Summary: "A soft thud, as a small cloth bag was placed on her office desk. She succumbed to curiosity and opened the bag. Inside were more than a dozen small green sweets, wrapped in silver foil." Mrs. Jones didn't always like peppermints.
Disclaimer: All you don't recognize is mine. Everything else isn't.
Updated 30th January 2010 due to (very) minor revision.
Green Sweets in Tinfoil
She watched as the man walked in, grey eyes proud and confident. Leveled him an even gaze as he stopped by her, asking her name; and she gave it, raising an eyebrow at the slight amusement she sensed from him upon her reply.
Remaining silent in the way she was expected to in front of her superior, she acknowledged his appraising eyes and waited for him to finish, sweeping her own gaze across him as she did so. She took in his naturally pale complexion, his sparkling grey eyes, his muscular figure, like the one of an SAS soldier.
Tulip Jones jumped slightly as a voice somewhere called her name, and she hurried off to do her boss's bidding, throwing a look back over her shoulder as the man called goodbye, watching her leave.
It was only after she had returned to her desk hours later that she realized, she hadn't asked him his name.
.o.
He rose swiftly through the ranks, she noted. But then, so did she. She was quickly becoming noticed by the higher ups for her skills in strategy and quick thinking. He was no different, noted for his skills out in the field. She preferred working behind the scenes; he preferred stalking into the dragon's lair.
The second time they met was after a few months had passed. He'd advanced a level after his great success in a vital mission, and a celebration was held with an invitation for any colleagues interested in attending. As he noticed her at one of the desks, he raised his eyebrows in question. Resisting a smile, she paused in contemplation, and nodded.
.o.
The party had been nothing if not wild, filled with other agents around the same rank as he, along with a few others in different departments, including hers. His popularity had slowly but surely grown throughout the months - if only for his impish personality and chiseled appearance. She had no doubt what crowd he had been in whilst in high school, then university.
"Hey."
Turning round, she glanced at his rowdy appearance - shirt half-unbuttoned, hair decidedly messed - and idly wondered how much he had been drinking.
"Toast?" he grinned, raising his glass.
"You don't look able to handle any more."
His grin immediately turned into a mock-frown, eyes glinting with amusement.
"That," he sniffed derisively, "is most definitely an insult to my allegedly pathetic capabilities, according to your assumptions."
She snorted, lifting the glass from his fingers and drinking it. "Considering your current appearance, it's also obviously true, and fancy words won't change a thing."
The familiar gleam had returned to his eyes, and deftly he procured another glass from a table nearby, filling it with more wine. She watched as he swiftly tipped the glass back, finishing its contents without pause, before giving her a wink and disappearing back into the crowd. And thus went her first conversation with the man destined to be MI6's next leader.
.o.
They had met again, and again after that night, whether by his doing or recurring coincidences she wasn't sure. (But then, she was MI6, as was he. And they both knew enough of the falsity of coincidences.)
They would happen to meet while emerging from their different departments, or after meetings with the higher ups. More than once she would enter the lift, only to see him there. More than once, it was he and no one else.
It was all skillfully and subtly instigated, as would be expected of one of his career. Ever the spy, she thought.
.o.
Years passed. Comrades fell, while they forged onwards. Missions were given and completed. Criminals were caught, others ever escaping their grasp. Together they soldiered on, two beings put together in the same ever-rocking boat. And sometimes, when a smile was offered and a laugh was rewarded, the other would add another mark to their mental list, another tick next to the last carefully stored moment.
.o.
"Happy birthday."
A soft thud, as a small cloth bag was placed on her office desk. Succumbing to curiosity, she opened it. Inside were more than a dozen small green sweets, wrapped in shimmering silver foil. She only needed to sniff them to realize what they were.
The man noticed her look and blinked innocently.
"Supposed to refresh the mind and soul."
He ignored the annoyed glare she had thrown his way, as he'd done all those other times. Focused instead on the smile she tried to hide.
"My birthday was a month ago."
"Close enough." And he flashed her that smile, the same one he gave all the other women. But she didn't store this one away for it was empty, as many of them were nowadays. (As the missions began to take their toll, because even fierce and lively souls were not exempt.)
With a mocked sigh she turned away from the piles of paperwork, detailed accounts and written reports sent in by agents and spies.
.o.
'…information this agent was given upon briefing was incorrect; the coordinates given led to an abandoned warehouse, situated an estimated twenty miles away from any other residents. The intended target has also been proved a fake, sent with orders of assassination…currently attained a bullet wound and numerous knife wounds and broken ribs…Agent Anderson requesting medical aid and backup
'…going well despite lack of updates. Have received threat from the target at around 3:15 in the afternoon upon arrival at the assigned hotel, by way of two masked men who drugged and dragged me into an abandoned room, using various standard torture methods before…'
'…have found a new lead on the mission that should provide highly useful information. This was confirmed upon an ambush that was set up…fortunately, have received minor knife wounds, shallow bullet wound and a broken arm…no medical backup required…'
Jones scanned through the accounts with detached interest, sorting them into organized stacks before sending them on to their designated recipients. Such accounts were considered standard for agents, considering the danger of their jobs. Minor wounds were to be expected. The agent requesting backup would be considered, all other options weighed before deciding if dispatching backup would be the best course of action.
She shifted through the piles, until one caught her eye. Agent Blunt, Target: SCORPIA
Jones stiffened slightly, before picking up the file. The man usually had his reports sent to other employees of her department. Mildly curious, she paused only a moment before opening the file. It was on her desk after all.
