I blame Fangirl1138 for this. She said she had a scene in mind I might want to consider writing: Q is injured and doesn't tell Bond while on assignment.

This is what I made of the whole idea… Not sure it's what she had in mind, but my brain came up with the scenario and wouldn't let me write it any other way.

x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx

Series List:

1. High Voltage

2. Live Wire

3. Sometimes the Words are Hidden

4. Seasonal Currents

5. Redeemed

6. Not All the Facts

x X XX xx X XX xxxx X XX xx X XX xxxx X XX xx X XX xxxx X XX xx X XX xxxx X XX xx X XX xxxx X XX xx X XX xxx

They lost Riley on a Tuesday.

Q remembered because it was his first day back after a long weekend. It had been his first vacation time since the enforced two-day leave after Christmas. Mallory had told him in no uncertain words that he should take the four days, as well as take Bond, and just go. Go away. Do something other than work. Q had been slightly offended, but in the end he had done as ordered.

He had enjoyed those four days. They had packed their bags and spent three of them in the warmth of a southern climate. Late summer, tourists sparse, Tenerife had been a change from London. Q might not be the kind of person to bake in the sun at the beach all day long, but he enjoyed warmth, too. And he enjoyed seeing his partner out of the suit, in jeans and t-shirts or in swim shorts.

Yes, James had drawn looks from the female population. Yes, even some men had looked. And no, Q felt not a single tickle of jealousy. The firm knowledge of what they were to each other was always there. He had no doubts, no fears.

It was nice.

And the evenings were spent enjoying the setting sun, a glass of wine, cheese and bread and olives, and themselves. Especially themselves.

Q felt a tingle of happiness at those memories.

He came back to his department, already aware of what had happened in his absence. Being a technopath had him automatically log into the MI6 server network and he had known what emails awaited him.

The note from M had been top priority.

Riley had been a handler. She had been assigned to several field agents in Australia and even once had had the pleasure of handling a Double-Oh when 008 had been on a mission in the country.

Now she had been involved in a car crash.

The paramedics had declared her DOA. A medic at the local hospital had confirmed that there had been nothing left for anyone to do to help. Her neck had been broken.

Q had never met Riley, but every loss was still painful. She had been employed by his predecessor and there had been talk about her moving back to London for a change of jobs. Riley had been close to fifty, married, two children.

The atmosphere in Q branch was muted. People were milling around, slightly in shock at the loss. Agents were lost sometimes; mostly through a bullet, a knife or a staged accident. Handlers were on the safer end of an operation.

Q gave everyone the time necessary.

x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx

Bond went on an assignment the very same day. It was simple reconnaissance. A request for a joint operation with the CIA. Well, not a request, more like MI6 bullying into something the Americans wanted no one else included in.

Well, too bad.

He accepted his equipment with a somber expression. While death was nothing new to a Double-Oh or any other field agent, he understood the time to grief.

Q gave him a little smile when he checked his gun. Personalized, like always. The tracker was added, then his watch.

"Have a good flight."

He got a quirked smile in return. "I always do."

x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx

It was early in the morning with the mist still clinging to the ground and the sun not yet strong enough to pierce through the cloud cover. Bond stood in front of the security fence, looking at the ruins shrouded in the damp fog.

A week had gone by since the Japanese research facility had been destroyed and by now construction equipment was lining the driveway up to what had once been the main entrance. The moment the officials gave the go, this ruin would be torn down. It had been declared highly unstable and dangerous, and multiple signs had been put up.

No one had known that this building had housed a top secret facility. And no one knew what had happened here, aside from a sudden explosion that had erased five lives, among them two renowned British scientists who had been working for MI6. The other three had been US citizens, which had brought the CIA into the game.

The fence was locked by a rather primitive combination lock, but Bond had no intention of breaking it. He was expected. The guard was a rough-hewn, tall man with light brown hair and watery eyes. He nodded at Bond and unlocked the fence.

"Keep on the designated tracks," he told him, his voice heavily accented. "This is a dangerous ruin."

Up close the ruin looked even more impressive than from afar. It had the look of a movie set for a horror film, just waiting for someone to shout 'action' and monsters to lurch toward the hero or heroine. Walking into the once proud building, Bond stepped over charred wooden beams, molten plastic, fallen roof sections, always cautious not to stray too far from the route declared safe.

