Pairings: See note in Part 1.
AN: Part 2 of the prologue.
Title: Father, Dear Father
While ostensibly looking through the stack of classified folders that Tanner had handed to her earlier prior to her meeting with Bond, M surreptitiously watched her guests, giving them several minutes to make themselves comfortable. Tanner sat to her right, as far from Bond as possible and still participate in the meeting. He'd been MI6's Chief of Staff for far longer than M cared to contemplate and as much as she would have liked to she couldn't exclude him from this meeting. So he sat quietly, ready to provide his input if asked while Bond, the bane of her tenure as Manager in Charge of MI6, sat on the other side of her desk, his attention also on their guests.
She carefully kept her amusement at the body language exhibited by both men hidden. Like many of the older MI6 staff, neither had agreed with her assessment of the importance of the situation nor with her solution. Dismissal of the hidden world of demons and magic was heavily ingrained into MI6. If she hadn't been exposed to it years before joining the Intelligence Services after college M was sure she would have had the same attitude. Even the ones who'd had some experience with magic, like Bond, tended to turn a blind eye to it.
She'd proposed the unique assignment to him earlier as part of her solution and had expected him to strenuously object. But either the shock of the surprising revelations she'd made concerning one of his many brief past relationships had distracted him into blindly agreeing to the assignment or he was actually welcoming it for what it was, a chance to step back from field work for a time and not treating it like an attempt to force him into retirement.
With Bond, it was possible he was thinking something completely different. It was often hard to see how he reached the decisions he made but his ability to quickly reach the correct conclusion in a complex situation made him valuable to MI6 as more than just a 00 agent. She was not going to let him use this situation as an excuse to leave MI6 permanently. She would also have to check with Moneypenny later for any reason why the normally unflappable Bond had turned pale when she'd given him her news, mentioning the two people now sitting in her outer office in passing.
She just hoped her two guest were as amenable to her plans. Their concerns reached across national boundaries. Any attempt to tie them or their organization to her department in more than a casual manner was bound to be vehemently resisted. And neither of them were known for their tolerance for anyone they saw as wasting their time. If she wasn't careful they could stop her plans before she started.
"I know you are both wondering why I've asked you here." She began. "It has long been a policy of the Intelligence Services to take a hands off approach when dealing with your organization. It has always suited the purposes of Her Majesty's government to pretend that the things the Council of Watchers deals with, the demons, vampires, and the magic..." She was interrupted by a snort from Bond. She frowned over at him before continuing. "aren't real. The knowledge that it is all real has been known only at the highest levels. It is time we became actively involved in defending our country against this threat."
"And that has turned out so well in the past." the small blonde commented dryly, causing M to bristle slightly at the implication. "Your people aren't equipped to deal with this. You should leave the demons and non-human evil to the professionals. And..."
"We appreciate everything you've done to help the Council in the past and that you continue to assist us in the same fashion," M watched with no surprise as Rupert Giles, the titular head of the Council, smoothly interrupted his younger colleague before she could express her displeasure. "but, no offense intended, I would like to think that we know what we are doing and don't need government involvement of the kind I believe you are proposing. We may not have many people left over from the old Council but that doesn't mean we are going to turn over our responsibility to anyone else."
"I'm sure I don't need to remind you that we are not the American government. We don't plan to wait for a disaster like Sunnydale to happen in this country before we take the threat seriously." M told them firmly. "We are well aware of the dangers involved when dealing with demons and magic." M spared Bond a quick sympathetic glance before continuing. "We've lost several of our best agents over the years when they stumbled into something they weren't prepared to deal with because no one would acknowledge that such things existed."
"I'm not sure what you expect from us." Mr. Giles told her. "We aren't currently able to do more than support our own people in the field."
"It has taken some time but we have finally been given the authority to train our people how to effectively deal with demons and similar threats." M said, addressing them both. "I believe it has been a mistake to ignore the long experience of your organization. We've watched others attempt to deal with the demon problem on their own. Most attempted to apply modern science and involved the military. A very inflexible approach. Most have failed, some spectacularly. If we succeed it will be because we are able to work with your organization."
