Summary: In March 1990, Damien Drake, 007 for the last decade, resigned from his position at MI6. That same month, Daniel Geoffrey Drake, later called Q, was born. Baby Q fic, with his dad, Uncle Q, and Aunt Loelia. Bright Star 'verse. Reading at least some of the rest of the series is recommended.

Notes on the Bright Star 'verse: This story is about the birth of Q from Skyfall. In my 'verse, he is the son of Damien Drake, the 007 from the 1980s. The Q in this fic is the old Q played by Desmond Llewelyn. Loelia Ponsonby is an actual Ian Fleming character (the double-oh secretary) but I'm using her in a different capacity from the books; basically she's the Miss Moneypenny from the older movies, as played by Lois Maxwell. I did this because I also have Moneypenny played by Naomie Harris in this 'verse.


Lullaby

March 1990

Miss Loelia Ponsonby, capable executive secretary to the director of MI6 for the last thirty years, answered the office phone on her desk in her usual brisk, professional manner.

"M's office. How may I assist you?"

"Good morning, Miss Ponsonby."

Most people require some form of introduction when making a call, but this particular caller was easily recognizable by his deep, almost seductive voice that fairly purred when he said her name.

"Damien Drake," Loelia said warmly, immediately adopting the playful tone she used with all of her double-oh agents. (Yes, 'her' agents, for all of the men and occasional women who passed through the double-oh program, no matter how long or unfortunately short their tenure, were dear to her and she to them.)

"To what do I owe this pleasure? Aren't you meant to be back by now?" she chided gently.

The double-ohs did tend to wander off and drop off of the map after their missions, but they eventually made it back in due course. It had been somewhat longer than Drake's usual, so she was a little (only a little) worried.

"Will you do me a favor, beautiful, darling Ponsonby, loveliest of all women, O queen of my existence?"

Damien Drake was Agent 007, and had been for the last decade, making him the longest-serving double-oh agent currently on the roster. Theirs was a teasing relationship, loaded with playful flirting and occasional mothering on her end.

"Mmm, it depends, my dear," she said, shifting her phone to her shoulder and sliding her reading glasses on so she could take notes on what he needed. Drake's 'favors' ranged from finding out the address of a desired paramour to committing near-treason. She twirled the back of the pen through her waves of shoulder-length graying hair that had once been honey-blonde. "I may have to charge you for my services."

"Please tell M that I'm resigning as of this moment. I'll send my letter in when I have the chance."

She dropped her pen.

"Resigning? Again?" she asked, for Damien Drake did rather have a habit of 'resigning' when he had done or was about to do something not quite sanctioned by MI6. "What have you done this time, you terrible boy?"

He chuckled softly, knowing exactly what she meant, but it sounded a little off to her sharp ear. "I've got a new job. I'm a dad now. How's that for an entry on my resume?"

"You- why, Damien Drake!" she exclaimed, causing Q, who had just walked in to see M, to ask:

"What's 007 done this time?"

"Why do people keep asking that?" Drake sighed on the other end of the line, sounding a little weary.

Loelia covered the mouthpiece of the receiver to answer the old man. "He's a dad now, he says. Isn't that wonderful?"

It was always lovely when her agents managed to actually live their lives in between their missions. Drake had even once found someone he'd wanted to marry - did marry, in fact, and a lovely woman she was, and what a beautiful wedding too (she always cried at weddings and she had wept buckets) - but the marriage had been heartbreakingly short, as the bride had been killed on the way to their honeymoon by someone with a grudge against Drake. That had been years ago, and she was quite certain that he would never give his heart to anyone ever again.

Q snorted. "Oh, forgot to use protection, did he?" he said cynically.

Loelia chided him. "Q."

"It's not part of my job description to provide that sort of thing," Q groused in his usual grumpy manner that did nothing to cover up his affection for his agents, whom he loved and doted upon like his own children, as evidenced by the scoldings he gave them for ruining his equipment and the fact that he took off on 'vacations' whenever they needed unofficial assistance. "His own damned fault, isn't it?"

"Oh, ignore him, Damien," Loelia huffed. "And congratulations! Boy or girl?"

"Boy." There was a pause, then he added hesitantly, softly, more intimately. "Loelia, he's so small."

Damien Drake was an immensely self-assured man - one had to be, in this business - and he was rarely caught revealing any sort of uncertainty. But that was work and this was personal, and when it came to the personal, like with so many of MI6's orphans, children and a family were something to dream of but never have for Damien Drake.

Loelia smiled and reassured him gently. It was almost adorable to hear a man who was always so composed and poised sound so unsure about a baby. "They tend to be small, dear, when they're just born. He'll grow."

