Broken Clocks
by Vixere
A cold silence laid thick upon the room. Mycroft was in his chair, rigid-backed and glowering down at his prey.
Persephone Jones was young - too young - he thought irritably. Somewhere in the region of twenty-five, give or take a few months. His eyes slid over her and he sought to deduce every single ounce of information he could.
She was wearing a navy frock which skimmed her knees and had sleeves that ended at her delicate wrists. The material clung to her ample figure and had as low a neckline as anyone would dare sport in the current environment.
It wasn't a new dress; Mycroft knew just from looking at it that it had remained crumpled in the back of her armoire until only recently.
Low income. Unaccustomed to the status of this locale and role. Reasonably aware of her own sexual viability. He itemised his findings quickly before moving on.
The eyes… There was some near-imperceptible redness clinging to her waterline. A recent breakup. Long term relationship. Two years? No, one and a half, obviously. And she was short-sighted, that much was apparent. But she didn't have a prescription for glasses. Was this a choice borne of vanity or tight finances?
He surveyed the state of her shoes. Black heels, wholly appropriate for the setting, except for the fact that they were scuffed and old. Finances then, he concluded.
He surmised by the tightness in her jaw and shoulders that she was already having misgivings about being here. She seemed determined, however, to make a go of things. Probably because of the sister. He could tell by the rings she wore that they must be close - at least three had been gifted by a female relative and the style of them was too youthful to implicate a maternal figure.
Not close with the mother, then. He stared hard at her. No, he had thought as much when he had read her resume. There had been hints, albeit small ones. Were they estranged, he wondered?
Not quite, he quickly concluded with a swift glance at her handbag (a good-quality vintage hand-me-down which almost certainly was from her mother). But there was resistance there, some emotional distance which couldn't be easily traversed.
He was struck, then, by a rather peculiar and unwelcome thought.
She is utterly beautiful.
Her ashy brown hair spilled over her shoulders and down her back in gentle waves. She had made no effort to tie it back, and Mycroft privately thought that the current look suited her, anyway.
She had a clear, peaches-and-cream complexion which allowed the natural, youthful rosiness of her cheeks to shine through. Mycroft noted from some micro-scarring on her chin that she must have had adolescent acne, though that seemed entirely unimportant now.
She was tall, too. He had noticed when she'd walked in - six feet, he estimated. But not terribly slender. The lines of her body were soft and curved and rounded.
To him it was striking and glamorous, though he imagined other men might not find her to their preference. Decidedly not petite.
And her eyes - aside from holding within them the unmistakable vestiges of a recent heartbreak - were a deep, fathomless brown circled with the faintest ring of honey gold…
He twitched, barely curtailing the expression of self-disgust that threatened to overtake his features. He was repulsed by his own thoughts. What on earth was he doing?
Waxing poetical about a schoolgirl, even within the privacy of his own mind, was not in Mycroft Holmes' playbook.
He returned to himself and saw sat before him a prettyish girl with brown hair and brown eyes, her too-tall, too-fat figure swathed in old, crumpled clothes.
He felt his chest ease a little.
It had been a glitch. Even the most brilliant computers - and his brain was the most brilliant computer that mankind had seen in many years - had glitches now and then. It was nothing to be concerned with.
All these deductions - as well as his entirely unwanted mental detour - had taken under a second. The girl was completely ignorant to the thorough one-over to which she had been subjected.
Anthea, however, had experience in these matters. She stood by the girl's shoulder and cast him a warning look. Play nice, she mouthed.
He resolved to ignore her entirely.
He glanced perfunctorily at the file in his hands, her credentials and the results of her background check, as though he had not already memorised the information entirely. "You were previously employed as a research assistant...?"
"Yes." She said quickly, clearly aiming to impress with her promptness. "At the University of London, where I did my undergraduate studies."
She spoke in a sort of lazy, unstructured lilt. She flattened her vowels too much.
Terrible elocution. He thought condemningly. Then again, she is an alum of the University of London, not of Oxford or Cambridge. I mustn't be surprised by these shortcomings. Anthea did call her a city girl, after all.
"What manner of research? What discipline?" He fired off more questions quickly, privately hoping to destabilise her.
