a/n: Wahey, a new fandom! The fic in question takes place a year or two before the events of Spectre. Irrespective of any leaks, trailer analysis or rumors, and until I've seen No Time to Die, I'm gonna stick to this AU where Safin and Madeleine are (roughly) of similar age, as that is still my initial impression.

To that end, I've also taken some liberties with Safin's characterization and background, as well as Madeleine's, to an extent. Her character demonstrated a lot of promise, and deserved a better script to work with than the one in Spectre.

EDIT, 03/22/20: Reworked the ending, added a few scenes to improve the general flow.

CHAPTER ONE:
A THOUSAND DETAILS

In the sterile comfort of her office, Madeleine stared blankly at her computer monitor. The words on the screen, denoting her application with the Médecins Sans Frontières had been sent, turned fuzzy with lack of focus. She'd done her best to ignore the signs of a settling migraine—common sense would tell her to get out and socialize whenever opportunity presented itself; she wasn't working all the time—yet it felt habitual, in the same way she had coffee in her flat rather than out and about, and attended to a seemingly endless yet predictable slew of clients with equally predictable problems.

Graduation from Oxford had come and passed, a quick, unemotional affair. Madeleine had no extended family to invite—no one else of import, besides her short-term friends.

As she stood next to her peers, she looked out into the crowd. An individual figure in the stands was no more remarkable than any other parent or relative, though one caught her attention. An older man, perhaps in his late fifties, hidden partially behind sunglasses and a smart dress-hat. With a nauseating thrill she recognized his hat as well as his smile, the slope of his face now wrinkled with age. She had no idea whether or not he had actually seen her, but why should he have smiled if not for her sake? To Madeleine it was like he was sneering behind his glasses.

They did not speak to one another afterwards, as this would surely draw unwanted attention. At the same time, she wasn't about to go over and ask him how he'd been faring, giving him have an opportunity to wound her pride.

She made up some excuse to go home before he could seek her out, in spite of her friends' protests, and the memory of him followed her, took up residence where physical space would not permit, behind her eyelids when she closed them. She tried at first to dredge up some residual emotions for the man who less so resembled a father and had become more like an anonymous pen pal in recent years, before concluding that perhaps it was best for his pride to pretend she was non-existent, rather than admit her own indifference.

She did not sleep, but paced the length of her tiny flat and wondered why he had come at all if he knew she would run off again.

As a psychologist, Madeleine treated her flat like a hotel room: She kept no photographs. She did not discuss her private life with anyone. She had tried to spruce up her desk at work with an inoffensive calendar, then a pot of faux-flowers, carefully constructing an alibi if and when she were asked; allergies, nothing more.

For two years, Madeleine found solace, not only in her work but the strange and nebulous agency she took in identifying the root of other peoples' troubles; a faulty marriage brought on by substance abuse or debts that could not be repaid, rebellious children with too much time to spare and a lacking family presence. Others were less extreme, seeking a means to understand oneself through introspection, or the courage to reconnect with friends, simple conversations that were no more impactful than the change in weather.

The longer the pot stayed on her desk, the more disingenuous she felt. Each day bled into the next. In the back of her mind, a greater sense of unrest, like a threat that was hinted at but never came to fruition. This lack of excitement soon directed her thoughts, almost semiconsciously, back to a place where she could make something better of her privileged existence. But four weeks waiting time felt like an eternity, and onus was her only company.

By the end of the first week, Madeleine was absolutely miserable. But she told herself anything was better than the alternative embarrassment of coming back to her father with her tail between her legs.

A discreet, anonymous enrolment into Oxford and the Sorbonne were her father's last gifts to her before he decided to cut off all spoken contact for good. Madeleine was never foolish enough to refuse his offer or start an argument outright, but accepting his interference was always closer to a smarting defeat, and the humiliation of depending on him and his cruelly-earned money haunted her throughout the formative years and her eventual graduation.

As a student, when impelled to talk about family, often on behalf of her college friends, Madeleine had stated that she and her father were not close and kept it at that. She'd only mentioned her relationship with her mother—and subsequent death—when pressed further, garnering a more sympathetic reaction.

