Author's Note: Thank you very much for the wonderful words about last chapter. I'm so glad you all liked the second non-date event. It turned out pretty well so I was really happy that you guys thought so too. As for this chapter. Be proud of my efforts, guys, I wrote this in two hours exactly… I've had a pretty busy weekend so I only go time to write now – I had planned the chapter though, thank goodness! I hope it turned out fine. Please, 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.

Her First Fight With Jamie

Anthea exited the restaurant two step behind Mycroft and Mr. Charles Brown, busying herself on her phone. It may look like she wasn't paying attention and dealing with Mycroft's other work, but in all actuality she was noting everything remotely important the portly politician was saying, even the offhand comments. Especially the offhand comments. That was something Anthea learnt a long time ago, the things that are only joked about or thrown in as silly little comments were often the most important ones. Her role as the shadowy assistant, always in the background looking bored, allowed her to get away with note taking and the occasional recording.

"You'll look into my department's budget problems, then, Mycroft?" Charles asked as he came to stop at the door of Mycroft and Anthea's town car, waiting at the curb. Mycroft kept his face neutral as he dug the tip of his umbrella into the crack in the pavement.

"Now, Charles, you know I don't have a direct say in budgeting. I have my own budget issues to address." Charles guffawed as shoved his hands into the pockets of his blue suit trousers.

"Yes, but we all know you find a way to have your say." Charles grinned. If Anthea had to say one thing about this particular government man, it was that his smile was friendly and inviting. He wasn't a bad man either, you just ended up doing a couple of underhanded things on this career path. Mycroft took a deep breath as his steel eyes flickered to peer across the other side of the road.

"I won't make any promises, but if I find myself with a free moment I may look into it." Charles took Mycroft's hand in his and gave it a single hard shake.

"Good man." He nodded. Anthea raised an eyebrow to herself, a small smile escaping, as she watched from the corner of the eye as Mycroft slide his hand free and wiped it on his jacket.

"Don't get your hopes up, Charles –"

"Hey!" A feminine voice peaked from a short distance away. Anthea's dark eyes flickered up from the blackberry screen, and scanned the street. That's when she saw her, the blonde dressed in her salon clothes, hair and makeup done nicely, hazel eyes sparkling, approaching them. Anthea had to be very careful not to let her face drop.

Oh no…

Jamie, during work. Really? It was bound to happen eventually with the girl in London, but this was not good. Anthea took a steadying breath and turned back to her screen, holding the mysterious PA persona in place. Mycroft and Charles were now looking down the street at the approaching girl.

"Hey guys!" Jamie chirp, as she came to a halt near Anthea. "How's it going?" She smiled at Anthea. And so it had to begin. Anthea pursed her lips and gave Jamie a careful look up and down, aware of Mr. Brown watching her.

"Hello." She breathed with a mixture of confusion and boredom, much like how she talked to any of the repeat customers of sorts. Jamie's brown furrowed, her grin staying in her confusion.

"You alright?" She asked, her head shaking slightly. Anthea quirked an eyebrow.

"I'm sorry?" She scoffed.

"Ah, yes." Mycroft hummed, interrupting. "Marissa, this would be James' girlfriend. We've met her at the office before." He faked one of those smiles at Jamie as Anthea raised her eyebrows.

"Oh." She nodded, smiling a bit brighter. "Pleased to see you again, I guess."

"Charles, you know James who works with me. This," Mycroft waved a hand in Jamie's direction. "Is his girlfriend, Miss Thompson."

"Pleasure to meet you, Miss Thompson." Charles gave the blonde that friendly smile. Jamie could quite match it as she smiled back and nodded politely. Jamie turned to give Anthea another look, just as Anthea slid her eyes back down to her phone, bored expression firmly in place.

An awkward silence fell. Street noises filled in the absences where Anthea's phone wasn't tapping, or Mr. Brown wasn't rocking back and forth on his squeaky shoes.

Mycroft tapped his umbrella on the ground.

"Now if you'll excuse me Charles, Marissa and I have some business we really must give our attention." Anthea took that as her cue, and started walking around to the other side of the town car. "Miss Thompson, congratulate James on his promotion for me, will you?" He added as he pulled open his car door. Frowning even more now, Jamie nodded.

"Will do." She sounded befuddled. "Hope to see you again, Marissa." She added as a slide.

"Hmm?" Anthea shot her head up from her phone to look up at the blonde. Faking realisation, Anthea nodded, smiling condescendingly. "Sure. Bye."

As they shut their car door and drove off Anthea slowly counted to five in order to make sure they were far away. Far away, so Jamie or Charles couldn't see as Anthea, phone still in her hand, let her head fall hard into her hands. She could practically feel the steel blue eyes looking at her as if she were a maniac. She didn't really care, though.

"That was bad." Anthea moaned. She heard Mycroft click his tongue.

