Note: I originally had this story have 7 chapters and an epilogue (as a separate chapter) but I decided that since it's so close to the anniversary of my first story here (August 9th thirteen years ago! I've posted 182 stories - not all complete - since then), I should combine the 7th chapter and the epilogue into one big-ish chapter to celebrate. They were both kind of short anyway.
I feel like I've matured a lot as a writer over these last thirteen years. Fanfiction really has helped me grow up as a person, too. Anyway, enough reminiscing and on to the story!
Chapter 7
Danny was snatched out of his father's arms almost as soon as they entered Q-Branch.
"Here you are at last, Danny-my-lad," Q cooed to the child on his hip, his excitement palpable. "Now I finally have an excuse to bring you here and show you off. We can scrap that plan to sneak you in."
"Uncle Geoffrey!" Danny exclaimed and bestowed an enthusiastic, albeit slightly chocolatey kiss on his elderly godfather's withered cheek.
"Now, my clever boy, let's show you around the place, eh?" Q said proudly, then pointed at the two agents and one ex-agent who had started to follow them. "No, no. You three stay right there. I don't want you touching anything. There's sensitive equipment here, I'll have you know."
Arms crossed, the three of them exchanged amused looks.
"Really, Q," Victoria drawled. "The two-year-old with sticky hands gets a free pass, but three extremely qualified adults aren't allowed past the door?"
"This two-year-old," Q said seriously, "is far less destructive than the three of you. Yes, you, Damien Drake. I haven't forgotten that beautiful Aston Martin V8 you- Oh, I can't bear to think of what you did to that poor thing. You 007s are all the same. Banes of my existence, each one of you."
"What's that, Q, did you call?" Sam Carmichael said, limping determinedly through the door with a smirk.
"Oh, god," Q groaned. "Two 007s in my lab. One is bad enough. Well, I won't have it. One of you absolutely must leave."
"Q," Damien said, sounding amused. "You're not taking off with my son without me. Besides, there's still only one 007 here; I'm retired."
"Retired? Retired, ha!" said Q, "As though you didn't destroy your own house not three hours ago."
"To be fair, Sam and I helped," Stuart pointed out, "And the grenades were all definitely the enemies' faults."
"Uncle Geoffrey," Danny tapped on Q's shoulder.
"Yes, my boy?" Q asked gently.
"I sort of helped, too," Danny admitted bashfully, "Almost. I made the bomb, but it didn't go all the way off. It could have, though, because I forgot all about it, even though Daddy always says that I mustn't forget about explosives, especially after setting them."
The latter part of his speech had the sound of an oft-repeated rule, as though Danny had often been told not to leave explosives lying around the house where people could trip over them, and especially that he should not forget about them once they were set to go off.
Stuart chimed in. "I agree. Very important, that. Once knew a chap who forgot. And well...Let's just say he's not around anymore."
Victoria snorted. "Oh, the irony of the two of you lecturing him about safety." She liked explosives as much as any other agent, but at least she was sensible about them.
"I'll have you know, Victoria," Damien said curtly, arching his brow at her, "I am a very responsible parent."
"So responsible that you let your two-year-old play with explosives."
Damien shrugged. "He'd make them anyway, regardless of whether I banned them or not. He's smart enough to be able to make them out of anything, literally anything, as you witnessed today. The rules are based on his abilities. Besides, all the parenting books say that the worst thing you can do is stifle a child's creativity."
"Well, young man," Q said to Danny in a light version of the scolding tone he took with his agents, while Sam and Victoria were digesting the idea of Damien Drake reading parenting books, "I see we're going to have another talk about lab safety, eh?"
"Okay," Danny said obediently. "Can we please see the mass spectrometer now, Uncle Geoffrey?"
"Of course, of course," Q said genially, and led the way, begrudgingly allowing the assassins to follow them like very dangerous ducklings.
. . . . .
Predictably, the young genius was a big hit with Q's techs. They were soon lining up in droves to explain their gadgets to the small, curious child who asked intelligent questions that more often than not solved a certain problem that had been vexing their inventors.
Q beamed proudly in the middle of the pack, holding his godson as though he was a young lord or princeling before his adoring masses.
"Christ," Stuart muttered with a fond grin, "He's actually making sense, then. It's not made-up?"
"Did you think it was?" Damien asked, fixing him with an amused look.
"Might have been hoping a little," Stuart admitted. "Your kid is adorable, but he's scary smart, emphasis on the 'scary.' Remember what I said about evil genius masterminds?"
Damien chuckled. "Thought you were hanging around us so you could prevent the apocalypse, should he ever decide to try his hand at villainy."
