How to admit this to himself. He couldn't, it was not possible. He had sworn, he had vowed that it would never, never happen again. His love had died and his heart and his ability to love with her. He had made himself cold, he had made his heart unreachable, and he had killed to make himself a cold bastard, to make himself immune to love.
But that wasn't true. He should admit he had a few vices and loved a few things. Drink, he could admit he was a drinker. Guns, though he got rusty once, he still loved the sure sensation of holding and using his weapon. Sex, he had to admit that he entertained himself and reached a sort of catharsis through the act of making love. M.
He had loved M. And now she was dead and gone, he couldn't save her, just like he had not been able to save his love from the Venetian water.
Perhaps, after Vesper, that was why he had engrossed himself in drink, guns, and sex. If he couldn't be human, if he couldn't have a soul, he would bloody well pretend he did, and flirt and flatter, and make love to a woman. He supposed he needed to add women to his list of loved vices.
Women, so beautifully made, of all races, of all ethnicities, with charm and grace and character and curves and warmth, and womanly softness to fill his bed, to fill his nights, to be intimate with and adoring and pretend. He loved them. All of them.
And this is what worried him particularly because there was one woman among them whom he had never touched... and yet he was afraid of her. This woman with beautiful dark skin, and gorgeous ebony curls, and her warm, always sparkling caramel colored eyes that drew him in and yet warned him away. He was afraid because not only was she beautiful, and smart. Not because she could keep up with him, and not because he knew she had almost killed him with a stray bullet. He was afraid because he was probably more than slightly infatuated with her, and he wasn't exactly sure what that meant.
He would flirt and she would smile and lean towards him and flirt with him. He would flatter and he could swear she blushed, but she'd step out of his reach again and smile at his futile attempts to charm.
He tried talking, -more like bantering and then a little hinting,- about it with Q and the younger man just looked at him like he was crazy.
"This is entirely unprofessional, Bond. Are you actually telling me, that you like Moneypenny? Because you've never slept with her?"
And all he had to do was turn and glare at Q and the quartermaster blinked, swallowed, looked away and changed the topic of conversation. Q would confront him about anything but never that.
He was at a loss of what to do. There was absolutely no way he could talk to her about it because.. Well... What the bloody hell would he say?
So he spent his days in the field thinking about her and sometimes bringing her gifts. He would bring small souvenirs, expensive necklaces or earrings, pretty dresses, and the like, all in small gift boxes for discretion, of course. And if anyone looked at him strangely or if he heard whispers, a sharp look or even a small scowl would end it and that was that.
Then came the day he knew would come and though he tried dissuading her, he knew he couldn't change her mind. He tried stalling her, tried to intimidate her into not doing it by telling gruesome stories, but in her chocolate eyes he saw only a fiery determination. He tried being frank in a charming sort of way, telling her it wasn't for everybody, but it only seemed to encourage her even more.
She wanted to go out in the field again.
There wasn't a single bloody thing he could do about it.
Hell, he had already tried talking to Mallory about it, -he couldn't call him M yet, it felt utterly wrong,- but the man only frowned, puzzled, and he decided not to push too hard.
They sent her out and wherever he was in the world he was nervous for her. He knew well enough she could take care of herself, yet this was no comfort to him. He tried telling himself, while he was at a dirty bar in Germany and she was in Sudan, that she would be just fine, that she could do her job and do it well and that she would be alright. But he didn't go dark anymore, he kept himself on MI6's radar, in case something happened to her and she needed him.
Q noticed, the wanker. When he was giving him another one of those little distress radios, he talked to him about it.
"Not that anybody minds, 007, but.. You sure stay in contact a lot more." Q regarded him carefully and he smiled at him, choosing not to reply.
How could he, when all he could think about was her. When he had to seduce a woman, he felt he was betraying her. When he looked over his shoulder, he imagined her doing the same. When he attached the silencer to his gun, he prayed her aim was true. When his scarred chest occasionally hurt, he hoped she would tend to her wounds. When he shaved, he remembered her looking exquisite in a red dress. He stayed in contact for her. For the lady.