Henry, it seemed, hadn't been exaggerating in just how fatigued he was, as even before they had exited the playground he began complaining that he was too tired to walk.
Vesper, sighing, was about to lift him up when James interrupted.
"I'll take him," he said, making eye contact with her before looking back down at the boy. "That okay?" he asked Henry.
The boy nodded tiredly, lifting his arms toward James, who effortlessly picked him up. Henry quickly laid his head on James's shoulder, wrapping his arms around his neck.
Vesper had to smile when the man looked up at her a tad bewilderedly, clearly surprised at how comfortable the boy was with him, already.
"Come on," James said to her, and she followed him down the walk.
They strode south down the Broad Walk, Henry still clutching James tightly, past the massive London plane trees lining the path. The day had been warm, and the air was still fragrant with the smells of the incipient spring. But it was now nearly half past five, and it had begun to cool now as the sun sank lower in the sky.
Vesper had begun to sympathise with her son, for as they strolled along, she began to feel exhaustion sink into her bones. It had been a long, eventful day, and she found it very hard to believe that just this morning she'd been pondering James's location, and now? Now he clutched their son tightly as they walked through Hyde Park.
And it was at this point, as the trees thinned out, revealing the Round Pond to the left and Kensington Palace to the right, that she looked over to see her son had fallen asleep in James's arms.
And, suddenly glimpsing his tired face, slack and innocent in sleep, she came to an abrupt realisation. She had come here to bring his father into Henry's life, but she had never stopped to think of the consequences of bringing another person into their lives. The boy already trusted James implicitly, and was clearly enamoured of the man.
And it was then, as they turned right onto Palace Avenue, said palace visible off to their right, that the first tendrils of uneasiness began to pull at her. She had been brought back to reality, struck by the alarming thought that he would be part of their lives now, forever, whether or not the two of them managed to salvage their tattered relationship. He was a part of the family.
And at once she hearkened back to New York, five years ago, the day a young Christina had come to her door on M's suggestion, all blonde curls and bubbliness, wanting to help Vesper care for her son. Allowing the girl to help her and coming to trust her had taken months, and Vesper knew she was lucky that she was such a good fit.
And now she was bringing another person into this little family that she had worked so hard to keep together, allowing another person to enter her son's admittedly sheltered life. She had tried so hard to keep him safe and protected from all the evil in the world. Evil she had seen with her own eyes.
And, yes, it was James, and it wasn't as if she expected him to leave them. She knew him. He was not that kind of man. But he was also a spy for the British Secret Service, and although she knew he'd never intentionally put the two of them in harm's way, the thought of the danger that came along with his position and the thoughts of the terrifying events that had happened the last time she was involved in his life were enough to give her a jolt of alarm as she followed the man out of Hyde Park's gates and into the borough of Kensington.
And she was going with him now, her and her son, to his home.
And it was not only that. She had not been around a man for this long in years, and certainly not this man, the man who had fathered her son, the man who had thought her dead until just this afternoon. The man who had recently lost the woman who had been like a mother to him since he'd been barely out of his teens. What was she getting herself into?
But there was no time to turn back now, as James turned left off Kensington Church Street, and she followed him down the impossibly narrow sidewalks of Dukes Lane. They were surrounded by brick and mortar on both sides, the buildings rising high and making the street seem somehow even narrower. Vesper kept close behind James as they walked on, the street finally opening up as they went around a bend. This led them to the gate of a large block of brick flats.
Vesper was surprised when James stopped here, entering the code and beckoning her into the courtyard. The building was impressive, with red and yellow variegated bricks and stark white sashed window frames, a deep courtyard leading them past shrubs and trees as they walked toward the front door, but it was not at all what she had expected for him.
Truthfully, she had not actually spent much time in thought as to where she'd expected him to live, but she'd definitely imagined him in a much more exclusive area than this, with large blocks of newly-built high-rise flats, utilitarian and elite.
She had thought he'd have little use for the inescapably twee, narrow streets of Kensington, but, now that she'd thought it over, she supposed that Notting Hill and Holland Park to the north were far too fashionable for his tastes, and Knightsbridge and Chelsea to the south much too austere.
This area was affluent, but quiet, and didn't take itself as seriously as the others did.
And once they'd entered the building and she walked through the door of his third-floor flat, she understood completely why he'd picked this place. While the exterior of the building was classical, unadornedly Victorian, his flat was exclusively modern, with stark lines and bright whites, the floors dark hardwood.
