Author's Note: Thank you feedback last chapter! Although I was curious at the sudden influx of impatience – it was only like 5 percent of you but that was 5 percent more than usual. Don't worry; I know what I'm doing. As for this chapter… Well… It was the most fun I've had writing a chapter in a while, but I'm not sure what you'll all think… Just do me a favour and read it :P. Have fun! 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.

The First Time He Pulled Away

It wasn't one of those days; it could never be called one of those days. It was bordering on two of those days. Mycroft and Anthea already had a full schedule for Tuesday, it was going to be nonstop from early morning until late evening.

And then it happened – the unavoidable. A large meeting was scheduled for Italy that Mycroft absolutely had to attend without argument, and had no control over the scheduling. What this meant for the pair of Anthea and Mycroft, was that they'd get on a place – fly over to Italy for the meeting, get back on a plane straight away, land in time to go to work for their day of continuous meetings and business arrangements, and go home after about a whole day of non-stop working. Anthea was certain it might kill her, and even Mycroft was concerned about the lack of sleep that would be happening over this time. They'd hummed and ha-ed, and tried their best to rearrange their schedules, but they were stuck. They were stuck trying to accomplish the impossible work day.

The meeting in Italy was difficult, for Anthea at the very least. It was spoken in mostly Italian, and instead of being one that she could easily zone out during, it was one of the meetings where you had to write vigorous notes and details. Mycroft was concentrating, nodding or shaking his head throughout the whole thing, even speaking up without being asked to – which could be rare for him. Anthea knew she'd have to ask for a copy of the minutes to translate and read over later, just to make sure she knew what she was talking about. When the meeting went into overtime and Anthea had to text the pilot to wait an extra hour for them, Mycroft and Anthea exchanged a long, commiserating stare. This meant that the flight back to London would be spent catching up on paperwork and the like, instead of taking the opportunity to relax and in Anthea's case maybe have a power nap.

Placing her feet back down on British soil, Anthea already felt exhausted. It was wonderful to see Walter waiting for them outside the familiar town car, but her feet felt like lead weights stuck to the tarmac.

"Ready for round two?" Mycroft hummed near Anthea's ear as he began walking past her to the waiting car. Anthea moaned, rolling her eyes, as she finally began to drag her feet forward, wishing she'd used a mini suitcase today instead of a briefcase – just so she'd have less weight on her shoulders.

Work was… work. No better way to describe it. Endless meeting after endless meeting, followed by another meeting in some dodgy looking place in the wrong side of London, followed by a meeting a Downing Street, followed by more meetings. It was mentally and physically exhausting, having to drag themselves all across the city and listen to people just talk at them constantly well beyond the time the sun went down. The longer the day went, the more Anthea wanted to just close her eyes, and the closer Mycroft looked to strangling someone. Particularly when someone asked him 'if he had a minute'. Anthea watched as he took a steady long breath in, scenarios of murder flashing in those steel eyes, before he answered.

"No, but what do you want?"

By the time the last meeting was finished, all the day's paperwork was complete, and all necessary phone calls had been made, Mycroft and Anthea were on the verge of collapsing. The pair all but fell into the family surroundings of the town car. Their final destination was the greatest of them all, they were going to get to go home, and lay down in their beds. It sounded positively blissful. The absolute best.

Of course, the current objective was simply not to fall asleep in the town car.

Anthea shoved her phone in her purse, determined not to look at it again until tomorrow morning. Of course, she'd go home, have a shower, and then check her phone for emails, but she'd like to pretend for the moment being that the phone will be ignored. It made her feel slightly better as she showed some defiance. Running both hands through falling curls, Anthea closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"If you wished to arrive an hour later tomorrow morning, my dear, I'd completely understand." The sound of Mycroft's lyrical voice came from Anthea's side. She opened her eyes, blinking at the ceiling of the car a few times, before turning to look at her boss. He looked so tired, the poor thing. His suit, though still astoundingly neat, had lost some of its crispness, the sleeves skewed and crinkled from being rolled up at numerous points. He had a leg folded over the other and a document resting in his lap as his tired eyes lazily glanced over it, mouth pulled into a miserable line. Even his umbrella had been abandoned, resting against his knee. Anthea tilted her head to the side and smiled sadly at the sight. He looked almost as bad as she felt. She took a light breath and shook her head, dark curls dancing around her face.

