Author's Note: Hello everyone! Thanks for the lovely reviews. There are a few important notes I want to put here. The first is that this chapter is basically for you guys. I got multiple requests to do this so I finally gave in and agreed. Second is that I FINALLY GOT AROUND TO DOING THAT MYC POV! But read this first, please. Anyway, I hope you have fun. Read, review, and enjoy!

Disclaimer: Clearly I don't own Sherlock. The show is the baby of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, while Sherlock Holmes itself is the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.

She Talked To Jamie About The First Time

After spending two nights and three days at Jamie's house Anthea decided it was time to head home. And by home she meant Mycroft's house. His house required more travel, yes, and Anthea would see the genius at work the next day, but seeing James and Jamie so happy to be reunited made Anthea miss her weird person. He wasn't affectionate and open about his feelings like a lot of people but for some reason Anthea always felt welcomed by his side.

She opened his front door and stuck her head in to peak around. Past the entrance hall she could see a light on in the main living area. She entered, carrying her bag of clothes and toiletries she had brought back from Jamie's, and walked into the main space. With his back to her, Mycroft was sitting at the kitchen bench. He had a plate of toast to the right of him and his laptop right in front of him. Anthea smiled in the silence as she watched him. She knew he knew she was there, but she also knew he wouldn't acknowledge it until she spoke. That was fine by her, she was happy to watch him in his natural state.

Finally, having soaked up her fair share of quite thoughtful Mycroft, Anthea placed her bag down by the door and came to sit in the chair next to Mycroft. Now she got to look at his face as he continued to read and ignore her. She broke into a smile.

"Hi." She spoke quietly.

"Hello." He answered back, face unchanging as he scrolled down to keep reading. He waited until he finished whatever news article he had been reading before he leaned back in his seat and angled towards Anthea. "I thought you were spending time helping Jamie recuperate."

"I was." Anthea sighed. "But then I wanted to give the couple some alone time. I didn't want to intrude."

Mycroft opened up a different article on his laptop.

"What about my alone time?" He asked in a flat tone. Anthea sniffed. She leaned in and rested her head on Mycroft's shoulder, reading the article with him.

"Go to the club and leave me with your soft bed, then." She offered. Mycroft scoffed.

A most comfortable silence fell as Mycroft and Anthea continued reading. Or rather Mycroft read and Anthea skimmed it in order to keep up with his reading pace. It didn't matter, she didn't care what the article was about. She was perfectly content and could happily fall asleep resting on Mycroft's shoulder. Mycroft wouldn't like it, but that was his problem and not hers.

In fact.

That sounded really nice.

…

Anthea's eyes were shut by the time Mycroft next spoke. Anthea had her suspicions that he started a conversation purely to stop her falling asleep on him.

"How is she? Jamie?" He asked. Anthea licked her lips and lifted one shoulder in a very lazy shrug.

"She's okay." She answered. Mycroft hummed in response.

"Okay does not mean okay." Mycroft spoke as he opened up another tab on his web browser. Anthea closed her eyes again, internally sighing.

"I mean, she's doing well. She's being very strong, but-" Anthea cut herself off. She shook her head. "Why am I telling you this? You don't care." It wasn't an insult. Anthea knew Mycroft and knew his opinions on small talk and talking about Anthea's friends. He didn't care about goldfish. Mycroft's hands stopped, frozen as the hovered over his keyboard.

"You're right, I don't. But you do." He answered purposely keeping his tone neutral. "And I understand that you may wish to vent. I am the closest ear." How sweet he was, offering to listen to Anthea talking about something he didn't want to hear. Being in a steady relationship was softening him… Softening his attitude towards things Anthea cared about anyway. Anthea sat upright in her chair. She blinked as she tried to put her thoughts in an organise fashion. She huffed and shook her head.

"I don't know. She's being so tough and so great at it, she really is but…" Anthea bit her bottom lip and shook her head again. "Jamie's great when she's busy. When she's cooking or concentrating on something she's completely normal Jamie. It's when she's relaxing or just watching some telly that she gets jumpy." Anthea was surprised to find Mycroft watching her and really focusing on listening. "If she could go back to work I think she'd be able to get better quicker but they're making her take stress leave." Mycroft clicked his tongue.

"People and their good intentions." He muttered. Anthea dared not point out that he was the king of false good intentions.

"So I was thinking… Is it okay if I take the rest of the week off? Just to go spend some time with her in the day when James is at work?"

A pause.

Mycroft wanted to say no, Anthea could see it in his eyes. This would inconvenience him and that would never do. He silently turned back to his laptop and opened it once more.

"Fine."

Anthea blinked.

"Really?"

