A/N: Apologies to all. I was checking how the story looked posted (because I'm that needy) and noticed that the 3 questions John asks didn't post properly. I had checked it in the original document & they're there, but they didn't transfer when down loaded. Note to self – check document on the site before posting! They are easy to figure out, but just in case here they are:

was that thud?

does Ugly #4 look surprised?

3. Why is Ugly #4's body falling towards me?

The next couple of chapters are for background info so please don't shoot me. There's back story in there which will hopefully answer some questions everyone, including John, may have! (7 drafts and many edits later :P)

Special thanks to IzzyDelta for following and thanks to all for coming along on my little adventure. This story has taken me by surprise at times and is developing a life of its own.

Chapter 5 – The Next Morning

John slowly blinked his eyes open. He frowned. He was warm, he was mostly comfortable and he didn't know where he was. As the room slowly came into focus he realized his face felt stiff on one side, his head hurt and his left shoulder was complaining. He raised a hand to his cheek and felt some gauze taped there. The cheek had a small pinched tugging feel to it. Stitches maybe?

What the hell happened last night?

Images started flashing through his groggy brain – an alley, some really big and ugly men, being hit, knives flying through the air, not much after that, except maybe a pair of lovely eyes. Yes, he definitely remembered the eyes. There was something else hovering on the edge of his thoughts, something to do with Sherlock?

The note!

He remembered getting a note, thinking it might be from Sherlock and that's how he ended up in the alley. He sat up with that thought and immediately regretted it. His head started pounding.

Ah, concussion. He groaned.

A voice came from over to his left.

"Hey, take it easy. You hit your head pretty hard last night."

A small, feminine looking hand came into view holding a glass of water. He looked at it and then at the speaker standing beside the bed. A petite, young woman was standing there. He looked into her face. She was very pretty, with short red hair and a heart shaped face. There was a sprinkling of freckles across her nose. Her eyes were a brilliant green. She was smiling gently at him.

The eyes in the face were the same eyes he remembered from last night. It had been too dark in the alley last night to see their colour. He looked at her and an unbidden thought of what he might have said to her came flashing back.

He groaned and placed his hands on his head, rubbing them through his hair, wincing when he came across the bump on the side. A faint blush was creeping over his skin.

He was embarrassed about what he had said, even if he hadn't really had control of his mouth at the time.

"What do you remember about last night?" she asked as he looked up again and took the glass from her, with a nod of thanks.

"Enough," he said after he swallowed the water down. "I remember an alley and some blokes pounding on me." He squinted at her, carefully, because the movement pulled at his bruised and stitched face. "It's Mary, right?"

She nodded, looking at him curiously. "Anything else?"

He looked at her wondering what he should say about the knife throwing. He didn't know her, didn't know where he was and she was obviously deadly, but there was something in her, about her that made him trust that she was looking after his best interests. It was a little astonishing how quickly he put her in his 'safe' category, not safe to the dead men, obviously, but safe for him. There really had been only one other person he had trusted that quickly and implicitly and that was Sherlock.

Interesting

"Ummm, something about knives?" he frowned. He remembered something else, right at the end. He remembered climbing into a big, black car and after that nothing else. He groaned again.

"Mycroft!" he said it like a swear word. "This has to do with Mycroft." He didn't say it like a question, more like a belief system. There was a choking noise from his left. He looked at Mary in astonishment, because she was laughing. Not at him, but more as if they were sharing the same feelings regarding Mycroft. He raised a quizzical eyebrow at her. Her face had broken into a huge grin and her eyes were alight with wicked humour. It turned a vey pretty face into something quite remarkable. It also did something to his heart, because it began to beat faster.

Get a grip! He scolded himself.

"Look why don't I order you up some breakfast and while you eat, I'll do my best to tell you what's been going on behind your back, all right? There are some painkillers on the bedside table. The doctor left them for you." He nodded, still feeling bemused and unsure. He was feeling hungry however and it might help clear some of the cobwebs.

As he watched her go to the door, he finally took a look at where he was. He was in a fairly large bedroom in a very large four-poster bed. The expensive cotton sheets and down comforter on the bed, the ensuite bathroom he could glimpse from were he sat, as well as the tasteful yet expensive decorating told him that the person who's residence he was staying at was well off. He was wearing a comfortable t-shirt and sweats. He recognized them as being his own. They must have been brought from the flat. The whole thing fairly screamed Mycroft. He must be at Mycroft's house in one of the guest bedrooms. Mycroft was really not on his top-ten list of people he wanted to talk to, but he did want answers, even if he wasn't going to like them.

Mary partially opened the bedroom door and stuck her head around it. He could hear her talking to someone just outside the door as she asked for a tray to be brought up with breakfast. He heard her tell the person to let Mr. Holmes know the doctor was awake, but not to come up until after he had eaten and was dressed. He felt grateful to her for that. He didn't want to punch Mycroft in the face on an empty stomach, wearing pajamas.

Mary came back and sat in a rather opulent winged backed chair beside the bed. It was close enough to the bed that she could put her feet up on it, with her knees bent. He noticed that her feet were bare. It seemed she was just as comfortable with him as he was becoming with her. She looked at him, opened her mouth and then hesitated.

"What?" he asked.

She tried again. "It's a really long story."

"I'm not going anywhere."

She nodded and then her eyes became slightly unfocused as if she was thinking.

"Right. I'll try to hit the highlights and if there's time later I'll fill you in on the gory details." She grinned at him, but this time the humour didn't reach her eyes.

"I'll start at the beginning, five years ago and then will work from there, ok?"

He nodded, feeling more curious by the minute.

