Clique of 221B

Chapter 2: Substantiate to Mycroft

Substantiate-
Provide evidence to support or prove the truth.

The rain has stopped at least. Not that you're out in it. You know a traffic camera monitor who owes you a favour, and she's letting you borrow her computer for a while so you can keep an eye on Mycroft. You glance at the clock. It's getting late, he should be going home by now. Soon he'll get in a car and go somewhere where the cameras can't follow him. With that in mind you take a note of his car's registration number. You whip your phone out and run the plate number to find it's location.  It's a company car so it'll be easy to track. You put your phone on alert so that it'll go off the next time the car stops. Hopefully that'll be his house. You get into your car and drive towards his current location. When your phone goes off you pull over and get the phone out. The car has pulled up outside an expensive house in central London before parking up around the back of the house. If that's not his house I don't know what is. You park your car in an all night car park and call a cab to take you to the next street along from his, just to be safe. You then walk around to his house. It's getting dark now so it'll be much easier to hide. You do a full circle of the house before you start looking at the windows. It takes a while before you find a room which looks similar to a study. You take your pick out of your pocket and slip it between the window frame and the sill. Wiggling the window open, you slip inside the room quite easily. Luckily there is a paper screen stood in front of the window you climbed through so you're shielded from view of anyone in the room. You're just about to go for a look around the room when footsteps approach and someone opens the door.
"I have to admit Mr Greyson I am rather disappointed in your efforts," Mycroft's voice from outside the room. "Wait outside the door and I shall retrieve the phone from the safe." So Ashton didn't do too well at this test, which makes victory so much sweeter for me. You hear Mycroft walk across the room, type in the code for the safe and then close it. You sneak a glance through the screen. Oh no. He's heading this way! He puts the phone down on his desk before going behind the screen to shut the window. You slip silently by, grabbing the phone and swapping it for the fake you had made. Quite a predictable brand and model, I must say. You duck underneath his desk, heart hammering against your ribs. Please don't notice me. Please. He takes the fake phone quickly and walks out the room. You breath in a sigh of relief.
"Now we shall just wait for Miss [Y/L/N] to come stumbling in," he adds as they walk away. Stumbling in! Well then. Let's go prove him wrong!   You reopen the window, climb out and shut it behind you. You walk around to the front of the house and knock. A fancy dressed man answers the door. Probably a butler of some sort. It wouldn't surprise me if he had a butler.
"I'm here to see Mr Holmes," you say. He nods,
"Miss [Y/L/N], I presume?" You smile at him, so Mycroft is expecting me to take a direct approach.
"Yes, that's me."
"Please come in, I shall inform Mr Holmes of your arrival."
"Thank you." He leads you into the living room and gestures for you to sit down.
"Would you like some tea?"
"Yes please, if you wouldn't mind."
"Very well Miss [Y/L/N]." He leaves you sat waiting. Soon after a maid comes in with a tea tray and pours your tea, just how you like it.
"Thank you," you say to her. She smiles timidly at you. I get the feeling that she doesn't get thanked very often. She leaves you to sip at your tea. Not long afterwards Mycroft enters the room. You check the clock. Three minutes past seven.
"Three minutes late. Tut. Tut. I didn't take you as a person who isn't on time Mr Holmes," you say to him as he sits down across from you.
"And I didn't take you as someone who fails to complete assignments Miss [Y/L/N]," he replies. "I guess we were both wrong." You shake your head at his comment. You take the phone out of your pocket.
"No," you say. "Just you." And you smirk. His face drops in realisation.
"That's not the phone," he says. Trying to regain his confidence. "The phone is here." He takes out your fake and you shrug.
"See for yourself." You put the phone down on the coffee table between you both and lean back. He picks up the phone and checks. He clears his throat,
"Well, Miss [Y/L/N] I must say," he begins. "I'm impressed." You smile.
"I thought you would be. Now about that job offer?" He nods, taking a sip of his tea.
"Miss [Y/L/N], I've appointed you as my personal bodyguard." Your mouth hangs open slightly and you lower your cup back onto its saucer heavily. No. No thank you. There is no way I am working for the man who shut down my entire career. I must have misheard.

"Your what?"
"Bodyguard, Miss [Y/L/N]."

Oh.