Chapter 2

There was a little boy sitting at the foot of the bed when Sam woke up.

He blinked blearily at the curly-haired toddler, who somehow reminded him of the fae folk his old nan had told him about when he'd been a wee boy. The dark unruly hair, small pointed chin, and the vibrant green eyes in the pale face all screamed otherworldliness. But then again, elf children likely did not wear denim overalls over cotton t-shirts with Batman emblazoned on the front paired with minuscule striped socks and tiny hooded jackets.

Sam blinked again and the world faded back into normalcy. Or rather, did it?

"Hello," the boy said, looking up from the enormous leather-bound book that he was reading, or rather, pretending to read. After all, two-year-olds (and the child looked small for his age, if he was indeed Drake's son) couldn't read, could they? And certainly not a book that looked like a volume from an encyclopedia set that was too unwieldy for him to hold properly.

"I'm Danny. Daddy and Uncle Stuart are preparing the house's fortifications."

Sam blinked again, sure that this tiny child could not have said the words 'preparing' and 'fortifications' so succinctly without stumbling over the syllables, though he did seem to have a bit of trouble with some sounds. His 'r' sound came out a little like a 'w,' and he lisped, with the result that his speech sounded quite adorable.

Sam glanced at the IV bag hanging from the bedpost suspiciously. It certainly looked like saline, but one never knew for sure, did one?

The little boy looked concerned. "Erm, excuse me?" he said, tilting his head. "Are you alright?"

He crawled closer to Sam, carefully avoiding Sam's injured leg. "I'm supposed to go and get Uncle Stuart when you wake up, but you don't look properly awake yet." He paused. "Are you?"

Sam stared at the boy. "I'm not sure," he said. "Are you a two-year-old reading the encyclopedia, or is this a hallucination?"

The small face brightened into a wide grin. "Oh," the little boy giggled, "I'm not reading the encyclopedia!" he exclaimed, but before Sam could relax, he finished, "I've already read it. I'm reading Notre-Dame de Paris in French."

"You are," Sam said, fully believing now that this was indeed a hallucination brought on by blood loss, or perhaps painkillers.

"Yes," the little boy chattered on, "I've already read it in English, so Daddy thought it would improve my French if I read it in the original language, since I already know the story. Isn't French lovely? I think it's beautiful. I was born in France, did you know? Of course, I'm a British citizen due to having British parents. Laws are funny, aren't they?"

All Sam could do was stare helplessly at the boy and hope this hallucination ended soon. The child was charming, but this was completely unnerving.

The bedroom door opened then, and Stuart Thomas walked in.

"Ah, Sam!" he said, sounding relieved. "Finally awake, are you?"

"Am I?" Sam asked, but his hopes were crushed when Stuart turned to the elfin child on the bed and spoke to him.

"Danny," he scolded, but in a gentler tone than Sam had ever heard from the big man, "you were supposed to come and get me, not start chattering at him."

He scooped the giggling little boy up in his strong arms and smacked a big kiss on his cheek.

Stuart took in the slightly shell-shocked expression on Sam's face. "Well now you've met the boy genius."

"Erm."

Stuart chuckled sympathetically. "Yes, I know. He counted out the Fibonacci sequence the first time I met him. That was a little over a year ago, for reference. I'm pretty sure I dribbled soup all over myself because I couldn't believe what I was hearing."

"So," Sam said, trying to reconcile what he knew of the burly agent with what he was seeing here. "You're Uncle Stuart?" The man looked nothing like a jolly uncle, but Sam supposed it took all sorts. It wasn't like he had much experience with uncles, or relatives of any sort, anyway.

"That I am," Stuart agreed, the wry twist of his lip suggesting that he knew what Sam was thinking. "I'm sure you'll be Uncle Sam before the day's out."

Good god.

Sam recovered admirably. "I have nothing against the Americans but I will not stand for being called Uncle Sam."

The small boy broke in enthusiastically. "Uncle Ivar's American. He has metal legs. They're fantastic!"

Stuart smiled at Danny, his fondness palpable, and ruffled his hair affectionately. "Yes, I know. You and Q took them apart at your last birthday party. Had a lot of fun with them, didn't you?"

Sam blinked slowly. "Metal legs?"

"Ivar Bryce, ex-CIA," Stuart explained. "Had a run-in with sharks a while back. He has prosthetics."

Sam winced. "Killer way to end a career."

"Nah," Stuart chuckled, as though a double leg amputation was nothing to write home about. "He's still working. He's a private investigator now."

"Like Phillip Marlowe," Danny enthused. "Don't you simply love Humphrey Bogart?"

All Sam could do was stare at the child. What kind of two-year-old liked Bogart and read Victor Hugo in French?

