THE ADVENTURES OF A CONSULTING TIME LORD
By Soledad
Disclaimer: Both Dr. Who and Sherlock belong to the BBC. I'm just borrowing them to have some fun.
Author's note: Well – fanfic is there to right things that went wrong in canon, right?
Chapter 02 – The Watcher
The man known as Mycroft Holmes – by the small handful of people aside from the British government who'd ever had the privilege to meet him in person – returned from the Diogenes Club to the Holmes estate in a moderately foul mood. Not that anyone but his closest co-workers would have recognized that. He'd long learned to school his features not to reveal anything but what he'd want to be revealed.
One of said co-workers was waiting for him in the spacious study of the residence. It was a beautiful, old-fashioned room with expensive old furniture that joined a huge library. A young man in his mid-twenties, wearing a sharp, three-piece charcoal grey Savile Row suit, a button-down aubergine shirt with a silk tie and high-polished dress shoes, Ianto Jones looked supremely good for a supposedly dead man, Mycroft found.
And he made the best cup of coffee on the planet.
Contrary to common belief, Mycroft Holmes preferred coffee. He only drank tea outside his private refugium, in order to keep up appearances. Appearances that were expected from somebody occupying, as he liked to put it, "a minor position in the British government".
"Rough day, Mr. Holmes?" Ianto inquired politely, while helping his employer out of his coat and hanging it up carefully, so that it wouldn't get any creases.
He had a mellow voice with a soft Welsh accent that Mycroft found very soothing – which was another reason, beside his coffee and his reliability, to keep him around.
"More like frustrating," Mycroft replied, sitting down behind his desk and accepting a cup of Ianto's magnificent coffee absent-mindedly. "Flushing out all the dirt related to the so-called 456 invasion is very time-consuming. Every time I think we've found all people involved, a new thread would pop up and we have to go after a whole new bunch of people," he breathed in the coffee vapours deeply. "Oh, I've dreamt of this all day."
"I'm still surprised that Brian Green and his fellow conspirators were able to keep this from you, sir," Ianto commented softly.
There was no accusation in his voice – although he'd have been entitled to some, considering his own untimely end because of said people. Mycroft shrugged.
"You forget that I wasn't present at the first contact. In fact, I wasn't even in Britain at that time. And it was so short and isolated that I never had a reason to look for anything unusual within that particular timeframe. By the time the aliens returned, practically all evidence had long been deleted – it was easier before the global data digitalisation. Burned papers cannot be so easily reconstructed as deleted files."
Ianto nodded in acceptance because that was certainly true.
Mycroft smiled grimly. "They've tried to keep me out of the loop this time, too. Without Mummy, I'd never have found out what was happening behind the scenes. The PR and the cover-up were being handled expertly; I'm still looking for the mastermind behind the scheme, because neither Dekker, nor Frobisher would have been smart enough for that."
"True," Ianto said with a reserved little smile. "She was amazing. I hope she'll keep working wonders."
Mycroft nodded in sympathy. He knew what the young man was hoping for and wished the best for him.
"Don't worry," he said. "Mummy's looking for him all the time. Should he ever set foot on Earth again, we'll learn about it in the same instance. And considering your… erm… special circumstances, you've got the time to wait for him."
"True enough," Ianto allowed. "Dead men don't have to hurry."
They exchanged identical rueful smiles. Ianto still felt bad about not being able to tell his sister the truth, letting her grieve for him, but it couldn't be helped. Not before the whole 456-mess was dealt with. As long as there were still people who'd been involved free, his life would be in danger. It was better that Rhiannon grieved for him with no reason than giving her a reason to do so.
Mycroft had his own regrets, a fairly large bunch of them. He never spoke about them, and Ianto knew better than to ask.
Their discussion was interrupted by Anthea, who hurried in, keeping her eyes on her Blackberry device as always.
"Sir, we've got a positive identification," she said without looking up to them. "Mummy expects the impact in six minutes, thirty-four seconds."
The two men looked at each other in surprise.
"Well, that was unexpected," Mycroft said. "I haven't counted on him returning to Earth any time soon. Do you have the estimated coordinates of the impact?"
Anthea had them of course. She was nothing if not thorough, and she could work with Mummy like no-one else. She simply showed them the display of her Blackberry, and the two men were stunned.
"Why would he come here, of all places?" Ianto asked. "I thought the two of you didn't get on well."
"We don't," Mycroft replied. "But it might not be his choice. Mummy isn't the only one with a will of her own."
He turned to Anthea. "I believe, my dear, it would be the best if you went out to welcome him. And have Mummy deal with the surveillance devices. We don't want any CCTV footage of his arrival."
"Yes, sir," she hurried off, still focused on her Blackberry.
Mycroft looked at Ianto. "Perhaps it would be wiser if you didn't show yourself while he's here. At least for the time being. We don't know in which shape he is… or how he'd react to anyone from Torchwood."
"I seriously doubt he'd even remember me," Ianto replied bitterly, "and believe me, sir, playing nice with him is the last thing I'd want. I'm not the one who'd worship the ground he walks on – quite the contrary."
"As long as you don't shoot him at fist sight, you'll be fine," Mycroft emptied his coffee cup. To his regret, the coffee had already gone cold.
"I shall try to restrain myself, sir," Ianto replied with a bland smile and retreated to Mummy's archives that were strategically hidden deep within the library.
~TBC~