DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. Please ignore the Americanisms I'm too ignorant to know to correct. Also excuse any errors – I have no Beta. I tried to stay in character for everyone, but this story quickly progresses from Angst to Crack, as you will find.
It's meant to be a one-shot, but I'm open to adding further chapters if you like this story. And if you hate it, please tell me so I know to never try this again.
The room was dark, but he could tell that everything remained exactly where she had left it. Of course, Bond thought, a wry smile playing across his lips. She would sell my flat when I died, but insist that hers stayed pristine. A secret monument to a secret woman. And he figured, in the end, that's all she really ever would be. A secret woman. M. That wasn't a name, that was a letter. An initial. The beginning of a name that now would always mark the end of a life.
He wasn't sure, not really, why he even broke into to her house at all. Maybe he was seeking old memories. Maybe he needed to honor her on this day, exactly a year from when it had happened. Maybe he just wanted proof that this mystery woman had been human too. He was pondering this question when he heard the familiar click of a gun being cocked and felt the cool, round barrel resting against his head.
"Not. Another. Step," he heard a low, unfamiliar voice mutter. He immediately raised he hand to his hip, where his palm-scanner PPK hung. The other figure seemed to hear or sense the motion, because the gun barrel dug deeper into the back of his head. Of all the ways to go, Bond figured, getting shot in the back of the head in his old, dead, boss's home was probably not the most dignified.
"Okay, okay," he murmured, raising his hands above his head and slowly turning around to face the other intruder. Suddenly, he darted to the side, flipping the light switch and ducking below the blow he anticipated to follow from his assailant, who hesitated for a moment as his eyes adjusted to brightness. Twisting his body like a cat and moving with the agility of someone half his age, Bond managed to knock the gun from the other man's hand, kicking it across the room as he pulled his own weapon. His position of power assured, he took a moment to size up the other man. He was tall, with a mess of curly black hair and piercing blue eyes. Eyes which, he noticed with consternation, were focused on the gun not in terror, but in curiosity.
"Ah," he sighed, as though he had finally put the pieces together.
"Ah?" Bond mimicked.
"Yes. I know who you are now." Haughty eyebrows raised in private victory.
"Please, enlighten me."
"Well you're obviously not one of Moriarty's men," the strange man began. "Not dressed like that."
Bond looked down for a moment, indignant. He had eschewed the suit in favor of something more comfortable, since he hadn't expected to encounter anyone at M's home, but he hardly looked like a common crook.
"And, of course, you knew how to find this house. Which, granted, is conceivable for one of his men to do, but highly improbable. But, no, the most telling figure is the gun. How it lights up when you touch it. I'll bet it only does that for you."
Bond kept his gaze steady on the man this time, his grip growing tighter on his weapon as the stranger delineated his life.
"Which leaves us at 'MI6' agent. Specifically one of her favorite pets. A Double-O." The man smirked, obviously proud of himself, and waited for Bond to speak.
Bond blinked steadily, determined not to let his face giveaway how close to the truth this strange man was. "Interesting theory. But now you have me at a disadvantage. I don't know who you are. And I'm the one holding the gun."
"Funny how that works, isn't it?" the man called from over his shoulder as he turned and entered the kitchen. "Tea?"
Bond hesitated, his gun still aimed at where the bizarre man had been standing. Slowly he lowered the weapon and followed him into the kitchen, his eyes still mistrustfully tracking the man as he put the kettle on the stove.
"Well, Double-O-something," the man said at last, turning back towards Bond, who was leaning against the wall, his arms across his chest, one hand still resting on his weapon. "I can play at this game of numbers and letters too. You can call me S."
Satisfied that this man, S, was now more interested in brewing his tea than shooting him in the head, Bond began to glance around the room. He noticed that, despite his first impression, while all the furniture remained in place, M's home was no longer exactly as she had left it. For one, there were tea cups and mugs scattered across the room. He also noticed with morbid curiosity various jars of pickled things that may have once belonged to animals, a human skull on the mantle place, and what he assumed where three gunshot holes in one wall.
"Do you," he asked, realization suddenly dawning on him. "Do you live here?"
Before S could answer, there was a knock on the door, a short, brisk sound.
"Expecting company?" asked Bond.
"Expecting, yes. Desiring, no."
