Hello sweeties! So while I am sick I am trying to catch Joanna and Mycroft up to where I am in the main story so tomorrow, hopefully, I can get the next two prompts finished. Then we can be all caught up and I can work on the next bits. Hope you enjoy!
Mycroft nervously looked across the table to where Joanna sat, casually reclining in her chair as she sipped on her wine. Saint-Emilion 2001, their preferred wine. After their gaming fiasco which had turned into a snogging session on the floor of his bedroom, something had changed between them drastically. They hadn't shared any more kisses since that night and the morning after had been tense, but Mycroft felt the vertical shift and the pull towards Joanna just the same. Every so often when he caught her working and she would bite her lip he would be reminded of tasting the wine that night on her lips. Anthea had pushed him and pushed him until he had asked Joanna out on a date, not just to his house for wine and a movie, but out a on a proper date. Joanna had surprised him by actually saying yes. He thought that she would have declined, would have realized that she might have just had too much to drink that night like he had and that kissing him was a momentary lapse in judgment. She was however perfectly sober when she agreed to go out with him. He had brought her out to a wonderful restaurant in the city and so far thing seemed to be going well.
Unbeknownst to Mycroft Joanna was anything but calm. In fact she was terrified. When Mycroft had asked her out on a date she could see he was, like a school boy, nervous and she had immediately said yes. She cursed herself for him having this sort of hold over her and played it off as this crush or infatuation. As much as she tried she couldn't get the image or the feeling of her snogging Mycroft Holmes out of her head. He was certainly not the Iceman. He snogged with an air of authority yes, but with enough passion that it could start a million fires, burn Rome to the ground. Joanna was naturally a confident person but for once in her life she was left utterly shy and like a teenager going on her first date she had spent hours getting ready before Mycroft came to pick her up. She showered and got her hair ready, opting to keep it down and even spend the painstaking time to curl it because she noticed that Mycroft seemed drawn to her hair, especially when it was down, before she had tried on no less than five different outfits. She hated each and every one of them for different reasons before she had just pulled on the first one again. It was a modest one shouldered silver sequined dress that fell to her knees and she had paired it with a simple pair of silver hoop earrings and black heels. Just a sweep of black eyeliner was enough to make her eyes pop and just a bit of rose lip stain to draw attention to her lips. The rest of her features she kept entirely natural. She sipped on her wine, watching Mycroft across the table who looked absolutely handsome in his grey three piece suit that she liked.
The truth of the matter was that Mycroft had never actually been on a proper date before. He thought however as he looked across the table at Joanna who was eyeing him with an intense stare, that she seemed to be enjoying herself. She smirked at him playfully as she raised her wine glass to her lips and Mycroft growled slightly under his breath. The truth of the matter was that Joanna had never been on a proper date before either, but she was enjoying teasing Mycroft with being extremely flirty and suggestive tonight. For one as intelligent as him, he didn't always pick up on the fact that she was flirting with him, like when he had missed it all before. Mycroft wasn't sure where this date was going exactly at this point. Joanna was highly intelligent and she understood the things he talked about without him having to explain them to her first which was highly pleasing. For once he had met someone who was equal to him that was not his brother or Lexi. Joanna also seemed to be interested in listening to him. She had the foulest mouth that he had ever heard before and he was trying to teach her restraint, but she also had exceptional manners. Her accent had dulled slightly in the several months she had been living in England but it still came out strongly when she was swearing or angry. Mycroft actually hadn't been on the receiving end of her anger for a while now.
Joanna was currently terrorizing a group of the members of parliament that had been giving him a hard time over the recent elections. Unbeknownst to Mycroft, Joanna was also looking into some of the rogue governments that were starting to get a bit out of hand. There were some things that Joanna was keeping from Mycroft for now, things it was better for him not to know as that would only require her to explain more about who she actually was in terms of her intelligence agent identity. She wanted to tell him, but it wasn't entirely safe either. Her new identity protected people. Right now she was following the whispers about Moriarty. Oh she had heard about him before. A few years back before he started his games with Lexi and Sherlock she had heard a few whispers through the web about him. She cast her own nets out and never found out much about him only he had some sort of criminal empire. Unfortunately now her looking for him might mean that some whispers about herself got back to him but he would never find much about her not be able to trace Lady Liberty back to the name Joanna Reyer. For now she was safe and would collect what little information she could about the consulting criminal.
Mycroft and Joanna enjoyed their dinner together which was only interrupted by official calls twice which Joanna quickly dealt with on her mobile. They chatted, got to know each other better and drank even more wine. After dinner Mycroft was going to escort Joanna to the theatre where he had procured two tickets to her favourite play, "Much Ado About Nothing, but that was about the time that England decided to fall due to their absence. They were called back to the office by Anthea due to a potential security breach that could have massive effects about national security. They had taken one look at each other before Mycroft had thrown several hundred pound notes onto the table and they grabbed their coats, pulling them on swiftly as they rushed to the door, the other restaurant goers watching them in surprise. They rushed back to their offices in the city and as soon as they arrived Mycroft was handed over a phone which already had the Prime Minister on the line. He started talking to him, trying to assuage his fears while he followed Joanna into her office. She hurriedly sat behind her desk and woke up her computer before she got to work, her fingers flying across the keys faster than Mycroft could watch.
