The Silent Game
Silence The Morning After
Rose woke up only a few hours later, somehow feeling awake, though when she checked her alarm she found it was three in the morning. She figured she may as well take advantage of her energy and headed to the shower.
As she got dressed in a plain black, long sleeved shirt and another pair of jeans - she would have to bin yesterdays - she thought about what she would need to clean up the living room. Slipping on her steel toe capped boots again, she went upstairs to set about to work.
John's smile fell off his face as he watched the news on the television screen; a massive explosion in central London, house destroyed on Baker Street.
He got up quickly, grabbing his coat, shouting to Sarah that he had to run, apologising as he went.
At seven in the morning, on the dot, a knock came from the front door. Rose frowned, looking around the now half decent living room, wondering who on earth it could be, calling at this time. Going downstairs and opening the door, she then found herself instead wondering why she hadn't thought of the possibility before.
"Good morning, Mr Holmes." She said smiling to him as though the street wasn't full of police officers and TV camera crews, recording the morning news.
"Morning, my dear. May I come in?" He said, looking expectantly to her.
She just smirked slightly. "Of course." She said, stepping to the side to let the man in, closing the door and following him up the stairs. "Tea or coffee?"
"Tea, please." He said, sitting in one of the chairs.
As she waited for the kettle to boil, she leaned against the door frame between the kitchen and the living room, arms folded. "Apologies about the mess. We had a bit of an explosion last night."
He smiled slightly at her offhanded nature of such a thing, as though it happened every day. "I heard. I do hope you are all well."
He noted her smile faded slightly at the mention of any sort of injury. "Only a few cuts and bruises, nothing too serious." With that she turned to make the man his tea, hearing Sherlock's bed springs squeak, pulling out a mug and pouring him his own drink for when he showed up.
Taking the drinks to the living room, she handed one to Mycroft and put the other on Sherlock's desk. "He shouldn't be too long." She informed the older Holmes.
"I'm sure." He replied, smiling up to her. She just went to the sofa and sat down, lighting a cigarette and taking a well deserved break from her several hours hard work.
Sherlock made his way to the kitchen, mind on finding out what happened, how to avoid his big brother and making a nice cup of coffee. However he found that two of his plans were not needed.
Coffee was on the desk.
Mycroft was in one of the chairs.
He frowned at Rose on the sofa, somehow thinking it was her fault; both of them.
She just smiled up at him happily, cigarette half burned out. "Morning Sherlock."
Sherlock threw her a light glare - which she playfully returned - and turned to his brother, picking up his violin on his way to sit opposite him. "What do you want, Mycroft?"
"To make sure you are alive, of course." Was the sarcastic reply he got. Rose chuckled quietly on the other side of the room.
"And the real reason?" Asked Sherlock, starting to pluck random notes on the small instrument, a sour look on his face.
"A case for you." Mycroft explained. Rose sat up a little more, knowing she would need to start concentrating on all the details from this point onwards.
Sherlock however had other ideas. "Not interested."
"Perhaps not, but the case is of great importance either way." Mycroft countered, expecting the reaction he got.
"And what is importance when the case is not interesting?" Sherlock asked, for what must have been the hundredth time.
Mycroft sighed and looked to his little brother in an annoyed manner. He too remembered their countless conversations on such matters. "We've been over this Sherlock."
"Yet you still try, time and time again." Sherlock said absently.
Rose watched the banter between them, smiling at their ways. Exhaling a puff of smoke, she watched it as she put in her little bout of effort. "You could hear him out, Sherlock." The men simply ignored her though, as she had expected.
Ten minutes later, John burst through the front door. "Sherlock! Rose!" He called, sounding worried for them.
Bursting into the living room, John saw Sherlock glance up from his chair, violin in hand, sitting opposite Mycroft, who spared him a glance. Rose was sat on the sofa, legs curled up, one hand supporting her head as she leaned on the arm of the piece of the furniture, the other hand resting on her knee.
