Epilogue:
The minister droned on as people shuffled and coughed on the hard cold pews.
Bond had never liked churches, to him they were nothing but misery, death and boredom.
There was the occasional wedding but it quickly became insufferable to Bond because of the very same reason. He could swear that ministers must take a class of how to perform in a monotone wearisome way.
Bond felt weary. So much had gone on and so much had been lost. His eyes were constantly drawn to M's still form at the front of the church.
M's daughter Judi was crying in the front pew with her children. Thomas stood beside him at the back door watching the room. Both of them were acting as security for the new M and members of the government who had come to pay their respects to Olivia Mansfield.
"It's a shame after all that happened, after that surveillance mission on Corfu went to utter hell." Tanner said as he suddenly joined Bond and 005.
"Yes...yes it is." Thomas said.
"You don't have to rub it in Tanner I already feel less than dirt as it is." Bond said in genuine remorse, his mind going back in fear to the blood on his hands that night in Italy.
M's blood.
She saved him from that shot but at what cost.
The medics ran to them…
It was all a blur and Bond didn't want to let her go.
There was so much blood and someone pressed a cloth to his arm at one point and then tied off a gash on his arm. Bond could barely feel the cuts and bruises, that on some level he knew they were there.
Bond's body and mind was numb from the shock of seeing the woman he loved like no other, in that state. The men brought the means to carry them off as the medical personnel worked frantically to try to stabilize both victims.
Bond was suppose to protect her at all costs! He had failed so badly that had 005 not arrived Bond never would have managed to storm the warehouse and find out that it was White that took M away. Nor would he have managed to get into this house and find both Nigel and M.
What would he do if this was the end? They had not had enough time! There were only a few precious hours...not enough. The amount of time he had even spent in her presence did not equal a week let alone the years he wanted.
Bond wanted M to leave her adulterous husband and take up with him her loyal spy, who ironically by trade was adulterous for her.
It made no sense. This deep desire to give up everything for her. To pay to a god he doesn't believe exists to barter for more time with her. Most of all to have M accept him and not dismiss what happened between them.
If he resigned would she take him then? Nothing about this made any sense and there would never be an answer to these questions if she died.
But if she lived…?
Certainly Bond could prove his worth as a consultant or trainer? M might have him then, but...damn it all!
Walking through fire for her...just to receive scant scraps of affection was not his bloody style. Why all this annoying self doubt and child like need for her attention...it was all wrong.
No he needed to forget this...all of it with her...the feeling of her...the way she smiled and mewed into his ear as he made love to her. The feeling of peace she gave him as if having sex with her. It healed a broken part of him that he had become so use to feeling, that he no longer noticed how incomplete he was as a human being.
As if he could. M had changed his very nature, moulded him into a killing machine and into her man. Bond couldn't even see himself performing a basic seduction on anyone after this.
Bond was still on the floor in a contemplative daze as 005 came to collect him and drag him into a car. Bond could hear Thomas speak of not being injured too badly...if he only knew. This went far deeper than the roughed up exterior of him.
Tanner had ordered them back, but not by the already full helicopters rushing M and her husband to hospital. They located a car left behind and Thomas took the wheel sensing that Bond was far too preoccupied to manage the simple task. "Follow the chopper." Was all he could manage. To hell with Tanner he had to stay to guard M.
"There will be men watching her room Bond." 005 protested. "But I see your point. Should White return to finish the job."
Bond was thankful that it was Thomas. Stuart Thomas was the most conscientious and logical of the 00's. Bond doubted 009 would have gone off script and not insisted they go back just because Tanner had ordered them too.
Dawn would be on them soon. Maybe in the cool morning light, some sort of clarity would come to Bond's confused and beaten soul.
"Bond...Bond! Are you alright?" Thomas finally asked tired of hearing Bond's grunt responses.
"No."
"What is it? Besides White escaping? What happened when you went for M upstairs?"
"Nothing. I just don't want to have to work in another M." Bond said with a smile that did not resonate through the rest of him.
Thomas knew Bond was hiding behind a wall of shock and pain. Something deeper had happened on that Island between Bond and M. Perhaps those occasional rumours of favouritism were true?
