A/N: How can this only be 3000 words when it took so effing long to write? *cries*

"Arm yourself because no one else here will save you
The odds will betray you
and I will replace you
You can't deny the price it may never fulfil you
It longs to kill you
are you willing to die?

The coldest blood runs through my veins
You know my name

- Chris Cornell, You Know My Name

Hunter and Prey

"Hello, Mr Boothroyd!"

Q can't answer. His tongue feels like a dead fish in his mouth.

"Don't be shy, Monsieur," Jeunet says. "I know it's you. Or perhaps you simply prefer 'K'?"

Oh. Shit.

Jeunet rattles on. "I recognised your ... qu'est-ce qu'on dit? Your touch, Mr Boothroyd. After all the years. And of course, it could not be anyone else – no one else has ever been better than me. That time, I let you be, because you did no harm to me. I was happy you showed me the ... the flaws in my system. But this time you did harm, Monsieur. And this time, I will do harm to you."

Q's brain runs at twice its usual speed, frantically trying to put the pieces together and figure out what has gone wrong. Did Jeunet discover Q's identity all those years ago and never act on it until now? He can't have uncovered it now, surely? It should be impossible, and it unnerves Q almost more than the knife at his throat to think that Jeunet could sidestep his carefully constructed safety precautions so easily.

"I will take away from you the things you love," Jeunet continued. "You took away my money, my business, and you took my poor Marie when you made her betray me. For this, I will kill you, Monsieur. But first I will kill your lover, so you will know, when I strangle you, that the hands around your throat killed him first. Then I will continue to crush everything you have ever touched, Mr Boothroyd. This is my promise to you. And when I am done, I will trace your employers and I will show them your corpses."

In any other scenario, the notion of Jeunet taking down 007 on his own would make Q smile. At this point, he can keep from laughing. Jeunet is in over his head, surely, but that doesn't help Q much; he doesn't doubt that the man standing behind him has been told to kill him if things should go south.

Chabrier makes a whimpering sound in the back of her throat. Q hopes she can't hear what her employer is saying; she must be scared enough already.

"Nothing to say?" Jeunet asks.

Q wonders what he is supposed to say to a man who wants to kill him.

"You're insane," he settles for. He makes it a calm statement, belying the fear that's crawling up his spine.

He expects a sharp counter remark, or perhaps a laugh. Instead, the carriage jerks as the train begins to slow down, and Q loses his balance. Thankfully he stumbles backwards and not forward, but his mind is still flooded by the all-consuming fear of accidentally cutting his own throat. As the panic begins to ebb away somewhat, Q listens again, but Jeunet is no longer talking to him. He's talking to someone else. He's talking to Bond.

Q's heart jumps. He can't hear everything they're saying, but he thinks he hears Jeunet say he's killed Chabrier.

Q looks down at the frightened face in front of him. She's already dead to him. Q feels like someone's poured a bucket of cold water over his head. The bodyguard's left hand, that has been gripping Q's wrist, lets him go. Out of the corner of his eye, Q sees how the man picks up a gun that has been lying on the sink beside them without Q even noticing it before now.

I'm armed too, Q thinks. He had almost forgotten.

A sudden and unfamiliar wave of bravery washes over him. He can stop this. If the bodyguard slips up for just one moment, Q can manage to draw his gun. He can do it. He can save both of them. His heart beats like a jackhammer. For a moment he lives in a little bubble of hope and heroism. He waits for his moment.

"Hello?"

It's Bond.

The other man's voice tears Q out of the bubble: at once, he realises with brutal clarity what Jeunet has planned.

He also realises that the bodyguard isn't going to slip up.

The gun is aimed.

"Parlez!" the bodyguard hisses behind Q.

Q takes a deep breath. He looks into Chabrier's eyes. Tears are forming in them, reflecting the spotlights in the ceiling.

"I am so very, very sorr ..."

The knife is pressed tighter against his throat, forcing him to be silent or cut himself. The trigger is pulled, and the train screeches to a halt.