M noticed that Ms Summers seemed bothered by the idea. "You want our girls to work with your people? I'm not quite sure what your Mr. Bond does but we are not spies or killers. We do what we do because we have to, not for some government agenda."
"That is not exactly what I have in mind." M denied. "As tempting as the idea might be to some, I have no desire to absorb the Council or your slayers into MI6. Or to even allow them to be used by any other government."
M noticed their skeptical expressions and shook her head. "Most slayers, by their nature, would not be a good fit for the work we do here. We spend most of our time pin-pointing the exact moment when action might be needed and send people like Commander Bond to deal with it. But direct action is rare enough that we have few reasons to deploy him. Slayers achieve their aims much better when they are allowed to be independent and to think for themselves. You, above all people, Ms. Summers should know that. The whims of governments are often not compatible with the whims of the gods. But that does not mean we can't work together when our goals are the same."
"You seem to have an unusually high acceptance of what we do." Giles commented curiously. "The Americans needed a disaster before they even began to understand."
"And you are wondering why." M noted, acknowledging his question with approval. She nodded at Bond, who'd been observing their guests without being drawn into the discussion. "Commander Bond has his own reasons but that is his story to tell if he wishes. I believe you will find this enlightening, Miss Summers." Picking up a slim leather bound book from a corner of her desk, M handed it to Tanner who in turn handed it to the young woman who opened it curiously.
She read it for a minute, leafing through it carefully, before looking up at M, confusion clearly visible on her face. "This is a potential slayer's private journal. Where did you get it?"
"It belonged to my grandmother." She noticed how Mr. Giles perked up at her admission.
"You wouldn't know what happened to her watcher's journal would you?" He asked her, only his eyes indicating his excitement. "Very few of the journals in the Council's archives survived the destruction of the old Council offices. The knowledge that was lost is irreplaceable."
"My grandfather requested that it be given to the Council when he died. That was over twenty years ago." M told him. "I'm not sure it had much more than historical value."
"So you expect us to work with you because you had family in the Council? And that makes you better than anyone else?" M wasn't surprised at Summers' angry reaction.
"Frankly, I'm surprised you are still here." M told her. "It is quite clear from my grandparents' experiences" she gestured at the journal that Giles was now looking through, "that many in the Council at that time did not understand the value of what they had. Many of their rules tended to turn immediate success into long term failure. Working with them would have been nearly impossible for MI6."
"They were still like that, until the old Council was destroyed and Giles was able to start over last year." Buffy told her. "How do you know we are any different? What makes us worthy of your attention now?"
"Certain elements in MI6 took it upon themselves to start keeping track of the Council's activities in the late 60's. Although they were only observing, we do have a fairly good idea of who was part of the Council at that time."
"Why?" Giles asked her, his attention drawn back into the discussion by M's comment.
"There was some concern in certain knowledgeable quarters that one of our enemies would gain possession of a slayer or control of the Council." M shook her head at the thought of SPECTRE or the Soviets having access to the kind of power the Council represented. "When it was determined that that was unlikely to happen MI6 once again left the Council alone to proceed on its' own path. We didn't have the authority to act until the Council office was destroyed but it took time to decide how we would become involved. And now that you seem to have taked firm control of the Council, we've been given the go-ahead to work with you."
"That doesn't explain why you are approaching us now." Mr Giles commented causing M to frown.
"Intelligence services are very paranoid organizations." M attempted to explain. "And my predecessors were more so than most. They believed in keeping a close watch on our special agents, like Commander Bond, or branch heads. This included anyone they became personally involved with." M was sympathetic but pretended to not see how Bond nervously shifted in his chair. He knew, better than most, that having a private personal life was impossible for any of the 00 agents in MI6. "I would like Commander Bond to be our liaison with the Council."
M watched curiously as two completely different people assessed Bond from across the room. She'd spent enough time with her grandfather to understand how most watchers thought but Mr. Giles hadn't been a typical watcher by anyone's estimation. And Buffy Summers was the only slayer M had ever been in the presence of. The only record they'd been able to find of her in action had been during the American military's Initiative disaster and even her best profilers hadn't been able to discern much from that. The way she carried herself seemed to echo Bond but was much more intense. "Commander Bond has been with MI6 for a long time and has a better understanding than most of what MI6 is capable of. Miss Summers, I believe it would be in everyone's best interest if you were the person he worked with."
