Hello, all. A new foray into the world of Sherlock, BBC. I liked Anthea, and I liked Mycroft, and I liked them together, so this was the result of a few hours' contemplation and limited planning. A hundred thanks to my picky beta, Katheriine, who decided that she should show her ignorance by asking why the 19th century had Internet. After a lengthy explanation that I hope left her blushing in embarrassment, she finished the task of reading through and being wonderful with ideas and pickiness. General disclaimer involves my bowing to the genius of Gatiss and Moffat, and etc. Any mistakes are mine, and I do hope you enjoy!

Even as a newborn, newly out of her mother's womb, with the new ability to breathe oxygen that she had not needed before, she was not wanted. She was born in 1984, just like the novel. The doctors had been adamant that she was a boy. Her parents had wanted a boy, after three girls and old age approaching fast. Her father had groaned when the nurses informed him of his gain, of his new daughter. Of another daughter.

He hadn't even wanted to see her, as her mother was fond of telling her years later, when their marriage was deteriorating. He hadn't visited her in the delivery room or in the hospital rooms when she was born. He hadn't cared what her name would be, what she would look like; he was disappointed and bitter.

Her mother named her Charlotte, because that was the name of a great-aunt that had died half a century before. Charlotte's three older sisters were all named by their mother, after their mother's deceased family members. Charlotte's sisters weren't so much older than her; the eldest being only ten years old when Charlotte was born, but there never was any real sisterly affection or closeness between her and them. Mary and Josie were the eldest, a year apart and extremely close, leaving no room for Charlotte. Jane, the studious bookworm with blonde hair and dull brown eyes was never enough fun for Charlotte. Her childhood was spent on the front steps to their townhouse, with marbles and comic books to keep her busy, keep her away from her father.

He drank heavily sometimes, but never in the house. He would always go out to pubs with his friends and come home late at night, but Charlotte always heard him clambering up the stone steps below her window, always heard his muttered curses as he knocked over the umbrella stand next to the front door, always heard her mother imploring him to be quiet, for God's sakes, the children are asleep! – but he'd elbow past her and loudly walk upstairs to his bedroom, where he'd fall asleep in his clothes.

Her mother never complained about their father when Charlotte was younger, and whenever one of the girls did, she would staunchly lecture them about their father's job, about his importance in the family, about his love for them. Charlotte would snort inwardly, because she never believed that her father loved her, and because if she displayed this displeasure to her mother, her eyes would harden and a smack was sure to follow.

Charlotte learnt to hide emotions, hide displeasure and discomfort, hide her misery whenever her father looked at her and looked hopeful for one second – because, Jesus, she looks like a fucking boy, Martha, just look at her! Why wasn't she a boy? Eh? She looks like one. Is that a joke, God? – and because she never really understood why her father wanted a boy so much. Her mother told her once, when she was a bit older, that her father had had a sister before. And that she had died in a tragic accident.

Charlotte never found out what the accident was, but it did get her interested in her father's past. They rarely ever spoke, and when they did, it was mostly about her marks at school, her friends, and why are you wearing that? Why don't you pick a dress from your sister's collection? You're definitely not a bloody boy anymore. – and she was ever so curious about this aunt that died, the family that her father had once had.

When her father was at work, her mother ironing downstairs, and her sisters at various venues around town, Charlotte would sneak into her father's cupboard-turned-study and sit in his cracked leather chair, rifling through the documents and photos in drawers. She found a black-and-white photograph of a family; a woman sitting in a chair, holding a little girl on her lap, with a man standing beside her, one of his hands on her shoulder and the other on the shoulder of a young boy standing in front of him. Nobody was smiling, but Charlotte recognised her father's curly black hair and bright eyes in those of the little boy. On the back of the photograph, an inscription in curling, edgy writing read: Georgiou family, London, May 1936. L-R: Brenda, Anastasia, Phillip, Alexander.

