A/N: This piece is unashamedly OOC for Mycroft, purely because I don't think you can keep him totally in character and put him into a relationship. Even so, I do think he would be more open to it than Sherlock and I tried to keep it as in character as possible. I largely consider this as a writing exercise, partly to establish a set up for some RPs I want to do with a friend; but also as a new kind of writing for me, trying to do a very subtle romance with little dialogue and few 'moments', but still strong enough to be believable. I guess it's up to you guys to decide if I did it or not! Constructive criticism and comments are welcome :)I do not, naturally, own Sherlock.

Several Cups of Camomile Tea

There were only two rooms in the Diogenes Club building where speaking was allowed. Mycroft, like the other members, preferred silence to society; he did not want to have to deal with the inanities and trivialities of everyday life in his leisure time after having to deal with them all day at work, where he would be about to conclude some vital work on the subject of a crisis in the Middle East only to be interrupted by "A cup of tea, Mr Holmes? Mr Holmes, could you please check and approve these documents? Excuse me, Mr Holmes, I need to upgrade your IT security". Mycroft hated it, but he was well paid enough to tolerate bureaucracy at work; he even recognised the need for it, it was just the constant interruption that grated on his nerves. He came here to the club to get away from all that and relax; unlike his brother, he could relax. It was easier here than at home. At the club the silence was companionable, at home, it was a loud sort of silence, constantly reminding him of the emptiness of the house. He didn't want society or conversation, but he didn't want total isolation either. It was a paradox, but one Mycroft had long since made his peace with.

There were two rooms at the club, however, where talking was allowed. One was the famous stranger's room, where club members could meet their guests in privacy and comfort, or meet each other, if they felt so inclined. The other was the reception and cloakroom at the entrance, where speech was simply a convenience; it would be an unnecessarily complicated and demeaning experience to try and pay one's membership fees, order taxis or drinks, request newspapers or periodicals, through a mixture of mime and gesture. There were various attendants working there in different shifts, but Mycroft had his favourite.

The Diogenes Club would not have anything so garish as name tags as part of their uniforms, so Mycroft had no idea what she was called and very little interest in finding out. She was a young woman, roughly twenty five or twenty six years of age, her brown hair tied neatly behind her; clean and smooth but without products or ornamentation, nothing distracting. Unlike many of the staff, who took the fact that they could talk to mean that they should, she was quiet and business-like. She would say, "Good evening, Mr Holmes", he would say good evening in return, and that would be the whole extent of the exchange between them. Mycroft liked her unobtrusiveness, her apparent understanding of the feeling behind the club's strict rules. He liked the way that when she had helped him off with his coat, she folded it carefully over her arm just to carry it the step and a half to the cupboard, and the way she smoothed the creases out again once she had ensured it was hanging up properly and not brushing against the others. He liked that when the clients came in with wet umbrellas she laid them out somewhere in the back out of sight instead of putting them all in the stand together to sit in each other's stagnating run off, where they wouldn't dry properly. In short, he approved of her common sense, propriety and fastidiousness. A hundred years ago she would have made a lady's maid for some member of the aristocracy; nowadays this was the closest she would come unless a position became vacant at the palace. If it ever fell to him, Mycroft had made a mental note to find out her name and recommend her. He objected to sentimental praise; but never to credit where it was due.