The knock repeated, this time louder.
"Are you going to answer that?"
"Why? I'm not home," was the cool response.
"I know you're there! Let us in!" came a voice from outside. For a second, Bond thought he recognized it, but he couldn't place it to its owner.
Bond glanced at S, who was sipping delicately from his tea cup. "He has a key. I don't know why he expects me to answer the door."
As if on cue, Bond could hear the fumbling of keys in cold fingers and the click of the door as they reached their mark. The door swung open, granting Bond a view of the one man he had least expected see: Mycroft Holmes.
Bond had met Holmes only once, years ago, when it was absolutely necessary for his mission. The man himself, although physically unimpressive, was constantly surrounded by an aura of intelligence and menace. Furthermore, he did not work for the British government, he was the British government. Even more than the Prime Mister, or even M, was. Bond knew very little about the man, but he did know that if Holmes had set it in his mind to begin World War III, the world would be at war. Yesterday.
Bond was afraid of no one, but this man was one he had wished never to see again.
"Oh," exclaimed Mycroft, evidently surprised to find someone other than S in M's house. "You have a visitor." He stepped closer, squinting his eyes and pointing his umbrella at Bond, as he struggled to recognize the man. "007."
"Holmes," Bond greeted coolly.
"They were out of turkeys so I picked up a chicken, I hope that's okay!" called a second voice as it approached the door from the outside, its owner appearing in the doorway, clutching the aforementioned fowl.
No, Bond decided, I was wrong. He is the one man I least expected to see here. "Q?"
"007," the younger man breathed. Bond thought he might be blushing. Bond had caught him off his guard just as much as Q had surprised him. "What are you… what are you doing here?"
"I could ask the same to you," he answered.
"I ask that every time they come," S interjected from his perch in the kitchen.
There was an awkward silence as neither man wanted to be first to respond. Fed up, S broke the silence with a smirk and a quip: "007 came rather… surreptitiously to pay his respects to Mummy."
"Surreptitiously?" Mycroft raised an eyebrow at the spy, his other eye narrowing in a disgruntled, yet slightly comical expression. Bond wondered for a moment if he was quite real after all and not a cartoon character, equipped with an oversized umbrella.
"It means sneakily," S shot back, his smirk growing wider. "Slyly. Stealthily."
"Yes I know what it means." The disgruntled expression became even more exaggerated. "But how on earth did agent 007 break in to Mummy's house?"
Suddenly all eyes were on Bond, but he was no longer listening to their bickering, his mind finally registering the word both men had thrown around. "Mummy?" he asked incredulously, his eyes darting between the three men.
The cheekbones. The hair. The air of arrogance. It all made sense.
Actually, no. None of it made sense.
"M was your Mother? You're brothers?"
"And at last, Britain's greatest spy uncovers the truth. I'm so glad our national security rests in your hands."
"Sherlock," growled Q, a low, deep-throated warning to tread lightly.
Sherlock? Thought Bond. Sherlock… Holmes? The Detective? "But Sherlock Holmes is dead. It was in the papers." He hadn't meant to say that last part out loud.
"And if you're the 007 I'm thinking of, aren't you supposed to be dead too? Why don't you stay for dinner? We can swap stories about the other side."
His words were biting and sarcastic, but an invite was an invite, and Bond was in the mood for a challenge.
"What are you having?" he asked.
"Turkey," replied Mycroft, who had rested his umbrella against the wall and was now loosening his scarf.
"Chicken," Q corrected him, tossing the bird into Sherlock's arms.
"And if we're really lucky," Sherlock added dryly, as he rested it on the table, "we won't have to eat it with exploding forks. Your Quartermaster here sometimes just can't wait to test his inventions."
"That was one time!" the younger man explained. "It was an accident."
"Yes, and I'm sure 007 will agree that we fight enough terrorists on the job. Tt'd be best to avoid domestic terrorism once we've sat down for dinner," Mycroft teased. At least, Bond assumed he was teasing. His expression never really changed.
"I said I was sorry," Q moaned. "It's not like you really needed your eyebrows anyway."
And thus began what could have been the strangest night of James Bond's life, sitting in the kitchen of his old Boss, listening to the bickering of the most powerful man in Britain, a dead detective, and his quartermaster.
And only one of their forks exploded that night.