It was completely him, and as she closed the door behind her, she momentarily forgot her earlier apprehensions, stepping into the flat and marvelling at the clean modernity of the décor. The living room was bright, with large sash windows looking out into the courtyard, and was open to the kitchen, with its bright white cupboards and appliances.
Vesper turned from the window to watch James deposit Henry onto the soft white suede sofa and grab a nearby blanket to drape over the boy. He only stirred slightly when James laid him down, and was now dead asleep again, his little face slack and exhausted.
"I'll let him sleep for an hour or so," Vesper told James, "not for too long; I want him to sleep tonight."
James nodded, his eyes still on the sleeping child. Vesper watched his face curiously as he looked at the boy almost reverently. There was sort of appreciation, or at least the beginning of it, that she had not seen before. It was almost as if the incipient end of the day had begun to bring home, like it had for her, the truth to him. That this boy was his son, that he had been partly responsible for bringing him into the world, and now would be partly responsible for his care.
But then, like it often was, it was gone, and he looked up at her with his trademark coolness.
And then it was the two of them again, alone, in his home, their son soundly asleep on the sofa between them. She smiled at him, her uneasiness beginning to bloom again as he stared back at her with his impossibly blue eyes.
She looked away, out the window at the twilight.
"Would you like some tea?" James asked, breaking the silence, and couldn't help the laugh that bubbled up, at just how English it was, how English he was, and just how much she had missed this country and this city.
"I'd love a cup of tea," she said, and James turned away toward the kitchen. She watched him go, still smiling, and looked out into the darkening courtyard, empty right now, and the few people walking by on the street outside the gate.
She had to admit she'd been extremely curious to see where he had chosen to make his home, and as James put the kettle on in the kitchen, she took the opportunity to wander around the flat, curious to see the rest of the place.
The telephone rang and James quickly turned and answered it. Henry, a heavy sleeper, did not even stir.
She fought off the curiosity that sprung up in her as he spoke into the telephone in hushed, but audible tones, but decided to give him some privacy, slipping into the hallway.
The corridor was wide and painted white, like the rest of the flat, and the first room she came upon, obviously James's bedroom, was as bright and unadorned as the rest of the place. There were no personal articles, no pictures on his night table. The bed, a rather sharp king-size platform bed was unmade, not surprising to Vesper. James, while meticulous in other areas, could be decidedly sloppy at times.
She left the room to find another bedroom, this one fashioned as a makeshift study, with a surprisingly large book collection and a laptop computer on a modern desk. The room was as Spartan and utilitarian as the other rooms, though Vesper was not surprised. James was not a man who spent much time at home. This place was not much more than a pied-a-terre to him, somewhere to shower and change his clothes, maybe have a quick meal before he was off again.
The bathroom was beautiful, stark white, with dark wood cabinets and a large Jacuzzi tub. There was also a beautiful glass-walled shower stall, and she examined it covetously, aching to try it out. Her muscles ached from the miles she'd walked today, and a shower would help immensely to calm her down.
She exited the bathroom to find James watching her with a faintly amused expression on his face. She held his gaze before looking away, out the window that faced the back of the building. The other houses and blocks of flats were hard to make out in the waning light.
"Tea's almost ready," James told her, and she nodded.
"It's a very nice flat, James," she told him. He nodded, giving her a quick smile.
"I bought it a few months ago," he said, looking around. "I was in the market." These last words were said with some derision and Vesper looked up at him in confusion.
"Why?" she asked. He looked at her, his eyes discerning.
"Oh, she didn't tell you?" he asked, sardonically. Vesper's heart quickened at this question as her mind ran through the possibilities of what M had kept from her. "No, of course she didn't," he said, almost to himself, "she wouldn't have wanted to worry you. She knew I was alive," he said, significantly.
"What?" she asked him, now completely baffled, and he smiled grimly.
"A little advice; if you're fighting a man atop a train over a bridge, try your very best not to take a bullet in the abdomen," James told her, his attempt at dark humour, but she could not smile.
"Christ, James," she whispered, truly horrified.
"No worries," he said, in that same tone, "missed all major organs, the water was frigid. Slowed down my heart and my breathing. A fisherman found me, took me back to his village, nursed me back to health." She could only shake her head in disbelief. "I was gone long enough for M to declare me dead, and liquidate my assets."
"How can you be so calm about it?" Vesper asked, resisting the urge to touch him, to embrace him, knowing how close he'd come to dying.
