Redamancy Chapter 7: Lovers to Soulmates, a James Bond + Sherlock Crossover fanfic

OpalescentGold: As always, I have no claim on any of these characters.

PREPARE YOURSELF.

Mexico City is loud and bright and cheerful. As El Día de Los Muertos draws near, the people make their preparations with stands brimming with decorations - marigolds, pan de muertos, and calaveras - littering the streets, happy voices raised in laughter.

"The best luck of all is the luck you make for yourself." - Douglas MacArthur

007 steps off the plane with black ink sprawled messily across his left shoulder and a text message on his phone that leads him to a hotel and a reservation booked months in advance.

Gran Hotel Ciudad de Mexico: Avenue 16 de Septiembre No. 82, Cuauhtémoc, Centro, 06000 Ciudad de México, CDMX, Mexico.

Room 52, Junior Suite.

Well. Hundreds of thousands of people travel here to participate in the holiday. The hotels are probably all filled to the brim by now. And official mission or not, he's still a Double-Oh. Q's just being an excellent Quartermaster as always.

He tries not to think about it.

Bond came here to find distractions, and distractions he's found. The locals are happy to welcome him with shouted sales and flirtatious smiles from the women who brush by him deliberately.

The city buzzes, fast-paced and cheerful, and she generously offers to sweep him along in her wake.

But try as he might, he can find no joy in theirs, the light-hearted air merely serving to grate against him until he finally slips his gun - not his MI6 approved Walther, but an unregistered Glock 17 - into his shoulder holster and goes a-hunting.

With four days until the holiday arrives, he walks through the streets with his hands in his pockets, smiling innocently at the store vendors and buying what he needs. He notes escape routes and dark alleys, side roads and the familiar criminal underbelly of the city.

A tug on some strings, a few phone calls to certain contacts, a gruesome grin here and a loaded gun there, and when 007 steps foot in his hotel room again, eleven hours later, he knows exactly which hotel Mr Sciarra will be staying in.

His arrival is a big event amongst the big crime lords here, apparently. Interestingly enough, regardless of how many holes he threatened to shoot into the small fry, no one was willing to tell him why.

Promising. Not for the first time, he wonders what that old witch was up to.

Bond secures the room and takes a shower, washing off the blood impassively. He's accumulated several injuries, but none of them are severe enough for him to consider wasting the effort to find the nearest hospital and steal their supplies.

Instead, he dries himself off and crawls into bed, eyelids heavy and bones aching.

"Infection cares nought for your training or your determination, 007, take care of your wounds before conking out, for God's sake!"

He lasts approximately five minutes with the familiar, stroppy words rattling around in his head like locusts let free of their cage before reluctantly flinging the covers back off again with a sharp growl. Even now, even here, nearly 9,000 kilometres away, he can't escape Q.

Bond cleans the worst scraps and cuts with water and soap and dares to look in the mirror. He is, as he suspected, a fucking wreck. He could, should, return to bed and get some sleep before the second stage of reconnaissance tomorrow or...

Ignoring the security cameras that blink accusingly at him, James gets dressed once more and wanders down to the hotel bar.

It's going to be a long night.

Bond drags himself out of bed at 0600 sharp the next day, uncaring of his migraine or the stinging of his wounds. He takes a trip to one of the local markets and buys some paracetamol, which he promptly dumps down his throat, and goes for a run.

When he returns two hours later, he's mostly familiar with the area around his hotel. A shower and a nice suit later, and he's walking confidently into the hotel lobby Mr Sciarra will frequent quite soon.

A lovely girl named Estrella, pretty, dark-haired, and red-lipped, is taking care of the front desk.

007 saunters towards her with his most charming smile, paying no mind to the cameras quietly watching. He has her in the palm of his hand within minutes, and then he has the room number of his "good friend."

In repayment, he shags her in her office during her break, apathetic about the show he might be putting on.

Q, he reminds himself, won't care.

While she's busy trying to recover, he swipes the administrator key and slips out the back door. He's back before she has time to notice anything's wrong, and the bugs now infecting Mr Sciarra's future hotel room go equally unnoticed.

Estrella is sweet, but her smile makes Bond feel nothing and her joy when asked out to dinner only leaves him numb. Still, he shaves and dabs on cologne because it's nice to feel a little bit wanted, even if only by a total stranger.

Even if. Especially if his own soulmate doesn't want him.

Wistfully, he recalls the days when he reigned on top of the world, when his scars didn't itch at the whisper of ozone in the air and his joints didn't throb at the end of a long day. When the future seemed bright and sweet, if tainted with blood.

When his soulmate was nothing but long rants on his chest about ladybugs and the science of thunderstorms, and once, the entire periodic table written down with painstaking detail and attention, o's a little wobbly and 4s too slanted.

But that's not fair, is it? He hadn't met M then. Hadn't met Vesper or Felix or Camille.

Hadn't met Q.

Dinner goes well. Estrella blushes and flirts back and leaves him with a kiss on his cheek and a date to the festival.

Bond wipes the red lipstick off and wanders the streets for a while, smoking through a cheap pack of cigarettes. The city winds down slow and easy, and in the wind, he hears slow whistling and shouted Spanish conversations.

When the stars above are twinkling dimly and the fall breeze is chasing out the warmth, James heads to the hotel bar.

The CCTV cameras continue to keep watch.

Bond spends the entire morning of his third day indulging in the hotel's indoor pool. Only three or four other people walk in and out while he swims laps and no one disturbs him, not that it matters. He finds nothing but more questions beneath the waters, try as he might.

He didn't think Q is cruel like this.

When he takes a seat on the bottom of the deep end of the pool for nearly two minutes, tired after a frankly embarrassing amount of laps, one of the other swimmers makes his way over and peers at him with obvious concern. Bond smirks mildly at him and waves.

Christ, he's getting old.

By the time 007 pulls himself out at long last, his fingers and toes are pruned, and he's barely a touch more centred than he was when he threw himself in. Scowling, he takes a shower and decides to investigate his room's balcony.

Nice of Q to give him an unconventional exit.

The streets below are bustling with activity, but he suspects there's not yet enough excitement going on that someone won't notice a man walking along the rooftops. Still, he'd like to scout for a good sniper's nest before the actual holiday arrives.

There's thinking on his feet and then there's being fucking stupid. And he stopped being a green agent a long time ago.

Grabbing the sniper rifle he claimed to have thrown into the Indian Ocean around a year ago, Bond assembles it to ascertain that it's working smoothly and refamiliarize himself with its range and scope.

Then, he puts it away and goes out for a stroll. Hands in his pockets, he identifies his balcony from outside and traces the route he'll take with his eyes, eventually ending up with a rooftop directly opposite to Sciarra's hotel window.

It'll have to do.

With nothing else left to do, Bond browses the stores.

The sky above is clouded over but nonetheless far too bright to look at for more than a few seconds. The warmth that lingers in the musty air is shooed away by the haughty wind, and the few leaves that remain on the ground sigh mournfully for their glory days.

A young girl in a loose red dress runs across the street, giggling, to her mother, who's holding court over her stand of various goods. Bond wanders over and picks up a figurine of a blue cat. It reminds him of Rayleigh.

He doesn't buy it.

Instead, he buys a suitably distracting costume for Estrella and a bottle of local-made wine. He drinks straight from the bottle as he goes, because he's feeling miserable and wearing casual clothes anyway and what facade does he have to maintain here, now?

There's a small, ancient-looking restaurant tucked up in the corner of two streets. Bond walks in even though it looks like the roof is going to collapse, because he's curious and bored and he wants to get away from the cameras.

It's hardly logical to think that Q is watching every second - he has much better things to do, Bond's sure - but for once, James resents Q's ability to be everywhere at once. He just wants to be left alone right now, left alone to grieve for everything he thought they'd had.

Somewhere along the line, the constant surveillance has mutated from a comfort to disquiet, and he hates it.

An old Mexican couple greets him enthusiastically, waving him towards one of the empty tables. For all its shabby state, Bond notes, the restaurant is quite active. Most of the place is full of gossipy locals, who chatter loudly.

Bond assumes that he's stumbled upon one of the local jewels, largely unnoticed by travelling tourists but well-loved and well-known among the residents. Indeed, the food they serve him is delicious, as are the margaritas they ply him with, waving away his bottle of wine cheerfully.

The atmosphere is easy and relaxed despite the somewhat claustrophobic setting, and Bond resigns himself to a night of drinking and fending off too-friendly drunk Mexicans. The shouted conversations flying over his head generally revolve around the upcoming holiday.

As expected, everyone's excited. Apparently, a certain Mr Alvaro is even planning to propose to his long-term girlfriend. Bond has no idea who either of them are, but he gets treated to an in-depth discussion of their four-year relationship anyway.

He swallows hard as trickles of he brings her flowers every month and she has the most beautiful smile when he's in the room infiltrate his mind. Not so long ago, James would have been able to sympathise with Mr Alvaro, although they never. There was never a -

A ring? his mother's voice, warm and knowing, whispers in his ear.

But that was all a lie, of course. A deception he brought upon himself because he wanted it so badly.

He tries to tune out most of the gossip after that.

The co-owner of the restaurant, along with her husband, Ms Castillo - Katia, she insists - takes the chance to sit at his table and ask for stories of his travels, perfectly polite but with a commanding tilt to her chin and curiosity in her fluttering fingers.

"What makes you think I travel often?" Bond asks.

She laughs, warm and lively despite the wrinkles around her eyes and the grey in her hair. "You have that look about you," Katia says, dimpling beautifully. "My husband was like that, too."

"And then I met you, and you demanded a stable life and our own house and then a restaurant," Mr Castillo chides fondly, walking out from behind the counter to stand behind his wife and place his hands on her shoulders. "Very demanding, my Katia."

"I knew what I deserved, and I spoke my mind." Katia sniffs, but her smile, adoring and happy, gives her away. "And we've turned out well, no?"

"Of course, love." Mr Castillo looks apologetically at Bond, white hair catching the light but overshadowed by the laugh lines around his mouth. "Say the word, Señor, and I'll take her off your hands so you can eat your dinner in peace."

"You will do no such thing," she commands imperiously. "I haven't gotten to hear about Singapore yet. And James doesn't mind, does he?"

James smiles, the caustic mix of bittersweet amusement twisted with nauseating strands of envy safely hidden away. "I don't mind. It'd be my pleasure to continue to entertain the Señora."

She reminds him of M, he thinks. M those first few years he first knew her, before she lost her husband and soulmate, those small peeks she let slip occasionally of the woman behind the mantle of the leader of MI6 and the most stone-hard bitch he's ever known.

Maybe in a different life, away from the world of espionage. If the lives of agents weren't held in her hands, and she was Mexican and had dimples and was deliriously happy with life and had settled down in retirement and gotten everything she'd wanted out of the world.

James wonders how drunk he is. He suspects the margaritas are more potent than he thought. If M could hear him now, she'd slap him and tell him to get himself together and by the way, she has a mission for him that he had better complete without causing any international incidents.

"There. You see. Stay with us, Enrico; James has such lovely stories."

"Love, I have to be at the cashier - "

Katia wraps Enrico's arms around her shoulders. "Nonsense, you know no one but the lost and workaholics will come in at this hour. And I know you've missed Ireland."

Enrico sighs, long-suffering, but there's a glint in his dark eyes now, and James knows it to be wanderlust. A side-effect of the steady existence the love of his life demanded, no doubt, and then finances and the exhausting minutiae of everyday life.

It's a story he's heard often. James remembers thinking that he won't ever let himself be chained down like that, way back in his early 30s. And certainly, his lifestyle has never encouraged permanence.

Then, along came Vesper and the possibility of wandering the planet with someone he loved, though Venice was to be their epicentre. With her death came the end of that dream and the acceptance of a life lived perpetually on the winds.

(As for Q -

Well. Any fantasies James may have had are dead now, aren't they? They were delusional anyway, weren't they? Nothing but smoke and mirrors and that warm, affectionate look Q sometimes got in his eyes when he looked at James.)

So James isn't surprised at all when after ten minutes of his tales, all heavily edited and devoid of sensitive information and his more extreme acts, Enrico slides into the seat next to Katia, looking just as engrossed as his wife.

"Do you regret it?" James asks fifty minutes later when Katia gets up, looking annoyed, to tend to a table the waiter - their daughter's boyfriend - is too busy to take, grumbling under her breath all the while.

"No," Enrico says, laughing and without hesitation. "No, I miss Ireland and Japan and even France, but saying no to Katia would have been the worst decision of my life. I would have regretted every minute I spent away."

James says nothing.

"Sometimes one person is enough." Enrico smiles, knowingly enough that James almost feels defensive though the old man is no threat. "Sometimes, the entire world is smaller and more inconsequential than one heart."

"Romantic," James comments, but he means something else, something more ugly and cynical, and they both know it. "I would grow terribly restless, I think."

Enrico looks thoughtful. "Some are like that. I could give up the road for my Katia, but even if you can't, it's nice to have someone welcome you home, isn't it?"

James doesn't have the chance to tell him that he wanted that - hadn't even known that he'd wanted it until it was within his reach and then torn away - but can't possibly have it now, because Katia bustles back in, teasing, "And what are you boys talking about? Why so serious?"

"Komodo dragons are serious business, my dear," Enrico deflects smoothly. "Why don't we have some more margaritas?"

When James stumbles out at long last, a full three hours later, Mr and Ms Castillo feel vaguely like doting, long-lost grandparents, the earth is spinning rather alarmingly beneath his feet, and he closes his eyes and thinks:

'Q would have loved it here.'

