A/N: Here we are with the third chapter of Tessitura. Please enjoy.

III

Fool's Gold

It was cold, like the metal surface of his work desk. There was a small voice, faint. Water. Wet. Rain. A gunshot. The mole agent was by his feet, staring into his eyes and whispering, 'Not such a clever boy'. He felt someone hold his hand, it was 009. They were running through a fire exit. She was laughing. It was game. She spoke only in Russian. Red. Black. Red. The smell of tea biscuits. A fall down a cliff. A time in his youth, he was young again, standing at the Tube on the way to the SIS. Blue. Yellow. White. Sky. Ocean. Boat. He was in a painting. The art gallery was in the train. Silva dressed in Bond's clothes, asking, 'Did you make me disappear?'. He was running again. A girl with grey eyes. He stood on the edge of a building, but he was not going to make the jump. Bond was on the other side, a dying M in his arms. Bond wanted him to jump. It was the only way to save her. The smell of tea biscuits. A touch on his shoulder. A voice in his head. A voice in his head.

"Q!"

The quartermaster opened his eyes as he heard his name again. But this time, it wasn't a voice in his head - it was a voice right in front of him. Finally aware that he was not in a dream anymore, Q sprang up from his desk as he hastily fixed his crooked glasses. He had fallen asleep in the workshop before he even knew it, something that the stress of this job tended to make happen in moments when he was needed the most. Clearing his throat, he looked up at the figure of the person who woke him up - the voice in his head. In front of him stood Eve Moneypenny who held a box of biscuits and two takeaway cups of tea, complimented by an amused expression at his surprise.

"Moneypenny." Q exhaled for a moment, lowering his shoulders as he attempted to be calm. He was already embarrassed enough to be seen slouching over his desk, and the slight daze from waking up did not help.

"Good morning, Q." smiled Moneypenny, her easy manner of speaking made him more uncomfortable. It was not until she said it that he realised that he spent the night sleeping on this desk, and the bunker lacked the windows to make him aware. She settled the box and cups right beside his open laptop, before frowning as she suddenly looked down while lifting a foot slightly, "Why is your floor wet?"

His period of anxiousness disappeared when she remarked about the wet floor. Wet? Impossible. No one has stepped into this workshop since M yesterday during debriefing, and the floor couldn't possibly be wet. Bending down to look at the place Moneypenny indicated, Q found a trail of water to lead up to his desk, and as he looked back to the surface of the table he quietly investigated. He scanned his eyes from his open laptop, Moneypenny's biscuits and tea, some papers, and then lastly, he spotted a red envelope that was not there before. Cautiously, Q reached for the envelope as he scrutinised the ink-stained handwriting across its surface. It was terrible handwriting, terrible in his standards, but readable nonetheless.

"What's that?" asked Moneypenny, who had been watching him the whole time.

"Just a memo from Q-Branch next door." he quickly said, shaking his head. Q folded the envelope and tucked it into his pocket before she could look, shifting uncomfortably as he tried to switch the subject by looking at the cups of tea, "Which one? I didn't expect you to be coming."

Moneypenny shrugged before pointing to the cup on his left, before walking towards the opposite direction, admiring the mess and the prototypes it created. "I have some documents from M. He and Tanner are off busy trying to 'compromise' with C, so I'm running errands for them. He said you'd be here early in the morning, but I didn't expect you to sleep over. Have some biscuits, I didn't know what it is you like so I bought all kinds."

"Thank you, and the papers?" he followed after, while he drifted his eyes towards his laptop as Moneypenny began to shuffle into her bag. After a few moments of typing, he brought the screen to life which revealed all the windows and files he worked on.

Open windows of text, files, and videos - particularly what he has recorded from Whyte's live feed - lay open before him on the screen. Ever since last night's incident, Q had been obsessed with investigating the feed. Every frame had an answer, and if studying each moment would give him an answer, it was a chore worth doing. The obsessive repetition managed to haunt his mind, that even though he could only now remember so little of his vivid dream earlier, the face of the dying mole agent continued to haunt him. There was a difference between damage done from a few keystrokes, and the damage done from a trigger pulled. It was a distinction he once had simplified - underestimated - but now his thoughts began to change. Q wondered if it was because of the feed, of 009's excess with her bullets, or something else.

