Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
Dec. 6th, 2017 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwyllionTitle: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
Author: gwylliondream
Pairing: 00QAD (James Bond/Q/Alex Turner/Danny Holt)
Rating: R
Words: 50K
Warnings: Minor character death
A/N: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God was written for NaNoWriMo 2017. Please see Chapter 1 for additional notes.
Disclaimer: I did not create these characters. No disrespect intended. No profit desired, only muses.
Comments: Comments are welcome anytime, thanks so much for reading.
One week later…
“And that’s how we discovered how Blofeld was communicating to his allies within the SPECTRE organization that he still, apparently, led,” Mallory said.
“It was actually Danny that discovered it,” Q whispered to Bond. He was perturbed that Danny didn’t get the credit he was due.
“Mallory is not likely to give credit to an outsider,” Bond said with a shake of his head. “It’s water under the bridge now.”
The gathering of officials from MI5, MI6, and the PM’s office filled the conference room. Everyone wanted to hear about the loophole in the UK’s Prison Pen Pal scheme that allowed Blofeld to communicate with the world outside his prison cell. Q knew more than any of the attendees about the status of the investigations around Blofeld. He didn’t think he would hear anything new that would surprise him. He couldn’t have been more wrong.
“Miss Moneypenny has assembled a presentation that will outline the facts, now that we believe we have all of them,” Mallory said. He left the podium and Moneypenny took his place.
“The Prison Pen Pal website makes it clear,” Moneypenny said, advancing the slide. She read from her tablet that coordinated with the Powerpoint presentation that displayed on the screen behind her, “Whilst they have done wrong, they also tend to be people who are cut off from family and friends.”
“Now, I wonder why that might be?” Bond whispered.
From behind Q and Bond, Double-oh Two sighed loudly.
Q pinched Bond’s arm. His fingers worked fine after getting his cast removed, but a little practice with them couldn’t hurt.
“Unfortunately,” Moneypenny continued, “while all mail entering the prison is read and thoroughly evaluated, this is not true for the mail that a prisoner sends.”
A grumble of disagreement emerged from the conference attendees.
“Until today,” Moneypenny said.
A smattering of applause welcomed her words.
“Ernst Stavro Blofeld has been in prison since he was convicted for committing crimes against humanity,” Moneypenny said. “He has been held in solitary confinement for the past eight months, but through the UK Prison Pen Pals scheme, he was assigned a pen pal with whom he communicated almost daily.”
“How did he get her to comply with his goals for SPECTRE?” Tim Gleason, from MI5, asked.
“Good question, Tim. We like to think that most citizens wouldn’t break the law simply because a stranger asked them to do so, right?” Moneypenny said.
A murmur of agreement cascaded through the room.
“How did he do it?” Moneypenny asked rhetorically before advancing her presentation to the next slide. “He groomed an unsuspecting woman, Barbara Bradford, who was only looking for companionship. When he established that he could trust this woman, he gauged her loyalty by having her perform a series of tests.”
“Do we know the extent of these preliminary tests that he used to groom her?” Double-oh Eight asked.
“We do,” Moneypenny said. She advanced the slide on the presentation and Q was surprised to see a photograph of himself. It was an enlarged version of his MI6 identification badge. That certainly made him sit up straight.
“You recognise the MI6 Quartermaster, who we all know and love,” Moneypenny said with an affectionate smile. A patter of laughter wafted through the room.
“Some more than others,” Bond whispered.
“Mr. Blofeld’s accomplice posed as a waitress in Le Papillon,” Moneypenny continued. “On one night when the Quartermaster visited Le Papillon, she used a veterinary tranquilizer to contaminate the Quartermaster’s beverage.”
Q’s mouth fell open.
“You didn’t know?” Double-oh Five asked.
“I knew I felt odd,” Q said. He whispered to Bond, “I’m so sorry, I blamed you for that.”
Bond entwined his fingers with Q’s. Q didn’t mind, since no one could see what was happening in the darkened room.