A labyrinth of more debris lay ahead of him and he peered into the murky twilight. Getting out a high power flash light he searched on.

"Whoever destroyed the lab, he was thorough," he said softly.

"And knew where to place the bombs," Q answered.

Bond had to agree. The building had gone up in a brilliant explosion of flames and debris, killing five people in the furnace fire and destroying everything within a short period of time. The fire fighters had not been able to save anything. This had once been a high-tech place of futuristic designs in glass and steel. Now it was a heap of debris.

He stepped deeper inside, ducking his head to avoid fallen ceiling panels, charred and split open from the heat. Some of the walls around him had collapsed, partitions blackened, windows blasted out. Nothing left at all.

Bond kicked lightly against some charred wood and it cracked.

"Nothing here at all."

"What did you expect? Neon signs?" Q asked.

He smiled wryly. "Maybe. One can always hope. What about the main computer system? Any news about possible recovery?"

"Burned to a crisp. At least according to CIA reports. You know how far you can trust those."

He smirked at the remark. "Keep digging."

Taking a last look around, Bond left.

x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx x X XX xx X XX xxx

One didn't become quartermaster at MI6 just for being a good hacker; brilliant, in case of the young man who had become the new quartermaster, actually. Everyone at Q branch was brilliant in their own way. They had specialized fields where they excelled, where they were the best there was this side of the globe, maybe even across the globe. MI6's eyes were everywhere and they had their fingers in a lot of institutions, grooming their agents and their specialists.

Q had caught their attention early on. He had been recruited and given what he needed to stay sane, despite the fact that they needed him in a field where a technopath with his failing control was prone to catastrophically explode one day.

M had seen to it that he received what help there was, that he had himself under firm control, that he could carefully test the waters when it came to the MI6 servers.

Rising to the position of quartermaster, the head of the whole Q branch, answering only to M, hadn't come out of the blue.

Q might look the perfect nerd, the geek in geek's clothing, but he wasn't. He had a quiet competence, a core of steel. He had undergone rigorous training, had been evaluated again and again. He had been pushed to his limits and he had weathered everything.

He didn't bend. He didn't break. He pushed back and he succeeded. Q was like a dog with a bone when it came to a project. He went at it with everything.

He could lead Q branch. He had their respect. His orders were followed.

He could work with field agents, especially Double-Ohs, who were notorious in their ways. Getting a Double-Oh to listen to everything one said and then follow orders was sometimes like fighting windmills.

But they listened to him. They brought back the equipment. They worked with him. He had their respect.

Until 007.

Q had shown just what he was made of when James Bond had reappeared from the dead. He had a backbone. He was no-nonsense when it came to this particular Double-Oh. He didn't back down and he didn't even raise his voice. Calm, level-headed, sure in his directions, he was there, in Bond's ear.

He faced the prowling predator, not the least bit unnerved, actually more annoyed most of the time, and he won Bond's respect.

It was hard to impress a man like him in these days, but Q had managed it.

It was the beginning of the most unusual partnership Q branch had ever witnessed. And they watched closely.

Very closely.

Even before their partnership had taken on a very different tone, before the bond had been established between the dark preternatural Bond was and the crippled technopath Q had been, the agent had watched his quartermaster.

Not for failures.

Not to see weaknesses.

Just watched him.

Q was a fascinating object for quiet observation. He might not have understood just why he kept drifting back to Q branch then, but now Bond knew. It had been the beginning. It had been his rebirth.

Yes, Q still had spots. Some. Faintly. He was young, but not too young to be leader of his own branch. He was genius level, but he wasn't eccentric or bordering on insane. He was the center of Q branch, working with a speed unrivalled by others, and his underlings deferred to him.

Yes, fascinating.

The strength was there, under so many layers. The top layer consisted of clothes Bond had found ridiculously cliché at the time, but that was Q. He threw you off, even by the way he dressed.

Slender but unbreakable. A will of iron.

The phoenix had hungered for him in the black recesses of Bond's mind, unable to understand the fascination, drawn to that bright mind. Magnetic. Electric. All of them no words that truly described what it had felt like.

Their encounters had been strung with tension before, the sharp wit, the aggravation and exasperation masking an ever-developing avalanche that had uprooted all of Bond's world. He had been swept away by the force and his preternatural side had soared with the challenge.