"I did a postgraduate thesis two years ago on various drug cultures in Southwest London and worked up a research proposal based on that paper. It was a joint study between the School of Anthropology and the School of Public Health Sciences and was co-funded as such. It was then picked up by the NHS as a minor project and converted into a survey on using habits among people who inject drugs." She replied seamlessly, seemingly unperturbed by his rapid-fire interrogation. "I coordinated the collection of data across six boroughs during that time."
He was unwillingly impressed, though the work held no relevance to what they aimed to achieve here. She was sharper than he had expected, however.
No. He told himself firmly. He would not - under any circumstances - be won over by this utterly, wildly, painfully ordinary girl.
When he spoke again, his tone was cold as ice.
"And how did you recruit participants for this survey?"
It was an incisive question - no, it was a great deal more than that.
It was conversational surgery. He was determined to extract every shortcoming from this girl; she was an intruder, she did not belong here, in his office, in his world.
The girl shifted in her seat, clearly ill at ease. Privately, he triumphed.
After a fashion, however, she fixed her gaze upon him and he was mildly surprised to find her eyes burning with defiance, her mouth set in a hard line.
"Snowballing." She said tightly.
"Snowballing." He repeated scornfully, having known the answer before she'd ever said it. He stared at her coldly. He would be the ice to her fire, he would extinguish her completely.
It wouldn't even be difficult; he was sure of it.
"You mean to say; you spent your time rubbing shoulders with drug addicts and degenerates in back alleys and squats for the sake of research?"
To her credit, she did not waver, shooting daggers at him with those dark eyes which he refused to be beguiled by. He stared right back, unnaturally still.
For a moment, nobody in the room dared breathe. Anthea looked as though she might come over faint from the tension, though that may have just been the gestational diabetes she'd been unfortunate enough to develop.
"I imagine that it's easier for some to convince themselves that they can gain an understanding of the world from behind a fortress of textbooks," the girl eventually said, voice dripping with irony, "but I have always preferred truth and reality over bullshit."
It was not the answer he was expecting. He blinked, and then immediately cursed himself for the miniscule reaction. He was impressed - grudgingly impressed - with this (mildly) clever, crude, ungovernable girl.
Though ungovernable and crude hardly makes for a good subordinate.
He leaned back in his chair and contemplated her for a moment, already knowing full well what he wanted to say. He was going to make her wait, though.
The ringing silence persisted, and Mycroft noted with some satisfaction that her shoulders were once again tensing under the pressure of his steady gaze.
"There will be a two-month probation period, while Anthea mentors you." He said finally. "Should you last that long you will be expected to perform to the same exemplary standard as the rest of my staff. Misconduct, or consistent failure to meet outcomes, will result in immediate dismissal."
She nodded silently. She did not thank him.
He wanted to be annoyed by it, but instead he was struck by a bizarre urge to laugh. He quashed it, frowning.
"Dismissed." He waited until she had reached the door before he made his parting comment. "By the way, Miss Jones, do endeavour to behave in a more ladylike manner while you are in my employ. You are, after all, representing the British nation."
Her head turned back towards him, and he saw with satisfaction that her jaw was clenched in anger. She nodded curtly and left.
He smirked. Perhaps this would be more enjoyable than he first imagined.
"How was it?" Even down the phone, Medea's voice was full of eagerness and excitement. "Oh, tell me everything!"
"Horrible." Persephone replied. "It was horrible, Medea. My boss - Mr Holmes - already hates me. I've no idea why he's even giving me the job. Anthea must have some crazy amount of swing there, and she must owe you big time, because seriously, that was less of a meet-and-greet and more of an interrogation."
"Oh well." Medea sighed down the line. "Try not to get too hung up on it. He might warm up, you know. Thea said he's a great boss, once you get onto the right side of him."
"I doubt he has a right side." Persephone muttered. "When's your plane leaving?"
"Ten minutes. I'd better go." Medea's voice was regretful, and Persephone could hear a call to board in the background. "I'll miss you, sis."
"I'll miss you too." Persephone murmured, leaning against a lamppost and trying to ignore the lump in her throat as she wondered how long it would be until she saw Medea again. "Say hi to the President for me, will you?"
Medea laughed. "Sure thing. Love you!"
"Love you too." Persephone said quietly and hung up with heavy heart.
A/N: They meet! They spar! It begins!