“But rest assured, Q wasn’t the only MI6 official that Blofeld fooled by Miss Bradford’s innocent demeanour,” Eve continue. “As directed by Mr. Blofeld, Miss Bradford lied to me about losing her job as a waitress at Le Papillon. I empathised with her and secured employment for her with MI6. For that, I take full responsibility.”
“I bet there’ll be some changes in the HR department after that,” Double-oh Two said.
Q snorted.
“We are aware that Blofeld used Miss Bradford to play with us like a cat who torments its prey before it strikes,” Moneypenny continued. “When Blofeld felt that he could trust her, in all things, he used her to pass his directions to his allies. He was able to manage the business of SPECTRE as if he had never left the confines of his Moroccan headquarters.”
“What’s to become of Miss Bradford?” Double-oh Five asked.
“Well, she is no longer employed by MI6,” Moneypenny said, “we are currently weighing the charges against her while we decide whether to prosecute and to what extent she was to blame in the numerous incidents surrounding this situation. And now, I’ll turn the podium back over to M.
Q applauded Moneypenny’s presentation with the rest of the crowd. He was haunted by the fact that he was drugged without his knowledge. Recalling the events of that night and the following morning, he was grateful that the drug wasn’t something more dangerous. If Bond was owed further apology for his accusation, Q knew just how to make it up to him. Q fought to get his mind off Bond’s sexy body and back to the present where he could absorb the information Mallory shared.
“Thank you, Miss Moneypenny,” Mallory said. He moved to take his place at the podium, but not before the assembled agents and officials gave Moneypenny another round of applause.
At the microphone, Mallory continued, “Further investigation has lead us to forge an alliance with the FBI to find one Mr. Alex Turner, a mastermind of MI5 who had developed sensitive new technology before he was abducted and later presumed dead. Turner was in the beginning stages of publishing his research, when MI5 took him to a secure location to continue its development.”
“That’s a lie,” Q said.
Bond tightened his hold on Q’s hand.
“It was there, in the U.S., that Turner’s research was acquired by SPECTRE, which was headed by Mr. Blofeld, as before, despite his incarceration. Fortunately, thanks to undercover work by Detective Spencer Reid of the FBI, and Mr. Turner himself, who refused to cooperate with his captors, Mr. Turner is now back on English soil. Mr. Blofeld went to extraordinary means to obtain Mr. Turner’s cooperation, including the kidnapping of the MI6 Quartermaster, and using a SPECTRE affiliate, William Marston, to threaten Mr. Turner’s partner, Danny Holt, and his adoptive mother, Frances Turner. I’m here to confirm that what you may have heard is true. This threatening led to Mrs. Turner’s death.”
“That’s a lot of kidnapping, just to get this one fellow to cooperate,” Double-oh Two said as he nudged the back of Q’s chair.
“That should give you some indication of the importance of his research,” Q turned his head and whispered back to him.
“Later, Mr. Blofeld guided Miss Bradford to break into a MI6 department head’s flat to plant explosives.,” Mallory said.
“That’s me, too,” Q said squeezing Bond’s hand.
“We suspect he did this to convince the Quartermaster that he should cooperate with their plan to get Mr. Turner to share his research with them,” Mallory said. “And now, if there are any further questions—”
“Why did MI5 sell Alex out to SPECTRE?” Bill McCarthy, of the FBI, asked.
“It has recently come to light that there was a faction within MI5 who were still loyal to Max Denbigh, of last year’s Nine Eyes debacle. The members of this faction have been identified and they now await prosecution for their involvement in Mr. Turner’s kidnapping. I can say no more about that at this time, but I’m sure we’ll be meeting soon with regard to the investigation as it wraps up. If there aren’t any more questions, I’m going to bring the meeting to a close.”
Q let go of Bond’s hand as people began moving about to exit the conference room and get back to work.
“Have you heard enough?” Bond asked as he waited in line behind Q.
“Plenty,” Q said with a yawn.
“Are you planning to go over to the house after work?” Bond asked.
“I was going to, if you were going,” Q said.
“I’ll meet you there at five,” Bond said. “The rumour is that Alex will be making homemade lasagne.”