For a while she'd pretended to enjoy herself, going along to the café with her friends on Saturdays, trying to assign some familiarity to the sights and sounds surrounding her, in the voice of the waitress and the smell of coffee laced with artificial sweeteners. She did not look around for inconspicuous men who might be following her. She even got a boyfriend half-way through her third year, of good standing and comparable intellect, studying Latin, but soon enough the night would come and Madeleine would be alone in the flat, with her reflection.

Try as she might, she could not bring it upon herself to play the role of normality that she yearned to fall into—she found instead picking apart the mind of her boyfriend for lack of anything better to do; she already saw him almost every day, and he seemed far more interested in studying whenever she tried to talk about this. It wasn't as though she blamed him, and he never saw cause to start fights or belittle her. The trouble was that Madeleine didn't feel safe with anyone—it was not personal, she insisted silently to her reflection in the mirror every morning. She would only be endangering him if she allowed him to settle down with her in the long-term, and she made up an excuse that was less of a lie than she would have liked, telling him they'd be better off friends than push forward in light of a lack of chemistry.

He smiled in a way that didn't reach his eyes and asked how long she'd been sitting on that speech.

She wanted to ignore the lack of investment in his eyes, but how could she not? They hadn't kissed in weeks, and scarcely did much else besides hold hands; she'd only adopted the relationship for the sake of propriety and perhaps someone to cling to, if she were especially lonely. With a miserable conscience she went to her friends, seeking their support rather than condolences, grateful they could never really understand but simultaneously overwhelmed with a bitter, frightening envy for their ignorance. What gave them the right to worry over frivolous matters when they were luckier than they could ever realise?

In due course, she got a response from the HRO; approved, and the interview was scheduled shortly thereafter. The position itself was, indubitably, not a permanent solution, though Madeleine possessed no scruples. If she had been upset every time she and her father had moved for danger's sake, she would not have made it very far on her own.

For the initial interview, she paid her own expenses. By the time she'd boarded the plane it was going on March. Yet this felt righteous in a way, her own private victory—whatever became of her next would be her decision alone. She'd parsed out a few countries.

Reports had already spread of an outbreak affecting West Africa—and rumour had it, in various pockets of Europe—away from the coast, a mysterious illness that revealed itself first with fever and spells of vomiting, then gradually ate away at the flesh of those afflicted and bore their bones and muscle, vulnerable to further rot. More emboldened journalists had taken to calling it the Red Death on account of this. Neither a cure nor a place or origin had been found—and it was impossible not to think about, always in the news and the back of her mind during the flight, these faces of the damned she would soon be tending to in whatever capacity she could offer.

Once primed and shipped out into Guinea with the rest of the suitable candidates, it soon became apparent there were still not enough doctors to handle the influx of infected. Though the staff were polite enough, Madeleine saw they were made predominately up of medical workers, clad in all manner of gloves and masks. The stench of rot hung vacantly in the air.

She soon was paired off with a psychologist (Clyde Jacobsen); American, around her age. He was a more personable sort than she was used to—the first thing he did was try to make her comfortable in their small living-space by noting they did not have reliable electricity, and she'd do well to acclimatise. The way he'd put it was more along the lines of:

"It can get pretty ugly out there, so you want to be careful. And—did they tell you about the mosquitoes? Forget this disease, THAT's what you have to worry about—those fuckers are everywhere. They'll give you more problems to deal with if you aren't careful."

Madeleine had supplied an answer without hesitation: "I've been made aware of the dangers, thanks."

Clyde seemed pleased, rather than discouraged. "See? She's a trooper!"

They shared the living space with four other team members, none of whom were as openly excited as Clyde but nonetheless as amicable as the situation would allow. Initially Madeleine had considered Clyde to be far too chipper for a psychologist, but as the days passed and they all became more familiar with each other, she came to thinking he wasn't putting on airs, just a genial man. After some self-reflection she resolved to correct her error in judgement by forcing herself to talk to him a bit, but Clyde either didn't notice the deliberate nature of her efforts or was just open to conversation, which she privately appreciated.

"You're pretty reticent for a psychologist," he noted one afternoon.

"It's the weather that takes getting used to," Madeleine lied easily. "And I'm here to do a job. Nothing more."

Clyde shrugged. "I can respect that. We've all got our reasons."