00Q00Q00Q00

Q looks at the body in front of him. In a fraction of a second, it has gone from being the living, moving body of Marie Chabrier to being nothing but a wide-eyed corpse. The expression of fear that flashed across her face before she died was strangely wiped away the moment her eyes went blank.

Her legs are still warm against Q's. They flinched slightly when the bullet hit her, now they're still.

The man puts away the gun and tears the phone from Q's hand. He looks down at it to turn it off. When he does, the hand holding the knife at Q's throat moves away a couple of inches.

Maybe it's a reflex move Q's captor makes, or maybe he's getting distracted or overconfident, or maybe he just thinks Q's in shock and rendered harmless. It doesn't matter which. Q isn't sure he's not in shock, but he's certainly not intending to be harmless.

With his left hand, he grabs the hand that holds the knife. With his right hand, he pulls out his own gun. He spins on the spot so that he's face to face with the other man in the tiny compartment. It all happens in less than two seconds. The other man's eyes look down at Q – wide, like Chabrier's had been, but wide with astonishment rather than fear. Then, also like Chabrier's eyes, they go blank when Q pulls the trigger.

00Q00Q00Q00

There's no silencer on Q's gun, but the way its barrel is pressed against the body it's firing into takes away some of the sound. The man twitches in a strange fashion and Q aims a bit more carefully for a second shot, in the heart this time. He has to hold on to the man's body with both hands to keep it from toppling him. He manages to guide it down beside himself instead, until the bodyguard's head rests in Chabrier's lap.

Q almost leaves the train toilet without his phone, but he sees the bright screen between the other man's fingers and snatches it from his still warm hand. That makes him remember the crushed earpiece outside, and the laptop on the shelf above his seat. Q's brain feels like a building in a blackout, running on the emergency generator. Some rational part of his mind that's still up and running has decided to take the rains and temporarily deny access to all of the emotions that are making his body sweat and shake. He looks down at his clothes. Miraculously, he's not covered in blood. There are a few stains, but unless someone decides to study him carefully they probably won't guess what it is. The laptop is worth the risk.

He darts out of the door and almost reels at the light and the sound and the people around him. People are still leaving the carriage. Someone glares at him, perhaps having heard strange bangs from the lavatory. Q pushes past the people to his seat and grabs the laptop. He throws a glance at Bond's small bag. "I will kill your lover." The words echo in Q's head. Part of Q wants to scream: "He's not actually my lover! You can leave him alone!" But Jeunet wouldn't hear him now, and, either way, he can't kill Bond. Can he?

Q leaves both his own bag and Bond's on the train, tucks the laptop under his arm and dials a number on his phone while he hurries off the train.

"How can I help you?"

Moneypenny's voice is like honey to Q's ears.

"I need a car to pick me up at St Pancras international, preferably five minutes ago, and I want Q-branch on the line."

"Q? You're not expected to come in today. Q-branch has already processed ..."

"Jeunet was here, Bond is gone, two dead bodies are about to be found on the Eurostar and I really don't want to be arrested for their murders, so could I have someone remove our luggage from the train and a car to pick me up, please!"

Moneypenny is stunned for all of half a second.

"The car is on its way. Walk towards the British Library. What happened?"

She hides the note of worry in her voice well, but not well enough.

"We got in a spot of trouble. Q-branch, now."

"Right. Got it. Putting you through."

He gets Jenkinson. He's not even annoyed by it, which says something about the state he's in.

"I'm going to give you a number. I want you to trace the phone. It's Michel Jeunet's, so it won't be your usual routine work."

Knowing no one in Q-branch could get into his personal phone in less than thirty minutes – and probably not in less than 30 hours – he settles for simply reading Jenkinson the number of his last received call. She repeats it back to him even as he hears her type.

"Then hail and track this earpiece," Q continues.

He gives her the frequency and issue number for Bond's earpiece from memory.

"There's no answer," she tells him. "And you're right about the phone-number. It's false. It will take some time to get the real one."

Q curses under his breath.

"Sir?" Jenkinson doesn't try to hide her worry like Moneypenny did. "What's going on?"