"Not a wise idea, sir." She hummed. Steel eyes flickered up from the pages he probably wasn't even reading to meet her eyes. "I can't leave you alone just to sleep longer." His lip twitched and he sniffed what could have been a single laugh as he looked back down to the papers.

"Very well." Something a little more light in his flat voice. Anthea was always so fascinated with Mycroft's face when he was tired or ill, or joyous for the matter, it always looked a thousand times more wondrous when emotion was seeping in. To him it might have been a sign of weakness; to her it was a sign of the humanity he could never quite shake. Mycroft's usually styled hair, after hours and hours of constant work, was currently falling into his face, lying on his forehead. Anthea once again found herself with that consuming need to reach out and touch the genius of a man, to just swoop in and push the hair out of his tired face. Being exhausted and mentally drained herself, it turns out that Anthea was working slightly off autopilot. Before she knew what she was doing, Anthea leant across the empty seat between them, raising her hand.

"Here, let me…" She almost whispered as she pushed the brown locks off of Mycroft's forehead.

And Mycroft pulled away.

Harshly, the man pulled his body to the side, into the upholstery of the car door, his face in a deep frown. Time seemed frozen in place as light eyes held onto dark – both full of a mixture of confusion and fear. Like two predators, unsure as to who has the advantage and not knowing whether this was a battle that would end well. As time began to tick, and Anthea's heart began to beat again – albeit in her throat – the girl found her hand still suspended in mid-air. She slowly pulled it down and held it close to her chest.

"Sorry…" the usually confident brunette mumbled so it was barely audible. It took Mycroft another thirty seconds before he shifted back into an upright position, turned slightly to the window rather than to Anthea.

"Yes…" He cleared his throat as his left hand sought out the familiar handle of his umbrella. "Well…"

Silence.

Complete and utter silence.

For the rest of the car ride not a word was spoken, and neither dared to move. Two statues sat in the back of Walter's town car, the only noises being those that came from the car or the street. No one looked at each other, no one checked their phones, and no one even took a deep breath, lest the tension only increase. To Anthea, though, the tension was already rising. She could feel guilt and anger bubbling up from her stomach to her chest.

As the car pulled up in front of Anthea's building, the brunette expected the tension to dissipate. It did not. She tapped her fingers on her handbag a few times, breathing in carefully not to make any extra sounds. Then her hand shot to the handle and she looked over to Mycroft. The tall man was still staring out the window, purposely avoiding the eye contact of his assistant. Not wanting to fix this before she left the car, apparently. Anthea pursed her lips before she pulled open the car door and left the most awkward ride of her life.

Anthea walked right into her flat and collapsed face first into her couch, almost screaming into the cushions in frustration. How could she have been so stupid? Jamie, cautiously and very confused tiptoed out of her bedroom to find her best friend dying on the couch. She came to stand directly in front of the couch.

"Ali?" Jamie spoke softly and carefully. "Are you okay?" At that question alone, Anthea groaned into the plush fabric of the couch ones more. Lifting her head to look up at Jamie, Anthea blinked. The blonde looked positively beside herself with concern.

"I did a stupid thing." Anthea mumbled. She dropped her head back to the couch and shook her head. "Stupid, stupid, stupid thing." Jamie sat down on the coffee table, facing the couch. She placed her hand gingerly on Anthea's shoulder blade

"What did you do?" She asked softly. Anthea groaned, flipped over lying on her back staring up at the roof.

"Oh, Jamie." She cried with anger. "When will I learn?" She smacked herself in the face, holding her hand against her eyes. "Why do I keep doing this to myself?"

"Ali." Jamie repeated. "What did you do?" Their eyes met, Jamie's full of worry, Anthea's storms of anger and sadness.

"I went to touch Mycroft, like," She held her hand up in the air as if outstretching for his face once more. "Just to neaten his hair… and…" She dropped her hand onto her chest. "He pulled away." As if she'd gone to attack him or something, like she was a danger to him. She could see the look on his face now. Jamie's eyes softened and her face fell into an expression full of pity.

