Author's Note: I am extremely grateful for everyone who expresses interest in this one way or another and wanted to send a big thanks to anyone who reviews, alerts, and/or favourites. This is up rather quickly because why not? I had this ready I might as well post it sooner rather than later. Thanks once again guys and please let me know what you think of this chapter!

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.

The First Time He Stood Up For Her

For once Anthea and Mr. Holmes were both away from their office with hardly any work on them. Well, they had their phones and were checking periodically, but that barely counted. It had been a long day so it had been decided that the pair that occupied the small mostly wooden office would have a lunch break outside of a café rather than couped up at their respective desks. They barely spoke of anything but work but just being outside of the room that seemed to shrink on you as the worked built up, was respite enough.

"This was a good idea, sir." Anthea said as she cut up a piece of chicken in her Caesar salad. "I feel like I can breathe again." He 'mm'ed in response as he, leaning back in his chair, sipped from the fresh cup of tea. Her mouth had practically watered at the looked of the salad on the menu and she was not let down by the quality. Mr. Holmes had been more interested in a decent pot of tea than the food, trying to be healthy apparently, but he'd ordered a seared chicken breast with a side salad anyway.

"A change of scenery can do wonders for the soul." He placed the cup down on the saucer with a light 'ting'. Anthea looked up from her salad, eyeing her boss carefully. A smile threatened her lips but she managed to hold it back to a small quirk of her lip.

"Mr Holmes, are you getting poetic on me?" There was a scoff as Mycroft raised an eyebrow at his personal assistant.

"Hardly." He said, boredom and sarcasm being quite natural to his façade. "I do believe it was you who quoted Shakespeare in a meeting last week." He lazily pointed at her accusingly. Anthea shrugged sheepishly with an equally as guilty look on her face.

"You'd be surprised at how often Prospero from the Tempest reminds me of some of those people. I couldn't keep quiet anymore." Anthea looked down to her food and sniffed. "A lot of them should be sent to sea." Mycroft sighed, picking up the tea cup again.

"I suppose it is my fault for hiring an assistant who learnt her observation skills from high school theatre classes." He rolled his eyes and Anthea laughed. She should have never told him that – it was ammunition he could use at his will. Anthea opened her mouth to retort -.

"Carrie!?" Anthea looked over Mycroft's shoulder to see a tall, lean, man approaching. The man with brown hair and brown eyes wore a tight white t-shirt and jeans. Anthea could feel the blood drain from her face. This was the last thing she needed. The man didn't even live near this part of the city, why did he turn up around here?

"Oh no." She said in an almost sing-song voice as her ex-boyfriend approached. Mycroft didn't even acknowledge any change of the situation, only continued to sip his tea and neutral his face. Why did they decide to go outside again? What was wrong with that little office with the empty fridge?

Why she had given this guy a false name, Anthea had no idea. Perhaps it was because she had started dating him two weeks after she started working for Mycroft and was trying to get used to the idea of using different names and was using this as practice. Maybe it was out of security for her job – if they broke up it was better if he didn't know who she was. Maybe it was out of the early onset of loyalty to Mycroft. Either way she knew it wouldn't last. He was pretty, very pretty with his full lips and chiselled jaw, but he was stupid. Anthea couldn't do stupid for longer than a few months. She sighed as he approached, his hair styled in a way to make it look like bed hair but probably took longer for him to style than it took Mycroft to put on all the layers to those meticulous suits.

"Hi Damion." She sighed, looking down at her food. She could tell by his eyes he was angry – a fire hidden behind those dim witted hazel eyes. On one hand, why shouldn't he be? It had only been a week. On the other hand, he broke up with her, and she had never understood when the dumper was more upset than the dumpee.

"Is that all you have to say to me?" He asked, shrugging. Mycroft reached over the table for the tea-pot, unperturbed. "How about 'I miss you'? Or do you not care?" Anthea sighed again.

"You broke up with me Damion, why should I miss you?" She spoke in the same bored voice that she had greeted her ex in. With a deep breath She shrugged. "I'm too busy to dwell on things Damion, maybe you could give it a shot some time." The boy barely flinched.

