Mycroft's Secretary
He approached her two months after she had first moved to London. She remebered the knock at the door, the tall man in an expensive suit carrying an umbrella standing on her doorstep. He offered her a job and she had accepted. The money was good. The hours were comfortable. It was perfect.
It was her third week working for Mycroft when she first met Sherlock Holmes. She walked into Mycroft's office as she always did, with his post and the morning's newspaper. Sherlock was there, sitting in the leather chair on the other side of the desk. She didn't acknowledge his presence, it wasn't the first time she'd seen early morning meetings. Mycroft thanked her and introduced Sherlock. They shook hands and she left the room to continue her work.
When the Bruce Partington plans were stolen Mycroft told her to expect Sherlock. When John arrived she asked him to wait. There was silence for awhile before she asked about Sherlock. He said he was working hard on the case and had sent him to get more information. She sent him into the office and carried on with her work.
She was leaving for her lunch break when she got a call saying someone had entered Baskerville using Mycroft's ID. She guessed it was Sherlock, Mycroft had complained about a missing ID months earlier. She contacted him at the Diogenes club.
One morning she looked at the papers she was bringing into Mycroft. His brother was on the front page, it said he had commited suicide. She gasped when she walked into the office and Sherlock was sitting in front of the desk, blood on his face and in his hair. Mycroft looked at her, he asked her to take Sherlock to his house.
Over the next three years she saw a lot more of Sherlock than before. She hadn't been told how or why he had done what he did but she had learned not to ask questions. Occasionally Mycroft even asked her to let Sherlock stay in her spare room. During these stays he was quiet, they hardly spoke at all. She could tell he was missing John. It was hard, when John came in to see Mycroft and she had Sherlock at her flat. John was a broken man.
It was one of these times, after she had seen John at work, when she decided to strike up conversation with Sherlock. She came home to find him curled up on her couch, he hadn't moved since that morning. She sat next to him. "I saw John today." "I'd rather not talk if that's okay." His voice was cold and sharp. "When are you going to end this?" He looked at her, surprise and annoyence in his eyes, "I don't want advice from a secretary." They didn't talk again.
Mycroft came into work one morning happier than she had seen him in awhile. He told he Sherlock had brought down Moriarty's web and him still being alive wasn't a secret anymore. She gave him his post and papers and carried on with her work, allowing herself a secret smile.