"No." He answered with oozing sarcasm. "I said fine to get your hopes up only to let you down. I enjoy it." Anthea half laughed, rolling her eyes at the man. Great! This was great! Now she could spend her next few evenings with Mycroft but spend the days keeping Jamie busy.

"Thanks, Mycroft." Anthea breathed. Mycroft half shrugged. "Now maybe I'll let her practise some make up on me tomorrow and take photos for her portfolio. And now she'll have someone to take her to the salon to fix her hair." Mycroft's face contorted.

"She still hasn't had it cut?" He turned to Anthea is disgust.

"She's been held captive for a week and a half, Mycroft. Her hair wasn't exactly priority one." Mycroft hummed as he turned back to the computer.

"It would be one of my first priorities." He answered quietly. "Although I've learnt not to be so mentally effected by traumatic events anymore. You build a resistance." Anthea stared at the man in concern. Building a resistance wasn't a good thing. Feeling her eyes on him he turned back to her brows furrowed. "Oh don't give me that pity. It's a good thing, Anthea." He scoffed. "Try to tell me you haven't built up a resistance."

"Preparedness maybe. Resistance? No."

"Yes, well…" Mycroft trailed off. "You're an only child and you don't attract the same sort of people I do."

"Myc."

"I said no pity. Don't make me bring out the orphan card."

When Anthea pulled up at Jamie's the next morning she had to pause to consider her approach. At first she wanted to call her best friend to tell her she was out the front. From her own recovery Anthea knew answering the door when not knowing who was there could be nerve-wracking. However she also remembered that only yesterday Jamie had a small break down over ever treating her like she should be afraid of her own shadow. The best thing Anthea could probably do as Jamie's best friend was do as her friend wanted and try to act as normal as possible. So Anthea walked up and pressed the doorbell as one would normally do.

The blonde woman's face was stony, quite different from the normal big smile, as she pulled open the door. As soon as she saw Anthea smiling at her it turned into a frown.

"What are you doing here?" Jamie asked in a high and loud voice, far more normal. She stepped to the side to let Anthea into her house. "Shouldn't you be at the office being Anthea right now?" As if Anthea was a persona or an alter ego and not just an extension of her best friend.

"Anthea's been given the rest of the week off." Anthea joked. "So I'm here to spend some time with you." She placed her handbag down on Jamie's coffee table and turned around to face the blonde, clasping her hands together. "Today's tasks are fixing your hair and getting the roots done. Maybe I'll get a cut. Then eating something unhealthy to mourn the loss of your years of long hair, and then to buy new clothes to suit your new haircut." Jamie didn't break into a smile as expected, nor did she express any excitement in Anthea spending the day with her. Instead she folded her arms across her chest and looked over Anthea with a stern look on her face. Anthea cocked her head to the side. "What? What's wrong?"

"How did you get the week off?" Oh, that was all. That was okay, as long as nothing was wrong. Anthea inwardly sigh as she smiled wryly.

"I have some sway with my boss." Anthea joked. Jamie wasn't having it.

"Not that much sway. Not with Frosty, and not with how weird you are with work." She stepped close to Anthea. "Please tell me you didn't sell the rest of your soul over to him for this Ali, because this isn't worth the rest of your soul." She had said it with such a straight face that the expression alone was enough to make Anthea burst into laughter. Anthea wiped her eyes carefully to not ruin her makeup and shook her head.

"Nothing like that." She said, laughter still in her voice. "I asked and he said yes." Jamie's eyes narrowed. Anthea pursed her lips. "He said fine." Jamie nodded. "He's just being nice. He can be nice." Anthea shrugged lightly. Jamie pulled a face and nodded.

"Yeah, he can be… To you." She nodded at Anthea. "He'll abduct people for you. I used up my nice quota when he rescued me."

"You said he doesn't hate you."

"He doesn't. But that doesn't mean he has to be nice to me."

"I don't know, Jay." Anthea sighed. "Maybe…" She looked at the ground and shook her head again. "Maybe he thinks its doing something nice for me."

"It's totally possible." Jamie rubbed at her neck. "But when it causes you guys trouble at work? Seems pretty selfless." It was, really. For Mycroft anyway. Anthea didn't know what to tell Jamie, she hadn't really looked into any possible ulterior motive and didn't believe there was one this time. She bit her lip and continued to shake her head.

"He does that type of thing sometimes, Jamie. I don't know." She smiled to herself warmly as she stared at the floor. "There's a lot more to him than he lets people see."

"What was that?" The alarm in Jamie's voice caused Anthea too look up instantly. The blonde was pointing to Anthea's face with a freshly cleaned and polished nail.

"What?" Anthea blinked.

"That look!" Jamie's voice rose a few tones.

"What look?" Anthea scrunched up her face.