"Then what's this?" He asked, gesturing to the table. "You're always too busy to have lunch with me but here you are." Anthea put her cutlery down softly, folder her hands together, and looked up at Damion.

"I don't have time to take a lunch away from work, Damion." The same tone. "I'm doing work here." She nodded to her blackberry on the table. Damion eyed the blackberry momentarily before scanning the table, coming across a file on Mycroft's side, and then finally eyeing Mycroft himself. Oh, great, the bull had a new target. Mr. Holmes merely raised an eyebrow looking bored, and crossed his legs.

"So this must be your boss who keeps you for inhumane hours." Mycroft clicked his tongue and sipped his tea. Anthea watched them both carefully. "She's at the office until God knows what time, never has time for me. She promised to spend Sundays with me but then she gets one call from you and she's off."

"Damion." Anthea interrupted.

"No, Carrie. She has a life, you know. Just because you don't doesn't mean no-one else does. She's not some lap dog." Mycroft put his cup down, folded his arms across his chest and looked up at Damion with raised eyebrows.

"Damion, stop being ridiculous." Anthea scolded, raising her voice ever so slightly. She was starting to feel embarrassed and she did not like that.

"No, Carrie." He held a hand straight in Anthea's face. Anthea and Mycroft both eyed it with reflecting reacts of disgust. This was not acceptable. "He's the reason we're not together." Oh, and neither was that.

"Oh, that's humorous." Mycroft's amused voice came. Damion's eyes narrowed and he stepped closer to Mycroft.

"What was that?" He threatened. The larger man, standing up was doing his best to be intimidating, but even sitting down with a cup of tea, legs crossed and umbrella to his side, Mycroft Holmes looked quite calm and very amused. There is something very intimidating about calm – much more so than fury – and Anthea loved it.

"You heard me, did you not? Unless humorous is too large of a word for you. It means funny, dear." Anthea had to fight off a laugh as she was the fury build up in Damion's face as Mycroft looked as cool as ever. "Carrie here was told of the 'ungodly' hours her job entails before she accepted it. She was ambitious enough to take the position regardless. This was, I believe, before she met you as when I interviewed her she was clearly single. Therefore you have no right to complain about her lack of availability. She does have a life, one she chooses to spend furthering her mind and assisting me in important matters you could not possibly comprehend, and not stuck with you doing whatever mundane activities you enjoy such as watching men throw a ball around on TV or the latest blockbuster action film." Mycroft rolled his eyes and reached for his cup of tea. It was to his lips before Damion even opened his mouth to speak. "Oh for goodness sake, leave now before I have you shipped off to Cambodia quicker than you can string a sentence together." Damion took a step forward looking as if he was trying to think of an argument in his head, he looked at Anthea who gave him a fiercely angry face and gestured with her head for him to get lost. He walked off in a huff, Mycroft rolled his eyes, and Anthea couldn't hold back a laugh.

"That was amazing, sir." She said, smiling to herself, as she picked up her cutlery to continue her salad. The chicken would be cold now, how disappointing.

"Please choose your perspective mate better next time." Mycroft sighed into his cup. "I'd rather not argue with another simpleton who does not respect your right to do whatever pleases you and would prefer you stay at home tending to his equally simple children." Anthea looked up from her salad, eyeing her boss.

"Unless that's what I want."

"Unless that's what you want." He echoed with a curt nod.

"Because it's a perfectly acceptable choice for a woman."

"Of course it is, my mother chose to do so and I appreciate it."

"But I don't want to."

"Of course you don't want to."

"And you appreciate that I'd rather go through your emails?"

"Most definitely."

She looked up at him and smiled slyly which he mirrored in return – eyes almost sparkling.

"Although my mother wasn't raising simpletons."

Anthea almost choked on cos lettuce as she laughed.

Sitting at her kitchen bench late that night, thinking to herself, Anthea picked up her blackberry and shot a quick text to her old friend.

My boss was so cool today. – A

Why? What happened? Jamie x

He basically told Damion to get lost in the most fancy way possible. – A

:o Way to go creepy smart guy! Jamie x

Haha, I know, right? - A