He had tried to see what he could deduce about her once, as an exercise when he felt his powers were becoming lax and needed some exercise. There wasn't much. That she was a daydreamer was obvious enough, but that she was precise and a little fussy was clear from the exact alignment of the bottom of her blouse, the turn ups on her trousers. She had sewn them herself; not made of money, but not a spendthrift either, judging by the watch just visible beneath her cuff when she reached to hang up his coat. When she was young, she must have worn braces on her teeth, but had borne it with patience and reaped the rewards. There was no tiredness in her eyes; she probably slept deeply for nine or ten hours a night; but there was a furrow between her eyebrows that suggested she read a lot. The slight hunch in her shoulders she had to consciously smooth out when she saw someone coming suggested that she read over a desk; from that and the hours she worked at the club, Mycroft concluded she was probably still a student, but one living away from home, judging by the red marks he saw on her hands one day that could only have been caused by carrying heavy plastic bags from the supermarket. He also inferred from that that she could not drive, not that there was much need for it in London. She had been in the habit of cycling regularly, if the muscle definition on her legs in her thick black work tights were anything to go by, but had let it drop in recent years. He assumed a rural upbringing, plenty of hills to cycle on, but too timid to try riding a bike on the busy roads of the capital. He suspected too that she came from a large family, given her independence, her understanding of the need for silence, her immense consideration for the practical things that would have been essential to keep a large family running smoothly. It would also explain her usual look of utter contentment, which he would have thought meant she was young and in love, except for the lack of any engagement or wedding ring; so if she was in love, it couldn't be serious enough to make her so absolutely happy. More likely she was someone able to be just as happy alone as in a couple or a group. Perhaps that was why she suited this place so well.

He had noticed that she was watching him, of course. It had been a rather bad day at work, where he had been forced to make decisions with no good solutions and then been pilloried for the consequences. He may have been a little short with her, a little clipped in his response to her 'Good evening, Mr Holmes' and perhaps shrugged off his coat with more force than usual so it more or less dropped on her. He didn't wait to see her hang it up, but went straight off into the lounge. She knew what drink and what papers to bring him as a default. He was in a rare bad temper, bad enough to be slipping through his control, and he wanted quiet and concentration to pull it back.

A few moments later he sensed rather than heard her approach; the staff all had soft shoe coverings and had been trained to walk almost silently. He didn't acknowledge her- they were paid to put up with the rudeness of being unnoticed- and continued to stare at his fingertips, thinking deeply about what his next steps should be. She set his tray down soundlessly on the side for him as always and slipped silently away.

It was undoubtedly his tray. His favourite paper and the new periodical that would have come out the day before but he hadn't seen yet; his usual single scotch. Yet there was also a cup and saucer. He eyed it in distaste. From the smell, it was undoubtedly camomile tea.

Why had she brought him something he didn't want? It was a nuisance. It was downright impertinent.

But, it did smell rather nice; and there was something soothing about drinking a hot drink in an atmosphere like this one. Mycroft knew it was the effects of the herb that were helping him to relax, but that was hardly unpleasant. He didn't resent his mood being influenced like Sherlock would; in fact he was rather glad of it. He had been close to losing his composure and the camomile seemed to be restoring it, sip by sip.

It made him feel like a child, or like a very old man, to be sitting here sipping his camomile tea. But, no, it wasn't unpleasant.

When he left and she helped him on with his coat, instead of simply saying goodbye, he added a new phrase to their exchange. He said thank you, and watched her smile.

ooooooooooooooo

Domesticity. Mycroft had found himself indulging in thoughts about it more and more often recently. He had a house, the house he and Sherlock had grown up in, in fact, but it didn't really feel like home. He slept there and washed and dressed there. He very rarely ate there; his cleaner had a house key and let herself in and out while he was at work. He hadn't seen her for eighteen months at least. Apart from his clothing, he had very few personal effects. He had never changed or even really added to the furniture left to him by their parents, even the library and his books had changed very little. The house was a purely functional object to him.

Yet, recently, it had started to bother him. He had never even really noticed it before- being attached to a few brick walls and the things inside them was disgustingly sentimental- but the house was started to feel a bit empty, a bit cold. He was beginning to resent it. If he probed deeper into his thoughts, chipped away at his stone heart, he could find his way to the root of the problem; he wanted it to be a home, and it wasn't.