With one day left to go, Bond should be finalising his plan of attack and checking in on Mr Sciarra, whose flight was meant to touch down on Mexican soil at 0200 and should be at his hotel now. Instead, he sleeps peacefully until noon and then wakes up with an awful migraine.

Briefly, he feels as if he's made a terrible mistake. Worse than usual anyhow. What the devil was in those margaritas?

Four paracetamol down his throat later, Bond feels marginally back to normal. To accelerate the process, he smokes a cigarette and then finally gets up and takes a shower. Pulling on a simple white shirt and black trousers, he walks a kilometre to have lunch at the Castillo's.

There's something sad about that, but he ignores it.

"James! Welcome!" Katia beams at him when he walks in and presses a kiss to his cheek. In the same tone of voice, she continues with, "You look absolutely terrible!"

"Thanks," he responds dryly.

"It was the margaritas, wasn't it? I told Enrico you aren't used to them like our other boys are." Katia tsks as she pulls him to the table he sat at yesterday. "Well, not to worry, we'll take care of you."

James doesn't point out that she was the one who kept on refilling his glass. "I never doubted you would."

After a hearty lunch and a reminisce of Russia and Sweden, Bond searches out Estrella. She's all too happy to see him, and after a nice shag, all too happy to talk. His "good friend" is here with some good friends of his own.

"Very professional," Estrella says, eyeing him curiously. "Your friend must be very important."

Bond smiles. "Quite important, yes."

He leaves her to do her job and plants a nice explosive he never exploded and thus never returned to Q in a storage closet two doors down from Sciarra. With the whole building empty but for his enemies, he won't have to worry about collateral damage.

And, of course, he'll make sure Estrella's occupied.

Back at his own hotel, Bond checks on the status of his bugs. As expected, they've found one or two, but the rest are functioning perfectly, not that the sounds of unpacking are particularly interesting.

He leans back in his bed, weary, and sips from his bottle of wine for half an hour, trying not to think unpleasant thoughts without succeeding. Finally, with nothing else to do, he spends three hours working out in the hotel's luxury gym with far too many breaks in-between and then freshens up to go to dinner.

"James. Welcome back." Enrico smiles at him and places his menu in front of him. "You have more exciting tales for us, I hope?"

"I always do."

But when he's getting ready to leave two hours later after a rambunctious conversation about the merits of Chinese silk and Belgium chocolate, Katia cups his cheek in her hand and peers at him closely. "You are leaving," she states. "Silly boy, not even a goodbye?"

James grins sheepishly, as if he's five again, caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and Monique Delacroix is scolding him between chuckles. "I'll make sure to enjoy a delicious meal here if I'm ever in the area again."

Katia hmphs and draws him into a close embrace. "See that you do," she orders.

Enrico moves to hug him next, ignoring, as his wife did, the stiffness of his shoulders. "Remember what I said," he whispers in James' ear. "The right person isn't a chain. They'll give you wings if you let them."

And then 007's off.

Bond walks into his flat after an M Lecture, a meeting with C, and a date with Moneypenny, and promptly freezes. His alarm system hasn't gone off, and there's not anything even remotely out of place, but he knows there's an intruder here.

He listens to his instincts. It's why he's still alive.

Before he even has time to draw his gun, however, a smoky, sensual voice drifts over to him from the living room shadows, "Hello, James."

Bond goes predatorily still for a moment before relaxing deliberately and calling back, "Hello, Marian." Casually unbuttoning his jacket and hanging it up, he walks into the living room and flicks on the light.

004 lounges on his sofa like she owns it, nursing a glass of scotch. The previously-untouched bottle sits on the table in front of her, now more than a quarter gone, with an accompanying empty glass.

She turns a blood-red siren's smile on him, flaunting a skin-tight little black dress that shows off a generous amount of leg. "Hope you don't mind. I helped myself."

"Not at all." Bond leans against the doorframe and arches an eyebrow. "Mind telling me how you got in?"

Marian taps nails the same colour as her lipstick on the surface of the glass. "Q told me the codes."

"No, he didn't."

"How would you know?"

Because Bond knows that Q protects all of his agents, and even if that does mean he would give 007's security codes to 004 in a pinch, he'd also send Bond a warning ahead of time. Because even now, James trusts Q, and it's the most bittersweet thing.

He'd like to hate it.

"Q doesn't believe in favouritism," he says instead.

Marian laughs, low and seductive but genuinely amused. "That's the worst lie I've ever heard you tell, James."

"I've told an awful lot of lies. How can you be sure this is the one?"

"Because everyone, and I do mean everyone, knows you're his favourite. That line simply holds no weight with you." She sips at her scotch contemplatively. "Really, it's almost enough to make a girl jealous."

Bond has no desire to get into this with 004. "You went after R, didn't you?"

Marian flutters her eyelashes at him. "I don't know what you mean."

He snorts. "I bet she crumpled like tissue paper." Most people do before the 1950s bombshell that Marian embodies, all wild red hair and green bedroom eyes and curves to die for. Plenty of her conquests have died, in fact, for those curves.

R, who has been infatuated with Marian for months, wouldn't have stood a chance. Between R's technical know-how and 004's talent for getting into wherever she's unwanted, even Q's systems would cry a little.

"Now, now. You have your resources and I have mine." Unconcerned, she crosses her legs. "What happened in Mexico City would never have happened without Q's help, and we both know it. I hope you recognise how terribly spoilt we all are."

"We have a nice mutualistic relationship going," Bond says mildly. "Do you really want to complain?"

"If you find that a complaint, James, I don't know how you get any woman to maintain a conversation with you for longer than five minutes. It must be the eyes." Marian sighs, put-upon.

"The eyes?"

"Don't play dumb. I've seen the dreadful things you do to your poor marks with those eyes. Blasted genetics." As if she can talk. Huffing, 004 throws back the remaining scotch and then casually asks, "Have you been fighting with our darling Quartermaster, James?"

Years of espionage keep 007 from giving himself away. He doesn't know if 'fighting' is the correct word. "Such serious accusations. Should I be worried, Marian?"

"Yes," she says bluntly. "And since you weren't before you noticed me, I can only conclude that you two are fighting. I can't imagine I would know before you if things are what they should be. Besides, the amount of dust in your flat is appalling, not to mention the unpacked boxes."

Bond blinks slowly at her and manages to suppress the swelling panic solely because he knows, for all her teasing, that Marian adores Q and would not be sitting here so blithely if something truly had happened. "Do I need to kill anyone?"

"Probably." She waves a hand carelessly, but the pull of her dress reveals the outline of a gun holster and a thigh knife sheath, which ruins the effect a bit. "M won't be happy, though."

"When is M ever happy?" Either of them, in fact. If that was a limitation, Bond would never be able to get anything done.

"Too true, but this time, it won't just be a grounding for a few weeks. Killing the Director of the Joint Security Committee sounds like treason against Queen and Country to me." Marian places her empty glass on the table and regards him with a raised eyebrow.

007 tilts his head slightly, thinking back to his meeting with Max Denbigh. Stuffy, uptight, yet another bureaucrat who doesn't know the least about fieldwork or the warmth of freshly spilt blood... but there had been something to those depthless dark eyes, the quirk of his mouth.

Yes. There had been something there. A slick, oil-like polish over rough sandpaper that had rubbed Bond's instincts the wrong way, even beyond his automatic distaste for his new bureaucratic leash-holder.

"And what has C done to aggravate you so?" Because C has done something. No agent breaks into another agent's home for anything less than an absolute fucking disaster. Not only would it lead to a ghastly blood stain on the rug, but it goes against the honour code of killers.

Stirring up trouble is all fine and well, after all, considering the boredom that ambushes every agent left in London without an objective for too long, but an agent had best keep it to the bloody hallways of MI6. Intruding upon someone else's explicit territory is grounds for a shot to the leg.

Unless an assassination is in order, of course. Nothing's sacred when death comes calling.

Which, all in all, means that 004's either here to kill him or fucking pissed, and the evidence's leaning towards the latter. Bond would almost feel sorry for C, but with the mention of Q thrown into the mix, he just feels like going for his Walther.

Marian smiles, shark-like, to match the diamond-hard look in her eyes. "Our Q apparently had a reckless streak a few years back. C is his ex."

Oh.

James may as well have been punched right in the solar plexus. He'd prefer it, in fact. Instead, he's staring, trying to breathe, to think past the shock of it, hating 004 a little for springing the news on him like a trap despite knowing, too, that he would do the same.

Q's lovely. Brilliant, kind, intelligent, clever, so lovely; hasn't James thought before that anyone would be lucky to have him? And it isn't as if he believed Q's a virgin or anything like that, so there's no reason learning of his ex should be so devastating.

It still is. It still is, because, despite all logic and rationale, some selfish, nasty part of James hoped Q would be his in body and mind and soul, although that's hardly fair with all that James has done to himself. Trusted that, soulmates aside, he knew every single facet of Q.

But he doesn't know anything, does he?

And really, he chose C over James? That greasy, treacherous snake of a man? Q let C take him out to dinner, give him flowers, smile at him over candlelight? Let C kiss him, run those slimy hands over that soft skin, and whisper sweet nothings in his ear? That bloody bastard?

He could have done better. James could have done better. When he thought Q deserves someone better, he didn't mean fucking Max Denbigh.

Before the unintelligible chaos of rage-jealousy-regret-hatred-howdarehe can stretch across his throat to asphyxiate him, Bond forces a smirk on his lips and says, "I thought gossip was beneath you, Marian?"

There's a hint of cool calculation in the curl of Marian's full lips, but she doesn't elaborate on whatever she saw in his small tells. No doubt leaving it unspoken for future blackmail material. Never let it be said that Double-Ohs aren't courteous.

"Hardly gossip. In fact, I'd wager no one else but me knows that he paid a visit to Q-Branch two days ago, near midnight. Had a nice chat with Q, the normal pleasantries, and then made some... pointed comments," she says.

"Nothing wrong with trying to rekindle a spark," Bond murmurs through the murder in his lungs, crossing his arms so he isn't tempted to reach for his car keys and start the short journey to C's house. Or Q's for that matter.

"Turned into a bit more than that, I'm afraid. Q fended him off, but he was... persistent. Luckily, I happened to be nearby and intercepted before the situation could worsen." Marian pauses. "James. He was backing Q up against his own desk."

The world goes still and quiet for a moment like he's back under the water, sound and light distorted, separated from everything else by the storm, yet resting right in the centre of the whirlpool.

007 says, voice idle and too similar to dry ice for comfort, "I know a number of places in London great for dumping corpses."

"It won't be easy to kill a head of espionage."

"There are two of us," Bond points out, eminently reasonable. The world is crystalline sharp around him, at odds with the fury burning his veins and the ice spreading through his mind. "Very little is impossible, and that's all we need." Double-Ohs specialise in impossible.

004 hums and pours scotch into both glasses. When she offers one to him, he accepts, and when she leans against one side of the sofa, he sits next to her, riding the razor-knife of protective outrage too much to care about any potential danger that might come from her.

He'd really like to meet Max Denbigh in a dark alleyway one of these days. Sooner rather than later.

"Q would be displeased," she says, but it's an observation rather than a half-hearted protest. "In fact, this time around, M might just throw us in jail rather than deal with the fallout."

"Since when do we care about that?" Bond drinks the scotch, aware of the usual heat but detached from it. "I know for a fact you have 'problems with authority' in your file. And prison doesn't have a chance in hell of holding us."

"You're a bastard, James," Marian says brightly after swallowing a gulp of alcohol in the most ladylike fashion possible. "Stay out of my bloody file. And have you ever seen Q's displeased face? He puts kicked kittens to shame."

"What happened to the puppies?"

"Q's good enough to project immense disappointment, fragility, and hurt, and innate superiority, claws, and access to your bank account, all at once. He's too excellent at guilt trips and threats of technology havoc to be a puppy."

Bond is on Plan E for Operation Kill-C-Slowly-and-Painfully. He still finds the brainpower to say, somewhat disbelieving, "I'll give you the latter, but Q does very bad guilt trips."

"On you, maybe. I've been keeping an eye on him, but C hasn't approached him again. I assume you still have affairs to take care of?"

"...yes," Bond admits reluctantly. With this new threat, the last thing he wants to do is leave again, but M was quite clear in her message, and, well, they're. They're.

He doesn't know what they are right now. They're wobbling on a wire suspended in the middle of limbo, and they'll have to topple off one of these days, but the thought of saying goodbye is. Is -

"Then I guess I'll just have to spend some more quality time with R. Honestly, the sacrifices I make."

"Your life is so hard," Bond agrees dryly.

Marian laughs and polishes off the rest of her scotch, rising to her feet in a languid glide. "C will keep," she says with frightening certainty, sauntering towards the door. "And I'll make sure Q stays safe. You go out and raise more hell, lest I become more bored."

"Your wish is my command." Seeing her out, Bond waits until she's out of the building and has taken off in her sexy red Ferrari before shutting his door and stalking back to his trusty sofa.

Removing his gun from the holster, Bond dismantles it and begins to clean it absently. There's an ugliness in his gut now, burying the ache and want of him beneath bloodlust and quiet, relentless focus.

When Moneypenny drops by an hour later, she finds nothing amiss, the cold-eyed predator safely hidden away for now.

"Q wasn't exactly feeling at home in Whitehall, what with the new merger, so he set up shop here, away from prying eyes, as it were. I hear he's got something rather special planned for you," Tanner says, staring straight ahead with a blank face.

