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Q hears the gunshot. What he hears more, though, is that sickening thud, the unmistakable sound of a bullet punching through flesh. He goes very quiet, very still. Then he’s a flurry of movement and orders - “Agent down! Scramble evac! Get him out of there!” - and, with shaking hands, he brings up a display of 007’s vitals.
He swallows. It’s bad.
“James,” he says, trying so, so hard to keep the waver out of his voice. “James, are you there?”
A nondescript grunt. “Yes. Here.”
“James, we’re getting you out of there.”
There’s a pause, and then a weak, humorless laugh. “I’m in the middle of fucking nowhere, Q. I’m…I suspect I’m bleeding out.”
Another pause. They are both fully aware of what this means. Evac will take at least thirty-five minutes to get in there. Bond does not have that kind of time. It doesn’t take that long to bleed out, not with the kind of gunshot he took.
This is it. This is the end.
--
I’m bleeding out
So if the last thing that I do
Is bring you down
I’ll bleed out for you
So I bare my skin and I count my sins
And I close my eyes and I take it in
I’m bleeding out
I’m bleeding out for you
For you
--
“Q,” Bond says quietly. “Get off the line.”
The young Quartermaster hesitates, then shakes his head, though he knows Bond can’t see it. “No. I’m staying on.”
They’ve discussed this before. Bond made his wishes very clear: on this day, in this moment, the last time, when the nine lives of James Bond are up, Q is to disconnect his headset. He is not to listen. Not to this.
“Q, that’s an order.”
Q allows himself a sad smile. “I outrank you, 007. I’m staying on.”
Thousands of miles away, lying in the desert sand, with a bullet hole in his chest and the life blood pouring from his body, James Bond gives a tiny sigh of relief.
--
When the day has come
And I’ve lost my way around
And the seasons stop
And hide beneath the ground
When the sky turns gray
And everything is screaming
I will reach inside
Just to find my heart is beating
--
“Talk to me, James,” Q says. He is goddamn determined to keep calm, to stay on mission, even though some part of him knows it’s futile. “Stay conscious. Talk.”
“About what?”
“Anything. I don’t care. You. Us. Things you remember.”
Bond feels his chest tighten and realizes that this isn’t just Q trying to keep him conscious; it’s Q offering a final chance to talk. The two of them always had such good discussions, and there were times when they would forego sleep just to stay up until the dawn, talking. He loved the sound of the young man's voice, and with Q, he always found he could speak on things he never would have dared to breathe in any other company.
For James Bond, Q was freedom.
“Paris,” Bond murmurs. “Wish I could see Paris now.”
Q smiles, this time a little more honestly. “You always loved Paris. Posh boy.”
“Posh yourself.”
Bond coughs and then cries out at the pain that it causes, and Q leans forward, studying the computer banks in front of him. “Hold on, James,” he says. “Just hold on.”
--
And you tell me to hold on
Well you tell me to hold on
But innocence is gone
And what was right is wrong
--
“I’ll hold on as long as I can,” James whispers.
Q bites his lip to keep the tears back. He cannot cry now. He cannot show any weakness. James needs him more than ever, now, and he has to be present. He has to hold on.
Because he knows that no matter how hard he holds on, Bond won’t be able to. Not this time.
--
Cause I’m bleeding out
So if the last thing that I do
Is bring you down
I’ll bleed out for you
So I bare my skin and I count my sins
And I close my eyes and I take it in
And I’m bleeding out
I’m bleeding out for you
For you
--
“Q, I’ve left you everything.”
Q closes his eyes. “James, I don’t want to talk about that.”
“No, you need to know. Listen, you get the flat and the safehouses and all the stuff, all right? I updated my will. The bulldog statuette goes to M, and there’s a few little things for Moneypenny, but the rest is yours.”
“James, I don’t want your stuff. I want you. I want you to come home.” He’s near tears now, and he doesn’t care anymore. Fuck professionality, fuck detachment. This is more than losing an agent.
More, even, than losing a friend.
“It’s yours regardless,” Bond says. His breath is coming in shallow little gasps now. “Q, I…”
“You don’t have to say it.”
They have never said it, not aloud at least, and never written or typed it, either. The words seem too small, too trite to describe what they feel, what they have. Bond has never been one for grand declarations or confessions, and Q is arguably just too shy to ever say it.
Over the flickering radio signal, Bond murmurs something. All Q hears is indistinct sounds, barely shaped exhaling of breath, but it is enough.
He’s heard what he needed to hear.