For a while, this confused her. Her surname was George, her father's name was Adam. She later found a document in a drawer, declaring that Alexander Hektor Georgiou had successfully changed his name to Adam Peter George in 1951.

One evening, just before she turned fifteen, Charlotte refused to accompany her mother on an errand to the shops under the pretence that she was tired. Once her mother had left, and Charlotte was satisfied that her sisters had also gone out for the night, she walked into her father's study and stared at him.

He'd looked up at her, frowning under his thick eyebrows and curly black hair, and before he could speak, she told him all that she had discovered about him.

"Why did you change your name?" She eventually asked, as she held his flustered gaze, because this was what she truly wanted to know.

He smiled and scoffed. "I was given the burden of Alexander Hektor Georgiou as a child in London, Charley. The cockney boys never stopped picking on me, in the classroom, in the playground, in the streets…My father died when I was sixteen, and I changed my name on my eighteenth birthday. It was his decision to call me that. And he only did that because his grandfather had been a Greek immigrant who moved to England in the 1800s. Why any parent thought it wise to burden their child like that, I'll never know, nor did I ever want to find out." He finished pointedly, implying that she was extremely lucky to be given such a common name.

And as she had turned to leave, completely dissatisfied but refusing to show it, he called out: "And why anyone would call their only son after Alexander the Great will forever baffle me as well."

She refused to accept her father's explanation for a while, because she had studied Greek mythology at school, and had been so interested by the gods and stories, and the writings of Homer and Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides. That she had an ancestry connected to all of that wonderful history made Charlotte happy, but angry that it had been kept from her, due to her father's selfishness.

Just before her sixteenth birthday, her eldest sister married, and her mother asked for a divorce from her father.

During the turbulence of that period, Charlotte was sent to live with Mary and her new husband. James was in his thirties, and had brilliant blue eyes that transfixed her and made her melt a little inside. Once, when Mary was out working, and James was home alone with her, sixteen-year-old Charlotte marched into his office, where he had been sitting at his computer, and stood between him and the desk, completely naked.

James had been too dumbstruck to realise fully what was happening, let alone stop it, before Charlotte had undone his jeans, pulled his briefs away, straddled his thighs, and engulfed his cock within her heat in a matter of seconds.

He barely moved throughout that whole encounter, only to grip her hips and throw his head back and groan his release.

Mary suspected a lot of things, but threw Charlotte out in the end without really finding out what had happened that made her husband so nervous around the teenager.

Charlotte lived on the streets for a few weeks after that, before she was mistaken for a prostitute and propositioned by a kindly-looking old man with gold-rimmed glasses and a silver moustache.

She had been about to tell him to fuck off, but she realised that she was hungry, that she needed money.

"How much are you willing to pay, darling?"

The man took her to a motel and told her to bathe first. She'd been relieved. Afterwards, he laid her on the hard bed and fucked her gently, as though she might break at any moment.

She ignored the whispers of another name in her ear, the whispers that spread down her limbs, through her core, freezing her blood until she hardened and refused to be mummy anymore.

The old man with the Oedipal complex paid her because through her struggles to get away from under him, he'd come anyway.

She used the money to buy food and clothes, and emergency contraception the next morning.

She worked the streets after that, collecting money through selling her body to random men, just for a place to sleep for the night.

Roughly a year later, she was arrested when she accompanied a man to a hotel room, only to find out that he was an undercover cop. She spent the night in lock-up and refused to give her name to the police.

In the morning, a middle-aged police officer came into her cell, ordering her to tell him her name. She was adamant, she was strong, she refused defiantly.

He backhanded her across the face and kicked her in the ribs and thighs as she laid coughing and spluttering on the floor. He was pulled away by another cop, and both left her to nurse her injuries in the cell. A female officer came afterwards and reluctantly informed her that charges against her had been dropped, and that she was free to go.

As she was walking out of the police station, a woman stopped her.

"You should be happy I found you."