Bond easily recalls the grouchy whinging he was subjected to regarding the merger, but it's not enough to dampen the sting of being caught off guard with something so very important but yet entirely unexpected. Again.

All those complaints, and Q never once mentioned a problem with surveillance or his intention to promptly move Q-Branch like a misbehaving cat being carted off to a new playground. Or did he think Bond was a pair of prying eyes himself?

If nothing else, James thought Q trusted him.

"I can hardly wait."

While he walks towards Q's new office, he automatically notes the dampness in the air, the unevenness of the bricks at his feet. It's chillier - Q probably needs better jackets, he's terrible at keeping himself warm - and dimmer here.

He finds himself discomforted by the changes, having grown used to the Q-Branch of old when he wasn't looking. It's M selling off his flat all over again, only, this time, Q isn't going to pop up and offer him another set of keys.

There's a metaphor in there somewhere, about lonely, old roamers and warm, steady homes, but Bond doesn't want to examine it too closely for fear of what he'll find.

Q's new office is exactly what Bond would expect to see if his previous workspace and his lab got tossed into a tornado together and miraculously, everything came down without breaking, although Bond notices a few broken equipment here and there anyway.

Complete organised chaos.

Training dictates he be aware of his surroundings at all times, but even before Bond glances around the room, he knows Q is to his right. His presence tugs on James' heartstrings, as irresistible as the sun after months of miserable English gloom.

Bond grits his teeth and strolls right on in, heading straight for the intriguing rifle on the centre table. Its scope has definitely been tampered with.

"007," comes the cool, clipped greeting.

So. This is how Q wants to play it. Hell of a welcome back. "Q." Picking up the rifle to evaluate it some more, Bond finds it heavier than expected, indicating major internal changes even if the exterior betrays little. He peers through the scope.

Tanner lets himself out, pointedly closing the door behind him.

Near soundlessly, Q gets up and walks over to efficiently remove the rifle from Bond's tech-destroying hands. "That's enough out of you," he says, placing the prototype back on its stand. "You've had a very bad history with rifles as of late."

He's too close. James wants to grab him, wrap himself around him, shield him from C's swarmy hands. He wants to shove Q away, accuse him of being cruel and callous, interrogate him about Max bloody Denbigh.

(He wants to bury his nose in the slope of Q's neck and ask why.)

Bond takes a smooth step back, but even he can sense how hollow his smile is. "Heard about my recent exploits then."

"Everyone has. Everyone." Q's eyes flash with temper, his words so carefully controlled, it's undeniable that he's seething. "What the bloody hell did you think you were doing?"

Q doesn't curse often, and under any other circumstances, that posh voice shaped around such vulgar syllables would be wickedly distracting. But at the moment, James is only suddenly, viciously enraged, the low-level simmering finally hitting boiling point.

"What was I doing? What have you been doing?" Bond growls.

"You promised me you would stay safe in Mexico City! That was the only reason I told you where Marco Sciarra was!"

"First of all, your job as the Quartermaster of MI6 is to provide your agents with the information they need to complete their missions. Second of all, safety is relative. And third of all, you've got some nerve lecturing me about safety when your ex almost molested you in your own office."

Q goes pale and then flushes angrily, eyes too wide. "004 had no business telling you. None at all. And nothing happened."

Bond scoffs out a jagged laugh, taking a step forward. "Doesn't sound like it. Trust me, if a sexual harassment form can be filed, then something happened. Unless, of course, everything was perfectly consensual; in which case, you might want to educate Marian."

"Either way, it's hardly your business, is it?" Q raises his eyebrow, defensiveness sharpening his words to a biting edge. "I can provide relevant information just fine, and since you've made it clear that's all you require from me, I'll thank you to refrain from judging my personal affairs."

"If I've been bothering you, Q, you need only have said." For one heartstopping moment after the words leave his mouth, James wonders what he'll do if Q calls his bluff and tells him to leave.

Maybe their tightrope will break. Maybe that's how they'll say their goodbyes.

But no. "Since when have you ever listened to anything I say?" Q asks bitterly. "You've always done what you wanted to, even when it leads to a month off-grid and cracked ribs, haven't you? And certainly, my equipment never comes back to me."

James could throw something. He takes a step forward. "Why are we talking about gadgets? Why is it always the equipment with you? Their purpose is to keep me alive, isn't it? Well, if you haven't bloody noticed, I'm alive! What more do you want?"

"That's not the point! I spend hours on that equipment; the least you can do is respect my work! And stop changing the subject! You don't listen to anything I say, which is why you're perpetually getting yourself kidnapped!"

"I do not perpetually get myself kidnapped! In fact, I've been doing this much longer than you have, ta very much; you were probably still in diapers when I first took the field!" James shoots back and instantly regrets it, but not enough to take it back.

It hits too close to home, and Q feels it, too, judging from the fists his hands curl into. He takes a step forward. "Don't patronise me," he hisses. "I've proved myself in everything that matters, and you know it."

"Proven yourself? By what? Fucking Max Denbigh?" James shoots back, deliberately crude, the jealousy that never died flaring back up. "Oh yes, very mature. If you're really that insecure, you could have let him fuck you against your desk a second time."

Some part of James' mind, detached from the pent-up maelstrom, wonders numbly when he lost control of this particular vehicle and let it crash head-on into a tree, down a cliff, and into a lake, bullet-ridden and screeching.

This doesn't happen to him. He doesn't behave like this. He doesn't lose his temper, doesn't explode, at anyone like this, no matter the circumstances. No one gets under his skin to this extent. No one except Q apparently.

The rest of him can't care one whit right now, too angry to think coherently.

Q flinches back but stands his ground. "I believe I said before that it's none of your business, 007, and I mean it. You could listen for once in your life."

"I'm not your dog, Q," James sneers, shifting closer intimidatingly. "I won't come to heel at your whistle."

Abruptly, he notices his final step forward has brought them standing nearly chest-to-chest, barely five centimetres apart. When did that happen?

James can count Q's eyelashes from here, can see the faint lines between his brows, the mole on his cheek and another one right above the curve of his upper lip, the lip he can kiss if he just leans forward a little.

He goes still.

Q opens his mouth but tenses up and shuts his mouth again before saying anything, apparently taking note of their position as well. His eyes widen, and from so close, James can feel his body heat, rolling over his front gently.

They just breathe for a moment, frozen in place. The shining, golden potential of the moment stretches out, stretches and stretches and

breaks.

Q blows out a breath and shoves hard at James' chest with one hand, sending him rocking back. "If you're not a dog, why can't you understand the basic concept of personal space? I'm your Quartermaster, not one of your marks."

James smirks, taunting and barbed, through the sting of renewed rejection. He should know better than to hope. "I wouldn't want you as my mark for all the money in the world."

Hurt crumples Q's expression for the barest second, a splash of ice water on James' fury, but then he scowls ferociously and shoulders past James to leave, the contact rough and electric. "You are infuriating."

"Don't talk like you aren't." James follows him out, still irate but more in-control of himself. He didn't mean...he doesn't understand...

"I'm not the one who broke a promise, hasn't apologised for said breaking, and then tried to distract me from the previously stated offences," snaps Q, who turns his head briefly to glare at him.

Like Bond hasn't gotten into the same scraps for, oh, the last twenty fucking years and survived them, like 007 isn't one of the many replaceable agents Q is obligated to watch over, like James' promises are really worth all that much to Q in the long run.

Like Q's offences aren't far more painful.

Irritation flashes once more. "Are you still going on about that? I did what I had to do to complete the mission."

"Yes, I am still going on about that. Nice excuse but still an excuse." Q stomps down the hallway, broadcasting enmity so loudly, the Minecraft boffin, who was leaning against the wall playing on his phone, scrambles up as soon as he catches sight of them and runs off, presumably to warn the other minions. "Try again."

"At least I have one. Why haven't you reported C to M yet? Or done any of the things you normally do when someone makes you cross?"

"With all of the nagging you've subjected me to and 004's attempts to babysit, I doubt M will need to do anything to C at all. And I have my reasons, thank you very little." Q pushes open a door a hallway down and gestures curtly to the fancy chair in the middle of it. "Sit."

Bond does so with an incensed huff. "You're taking this too lightly, and it's going to come back and bite you in the arse." Not that James won't cut off C's hands with pleasure if it goes anywhere near that arse.

"If I were you, I would be more worried about your Walther mysteriously malfunctioning next mission. Roll your cuffs up, please, and arm here." Pulling on latex gloves, Q fits a mechanical cuff over his right arm smugly.

On the screen in front of them, a blue x-ray appears of his arm and hand. "Just relax."

Easier said than done. James wants to grab hold of Q's shoulders and shake him until he can concentrate on the actual bloody problem here, which is C, not the shitshow of Mexico City which honestly wasn't that much of a shitshow anyway, compared to some of his other missions.

He doesn't, sharply pulling on a veneer of professionalism instead to sit very still in his chair and glare a hole into Q's head, who pretends not to notice.

Q places his thumb on a trigger. "Now you may feel a small…"

A fierce, cutting pain slices across Bond's arm unexpectedly. "Christ!" he snaps because Q's a cheeky brat and he's fucking agitated.

"...prick."

A muscle in Bond's jaw twitches. "What is it?" he grits out as Q removes the cuff and presses a cotton ball against the puncture wound and maps appear on the other two screens.

"Cutting-edge nanotechnology. Smart Blood. Microchips in your bloodstream. Allows us to track your movements in the field. You see those readouts? We can monitor your vital signs from anywhere on the planet," Q recites neutrally.

Bond isn't fooled for a second. "This is your revenge, isn't it."

"No, actually. Direct order of M. Call it a post-Mexico insurance." Which is as good as a "yes, 007, I created this new technology in the past three days in a fit of spite-fueled insomnia purely because you broke a promise to me and nearly fell out of a helicopter."

He's not entirely sure what to make of that. "Well, that's just marvellous." Bond stands up and readjusts his sleeves, revising his plans. He wanted to storm right out of this godforsaken place the second Q was done, but that doesn't look like it's going to be happening. "Anything else, Q?"

Q stares at him, the vile realisation creeping into his face like night leeching into day. "You're not done." It's not a question.

James doesn't look at him. How dare Q look at him with those heartbroken eyes when he's the one who lied with his omissions and strung James along for years? What right does Q have to be angry when James was the one betrayed?

When James had to learn about the situation with C from bloody 004?

"Anything else, Q?"

In the quiet of the room, he can hear Q swallow harshly. In the stillness, the fall of his shoulders is too noticeable. "Well. I've just, um, got one last thing for you, and you can be on your way," he says, soft and flat, all traces of anger gone.

James can only nod silently. He thinks he prefers the angry Q.

The minions give them a wide berth when they walk into the main working hall, but Q's already recovered his professional aplomb by then. He walks the length of the room until he reaches R's desk, whereupon he turns to regards Bond blandly.

"I don't suppose you've brought back that rifle you reported as 'missing' a year ago, have you, 007?" Q inquires evenly.

Bond forces a smirk, as incorrigible as they come. "Fell into the Atlantic, I'm afraid."

Q nods curtly and throws a meaningful glance at R, who paused in her work and is listening with a frown. She sighs and types something in her computer - logging in the missing equipment again, most likely - before nodding back to Q.

In the corner of his eye, Bond notices a flutter of red that disappears seamlessly into the shadows. My, 004's keeping a very close watch, isn't she?

The thought of C touching Q in any way still makes him clench his jaw. Mine, some possessive part of him that's long-since been asleep, snarls savagely, mine.

He tells himself to shut up. To stop deluding himself, to recall that Q has never been his.

Doesn't want to be his. Even if James...

Q strides off, but not before grabbing something from R's desk. Leading the way to the closed garage built into the end of the hallway, he punches the code into the keypad on the wall next to it - 2703196119640326, Bond notes - and the thick metal doors slide open gracefully.

The gleaming silver beauty within steals Bond's attention away immediately.

"Magnificent, isn't she?" Q comments rhetorically, as Bond prowls closer to better admire the gorgeous, sleek thing. "Zero to 60 in three point two seconds. Fully bulletproof. A few little tricks up her sleeve."

Q wanders closder to stand beside him, a nice, professional distance between them that promptly splits James' focus in two. "It's a shame, really," he says, light and vindictive, turning the object in his hands over and over nervously. "She was meant for you, but she's been reassigned to 009."

007's eye twitches. 009? That stiff, boring tosser without any appreciation for the finer things in life? Hell, Michael specialises in stealth missions; he probably wouldn't take this beautiful specimen of a car above thirty-five! A bloody travesty, that's what this is -

Through the transparent windows, he sees the car keys lying innocently on the driver's seat.

Bond finds himself deflating so abruptly, he's vaguely surprised there isn't an audible balloon-like noise. The rage flickers and is replaced with a blurry sense of awe and confusion instead.

Most people aren't anywhere near so generous, much less while furious at the recipient. Most people aren't anywhere near so accommodating, much less with their job on the line. Bond hasn't even asked (yet). Why is Q…?

But he's done this once before, hasn't he? With the whole Silva catastrophe.

"So much for my promising career in espionage."

"But you can have this." Q holds out what he was fiddling with, which, when Bond takes it, careful not to let their fingers touch, turns out to be a lovely Omega watch.

It doesn't look particularly remarkable, however. "Does it...do anything?"

"It tells the time," Q says unhelpfully. "Might help with your punctuality issues." He presses the code in reverse into the keyboard, once again angled so that Bond has a clear line of sight and fingers slower than they should be, and the doors slide closed.

