Capitis Dolor
N. Clevenger (March 2018)
Notes: Yes, it's yet another migraine fic from me. Because Mycroft. This isn't at all how I intended to step into this fandom, and – since we don't really know each other yet – I feel compelled to note that any unfavorable opinions of the inhabitants of 221B are Anthea's, not my own. Also that (though I'm sure it's obvious) as this is merely frivolous fiction, no slights were intended against Turkey – the meat or the country – or any of the British officials chosen completely at random in this story. I've nothing against the Treasury or the RMP. Honest.
Lastly, I make no money, because they don't belong to me. Hurt/Comfort Bingo fill for the prompt medication. I'm sorry I'm not British. No spoilers. Purely whump for whump's sake.
Twenty two minutes past eleven. Anthea's attention flicks between the email she's composing and the closed door. Her fingers dance autonomously over the keyboard as she adds another line; backtracking, she corrects a typo. Five minutes more, and she's going to have to start making calls. Today's schedule isn't much busier than average, but one meeting gone long could easily snowball into restructuring the entire afternoon.
The two morphs into a three, and the door to the inner office opens. Their visitor exits first, still half turned in conversation. "… in the sand," he finishes exuberantly, like the punchline of a joke. She thinks his accent might be American.
Her boss follows him out. "Yes, well, you'll have to be sure to let me know how that goes," he says, with a polite chuckle that means about as much as the indecipherable smile on his face. "I expect to have information for you by the end of the week. You are still, I presume, at the same hotel?"
They pay no attention to her as they pass, and Anthea dutifully pretends to be interested in her computer screen. Typing a string of nonsense, she tries idly to decide if he looks American. She knows nothing about this meeting other than that it filled a space on the calendar, an addition last week with no explanation given. If Mycroft hadn't told her it was because he didn't need her to know; she'd entered the mysterious Major Aarons between a series of phone calls and lunch with no questions asked.
He looks too unkempt, in her opinion, to carry any kind of a title – not aided at all by the lack of any uniform, the blue jeans and rumpled suit jacket somehow lending weight to the impression of his Americanism – but, to be fair, most men look a bit unkempt when standing next to Mycroft Holmes. She continues with her artificial productivity, comparing the backs and profiles of the two through subtle glances over the top of her monitor.
Aarons asks for a restaurant recommendation; it's her cue to start searching for available reservations. But her attention's snagged by the uneven line of one of her boss' pale blue shirt cuffs. A simple kink of caught fabric that would be nothing with anyone else, here a striking enough incongruity that it jangles for her notice. Abandoning her fake typing, she picks up her mobile. Easier to study them and do her job from this angle.
A sweeping glance as she resettles reveals no other glaring anomalies, and Anthea wonders if spending nearly every waking moment with Mycroft Holmes might not be prompting her to invent clues that aren't there. He answers Aarons lightly and without her input, suggesting a restaurant well known for catering their menu to the tastes of tourists, particularly American ones. She's been there a couple times with people from out of town; they've a few dishes she likes, but it isn't the kind of place you frequent as a local. She wonders if Mycroft's ever eaten there. She pictures him sitting stolidly between booths of squalling families against a backdrop of sports pennants and celebrity autographs. She wonders if he's still scarred by the experience.
Her eyes bounce back to the cuff of that sleeve.
The Major lingers over his farewells, apparently under the mistaken assumption that he's today's only appointment. Anthea checks the time; no more than fifteen minutes before they need to be on their way to lunch. Mycroft looks to be a paragon of patience, thoroughly enjoying the last-second tale the man's just now dredged up. She's sure Aarons doesn't notice the way that smile doesn't reflect in his eyes. Or those miniscule creases of annoyance at their corners that took her almost a year to be able to pick out herself.
She's distracted by an incoming email, hears Major Aarons finally taking his leave. A blissful silence seeps up from the carpet, down from the ceiling, as the sound of his voice goes with him. Mycroft exhales through his nose, a shivery sound clearly audible in the new quiet. Anthea looks up expectantly, waiting for instruction or comment.
The smile might've never existed; his jaw twitches, and he turns sharply on his heel to return to his office without a word. The door closes firmly behind him.
Not a slam, certainly, but definitely with more force than is normal or necessary. Her unrevealing expression is long-practiced and an incessant requirement of her job; even alone, she keeps her frown from her face. Standing, smoothing down her skirt, she uses her mobile to make sure there's no lipstick on her teeth. Checks the time again on the way to his office. She wonders if the meeting had gone badly, if he'll bring her in on it now to help gather this "information." Opening another email, she knocks on his door.
There's a distant sound from inside that she takes as an invitation to enter; typing a one-handed reply, she lets herself in. She's confused when her eyes jump up from the screen to find an empty chair behind his desk. When, blinking around the room, she discovers that he's not in the office at all. Her brain glitches embarrassingly for a moment as it tries to reconcile this with the knowledge that he must be here. She'd seen him enter.
The lapse resolves itself as her eyes fall on the closed door to the private lavatory, when, a second later, she hears the muffled sounds of someone being sick. It's an unhappy confirmation, and this time she doesn't temper her frown.