"You know me," he told her, but there was no humour in his tone. She looked up into his eyes, her breath hitching at the cool intensity she was met with. "It's what I do," he said.
She sighed, the anxiety over his entry into their lives creeping back in. That he could be so blasé about what had happened to him scared her; it had always scared her. That way that he could brush off the most grievous injuries and scoff at mortal peril. She, on the contrary, felt everything so profoundly and personally, and was affected intensely by events and experiences. She was not cut out for a life like his.
It had taken years for her to recover from the events that had occurred during and after their assignment at Casino Royale, and that was even before her son was born. His birth had changed her, had induced such potent emotions, brought an empathy out of her she had never possessed before.
Her son, innocent and unsullied, who knew nothing of the circumstances which had led to his conception, of the violence and cruelty inflicted on both of his parents before he'd even come into existence. Her son, who slept soundlessly at the end of the corridor, already so completely trusting of this man.
She looked back up at James and found him watching her intensely, his blue eyes icy and shrewd.
"You're regretting your decision to bring him here," he said, matter-of-factly, and she sighed, at his astuteness, slightly irked that he had always been able to read so much of what little she gave away.
"Perhaps," she told him, holding his gaze, "you have to understand, James, your world has always terrified me. I'm not suited for it, and Henry is so young," she finished, hoping he would appreciate her position. She could see the hurt, under all that coldness. She hated to do it to him, especially in the wake of how patient and caring he had been with them both today, but her son's welfare was, at the end of the day, the most important thing in the world to her.
James, it seemed, did understand, his eyes softening slightly. He sighed, rubbing his right shoulder unconsciously. At this, a thought struck her.
"You said abdomen," Vesper said, and he looked at her in confusion.
"I'm sorry?" he asked, his arm dropping back down to his side.
"You said you were shot in the abdomen, but you've been favouring your right shoulder all day," she said. It had been nagging her, and she had initially passed it off as nothing, but when he'd lifted Henry into his arms one-handedly, and then used his occupied left hand to enter the gate code and open the door, she had realised that something was amiss.
He straightened, a smile coming to his lips, and then to his eyes, the corners crinkling in that way that she loved. He was looking at her with admiration, and as she recognised it, that familiar flutter in her stomach came back. She tried her best to ignore it.
"I'm impressed," he told her, and she shrugged.
"I'm a mother now," she told him, feigning nonchalance, and his smile widened. "You've got to be able to notice things like these." She looked into his eyes. "Did something else happen?"
"I was shot," he told her, ignoring the concern on her face at this admission, "by some maniac who felt that regular old bullets just didn't do quite enough damage." There was that sarcastic tone again, that way that he tried to use humour to defuse the impact of his words. It didn't work. Her stomach clenched painfully at the thought of how much abuse his body had taken, and she sighed.
"What did he use?" she asked him, quietly, though she did not want to hear the answer.
"A depleted uranium shell," he told her, softly patting the place on his right shoulder where it had hit, "Tanner told me I was lucky it didn't cut me in half."
"And you didn't see a doctor?" she asked, aggrieved.
He didn't answer.
She sighed deeply, her eyes drifting closed as she shook her head softly. She wanted to shake him, to slap him, to make him understand that every injury he suffered, every mar on his body was a mar on her own soul. That motherhood had sensitised her so profoundly that she felt as if these wounds were her own.
Though despite her frustration, she still wanted to take him in her arms, to confirm that he was here, and alive, and mostly intact.
But she resisted, because she was tired and knew that she'd be helpless to stop anything that was started between them tonight. And there was a very young boy asleep in the room down the hall who wouldn't understand.
"Shrapnel has gotten into the joint," James said, the humour gone from his tone, and she looked up at him. "For the last week I've barely been able to lift it."
"What about work?" For a few seconds she saw intense displeasure on his face, and she could tell the news was not good.
"Mallory's put me on mandatory medical leave," he said, his tone confirming his infuriation at this decision, "I was just coming back from a meeting with him when I ran into you."
"You're serious?" she asked, surprised, and not pleased that her earlier suspicions had been right.
"Very serious," James replied, his tone hollow, "he's set up an appointment with a surgeon. I'm to go for a consultation next week." He looked up at Vesper. "That was his assistant on the phone just now."
"Moneypenny?" Vesper asked. A small smile came to his lips, and she flushed. "Sorry, I couldn't help but overhear."
"She was very apologetic," he said, bitterness tingeing his words, "which made it all the more harder to hear."
