Early Hours, The Morning of Bond's Departure to Rome

The alarm on Q's phone woke him from his restful state at 6am, determined to have his way with Bond one last time before he took off for Italy. He fumbled across the bedside table, fruitlessly looking for his phone which had fallen from its perch onto the carpet. His hand, however, came to rest on something else which hadn't been there the night before.

He cracked open an eye to see a small rectangular box through slightly blurred vision. He reached for his glasses and sat up. Bond was still sleeping so he reached to the floor to retrieve the phone and silence its quiet vibration. He sat back against his pillow and eyed the box suspiciously.

Something to do with Bond undoubtedly. Maybe a piece of shrapnel or the pin of gun. Or a grenade. Or a cat treat.

He braced himself and flipped open the lid.

To find nothing. The box was empty.

"You should perhaps look under the covers, Q. That box may be empty, but this one isn't."

Bond tossed the quilt back to reveal his morning glory, proud and eager against his belly and adorned by an item of clockwork.

"You do realise that putting a watch on your cock doesn't actually neutralise sperm don't you?"

"Unnecessary I believe," Bond chuckled deep in his chest which Q had now reached for to place his hand lightly on his chest.

"You bought me… a gift?" he said, half enquiring, half bemused.

"Well. You're always furnishing me with such lovely toys I thought it about time I returned the favour," Bond replied with a sleepy smile.

Q slipped it off its holder and turned it over in his palm. "What? No inscription?"

Bond raised himself up on an elbow. "I considered the gesture in itself sufficient as a personal statement of my affection."

"I— don't know what to say."

"No need to say anything, Quartermaster. But, if you'd like to verbalise your gratitude, I wouldn't say no to a blow job."

Q slipped the watch onto his wrist and climbed onto James. "How long until your flight?"

Bond checked the timepiece. "About 3 hours," he replied. "Oh, though I should point out a rather interesting feature…" Bond began.

"Later," mumbled Q, stretching long across the welcoming form beneath him. "There's another rather interesting feature I'm more focussed on at the moment…"

Earlier That Week

"How can I ever repay you, R?"

"Not with all the tea in China, 007," she replied jestingly. "Though perhaps more of an effort made with the Q Branch toys would be a start."

Bond studied the watch. "So aside from telling the time…?"

She took it from him gingerly and turned over. "Aside from that rather useful function, the casing acts as a two-way USB storage device. Press the top button once and it will wirelessly connect with the nearest hard drive which also has a wireless router, and it will download information into its memory. Press the bottom button once, and information stored in the USB will automatically transfer in the opposite direction."

Bond smiled. "Just the kind of thing he'll appreciate," retrieving it from her proffered palm and pocketing the watch, grabbing R's hand smoothly and planting a kiss on the back of it, eyes sparkling with appreciation.

"He's certainly worth the effort," R said with a smile.

Back in Oberhauser's Base of Operations

Bond's return to consciousness was abrupt, though he had mastered the rather useful skill of feigning a convincing weakened state. He found more often than not it gave him the upper hand in life-threatening situations.

This was definitely one of those situations.

He raised his head in a lolling motion just in time to see Madeleine slip a needle into the Quartermaster's neck, his head wrenched to the side to allow her easy access. The goon's hand was buried deep in Q's hair and that flared an unreasonable reaction in Bond given their circumstances.

Oberhauser was sitting at a computer console. He spun in his chair to face the boffin sitting behind him. "Now my dear boy. The concoction my beautiful colleague has flooded into your system is of her own making - a rather clever combination of scopolamine and pentothal. Torture is so messy and so very 20th century don't you think?" He rolled his own chair back to the side, creating a space for the goon to manoeuvre Q's chair in front of the console.

Bond watched on. Ever the opportunist. Because at some point, no matter how small, a window of opportunity always presented itself.

He observed the tension slip incrementally from Q's shoulders. Oberhauser obviously saw it too. "Excellent. Now we can begin."

He lifted Q's hands and placed them on the keyboard. "Here is what I want you to do, Jonathan. My associate in London, you know him as Mr Denbigh, is standing by ready to initiate Nine Eyes. But now that you are here…I think our little venture will be greatly enhanced by access to the MI6 mainframe."

"Of course," said Q, voice compliant and soft, his hands moving with slow confidence across the keyboard.

"Q…" said Bond. "Stop."

Madeleine shot him a threatening look. "I'll be happy to send you back to sleep, James."

Q didn't falter. Oberhauser leaned back with a smile on his face and watched, impressed with the display of technological prowess. "Better late than never," he sighed ruefully. Madeleine leaned down to whisper into his ear. Oberhauser smiled at the words. "How I missed you, my dear," he said fondly.

After of a few minutes of diligent typing and breaking through his own impenetrable firewalls, Q paused. That drew everyone's attention back to the Quartermaster.

"Is there a problem, Jonathan?"

Bond for his part, hadn't taken his eyes off Q the entire time. So only he had noticed the change in body language. That window it seemed, was close to opening. Bond braced his body and mind for the inevitable burst of pain.

"I need the access codes to link Nine Eyes with the MI6 mainframe."

"Ah, of course," said Oberhauser, turning to Madeleine. "My dear. If you wouldn't mind doing the honours."

Madeleine smiled and stepped up to the console, Q moving slightly to the side to give her access. All eyes were on Madeleine for the next few moments but not Bond's. Q's hands slipped into his lap and Bond saw his finger press the bottom button on the watch. His gift. Within a few seconds, the main console and all the surrounding screens went blank.

Then a line of words typed up on the screen:

ACTUALLY, I AM A BLOODY CLEVER BOY

"What—?" Madeleine paused in her movements. "How…"

The window of opportunity had opened. In the moments of unbalance and uncertainty, Bond dislocated his left thumb and slipped his cable ties. He reached for the gun holster of the nearest bodyguard with his right hand and dispatched all three of them in seconds. He had the weapon trained on Oberhauser before the man barely registered what was happening while Q had disabled Madeleine with a swift kick to the knee causing her body to buckle to the ground with the unexpected move.

Bond tossed another commandeered gun to Q who wasted no time pointing it at Dr Swann. The venomous look aimed at him was filled with contempt and defiance.

"Go ahead," she spat through gritted teeth. "What are you waiting for?"

"Nothing would give me more pleasure," Q said, cocking the weapon. Bond did not intervene, confident and trusting he understood his young Quartermaster. "At this moment in time however, 007 and I need to get out of here in one piece." He gripped her by the upper arm and pulled her to her feet. "And as a bargaining chip, you and your boyfriend here are worth more alive than dead."

"On your feet, Oberhauser," Bond said, his gun still steadily levelled at the man's head. "We're getting out of here and you're our exit…"