The Next Day, M's Office

M leaned forward, giving his Quartermaster his full, undivided and unnerving attention. "Tell me Q. What am I to do when one of my department heads hands over a £500,000 piece of government property to an agent? A former agent I might add?"

Q was standing in front of M's desk, not quite sure if that was a loaded question. And whether he should answer it or not.

He also wasn't quite sure what the hell possessed the next words to exit his giant, flapping gob. Later, he considered that he may have been invoking the echoing remnants of Bond's conversations once held within the padded walls. 007 got under everyone's skin. It should hardly be a surprise that inanimate objects were affected too. "You're right, Sir. I should have gotten a receipt…"

M reached for his glasses and slowly slipped them from his nose. If Q's stomach dive-bombed to his feet, through the floor and ended up curled in a ball next to Alan in his cat basket, he didn't let it show.

"Seeing as you failed so spectacularly in that respect, Quartermaster, perhaps I should dock the cost from your salary." Q calculated his best option under the circumstances was to throw himself at the mercy of the man.

"I wouldn't blame you Sir, though if you could see your way fit to reserving enough in the remainder of my monthly stipend to cover mortgage, cat food and Earl Grey, I might just be able to scrape by."

M sighed the sigh of a put-upon soul that might prefer to be raising goats somewhere on the coast of Wales. "What I really don't understand is why everyone is so bloody sentimental about the man," Mallory's tone was caught between a grumble and disbelief.

"I appreciate he wasn't under your command as long as the previous M, Sir. But in the time, we served together, I'd be happy to state categorically that his departure will be an unquantifiable loss to the service."

M raised an eyebrow. "Along with all your equipment and tech he lost along the way, you suppose." Q bit his tongue. No one could be more annoyed with Bond than Q about that, but the agent still got the job done. M continued. "Be that as it may, Q, it is up to us to ensure that said loss does not impact at all on business as usual," M replied curtly.

"Now," he said, slipping on his glasses again, and leaning forward to pore over what Q could tell from his vantage point to be a set of consolidated accounts for the last year to the present month. "Speaking of lost, damaged and destroyed…" he said, turning the pages of the document while eyeing Q over the rim of his glasses, "I notice a distinct downturn in your financial requests since Bond's departure. And in doing so, you have recouped nearly half the cost of the Aston." Q opted for silence, which apparently in this instance was the right option to take. M removed his glasses again and leaned back in his chair. His expression was thoughtful but otherwise unreadable. Dammit, thought Q, I'm never going to get one step ahead of this man. "I can only admire your resourcefulness, Q. You are a credit to MI6, and I know you will continue to be such."

That's it? No reprimand? No permanent mark on his personnel record? For once in his life, Q was grateful to be out-manoeuvred. He decided not to look a gift superior in the mouth.

There was one thing he did know about military servicemen. They weren't given over to false modesty. "Will that be all, Sir?"

"Dismissed," M replied without a second glance, though Q felt his neck prickle warm from the gaze he was sure the man was had trained upon him as he exited the office and shut the door quietly behind him.

Moneypenny was smiling innocently in her outer domain. Q let out the breath he had been holding, which had transformed from tentatively concerned about his promising career in espionage to annoyed with his Superior's PA. He strolled over to her desk and gave her his best withering look. "You knew."

"Of course I knew," she said, all cocky nonchalance. "But until you prove you're as good a liar as 007, I'm not telling you anything that might give the game away. You've got enough on your mind as is, boffin." She was practically grinning through her little speech.

Q rolled his eyes, which landed in the corner of the room where a chessboard sat in mid-game. His eyes narrowed. "You? Play chess?"

Moneypenny tossed a look over her shoulder. "Oh that. No, not me. Bond and Mallory." Q's arched brow was question enough. Moneypenny merely shrugged. "Manly men and their inexplicabe oneupmanship ways," she replied. "That game was the best of three. I don't think M has the heart to clear it away just yet." Her phone chirped. Q walked over to the board while Moneypenny took the call. He studied the setup for all but 5 seconds before making his decision.

He stepped around the desk while she still chatted away and rolled his fingers by way of a goodbye. She nodded with a smile.

Thirty seconds later, she hung up the call and made a note in M's diary. She glanced over at the board, but as she hadn't observed the position of the pieces before Q's intervention, why would she notice that one of the white pawns had advanced on M's Knight…

Four months previously, the Mallory Residence. Two weeks after Skyfall and the evening of Olivia Mansfield's funeral.

"I'm sorry, Gareth. We've done this long enough. It's time for me to take the time I have left and spend it for myself."

Mallory reached out and touched his wife's cheek. "But we did this for us, for family. Isn't that enough?"

"It was. But enough is enough," she said, gently taking his hand in hers. "Our children are grown and you are at the pinnacle of your career. Head of MI6. It's what you always wanted…"

"But I wanted you there to share it with me." The words were sincere but sounded hollow somehow. He knew. Deeply buried feelings were swimming to the surface of their lives. They both knew.

"We've shared enough," she said, her voice a mixture of melancholy and relief. Mallory could hardly blame her. They had forged an alliance to protect each other. It had worked, but they both knew the time had come to move on. "Time to let go."

Yvonne Mallory smiled, almost a sympathetic look on her features. "No better time to change when it's all change, Gareth. Embrace your job. Do what you do best. MI6 is your family now." She leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead and stood, walking away for the first, and last, time.

Gareth Mallory was a man who knew how to let go. He was no sentimentalist. He picked up the remote and hit play. Closing his eyes, he planned the week ahead. It never did a man any good to live in the past.