I. The Assignment

It was a Thursday morning (thankfully after his first but sadly just before his second cup of Earl Grey) when Q was called to M's office. Not being able to find any excuse to gain more time to think of what he could have done wrong (he was pretty sure M couldn't possibly know about his hacking the CIA's server for 003's last mission), Q didn't have a choice but to oblige.

So this was the reason why he was presently sitting in front of M's desk, fidgeting nervously (maybe his boss somehow really had heard about stealing data from the CIA…?) while M was regarding him with an expression suspiciously close to amusement.

Deciding that yes, M had unfortunately learned about the serious breach of protocol (he refused to even think 'breach of LAW'), Q opened his mouth to try and explain his motives, how it had saved the agent's life at that time and that getting permission first using official ways had been absolutely impossible, just as M also started his explanation about calling the boy to him in the first place. What came out of it was an incomprehensible jumble.

"Sir, I really don't think it was wrong to-"

"Q, have you ever had any friends-?"

"Excuse me?" – Asked both of them at once, confused.

"Ahm, you first, sir." – Offered Q quickly.

"Well, all right then. I just wanted to ask whether you have ever had friends your own age?"

"Yes, of course! When I was three one of my brothers brought home a stray cat that, according to the doctor, was also around three. She was my best friend for years. But then unfortunately that same brother wanted to do an experiment to see if it was true that cats hate water so he dropped her into a pond and she really did hate it so she disappeared and never came back…"

M was probably seriously regretting ever having asked the question, and pinched the bridge of his nose to impede the approaching headache.

"I meant humans, Q, homo sapiens. You know: people like you and me."

"People? I don't usually associate with people…" – He really didn't. When he had lost his parents at two years of age, nearly dying himself in the same plane-crash, the doctors in the hospital had insisted on him going to counseling. It had been a catastrophe with the psychologist talking to him as if he were a mere baby (well, all right, he had been a baby but a genius one capable of understanding more than just mindless cooing, thank you very much), asking him to draw pictures of his feelings and to demonstrate his nightmares with the help of dolls. Upon his blank, disdainful expression and also because of his refusal to speak at all since waking up after the accident that had claimed his parents' lives, the doctor had concluded that he must have had something wrong with his head and needed more professional help; so they had wanted to have him admitted to a facility for traumatized children. His only luck had been that by that time Mycroft (28 years of age then) had developed enough of a scornful expression that only one condemning look from him had sufficed for the doctor to immediately reconsider her diagnosis and give baby-Q a clean bill of health just to get rid of all the Holmeses as soon as possible and to not have to deal with 'those freakish folks'. He had been brought home the next day, never to visit a psychologist ever again (until his evaluation upon joining MI6 that is, but it was an occasion they still weren't talking about…). - "I much rather work in Q-Branch with computers, gadgets, my minions and agents than go out to meet normal people." – Concluded the boy, stressing the last word as if he were naming some exceptionally disgusting insect.

"What about when you were at school?" – Asked M hopefully.

Q shrugged nonchalantly.

"I wasn't. I was homeschooled. My brothers thought all the teachers were slow and unreliable and the other students a bad influence, and thus I could be much better educated at home, doing all the work on my own. I just had to take all the exams but I usually did more at a time, not even knowing or caring what it really was for, just wanting to get it over with." – That was really an understatement but M didn't have to know it. In reality, with Mycroft and Sherlock agreeing on one single thing in all their lives – that everyone who wasn't a Holmes was stupid and boring – he hadn't really had another choice but to believe them and to live locked up in a cage that was their manor, away from the society and people in general. He still remembered his brothers' reminiscent about how their parents had made an attempt once to socialize their two eccentric children with others (Q hadn't been born back then) and how it had ended with a total failure and with their parents finally begrudgingly accepting that the Holmes brothers just weren't meant for company. Both of them had refused to elaborate the details further but they had made it clear: they wouldn't make the same mistake with their baby brother and 'throw him into the lions' den'. And that meant that ordinary things like public school, public shop, public playground… anything public, really, had been out of question for all his childhood for him.

