LFABBBM 9

AN: Sorry guys, I post over at AO3 and forget to post here. Let's fix that shall we.

/\\\/\\\

John looked down at a very pale Anthea lying on the small loveseat in the cook's office. She looked so terribly small. He thought back to the moment he had seen her lying on the ground with Mycroft kneeling over her and his heart skipped a beat. He had been sure he had lost his friend. The thought of her dead hurt something in him; the world would be a far less interesting place without Anthea in it. Who else would he have to complain with about Holmes brothers? He knelt beside her and checked her pulse, slow and steady. She mumbled and cracked an eye, looking up at him with a glazed look on her face. She was coming back to normal, slowly. "Anthea dear, I don't know if you can understand me but you are ok and should be up soon."

"John," She mumbled, "John, I saw something nasty in the wood shed." She smiled faintly at her joke. If she was giving obscure and weird movie quotes he knew she was alright.

He brushed her hair off her face and said gently, "Oh I thought you did something nasty in the wood shed," he giggled lightly.

"Not yet…" she said in a sleepy voice and then shut her eyes and out she went again.

/\\\/\\\

When John returned to the massive kitchen he saw a lovely brunet dressed in her best garden party finery seated on a chair at the table and flanked on two sides by members of Mycroft's security team. Two other members of Mycroft's security team and Mrs. Holmes majordomo stood back against the various cabinetries stiff and silent. The spacious kitchen of Holmes Manor was currently devoid of all other help. It was spotless which had to be an achievement since all the food that had come in and out of here today. Mummy Holmes must run a tight ship. Mycroft and his mother were at that moment whispering to each other on the other side of a work island and didn't glance up at his entrance. He stopped beside Sherlock and whispered, "What did I miss?"

He wasn't as quiet as he thought and Mrs. Holmes and Mycroft looked up at his question so he just nodded to them and they resumed their whispered conversation.

"Not much, she isn't talking. Mycroft has men looking into it." Sherlock didn't bother to whisper.

"Have you deduced anything?" The three of them should have come up with something by now. He looked over at the girl. She was watching them with a small curl of her lip. He tried a little of Sherlock's deducing himself. She had an aristocratic air about her as if she was used to the peons jumping with just one arch of a finely plucked eyebrow. John looked at her and realized quite suddenly that she was the ringleader behind the shooter and the unsuccessful kidnapping of Mycroft. Oh well, this wasn't going to be pleasant at all. Interrogations were messy business, and interrogating a woman left a bad taste in John's mouth.

"How is Anthea John?" Mycroft asked, he sounded aloof but by the wrinkling around his eyes he showed his concern for his aide. If John wasn't mistaken, Mycroft was letting his feelings show. He stored the picture of Mycroft in his mind to later share with Anthea.

"I'd give her at least an hour or more before the drug wears fully off. She's just mumbling nonsense at the moment. There was something I noticed, however but it's not about Anthea. The dart she was hit with and the other ones found with the shooter. When I looked at the other darts they were a very light dose so she didn't get much in her system. I guess we can be thankful for that. "

Sherlock came alert at this. John could see his mind running calculations. He waited for Sherlock to spout off something to solve the mystery but he remained silent. Well if he has something he will say it when he is ready, John thought. Mycroft and Mrs. Holmes finished their whispered conversation and joined them standing around the bound woman at the table. It was time for questions. John took a step back and leaned against the island getting a little of his weight off his leg. If they weren't going to make them leave he at least was going to try to be comfortable.

The questions started and for an hour they got nothing out of the young lady other than smirks and eyebrow arches. The longer it went on the more John thought fondly of waterboarding. He was sure he could get an answer out of her that way. This polite questioning was going nowhere.

In the adjoining office they could hear mumbling, Anthea was waking up. Then the mumbling turned to singing. Everyone quieted a moment, their attention turning toward the adjoining room. Oh Lord, John thought, she was singing Caramel. Mycroft hung on every word John saw with a satisfaction that he tried his best to keep hidden. He put that on the list to tell Anthea later. He went to excuse himself to check on her and try to quiet the musical confession but Mycroft beat him to it and left the group to walk toward the cracked door. He carefully closed it once he was inside.

But strangely the singing and Mycroft's attention to it was what got the first word out of their prisoner. "Give a canary a little freedom and they will sing for the world."

Sherlock smiled for the first time in an hour.