007 shifts to make his way back to Q's workspace. "M's idea again?" His other emotions are a fucked-up ball of yarn doing the tango, so he gladly tunes into the pitch of his displeasure at the situation in general, which thrums loudly.

"Precisely." Q keeps pace with him, adding quietly, "One word of warning. The...alarm is rather loud, if you know what I mean."

James brushes his fingers lightly over the smooth metal case of the watch, feels the way it twists ever so slightly. "I think I do." Two gifts at once, and it's not even his birthday yet.

He realises suddenly that it wouldn't be the first time Q gave him a car for his birthday.

The thought clashes badly with the knot of pain and hurt pulled tight in his chest, the aggravation and frustration clogging up his throat, the worry and protectiveness pulling on his shoulders, and so he pushes it away in favour of a skeleton of a familiar car.

Syria.

In the light of what he now knows, Syria makes no sense at all. Pity and compassion only go so far, and. And.

One mystery after another. James thought he had solved everything, but that's evidently untrue. Q's layers upon layers of enigmas, isn't he, a puzzle entwined with secrets, and was James an idiot to ever believe he could know him, all of him, even some of him?

Probably. But that doesn't mean the challenge of it has lessened any in its alluring taunting, and James has always been weak to those. Resentment like cooled lava on the merge of solidifying sluices into the chaos stewing in his chest to mingle with curiosity and bewilderment.

(The contradictions, the inconsistency, the conundrum of Q - if they weren't so painful, if he wasn't so tired, they'd be as irresistible as cigarette smoke waved in front of a recovering addict, blood encircling a great white shark on the hunt.

Maybe still is, according to Psych, whose fools insist he harbours certain "self-destructive, masochistic desires." It's a good thing James never listens to Psych.)

"Oh, yes. That old thing is taking quite a bit of time." Q places his hands on his hips, but his expression is faintly nostalgic, the veneer of rigid formality wearing thin for a beat. "Mind you, there wasn't much to work on. Just a steering wheel."

"I did warn you," James says.

"And I believe I said 'bring it back in one piece', not 'bring back one piece'." Q laughs, but the attempt at levity falls flat, and his smile holds only self-depreciating humour and maybe a wisp of wistfulness.

James can only stare at him and try to breathe through the wave of sweet fondness, rising and cresting so slow and measured that he can feel every last drop seeping into his bones and flooding his mind, crashing over every other emotion with laughable ease.

God, how can anyone be so unbearably delightful?

(And how pathetic is it that he can't even remain angry at Q for long? But then, who could ever remain angry at Q in the face of all of... this?)

Q coughs and glances away for a moment, lips pressed tightly together. When he looks back, he's every metre the head of Q-Branch once more. "Anyway, enjoy your downtime, 007." Pulling his jacket around him like a shield, he makes for his desk.

The dismissal is evident, the break clean. And still.

Don't go.

"Q," Bond calls after him.

"Yes?"

Adjusting a cufflink and caressing the face of the watch absently with his thumb, Bond leans against Q's desk and can't bring himself to look at Q. He studies the ceiling casually. "Will you do something for me?" he asks because he's a selfish bastard still, and watches Q flinch.

"What do you have in mind, exactly?" Q won't look directly at him either, choosing to blink down at the debris on his table. His voice is too empty for all its artificial airiness, and James' stomach sinks to his feet.

"Make me disappear."

And Q does.

Later, when he gathers up the car, he isn't surprised to find his Walther in the compartment.

James leaves behind some of the champagne he was drinking. It's excellent champagne. A suitable gift for a colleague who's done him several favours.

The Thai takeaway is only because the champagne needs a compliment, of course.

Rome calls upon raw, excruciating memories of sunshine days and lazy afternoons spent doing nothing but constructing a hand drawn gift for his soulmate. With the cruelty of hindsight, James finds new meaning in Q's previous sullen silences.

He supposes that, were their positions reversed, he wouldn't want to be reminded of his unwanted soulmate's pathetic attempts to communicate either.

And although Ms Sciarra is magnificent and Spectre and Franz Oberhauser are decidedly not, although most everything's going his way, he's uneasy, balance listing off to the side when he needs, more than ever, to be perfectly on top of his game.

(But he hasn't been that in a long time, has he?)

It makes him angry all over again. He knows better than this. He was supposed to have learned his lesson a long time ago.

Bond snarls, hands fisting on the steering wheel until his knuckles are white, and hits the ejector button, spitefully leaving the car behind to crash into the Tiber.

009, the bastard, doesn't deserve it anyway.

Madeleine Swann embodies the frigid landscape he finds her hiding in, beautiful, pale, and oh so cold. She's the daughter of an assassin, and he sees all the signs in the ice of her guarded greeting and the sharpened steel in her eyes.

She throws him out and threatens to call security on him, fear well-hidden but not well enough. And as he lounges at the bar, waiting impatiently for those ten minutes to be up -

"He'll have the pyrolytic digestive enzyme shake."

Bond twitches, the voice one he most assuredly does not welcome here.

Even if his last memory of Q's face has haunted him for over one thousand kilometres; even if the touches of technological favour he's so accustomed to have been sorely lacking for the past several days and driven him near mad with speculation as a result.

Even so.

Q's supposed to be safe under 004's watchful eye in MI6.

Goddamit, Marian.

"If you've come for the car, I parked it at the bottom of the Tiber," Bond says, refusing to turn his head and look properly at his wayward soul - Quartermaster.

"Well, not to worry, 007. It was only a three million pound prototype," comes the dry reply as Q takes a seat next to him. His arm brushes against Bond's own, and Bond has to shift slightly away to have any hope of maintaining composure.

Bond takes a deep breath for patience. God, that's an atrocious sweater. "Why are you here, Q? And where's 004?"

A hum. "Oh, I just fancied a break, to be honest, and 004's hardly my babysitter. I'd been a tad stressed at work what with C's people crawling all over us - mind you, not C himself - and the fact that M wants my balls for Christmas decorations."

Q pauses before adding tartly, "Not to mention, someone wouldn't answer their phone, because someone left their phone at the bottom of the Tiber to keep my car company."

Bond refuses to think of Q's balls. He is, however, mildly disappointed that 004 hasn't shot C yet. Granted, that means he has more chances to shoot C himself. Fuck, Q is distracting. It's vexing. "Get to the point, Q."

"The point, 007, is that Franz Oberhauser is dead. Dead and buried. And unless you come back with me right now, my career and Moneypenny's will go the same way. Do you understand? All hell is breaking loose out there and - "

"I saw him," Bond interjects shortly.

Q hesitates, but carries on in a more subdued fashion, "You thought you saw him. We've been through the records. He died in an avalanche with his father twenty years ago."

"Yes, I know that." James wrestles down another flare of stricken irritation. It's to be expected, but it still prickles that Q doesn't trust him enough to take him at his word. Then again, no one said trust has to be two-sided. "But I saw him. He's not someone I'll ever forget."

There's a pause, longer this time. James expects Q to continue to needle at him, but what he says, at last, is, "You have a lead?"

"I have a name. L'Américain."

"That doesn't narrow much down. Bond, we don't have enough time for this."

James can feel Q pulling away, so he finally turns around, only to catch a lost, anguished expression on that familiar face, quickly wiped away as Q busies himself with his bag. The twist of guilt is both entirely expected and so much more uncomfortable than the ire.

"Q," he says, entreating.

Q freezes. "What now, 007?"

Bond knows he shouldn't. Recriminations are already entwining with the frustration to form a gag, and he's a bloody bastard for doing this, he knows.

His reasons aside - what are his reasons? Why does he does this to himself over and over again for James Bond? Or is it for 007? He doesn't know anymore - Q hasn't said 'no' to him before. This. This is just taking advantage.

But he needs this information, and Q's already here as Quartermaster for his recalcitrant agent, and this is the job, isn't it? This is what they are, who they are. Something niggles at him - planes - but then Q's looking at him with that furrow in his brow, and he can't hesitate any longer.

(Theirs is a young man's game without these fits of sentimentality and attacks of conscience. Maybe M was onto something, after all.)

"Do one more thing for me. Then you're out." He drops the Spectre ring into Q's hand. Their fingers brush, and James nearly swallows his tongue, barely keeps his face straight. "Find out what you can from this."

Q blows out a breath and tries to glare at James. It comes out more like despairing resignation, leaving James cold down to his very soul. "I really, really hate you right now," he says, far too softly, with absolutely no heat.

James almost wishes there was some. "Thank you, Q."

It's a little like torture, watching Q's back as he leaves once more.

When James knocks on Q's hotel door, it's with an utterly furious Dr Swann in tow and the remnants of a plane-car crash weighing on them both. Q opens the door a fraction so he can peek out at them, and Bond approves of the paranoia.

At least until he notices how pale Q seems to be, the stress lines etched into his forehead, the way he frowns deeper when he notices Dr Swann.

"...Bond." Reluctantly, slowly, Q lets them in.

A quiet, glowing thought sneaks through his defences to wind its way around his heart. Could Q be jealous? He would only be jealous if… But no, James stamps on that stupid notion, puts a few metaphorical bullets through it, and throws it into an early grave.

He's done being so gullible, so easily misled by the dreams incubated in his heart.

Then. Then, if not jealousy, what…?

"Dr Swann, Q. Q, Dr Swann." Bond scans the hotel room but doesn't find any sign of trouble. There's the bed, table, several chairs, and the familiar laptop. Behind him, Q and Dr Swann exchange cautious pleasantries.

James categorises the bite in Q's words as yet another sign that something's amiss. Professionally speaking, Q's in the state he should be, where he should be, and with the people he should be. So. Something personal then.

Another secret, proposes the nasty monster within, wounded, bleeding, and lashing out. James ignores it to the best of his ability.

Whatever it might be, Q's problem is none of his business.

Q said so himself.

"Bond, we need to talk. Alone."

"She knows." What with the recent kidnapping attempt, it's unwise to leave Dr Swann alone right now. That's the justification he'll provide if anyone asks anyhow. In truth, James simply doesn't think he's capable of being alone with Q at the moment.

Not without doing something he'll regret.

Inhaling slowly, he strides over to look out the windows. There's nothing but desolate snow outside.

"But Bond - "

"She knows." Jittery with adrenaline and fighting Q's pull, James' voice is sharp, and when he turns around, arms crossed, he catches the rigid line of Q's shoulders with contrition. He gentles his voice helplessly. "What have you got?"

Q presses his lips together and avoids Bond's gaze to seat himself before his laptop. He debriefs them as skillfully as always, taking in Dr Swann's contributions without blinking, impeccably polished.

He just...doesn't meet James' eyes the entire time.

It's unnerving. Discomforting. But they've never fought like this before, so perhaps this is how Q deals with anger. It doesn't have to mean anything.

Yet. Something's wrong, whispers a little voice in the back of his head. Something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong, fix it, fix it!

James plays deaf even as frost begins to collect in the pit of his stomach at the names on Q's screen. Le Chiffre, Greene, even Silva...what the fuck has Franz been up to? They never had a particularly warm relationship, that's true, but this is bloody ridiculous.

It makes him wonder what M knew, to send him after Sciarra. Already, he's forming plans in his head, deciding the most efficient way to go after the few leads he has. From the corner of his eye, James counts the beats of the pulse thudding in Q's throat.

Too fast.

Damn it.

Q leans back in his chair, dismissal evident in every line of his body, briefing wrapped up. Bond knows very well what duty would have him do. Q has a flight back home lined up, Dr Swann has just offered to lead him to L'Américain, and.

And.

(He finds himself occasionally resenting duty nowadays. Duty and all the sacrifices she asks of him.)

"Go ahead," Bond says to Dr Swann. "I'll meet you in the lobby in five minutes." Those men are all out for the count, and he made sure no one tailed them to this hotel. She should know better than to run off after what happened not ten minutes ago. Trauma is a very effective teacher.

It's fine. It's fine.

She narrows her eyes but, eager to leave his company, no doubt, nods and closes the door behind her.

The room is quiet, and Q studies his laptop like it's the most interesting thing he's ever seen. "What else can I do for you, 007?" he asks dully. His left hand, not currently preoccupied with the mouse, flexes into a fist and then relaxes.

James leans against his desk, thinking back to stiff shoulders and restrained movements. Q's been showing all the hallmarks of using formality as a shield, but there's another explanation as well. "Why are you wearing your gloves, Q? It's warm in here."

"I have poor circulation."

Yes, James knows. A while back - what seems like a lifetime ago - he had to deal with Q's cold feet pressed against his shins. He would give almost anything to return to that terrible, wonderful night. But that's not the issue right now, the issue is -

"You never wear gloves when you're working. Not even when R&D is woefully cold for some disastrous experiment, and you're shivering in your lab coat." James would know. He supplied a great deal of the hot tea that Q generally resorts to in those troubled times.

Q twitches. "What are you trying to get at, 007? If you haven't noticed, it's cold outside, and not all of us run at high temperatures. I'm trying to warm up. If you're attempting to find some hidden symbolism in my clothing choices or something, you're looking in the wrong place."

This isn't working. James switches tactics. "What happened after you left, Q?"

"Nothing of note. Aren't you going to go after Dr Swann? She's a target now, which is a rather common and somewhat worrying streak for all the pretty playthings you pick up on your missions," Q jabs but it's half-hearted, more as a defensive offence than true insult.

He still won't look at James.

James doesn't bother being offended. "Q," he says. That, and only that.

Q shudders.

