Summary: Bond is trapped, and needs assistance getting out. Problem is, there aren't any extraction teams nearby. Q calls someone he trusts to get his agent out in one piece. Part of the Bright Star 'verse, but may be read as a standalone.

Note: This James Bond story has a mystery crossover, but it's not necessary at all to know it in order to understand what's going on.

An Old Friend

It started, as it nearly always did with double-ohs, with an explosion.

"Bond? 007, status. Bond!"

Agonizing moments later:

"Q." A rattling cough.

Fingers flew across the keyboard. "Bond. Talk to me, agent."

"Package acquired." Panting breaths. "Trapped. Requesting immediate extraction, if possible."

They all knew, though, that it wasn't possible. They didn't have any agents in Greece at the time, and sending someone in would take more time than Bond had.

"Alright, Bond. Can you get out?"

"No, I bloody can't get out. There are men with guns on the other side. And I've lost mine."

"How many?"

"Enough that it doesn't matter."

. . . . .

Bond could hear Q swearing up a storm under his breath on the other side of the comm link as he typed at machine-gun speed. It was oddly comforting.

He leaned his head back against the rock wall, part of which had caved in at the only entrance to the underground room.

"Q. It's been an honor," he said, preparing to go out in a blaze of glory with the help of the box of explosives he'd found.

"Oh, don't you dare, 007," the quartermaster returned in clipped tones. "You're not finished yet, you old warship. Wait before you do something stupid. I'm calling someone in."

"Who?" It was M who asked, not Bond.

"An old friend. He's on Kalokairi. That's not too far."

The quick tapping of Q's fingers on the keyboard continued while he evidently made a call to his friend.

"Sam? It's Q. I need a favor. Yes, now. Right now. I have an agent on Alonissos. Closest team is five hours away, and there's no time to wait for them. Yes. I've sent you the details. Thank you. I'll owe you one. Oh, and please bring your med kit. 007 has a bad habit of hiding his injuries."

Q laughed in response to something the other man said. "Yes, Sam. So please take good care of my agent. I want him back in one piece."

"Who's Sam?" M asked again.

Bond could almost hear Q's smile. "Someone we can trust."

. . . . .

"Someone we can trust" indeed.

Not half an hour later, there were panicked shouts beyond the pile of rubble, and then the sound of rapid gunfire and men dying. It continued for about a minute before it stopped.

Then a voice (British. Was that a slight Irish lilt?) called out: "007, it's all clear. Do you require assistance digging out?"

"Negative," he responded, then whispered quietly enough that only those at the other end of the earpiece would hear. "Q?"

"That's Sam," the quartermaster replied promptly. "He's a friendly."

Reassured, Bond began moving the rubble aside. There came a similar shuffling of rocks from the other side, and Bond surmised that the man Sam was moving the debris on his side.

"Nearly there, 007," Sam said, and it seemed to Bond that he seemed...unusually cheerful. Either that or much too amused for the situation.

Eventually, they cleared enough rocks out of the entrance that there was a hole big enough for Bond to climb through.

Before he did so, however, he peered through the hole to see if this Sam was indeed alone. He had been burned once too many times by trusting people whom people he trusted had trusted.

It seemed that Q had trusted the right man, at least so far, since it looked like he was alone, save for the dozen corpses littering the corridor. The light was behind him, unfortunately, so his face was too much in shadow to identify.

Good enough. And if it turned out that Bond couldn't trust him, he'd knock him out with a rock.

That decided, Bond crawled through the hole they had made, taking the other man's hand when he reached up to help him down.

"Alright then, 007?" Sam asked.

"Yes, thank you," Bond replied, brushing the dust off of his hands onto equally grimy clothes.

That's when he got a good look at his rescuer's face. Handsome, very handsome, with sparkling blue eyes in a sun-tanned face. Silver-haired, but well-preserved. And very familiar, though from classified MI6 files, rather than in person.

Sam Bloody Carmichael, formerly known as Agent 007.

Bond's immediate predecessor.

Carmichael smirked at his dumbfounded expression.

"Quartermaster, Sam here. Agent recovered," he said lightly into the (non-Q-branch, commercially available) Bluetooth earpiece on his right ear. "Doesn't look like he's bleeding to death. Might be a tad concussed. Am I taking him to a safe house?"

"Sending you the address now," Q said into both their ears. "Thanks, Sam."

"You're welcome, kid. Signing off."

Bond shook his perplexity off and arched an eyebrow at Carmichael. "He doesn't like being called 'kid.'"

The other man shrugged and led the way out, tossing Bond a spare gun. "Can't help it, can I? I've known him since he was being potty-trained."

Bond heard the mortified "Sam, you bastard" before the background noise of Q-Branch in his ear suddenly cut off. Bond took out the now-silent earpiece and dropped it in his pocket.

The two 007s exchanged amused smirks.

"You knew him as a kid?" Bond asked. "Did you find him growing in a test tube in a mad scientist's lab? He's got to be some kind of experiment."

Carmichael laughed. "Something like that. Ask him about his godfather. Definitely the archetypal mad scientist."

"I think I will."

. . . . .

He did ask Q, but he never got a straight answer about it out of his quartermaster until much later.

. . . . .

Story note:

The mystery (slightly crack) crossover is Mamma Mia! (yes, the ABBA musical in which Pierce Brosnan tried his hardest, bless his soul, but only succeeded in sounding like a dying seal). Brosnan (the 007 before Daniel Craig) played one of the three male leads, Sam Carmichael.

In this universe, Brosnan!007 retired from MI6. Then he got a wedding invitation from a couple in Greece whom he'd never met (though the bride's mother was a familiar name) and decided to go. Because why not. Maybe he was getting a little bored with civilian life and thought going to a mystery wedding would be just the thing to cheer him up.

Anyway, long story short, he ended up with one-third a daughter (split three ways between two other possible dads, DNA testing be damned) and married to her mother, who turned out to be the love of his life, and they all lived happily ever after on the tiny fictional island of Kalokairi in Greece.

As for how Q knows him, and who Q's godfather is, well...you can read my story "The Star to Every Wandering Barque" to find out.