Mycroft had no qualms about it, left to him nothing would change. He simply didn't have the patience or the inspiration. He wouldn't know what to change anyway; besides his tailors, he hadn't been inside a shop for years. He needed someone else there, someone not like him, someone who would add some personality, leave their mark. Make it into a home. In short, he realised, he wanted someone else to be there, someone to come home to. He still preferred silence to society, but he was beginning to dream of a companionable silence by the hearth of home; of having somebody to chase the silence away with if it became too loud and oppressive. It wasn't unreasonable, he decided; after all, Sherlock had John. It didn't have to be romantic. He just wanted it to be… home.

Perhaps it was his age. He wanted to settle, and have somewhere other than the club to go to, and have someone there to make it alright.

Yes, it was his age. These feelings, this sudden desire to feather his nest and settle down came naturally to men at his time of life. It was nothing whatsoever to do with the charming young lady on reception who, he had to admit, he had a passing infatuation for.

Mycroft wasn't a fool, he knew he was enamoured with her; he knew that he would look for her whenever he entered the club, he knew he would find reasons to stay at work an extra half an hour so he would arrive when she was on the desk. He did not mind his attraction; he was a grown man, she was a nice young woman who had shown commendable behaviour and attentiveness and kindness, it was only natural that something within him should be stirred. It was what he did next that mattered, and his intention was to do nothing. He had allowed himself to find out her name- it was Edith, a comfortably old fashioned country name, and she was actually only twenty-four; slightly younger than his estimate. That was as far as he had allowed his researches to go. Caring, after all, was never advantageous; in public or private life, at work or at home. He would allow himself the indulgence of seeing her at reception, perhaps of meeting her eye when she brought his tray and collected it later, and that was that.

She always seemed to know what he needed. The girl was a marvel. Usually it was just his scotch and his papers, as requested, but on bad days, he knew it would come with camomile tea and once, when he was particularly furious, some biscuits. One day, when his neck and his back had been impossibly stiff from working at his desk, so focused that he had not corrected his posture all day, she had brought him some sort of herbal monstrosity that tasted revolting and bitter, but had helped ease the pain. When he was exhausted, she brought him coffee; once, when he was pensive, she left a notebook and pen. When it was cold outside, she brought him Earl Grey; after a few false starts with other blends which weren't to his taste. He hadn't told her what he liked, just left the other cups half drunk. It amused him to see her get closer as the winter days went on, he admired her determination, he enjoyed the game. If he was honest, and inside his own head he was always honest, his yearning for domesticity probably triggered from, or at least involved, her. His mysterious somebody was her. He probably loved her, after his own fashion, as much as you could love somebody for the things they did and the way they did them rather than what they said.

He knew he must tell nobody. In any case, he had nobody to tell and he wasn't going to act on it; not beyond thinking of camomile tea at home instead of at the Diogenes Club. Caring was not an advantage, sentiment was revolting, but there was no harm in dreaming a little dream of domestic simplicity now and then. Still, if he could have married her without the ridiculousness of courtship, he probably would have done it.

Mycroft had to smile in wry amusement at the thought. All this was assuming, of course, that the lady in question would have had him. He wondered what she would make of the things inside his head. Probably not much.

Something had happened that evening to shake her, something had happened while he was in the club- and shortly after he'd arrived, too; Edith had taken his coat, wished him good evening as usual, but a few moments later it had been one of the other staff members who had appeared with the tray; just scotch and the day's paper. Mycroft hadn't done anything, of course, just gone about his business as usual. When he came to leave, Edith was back at her post. Her eyes were rimmed red. She was clearly distressed.

As she went to fetch his coat, Mycroft dithered about whether to say anything. It wasn't an experience he cared to repeat. He simply didn't dither. To dither was never a verb that had applied to him, ever. He was Mycroft Holmes, a man of decisive action- thoughtful, sometimes, but decisive. Until then he had felt a sort of rapport between them, but as she helped him on with his coat, he couldn't help wondering if he had imagined it. Would it even be appropriate for him to say anything? And if he did, what would change? Something would. Their carefully maintained balance of impersonal friendship would tip one way or the other.

