The Nature of Redemption
By: SecretAgentSmutGirl
A/N: Written for Yuletide 2004
There were specific drinks for different occasions. The restaurant in question was the home of a certain drink. The bartender had been agreeable with the instruction of 3 part Gordon's gin, 1 part dry vodka, 1 half part kina lillet in a deep champagne goblet, shaken with a thin slice of lemon peel. It wasn't even that he had ordered that particular drink in years, but it was the drink he always ordered when he found himself in that particular town. Above all James Bond was a creature of habit.
In itself the day was one for idle pursuits as the weather had deemed fit to produce a lazy sun and a perfectly brisk breeze that moved just enough cold air inland to keep the day comfortable. Idle was just the mode that suited Bond on that day. The file was closed on the Jamaican adventure, stamped and handed off to Moneypenny to be sent to the archives. Another bang up job recorded for the old boys down in the 00. By virtue of having lived through the mess he had gotten a piece of lettuce for May to take careful care of and only to be seen at dull official functions. M would be grimly satisfied by the pay off of his gamble- no matter the outcome he would have achieved one of his ends. New folders would be opened and global intrigue would go on. Bond on the other hand was left to his own devices and whim as a re-animated dead man.
Of the thousands of places for him to get back to business, not least of which would have been his old office where the Mary Goodnight would be waiting along with his inbox of pressing and not so pressing matters. For him to have returned to the charming bar in the very unchanging French town where he'd given the fateful name to his monstrous alcoholic invention was folly. Not often able to permit himself moral introspection, Bond tried made the most of it when he did, so no half measures would do. Rationally it had seemed fitting to return to be the very place he had always considered to be the start of his long, slow death.
How Bond had gotten to Royale-les-Eux had been less rational and more whimsical. He had spent weeks in Jamaica recuperating, waiting for his wounds to heal and for his body to recover from the snake venom. Jamaica was a place he had always found comforting since the war. Life was simpler on the island if you kept to yourself. More than once a mission had sent him into the dark underbelly of the balmy island but it was always work and when he had time to idle he still returned. Goodnight had been good company, the proper sort of woman ready pour her maternal instinct into coddling him but very well able to flay him with her wit. She was a sweet girl and too pretty. When M had sent him an Eyes Only asking him to return to London for duty he had been inwardly pleased. He had returned to London the very next day and hadn't even been to his office before he had been summoned to M.
It was a fluff assignment that he'd been handed with barely a glance from his superior's grey eyes, something to keep him busy. One of the French substations on the German border was moving location after an attempted bombing on the premises. Intelligence pointed towards local groups but the attention was too high a risk with their proximity to Berlin. Three days and about fifteen ciphers full of misinformation about the dissolving of the station as a precaution and his job was done. After making sure the job was water tight Bond had gotten into his rented car and found himself two hours south in the early hours of the morning. It would be a fortnight before M would require him to slink behind his desk and deal with the In and Out signals in his box.
Now noon has passed and with the minute lowering of the sun he'd found himself among the fashionable set who ate their afternoon meal late and started their drinking early in the local way. To the staff he looked as all strangers did- neat but for the coma of dark hair that always slipped over his brow, closely shaved and well dressed without the ostentatious overdone look of the American or new European money. He imagined they though him a gambler in town for the season, a bored man with a cruel mouth that drank alone in the afternoon biding his time itching for the click of a rolling ball and the clack of tiles piled together. Going native during his convalescence had left him with a deep island tan that was no different from the tan the set acquired in the south in the summer, or on any of the Mediterranean island retreats. To look well dressed and idle was to have anonymity and the game was nearly given away by the fever brightness of his eyes and the stark whiteness of his scar. Bond knew that the town was full of casino heavys with the same look. For all his remarkability he could be a dead man still.
