d be able to smell them,” he’s frustrated, “Let them represent the death of the country instead. Better still”- he knocks them off the table and at hearing what he’s done she holds back a snort, torn between the humour of it all and the slight scandal that she feels about him being so casual with money. “I told the Prime Minister that whilst in this instance it had been unfortunate that you’d spoken out it is surely good for her to know that when the time comes for a passionate and outspoken view she can count on you being on her side if you are kept close and inside the Cabinet.” “Did you tell her that firing the only blind Cabinet Minister would hardly look good either?” the Home Secretary asks him knowingly. “I might have mentioned it yes,” he confesses to her, wincing a little because he would rather not take advantage of her disability, “I also said that if you were allowed to remain in the Cabinet I would help you work on a more streamlined way of submitting your views. One where you could still speak passionately about the subjects that matter to you, but not name any names or”- “The public isn’t stupid though. It would still be obvious to them”- “It’s that way or no way, and I don’t think you really want to be fired do you?” The Home Secretary shakes her head. “And Sherlock…what did he mean by what he said? Why did he seem to think that this was so important to you and the decision you made so crucial because I thought it was pretty obvious to you? That you had to do such a thing like you said for your family?” “It was important to me. To get it right. To…” Mycroft swallows. It seems like they have come to the final point of it all. Delicately he lets go of her hand and removes her wine glass from her. Placing it back on the table he turns closer towards her and half-covers her hand up with his. He forces himself to be brave. A soldier in another direction. “I told you that I had to be true to myself.” He does not tell her about using Donald Trump as a human shield though he’s sure that she’d find that funny. “I didn't want to let my own personal rules, my dislike for change, stand in the way and not look at the…the bigger picture all around, not when it was about this.” He grows all the more thoughtful when he recalls Sherlock’s words from this morning. “Even though you are not strictly family…to me you have become”- “Yes?” her voice has gone a little faint and squeaky and it makes his heart tremble inside his chest. “Let me tell you something about my brother,” Mycroft says, losing his nerve. “Your brother?” the Home Secretary questions, wondering why he’s talking about Sherlock when she’s sure that he’d just been on the verge of telling her something very important about himself. “Yes-I-you see”-instinct makes him pull one of her hands onto his knee and touch it with his own hand. “This isn’t easy for me to speak of.” She turns her hand, so that it covers his. He swallows. “You see my brother he…well, he has a band of friends and allies that he’s been steadily recruiting for some time now. He treats them all like family. Does the same things he would do for family, for them.” Their hands rest side by side. Heart heavy with apprehension he is sure that she must be able to feel the breath of every word upon her face. “Recently he told me that my definition of family is a narrow one. You seem to think that it is also. The truth of it is….” “Acknowledge it Mycroft,” she urges him. “Isn't that something that you’re telling me to do? To voice my opinion, but just do it in a more streamlined way?” “Putting myself first feels like an indulgence, though Sherlock says I should give myself this, give myself this chance I think, and in any case,” he confesses, “I'm not sure if you would like me to channel this in a more streamlined way my dear.” He smiles a little wryly now. “It’s something you either do completely or not at all. I would hate to be half-hearted in its approach. I-I respect you too much for that.” Her breath shudders. He wants to grasp it, keep it in his hands forever and never let it go. “ I am trying to tell you that I have gradually begun to realize more and more over the past few days, and especially when I was defending you in front of the Prime Minister”-for it is then that he’d especially known he was doing the right thing and become assured in his convictions-“That if I have had a friend who I could call an ally over the years, perhaps even family like Sherlock does with his own companions, then it is you. That is why it has been so hard for me to-to even consider letting you go, especially when you remind me so much of my brother and I know that you do not need it, but I feel the need to protect you because you are so reckless with yourself. Just like he is.” “Are we really so alike?” her voice is soft now. “There is one difference.”
“Yes?”
“I want you to be more than family to me”- his hand cups at her cheek, as he finally says the words she’s been waiting for and she lets out a soft breath, which makes him hesitate. “Mycroft, please,” she begs him, giving him the type of permission he has longed for, for far too long. Cupping her cheeks he leans in to press a breathy kiss against her lips. She murmurs something against him and he pulls away. “Indulgent yes, wrong no,” she tells him, before she grips at his cheek, angles him just right and uses the stream of his breath to help her find purchase upon his lips. Mycroft is light-headed with surprise at her taking control. “I think my brother would agree with you there.” “Do you agree with me?” “Mmmhmm.” A bright happiness takes over her face. Drawing close to him again she grasps at his cheek and feels a pang of sadness for a moment that she will never be able to see him as clearly as she wants to. As she places her other hand on his face, whilst he gently covers her fingers with his own and helps guide them down the long avenues of his skin she can sense the despair where stories and hopes had once lain, but have now been felled like trees, leaving only grooves like rives and the odd dip where nothing has ever taken up place again. She presses another kiss to his lips, hoping that might encourage a seed of something new to grow there. “I think you might care about what I look like after all,” he tells her gently. “Only because I want you to be all right. You are very important to me.” She pecks at his lips again. “I'm glad. I have been worried”- this time she smothers his lips with hers and even goes as far to straddle his lap awkwardly and suddenly, in that moment, when she’s stable and safe and her lips are pressed tightly against his he’s not frightened about anything… * The Monday after that weekend and the Home Secretary is trying not to smile too much as she waits with Bobbi in the foyer of the Houses of Parliament. It’s not too long before she hears the happy sound of Mycroft humming-a noise that she’s heard more in the past weekend than in all her time of knowing him. His footsteps drift towards her. A moment later a voice says, “Your morning coffee,” huskily and she allows Mycroft to steer her hand towards the cardboard cup. “Careful it’s hot,” he notifies her. “Thank you for that startling piece of information,” she grins at him, feeling unusually light compared with the knots over the past few days that had seemed to reside like vines inside her stomach. “Behave,” her boyfriend warns her, though she can hear the smile, which toys about his lips. “I think you quite like it when I don’t behave. It gives you a reason to come and see me,” she flirts back. “I’d find an excuse to do that anyway,” he tells her softly, knowing that to be true all the more now and his hand is protectively close to hers as they begin to walk towards a hallway. “Now back to work.” “Back to work,” she agrees, and they make their way down the hallway, Bobbi by their side.