I am not lonely [Mystrade]

CHAPTER 12 : Football Game

"Dad !" shouted Jake Lestrade from the corridor. Gregory was in the bathroom upstairs, bathing his younger son and couldn't let him alone to greet his other children. Their mother had dropped them at the door for the weekend like once every four weeks and usually the detective waited for thein the living room but Alden had vomit his breakfast and needed a wash.
The grey-haired heard the three kids rushing up the stairs but Mycroft intercepted them before they entered the room. "Hey young Lestrades, your dad is a bit busy at the moment, he'll be available in 5 minutes but before, go put your stuff in your rooms.Come on guys !"
The inspector pulled the baby out of the bath and wrapped him in a blue towel. "Come on little man, let's dress up again !". He brought him back in his room and chose a pair of blue jeans and a white shirt.
Now cleaned and dressed the toddler was excited to meet the other children he was hearing in the corridor. "Papa ! Down !" he urged his father to put him down from the changing table. Doing as he was told the DI then took the little boys hand and joinned his kids in the corridor.
"Good morning guys ! This is Alden." he introduced them. Jake rushed toward the kid. "Hey young lad, gentle. It's not a pet !" advised the yarder.
Sarah, the oldest, kneeled in front of the little boy and patted him on the shoulder. "Hello Alden, I'm Sarah." she introduced herself.
"Sarah." the toddler grinned and he hugged her. "Play ?"
The oldest look up to her father who nodded inagreement. She picked up the baby from the floor and brought him tothe living room, closely followed by her two brothers.

The four children were playing in the living room for about one hour when Greg and Mycroft joined them after showering themselves and dressing up. The toddler was running from one of the Lestrade's kid to another trying to catch the ball they were throwing in the air.They were all enjoying themselves but when he saw that, the auburn pulled a horrified face, worried about the precious pieces of art displayed on the coffee tables and the gueridons. His partner noticed his look and interrupted the game. "Lestrades, I thought your mum had educated you well enough for you not to play the ball inside, doesn't she ?"
"Yes Dad, sorry" apologized the elder. "It'sjust Alden who ... No , nothing, actually it was a stupid idea. Sorry dad."
Mycroft smiled. "It's ok kids. So what do you want to do today ?"
"Can we go to the park to play football ?" asked Lucas. "I mean, as we can't play inside ..."
The official looked at his lover who nodded. "Yes sure. Why don't we go and picnic there ? Would you like that ?"
The DI looked surprised but didn't say a word. It was the very first time since they knew each other that the official proposed to do a picnic and he was rather impressed that the posh would accept to eat somewhere else than in at home, at his office or in a reputed restaurant.
"Oh yes ! Mummy never want to do picnic but we'd love this yes !"replied Lestrade's daughter, talking for her and her brothers.

The auburn was sat on a red blanket on the Hyde Park's grass reading a Hemingway novel while his partner and the four kids were playing football few meters away. They had finished their lunch half an hour before and the remaining of the dishes were back in the bag near to the official.
"Mycroft, come play with us !" shouted Lucas from the football pitch they had improvised. He was shirtless, using his T-shirt to mark the goal, playing in the same team than his sister.
The elder Holmes was absolutely not interested in football but the kids were having a great fun and he didn't want to ruin their day. He put his book down and stood up to his feet, letting his jacket on the blanket. "In which team am I suppose to play ?" he asked the girl.
"You play with Dad and Alden and Jake come with me and Lucas." replied Sarah giving the tall man the ball.
"Are you sure you three can beat the three of us ?" the auburn smiled.
"Come on Mycroft,you are hopeless and Alden is a baby." laughed the youngerLestrade. The official kicked in the ball trying to score but ended up throwing his right shoe with the ball 6 meters away from the goal.
Grumbling, the man jumped on one foot to reached his shoe and put it back, throwing the ball to one of the Lestrade children. His lover was holding Alden's hand and laughing to his partner's misfortune.
They resumed the game as soon as the official was back on the field, Gregory scoring two goals while the other team scored four and let Alden push the ball into their goal once to pleased him. Sarah was going to score their fifth goal but the official finally stopped it for the first time and he celebrated it exuberantly by shouting and ruining around the pitch.
"Hey Myc', you know most of the people don't do that because they aren't loosing but because they are winning ?" laughed the detective
"Shut up Greg and mark some new goals !" answered the other man.
Despite his horror for football, Mycroft had a good time this day with the kids and when they headed back home he thought that this had probably been one of the best days of his life so far.