--
The hour is nigh
And hopelessness is sinking in
And the wolves all cry
To fill the night with horror in
And your eyes are red
And emptiness is all you know
With the darkness fed
I will be your scare crow
And you tell me to hold on
Well you tell me to hold on
But innocence is gone
And what was right is wrong
--
“If it had been different…”
Q glances up. James had been silent for a few moments. “Yes?”
“Q, if things had been different…I wish…I don’t know.” He’s struggling to speak now. “I wish I could have given you…more. Something more normal.”
“What, you’d come home from work and call ‘honey, I’m home,’ and have a boring typical life?” Q snorts. “I never wanted typcial, James.”
“Regardless. I wish I could have given you more.”
“More what?”
Bond’s voice is choked, and whether that’s from tears or the blood undoubtedly filling his lungs, no one knows.
“More time.”
--
Cause I’m bleeding out
So if the last thing that I do
Is bring you down
I’ll bleed out for you
So I bare my skin and I count my sins
And I close my eyes and I take it in
And I’m bleeding out
I’m bleeding out for you
For you
--
The rest of Q Branch has gone quiet, but they’re all there, crowding at what might be considered a polite distance. Q and Bond were never really “out,” but most everyone knew anyway. They know that this is more than a Quartermaster losing a Double Oh agent. No, it is at once much more and much less.
This is a man losing his other half.
“James?” Q asks hesitantly.
Silence.
He pulls up the display of Bond’s vitals again, and swallows. The pulse is barely there, and respiration has all but stopped.
“James,” he murmurs.
“’M here.”
“James…I…” He stops for a moment, covering his mic to hide the sob that wrenches itself from his chest. “It’s okay. You can - you can go. If you have to.”
They both know that Q is the only reason Bond is still breathing. The agent is fighting to stay alive, holding on solely because Q told him to hold on. And they both know that Bond is tired, so tired, and more worn down than anyone else could imagine.
“Thank you,” James says, and falls silent.
Q stares at the flatline on his screen. He waits thirty seconds, then thirty more. And then he solemnly removes his headset, tapping it idly with one finger.
Around him, Q Branch is still chaos.
“Evac is on site!”
“We’ve got no vitals!”
“Get him out of there!”
The Quartermaster just stands there, hands laced oddly. He’s holding his ring finger with his other hand, touching the skin where a ring might have been.
That’s all it is, now. All Q has left is what might have been.
And though MI6 is still screaming its lungs out over the supposed possibility of bringing back 007, Q knows better. Bond wouldn’t let himself die without Q’s permission. Today, he gave that permission.
Whether it was a mistake or a mercy, Q will ask himself for years.
--
(I’m bleeding out for you)
(For you)
(I’m bleeding out for you)
(For you)
(I’m bleeding out for you)
(For you)
(I’m bleeding out for you)
--
Moneypenny stands with Q at the funeral, a comforting hand resting on his shoulder. The younger man is quiet, hands folded, watching the proceedings.
“He was a good man,” she says softly.
Q gives a little snort. “He was a grade-A arse sometimes.”
“Yes. But still.” Moneypenny hugs him gently with one arm. “He loved you. I hope you know that.”
“I suspected as much.”
“Did he…did he ever tell you?”
Q stares up at the typically overcast sky, searching for the sun, the light of the world now obscured by darkness.
“Not in those words,” he says finally. “But I think he was trying to.”
--
Cause I’m bleeding out
So if the last thing that I do
Is bring you down
I’ll bleed out for you
So I bare my skin and I count my sins
And I close my eyes and I take it in
And I’m bleeding out
I’m bleeding out for you
For you
--
Bond’s will is read a few days later. Just as he’d said, almost everything has gone to Q. But to his surprise, there’s also a small box that he’d never seen before - apparently kept in a safe deposit box with instructions to only be opened upon Bond’s death.
Q doesn’t open the box for over a week. Finally Moneypenny tells him that she’s going to die of curiosity - or break in and open it herself - if he doesn’t, so he finally pries it open.
Even afterwards, he won’t tell Moneypenny what was in the box.
But she sees him, from time to time, take a plain gold band from his pocket, turn it around in his fingers, and smile softly to himself. The look on his face is as pained as it is sentimental, sweet and bitter, happy and sad at once.
He never wears it, but it seems to always be on him.
Moneypenny curses Bond for an idiot. MI6 remembers him as a hero, a legend. Countless people owe their lives to an agent they never met.
Q just remembers James. Not Bond, not 007. Just James.
And he thinks often on what might have been.
-fin-