After a couple of weeks and several check ups Artemis had finally been allowed to remove her bandage and Mycroft had done his very best not to blame himself for the scar; he'd left so many scars on her soft skin. The wound was red and raised, still scabbed in places and probably would be for quite some time. It looked almost like a sideways Y incision with one point of the Y trailing up towards her left ear. According to doctors his bodyguard was healing surprisingly well and quick considering she never ate enough and slept even less than Mycroft himself did. The only theory he'd managed to come up with was that her body was used to healing her body of severe wounds that it had gotten the process down to a fine art, though that almost sounded ludicrous.
Much to Mycroft's pleasure Sherlock had seemingly ended acting like a child towards his brother and, while still not quite back to normal, had stopped going out of his way to anger and irritate the elder Holmes. In all honesty the government official would take whatever he could get.
Then there had been little Violet and her insistence on showing her Uncle Mycie every single picture and piece of merchandise she'd gotten from Frozen, as well as the dress she'd convinced Gregory to buy her specifically for the occasion. Lestrade had brought her over one night when the two friends had made plans to watch one of Mycroft's old movies; essentially the cop had blind sided Myc for his own amusement. However, after that encounter at his home Violet had started to refer to the resident former assassin as 'Aunt Artemis' which had entertained Lestrade wildly, unfortunately, it had just made Myc cringe. He'd started to think about the file with her real identity inside and how he'd essentially pushed it away again, he couldn't do that any longer. He couldn't!
That was how Mycroft had found himself stood in the open doorway to the library late one night watching as Artemis read a book in one of the large armchairs by the fire. He'd shed his suit jacket and tie, loosened his collar and rolled his white sleeves up; always ended up like that after long enough in his home office. He'd just been staring at Artemis' file which he had tucked under his arm. With a quiet sigh he lifted his pocket watch out of his waistcoat with the hand not holding a crystal glass of scotch and clicked it open for a quick glance at the time; eleven-forty-eight. The watch went away and his blue-gray eyes turned back to his beautiful girl by the fire, he'd lit that fire several hours earlier to keep her warm since she'd not have done it herself and Artemis hadn't moved since.
With a breath he stepped into the room and sat down quietly in the armchair beside her own then set the old file down on the small, circular table between them which housed nothing but an antique lamp. Artemis didn't look up but, of course, he'd not really expected her to, she just kept her head in her book.
"What is this?" She asked after a moment.
The auburn-haired man let his eyes rake over her a second then took a calming breath before he answered.
"It is your file, Artemis. You're Hades file."
That finally got her to move her attention from the thick tome to Mycroft with an unreadable expression. He took a large swig of scotch from his glass.
"Who you are is inside there." Mycroft balanced his glass on the arm of his chair then flicked open the file and pushed it along the small table further towards her; Artemis set her book down in her lap. "I found it some time ago but the time to tell you was never quite right. It took a long time but I eventually found your number."
She closed her book properly and let it slip down between her thigh and the confines of her chair as she picked up the file. There she found a single sheet of paper with two photographs, one of a car and one of Artemis as a child.
The text was old and worn, the printed boxes and text practically worn away due to improper storage and age. Some of the words were hardly legible while others were sharp and clear.
Mycroft started to speak but it sounded more as though he were simply musing allowed than explaining. "Born in nineteen-ninety-two, I knew you were young back in that cabin but I never suspected you to be thirteen when he had sex." He chugged down a huge gulp of his scotch and kept his eyes firmly focused on the fire, an orange glow danced across his face. "Or maybe I did and I just pretended you were older. At least we know you're birthday now, you'll be twenty-eight in November. I dug into your history after I possessed a name and Mariska was born in Yekaterinburg, Russia to Anatoly Ivanovich Kovrov and his wife Inna Romanovna Kovrova, and was the youngest of their two children. The elder was a boy named Illya Anatolyevich Kovrov. In late nineteen-ninety-six when you were four years old your family were fired upon and your car was run off the Žvėryno bridge into the river. Everyone inside had been shot except for the driver who drown in the frigid waters. You're father was to be the new Russian Ambassador to Lithuania and it seemed someone didn't like that idea. Little Mariska was never found, it was assumed that the strong current dragged your body out of the broken windows and down river, the river was searched for weeks but Mariska Anatolyevna Kovrova was never located." He took a breath and another sip of scotch which burned the back of his throat wonderfully. "You talked about remembering a car crash, water and a dead boy. I believe you never lost consciousness and were not struck by any bullets. When Hades took the picture to confirm your father's assassination they spotted you and took you to train." He downed what was left of his drink. "You have your name back, your age, even your nationality. More than a number once more."