Ego be damned he knew he was lucky to be sitting there, nursing the deep champagne goblet and thinking about the vices of the town. M had found his foil, a match in skill that was humbling as well as frightening when Bond considered what sort of fine lines had kept him from being deemed on the wrong side of things. Scaramanga had been a damned good shot and their subsequent draw had only been called in his favor due to the quick work on the part of Felix Leiter and the smart medic who'd found him. For some reason the Fates had favored him over Pistols Scaramanga. Bond smiled grimly at the thought. Shot for shot he hadn't deserved the triumph.
From his pocket he drew the only gift other than the new scar on his shoulder that he'd gotten out of the gunmen- the golden bullet he'd drawn from the golden gun's magazine. It gleamed in the filtered light of the room, gold plating only marred by the cross cut into the nose. Doctored bullets were dirty business but for par in the profession of assassin. The splinters of the bullet could internally destroy a man even in the shot went wrong. About as large as the joint of his thumb, it was such a small thing to have such killing potential. How many men had met their end by its golden brethren? The only real record was now a statistic in the service archives.
Scaramanga had been a thug, less kept than the mainland rats but in the same game. Island living had made him tough, while his personal history had made him more than slightly mad. Official record had prepped Bond for a cool shot who had gotten into the business through a freakish circus accident. Confronted with the man himself he'd been surprised by the complexity of character. Paranoia was a dear friend in the assassin business. Pride on the other hand was a weakness. His swagger and temper were both things that were defendable to a quick draw. He had been the quickest.
At once the liquor was heavy on his tongue. A couple at the table closest to him began to bicker in emphatically in Italian. A man and his mistress if his Italian was up to par. The distraction made him shift in his seat. His thoughts had been on too maudlin a track for the man who had lived. Who had deserved to win was irrelevant in any case; Bond knew well that half of everything was luck. The whole nasty affair had been business, a simple transaction for redemption on his part and glory for his opponent if it had gone the other way.
It was a limitless thought, what separated him from the golden gunmen. Process, duty and all that service voo-doo would be the regulation answer. As a 00 he was just an extension of a machine, a big messy political monster of the West. Wasting time on introspection wouldn't gain him anything but the same headache he could acquire with more pleasant pursuits. He's earned his spurs back and he damned well intended to be of some use.
Tonight, Bond decided, he'd be just another faceless gambler in a smart suit. In the morning he'd catch an early plane back to London without so much distraction as looking at The Gleaner. There were always new files to attend to, a new gauntlet to pick up in the tedium waiting for him in the bowels of the Regent Square building. Goodnight would be worried about him if he stayed on the continent too long and as it were he'd been away from his Chelsea flat for longer than he had intended. Some clucking from May, along with one of her famous Scottish breakfasts, would be just the thing to put him back into the right frame of mind.
There were things to look forward far beyond the dully familiar passing of folders and decryption of ciphers. Bond had promised Felix Leiter he would keep his distance and that he'd heal, but if he knew anything it was that the coolheaded Texan turned up like a bad penny and it was only a matter of time. At their last parting Leiter had scoffed at those who would make heroes out of fallen foes. For all he was worth in a scrape he was probably right. Not as heroes but as reminders of the past, possibly even of personal identity. An ocean away and Felix Leiter was still making him think.
Pocketing his cigarette case, right again and only recently full of his triple bands, he fingered the golden bullet on the table with a thoughtful look. Bond had a feeling that he wasn't truly done with his line of thought, he certainly had not been able to grasp the closure he usually got from an assignment. He knew what his weaknesses were, other than drinking too much and smoking too much he had never been particularly good at shunning any vice that cropped up in his personality. The specter of Scaramanga wasn't going to leave him anytime soon- though he was no longer cowed but reassured. He'd earned his life back and he knew that Pistols Scaramanga ranked with the likes of Felix Leiter, Tiger Tanaka and M where respect was due, if only the respect of one killer for another.
With a calculated movement the bullet was once again pocketed before James Bond left the bar behind, this time he hoped for good.