There was a heavy, world-weary sigh on the other end of the line. "He might not," he said, and it broke her heart to hear him like that once more, "They said- He might not live. He was too early. There was a bad accident, and his mother's dead. He wasn't breathing when they pulled him out. And there's something wrong with his lungs and his heart. They keep telling me that he might die at any moment and that I ought to be prepared."

"Oh, darling. I'm so sorry," she said, and meant it. Damien Drake was a good man, and he deserved to have better than what life had dealt him, and was continuing to deal him, it seemed.

Hearing and seeing the change in her voice and manner, Q leaned over to try to hear what Drake was saying on the other end. "Eh, what's happened? What did he say?"

Loelia ignored him and batted him away. "Where are you?" she asked Drake, "Do you need anything?"

"France. Lyon. I'm alright. Thank you." He cleared his throat. "I just wanted…"

She knew. "I'll let M know, darling. Call if you need anything."

"I will, Loelia."

He didn't often call her by her Christian name, but when he did, it usually meant something. Often, he did it when he was being genuine, or when he was truly thankful. Loelia had had to learn to pick up on the subtle cues of the spies under her care in her many years at MI6, and she was very good at it.

"I'll be praying for the little one," she promised him. She didn't often flaunt her beliefs at the office, but this called for something more heartfelt.

"Thank you."

"What's wrong with the baby?" Q demanded as soon as she had replaced the receiver in its cradle.

Loelia sighed, her perfectly-penciled eyebrows drawn into a worried frown. "He was too early, and he might not live. The mother's dead. Poor little thing. Poor Damien. That man can't catch a lucky break, can he, when it comes to this sort of thing? First his wife all those years ago, and then this."

Q shook his head sadly, heaving his own sigh. "Any luck he has he spends on staying alive. And I'm sure he started out with a prodigious amount of it, too. The scrapes that man gets into. His mission reports read like popular fiction."

"They probably are largely fictionalized, knowing him," Loelia said drolly.

Q harrumphed. "So. I suppose I ought to request some personal time off, eh? He'll be having a rough time of it."

She gave him a fond smile. "Uncle Q to the rescue. Give him my love."

"You give them all too much love, young woman," Q grunted gruffly.

Loelia Ponsonby, now in her sixties, was no spring chicken, but Q called her that anyway, the silly dear.

"And you don't care a whit for them, I suppose? And he's not your favorite?" she asked teasingly and buzzed M to let him know that Q was here.

Q waved a hand dismissively at her as he let himself into M's office. "Bah."

. . . . .

Q arrived in Lyon to find Damien Drake sitting tensely in the waiting room outside of one of the hospital's operation theaters.

"Q?" Drake asked, looking relieved to see him despite his tired eyes and rumpled appearance.

Q was glad that he had thought to bring a few extra changes of clothes for him in the 'kit for a new father/hospital stay of undefined length' that he had hastily put together before departing London. He had packed necessities such as toiletries and an inflatable neck pillow so Drake could sleep sitting up, and then there were a few little things for the baby like a stuffed animal and a blanket. The tiny onesies that he had bought were made especially for premature babies, and had velcro closures so they wouldn't get in the way of machines.

At the last minute, Q had added a camera and a journal for recording medical information and personal thoughts and milestones, and a book to help keep the man's mind busy. Q knew from long experience that the waiting game was often harder to endure than the actual treatment itself.

There were, for once, no gadgets in the duffel bag he thumped down onto the plastic chair next to Drake.

"Drake," Q replied, sitting. His old knees creaked. "Surgery, eh? What for? How long's it been?"

"Something to do with mending the blood vessel between his heart and lungs," Drake sighed, rubbing his face. "Patent ductus arteriosus, whatever that is. He can't breathe. Started turning blue, so they put a tube down his throat, and then they carted him off to cut into him an hour ago when he turned blue again. It's supposed to prevent further brain damage from lack of oxygen. Brain damage, Q."

He shook his head and ran his hands through his hair, a gesture that he had evidently been making frequently in the last week or so. "I don't know- He hasn't cried yet. They've only let me hold him once, and only for a moment," he said desperately, "They've got him hooked up to all these tubes and machines. They've only allowed me to hold his little hand the last few days."

Q stifled a sigh. It didn't sound good. Not good at all. "He'll pull through," he said, however, trying to raise the new father's spirits, "He's your boy, isn't he? Made of strong stuff. It's the Welsh blood. Nothing tougher."

His efforts worked, at least a little.

Drake smiled. It was creaky and slightly stiff, but it was real. "You know full well that I haven't a drop of Welsh blood in me, Q. I was only born there and spent some of my childhood there, that's all. My parents were quite thoroughly English."

Q waved a hand. "Ah, good enough. We can't all be perfect."

