The Secret Child
AvalonReeseFanFics
A/N: Here we are Chapter 3. This is where we get to learn about Marie's mother and how she knew Mycroft and how all this sort of happened. Please tell me what you think! I'd love to know if there are any readers out there.
Chapter 3: Flashback
When Mycroft met Carolyn Crawford they were only five years old. They were in primary school together. Carolyn had this shiny golden yellow hair the color of straw, grass green eyes and she was a bit chubby back then even though later on she would grow into the most beautiful woman in their upper school. At five, Mycroft would pull her hair and call her dumb. He called her goldfish all through lower school. It was a childhood flirtation, a little boy hurting the girl he liked because he didn't know what else to do. Everything was fine, he was well on his way to making her his girlfriend by middle school but it all ended there. At the end of lower school, right when they were about to graduate into middle school Carolyn made friends with the new girl.
The new girl, Anne Peppercraft, had been adopted by a family and sent to our school. On the outside she looked sweet as can be, with her jet black hair that lay in perfect cascading waves no matter what she did with it, her piercing almost violet blue eyes and her angelic like face. In actuality she was the meanest nine-year-old on the playground, having come from an orphanage that hadn't been the kindest. It gave her every lesson she needed to take over and Anne ruled the playground with an iron fist that was constantly bloodied from all her fights. She punched Mycroft first. She later told the teacher that it was for two reasons. First because Mycroft was being such a terribly stuck up twat and second because he wouldn't stop calling Carolyn goldfish and making her cry.
Anne and Carolyn were best friends after that.
And Mycroft kept tormenting them. The years went on and the rivalry between Anne and Mycroft grew. All through middle school Mycroft spent every waking moment trying to prove to her that he was better than her. Because clearly he was, he was more intelligent and he had more money. But Anne Peppercraft couldn't care less about any of that, she would glare down on him because she was taller at that point as if he were beneath her and he so clearly wasn't.
She wasn't nearly as smart as him but she was definitely stronger and more street smart. She knew things, things that kids weren't supposed to know. She dealt in back alley deals, illegal substances that 10-12 year-olds would want. Expensive candies, the rarest baseball cards, erotic magazines, you named it that girl could get it if you paid her right, her usual fee being bubble-gum, lip-gloss or fish and chips. Mycroft kept snitching on her, Annie kept punching him and Carolyn would try to diffuse it all. Or at least keep Anne from severely hurting him.
He never told Carolyn that he thought her to be the most beautiful girl in the school. He figured that much would be obvious as she was constantly on dates with the jocks of the school. He never asked her out because he was too busy with his brother and his studies. But Anne knew, and Anne teased him about it. But for some reason Anne never told Carolyn, having apparently decided that the secret was his to tell. He never thanked her for that and he probably never would.
After Upper school Mycroft lost touch with Annie and Carolyn. He found Anne first. She had become a criminal, and he was tasked to find her. She had made new friends. There was Natalie Mason, a very angry little Asian woman who was deadly with pretty much any gun given to her but specified in snipers and then there was Ian and Lyra Lambert. Ian drove the vehicles and kept Natalie and Anne from killing each other and everything in their vicinity and Lyra was their hacker, she was probably the most dangerous out of them all. She could hack you out of existence if she really wanted to. Apparently Ian and Lyra had married while still in upper school and had just not told anyone. They had already had their first child by this point.
Anne had out witted him that first time they re-met and the feud was rekindled. This was because she knew how he thought and she knew what he'd do where as Anne's thought processes were all about the whim of the moment, the girl very rarely made an informed decision despite having all the information present to do that.
She got away from him twelve times before Mycroft found Carolyn again. Mycroft was 20 at this point. He had just gotten his job with the Queen. Carolyn was his only link to Anne, the only person who knew what she was doing. Anne had just caused a major problem with the American embassy and FBI.
She had committed a series of crimes while visiting over there. This meant that MI6 had to work with FBI when she retreated back to England to run away from Johnny Law over in the states. The task force they sent over was lead by Andrew Ashton, the son of a very prominent family over there. Apparently Anne had made him look the fool and he was out for revenge. He came with a small team that consisted of a few agents and one that was his friend, Aidan Conforti who specialized in bombs. He was mostly there because Andrew liked having his friend around but Mycroft didn't comment on that.
It wasn't made known until after Andrew and Aidan had been disavowed what had actually happened. Apparently Anne had made Andrew the fool by seducing him and using his clearance to get into the Pentagon to get to the classified files. He was further embarrassed when it was made known that Natalie had done the same thing to his friend and gotten into Area 51. He came to England to make her pay, only to realize he loved the damn bitch and Anne and Andrew and their rag tag group of friends ran off into the sunset to get married. The very prominent Ashton family had been furious.
Mycroft went to Carolyn because she had just returned from Boca which was the last place MI6 knew Anne and Andrew to be. He correctly assumed that Carolyn had been invited to the wedding. She fully admitted that she had and she was Anne's Maid of Honour. Mycroft had demanded that she tell him where Anne had gone, but Carolyn had been adamant that she didn't know and wouldn't tell him if she did.
Instead of arresting her for withholding evidence, Mycroft asked her on a date. To his surprise Carolyn said yes.
They dated on and off for a year. Originally the plan had been to seduce her, get her to snitch on Anne but she never did. Instead that old upper-school crush hit Mycroft full force, and every time he realized that he was getting too close or too emotional with her he'd pick a fight—almost always about Anne—and leave her.
