Warning: This chapter contains some strong language.

'BOFFIN SHERLOCK SOLVES ANOTHER'

A random GCHQ underling delivered the usual stack of newspapers to her office, presenting her with a coffee before scuttling back out of the glass door. That one was always nervous. How charming. It was nice to know that she was capable of striking fear in to their quaint little hearts without so much as lifting a finger.

This was the third time in a matter of months that Sherlock's face had been splattered all over the tabloids. He looked miserable, but then again, some sort of despair was always scribbled over his features - especially when decent cases were thin on the ground. Faylinn deduced where that man had been kept days before Sherlock had even been drafted in... she just didn't have the time nor the energy to actually go out and do the 'legwork'. Shuddering because of her own laziness, she realised the extent to which her inner monologue now sounded like Mycroft and not the Sherlock of old. Maybe that's what growing up meant.

Faylinn surveyed the open plan offices from her elevated vantage point - she always felt like a mother protecting her chicks. Or, depending on which mood she found herself in, sometimes more like a hawk circling her prey.

It did not escape her notice that her boss was meandering through the jigsaw of office furniture - a war path mapped out directly to her door. Shit. She scrambled, binning all evidence of her Starbucks order, pulling up a spreadsheet and arming herself with a big smile. Very few men could make Faylinn Holmes panic and her boss, the head of intelligence, was one of them. All the others were comfortably tucked within her family tree.

He poked his head round the door, brow furrowed.

"Holmes. My office, 5 minutes."

"Yes sir." She courteously replied, despite the fact the door had slammed shut.

A quick mental search for the cause of such an urgent summoning of the troops returned no results. Eager, if nothing else, to be back in the loop where she belonged, Faylinn grabbed her phone and jacket. She quickly locked her computer and moved the keyboard and mouse mat to align them (another very Mycroft thing to do). With a deep breath for good measure, she swung open the office door and strode out in to the warzone.

She joined her opposite number with a raised eyebrow as they waited for the bald and heavyset man to finish his phone call. Judging by his facial expressions, the person receiving his wrath wasn't saying the right things.

The receiver slammed down in to the cradle with a crunch. Again, the two cryptographers shared a glance and winced; whatever was coming wasn't going to be pretty.

"Holmes, Wickham." He addressed them individually, but seemed to be more interested in the space above their heads, "We have a situation. And a bloody big one at that." He ran his palm over his face - the first time this man had ever been witnessed showing any sign of stress.

"There has been a break in." The pause gave his employees some room to question him, even if it was just with their eyebrows. He continued nonetheless, "Multiple break ins, all happening simultaneously. The first at the Tower of London, then Pentonville, then to top it all off the Bank of England. An unnamed male has been taken in to custody - handed himself in apparently. Nothing taken... but that is of little importance to me because the integrity of this organisation has been wiped clean from under our feet. " The final sentence was shouted. He jabbed the desk with his index finger, as if his point needed more emphasis.

Three files had been thrown across the desk; Faylinn chose the one labelled 'Bank'. Ollie too leant forward to retrieve the one closest to him. Flicking through the papers, she was unable to process any real detail, instead choosing to focus on the man mountain sitting just three feet away.

"I want two things. One, for the clean up to start immediately. That means firewalls up, all Government lines secured etc. Two - and this is the really fucking important one so you better be listening carefully - I want an explanation as to how a civilian strolled in to the Tower of bloody London and caught the British Security Service with its arse hanging out of its trousers. Is that understood?"

They nodded in unison. From beside her, Ollie's 'yes sir' came out as a sort of whimper. Their boss loomed over them and with one more stab of the table, he returned to his seat.

"Right then, it'll be less than half an hour before I have the BBC on that line asking for a statement. I want something of substance to say to them. Get to it."

Oliver Wickham bounced up off the chair, doing his best to restrain himself from pouncing on the door handle. Faylinn, remembering to grab the third file, followed suit. The manilla folders safely tucked under her arm, she power walked down the corridor to catch up with her colleague, propelled by a new pair of Louboutin heels. A heavy exhale through puffed cheeks told her that he felt the same way she did.

A quick glimpse over at the papers he was reading whilst navigating the maze made Faylinn double take. In fact, she found herself clawing at his shoulders in order to bring him to a halt. He looked back at her, with worn features that said 'this better be good'.

