Hello! I have recently joined the James Bond fandom, particularly the idea of Q as a Holmes brother. Reading the available stories I realized that there are no fics that talk about Q's reaction to the Fall. The simplified explanation is that Q is Sherlock's half brother, who Mycroft never viewed as important enough to notify about the fake suicide.

Lots of feels, and I hope to follow up with another chapter soon.

Also, the Algae- Protist or Plant argument mentioned in here is a serious debate that bio nerds get intense about.

Happy reading!

Myshi Corp.


He had forgotten to sleep (again).

Moneypenny would probably be annoyed with him spending another all-nighter in the office, but those weapon designs just had to be dealt with, and once he'd started working the only thing that reminded him of the passage of time were the occasional breaks to refill his 'Q' mug. He didn't realize it was morning until he looked over and R was sitting at her desk.

"Hello. How long have you been there?"

He wasn't quite sure when she had appeared- was it the start of the workday already?

R wryly smiled at her boss' confusion.

"About half an hour- I know better than to disturb you during a work binge. Knowing you, you probably assumed that your mug refilled itself magically."

"I didn't-"

Q stopped. That argument was hopeless and he sounded a bit like a whiny teenager, so he dropped the subject.

"Well, thank you for the caffeine hit. I did need it. What's on the docket today?"

"It's supposed to be really quiet, with all the 00s done with their missions. The testing of Minion #23's new sedative is at 1300, followed by a Dungeons and Dragons tournament among the interns at 1400. Oh, and Minion #7 challenged your scrabble skills again, if you'd like to correct her judgement."

Q filed the challenge away, and calmly responded.

"If I don't have anything going on at 1400 I would gladly take the role of Dungeon Master."

"I'm sure the minions would be ecstatic about that, sir. Shall I inform them?"

"No, keep it a surprise. Something may come up, and I'd hate to disappoint."

Q turned back to his work, occasionally glancing over Q-Branch and monitoring the minions. When his cup emptied, he grabbed it and started over to the break room/nerd playhouse, where the modified kettle was constantly kept boiling and the mural on the wall was an inscription in elvish. "Amin n'rangwa edanea" (I don't understand these humans) was artfully written, surrounded by a spattering of stars that just happened to be astronomically accurate. Minion #15 had created the mural soon after the branch had decided to remodel the break room. He had also painted the door to look like the entrance to the TARDIS, and Minion #13 created a metal coffee table with a the pattern of a scrabble board welded onto it. Next to the metal scrabble board was R's contribution, a light up chess board that made sarcastic comments and sound effects whenever a piece was captured. Q had recorded the comments for her, so occasionally he'd be walking through the playhouse and hear his highly practiced explosion sound effects go off at the highest volume possible.

(Q was just glad that the board didn't deliver an electric shock to the player that lost a piece- that was one of the prototypes R built, until she played her boss in Chess and lost feeling in both arms.)

The tea had it's own altar, where at least 25 different teas were lined up, organized by type, then alphabetically by brand. Generic white mugs were laid out on the counter, but most employees brought a personalized cup from home. Measuring out two teaspoons of the loose leaf Assam (due to the higher caffeine content) that had been a Christmas gift from his brother, Q nodded hello to the other workers gathered by the kettle. They were in the middle of a heated debate when he heard a familiar name.

"Holmes is not a fake!"

Minion #21 was outraged, and Q confused. He'd stopped using that name ages ago, but if they weren't talking about him than who? Was Mycroft in trouble? Minion #9 harshly responded.

"Keep telling yourself that, but all the evidence points to him being a fraud. You must have read the papers. Kitty Riley's article? Richard Brook?"

This was almost the worst argument Q had seen in the branch yet, second to only the "Algae: Plant or Protist?" fight that had ended with M's desk covered in a heap of Ulva intestinalis. The entire head office smelled like rotting seaweed for a week, and there were still suspicious green smears on old paperwork.

(Q still thought algae was a Protist.)

"The newspapers! So now they're the gospel truth?"

Minion #21 threw her hands up in the air in the universal "it's hopeless" sign, but then turned around again.

"How do you explain the cold cases solved, then? Did Holmes commit crimes before he was conceived just so he could solve them as an adult? Thousands of people have tried to solve those cases, and only he could. And then he didn't even take credit for it!"

She looked around and spotted Q.

"Q, back me up here!"

Minion #21 looked desperate, so he poured boiling water into his cup and leaned against the counter.

"Alright. What are you all so worked up about?"

She immediately started talking.

"Well, sir, there's this consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes, and his nemesis, consulting criminal Moriarty. Now Moriarty broke into the Tower, Pentonville Prison, and the Bank of England, but when he was tried for his crimes he was acquitted. The press is saying that there never was any Moriarty, and that Holmes invented all the crimes so he could feel clever solving them, but that's just not true! And then he went and jumped off Saint Bart's, and everyone still thinks he's a fake!"

Minion #21 was spitting the words at the end of her rant, but Q only registered part of it.

"Wait." He said slowly, confused.

"You mean... he's dead?"

Minion #9 didn't notice Q's growing distress.

"Yeah, he offed himself a few days ago. I hear the service is today." Turning to #21, he continued.

"Now why would he do that if he wasn't guilty? Many criminals kill themselves once they're discovered, why is he any different? He was the object of a giant manhunt, after all."

Minion #21 had a solid counter argument.

"Yeah, but Moriarty destroyed his livelihood. He must have forced him to jump too. What do you think, Q?"

He almost couldn't breath.

Sherlock.

"I... I have to go. We'll talk later."

Q turned and fled the room, brain spinning in circles as he quickly walked to his office. R tried to intercept him with some forms.

