[Author's Note: Huge thanks to my new second beta, professorfangirl, who jumped on this chapter to make my story EVEN better. And as always, thanks to the lovely lachlanrose, my beta who really should be bumped up to co-author on this, given how many great ideas she's given me for it. Go read everything she's ever written! :-D]
Shortly before 2 a.m. Moneypenny came for Q, finally pulling him away from all the somber, pitying faces. Two hours after his leap from the bridge Bond's tracking signal had shown him somewhere in the vast Channel, and the retrieval effort had been officially reclassified and deprioritized as a recovery effort. They weren't looking for Bond anymore, they were looking for his body.
Q had stayed another few hours, trying to distract himself, until Moneypenny had forcibly hauled him out of the Branch and into her car.
Q distantly heard Moneypenny speaking, but processed exactly nothing of what she was saying. Instead he gazed out the car window, thinking about the many times Bond had driven him home, and replaying the evening over and over in his head.
I should have had satellite coverage on the facility all day, counting individuals as they arrived and left. I would have known an employee was still on site.
I should have prioritized making a waterproof earwig.
I should have known the depth of the river. Why hadn't I known that? Maybe if Bond had scrambled down the bank he still would have made it in time.
Moneypenny said something else and paused, obviously waiting for Q's response. Q took a chance and made a vague noise of agreement. From the expression on her face, he must have chosen poorly.
"Q," she said, concern for him stark in her voice, and he turned his face to the window and swallowed hard.
"I'm fine," he said to her. To himself. "I'll be fine."
He knew on some level he was replaying the past, over and over, to avoid thinking about the future. A future without Bond in it.
Moneypenny dropped him in front of the gate, watching as he used his digital lockpick to open it and only turning the car around when he was in his front door.
Q let his messenger bag thump to the floor inside the door. He thought about eating, or sleeping, or drinking the vodka he used for the occasional pasta recipe, and couldn't stomach the idea of any of it. Out of a complete lack of other ideas he toed off his shoes and went to the kitchen to put the kettle on.
I should have known the depth of the river. I should have counted the employees. I should have modified the earwig. I should have changed the mission parameters, picked the pocket of one of the employees and infected their personal jump drive with my virus.
He should have done a million things differently, better. If he had, 007 — James — would still be...would still be...
He couldn't even complete the thought, his brain stalling out blankly.
Had he crushed his skull on impact with the rocky riverbed, quick and merciful? Or infinitely worse, had he broken his back — snapped his spine, drowning slowly, lungs filling with water, cursing Q with his last smothered breath...
After witnessing Vesper's death it must have been Bond's worst nightmare, drowning, and Q had sent him to that fate. It would have been more merciful to have let the explosive take his head off. But maybe it had. Maybe wetting the projectile accomplished nothing, Q's directions simply ensuring that Bond spent the last few moments of his life in agony...
The light in the bathroom caught Q's attention. He hadn't left it on, he never left it on. Had he?
He dithered briefly, wondering if he should retrieve his taser at the very least, before deciding he was being ridiculous. He could barely hold a thought in his head right now, let alone a taser.
He must have left the light on himself.
All the same he moved forward carefully, silently. A little closer and he stopped. His socks were suddenly wet. He flexed his toes, feeling the damp fabric cling unpleasantly. In the glimmer of light through the open bathroom door he could make out more drips on the hardwood.
His mind was a haze of white noise as he moved even closer. He reached out with one hand, slowly pushing the bathroom door ajar. With a deep breath he peeked around the door frame.
He had renovated the bathroom himself, almost breaking his back hauling in the antique clawfoot bathtub that sat in its center. In that bathtub, fully dressed down to his shoes, James Bond was lying. The water was a sickening brownish-pink all around him.
As Q stood frozen in shock, his heart in his throat, Bond opened his eyes. That eerie, ice-blue gaze seemed to look right into Q's soul.
The corner of Bond's mouth twitched up. "Took you long enough," he said.
Bond was lying in Q's bathtub, slowly bleeding to death, when he heard the thunk of the front door and a second thump as Q apparently dropped something in the foyer. Maybe he would live after all.
He had intended to call someone when he got here, he truly had, only Q didn't seem to have a damn telephone in the place. Stumbling and light-headed from exhaustion and blood-loss, every moment Bond's grip on the water bottle had weakened more, until finally he had filled the tub and and collapsed into it, hoping to keep the wound wet even if he passed out.
Unfortunately once Bond was in the bathtub he was fairly sure he wouldn't be able to get himself out again. So he had waited, retreating to that detached place in his mind that he went to when the situation was no longer under his control, wondering idly if Q was going to spend another three consecutive days at work and come home to find an expired secret agent in his loo. Bond felt bad about that, he really did, but maybe it would encourage Q to work more reasonable hours.
