M stormed up to the doctor who had taken a look at Bond upon his return, the doctor had just stepped out of the detention cell Bond had been put it when he met her eyes.
"Ma'am." He greeted.
"Doctor Carter, fill me in." It was a request but somehow she made it sound like a demand.
"Well." The doctor sighed. "My tests have shown that he has suffered a head injury. Not surprising considering the crash he was in. He is lucky to be alive."
"Why did he attack Lennox?"
"Ah, the damage caused by the wound made his brain swell, the fluid..."
"English Doctor Carter."
"The damage caused amnesia, he doesn't know who you are, that he's an MI6 agent. When he woke up he probably didn't even know his own name."
"Will he ever remember?" M was in shock.
"Its possible. Show him images, get people he interacted with a lot to talk to him."
With that M dismissed the doctor and slid open the heavy detention cell door. The room was white, almost too white with a sturdy polycarbonate window, Villiers on the other side looking in at Bond who was perched on a plain metal bed, the only thing in the room that wasn't white.
"Hello, Bond." M greeted in her kindest voice.
"Who are you? What am I doing her? Do you work for the Shirai family?"
His words were simple and to the point, he sounded just like the old Bond, looked just like the old Bond, his eyes though they were different, had been tainted.
"I'm M. You're here because we have spent months trying to get you home, and if you mean the Japanese arms dealers, no, I don't work for them." M sighed and move a little closer to Bond. "I need you to tell me where Le Chiffre is."
James laughed, deep and from his belly. "No way in hell am I telling you where he is."
"Why." M had to know what had been done to her agent. "Did he tell you that you were friends? He lied."
"Something like that."
James couldn't, wouldn't believe her. Le Chiffre had done nothing but take care of him since the moment he woke up. Le Chiffre made him happy, the man he loved couldn't have lied to him.
"Bond, I don't know what he told you but none of it was real. You were sent to capture him, and then you went off the grid. We thought you were dead. You're not his friend, his employee, whatever he told you. You are a MI6 agent. One of the best."
"Oh so I'm a spy. Yeah, because that is so much more believable. I'm telling you nothing about Le Chiffre."
M knew he spoke the truth, Bond had always been stubborn, it was one of the qualities she appreciated in him. Now it was against her. Whatever Bond had been indoctrinated into thinking she would get him back. The cell phone they took off 007 already had twenty-eight missed calls from someone only identified by two letters LC, obviously Le Chiffre was worried about Bond's disappearance for one reason or another.
XXXX
"Kratt, I don't care if you have to kill everyone in Rome, find him."
"I know boss. Believe it or not, but I have actually come to like Bond. I'll call some contacts at the airports, see if anyone took him out the country. What...what if he got his memories back."
"Then he would have come back here and killed me."
Without another word Kratt was gone, leaving Le Chiffre to his grief. The Albanian had always known it was a possibility that James would regain his memories, but he never thought for a single moment that someone would take him. He never should have let James go alone, should have been by his side just like James had wanted. Should have said fuck Kratt and taken his darling James to see the Colosseum like they had planned.
Now he had lost the man he loved. Le Chiffre looked over to the bed that James had made love to him on only the night before and let the tears fall, one crystal clear and one devil red blood.
"I will find you James, I promise. And if you remember and want me dead then so be it."
It was only then that Le Chiffre realised he didn't want to live without James by his side.