There was definitely a closeness that she did not share with any other agent. The reaction of the husband to Bond was telling but Thomas would say nothing. If there was something deeper he had enough respect for M never to air this tidbit of gossip to the rest of MI6.
Standing outside the church, off to the side but still with a view of the crowd and surrounding people Bond, Thomas and Tanner watched as the mourners walked about chatting and shaking hands.
"Sorry Bond. I don't want to imply that you intentionally wanted her husband to die." Tanner said as he looked away from Bond to Thomas. "Thomas you saved him with your quick thinking at the time, or he would have bleed out there and then. At least they had one more year together, regardless of the challenges they faced." Tanner said with his brow raised at Bond.
Tanner knew bloody well what Bond and M had done that night and 005 had guessed it then even if he just coughed and looked away now out of respect for M and Bond's privacy.
"Well Nigel Mansfield lived a good life, had a loving family and a stellar wife." Bond said respectfully.
Tanner looked at him suspiciously. "Yes well he was at least loyal to her in the end and he wasn't ill long."
"No not long." Bond said pondering the seemingly endless year he had to spend away from the woman who drove him to distraction. "But...he did only have just over a year that he had to work at being faithful." Bond said derisively.
"Well at least he tried, meanwhile you were making a cuckold of him the entire time." Tanner said under his breath.
"It wasn't the entire time Bill. Only recently...since he's been bedridden."
"What of the beginning, in Corfu last year? And then they both got shot because of White!"
"Her retaliation against him and she tried to brush me off after."
"Tried and accomplished, for a long time 007. I saw the flowers, notes, candies and all the other things you tried to use in desperation to seduce her, every time you came back from a mission." Tanner said as they moved from the church door, away from the rest of the parishioners listening ears.
"Well, it couldn't be helped. Once you taste perfection there is no going back Tanner."
Tanner reached out and grabbed Bond's arm stopping him as the agent turned to move into view of Olivia Mansfield. "Bond…"
"Yes?"
"Be good to her. Retirement will take some getting use to for both of you but I don't want her to be lonely just because you abandon her for a younger woman."
"I would never do that. I spent the last year tracking down every lead I could on White. I found him dying slowly and painfully in Austria, saved his bloody annoying daughter, found Spectre and killed that bastard Blofeld. I did that all for her not just the Queen!" Bond's voice rose a tad high in his own defence.
"I know and before Q retired he did manage to find that disgruntled former employee, Silva the computer hacker in China." Tanner added. "I was shocked that the old man had the entire island blow up! It was genius actually, blowing it up remotely using natural gas." Tanner said. "I still think you should have waited until Nigel was dead before you…"
"We all did our part and now I plan on enjoying my retirement with her." Bond cut in as other people moved past them towards the graveyard.
M was arm and arm with her daughter Judi, who was not taking any of this well. M and Nigel told her of the infidelity, before his death. The woman kept glancing his way with daggers in her eyes, so like her mothers but different. M retired and told her about what it was she did for a living in the last few weeks of Nigel's life.
Needless to say the poor girl was beyond shocked when she then found out that her mother's lover was just a few years older than herself.
Bond only had eyes for her mother anyway and M was as pale and stoic as usual. She wore a modest boxy dress that really did nothing for her figure but Bond's heart still palpated at the thought of pulling down that zipper and letting the beautiful butterfly free of it's dark, drab and depressing cocoon.
Bond frowned as he turned back to Tanner.
"Tanner I have been in love with that woman for years. How long would you have us wait? Nigel was beyond satisfying her and he all but gave us his permission. He knew full well how we felt about each other. I spoke with the man more than you think Tanner and we did end up odd friends of a sort."
The Italian hospital smelt just like all the other's Bond had ever been too and that always made his stomach roll and want to run away quickly. He waited standing against the door to M's room as they prepared her to stay under observation after her emergency surgery.
Nigel hobbled down the hall with crutches, his leg already dealt with far quicker than the shot to the hip that his wife took.
