A/N: I have seen many different names for Q in different fics, and I have read different authors reasons to use or not use the name used here. I understand all opinions. My own is that if Craig's rebooted Bond can meet Felix Leiter and Miss Moneypenny for the first time, he can meet Mr Boothroyd for the first time, too. ('Major' might be pushing it.) Also, I think the name suits him, somehow.

"Well, a door left open, a woman walking by
A drop in the water, a look in your eye
A phone on the table, a man on your side
Or someone that you think that you can trust
Is just another way to die"

Jack White & Alicia Keys, Another Way to Die

Hello, Mr Boothroyd

In the end, they have to hurry to get dressed and pack their bags in time to catch their train. Having already prepared his luggage the evening before, Q gathers his remaining belongings. He fishes up his gun, still in its holster, from where it's been rather carelessly dropped on the floor beside the bed. He can't even remember when he took it off – or when Bond took it off for him. He is about to return it to its case when Bond re-enters the room, immaculately dressed, and stops Q by stepping up behind him and grabbing his upper arms.

"Don't," he says.

Q freezes. A night's worth of memories floods his brain the moment Bond touches him, intensifying when he feels the other man's breath on his neck. He takes a breath to calm his nerves before he replies.

"You think I'll need it? We're done, the mission is over."

While he talks, Q can feel Bond's warm lips brush against the skin below his ear, and it's all he can do to keep his voice straight. He hadn't expected this, he hadn't even really expected Bond to still be in his bed in the morning, and he wonders when the moment will come – because it will surely come – when Bond changes back from this passionate creature to his coldblooded, professional self.

"No mission is over until you've been debriefed, and sometimes not even then," Bond tells him.

Oh, dear Lord. Q had forgotten about that.

"Well, this will certainly be an interesting debrief," he says sarcastically.

"Mm," Bond agrees, and Q feels the vibrations of his voice all over his skin, "it will: 'I'm sorry we were delayed, Sir, we missed our train because the Quartermaster was being a tease.'"

Bond's hands slide down from Q's arms to his hips, and the overwhelming rush of lust it causes makes Q jump. He tears himself free.

"I'm a tease?" he asks, even though he really wouldn't mind making them miss the train.

Bond just grins at him. Q dons the holster and gives the gun a quick check before he slides it in place and reaches for his suit jacket.

"We have to go," he reminds Bond, except Bond already knows this so perhaps Q is just looking for something to say.

"After you," Bond says and gestures at the door.

00Q00Q00Q00

The tension between them is like a wall of electricity. Q feels like the moth that keeps flying towards the light, receiving shock after buzzing shock every time he brushes against Bond at the crowded train station, and when Bond's fingers brush his as Bond takes Q's bag and puts it on the luggage rack, and, really, every single time Bond looks at him. It's excruciating, and it's divine. It makes him feel vividly alive. Every time he remembers the night he just had – the night they just had – he gets warm all over. He can live off of this for a long time, he thinks as he gets the chance to study Bond while the other man has his back turned. For that one stolen moment, he revels in the knowledge that he has seen Bond undress, that he knows what the body in front of him looks like naked and thrown on a bed, that he knows what it feels like to run his hands over that back. Then Bond turns back around and Q acts calm and unaffected, and he's so good at it that even James Bond falls for it.

The train carriage never fills up. There are less than a dozen people in it when the train starts to roll – too early in a Sunday morning, Q supposes.

Q and Bond speak in a neutral manner about the mission, the hotel, the upcoming debrief and, only slightly more personal, whether Q's fear of flying and his dislike of the part of the journey that takes them through the tunnel are related. They don't speak about the night, or any of the less than professional incidents that preceded it. However, Q finds it hard to look away from Bond's eyes, his hands, his mouth and his broad shoulders, and he thinks Bond notices.

00Q00Q00Q00

They are approaching London, with only minutes left until they reach the station, when Bond's attention is ripped away from Q and his pale eyes turn cold.

"What is it?" Q asks, suddenly feeling a distinctly more unpleasant sort of tension settle around them.

"Jeunet," Bond says, keeping his voice down. "He walked into the carriage, stopped and turned back the way he came. He saw us."

Bond gets up without looking a second time at Q.

"Jeunet? But ..."

"Stay here," Bond interrupts, clearly intending to leave. Q has the presence of mind to grab his arm.

"Intercom," he says.

Bond looks at him, nods, and fishes his earpiece out of his breast pocket. Then he disappears down the carriage with one hand slightly raised, ready to reach under his jacket and grab the Walther if he has to.

Q has a distinct feeling of déjà-vu. He doesn't like it one bit.

He scrambles to find his own earpiece and set it to the correct frequency. He's about to place it in his ear and test it when someone grabs his hand, forcefully. Q looks up, thinking for one blissful second that it's Bond. The air is knocked out of his lungs when he recognises the man leaning over him. Before he can react the earpiece is pried from his fingers, thrown on the table and crushed. It happens so quickly – in seconds he loses his connection to both Bond and Vauxhall.

Q looks into the eyes of Jeunet's bodyguard. A knife is held one inch from his throat. Where Q sits, and with the angle the man had placed himself in relative to the rest of the carriage, none of the handful of people around them can see the blade.

"Come with me, s'il vous plaît."

00Q00Q00Q00

Q stands up slowly. He tries to detect a way out, anything he can do or say to change the situation, but he can't negotiate with the sharp point of the knife being carefully pressed against him. The man is so deft at keeping the weapon out of view that no one watching would be able to see anything amiss as Q is led to the end of the carriage where there's a door marked "out of use".

The man leads him inside, follows, and locks the door to the loo behind them. On the toilet seat in front of Q is Marie Chabrier, with her hands tied together behind her back, tape over her mouth and mascara running down over her cheeks. With the door closed, Q is forced to get so close to her that their knees knock together, until he's almost straddling her lap to keep his balance. She looks up at him with such desperation in her eyes it makes Q feel like crying himself. He's horrified to realise that she must have been sitting here the entire journey, while he and Bond were talking just a few yards away as if the whole affair was over.

The knife is now held against Q's throat. The bodyguard presses his body against Q's back in a twisted imitation of Bond's gesture of intimacy less than three hours earlier. The feeling of his breath passing Q's ear makes Q's skin crawl. He wants to throw himself as far away as possible, but between the blade in front of him and the limited space around him, he can't even move. If anyone saw them walk into the room, it must have looked like two peculiarly gloomy lovers seeking out a private place to be intimate, he realises. How ironic.

The man behind him does neither speak nor move. It unnerves Q, but he doesn't dare to speak with the cold steel pressed against his throat.

It feels like an entire year passes in this charged silence. In reality it can't be more than a minute, since no voice is heard announcing their imminent stop, and no real change in the train's speed can be detected.

Eventually, Q's phone rings.

Bond, Q's mind supplies hopefully, and his heart beats like a sledgehammer in his chest.

"Answer," the man wheezes in his ear.

Surprised by the order, Q happily complies. He pulls the phone out of his pocket, every move slow and careful. His stomach drops as an unfamiliar number appears on the screen. He takes the call.

"Hello?"

Jeunet's voice greets him, warm and cheerful, but his words turn Q's blood to ice:

"Hello, Mr Boothroyd!"

00Q00Q00Q00

A/N: It takes hours to write, minutes to review... *makes pleading puppy dog eyes*

And yes, this and a couple of the following chapters will be short, as I will change the POV more often to make the most of the suspense. Feel free to tell me what you think of it.