~
One month later…
Bond looked up from his newspaper when he heard Q close the bedroom door behind him. He had been in there for an hour, talking to Danny, trying to make him see reason.
In the hallway, Alex stood with his back against the wall. His head hung low.
Beside the sofa, Bond’s coffee had grown cold long ago. The newspaper shielded his face from his lovers. He had given up the tendency to school his reactions around the three men with whom he made his home, the three men who his life revolved around now that he had immersed himself in their world.
With a flicker hope in his eyes, Alex looked at Q, but Q only shrugged.
It was time to put an end to this nonsense. Bond cleared his throat and folded his newspaper. He buttoned his jacket, adjusted his cuffs, and strode across the Persian carpet to where Alex had resumed his sulking. “Come on,” he said. “We’re going for a walk.”
Q raised his eyebrows as he watched Alex go to the closet to grab a coat.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Q whispered to Bond.
Bond pulled Q in for a kiss. “I know how to make up properly with you after a spat, don’t I?”
Q smiled. “This is more than a spat,” he said, smoothing the lapels of Bond’s jacket.
“Sitrep?” Bond asked, nudging Q’s chin with his finger.
“Danny is terrified that he’s going to lose Alex some day. And I don’t mean like what happened when MI5 kidnapped him and sent him to the U.S. We got him out of that mess, thank God,” Q said as he peered around the corner to check on Alex.
Bond followed Q’s eyes and watched Alex work to push one arm through the sleeve of his coat, while the other sleeve draped loosely around his shoulder. It was an unfortunate accident on the firing range, of all places. Alex was grazed by a bullet. Nothing serious, but he had to keep his arm in a sling while the wound healed and the damaged muscle rebuilt. He’d be as good as new in a few weeks’ time.
“And I don’t mean what happened on the firing range, although that’s a good place to start. It’s that Danny’s worried Alex is going to be killed if he accepts Mallory’s offer to work in the field,” Q said. “And this little incident has done nothing to calm him about Alex working for MI6. I feel terrible for both of them.”
“We all feel badly about it, but sometimes accidents happen,” Bond said.
“Yes, but Alex is clearly taking it worse than you or I.”
“Leave Alex to me,” Bond said stepping back from Q.
“I hope you have better luck than I’ve had with this one,” Q said, nodding toward the closed bedroom door.
“We’ll be back soon,” Bond said, guiding Alex past the marble sculptures and out Scottie’s front door.
Bond knew they wouldn’t walk very far. There was something strange about how having an arm in a sling made it difficult to walk. Bond had experienced such a phenomenon firsthand on occasions too numerous to count. The green grass that blanketed Hampstead Heath crunched underfoot as it glistened with the first frost of the year.
“Where’s your head at?” Bond asked Alex. He was never one to mince words.
Alex carefully watched his footing, the injured arm like an albatross he was destined to bear.
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” Alex said, stopping where they stood at the edge of the pond. “After nearly dying at the hands of the evil forces in this world, I’m more determined than ever to eradicate such people from our lives. I can best do that if I work for MI6.”
“Oh, to be young again,” Bond said with a smile. It never failed to surprise him how young and naïve Alex still was.
“I’m sure I’ll become a jaded old dog like you soon enough,” Alex said.
Bond began to walk again, saying, “If you’re lucky.”
Alex smiled.
Bond put his hands in his pockets. The chilly air made a fog rise from the pond. A half dozen ducks gathered along the edge of the water where the ice refused to form. The next time he came to the pond, Bond would be sure to bring some bread to feed them.
“I’m sorry you were injured,” Bond said.
“It’s not your fault,” Alex said. “It could have happened to anyone.”
“We’re all to blame, though,” Bond said. “I wasn’t fast enough to protect you.”
“Q was there, too,” Alex said.
“And he wasn’t fast enough.”
“I wasn’t skilled enough to realize that last bullet was stuck in the chamber,” Alex said.
“These things happen from time to time,” Bond said. He began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Alex asked.
