The flight from Biggin Hill to Skyfall Lodge is shorter than he imagined it would be, the AgustaWestland performing admirably in Scotland's less-than-ideal weather conditions. Nonetheless, the trip provides ample time for reflection after Silva syncs the appropriate playlist into the speaker system.
After everything, his capture, escaping from MI6's through the catacombs of the London underground, after the damn train, he'd hesitated in the hearing room.
Of course in the moment he'd felt he was savoring his victory over M, but nonetheless it was hesitation. An unacceptable reluctance to pull the damn trigger. If he'd had his wits about him, he'd have killed her outright. Where was his training? Years of
He wants her dead. That is what he's told himself from the beginning. She's the endgame. She's the final crucible. She's all he has left to fight.
To fight for.
Except there's James.
No. That isn't right. There's Bond. Agent 007. The shell of his former lover and last man standing between him and his revenge.
He doesn't want to kill James. He really doesn't. But if 007 gets in his way again he might just have to.
He won't hesitate this time.
That's what he tells himself.
This game of cat and mouse has worn thin, and Silva wants to taste blood.
Skyfall is a travesty.
He doesn't want any of his men to harm M, and expresses such over the roar of the AW101's rotor blades. He leaves James out of the statement because he is deeply conflicted over the proper course of action he should take regarding their relationship.
Bond has better training than most of the men in Silva's employ. He'll survive the assault, if nothing else.
Then he sees it.
The Aston.
MI6's stunning throwback to the golden era of secret intelligence and James' all-time favorite car.
He knows exactly how to punish his Corazón.
The Aston goes up in flames after Silva turns the AW101's .50 caliber guns on the already bullet-riddled vehicle. A small part of him cringes at the thought of destroying a classic, but he thinks he's proven his point.
Something inside the house explodes, rocketing debris into the sky and knocking him back a few steps. Silva hears a mechanical whine and looks up to see his helicopter careen forward and ram into the manor house. Everything goes up in flames and he's thrown onto his back by the ensuing explosion.
It takes a moment for him to find his bearings. Physically and mentally.
M was in the house.
James.
One of his guards stumbles past, Michele, and he spins away from the inferno to gather his thoughts.
His eyes catch on something out in the moors. A light. His mind reels, trying to establish if the scene is real or imagined, and it hits him.
The priest hole. How had he forgotten about priest hole? Damn thing had been a 'selling point'.
She might be out there, clever bitch, but James was in the house until the last.
The things he's going to do to her if James didn't make it out.
He sends his remaining men around the perimeter to find Bond and starts toward the light.
She won't escape him this time.
The light from the blazing lodge is intense and bathes the entire valley with a golden-red glow.
Under other circumstances, Silva would find the sight beautiful.
He makes it around the frozen lake and ignores the bone-numbing cold. His boys didn't find James - he didn't really expect them to - and he orders them to form up on him.
He doesn't want to leave anything else to chance.
When he stops to look back at the lodge, he can only see the property value plummeting. The old house had been beautiful, full of old world charm and memory.
This is a lie. Truthfully, he can only assume. He'd never actually set foot in the place, but he'll rebuild something better.
A testament to James Bond and the family that once loved him.
He's shaken from his reverie by a a figure sprinting through the dark. He knows that run. That controlled little sprint and leg lift and, no.
He laughs to himself and unholsters his gun, firing at the ice James is running so fiercely across. The agent skids to a stop and meets Silva's gaze, expression challenging.
"Do you see what comes of all this running around, Mr. Bond? All this jumping and fighting, it's exhausting."
They both know what this is. He's giving James the opportunity to back away, to let him finish his work in peace.
"Relax. You need to relax."
Michele emerges from the dark behind Bond and Silva can't help but smile. He looks back to the chapel and sees a telltale light.
"Ah well, mother's calling. I will give her a good-bye kiss for you."
He thinks that will be the end of it, but James, no, this one is Bond, grabs Michele's gun and fires into the ice, which shatters beneath their feet and both men disappear into the icy black water.
"Ohmygod," he mutters tiredly, and laughs humorlessly.
"You did this to yourself, James!" He yells out over the ice. "Let me know if you survive so we can speak to your deep-seated martyr complex, hmm?"
With that he walks away.
James will likely die from this, and Silva will not be going in after the man. He'll deal with M, then he will deal with James.
He stalks his way to the chapel, past a decrepit little graveyard and stops at the name Bond. Andrew and Monique Delacroix. James spoke of them once. A lifetime ago. Silva glances back to the lake, icy surface practically glowing in the firelight.
He smiles at the headstone.
"Thank you for giving me your son." He says gently, sinking to one knee to grasp a small handful of frozen soil.
"I do wish things could have gone differently. For all of us."
He rises to his feet and shakes the dirt out over the grave.
It would be impolite not to pay his respects, no matter the circumstances.
Even if he has his own mother to kill.
M is in his arms, a gun pressed to her head, his head, and he waits for her to pull the trigger. To end them both. He can finally be free from this hate, and in death he may even see James.
The shot doesn't come, but blinding agony comes from behind. He turns slowly and sees Bond, of all people. Dripping and so very much alive.
The double-O stabbed him. Knifed him in the back and he's suddenly furious.
It hurts, yes, like nothing in a long time, but the symbology is so poignant he can only snarl at 007 as his knees give out beneath him.
He can not die like this. He will not die like this. Not with M on her last leg. Not with his James right there, hiding beneath Bond's skin like a scared child.
"Last rat standing." Bond says, eyes piercing and voice emotionless, and Silva can't verbalize a response. Red is creeping into his vision and before he falls unconscious he sees a flicker of something behind the agent's eyes.
It's his beloved James. Everything suddenly clicks into place. It has to be this way, for both of them. It's fate that he should die like this, by hisCorazón's hand and no other.
How had he never realized?
It was never about M.
He slumps to the cold stone floor and listens to James Bond weep over a body that isn't his.
He wakes up and upon realizing he's not actually dead spits curses at whatever deity might still be listening.
One of his men must have survived the offensive and dressed Silva's wounds after calling for backup. Bond, M and the Kincaid man are nowhere to be seen in the dim morning haze. Silva is somewhat relieved to not have to face his sins in the cold light of day.
Skyfall Lodge is still burning halfheartedly as he's loaded into the secondary helicopter.
They tell him to lie stationary but he turns his head to watch the dying flames as they fly overhead and wonders if this was cleansing for Bond. To so thoroughly destroy his past, to purge any remnant of the pain and loss associated with Skyfall.
He hopes, distantly, that James regards him now as he does Vesper. As a love lost to betrayal and circumstance.
It is too much to wish for now. James has seen him for what he truly is. He should have died. He wanted to die. James wanted him to die.
It's over now.
He didn't think there was anything of his old self left; He realizes, as they fly over the Scottish moors, James didn't kill Tiago, James killed Silva.
"He killed Silva."He says aloud, his throat so dry his voice is nonexistent, and he laughs. He can't stop the tears that follow soon after, from overwhelming emotion and the agony of a collapsed lung, but he laughs through them.
Through the pain, through the memories, through the years of bloodshed and regret.
He's not angry anymore.
At anything or anyone.
He's free.
He tries to order the heli down.
The pilots ignore him. No one in the compartment seems to acknowledge he's even spoken.
Through a sedated haze he realizes he's restrained.