Mary took Charlotte home, where James did not live anymore, and helped her through the problems that haunted her. They never mentioned James, never mentioned Charlotte's year on the streets.

She started school again, got a part-time job and was nice to Mary.

Days before her eighteenth birthday, Charlotte came home from work one evening to find Mary in the bathtub, with red water encasing her dead body. She found the note next to the sink.

Dear Charlotte,
Dad was a right bastard sometimes, wasn't he? Mum divorced him because she found out he had another woman. Nobody ever told you that. Mum told us not to. He never wanted you. He didn't really want us either, he just wanted to forget his little sister. He wanted a boy so that he could forget her. I met James when I was 23. We married, and then you came along. You seduced my husband. I will never forgive you for that. Now, you're almost 18. James left me money. It's in your account, you can go to university, you can do something with your life. I love you Charley.

The police asked her if she wanted to see someone, a counsellor or something. Charlotte refused.

She called Josephine and Jane and asked them to take care of the funeral and other arrangements. She took all of the money out of her account and moved away from Mary's flat. She never contacted her sisters or parents after that.

She rented an apartment in a nice part of London with a view of the Thames and decorated it elegantly. She got a job in a shoddy bar, where she served drinks by day and stripped whilst clinging to a pole around a hundred men every night.

Just before she turned twenty, an elegant woman asked to speak with her after her shift at the bar one night.

"Your dancing is superb, darling," the woman murmured, staring at Charlotte as though she were a forbidden confectionary item. "How is your education?"

She quit the bar and began working as an escort for Roberta's agency, not such a far cry from her year on the streets.

The men and their secrets and decadence engulfed her, entreating her into a lifestyle of money and gold and parties and sex. But mostly secrets.

She was twenty-two when she was approached by two men in suits in a café not far from her home.

"You're going to have to come with us."

"Am I under arrest?"

They glanced at each other. "You will be unless you come willingly."

She'd bitten her lip and followed them into to a limousine, where the smell and feel of leather reminded her of her father. She sat in the back opposite a man with light brown hair and dazzling blue eyes, so like James' but so incredibly different – and he addressed her was a soft smile.

"Charlotte George."

She frowned but made it disappear quickly; no one had called her that for a long time.

He noticed her discomfort. "You can change it later." His voice was so extremely detached from his smile, and that made Charlotte wonder.

This was how Charlotte met Mycroft Holmes, and how her days as an escort ended and her days as a government agent began.

To complete her training, Charlotte was dragged all over the world by Mycroft Holmes, taught necessary computer skills and fighting skills, taught what her role entailed, but never specifically told what it was that she was. She was Holmes' assistant, there to collect his coffees and infrequent conquests in the morning, whilst continuously attached to her Blackberry all day, living for his orders. She grew accustomed to this work, but only after a few months and years.

After she was sufficiently versed in mortal combat and technology, which took the better part of a year, Holmes taught her languages. She learnt to speak, read and write Russian and German in five months, Mandarin and simple Chinese in seven months, Japanese in five and French in ten.

She learnt to never question Mr Holmes and to learn things quickly, though, unfortunately, out of order.

He often grew angry and impatient with her during these periods, especially when he was teaching her French.

"Say it seductively; you're well versed in that language."

"Excuse me?" She snapped back, but refused to meet his eyes.

"Say it; la-ah p-uh-teet m-ohr –" his voice was so throaty, so guttural, so sensual – she needed him to stop.

"Lah perdit more." She quickly enounced, staring over his shoulder to ignore the flash in his eyes.

"No," he said sternly. "La petit mort. It astounds me that you cannot pronounce that verse satisfactorily."

"And why is that?" Charlotte demanded, looking at him directly now. "What's it mean, anyway?"

He ignored her bad grammar and stared straight into her angry eyes. "The literal meaning would be lost on you."

"What?"

"Literarily translated from French to English, it means the small death."

She frowned. "The what?"

"It is a description," he began, but was interrupted by her snort. He scowled at her.