Bond stopped and turned to Alex. “None of us are concerned about your injury. We know you’ll heal. We know your arm will be perfect in a few weeks. We know that we’ll all be more careful at the firing range,” he said. “But we’re more concerned about upsetting Danny than anything else.”
Alex laughed with understanding. “He’s like that, isn’t he?”
“He’s not happy, unless he’s fussing over us,” Bond said.
“You have a point,” Alex said.
“Danny has a good point,” Bond said. “It took so long for you to get back to him. He realised what his life would be like without you and he’s terrified that something would happen to you that would separate you from him again. And now, from us again.”
Alex nodded in agreement. “He’s worried about something happening to any of us in the field. He’d be alone again. And this thing,” Alex gestured toward the house, to Bond, and to himself, “this thing we have going on between the four of us. It’s like a family, the only kind of family Danny ever wanted.”
Bond smiled at the memory of how the four of them had fallen into this easy routine. After Q’s flat exploded, Danny had offered him a place to stay. Bond’s flat was too small for the two of them as Q began to rebuild his cardigan collection and acquire his other ridiculous fashions. Alex had not only been released from MI6’s custody, but Bond had been assigned as his bodyguard and M had offered him the opportunity to train as a field agent.
Scottie’s house had stood vacant for only a month after his death. Bond had never met the man, but he thought he’d be pleased to know that the four of them had put each of the sprawling home’s rooms to good use.
“Danny’s the only member of the family who’s not with MI6,” Bond mused as they followed the path through the frozen meadow.
“Perhaps if we got him more involved, he’d understand the difference between the real dangers we could face and the minor dangers—like a sore arm from a bullet’s graze,” Alex said.
“He’d understand that some things aren’t important enough to fight about,” Bond said.
“I think he likes fighting with me because it makes him feel better about fucking Q,” Alex said.
Bond chuckled. “Whatever you say, Joe.”
When they arrived back at the house, Q and Danny were bundled up in their winter coats and heading out to the car.
“Where are you two off to?” Bond asked.
Q kissed Bond and excitedly said, “I going to bring Danny over to Q-Branch so I can inject him with Smartblood.”
Bond didn’t even begin to wonder whether this was an official procedure or not.
“Then, you guys will always know where to find me, in case I go missing,” Danny said brightly.
Bond watched as Danny and Alex embraced, murmuring their I’m sorrys and their I love yous.
“Come on,” Q said, dragging Danny behind him, “if we have time, I’ll show you what I’m designing for Bond’s Christmas present.”
~
Three months later…
Barbara Bradford still hated math. She scratched a tally mark on the door frame for each of the ninety days she spent in jail. The wood was covered in a peeling paint that once was white when it was new. On Sundays, the warden gave her a ream of blank paper that she could use to write to friends, but there was no one to whom she could write. Instead, she folded the paper into origami animals that she’d make talk to each other when she was bored.
She tried to make an origami cat, like the one she had seen in the photographs Mr. Blofeld had sent her. The same cat she had seen on the floor of a safehouse flat that she was charged with cleaning. It was futile. The paper kept ripping before she even got to considering how she would shape the cat’s white ears.
During exercise time, she rarely mingled with the other girls who were held in the confines of the four walls. She felt lucky that she would be leaving them soon. No visitors came to call on her during the ninety days that passed. Not that she expected to have company.
The one man who had paid any attention to her was no longer permitted to write. She wondered what had become of him, but her thoughts only rested on him briefly. Because of her plain looks and marginal intelligence, her potential for marriage or a career were still few. If Mr. Blofeld was imprisoned for as long as she had read that he would be, she had little hope of reuniting with him, no matter what he promised her in his letters.
She wondered if she would see her father again. Would the same luck find her as it did that distant day when George ran into Ingmar, who gave her the job of waiting on tables at Le Papillon?
She couldn’t go back to her old job, not because she lied about being fired, a truth that Ingmar and Sylvan had undoubtedly read about in all of the newspapers that had been published since Mr. Blofeld’s trouble with the SIS. It turned out that his troubles stemmed from matters more serious than outstanding parking tickets. And now, she was known as his accomplice.