James holds out his hand.

It takes Q a few moments, but eventually, he notices the gesture and goes perilously still. A deer in headlights, he stays motionless as the clock ticks on, brow furrowing as he struggles with himself.

James waits, patient as the stars before supernova. And at last, Q closes his eyes and sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose but gives James his hand. With the utmost tenderness, James draws back his sleeve and exhales slowly at the bruise on his arm.

He's going to kill someone. Or, he would, but he suspects he doesn't have to.

"Q," he says again, so soft it's nearly soundless.

Q turns away to stare resolutely at the wall, the words tumbling out one after another. "The gondola lift. I. There were two of them, watching me. I ran, lost them for a few minutes, but. Well. I brought along a gun. And I know how to hide bodies, don't worry."

He's not fucking worried about that.

Two deaths. And if one of them got close enough to inflict this bruise, then some hand-to-hand combat as well. James curses himself brutally; he should have noticed sooner, would have noticed sooner had he not been so damnably self-centered.

He's slipping, damn it.

James evaluates the wobble in Q's bottom lip, the tiny shivers he can feel through the arm he still holds gently, the brittle way he's been holding himself since James arrived, and feels every last one of his reservations crumble into nothing before Q's pain.

Soulmate or not, lies and betrayals and deception or not, James can't stand here and watch Q hurt.

He's not capable of it. No one can ask that of him. They're welcome to take everything else, his blood, sweat, flesh, but this is his, the most inviolable law etched into his heart and soul.

Without letting go, James makes his way around the desk so he's standing at Q's side. He presses his free palm to Q's cheek, nudging at him until dull green eyes, valiantly hiding behind dark spectacles and austere defences, are finally looking at him.

James feels himself go calm. Grounded. The confusion and anarchy that's wrecked havoc on him since that damned acquisition form vanishes to make way for the implacable certainty that smoothly takes control of the situation, seeing as Q can't right now.

His vengeance can - and will - come later. Q doesn't need any of that violence at present, and James is willing to be whatever Q needs, which, instinct whispers to him, is what Q usually is to him: a lighthouse, an anchor.

Obligingly, the always-burning inferno within him lowers into a steady hearth, giving off warmth rather than malice and the burnt, wrecked skeletons of those who didn't heed the warning and approached anyway. With nary a growl of protest, the predator closes its eyes and goes to sleep.

This is James Bond at his most unarmed, most exposed, and it's all for Q. Only for Q. A small, minuscule part of him remains leery of a knife stabbed into his back, a gun pressed to his heart, but the rest of him honestly can't give a damn.

If that's the price, then so be it.

(Beneath even that, however, is the agent who remains watchful and alert, bristling protectively. Q's vulnerable now, can't adequately protect himself, so James will do it for him until Q is back on his feet again. And if that means snapping a few necks, well, that's alright.

But that's something else entirely.)

As if he's approaching a skittish fawn or coaxing a falcon to his hand, James slides his hand down and around to Q's nape, taking a firm but reassuring hold. Q quivers, vicious cracks gouging down his aloof mask, and doesn't move away.

Gliding his other hand up his arm and along his back, James waits a moment to check for any sign he's pushing too far. But all he sees is a trust that humbles him in the way Q leans into his assassin's touch and a forlorn plea in the clench of his fingers on James' arms.

"I can't stop seeing them," Q confides, searching James' face for an answer to a question he hasn't asked yet. "I've never killed anyone like this before."

James didn't think so. Briefly, he recalls the spray of a shower gone cold and trembling fingers in his mouth, but he shoves the memory away; Q needs him, Vesper doesn't.

"Shh, shh, I know." James tugs at Q, cajoling, offering safety and sanctuary and solace, and it's a measure of how shaken Q must be that he only hesitates for a heartbeat before burrowing into him like he wants to dive into James and never come out again. "I know."

Q tucks his face into James' neck and wraps his arms around his waist even as James' own arms tighten protectively. They breathe together for a spell, and when Q lets the mask shatter at last, he doesn't beg repentance, doesn't ask for forgiveness, doesn't cry out for absolution.

Shaking apart in James' embrace, Q muffles the slightest ghost of a sob against his skin instead, and cries silently, hot tears dripping down James' neck to disappear into his suit.

Only vaguely cognizant of time and danger, James holds Q close, swaying from side to side. Shushing him kindly, he murmurs comfort into his ear. He keeps them both upright and tries not to become hooked on the solid weight in his arms and the intimacy melting his naked heart.

Of course, he fails miserably.

"Shhhh, it'll fade. Trust me, it'll fade. And until then, I've got you." Unable to help himself, James brushes a light kiss over Q's incorrigible hair, stroking his hand up and down his spine slowly, soothingly. "I've got you."

Q's fragile in his arms. So terrifyingly fragile, so terrifyingly strong.

After what James' decidedly scrambled mental clock tentatively suggests is nine minutes, Q's tears stop. Neither of them move, however, and so they just stay there for a while longer, breathing in union, hearts beating in the same slow rhythm.

It feels like...peace. Like belonging and being whole. Sinking and flying all at once, protecting and protected, a precious oasis in a firestorm.

James never wants to let go, never wants to be anywhere else.

But because Q exists to be contrary, he sighs after another two minutes of quiet contentment, the damp breath hitting the side of James' neck and prompting goosebumps, and pulls away with visible reluctance.

Q's paradoxes are too much right now for James' mind, still pleasantly hazed over and riding the pang of loss. While James blinks slowly, hands falling to his sides, Q wipes the tear tracks off of his face, a mild flush sweeping up his cheeks.

But he squares his shoulders, tilts his chin up a fraction, and right before James' eyes, Q reassembles his walls, pulling his professionalism around him like a cloak of protection. In seconds, he's the Quartermaster of MI6 again.

It's almost beautiful to watch. Almost.

"Apologies, 007. Forgive me for the lapse in composure." Q looks him in the eye, calm and regretful. "It won't happen again."

James is being shut out again. It hurts, but it's a dull ache, one he can think past within the fading echoes of his unflappable, assured headspace.

Everything else he can - mostly, somewhat, barely - rationalise away, but this doesn't fit into the mould, has very few explanations and none that feed the vile creature gnawing at his organs.

Masks, he thinks. Masks and walls and hidden technological gifts like hand wrapped chocolates and lit candles. Open doors everywhere, in his flat and in his branch and on his missions, wherever James may be, but not in his heart.

Q's a puzzle, an enigma, but one James is gradually starting to piece together.

All the same, the already crushed pieces of him demand caution, and he'll be damned if he leaves even more of his bruised heart unarmoured for Q to torment in the event that he's wrong. So Bond protects the budding seeds in his mind with an unreadable smile.

"Of course. Don't mention it, Q."

He'll make his decisions when he has the whole picture, whatever those decisions might be. Whatever the consequences.

When Bond saunters into the lobby, he finds Dr Swann's standards for company are still as abnormally high as they've been for the past day or so.

"James!" 004 smiles coquettishly at him as if there's nothing at all wrong with this picture, seated elegantly on one of the two chesterfield sofas. "There you are. We've been waiting for you."

"You're late," is all Dr Swann says, face blank and arms crossed. She's on the one-seater to Marian's left, and she's not wrong. It's disconcerting to look at the clock and find himself eight minutes behind schedule, the time passing both too fast and not fast enough.

"Hello, Marian." 007 takes the other sofa, confident and laidback as a lazy lion. Outwardly, at least. "I see you've met Dr Swann." They don't look cosy by any means, but there's a distinct lack of tension and animosity between them. It's more than Dr Swann's ever given him at any rate.

004 sniffs. "Dreadful mess you've gotten her all mixed up in," she observes. "And speaking of, where's our dear Q? Don't tell me you've lost him, James." Embedded within her words appears to be the promise of castration and other horrors if she receives the wrong answer.

Charging him with negligence; how brazen for a woman in her position. But then, offence is the best defence. "How could I?" Bond returns smoothly. "He's packing his bags. I imagine he'll be here now any second now."

"What does Q stand for in the first place?" Dr Swann asks with detached curiosity, almost impressively fearless in the face of breaking into a conversation between two trained, hardened assassins. But then, she did grow up with killers, so perhaps she's reliving childhood nostalgia.

"I'm afraid that's classified, dearest," Marian tells her, artfully careless. "He's most certainly not meant to be here in Austria, though."

"Yes, why is he here in Austria?" Bond leans back, tilting his head to the side, eyes frigid. "I thought we had an understanding, Marian." Q got hurt. He was hurt, and yes, Bond wasn't there to protect him and that's his fucking fault, but he was also never supposed to be in the field.

She pouts and crosses her arms, the resulting cleavage more than enough distraction for the average questioner. Pity for her that Bond ceased to be impressed by such tactics almost a decade ago. "Are you accusing me of something here, James?"

Of course he is. "Of course not. Just an innocent question."

"Nothing's ever innocent coming from you."

"Now who's the one making accusations?"

Dr Swann glances between them and stays silent, apparently deciding to stay out of it. Probably for the best.

"Well?" Bond demands, utterly nonchalant, hand itching for his gun.

Marian huffs but a dash of chagrin flicks across her face for a millisecond. And Bond has his answer as to whether or not Q got to Austria with 004's knowledge and approval. Good to know that's one less crime to lay at his colleague's sky-tall stilettos.

Then again.

"He's barely 176 centimetres, weighs around ten stones soaking wet, and has a habit of not sleeping, not eating, and drinking astronomical amounts of tea while at work," Bond says incredulously. "He even has a fear of planes, and you couldn't stop him from leaving Britain."

The Queen's best, really.

"Have you ever tried to stop Q from doing something he really wants to do? Because let me tell you, it's not anywhere near as easy as you might think," Marian protests indignantly, pout deepening.

"What, did he threaten your bank account?" Bond scoffs, disdainful and not in the least bit placated. Q has some deep-muscle bruises and grazes, but it could have been far worse. Q could have been killed , and just the thought is intolerable.

James refuses to think of it, refuses to consider it.

"No. He - " Marian cuts herself off, eyes sliding to the left, and James knows Q has walked into the lobby. Everyone turns their head slightly to watch his progress; he's wearing a parka that's even more atrocious than his sweater, and the shape of his mouth indicates irritation.

There's nothing that might indicate something went wrong, no sign of weakness. He's in control, competent and powerful, and James' trigger finger stops itching.

Briefly, he wonders whether Q's any good at poker.

"004," Q greets dryly, coming to stand in front of them, completing the little square they have going, "fancy meeting you here."

"Oh, you know how it is, I came here for a nice ski and bumped into James here, and we got to talking. What a coincidence that you're here, too!" Marian smiles, so innocent butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. "Why, it's almost as if none of us are meant to be anywhere near here at all."

Q's having none of it. "What did you do to my second in command?" he demands, and yes, there's that displeased face 004 was gushing over earlier. James has to admit, it really is more feline than canine and also undeniably adora -

He tells himself firmly to shut the fuck up.

A flicker of annoyance quirks Marian's lips. "Nothing at all. I dare say R's covering for you in Q-Branch right at this moment, safe and sane. Besides, if you're so worried about her, you shouldn't have thrown her at me in the first place."

So Q distracted Marian with R? That's...surprisingly ruthless and efficient of him; he's normally far more protective of his minions. Was he really so worried about his job, or was he more worried about -

"I left her with two tasers and an alarm," Q says, narrowing his eyes in warning. "And R is more than smart enough to keep up with you."

"Well, there you go. She's fine." Marian stands up, throwing a mischievous grin at Bond, the quicksilver mood shift almost too fast to catch, as is the wont of a Double-Oh. "Looks like playtime's over then; I suppose we have a plane to board. We'll see you around, James."

James reminds himself that he's supposed to be glad that 004's here to take Q off his hands. He doesn't particularly have the time to escort Q to the airport, and Dr Swann presumably wouldn't be happy at the detour.

It doesn't work. He's still miffed and halfway tempted to stain Marian's beautiful grey suit. Bond nods back and tries not to wince at the small, shallow smile Q forces himself to offer in farewell.

So, they're back to this then. Christ, he needs a drink. And a 'Deciphering Quartermasters for Dummies' handbook.

"To liars...and killers...everywhere." Madeleine drifts off, drunk on too much wine and a grief she won't accept.

007 sits on the armchair she ordered him into and closes his eyes, the taste of old champagne on his tongue and exhaustion weighing down his bones. She wasn't wrong; it's both his job to keep watch and what he's good at. Doesn't mean he has to like it.

The room's too quiet.

Back in the good, old days, it used to be a wonderful thing. It meant no enemies, no gunshots, nothing to worry about. And today, no one around but a woman who hates him and righteously so. James takes another swig of champagne and misses the weight of an earpiece linked to Q.

He's gotten too used to company on nights like these, with nothing else to do but stare at the ceiling of his current hotel and wait fruitlessly for another lead.

Q's an insomniac and a workaholic with bizarre hours, and the majority of the times 007's still awake and restless, Q is up as well. And if he doesn't have another mission he needs to monitor closely, Q is more than capable of doing his work while carrying on a conversation.

(Is this another sign of the favouritism 004 accused him of? Isn't there an explanation that fits with all of Q's actions and decisions rationally?

Yes, says his mother, but James turns away.)

They talk on nights like these. Well. They talk ed on nights like these. About...anything, really. Anything and everything. James has travelled extensively and knows far more than anyone expects from a blunt instrument, and Q is a genius with a laptop's resources.