Her frown deepened. "Of what?"

He hesitated for a moment. "Sex. Orgasm. Climax. Coming, if that is what your generation call it."

She clamped her mouth shut and averted her eyes from his intense stare.

"I know a lot about sex, Mr Holmes," she muttered carefully seconds later. "And I'd be happy to teach you how 'my generation' does it."

He showed no other emotion to her challenge other than a smirk. He stood from his chair and walked around his desk to stand behind her chair. Charlotte didn't turn her head to acknowledge him.

"My dear," she jumped slightly; his lips were right next to her ear. "I would be careful with who I challenge in the future if I were you. One might accept…"she inhaled sharply, "and I fear you would find your skills rather lacking."

She grasped the French lessons much quicker after that, and refused to meet his eyes or taunts for a long time afterwards.

"So, what's next?"

He shuffled papers around on his desk, not looking at her. "Sorry?"

"Quelle langue dois-je apprendre maintenant?" He smirked at her gall.

"I do not think that you need any more languages to add to your repertoire."

"What about Greek?" She tried to sound as though it didn't matter to her, as though she was just faintly interested in learning that particular language.

He laughed shortly. "Considering Greece's current financial state, I doubt anyone would ever have to learn the language."

She frowned, not understanding at all. He noticed her impatience and explained quickly.

"We will probably never deal with Greece during our lifetime, because they have nothing to offer us; financially or in any other sense."

"Is that why I'm learning all these languages? To blackmail countries?"

He looked mildly surprised at her own surprise. "You willingly and joyfully cultured the art of seduction in order to get powerful men to kneel before you, and yet you are appalled at learning languages to do the same to other men? No, I will not teach you Greek. Learn it in your own time. We're travelling back to London next week."

She grew accustomed to this treatment from Mycroft Holmes, as he was an impatient and quick man, but that did nothing to subdue her own ire. She retaliated whenever Mycroft was too dreadful and definitely surprised him with her anger.

Charlotte knew that he knew everything about her past, though she never asked him. He seemed to know everything about everything and everyone, and it seemed to be her job to do his legwork.

She decided to change her name in London. She obtained all of Charlotte George's old records and obliterated that history from the world. She created her own past, as an only child with dead parents.

She could not decide on a name, however. She searched the Internet for the most unusual names, and could not see herself as any of them.

She finally picked Anthea, just to upset her father. He hated Greek mythology, hated Greek history, hated having a Greek ancestry, even if it was only a great-grandfather. He hated being named Alexander, like the Hero, because he was not that at all. He couldn't provide love for his family. He couldn't keep his wife, his mistress, or his children.

Anthea quickly learnt about her boss' personal life as well. Though he wore a gold band on his hand, he was not married to anybody – other than his work. He hated London's temperamental weather and constantly carried an umbrella around with him, and she later found out that it was also modified to fit a small pistol in the handle. He had a younger brother who was some sort of genius – Mycroft expressly spoke nothing of his mental condition – who noticed impossible things just by paying the smallest of attentions on a person, issue or circumstance. This brother, Sherlock, worked for the police in a mutually-beneficial way. He solved cases that stumped even the most seasoned detectives and did this in such an arrogant and amazing way that made him quite unpopular.

Anthea did not meet Sherlock until he overdosed – for not the first time – in 2007. She had been in Mycroft's employ for a year, and meeting his younger, obnoxious brother in hospital for the first time was an experience that stayed with her for a long time.

Mycroft had called her while she was at the French embassy, smoothing over a mistake that another operative had made, asking her to bring him decent coffee. Not fully understanding the situation, Anthea had picked up the coffee and taken it to him at the hospital, finding him in a private room with a younger man sitting up in the bed.

His curly hair reminded her of her father, and the way his eyes did a rather quick, but ultimately soul-searching glance up and down her body had made her unable to speak.

"They seem to be getting younger every year, Mycroft." Sherlock had muttered scathingly at his older brother, who glanced at Anthea and rolled his eyes at the young man.