"I'm sorry, James," she told him, and she meant it, because he didn't deserve any of this. He served his country more honourably and tirelessly than anyone she'd know, often to the detriment of his own welfare.
"So am I," he said, after a few seconds. He shifted, rolling his right shoulder gingerly, pain momentarily colouring his features. She looked up at him with curiosity. "I've been thinking," he said, "wondering if this is a blessing or a curse."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"I've wanted out," he started, "if not for the attack on MI6, I would have been." He stopped, and Vesper watched him curiously, surprised by this admission. "It's not that I don't fancy the work anymore," he said, "but Mallory said it best; it's a young man's game."
A frown had come to Vesper's brow at this admission, at this defeatist streak that sometimes came out in him. She was surprised at the anger that bubbled up at his resignation, at how a man so tough and of such fortitude could act like a stubborn child at times. Gods, this man could affect her, even now, after all these years.
"You're going to that appointment," she said, startling even herself at the passion in her tone. James, equally stunned, looked up at her, an impish grin blooming on his face. His amusement only fuelled her indignation.
"Oh?" he asked, smirking now. "Am I?"
"Yes, you are," she replied, standing her ground. "I couldn't care less about MI6; you can leave, or you can go back. But if you want to be in your son's life, you'll be going to that consultation, and you'll do everything the surgeon tells you to do," she told him, trying her very best to ignore how entertained he seemed to be by her outrage. "Because he deserves to have a father who can lift him up and toss him in the air, not some poor sod who's too proud and stubborn to have a doctor look him over." James was still looking at her in that way, an infuriating, admiring smile on his face.
"Alright," he said calmly, as if acquiescing to a simple request.
She sighed heavily, having been geared up for a fight, and rolled her eyes, refusing to feel guilt at his calm compliance.
"I'm sorry," she said, after some time. She looked up to see James gazing at her with such open affection that she could no longer keep the smile off her face.
"You know," he said after some time, "I'm quite happy you're back." The words were simple and succinct, and he said them so honestly that her grin grew into a full-fledged beaming smile. At once, the realisation that he was here, finally, her James, and, hit her so deeply that she could not quell the joy that filled her.
Her earlier apprehensions faded away, now mere memories, and as she looked into his eyes, tears threatening to fall from hers, she felt heartened, encouraged. That this decision had been the right one and it was important only that he was here, everything else naught but trifles that could be dealt with, discussed and overcome like the adults they were.
He'd stepped a bit closer to her, his toes now mere inches away from hers, and she could feel the heat radiating from him. Without thinking, her hand went to his chest, gently laying it over his heart, and her eyes closed at the warm firmness she found there, the reassuring thump of his heart against her hand. She sighed softly at the comfort she got from this mere touch, being able to feel with her own hands that he was alive.
She had been so strong for such a long time, every worry and problem hers and hers alone. It had been rewarding, but ultimately exhausting, and the thought of being able to share some of the burden, to have someone to defer to, to hold her at the end of the day, filled her with relief. It was too appealing to turn down.
So, when she felt James's strong arm circle around her, pulling her flush against his chest, she did not object, leaning her head against his shoulder. He was impossibly warm and firm against her, still muscled and fit despite his advancing age, and she could not help the soft sigh she let out against his neck.
How long they stood there she could not say, her hand still trapped between them, the rhythmic beats of his heart lulling her. She'd been waiting to feel his arms around her again for so long. She could feel the tears that had been threatening to fall burn at the corners of her eyes, but she pushed them back, not yet ready for him to see her be weak, to give in just yet.
After some time, he pulled away, kissing the top of her head impossibly tenderly. She did not want to separate from him. She could stand here all day wrapped in his warmth, the scars the years had wrought falling away like leaves in the fall.
But her son would need to be woken soon, and he would need to be fed and bathed before bed.
Thankfully, James stepped back, his arm falling away from her. She felt his warmth recede, a shiver passing over her as he regarded her thoughtfully. Then he turned away, pointing toward the kitchen.
"Tea should be ready," he said, and like that he took off down the corridor. She watched him go, wrapping her arms around herself to negate the chill that had seeped in. A smile came to her lips in spite of herself, in spite of all her worries, because something unfamiliar was budding in her, something she'd not felt for quite some time. It was so alien that it momentarily frightened her, exhilarated her at its intensity.
It was hope. Pure and strong and terrifying, but as she watched him walk away she could not quash it, couldn't take the smile off her face even if she'd tried.
She followed him into the kitchen.