This one's a short one, but it's chock-full of feels (I hope!).

Chapter 3

May 2019

Norway

Bond finally managed to lure Q away from London in May, when Madeleine's baby bump was large enough to make strangers on the street smile at her and Bond, if he was with her.

Q brought Moneypenny with him, and the two of them oohed and ahhed over Madeleine's belly and her glowing complexion. Bond was glad; Madeleine wasn't the kind of person to form close relationships, so she had yet to make good friends in their community and her workplace.

Both orphaned, both lone wolves, they had spent the past two years in their own little bubble, but now that their baby (a girl!) was on her way, they had agreed that they needed to spread their circle wider, lest their daughter have a childhood as isolated and solitary as both of theirs had been.

Bond found that he had more people he considered friends than Madeleine did, which even she acknowledged with a wry laugh.

("It's strange, isn't it?" she had said, "You trust more people than I do."

"You've been hurt by the people who should love you more often than I have," he'd responded.

"You won't?" she'd murmured, her hands caressing the growing life within her. 'You won't hurt us?'

"Never," he'd said, and he'd covered her hands with his warm ones. He'd kissed her, then her belly. "Never.")

Felix was a given; they'd been through so much together that he would be Uncle Felix to their daughter. Felix's wife Marion and rambunctious little girl Cedar rounded out the Leiter family. Madeleine had made a tentative connection with Marion, who'd warmly encouraged her to reach out to her at any time if she had any questions or worries about her impending motherhood. 'Cece,' as Cedar was affectionately called, was eager to serve as an older sister figure to the as yet unnamed baby.

Madeleine had at first seemed distant on the topic of Q and Moneypenny. Bond had finally gotten her to admit that she was jealous of them. She'd immediately known that Bond and Eve had slept together at least once based on their interactions, and she'd evidently considered the amount of trust Bond had in Q to be rather suspect, too. Add to that the fact that Bond had chosen to rush to Q's side without even a word to her that night on the bridge in London when he'd found out that he had been injured, and Madeleine had been left wondering where she stood in Bond's affections.

It had taken some work to untangle the mess Madeleine's past had made of her psyche and self-worth (aside from her work), but they had managed it, and now she welcomed Q and Moneypenny with a shy smile as she opened their home to them. Indeed, she had been the one to suggest to Bond that he invite his friends to visit them in their new home.

If Q suspected at all the reservations Madeleine had had about him, he didn't show it as he cooed enthusiastically over the nursery and the tiny onesies she and Bond had collected.

Moneypenny took the situation in at a glance, as she always did, and set about reassuring Madeleine, who was understandably feeling especially vulnerable, that she had no designs to sleep with Bond ever again, and that he was a friend and that was all. Of course, she did this without broaching the subject in any way, as was proper amongst spies, but Madeleine had softened towards her by the time they'd all retired to their respective rooms in the large house Bond and Madeleine had bought together.

The two of them, the two damaged lonely souls, had come a long way in the past couple of years. They had finally been able to let go of their pasts and look toward the future.

Madeleine had announced that she would sell her parents' cabin where so many bad memories had leached into the woodwork, and Bond had followed her lead by selling Skyfall soon after. Kincade had passed away some time back, and there was really no reason to keep the old place, with its dark, cloying memories.

Madeleine had rewarded him with a squeeze of his hand and a proud smile when the final sale had gone through. She knew how it felt, after all. She'd felt the same weight slide off of her shoulders after she'd let go of the ghosts in her past.

They'd searched far and wide for their new home; it had to be close enough to Madeleine's clinic, but not so close that she felt too consumed by her work. Bond would eventually need to find something to do, too, and it would be easier to do so closer to town. They'd shyly looked at schools and playgrounds, half afraid to hope for the kind of future when such amenities would be of use. With a little more daring, they'd looked at a house big enough for them and perhaps one or two more, and with spare rooms for the guests they fully intended to invite someday.

And so far, so far, nothing had happened to shake their fragile hope. They'd tentatively put out feelers, and had finally taken the plunge when Bond had his vasectomy reversed (it had been a requirement for double-ohs starting in the late '90s to undergo the temporary sterilization in order to prevent…complications), and they'd soon found themselves expecting.

They held their breaths again, as week after week, month after month, the culmination of their newfound hope became evident. And still, nothing untoward happened. They found themselves loosening their white-knuckled grips on fear and apprehension and enjoying the short time they had before their lives would change forever.

They found themselves finally believing that they might perhaps deserve this happiness that had descended upon them.

Upon shyly voicing this thought to their friends, their guests, Q had exclaimed, "Of course you deserve to be happy. What a ridiculous notion! Not deserve to be happy? Whoever put that thought into your head?" As though he wasn't fully aware of how damaged their pasts had made them, but it was kind of him to be so affronted on their behalf.

Moneypenny had elbowed her companion in the ribs ("Ow!") and repeated his sentiment in a less indignant fashion.

Bond had drawn Madeleine closer and basked in the warmth of her beaming smile.

It was worth it. All of it. Everything he'd gone through to get here.

The isolation, the loss. The blood and death and pain. All of it.

Even having to get up in the middle of the night to satisfy whatever crazy craving Madeleine had that month.