He heard some puttering around and then eventually the soft, careful approach of Q down the hallway. Silly lad, he should have left and called for backup as soon as he realized his house was compromised. Bond tried to watch the door, but found his eyes closing against his will.
He opened them again to see Q peeking around the doorframe, just one startled grey-green eye and his mop of hair visible. Bond couldn't help smiling at the sight.
"Took you long enough," he said.
Q moved fully until he was standing in the doorway, slump shouldered and uncertain. His hands fluttered, as if he didn't know what to do with them, his eyes enormous in his pale face.
"You shouldn't work so late," Bond tried again, hoping to tease Q out of what was apparently a state of complete shock.
A smile spread slowly across Q's face, rare and luminous. "Yes. Well." He cleared his throat but his voice was still raspy when he spoke again. "We lost an agent today. That's a lot of paperwork."
"Did you?" Bond replied. "Careless of you."
It was meant to be a joke, just more banter, but Christ did Bond wish the words back when Q flinched, the smile dropping abruptly from his face.
"Q," Bond began, but Q interrupted, his voice brisk and businesslike now as he dropped to his knees at Bond's side.
"How much blood have you lost?" he asked.
"Not too much," Bond lied.
Q's glance was sharp and knowing. "Stay there," he said unnecessarily.
Q stepped out of the bathroom. Bond heard him speaking on his mobile. Next came the clatter of cupboards, and Bond's eyes drifted shut again. He was actually quite comfortable, despite the blaze of pain in his shoulder. Everything felt fuzzy and a little...distant. The next thing he knew Q was at his side again, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, cutting the ragged tracksuit shirt away from Bond's chest and arm with large scissors.
"You're an idiot," Q said conversationally. "Medical should be doing this."
"It's a weapons issue, not a medical issue," Bond said. "That shoulder was buggered anyway, there's no vasculature or nerves left to damage. I just want to get the thing out without it exploding. That seems right up your alley, Quartermaster."
Q's eyes flashed up to Bond's face and then back again, but he remained silent. Bond hesitated. "But of course — it's asking a lot, if you'd rather not risk it..."
"Don't be ridiculous, 007." And there was that smile again, a quick flash this time, even as Q's eyes remained shadowed with concern. "I asked you for a souvenir and you brought me one. It's bad manners to refuse a gift."
Bond laughed, a soft huff that turned into a pained grimace.
"How on earth did you get back to England?" Q asked, draining some of the dirty water from the bathtub and adding fresh to get a clearer view of the wound. "Please don't tell me you came through the Channel Tunnel with an explosive in your body."
Bond smiled. "Got washed around a bit. Made good use of your rebreather, fortunately. Found myself in the Channel and more or less hitched onto a ferry going across. Stole a car on the other side and decided I might as well pay you a visit."
In truth, Bond had put very little thought into it at all. The desperate struggle for survival in the river had been purely instinctive, the sheer luck of a current sending his battered and exhausted body close enough to the ferry to clasp the trailing rope, letting himself be half dragged and half drowned across the rough waters in its wake. Even now, he could tell his thinking was a haze, as muddy as the bathwater. Once he had stumbled up onto land he had just wanted to get to Q, knowing that Q would take care of it.
"How did you keep it wet?"
Bond gestured vaguely in the direction of the empty water bottle on the floor. "That was floating in the Channel. Filled it up and kept it pressed to the wound. It did the job."
"You're a bloody lunatic," Q said, but his eyes were intent on Bond's face, as if memorizing it.
Then Q's face faded into greyness, his voice going distant and thin. The next thing Bond knew Q's mobile buzzed and Q stepped out of the bathroom. The screech of the wrought-iron gate pulled Bond a little closer to full awareness, as the front door creaked open. Voices murmured, and then the clack of heels and a low rumble moved toward the bathroom.
"Bloody hell," Moneypenny said, taking in the scene. "You enormous arse."
"Good to see you too, Moneypenny," Bond smirked.
She narrowed her eyes at him, but clicked her way further into the bath, setting up a slim metal pole on four wheeled legs.
"Dammit, Q." Bond shot Q a betrayed look. "You called Medical?"
"Don't you dare harass the boffin," Moneypenny said sharply. "He called in a favor. This is Stefano," she said, gesturing to a dark-haired man lurking in the doorway. "My boyfriend."
"The bloke from Medical. Right."
The man seemed to be a good match for Moneypenny, taking in the situation with a comprehensive glance before silently swabbing Bond's left hand and the crook of his elbow down with antiseptic. He deftly threaded needles into the veins, draping the i.v. stand with about five different bags of liquids he took from an insulated cooler.