Her fingers brushed against his neck as she released his coat. She had never been so careless before. Whatever had happened, it had affected her quite deeply.

"Good night, Mr Holmes." She said, as usual.

"Just a moment." He said. "Is… there something troubling you, Edith?"

"Nothing to worry about, sir." She mumbled. She had never called him sir before. For some reason, Mycroft hated it. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you."

"Don't be absurd. You're clearly distressed, it's you I'm conc-" He stopped himself short, before he said something he didn't intend to. That had never happened to him before either. He cleared his throat, looking down at his umbrella. He felt uncharacteristically nervous. It was a day of firsts. "That is, if I can be of assistance…?"

Trailing off. Another bad habit he didn't intend to get into.

"Oh, no, no, thank you. I'm sure I…" Edith said, trailing off too. Between them they didn't have a complete sentence, but Mycroft was glad the formality had gone from her speech. It had just seemed all wrong somehow. What he was not glad about was that she seemed to be blinking back tears again. Mycroft didn't lie to himself. He knew he wanted those tears to go away.

"Has someone hurt you, perhaps?"

"No." She said, shaking her head. She was sincere. "It's just…I…I thought I saw… I don't know what to do."

"Ah." Mycroft twirled his umbrella again, the point pressed into the floor. There was an awkward pause. She didn't immediately begin to bare her soul to him and for that he was glad. Emotion was not his forte. She was shifting uncomfortably, clearly not sure whether to speak. "Edith, may I make a suggestion?"

"Mr Holmes?"

"It depends on the nature of your problem, of course." Mycroft said. "In personal matters, he would be of no use whatsoever; but if it is something perplexing…"

Edith had been examining her feet, but now she looked up sharply. A puzzle, then. Mycroft was glad. He'd known she wasn't the sort to go to pieces over something trivial. He felt strangely proud.

"I see that it is. In that case, may I suggest that you go and see my brother on Baker Street? Sherlock has been of help in these sorts of matters before."

Edith nodded, considering the idea; evidentially she had heard Sherlock's name. "W-will you come with me, Mr Holmes?"

"No. If I come with you, he will certainly turn you away." Mycroft smiled humourlessly and turned to leave. He had done his duty, and anyway, he had just more or less revealed something about his personal life without meaning to, the life that had been so closely guarded until now. Thankfully, Edith had the sense not to probe any further.

"I'm not sure the problem is enough to bother him about, but it would make me feel better to get another opinion." She smiled sheepishly, but something was still troubling her. "Excuse me, Mr Holmes, but do you happen to know how much your brother charges?"

"Don't concern yourself with that." Mycroft said, intending it to be his last word on the subject. She realised what he meant and began to protest, but Mycroft stared her down. He had never paid for any of his teas; they had never been added to his tab. Someone must have been paying for them all this time, someone who didn't have much money at their disposal. "Good night." He said.

"Good night, Mr Holmes. Thank you."

ooooooooooooooo

Sherlock called him the next day. Mycroft ignored it. Sherlock always sent a text message, unless he was particularly in the mood to argue. Mycroft had an inkling he knew what about, too, so ignored it.

Then the phone on his desk began ringing, not just the phone on his desk, but every phone in the building. It irked Mycroft no end. He was at work, one of the most secure government offices in the world, the most secure one in Whitehall. This thing with the phones was Sherlock's favourite party trick, his way of showing off. What was worse was that after the last time Mycroft had overseen the security improvements himself. He had no idea how his brother was doing it. It was immensely irritating. He picked up.

"Hello, Sherlock."

"Hello, Mycroft. How's work? Any more security issues?"

"A few minor irritations." Mycroft replied. "What can I do for you, brother dear?"

"You can stop inflicting your sordid love life on me." Sherlock said. "The case is boring and the poor girl is obviously in love with you, more fool her."