She and Clyde were given no quarter when it came time for attending to the surviving patients. Many, though not all of them, were children. Most conversations were had in French, though there were a handful that possessed a capacity to communicate through an interpreter. Irrespective of language, soon these people confessed to her such things that would have surely kept another woman up all night, driven mad with a profound and terrific grief, but Madeleine was no stranger to trauma.

Despite this, the time she'd spent tending to the unremarkable ailments of the first-world could not prepare her for the level of despair that these people talked about with pedestrian sincerity; it often sounded outrageous when she looked over the records; death a more common occurrence before simple, human cruelty. The onset of the Red Death had taken much more from them, sowing the seeds of doubt in the MSF's capabilities, and while the opportunity to assist those less fortunate had bolstered her pride considerably, the repeated confrontation with seemingly inhumane tragedy soon knocked it back down into the dust.

To be sure, life in the midst of French Guinea was a far cry from her father's idea of safety. Despite this, Madeleine lost herself in her work for the next several weeks, in the heated climate and strange camaraderie forged between the other MSF members. She lent an ear until the horror became numbing. When pressed for advice, she would talk calmly, carefully with Clyde and the rest of the medical team about what would be optimal—this woman needs more time to confront the root of the problem; but she can't help her circumstances or her father's illness. This child has not been permitted time to grieve the loss of his sister—his speech was matter-of-fact, and he seemed almost irritated by her concern—probably trying to process the events in his own way. You should encourage him to talk a little more, not too much. Emphasise proper medical procedure in a manner the children can understand without patronising them, don't leave the infected skin uncovered.

Madeleine watched the vigour drain from Clyde's eyes while she gained an all-too familiar reputation for working tirelessly. She was, by now, at least well-respected by her peers and the locals. Occasionally there would be some outlier or complication, but that came with the profession and the new environment.

The presence of the local militia offered some small reassurance, though Madeleine was not entirely willing to put her life into the hands of anyone other than herself. Only one of them stood out among the rest—the head of security. She noticed him on her first week, moving around in the morning heat, checking in with the project coordinator. Disturbances simply did not occur under his watch.

He was hard to miss, as his face overshadowed most other details; gruesomely scarred from his right temple to the base of his left jaw, though his eyes and nose remained intact. A survivor of some freak accident, or the mark of his current occupation? The latter possibility stood out to Madeleine for reasons she would not allow herself to consider in-depth, and soon she put it in the back of her mind.

So the weeks came and went, and soon enough they were approaching June. Progress was still belated, but unwavering. Currently the MSF were in the process of setting up a system to deal with a sudden influx of IDPs, all of whom had to be tested and separated from those not stricken with the illness. Thanks to the cooperation with the local civilians and recent overtime on part of the medical staff, there had been a forty-five-percent decrease in deaths compared to the start of the year.

In the nights Madeleine would hear the sound of animals in brush taper off, and occasionally in the mornings and throughout the day there would be the sound of gunfire to disturb the otherwise good weather, distant and chaotic, but able to be ignored without any tangible interruption. She found herself rousing earlier in light of this, sleeping lightly. More than one night, unable to sleep, she pored over documents with Clyde.

For example: their first client of that particular day, a mother of three, was having problems now that her husband was sick. The husband's brother had agreed to discuss this matter under the condition that they would first have separate consultations before they talked face-to-face, as his concerns had more to do with the mother's mistreatment of her son—allegedly. Madeleine

In the coming weeks this type of scenario had become less shocking, more rote, though not to the point of losing empathy. Madeleine would need to be careful about the way she handled this.

"The father's got a history of violence," Clyde mentioned. "But the brother hasn't had any problems with his side of the family."

"Yes," said Madeleine distantly.

"And the mother isn't cooperating."

"With you," Madeleine said.

"Yeah. Probably feels more comfortable around another woman." He paused. "That's not unexpected."

Madeleine pushed her hair out of her face. She'd been keeping it back lately to deal with the heat, though it didn't help much. She felt not unlike a sheep in dire need of shearing.

"So," started Clyde wearily. "What do we do about these other cases?"

"The man with the estranged son?" She shook off a fly nesting in her damp hair with less disgust than she would have two weeks ago. "If we try to tackle them all at once, we'll get nowhere. One problem at a time."

"Sounds good." He looked up. "It's a lot to deal with, isn't it?" Madeleine nodded without looking up.