"Right… ahm…" – M looked like he wanted to rethink any previous plans he might have had that involved Q having any social skills. – "Well, I think you'll be happy to hear that you'll have the opportunity to remedy that and make friends, as you are to go undercover as a student in a high school starting next week."

Q was patiently waiting for the others to jump out from under the table and behind the curtains calling 'April's Fool!', or for M to finally crack and start laughing uncontrollably at his expense, but when after a few agonizing seconds of silence nothing like that had happened Q had to face the fact that it was neither April nor his birthday, or any other occasion that would call for a jest like that.

Regardless, he risked a try anyway: "Sir, surely, you must be joking…"

"I'm afraid not, my boy. We need to gather solid evidence against a suspicious business man whose 17-year-old son and daughter go to that school. You're to get to know and befriend them and find out how they live, what they do, who their family-friends are – everything. Nothing dangerous, just snooping around. All the while you're free to live the normal teenagers' life, make as many friends as you'd like and make up for missed high school experiences." – He said that all winking, looking for all the world like he were doing an enormous favor to Q by giving him that chance. The boy felt something totally different though; a feeling that resembled nausea more than anything else.

"Can't I just hack into their computer and get any data we could need?"

"Absolutely not! You're to behave like a normal sixteen-year-old, not like a genius working for MI6. That means no access to anything more than a normal PC every teenager has and maybe a simple mobile phone. That's all. No lethal weapons, no earpieces, no high-sensitive radios or even exploding pens. You're not to have a gun, a Taser or any kind of self-defense tools either. Nothing. And you're not to bug them or put any tracking devise on any of them."

"WHAT!? But-"

"We're going to be keeping contact via standard phone calls and normal e-mails. You won't be able to relate anything confidential this way to us of course, only coded messages that would appear normal friendly talk to anyone who might be listening in; but that will do. We'll be keeping an eye on you all the time so you won't be in any danger. You won't need anything else."

Q opened and closed his mouth a few times without getting a sound out, giving the perfect impression of a fish. A very pissed-off fish.

M totally ignored the daggers the boy was glaring at him.

"Here is the mission file with everything you will need to know beforehand; please, study it thoroughly. And here are the details of your covert personality: name, birth date, parents' name, address and such things. You'll be living near the school in my friends' house; an elderly couple who are childless and very happy to have you with them for the time being. They'll take good care of you and you can go to them with every problem you might have. They know about you being MI6 and you can trust them. I am sure you'll have a great time together." – M slid to him two dossiers over the table and waved his hand in clear dismissal before Q could as much as think about starting to protest again.

With nothing more remaining to do, Q gave M a withering glare that could have made lesser men run screaming the other way, and that always had his minions jump to do his bidding at once; but M just continued smiling at him with fatherly affection, not even a hint could be detected on him of being fazed by the boy's fury.

After a few minutes sitting like that, Q recognized defeat and left the office fuming.

When the door closed behind the boy, M's smile faltered then disappeared completely. He was regretting his choice of action already – he hadn't expected the teenager to be outright happy about being sent away on an undercover assignment of course, but also hadn't counted on him being totally disgusted with the idea of meeting other teenagers and going to school. If anything, he had hoped the sixteen-year-old would be glad to get a break after his recent ordeal with 0011 and his two cronies and be able to relax and maybe make some friends who aren't at least twice his age and internationally feared assassins. He would have simply given the boy some days off, but the last (and only) time Q had taken a weekend-long vacation had ended with him declaring in a no-nonsense way never to do it ever again (the reasons behind it still unknown to everyone he had asked), so that wasn't an option now. Still, it was clear they had to do something to help him; he simply just wouldn't eat anymore and was working himself to death, so all had agreed that action had to be taken immediately.

M resigned himself to try and make sure the boy enjoyed himself on his forced mission (while hopefully also obtaining the evidence they honestly needed), and would emerge from it feeling better rather than even worse…