Compose. Breathe.
His training was a glove Bond wore like a second skin. Yet the revelation that Obenhauser knew Arthur was something that damn near floored him. Three men faced each other in that dim room. Three destinies inexplicably intertwined. Some twisted joke that the Universe felt was fair in a world ruled by men who destroyed to protect.
"What's the matter, Cuckoo? Cat got your tongue?" Obenhauser asked, revelling in the slightly dazed expression on Bond's face, the dawning realisation that nothing is ever what it seems. In a tidal rush of memories that descend upon him, James remembers all the little tidbits of conversations in the not-so-distant-past.
M - "I'd just prefer someone were watching over him. Just in case"; "This is a war of the shadows, Bond. We can't fight it without him."
Q - "Can I decrypt them? I invented them, 007." "I never want to lie to you James, but fear the nature of our job may necessitate it."
"Ah there it is," Obenhauser continued, pacing a few feet in front of them, watching with cruel intent the play and change shifting Bond's features. "The blind man hearing the bad penny dropping right in front of him."
He stopped in front of Q and sighed in a manner that could only be described as affectionate. Q remained impassive. "At last. Arthur. Face-to-face, as was always meant to be. Inevitable."
He adopted a look of sadness, pouting his lower lip ever so slightly, regretful for the choices he had been forced to make. Such is the mind of the self-justified and the mad. "I am truly, truly sorry about Charles, you know. But his betrayal of my organisation was not something from which he could return. Death was his calling."
Q flexed his wrists and fingers agitatedly, as if trying to release himself from invisible binds. "Did it have to be such a cruel and painful one?"
"Oh, but I had to keep you close, Arthur. You are so, so clever in more ways than I think even you realise, my little Bombe. A disappearance or a sudden departure by the man you loved would have surely chased you into the shadows before we could make you our own."
"Stop. Calling me that," Q ground out flatly through gritted teeth.
Obenhauser ignored the demand. He circled behind him. "Alas, Charles saw to that regardless. I was forced to seek my digital genius elsewhere. The stopgap Silva provided was adequate and - ohhhh… fun, in a psychotic kind of way I suppose…"
He resumed his position in the face of the Quartermaster once again. "But he was a poor second to you, Arthur. Silva was a genius but unstable and completely, irrationally obsessed with your leader. But in your absence I was forced to make do with the tools with which the world had seen fit to furnish me." He glanced at the back of his hand as though to distract himself. "I even tried to orchestrate your capture after Charles' funeral, and through that fool Philip Plaistow during the explosion that painted London brown and bloody with the dust of MI6…"
He smiled, exhaling a satisfying sigh. "But now, here you are," gripping his upper arms briefly in a possessive gesture, as though convincing himself he was really here, causing Q to flinch from his touch into the bargain. Bond made a move forward towards them, only to be find himself on the receiving end of the butt of a gun to his skull. He collapsed in a dazed heap on the floor.
"Ah, James. I do apologise. I almost forgot you were there." Obenhauser closed the few metres between him and the prone body of his adopted sibling, crouching down to meet him. "Here we are. Together again. But today, I get to repay you for your kindness. So many years ago, you took something from me. Now, you get to watch while I take something from you…"
Four bodies moved from the shadows towards Q and Bond, two reached out to take hold of Q by the arms. Bond moved to rise, instantly and instinctively reactive in his protectiveness. "No—" the only word that escaped his lips, watching Q's eyes go wide just before the gun cracked him over the back of his head again and he collapsed completely unconscious to the floor.