The small boy's face fell. "You think I'm weird, don't you? You've got that look."

Stuart shot Sam a fierce glare, then turned the pale little face to look at him before Sam could stammer out a response. "Why would you think that? Did someone call you weird?"

Danny, whose exuberant mood had deflated suddenly, shrugged.

"Who?" Stuart coaxed, sounding angry. "Tell me."

Danny sighed dejectedly and replied, avoiding Stuart's eyes. "The big kids in the village, at Easter. They said that I'm weird. They called me a freak." He looked up quickly. "Please don't tell Daddy. He'll be upset."

Stuart set the boy gently down on the bed with a grim expression. Danny's short legs dangled off of the side, his colorful striped toes turned inward, and his head bowed miserably.

Stuart knelt on the floor in front of him, so that he was level with the small, forlorn face, and held the delicate little hands in his big ones. "Hey. Look at me. Don't ever let anyone make you feel bad about yourself, Daniel Drake. You are a kind, sweet, wonderful boy and anyone who can't see that doesn't deserve to know you. Understand?"

The little boy gave him a shy, pleased smile from under his floppy bangs and leaned forward to hug him, scrambling up on his knees to get a better grip on the large shoulders. "You're awfully nice, Uncle Stuart," he sighed into the big man's jacket, burrowing his face into the thick material. "I'm so glad you've come."

Stuart snorted as he carded rough fingers through the mop of messy dark hair. "Awfully nice? Have you met me? I'm awfully terrible, that's what I am."

Danny giggled and pressed his nose against his uncle's cheek. "Love you," he said into the rough stubble, as though he didn't realize the significance of those two innocent little words to someone like him.

Sam watched as Stuart stiffened, then saw the years melt off of his partner as he buried his face in the unruly curls. "I love you, too, kid." The words were whispered and shaky, as though seldom uttered, like a private confession.

In that moment, Sam Carmichael vowed to himself that he would do anything to keep this little boy alive and safe. He was not a sentimental man, but this was a promise he'd keep or die trying.

Sam didn't say a word when Stuart recovered his usual disposition and shot him a look daring him to say something.

Sam turned to the little boy instead, wanting to reassure him, for some inexplicable reason. "So what's your favorite Bogart movie, Danny? I'm rather partial to Casablanca."

Danny smiled shyly at him. "Daddy likes that one, too. I liked The Maltese Falcon."

"Ah yeah," Sam agreed. "That's a good one. The twist at the end." He cleared his throat. "By the way, Danny, I don't think you're weird at all. Your Uncle Stuart is right. You're a great kid. You tell me who said that about you and I'll beat them up for you." He accompanied it with a sincere expression, so the boy would know that he was dead serious about it.

Danny looked appalled instead of comforted, which, upon reflection, only showed how intelligent he was for realizing the genuineness of Sam's offer. "That won't be necessary, sir. Violence isn't the solution to every problem."

Stuart and Sam exchanged incredulous glances.

"Who the devil told you that?" Stuart exclaimed.

"Daddy. Yes, I know how funny that is," Danny said, correctly interpreting his audience's expressions. "Aunt Loelia says he's trying to be a good role model for me, but I do get confused sometimes. We talk about it. Basically, he just says that you should only fight to defend yourself or someone else who can't, and words are only words and they can't hurt you."

Sam focused on the one thing he could make sense of out of that whole bewildering speech. "Loelia? Is that Miss Ponsonby?"

Miss Ponsonby had been the secretary to M since the 1960s. No-nonsense and very competent, she was one of the few people at MI6 who had the balls (so to speak) to scold a double-oh into submission. She was dearly loved by all of them, and had become, over the years, a sort of symbol of home - she flirted with them, mothered them, and scolded them, as needed. Thinking about it, Sam did not doubt that, unmarried and without family as she was (having been married to the job, as so many of them were), she would embrace the chance to dote on the child of one of her charges.

"Oh yes." Danny's expressive face brightened into pure delight. "She says she's the only sane one out of the whole lot. Daddy says he's not so sure about that. No one can be sane after working at MI6 for as long as she has."

Stuart snorted. "I suppose he uses Q as an example?"

The Quartermaster, Major Geoffrey Boothroyd, had been an institution at MI6 since the second world war, and, now in his eighties, was growing increasingly batty.

Danny giggled, and his laughter lit up the room. "Aunt Loelia says Uncle Geoffrey was already barmy before he started at MI6."

There was a knock at the door, and Damien entered, bearing a tray. "I heard you all talking and surmised that our patient is awake. Hello, Carmichael. Damien Drake, in case you don't remember."

Sam shook his hand. "Sam, please. Thank you for letting us stay, Drake."