"Five years ago I met an amazing man. He saved my life, changed the course of it and he is the reason I have been following you for the last two months." She paused, because she saw questions in his eyes. "Look there's a lot to get through and I promise I will answer any questions you have."

He nodded, a tad reluctantly.

"Ok," she said taking a deep breath and looking at him with some discomfort. "What I'm going to tell you is top secret or almost all of it is. But I'm tired of games and secrets and I'm not going to lie to you, ever. Do you believe me?" she asked him. John could see she was anxious about his answer. He did believe her, so he said so.

"Ok. I use to be an assassin." John blinked and then, wondering where this was going, nodded his head at her to continue.

"I won't tell you much about that, except to say the people I was working for were a collection of representatives from various friendly governments. Canadian," she indicated herself. Huh. She's Canadian, not American. "American, French, British and a few others. It was part of a secret intelligence group. Some of us had the job to eliminate persons of interest, shall we say, and we were trained with in an inch of our lives." She sighed tiredly at the thought and rubbed her forehead. "Those in charge would send us out to different parts of the world to try to eliminate threats. Usually people that hadn't really done anything yet, but had the potential to. Pre-emptive strikes as it were," she frowned as if remembering something unpleasant. John figured there were a lot of unpleasant memories associated with a job like that. "Whether what we did was right or not, it worked for a while, but then everything got a little out of control. There were certain people, involved in the operation, people who wanted to do more than just eliminate threats. They were interested in destabilizing governments, some of them friendly. There was one man in particular, ex-British Army, a Colonel Moran, who came up with the whole idea. He was willing to do anything to see his plan in action." She stopped again and John could see her eyes were dark and troubled. Clearly talking about this was hard for her. He waited for her to continue. Mary took another deep breath and then she spoke again.

"I didn't know any of this at the time. I found out about a lot of it later. All I knew was I was sent on a mission to England to kill a seemingly unimportant government official, who actually was very important, in a behind the scenes sort of way. I didn't know he was in charge of our little group of assassins from the British side of things. A lot of that information was classified. Still is. It was really a power play. Get rid of him and the rest of those not involved with this mad plot would have been manipulated into doing what Moran wanted."

John had promised he wasn't going to interrupt, but he couldn't let this one go.

"Mycroft?"

"Mycroft. Who is probably the stupidest target to go after." She rolled her eyes. "He's basically untouchable. I knew that from the mission brief and background check, but," she spread her hands "you don't exactly get to question orders. So I went and started digging around, trying to find the best way to kill Mycroft Holmes."

Part of John was appalled at how seemingly casual she was as she discussed killing another person and part was completely fascinated with the idea of someone having the audacity to think they could get rid of Mycroft that easily.

"While doing research I came across information regarding his brother. He was just starting out in his consulting detective work. He was beginning his work with NSY. I was wondering if there was someway I could get to Mycroft through Sherlock, but I was also fascinated about him from my research and I wanted to see how his mind worked. About the same time I was beginning to wonder what I had gotten myself into and something wasn't sitting right about the whole assignment. I couldn't put my finger on it exactly, but my gut was telling me to hold off. I decided to go talk to Sherlock, on the spur of the moment. I went to his flat and rang the bell, not really knowing why I was there or what I was going to say. And then he came to the door. Dressed in pajamas and a silk house coat, for god's sake." John chuckled. "I was totally blown away. Here was this tall, gorgeous looking man standing there, with those wild black curls and crazy eyes, like a god-damn Greek Statue come to life. And I stood there with my mouth open."

She paused, a fierce grin on her face as she remembered that moment. John was only slightly interested to note he was feeling jealous at her description of his best friend, but he was also fascinated to hear someone he didn't know discuss their first impressions of Sherlock. And it wasn't as if he hadn't seen other people's reaction to Sherlock's physical aspects. He had turned the heads of women and men a like. It's just for some reason the thought of Mary feeling that way…

"And then?" he prompted, trying to get on with the story and off his uncomfortable thoughts.

"And then he opened his mouth!" she crinkled her nose at him and they both laughed. John felt relief over her reaction to Sherlock.

Jeez John, really nice.

At that moment there was a knock on the door. Mary got up and came back with a tray. There was tea with two cups as well as a big breakfast. She filled a cup for him and one for herself and sat back sipping, while John tucked in.

"Anyway, he did that deduction thing, rattled off who I was, where I was from, why I was there. He assured me that although he himself had wished to kill Mycroft on many occasions, it was not a good idea. He knew I was feeling reluctance and he figured out that the people I was working for had a hidden agenda. The long and short of it is that with his help we stopped that group, prevented Mycroft from being killed and I switched jobs." She set her teacup down. "He also saved my life almost at the cost of his own and I owed him for that and a lot more. Mycroft wasn't too happy about the whole thing and felt I was more involved with the attempted coupe then I had let on, that I was just covering my ass. I think he was personally affronted that things like this were going on around him and for once he didn't have a clue. Sherlock convinced him otherwise. The deal was I wasn't to ever come back to England or go anywhere near Mycroft Holmes again. He tried to keep me away from Sherlock as well, but Sherlock being Sherlock would have nothing to do with that and we kept in touch, sporadically over the years."

John paused in his eating and looked at her. He knew there was a lot more to her story and that she had glossed over most of it. Any other time he would have been fascinated, but he was feeling a little impatient. He spoke up to get the story moving along.

"And yet here you are."

"Here I am," she said simply, waiting for the question that was in his eyes.

"So how did you get here and how on earth are you allowed anywhere near Mycroft?"

"The only reason is Sherlock sent for me," she said.

John was momentarily stunned and put down his fork.

A/N: What started out as one really long chapter is now two, but I'm posting both at the same time, so you won't have to wait