Artemis sat quietly a moment, her green eyes traced over the file and paused on the photograph of her at the tender age of four, then, like it was little more than a magazine she'd finished with, Artemis tossed it forwards into the fire.
"No."
Mycroft's eyebrows shot upwards as he instinctively leaned forwards to grab the file but it was too late, fire had already engulfed it. He finally set the empty glass down and just stared at Artemis with a level of confusion very unusual for Mycroft Holmes.
"No?" He managed to ask.
She turned to face him properly, face as unreadable as always. "That girl, Mariska Kovrova, she's dead. I don't remember being her or anything about her, she may as well have died in that car with her family, British. She doesn't exist. They killed her along with her brother and parents." Mycroft ran a hand down his face, he didn't understand and that wasn't a feeling he liked. "You allowed me to want things, gave me that ability back.
She stood up then and ignored her book when it fell to the floor with a dull thud. She glanced into the fire a moment to see the burning file as the scent of smoke started to tease the air. When she turned to Mycroft he just continued to watch her. Artemis straddled him then and though still puzzled he made no attempt to push her away, just rested his large hands on her slender hips to steady her. Artemis only wore a powder blue tank top and a pair of black sleep shorts – which Myc adored but said nothing about – and the fire's orange glow caressed all her exposed skin.
"What are you trying to say to me?" He asked far more softly than he'd intended.
"I don't want to be a number, or a Reaper, I don't want to be nothing any longer and please don't make me be a dead little girl." Her voice remained emotionless even if her words weren't. "Can I just carry on being Artemis? Please?"
He stared deeply into those mesmerizing green eyes, the eyes he'd committed to memory before any other part of her. Those eyes which shined and dazzled, the eyes which soothed his very soul. Those eyes with their obvious resplendence. When he looked at them in that moment though Mycroft felt he saw something almost sorrowful inside them, he longed to end it. Maybe there was something that twinged inside her heart, like the small spark that had attached her so deeply to him; had allowed a broken little girl to love him.
With a gentle touch Mycroft lifted his hands up from her hips to cup her cheeks so he could stare even deeper into those polished emeralds. That was exactly what he'd wanted to hear, he didn't know Mariska Kovrova, he didn't love Mariska Kovrova. That was the real reason he'd not wanted to tell her about her file. He'd not wanted to stop having her be his Artemis.
"Of course you can." He promised.
Mycroft crashed their lips together for a deep, loving and long kiss. A kiss filled with devotion and frankly filled with desperation. The suit clad man loved her and frankly be believed that her redamancy was what kept him going at times.
"Of course you can." The auburn-haired man repeated. "It doesn't matter what your parents named you, doesn't matter what numbers Hades tattooed on your skin, you are my Artemis and you always will be."
"Promise?" She asked quietly, almost hopefully as their foreheads rested together.
"I promise."
He pulled her to him so she just sat there with her face pressed into his left shoulder and his arms wrapped around her firmly. Artemis didn't cry but Artemis didn't remember how to cry, that had been almost the first thing Hades had stolen from his sweet girl. The pair just sat there in the cramped armchair before the fire, Myc kept his arms around her so tightly that it had to have hurt. Neither spoke, they just sat there ever so quietly, not a word, not a breath, hardly even a heartbeat. Just sat silently together while the fire crackled and destroyed the last of the file. The smell of burnt paper rose up to mix with the lingering scent of his scotch; together they made a warm almost comforting odor.
Outside the night had firmly taken over, clouds had covered the stars and the wind had started to blow through the trees really rather forcefully; a storm was coming. Mycroft cared not about a storm though, he was much too focused on the sudden and unexpected hygge which had entered his life.
The government official honestly had no idea how long the pair sat together in that one position and truthfully he didn't care to reach for his pocket watch and find out, judging by the way the fire had died down it had to have been hours. Mycroft had work to do, documents and dossiers to go through but they went ignored and instead just remained inside his briefcase back in his home office. Artemis' knees must have gone stiff and seized up but she didn't for one tiny second even hint that she needed nor wanted to move from her position above him. Mycroft wouldn't let go, didn't think he could, his arms stayed tightly around her as the first drops of rain started to fall outside leaving little trickles down the large panes of glass which ended up looking eerily similar to roots of a plant deep within the earth.