Anthea hanged up her phone and raised to her feet. She rushed to her boss's office without even knocking on the door.
"Sir, there is a problem. Malvert asked that you call him back as quick as possible."she told him, placing a report on the desk.
"Any details or Malvert is going all mysterious once again ?" replied the official ,a little bitterly.
"Well, everything I could find is in the report but I'm afraid it's not much." she apologized.
"Ok, thank you. I suppose that when he say urgently it means 'right now'and not in a couple of hours ?" ironized the auburn.
The PA nodded before closing the door behind her. He grabbed his phone and composed Malvert's number. Every time he had to call him he had to doit 'urgently' or he was told off during hours but Malvert's notion of 'urgent' was very different from Mycroft's.
"Malvert speaking."
"Malvert. You need me ?". He doesn't even bother introducing himself knowing that the other one was waiting for his call.
"We have a problem Holmes"
"And it's urgent yes I know." retorted the latter angrily. "Can you be quick, I've got work."
"It's the Johannesburg cell.They've intercepted messages between members of WLF. An attack is in preparation I fear."
"How reliable is this ?" asked the auburn, now interested.
"I would say an 8. WLF has been moving again since a couple of months."
"Any details orjust a vague information." requested Mycroft.
"I'll have someone bringing you the complete file in the hour."
"Thank you Malvert.". The official hang up his phone. That was the first interesting case in weeks, something else than the usual diplomatic stuff he had to deal with on a daily basis. He always had pretended not to understand the excitation Sherlock felt when he finally discovers an interesting case to solve but he actually felt the exact same excitement every time it happens to him.

Two hours later he was in the meeting room of the Home Office Cabinet waiting for his colleagues. After reading the complete file that Malvert's employee had delivered him he had convoked an urgent meeting. Sir Edwin and Sir Dimberton entered the room looking preoccupied.
"Mycroft." greeted Edwin.
"Robert. Charles. Take a seat." replied the auburn in a glance. "Mrs Smallwood won't be joining us, she is at 10 Downing street. But we are not here to discuss the PM's business but this." He threw them both a copy of the file he had received earlier. "WLF. White Lives First is active again and ready to strike according to our secret services. They are waiting for us to choose between the two following solutions. Option one : wait and see. Option two : neutralize and hope there is no one to back them up."
"And we are supposed to choose like this ?" requested Sir Dimberton
"Oh no. Don't worry, you can read the file, everything we know is in it, which means nothing." fake-smiled the elder Holmes.
The two others sighed and started reading. It took them less than five minutes to get through it and when they looked up to Mycroft again they didn't seem to be really sure of what to decide.
"So gentlemen, what are we going to do ?" asked the auburn.
"Well, there is no real evidence that anything is to happen soon ..." started Charles Dimberton.
"You do not consider those texts that our agents had intercepted as proof ?" interrupted Robert Edwin.
"Oh no, it's proof, but there are no dates or even target so ..." retorted Dimberton.
"So we should wait and take the risk that they might come to action tomorrow with probably hundreds or thousands of killed? That's what you are suggesting" asked his colleague angrily.
"And you think we should eliminate 6 peoples "just in case" don't you? You know we have laws to prevent us from this don't you ?" replied the other one bitterly.
"Gentlemen . Calm down. So Charles want to wait and you Robert want to act." Intervened Holmes.
"And what do you reckon Mycroft ?" asked Edwin.
The latter don't answered immediately. He hated being force to take this kind of decision alone with so few informations but he had no choice then to do so. Of course if his human nature had to interfere in the balance, he would had decided that he couldn't condemn 6 people like this without even bringing them to court, but his duty was to protect the population and 6 dead, especially when they were that kind of individuals, were undoubtedly the price to pay to assure the securityof thousands of others.
"Action." he snapped without a look to the two others. "We can't risk thousands of lives just for moral principles. I'll inform Malvert immediately except if one of you have something else to add."
"I thought we were there to protect people and execute the laws with humanity" said Sir Dimberton, disgusted by the attitude of the two other officials.
"We are not here for humanity Charles, we are here to take decisions. If you are not please with this, you still can resign." retorted the auburn. "Right. Thank you gentlemen and good evening.". He exited the room and called Malvert to inform him of the decision they had just agreed on.