A/N: I am in absolute denial that our beloved Bond is dead, so I cooked this up to cope. Now you'll never see me cry.

.: There's Just No Time to Die :.

The golden Mediterranean Sea was calm from the rays of the setting sun. Light waves beat against high rocks, and occasionally cars drove along a narrow mountain road, winding like a serpent. The road led to Matera, a city hewn out of a whole piece of ivory-colored mountain, illuminated by campfires, streetlights, and the sun. The bird's-eye view was stunning, so breathtaking... That's what she always had thought. Madeleine Swann had been in this city almost ten years ago, with him. And it was time to go back, maybe start from scratch. According to a strange tradition, one can burn the past by throwing a smoldering piece of paper to the wind...

Every time she looked Mathilde in the eyes, she saw him.

Madeleine missed him, cried at night for him and waited for him. She would always wake up from another nightmare that repeated itself for several months in a row. She saw a blue sea, that same blue sky. Against this background, like flowers, they bloomed and left their white trail, the launched missiles looking for their intended target. That blue was the same as the eyes of James, incredible as the sky. In the dream, these eyes grew dim, covered with a veil. A bright flash from the explosion was reflected in them. So powerful, sweeping away everything in its path.

They wouldn't survive after that. There would nothing left. Ash. Wreckage.

She heard her own scream, woke up, and felt an aching emptiness. On that day, sitting on the cold stones of the rocky shore, clutching Mathilde to her and trembling with sobs, she buried her beloved. She buried James Bond.

Madeleine didn't believe it. She did not believe when the empty coffin was covered with earth, when she threw scarlet roses on the trail. She didn't believe it when the shots rang out, paying tribute to the best of the best. She didn't believe it when she was handed the British flag folded in a triangle. They shouldn't have done so, but Mallory insisted and later gave it to her. Standing at the funeral far from the crowd, Madeleine did not hear the speeches, and even less did she see Nomi as James's replacement.

His things, like things of a single agent without a family and heirs, were ready to be packed in a box and left in the archive, but Q brought them to her. So they remained in the box. Her hands trembled as she looked at the top shelf of the cabinet. Nonsense.

She waited. Every day. Listening to every rustle, to every sound. This became an obsession and threatened to develop into schizophrenia. But oh, how she wanted him to quietly, noiselessly open the door, walk into the dark kitchen and touch her shoulders, drooping and thin and tired, as if the whole world was holding on to them. Indeed, in the beginning, on her shoulders lay his future — with all her might she pulled his memory out of the abyss of guilt, anger, alcohol, and despair. Now it was all a load of loss and unspoken words.

"Momma, you should go to sleep. It's almost morning."

The sleepy voice of an eight-year-old girl brought her back to life. And as soon as she looked into her daughter's eyes, everything became different. There was hope. Fragile. It was without him. But it was with hope. After all that she had experienced, the girl had been silent for a long time, but she drew a lot. She painted a herb garden, an island, a scary man, and James. In children's drawings, he was always alive, carrying a little stuffed bunny in his hands. Or held their hands in his own. Only a year later, Mathilde could speak again, and the first word spoken to her was his name as she pointed to her latest likeness of him. Madeleine then burst into tears right in the office of the pediatrician.

Being a Bond girl was not easy. Becoming his beloved woman had been dangerous. Becoming his family had been priceless. It was like walking on a tightrope over an abyss; one wrong step, and that was it. There was nothing ahead but the abyss. It became impossible to live without him every day. She was gasping for breath. Everything was mixed into a gray veil. Madeleine could barely cope. Until one evening when the phone received a message from an unknown caller. Just two words, and everything sparkled with new colors.

"Matera, Italy."

Then everything was as if in a dream. Vacation from work, paperwork, and the promise of the most interesting adventure of her life with her daughter, where there would be no more villains and chases, no dark forests, shootings, or swamps. There would be no more explosions or cold oceans in her daughter's world. And there would be no more nightmares. And she herself, Madeleine Swann, would no longer listen to silence in trying to get through to Q or Moneypenny. The time passed in disbelief and anticipation and seemed like an eternity.

