The Funeral of Olivia Mansfield, Oxford, 2012.

It didn't rain. Though the air did hold a chill that cut to the bone.

Bond barely felt it. He was raised on the moors of Scotland after all. He stood beneath an oak tree in the cemetery and watched the small prestigious gathering by the graveside of his former superior. The bodyguards milling about on the perimeter cast him the occasional glance but did not approach him.

He'd already said his goodbyes. No need to labour the point.

He turned away as the six gun salute echoed through the serenity and headed down the slight incline where his bike stood waiting. He thought he'd gone unnoticed, and he had. For the most part and by most people. But then, his Quartermaster wasn't most people.

He felt the subtle shift in the air behind him but didn't turn.

"Sneaking off are you?"

"You know how it is Q. Things to do, places to be," he replied, sliding on his headgear before turning towards the man while tightening the buckle. Q felt his gut twist a touch at the look bestowed upon him by those bright, sky blues, all the brighter and more piercing, framed now as they were by the bike helmet.

Bond was turning to mount his transport when he felt Q brush past him and climb onto the rider's seat.

"And what the fuck do you think you're doing?"

Q flared up the engine, looking quite at ease on the chrome beast. "We're taking a little ride. Get on."

Bond was about to point out his lack of proper attire. Suit pants and wool coat were hardly conducive to barreling down the road on 500CC but thought better of it when Q said, "I've been on the other end of the comms when you were cutting at 60 and above across the roofs of the Grand Bazaar dressed in Tom Ford finery, 007. Don't even think about it."

And though he couldn't see it, he recognised the sheepish smile in Bond's eyes and the small shrug of compliance, whilst he did as his Quartermaster bid.

"Where are we going?"

"Back in time," he replied mysteriously, pulling away from the kerb and applying the throttle, resurrecting for the briefest of time the piles of dying Autumn leaves that scattered wildly in their wake.

Quinn's Abode, Tuesday evening, 2002.

"Perhaps you'll think better of embarrassing me in front of my peers in future, Mr Bond."

"You mean this is punishment?" Bond asked incredulously. "You really need to get to know me better, Mr Quinn." He flopped his head back on the pillow and strained against the binds firmly snaring his wrists, arms braced flat on the mattress that lay on the floor. There was no base on the bed, Jonathan for some reason having a preference for being close to the ground, but he'd put two of his neckties to the best possible use in both their opinions by binding Bond's wrists to the handles of the mattress.

As far as Bond was concerned, it was fucking glorious.

Earlier that day, Military History Seminar, Room 007

"…..Mr Quinn."

"Hmm? What?" he muttered, as the sound of his name was accompanied by a firm nudge from Stephen.

"As our resident expert on Turing, I was asking if you considered had the establishment and the times been more understanding of his nature, if more could have been done to save lives during the war and your considered opinion on how perhaps? When you're done daydreaming."

Jonathan's recovery was impressive, though as he rolled off his answer, he could tell that Bond had clocked his brain had been on a little stroll down recent memory lane and no doubt had the cheek to assume he had been daydreaming about him. Which he had. But Bond didn't need that confirmed.

"The way I see it, Mr Bond, you have two choices," Jonathan said authoritatively while exploring his neck and chest with inquisitive fingertips. "Either you agree to stay for dinner and rescue me from certain boredom at the hands of Stephen Chaucer and his latest boy toy or…" he leaned down and mercilessly teased a nipple with his lips, "I leave you here, hobble you and use you for my own carnal satisfaction until there's nothing left but a dried-up husk of a former Navy officer. And that would be a crying shame. It would be such a loss to the world seeing as you have so much left to give…"

Bond was up for considerably more pleasure touched with pain so pushed his luck.

"Whatever you say. Dauphin…"

Jonathan gave him a blank stare. "Looks like someone's been doing their own brand of homework in his spare time," the knife-edge sharpness to his tone was unmistakeable.

To say Bond's grin was wicked would be an understatement, though his eyes told of a man in whose mouth butter would have a hard time melting. "What? I can't embarrass you in private either? Where's the fun in that?"

"You're a dead man, Bond."

