Disclaimer: So I've headed north and have stopped for the night in a town called Mantoudi. Everyday my goal grows closer. I only hope I'm not wrong. I have kept my ears open for any mention of Eros or Mt. Olympus. Seeing some very pretty country along the way. Well, none of you want to hear about my Greece trip do you? You want to know if Sherlock and Company are mine. They're not. And I make no money off of them either. Happy now? Just had to rub that little fact in didn't you?

A/N: A is finally being half-way cooperative. Though only if I tell the story her way. She's actually a very pushy little pain in the un-hunh. Still here it is: how A and the gang met. Enjoy it.

The Assistant

A Story told by A

I stared at him. Unobtrusively, of course. This man across the desk, with his dark auburn hair and unworldly gray eyes. He was not a man to be stared at. No, not him. He was different from the other men I'd met in his position, or really a position like his.

We did not dare to speak of what his position was. Not among ourselves and most certainly not to him or the others like him. They were the shadow men. The men and women that ran our country without anyone knowing. They started or stopped wars, called for the assassinations of world leaders, executed terrorists, and only God himself knows what else. All without anyone ever knowing their names or faces.

I'd been given his name in the file I'd read in preparation for this interview but it was such an outlandish name that it must have been an alias. Seriously who names their child Mycroft Albion Holmes? If it wasn't a made up name I felt very sorry for him.

He continued to stare, no that isn't the right word; he continued to use those unblinking otherworldly grey eyes to dissect me. To anyone else that stare would have been unnerving. But I have been stared at my whole life. It sort of comes with the territory. Any beautiful woman will be stared at constantly. A beautiful woman with a junkie, prostitute for a mother will be stared at even more and with more rancor. So his stare did nothing to intimidate me rather it amused me.

"You have been informed of your duties, have you not?" He finally asked me.

I held back the roll of my eyes with some difficulty and something about the way he held himself made me wonder if he knew how ridiculous I'd found his question. "Of course, sir," I said anyway.

"Very good," he said quietly. "You're office is through there." He waved a hand towards a wood paneled door to the right of his desk. "You will start tomorrow morning at seven sharp. I expect you to use today to familiarize yourself with your office and my secretary, Bettina. Any…entanglements should be dealt with as well."

"I have no entanglements, Mr. Holmes." I paused. "My prior duties did not lend themselves to entanglements and I have never expected to have any. I am at your disposal, sir."

He chuckled a little and those grey eyes turned a bit blue. "You may come to regret that statement, Agent A. Incidentally, the ban on true names stands, even now."

I gave him a small frown. "I had surmised that, sir."

He smiled then. "Had you really?" Dimples that would have been attractive if I'd felt any kind of attraction to a man appeared. "I assure you, Agent A, my real name is Mycroft Holmes. My parents were a bit…old fashioned."

"Oh," I said swallowing. I hoped he hadn't been offended by my assumption but nothing more was ever said on the subject. I left his office for my own then. I wondered briefly what the future would bring for me but brushed the thought aside and picked up the small mobile phone lying on my new desk. Little did I know then that it would become like another limb for me.

SH/JW SH/JW SH/JW

The next few weeks were among the worst of my life, and I'd had some bad ones before. Mr. Holmes never slept, I think. He would call me in nearly every night at some ungodly hour and I'd work for thirty-six to forty-eight hours with barely time to grab a cup of tea. Mr. Holmes never looked tired or unruffled. I think I hated him then. We'd fly off to Bosnia or America or somewhere, I forget now and I wouldn't even see the hotel reservations I'd booked.

They were also among the best. Mr. Holmes was a good employer in his own way. He could always tell when I was ready to drop and would send me off to bed or hand me that rare cup of tea. He was a quiet one around other people but after my second week he talked to me. He would tell me the silliest things about the people we'd met and smile at my light giggles. We had become friends of a sort, I think.

There were two events that solidified our working and personal relationship. No, we are not in any way romantically involved. Mycroft is one of my best friends and his wife is one of the nicest people I've ever met. My own…well, she's not nice but I do love her very much. I won't tell you of either of them because they both came much later, long after I'd become one of the Holmes' family. They seemed to collect us strays and I believe they are better men because of it, they still do. Collect us strays I mean.

But I'm rambling. I do sometimes. It drives Sherlock insane, which is always fun. For such a smart man he's so easily ruffled. He's the first event I spoke of. Mycroft never introduced his personal assistants slash bodyguards to his brother until after they'd been around for a month or so. He'd lost three of us because of his brother. Sherlock is far more observant than Mycroft. Mycroft says that he sees as much as Sherlock he just keeps his mouth shut better but I don't believe him, not anymore. But you want to hear about the day I first met Sherlock and John do you not? So I will tell you. It's a good story I think. Fun and funny and yet also sad. Well, just keep reading and you will see what I mean.

Yes, I am aware that I did say TWO events. But as Sherlock and to a small extent John caused the second I must tell the story of meeting them before that. Besides that's how they happened. I met the duo and then the other event came about. So allow me to tell the story my own way or stop reading. It is up to you.