In that shitty hotel in Tianjin, they commented rudely on Chinese politics, debated the ethics of zoos, and finally concluded that pandas are badass herbivores. Busan was a playful argument on the validity of Homer's works and the intricacies of the Industrial Revolution.

While in Yangon, James complained endlessly about the service and Q had him send a picture of the city nightscape. Q likes descriptions of exotic foods, even if he'd never try some of the more unfamiliar ones, and that one was Toronto. Cairo was aliens and cats in Egyptian mythology.

Casablanca became a witty back-and-forth on the merits of Casablanca, the movie, as could only be expected. It's a favourite of James', but Q is more ambivalent on it. Even a quick rewatch the day James returned to England in Q's flat wasn't enough to change his mind, to James' outrage.

They tangled their legs on the sofa that time, the remembered softness of Q's woollen socks still enough to make James' ankles tingle. Morgana wandered in and out, but Rayleigh slept on James' chest, his occasional fits of purring a steady counterpart to the movie's audio.

And Baghdad... Baghdad.

James exhales slowly through his nose and chases the memories away with the last of the champagne. It's growing humid and sweat beads on his forehead, but he can't be bothered to wipe it away.

God, he's pathetic, he thinks with wry, empty amusement.

When he sleeps, it's superficial and troubled, silent and white but for the faintest echoes of laughing, loving tones that fade away each time James tries to identify what Q's trying to tell him.

It's almost a relief when a mouse wakes him up.

"Is this really what you want? Living in the shadows? Hunting? Being hunted? Always looking behind you? Always alone?" Madeleine asks perceptively with a psychiatrist's air, prodding at the proverbial shark without flinching.

Bond tilts his head and smiles, every centimetre the charmer. He doesn't show the pangs where her darts met their mark, because although psychiatrists in general are shitty, Madeleine is a damn good one. "But I'm not alone."

"Answer the question," Madeleine commands insistently, head held high, a queen in silver and pacifistic aggression.

She thinks she can save him, he realises. He's become her new client in truth, a pet project to work on while they chase after the clues Mr White left them. Rehabilitating a paid assassin must be so much more interesting than the rich headcases she's used to dealing with.

It's a little amusing. But only until her words burrow into his mind and remind him of the truth that's been hounding him since Mexico.

"I did," James says, and he's only lying a little.

Above, the speakers play jazz.

"What do we do now?" Madeleine asks, looking at Bond like he's meant to have all the answers, breathless and exhilarated despite all her claims of how disgusting this life is, desperate for reassurance after that jolt of terror.

Bond chuckles.

He shags her, because he needs a way to bind her to him beyond the fragile strands of alliance they have now. Because he's coming down from an adrenaline rush, too, and she's willing and beautiful and the farthest thing from black hair and green eyes.

She kisses him back like she would drown otherwise, and briefly, he wonders who she's thinking of as he tears moans out of her throat, because it sure as hell isn't him.

To be fair, James isn't thinking about her either as he fucks her into the mattress.

It's only when Franz leads them to the screen of M and Eve in the heart of MI6 headquarters that James begins to panic.

On the screen, Q stands with Tanner by the door, dressed in an ill-fitted suit and standing with stiff propriety. 004's nowhere in sight, and Franz shouldn't have this kind of access in a million bloody years.

(No, no, no, not again, not after Vesper and M, and please. Please, not Q.

Anyone but Q.)

"I'm guessing our mutual friend, C, is one of your disciples," 007 ventures coolly, forcibly pushing past the mix of black bloodthirst and red worry to pick out all the strands of the spiderweb that's closed around them without anyone noticing.

Franz smiles at him, the reptilian amusement of something not entirely human in the way most people think of 'human'. "You could say that."

James briskly reshuffles his priorities. He's going to kill Franz, destroy this facility, and then get back to England as soon as possible. He likes 004, but he only trusts her so far. And if his home soil isn't safe anymore, if MI6 isn't safe anymore…

He won't bet Q's life on chance. On anything or anyone but himself. C's already shown an interest - or re-interest, and Christ, does that make his blood boil - in Q, and without the regulations and limitations 004 and 007 assumed he was under, who knows what he'll do?

No. James won't be satisfied until Q is safe and unharmed. C's bloodied corpse would be nice, too.

But mostly Q.

007 has a long history of torture, but brain surgery via a very uncomfortable chair and needles is a new one. He has to give points to Franz - he refuses to think of him as 'Blofeld', what sort of fucking name is that, or 'Oberhauser', that's for Hannes - for originality.

"If the needle finds the correct spot in the fusiform gyrus, you'll recognise no one. Of course, the faces of your women are interchangeable, aren't they, James? You won't know who she is. Just another passing face on your way to the grave." Franz's faux-pleasant smile hovers over him.

He thinks Bond is in love with Madeleine, James suddenly understands. It's so unexpected he almost laughs out loud. What evidence did this belief come from? Two death threats, a psychiatrist session masquerading as dinner, and a one-time shag?

007's had better romances with actual marks.

It suits him to let Franz think so, though, because if Franz doesn't know, then he can't hurt Q, won't know just how much it would ruin James to witness Q hurt. Years of spywork lend credibility to Bond's poker face, and Franz buys it, just like every other monster Bond bankrupts.

It hurts. Of course it hurts. Nothing quite like a drill forcing its way through the skull and into the brain, but Bond's pain tolerance is high and he's aware enough to feel sorry for Madeleine. She's not trained for situations like this, nor is she as enured as the Q-Branch minions.

Even in the midst of excruciating pain courtesy of a terribly noticeable lack of anaesthesia, he can tell she's not shaking purely out of stubbornness and an iron will, even as Franz goads her relentlessly.

It is because of their childhood together, after all. All of this because Hannes chose to show kindness to an orphan. How spectacularly petty. Narrow-minded. He threw away both of their lives for a metaphor about birds ?

It's a good thing 007 has never tried to claim he understands the trite villains he comes across daily because he really bloody doesn't.

But the one excellent aspect of villains like Franz is that they monologue. Like to hear themselves talk, gloat about their nefarious plans for world domination, bask in their own brilliance. And while they jabber on…

"The alarm is rather loud. If you know what I mean."

Q saves him. He always does.

But with his hands locked into place behind his back, he doesn't have any way of throwing the watch after he arms it. Not without killing both himself and Madeleine in the blast. Franz, the lucky devil, would probably get away scratch-free.

"He dies not knowing who you are. The daughter of an assassin, the only one who could have understood him. Shame." Franz is still talking.

But this seems to be the last straw for Madeleine because Bond can hear her heels clanking on the floor. She comes into view seconds later, distress in the press of her lips and a plea in the cup of her hands on his cheeks.

Blue eyes like the sky on a harsh winter day, devoid of all clouds and so harshly bright no one can bear to look at it for too long, search Bond's face desperately for a solution, and he thinks fondly of Mexico City.

He wonders what the Castillo's would think of Q.

Bond looks back at Madeleine calmly, urging her to keep calm and go with it.

And perhaps Franz does have a point, because the daughter of an assassin nods minutely and presses a light kiss to his forehead. "I love you," she says, loud enough that everyone in the room can hear.

"Does he still recognise you?" Franz calls mockingly.

Bond smiles dazedly. "I would recognise you anywhere," he slurs, and against the brush of Madeleine's lips, whispers, "The watch."

And she does beautifully. In the face of a passionate, frantic kiss, no one notices the hand she sneaks down to his, the deft transfer of a time-ticking bomb.

It isn't an exploding pen. But it'll do.

"I said, doesn't time fly?"

He's going to turn forty-six in a few short weeks. And then.

Then.

"What are you doing?" Madeleine asks, confused, as Bond uncaps the pen he grabbed from the base before he blew it up in wreaths of black smoke and plums of orange fire in rapid, brutal movements.

They need to leave soon before anyone else can come after them - villains are like agents, like cockroaches: appallingly hard to kill - but first, James yanks up his sleeve and writes down in thick, black ink for the first time in years, "C's the rat."

He doesn't know if this will work or not. Every law he knows about soulmates says it won't - "If they're in love, truly in love, soulmates can converse through ink," murmurs his mother - but he has to try.

"Sending a warning," grunts Bond and starts up the helicopter. They need to get to the nearest airport.

Max Denbigh is the rat. - Q

Source? - MH

I trust him. - Q

I'll take care of MI5. Prepare MI6. Inform Gareth Mallory. - MH

Don't be an idiot. - SH

Noted. - Q

"It's Q, isn't it?" Madeleine says, two hours into their flight towards England. The silence she breaks is comfortable and half an hour old, but her question automatically strings tension into James' muscles.

He doesn't like her knowing tone.

"You'll have to be a little more specific," Bond responds, keeping his expression relaxed. "What about Q?"

"He's the one you were protecting from Blofeld." She pins him with an astute look, eyes narrowed as if daring him to bullshit her. "Your soulmate."

His first instinct is to protect and deny and talk in circles until she loses faith in that belief. But 007 has been saved by that iron spine twice, and now probably isn't the time to underestimate it. His second plan is to ignore her until this topic is dropped.

James takes a deep breath and asks, "What gave it away?"

Madeleine scoffs. "I'm not a psychiatrist because of my pretty face, you know," she says dryly. "Your body language at the hotel and that warning on your arm tell me everything I need to know."

Despite the anxiety playing hopscotch with calculating unease, Bond can't help but be a little offended. "I'm a secret agent. I have perfect control over my body language."

She arches a disdainful eyebrow. "Since the moment you entered that hotel room, you were angled towards him at all times, you put yourself between me and him as often as you could, and you two orbited each other like planets. All textbook examples of a soulmate pair."

James blinks, caught off guard. He doesn't like it. "Was it that obvious?"

"No," Madeleine admits. "But my childhood taught me to pay attention to the little hints." She pauses, tilting so her shoulder brushes against his in undemanding support. "Does he know?"

He doesn't want to tell anyone, but he really wants to tell someone. And she's better than most; trauma and danger have a way of entangling people together; he knows that better than anyone. "...yes."

"Then what's the issue?"

James' laugh is rusty. "He didn't tell me. He knew we were soulmates for years, and he didn't tell me. I had to find out by myself, through a careless mistake no less."

Madeleine hums carefully. "Have you talked to him about it?" She reads his grimace with ease. "Well, you should. It's the only way you'll ever get closure. Staying like this isn't good for either of you."

"We've been like this for years," James points out although her words merely echo his previous thoughts.

"Yes, and he's known the entire time. If you think these past few - what, days, weeks? - have been miserable, imagine what he must have felt for years." Madeleine's words are tart, but the pat of her hand on his is compassionate. "I've told you before, James. You deserve more."

"...I'll think about it," James says.

Madeleine frowns at him. "Are you just saying that so I'll stop talking about it?"

She catches on quick, he acknowledges with a small smile. "No," he says and is even mostly sure he's not lying. "Tell me about your soulmate, Madeleine. Maybe I'll learn something."

The unimpressed look on her face tells him she's well-aware of the topic change, but Madeleine huffs and lets it go for now. A radiant smile lights up her eyes moments later, leaving the few smirks she's offered Bond a washed-out imitation.

"She's a poet," Madeleine says, "and she writes me little poems every few days. They're in Hindi so it took me some years to learn the language and understand everything, but I'm fluent nowadays. She's a gardener by trade, I think, and she likes to create bouquets on my arms…"

She goes on, gesturing animatedly, a snowflake sparkling under a golden shaft of sunlight with every dendrite and plate outlined in brilliant white, so evidently besotted, that James does understand, a little.

If James acts like this around Q, then only a blind, deaf, and unobservant idiot could possibly miss the fact that he's head over heels for his soulmate.

It makes him wonder what other people think of Q's behaviour around James, and that inevitably leads to Eve and Marian's comments echoing inside his head, all thoughtlessly dropped as if common knowledge.

And isn't there a betting pool somewhere in MI6?

"007," M greets as soon as he steps into the safehouse. "Can you confirm Q's accusations of C?"

So. That's that then. All the cards on the table. If he didn't know before, then Q knows now. "Yes. I heard it from the mouth of Spectre's leader, Ernest Stavro Blofeld, myself."

M nods curtly. "Then we'd best get moving. Q's already busy hacking into Nine Eyes with 004 as his backup. Moneypenny and Tanner are waking up the chain of command. We're going after C."

"And after this is all over, 007..." M's look is complicated, pity and compassion and good old British fortitude, "...we're going to have a long conversation."

No, Bond thinks, their conversation will be very short, but he nods anyway.

M's plans don't work out like they're supposed to, of course, but the thought was nice.

"Finish it. Finish it!" Franz demands, cold and quiet and as maniacal as ever.

007 smiles like liquid nitrogen, still panting from the chase. Mercy is for the angels, and he's no angel. "As you say."

And his trusty Walther ends it all with a single bullet.

Two minutes after Franz is pronounced medically dead, Bond's phone rings.

"James," Marian says without greeting. "Q's safe, not a scratch on him, but C got away while I was busy with his goons, and Q was preoccupied with taking down Nine Eyes. I got a bullet in the bastard's stomach, though, so he won't be coming back for a second round anytime soon."

007 stares out at the night sky, the calm river. "Acknowledged. Stay with him for now. Q'll be an even bigger target than before, and Spectre remains a threat even with Blofeld dead."

"That was a given," she scoffs, then pauses. "What are you going to do now, James?"

"Tie up my strings," he says and hangs up.

Bond walks away from the scene of the crime because he knows how it's going to go. There'll be an investigation, he'll be called in for a hearing, piles of paperwork will be dumped on him, and then there'll be inquiries for another seven weeks.