"Sherlock!" John's outrage was audible even at Mycroft's end of the line. Mycroft had a sudden horrible fatalistic feeling.

"Couldn't this call have waited until after she'd left your flat, Sherlock?"

"Why, does it make you uncomfortable?"

"Tell me about the case." Mycroft sighed.

"Commonplace." Sherlock said. "One of your fellow club members died, leaving a large legacy to the club. The funny thing was, he died in his accustomed seat in the Stranger's Room, waiting to play chess with another member, immediately after your girlfriend served him his drink and left to go back to the desk and flirt with you on your way in."

Mycroft refused to rise to the bait. "Murder at the Diogenes." He said. "Poisoning. Well, I suppose it's commonplace enough. Just look on it as a way to while away an afternoon, I'll see that you're reimbursed for your time."

"What I want to know, Mycroft, is why you didn't do this yourself." Sherlock snapped. "I'd deduced most of it before she'd taken her coat off. Why didn't you?"

"Why have a dog and bark yourself?" Mycroft replied immediately, but the real answer needed more consideration. It was a good question, and one he surprisingly hadn't considered. He had worked out when it had happened; clearly in the moments after taking his coat the alarm had been raised and she had realised her previous patron had died. Her suspicions must have been immediately raised, and her fears. She would probably be subjected to a long and slightly accusatory questioning session at the hands of Scotland Yard once they realised that in spite of the victim's undoubtedly great age the death had not been of natural causes. Mycroft wondered if a little word with Inspector Lestrade was in order.

The question of why he hadn't looked into the matter himself, however, was a pertinent one. It was true that detection was hardly his area of expertise, but it wouldn't have taken much for him to work out the gist of the problem and he wouldn't have had to leave the Diogenes at all to do the rest. Edith would have been grateful. Perhaps that was why.

There was still a line he didn't want to cross, something unspoken he didn't want to say. There were scales he hadn't wanted to tip, and Sherlock knew it. He was a fool in love, just like every fool that had been in love before him.

ooooooooooooooo

The case turned out to be more complex than any of them had anticipated when the coroner returned a verdict of death by natural causes. Edith probably would have accepted this, but Sherlock had heard all about her suspicions and wasn't going to drop it. He had a great time, chasing down potential bribes and collaborations, and only finding more and more mysteries. Mycroft found himself being drawn in more and more; he was, after all, the only actual member of the club who could justify the reason for Sherlock and John to be there. More than once Edith smuggled them all into the staff areas, to show them who prepared the drinks and where. Mycroft found her to be intelligent enough, and an erudite witness. Intelligence wasn't the word, however, she told him that herself. She wasn't good at reasoning or logical thinking. What she had was an amazing ability to store and regurgitate information even when she had no understanding of it, but only if she'd seen it written down before her; in other words, she had a flawless photographic memory. Sherlock found it fascinating and kept showing her things he didn't care to remember for himself until John told him to stop it. Sherlock called her his external hard drive. Edith naively took it as a compliment. Mycroft believed her when she said she wasn't perceptive, in spite of her common sense.

They had more conversations in those days than they ever had before, and not strictly limited to the case. Mycroft only approved of what he learnt about her. He wondered how she felt about him. The same, he hoped, though he offered very little about himself for her to work with- but more than he wanted to, and perhaps, he suspected, more than he realised. He was at ease with her, she had an annoying way of undermining his control.

It was not the drink Edith had taken to the victim that had killed him. The murder was far more skilful than that. The manager behind it all had been gradually lacing the man's drinks with iodine, slowly increasing the dose, slowly breeding a dependency and also immunity to the poison. The victim smoked enough cigars every day to ensure he wouldn't taste it. It was withdrawal that had killed him; the drink Edith had taken had nothing in it. He had been dying for hours, days, without knowing why- just craving his drink at the Diogenes. It was a neat little murder that left nothing in the system, but Sherlock still found it all out; and keeping Edith out of suspicion all the way. Mycroft was pleased. So was Sherlock, at having such an interesting case to solve. He refused Mycroft's money, naturally, but Mycroft wired some to John regardless. Unfortunately Sherlock still seemed to have failed to have made the connection between money and food.

