Author's Note: The line 'The dead look so terribly dead when they're dead' comes from W.S. Maugham's The Razor's Edge. If anyone can come up with a good dirty joke starting with 'A woman walks into [the headquarters of] MI6' and PM it to me I will dedicate my next story to you.
Disclaimer: I will own James Bond and Sherlock when Hell freezes over.
*Author's Legal Representation would like to say that the Author makes this statement under the assumption that our new erratic weather patterns don't affect the supernatural realms and is not responsible if demons get frostbite.
A woman walks into the headquarters of MI6 (This is not the beginning of a lewd joke, though if you're looking for one Miss Peel of A Branch has a very good one about a tailor, a soldier, and a spy). This in itself it not unusual. It is what she does that makes it notable.
The woman has high cheekbones and dark hair, she holds herself rather impressively, though she has been on the opposite side of the institution she now enters more times then she can count. She blows past the check-in, ignoring the protesting agent on duty running after her and the long trail of people trying to stop her. She never runs, only walks, yet nobody seems to be able to catch up with her.
She comes to the door of the morgue and stares imperiously at the wilting secretary behind the desk.
'I am here to collect a body.' The woman's tone is chilly and the secretary looks like she is about to bust into tears.
'Who would that be Ma'am, do you have the number?'
'Are you saying each person here is a number? That they have no value to you except as a statistic?'
'No, no, no,' the poor girl was stumbling over her words to correct her mistake, 'Of course not, never.' The woman's lip curled distastefully.
'Vesper Lynd. I'm here for the body of Vesper Lynd.' The girl swipes her card on the strip and the door slides open with a quiet 'whoosh'. The woman is handed off to a morgue assistant, who breaks out in sweat as soon as he sees her glare.
'Miss Lynd came here several months ago, why it it that you are only picking her up now?' The assistant only means it as a friendly question but the woman's glare deepens
'I was detained in Karachi.' Her eyes flicker, daring anyone to ask more questions but the assistant suddenly becomes a mute. Nobody in this building, not even the cleaning lady simply gets detained, and especially not in Karachi. The assistant fumbles with the refrigerator containing the bodies. A bulky blond man bursts in, shoving away the protesting secretary.
'Why do you want her?' His tone is suspicious.
'Why do you?'
'She didn't have any family, she was an orphan.'
'An orphan is simply someone whose parents are dead, it has nothing to do with the family they have.' He inclined his head in acknowledgement.
'Her sister then?' She smiles slightly.
'Are you the Agent?' He returns the gesture.
'She never spoke of a sister.'
'I was not always around, we got separated in the system sometimes and then we got very different jobs. She loved you. He wasn't worth a sliver of what she gave for him but I think you were, at least to her.'
'I loved her.'
'I know. I can see it in your eyes. I've spent my life manipulating hearts, she never manipulated you nor you her. One grows cynical about affairs of the heart in this day and age, but sometimes, sometimes there are times like these that bring back one's faith.' Her smile isn't icy anymore, indeed it could almost be called warm.
The assistant pulls out a plastic body bag on a gurney and unzips it. The blond man turns away but the woman peers inside and lets out a gasp. She smiles ruefully.
'The dead look so terribly dead when they're dead.' He nods
'I would have though… Forgive me, you seem like you would be used to the dead.'
'I am.' She raises her chin slightly as he zips up the bag without looking at the contents. 'It's just different when it's someone you don't expect. She was an accountant for Christ's sake. How many accountants for the Treasury get involved in this business?'
The assistant carefully wheels the gurney to a waiting hearse by the loading gates.
'The funeral will be on Friday if you want to come.' She turns away and slides into the passenger side door. The sleek black car silently pulls away just as M bursts through the main doors.
'Who, pray tell, was that?' Her tone is clipped and irate.
'The friend of a friend.' They both know he's not telling the full truth, and she'll be able to check the security videos and find out what was said but it's a game they play, that she doesn't know what's going on in his life until he tells her.
He goes to the funeral and stands in the back. There's only three other people there: The woman from the morgue, a tall man with dark hair clad in a sweeping black coat, and a shorter man with a military bearing. It's not a particularly extravagant funeral, there's a couple of bouquets, a simple coffin, and the obligatory minister. When the woman sees him a the end she smiles but makes not move to go talk to him, indeed she is ushered into a waiting cab by the tall man. He smiles and gets into his car, leaving the hole to be filled by the waiting gravediggers. M has an assignment for him.
Sometime later Bond sees a small item in the Births portion of a newspaper; 'Vesper Enola Holmes, born on November 5th at 1:13 PM in St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, to Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler, both of London.'