She drove an Aston Martin DB5 confidently and cast a glance at her daughter, who could not tear herself away from the views outside the windows.

"Mom, why this city?"

"It's a very handsome city." Madeleine shrugged her shoulders with a smile. "It's quite possibly the best place to start our spontaneous vacation. Moreover, the weather in London has deteriorated."

The girl narrowed her blue eyes slyly. Tilting her head, she looked at her mother. "And are we almost there...?"

Madeleine, thoughtfully looking into the distance, at the road, bit her lip. Then to Mathilde: "Do you want me to tell you a story about one person very special to me? His name is Bond. James Bond."

The girl nodded. "He was there. With us."

When she did not continue, Madeleine wondered if the topic was taboo. She hoped it wasn't so. Otherwise, the months of her daughter's recovery would be gone. Thus Madeleine carefully told her daughter almost everything, talked about the first meeting, about who he was, and how much he meant to her. She told her daughter that James Bond saved the world many times, and now, like a real superhero, he lived in his fortress of solitude, waiting for the world to need his help again. Mathilde had always believed in superheroes.

Listening to her mother's story, looking at the road, she began to fall asleep. She saw the sea, the island, the tunnels, and the terrible scarred man. She also saw James holding her momma by the hand. She remembered how he carried her in his arms, how he put her in the boat and covered her with his big sweater, promising that everything would be fine. She remembered thinking that he had the same eyes as hers, with rays of wrinkles when he smiled at her.

Mathilde heard through her slumber that her mother kept on talking and talking and crying. But not like the tears she cried at night. These were different tears.

And then they drove into the city. The girl woke up from a gentle touch on the shoulder.

"Bunny, we're almost there."

Matera was a fairy tale. Like an ancient fortress carved out of stone, a sand castle with many turrets and staircases, winding streets and squares. The light walls of the houses so closely pressed together were illuminated by lights and by the flames of fires dancing right on the street. It all looked magical.

"Did I fall asleep, Mom? ...Momma?"

The sleepy but admiring voice of her daughter brought Madeleine out of her stupor.

"I bet you won't believe me if I say I heard your whole story." The girl yawned. "Where are we now?"

"We're driving to the hotel. We'll have to sleep somewhere. And a surprise awaits us." Wiping her tear-stained cheeks with one hand, Madeleine tightened her grip on the steering wheel with the other. She still didn't like the narrow streets of this city. They were reminiscent. And with such an unprotected car...

"Are you crying again? Momma, you promised you wouldn't." Mathilde frowned.

"It's just that I've a lot of beautiful and good moments from this city. All right, honey?" Why on this particular day did she decide to tell her daughter this story? It was simple... The very moment had come.

A moment when all that she did not doubt for a second would begin to come true. She would present the bill to M and everyone else. She would kick open the doors of this damn establishment if she had to. But that would be for later. Later, maybe. Well, it was all to hell anyway.

Her heart beat wildly. Her hands sweated. She started the countdown. Mathilde spoke out again, and her shoulders straightened. Approaching the very hotel, she was on the verge of tears again. Now she was tempted to stop the car in the middle of the road and run because there he would be. Otherwise it should not happen... where everything was magical. Where their daughter was conceived. Where at one moment everything changed.

The Aston Martin screeched and stopped at the door. Madeleine closed her eyes and, counting to ten, got out of the vehicle. How would they meet? What would he say? How would Mathilde react? And there were countless divergent paths of events. But as was usually the case, things never went the way she wanted them to.

James's first meeting with Madeleine turned out to be strange. Even dangerous. Dr. Swann, so independent and cold. Sometimes he asked himself the question: why did she even fall in love with someone like him? A killer, a psycho, who would climb into the thick of it for the sake of devotion to his cause and country. For the sake of truth and justice?