"Miss James, if you expect me to talk to you, you're going to have to remove your hands from your face. I barely caught a single word of that." The straightforward Holmsian attitude was surprisingly refreshing. Anthea sat up leaning back in her seat. She stared out her window and sighed heavily.

"That was hard." She whined again. "Jamie's going to be so mad."

"You can't acknowledge her whilst at work."

"I know that. You know that." Anthea heaved as she turned to look at Mycroft. He was currently eyeing the time on his pocket watch. "But Jamie…" Mycroft looked over as he put away his watch. "She doesn't really get any of this." Mycroft pursed his lips as his eyes scanned Anthea's body language, analysing her the way he always did.

"My dear," He finally spoke. "If your little friend can't understand that we do this to protect her, then she doesn't deserve you." A pause as they held onto each other's eyes. Anthea broke the eye contact, shutting her eyes and sniffing a laugh.

"Yeah, well, we'll see, sir."

Anthea was waiting in the makeshift dining room when Jamie got home from work. As the front door opened, Anthea stood up, making eye contact with her best friend. Jamie pouted and closed the front door, heading to the kitchen. Anthea ran her hand through her hair as she followed behind Jamie.

"Hey, look, Jamie. I just wanted to apologies for today?"

"Oh yeah?" Jamie asked as she searched through the contents of the fridge, pulling out a can of lemonade.

"Yeah," Anthea winced. "It's that whole Alice versus Anthea thing again. Just like you can't call me Alice, I can't treat you like my best friend."

"Yeah, I get that."

"Because you know, we need to treat them like two people with completely separate lives."

"Oh yeah. In that case, no offence, Ali," Jamie shut the fridge door with a heavy thud. Her hand was still on the handle as she turned to look at Anthea. "But Anthea is a bit of a bitch." Anthea visibly flinched, frozen in place as Jamie walked past her to head to the living space. Anthea shook her head and quickly turned on her heels.

"I'm sorry, what?" She laughed it off, standing near the bookshelf while Jamie fell into the couch. Jamie shrugged.

"Well, I've met Anthea a number of times but she doesn't even say hi to me like we know each other. She just looked right through me."

"That's what I have to do." Jamie pulled a tight smile as she opened her can.

"Yeah? Doesn't change my mind." Anthea tucked a curl behind her ear.

"Jamie, I've been more Anthea for years than I have been Alice." Finally Jamie looked up to look at her friend. "You're calling me a bitch." Jamie raised her arms in a shrug gesture and shook her head.

"Maybe you should think about how you're treating your so called best friend, then, in front of strangers." She placed the can down on the coffee table. "Einstein was the nice one." Anthea stepped forward, folding her arms across her chest.

"Well maybe if my best friend opened her eyes and looked around once in a while she'd see how dangerous the world is and that I do it for her protection."

"I don't ask for your protection." Jamie half laughed and half yelled.

"Are you that stupid?" Jamie froze momentarily, staring at Anthea, before she stood up.

"I did better than you did in half our subjects at school, Miss high-and-mighty. Get off that high horse of yours. You haven't got the nose for looking down it at people." Anthea nodded, hands on her hips now.

"No, you're right. You did have the capacity to be a journalist or something, but you chose a job where you would have a lot of days off instead. Meanwhile I help to keep the United Kingdom functioning. The things I do in one day would make your hair turn grey." Jamie sneered.

"Oh, Anthea really is a bitch." She snapped. "Is it something about your office that turns people mean?" She started to walk away. "You people, even James sometimes. It's like you all love your secrets and your private connections more than you love anything else. I'm so worried about him and this promotion, he's just going to be your puppet even more."

"Hey," Anthea called out after her. "Where do you think you're going?"

"I'm grabbing some clothes. I don't really want to stay in Anthea's place tonight." Anthea laughed.

"Hey, that's fine Alice's name is on it. Feel free to stay here, where are you going to go? To the flat of the boyfriend you just called secretive?" Jamie's head popped out of her doorway.

"Are you threatening to tell him?" She asked, raising her eyebrows. Anthea cocked her head and smiled, earning a scowl from Jamie. "See, Anthea's a bitch." Anthea felt her stomach turn.

"Don't worry about going to see your puppet, this puppet is leaving. Feel free to stay as long as you want in your best friend's flat. I do believe you have more right to it than I do." Anthea turned, heading back to the dining room to grab her bag and briefcase.

"Where are you going?" A voice called from behind her. "To the puppet master's?" Anthea turned around and mocked a smile.

"That's confidential information, Miss Thompson. You're not on a need to know basis."

Mycroft did not hide the displeasure at the unplanned visit off his long features as he opened his front door. The tall man had already abandoned his suit jacket and loosened his tie. The sleeves weren't rolled up, that was a shame. As Anthea looked up at him, her handbag and briefcase in hand, she smiled sheepishly, using it as her apology. His eyes flickered behind her to her old car in his driveway and then back to the brunette with the curls pushed away from her face.