"Have at it, Mr Quinn," Bond encouraged, jutting his hips upward towards the groin of the boy. "Your brand of half-arsed threats don't phase this salty seadog in the slightest."

"Oh. Really?" Quinn returned an equally evil smile. "We'll see about that," he replied, and with one torturously slow grind of his hips, he climbed off Bond and reached for his bathrobe.

"What the—?" Bond watched helpless from his prone and firm-bound position.

"I'd better get dinner started then," he said with a theatrical sigh, sauntering out the bedroom door.

"QUINN! Get your skinny arse back here NOW!" The rattle of pans from the kitchen, however, told Bond his request wasn't about to be fulfilled any time soon.

Stroppy little shit, Bond grumped to himself punching his head back frustratedly into the pillow, though he couldn't resist a self-depreciating chuckle at being beaten at his own game.

Cherry Hinton Brook Lakes, on the outskirts of Cambridge, 2012.

Bond climbed off the bike and looked around. "Place hasn't changed at all."

"You remember then?" Q said, propping the bike on the stand before dismounting himself.

"Of course," replied Bond, pulling off the helmet and running his fingers through his hair. "As I recall, we had some fine wine, finer philosophical converse and even finer—"

"Yes quite," said Q, cutting him off with a cough and a cool stare.

"So why are we here?" he asked, accepting the change of subject.

"We are here, 007, to prove to you that the past cannot be recaptured. It was what it was and we are now where and what we are. For better or worse, in your case I'll hazard, a spy and assassin, and the Quartermaster charged with a duty of care."

Bond unzipped his leather jacket to reveal a bright blue pullover that only made the man's stare even more intense. Q stared back. He could tell Bond wasn't buying his brand of "we're all professionals now, let's fucking act like it." And were he perfectly honest with himself, he wasn't sure he was either.

"Why are you so bloody-minded determined to dredge up the past, Bond?" he asked, almost defeatedly, slumping against the slant of a large flat rock, standing proud by the shoreline. "Someone died because of us."

"Someone usually dies, Q."

Q sighed. "He was my best friend…"

"We've both paid in time and blood of our own for that. I find it somewhat surprising that you haven't moved on. For a man who goes on about the past needing to stay where it belongs."

"That's different…"

"No. It really isn't."

There was a few minutes of silence. Surprisingly, it wasn't awkward or strained. Bond spoke first.

"You want to know why I want you still?"

"Well it might help us address the fucking elephant, so yes, I do," he snorted, sounding slightly petulant, reminding Bond again of the boy who turned his world inside out.

He looked across the water while he spoke the words, possibly the most difficult admission of his life.

"I never lost the taste of you or for you. I realised that when we met at the Gallery. I fucking hate that you have this hold over me, but if I've learned anything about myself, it's that I need to face my demons head on. Otherwise, the bastards consume me."

Q had slid down the rock to its base and was resting his head in his hands, looking down at the ground. Bond knelt down in front of him and took his chin in his hand to tilt his head back, forcing their eyes to meet.

"You still don't realise do you?" he said softly.

"What?" Q asked, his tone verging on pained.

Bond caressed his jaw gently. "You weaponised me, Q," he whispered, his own voice raw with honesty. "I was your first MI6 invention. In your hands, I became the perfect weapon, and you ruined me for all others. Except you."

The turmoil in the man's eyes was running riot and uninhibited but Bond knew he had won the battle, knew that the honesty he betrayed with his words was priceless in a world of secrets, shadows and lies.

"Fuck," Q ground out, screwing his eyes shut tight. "FUCK. YOU. BOND!" he shouted into his face, allowing the anger, feelings of betrayal and years of burying himself in his work to be torn bodily from him, before grabbing the lapels of Bond's jacket and hauling him towards him. He pressed their forehead together, his gaze fixed on Bond's mouth, a hard line of bitterness and regret. "I wish I knew how to quit you," Q muttered through gritted teeth.

Then Q let go. Released his tentative grip of the cliff edge he had been hanging from since their reunion at the Gallery.

The kiss was brutal, savage almost. But the years fell away. And both men knew then that going back, was the only way they could move forward again and become the men they were truly meant to be.