"You know what Einstein is like-"

"Exactly!" Anthea shot forward, sitting up on the couch. "I know exactly what he's like." She ran both hands through her hair, tugging through the curls. "So why do I let myself keep falling to these situations?" Jamie pouted, looking Anthea deep in the eyes.

"Because you like him."

"But I just keep hurting myself, Jamie." Anthea's voice wavered. As soon as it had, Jamie pulled her into a warm hug, running her hand up and down the brunette's back.

"I know, Ali." She whispered, "I know." They broke apart from the hug. Jamie took a deep breath, running her hands through her newly cut layers as she looked up, thinking. "This might surprise you, Ali. But the Ice Man is on the list of people I'd save from an apocalypse." Anthea sniffed a laugh, allowing Jamie to smile briefly. "And you two, you're like…" She shook her head. "I don't think there's a word for it. But Ali," She reached out, taking her best friend's hand. "If you're just hurting yourself, and just ruining work and your friendship, then maybe it's time you just forced yourself to… let go." Let go? Anthea pouted her lips as she looked down to the floor.

Let go? Was it as easy as that? Could she really just let go of everything that had been building up over the years? It would be for the best, surely. If she could just let go, and they could just be friends and colleagues, which would be for the best. These so called non-dates were obviously just a meeting between friends, and nothing more. Maybe Anthea had seen more in them, and Mycroft was just experimenting on what he could do with his first friend. Maybe he just missed the company of his brother, and she would do nicely. Letting go… It would be like removing one finger at a time from a tight grip with both hands. It would take a long time, and a lot of forced effort but… maybe… maybe it was time.

"I know." Anthea sighed, her voice completely shaking now. "It's going to be hard, but I think so too." She found herself once more being pulled deep into a hug by the blonde, being squeezed.

"He's an idiot, you know? Not seeing what's in front of him. Utter idiot."

The following day at work Anthea was busy typing out her notes for all the meetings the previous day. She'd yet to get past the Italian meeting of utter nonsense, that she'd been working on from the moment she'd stepped into the office. What she'd learnt so far today was that her rushed Italian handwriting was on the verge of incomprehensible. Another page of hand written notes flipped, Anthea heaved a sigh, preparing to type some more.

As she began typing, Mycroft emerged from the wooden door to her side. She looked across and up at the man. He pinched his nose and visibly winced as he turned to face Anthea. He sighed as he lowered his hand. Anthea knew exactly what he was going to start talking about, what they hadn't mentioned all morning.

"Miss James," He sighed. "About yesterday –" Anthea silenced her boss, holding both hands up and shaking her head lightly.

"No, it's okay sir." She smiled sadly. "I know what you're going to say." Mycroft pursed his lips, silencing himself, allowing Anthea to speak. She lowered her hands down, placing them firmly on her knees, bracing herself. She took one last steadying breath. "I realise what happened yesterday was wrong, and that I was out of line." She paused as steel eyes narrowed slightly. She tilted her head to the side as she began speaking again. "I think I needed yesterday to happen. I think it was the shock I needed once and for all to prove that this attraction is all one sided and that I was just getting myself into a deeper hole." She tucked a curl behind her ear, as Mycroft's face stayed stony and still. "You don't need to tell me to behave better because from now on, I'm going to try and move on." She shrugged and heaved a loud breath. "Now I can just focus on being your assistant and your friend only if you want it." Anthea's smile was met with the stony face and a couple of blinks. His brow faltered, frowning faintly, as he looked past Anthea at the wooden wall behind her.

"…Yes." He finally managed to hum, frowning more. "Well…" He turned his head and peered at his door, pursing his lips. "That does sound like me…" Anthea frowned, trying her best to hold onto her smile, as Mycroft fell into silence. She didn't know what to say, how to prompt him. Luckily eventually he spoke again, or more like mumbled. "Back to work, then." Mycroft took a few steps towards his office, turned back to face Anthea, looked as if he were about to speak, then continued back to room, closing the door behind him. Anthea turned back to her computer, a little vague on what had just happened.

That went well…

She thinks.

A week of minimal meetings passed until Anthea and Mycroft once again found themselves at tail end of another session of listening to boring people blab about boring stuff. This particularly boring talk session was about budgeting for their apparently overspending department. After a few arguments it was decided that they didn't need to cut costs and in fact would be given a bigger budget next year. A successful meeting done, Anthea and Mycroft were quickly packing up their equipment and eagerly looking forward to making it back to the safety of their wooden sanctuary.