Now that his mind was clearer, he examined his host carefully. Lean, six foot two. Handsome, with dark, wavy hair just beginning to silver at the temples and green eyes (like his son, Sam realized). He had an expressive mouth that curled in a charming smile, though the assessing expression in his eyes showed the razor-sharp instinct of a trained killer.

"Call me Damien," the ex-agent said with an easy smile. "And you've met my son Danny."

"He's an absolute delight," Sam exclaimed, then suddenly became aware that his face had melted into a soft expression without his knowledge at the mention of the small boy.

Stuart snorted at the way he stiffened when he realized it. "Yeah," he said, grabbing the muffin off of the tray. "Happens to us all. Bewitching little tyke, aren't you?" he smirked at Danny and offered him a bite of the purloined muffin.

Damien sighed and shook his head fondly. "Please help yourself," he told Sam, gesturing at the bowl of soup. "I'll get you another muffin. Luckily, I made more than enough, despite the bottomless pit." He slapped the back of Stuart's head before he left, earning himself a soft punch to the kidney in retaliation.

Stuart chuckled and fed Danny another chunk of muffin. "Your old man's gone domestic, kiddo," he said, settling himself down on the bed beside Danny. "That's all your doing."

"Uncle Ivar says he likes Daddy better like this," Danny said through his mouthful of blueberry-loaded muffin.

Stuart considered that, chewing. "Yeah, I think I do, too. Smiles more, and means it." He nudged Danny with his elbow. "That's your doing, too," he told the boy softly. "You make him happy."

Danny beamed at him. "I love him very much," he told Stuart seriously. "More than anything."

Stuart smiled down at the little boy. "Yeah, I know. And he knows it, too. You're the light of his life." He gave him another morsel. "He'd do anything for you."

Damien returned, bearing two more muffins wrapped in napkins. He handed one to Stuart and placed the other on Sam's empty plate on the tray. "Are you talking about me? I feel my ears burning."

"We are," Stuart confirmed. "You'd do anything for Danny, wouldn't you?"

Damien grinned and swung his son up high, tossing him in the air as he shrieked in delight and catching him in strong arms. "I would. Anything and everything," he said, and settled the breathless and goofily-smiling boy on his hip. "What do you want, luv? The moon? The stars? I'll catch every single one of them for you."

Danny giggled. "You're silly, Daddy," he said, kissing the tip of his father's nose with sticky lips. "That's not physically possible. Stars are giant gaseous masses."

"You are utterly unromantic and much too literal, my son," Damien remarked dryly. "I think we'll add more poetry to your reading list. What do you think? Any recommendations, you two?"

"Feed him some Shakespeare," Stuart said, taking a big bite out of his new muffin. "That'll do him."

"Do you really think I've neglected to give him Shakespeare, you cretin?" Damien joked.

"Keats, then," Sam suggested, finishing off his bowl of soup. "Can't get any more romantic than him. Lord Byron and Shelley, too, for the triumvirate of the Romantics."

"Thank you, Sam," Damien said pointedly, "At least you have taste and education beyond the basic. We'll order some books on the Romantic poets, sweetheart," he told Danny, who clapped his hands excitedly, thrilled at the idea of more books to devour. "Ah, and speaking of Percy Shelley, we'll get Frankenstein, too. It's by Mary Shelley. You'll like that one, I promise. It has a mad scientist in it."

Stuart licked his fingers, having polished off his muffin. "You're spoiling him, Day," he remarked lazily, using the napkin to finish cleaning himself off.

Damien snorted. "May I remind you that for his last birthday - that is, his second birthday - you got him a brand new, top-of-the-line computer and specifically told him that he can dismantle and rebuild it however he likes?"

Stuart shrugged unrepentantly. "It was his birthday. I've got no one else to spend my money on. It was either that or a puppy."

"A puppy?" Danny squealed, gasping.

Damien let out a dramatic groan. "Now you've done it."

"Puppy for Christmas then, kiddo?" Stuart asked, completely ignoring his friend.

Danny gave a wordless shout and threw himself at his doting uncle, smothering him in hugs and sticky kisses.

. . . . .


Note:

The Keats bit is a reference to Ben Whishaw's role in Bright Star, which also happens to be the title of this series.

Ben has been in quite a bit of Shakespeare, too, so there's also reference to that. The title of the first fic in my series, "The Star to Every Wandering Barque" is from one of Shakespeare's sonnets.

Also: In case any of you didn't know, Bond's line in Skyfall, "Brave new world" is from Shakespeare's The Tempest, and Ben was in the film version of the play with Helen Mirren. *conspiracy tin foil hat* It's all connected!

. . . . .