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Mycroft Holmes picked up the frame on the console, opened the back and carefully removed the item held. Then did the same with a second frame.
“That… Those have been there for years. You’re taking them both?” Greg looked over in surprise.
His aide du camp, Anthea, also looked up. “Are you ever going to tell us about those?”
Mycroft knew Greg guessed their importance when he glanced at the portrait behind the desk, and that Anthea had deduced where at least one came from, but both were eager to know the details of them.
“Yes.” He smiled enigmatically as they headed out.
Greg and Anthea shook their amused heads, fully getting that Mycroft’s answer was purposely no answer at all.
Mycroft was a child prodigy, when he met her for the first time. A prodigy whose tutor wanted to show off this child-wonder who casually showed off his knowledge of the royal lineage. He liked the woman who laughed at his disdain of cartoons with an indignant snort of “That’s nonsense.” The woman who had given him a gift, told him it was very important and to always protect it. Mostly he liked that she had not talked down to him as most adults did; acknowledging his youth, but not treating him like a child.
When they crossed paths again it was work related.
She was not happy about a policy and wanted to know why it was being pushed to go through. Mycroft’s Uncle Rudy, who currently was not in favor -again- and did not want to face her, volun-told his nephew to explain why it was necessary. Though he never forgot her, Mycroft had understandably presumed she would not have remembered him. He had not expected her to, after all many child-prodigies are paraded before her. Still, he returned the courtesy she had given him as a child, by being straightforward and honest, perhaps a too little blunt and only slightly sugar-coating things as he called her out on the sentiment that blinded her to reason. When she frustratingly quipped about him being as mad an ancestor, it was the perfect segue into showing off his knowledge. He was delighted to learn she had in fact remembered him. The next day he showed her the gift she had given him years previous. She commended him on how he had kept his word to protect it, giving veracity to his words that he would continue doing so and all it represented in his professional capacity.
It was the beginning of a most unlikely – well he could not call it friendship, for he could never forget who she was - but it was a very friendly, if unusual association nonetheless. An association only a dozen people at most knew existed at the level it did and both liked it that way. Mycroft had been both surprised and honored, and more than a little chuffed of his uncle’s envy of their association that had quickly become closer than his uncle had achieved with the woman. On his uncle’s passing, with all of Ultra as witness, she had given him the second gift. It was an association that lasted over thirty years professionally and personally, but now was over.
The passing of Her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Mycroft had watched the throngs of those who have come to see her as she laid in state before the funeral. Unlike the public who have been in queue for many hours to see her, Mycroft had access to the balcony where royal houses, heads of state, ambassadors, et al had come to pay their respects the past few days. Greg, Sherlock, John and Anthea had stood their own silent vigil with him from the balcony when the Queen’s children and grandchildren stood vigil on the floor.
That was not his concern this final mourning.
The coffin was still on the catafalque, in the center of Westminster Hall. Her royal guards in plumed hats and ceremonial uniform still stood at each corner of the platform. In a few minutes the coffin will be prepared for the procession to Westminster Abbey.
In a few minutes.
It was one of the very few boons Mycroft had ever directly asked of the Royals. The new king, whom he has also worked with, understood and allowed it, informing those who needed to know.
Now, Westminster Hall was nearly empty.
So, no one paid attention to him standing slightly akimbo before her, his hands behind his back.
No one sees the small Union Jack flag clutched tight in his right hand that he received from Her Majesty as a child prodigy at age eight.
No one sees the small Royal Standard, a flag representing the sovereign and the U.K, clutched tight in his left hand that he received from Her Majesty at age thirty-two. It was an honor that said “I chose you” above his fellow Ultra members. A symbolic mantle in her belief in his ability to protect The Crown, The United Kingdom and her interests. An order that clandestinely sealed him as The British Government.
On the day she gave him the Royal Standard, when he rose from his bow, she ordered that he need not do such again. Though he continued to give polite head nods to her and the royals he had not bowed since.
Thus, gracefully as his saddened heart allowed, The British Government clutched both flags to his heart as he went to one knee before Her Royal Majesty for the first time in nearly thirty years and last time ever. He knows she would have understood.
After Mycroft left the hall, Greg took his hand as he and Anthea silently fell in step beside him and they headed to the sedan.
Once in the sedan, Mycroft pulled out the Union Jack, showing it to Anthea and Greg.
“I was a child prodigy, when I met Her Highness for the first time…”