"Level Three Security Breach," Joanna informed him as she called it up on her computer. "They tried to hack us for information, but they came across my own firewalls. I wasn't taking chances. When I started working here I reworked all the security measures and added even more layers to them," Joanna told him as she glanced up at him, her fingers still speeding over the keys. "It wasn't Lexi if you're wondering. This person was just snooping around in general. If it was Lexi she would have been looking for something in specific and would have only looked at that. This person wanted a look at everything. They also tried to attack and shut down my servers but we caught it in time. They were good, I'll give them that, but not nearly good enough. This wasn't your typical kid trying to hack the government from his Mum's back room. It wasn't another government either. This was a freelancer," Joanna told Mycroft who nodded at her once before leaving her to do her work while he attempted to keep information about them almost getting hacked from getting out.
Somehow they both ended up working through the night. Joanna checked the security before adding more layers to it and then she helped Mycroft take care of the calls and lines of communication and procedures that that to be seen to. At eleven o'clock the next morning, the Tower of London, the Bank of England, and Pentonville prison were all broken into by one man at the same exact moment, James Moriarty. Joanna swore profusely as Mycroft sat back in his chair in shock and horror as he had let Moriarty go not but a few weeks prior. He had never even told Joanna that he had had Moriarty in his custody. At the time they had been fighting and he wasn't sure if he could even trust Joanna yet. There was also the fact the Moriarty would be highly interested in a woman like Joanna Reyer. Mycroft hoped that by not telling Joanna, that by keeping her away from the man that the two would never meet. Lexi had already been thrown into his path another woman did not need to become his obsession. Joanna possessed many skills that Moriarty would find appealing and while Mycroft had been starting to trust her, he wasn't sure if she would join Moriarty if given the option to or not. Now that he knew her he knew it would never be a choice she would make. She was like Lexi and while Joanna may feel her morals were in the grey area, she was on the side of the Angels. The message that Moriarty had left at the White Tower only increased Mycroft's fears for his brother and Lexi. After he and Joanna worked for several more hours to combat this new security breach, relying heavily upon the help of Anthea and her brewing abilities, they both finally stumbled tiredly out of their offices. As they sat next to each other in the car, Mycroft having convinced Joanna to stay with him for the time being, just until they were sure what was going on with Moriarty being back, they finally got a moment to talk about normal things outside of work.
"I apologize that our date was ruined," Mycroft told Joanna who turned to him tiredly, even with her hair a mess and her eyes bloodshot still managing to look heavenly, and she just shrugged at him and the smiled slightly.
"It wasn't ruined honey. I had a great time at dine," She told him before she yawned loudly. "Besides, life's never going to be normal for us amante," Joanna told him before she leaned her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes. Mycroft froze not only because of the close contact with her that sent up the scent of almonds, vanilla, and cherry blossoms, but also because of what she had called him. Amante literally meant lover. Did she…? Could she…? He looked down at her and realized that she had fallen asleep against him.
The act of sleeping on or around another person generally meant that you were comfortable around them as you were most vulnerable in sleep. Therefore, Joanna choosing to sleep on and around him means she was comfortable around him and trusted him. Mycroft smiled a bit to himself, not used to this feeling. He was growing to care for Joanna much more than he should. It was hard not to however as Joanna had practically forced her way into anywhere she wanted to be and that included his thoughts and feelings. Joanna still told him what to do at work and he had come to listen to her and realized that she was right. She never told him to do something that was wrong to do. The car arrived at Mycroft's house and Mycroft carefully bundled the sleeping woman up in her coat before he lifted her easily into his arms and removed her from the car. Somehow he managed to unlock his door and enter his home will still carrying Joanna who hadn't awoken and who had in fact turned her head into his chest and nuzzled her face into his suit jacket.
Mycroft smiled slightly as he got her inside and brought her straight to his guest room, or Joanna's room as it contained some of her possessions now including a pair of pajamas and toiletries as well as a set of work clothes. He laid her out on the bed, pulling back the covers with one arm and the tucking her gently in. He slipped off her coat and shoes and pulled the blanket up to her shoulder before leaning down and pressing a kiss to her hairline. He spared one looks around the room before he went to his own room and stripped out of his suit until he was only in his boxers and undershirt. He fell into his bed and groaned slightly, not at all concerned about the state of his suit which he had left on the floor. In his last few moments of wakefulness Mycroft Holmes realized that his life had drastically changed as he had just done something as domestic and sentimental as put a woman to bed. A part of him wanted to also call Joanna his woman and that was the moment that Mycroft Holmes also realized that he was done for. He was giving in to a woman that barely even made it up to half way up his chest.