"The operation is going on. Keep working on the number, as fast as possible, and get me Bond."

"I can't track the earpiece at all, Sir. He must have turned it off."

"Why the hell would he do that?!"

He can almost hear Jenkinson jump as his voice turns sharp with frustration.

"It's 007, Sir," she says, as if that was an explanation. Q supposes it is.

00Q00Q00Q00

The car can't have been stationed at Vauxhall, as quickly as it pulls up by Q's side. Wary, Q studies the driver. The driver studies him back, with slightly gaping mouth.

"You have blood on your suit, Sir!"

The baffled expression makes Q wonder if the man really can be MI6, but it also makes him sure it's not a trap. He jumps in, tells the man to get him to HQ as fast as he can, fastens his seatbelt and opens his laptop.

They're lucky it's Sunday. The unbroken sequence of green lights, however, has nothing to do with luck.

00Q00Q00Q00

When they reach the MI6 headquarters in record time, Q has already helped go over the search for the phone that had called his, hacked London's traffic control systems, studied CCTV-footage from St Pancras, and tried to contact Bond several times even though he could tell at his first attempt that Jenkinson was right about the device being shut down.

Or destroyed, he thinks, but pushes the thought aside.

00Q00Q00Q00

He usually turns heads when he walks into Q-branch, being the head of the department, but not like this. The skeleton crew that works Sundays all stop what they're doing and stare as Q barges in, almost runs up to the podium by the main screen, and connects his laptop. He doesn't blame them; they're used to seeing him walk in with his teacup in hand, wearing a cardigan and thick-rimmed glasses, or perhaps an off-the-rack suit if he has a meeting scheduled that day. They've never seen him with his hair brushed back – not to mention in a Savile Row suit – and they have certainly never seen him run.

"Jenkinson, report."

Jenkinson hurries up to him and gives a detailed report of their progress. While she talks, she looks from Q's new glasses to his clothes, down to the stains on the front of his suit, with widening eyes. Her freckles stand out as the skin underneath them pales.

Q listens to her as he pulls up the CCTV-footage again, now on the big screen that has pride of place in Q-branch. In the car, he located footage of Jeunet and Bond leaving the station. Now he follows them outside, jumping from camera to camera to try to track their movements. He knows they're likely far away already, but that only adds urgency to his search.

Jenkinson has finished her report and is answering Q's questions when M himself walks into the room in swift, confident strides. Moneypenny is at his side.

"What's happening here, Quartermaster?"

M's tone is calm, relying on his mere presence in Q-branch to indicate the extreme nature of the situation.

"We're attempting to track a mark we were told was already stopped in Paris," Q says, typing with one hand and accepting a cup of tea from Cook with the other, all while never taking his eyes off the feed. He probably shouldn't take a tone with M right now, but he's concentrating on his work and can't be bothered with social protocol at the moment.

"Where's Bond?" M asks. He somehow manages to make the two syllables convey a world of exasperation, contempt and reluctant admiration.

"I'm looking for him, too," is Q's reply.

"He's gone after Jeunet?"

"He seems to have followed him out of the station. I'm tracking their movements after that as we speak."

M comes up to stand next to him. Q still doesn't look away from the screen.

"Why can't we communicate with him?" M asks.

"He turned his earpiece off."

"Why?"

Q takes a sip of his tea.

"I don't know."

In the corner of his eye, Q sees M look him over, with less surprise and more clinical assessment than the Q-branch crew had. Military man, Q thinks.

"Not your blood, I hope?"

"No," Q confirms.

"Good."

Any further conversation on the topic is interrupted by Cook and Jenkinson, who call out "Sir!" simultaneously.

"We've got the phone number," Cook continues.

"Phone number?" M asks. Q doesn't have the time to explain.

"Call it," he tells Cook.

"Now?" Cook asks. He looks surprised.

"Yes, now!"

"Who's on the other end?" M asks. His tone is firm now, making clear that he's not happy about being ignored and that while he's certainly above making it an issue right now there might be cause for a talk later.