"John." Sherlock greeted, Rose simply waving at him. He frowned, waving back a little unsure of himself.
"I…saw it on the telly. Are you ok?" John said, getting back to his purpose for coming home earlier than he had planned, looking between his two flatmates.
"Me? What? Oh, yeah, fine." Sherlock said, coming out of his deep thoughts.
"Rose?" John asked, looking her over carefully, knowing she probably wouldn't' tell him if she thought is wasn't serious; he would probably disagree. Mycroft noticed Sherlock glance over to the woman, waiting on her answer.
"Just a couple of bruises, John, nothing to worry about." She lied easily, though both Holmes brothers caught the protective move of her hand, covering the cut on her knee a little more. Sherlock just went back to plucking his violin while Mycroft tried to figure out what was really wrong with the woman.
"Hmm…" John said, not quite believing her.
"Gas leak, apparently." Sherlock told them, Rose catching his slight disbelief in the story.
While John looked at the damage to the windows, Sherlock had decided he had had enough of Mycroft's presence for one day. "I can't." He told him.
"Can't?" Mycroft didn't quite believe him though, knowing his track record of skipping cases that Mycroft gave him.
"Stuff I've got on is just too big. Can't spare the time." Sherlock explained, an ever so slight trace of sarcasm colouring his tone.
Mycroft sighed. "Never mind your usual trivia. This is of national importance." Not that it made much difference anyway, he thought.
Sherlock flicked several strings, looking up to his brother. "How's the diet?"
Mycroft gave him a look, noticing Roses' slightly raised eyebrow in his peripheral vision. "Fine." He insisted, before turning to John. "Perhaps you can get through to him John?" Rose just smirked at this; she had really not bothered trying at all, knowing that if Sherlock didn't want to do something, he simply wouldn't.
"What?" Asked the doctor, looking from Mycroft to Rose to Sherlock and back again.
"I'm afraid my brother can be very intransigent, unlike some." His gaze flickered to Rose, and she just glared lightly at him.
"If you're so keen, why don't you investigate it?" Sherlock asked, looking down to the musical wooden box as he played a few more notes.
"No, no, no, no. I can't possibly be away from the office for any length of time. Not with the Korean elections so…" Mycroft then became aware of three sets of eyes watching him, smirking at the cliff hanger he had given them. "Well… you don't need to know about that, do you?" He smirked at his younger brother, knowing the lack of information would annoy him somewhat. "Besides, a case like this, it requires.." He pulled a face at the thought. "…legwork."
Sherlock turned his attention to John instead. "How's Sarah, John? How was the Lilo?"
Mycroft interrupted though, correcting him as he had done when they were younger. "Sofa, Sherlock. It was the sofa."
Sherlock just looked John up and down quickly. "Oh, yes, of course." He muttered, going back to his note plucking.
John looked from one Holmes to the next, then looked back to Rose, who simply shrugged. "How…? Oh, never mind." Just a Holmes thing, he decided.
"Sherlock's business seems to be booming since you all became…pals. What's he like to live with, John? Hellish, I imagine." Mycroft said, both annoying Sherlock and Rose - he was openly ignoring her, excluding her from the conversation. As her flat mates had learned on their first evening together, Rose Spencer didn't like to be ignored.
"I'm never bored." John answered, going to sit next to Rose.
"Good. That's good, isn't it?" Mycroft got up, Sherlock brandishing his bow at him, as through threatening to run him through, should the man go any closer. Mycroft just rolled his eyes at him, moving to give the folder in his hand to John.
"Andrew West, known as Westie to his friends. Civil servant. Found dead on the tracks at Battersea station this morning with his head smashed in." Mycroft explained rather grimly.
"Jumped in front of a train?" Suggested John, taking the file, looking through it quickly.
"Seems the logical assumption." Replied Mycroft.
