Eve walks into her debriefing, palms clammy, legs like jelly. She's nervous about these things at the best of times, when she hasn't just fucked up her first big assignment, when she isn't walking into what will at the very least be a severe bollocking from the most powerful women in Britain. When she hasn't just shot the service's most legendary agent. Who is, if the rumour mill is to be believed (and they're ispies/i, so of course it is),the golden boy of the woman sitting at the desk in front of her.
Was. Was the golden boy. Now there isn't even a body to bury, and it's all her fault..
"Ms Moneypenny," M greets her cordially. Her tone isn't warm exactly, but it's at least tepid which is better than Eve was hoping for, and her face is inscrutable.
Eve tries to speak, fails. Clears her throat and then, "Ma'am."
"Please, take a seat." Eve perches on the chair in front of the desk and tries not to hyperventilate. The closest she's ever been to iher/i before was at the pre-mission briefing, and although M handpicked her personally for the assignment, that doesn't make her any less terrifying. Especially now that she's cocked it all up.
"Would you like some tea? Coffee?" What Eve would like is a bloody large gin and tonic to steady her nerves, or a time machine to take her back to a point before she'd fired the shot that sent 007 tumbling to his death. Before she can say "Tea," M is speaking to Tanner and asking for a pot of Assam, no milk. She wonders if this is an attempt to soften the blow of the inevitable demotion/firing/execution, or M reminding her that she knows everything about her agents, right down to how they take their caffeinated hot beverages.
She manages a "Thank you" and an awkward smile, and then another to Tanner who must have had the tea ready before she'd even stepped out of the lift since he's in the room with the tray before M can even begin.
Then he's gone, and neither of them can put off the conversation anymore.
"I just want you to know," M says in that firm, gentle way that makes everything feel like it's going to be alright, "that it wasn't your fault."
Eve breathes out properly for the first time since she realised that she was going to have to fire. M hadn't needed to tell her, shouldn't have needed to tell her. She'd held her breath before she'd reported their position, icy cold with the knowledge of what was about to happen, but now she breathes out and feels the warmth from her teacup spread throughout her whole body.
"007 -" M pauses, and sighs, begins again. "James was a bloody fool," she says bluntly. In that sentence is a decade of frustration, affection and an emotion Eve isn't sure she can name. "He was showing off, the way he always does in front of a pretty girl."
Her breath catches in her throat again, the icy hand of recrimination closing around her heart. It was her fault, then.
"No, it wasn't," M says crisply, and Eve wonders if the head of MI6's abilities extend to mindreading until she realises she'd spoken aloud.
"But if I hadn't... If only I'd..."
"My dear girl, I've been trying to rein him in for years. If I haven't managed to break the habit, you didn't stand a chance." She pauses, stares down into her tea. "And now I suppose I never will. Bloody iidiot/i."
Eve isn't sure if she means herself or 007, or even her, but something in the older woman's expression has her on her feet and on the other side of the desk within moments, hand hovering awkwardly over M's shoulder.
"I'm sorry," she says quietly. "I know how much he meant to you."
M's mouth twists into a smile that is sad and secretive and wicked all at once. "Oh, I very much doubt that you do, Miss Moneypenny."
"iOh/i." It's less of a word and more of a breath.
M glances up at her, wry humour mixed with sadness in her eyes. "Surprised? That a man like Bond, would could bed any woman he wants - and does, for that matter - spent some of his nights in mine?" The jumbled tenses catch at Eve's heart, and she can't speak for a moment. M misunderstands. "Oh dear, I've shocked you. I'm sure you can't imagine it, but -"
"I can." The words are out of her mouth before her brain can catch up. And it's true, because her mind is racing, full of images of large, strong tanned hands against pale, wrinkled skin and it shouldn't be so erotic but all the heat in Eve's body has pooled between her legs.
M is still looking at her, but her expression has shifted. She looks speculative. If Eve wasn't such a nice person, and if M wasn't grieving the death of her lover, she might even say calculating.
"Did he have you?" she asks. Eve's eyes widen. "No? What a shame. He wanted to, you know."
She smiles for the first time in days, remembering the hardness of him as he found flimsy excuses to brush past her, the heat of his gaze, the way her own hands wandered alone at night. "I know."
"He had the seduction all planned out," M continues, as though she were discussing the weather. "He'd finish the job, you'd go back to the hotel. He'd insist on ordering champagne to celebrate, and you'd end up covered in it with him licking it off drop by drop."
It is entirely plausible that Eve is going to faint from lust, right here in the office.
M shrugs, and the fantasy evaporates. "Then again, he never did have any impulse control. He's probably just have taken you up against the nearest wall as soon as he'd fired the shot."
The noise that comes out of Eve's mouth shocks her, makes M laugh and trace her jaw and neck with a fingertip, coming to rest in the clavicle.
