Several months earlier

Jennifer loved her brother. Truly she did. She loved his sweet smile. She loved the way he would call her nicknames whenever they met up. She loved that he was the one who she could turn to when she needed someone. He was always there for her, no questions asked. But then she had found out what he was. He had told her one night and she had laughed, begging with him to be serious. But he had been. He had been deadly serious when he had told her that he was some kind of operative who worked for criminal organisations. She had struggled to believe it. She didn't want to believe it.

He had warned her that his latest mission was proving to be more difficult than usual, but he hoped that it would end soon. He had told her about James Bond. He had told her about Alison Holmes, Bond's hidden daughter. But, for some reason, this had gone beyond the mission. Carl wanted revenge on Alison. He saw her as a pain in his side and he wanted her gone. But Jennifer didn't understand. He had escaped custody and he had a way out.

He had come to her before he had gone to the safehouse where Alison was being held. She was ashamed to say that while he had been in the bathroom she had slipped a tracking device onto his phone. She worked in tech and she knew the darker side of it. Besides, she was concerned. She begged him to run away, but he ignored her, kissing her on the side of the cheek and slinking off.

She followed him, tracking his phone all the way to the safehouse. She had gotten stuck in traffic, however, a sudden pile up on an a-road stopping her from getting much further. Grunting loudly, she slammed the wheel with her palms and shook her head. When she finally got moving again, she realised that she had been too late. Standing outside the safehouse once she had parked up, neighbours around her moved from their homes and wondered what the commotion was.

Jennifer watched on, wondering what had happened, but she soon realised. An ambulance and several black slinky cars were parked outside and a man in a suit left the house. He had a girl cradled in his arms. She was covered in blood and crying hysterically as the man tried to soothe her. Jennifer did her best not to let her emotions show, realising that it might not be her brother's blood.

Moving closer to the house, Jennifer kept her eyes on the door, waiting for a sign of her brother. The man in the suit deposited the girl into the back of a car, the door staying open as he knelt in front of her, holding onto her hands.

"You did what you had to," he whispered to her, his voice soothing as she hiccupped for breath. "You have nothing to feel guilty about…it's over…he's gone…he can't hurt you anymore…"

"Ma'am, excuse me, but you are going to have to step back," someone in a suit spoke to Jennifer and she nodded, stumbling back with tears in her eyes. She somehow managed to walk backwards and rested against her car, trying not to look out of place. If she looked hysterical then that would draw attention to her. She could not do that. She had to be clever about this. She had to be the clever one.

It was only when she saw a gurney being carried out of the house, the body covered, did she struggle to compose herself. She climbed into the safety of her car and bent her head forwards, tears falling freely down her face. She had put two and two together. How could she not have? He was dead. That girl had to have been Alison. And the man had to have been James Bond. Who else could they be? And, from what she could decipher, that girl had killed her brother. She had murdered her brother.

And Jennifer swore that she would have her revenge. Looking into the back of the car as Bond comforted his daughter, she swore that she would do everything possible to make that girl suffer.

…

Alison hardly slept that night. She laid on her side in bed, listening to Q's soft snores as he rested besides her. She was trying to think of who could possibly have known what she had done to Carl. There was no one who could have known who would have told a soul. It was all too much. Jennifer couldn't know. How could she? The only way she could have known was if she had been there and she clearly hadn't been.

Or had she? Alison's mind continued whirling as she thought about the commotion outside the safehouse that night. They had managed to shut it down pretty quickly, but neighbours were still there and passing traffic had stopped to gawp. But Jennifer hadn't been in the house. How could she know that Alison had been the one to kill her brother? But Alison had come out covered in blood. She had left the house in Carl's blood after she had slashed his throat.

"Q," Alison hissed his name, reaching for her bedside light and turning it on. She rolled to her side and faced Q as he woke up, seemingly alarmed. "Q, I think…I don't know…but…would it make sense if she had been there?"

"What? Who?" Q asked, still in the grip of sleep as he listened to Alison and wondered what she was talking about. He rolled onto his back and propped himself up with his elbows as she sat up, knelt in front of him.

"Jennifer," she said, hands on her thighs and Q frowned.

"Have you got any sleep?" Q asked her, still not entirely coherent.

He noted her face was pale and she seemed far too awake. Her hair was also still neat around her face and her pyjamas particularly uncrumpled.

"No, but that is not the point," Alison said quickly and Q reached for his glasses and placed them on his face, sat up and leant against the headboard. "There are only so many of us who know that I kill Carl, but that night at the house there were people in the street watching us…neighbours…people like that," she said and Q nodded. "What if she was there? Or what if she asked some of the neighbours what they had seen? I don't remember much about that night, but I remember dad…he helped me out…into a car…but I was covered in blood. If she had seen that or if she knew about that then who is to say she did not piece two and two together."