When everything boiled down to the inevitable release, it had floored him. He had never felt this, never wanted someone this much. Not physically. It was so much more than carnal pleasure. It had been release, freedom, the brittle chains suddenly broken, and he was free.

Not in death.

In life.

Q had been right back then.

The phoenix was there, vicious in its primal nature, untamable and ferocious, but it calmed under Q's balancing influence. He didn't control it, just soothed the fiery nature within the mantle of ice.

And it gave Q the so badly needed anchor to heal his own fractured mind, to reverse the damage done to his abilities because he had no control over them either.

Q was an asset. MI6 used assets to their advantage.

He understood that perfectly well.

x X XX xx X XX xxx x X

It was curious, Q mused in a rather detached way. They sent agents all over the world to stop terrorist plots, steal data, eliminate one threat or another. His own Double-Oh had seen almost every country in this world already, sometimes only passing through one, had been there to see governments rise and fall and rise again from the ashes.

And in the end it had turned out that sometimes the threat was closest to home; that the perp had been in their midst.

One of his team.

Q took it quite personally.

He hadn't known Leslie Collins in more than a professional way. He was a programmer for Q branch and had transferred to the IT department just recently. The old Q, his predecessor, had hired the man and Q, as the new head of the department, had simply reviewed the personnel files and talked to each of his team to assess who and what they were. He had no personal links to any of them. Yes, he had followed invitations for drinks and even a birthday party at a close-by pub, but nothing more.

Collins hadn't stood out among the underlings. With his transfer, Q hadn't lost an irreplaceable employee. The man had been replaced from within MI6 and that was that.

Now he had committed treason.

And he had attacked his former boss.

Q hadn't seen that coming either.

Well, okay, so he had had his back turned to the man, but he hadn't expected Collins to shoot him with one of the prototypes he must have taken from Q branch.

Q made a mental note to change the access to those prototypes. It wouldn't do for just anyone to be able to grab them.

A sharp stab had him curl in on himself.

Bullet wounds hurt!

Yes, as handler of James Bond he knew that, but he had never personally experienced it. Quartermasters didn't get shot. None of his predecessors ever had been, though they had been out in the field to deliver tech or equipment. There hadn't been so much as a bruise on any of those who had come before him.

Now he had been shot.

Within a year of heading this department.

Q would have sighed if it didn't hurt so badly. This had to be a new record.

Curious how the wound didn't really hurt as much as he had expected it would. Maybe he was still within that infamous golden hour.

And where was Collins?

The man had simply left him here.

What was his plan? Why had he shot Q and not just locked him up somewhere? Did he want to steal more information? Or equipment?

Part of Q startled awake and reminded him that while he might be down and bleeding, he wasn't out for the count. He was a technopath and MI6's network was his second home. Well, aside from his own, much smaller home network.

So he reached out and slid into the well-known world of the internal network, easily navigating toward his HUD. He found himself standing in a room that looked almost like his main work station at Q branch, simply a lot more empty. No underlings, no other desks. Just rectangles seemingly floating around him, held in place by invisible forces. There were six at the moment.

From here it was even more child's play. In here, this electronic world, he wasn't injured. He felt no pain. He was an electronic representation of himself, sans injuries.

Q set to work.

He found Collins in the control room. The cameras showed him the man quite clearly and he was at Q's station, of all places. Q was slightly affronted. Three screens showed him his shooter from different angles.

He moved closer and technopathically looked over Collins's shoulder, affront rising. The man was getting ready to transmit sensitive data!

Alone, in the middle of the night, with no one around but the head of the department, Collins had apparently seen his best chances to commit treason on such a grand scale. Q logged himself into his own station to see what the man was doing. Two more screens lit up and he saw every command keyed into the pad.

Collins was collecting data on weapons technology, access codes to other servers, MI6 accounts used abroad for agents, and the like. He wasn't after the names of the operatives, only the funds. Monetary and technological.

Curious.

But worth something, Q knew. There were millions in European and US currency on those accounts and Collins was getting ready to clean them out. Whoever he had gotten the passwords from, Q had no idea. That would have to be determined. Right now he had to stop this and he knew he could. No one else would be able to, but as a technopath he was the system right now and the network was his to control.

tbc...