"Is it just me," Victoria said, sounding a little strained, "Or does this scene remind you of the adoration of the infant Jesus?"
They stood and watched for a while.
Stuart cursed, followed rather quickly by Sam.
"Should I go and get him before they declare him their messiah of science?" Damien said with a slightly pinched expression.
"Maybe," Stuart said, "Don't want it to go to his head, do we? Probably on the list of things we shouldn't let happen if we want to avoid a possible evil mastermind future."
"What is it with you and evil masterminds, Thomas?" Victoria asked, "What makes you think that sweet boy is going to go evil? A bit egotistical, maybe, if he continues to be worshiped by every scientist he meets, but why evil? Don't you trust Damien to raise him right?"
"Why, Victoria-" Damien started with a smug smile, but was cut off by a red-lacquered finger between his eyes.
"Don't start, Damien," she said. "That's not a compliment. You will raise him right if you don't want us coming after you."
"Daddy, Daddy, look!" Danny squealed, wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses much too large for him. "They're camera glasses!"
Damien chuckled. "Very stylish, Danny," he said, smiling. "How do I look?"
Q used a remote to switch on a television set near them. A lopsided view of the room soon appeared on the screen.
"Oh!" Danny exclaimed, looking at the television screen, which showed a smaller television screen, which showed an even smaller television screen…
Damien walked up to Q and took his son in his own arms. "Nice effect," he commented, "sort of like a room of mirrors."
Danny started explaining to his father how cameras worked, but yawned mid-speech.
"Tired, sweetheart?" Damien asked softly, smiling down at him.
Sleepy green eyes blinked up at him through the crooked glasses. A close-up of Damien's face with its fond expression showed on the television screen.
Q surreptitiously pressed a button on the television remote, though it did nothing obvious.
"N-no," the toddler said through another yawn.
Damien chuckled and gently slid the glasses off of the droopy-eyed face and placed them carefully on the table. "Let's go find a hotel for the night."
"You're staying with me," Q interjected. "I have a perfectly good guest room."
"I wouldn't want to inconvenience you-" Damien started.
"Inconvenience! I wish you'd been so considerate years ago," Q huffed.
"Alright everyone," he said to his staff, "Back to work, all of you. I'm going home early."
. . . . .
Later that evening, Geoffrey Boothroyd watched his surrogate son tuck his sleepy little boy into bed, smoothing the unruly curls back and kissing his smooth forehead softly.
Damien Drake had come a long way, from a soldier to a rookie field agent to a seasoned double-oh to now, a father.
"Thank you for letting us stay," Damien said in a low voice once he'd closed the door of the darkened bedroom.
"Nonsense," Q said, waving his hand dismissively at the younger man. "Come along. I've got something for you."
"Oh?" Damien asked, an amused smile playing about his lips. "Does it explode?"
All he got in response was an annoyed look.
Chuckling softly, he followed the old man to his home lab.
Q handed him a folder. "Here. For your scrapbook."
Intrigued, Damien opened the folder, only to be confronted by a photograph of his own face.
"That's how you look when you're around him," Q said with a knowing smile. "I didn't think you knew you could look like that."
Damien studied the photograph. It was true; he had never seen such a soft look on his own face before.
Love. This was what love looked like.
Love, an emotion which he had long thought himself incapable of, yet was so plainly expressed in this simple black and white print.
"Thank you, Q."
Q patted his arm. "You've done well with him. Better than we thought you would two years ago, eh?"
Damien laughed. "I certainly learned fast; I had to."
"Now then," Q said, shuffling a pile of papers. "Let's get to work on planning the renovations on your house. I've got some new ideas."
Damien settled down opposite him with a content smile.
"Thank you, Q."
"You'd better be thankful, Damien. Besides, I can't very well have my godson be homeless, now can I?"
. . . . .
Epilogue
2014
For a long while after M had left, Q sat at his desk, leaning back in his chair with one leg crossed over the other, thinking.
A tap at the door drew his attention from his reminiscences.
"Come in."
A timid man some years older than Q poked his head in. "Bond checked in, sir. He's at the safe house."
Q nodded. "Good. Book him a flight home for tomorrow morning and send him the details."
"Yes, sir."
Q reached for his phone and scrolled down his contacts. With a small smile on his lips, he called his uncle.
"Sam."
"Kid." The retired agent's voice was teasing, for he knew full well that his nephew hated being called that, now that he was an adult.
Q chuckled softly. "Thank you for getting Bond out. Really. I mean it. I hate losing my agents to anything but old age."
