Q was numb. He barely registered how he was manhandled by the other man. Not Sterling, but Bond. James Bond. MI6 had sent Bond to rescue him. Or did they? He had seen the mails, the files. Careless of them to leave them on that phone. Before he could be lost in thought, the car – where did the car come from? Q tried to concentrate, but now they were driving on the tarmac of an airfield. Towards a huge plane. A cargo plane. Why? Why was he in a car with this man? He had shot them. Q sat up. Struggling against the seatbelt. Q had shot them. Both. He gasped. Could feel his body shaking. No, not his. He was not a part of this any longer. The body was shaking. He was somewhere else. Registering, but not feeling. Not feeling anything. Floating, his mind at rest. They were dead. He had shot them. Shot them with the rifle. They had trained him. It was their own training, their rifle, that had killed them in the end. The car stopped moving. The man looked at the body. Worried? Maybe. He could not know that the body was empty. The man stepped out of the car. A few moments later, the car door at the other side of the body opened. Q registered something being said. Not an order. Just words. The body could not move. Just words, not an order. When the man, Bond, James Bond, Q remembered, reached out to pull the body out of the car, Q could register the movement. The body did not flinch. Why should it? It was empty now. Obediently, the body moved in the indicated direction. Q had always found it fascinating how easily orders were obeyed, once the body was empty. Walk towards the plane. Kill that man. Maim that boy. Spread your legs. Easy, when the ordered body was empty. No shouting. No pain. No fighting. The man, who had pulled the body out of the car, now moved slowly beside it. Q wondered why he would walk. He remembered other cargo planes. Other places. They would run. They would order this body to run. And it would. He wondered, if he should tell him. Just order the body, it will do as you wish. It will do anything, you order. Anything. But the man seemed satisfied with the speed. They walked up to the open cargo flap. The man talked with someone. Again, the body could register the sounds, but it could not make sense of them. They were not meant for the body. They were not an order. The man turned towards the body. He still looked worried. Why would he be worried? He reached for the body, turning it towards some of the seats at the side of the plane. The body moved and sat down on the indicated seat. The other man put a belt around the body. Then he walked away. Q wondered, if the man would leave the body now. But he returned. With a blanket and a cushion. He wrapped the body in the blanket, moving carefully and professionally. Q wondered if he had tried this before. The man left again. The body registered movements. The plane was moving. The man returned with a thermos. He poured something warm into a mug. Checked as if to make sure it was not too hot. Then he held the mug to the lips of the body.

"Drink."

It was an order. The body opened the mouth. Took a swig. Swallowed. The plane moved faster now.

"Drink."

The man ordered again. The body obeyed. It registered the warmth. And something else. Forcing Q back. Into the body. His body. His mind was fighting. Feeling the plane now accelerating to the point of lift off. His body felt warm. Sleepy. He wanted to scream. He tried to open the belt, to throw off the blanket, to fight against the darkness that crept in on him. Tried to say something, to talk to the man beside him. Blue. Blue eyes, a gentle blue, warm like him, holding his gaze as his body and mind succumbed to the drugs.

Bond was worried. The mission had been a success. He had been able to take out the whole group. Silva's mercenaries, including his next of command, Patrice, and their headquarters. And he had found the person, who had provided them with the intel in the first place. It had not been part of his mission brief to rescue said person. And he had kept that information from Six. Robinson had made sure that only Bond was registered as a passenger. The other man, Quoll or Q, would not show on any official documents. Nor on the files, Mallory would receive. Moneypenny would meet them at the airfield with a new ID for Q. Freddy Lyon, Robinson had decided. Something about a BBC drama, he had watched some years back. And he always had wanted to create a persona by that name. Bond had agreed. Mostly, because Six didn't use that alias.

He looked at the man beside him. He was sleeping now. The mild sleeping pill had done wonders. Bond put the blanket in place around Q, made sure his head was on the cushion behind him. He had been wondering what Q was to Silva and Patrice. Who were the man behind the betrayal of that group? He had met child soldiers before. Men, who had been taken from their families at a young age, often forced to kill them in the process. He wondered for how long Q had been in Silva's group.

"Master Silva likes young boys."

Bond shuddered. Looking at the sleeping man, he would estimate him to be in his late twenties, early thirties. If he had been taken at the age of six or seven, as Q had told him, that would mean he had been part of Silva's group for about twenty years. Twenty years of brainwashing; kill or be killed. Twenty years of sexual and psychological abuse. How had he survived? How did anyone survive that kind of brutal indoctrination and control?

And why had Q reached out to Six now? Had he tried before? With one of the other agencies? Bond would have Robinson look into abduction cases from years back. Including English families from Overseas. He couldn't believe that abducting an English boy would have gone unnoticed.

Still, Bond wondered, why Q had contacted them in the first place. Something must have happened. Robinson had talked about a mole in Six. Were those things linked to each other? Did Q know something?

Bond watched Q sleeping. His features relaxed. He looked younger, now. Bond shook his head. He would have to wait for Robinson and Moneypenny to find more information. And he would have to keep Q out of Six' domain. One thing was that the man was traumatised. Another was, what he in fact did know. He had been able to hack into Bond's mobile without batting an eye, turning him into Richard Sterling in front of Silva and Patrice – without them suspecting a thing.

A good thing, that Robinson was the rookie in Boothroyd's department. Nobody would be interested in keeping an eye on his flat, his clearance far below access to any kind of vital information. Except for Moneypenny, nobody knew about his relationship with Robinson. If you could call it a relationship, Bond thought. Leaning back in his seat, he closed his eyes. Let his mind play with memories of a dark-skinned body wrapped around him, soft moans, harsh cries, hands grabbing at each other's butts. He opened his eyes, cleared his throat, and shifted into a better position on his seat.

What he was about to ask from Robinson would go way past their occasional shag. Bond heaved a sigh. Whatever was going to happen, he could do nothing but wait till they had landed at Fitton Airport. Far away from London, in the middle of the night. But once he was back on English soil, he would need to stay alert. Need to keep Q out of Six' crosshairs. He would have to unravel whatever was happening at MI6. And what role Q played in it.

The trip back would last several hours more. Bond crossed his arms in front of him and decided to take a nap.