On the tail-end of June, rumours brewed of an underlying schism on the horizon, most likely politically-motivated, but there were no clear motives yet. Madeleine had overheard no small amount of speculation from the other MSF members as well as the locals. Several fights had, allegedly, broken out in the neighbouring villages between the local enforcement and the civilians; the topic of insurgence had come up at least once with a handful of patients already, though nothing serious had happened where they were stationed.

The project leader called them all in to discuss this at length, mostly for the sake of reviewing protocol in the event there was an attack—which was starting to seem like a possibility. By the time Madeleine and the rest of her party had finished consulting with the group about said threat, it was going on noon. She sat with Clyde and Peter Miller, another man from Logistics, eating a quiet lunch. The head of security was still around the area, currently conversing with the leader of the Logistics team; Madeleine had learnt from Peter that his name was Safin.

On the way back, unexpectedly he stopped and made his way towards her little trio. Seeing him up-close brought his disfigurement into a new, frightening clarity.

"Dr. Swann." He spoke with a casual lilt that suggested cordiality without reaching his eyes. Madeleine considered his accent; Russian, most likely, which raised more questions than it answered. "Any trouble this morning?"

He had a rifle strapped to him, a casual threat with the way he carried himself, but it didn't set him apart from any other guard. Madeleine tried to avoid looking at it. "Not so far."

"You don't like guns?" It was difficult to interpret any particular emotion from his voice, or his expression; it wasn't taciturn, more akin to the disconcerting silence one might experience while looking into a body of still-water—met only with your reflection. Madeleine figured he was trying to sort her out and took this in stride.

"I understand what's necessary to keep us safe," she said.

Safin seemed to consider this for a moment. "You must feel brave, coming to a place like this."

"I'll do whatever I can to help." Madeleine kept her tone light, though she made sure to look him in the eye as she spoke; she was not about to be intimidated by anyone.

"Of course," said Safin. Now that she was paying attention, she noticed that the scarring continued down his throat. Too intricate to be leprosy or a typical burn wound, the centre-point of the site was located just below his left ear, as if his whole face were made of porcelain and had once suffered a nasty blow. "An accident," he supplied, as though anticipating her question. "No need to dance around it."

"I see."

Safin's expression became easier to read, but not in a positive sense. It occurred to Madeleine that she might have offended him by responding in such an off-hand manner and resolved to apologise. But then he said: "It's in the past now. I consider it a motivator." Madeleine studied the other soldiers for their reactions, but she found nothing obvious. Then Safin smiled in a way that just barely touched his eyes and said: "Keep up the good work."

Madeleine nodded primly. As Safin walked off she glanced at Peter, who just shrugged and said: "You handled that better than I would've."

"He's a little…"

"Intense?"

Madeleine frowned. "Well, he's young, isn't he?"

"He usually doesn't talk that much. Either he's got it out for you or he thinks you're on his level."

Madeleine wished he'd change the subject. "On his level?"

"I mean—look, I wouldn't take it personally. He's just trying to figure you out because it's his job."

"I can tell."

"From what I understand he just turned up out of-the-blue. The one before him came down with an illness about… ah, we're in June now, so that would be five months ago. But with circumstances being as they are, we can't afford to be picky anymore." Madeleine feigned interest in her papers.

Clyde nudged her. "Hey, aren't you going to eat?"

Madeleine figured he was only trying to be amicable. It was difficult to focus well when she was plagued by old doubts. She had not been naïve enough to believe she was completely untouchable, even in the dregs of Africa, SPECTRE's reach was inescapable, whether in some on-site ambush, or unforeseen tragedy unable to be prevented by the local government. When she'd first arrived she could stave off the worries for a little while with shallow, private reassurances. SPECTRE wouldn't want anything to do with her before they found her father. Now she was unsure if she dreaded or anticipated the prospect of being in Safin's company again.

Perhaps the danger she'd tried so hard back home to evade was, inevitably, inescapable, though not in the way she'd imagined. She thought herself foolish for drawing in so much unneeded attention with her hard work ethic; one way or another, the past would catch up.

Then she shook herself. Entertaining any measure of paranoia in this turbulent environment was not a constructive pastime—the last thing she wanted was to provoke suspicion.