"Here you are." Moneypenny followed after the small silence, as she slid the papers across his desk. While she swept into the motion, her eyes glanced at his computer with more curiosity than he expected, "What are you looking at?"

"Just the feed from last night. 009 had stirred a bit of trouble in Prague." he replied, sipping the tea she had thoughtfully bought for him. Moneypenny was a field agent once, and this information was not entirely confidential. They had worked together before, and Q knew to trust her. "I'm trying to gather what I can."

Moneypenny slanted a brow as she looked back and forth the screen and him, noticing his particular interest with the few seconds before the mole was shot to his death. "You seem fixated."

"It's just... He seemed to be saying something. At least until Whyte shot him cold." Q remarked in almost a whisper, his eyes searching endlessly.

He had been replaying the same few seconds since last night. Everything about the mission was strange, but what Q found most intriguing were the words he had never heard. Q pressed a button on his keyboard, and the feed looped back to the last few seconds before the mole was shot to his death. Moneypenny moved slightly closer to his side, attempting to get a better angle while watching the scene. She was as fascinated as he was, but Q knew with the amount of time he spent dissecting the video second by second, he was more engrossed.

"They said... They said he would come for me, but it was you... It was you. You are..." the mole agent's lips move to form his last words, and again, Q found himself squinting at his lips. It quivered, pointing forward, to pronounce a name or a description.

"She is what?" Moneypenny asked, held in a moment of suspense as they watched 009's bullet find the mole's head. "Maybe he wanted to say 'James Bond'? This was Bond's mission after all, I heard from M."

"His lip movement, doesn't seem like he was about to say something starting with any of his initials, more so, his agent number." he replied, shaking his head. He had thought about the possibility, but the thought did not sit so well. It did not make sense either. "An 'F' or maybe a 'V'. Fo... Vo... Hmm."

Moneypenny, after being so distracted with what she had witnessed, turned her gaze towards the quartermaster, "Q, how are you sure this is not about her? About 009? He could be referring to her. Personally."

"I thought about it," he had considered the possibility, more than once, "but when I checked her files she is rather... Undecorated. No army service, no special anything. It's a wonder how she's even an agent of this calibre, when the best thing she's got is apparently being a good shot. Her files are too clean, no criminal record - almost like a good citizen, but I highly doubt that."

After he had spoken, a small beep emerged from Moneypenny's coat pocket. Familiar with the sound, she hesitated without making an effort to check, her face visibly intrigued with the information Q has shared. She glanced at the screen once more, then back at him, and Q knew that she was about to say goodbye. They had their own duties, after all. Holding that thought, he placed a hand over the pocket that hid the folded red envelope, swallowing slightly at the anticipation. When did she come around to pull off such a stunt? She must have seen everything, everything except what lay beyond his locked computer. He grumbled at the thought of her amusement, that vile darkness of her grey-eyed gaze scrutinising his obsession over the feed. Q reminded himself that it was part of the job, but he could not help feeling flustered and he did not know why.

"Well, that would be M." Moneypenny sighed after a moment, retreating from the table and began to fasten her coat. Q watched her as she carefully paced the puddled floor, fixing her bag over her waist with her hand reaching for the bunker's door.

"Moneypenny."

She paused, turning towards him, "Yes?"

"Do you know what he's doing?"

"A shred, but not completely." Moneypenny shrugged, giving him a soft smile, before turning back to the closed door she was about to open, "I think we have different roles to play in his game, Q, but I'll keep you posted with what I know. He hasn't contacted me since he left, but if there's anything I can tell you about Bond - I think he's just getting started."

Q entered the auditorium of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, which is a bus ride and a ten-minute walk away from the SIS bus station. The red envelope, which he half-expected to contain substantial information, held a single ticket to tonight's show of the Royal Opera House's Orpheus at this very place. Although initially hesitant, Q attempted to dress better than normal, using the old suit and tie he once wore when he met with Bond at the art gallery with his jacket draped over. Looking around, he settled onto his seat, nervously eyeing the people around him. The envelope, after all, was only a written note. His thought of her appearing beside him was more of an impulsive assumption. Q knew he should have been more careful.