"Get your own assistant." He took the coffee from her.

"Nobody would work with me."

"Not in your current state, they wouldn't." Mycroft agreed, sipping from the foam cup.

Sherlock snorted and stared out of the window. "That's a new one. You still don't want to get mummy involved."

"Mother doesn't need to know about your stupidity, Sherlock. You need to clean yourself up."

Anthea barely breathed during this exchange – it was so personal, too personal – and almost completely stopped breathing when Sherlock turned his eyes to his brother. He looked so frightened, so lost, such like a child that she couldn't help but feel sorry for him, because Mycroft was not being much help.

"You cannot force me to do anything with that puppy gaze, Sherlock."

"Funny, I bet she can," Sherlock nodded towards Anthea, and her pity disappeared.

Mycroft turned towards her. "Are you still here?"

She turned and left immediately.

Her dealings with Sherlock after that including restricting his drug use by warning each and every drug dealer in the world about him, paying his rent whenever he forgot – which was a usual occurrence – and to have his apartment bugged and teams at the ready to collect him when he was needed or resuscitate him when needed.

Working for Mycroft meant that she had some free time and nowhere to spend it. She could not meet a guy and inform him that she worked for the government, when this fact was supposed to be top secret.

She was lonely, apart from when she met up with some of the other personal assistants of other important – but not nearly as important as Mycroft – men and women in their business.

These women were paid heftily to deliver coffee and photocopy documents, but also to be at their bosses' beck and call at any moment of the day and night.

The conversations in well-lit cafés in a multitude of languages so that nobody would overhear or understand were mostly about another disaster in Kenya, who was shagging whom, and the like.

These meetings kept her sane, and the long conversations on phones during the wait for their bosses made her happy, made her feel that she was more than just – gasp! – Sir Mycroft Holmes' personal assistant. The girls made her feel wanted, in another sense.

"What are you doing tonight, Charlotte?" He asked one afternoon.

"Anthea."

He glared at her.

"I have a date. Why?" She replied irritably, not looking up from her Blackberry. It was true; a nice guy from the CIA had caught up with her and wanted to go out for a coffee that she promised him months ago.

"Not anymore. You must accompany someone to a meeting."

"Sorry?" She looked up at him. "You're cancelling my night off, and my date?"

"Yes. I'll pay you for it." He didn't even look up from some files he was perusing.

She didn't care about the money. She wanted to shout this at him every time he made her stop personal matters to attend to his qualms.

She waited in the back of the car for whoever she was supposed to pick up.

Just before the man got in the car, Mycroft sent her the details of the man and what she was supposed to do with him; nothing.

Dr John Watson asked for her name, and Anthea, so caught up in a text to Tracy, hurriedly muttered, "Ah, Anthea." Shit, she shouldn't have said that.

Thank goodness the doctor was a little slow.

"Is that your real name?"

"No." She smiled at him – thank fucking goodness.

She stood behind as Mycroft worked his magic on the short doctor. She drove with him back to wherever he wanted to go, texting the details to Mycroft.

The doctor seemed to find her attractive. She was alright with that – most men she met found her attractive.

She quickly sent him away when Mycroft texted her to stop flirting with her job.

By that time, Anthea has worked for Mycroft Holmes for four years.

Just days after that incident, he called her into his office and asked her snappishly to put away her phone.

"You're needed in Liverpool."

She frowned. "Why?"

He stared straight at her, the tips of his fingers resting underneath his chin.

"Your father is in hospital. He is dying."

Her frown cleared, then deepened, and her eyes flashed. "Excuse me?"

"I thought you would like to see him before he died." He said this coldly, as though it mattered little to him either way, but then – why was he telling her this?

"I haven't had any contact with either of my parents for over a decade. I deleted them from my history. So why are you dragging this up?"

"He would probably like to see you."

"No," she snapped, glaring into his eyes. "No, he would not."