Barbara doubted that she would be able to draw a job-seeker’s allowance, since she had a criminal record. The notion of moving back to live with the Bradfords, who barely scraped by, filled her with dread.
She supposed she could try her hand at waitressing again, but certainly not at Le Papillon, where her mind would drift to the thoughts of four men living together.
~
Author: gwylliondream
Pairing: 00QAD (James Bond/Q/Alex Turner/Danny Holt)
Rating: R
Words: 50K
Warnings: Minor character death
A/N: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God was written for NaNoWriMo 2017. Please see Chapter 1 for additional notes.
Disclaimer: I did not create these characters. No disrespect intended. No profit desired, only muses.
Comments: Comments are welcome anytime, thanks so much for reading.
One week later…
“And that’s how we discovered how Blofeld was communicating to his allies within the SPECTRE organization that he still, apparently, led,” Mallory said.
“It was actually Danny that discovered it,” Q whispered to Bond. He was perturbed that Danny didn’t get the credit he was due.
“Mallory is not likely to give credit to an outsider,” Bond said with a shake of his head. “It’s water under the bridge now.”
The gathering of officials from MI5, MI6, and the PM’s office filled the conference room. Everyone wanted to hear about the loophole in the UK’s Prison Pen Pal scheme that allowed Blofeld to communicate with the world outside his prison cell. Q knew more than any of the attendees about the status of the investigations around Blofeld. He didn’t think he would hear anything new that would surprise him. He couldn’t have been more wrong.
“Miss Moneypenny has assembled a presentation that will outline the facts, now that we believe we have all of them,” Mallory said. He left the podium and Moneypenny took his place.
“The Prison Pen Pal website makes it clear,” Moneypenny said, advancing the slide. She read from her tablet that coordinated with the Powerpoint presentation that displayed on the screen behind her, “Whilst they have done wrong, they also tend to be people who are cut off from family and friends.”
“Now, I wonder why that might be?” Bond whispered.
From behind Q and Bond, Double-oh Two sighed loudly.
Q pinched Bond’s arm. His fingers worked fine after getting his cast removed, but a little practice with them couldn’t hurt.
“Unfortunately,” Moneypenny continued, “while all mail entering the prison is read and thoroughly evaluated, this is not true for the mail that a prisoner sends.”
A grumble of disagreement emerged from the conference attendees.
“Until today,” Moneypenny said.
A smattering of applause welcomed her words.
“Ernst Stavro Blofeld has been in prison since he was convicted for committing crimes against humanity,” Moneypenny said. “He has been held in solitary confinement for the past eight months, but through the UK Prison Pen Pals scheme, he was assigned a pen pal with whom he communicated almost daily.”
“How did he get her to comply with his goals for SPECTRE?” Tim Gleason, from MI5, asked.
“Good question, Tim. We like to think that most citizens wouldn’t break the law simply because a stranger asked them to do so, right?” Moneypenny said.
A murmur of agreement cascaded through the room.
“How did he do it?” Moneypenny asked rhetorically before advancing her presentation to the next slide. “He groomed an unsuspecting woman, Barbara Bradford, who was only looking for companionship. When he established that he could trust this woman, he gauged her loyalty by having her perform a series of tests.”
“Do we know the extent of these preliminary tests that he used to groom her?” Double-oh Eight asked.
“We do,” Moneypenny said. She advanced the slide on the presentation and Q was surprised to see a photograph of himself. It was an enlarged version of his MI6 identification badge. That certainly made him sit up straight.
“You recognise the MI6 Quartermaster, who we all know and love,” Moneypenny said with an affectionate smile. A patter of laughter wafted through the room.
“Some more than others,” Bond whispered.
“Mr. Blofeld’s accomplice posed as a waitress in Le Papillon,” Moneypenny continued. “On one night when the Quartermaster visited Le Papillon, she used a veterinary tranquilizer to contaminate the Quartermaster’s beverage.”
Q’s mouth fell open.
“You didn’t know?” Double-oh Five asked.
