Chapter 2: Shadow of a Smile
"Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow." Helen Keller
The London Underground was a beautiful, miracle, the floral smell of roses permeating every corner, fresh air and daisies; it was a gathering ground for some of the most gracious, kind, people you will ever meet.
Sometimes it's nicer to ignore the truth.
A woman stepped on his toes and glared at him—obviously it was his fault for being in the way. He apologised quietly regardless and shuffled slightly to the right whilst trying to balance his laptop case and a stack of papers.
Another commuter knocked into Q as the carriage lurched again, knocking the precarious pile of papers from his hand. He swore, as he quickly tried to pick them up. They were nothing important—otherwise he wouldn't have had them out (there was no such thing as being too cautious in his job)—but it would take a few hours of work to recreate them…
'Life goes on, it's only paperwork.'
He jumped a mile, well, as far as the confined space would allow him to.
He started, dumbstruck at the man in front of him. This was obviously payback for the snide comment he'd made during the Silva mission about rush hour. He must have remembered it all this time.
'Stop it, 00—' Q stopped and looked around quickly.
'James,' the other man offered. 'If you were looking for a name.'
'I know your name, you nitwit.' He glared up at him. 'What are you doing here?'
'Enjoying the view?' James laughed. Q ignored him and kept gathering up the fallen papers, apologising to the teenagers and a man he banged into. The carriage took another turn as he lent over but then Bond had his hand on his shoulder and was holding him steady.
'Thank you.'
Bond handed him the rest of the papers, miraculously he'd gathered them all up sometime whilst Q had been differing on the floor.
'Thank you.'
'Stop thanking me,' Bond told him He stood up, pulling Q gently with him. Only now was Q truly able to see just how ridiculous the man in front of him looked in this situation. It wasn't how he was dressed, which was of course infuriatingly as impeccable as always in a Tom Ford suit with his cuffs perfectly aligned, whilst Q knew personally his cardigan was probably creased and bedraggled by now. For the umpteenth time he wondered whether tackling the tube at rush hour was really worth it. But no, Bond's suit was pressed, perfect and tailored untouched by London. It was merely the fact that he was standing there on the tube holding a bunch of papers on log rhythms a bit away from him as if they were rapid animals. James Bond, 007 of Her Majesty's Secret Service was on the Piccadilly Line headed to Covent Garden with MI6's youngest ever Quartermaster.
What would M say if he could see them now?
Recalling how James had nearly flinched earlier that day when Tanner had casually called their boss M he decided it was definitely best not to bring it up right now. Malory was very good at his job, Bond just wasn't very accepting of someone else doing that particular job. Of course, from the outside you would never guess but…he didn't know how but Q could see it, and he knew it must hurt.
Wanting to avoid his line of thought he changed the topic back to the original unanswered question:
'Why're you here? You could just drive.'
'I didn't want to,' his face seemed to mould itself into stone and Q realised he wasn't going to get anything else out of him. 'I wanted to get the full underground experience, it was recommended to me by a friend.'
Q grinned.
The train started to slow down.
'I'm getting off here,' Q told him raising his eyebrows inquiringly, 'if you wondered.'
'What a coincidence,' his eyes twinkled, 'me too.' The train drew to a stop and the doors opened, he slipped past him and was the first out of their carriage door.
'Damn you, Bond,' Q murmured, smiling as he dashed after him with an 'excuse me' thrown over his shoulder as he pushed through. He wasn't overly polite. He just didn't see the point in making enemies of everyone he met.
He caught up with him at the lifts, his suit cutting quite an easy to follow figure in the crowd. The other suits, the business managers, lawyers and accountants faded into the background whilst he stood out…with the way he wore it. The utter blooming arrogance that was obvious even from across a busy station.
He slipped into the lift next to a discreetly laughing Bond. The doors closed practically the second he was through as if they had been waiting for him. There were too many people too close for them to continue a conversation or even make eye contact but Q could still practically hear Bond holding in the laughter beside him. He elbowed the agent as subtly—and as hard—as he could only for Bond to not even flinch. He conspicuously yawned and Q decided he would quite like to hit him—but was slightly worried he might just yawn that off too.
Once out of the station, and the lifts, Q dashed off in front, glad to see the…well sun was too optimistic a word, the grey banner of sky at least. Those things, the dreaded lifts, were claustrophobic at the best of time but with a licensed to kill agent on the edge of laughter next to you, he decided you really couldn't get out quick enough.
'We're you trying to get my attention back there, Q, I couldn't quite tell.'
'Oh, shut up.'
He chuckled and then stopped next to him, looking up at the sky.
'Why did you want to come to this part of London?'
James looked at him out of the corner of his eye and raised an eyebrow.
'It's not got anything you'd want.'
'Maybe you don't know what I want,' he said slowly. 'Maybe I want to feed the ducks or maybe,' the smile relit his face, coming back quickly. 'I just want to do a little sightseeing of my beloved city.'
'Sightseeing?'
'I'm patriotic.'
Q rolled his eyes and decided to accept it. He wondered why the man was being far more talkative than his usual laconic self. Perhaps he was enjoying the break between missions, and the success—despite constantly ignoring every warning Q had given him and going in blind and outnumbered at least twice anyway—of his last mission. The South American Government could sleep happy, and so could James Bond.
Or on the other hand he could use his free time to follow Q around which apparently he found more interesting.
Now there were less people around he found he was relaxing more, allowing himself to stop looking over his shoulder. He took the papers back off Bond, realising how long he had been holding them.
'Agent's make useful packhorses; they should really put that in your résumé.'
Bond laughed quietly at the remark.
'They could put it in between, espionage skills, ability to maim and…'
'Why don't we talk about your job, Q? We know all about mine.'
'My job is, an annoying amount of the time, working at making your job work. Actually the Q department is the only reason the double-ohs are effective.'
He took the bait: 'I doubt that. You wouldn't survive in the field, Q.'
'You wouldn't be able to switch my computer on, James.'
Both men froze and looked at each other recognising what he had said; Bond—James now, it would appear—was the first to smile but Q wasn't far behind.
Realising it was probably time he actually went and did the shopping he needed to—one of his interns' birthday was the next day and although it seemed childish, he would feel horrible not getting him anything. He knew James would have a million things he would prefer to do than join him shopping so decided it was time to go.
'Unlike you,' he said, 'my work doesn't stop when the world stops ending. I have things to do, highly confidential and important. I'll be sitting in my bedroom with my earl grey and laptop if you need me.'
'I'll be somewhere in London, if you need me, feeding ducks.'
He laughed, 'Enjoy it. I'll see you at work.'
'I'll see you when the world starts ending.'
'007,' Q nodded to him and started walking away, smiling.
'Q.'
A Shadow watched the men walk in opposite directions; the Shadow noticed the smiles on both their faces, the evident amusement. The Shadow was quite gleefully looking forward to wiping that look off of both their faces.
Looking once more over two sheets of paper, easily retrieved when the clumsy boy had dropped them, he memorised the unimportant data, just in case it ever became useful, then screwed it up and dropped it in the nearest bin.
Leaving London behind, and the men, the Shadow moved away. He had seen everything he needed to and gathered what he could. When they told him the man had no friends, no weakness, and nothing left to lose he had known they must be wrong. The man he had just seen clearly had hope; however little, it was there. And whilst there was hope, there was something to lose and there was something to take.
The Shadow left London's daylight and joined the blacks and greys of the streets, joining his own as he retreated, smiling, into the shadows.
A/N: Thanks for the reviews! You're awesome. Hope you enjoyed the chapter!