She backs out of the office, pulling up the traffic report as she heads for the small kitchen to make tea. There's a lorry accident snarling the M1, and she sends a quick text to Lord Westerfield's aide to warn him that they're stuck in the mess and therefore may be late arriving for lunch. Promises to keep him updated. Chewing on her bottom lip as the tea steeps, she reviews the rest of the day and debates moving at least a few things around.
Better to wait until after she speaks with Mycroft. Going by past experience, he'll likely insist on working through the afternoon anyway.
He hadn't looked ill earlier, and she doubts that it's something he ate. If only because she doubts he's actually eaten anything today. As per usual when she arrived this morning he'd already been both at his desk and mired in a call; he's barely stepped out of his office, and she hasn't brought him anything. It could, of course, be some illness that's settled in abruptly.
But she'd wager next month's salary that it's another migraine.
Anthea imagines that she's one of a very limited number of people who know about the headaches – there's also his physician and probably Sherlock, perhaps his parents depending how long he's been afflicted – but possibly the only person who has a sense of their frequency and severity. And even this is mostly guesswork, skilled as he is at masking the symptoms. She'd been quite a while in his employ before she learned to recognize the tiny signs. It had taken longer to understand that, by the time there were signs to notice, things were generally fast approaching the point of intolerable.
She picks up the cup and saucer and carries them and her mobile to her desk. Reads another email while she roots blindly through her handbag for the paracetamol. The pills look pathetically optimistic sitting there together on the white porcelain. Gathering it all up again she returns to the inner office, entering quietly when there's no response to her featherlight knock. The other door remains closed, but the vacant room is now silent.
Still studying the afternoon's schedule, she walks around the desk to leave the cup by his chair. That face-to-face could probably be moved over to Friday; a couple of the calls could be shifted to tomorrow. Distracted by an unexpected reply to an inquiry sent weeks ago, she lingers as she skims over the answering message. She's going to need to coordinate a call with Belize.
The toilet flushes, followed by a rush of running water, and Anthea starts for her own desk well aware that he'll not appreciate her hovering. She's only half way across the office when the door opens; there's a sudden childish urge to dash for the exit as if she's been caught intruding, spying. Her weight shifts awkwardly between her feet as she stops where she is.
Mycroft appears looking hunched and sallow, suit coat slung over an arm and a handkerchief dabbing at the back of his bent neck. She sees the half-second freeze as he realizes he's not alone, a hiccup of a pause before he hurriedly straightens. "Yes. Well," he sniffs uncomfortably, the cloth square vanishing into a trouser pocket. He makes a vague gesture for her to sit as he crosses the room; she glances down at her mobile so as not to have to watch his careful slow steps or the hand that fumbles slightly for the chair before he takes his own seat.
The vertigo might be the worst of it. The vertigo is what had given him away. They might've gone on forever tactfully ignoring what was happening, her sneaking the occasional paracetamol onto his desk but otherwise following his lead. She might've never grasped how bad things could get. He was a busy man with an incredibly stressful life; of course he had headaches. She had headaches. She'd been fairly content to leave it at that until the day she'd found him on hands and knees in his office, too dizzy to get up off the floor. Coerced by the threat of emergency services, he'd conceded to give her a bit of insight.
She'd started thinking differently about things after that.
She glances up from her inbox to see the thin smile Mycroft gives her as he slides the cup and saucer a little further away. He rests the back of his head against the chair and closes his eyes, and she notes the unfastened cuffs of his sleeves, the undone top button of his shirt and the fractionally loosened tie. She senses she's likely the only person he'd allow to witness this nearly scandalous disarray.
His voice is a murmur, barely moving his pale lips. "If you'd be so good, my dear, to remind me of the rest of our day. I'm afraid I find myself inexcusably unfocused."
"Sir, perhaps…" she begins, a breath from suggesting a cancellation of the entire schedule. But despite growing familiarity and steadily eroding walls, there still remain definite boundaries. She presses her lips together, doesn't continue.
"Nonsense," he says, as if she'd spoken aloud anyway. "A moment, and I shall be quite recovered." Long fingers rise to massage a temple, a frown flickering across his drawn features. "And you're about to tell me that we're already meant to be on our way somewhere," he sighs. It's not a question.
"Lunch. With Lord Westerfield." Her boss makes a sound in the back of his throat that might be a groan from anyone else. Anthea checks the traffic again. "However, as we are currently unavoidably trapped behind an accident on the M1, we do have a bit of time."
He cracks open his eyes, gives her another pained smile. "An angel. Some days I fear I would truly be lost without you." His slitted gaze falls to the cup, the steam drifting lazily up from the tea. "And the afternoon?" he asks, watching the dancing wisps with an unnatural slouching lethargy.
She runs through it, certain he's listening even if he gives no indication of such. He absently traces the edge of the saucer with his fingertips. She turns back to her mobile when she sees the faint tremor in his hand.
"We finally received word from Belize," she tells him, disappointed when this doesn't get more of a reaction. Maybe he's not paying attention after all. "I thought I'd try to arrange something for tomorrow?"
