"A drink for you, mister."

Bond looks up from his scotch, and there's a martini in the bartender's hand. "Not mine," he says, and then his gaze catches the lemon peel hanging off of it. He studies the drink carefully, and his eyes can't stop hovering at the colour and shape of it, wondering.

"Him over there," the bartender says.

He follows the bartender's hand. He sees the back of a well-dressed man in a sharp grey suit, and wants to laugh himself sick from recognition.

"Felix," Bond says.

"James," the man says, turning. "Long time no see."

Bond feels a smile pull at his mouth. "Indeed. Six years, actually. How is the CIA treating you? I heard you were promoted. Congratulations."

"That was awhile back," Felix says with a nod. "I've risen a bit further up, but that's, ah. Classified." He smirks. "Still a double-O?"

Bond shrugs, returns the smirk. "As always." He pauses, and experimentally takes a sip of the martini. "It's good," he says, half-to-himself.

Felix takes a seat next to Bond; he pries the cocktail from Bond's hand, and then tastes it. After he swallows, he remarks, apparently half-joking, "The job does no favours to your age."

"I've heard it all before," Bond says, dry. "And yes, you remembered the drink right."

"She was a helluva beautiful woman," Felix says.

Bond has to stop himself from snapping backward. Recoiling. But it's just Felix, he thinks. Encountering an old acquaintance. And yet the sharpness in his voice betrays him.

"Why are you in London?"

"Some of the higher-ups wanted me to hang around, check on things, take care of business. Get the CIA acquainted with the new M." Felix takes another sip of the cocktail. "I have an appointment scheduled with him tomorrow."

"And you thought you'd catch up?" Bond says.

Felix smiles. "Like you said, it's been years." He pauses. "So she's dead."

"I was there, yeah," Bond says.

In truth: there was also a funeral. Bond didn't go. Eve had, and then she'd returned, all dressed in black, to press the funeral pamphlet in Bond's hand. I see what was, and is, and will abide, he had read, and Eve said, That was on her headstone, Bond.

Bond looks at the drink Felix is holding, and all he wants to do is get utterly, completely pissed. Preferably now. He signals the bartender, and orders more scotch, sinking into a momentary sullen silence as he downs about a quarter of it.

"I thought that tough old woman would live forever," Felix says. "She seemed the type. I got a mother just like her." He cracks a grin; Bond realises that he's trying to lighten the atmosphere.

"She left me a goddamned bulldog in her will," Bond says. "Not a real one, mind, but this figurine rubbish. Of all bloody things."

Felix snorts, and then he shouts at the bartender for beer. Looks like he's decided to get drunk alongside Bond, which he doesn't really mind at all.

"What have you been doing besides climbing your way up the CIA ladder?" Bond says, abruptly switching the subject.

In response, Felix rolls up the sleeve of his right arm, then he taps his left leg. Bond can hear a metal rapping noise from the gesture, and his eyebrows shoot up in surprise. Prosthetic limbs. He suddenly recalls the limp Felix had as he walked toward Bond, a slightly unsteady gait.

"Jesus," he says.

"Isn't it," Felix says flatly. "Fucking shark. Now I'm suspended from any real missions for an unknown amount of time. I'm their messenger boy. It's really not climbing my way up the ladder. More like falling off of it."

Felix shakes his head, and says, "I heard you died, though."

"Oh, that," Bond says with a bark of laughter, forcing himself to look away from Felix's right hand. "No, it was just a vacation, you could say."

"Istanbul, killed in action, probable cause of death was friendly fire and/or drowning," Felix says. It sounds like he's reciting a file. "There was an obituary, too."

"You were worried?"

"Was going to fly over until I got sent over Florida," Felix says; it's a confession, albeit one admitted over alcohol. "Pay my last respects or something like that. Then, well. Fucking shark."

Bond finishes his scotch. "You're too good for me," he says. "I haven't been checking up on you, you know." He studies Felix through bleary eyes and says, "Why are you always here?"

"In London?"

"No." Bond makes a vague hand motion, and eventually he finds the words to speak. "When I need you. I don't think I do, but something's always shot to hell, and somehow you're here."

Felix says, rolling his eyes, "You're drunk. That was only once. I just told you about the CIA, and let you go on your merry way to go kill people for her."

Her. She. Isn't that funny, they're the only two people alive in the world who were there, Casino Royale, gambling, Quantum, and they can't bring themselves to say her name. Le Chiffre and Yusef Kabira and Dominic Greene are dead, and who the fuck knows what happened to the rest of that organisation. Then there were two other people; they died in Bond's arms.

We Men who in our morn of youth defied the elements, must vanish-

"Right," he says distractedly. "Right."

They end up ordering more alcohol, and they drink in almost complete quiet. It's starting to get dark outside, and Bond tries not to think of the hangover he's going to get in the morning. But the scotch is good. His head is buzzing with energy, and he wraps himself in the sensation.

Sometime in the evening, Felix clamps a hand to Bond's shoulder, and says, "Help me get out of here, James, I don't think I can walk. Especially not with this damned thing." He taps at his leg.

So Bond helps Felix hobble to his hotel, only a block away, his muscles straining as he steadies Felix, trying to steady his own drunk frame as well. The night air is cool and Bond can feel the alcohol slowly ebbing away; he just wants to collapse now, and sleep, and hopefully not get assaulted with a bitch of a hangover. Felix is muttering curses underneath his breath, shit and crap and, Bond thinks, shark intermingled with that, and he chuckles out loud.

He hauls Felix into the lift, and they enter a mediocrely decorated hotel room. He dumps Felix unceremoniously on the bed, letting out a relieved breath as he does so.

"You're terribly sloshed," he says to Felix.

"You, too," Felix retorts; the words are slurred. "Goddammit, just sit down already. You look like you're half-dead. I don't think you should try going back home now. Unless you have another death wish again, and you want your file to say agent killed drunk driving or agent killed crossing the street."

Bond shrugs, and then he sinks into the bed beside Felix. He says, "I haven't had that martini in ages. They don't sell Kina Lillet anymore."

"I know," Felix says. "I've been making it for myself a couple times. I found a decent substitute."

"Tell me about it in the morning."

"I will," Felix says, with a slow smile, and he's out like a light, asleep. His eyes are closed; Bond thinks that he looks older in his sleep. As old as Bond is.

Bond smiles, reaches forward to touch the hair on Felix's sweat-dampened forehead with the side of his hand, and he doesn't stop to think about what any of this might mean.

Maybe they can visit M's grave tomorrow.


And if, as toward the silent tomb we go,

Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,

We feel that we are greater than we know.

-Valedictory Sonnet to the River Duddon: After-Thought, William Wordsworth.