Q popped his head out of his room as Bond passed by, shrugging his jacket on with a yawn.

"Where are you going at this time of night?" He asked with a jaw-cracking yawn of his own. He looked ridiculous in his striped pajamas with his hair in an even wilder state than usual.

"Madeleine wants crêpes." There was a small cafe that was open all night, whose owner would accommodate Bond's sometimes extremely odd requests with an indulgent smile.

"But why are you dressed to go out?" Q stood at his door, blinking rather stupidly for a moment, then whisper-shouted down the stairs at him: "You mean to tell me that you're a fully grown man who doesn't know how to make crêpes?" He sounded absolutely aghast at the notion.

"No, Bond," he whisper-exclaimed, marching out and grabbing Bond by the elbow. "No, you are coming with me right now and I am going to teach you how to make crêpes properly, and by that I mean you will actually learn how to make them, not watch me make them."

The ruckus in the hall had, of course, woken Moneypenny, and she and Madeleine both came out looking sleepy and amused at his outrage.

"Q, you don't have to do this," Madeleine protested. "Please go back to bed."

"I am teaching this man a useful life skill. How can he expect to be a good father if he doesn't even know how to make bloody crêpes, for heaven's sake?" he demanded.

Moneypenny and Madeleine exchanged amused looks and followed the men to the kitchen, where Q had dragged Bond while lecturing him on what made a good father, in Q's expert (and sometimes odd) opinion.

The women giggled as Q unceremoniously ordered an eye-rolling and muttering Bond to pull out bowls and ingredients and measuring cups.

"Hé!" Madeleine exclaimed suddenly and joined the fray. "You do not put in sugar?"

"Not in this recipe," Q returned. "It's more versatile this way."

And thus began a friendly squabble about who had the best crêpe recipe. (Q had learned it from his father, who had gotten it from a chef at a Michelin three-star restaurant, while Madeleine was French, enough said.)

"Précisément!" Madeleine said triumphantly as she won the argument and poured a spoonful of sugar into the batter.

Somewhere along the line, they had switched from English to French without Madeleine even realizing it, and in this Bond detected the not-so-subtle machinations of Q, who wanted to put his new friend at ease.

He and Moneypenny (who had declined to take sides in the debate, admitting wryly that her crêpes came out of a box) grinned at each other as they settled back and watched the two chefs pour and flip and soon accumulate a large stack of perfectly thin pancakes.

Bond, of course, managed not to learn a thing about making crêpes, save that he loved his little family and hoped it kept growing.

"Now pay attention, Bond."

"Yes, James, you are not paying attention! How will you be a good father if you do not know how to make us crêpes?"

. . . . .

7 July 2019

New text message from Bond

7 July 2019 06:14 GMT (07:14 CET)

To: Q

'Her name is Mathilde.'

Attachment: Photograph of sleepy baby-blue eyes and tiny, perfect fingers pressed against a rosebud mouth.

. . . . .

Notes:

Some notes that didn't make it into the body of the story:

Felix and Q are both named godfathers, and Moneypenny is godmother. Alec is upset that he was left out, but is mollified by the gift of a case of his favorite vodka. Bond then uses this as proof that he is unfit to be godfather, which results in an argument that ends with Madeleine kicking them both out of the house until they learn how to behave. Then she complains to Moneypenny and Q, who laugh at and scold the men, respectively. Bond and Alec return to Madeleine chagrined, with their metaphorical tails between their legs and ask for forgiveness. Madeleine astutely accuses them of apologizing to save their bank accounts from being deleted by a certain technological genius, to which they have no choice but to admit that this is indeed the case. Madeleine then utters a few choice words and calls Moneypenny to complain about the childishness of men in general, even the helpful ones. In the meantime, Baby Mathilde spits up on Alec, which results in him hastily handing her to her laughing father and disclaiming any godfatherly rights he might have on her, at least until she's old enough not to spontaneously erupt in bodily fluids onto his very expensive leather jacket.

Damien sends a tiny knit jumper, hat, booties, and crocheted bunny (later known as Dou Dou). In return, Bond sends Damien enough fine Norwegian wool in different colors to make ten adult-sized jumpers. Danny (Q, also the recipient of the final products once Damien is done knitting them) quips: "Why didn't he send you a flock of sheep instead?"

Also in the package from Bond is an irredeemable tangle of yarn with bent knitting needles sticking out of it, and Damien feels the flicker of amusement-annoyance that his Q must have felt when presented with equipment returned in a not-so-pristine condition.

Mathilde's birthday: 7/7/2019, obviously. Also, Bond texted Q 7 minutes after her birth, so she was born at 07:07 local.

Felix's family: His wife Marion comes from the original inspiration for the last name Leiter, Marion Oates Leiter Charles, who was a friend of Ian Fleming's. I already used the name Della for Ivar Bryce's late wife (basically, Ivar is the David Hedison version of Felix Leiter to Timothy Dalton's 007/Damien Drake). Cedar Leiter is a canon character from the novels.

Also: What did Bond do with the two fish from Chapter 2 that he was about to bring home before he noticed the cigar ash? I don't know, but it bothers me, too. Like, did they just sit there in the boat until they went bad? Did he remember and bring them in to share with Felix? Hoping for the latter, but you never know with Bond