Dammit, she's couldn't be of this world.

And how had he known he loved her? Perhaps it happened in Tangier when, drunk and angry, she fell into his arms, or later... When, in fear screaming her name, he'd ran through the ruins of MI6, when time was counting down the seconds? All in all, after all his sins, she was sent to him from above. There was no other way to explain it. With her, he allowed himself to feel. Pain, fear, weakness, everything that he'd so diligently hid for many years. He learned to believe with her, to live, to stop running and looking over his shoulder. And his daughter, flesh of his flesh, a piece of his world, a piece of him and Madeleine together... Even after saving a dying humanity, knowing that there was a whole lifetime after you was the highest reward. He remembered her as a very little girl with a funny little stuffed rabbit, which he'd kept.

He could not come to them, but he could see her growing up, even if he was not yet able to approach because of the poison. He observed from afar how Madeleine walked in the park with their daughter, chased pigeons and stroked leashed puppies. He watched how Mathilde played with other children and went to school. Jesus, she was already eight. Three years had passed since that terrible day. Three painfully long years.

James knew Madeleine had been alone ever since. Yes, she had tried to forget herself in other men, but could never end with anything, except for the light in the kitchen not yet extinguished until midnight. James knew what she and their daughter were going through because of him. What danger he'd put his little girl in. How Madeleine hurt. He fell asleep every day with the thought of how to atone for this guilt. How he could bare to remain a shadow and an invisible guardian.

"A family. They're my family," Bond had said, introducing them to Nomi. Once upon a time he had a family. A posh mansion, quarry, and acres of land. Then it all ended. Two days in a secret passage, and he was no longer a boy. Then the license to end his life. Heaps of mistakes and failures and deaths. After so many years, he had a family again. And not a single hair would fall from their head in harm. No one would ever dare to lay a finger on them.

Life and death was like a cocktail, vodka, and martini; shake it up but don't mix it. It was terribly banal and familiar. How many times did he die and rise again? It turned out that really, this was a damn hobby. But it was enough. It was time to stop. Seeing your own funeral was no fun. After that, he almost went into hysterics for a week and kept trying to reach her house. They never let him anywhere near. And rightly so. After radiation, it was necessary to lick one's wounds, heal the sick soul and the mutilated body, go through all possible precautions and prove that one was finally alive. Hands should not shake when firing a gun, after all.

Q had examined him fully, scanned him, and advised him for more outdoor walks. James Bond was alive and ready to leave and see faces from a past return. He would no longer wake up in a cold sweat. A gun would no longer be hidden perpetually under his pillow. And PTSD would not suffocate his lungs. He would no longer be turned inside out from the pills and from the effects of Safir's poison, an antidote for which Q fought long and hard to have developed.

James Bond was cured.

He might touch her and not kill her. He's Goddamn James Bond and just under under fifty. So what if all his wounds made themselves felt? He could take it. But was it really important? These were such small things compared to the alarm clock ringing in the darkness of the room, cutting through the silence with a trill, reminding him that this day was the day.

He had long since been released from the service department. After rehabilitation courses and clarification of all the circumstances and details. After closing all cases and officially handing over the number "007" back to Nomi. He was confident in the new agent. After a last whiskey in M's office, he was finally free.

Matera, Italy. The hotel and the countdown.

In a huge floor-to-ceiling window with access to the balcony, James could see the city, highway lights, lanterns, and reflections of the fires. He was completely calm. But a little more, and that would be it. Because he could see his love. His vaunted self-control would leave him to hell and he, like a boy, would rush down the stairs. But they wouldn't be alone. Madeleine was carrying her daughter. After so long, it was finally time to truly meet his little girl. It was time to stop time and grab all the seconds in the world by the tail. Live the life denied him for the hundredth time.

When the car screeched to a halt at the entrance, he was already striding toward the lobby with his hands in his pockets. One look, another, and she appeared again.