"Mmm." It's neither illuminating nor instructive. Anthea waits for something more, but there's nothing. She's about to break the silence herself when Mycroft blinks his way out of his trance. "Forgive me, my dear. I suppose we really should be going. We can do this in the car."
He uses both of the chair's armrests to push himself to his feet, barely makes it to vertical before he wavers noticeably and any colour he may have regained seeps back out of his face. Bracing his weight with a fist on the desk blotter, his other hand comes up to cover his eyes. "Perhaps… a moment longer," he mumbles through a shaky exhale. He sinks down into his chair again before Anthea can decide whether or not to rise from her own.
"Anything I can do, sir?" She's pleased with how well she's kept the helplessness from her voice.
The hand not furiously rubbing at his forehead shapes a dismissive flip of fingers before reforming itself into a clenched fist on the desk. Time stretches around them in the stillness as her eyes dart between him and the clock. She ignores a text from Westerfield's aide.
She knows there's a prescription, a skinny plastic bottle that they both pretend does not exist. He's confessed to her how much he loathes those pills, how disconcerting the dulled disorientation that they bring. It feels almost cruel to suggest it. "The medication…" she begins hesitantly. He lowers his hand just enough to squint at her over the top of it, and she tells herself she's inventing the flash of betrayal she reads there. "This is what it's for, after all," she finishes lamely.
His shoulders rise and fall in a mindful breath before he drops his hand from his face and sits up. "No need," Mycroft assures her, wearing a feeble smirk of plainly artificial good humour. "Certainly not when one has on hand such an expertly prepared cup of tea."
The skeptical noise escapes before she can stop it; real amusement flirts briefly with the tight corners of his eyes as he lifts the cup and inhales. He takes a tentative sip – followed by another few that look progressively more forced – before lowering it again to the saucer. China clinks against china. "You have questions. Regarding the Major," he observes in a suddenly weary voice. It feels a blatant non sequitur, a weak attempt at diversion. Maybe a stalling tactic.
"The Major," Anthea repeats. He's returned to staring vaguely through the steam, any trace of amusement dissipated, and this uncharacteristic sluggishness, the recurrent glaze to his eyes, is beginning to make the skin on the back of her scalp tingle.
"Aarons. You were quite interested in him earlier."
"Was I?" Trust him to notice, no matter the circumstance. She receives another text from Westerfield's aide; she's going to have to tell him something. "Well I do generally find Americans to be quite interesting."
Traffic. Grrrr. Perhaps not. Even with Westerfield being an old school chum.
Mycroft doesn't correct her guess about Aarons' nationality, but there is a fleeting interaction of eye contact. "Indeed." His gaze drops back to the cup; she doesn't realize he's actually eyeing the paracetamol until he scoops up the pills and chases them with a gulp of tea in abruptly decisive motion.
He looks terribly nauseous after this. She wonders if she should come up with a reason to leave the room. Her mobile signals the arrival of what she assumes is yet another text from Westerfield's aide, and she glances down with a preemptive irritation. When all she sees are the words Baker Street, she has to recheck the sender.
?
Now.
"Sir? A message from Doctor Watson. A summons to Baker Street."
He's rested his head in a hand, elbow on the desk, but at this he looks up instantly, seemingly far more alert. She can see the possibilities spinning behind his eyes. "Locate my brother," he rasps.
"Yes, sir." Her fingers bounce across the screen; she finds the information she wants. "Seen entering the Baker Street address at oh-six-oh-seven this morning. Still reported to be inside."
Probably not dead then, though they both know that in reality this intel means virtually nothing. There could still be something seriously wrong, and Sherlock's certainly slipped his tail more than once. Still, Mycroft relaxes infinitesimally with this news, his eyes fluttering briefly closed as his chin dips into a nod. He pulls in a deep breath and opens them again. Begins to button up his collar.
"Ring for the car," he says, getting up from the chair with an obvious wariness. He wobbles a little, cinches the knot in his tie. "Inform Lord Westerfield that I can no longer in good conscience be the cause of this unforgiveable delay to his midday meal, and that, should he allow me, I will make it up to him by cooking for him myself at the London flat when his schedule per… mmmngh… perm…"
She'd risen when he had, is already leaving to carry out her instructions. She turns back to see him with both hands flat on the desk, head bowed and face twisted with pain. "I'll ring Doctor Watson," she suggests. "Find out if you really need to go all the way over there."
His gaze comes up from the blotter as if he might protest, but he winces, drops his head. Anthea finds the doctor's number in her contacts, puts the call on speaker. It rings three times before there's the click of a connection.
"John, it's Anth—"
"He's fine. Well, all right, not fine, but… Sherlock! Bloody hell!" There's a distant clatter, and the voice returns with a new layer to its irritation. "Look, this isn't something you're going to want to discuss over the phone. Just get over here, yeah?" Another click.
They both look at the now silent phone, look at each other. Mycroft gives her a wry tired smile.
"Well. It would seem, like it or not, that we must indeed go to Baker Street."