Hurt/CoMfort

Disclaimer : Don't own it. Not even the computer I'm currently writing on (it's the family's computer, I only own a half). The only thing I really own is my brain, and trust me, you don't want to know what's in there.

If I owned it, there would be a lot more psychological parts, something about a maternal substitute and more "bathing suit" scenes.

A thousand thanks to Galinda for the beta-reading.

The floor was hard under his head, the air hot and dry. His tense abdomen made him suffer without interruption, cramps following cramps, running all over his body.

He wasn't changing position anymore, the laborious effort giving him no relief. On his back, he could relax, slow his heart, slow as far as possible to slow the infection's progression.

His lips were dry, he shivered sometimes and lost consciousness so often he had nearly lost all notion of time.

He knew it was really bad. He had to wait.

At first, it was an infiltration mission in Guatemala, gunrunners in a big system involving Cameroon, Haiti, Maghreb and Romania. It began to be their concern when an extremist group MI6 was keeping a keen eye on became a client. The link with South America was very fresh, the moving of a bigwig remarked and a double O sent.

M had spent a long time lecturing him about the necessity to catch, not kill. Without letting him talk, she had explained he had been chosen for his abilities and experience, not his licence to kill.

He had found the group, found the man, slowly woven a delicate web where his prey, and two lieutenants and some henchmen had got caught. Without an immediate way out, he had locked everyone up in a hideout in the middle of nowhere, without water, and resigned himself for the week-long wait. With rationing, they had enough food and water, and little to no, chance of being located as there was no satellite network. And they weren't a priority.

The second day, he had been struck down by the harsh abdominal pain.

This diagnosis was one of his hypothesises, but one quickly eliminated, as he'd had the operation already. It was one of the scarce memories he had of childhood : his parents arguing about the operation. His father asking "if it was worth it" and his mother answering "it was better for him", full stop. To be honest, he wasn't even sure it was this time.

He had experienced some discomfort here and there, but hadn't paid attention to it. Now his abdomen was harshly blaming him.

Intense pain on a point between navel and hip. Mild fever, going up. Vomiting. Even if it wasn't, he needed treatment. He was getting dehydrated quickly.

When he could still stay upright, he had walked until picking a signal up and had explained his situation, asking for a medical team, quickly.

They announced a three days' wait.

He had given to his preys his stock of food and water, keeping only a half-full bottle to try and get his temperature down. He had laid down in the darkest room, and was concentrating on slowing down his metabolism. He was waiting.

The road to Estiércol del Ram was tough, and there was no place to land a plane, or even an helicopter, for ten miles. Just winding paths, battered by rain, to be covered by jeep, keeping machete, gun and GPS by hand. It was the last place on Earth sick or injured people should be.

But their work was to find a way to get a helicopter as close to the house as possible, even if it meant finishing their trek on the backs of mules.

They couldn't operate there. Between the lack of water, complete asepsis, transport of equipment (diagnosis, preparation, surgery, reanimation), the need of a visceral surgeon ready to find anything, it would be easier to transport the agent to the nearest medical unit, where they could be in less than 30 minutes by flight.

With a plan, the medical team quickly found their patient, lying down on the floor in a small, dark room smelling of sickness. Salt on the forehead, dark rings under the eyes, slow, superficial breathing, typical of the deep muscular relaxation. The most urgent thing was to wake him up, to see how far the infection was getting.

"Agent Bond, do you hear me? Open you eyes. You need to wake up now." Said the doctor, rubbing Bond's sternum, while his colleague was looking for a vein where to insert a much-needed perfusion.

Bond's eyelids shivered and half-opened.

"Hello, I'm Jeremy Young, M sent me. We're going to take you to a clinic in San Pedro. Stay with us, okay? Stay awake."

Tired blink, not really there. Bond tried to talk. His mouth was dry.

"' much time?"

"You called us a little more than two days ago."

Ephemeral expression in a quickly-controlled gaze. He was slowly coming back and his face was tensing. His breathing was quicker, but no deeper, and the cardiac monitor showed a good 120, with a temperature near 104.

"Show me where it hurts."

Without any hesitation, the free hand came above right hypochondrium. He let the doctor touch him, but forcing himself to, his muscles tensing. The doctor didn't insist.

"It looks like appendicitis, and you're going on peritonitis. We'll know more with an operation."

Blink again. He was awake and alert now, but his face showed exhaustion and pain. However, his condition was far better than it could be expected for a man dangerously ill, who hadn't had anything to eat or drink in days.

"Bidefeh?"

"Two agents will take care of him, they're going to replace you until the bus is here."

The agent nodded, wincing.

"Ok, ready to go." Young glanced towards his colleague who nodded, holding a syringe. "We're going to give you some morphine, try to stay with us, right?"

Blink.

Dr. Langton was a surgeon at the discreet Clínica del Cumbre in San Pedro. The clinic, bought by the CIA after the previous owner's – a false aesthetic surgeon with an endless criminal record – arrest, now housing wounded or tortured agents, long enough to get them back in shape, or enough to go to a convalescence centre. They also got patients from other agencies – same difference for them.

From a technical perspective, working in a CIA clinic wasn't something special. The Hippocratic oath applied the same way. You just had to be ready to treat odd wounds, original poisonings and strange traumas.

The patients were often more peculiar. They generally came with an already entertaining medical file, a used-to-action temperament and sometimes a mission to finish – getting them to stay in bed long enough to heal wasn't a piece of cake. But over his career, Baird Langton had learned to manage the most stubborn spirits.