Drake's smile held for a moment longer, then dropped. "What do I do, Q? If he doesn't make it…" He shook his head and sighed, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. "I can't go back to the way I was. I- he- I wasn't planning on being in his life. I thought he'd be far better off without me. His mother, poor woman, was terribly excited about having a baby. Wanted to raise him on her own, too, though I would have supported them, of course. But now she's gone. And he might die, too. It would be the way it was before it all happened, but it wouldn't be the same at all. I wouldn't be the same. I can't be."

Q winced at the way the younger man's voice broke at the end and reached over to pat his knee sympathetically.

"That's fatherhood for you," he said, in another attempt at lifting the mood. "Changes a man. I remember when my son was born. Ghastly little red-faced squalling thing. Ugliest sight I ever saw. Still a bit homely, with these godawful stick-out ears he got from his granddad; it's a wonder he found a woman willing to marry him. He's even got kids of his own, all with his ears. Youngest is up at uni, would you believe it? But you know. I changed. At that moment I changed. It's not something that leaves you, even after."

The last part came out softly. He had lost his wife some years back (was it nearly twenty now?) and his little girl, too. She'd been young, too young.

Drake gave him a sad smile in return. He knew Q's history - he was a good spy, which meant that he'd done quite a bit of digging on the people he worked with and trusted.

"Yeah," He cleared his throat. "When I held him…" He nodded, trailing off. "I understand what you mean. He's small enough that I could hold him in one hand. But I put my finger in his little hand...It wasn't big enough to go halfway around my finger. But that grip. Strong grip," he said with a bit of watery pride, then added in a low voice, rubbing his chest, "And true aim. Got me right here."

Q nodded, understanding exactly, just as he always did. "There. You see, he'll hold on, and tightly too, from the sound of it."

"Thank you, Q. So what have you got for me?" Drake asked, nodding at the duffel bag, which had hitherto been ignored.

. . . . .

They stood by the clear plastic incubator that held the sleeping baby and looked down at him.

Q's two children and all of the grandchildren had thankfully been born perfectly healthy, so he had never seen such a sight as this tiny, wizened little creature with blue veins gently pulsing under delicate, translucent skin. The baby was nearly hidden under all of the tubes, tape, and gauze. Even the diaper he wore looked enormous in comparison. His small face peeked out from under the miniscule knit hat and his feet were encased in matching booties. He lay on his stomach, with his head turned to the side; the incision they had made was on the back of his delicate left ribs.

"May I hold him?" Drake asked the doctor hopefully in French after she had talked to him about the procedure they had just finished.

"No, not yet," she answered regretfully. "You can hold his hand and stroke his head, but do not touch the tubes or the bandage, or take him out of the box."

"Of course," Drake sighed.

"You can talk to him," she said reassuringly, "Some parents sing. The sounds stimulate the mind and help him to develop."

"Yes. Thank you, Doctor."

She patted his arm and left them to stare at the baby.

"So this is your boy, eh?" Q leaned in closer to get a better look at him. "Might look a bit like you. Maybe you in a few decades, eh?" he joked. "Looks like a little old man."

"As though you have room to talk, old man," Drake said, the corner of his lip twitching into a quick smirk.

He slid his hand into the hole on the side of the clear plastic and carefully nudged his finger into the doll-like hand, stroking it gently with his big thumb.

"Hello there. It's me again."

Q wished at that moment that he had the camera with him instead of in the duffel bag that hung from Drake's shoulder because the soft expression on the man's face was one that ought to be memorialized on film.

"I'm supposed to talk to you, you know?" Drake continued conversationally. "I daresay you'll be tired of my voice when this is over. Maybe you'll even pipe in when you can breathe better, hey? Let me know that I'm talking your ear off."

"Careful what you wish for," chuckled Q.

Drake moved his hand to skim his finger gently over a bit of cheek that peeked out from under the tubes. "If he can cry, then it means he can breathe. That's all I want. For him to be healthy. Healthy and happy and alive."

"Have you named him yet?"

"Daniel," Drake said in a tone of momentous reverence. "His mother's choice."

Q nodded. "Ah yes, best to respect her wishes." He tried it out. "Daniel Drake. The alliteration's a bit unfortunate, though, eh?"

Damien Drake sent him an amused look. "My name is alliterative."

"Exactly."

The grin on the ex-agent's lips lit up his face. "So much for David and Desmond as choices for middle names, then," he joked. "I suppose I'd better settle for something different. Geoffrey sounds like a good, solid name," he said with practiced nonchalance. "It was on his mother's list, anyway. After Chaucer, of course. She was a medieval scholar. Other names on the list included Bernard and Chrétien, which I'm glad she was able to resist."