"You're strangely uncomfortable." a voice remarked right beside him, Q turned slightly to see a black-haired woman sitting right beside him. She looked straight towards the empty stage instead of him, her arms folded over her simple long-sleeved turtleneck dress, and her lips curved in that familiar smirk.

Q looked ahead as well, his shoulders calming slightly as he frowned, strangely unsurprised by her entrance, "I'm not uncomfortable, 009, I am simply inconvenienced. What are you-"

Without a word of notice, Rachel Whyte place her hand over her head and pulled off the black wig she adorned. As the synthetic black locks flowed away, a mirage of short wavy blonde hair bounced messily against her pale cheeks. She turned her eyes and stared into his, absent of any kind of embarrassment, "What? You don't like it, so I took it off. Sometimes I just don't like showing up as myself."

"I did not say a word of not liking it, Whyte."

"I can see it, you were criticising it. So, I took it off."

"It's because the blonde is fitting." the quartermaster blurted in short of a whisper, attempting to calm her rising voice. The agent was oblivious to the lights dimming, and Q had to do his part of keep her voice lowered. When he realised he had complimented her, he cleared his throat and moved slightly within his seat, and he felt her smirk grow wider even when he dared to not look at her. "Why are we here, 009? If it's important, we can discuss it back in my office. This is unnecessary."

"I heard you first met with Bond in an art gallery, I had to step up the bar a bit. I'm hardly familiar with opera, but I wanted to be as pretentious. It's a courting process." Her voice was now reduced to a whisper, and they both watched as the curtains opened with the opening act. She folded her arms again, reclining slightly to her seat.

Q fell silent for a moment as the stage began to capture his attention. From the corner of his eye, to the right of the row, he felt the chill of someone being watched. Slowly, he slid a short glance before looking away - it was the man from the feed, the other Quantum agent that Whyte failed to kill. He knew this from studying the video endlessly, and that very man sat only seven seats away from them both: far enough to not hear a word they talked about, but close enough to pursue them. Q kept his eyes on the events that played on the stage, focused on his composure to not alarm the agent. He was tempted to look towards Whyte to speak to her, but he still felt the Quantum agent's eyes glued to their direction. The man was watching him - watching them both.

"We have company." Q murmured, breathing lowly, keeping his hands clenched in between his legs to hide his anxiety. "The other agent you did not kill is about seven seats away from us."

"He's on time." she only replied, and Q realised the real purpose of this meeting - with him being an accomplice and in danger. "Keep your composure, Q, he'll know."

"You're trying to get me killed, Whyte." he whispered back through gritted teeth. He paid no more attention to the opera, as the Quantum agent began to occupy his mind. Whyte, on the other hand, seemed unfazed by the whole situation. As he tried his best to keep still, he felt her hand slip into his jacket pocket, "What do y-"

"Don't move." Whyte quickly warned him, her eyes still seemingly attentive to the opera - as far as his peripherals can tell at least. "It's the bullet from the other sniper. I want you to run it through the system, just in case things don't go as planned tonight."

"What is it with you field agents and taking advantage of my services?"

"Isn't that what you're here for?" she slid another one of her smirks, and turned her head towards him. Q felt compelled to look back, and as soon as he did, Whyte suddenly took his hand and rose from her seat as she began moving across the row.

Confused, Q stood in a hurry as he tried to keep with her pace. Whyte's black dress floated against the darkness, and her bright blonde hair glowed against the stage lights. While following her, Q felt the Quantum agent walking behind his back, and he felt his body run cold at the thought. 009 arranged for this to happen, to have him involved, but why? In what way was he so useful to her? Surely, she could have dealt with this tail herself. Q saw his presence as unnecessary, almost like a nuisance, but Whyte held his hand tightly - refusing him any chance to let go. Already flustered by the situation, he looked at their interlocked hands which she initiated. She was too bold, and he couldn't read her mind. All he could do was follow. For now. He will figure her out, eventually, for her clean file gave him a reason to suspect her. How could this person - with no army experience nor intelligence background - find her way into a Double-O status?

