Author's Note: Thank you for the lovely reviews last chapter, particularly relating to characterisation. As someone who loves performing, it carries over to my writing and characterisation is a big deal to me so to get praise about that means I'm doing something right. Time for a bit of a fun chapter so let me know what you think of it. Read, review, and most importantly, 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.

- re-uploaded 12 hours after original post to fix an error that was bugging me. -

The First Nicknames

They were sitting in the back of one of his sleek black town cars on the way home from the airport. Walter was to drop Anthea off at her apartment before taking Mr. Holmes home. A mission had gone quite horribly wrong and both of them just wanted to get back to something as mundane as their respective living abodes. Anthea was certain the smell of rusted copper pipes wouldn't get out of her suit for weeks and tale even longer for her hair. Perhaps she'd go to a hair dresser just for a nice shampoo and treatment – something she never thought she'd have the disposable income for but the smell would just keep reminding her of the failure. Anthea supposed failure wasn't completely the right word for it. Technically, technically they had silenced the information leak – which was the whole point of the mission. However, they would not get further information from said leak about who they were being paid to give information to as the informant had died. Well, blown himself up and tried to take the whole building down with him. They had very few casualties, and James – the only other familiar face other than Mycroft that was there – had gotten out by the skin of his teeth. She had heard him saying to his partner that he was going to demand a raise from his immediate boss for this. If she had been in a better mood Anthea may have laughed at that, as it were, she only silently agreed.

Both abysmally tired passengers of the town car were silently gazing out of their separate windows when Mycroft picked up his phone from the seat separating them and turned it on. He grimaced at the screen – looking vehemently ill – she gathered at the number of text messages, emails, and missed calls. It made her dread turning on her phone – she'd have her personal work to deal with as well as all the texts and missed phone calls from people trying to get hold of Mr. Holmes. Perhaps they should have told more people where they were going, or made up a better excuse. Hell, Mr. Holmes wouldn't have even dreamed of going himself if the information hadn't needed immediate action. Look how well that turned out for them. Oh well, at least Anthea had got to see Mycroft's gunmanship. That had been more impressive than she had expected to be, he'd been just as professional as James and the other agents and at points Anthea had found herself wondering just how often he'd had to do something like this. It had been Anthea's first time really using her training with guns and lucky she hadn't needed to actually shoot it yet, just hold it close by. Mr. Holmes held out the offending phone on his palm towards Anthea and returned to look out the window.

"Sift through my text messages please, and only bother reading out the important ones. I have no patience to deal with drivel at this time." What, and she did? Regardless, and with a completely silent sigh and a role of her brown eyes, Anthea took the phone from his palm and unlocked it with the current password. She saw in the corner of her eye as Mycroft pulled on the cufflink on his now dirty shirt sleeve as it came to his lap. She wondered briefly if he'd have that suit dry-cleaned or just get rid of it. Hopefully not get rid of it, it was one of the pinstriped suits, Anthea always thought the pinstripes elongated him and made him look taller than he already was. Blinking her eyes wide a few times to focus, Anthea's attention went to the phone in her hand.

Unimportant.

Legislation.

Confirmation of attendance for some event.

Unimportant.

Unimportant.

Lestrade. Anthea opened it and read the message carefully, waiting for there to be a catch or something, anything, bad about Sherlock. Nothing bad, can be ignored.

"Mr. Harrington would like to know how long until his plan for the restructuring of MI6 is approved." She spoke, not taking her eyes off the screen of his phone that she held in both hands. Her black nail polish was chipping from the tips. That was not good, she'd have to take it off before work tomorrow which meant not going straight to bed when she got home.

"Tell him I need to have a word with him regarding those plans." There was a sigh in his voice Anthea would not have been able to detect a little while back. She wondered how many of the very little tell-tale signs of Mycroft Holmes she had picked up so far. Perhaps she should make a list. "Tomorrow afternoon." She answered the text message in Mycroft's voice as she often did after missions such as these.

Tomorrow Afternoon. We need to talk – MH.

Sent.

Legislation

Something about Iraq… was that important?

"Is the issue in Iraq important at the moment, sir?" She quirked an eyebrow though she knew he was still looking out the window.

"It's important but not imperative. I'll look at it this evening." Again, Anthea nodded though he wasn't watching and she wasn't watching him. Silent habits forming perhaps?

Unimportant.

Invitation to a party that he'd never go to in a million years.

Mummy.

Oh….

Suddenly Anthea found her eyebrow raising again.

"You have a text message from your mother…" Her voice was slightly higher than usual. There was a pregnant pause. Hesitation, perhaps?

"Oh?" Was the response she receive in that oh-so carefully placed casual tone, and from the corner of her eye she could see him tilt his head ever so slightly in his direction. Anthea decided that meant she should read it – that was her defence anyway.

"It says 'Have you checked up on Sherlock lately? You know I worry about you two, Mycie…'" Her voice trailed off and she was trying her best – and failing – to stifle a laugh that was coming out as choking noise. Mycroft's whole body tensed as he clenched his jaw and slowly raised his head. "She called you Mycie…" Anthea tried to compose herself – still failing – speaking between what could only be described as hiccups of laughter every now and then when she failed to take in a deep breath.