Nights were cool, though seldom quiet. The sounds of the wildlife that were natural to seasoned MSF and the locals were initially unsettling, though over time became recognisable, in a quaint sense.

Left to her own devices, Madeleine thought, more often than she wanted to admit, about the last time she'd heard from her father. Where was he, now? Still in Austria, most likely, holed up in his childhood house that had once meant so much to her as a malleable young girl—visits to see her grandparents that became sparing as she grew older. Surely now he'd find himself carrying out a dismal existence in seclusion, half-buried in the snow as much as his secrets. Her father had tried to joke about it while her mother still lived with them, though this had quickly become a point of dissention and Madeleine, even when she was young, could not blame her mother for being upset.

Madeleine had no idea whether or not he was still with SPECTRE. He'd seldom talked about the barbarous activities he helped to fund when she was young.

The only time he'd discussed it openly with her was in her adult years, while she was back from Oxford; during a futile dinner where he had mentioned that he was considering retirement in the same tone as an apology. It was, perhaps, too little too late, and he'd switched course before she could acknowledge the sorrow behind his eyes, asked in the same scrupulous manner of a businessman about her classes, if she had a boyfriend, how was Paris, and Madeleine had looked through him, pretended to listen, and ignored the way he coughed into his napkin after talking too long for the both of them. She'd always been his favourite.

The year Madeleine turned ten was when she started to notice some pressing details. It was the year they did not go to L'American at all, because her mother insisted it was becoming too dangerous and someone was following her from her job every other day. That evening bore witness one of the nastier arguments in memory, all the words they'd kept at bay now slung around, back-and-forth like a couple of verbal prizefighters, until her mother finally snapped that she just couldn't live like this anymore.

They didn't talk about divorce in front of Madeleine, but she wasn't as naïve as she'd been at nine.

Her father came home late more often, and would be up on the phone with men she had never heard of before sometimes very late into the night, (when she turned eleven he'd stopped letting her go to school on her own) and her mother was irritable for reasons she would not relay explicitly. The only time her mother and father tried acting like parents who loved each other was at L'American—when she'd been younger. In hindsight, Madeleine got the feeling their attempts at geniality were not for each other's sakes.

Lately her father had been conferring with a number of men on the phone, much to her mother's dismay. This had to do with his work, which kept him away from the house for long hours and Madeleine was seldom up to see him return. Today her father was home, a rare occurrence in of itself. He'd made breakfast and tried to cheer up her mother to limited success, but at least they weren't arguing.

Now it was winter. Madeleine was in her room when she first caught a glimpse of the figure approaching the house outside her window. At first, she thought nothing of it; but as she glanced back at the book in her hands, a terrible, inexplicable feeling of unease came over her.

Madeleine knew there was a gun downstairs, in the cabinet under the sink. Her father had ensured she knew how to use it, but she had not considered having to until this very moment. As quickly as she could she crept towards the hall and made her way downstairs, her footsteps muted by her socks. There came a knock at the door. Madeleine's heart hammered as she scurried to the kitchen and checked the coast was clear before opening the cabinet—it never occurred to her that her mother might very well also know about the gun.

The berretta was a solid, cold weight in her tiny hands. Better than nothing. The knocking continued. Madeleine heard her mother's voice, but no footsteps yet, and quickly shut the cabinet, heading for the stairs. Halfway to her destination she heard her mother's steps, slower in recent years, thanks to an onset of muscular sclerosis—it ran in her side of the family. Madeleine turned just in time to see her mother approach the door, then hesitate, looking back as though to call out to her father.

The door was forced open, slamming against the wall, battered on its hinges. Her mother's protest was interrupted by a volley of bullets—Madeleine's scream went unheeded—and the body fell limply to the floor like a doll, bleeding out of myriad little holes while her assassin scarcely flinched, stepping over her corpse and surveying the room.

She could see now he was dressed well for the weather, in a heavy white coat and pants to match, splattered red. His painted mask betrayed no emotion. Madeleine's mind was frazzled, but not devoid of purpose; her hands were suddenly calm as she raised the berretta, pointed at his head—because he might be wearing a vest, and then her efforts would be for naught—and, exhaling, squeezed the trigger—

Her aim was slightly off, shattering the mask—such a loud sound in the empty room—and piercing his jaw on the left side. The man staggered, caught off guard, but did not raise his voice above a pained snarl. Madeleine was also surprised, but for a different reason; she'd been expecting someone her father's age.