Q, born Geoffrey Boothroyd, sputtered and turned quite red.

"What, no clever quip or false condescension?" Drake asked, his green eyes sparkling with humor. "By George, this is a red letter day."

"Do shut up, 007," Q managed to say.

"Didn't you hear, Q? I resigned. I'm an ordinary citizen now."

Q harrumphed. "So you are. My mistake. Please shut up, Damien Drake."

Drake chuckled. "Daniel Geoffrey Drake," he said softly. "It's perfect. He's perfect."

"He'll hate it, and hate you for giving it to him," Q predicted.

"Oh, poppycock. It's a lovely name."

"Mark my words."

. . . . .

They were sitting now, having found chairs and dragged them closer to the incubator. Drake had unpacked some of the things that Q had brought; Paddington Bear now sat on a side table, watching over them with a benevolent expression.

"So I'm supposed to sing to you, am I?" Drake asked the baby, his hand cupped around the little knit hat that was too big for his small head. "I'm afraid I'm not much of a singer."

Q snorted. "What's he going to do? Judge you?"

Drake laughed quietly. "Alright then. Here goes. You asked for it." With that, he began humming a half-remembered lullaby from his childhood.

The baby scrunched his face up around the tubes attached to his nose and mouth.

"Is it just me, or does he look rather judgmental?" Drake asked dryly, pausing his humming.

Q leaned in to take a closer look. "He does. Eh, keep going. I knew you were a proper Welsh boy at heart. 'Suo Gân,' eh?" he asked, having recognized the Welsh lullaby.

There was a touch of nostalgia in Drake's smile. "I think my nanny used to sing it to me."

"She teach you the language, your nanny?" Q asked. Drake didn't talk much about his childhood - didn't share much about his private life - but this seemed like a safe topic.

Drake nodded. "Yes, a little, and the other household staff did, too. Thinking back, I'm sure they used teaching me things as a way of keeping me out of trouble. I'm a little rusty, but I can probably still ask for extra biscuits."

Q shook his head. "Why've I got the feeling that nothing was enough to keep you out of trouble?"

Drake grinned rakishly. "Because you know me so well."

"Well, now you've got your own hellion to deal with."

"Do you think he'll be as much trouble as I was?"

They both looked at the tiny creature that was at the center of their whole world at that moment.

"More, I hope."

"Q," said Drake reprovingly, "I thought you liked me."

"Bah."

Drake chuckled and began humming again, stroking the tiny head under his hand.

Tithau'n gwenu'n ôl dan huno,

Huno'n dawel ar fy mron?

. . . . .

Two months later, Daniel Geoffrey Drake, newly freed from his breathing tube, drew in a shaky breath and cried.

His father cried, too; tears of joy.

. . . . .


Note:

Daniel Geoffrey Drake does indeed hate his name. That's why he's so eager to keep trying out new names (ex: Frederick Lyon, Robert Frobisher, etc.). Well, that, plus he's a dramatic little shit who loves being a spy. If you're wondering about the discrepancy between this story and what Danny says in "The Recruit" about his dad naming him, Damien probably forgot to mention that Danny's mother named him. Either that, or Danny didn't feel like sharing that much. I haven't decided on which it was.

Anyway, here is the list of names his mother chose, all having to do with medieval Europe:

For a boy: Pierre (or Peter) (after Peter Abelard), Richard (kings of England, also a Ben Whishaw allusion), Arthur (legend), Roland (legend), Tristan (legend), Bernard (of Clairvaux), Chrétien (or Christian) (de Troyes, who wrote the Lancelot legend), Geoffrey (Chaucer), and Daniel (...wouldn't you like to know why she ultimately chose this one? *wink*)

For a girl: Heloise (of Heloise and Abelard fame), Eleanor (of Aquitaine), Matilda (common medieval royal name), Hildegard (of Bingen), Christine (de Pizan), and Guinevere (legend).

The Welsh song is called 'Suo Gân,' ('Lullaby') and the lyrics quoted mean "You smile back in your sleep, / Sleeping quietly on my breast?" It's the same song as in my fic "In Thunder, Lightning, or in Rain."

The Welsh stuff is because Desmond Llewelyn (Q) was Welsh and Timothy Dalton (one of the 007s from the 1980s and who I based Damien Drake on) was born in Wales.

Paddington Bear: Ben Whishaw (new Q) allusion. Because.

I've got a whole backstory for how Danny's mother and Damien met and got involved. I'm writing it now, since it was requested by sora_grey. In case you're rolling your eyes at my segue into romance after so many gen stories, I'm actually not huge on romance or sex scenes, so there would be nothing you wouldn't want a twelve-year-old to read, because that's how I roll.