As they were talking and packing, one of the familiar young accountants approached them. It was David Kiernan, the one who had started around the same time Anthea had. He had dark brown hair, was very tall, beautiful skin, and clearly spent time looking after himself. He was what Mycroft would have called Anthea's type. He was like a…. tall, well built, Tim.

"Excuse me, Mr. Holmes." The accountant interrupted politely, giving a light nod of his head. He held his own very well as a pair of steel and a pair of dark orbs fell onto him. To be fair, he had spent years arguing with them over budget, talking politely was a lot less terrifying. "I was wondering if I could borrow your PA for a moment." Oh, this was vaguely familiar. Anthea's gaze flittered over to Mycroft. The man in question was almost sneering.

"Anything you wish to say to my assistant, Mr Kiernan, you may say in front of me." Mycroft hummed. One side of David's mouth pulled out and up as he considered this.

"I would, but you see, this is a rather personal matter…"

"Oh." Anthea perked up in her seat as she turned once again to look at Mycroft. The pair looked at each other, Anthea waiting for the answer, Mycroft looking uneasy as he weighed his options up in his head. The genius waved her off as he looked away.

"Be quick." He moaned. Anthea hopped out of her seat and followed the tall, young man over to the other side of the conference table. As they came to a stop she could hear the sound of Mycroft furiously tapping his nails on the desk at a very fast pace, his impatience shooting through.

"So…" David breathed slightly shaking. Anthea gave him a warm, sympathetic smile as he did so. It had to be a little intimidating talking to Mycroft's shadowy assistant.

"How can I help you, David?" Her friendly smile grew to show her teeth. The accountant cleared his throat, looking to the ground briefly, before looking up at the assistant. The tapping in the background continued.

"I was wondering," He forced a smile onto his face. "If you would like to go to dinner with me some time this week?" The tapping stopped. Anthea's brow furrowed faintly as she looked over the man's face. The noise of fingernails began to continue on the conference table at a very slow pace.

"Do you mean…" She paused as she looked from eye to eye. "Like a date?"

"Yeah." He nodded, smiling.

"Oh…" Anthea bit her bottom lip, tucking a curl behind her ear as she looked to the floor. A date… David rubbed the back of his neck nervously.

"I understand if you're not free…" He trailed off, his polite way of asking if she was single.

But she was single. She'd been single for a very long time. She hadn't dated since Tim.

"No, I'm free." Anthea shook her head, curls fluttering. She smiled brightly. "I have no reason not to go out." The PA nodded, mostly to herself to ensure herself that she was indeed completely single. David is a lovely guy. He is smart, has a good job, is attractive, and seems nice. He was just as perfect on paper as Tim was. This was a good idea. This was a good way to move on. "I'd love to go out with you."

The tapping stopped completely.

"Great." David broke into a grin. He pulled a card out of his breast pocket and placed it into Anthea's hand. "Text me your number and we'll arrange something."

"Okay." Anthea played with the card in between her hands, holding it close to her chest. "I will." He walked out of the room grinning from ear to ear, while Anthea reapproached her boss with a coy smile on her face. Mycroft's face was as frozen as ice. He looked the brunette woman up and down once before shifting in his seat.

"Well, that was forward." He bemoaned.

"What was?"

"Asking you out right in front of your boss." The man sounded more annoyed than he did when the young accountant had approached in the first place. Anthea chuckled lightly to herself.

"Not really." She laughed him off. "People meet at work all the time." She picked up her briefcase and her handbag. "Plus, I think it will be good for me."

"Yes…"

Author's Note: Did I mention this is a two-parter chapter? Because it's a two-parter chapter. So what do you think? Do you hate me? What are you feeling towards the characters? I CAN'T WAIT for your feedback :). Thank you to the guest reviewers; Corrine, Guest, ovejalucifer, Pauline, Wheezzy8, Wink, and Another Guest. You are all the best.

I'm leaving to go home in the morning. Sydney was awesome but I'm looking forward to going home and sleeping in my own bed. Plus, I have a great fic idea, and I need to work on the Kiss POV part 2, and I can't start them until I have my actual computer to type at.