"Yes." He said calmly – though irritation was clear in his voice. He was doing an amazing job at keeping any signs of embarrassment off his face. Unfortunately his calm did nothing to placate Anthea's amusement.

"It's spelt M-Y-C-I-E." Anthea spoke slowly, pursing her lips to stop from both grinning and laughing. He nodded in response. Anthea could tell by how his clinched and unclenched that Mr. Holmes was missing the support of his umbrella.

"I know how she spells it." Slight curtness this time.

"Because your name begins with M-Y-C." She was all but giggling now, crumpling up on herself, phone clutched in her left hand being held to her chest.

"I am aware of how my name is spelt, Miss James."

"You-" She was looking at him now – face full of levity. "The great and powerful Mycroft Holmes." He was looking at her so coldly that it would have frightened her usually. Unfortunately Anthea was too far gone. She took a deep breath. "Have the same nickname as one of the ninja turtles." She lost herself in a fit of laughter unable to control herself. Learning something like this about a figure who was almost omnipotent was like learning that the pope wore pink frilly underwear. Her side was beginning to hurt and she clutched at it, mobile still in hand. This laughter was allowed to continue for exactly a minute, she'd muse later that he'd probably silently counted to sixty, before Mr. Holmes interrupted.

"If you are quite done, Anthea." He spoke with a sigh and looked out the window. He was asking her to stop. She sighed and tried to calm herself down – mostly due to the pain in her side. She rubbed her eyes, being allowed to due to the lack of makeup for once, looking at her highly embarrassed and extremely powerful boss.

"I'm so sorry, sir." She said, not being able to keep that smile from radiating on her face. "I've only just started coming to terms with the fact that you have a brother and a mother." Her smile faded as she gained control of herself. He chose now to look at her once again, steel locking onto mahogany. "It's a little much for my mind to handle the fact that you have a nickname, much less-" And she lost control of herself again managing to get out "Mycie." again before falling back into laughter. The laughter was so strong now that it was practically silent. She bent over and covered her face into the leather upholstery – out of the involuntary movements that came with laughter or trying to hide the shame of lack of self-control from her boss, she wasn't sure. Certainly, Anthea was embarrassed, but this was just too good.

"Really now, Anthea." He was looking out the window again, the tenseness clear in the lines of his neck. "You have yet to call me anything other than 'Mr. Holmes' and you choose to skip first name basis and go straight to Myc?" He'd turned to look at her on the last word, spitting it out like it was the most distasteful thing he'd ever said, which was most likely how he felt about it. Anthea looked up and blinked for a few seconds before letting out a giggle she was trying to stifle.

"I hadn't even thought of Myc!" She grinned alongside her giggling. His gaze turned cold.

"Oh shut up, Alice in Wonderland." He retorted. Anthea gasped, sitting upright again, staring at him in disbelief. That smug smile of his back on his face. How did he know she hated that? She'd probably rolled her eyes at something Alice in Wonderland related and he'd worked it out. Curse those perception skills. "Those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, my dear." Mr. Holmes said as he raised his eyebrows triumphantly. Anthea sighed and returned to her business as usual pose, flattening her suit jacket – though hers would be thrown out, and going through the phone's messages once again. Mycroft turned around, arm on the arm rest, legs folded, looking absolutely proud of himself. So the master wins again.

A meeting being rescheduled.

Unimportant.

Request for documents, can be dealt with later.

"No more important messages sir, all can be dealt with tomorrow or later." She placed the phone down on the seat between them. He picked it up and pocketed it in his breast pocket.

"Thank you, Miss Liddell." Anthea visibly flinched. She blinked twice, processing, before pulling out her own phone and turning it on, smirking down towards the screen.

"You're welcome, Mycie." The smirk on both their faces just barely seen under all those layers of training and skill. Something in their vast levels of professionalism had broken then and there, something that Anthea hadn't even noticed was in place until she realised that suddenly she felt ever so more comfortable in the back of that town car with her boss. After all, she knew he trusted her, but how could she really trust an omnipotent being until she learnt something further than 'Mummy' and 'Sherlock'? Something like Mycie.

Anthea couldn't hide the grin on her face when she turned up to work the next day when she turned up and found a bouquet of roses already in a vase on her desk. One side was arranged with white roses, the other with red, some of the red placed haphazardly within the white section. Though she kept the smile on her face, Anthea rolled her eyes at the sheer absurdity and playfulness. A yellow post-it note was stuck to the vase with that delicate hand writing.

I only had time to paint half of them red.

Don't tell the queen.

- MH

She took a photo and sent it to Jamie.

Author's Note: What do you think? I wrote this chapter a little while ago but the original draft was A LOT shorter so I made it a little more detailed and a little more fun – also picking up on what I was trying to say when I wrote things that turned out not to make sense :P. Thanks again to the regular guest reviewer known as Wink since I can't thank you personally. Please leave a review guys, I love to hear from you!