Madeleine Swann got out of the car saying something to her daughter. The girl smiled and nodded. Her mother spoke hurriedly into the phone, for now. Pushing the babbling doorman away, James burst out the hotel door, freezing when their eyes connected. He slowly walked up to her and gently gathered her in his arms. Her phone clattered to the ground.

Madeleine hugged him back, squeezing the fabric of his shirt, feeling through it every scar on his back, running her fingers along his shoulders, around his neck, through his short, wheat hair. Her whispers came out in French, some kind of nonsense, in full view of everyone. His hands, so strong and secure, were now shaking in small tremors. He was touching her, and his touch was not killing her. Buried in his chest, Madeleine trembled and cried, not daring to look up, afraid that it would all dissolve.

"James… God, I thought I was going to go crazy. I didn't believe them. I knew... I didn't doubt for a second that you were alive." She was angry, hated him, but believed in him.

"Look at me. Madeleine. After everything, we are free. No more running and hiding. I'm here. I'm alive."

Madeleine was drowning in his incredible eyes again, around which rays of wrinkles had become deeper, and there was more gray hair at his temples, but it was almost unnoticeable. His voice was quiet, soothing, and native to her heart. His light kisses whisked away her tears. And he smiled, such that her knees almost buckled.

"I really missed you. I was so scared."

"I'm here now. I love you... I promised I would find you." James's kisses were gentle but already more persistent, such from which the upper abdomen ached sweetly.

"Jesus! Mathilde. In the car. Waiting." Gasping from lack of air, Madeleine pulled back. Her cheeks were on fire, and her mascara was running. James's shirt was stained.

"She knows?" James looked at the woman. Madeleine looked up, and their gazes met. Just a moment's confusion, and Madeleine smiled at him and waved her hand.

"Maybe you'll have to tell her yourself. I told her a story about superheroes and villains. And she talks to a new stuffed bunny,'' she said, brushing away her tears, in a hoarse voice. She kissed him on the cheek and wiped off the lipstick marks. He took her hand and led her to the car. Unafraid. Skin to skin.

At the gentle tapping of her mother at the window, the girl unbuckled her seat belt and opened the door. She looked at the man who was holding tightly to her mother's hand. She saw her mother smiling. Coming out of the car, Mathilde stopped, and James froze. He dropped Madeleine's suitcase and took a step forward.

"Hello there... You probably don't remember me..." He never knew such awkwardness around a child. Even then, it wasn't so awkward in the house in the forest. But soon everything would change. He hoped so and waited for her reaction.

"I remember." Piercing blue gaze met piercing blue gaze.

"Mathilde, I would like to tell you something."

"Your name is James, isn't it? You are a superhero, and you saved my mom and me."

"Yes." James grinned. Yes, a superhero. Madeleine smiled and nudged James lightly. "Mathilde, I'm your father," he finally said, exhaled, and relaxed. And thus he drew the final line, closed the last gestalt. His daughter. His family. His beloved woman.

The girl looked at her mother, giggled, and jumped out, and hugged her father, her nose buried in his shirt below his ribs. Under his heart.

"That's it. I'm alive. I made it."

And they were safe.

The southern night fell on Matera. The lights of the bonfires still painted the city in a special glow. Madeleine slept with her head on James's chest. He stared up at the dark sky, stroking her hair. Slowly, his eyes closed, too. In the next room, little Mathilde opened her diary and scribbled a few lines down on a new page, next to her drawing. She would ask her dad and momma when they woke to help her light it and release it to the wind later.

"Dear Diary. My wish came true. Now my mom won't cry anymore. My bunny returned to me. It's old and torn in some places, but that's okay. We are in Italy. And now I have a dad... He's the best, and his name is Bond. James Bond."

A/N: As always, reviews are appreciated and replied to. Or, if you'd prefer to comment more privately, feel free to shoot me a PM. Cheers, + KVP