Once they were out of the playhouse, and into open public space, Whyte dragged him to the right of the sidewalk, which led down to the intersection of Park and Emerson Street. As if estimating her time, she slowed her pace and swept a glance around the area, "Surprisingly lonely for an opera opening."

"I really don't like you right now." Q returned, dipping his head slightly as her grip only became tighter. She was not planning to let go, not anytime soon. He dug into the pocket that Whyte had snuck the bullet into and felt it there, his fingers felt the cold metal through the ziplock. He swallowed.

Whyte chuckled like everything was like a game, a small sport of hide and seek with his life on the line. Truly, he wondered, if she knew what she was doing. Confidence was a deceiving trait. "That's just right now, Q, that can change."

As they walked down the intersection of Park and Emerson, Q felt and heard the distant footsteps of the Quantum agent. Whyte held him tightly, her composure calm but her pace quickening. Reaching the intersection, Whyte curved their direction to the right instead of crossing. It was here that she had finally let go of his hand, placing a finger on her lips to keep him silent, tugging on her dress to reveal a small part of her ankle. Just above her low-ankle boots was a holster for a Walther PPK/S similar to Bond's, with an extra pocket that stored the silencer. Rising back up, Whyte hastily fastened the silencer onto the muzzle before leaning against the wall in anticipation. Q kept himself still, leaning on the wall right beside her, breathing lowly as his chest pounded.

The Quantum agent appeared around the corner with his gun held up. Whyte slammed the agent's raised arm to the side with her left elbow, effectively dropping his gun as she threw her right fist underneath his jaw to stun him slightly. Q immediately ducked as soon as everything began to happen, barely missing a fired bullet that the Quantum agent managed to pull before being disarmed. Stepping back slightly, she kicked the disarmed gun with her heel towards the quartermaster's direction, before shooting the agent's knee with the Walther.

"Alright, Q?" Whyte breathed, before pulling on the agent's collar to drag him further into the lonely street, the end of the Walther pressed on the skin of his cheek.

"You and I have very different standards of 'alright', 009." Q yelled back, slowly standing from his ducked position as he brushed on his jacket, picking up the disarmed gun. Because of his involvement in weapons technology, he knew how to operate and shoot a gun - but only for the sake of innovation. Nevertheless, he felt safer with the gun held shakily around his cold fingers.

Whyte did not reply as she threw the Quantum agent to the ground. Gasping, she bended over the fallen man with her free hand rested against her knee. When he looked at her shadowy silhouette under the dim street lights, Q could tell that a cloud of exhaustion has taken her. Whyte took a few moments of audible breathing, then rose back to a better posture with the Walther aimed at the agent, "You know, I don't like getting interrupted on a date night. Why are you following me?"

Q felt his throat dry. A date? He shook the thought away as he cleared his throat, and looked away as if he had never heard it. Then he realised, "I thought you knew he was going to be here?"

"I lied." Whyte answered quickly, much to his surprise. He wasn't arranged to be here, and she was bluffing all this time. Everything that just happened was spontaneous. Her eyes were focused on the agent, staying true like a predator on the hunt, "Who sent you?"

The Quantum agent smiled a bloodied smile, his collar in wrinkles and rips, laughing as he eyed her pointed gun, "Insurance."

Q watched as her armed hand quickly moved the gun away from the Quantum agent's face, and then swiftly towards his legs. A whisper of shot fired towards the agent's other knee, and sent him whimpering at the pain while Q jumped slightly at the unexpected. If this was a few hours ago, he would have been a bit more frightened, but after watching the feed from the Prague mission countless times - this situation did not disturb him as much as it should. What he was more nervous of, was that all of this happened in an open public space. This side of Park Street may be a little lonely, but there were CCTVs that are watching them at this very moment. He needed to find this later and clear it, before anyone from the Q-Branch decides to show it to M. Holding the gun did not do so well for him either, but he thought to rather have it in his hands than to a possible accomplice.

"So it's you. Huh. Wouldn't have thought it that... All that is... You." the agent continued talking, his body curled up against the bricked sidewalk, his hands pressed on his bloodied knees. Q noted the similarity dialogue that the mole agent and the Quantum agent shared, accompanied with a realisation once they looked at Whyte in a particular way. This was not coincidence.