Physically, they were usually in excellent shape, even if liver and lungs sometimes needed thorough examination – one fateful day, he had had to tell a 35-years old man he had cancer – but they had a bad tendency to push themselves too hard.

The patient he was about to open was a 40 years old man with what looked like a bad case of appendicitis. Even if his medical file told the opposite, all exams were positive. Surgery was urgent, there'd already been a three day delay and the peritonitis was gaining territory. The anaesthetist had made a face at the state of dehydration and exhaustion, but they couldn't wait anymore.

Opening showed without surprise inflamed peritoneum and pus. There was no doubt that the appendix had ruptured. Enlarging the incision, Langton clamped the culprit before cutting it and putting it in a kidney tray. He washed and examined thoroughly all the area, without finding any lesions. Satisfied, he closed the incision, leaving a drain.

After 36 hours of intensive monitoring, Bond had been transported to the MI6's medical unit, where he would stay for a few days.

M was walking in the corridors with Dr. Gillet, the double O's referent.

"He came trough the operation in good shape, and he's recovering quickly. He did a good job with slowing his metabolism - the infection could have been much serious, from what he described, his appendix ruptured nearly 8 hours before the medical team arrived."

"What of his file? It indicated he had the appendix removed as a child."

"Yes, it's the first thing I checked, and San Pedro's doctor is positive, but I have to say it's quite difficult to understand."

"You think his file was falsified ?"

"No. It's very far from plausibility. I remember all the exams I did and I really don't see why get rid of something more than 30 years ago and not do more dangerous modifications, like his blood group. I contacted the clinic where he had the operation. The surgeon who treated him resigned a few years later. It was discovered that when parents asked for appendectomy for their child to get rid of it, he wouldn't operate on the kid if the appendix was sane. From what Bond remembers, he was one of those children, and San Paulo's doctor confirmed there was scar tissue on peritoneum compatible with the period, but no trace on the intestine."

"The surgeon did false operations?"

"Yes, and as he was an excellent practitioner, things were hushed. It's more a case of bad luck than anything else. I already performed exams for everything – vaccines, mostly – from the same period, before Eton, and it's the only one that doesn't match with his file."

"A case of bad luck which could have had terrible end. You said it yourself."

"Some luck, maybe." Said the doctor calmly, stepping back, however, under her glare.

He was awake and reading a book, which he put down when he saw her.

"Ma'am."

"Bond."

He didn't move, letting her looking him up and down. He had lost weight – at that rate, he wasn't about to regain the pounds lost while and after the Quantum case. Still pale, with a look that said it was nearing the end of the day and he would be tired soon.

"You're bloody lucky to get out this well. Holing you up this far with prisoners, without assistance..."

Never, at any time since he had taken his first steps in her office – young, a laudatory file, but a look indicating this brightness had its price in an independent, hard to manage spirit – had any of her lectures had managed to reach him. His eyes began to laugh.

"You can't help it, can you ? I captured Bidefeh as you asked me to, he's unharmed, and his men were so bored they began to talk amongst themselves."

She couldn't give in an inch for him. Even if she had to admit his behaviour towards his preys had definitely improved since the capture of Achick Djebbi, Vesper Lynd's former lover. She didn't know what thinking had taken place in this little blond head, but closing his armor a little more, he had moved away from the killing machine he risked to become.

"Yes, I looked at the Palm." The doctors had found it beside him. He had taken a lot of notes, the last entry went back to less than twelve hours – a copy of the murmurs he was able to hear from the basement.

He sat up with a small grimace she pretended to not see.

"Bidefeh talked ?"

"Not much but Tanner thinks he's still hiding something big – probably an accomplice. Any idea of who it could be ?"

"I couldn't identify one of the names coming in his talks with his second. Ghergiu. From the way he talked about him, he's a rival. Would explain why the Romanian part of the network is more fragile."

She let himself be taken into the conversation, knowing he would fall asleep soon – it wasn't even nine yet but the painkillers tired him. And she wanted to hear his opinion on the file; he had done nearly all the work, as a distraction after Quantum. He had gone further than Tanner thought possible in the state they were in, for the undisguised satisfaction of the younger man.

He bit back a yawn and she took it as her cue to leave.

"Get some rest. You have one week off, but I want you back on the file after that."

It meant three weeks glued to a desk, but he showed no emotion. She was the boss.

On the doorstep, she turned around. He was laying down, eyes closing.

"Bond ?"

He turned her head towards her.

"Good work."

He smiled and she went out.

She wouldn't usually praise him – he was supposed to reach this level in all his missions – but she could show some humanity now and then.

I know you'll ask this...

Why a one-shot ? Cause this way, I don't have to worry about chapters and readers waiting ! And I don't feel to write a long story.

Will there be more stories ? I have honestly no idea. I didn't write for a long time and it's still hard as I have a lot of self-esteem issues. I have a potential plot bunny, but I'm waiting for him to grow up – my plot bunnies need a lot of time to grow up, I imagined this story months ago.

Your Bond is too soft. Maybe. I know I can trust some of you to write tough Bond... OK, seriously, I know Bond is a professional killer, but I don't think it's the only thing he does. In Casino Royale, he wasn't supposed to kill Mollaka, and the Chiffre's mission was a capture mission. I rely a lot on Bond's file (which you can find here : http (dot slash slash) www (dot) 007 (dot) com (slash) site (slash) dossier (slash) index_en (dot) html. Very instructive, some parts are even funny). Bond is showed as an excellent infiltration agent, brilliant, able to follow a file from beginning to end – not just a walking weapon you'd send on a prey with "don't make a mess" as only directive.