Sorry this one is a little short but I had to break it up into 2 chapters or it would have been way to long.
Poking around
M was the first to wake the next morning. She hadn't had a particularly restful night, but not for lack of trying. It seemed that every time she closed her eyes images kept flashing through her head, but they were never quite complete pictures, just fragments. Some of children, some of men with guns, some of hospitals and some of an office with a desk with a china bulldog. She couldn't put anything together and it was driving her mad. By the time five o'clock rolled around she had had enough and decided to get up. She didn't have the heart to wake James as he was sleeping so peacefully so she managed to untangle herself from him and make her way down to the sitting room carefully so as not to fall again.
Once she made it safely to the sitting room she turned on the small lamp on the desk and just looked around the room. "There's got to be something in this room that can shed some light on just who I am" she thought as her eyes quickly turned to the desk by the window. She made her way over to the desk and sat down. " Surely there is something in here" she said as she began opening drawers. "My God I'm organized" she thought as she began to rummage through the first drawer. Unfortunately it contained nothing useful to her except envelopes and stationary. She had finally reached the bottom drawer before she stumbled across a file marked "CONFIDENTIAL M'S EYES ONLY". At last she thought. " It may say confidential M's eyes only but I'm M" she thought to herself. As she opened the file most of it might as well have been written in Greek because it didn't make much sense. It was some sort of report about the relevance of her department and how its usefulness had run its course. There was also a note attached from someone named Gareth Mallory wanting to discuss some sort of "Early Retirement" options. "That'll be a cold day in hell" she thought. "I have to remember who I am before I can retire!" she muttered under her breath. The name at the bottom of the letter did make her stop for a moment though " Why do I know that name ?" she said to herself. She thought long and hard as the images started to flash through her head again. She couldn't see his face but she could clearly hear his voice telling her that they needed to discuss her exit from MI6. It began to dawn on her that MI6 was where she must work and given the cover of the file that said Confidential she must have a great deal of authority there. M heard James get up and quickly put the file back in the drawer and went to sit on the sofa, which is where James fond her when he burst into the room with a look of absolute panic across his face.
"M...What are you doing down here all by yourself? Are you alright?" he asked sounding both alarmed and concerned
"It's alright James, I'm fine I just couldn't sleep is all so I decided to come down here and see if anything looked remotely familiar." she said softly trying to calm him down a bit
"Why didn't you wake me to help you down the stairs, You know you shouldn't be doing that by yourself yet?" he replied sounding slightly annoyed
"James as I told you before I'm not a child. Besides coming down is the easy part, I just slid down the banister" she said with a grin
"You what!" he said almost shocked
"Oh do relax I'm only kidding, but in all seriousness, I didn't wake you because you were sleeping so peacefully I didn't think it was fair that we should both be up at this hour and I thought that if I could just sit here by myself I might stand a better chance of actually remembering something useful"
"Well did it work?" he asked
"Not really" she said sounding a bit disappointed.
"You know what would be nice though?" she said as she motioned for him to sit beside her
"What is that?" he asked
"Do you think it would be possible to meet Eve and Bill for lunch today?"
"I don't know, I suppose so why?" he asked trying not to sound suspicious
"I just thought it might help if I could get out of this house for a little while, you know see something different like maybe this office you three keep talking about. I mean it's obvious that I work there so I thought maybe something there might jog my memory a bit." she said hoping that he would agree
"Well I don't know, I don't think it such a good idea at least not yet" he said trying to put her off the idea
"Well of course it's a good idea! It's my idea so please try your best to make it happen" she retorted with a bit of mock irritation.
"Alright if that's what you really want then I will do my best to make it happen" he replied with a bit of apprehension in his voice.
"Good. Now that that' settled how about we go about the business of getting some breakfast, I'm starving" she said as she got up and headed toward the kitchen
"How is it that she always manages to get her own way?" he muttered under his breath as he followed her thru to the kitchen. "Guess that's why she's the head of MI6"