Mycroft wouldn't have objected had she wished to assume her birth name and be Mariska Kovrova once again, she had every right to claim her given name but … Mycroft had longed for her to remain his Artemis. Logically he knew little would have changed other than him using Mariska to address her. He'd not wanted to lose the girl who'd come into being back in that cabin though and it had driven him to put off giving her the file no matter how dumb he'd thought the act.
She may have once been that little girl but now she's his Artemis and he prayed to a god he'd never believed in that she always would be. Prayed he never lost her.
"I love you, Artemis."
Damn, he just needed to hear her name. He didn't love Mariska, he didn't love 132601.
"I love you too, British." She responded easily. "I'm sorry you spent so long looking for who I was born as. I should have told you I didn't care." She pressed a soft kiss to his neck were her face was pressed into it. "It does explain why I don't remember learning Russian though." Mycroft breathed out a muted laugh at that, a silly little laugh at something which wasn't even that funny. "Thank you for looking but I think it's best we let that little Russian girl stay dead with her brother and parents. Let her have some peace."
Mycroft nodded in agreement, the horrors that little girl had suffered through at the hands of Hades were almost unfathomable and Mycroft had no intentions of digging Mariska up and stuffing her back inside Artemis.
Finally he realized that if he didn't move Artemis she'd be there until he passed out so, ever so carefully, he lifted her and shuffled the much younger woman to sit in his lap comfortably. Her legs dangled over the side of the arm towards the chair she'd once occupied while her head rested against his shoulders and she held one of his larger hands in her own smaller ones.
"Will you do something for me?" The auburn-haired man asked after a few moments of quietude.
"You know I'll always do anything for you, British."
Oh she would, Mycroft didn't doubt it for a moment, not one.
"Artemis has existed a long time but she's existed for me alone, I want you to exist for you as well. You sound English currently but that is only because you needed to do so for Hades, in the cabin in Finland you sounded perfectly American." He paused to kiss her temple. "I'd like for you to decided what accent you desire, what does Artemis sound like? If you wish to remain with an English accent then so be it, I will not object, but you cannot continue to be a series of scraps of a personality. You are Artemis, so who is Artemis?" He peered down at her with those usually icy eyes of his. "You are a woman without a country. Do you understand?"
It took her a few seconds but eventually she nodded.
"I believe I do, yes. You want for me to solidify my existence as a person rather than remaining little more than a badly planned, two dimensional television character. I can do that."
"Good." He meant that, Mycroft honestly meant it. He paused then unsure if he should ask his next question but when he decided there wasn't exactly a bad answer he asked anyway. "Do- do you wish to know the rest of what I discovered about your life pre-Hades?"
"I don't think I want to, but I believe I probably should. Tell me."
"Very well." Another kiss to her temple. "From what I gathered you had a very loving family. Your father was a hard worker, a strong and unwavering man. Your mother was a dancer, ballet, from the footage I found she was really rather talented. You are more than welcome to see it if you wish. Then there was your older brother, Illya. He was three years older than you and possessed quite the analytical mind, a trait I believe both you and he shared with your father. Illya appears to have had a vast interest in history, specifically World War II and the Bolshevik Revolution. For the first part of your life you lived in Berlin as your father had a position at the Russian embassy there, though you were much too young to have picked up the language. When you turned two your father was recalled to Russia where you lived in Moscow and were educated to the full extent a child could be until shortly after you'd turned four and your father became the Russian Ambassador to Lithuania, you know what happened after that." He paused to take a breath. "You do have family remaining, Artemis. Regrettably your father's siblings have both died but your mother had a brother by the name of Georgy Volkov, he still lives in Ufa with his wife, Anuska Volkova. Roman and Vadim are their sons who have families of their own now. You could meet them if you wished."
"They've mourned for their niece and cousin once, let's not make them do it again."
She was right, of course she was right. Artemis wasn't Mariska and this uncle and aunt, these cousins didn't know her. It wouldn't have been a long lost reunion, it would have just been more heartbreak for a family who had lost so much already. The axiom that it was best to let the dead lie was firmly in place.
"As you wish, my love." Mycroft gave her a little, loving squeeze before he tucked two fingers under her chin to tilt her head up to face him and kissed her soft lips. "I think it's time we went to bed."
Without waiting for an answer Mycroft rose to his full height with Artemis bridal style in his arms. For the smallest of moments he though his legs would give out due to the lack of use and blood but he was quite pleased to find he stayed upright with little more than a small wobble. The fire had put itself out quite some time ago and the rain had turned a little violent; rain had pushed all the animals into their burrows for the night and it was high time that the couple did the same.