"Why me?" She asked M. "Assuming we even agree to whatever plan you have in mind, if this is just a baby-sitting job while he learns how we fight evil, why can't he spend time with one of our other slayers?"
"Bond has a deplorable tendency to become involved with women he works with." Tanner spoke up in response to a gesture from M. "Just keeping track of all of the women he has, ah... come into contact would be a full time job. Fortunately, very few of them merit more than a footnote in his file. But some end up on our watch list."
"I'm not sure I see the connection." Giles asked.
"Giles?" M noticed that Buffy was giving her watcher an amused look. "If I understand it correctly, someone thinks Commander Bond would be unable to help himself and would become personally involved with whomever we assign to babysit him? Though I'm not sure if I should be offended or not that someone thinks I'm immune to his supposed charms and that his virtue would be safe in my hands."
M managed to surpress her laughter at the expressions on the faces of the males present in her office at Ms.Summer's comment. "Why you? I'm sure Commander Bond can tell this story better but I believe he's been embarrassed enough for one day." she noted. "Commander Bond travels extensively for MI6. I'm sure there was a good reason for him to be in Paris in May of 1980. Apparently while there, he made the acquaintance of a young art history student. Do you even remember her Bond?" M asked curiously before answering her own question. "I'm sure you don't."
She shook her head. During all of Bond's years at MI6 some things stayed constant. "When MI6 did a background check on this art student they didn't find anything unusual and she was deemed to not be a security risk. And that would probably have been it. Until six months later when an analyst doing a routine update of this young woman's file revealed an interesting fact. It was originally dismissed as a coincidence but she, and later her daughter, were added to MI6's permanent watch list as a precaution."
"And the connection this has to the Council?" Giles asked.
"During a yearly review shortly after I took over the department, one of our older analysts who'd participated in our earlier surveillance of the Council noticed a known member of the Council appeared more than once with the daughter in our quarterly reports from Los Angeles. We were later able to confirm the daughter's connection with Commander Bond when she briefly stayed in a mental institution after an unusual incident at her school. Unfortunately, her connection with the Council was also confirmed and the Council had powerful sponsors at higher levels and it was made clear to us that actively watching her was not recommended."
"Oh." M watched Buffy's face turn pale as she first looked at Bond and then back at her. M could see that Mr. Giles hadn't drawn the same conclusion yet and wondered if it were possible that he didn't know Miss Summers' past as well as she had expected.
"Indeed." M acknowledged. "If you are wondering if Bond was ever going to be told? No."
"Why?" Buffy asked hoarsely. "What reason could there be to keep something like that from him?"
M looked at Bond, giving him a chance to finally say something. She wasn't disappointed though she thought his answer left much to be desired.
"Some see family as a dangerous distraction. It gets in the way of the job." He looked at Buffy with an unreadable expression. "A family makes you vulnerable. Too many agents have buried family members they weren't able to protect."
"And if you had known?" She asked him intensely. Watching her blank facial expression, M wondered what was really going through her mind.
"He would have quit MI6." M took pity on Bond and answered for him. "And that couldn't be allowed to happen." The room was silent for several minutes while the others absorbed her answer.
"I need to go." Buffy announced, getting shakily to her feet. "I have a plane to catch." She turned back to Giles and addressed him before heading towards the door. "Why don't you finish here and tell me what you've decided later. You know where I'll be."
"Bond, why don't you take Ms. Summers to the airport?" M commanded. "Mr. Giles and I can continue our discussion without your presence." She shook her head when he seemed about to protest. "I believe you had plans for the afternoon already. We'll let you know what we decide."
Bond nodded and followed Buffy out of M's office, shaking his head at Moneypenny to stop her from saying anything to the obviously upset young woman glaring at the door that refused to open as she handed him a slim leather briefcase. "Moneypenny, if you could be so kind as to open the door for us?"
TBC