"Hopefully Jeunet." On a corner of the screen, a map of London shows the routes of Jeunet and Bond as Q establishes them. Occasionally they part, but the red line that marks Bond's route always rejoins the blue one that marks Jeunet's progress. At the moment, Q is fifteen minutes behind real time in tracking them. "If it is," he adds, "this will be much easier."

"It would be easier still if we could relay the information to Bond," M mutters to no one in particular.

"Put it on speaker," Q says as Cook calls the number.

00Q00Q00Q00

Three signals echo through the room. Everyone goes quiet. The silence after each shrill tone is complete.

A click is heard, and then the background noise of traffic. Another half of a second of anticipation passes before a cold voice makes its perfectly articulated announcement:

"Whoever this is, your boss is about to be brutally killed, so I advise you to get another job."

Q doesn't know which sensation is strongest: the annoyance that he now has to resort to CCTV to find Jeunet, or the immense relief that Bond is alive. Some of the people in the room sink down in their chairs in disappointment; others flinch at the very thinly veiled anger in Bond's voice. Others still, probably the ones who have been around the longest and know Bond, smile in recognition.

"If you kill my boss, you'll have to look for another job yourself," Q says, "and I'm not sure there are that many people who would hire you."

Once again there's silence on the other end. When three full seconds have passed, Q wonders if there's a problem with the connection and Bond hasn't heard him. When the reply comes, it consists of one single syllable, spoken in no particular tone:

"Q."

"007. It would seem both of us were expecting someone else. Where are you? Do you have Jeunet's location?"

"I lost him four minutes ago in Highgate, heading towards Muswell Hill," Bond admits and gives his own exact location. "Where's the other man?" he adds. "And where are you?"

"I'm at HQ. The bodyguard is dead."

Q answers Bond absentmindedly, already thinking about other things. Muswell Hill? What's in Muswell Hill? He pulls up several different-scaled maps of the area where Bond is to see if he can get some clue as to where Jeunet is heading.

"Could you perhaps turn your earpiece back on, or have you thrown it away?" he asks Bond.

"I didn't think there'd be anyone on the other side," Bond admits. A moment later Jenkinson smiles and tells Q they've got Bond's frequency open again and his location tracked. Q switches over to the more secure intercom-line.

He's about to mention to Bond that HQ would still have been on the other side, when he realises that the implication is that Bond didn't mean to take orders from HQ on this. Because of me? a selfish part of Q's mind wonders. Another, more realistic, part replies: Yes, because of me, and because of Chabrier, and because of a long line of people before both of us – because so many of Bond's missions have ended that way.

"I'm sorry about that," Q says, trying not to wonder what had gone through Bond's head as Jeunet had staged Q's death in his plan to punish both of them.

"What happened?" Bond asks, not acknowledging Q's apology.

"Chabrier was on the train," Q tells him, even though this isn't the time for storytelling. "The bodyguard shot her, you were meant to hear it and think I'd been killed. In the process he loosened his grip on me, and I managed to turn around and shoot him. So I suppose I should thank you for making me wear the gun. Especially since you ran off half-cocked and left me no other choice but to fend for myself."

"Obviously you had no problem fending for yourself," Bond counters, with no hint of remorse. "Your second kill in the field, Q. You could apply for Double O status."

Q's eyes are running over every detail on the maps in front of him. Bond's remark nearly startles him out of his focus.

"You want to see me demoted, 007? I'm hurt."

And then he sees it, the familiar address in front of him, and he remembers Jeunet's words: "I will continue to crush everything you have ever touched."

Q wonders how many near-heart attacks he can survive in one day.

"Bond, he's not heading towards Muswell Hill. He's heading towards East Finchley."

Q sees the dot that marks the tracking device in Bond's earpiece begin to move across the map even before the agent asks: "How do you know?"

"He knew me. He knows who I am. He's heading to the address where I lived the last time I hacked into his system."

"You don't live there anymore," Bond says, and Q knows better now than to ask how he knows that.

"No, but my father still does."