"Not right now, R. Please."

As he closed the door and fogged the glass he could see R's concerned face, but he couldn't deal with anyone's questions right now.

Sherlock.

Sherl.

Rushing to his computer, Q typed in the query 'Sherlock Holmes,' only to find articles loudly proclaiming "Suicide of Fake Genius Detective," and "Richard Brook- 'Sherlock Holmes Invented Moriarty.'"

"He can't be dead."

Maybe if he said it enough times it would be true.

"He...He's... No. Mycroft would have told me, he wouldn't have done this, this... this can't be real, I... I can't let this be real."

Deep down, Q knew that not informing him of Sherlock's death was Mycroft's way of finally rejecting him from the family. A way of saying "Sherlock was your brother in spirit, but I have no connection to the product of Siger's affair. You never were, and never will be a true Holmes."

That statement hurt now as much as it had when he was young and adopted by Mummy Holmes.

Figures Mycroft would turn the suicide of his brother into a power play.

The last article Q read gave the date, time, and place of the funeral, which was that day, at 1100.

He owed it to Sherlock to be there.

Sherlock.

Sherl.


Sending an email to R and M, he claimed that he was feeling under the weather and wanted to take a sick day.

R, you can handle anything that comes up. I'm sure the interns would be delighted to have you as DM. Don't let the interns steal my tea.
M, please don't contact me unless there is a true world crisis. Bond blowing up a national monument does not qualify as such.
Sincerely,
Q

Gathering up his things and tossing on a thick coat, he took one last swig of his tea, wiped his eyes and composed his features, then dived into the chaos that was a bored Q-Branch on a slow day.

No one bothered him as he walked toward the parking garage, unlocking his back-engineered Prius and stashing his stuff in the passenger seat. Sherlock had once made fun of him for owning such a hipster car, but Q liked it. (It was blue!)

Sherlock.

London traffic was usually bad, but Q wasn't above hacking into the stop lights and giving him green lights most of the way. Pulling up at the cemetery's reception building, he saw strings of people headed inside. A family of four, an old bald man, and a group of soldiers in uniform, all drifting toward the main entrance.

Q straightened his hair and changed cardigans, hoping to look a little less like a mess, then slid out of his seat, slamming and locking the door. Swinging his messenger bag across his body, he strode toward the main hall, hoping that Mycroft wouldn't be there.

No such luck, but his brother did have the good grace to avoid acknowledging him, and he passed unmolested into the chapel area. Finding an empty seat on a pew in front of a support column, he leaned back and looked up at the stained glass ceiling. The rough plaster of the column scraped the back of his head, grounding him as the light lazily floated in through the windows.

He should have called more, checked in occasionally. Maybe he could have noticed something Mycroft couldn't, maybe stopped Sherlock from-

The illuminated specks of dust that floated past his gaze reminded him of an experiment Sherlock had run when he was younger- using dust disturbances to determine the height and shoe size of the person who walked through it. Sherlock had run that experiment during one of Mummy's dinner parties, and forced guests to walk, sprint, and stagger through a dusty room.

When Q had questioned the purpose of this experiment, Sherlock quieted him by saying "Don't you see? This could catch a murderer someday."

Sherlock was always oddly interested in crime, and no one was surprised when he decided to become a detective.

That dinner party experiment was probably better than the one on the differences between charred and rotting flesh. The house stank for days afterwards, and some of Mummy's guests never returned.

The corner of Q's mouth minutely twitched. Out of all of them, he was probably the easiest child to raise.

Both of Q's parents by blood were dead, killed in a car crash when he was 5. Sherlock, 6 at the time, had deduced his father's affair during dinner, and that same night Violet Holmes threw Siger out of the house both parents died. Child Protective Services took him to Mummy Holmes, his next of kin, and she adopted him. Sherlock had always accepted Q as a brother. Mycroft never had.

Looking up at the multicolored portrayals of the Saints, Q recognized a few. The Holmes weren't religious, but he did recognize some of the saints from his college classes on religions of the world. His favorite saint had always been St. Mazenod, the patron of dysfunctional families. His own family certainly qualified as dysfunctional.

Caught up in his reverie, he didn't notice that someone was next to him until they sat down. Glancing over, he did a double take.

"Moneypenny? What are you doing here?"

Eve grinned.

"I was about to ask you the same question! M sent me to express the intelligence community's condolences to Director Holmes. You?"

Q paused and thought about what to tell her, eventually deciding on the truth.

"He..."

Deep breath. Don't cry.

"He was my brother. I didn't know about all this until this morning."

Eve's eyebrows contracted in concern, and she slowly grabbed one of his hands and squeezed it.

"God, Q. I don't know what to say. How are you?"

Q very determinedly looked over her shoulder, never meeting her eyes.

"I'm... holding in there. I still can't believe..."

He trailed off, but Moneypenny understood. They sat in silence until the service started. As they stood up to sing, Q gathered his composure and leaned over to whisper in her ear.

"Sherlock would have hated this unnecessary ceremonialism. Whenever we went to funerals, he'd always want study the corpse. After the time he took samples of the late Great-Uncle Sherringford's saliva, Mummy banned him from funerals."

Eve giggled and whispered back.

"Somehow that behavior makes your work binges seem a lot more sane. Were you always the normal one?"

"Mycroft was the one who did the typical teenager things. He was class president at our high school, and even had a boyfriend for a while. Sherlock and I always objected to the obvious way he'd modify himself to fit in. We both, Sherlock especially, never tried very hard."

Q sadly smiled at that thought, and then quieted down and watched the service.

(He hated it on Sherlock's behalf.)