“I knew I felt odd,” Q said. He whispered to Bond, “I’m so sorry, I blamed you for that.”
Bond entwined his fingers with Q’s. Q didn’t mind, since no one could see what was happening in the darkened room.
“But rest assured, Q wasn’t the only MI6 official that Blofeld fooled by Miss Bradford’s innocent demeanour,” Eve continue. “As directed by Mr. Blofeld, Miss Bradford lied to me about losing her job as a waitress at Le Papillon. I empathised with her and secured employment for her with MI6. For that, I take full responsibility.”
“I bet there’ll be some changes in the HR department after that,” Double-oh Two said.
Q snorted.
“We are aware that Blofeld used Miss Bradford to play with us like a cat who torments its prey before it strikes,” Moneypenny continued. “When Blofeld felt that he could trust her, in all things, he used her to pass his directions to his allies. He was able to manage the business of SPECTRE as if he had never left the confines of his Moroccan headquarters.”
“What’s to become of Miss Bradford?” Double-oh Five asked.
“Well, she is no longer employed by MI6,” Moneypenny said, “we are currently weighing the charges against her while we decide whether to prosecute and to what extent she was to blame in the numerous incidents surrounding this situation. And now, I’ll turn the podium back over to M.
Q applauded Moneypenny’s presentation with the rest of the crowd. He was haunted by the fact that he was drugged without his knowledge. Recalling the events of that night and the following morning, he was grateful that the drug wasn’t something more dangerous. If Bond was owed further apology for his accusation, Q knew just how to make it up to him. Q fought to get his mind off Bond’s sexy body and back to the present where he could absorb the information Mallory shared.
“Thank you, Miss Moneypenny,” Mallory said. He moved to take his place at the podium, but not before the assembled agents and officials gave Moneypenny another round of applause.
At the microphone, Mallory continued, “Further investigation has lead us to forge an alliance with the FBI to find one Mr. Alex Turner, a mastermind of MI5 who had developed sensitive new technology before he was abducted and later presumed dead. Turner was in the beginning stages of publishing his research, when MI5 took him to a secure location to continue its development.”
“That’s a lie,” Q said.
Bond tightened his hold on Q’s hand.
“It was there, in the U.S., that Turner’s research was acquired by SPECTRE, which was headed by Mr. Blofeld, as before, despite his incarceration. Fortunately, thanks to undercover work by Detective Spencer Reid of the FBI, and Mr. Turner himself, who refused to cooperate with his captors, Mr. Turner is now back on English soil. Mr. Blofeld went to extraordinary means to obtain Mr. Turner’s cooperation, including the kidnapping of the MI6 Quartermaster, and using a SPECTRE affiliate, William Marston, to threaten Mr. Turner’s partner, Danny Holt, and his adoptive mother, Frances Turner. I’m here to confirm that what you may have heard is true. This threatening led to Mrs. Turner’s death.”
“That’s a lot of kidnapping, just to get this one fellow to cooperate,” Double-oh Two said as he nudged the back of Q’s chair.
“That should give you some indication of the importance of his research,” Q turned his head and whispered back to him.
“Later, Mr. Blofeld guided Miss Bradford to break into a MI6 department head’s flat to plant explosives.,” Mallory said.
“That’s me, too,” Q said squeezing Bond’s hand.
“We suspect he did this to convince the Quartermaster that he should cooperate with their plan to get Mr. Turner to share his research with them,” Mallory said. “And now, if there are any further questions—”
“Why did MI5 sell Alex out to SPECTRE?” Bill McCarthy, of the FBI, asked.
“It has recently come to light that there was a faction within MI5 who were still loyal to Max Denbigh, of last year’s Nine Eyes debacle. The members of this faction have been identified and they now await prosecution for their involvement in Mr. Turner’s kidnapping. I can say no more about that at this time, but I’m sure we’ll be meeting soon with regard to the investigation as it wraps up. If there aren’t any more questions, I’m going to bring the meeting to a close.”
Q let go of Bond’s hand as people began moving about to exit the conference room and get back to work.