"That…is not a ludicrous idea," Q admitted to his fiancée and she scoffed.

"Thanks," she responded. "So…is there any way that we can find out?"

"I doubt there would be any footage in that residential area," Q responded to her. "But I think the important thing now is not how she knows, Ali, but how we are going to find her and stop her from doing anything else to you."

Alison sighed and moved to curl her legs beneath her. "I know," she admitted to him, "but Blofeld…I thought that we were finished with him."

"We will be," Q assured her. "Your father, despite not being an agent, is not the type of man to stay out of things. I have no doubt that he will be able to find something out or that Blofeld will talk. Blofeld like thinking that he had the upper hand. He liked being the one with knowledge. I suspect that he will say something."

"Maybe," Alison said, "but that is not the point."

Alison moved from the bed and she reached for her hoodie, pulling it over her head and rolling the sleeves up. Q watched as she tugged her shorts down her legs and he folded his arms over his chest. "Where are you going?" he wondered from her.

"I can't sleep," she said to him. "You stay here, I am going to go and make some herbal tea or something."

"I will come with you."

"I am fine, Q," Alison promised him. "I will be back in a minute with my tea."

"You sure?"

"I don't need you to hover around me all the time," she assured him. "I know you are only looking out for me and I appreciate it, I do, but I can make a cup of tea."

Q nodded, understanding what she was saying. He didn't want her to feel smothered, despite him longing to be with her all of the time. He watched her move out of the bedroom, her bare feet padding on the floor. He leant back in the bed and closed his eyes, wondering just what was going on in Alison's mind.

….

Madeleine did not want James back near Blofeld, but there was no other option. She worried what he would say to him. She knew that he knew her secrets, but would he bother bringing them up? This was about Alison after all. Madeleine loved Bond, of course she did. She thought that Alison was a charming young woman with a good head on her shoulders. In a sense, she had been jealous of her for a little while. She had a stable job. She had a fiancée who loved her. She had a father who loved her. Madeleine had everything that she had ever wanted, but she watched Bond with Alison and she wished that she had some kind of safety. She wanted safe and normal, just as Alison did.

"The important thing is not to let him get to you," Madeleine said to James as they sat in his car outside of the facility where Blofeld was being held. M had agreed that Bond could have half an hour with Blofeld, but that was all that he could give him. M knew that he was bending rules. He was going rogue, to a certain extent, allowing Bond into this. But he had spent the night realising that this was the better alternative. It was better to have Bond keeping him in the loop then acting as a shadow outside of his remit.

"I won't," James assured Madeleine, knowing that she was worried for him. He found it quite sweet, really. Her care and concern was something that he had no really had from a woman before. Well, not a woman who had been with him for a long period of time. "Madeleine, I can do this."

"I do not doubt it," she responded, "but I know how you can be when it comes to Alison. You lose the ability to think rationally."

Bond said nothing to her, knowing that she was right. Pecking her on the lips, Bond climbed from the car and left her alone. She sighed and leant her head back against the headrest. She pulled her phone out of the white jacket she wore and contemplated texting Alison and asking if she wanted anything bringing back to the apartment considering that Q had insisted on her staying there.

But before she could do anything, she heard the door to the car open. She had no time to turn around before she felt a gun pressed to her side, someone sat in the backseat of the car.

"Don't turn around," her voice spoke in a soft tone. Madeleine remained where she was, wondering if anyone could tell what was happening. She doubted it, the gun against her side was obscured. It simply looked like two women sat in a car.

"What do you want?" Madeleine demanded, knowing exactly who this woman was.

"Clever of you all, I guess," Jennifer said in a low voice. "To know that I know Blofeld and he helped me. He has such a vendetta against the little Bond family…told me how he had someone try to kill Alison but he failed. Seems that the little bitch is just refusing to die, like a cockroach."

"What the hell do you want?" Madeleine repeated through gritted teeth.

"Tell Alison that I like her new place with her fiancé," Jennifer whispered into Madeleine's ear. "It's very nice, though not quite big enough if she wants to raise children."

Madeleine knew what this was. Jennifer was showing them that she knew everything. There was nowhere for any of them to hide. She wanted them to know that she had the upper hand. Biting down on her tongue, Madeleine remained mute and Jennifer chuckled.

"Don't worry," she said in a soft voice, "your little secrets are safe with me. Seems I'm not the only bad girl around here, hmm?"

Madeleine felt her stomach churn and Jennifer chuckled once more. "Just leave Alison alone," she said in a whisper. "She did what she had to do. Your brother was going to rape her, did you know that?"

"I know that she is a vile little bitch," Jennifer hissed, not skipping a beat. "My brother would never have done that to her."

"Well, he would," Madeleine said and she felt the barrel of the gun press more firmly into her side and she winced away from it. "She did what she had to do to survive and if you had any sense of decency then you would understand that. She is not a killer. She is a young girl who wants a normal life."