Things returned to normal with Edith. They would say good evening and good night, exchange a smile; if he'd had a bad day, she would bring him a camomile tea; if she'd had a bad day he would take her coat from her gently and bid her to take care. It was pleasant. Mycroft was content. Sometimes he still dreamed of a domesticated life, usually with her. The fire would get some use, and the kitchen, and the garden. Perhaps they would have houseplants. She would probably hang photographs, at even intervals and level heights around the walls. She would tease everything out of him with talk, and know when to leave him in silence. He would find out what she liked, too, what he could do for her, and he'd do them; it would be a partnership. A fair partnership, companionship in a domestic setting, tea for two by the fire.

But it was just idle dreaming, of course. He didn't intend to act on it.

One day, he got up to leave at his usual time and went out to get his coat. Edith wordlessly brought it from the cloakroom as she always did.

"Good night, Edith." Mycroft said.

"Good night, Mr Holmes." She replied. "Um… excuse me, Mr Holmes, but…" She slipped behind the reception desk and reappeared with a bottle of scotch. His scotch, the kind he always drank. "This is for you. Please accept it. It's a thank you. And also, a goodbye."

"You're leaving." Mycroft said. He should have seen the signs.

"Yes. After everything… I don't want to stay." She shrugged. "Anyway, I'm finally graduating in a few weeks, it's time I found a proper job." She paused, waiting for him to say something. He didn't. "So, um, I just wanted to say a proper thank you for everything, because it's my last night and this is the last we'll see of each other."

"Then thank you." Mycroft accepted the bottle. "You're welcome. Goodbye, Edith."

"Goodbye, Mr Holmes."

Mycroft actually managed to get all the way through reception, down the front steps and to the door of his car before he thought better of it. He told his secretary and driver to wait, turned around, and went back inside.

"Mr Holmes?"

"Dinner." Mycroft said, clearing his throat. "If you're agreeable, I'll meet you here tomorrow at seven and we'll go… somewhere."

She was agreeable. Mycroft watched her smile.

ooooooooooooooo

Late one night a long time later, after she had taken her turn to fetch their drinks, set his down on the coffee table and allowed her hand to brush over his shoulder on the way back to her seat in front of their fire, although they sat in companionable silence, Mycroft realised she was watching him with a slightly mischievous expression.

"Yes, Edie?" He asked, not looking up from his paper.

"I was just thinking, your brother was right."

Mycroft had not been expecting that. "In what way?"

"He told me if I quit my job you'd finally ask me to dinner." She smiled, barely biting back a laugh. Mycroft sniffed and went back to his newspaper, reaching out to take her hand. She went back to her book and they sat in the companionable domestic silence that suited them both, hands lightly entwined between the chairs.

ooooooooooooooo

A/N: The end. How was it? Mycroft's attitudes and opinions are deliberately old fashioned; I pretty much wanted to write a Victorian type romance, in spite of the modern setting. It's probably not for everyone though! It was inspired in a lot of ways by Watson. Not our dear womanising John, but our experience-of-women-across-three-continents Watson of the cannon, who ends up desiring a home and domestic stability. In particular though, I'm thinking of the excellent Bert Coules adaptations on BBC radio starring Clive Merrison as Holmes and Michael Williams as Watson, who tells Holmes he wants stability and calm… but not all the time. Seriously, look them up if you can, you won't regret it! It's easily the best version of the cannon :) The method of murder was from one of the 'Further Adventures of' series of that show too, but I won't spoil which one :P Look it up :P

All that aside, maybe I'll write some more married! Mycroft one of these days. Stranger things have happened!