Summary: Battling depression, day by day. Young Q and his dad. Bright Star 'verse. Makes sense without reading the rest of the series. For Depression Awareness Month.

Title from As You Like It by Shakespeare.

Bright Star 'verse note: If you're not familiar with this 'verse, the Q in Skyfall (named Danny) is the son of the 007 from the 1980s, Damien Drake (that's the Timothy Dalton version of Bond). My 'verse basically covers Danny's life from infancy to adulthood. This story takes place when Q is very young.

Trigger warning: Depression, angst, mentions of alcohol abuse and self-harm.

Very Serious Author's Note: I wrote this because I'm always showing Q with his dad as happy and comfy and snarking with each other and being cute, and Dad is always cooking and being exasperated by his disaster spawn. Life's not always perfect in the Drake household, though. Lives like the ones double-ohs live probably leave scars, both mental and physical. Damien definitely does not deal with depression in a manner recommended by professionals. (He's a former double-oh, so that's not exactly a surprise.) Please don't do what he does.

A Melancholy of Mine Own

There was life Before, and then there was life After.

Before was when every day could have been his last. When there was a woman or a fight (or both) for every day of the year, when his days were filled with smoke and drink and blood. That was Before.

After, there was soft baby skin and big liquid eyes looking at him so trustingly. Crying and nappies and bottles of infant formula filled his days. Happy baby belly laughs that made him smile, messes that needed cleaning, and knees that needed kissing kept him busy, busy enough…

But not always.

There were days when the melancholy became overwhelming, threatened to swamp him, suffocate him. They came at certain times of the year, or when some trifling, random thing reminded him of a painful part of his past (there were so many of them) that he had hidden away in the deep crevices of his heart, like a tree trunk growing over a rusty nail.

Before, he would drink to numb the pain, and used his work to forget it all for a while, though he knew that neither of those things was altogether healthy, nor were they actual solutions to the problem.

But After, he'd had to find a different way to cope.

He'd lie awake, and when the shadows lightened, he'd pull himself out of bed with the greatest of efforts. He'd move through his usual morning routine like a man in a daze. He'd make breakfast, get his son up and dressed, and they'd eat (or pretend to, in his case). After the dishes were washed and things were tidied away, he'd set Danny down with a book or his current project and tell him that he needed some time to himself.

The boy would look at him with the bright green eyes he'd inherited from him, innocent and knowing at the same time. He'd hug him and cling to him a moment longer than usual, and murmur, "I love you, Daddy" into his ear in his sweet childish voice, and it would take everything he had to keep from tearing up and clutching his boy to his chest and sobbing his heart out.

But he couldn't. If he did, he'd fall to pieces right there and then, and he needed to do better than that for Danny. He needed to be better than that.

So he'd tear himself away and make his stiff way up the stairs to his room, close the door carefully (not locked, never locked, in case Danny needed him), and stagger to his bed, finally letting the flood of despair and dark thoughts drag him down. Sometimes he'd make it to the bed; sometimes, he'd stumble to a stop at the foot of it, crumpling down to the floor in a disjointed heap. He'd sit there, huddled and unable to move because of the numbness overcoming his limbs, the heaviness in his chest.

He'd reach for the bottle, but he knew himself and didn't keep liquor in his room. (That was for drinking with friends, for long lazy nights when his thoughts didn't turn towards the dark. It was for savoring, for rolling the aged golden liquid over his tongue, tasting each note. It wasn't for drowning his sorrows, no matter how much he ached for it out of habit.)

So without that outlet, he'd take it out on himself instead, clenching his hands, feeling the nails cut into his palms. He'd dig his fingers into his skin – his scalp, his arms, his legs – just to feel the pain there, to draw it away from the nagging, throbbing sensation inside him…He'd learned long ago how to induce pain without leaving marks. He'd scream soundlessly into his fists and heave tearless sobs until they left him breathless, taking care all the time to keep silent – he didn't want to frighten his child.

He'd come back to himself, sore, heavy-headed, and achy-eyed, to find the shadows in the room had changed. Sometimes, there would be a warm bundle cuddled up against his chest, and sometimes it would be at the curve of his leg, a curly little head resting trustingly on his knee.

"Sick, Daddy?" the little boy would ask when he stirred.

"Yes," he'd rasp, and feel guilty, so very guilty, for exposing his young son to this side of him. For failing to keep the darkness away.

"Sad?" Tiny fingers would poke inquisitively at the lines on his face, trying to pull up the sides of his mouth as though they had the power to make the smile stick (they usually did, but not now, not when he was like this).

"Yes." He'd have to push it out, pull it out of his throat, force his vocal cords to squeeze the word out.

"Why?" That question (so often asked) rarely hurt, but it did now, when he was raw and aching and felt so wrong and knew that he was a failure as a parent…

He'd look into those jade-colored eyes with the worried little line between them. "Sometimes I just am."

"Okay." The little boy would accept that answer — for now — and nod. "Make you better?"

"You always do, sweetheart."

And the little boy would snuggle against him, and sometimes he'd let a tear or two fall into the dark messy curls, and the little fingers would track them down his cheeks and to his jaw, and then there would be a warm little kiss replacing them.

"Love you, Daddy. Better now?"

"So much better. I love you, too. So much."

He'd hold his little boy in his arms and just breathe. He could breathe with his heart — his whole world — held close to him like this.

"Hungry?"

"Uh-humm."

He'd think about getting up and walking to the landing and going down the stairs and going to the kitchen, and he'd think about what he should make, and it would be too much, so instead he'd say, "How do you feel about cereal? And leftovers?"

"Yummy." The little boy was notoriously picky about his food, but the answer would always be that at times like this, even when he'd turned his nose up at dinner the night before.

"I'm lucky to have you. You know that?" That's right. Focus on the good. "So lucky."

"Why?"

"Because."

"But why?"

He'd lean in and kiss the tip of the inquisitive little nose. "Because." He'd let out a big sigh and muster his strength and say, "Come on, give an old man a hand up, Danny."

The little boy (with such a bright little grin on his sweet little face) would scramble to his tiny sock-clad feet and tug at his big hand with his little ones, and he'd pretend (and not only for his son's sake) that the little boy had the strength of twenty men and heave himself up to his feet.

And they'd walk down the stairs together, the little hand held firmly in the big one (or perhaps it was the other way around).

And it would have been another day lived.

Another day conquered.

. . . . .

Notes:

Depression isn't always dealt with in healthy ways, and sometimes it's hard to tell when someone is struggling with it because they cover it up so well. Just because someone is smiling doesn't mean that they're happy. Anyway, I've dealt with (am dealing with) my own problems, and I can tell you that depression sucks butt. If you need help, it's okay to ask for it. If someone offers help because they see you're struggling, even if you don't realize that you have a serious problem, take it. Once I recognized that there was an actual serious problem (someone pointed out that I needed to see a professional and offered to help me make an appointment and go with me if I needed a friend – thanks Kaylene, even though the chances that you'll ever see this are miniscule!), rather than some petty little stress, it made it easier for me to learn how to handle it and define triggers, etc. And, you know, stop crying all the time (pro tip: that's probably a sign that you're depressed). 100% cured is hard, if it even is possible, but 'better' is always in reach.

And that is the end of my very long overly-TMI PSA.