'Was introduced to the leaders of Scorpia today, and given a rundown of the training facility. Apparently, all new Malagasto trainees are personally interviewed by a Scorpia leader, a method of increasing the difficulty in slipping spies through. A thorough physical examination and equipment check was required as well, therefore it is fortunate that the decision was made for no equipment to be given to me.
'Currently staying in a room provided by Scorpia. More information will be provided tomorrow.'
.o.
Agent Alan Blunt did not return for months. When she received news of his return seven months later, she spent an extra three minutes tidying her desk before walking toward the elevator at the other end of the floor, one she rarely used.
She pressed the button, and waited only a few seconds before the metal doors opened, revealing a man standing within.
She didn't recognize him at first.
Then he gave her that smile, so eerily different yet similar. He'd changed, perhaps not in appearance, but in almost everything else.
Before she could speak, the elevators pinged politely, and he stepped through and out.
.o.
They were government. They were the professionals. They were the ones working behind the scenes, pulling all the ropes, invisible and in control. But the appeal of gossip broke through all barriers; whispers of a man being promoted two levels spread like wildfire. Mrs. Jones told herself that there were hundreds of agents working for the Secret Service. It could have been anyone.
Weeks passed before one day she snapped. She cornered him outside the lifts just as he'd been about to leave. The man before her raised an eyebrow.
"Yes?" he asked impassively.
If she had needed any further proof about the many circulating rumours, here it was. As one of many working within the government for so long already, she knew the signs. The many questions she'd planned to ask him dissipated.
"You were promoted," she said instead.
"Hmm."
Both stared evenly at the other, neither willing to back down. The lifts pinged timidly in the background and Blunt reacted first, stepping away and flicking his gaze from the opening lift door to her. From a pocket he suddenly withdrew a fairly small cloth bag and threw it towards her. Reflexively, she caught it.
"Happy Birthday."
Her lips twitched. "You're a month early."
His inscrutable eyes gave only the impression of a deliberate shrug, before nodding once in greeting, he walked away.
She refused to yield to curiosity until she'd returned to the privacy of her office. Even there, she controlled herself and untied the drawstring with feigned casualty, only then peering into the bag.
A dozen or so small green sweets, wrapped in shimmering silver foil.
Suppressing a smile, only then did Tulip Jones truly register the vestiges of a grin she'd seen fleetingly cross the features of agent Alan Blunt.
.o.
Their meetings were few and far between. Of those, most were brief, composed of gazes and body movements and the slightest twitches of lips. Anything more was not worth the risk. The only constant was a bag of sweets that would find it's way to her office table every year; at times a month late, at times a month early.
Blunt eventually emerged from his self-imposed exile, becoming more the man he'd been before the missions, wild and carefree and with the same sharp wit. If anyone noticed that his humour was a little darker than it once was, his eyes a little more shadowed, it was not mentioned.
.o.
Early, on, she'd noted that every few months he'd disappear for a while, sometimes weeks, sometimes months, sometimes only days. And when he returned, he'd lock himself into his mind and heal, before returning with his well-worn mask.
Each time he left she searched out the inescapable feeling of fear that reared its head and sneered, before trapping the serpent back in the confines of her mind and locking it away. It took her a few years more before she managed to identify it.
He came back one day and retreated, further than he'd ever seen him hide. The snake in her mind shook itself free of its chains, reared back its head, and hissed in taunting laughter.
A year passed. No bag of sweets in her office. No faint signs of a smirk, a gaze, or a gentle brush of shoulders. Alan Blunt was gone, an agent in his place. When he'd returned from that mission one day and withdrawn deep within his mind, he'd never fully emerged. It took Tulip Jones this long to identify her fear of such an event, and to realize the shocking grief that overcame her for the months that followed.
So they went their separate paths, rising swiftly through the ranks, and met not again for many years until notice came one day of the Head of MI6's death.
One of the highest ranked agents was to take his place, she was told, due to a recent disability disallowing him from continuing his line of work in the field. She was to be Deputy Head.
And so their paths merged once more.
.o.
"No!," the boy snarled viciously. "I'm not doing this anymore!"
The grey-haired man leaned forward slightly, hands clasped neatly in front of him. "Have you so quickly forgotten the power you hold, Alex?" He asked softly. "In your hands are the very strings of your life, and you can either pull them one way…or another."
Years ago, she would have been horrified at the acts that were committed within this office. To show a teenager the control they had over his life, then to place it ever so carefully in his hands could be nothing short of cruelty. Now, she simply slipped a hand into her pocket and withdrew a small item wrapped in tinfoil, slowly unwrapping it and placing it in her mouth. Thousands of memories and emotions, perpetually locked in the taste of a sweet.
The child-spy turned his acrid gaze toward her, his eyes expressing more than words could. The boy detested them. The boy despised them. He desired nothing more than to stick a serrated knife in their bodies and twist, to let them feel the pain he was forced to endure.
Mrs. Jones slipped on a mask of regret and care, smiling quietly at the boy.
And the boy smiled venomously back.
"You always did manage that particular mask quite well you know, Mrs. Jones, even for an MI6 operative, he whispered quietly. "It lets me hope that, perhaps, you may have had your own little dictators as well, before MI6."
Staring inscrutably at the both of them, he stood and left the room silently.
Mrs. Jones sucked a little harder at her peppermint, dispelling the teen's cutting words with an almost inaudible exhale of breath. A little too close to home?
The Head of MI6 turned his head to her, his eyes flickering from the tinfoil wrapper still held carefully in her hand, to her mouth.
Mrs. Jones waited, hoping.
Committed the small smile to memory as it washed over her, tucking it gently into a corner of her mind.
A/N: Written because every character has a past worth telling.