Moneypenny sat on the toilet, trying to look disapproving, but Bond could see the tremor of tension underneath, her eyes darting between Bond's wound and her boyfriend's hands, her attention only shifting as Q rumbled in some machinery on a dolly.
"What the bloody hell is that?" Bond asked Q as Stefano started gingerly injecting his shoulder with what appeared to be a local anaesthetic.
"Portable x-ray," Q said crisply. "Cutting edge — three dimensional, cold cathode, carbon nanotubes. Moneypenny, Dr. Ross, if you wouldn't mind stepping outside the blast radius, just in case?"
With a final sharp look at Bond, Moneypenny and her bloke from Medical stepped outside. Q carefully helped Bond lean forward, keeping his shoulder submerged.
"Sensor array," Q said, sliding a slim flexible screen behind and around Bond's right shoulderblade before adjusting the rest of the machine.
Bond felt his head start to clear a little as the intravenous fluids and alleviation of pain from the local anaesthetic had their effect. "Q...you don't have to do this. I can dig it out myself."
"Shut up, Bond." Q's eyes were bright, an emerald glint in his pale face. "You need to be still for this part."
The machine buzzed and Q pulled the sensor array from behind Bond's back. Bond allowed his eyes to close again, listening to Q tapping on a computer. When he opened his eyes again there was a rotating three-dimensional image on the screen of his shoulder, with a bright white blob nestled snugly between his clavicle and scapula.
"There's the little bugger," Q said thoughtfully, peering at the screen.
He knelt down at Bond's side again, laying out some implements on a towel next to him. "Are you ready?"
Bond nodded hazily. Now that the pain was fading his adrenaline was fading with it, making his vision go a little fuzzy around the edges. He did his best to hold still while Q dug in his shoulder with a scalpel and what looked to be needlenosed pliers, cursing low and fluently under his breath in at least three languages from time to time.
Bond gritted his teeth, blocking out the pain and focusing his thoughts on Q. He was kneeling so close that Bond could feel his breath on his neck, could smell the salty tang of his sweat in the humid bathroom. Q seemed to truly come alive at moments like this, under the pressure of an untenable situation — his hands remarkably steady and deft, his lush red lips pressed into a solemn line, his beautiful eyes practically blazing with the intensity of his single-minded concentration. He was almost terrifying in his quiet competence.
Finally Q drew back, the pliers gripping a lump of metal under the water as a slow ribbon of red unfurled from the wound. Q held a jar under the water, letting it fill, and then released the projectile. They both held their breath, watching as it settled to the bottom of the jar with a muted clink.
Q pressed a towel to Bond's shoulder. He reached down for Bond's right hand under the murky water, squeezing it for a moment.
The first touch of Q's hand to his felt almost electric, and Bond had to wonder how it was for Q. How often had touched someone, skin to skin like this? Even with Bond's wound, even with unexploded ordinance on the floor at his feet, did Q like the way Bond's body felt underneath his hands? Did Q even realize he was touching Bond like this — so naturally, so tenderly?
He wondered if he would ever know. Q's eyes carefully avoided his as he pulled Bond's hand up and pressed it to the towel. The slightest tremor shook the palm covering the back of Bond's hand now, as Q silently urged him to apply pressure to the wound. Then he opened the drain on the bathtub.
Q's hands were steady again as he carefully but unhesitatingly picked up the jar.
"Coming through," he called out. Bond heard Moneypenny and Stefano move back as Q took the projectile off elsewhere, returning in just a few moments.
"Where the hell did you put it?" Bond asked muzzily.
Q knelt beside him again. "Fireproof safe. It won't fully contain the blast, but it should be enough to keep it localized. We'll be safe. Stefano is just gathering some more things and then he'll come to stitch you up."
Q's warm touch returned, covering the back of Bond's hand again, adding surprisingly firm pressure to the wound — as always, he was stronger than he looked. Bond focused on that point of contact, the intangible connection between himself and Q suddenly starkly, physically tangible. He fought the drooping of his eyelids, and realized Q was looking as well, his wondering gaze locked on his own slim fingers where they covered Bond's tanned, scarred hand.
"Q, can I stay?" Bond found himself saying drowsily.
"In my bath?" Q replied, his voice gentle and amused.
"Just here. With you." Bond heard his own words with a feeling of distant surprise.
"Yes. You can stay," Q said softly. Bond closed his eyes as greyness closed in on him. Just before full darkness washed over him, he thought he felt Q's hand, warm and damp from the water, rest on his cheek for just a moment.
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