The figure whipped his head towards the balcony, worked his jaw for a second as though he were trying to recalibrate his own body. He raised the SMG, lips pulled back, his teeth stained red. Madeleine felt her heart clawing its way into her throat, unable to breathe for terror. She didn't want to call out for her father now, but the masked man was approaching the stairs. She aimed for his head and shot without hesitation—her father was shouting—and this time the masked man anticipated it and ducked, bolting out the front door.

Madeleine didn't wait to see what happened next. She dashed for her room and, once inside, started piling objects in front of the door in a fruitless attempt to save herself. She listened for the man's voice or his footsteps heavy in the hall, but he didn't come back. Instead her father's voice rose, first in a horrible cry—had he found mother?—and then for several minutes she heard nothing but the sound of the door closing and her father's grief. She herself could not bring herself to cry. But shortly after that, her father was on the phone again, shouting a lot of words Madeleine had seldom heard him use except in private conversation with other adults—the phrase "attack dog" stuck out in her mind. Racing to the window, her heart fluttered when she discovered the assassin was nowhere to be seen.

With no recourse, Madeleine curled herself in a little ball, still clutching the berretta. She did not move from her position until her father came upstairs and found her there. He was very pale, and he held her tightly, telling her he was exceptionally proud of her, and sorry for what had happened. Madeleine wasn't listening, her eyes trained on the window and the snow outstretching for many miles beyond, searching for a pair of red footprints.

Her mother's funeral was a quick and private affair. Madeleine found herself surrounded by in-laws she did not know very well. Despite her father's grief becoming more evident in the manner he treated her, kinder than he ever had while her mother was alive, Madeleine felt more concrete in her contempt of him. It had been the easier choice, or at least better than considering his side of things. She'd stopped wishing him death a long time ago; maturity had brought with it a sense of shame, and he was only a wealthy crook. Hardly worth the effort.

Late July brought a brittle peace and an increase in casualties related to the Red Death. The cure was still out of reach, and as the days grew hotter the stench of rot became more pronounced.

All of a sudden there came the sound of screams, then gunfire. At first she thought it was still a dream until Clyde grabbed her shoulder and told her to get up quickly, separated in groups from the ill, and the civilians.

They had not made it past the first checkpoint when the firing started up again, closer than before, then another period of silence. Madeleine's stomach knotted in the wake of a distant keening, much too human to be ignored. She and the rest of the MSF turned in time to see a dozen men with guns surrounding them, sans insignia. The interpreter was conferring with the head of staff, now currently in a heated discourse with the leader of the insurgents, back and forth in French:

"There's no need for additional bloodshed. If you give us time, we can work out a better solution for both parties."

"We've waited long enough. You still don't have a cure. I see you'd rather use our lives at our own expense. You take our families—"

"—yes, as we must quarantine—"

"—and they never come back!" cried another rebel. "What will happen to us? Where is the cure?"

Madeleine looked around desperately for help, but found none. The men were advancing.

Shouts filled the air, panic and rage blending together into discord—then the firing resumed. Several MSF around her fell dead and the rest began to protest. Madeleine prostrated herself without hesitation, covering her neck, willing herself not to scream. In that moment, all rational thoughts abandoned her and she was only ten again, transfixed in the memory of her mother's blood.

In the ensuing silence her ears continued to ring. The smell of iron flooded her nostrils, and she waited for the bullets to piece her skull.

"Swann." A hand reached out and grasped her shoulder. "On your feet. We need to get you someplace safe."

The sound that came out of her was nothing like human speech, closer to a wounded animal. A soldier pulled her none-too-kindly to her feet, and she stood on legs that threatened to give way. The bodies surrounding her were still warm, and she was covered in their blood, her face and clothes encrusted with ruddy earth.

"Madeleine," said a familiar voice.

In a state of unreckonable anguish, Madeleine did not think of her previous suspicions. All she could do was cling to the simple, miraculous truth that he was still breathing. She curled herself into his shoulder and refused to let go.

Safin paused, but he did not push her away. To the four reservists accompanying him he said: "Let's get moving.