Whyte, who grew impatient, shot at his thigh, "Stop talking in riddles, I can do this all night. Who sent you here? Who was the other shot in Prague? This all about Bond, isn't it?"

"009, I highly advice you make this quick. This is an open public space-"

"Q, stay put and keep watch."

"009-"

"Q." Whyte said firmly, as she remained towering over the Quantum agent, "Ever since Bond decided to chase around Quantum, the whole agency's been vulnerable. Whatever's happened in Prague, it's because of Bond."

"We're everywhere." the Quantum agent croaked bitterly as if he had already predicted his end, "Kill me? Someone will replace me. Marco Sciarra? He's getting replaced tonight. We're all expendable, working for the same cause. We die because we love power, and our legacy remains to fulfil that goal. James Bond is just one of our many ventures, his current obsession. We'll ruin him, you and your friend there, and the MI6 at its core."

At the sound of the name, Q urged himself to step closer, "Marco Sciarra? The assassin in Mexico? He's one of you?"

"That Mexico incident is connected to this?" Whyte turned to Q slightly, narrowing her eyes slightly before turning back to the fallen man.

The Quantum agent mocked at their shared surprise, whimpering slightly at his bleeding legs, "I'm surprised that your agent Bond hasn't mentioned it. He... He should have figured it out by now and probably on his way. There is a bigger picture, one... One you would know so well. But I... I see it now. You are playing a very dangerous game, Rachel Whyte."

"Oh shit." Whyte cursed as she knelt over the Quantum agent. Q rushed closer to her side, the vision of the incident becoming clearer and clearer as it came into view. A mountain of foam rested atop the agent's lips, his eyes were open and blank, and his body motionless. He was dead.

"Cyanide." Q muttered, scowling as he stood over her and the now dead body. His sounded more composed than he felt as his knees shook slightly, and his hands were colder than the gun he had held. "He played us."

"I knew that, I thought I could outplay him. But he's just as vague as that mole." she reluctantly admitted as she rose, kicking the body to keep her assured. She held a hand underneath her shoulder, and once again, the cloud of exhaustion was visible in her face, "If anything, taunting him with Bond did something. I was playing with a hunch that it all had a - ugh, I feel a little dizzy - connection of sorts with Bond. Apparently, I think it does. With the words 'his obsession', and the whole 'Marco Sciarra being replaced' event, I think we are getting somewhere. Ah, I need a smoke."

Whyte stood a for a moment, looking into the nearest lamp post as she took a deep breath. Q looked at the body, before kneeling down to inspect the things he could salvage to investigate. Aside from the gun, the agent's phone could provide some insight - along with a wallet or some form of identification. If he could find any of the sort, at least. "Aside from standing there, 009, try helping me do your job."

"Smart Blood can track location, right? We should track Bond, and... Run that... That... Bullet I gave you through the system. The wife probably knows something, and we should cross-reference... Make a connection..."

She spoke in broken sentences, but Q looked up slightly to listen. Now that he really looked at her, in this slightly peaceful state, he found that if Bond's women was a standard of glamour - she did not have it. She instead possessed a striking element - a charm of sorts that he could not describe; a face appreciated because of its distinct features. Was it her eyes? The smirk that always seemed to be hiding something? Q did not know, but he was fascinated, and he wondered why he even thought this way in the midst of their situation. He concluded, as he looked back down to the body of the Quantum agent, that it was his initial suspicions of her that kept him. Curiosity led to observation, and although Bond would always be a rush of unpredictability to him, Rachel Whyte was something else altogether.

"I've only found his phone, so we'll take this and the gun." Q spoked after moment, concluding his search which was a duty that she should have been doing. But as he stood up, Whyte suddenly collapsed to the ground beside him unconscious. Q crawled to her side and held her to his lap, "009? Whyte! Rachel!"

As he shook her, the hand she formerly had gripped to her side unravelled and rested itself on brick-laden floor. When her loose palm opened to the sky, Q found it coated in blood.

A/N: Thank you for reading the third chapter of Tessitura! Every comment/review represents support for this story, and I am very thankful for each and every one I receive. Don't forget to leave one for this chapter!