It happened at a critical point in their mission. Alec was hiding behind a turned over oak desk and Bond was on the other side of the room, trying to keep the guards out of the way for Alec to get the crucial papers from the safe behind him. Alec was calculating his next moves, how to open the safe, get the papers, hide behind the desk and help Bond shoot their way out of here. Instead of acting, Alec kept turning the moves over and over and over in his mind. The shouts and sounds of bullets being fired and hitting the wall around him merged into a humming melody, drawing him further into his mind. The black wolf was lying at his feet, watching him attentively. Everything around Alec seemed to slow down. From the corner of his eyes he saw the grey wolf moving towards him, slowly, cautiously. It was watching the other wolf, waiting for something.
Alec kept perfectly still, now registering his surroundings with eerie detailing. The smell when a bullet hit the wall, compared to the smell of broken oak where another bullet found its mark. The difference in sound when a shot came from the Walther PPK instead from one of the other weapons. His breathing slowed, his focus was narrowing down. Now, he was solely concentrating on the grey wolf, which seemed to become more and more agitated as if wanting the black wolf to do something. But the black wolf just kept lying still, its head on its front paws, its ears at attention.
The next shot was a hit. Alec's right shoulder was thrown back, the right side of his chest numb from the impact. He looked up and saw Bond indicating the wall behind him, shouting something, then ducking back behind an overturned cabinet. Alec shook his head and began to move, sluggish at first, still fighting to return from the zone. Despite his wound, he managed to open the safe and get the papers. Bond and him were halfway down the corridor, running towards the nearest exit, when Alec finally started to feel the burn of the wound. He was losing blood, fast. Bond grabbed him by his arm and dragged him violently after him, pushing him through the doors in an attempt to get both of them out of danger.
Boothroyd was livid. The normally quiet and calm quartermaster was anything but. Bond had already torn out his earpiece, but Alec was still too befuddled to realise that the long string of rather interesting curses and swearwords were directed at him and his less than stellar performance right now.
When they had made it to the escape car, Bond literally threw Alec into the passenger seat and was speeding out of the compound before finally turning to him with a nervous frown on his face.
"What happened back there, Alec?"
Alec had finally kicked himself into action and was tearing his shirt into strips to be used as a compress on the bullet wound. He kept silent while Bond threw the car around a bend with screeching tires, accelerating hard immediately afterwards. It was not the pain or the beginning dizziness from the blood loss which kept Alec quiet. Bond knew what had happened. Both of them had experienced zoning out before. Psych had kept at them for years. Being a sentinel had its advantages in the field. Due to their heightened senses they were far better equipped to succeed with their missions, as their records did show. But this sensibility had its drawbacks. Zoning out was one of the main problems. Being a couple, like Bond and him, could help with the worst side effects of being an unguided sentinel, but zoning out was definitely not on that list.
Both Bond and Alec knew what this latest incident meant. M would split them, demanding for them to find a guide each if they wanted to continue their work at MI6. They had both known it would come to this in the end. Normally, a sentinel agent would be paired with a guide early in their twenties. They were both nearing their mid-thirties as it was. It was a miracle they had made it this far.
"You know what happened," was all Alec bid out.
He was not prepared to have that conversation now. He couldn't, wouldn't imagine how he was supposed to continue without Bond. In his mind, they were a unit, they belonged together. Tearing them apart, forcing them to break their soulbond to commit to an unknown guide—he had avoided that thought for the past decades.
Bond kept quiet, focussed on the driving and getting instructions from Boothroyd after he had put the earpiece back in its place. Alec concentrated on staying conscious and awake. They had reached the small airplane, ready to take them back to England and Alec had been able to walk up the few steps and into the plane, before he collapsed and everything went dark around him.