They argued about why Carolyn insisted on calling Anne "Annie" it was stupid and the girl never called her anything as ridiculous as Carol. They argued about why Carolyn wouldn't tell Mycroft where Anne was. They argued about whether or not Carolyn knew about Anne's master plans before they happened. He often accused her of playing games with him, that her and Anne were in on it together and laughing at him behind his back. She yelled at him about being unfeeling. About caring more about work then he did about her. About being insensitive. About never being there for her. Sometimes she even accused him of loving Anne more than her since he seemed so obsessed with her.
They always got back together. Their break ups would only last days, sometimes weeks. But it was their last one that Mycroft would never forget.
Anne had gotten away from him again. He had taken it out on Carolyn. Carolyn had been oddly distant and Mycroft had the feeling that she was getting ready to break up with him. She had been oddly tearful during this argument and at some point she shouted: "I wouldn't want you anyway! You'd be a horrible father!"
Mycroft had put together then what her symptoms had added up to. Grumpiness, distance, a persistent flu that kept them from going out for dinner and weight gain in her breasts. Carolyn was clearly pregnant. The child so obviously his, but he was angry, he was young and 21 and he worked for a level of government so high no one but the Queen could tell him what to do and even then he could tell her no if he really wanted to. So he shouted back: "It's probably not even mine!"
It was meant to be hurtful and it hit its point. She had slapped him and kicked him out. Mycroft immediately went shopping for baby needs and read every material he could on being a father and what to expect when expecting. He figured in a few days Carolyn would calm down, they would talk, they would be rational, he'd propose, get married quick and that was it. Instant family. He even bought a ring.
But Carolyn vanished.
When she up and disappeared from the face of the earth Mycroft knew Anne was involved. The fact that there was literally nothing on any of the cameras that Mycroft could have used to track their movements meant the whole family was in on it. He knew that Anne was on the defensive, she was expecting him to look, to search thoroughly and he wasn't about to give her the satisfaction of playing into one of her games. So he sat back and waited. He counted down the months, waiting for any suspicious looking birth certificates or any hospitals that had descriptions of women matching Carolyn's and Anne's description admitted around the time of the supposed birth day.
He had assumed that the birth would happen around October 2nd but nothing ever came. Instead more than a week after October 2nd a body was found. The lower half had been completely decimated but the woman matched Carolyn's description. Her finger prints and DNA were taken at the scene, but there was a mix up on the computers. Instead of her body going to the morgue for examination she ended up at the cremators. She was ash before Mycroft had a chance to look at her.
Finger prints and DNA were a match to Carolyn. Just to be certain Mycroft had the ash checked. The DNA and bone fragments were a match to Carolyn as well. There had been no sign of embryonic tissue or bones so when Carolyn was killed there was no baby inside her. Or maybe she had just lied about the baby, maybe she had never been pregnant after all? Had she just said that crack about being a horrible father just to hurt him? After a while that was what Mycroft had gone with because it was easier to live with than to wonder if he had a child somewhere waiting for him, or if the child that should have been his had died with its mother.
Looking back now, it should have been an instant red flag when two months later a birth certificate was found naming a child of Anne and Andrew's born around that time. Mycroft blamed that on his grieving mind, still blaming Anne for what happened even though it was him who had manufactured the situation. He often blamed her because it made him feel better when he realized that he hadn't quite mourned Carolyn or the child, in fact he hadn't been that affected by the loss. Was it tragic? Yes. Was he a changed man because of it? No.
Finding Marie. Seeing Marie. He should have seen himself in her. The black hair and vivid blue eyes had thrown him off, so much like Sherlock's, he should have realized that those traits ran in his family and it was only by sheer unfortunate luck that Mycroft had taken after their plain and hairless-early-in-life father. It was the superior intellect, she could have never inherited that from Sherlock, as soon as her smarts had become apparent he should have known that she was his. And the feelings, the ones he couldn't place or understand, the instincts kicking in that he didn't know he had. His body had subconsciously recognized his progeny and sought to protect and nurture it. Had he not thought he was incapable of something so basic and human he would have gotten it a lot quicker.
Why had he been blind to this? Was it because he also saw Anne in every movement? In the way the girl danced, in her favourite song or her tendency to hum it every time she was concentrating, in her favourite food, in her favourite books and definitely in the defiance in her eyes. Was it simply because he didn't trust Anne and that he thought she could take his daughter and turn her against him? But the sheer fact that Anne had taken her in the first place as some sort of revenge against Mycroft should have been proof enough that Marie was his. She wouldn't have gone for a niece, she kept Marie, she raised Marie as hers to spite Mycroft and that alone was proof that Marie was definitely his child.
He could see Carolyn in her too. In the shape of her eyes, in the smile she wore when she was happy, in the laughter and the choice of clothing. Anne hadn't imposed the Peppercraft anger and all the evil family traits on Marie. She had raised Marie to be like Carolyn, soft spoken and gentle. She had raised Marie to be like Mycroft, cool, detached and brilliant. But she had also raised her like herself, with fire and spunk and the sense of loyalty that ran deeper then bone and nerves.
Anne had fooled him again. She had been one step ahead again and Mycroft hated to admit it. But that didn't change the situation. Marie was his. Marie was in trouble. And treason be damned he was getting her back even if he lost his job, and his power and his money and ended up in jail.