Q sipped his tea and grimaced. Cold. Hardly surprising, so engrossed he had become in absorbing the contents of the file of one Stephanie Plastow. Much of it was redacted but there was enough to provide the necessary parts of a puzzle that Q could piece together without much assistance or imagination.
Bond's Tel Aviv mission had initially been to gather intel on a network of arms traffickers that were fuelling the already far from stable relations between Palestine and Israel. Not only weapons but someone highly skilled in weapons and ammunitions manufacturing were developing such that were easily portable but capable of blasting a hole in the side of a tank and render kevlar useless. Needless to say, Q was extremely keen to get his hands on said advances, either in blueprint form or in the flesh, so to speak… And he had made that desire known to his favourite agent.
Bond watched the rise and fall of the back of his slumbering Quartermaster as he dressed to leave and catch his flight to Tel Aviv. He lay splayed out in his favoured position, face down, head half buried in pillows, looking as peaceful and serene as the two bundles of fur curled up at the bottom of his bed.
He buttoned up his shirt as he approached the bed, admiring the scene before him. He was certain he'd seen a similar canvas hanging in the National Gallery, except this was solid, this was real, this was the man whom he trusted unequivocally with his life. A Double-O could get used to this, he thought to himself.
He leaned down, with the intent to imprint a parting kiss, just as Q rolled onto his back and reached up to wrap a hand around the nape of Bond's neck and pulled him towards parted lips instead. No complaints here, Bond thought with a smile.
He nuzzled a cool cheek before Q lay back down again, his eyes still closed by sleep.
"Want me to bring you anything back from Tel Aviv?" he whispered softly, tracing a thumb where his lips had just been.
"My equipment for a start," mumbled Q. Bond smiled. Somethings change, some, however, remained unshakably the same. "And any blueprints for new Israeli weaponry you might stumble across."
Bond stood and swung his jacket over his shoulders. "I'll see what I can do, Quartermaster." And left Q to his dreams about gun-toting agents, fighting for our freedom.
The true identity of his contact had remained under a codename in case of any compromise that might have arisen in the interim. Stephanie Plastow was as stunningly gorgeous as Q remembered. Pretty much just the picture of sensual vulnerability Q recalled from his middle school days. What he hadn't remembered for a long time, burying the incident deep no doubt because of the trauma it caused to think of it, was the abuse she had suffered at the hands of her father and of which he had briefly caught sight, crouched like a Peeping Tom in the shadows of her bedroom while she stripped herself naked. Q was not beyond still finding said incident cringeworthy and quite unbecoming of the man into whom he had grown.
Her file stated she was "missing, presumed dead."
Evidently, Stephanie had found sufficient cause to go missing seven years ago, and while Q did not indulge in readily jumping to conclusions, so invested he was in science and fact, he had a strong suspicion her disappearance had something to do with those angry whelps across her back. A dark secret she had kept locked away in her own head while threatening to divest one Arthur Clifton of his if he ever felt the urge come upon him to share what he had seen that night in her bedroom.
Q was angry. He looked at his cup. At least he could vent at his staff.
"THIS BLOODY CUP ISN'T GOING TO FILL ITSELF YOU KNOW!"
He remained engrossed in Stephanie Plastow's file, partially aware of a ghost of a hand carefully lifting the cup and silently retreating.
Firmly placed in his multi-tasking mode, Q listened with one half of his processes to the conversation between Stephanie and 007, while continuing to absorb the contents of her file, or what little they did know about her. It would seem a lot had happened since her disappearance.
Q watched her tired but beautiful face contort on his screen, nothing to do with the satellite signal. "The outer cells of the operation never remain static for long, much of what they do is virtual. In the ether. They are like ghosts," she said to Bond, looking up from their table in the outside cafe at the bustling market, the oblivious masses, the ignorant humanity.
She reached out then to touch his forearm, make a connection. There was hope in her eyes. "But my concern is not for the gun trafficking, Mr Bond." She sat back again. "As far as I'm concerned, men can go on killing each other and save the passage of normal time the trouble of taking them out."
"A rather brutal perspective, Miss Plastow? Though one I'm sure originates from—"
"From experience, Mr Bond. Sometimes, brutality is the only language men understand and to make them understand, you must learn to speak their language."
"The gun trafficking is only the tip of the iceberg," she continued, raising her bottle of water to parched lips.
"Oh?"
"It's the commodity that is being used to buy and sell the arms with which I am more concerned."
Both men, one on the other side of the world, the other sitting across from her, felt the truth and pain in her next words.
"Teenage girls."
Neither man spoke, absorbing the knowledge of this new development, its impact on the mission and the immense complications it would throw their way. The reason she had now came out of hiding apparent.
"Missing, presumed dead."
And yet here she was, risking life and limb to save other women who had ended up being used as bargaining chips in a fucked up world because, let's face it, women just ask for it by the simple situation of being born with a pussy.
Bravo ladies.
"And boys," she added for good measure.
Q sighed and tilted his head back to look at the ceiling, imagined for a moment it was glass and hoped to God that when it broke, he wouldn't scar himself or Bond too much in the process.