"So you and Bond are dating?"
Eve's question startles Q out of his reverie. He has spent the last twenty minutes remembering the last weekend with James. The man's reputation is certainly well-deserved, but it was not only the sex that was phenomenal. They had been close, really close – 'revealing their weaknesses to each other'-close. And he had loved it, loved each second of their being strangely domestic as if they fit in each other's life seamlessly. If Q had ever thought about it or better when Q had thought about something like a relationship with Bond, he had anticipated emotional distance. Not only because of Bond and Bond's training and Bond's history, but because of his own reclusiveness. He didn't become MI6 youngest quartermaster ever by being a party goer. And after the disaster of his last relationship's ending he avoided any romantic entanglement.
"How do you … I mean why would you think that?" he finally stutters when Eve's question fully registers.
"You mean beside the happy little grin you are sporting since Monday or the fact that you are currently tracing only one agent out of the five that are on a more or less dangerous mission?" She pauses for effect and smiles enigmatically. "Standard protocol. All communication between agent and agency during a mission are recorded. You should know that." Q can sense her smugness, although it is hidden well in her voice.
"I know that … I just didn't think of it," he defends himself.
Eve still stares at him expectantly.
"So?"
"So what?" He knows he is stalling and that he won't get away with it.
"How is it dating Bond?" As expected Eve doesn't back off. Q desperately wishes for some catastrophe in the lab as he feels himself blushing. At Eve's delighted giggle his cheeks are heating even more. As if he was a schoolboy with his first crush.
"So the doll might actually work?"
Eve's joking inquiry is somewhat unexpected.
"What do you mean?"
"Bond's doll, the ritual: You know where thunderstorm, rubies, herbs equal eternal love."
"How do you know about that?"
Eve sighs. "Maybe this dating thing is not good for you. Remember: Standard protocol – all communication between agent …
"… and agency during a mission is recorded," Q finishes for her, "yes, I remember. That doesn't mean you have to read all of those protocols."
"I don't read all of them, only when I have the feeling I'm interrupting something." She smiles again her enigmatic smile and opens her mouth again – certainly to start another round of questions – when M interrupts them with another terrorist threat and Q is occupied for the next hours detecting whether their interference is needed.
It is several hours later when he sits in his office and remembers Eve's teasing about the doll. For some reason her words have struck a chord and although he regards himself as a man of science right now he can recall every post in those awful online forums claiming that their doll worked. He looks over to his shelf where Bond's doll currently waits and it is as if the doll is blushing. Honestly several times now he could have sworn that the doll reacts to his thoughts and words. This can't be possible, but what if … He tries to stop this train of thought, to go back to his rational self, but the hopeless romantic kid in him that loved all those fairy tales his mother read to him doesn't let him. Instead he ponders, wonders what this would mean. What if he and Bond were only together because of a doll, if everything they had shared was based on something other than genuine feelings?
The thought makes him sick, bringing back memories of another man in another life. Before he was Q, before he discovered his weakness for a hellish sexy agent, before he had ever heard of companion dolls. Waiting for this man to come home to him, ignoring the traces of a strange perfume on him until he had finally enough. The following confrontation was ugly, but the worst had been his partner's admission that he only kept him around because the sex was good and his employer was progressive enough not to mind the sexual orientation of those who worked for him but still old-fashioned enough to want them in stable relationships. Of course, Q had ended it then and stopped going out. And lusting after Bond from afar seemed safely enough.
Only now lusting from afar had moved to dating and beyond. And it is strange. It is definitely strange for someone like Bond who can have everyone, who had everyone, to settle for the strange kind in q-branch. Q knows that maybe he is jumping to conclusions, but old insecurities are hard to overcome. He only knows that he needs time. Time and space. To think, to make a decision. Resolutely he cuts of the feed to Bond's mission on his laptop and leaves his office. He can practically feel the doll staring after him.
Q attempts to create time and space between him and Bond by letting Serena handle 007's mission.
It doesn't work.
The open layout of q-branch allows him to hear every word without even trying to listen in. He hears Bond's voice and his heart aches. How can three dates and a weekend affect him so much?
And of course there is still the doll. He has put it in the darkest corner of his office, somewhere where it isn't in his field of vision. Although that doesn't help, he still feels watched. He had thought about storing it somewhere else but Bond had brought it to him and he just can't hand it over to someone else. He tried leaving it at home, only to get it during his lunch break. Somehow he feels safer when it is in office, despite the feeling of being watched.
Q is very thankful that for a change when Bond returns in the middle of working day. He still doesn't know what he wants to do, but is honest enough to know if Bond had turned up at his flat he would certainly welcome him back in. Which would make any decision he has yet to make so much harder.
Right now he watches the agent in his office and needs all of his will power to decline Bond's invitation for dinner and a movie.
"I don't think this is a good idea."
"Italian or the movie? I thought you liked Italian food?"
"I don't think we should see each other anymore." Q can actually hear the slight tremor in his voice but Bond hopefully doesn't. The agent looks stunned.
"We shouldn't see each other anymore? That's kind of sudden."
"I've been thinking about it for some time," Q answers truthfully. And it is the truth, but not in the way he has spoken it, not in the way Bond will understand it. And he can see when Bond does, when all emotion leaves this beautiful face and instead there is the mask of indifference. When he speaks his voice is deadly.
"So apparently you needed three dates to decide you don't want to spend any more time with me. Sorry for confusing a weekend spent in bed for actual interest."
Bond turns to go and although it is exactly what Q wanted, it is also exactly what he never wanted.
"James."
"Quartermaster."
Those blue eyes that had smiled at him merely moments ago now look ice cold and distant. His title sounds formal in a way that he suddenly feels the weight of his responsibility on his shoulders. He wants to apologise, wants to touch that mouth that had made him smile and moan and everything in between, but he doesn't dare.
Instead he holds up the doll as a way of explanation. For a moment those icy eyes are redirected at the doll but then return to him and Bond simply advises him, "Keep it," before he turns again and leaves. Q can't help but stare at his retreating back and remains motionless even when the doors have closed behind the agent.
Bond returns to Bangkok the next day, not surprised that the CIA is still struggling with their mission and the cleaning up. He takes a back seat to the proceedings, taking some weird amusement out of the ineptness of the CIA rookies. He is almost disappointed when the Americans decide to send his old friend Felix Leitner to straighten out the mess. Bond returns to London two days later. He tells himself not to be disappointed that it is not Q who collects his equipment.
Life goes on and Bond eventually stops being surprised at not being monitored by Q, that his equipment is not being handled by Q and that is not Q who gives him his mission details. It also becomes absolutely clear that his heart is no longer in the missions, that somewhere along his way he started questioning his motivation to give his life for England. And as much as he had toyed with the idea, for the first time in a very, very long career he seriously thinks about a change.