No, thank you.

James walks away from the corpse of his once-brother and guides Madeleine away with a hand on her back, because she's almost been killed tonight for the fourth time this week and he promised her dying father that he would look after her.

He escorts her to the airport and goes with her to New Delhi, India. He even goes as far as to take her to a nice hotel, where she finally presses a hand to his chest and a kiss to his cheek.

"Talk to him," she says with the sweetest smile she has ever shown him. "Go on, be happy. And don't ever show up at my doorstep again."

James smiles back at her fondly. "Goodbye, Madeleine. I hope you find who you're looking for."

"So do I. Goodbye, James."

It's two in the morning when James finally makes his way back down to Q-Branch. The lift groans and shudders around him, poor old thing, and he closes his eyes briefly, trying to catalogue all that he's feeling.

He has a mostly-complete puzzle in his hands, one that dictates loyalty and affection and selfless devotion, but there are still pieces missing, ways for this to go catastrophically wrong. He could lose everything he has with Q, could ruin everything, could find himself saying goodbye, but.

But -

They have to choose. They've been balanced on the dagger's edge long enough. They can't stay here - James knows better than most the dangers of keeping still - and this is the only way to move forward.

He's frightened. He can confess that to himself now. He's more frightened than he ever was at the mercy of a drill or a whip, facing down megalomaniacs and terrorists with novella-long kill lists. He's jittery with restless anxiety and tense with the anticipation of a gunshot wound.

There's that swoop in his stomach like he's three thousand metres above ground and getting ready to fall, the quickness in his breath like he has his hands on the match and the gasoline is just waiting to be ignited.

He's standing on the edge of a cliff, arms splayed out, the wind tugging at his hair, his clothes, the ground a million kilometres away, and the fall calls to him, taunting him with one misstep, one hesitation.

But James has always been an adrenaline junkie, a gambler, prone to taking risks. He doesn't put much faith in fate, but he's always believed in himself. And he trusts Q with his life and his secrets, so surely, surely -

The lift doors open.

A single lonely lamp valiantly attempts to light up the gloom of Q-Branch but fails quite miserably. It's near-perfectly silent but for the rumble of machines and the rasp of breathing. Q is sitting at his desk, the workaholic, alone, his minions nowhere in sight.

Presumably, they're actually sleeping like human beings do, he thinks, hopelessly fond and more than a little relieved. He didn't doubt Marian's word, but seeing Q with his own eyes, safe and healthy and beautiful, has no equal.

Q's already looking up, squinting into the light. "Bond?" he calls out falteringly, and this time around, James doesn't doubt his ears when they pick out a delicate thread of delighted joy. "What are you doing here?"

James strolls easily up to Q, who's risen out of his seat and walked around his desk to face him. "Good morning, Q."

Q's face contorts, sorrow and fear in the lines of his forehead, hope and relief in the slightest tilt of his lips, confusion and hesitancy in the beetling of his eyebrows. "I thought you'd gone," he says, so soft it sounds like waking up from a nightmare to find sunrise.

"No," James replies evenly.

"Then why are you here?" Q bits his lip, glancing away for a moment as if asking for a reprieve. He must know, they both know, all of the cards are on the table for the first time, but he says anyway, "It's the car, isn't it?"

"No," James says again, a bit exasperated, a bit sad.

"I won't give you an exploding pen, Bond," Q admonishes quietly, but even he must hear how weak and hollow the words ring, lined with an exhaustion that's far older than several weeks and a bone-deep resignation that James instantly despises.

"I'm not here for an exploding pen, Q," James asserts. "I'm here for a long overdue talk."

Q clenches his jaw, eye flickering. He leans away subtly, defences snapping into place. "Don't do this," he says, but it sounds like a plea.

James can't do anything but ignore that, however much he might want to. They have to see this through. "When did you know?" he asks, keeping his voice low and steady, although the remembered betrayal stabs knives of renewed anger and pain through his ribs.

Q hunches his shoulders as if trying to ward off a blow and stares at a spot on the wall about a metre to the left of James' head. "Do you really want to know?"

"Yes." And he isn't lying.

"...six years ago," Q grits out, vibrating like a livewire stretched too thin.

"How?"

"I came looking for you."

What? That makes no sense -

Six years ago. That was when…

A puzzle piece tumbles into his hands. Click. "Vesper." James can barely recall that night, drunken out of his mind and drowning under a wave of grief and shredded wishes, but the following morning is clear as day, sharpened by panic and guilt.

Q nods tightly, the curl of his mouth bitter. "I hacked into the MI6 databases, but it was sloppy work. Naturally, I got caught, and then. Well." He laughs hoarsely, completely devoid of humour.

James shakes his head a little, feeling full understanding hover just out of his reach to his frustration. "Why didn't you tell me?" he demands helplessly.

And this. This is the crux of the matter, isn't it?

Q breaks. Detonates. That's the only way James knows how to describe it, all of the tension shattering into an explosion that's been quietly building for years, a corroding melting pot of fury, denial, and unhappiness brought to overflowing at long last.

He whirls on James, the violent transition from stillness to movement almost enough to startle 007 into taking a step back. "How could I?" he yells, voice echoing off the walls. "You were in love with Vesper, you were mourning Vesper! What was I supposed to do, walk right up and introduce myself as your soulmate after it was obvious you weren't interested?"

James flinches, dumbfounded and speechless for a beat, before his own ire surpasses his calm. "Yes, you bloody well should have! It's better than what you ended up doing anyway!" he snaps back. "And what about the other five years? That excuse barely works for six months!"

"Six months?" Q repeats incredulously. "Less than six months ago, you were torn up over your anniversary!"

And... click. "Q," James says slowly, outrage sputtering out as if doused in Arctic ice, "you can't think I'm still in love with Vesper."

Q hesitates, eyes flickering uncertainly. "You're hung up on her," he says but there's doubt there now. "Everyone says so."

James stares at Q like he suddenly sprouted blond hair and became the head of an international terrorist organisation. "No," he says for the third time this morning. "Everyone says I'm hung up on you."

"No one says that," Q argues weakly.

"Don't try and tell me Moneypenny hasn't told you about the betting pool, because I won't believe you."

"Since when do you care about what other people think?" Q asks, quickly getting over his confusion to return to fury. "Besides, my subordinates bet on everything from the day's weather to when the next M Lecture will occur; I fail to see your point."

James narrows his eyes. He knows a stalling tactic when he sees one, and Q's hiding something. There's something else beyond Vesper. "Fine, let's just say for argument's sake, I was preoccupied with Vesper for the first year. What about everything after that?"

"There's nothing else. Coercing you with a bond you never had any say in and didn't want seemed like more than enough."

There isn't a visible tell, like a twitch when bluffing or a habit of drawing circles on the knee when nervous, and Q's poker face is as flawless as it was in that museum, in Austria, but James still looks at him and knows Q is lying. He doesn't know when that happened.

Plus, there's - "How could you know?"

"Pardon?"

"How could you know I don't want a soulmate?" James hasn't talked to anyone about his soulmate, not since Vesper and M -

Click.

Fuck. Her.

"M," he says, and it's only because he's watching Q so closely that he catches the two blinks. James should have expected this, really; he witnessed the wreckage M's soulmate left behind him, has been labouring under her rules since he was made 007. "M told you that."

"M doesn't even know!" Q doesn't wear obliviousness well.

"Not Mallory," James scoffs because apparently they're going to go this song and dance before getting to the heart of the matter. "M. Our M. Olivia Mansfield."

Q says nothing which is, in of itself, a confirmation.

"What else did she say?" James demands, his temper a creeping, unstoppable sheet of ice spreading over the horizon in stark contrast to Q's volcanic explosion. "Did she have you sign a contract? Did she threaten you? What did she do?"

"Bond - "

"Answer me!"

"That's private - "

"Like hell it's private. This has nothing to do with M and everything to do with us. What did she do, Q?"

"I promised!" Q bursts out and promptly winces in self-reproach. The words are out, though, and James is already connecting the dots.

Damn that cunning, old bitch. No wonder she looked so regretful in her video; she's been stabbing him in the back for years.

"You promised," he repeats, icy and vehement. "You promised her you wouldn't tell me, wouldn't so much as hint at it, didn't you? And when she died, you continued to honour that promise."

Q shakes his head slightly, but it's a feeble refusal. He's retreated to the safety of his desk now, leaning on the wood like he'd collapse otherwise. There's still a stubborn tilt to his chin, though, and what more can possibly be left?

James isn't leaving until he's dug out every last puzzle piece. "What did she say to you to get you to agree that, hmm? I don't want a soulmate? I'll never get over Vesper? MI6 policies obligate you to repudiate your soulmate? It's for the greater good of Queen and Country?"

Q clenches his jaw tight and doesn't say a word.

It's not that. Maybe some of each, because M was a master manipulator and would do whatever she could to get what she wanted with what she termed "reasonable" sacrifices, but Q's smart, Q's brave, Q wouldn't have stayed silent for six years for any of that, for all of that.

Q -

"You've always done what you want, even when it leads to a month off-grid and cracked ribs, haven't you?"

James looks at Q and thinks of coming home after weeks off-grid to find heavy bags under his eyes and exhaustion lining his face, the expensive and time-consuming equipment shoved into his arms, the way Q stays on the comm even when he doesn't have to.

And he thinks of M, who was shattered by 009's death, who tried to protect her agents when she could - not always, not most of the time, but to the best of her ability - and who looked James in the eye and told him it was for the best that he never contact his soulmate again.

Click .

"She said you would put me in danger," James says, very softly, and Q's face crumbles.

"I've ran the statistics," he mumbles miserably after a long moment of silence. "Not the bullshit ones, the actual statistics from MI6 records, and before M's rules, 20% of agents were...removed from MI6 because of some soulmate-related issue."

"Q - "

"No, don't. Reasons range from execution for treason, defection, homicide, murder-suicides, double suicides, distractions at the wrong time, leverage, hostage situations, etcetera, etcetera. One out of every ten agents who found and connected with their soulmate died."

James can only stare, speechless.

Q takes a deep breath. "In a 90% confidence interval, unbound agents have a higher survival rate than bound agents by 23% to 54%. I've run probability tests, regression tests, sample tests - some of it may just be propaganda, but the numbers don't lie."

He pauses and then repeats, "The numbers don't lie, Bond, and unattached agents are better off, trust me, so just." He swallows hard and juts his chin out, eyes too bright, meeting James' gaze with a wild, desperate obstinacy.

"Just...forget about this, alright? Forget about this, all of it. We can go back to - to being what we were, and it'll be fine. Or, if you don't want that, you can have the car, if you like. Dr Swann's probably still waiting for you, isn't she? And you - I - what do you want me to - "

Click.

"Q," James says, very calmly. "Shut up."

Q shuts up.

"I'm not going anywhere," he states, "and I'll be back soon, but I have a few affairs I need to take care of. Eat some food before you starve, for Christ's sake, and take a nap before noon."

James turns on his heel and walks out of the room.

It's nine at night when James stumbles into Q's flat and makes his way up to his place wearily. He stands in front of the door and looks up at the cameras, wondering if Q's revoked his access.

There's a familiar whirring sound as the locks disengage. That's a no then.

It's dark inside, which means Q is most likely still working away back in Q-Branch. He tends to throw himself into work when he's upset about something, but hopefully, he'll have noticed the phone notification - because he must have one - and will be on his way home soon.

James flips on the light and is greeted with Rayleigh half a minute later, the Russian Blue streaking out of the bedroom to nudge his head against his knee and meow loudly in welcome. Morgana follows more leisurely, obviously above such enthusiastic displays, and sniffs at him.

Oddly enough, James gets the impression that that's as much of an honour as it gets.

"Hello there," he murmurs, bending down to pick up Rayleigh, who's much heavier than he looks, even with all of the fluff and bulk. Rayleigh purrs and rubs his head against his chest, taking no notice of the hairs he's getting all over James' suit.

He finds he doesn't really care.

Taking him to the sofa, James sinks down with a sigh, relishing the feeling of warmth and home that instantly wraps around him. In his brief absence, Q's clutter has once again taken over the table. If all goes well, maybe James will clean it up later, when he's not so tired out.

Something familiar catches his eye before he turns away. Buried beneath the blueprints is one of those special felt-tipped black pens he remembers so well from childhood.

He stares at it for what feels like an exceedingly long time.

Six years. That's...a bloody long time. To watch and wait without any expectation of reciprocated affection. To. To improve systems and second-handedly conduct missions and invent better technology and dance with death and stay fucking put in MI6 for James Bond.

James unearths the pen carefully and uncaps it. He rolls up his sleeve and writes on his upper arm:

Inside a maid's hand is a box.

Inside the box is evil.

I am inside evil,

And humanity is inside me.

What am I?

A heavy weight lands on his legs, startling a full-body jerk out of him. James raises his head, but it's only Morgana, circling around - and stepping repeatedly on - his legs until she finds a suitable position and settles down with a disdainful meow.

"Sod off," he tells her, putting the pen back.

She yawns at him and closes her eyes, curling into a tighter ball. Rayleigh is already asleep on his chest.

James smiles faintly and closes his eyes. He'll just rest for a little until Q comes home -

Q dawdles outside of his own door for a good five minutes, pacing with nowhere to go and twisting his hands, knowing he needs to take a chokehold of whatever courage that remains after the day he's had and face the lovely farewell awaiting him beyond that familiar door but.

