Anthea was sitting pretty.

Up until the point Mycroft spotted her at her desk, he had not realized that the term, generally used to indicate a person's economic and monetary security, could have a meaning beyond its colloquial adaptation.

But as he rested his lips against his knuckles, allowing his labored head to sag under the crushing weight of the day's political gravity, he realized that the phrase's original meaning could still apply.

Her posture, unlike his own at the moment, was impeccable. Her spine was ramrod straight. Her arms were spread gracefully across the small gap between the edge of her desk and the keyboard and her fingers danced, clicking a dizzying staccato rhythm. He had never seen anything as elegant as the way her legs bent beneath the desk, coming to prim points at her black pumps. She was sitting very prettily. Almost posh.

She was so still. A machine, a statue, a mannequin meant to impersonate the perfect PA. Her roving eyes seemed so mechanical, her breathing was so structured and methodic.

"Is this life?" he foolishly caught himself musing, "Is this biological machine, built of the same components that are mass produced in every being of its species alive, or just fooled into a false consciousness?"

Suddenly, the spell broke and she turned, breaking her monotonous motions and flushing with a rosy hue. The sun, which fell in ribbons from the high gothic windows behind her twirled its golden fingers through her ebony hair.

She smiled, flashing briefly a row of perfect pearls set in red velvet.

His own lips jerked involuntarily in a poor imitation.

She nodded and dove back into her work. He ducked shamefully back into his.

He denied the fluttering of his own life-giving organ, just as he surely knew she would deny the nervous palpitations of hers. He hoped he wasn't being to presumptuous in assuming she too felt the taboo emotions so commonly attributed to tragedy-bound proletariat dramas on the telly, namely that scourge of their generation called love.

So when I'm bored, I like to write little tidbits for Mycroft. Just as a distraction for my usual stories. I figured I might as well put them into a story once and for all. The chapters are not exactly linked chronologically, but they all take place in the same universe. I don't think I wrote this to be a love story, but upon re-reading it... I'm not sure anymore. Use your own judgment as the relationship matures.