James Bond was a connoisseur of expensive things, but this he didn't understand.

"You must be joking, Quartermaster! You paid over a million quid for a battered violin than can be neither repaired nor played?"

The young man sighed rather theatrically. "It came from the Titanic, Bond."

Bond was a navy man before he joined MI6. He could understand a certain fascination with the doomed liner, but not to the tune of one million pounds sterling.

"May I have a closer look?"

The quartermaster hesitated for a long moment. He knew all too well the agent's destructive tendencies, but on the other hand he also knew that Bond had been personally responsible for the Queen's safety during the opening ceremonies of the London Summer Olympics. He finally offered the salt water-stained violin to Bond.

"There's a name here." Bond carefully scrutinized the small tarnished silver plate. "Sigerson I believe it says." Another piece fell into place. "Is this family, Q?"

Q was surprised by the gentleness of Bond's question and opened up more than he had intended. "Perhaps. My great-great uncle was known to use that alias when working on a case. I'm told he also played the violin rather well."

"But you're not sure?"

"His friend, Dr. John Watson, always maintained that Sherlock died in an accident at the Reichenbach Falls, although his body was never recovered."

"People who have fallen into a river have been mistakenly reported dead before, Q," Bond smirked. "You know that."

Again, the young man sighed. "Yes, but you eventually chose to come back, 007. Sherlock never did."

"That you know of for certain."

"I don't know why Mycroft would have let this relic slip away from the family if it had belonged to Sherlock."

"Mycroft?"

"My great-great grandfather." The young man shrugged. "But then again, I'm told he was not a sentimental man."

"And you are, Q?"

Again, Q was surprised that there was nothing belittling in the question. "It seems that in the right circumstances I can be."

Bond understood the pull of family and its complexities. His Quartermaster's purchase finally made sense. He carefully handed the violin back and watched as Q placed it inside its protective case.

"You said Sigerson was an alias Sherlock used on cases. Was he on her Majesty's Secret Service, then? Does it run in the family, Q?"

"Not a spy like you, 007, although I am told he undertook a few commissions from Queen Victoria personally and was rather handsomely rewarded. He was a consulting detective, a job he created, and the only one in the world according to family stories." Q ran a hand through his mop of dark hair and tried to stifle a yawn.

For the first time Bond noticed how exhausted the young Quartermaster looked. Well, why wouldn't he? For every waking moment of the past 6 weeks, Q had been hacking and tracking a man he contemptuously referred to as "Jim from IT" who ran the largest identify theft ring on the Internet. He'd then guided Bond himself, and Bond's friend and fellow agent, Alec Trevelyan, through missions to Lagos and Chelyabinsk respectively where large server farms had mysteriously been destroyed. At least Alec could claim a meteor had done it if inquiries were ever made. Bond would have to be more creative, not that that was really a problem.

Bond smiled. And if questions were ever additionally raised regarding how a rather large sum of money had also gone missing from the cartel's safe in Lagos but had never been reported at mission debriefing, he knew he'd say nothing about how Q had been able to cover his auction bid. No one at MI6 would peg Bond as a sentimental man, but being other than what he appeared had always been a key to his success.