Sam hummed in response. "It's no big deal, Danny. It's nice to get my blood pumping every once in a while. Keep my hand in, so to speak. Bond says you're a great quartermaster, by the way. Full of praises, except I'm not supposed to tell you."
Q laughed.
"According to him," Sam added pointedly, "you've never lost a double-oh."
Q - Danny sighed and leaned his elbows on his desk. "Not as Quartermaster, no. But before that, certainly. And other agents, too, of course. I try, but it happens." He cringed at the self-recrimination in his voice.
"Danny." The older man sounded gently reproving. "You can't save them all. One of these days, you will lose one who means more to you than the others. And when that happens, you'll have to handle it and move on."
Q took his glasses off and rubbed his face tiredly. He had been up for longer than he'd care to admit. "I know. But you can't blame me for trying to do whatever I can to bring them home. All of them. Not only the double-ohs."
His uncle only sighed in response. Danny knew what that meant.
"You think getting attached to them is a bad idea."
"Danny, kiddo," Sam said softly, "You'll only get hurt in the long run."
"But I don't care about that. I just want them to come home, whatever it takes." Q paused. "As long as it doesn't risk national security, et cetera, et cetera."
"Disclaimer?" Sam sounded amused.
"And," Q said triumphantly, "Don't tell me that the fact that you knew you had someone at home who cared if you made it back in one piece didn't help you come back, time and again."
Sam's sigh was affectionate. "Alright," he said. "I'll give you that. So it's a form of emotional manipulation, is it? Give your agents a reason to come home. Their reward being, of course, that you will magnanimously scold them for bringing their equipment back in pieces or not at all."
Q grinned. "Precisely. I'll also throw in a bit of scolding for bleeding on my floor, gratis." Really, though, if the equipment made it back, then that meant that so did the agent, which was what he really wanted.
Sam laughed. "Scary how much you sound like your dad sometimes."
Q leaned back in his chair, the smile still on his face. "How are the girls?"
"Oh, they're great," Sam said, and Q could hear the warmth in his voice. "Donna and Sophie drive each other up the wall all day, every day, except when they're united against poor mediator me."
After his retirement from MI6, Sam had married a woman he'd first met about twenty years previously with an adult daughter who might or might not be his (there were two other possible fathers, and they all got along just fine without the need for anything so silly as a paternity test). It made for a slightly crazy, but very wonderful family. Retirement had been kind to Sam Carmichael, and he knew it.
Q chuckled. "You love it."
"I do," Sam agreed. "Say, when are you going to come and visit me, Dan? A week or two on our little Greek island paradise will do you a world of good. Do I have to blackmail someone to give you time off?"
"Please don't."
"You know I will," Sam sang at him.
"You know I'm busy," Q countered, grinning.
"Shall I come kidnap you? Stuart will help. Your dad, too. He's always talking about how you work too hard."
The thing was, Q knew that his uncle wasn't joking at all.
"God no," Q laughed. "This place would fall apart without me."
"Well, alright," Sam said, giving in, "Take care of yourself, now, Danny. And give my love to your dad."
"I will. My love to your girls."
As Q hung up, he felt refreshed. Talking to his family always did that. Whenever he was feeling overwhelmed - and had a few minutes to spare - he'd always pick up the phone to call them, even if it was only to chat.
Someone tapped at his office door again. A fair-haired minion stuck her head in.
"Um, sir? 006 blew up the German embassy in Buenos Aires."
"What, again?"
Q got up.
He had work to do.
. . . . .
Note:
Re Chapter 7: If you caught the 'clever boy' line, kudos to you! In my headcanon (which I may decide to take back if I think of something better), Raul Silva/Tiago Rodriguez was one of Q-Branch's techies for a short while before training as a field operative and being transferred to Hong Kong. He doesn't handle competition well (as evidenced by his reaction to Bond), and he definitely had a grudge against young Q for taking his place as a favorite of old Q. Is it a bit pathetic for a grown man to be jealous of a baby? Yes. But I suppose we need to take into account the fact that Baby Q is a child prodigy and Silva knows that he is real competition.
Re Epilogue: Sam Carmichael (played by Pierce Brosnan) retired and settled down with a family a la Mamma Mia! the movie. Yeah, I know, it's a weird crossover, but shhhh. It's my verse. I'm undecided on whether the singing scenes actually happened or not. I'm leaning towards 'it happened and no one thinks it's weird.'
I have a story idea about Sam telling everyone about his new Mamma Mia family (predictably, everyone thinks he's insane). Should I write it?