"Poor thing," she tuts, and if that parody of maternal affection is the one she used on 007, no wonder he came running (probably in more ways than one). "He'd gotten you all worked up, hadn't he? And then he had the bloody nerve to go and get himself killed before he could get you off."
Eve meets M's mocking gaze with a steady one, and replies "With respect, Ma'am, I don't think I'm the only one with that problem."
M's hands come to rest against her waist.
"Well then," she murmurs. "Let's pick up where James left off, shall we?"
Eve finds herself trapped between the chair and the desk. M is still sitting, and Eve is taller than her anyway, so it makes a sort of sense for her to straddle one leg and lean in to brush her mouth across M's.
"I hear you taught 007 everything he knows," she purrs.
M chuckles. "That I did. But," she pulls Eve flush against her, pressing her mouth against her ear, "I didn't teach him everything I know."
It's not Eve's first time with a girl - she still cringes when she remembers the cheery email inviting her to MI6's LGBT social group on her first day - but it is her first time with a woman, so she doesn't complain when M takes the lead, hands snaking up the back of her thighs to cup her bottom, fingers teasing the damp cotton of her knickers.
"Oh, you naughty girl," M breathes, and Eve practically comes on the spot. "You really did like the thought of James and I."
M's hand is firmer, more insistent, and now when she finds herself fighting for air it's because she's too turned on to remember to inhale anything but the perfume that lingers on the other woman's skin.
"God yes," she gasps out. "So beautiful."
It should feel wrong, fantasising about a dead man (let alone one you killed), but when M pushes the fabric to the side and deft fingers come into contact with her slick pussy and murmurs "I'll show you how he'd do it," all Eve can do is moan and bear down on the fingers that twist and thrust inside her. Her thoughts all blur into one - James touching her, touching M, the reality of M's fingers inside her - and when she comes, hand clamped over her mouth to muffle the scream, she doesn't know whose name she's calling.
She slides to the floor, head resting against the desk, luxuriating in the afterglow of her orgasm. M is watching her, partly with the air of self-satisfied pride that Eve imagines she wears when she defeats her enemies with a particularly brilliant flourish, and partly with a dark, glittering desire.
It's that that makes Eve rise to her knees, ease M's underwear off and bury her face in the hot wet curls at the juncture of the other woman's cunt. She laps greedily, relishing the taste and the sound of M's fractured moans and the way she pushes herself to the edge of her seat to stop Eve from straining her neck. In sharp contrast to every other time Eve has seen her, she is indelicate, undignified, riding her subordinate's mouth in a fierce need for completion. Sometimes she starts to say something and stops herself, but more often her soft gasps are incoherent. She swears as she climaxes, juddering against Eve's mouth, legs trembling. As she straightens up, Eve sees that her nails have dug into her palm leaving angry red crescents from the effort not to cry out Bond's name.
They are silent for a long time, and when M's hand brushes her eyes, Eve pretends not to notice but soon she's crying too. Big, gulping hiccuping sobs, and although she's mortified, she can't seem to stop. It's not even all that much to do with Bond, really. It's the knowledge that she killed a man - one more, and she'll be eligible for 00 status if the woman whose hand is still draped across her breast (even as the other one strokes her hair) deems her good enough. It's the discovery that even the remote, untouchable M is human after all. Mostly, though, it's because she's exhausted and falling asleep on her boss's floor with her skirt around her waist and her knickers somewhere near the wastepaper bin is probably not the way to get that promotion she wants.
She stands, reluctantly, and helps M up. The older woman's years settle onto her again as she creaks upright and Eve tries not to think about the age difference. M smooths down her hair, straightens her clothes, reapplies her lipstick and turns to Eve.
"I can rely on your discretion." It's not a question.
"Yes, Ma'am."
She nods. "Good." The silence stretches out between them.
"I'll file my report in the morning," Eve says quietly. "I think... if it's not inconvenient, I'd like to take a couple of days..."
"Take a week," M tells her firmly. It's an order, not an offer. "And I think maybe desk work for a month, whilst you adjust. Tanner will arrange for you to see the psychologist - don't argue, it's standard issue after..." she trails off. "One's first kill. The loss of a colleague." She grimaces. "Perhaps we'd better book you in for two sessions." The joke isn't funny, but Eve smiles anyway. "Some agents go to pieces, especially if it's a colleague. But I hope you won't. You've got a bright future with the service, Ms Moneypenny. I hope this business with 007 doesn't make you reconsider your options."
And although the plane ride home had been filled with plans to quit, travel the world, join the civil service, become a vet, it isn't until M reminds her of them that she realises just how hollow, how unsatisfying, they all seem.
Eve Moneypenny stands tall, and looks M straight in the eye. "You don't need to worry, Ma'am," she says. "I'm not going anywhere."