An alarm sounded in the privacy of James and Harry's bedroom, and James stifled the automatic oath as Harry flicked fingers at the device to silence it.

"It's 5 a.m.," James groaned. "Why on earth are we waking at 5 a.m.?"

Harry's eyes remained closed as he mumbled into his pillow. "Surveillance on Madeleine. She should be waking soon, and I wanna see."

James registered the remark, then smirked. "Darling, you do have a vicious streak, don't you?"

"You love me for it," Harry mumbled some more, then sighed and turned over, opening tired green eyes. "Plus, in her rant at your disappearance, she might say something useful."

"True," James acknowledged, and stroked gentle fingers across Harry's forehead, moving messy hair out of his eyes. "Shall we make our way into the office, then?"

Harry smirked. "Sure." He then caught James' wrist and rolled them over. "In a minute."

IMBM

Mutual blow-jobs remained the best way to start the day, ever, James mused as they appeared in their usual apparation closet.

"I quite agree," Harry said calmly as he pushed the door open.

"I didn't say that out loud," James observed.

Harry grinned at him, adjusted his glasses, and in a moment, assumed his role as Q. "You didn't have to, 007."

In tune with each other, the couple turned toward Q's office and screens there, one of which was already set to pull audio and video from Madeleine's hotel room. "When did you set up video?" James asked. "I only saw you briefly before we left."

Q shrugged. "I was there, just disillusioned, for a bit longer. She's got a tracker on her, and audio feed from the bug I placed in her mobile while she was in the shower. The video is set up for the room. The owner had a camera there already-and yes, he'll be getting a raid, he's apparently been filming his guests for years-but I hijacked it for us."

They turned to the main screen in Q's office, watching as Madeleine grunted in her sleep.

"That'll be the stunner wearing off," Q said helpfully. "She may go into a natural sleep at this point, or she may wake."

"Good timing," James commented.

Q shrugged. "I know about how long my stunners last if left to their own devices."

They watched a moment more as Madeleine turned over and threw a hand into the space left by James. She patted the bed for a moment, then her eyes slotted open. "James?" she murmured quietly.

Of course, no one answered her, and her eyes opened a bit more, taking in the empty space and looking automatically toward the bathroom, from which there was no light. Madeleine sat up slowly, looking around the room for a moment before looking back at the bed, and finally seeing the SPECTRE medallion.

Her shriek was music to Q's ears, and he grinned widely as she seized the medallion and started swearing viciously.

"Those utter bastards!" she yelled. "He was supposed to be MINE!"

"Ah, and there we have confession of collusion, at any rate," James observed.

"Yes, she knows someone, evidently," Q agreed.

They watched as Madeleine lunged for her purse and grabbed the bugged phone, tapping in a number.

"Thank you so much," Q said ironically as the number scrolled across the bottom of his screen. He copied them to a different program to run down the number's owner while they listened to Madeleine bitch at the man who picked up.

"How dare you!" Madeleine shrieked. "You told me if I turned over Oberhouser, I could have James! And now he's gone! You utter bastards!"

James hummed. "She needs to learn some new phrases."

"Quite," Q murmured. "Well, look at that."

"Registered to a security firm in Switzerland. Interesting," James said. On screen, Madeleine continued her tirade without pause for breath or conversation. "Wow," James observed. "She's really a shrew."

"Glad you're well shut of that one, dear," Q commented. "Let him talk, Ms. Swann, I need a voice print."

Madeleine stopped, heaving for breath as the man on the other end of the line tried to placate her.

"Oh, you are cooperating nicely, aren't you?" Q crooned. "There's a voiceprint. I'll run it against the ones we have in our system, but meanwhile, it's recorded for posterity." He tapped a few keys and the voice on the other end of the line streamed through the audio feed, too.

"Get a hold of yourself, Ms. Swann," the man soothed. His smooth tenor had a faintly French accent. "We are not responsible if your man is missing. It's your job to keep him in line, if you'll recall."

"My job to keep him in line?" Madeleine seethed. "We were supposed to be left in peace."

"Only as long as we wished you to be," the tenor voice responded. "And look, now you've lost him. Seems your peace was shorter than you thought."

"Don't play games with me!" she shrieked. "You took him! I want him back!"

"Well, I didn't take him," the tenor voice started to sound irritated. "If you can't keep him interested …"

"I have a SPECTRE medallion in my hand, Bertrand," Madeleine said coldly.

"Really?" Bertrand, the tenor voice, queried. "I didn't authorize a grab. Though I might have, just to spare him your whines."

Q started a search for "Bertrand" at the Swiss security firm. As the pair's argument played out and was recorded, Q's system identified Bertrand as the firm's owner. He pulled up a photo and public record information for the new case file as he continued to listen.

"I think you need to quiet," Bertand said firmly. "I didn't authorize his kidnapping. I can't explain the medallion. I will need to do some quiet investigating on this end. You're certain he didn't leave of his own volition?"

Madeleine sank onto the bed, looking around to find James' bag right where he'd left it. "I'll have to check the parking lot for the car, but it certainly looks as though he was taken. Very, very quietly."

"We'll find out what happened to him, ma petite," Bertrand said soothingly. "Why don't you come here and we'll work on it together?"

"Don't placate me, Bertrand," she snapped back.

"Wouldn't dream of it, ma petite," he replied smoothly.

Madeleine inhaled once, deeply, then exhaled, slowly. "I'm on my way."

The pair disconnected, and James turned to Q, who was already ruthlessly digging through records and pulling up data. "Anything useful?"

Q grinned maliciously. "I do believe we've got a lynchpin for SPECTRE, dear."

"Lovely, darling."