It had been four days. Four days, fourteen hours and fifty-seven minutes since Anthea had stormed out of his office. Four days, fourteen hours, fifty-seven minutes and thirty-three seconds since he'd last heard from her.

Despite the knot in his stomach, the drop in his chest that he'd utterly and completely screwed up, the feeling that he should just let her be and ignore the fact that he was emotionally attached to her, that her feelings somehow mattered to him, he sent her a message twelve hours after she'd left.

Please call when you are in a better frame of mind – MH

He'd frowned at that text. It was callous. He did not want to anger her further.

I mean when you are ready to speak with me. We tend to say things we don't mean when we are emotionally compromised.-MH

He sent seven more over the next twenty hours, and he still heard nothing from her. Naturally he was concerned. He actually called her. She didn't answer, so he hung up. Two hours after that, he called again, this time leaving a message:

"I understand you are upset, please return my call Anthea. It is most urgent."

He fell quickly into a habit, staring at his phone, willing it to ring or alert him of a text. He cleared his week, something he rarely did, but he could hardly function without Anthea. That wasn't actually true, but until this situation with Anthea was solved, he would not be up to par settling governmental matters when seventy-five percent of his mind was too worried about his PA to concentrate on matters of state.

By the third day, he was nearing a state of panic. He had not heard nor seen anything of Anthea, nor had her security detail, who assured him her flat was occupied by her, but she had not ventured out. He ought to go see her. What if she quit? What if she was leaving him? The thought alone made his heart drop and he felt himself repulsed by the thought of her working for anyone else. When he'd first met her at the dock in Napoli, it was not the first time he'd seen her. He'd been studying her from afar, knowing a good investment when he saw one. She graduated and he began immediately grooming her for the position of his PA. Together, they'd climbed the ranks of the Governmental ladder so to speak, quietly and carefully, stepping on toes and fingers along the way, just enough to make an impression and boost them up further. For ten years she'd been his silent partner, as in business only. Something changed though and recently he'd begun to allow himself to feel more for her than he ought, that of attraction, which he deemed permissible, but to entertain the idea of anything above a boss to his personal assistant should have been deleted immediately. Unfortunately, Mycroft did not possess his little brother's ability to 'delete' something from his mind's eye if it was displeasing to him. Truth be told, the thought of Anthea being much more than a mere assistant was appealing, more than appealing, it was something he craved. In an attempt to dissuade these thoughts he turned aside from her company outside the office. He sought out company of other women who held him to no obligations and he never had to see more than once. That hardly worked either, because every single one of them was not Anthea, and he found flaws in all of them. None of them measured up.

That was what the argument had been about, and it had hardly been her fault. Anthea was smarter than people gave her credit for. She'd known exactly what he was doing. He played that argument over and over in his head:

"I don't have to explain my intentions nor my personal life to you, you know, you are my employee, nothing else. If I wish to employ a dozen escorts I will," he snapped. "As you are so intent on learning why, I suppose I could tell you that we all have urges and I find the idea of relationships repulsive!" he'd snapped at her, and immediately wished he could take the words back. Blast his mouth, but he couldn't stop it so he continued: "I don't love anyone, Anthea, and I never shall. Whatever school-girl crush you've been fostering had best be swept under the rug before it gets the better of you. If you cannot control your emotions as well as I thought then perhaps you are the silly little girl your sister always believed you were. I have no use for silly people."

She slapped him, hard enough that he would have stumbled back had he not caught himself.
"You're a schmuck. You've had so long to practice lying you don't even know when you're lying to yourself. You don't know when you have something good, that you could be a part of something beautiful, and, yes, I am silly, sometimes, silly that I thought- that I had begun to believe that maybe you aren't the Ice-Man everyone calls you, that deep down there might be something worth looking at." She met his gaze, eyes hard and cold. "But of course I was wrong. There is nothing worth having in you. Nothing worthy of me."
"Anthea-"
"Good day, sir." With that she'd turned and walked out of his office as quickly as her narrow skirt would allow her.

Of course she quit. It was the only logical answer. The way she'd left, the fact that she hadn't replied to any of his messages. Mycroft was on his feet in an instant. Anthea couldn't leave. If she quit, where would she go? Back to Italy? The thought of London without Anthea made him sick. He took his coat and umbrella, sending down a message for the car to be brought around. He had to find her before she left.

Anthea lived in a very posh neighborhood, Mycroft paid her enough to see her living in a secure and beautiful place, she'd deserved somewhere comfortable to rest her feet (not that their work afforded much time for resting).
"You may go, I'll call when I need you," he said to the driver before climbing out of the car. The doorman, seeing it was Mycroft Holmes, was already unlocking the door and opening it for him.

By the time he reached her door, he had her spare key in his hand. He paused, listening for sounds of movement within. Hearing nothing, he inserted the key in the lock, quietly letting himself in.

The lights were mostly off, save for the living room and hallway. He could hear a noise from the kitchen so he shut the door as softly as he could, pocketing his keys. On light feet, he followed the sound down the hallway and pushed open the swinging door of the kitchen. There, Anthea sat in rumpled sleepwear, hair unwashed, pulled back with an elastic band. Most shocking of all, she was crying, truly sobbing as if her world was at an end. He could almost feel the ache in her chest as she took a breath, sharp and painful as she folded her arms across her chest, squeezing her shoulders and arms, trying to sooth herself. Mycroft couldn't move for a moment. He had never seen Anthea cry, not once.

"Anthea."

Before she could even turn to him to even attempt to tell him to go away, she felt Mycroft draw her close, sitting on the floor opposite her, pulling her between his legs, her head against his chest. She could feel the thrumming of his heart against her ear. Gently, he tugged the elastic band from her hair and she gave a gasp of relief as he combed his fingers through her hair, soothing her throbbing head.

"I am sorry Anthea," he murmured. "I am sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he couldn't stop himself; he kissed her head, her forehead her swollen eyelids and her tear-stained cheeks. "I am a schmuck, and an idiot and a fool, but most of all I am undeserving of you." She sniffled, trying to grasp that Mycroft was holding her in such an intimate way, that he was kissing her face, oh, now lips, good heavens that was rather nice. Quite nice.
"I am not silly," was all she managed to say.
"No you aren't," he said, quite seriously and she was glad. "You are anything but, and I was wrong to say what I did. I- for a very long time I believed relationships to be pointless but I did not know that anyone of your caliber could exist, that anyone could truly see me as I am and not be bothered by what I do." He drew a breath, deciding that he'd come this far, he might as well go the distance. "You were right. I am unworthy of your love. I am not an easy man to live with, nor even one to be a good husband, I don't think I'm ready for that yet, but…if you will be patient with me, I would like to endeavor to be worthy of you." Anthea didn't speak for a moment, she was reading his face, (and he was glad of it, because he needed for her to see how much he meant every word).
"Okay."

Relief! Such a short word could not possibly convey what he felt in that moment, so he drew her close again and kissed her a second time, this time she met him halfway.

"I love you," she murmured against him, and he smiled his rare, genuine smile at her.
"And I you."