"What do you say I take this one?"

More confusion.

"I mean..." she tailed off slightly, asking herself where she was heading with this train of thought. "you've covered for me way too many times this month. I owe you one. Plus your hacks presumably already have their hands tied. You know me, pen and paper, the old fashioned way. I'm happy to do it, it's no problem, honestly." She curled her hair around her glass finger, fluttering her eyelashes for maximum effect. Had anyone ever had to flirt this hard to get more work thrown at them before?

A grin edged on to Ollie's cheeks, his brown eyes lit up. Faylinn reciprocated his smile to close the deal.

"If you're sure?" Bloody hell. Did he need any more convincing? Was this him being polite for the first time since...well, ever? "Cheers Holmes. Hey, maybe I should thank you over a drink tonight?"

With his hand on her waist, he stepped forward, leaving just inches between their torsos. Rather disgustingly, he bit his lips whilst looking solemnly in to her eyes. He smelt of nauseating aftershave and black coffee with sugar. Faylinn allowed him to stay there a few seconds longer than any other self-respecting feminist would do because, bless him, he really thought he had a chance. She swatted his paw away as it crept away from her waist. Never losing eye contact, she leant backwards and held out her hand expectantly. The missing piece was deposited in to it.

She was left in the hallway without so much as another word.

Up on return to her home turf, Faylinn barked orders at the most competent of her minions and locked herself in her office.

The first thing to be done was to close the blinds - everything in this damn building is made of glass. Then, after scrubbing the whiteboard to rid of the doodled equations, she opened the booklet and for the first time, examined the photo that the whole charade had been for.

Moriarty, although not a man that she had had the misfortune of meeting, was immediately recognisable. He wasn't lacking his usual flair - CCTV had him caught dancing to his own personal symphony, a series of stills creating a clumsy flipbook. A selection of these pictures were blutacked to the board. One in particular, hidden at the end of the pile, stopped her in her tracks: 'GET SHERLOCK'. She folded it neatly in to four, before shoving it in to the top drawer of her desk. Personal connections could be investigated later - no doubt the other two siblings had a head start.

A quick scan of the remaining red tape was enough to prove her suspicions to be correct. The whole thing had a distinct whiff of the Consulting Criminal about it. Unwilling to allow this extra layer of intrigue to cloud her judgement, Faylinn took a closer look that her source.

One click of a button and he was in. How was that possible? It shouldn't have been possible.

Shrugging off her jacket, she collapsed in to the computer chair, pulling up all the details available to her regarding the systems of the three supposedly 'untouchable' institutions. There seemed to be no obvious, gaping holes that would have left them open to infiltration. All of the security mechanisms were regularly tested and generally up to date. Everything was in order.

Except of course, it wasn't.

Faylinn scanned the code, despite knowing this was not her speciality. Computers, to her, had corrupted the art of cryptography - she was no longer just required to do maths, but also to speak the language of technology.

She fired off an email to Ollie, crafting her words to give his ego as little scope to grow as possible. It contained no filler words, just all the essentials he would need to catch the gist of her findings.

His reply filtered through five minutes later, startling Faylinn who was in the middle of scanning a list of the security software used over at Tower Hill. His feedback carried very little substance - the most notable thing about his message was that it ended with a 'winky face'. The abhorrent sentiment behind this vile misuse of punctuation made her physically wince.

Having exhausted her only immediate source of technological insight, Faylinn returned to relying on her own brain power (a policy that had failed her very few times in the past). On scrap pieces of paper, she sketched out various tiny strings of computer code, trying to find something that could possibly act as a key to the most protected rooms in Britain.

News of slow progress strengthening the damaged firewalls eventually made it through to her glass tank of an office; the woman had found it really rather amusing to look up from her desk and watch the worker bees argue over which of them would be the one to disturb their queen at work. The chosen one had stumbled and stuttered as he delivered the message and looked extremely relived to be exiting the office once he had finished. She smiled at him as he retreated quickly.

Faylinn's final interaction with her colleagues for the morning was a succinct phone call to the press and communications department - not a number she regularly dialled - to request that they draft a statement. "Something woolly and impossibly vague."

Lots of OCs, I know. Please let me know what you think!

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