"Then she should have thought about that before she killed my brother," Jennifer hissed. "Now, tell her that I'll be watching…and that I'll have her eventually."

Before Madeleine could do anything, Jennifer had climbed from the car and disappeared into a sea of faces. Standing on the path, Madeleine looked around and tugged her hands through her hair, cursing under her breath.

…

Alison looked out the window of her father's living room apartment onto the quiet street beneath her when she felt Q's hands take hold of her waist. She startled as he bent down and kissed the side of her neck. "Just come away from the window," he pleaded with her and Alison resisted the urge to groan and roll her eyes.

"She wants me to suffer. She isn't going to shoot me from the street. That is too boring for her," she said and Q frowned, not entirely liking her tone.

"Ali," Q whispered her name and she turned around in his grip, her own arms going around his waist and her face burrowing into his neck as the curtain fell behind her. Q ran his hands up and down her back, clinging tightly onto her as she did her best not to sob loudly despite longing to.

Bond had returned with Madeleine and she had informed them what had happened while Bond was with Blofeld.

"She is trying to get into your head," Q whispered to her. "She is trying to get inside of your head to make you paranoid."

"Well, she has succeeded," Alison said in a mutter. "She knows my every move. She wants me to know that she is watching and that…what does that mean? I can't leave this apartment until she is caught? But when will that be? And how do we know she will get caught?"

"Because she is not as clever as she thinks she is," Q assured her. "People like her…like Blofeld…they like showing off and that is what always gets them caught. Trust me. We have dealt with worse than her."

Alison was about to nod but a whirling noise on the street caused her to jump. Q gripped her tightly and shook his head, kissing her on the forehead. "It's alright," he promised her.

"Whatever is that noise?" Bond asked, suddenly appearing from the bedroom where he had been speaking with Madeleine.

Peeling the curtain open, Q peered down onto the street which had been quiet moments before. Alison tried to peer around his shoulder, but he shook his head and turned quickly, gripping her shoulders and pushing her into the living room and away from the window.

"What is it?" she demanded.

"You don't need to see," Q said to her, his voice firm.

"But I do," Bond muttered and he stormed past Q as he tried to keep Alison away from the window. Madeleine stood in the kitchen, lips parted and gasping for breath as she wondered what was going on.

"Q, I need to see," Alison demanded from him. She pushed by him and he grabbed her hand, but she was already stood by her dad at the window, looking down onto the street.

"What the…" she trailed off.

Down in the street was her dad's parked car. The alarm was blurring loudly, the lights on the car blinking profusely. But the car had a smashed window screen, paint on the roof of it spelling one simple sentence 'Ready, whore?'

Alison closed her eyes, trying to get the images of the red paint from her mind, but there was a sudden banging on the door. She shrieked loudly and Bond instantly reached for his gun and rushed over to it.

"Stay here," he demanded from the three of them in the room.

Madeleine nodded as Alison shook her head.

"Dad-"

But he was already gone. He had the door flung open, gun poised and ready to aim. But there was no one there. Whoever it was, and he had a good guess who it was, had gone. There was a box on the floor and Alison watched her father step over it, moving down the corridor of the apartment block.

"Do not touch that," Madeleine was the one to speak as Alison took a step towards it, but Q was quick, his hand squeezing hers firmly and keeping her in place.

He shook his head and moved to wrap his arms tightly around her, almost as though that could shield her from whatever was to come. Bond returned a few minutes later, shaking his head. He had his phone to his ear and spoke curtly to whoever was on the other end. He hung up and looked down to the box.

"M has been notified that she was here. She was gone before I could get to her. She had a car parked round the back," he said.

"If we had agents around the apartment then this wouldn't have happened," Q said.

"MI6 cannot spare agents, Q, especially when there is a former one living with Alison."

"What is in that box?" Alison was the one to ask, uncurling herself from Q and looking to it as Bond nodded.

"If it was a bomb-"

"-It's not a bomb," Bond said confidently. "The box is too small and there…it is leaking…from the corner…"

"What is leaking?" Madeleine asked.

Bond gulped. He lifted the lid from the box. "Blood," he said.

The four of them crowded around the box on the doorway and looked down, a pig's head sat inside of it with a simple not on it. 'Game on.'

Bond placed the lid on quickly and shook his head. He reached for the door and slammed it shut, closing the pig's head outside and looking to Alison, noting that the blood had drained from her face and her eyes were darting around. He moved towards her and took her by the shoulders.

"It is alright," he promised her in a gentle voice.

Shaking her head, she didn't see how that was possible.

Looking to Q, Bond knew what he had to do. "We need to get away from here. We need to get somewhere safe," he said in a determined voice.

"Agreed," Q said and looked to Alison as she struggled to remain coherent. He bit down on his tongue and knew that this really was just the beginning.

….

A/N: Do let me know what you think!