"Hermione Granger," Hermione answered her phone curtly, trying to juggle her daughter, her coffee, and her mobile while digging her keys out of her bag. They had just spent a rather stressful day visiting a mourning Violet Holmes, and a stop at the nearest coffee chain had been a necessary evil.
"Hermione? Oh, good! It's Mary. Mary Morstan? John's girlfriend?"
"Yes, Mary, hi, how are you?"
"Well, I'm fine, but, ah… It's John. He came home plastered half an hour ago, and he won't say anything coherent. Yours was the last number he called, just this afternoon, and I was wondering if you might know what happened," the woman explained, faintly accusingly.
Hermione groaned. "It's been a year today," she said quietly. "I bet you anything he and Lestrade went out and got smashed in memory of Sherlock."
"Oh." Mary's voice was heavy with understanding. "Well, bugger me."
"Do you want me to come over?" Hermione offered, hoping that Mary would refuse. She didn't particularly want Miranda to see her 'Uncle John' drunk off his arse.
"No, no, that's okay. Now that I know what's going on… Yeah, I think I can handle it. Thanks, love. Text me some day and I'll buy you lunch for a thank-you."
"That's really not necessary," Hermione hedged. She didn't particularly like or dislike John's girlfriend. She was happy that the other woman had managed to draw her friend out a bit, and they had met in passing a few times, including at Miri's birthday party, but there was something vaguely off-putting about her, as though she was slightly too perfect for him to be believed.
Hermione's careful prodding had not revealed any hidden agenda on the woman's part, and her background check came back clear. If she was playing him for some reason (and Hermione couldn't fathom what this reason might be, as John had neither money nor political pull, despite his tenuous association with Mycroft), she was very good, and must have someone in Intelligence covering her tracks.
"Nonsense! You've been such a good friend to my John, and I'd love to get to know you better."
The witch groaned internally. A fishing mission. She had never had many female friends, but she had enough male friends that she was more than familiar with the air of a woman trying to ferret out whether she was sleeping with them. "Well, how could I say no to that?" she asked rhetorically, hiding her irritation and resignation, and wishing, not for the first time, that she could bring herself to be as rude to people as Sherlock. He would have just pointed out that if Hermione wanted John, she could have had him long before Mary entered the picture, and had no desire to do so.
"Well, obviously, you can't," Mary replied, something in her tone hinting at amusement. "So I'll be waiting on that text."
"All right, then. Talk to you later," Hermione said, with all the cheerfulness she didn't feel, and then added (only a little spitefully), "Tell John that if he needs to talk, I'm here for him."