"Do you mind if I stay here tonight?" She asked, raising her eyebrows. She expected to be turned down, the stern look on his face saying he was still knee-deep in work and wasn't in any mood to deal with anything. She waited for the no, but instead Mycroft sighed and stepped out of the way, gesturing inside with an almost sarcastic manner. "Thank you." Anthea muttered as she walked past him into the familiar big empty house. Mycroft closed the door and locked it behind her.

"I don't want to hear about any silly little fight you and your friend hand." Mycroft bemoaned, leaning against the front door, arms crossed against his chest. Anthea, listening carefully, nodded. "I don't care what she called you, or what you said to her, and I absolutely don't want to know anything about any childhood argument that this current argument might dig up." He sighed, unfolding his arms and pinching the bridge of his nose. "With that said, you're welcome to stay as long as you wish, my dear." Anthea blinked in surprise before her face softened and she smiled warmly.

"Thank you, Mycroft." Anthea's eyes searched his. "Really." Mycroft rolled his eyes and pulled a face.

"Don't mention it." He meant it, don't ever mention it. And she didn't.

Anthea spent the first hour lying in her room with the sunflower poster, feet dangling off the cream bedframe. She used it to destress and find a peace of mind, lost in nothing but the comfort of the strange mix of smells that this room was. It smelt of her perfume, and the chai teas she sometimes brought in here, but it also smelt of his washing detergent, and his home.

After that she'd taken her laptop and ventured into Mycroft's study to answer emails while he worked on personal files. It was completely silent, of course, but it was nice. Very familiar, very comforting.

The only time the fight was at all mentioned was when Mycroft chose to make a quick statement in the morning, half way through coffee.

"Miss Thompson is a woman ruled by her emotions. It was without a doubt the reason you fought, but it will also be the reason she won't throw away a lifelong friendship over a work incident." He was still reading the paper, not look at Anthea, as she watched him speak. "If she expects to be your sister figure and have a life with James, than she'll need to adapt to the rules we all live by." Anthea looked down to her coffee. She took a deep breath. "No, don't say anything, I don't want to waste my time talking about it."'

That man. Anthea didn't know whether to be bewildered or to laugh.

The roles were reversed, as this time Anthea returned home from work to see Jamie sitting at the dining table. She had a cup of tea and looked like she been picking away at her nail polish. As their eyes met, Anthea forced a small smile before dropping her bags onto the table and sitting down across from the blonde.

"About yesterday." Jamie continued to pick at her thumbnail as she spoke quietly. Anthea waved her off.

"You were upset and I knew you would be, I should have kept a level head and accepted it." Hazel eyes looked up as Jamie shook her head.

"Ali, you didn't need to stand there and accept it, I called you a name that I didn't mean." Anthea sniffed, and couldn't help but smile.

"Jamie," She sighed. "You did mean it, but that's okay."

"Okay, I meant it at the time." The blonde ran a hand through her long straight hair, ruining her neat part.

"At the time?" Anthea cocked her head. Jamie bit her bottom lip as she frowned to herself.

"I spoke to James and he talked me down a bit." Anthea leaned forward to catch Jamie's eyes once more.

"He got you to understand that it's all about protecting you from work?" Jamie nodded.

"He said that he once gave his oldest sister the coldest shoulder once because he was out with another agency. Said she didn't talk to him for weeks." Anthea nodded.

"Carol doesn't have the same last name as her husband or her daughter." Anthea added. "And you should have seen Mycroft's reaction when this one guy met me after years of working with him. He was furious." Jamie listened carefully but she still seemed hurt as she huffed.

"You're all in this world full of secrets, I get that. I guess I didn't expect to get smacked in the face with it." She shrugged as Anthea gave her a sympathetic smile.

"It gets easier, I promise you." Anthea implored. "And the more time you spend at work parties, the more I'll be able to talk to you." Jamie smiled but didn't say anything. She sighed and leaned back in the seat.

"So where were you last night? Puppet master's?" Anthea rolled her eyes but kept her smile.

"Yeah." Jamie quirked her eyebrows and pursed her lips.

"You know, I've seen how he reacts when people turn up uninvited to places. He acts like I'm an escaped dangerous animal or something." The blonde mused. Anthea cocked her head to the side.

"What's your point?"

"He just must really like you not to slam the door in your face." Anthea smiled fondly.

"The perks of being his only friend, I guess."

"Yeah, maybe…"

Author's Note: What do we think? It was equally about the Anthea and Mycroft relationship, as it was about Jamie adjusting to this world she's found herself in. I look forward to hearing what you think. Also, thanks to everyone who asks after my arm. It's doing a lot better. It's still sore and the exercises still hurt, but I can feel the improvement. Like the pain is just healing pain from the surgery and de-swelling nerve now. Thanks to the following guest reviewers; Mary, Corrine, Guests x2, 4Eirlys, Tadaa, Wink, and ovejalucifer since I spoke to her personally. Thanks to every reviewer. You're all awesome.