"That mushy look you got on your face?"

"I don't have that look."

"You did right then!" Anthea quirked an eyebrow.

"Me? A mushy look?" She scoffed. "Jamie, when have I ever been that naive?"

"I know! But you did!" Jamie was looking at Anthea like she was a different person. "Any other girl and I'd say it was the whole 'I just slept with a guy and now I think we're soulmates look'." Anthea laughed.

"How sad." She sneered.

Jamie frowned.

Anthea rose her eyebrows.

…

Jamie gasped.

"You two slept together finally, didn't you?" Now her voice had raised at least an octave, maybe two. Anthea held a finger to her lip and hushed Jamie even though there was no other person in the house.

"No." She hissed. "Maybe." Jamie giggled, her face bright.

"You totally did."

"Okay. Fine. Yes."

"So he's human after all!" Jamie laughed. Anthea shushed her again. "Leave me alone! I've been tied up for over a week and I want to be happy for you." She tapped Anthea on the arm. The brunette held her hands up in the air, giving up. This was Jamie. If she was going to jump around and make a fuss about it then that's exactly what she was going to do.

The blonde took Anthea's hands in her own and practically dragged the taller woman over to sit on her couch. They sat down in their normal spots as if Jamie had never disappeared.

"So tell me about it!" Jamie bounced in her seat. At the very least it was great to see her so vibrant. Anthea tucked a curl behind her ear and looked off in the direction of the stairs.

"You better get changed out of your pyjamas, Jay."

"How did you get him to change his mind?" She ignored the PA.

"If we want to get everything done today we really should think about leaving an-"

"We're not going anywhere." Jamie shook her head. "I don't need all the gory details, I don't want to breach Einstein's precious privacy, but I want to have a good conversation with my best friend. I want to talk to Alice and not to Anthea. Okay?" Hazel eyes pleaded. Anthea looked down, sighed, and nodded.

"Okay." She breathed. "Okay, some girl talk but then I want to get your hair done." Anthea bit the inside of her cheek as she thought where to start. "You remember how we went to the opera?" She asked. Jamie nodded silently. "Well, I wore that red dress and um… Mycroft wasn't interested in the opera anymore."

"The one with the black lace?" Jamie raised her eyebrows. Anthea nodded. Jamie growled and hit Anthea on the arm with an open hand. "How many times have I told you to wear that stupid dress again?" She hit her again. "If you listened to me this could have happened months ago." Anthea frowning but smiling, rubbed her arm. It was red where Jamie had hit her but it would disappear without a mark.

"Maybe." Anthea poked at the red skin. "But I think we were in a really good place for it to happen. The trust level between us and no big fights for a while." Jamie through the idea around in her head for a little bit.

"Yeah. He's weird with trust isn't he?" James had told her what had happened between them no doubt. Anthea half wondered what Jamie's reaction would have been. The girl loved James to pieces but she was quiet level headed when it came to people. Anthea would ask her another time or leave it between the couple. "And since I don't want you to break that trust I won't ask a lot this time. Just two. One." She held up a finger. "Good?" Anthea looked down to her lap and grinned. Before she could open her mouth Jamie spoke again. "That's that answered." She laughed. "And two; was he weird after?" Anthea met Jamie's concerned eyes. "Did he flip out on you?" Anthea couldn't appreciate that look any more if she wanted to. Anthea smiled warmly at her best friend and shook her head.

"No. I teased him and everything. He was fine. He might have been a little embarrassed but I think he was… content." As Anthea finished her words Jamie's face softened into a gentle expression.

"That's awesome, Ali. Like, really awesome."

"It was pretty good."

Jamie exhaled a breath and stood up.

"That's all my questions." She waved her hands in a swift ceasing action. "I don't want the wrath of the Ice Man on me." She laughed. "Especially when…" She started to walk away from the couch. "James and I have started talking about maybe, just maybe, starting a family sooner or later…" Anthea perked up, her ears burning, eagle eyes on her friend.

"What?" She spat. Jamie bit her bottom lip and shrugged.

"I've got to go get changed. Be down in a bit." She started walking off.

"No!" Anthea scrambled to her feet. "You can't do that! If I can't drop a subject you can't either." She chased Jamie up the stairs. "What family? When? What does sooner or later mean!?"

Author's Note: How was that? Review and let me know, please. I was feeling very iffy about it as a concept but you guys wanted it so here it is. I also left out the initial "the first time" out to the title because it was be stupid to have that written twice. Also, yeah the next Myc POV will be up and it should be: The First Date – Mycroft's POV and should be on my profile so go read it please. I really like it. Thanks to our guest reviewers; Sophie, Tadda, and enola. Thanks to all of my wonderful registered reviewers too. See you in five days.