I'd better say before I get going that there are spoilers for Skyfall here.

I am very grateful for all of the feedback that people have given for my other storied and I'm so pleased that you seem to like what I'm writing for these two. So now I'm taking it down a more experimental line: this is an extended conversation between Bond and Mallory at M's funeral which prompts Bond to remember some of his more powerful memories of M. In each chapter there is a piece of the conversation and a flashback. I really hope you like it.

"Baby I remember all the things we did,

When we slept together and the blue behind your eyelids,

Baby, sweet baby."- Lucinda Williams

"Bond."

He could not pretend to have not heard the voice behind him- his name had been spoke clearly enough and the church was completely quiet now, and almost entirely still- unless he wanted to be declared unfit for duty again on the grounds of impaired hearing. Nevertheless, he took another second, kneeling on one of those horrendously inefficient knee cushions, his elbows resting on the wooden frame in front of the pew. He did not take his eyes off her coffin until the last possible moment, as he stood up to look at reluctantly at Gareth Mallory.

"How did you know I was here?" he asked, not troubling too much to sound polite.

Mallory looked confused for a moment.

"You were at the funeral."

"That was two hours ago," he replied, sounding more sharp than cold, but still cold nevertheless, "How did you know I'd come back?"

"I threatened Moneypenny with the sack if she didn't tell me where you were."

Bond wished he could be annoyed with her for putting her foot in it again, but he found he couldn't. Mallory would have probably found him anyway. He was always going to try to find him at his weakest, to try to make him talk about what had gone on at Skyfall. Yes, just now, straight after M's funeral he was probably at his weakest; but he was damned if he was going to pour his heart out to Gareth Mallory, whatever the circumstances.

Wearily, he sank back down into the wooden pew, in no mood to stand up ceremony. It cause him a pang of irritation when the other man joined him. He knew that really he should be grateful to Mallory; without his quick intervention M would have been killed in that courtroom, and Silva would have had the satisfaction of having done it personally. But just at the moment Bond didn't feel like being grateful, he didn't feel like he could be grateful to anyone. He felt raw and bereft.

They each sat in silence, their eyes in different directions; Mallory's flitting around the body of the small church, taking in the brightly coloured glass windows, the arches of the ceiling, Bond's settling once again on the end of the coffin, unable to budge.

"She chose a beautiful place," Mallory remarked at last.

Bond said nothing, there was nothing to say. Not once had they ever talked about where either of them would like to be buried, but he had always known that M would have chosen somewhere so beautiful. She had always had the knack of beauty, of finding beauty, even inadvertently. That was just what she did.

…...

"Nice to stand out from the crowd, isn't it?" he smirked down at her irritated face, handing her a flute of champagne by way of recompense.

She took the drink and scowled back.

"Don't you dare, Bond," she told him irritably, "Or I'll have to have you killed as well as Tanner."

"What's poor Tanner done?" he asked, feigning ignorance.

"Don't joke around, Bond, I'm not in the mood for it," she told him bluntly, "He's supposed to keep my diary organised, which includes at least sparing a glance for any invitations I receive. Imagine not telling me that the Home Office Christmas Ball invitation specified a black and white dress code. I've never been more embarrassed in my entire life."

"I can hardly believe that," he told her, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, perhaps not quite," she admitted begrudgingly, "But nevertheless... I've had the Foreign Secretary's wife- yes, the fat one with the annoying laugh- asking me if I'm having trouble with my sight."

"Well, Tanner probably thought you'd be wearing black anyway," he told her, "You usually are."

She had been, anyway, since her husband died. Suddenly, meeting her eyes briefly, he felt like a prize idiot. For a moment, she looked almost sad, but then she smiled quite sarcastically at him.

"Are you casting aspersions about my choice of clothes, 007?" she asked, sipping her drink.

"No," he replied truthfully, with conviction even, "You look lovely."

And she did. She stood out from every black or white dress in the room with a vibrant, floor-length deep red dress, which hugged her waist and her bosom softly, with sleeves that reached her elbows. At his remark, she tilted her head and did not blush.

"I'd like to think that one day, Bond, you take me completely seriously," she told him shortly.

He was genuinely shocked for a few seconds, and when it looked as if she was about to turn away from him, he reached out and grabbed ahold of her wrist, preventing her from moving. She looked up at him in some silent confusion, startled by the intense look on his face. They were both silent for a moment, at the edge of the quiet lobby outside the main function room.

"I was just going to get rid of my glass," she told him softly, not sounding at all irritated, as he had expected.

"Allow me," he told her, taking it from her and placing it on a spare silver tray on the mantelpiece. He felt the cool of the glass against his fingers slide into the cool of her palm as their hands brushed.

For a moment he stayed by the empty fireplace, resting his hand on the white-painted woodwork. In the mirror which hung over it, he could just see M watching the back of his head. He did not know how else to say it; he had never seen her look that interested in him before.

It seemed that they- two people who never had a problem voicing there opinions- were each waiting for the other to speak. He had started off by winding her up, and now he had quite earnestly called her lovely. And grabbed her. He saw her smoothing her other hand a little gingerly around her wrist and realised he must have done it quite hard.

Slowly, he turned to face her.

"I'm sorry about-..." he nodded towards her wrist.

"It doesn't matter," she replied softly, "I've had worse. And not always from men as well intentioned as I think you were being then, Bond, however bungling."

He smiled at her.

"I think that's the first time that anyone's ever described me as well-intentioned," he told her.

"Inferring that someone beat me to bungling," she finished smartly.

"Would you like to go and have a dance?" he asked her, nodding to the door behind her, from where music was still issuing.

"So you can bungle around with me some more?" she enquired.

"So I can make amends," he corrected, offering her his hand.

She paused for a second.

"I hope I don't live to regret this, Bond, or you'll be for the high jump again," she told him sternly.

He smiled at her as she took his had, more timidly than reluctantly. Lifting her hand to his lips, he pressed a gentle kiss into the inside of the wrist he had grabbed. He heard not quite an intake, but a stutter of her breath before he looked up to meet her eyes. She was smiling wanly, with none of her usual composure. He had fluttered her.

"I promise you," he replied, leading her away, still holding her gaze over his shoulder, "You won't."

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