Q rubs his eyes on his jumper sleeves, fatigue finally setting in after a fourteen hour day and who would have ever thought his job would get more stressful without 007 around. He returns to fixing the watch 005 brought back from Cordoba with a heavy sigh. Thankfully it's still intact, even if no longer tells the time correctly. And if that isn't the only thing a watch ought to do, at least outside the Secret Service.
He'd given Bond an Omega as a parting gift, no explosives and no sentimentalities attached beyond a single letter engraved on the back. No one needs to know he'd slipped the man an exploding pen at the retirement ceremony Bond insisted on keeping as private as his personal life. Only Tanner, M, him, and Moneypenny stood in an office making awful speeches under the incentive of expensive alcohol. And Madeleine Swann standing off to the side with a glass of champagne in her hand and no interest in the event whatsoever.
Technically, Q knows he has no right to be upset about it. Not when she looks at him with such sympathy: two people putting their particular set of skills into a trade they despise and he understands her. Yet, he cannot fathom how she has managed to lure bloody heartbreaking, cold-hearted James Bond out into the open daylight, when he hasn't even gotten the bastard to play nice in the shadows. Perhaps he did go off on tangents, Q thinks in hindsight, but he's also loathe to believe Bond didn't mean anything by the immense and half blind trust he placed in his Quartermaster.
In hindsight, he wishes he'd reported the Aston stolen earlier too and he wishes he hadn't gone succumbed to Bond's casual charm, even if it did save the world. Q reaches for an abandoned cup of tea that's gone cold and sips at it as he contemplates the situation he's gotten himself into. To go as far as to say he's infatuated would be incorrect, but there's a definite affinity he's developed for his ex-agent and as far as Q is concerned that has the potential of being very not good. Vexing, even.
He misses the late night banter murmured over a line and an entire ocean with his words echoing in the workshop, despite the fact that Bond never laughed when he did. Q simply learned to hear the smirk in his words or the high of an adrenaline rush through random stretches of silence. He's gotten used to the comfort of having Bond snoring into his ear from miles away, because Q doesn't get paid to sleep and the world is intent on going to hell whenever he does.
His phone goes off on the edge of the table with 'Tanner' flashing across the display as if to prove his point and he picks it up with a tired sigh. "Yes?"
"A situation's come up in Amman," Tanner says in a groggy voice and Q suspects the poor bloke's hunched over his laptop at home with his wife dropping off in bed despite her best efforts to be concerned about national security. "Don't bother looking it up. It's all very hush hush; you know how paranoid Whitehall has been with data transfer since the Nine Eyes disaster. M is rolling out 002 tomorrow and a local set of agents is on the ground already."
"Who is assigned to monitoring the locals?"
"Station T is covering those forces, but M needs 002 equipped by 0800 hours. Technical support for him has also been offered from Tehran."
"Right," Q says, realising he'll have to pull another all nighter. "I'm on it. You've gotten the plane tickets, I presume."
"Yes." Tanner falls silent at the other end of the line and Q briefly wonders if he's not dropped dead at his kitchen table.
"Anything else?"
"No."
"Goodnight, for what's left of it."
Tanner hums absentmindedly and hangs up on him, probably already half asleep with one foot in bed. Q lets out a massive yawn and returns to tinkering with the odd bits on his desk, wondering whether he could sneak in a cat nap somewhere and he's been meaning to buy that couch for his office for months now.
Q makes a note on a piece of scrap paper doubling as a to-do list and he really ought to stop pushing it around his desk to get lost among the scattered files he's arranged in a meticulously chaotic way. He places it at the very edge of his desk with 005's watch to weight it in the hopes he'll remember to actually do something on his next day off.
Getting a grip of himself, he scribbles a quick outline on what he needs by morning. Two floors up the tell tale rumble of the elevator reminds him to message R about sending in the on call team for tonight. The elevator creaks horribly on its way down, what with being a relic from a bygone age of the SIS's time in underground bunkers. Must be Eve, Q thinks, probably already about to unlock her car in the parking lot, when the call came.
Q vividly remembers her in the immediate SPECTRE aftermath, sitting in his office chair with a broken four inch heel tossed in the corner and tears welling up in her eyes after downing a bottle of scotch stashed in his bottom desk drawer. I've been here for forty hours and now even the fucking Louboutins have given up on me. Q reaches for his phone, halfway through texting R, when the elevator light bathes his face in white light and he looks up to see someone who is decidedly not Eve Moneypenny.
The doors creak as they open and the only glory in aged underground structures is their privacy, though Q fails to see the use of that when James Bond stands there as smug as ever despite his newly retained civilian status.
"Bond," Q says in surprise and wishes he could smack himself over the head for how stunned he sounds. "What are you doing here? I thought you quit."
"I did." He quirks his typical lopsided smile that simply screams mischief and Q most definitely isn't up for this at half eleven pm. Bond shoves his hands into his pockets and strolls right up to Q's desk with an unsettling familiarity. He reaches for the broken watch on Q's desk to toy with it as he says, "There's just one more thing I need from you."
