Hi everyone, this is another amazing story from Blair, uploaded by me, Heather2910! Blair is having problems with her email so I may be uploading a lot for her in the near future so please don't nag her about getting stories up. I hope you all enjoy this and review so Blair can see what you guys think
She is Anthea.
She is also Wilma, Grace, Olive, Ashley, Julia, and once Talia.
She is Jackie, Briar, Lily, Maya, Fern, Amy, and even Christopher from Accounting at a business party Mycroft sent her to.
But she prefers being Anthea.
Actually, there's a funny story about that name. She never tells it, and only she and Mycroft know it.
When she first started work as a PA under Mycroft Holmes, he told her the job would be very dangerous. That to protect herself she must never tell anyone her real name. He would erase her from the computers and she would, in effect, not exist. She found that enchanting.
You see, she had gotten in trouble with the law a few years back. Some stolen diamonds, a few politicians with bashed-up cars and burnt down houses. Something she was eager to make up to her country. Mycroft stopped by her trial, whispered something to the judge, and the next thing she knew, she was released and Mr. Holmes had a new PA.
She loved being his PA. It was a special role, sometimes boring, sometimes exciting, sometimes refreshing, but always dangerous. She acted out parts that he told her to play and she did it very well. When they went to dinner parties, she was Victoria, his fiancée, or Pearl, his maid, or maybe Florence, the Italian mayor. When she was sent to seduce an ambassador she was any range of women, from Eve to Ally to Justine. When she abducted people she was Julie, Gloria, India, Hailey. Many, many names has she gone through, too many to count. She never uses the same name twice to avoid confusion.
She loves dressing up and putting on a show. The name has to fit the dress, she tells herself.
Opal is a pet store owner with an affinity for cats.
Max is a skater chic who may or may not be interested in girls.
Edith is the Turkish ambassador's wife and didn't you know that? Let her in to see him at once, you fool!
Mycroft always smiles a faint, knowing smile whenever she introduces herself. When he's working in the morning and she brings him his tea he always asks, "And who are you today?" Every day it's a different answer.
The trouble is, she runs out of names to use. Once a young boy, a target's son, asked her her name. She took a full minute to think up one, and then it was, "Prudence, sweetie." After years of flitting from one title to the next, she is hard-pressed to come up with a new alias. She will spend an hour creating lists of girls' names and check off the ones she's used.
Mycroft knows her real name, of course. He almost never uses it, though, sticking to his own rule that she never speak it. But sometimes, during late evenings, when everything seems to be going wrong and he needs something more than tea, he needs comfort, he will stand at his window and gaze out into London and whisper her name, a plead of silent companionship. She will come and sit on his desk, just behind where he stands, and touch his shoulder. She did this after his brother jumped off the roof of St. Bart's, she did it when he came back. She did it when his wife died and she did it when John was shot, every night he was in the hospital Mycroft asked this of her. When he recovered, Mycroft gave her a raise.
Sometimes, she even forgets her own name, her birth name. On these days, she usually is busy and had no time even to polish her flute, which she loves and plays every week. But lately, it has become more and more often when she'll be typing up a report for Mycroft or reading a book or pouring tea, and suddenly realize,
"I can't remember who I am anymore."
She won't say anything, of course. If she just waits a minute her name will come to her and she will cling to it, basking in the sensation of just knowing that she is, in fact, a solid person, not just an endless stream of personalities and aliases.
It was a cold night when she abducted an army doctor by the name of John Watson. Mycroft had asked for him and she had obliged. John asked her for her name, and she hesitated, trying to think up one, before giving the name of her great grandmother.
After she had safely returned him home, wrapped up with Mycroft and fallen into bed, she remembered something. Something vital. Something she never thought she would ever forget.
She was named after her great grandmother.
Anthea cried that night, long and quietly, and resolved to ask Mycroft in the morning to call her what she really was. She didn't dare forget again. She didn't want to lose sight of who she is.
She is Anthea.