But -

And he's always known this time would come, didn't he? Q's not a genius for nothing, and he might not be Mycroft, with his gift for manipulating people into doing exactly what he wants, or Sherlock, who can read an individual's life story in a glance, but Q.

Q knows how to look at a set of data and predict a situation, run simulations and design programs for attacks that haven't occurred yet, and he saw this coming a long time ago.

Knew it the first time he saw James Bond, hiding from behind a computer screen and anonymity, strut into Q-Branch, confident and magnetic and with the most gorgeous smirk when presented with another small, charming gadget created beneath Q's careful fingers.

Knew it when they first met, truly met, and despite himself, despite every attempt to steel himself, despite his fury over the nerve of Bond, to write to Q after years of silence right when Q thought he was dead, Q found himself enraptured by the respect in his voice when he said, "Q."

Knew it when one day, Q looked up from his work to find a perfectly-brewed cup of tea next to him and his favourite pastry sitting right next to it and his scarf hanging off his chair and smiled, only to realise Bond has been conducting a siege and won, and Q hadn't even known.

Q swallows hard and closes his eyes against the tears welling up. He doesn't want to turn that doorknob, doesn't want to enter his own flat. Doesn't want to confront Bond - James , James, it's okay now, isn't it? - and the inevitable goodbyes.

Will he be pitying? Angry, as he's been? Not gentle, please not gentle, not like that hotel room in Austria, Q won't be able to stand that. He'll bear everything else, but -

...well. This wasn't going to work anyway, right? He knew they'd end up like this, didn't he? So, why, why -

Q takes a deep breath and pushes down a sob. That's enough. That's enough . He's not here for a self-pitying fest, for God's sake. "All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage," he whispers to himself and unlocks his door and steps inside.

Mechanically, he removes his shoes and hangs up his jacket. When he glances into the living room, the sun is sinking down the horizon, flooding the space with a warm, soft light and illuminating the beautiful man sleeping on his sofa with gold.

Q's breath catches.

James sleeps, limbs splayed out carelessly, Rayleigh on his chest and Morgana on his legs. He hasn't stirred since Q walked in and froze and, for a Double-Oh, that. That -

Q doesn't know how long he leans against the wall, desperately drinking in every last detail he can, while he still can. The light plays tricks on James' hair, turning it a wheat yellow one moment and then a mellow cream.

There are several strands of silver there, he notices with a jolt. It only adds to James' charm, because he's a lucky bastard like that.

James has his eyes closed, and that's. That's good. Q's proven himself helpless against those brilliant blue eyes time and time again, but here, now, on Q's sofa, there's a peacefulness, a serenity, to James' distinguished features that he's rarely ever seen and it's just as effective.

Figures James can do this to him without even being awake.

Q shivers. It's then that he takes note of the darkness engulfing the sky and the chill sinking into the floorboards. The nights in November can get a bit cold, and shit, he's being selfish again, isn't he? He told himself he wouldn't, that he would be better, but he's not good at this.

Cursing himself the entire time, Q tiptoes to his closet and grabs one of his best comforters. Moving back to the living room with every ounce of stealth he possesses from trying to sneak up on Mycroft and tracking criminals with Sherlock, he shakes out the duvet.

Carefully, lightly, he covers James with the comforter. Rayleigh sleeps on, so he ends up covered as well, but Morgana twitches awake the instant the material touches her back. Pinning him with a disapproving look until he consents to picking her up, she snuggles into his chest with a purr.

James never so much as shifts.

That. That sort of instinctive trust - soulmates, he tells himself, reminds himself. They're soulmates, it's just evolutionary instinct; it doesn't mean anything; doesn't - James doesn't even know what he's doing. Not doing.

(Does it matter?)

Q knows he shouldn't. Should keep his distance, should not torment himself any further; he's supposed to be smarter than this, damn it! But if this is the last time he'll see James, see his soulmate and the love of his fucking life, then, then, it's okay, isn't it?

He buries his face in Morgana's fur for a moment, shoulders shaking. It has to be okay.

Q sits on the armrest James isn't using as a pillow and swings his legs around so he's facing James. He sleeps on, and Q's heart hurts, and -

Please don't go.

The tears fall into Morgana's fur and down into his collar.

James wakes to the understanding that he's being watched.

He doesn't open his eyes immediately. Morgana's weight has disappeared from his legs, but Rayleigh continues to sleep on his chest; he can feel the movement as the cat's chest expands and compresses evenly.

Someone is watching him.

A thick comforter has been tucked around him. He feels well-rested and comfortable for the first time since that damned, blessed acquisition form. His brain feels like it's been muffled in cotton, everything slow and groggy.

It's quiet, and he's warm and safe, and he opens his eyes.

The living room is dark. He's slept for some time. The only light comes from the moonlight and streetlight, both gently invited in by the drawn-back curtains. Shadows soften the edges of the furniture like the careful rubbing of an artist's finger over firm charcoal lines.

Q sits on the armrest across him, Morgana nestled happily in his arms. The faint light glides over him, picking up the strong line of his jaw, the barest arch of his left cheekbone, the furrowed line of his eyebrows, but leaving alone the beautiful green of his eyes, the slope of his soft lips.

He's looking straight at James and thus is in the perfect position to see his eyes open. James sees him stiffen, sees the way he draws back slightly.

His feet are only a few centimetres from his own, and it only seems natural to James to wriggle forward slightly to touch them together. "Good evening," he says, voice rough from sleep and affection.

Q shifts a bit but doesn't pull his feet back. The light of the angle changes, and James realises there are tear tracks on his face. His smile fades. "Q," he says, sitting up, the comforter falling off of his shoulders to pool on his lap.

He forgot about the cat.

Rayleigh wakes up with a protesting whine, squinting up at James with censure, only to settle down again when James bodily repositions him on one of the few pillows Q keeps on the sofa.

Silently, Q lets Morgana go, who joins Rayleigh on the pillow.

When James reaches for Q, he doesn't flinch away. James cradles Q's face between his hands and wipes away the lingering moisture with his thumbs. He searches Q's expression for any explanation why...beyond the obvious, that is. "What's wrong?"

Q bites his lower lip. His skin is soft and cool to the touch, and his eyes are still too wet. "Why are you here, 007?" It's the weakest attempt at professionalism James has ever known from him, and Q must know it, too.

James looks at Q for a long time, letting the silence stretch out, tasting this moment on his tongue. They'll never be who they are right now after this point.

He's glad for it.

Removing his left hand, he reaches into the inner pocket of his suit and gives Q a DVD. "Play it."

"Bond - "

"Q." He locks gazes with his soulmate and smiles, naked with affection and not bothering to hide it. "Trust me."

Q laughs a little at that, bittersweet and sad. "I didn't think you were cruel," he accuses tiredly.

That stings, but James reminds himself that Q doesn't know; James hasn't told him yet; Q's been waiting and heartbroken for a long time; James once thought the same thing. "Trust me," he repeats steadily.

Q sighs and closes his eyes tightly. Weariness is etched into the corners around his mouth, the dark bags under his eyes, and of course Q hasn't slept a minute since he last saw him despite James' reminder.

Without a word, Q jerks out of James' grip and nearly trips. Righting himself with a mumbled curse, he makes his way across the room and inserts the DVD into the technological contraption he houses in a drawer below the telly.

He fiddles with the remote and visibly stiffens when M's face appears on the screen.

James leans against the armrest that Q just vacated and watches. He's seen this clip so many times he can recite the words from memory. M, regal and stern and unafraid in the face of her own death, gives him her final mission from beyond death.

And then she hesitates. She presses her lips together and squares her shoulders and lifts her chin and asserts crisply, "Don't make me turn in my grave, Bond. I'm telling you this in the interest of national security. Use the information wisely."

The address of Q's flat, the flat they're both standing in right now, spills into the silence, and when she's done, M looks straight at the camera. "Good luck," she says simply, fierce and defiant to the end, and the screen fades to black.

Q stands there a minute longer, stiff and tense as if frozen to the spot.

James stands up soundlessly, leaving the comforter on the sofa. "She gave us her blessing."

When Q turns to face him, there's something bewildered to the turn of his mouth, something terribly, beautifully vulnerable to the way he looks at him. "Bond - "

"You're not bound by your promise to her anymore." He strides around the table.

Q shakes his head minutely. "Bond."

Slow and inexorable as the tide coming in, called by the gravity of the moon, James comes to stand in front of Q and places his hands on his cheeks once more. "I'm not," he breathes into the air they share, "in love with Vesper. I haven't been in love with Vesper for years."

"Bond," Q says, and there's a plea in his name now. He's afraid, they both are, and yet.

James doesn't stop, murmuring the words against Q's temple, "That night when I came to you, I was mourning her, yes, but only for who she was. She's in my past. If any part of me does still love her, it loves my memories of her, not her, not Vesper Lynd."

"007, please." Q's hand darts up, quick as a hummingbird and trembling slightly, to wrap loosely around James' wrist.

And here they are.

James smiles, wry, and rests his forehead against Q's. "Q," he whispers like a secret, "I broke into M's office twelve hours ago and nailed my resignation to his table with a throwing knife. I'm not 007 anymore."

Q jerks, eyes flying wide open, gaping, but James was prepared for that and keeps him in place with the gentle pressure of his hands.

"You what?" he hisses, hand clenching tight on James' wrist. "How could you - this is because of what I said earlier, isn't it? You can't - not for me, come on - if you call now, M might - " He twists in James' grasp, already looking for his phone, but James doesn't let him go.

"Well now, that's a tad presumptuous of you, isn't he?" There's a very faint timbre to his words that suggests a pleased smugness, and Q stops struggling to frown thunderously at him.

"This isn't bloody funny, Bond! You love your job! You love what you do! You're - devoted to Queen and Country and all that and - I'm not letting you throw all that out the window, because I was stupid and tea-deprived. Where is - where did I put my damned phone - " He starts struggling again, turning this way and that.

Q's protests parallel James' own reservations, the ones that have held him back since Mexico. But he's made his decision, and he's made his peace with it, and now that Q's reiterated everything, he finds he can't possibly care less, and Q really needs to stop squirming.

"Q, I'm forty-six," James says, quiet but blunt. "The retirement age for Double-Ohs is forty-five. I'm past my expiration date already, and to keep MI6 going, M needs to save face after this fiasco with Spectre. He can't defend an agent who went rogue without losing all credibility."

Q stops moving.

"I won't be harshly punished because I did take down Blofeld, but I've brought too much attention to myself. M can't blatantly flaunt governmental policies, not now. It was either he fire me or I quit. And I've always gone my own way, you know that."

"Besides." He nuzzles against Q's forehead, and he regrets some of it perhaps, will miss the fire and ice of field work, but not enough to regret this: Q, home, and joy. "I have you now." It's a fair trade in James' opinion.

Q opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. He shakes his head again and closes his mouth, apparently speechless. Were it any other scenario, James would be amused, but now, he merely waits, impatient and anxious but trying not to show it.

Q stares at James, wonder in his shining eyes, and tries again. "You. I. I - all three?" M and Vesper and MI6.

He hums. "All three. Of course. I would have done whatever you wanted." James curls himself around Q, hands sliding down his neck, over his shoulders, and then down his sides to wrap around his waist protectively.

Q doesn't move for a second. Two. James holds his breath and waits, heartbeat too fast and throat dry, tightrope straining beneath his feet.

Slowly, hesitantly, Q leans into James, relaxing one muscle at a time until he's boneless. He embraces James in return, grip possessive and desperate and just as tender, and rests his head against James' shoulder. Q's cold nose nudges against his neck.

They're pressed together, entwined around each other, and they're safe, they've stepped off the tightrope and onto solid ground and he's never loved stability more.

James sighs slowly, melting a little.

This was what they were meant to be doing all along. This has always been their end goal, regardless of what they've each thought individually. Here. Just like this.

"Are you sure, Bond?" Q whispers, uncertainty polluting his touch, still holding back a centimetre. "Are you positive?"

"James," he insists, rocking them slowly in place to a lullaby he faintly recalls his mother used to sing to him at night. "Call me James."

"Are you sure, James?" His name is lovely on Q's tongue, in that precise, rich voice, and James smiles.

He breathes in Q's scent - stale tea and citrus cologne - and thinks of the bright, radiant light in his heart. It's been there for a while now, growing and glowing. "Inside a maid's hand is a box. Inside the box is evil. I am inside evil, and humanity is inside me. What am I? "

Q blinks at him. And then, at last, he smiles back. "Hope."

OpalescentGold: Yayyy! The two idiots finally got their act together! Sorta. We have one more chapter left - the epilogue - and then I'm thinking about doing a dvd commentary-type fic for Redamancy, so I can give more of a Q POV to this solely Bond-orientated fic. What do you guys think?

Also, as you probably noticed, I decided to slip the scene in Q's POV in the second before last scene instead of at the end. A nice change of pace, ^.^.

justyuki: Lolz, they're stubborn idiots, aren't they? Well, they've worked it out now. All's well that ends well! Or something like that. Thanks for the review, darling!

cinimar: Ahhh, I'm glad you enjoyed! XDDDDD

rubyred753: You're very welcome, darling! Lolz, he got his act together eventually.

Guest: ^.^, what can I say. I'm evil. *pets*

mervoparkite: Ah yes, James is a terribly emotionally constipated idiot. What can you do? Thanks for the lovely review, darling, I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

whoviansrock: Awww, thank you, sweetheart! *blushes*

A thousand kudos and all the love to my betas, Linorien and Pigfarts23! The amount of times I forced them to read over this trainwreck is shameful, and they've been so wonderful about it.