Bond leans ever so slightly over his desk, placing the watch in the middle of it with an expectant stare that sinks in through one of those quiet aha moments.
Q sighs and snatches the watch up with an irritated huff as Bond knocks his crumpled memo onto the floor. "That was in its place for a reason, Bond." He steps around the desk to pick up the paper slip, but is beaten to it by Bond.
"Ah, yes. Of extreme importance to national security, I see," Bond mutters and Q suddenly remembers he's written 'buy toilet paper' at the bottom in all caps.
"Don't be a prick," Q snaps and grabs the paper right out of his hand. "Unlike some people in this room, I have actual work to do."
Bond looks around the empty office in mock offence, but Q doesn't let it deter him from pointing Bond towards the area in the back to which he's sequestered all motor engines after the accident with the motorcycle in the canal. "Shall we get on with it then?"
"Please." Bond lets him lead the way and Q regains a semblance of control in rattling off the immense amount of work he's poured into fixing Bond's Aston post Skyfall. They come to stand in front of the car and Q pulls the protective sheet off of it in a surprisingly unglamorous grand reveal.
"She's still bullet proof and equipped with ejection seats, though any sort of weaponry or ammunition is prohibited by the law as you'll know," Q says, clutching onto the gigantic white sheet that pools at his feet and he'd rather hoped for this to happen in a different context. "And do remember I am no longer obliged to piece it together if you break it."
He stands stock still in the silence while Bond inspects his beloved car with eyes as bright as a child's and it makes something jump in Q, because he's been the one to trigger such glee in a stone cold bastard and he will be damned if that is his heart hammering away in his chest. He clears his throat and steps over the sheet to place a hand gently on the bonnet, where Bond's eyes wander along the immaculate finish.
"Do you like it? I-"
Bond looks up at him and Q swallows the rest of his sentence. He doesn't blush and he doesn't stammer, but takes a long breath and stands there with his hands pressed against his thighs and whatever he feels against his will written across his face in plain text. After all, he hasn't anything left to lose now.
"Q, it is obviously honed to perfection, which is a miracle considering you had half an engine to work off."
"Yes, well, it is part of my job description."
Bond runs his palms over the silver hood with his eyes following the long lines of fluorescent light reflected in the polished surface. "Do they specify putting up with obsolete double-ohs in your contract too?"
"That would be rather pointless, seeing as it's only ever been you," Q says with a sad smile and this really is the end for them.
"If it weren't all strictly off the record," Bond mutters in all seriousness and looks up at him, "Mallory would have given you a medal of valour by now."
"No, of course. It isn't everyday I put my career on the line for a hard headed bulldog by obfuscating national security records. I like to think you would have visited me in prison, if it got out of hand."
That draws a genuine laugh from Bond, a rare commodity, and Q smiles in return, because this is not a tragedy and he oughtn't treat it like one either. "This truly is over now, isn't it?"
"I've simply done this for too long, Q," Bond says and there's a flash of sadness in his eyes too. "It started with Franz Oberhauser and that is where it should end too. "
"The cycle of life and all that. I don't hold it against you."
"Don't you?"
Q hesitates for a short moment, but shakes his head and forces a smile. "No, I don't."
Bond nods slowly in acknowledgement and looks as though he wants to add something, but doesn't. He swallows and stands up straight with a firm tug at his cuffs. "I should get going," he says with any trace of emotion gone from his voice, "Madeleine's waiting for me upstairs."
"Of course she is."
"The keys?"
Q gives a quick nod and opens the passenger side door to pull a locked box out of the glove department. He offers it to Bond over the bonnet of the car along with the key. "A gun, a radio, and the keys to your new car. Have a nice thirty odd years, Bond, and do try not to blow up anything while you're off enjoying retirement."
"I'll do my very best." He glides effortlessly into the driver's seat and adjusts the bench to fit him. He turns the key in the ignition and revs the engine once for show, and Q rolls his eyes.
He takes a step back as Bond shifts the gear stick out of reverse before he seems to stop mid motion. He rolls the window down, muttering a morose 'Q' seemingly having forgotten what he meant to say next.
"Bit early for amnesia to set in, Bond. Now, if you will; I have got work to do."
"Wait. I was thinking," Bond cuts in, "Madeleine and I, we'll be back in two weeks from now. Perhaps you would agree to dinner."
"What are you saying, Bond?" Q asks carefully.
"I think you heard me perfectly alright."
"I may not have understood then."
"I think you do," Bond says with a flash of a charming smile despite the baffled look plastered on Q's face. "Perhaps you'll take some time to consider?"
"Perhaps."
"Let me know. Now, if you'll excuse me; the lady is waiting for me."
"Goodbye, Bond."
"Until we meet again, Q," Bond quips with an amused smirk and salutes his quartermaster one last time before he drives off. Q watches the car disappear into the tunnels leading west and recalls he's still holding his crumpled memo in own hand. He finds a pen from the mess on his desk and writes the word 'dinner' in the middle of it with a large question mark to follow.