He ordered her to go. Her job was at stake if she did not.

Liverpool was cold, and the inside of the hospital was not any better.

A nurse showed her to the room, but Anthea sent her away before she could open the door to admit her.

Anthea hesitated at the door, her manicured fingers digging into her palms as she thought about her past.

Her phone alerted her to a message.

Go inside.

She made a face at her phone, then at the nearest security camera to her, and put her hand on the handle.

Inside, it smelt fresh, but it was the sort of freshness designed to accommodate those that were helpless and dying.

A frail man lay on the bed, seemingly dwarfed by the size of it. His stature surprised her. He used to be so strong, so big.

His ever-sparkling eyes stared at her in remembrance.

"Anastasia!"

She glared at him, the way his chest heaved, the visible ribs that she could count from the doorway, and shook her head.

"No; Charlotte."

He frowned for a moment, then smiled at her.

"You've finally come back."

She said nothing else to him, just stood in the doorway, staring at him.

Eventually, he closed his eyes, took in deep, shuddering breaths that might've turned into haggard coughs if he wasn't careful, and whispered his final sentiments. "I am sorry."

Mycroft never asked her what happened in Liverpool, because she came back happier, but less professional.

She was still excellent at her job, but she was more flippant towards him, more caring, more involved.

Eventually, late one night at the office, while they were both going over the history of one Irene Adler, also known as The Woman, Anthea stood from her chair and moved in between Mycroft and the desk.

"Anthea?" He asked, staring up at her, his eyebrows furrowed.

She licked and bit her lips, then leant down and pressed her lips to his.

She ended up straddling his thighs, much like she once had with James, but Mycroft was definitely not as stumped as James had been, and allowed her to kiss him vigorously.

As quickly as she had begun the encounter, Anthea pulled away, collected her work, and went out of the door.

Mycroft did not mention this to her the next morning, because she seemed so unperturbed by her actions, and decided to just let it go.

She sat in the back of the car, waiting for him.

He eventually came and sat by her, his face white, his gaze at the dividing screen between the front and back of the car.

"Is everything okay?" Anthea asked, looking at him, with her Blackberry in front of her.

He managed to snort. "No. Nothing is okay."

"Alright, so, the terrorists know our little game now. We'll just put Intelligence to the task of creating another way to foil them." It sounded easy to her, but she knew that things were seriously screwed up now, all because of that fucking Adler woman, and because of Sherlock's inability to read the botox-ed and plastic bitch.

He did not reply to her logic.

Anthea swallowed, and put down her phone. He did not notice.

"Mycroft…"

He turned to face her and she pressed her lips to his again, and this time, he responded almost wildly, and she ended up in his lap again, all due to him.

Finally, he pulled back. Her hair was mussed from his hands, his jacket lapels were in her fists.

"You're right," he stared straight into her sparkling brown eyes. "Adler's in custody. Moriarty will get caught by the French. We'll be fine."

He smiled at her.

She couldn't help herself.

She kissed him again, and that was enough.

Because she could probably never love him, never be enough to keep him certain, never be able to keep the world stable enough for him, but what she felt for him was close enough. Her feelings mimicked love, but both knew that there future was not as clear cut as Antigone's or Medea's. Nobody knew what tomorrow would bring.

Mycroft leaned back into the seat. Anthea stayed in his lap.

"The next few months will be…trying. Difficult." He warned slowly, as though he were planning just what would happen in the future.

"I know." She added mentally, I know you, and nothing is easy or clear with you.

"Our job won't be easy, and tragedy is sure to occur."

She ignored the cryptic nature of the sentence; he would explain everything later.

She leaned forward and braced herself against his chest and kissed him again.

"I know," she breathed without looking from his eyes. "We'd better get to it, then."

He stared at her.

His grin was truly boyish, and her squeal when he flipped her onto the seat was surprising for both.

Saving the world could wait…until after this.

There we go.

If you like it, review! Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. Again.

Regretting Crimson.