"So here you are propping up the wall. Making sure my wife doesn't get hurt any further?" Nigel said appraising Bond.
"That would be the reason."
"You look like hell, you could at least shower."
"I can't leave my post. I have to protect M."
"Crap job you did of it."
"I suppose you could say that but then again if I had been her husband I would not have done what you did. Cheat on her, compelling her to come all the way from London to yell at your sorry old ass!"
"I'm here now and I'll watch over my wife. There are two agents down the hall. Go deal with yourself agent Bond." Nigel just stared at him and then smiled. "You do love her." It was a statement more than a question.
Bond just looked at the floor. He was tired and he didn't want this man to draw that confession out of him. That was for M not for the husband who had caused her such pain.
There was a sudden hand on his shoulder that forced him to look up.
"I understand; and there is no animosity anymore. If she wants you, she is free to go. I will respect that fact if it comes to it. I know she has feelings for you but only acted on them under the stress of the situation….even if I'm positive you were doing your utmost to encourage her bad behaviour." Nigel said with a smile.
Nigel chuckled, at the shocked look on Bond's face as he continued to pat the lad's shoulder. This man would rather die than hurt his wife and she would need him in the future and he was certain of that. The doctors had less than good news about his blood work after repairing the bullet hole in his leg.
There was no point in attacking or fighting Olivia or her young lover, when there was little left for him to give her.
"How's the leg?" Bond asked.
"Fine, I'm right as rain now. The doctor removed something from my neck apparently at your insistence?"
"White told M that they were tracking you so that you could lead them to your children."
"I see...only one child now. She tried so hard to ignore Ryan's death. I think she was trying to categorize his loss as she would an asset at work. Like it was all just a fact of life. A loss to be expected but it couldn't be, not to me and Judi anyway. It had been an accident but it ate us both up and now here we are. In the aftermath of yet another disaster. She's willing to work on it, and for as long as she is, I am. Therefore, you will have to move on, or wait for her and a chance that may never come again."
"I will." Bond said without even having to think about it. "I will still have to do my job in the meantime."
"Which means you never have to worry about infidelity with her the way I did. Ironic that she expects that behaviour from you, yet I bet you're willing to give it all up for her and I was the exact opposite. I've been a fool, a stupid fool."
"Yes you have, and you better be good to her or else!"
"Yes well I'm still warning you. Don't hurt that woman, ever or I will send a 00 agent to end you." Tanner said with a smirk.
"I would like to see them try, besides you would have to drag me away from her side. The only reason I'm not there now is because of her daughter. Judi is not to thrilled with me being her mother's lover."
"Gee...I can't imagine why?"
"Hey...it was Nigel who told her but he also told her to accept it, because it was as pure as what he once had with her mother."
"That is high praise in deed Bond. You have to be the only man in the world who could get the permission and blessing of the woman's husband to carry on with his wife." Tanner said shaking his head.
"Come on Tanner, I'll buy you a pint and eventually you will accept that this was all meant to be from the moment I met her."
"I was there remember."
"No I don't. I only remember her tearing into me and by god if she didn't have me with just one look."
"You are looking back at it now with different eyes Bond, that's all."
"Yes well I see that our banter and the constant tug of war was all just part of her elaborate plan to seduce me, her naive young agent, willing and wanting approval from a superior."
"Give it a rest Bond and I think you owe me more than one pint for the amount of times I covered for M, including that trip to Corfu."
Bond clasped Tanner on the back. "That I do Tanner, that I do. I could tell you some stories that would make your ears blush…"
"No...that can be covered under the official secrets act as far as I'm concerned."
Bond looked down at his mobile and sent Olivia a text, telling her he was off to the pub but would be sneaking in later after her daughter and the children were asleep.
You had better bloody well do it quietly or she will have me declared insane and institutionalized in my dotage over you.
Bond smiled as he typed back. "You love me and that's the truth she must eventually accept. If Nigel did, then she shouldn't have a problem with it."
Grief and logic rarely go hand in hand but I will leave a light on for you.
Xo
Bond and Tanner made there way into the closest pub to raise a glass to M's late husband and to her future husband too.
End.