"But..?" Asked Rose, knowing there was something more to it.
"But?" Questioned Mycroft in return.
"Well, you wouldn't be here if it was just an accident, Mr Holmes." She replied. She noticed Sherlock's smile at her deduction, the small expression only serving to encourage her.
Mycroft looked around the room, taking every tiny detail. "The MoD is working on a new missile defence system, the Bruce-Partington Program, it's called." He explained, sounding quite proud of the project, before going back to his usual voice. "The plans for it were on a memory stick."
John chuckled. "That wasn't very clever." Sherlock chuckled at the comment, Rose smirking. Mycroft wondered if it would be wise to let them keep living together; they were already as thick as thieves, so to speak.
"It's not the only copy." He assured them.
"Oh…" John almost sounded disappointed.
"But it is secret." Mycroft told them. "And missing."
"Top secret?" John asked. He was in an unusually happy mood, feeling more comfortable around the usually creepy man, having now the knowledge of who he was, while being in his own home with his two flatmates and friends.
"Very. We think West must have taken the memory stick. We can't possibly risk it falling into the wrong hands." He turned to his younger brother again. "You've got to find those plans, Sherlock." Sherlock didn't reply, only rosining up his bow. "Don't make me order you."
Sherlock just pulled his violin up to tuck his chin under it, placing the bow on the strings. He looked his big brother in the eye, a challenge in both sets of cold blue watchers. "I'd like to see you try."
"Think it over." Said Mycroft lowly, smile maniacal, eyes wide. He turned to John again. "Good bye John." They shook hands, and Sherlock started to play a random stream of fast notes on his instrument.
Rose sighed, getting up off the sofa. "I'll see you out, Mr Holmes."
He just looked over to her. "Thank you, my dear." Then he headed for the door, Rose just behind him.
At the bottom of the stairs, Mycroft turned to her again. "Try to get him to take the case will you, Miss Spencer?" He found it best not to annoy people when you wanted something from them.
She just smirked however. "I'll see what I can do." She held out a hand for him to shake. "Well, is it just me, or has a lack of threats lead to more civil conversation?" She asked him, smirk on her lips, tone slightly supirised.
"It's just you I think, my dear. Besides, we haven't gone our separate ways just yet." He replied, a smug mischief in his eyes. He had, after all, worked out what was wrong with the woman earlier, remembering the file on her life sitting in his desk draw at the office.
"Oh, I'm sure if you had anything, you would have used it by now, Mr Holmes." She said, knowing that she was simply challenging him. He accepted it gladly.
He brought up his right hand, running the back of his pointer finger over her neck gently, looking her in the eyes as he did so. "You would think so, my dear, wouldn't you?" He said quietly, running his hand from one side of her neck to the other and back again. "Your neck has healed nicely, I see." He told her, dropping his hand from the slightly browned skin, still keeping eye contact. "I hope your knee heals just as well." He said, noting the new shade of pale she turned at the mention of her knee.
She had not thought that many people knew about that, and her knee was only sliced the night before, but of course this was Mycroft Holmes; if he wanted it, he could get a file on anything he wanted probably and coupled with the Holmes quirk - as she had come to call it - she wouldn't be surprised if he could recite her entire life back to her.
So she kept herself composed, letting an easy smirk cross her lips. "I do hope my file didn't bore you too much, Mr Holmes. It must be quite the cure for insomnia."
He was surprised she had not backed down at the slight mention of her darker past, but even more so about her quick deduction about her folder. It only showed for a second though, before he once again covered it over. "On the contrary, Miss Spencer. It was quite the colourful story to read."
She opened the front door for him, holding it open. "Well, I do love colour." She said. He simply chuckled slightly at the irony of the statement.
Stepping out into the cold weather, he turned back to her. "See you soon, my dear."
"Don't keep me waiting too long, Mr Holmes." She replied cheekily as he walked away. As she closed the door again, she swore she heard him chuckle again.