“Have you heard enough?” Bond asked as he waited in line behind Q.
“Plenty,” Q said with a yawn.
“Are you planning to go over to the house after work?” Bond asked.
“I was going to, if you were going,” Q said.
“I’ll meet you there at five,” Bond said. “The rumour is that Alex will be making homemade lasagne.”
~
One month later…
Bond looked up from his newspaper when he heard Q close the bedroom door behind him. He had been in there for an hour, talking to Danny, trying to make him see reason.
In the hallway, Alex stood with his back against the wall. His head hung low.
Beside the sofa, Bond’s coffee had grown cold long ago. The newspaper shielded his face from his lovers. He had given up the tendency to school his reactions around the three men with whom he made his home, the three men who his life revolved around now that he had immersed himself in their world.
With a flicker hope in his eyes, Alex looked at Q, but Q only shrugged.
It was time to put an end to this nonsense. Bond cleared his throat and folded his newspaper. He buttoned his jacket, adjusted his cuffs, and strode across the Persian carpet to where Alex had resumed his sulking. “Come on,” he said. “We’re going for a walk.”
Q raised his eyebrows as he watched Alex go to the closet to grab a coat.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Q whispered to Bond.
Bond pulled Q in for a kiss. “I know how to make up properly with you after a spat, don’t I?”
Q smiled. “This is more than a spat,” he said, smoothing the lapels of Bond’s jacket.
“Sitrep?” Bond asked, nudging Q’s chin with his finger.
“Danny is terrified that he’s going to lose Alex some day. And I don’t mean like what happened when MI5 kidnapped him and sent him to the U.S. We got him out of that mess, thank God,” Q said as he peered around the corner to check on Alex.
Bond followed Q’s eyes and watched Alex work to push one arm through the sleeve of his coat, while the other sleeve draped loosely around his shoulder. It was an unfortunate accident on the firing range, of all places. Alex was grazed by a bullet. Nothing serious, but he had to keep his arm in a sling while the wound healed and the damaged muscle rebuilt. He’d be as good as new in a few weeks’ time.
“And I don’t mean what happened on the firing range, although that’s a good place to start. It’s that Danny’s worried Alex is going to be killed if he accepts Mallory’s offer to work in the field,” Q said. “And this little incident has done nothing to calm him about Alex working for MI6. I feel terrible for both of them.”
“We all feel badly about it, but sometimes accidents happen,” Bond said.
“Yes, but Alex is clearly taking it worse than you or I.”
“Leave Alex to me,” Bond said stepping back from Q.
“I hope you have better luck than I’ve had with this one,” Q said, nodding toward the closed bedroom door.
“We’ll be back soon,” Bond said, guiding Alex past the marble sculptures and out Scottie’s front door.
Bond knew they wouldn’t walk very far. There was something strange about how having an arm in a sling made it difficult to walk. Bond had experienced such a phenomenon firsthand on occasions too numerous to count. The green grass that blanketed Hampstead Heath crunched underfoot as it glistened with the first frost of the year.
“Where’s your head at?” Bond asked Alex. He was never one to mince words.
Alex carefully watched his footing, the injured arm like an albatross he was destined to bear.
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” Alex said, stopping where they stood at the edge of the pond. “After nearly dying at the hands of the evil forces in this world, I’m more determined than ever to eradicate such people from our lives. I can best do that if I work for MI6.”
“Oh, to be young again,” Bond said with a smile. It never failed to surprise him how young and naïve Alex still was.
“I’m sure I’ll become a jaded old dog like you soon enough,” Alex said.
Bond began to walk again, saying, “If you’re lucky.”
Alex smiled.
Bond put his hands in his pockets. The chilly air made a fog rise from the pond. A half dozen ducks gathered along the edge of the water where the ice refused to form. The next time he came to the pond, Bond would be sure to bring some bread to feed them.
“I’m sorry you were injured,” Bond said.
“It’s not your fault,” Alex said. “It could have happened to anyone.”
“We’re all to blame, though,” Bond said. “I wasn’t fast enough to protect you.”
“Q was there, too,” Alex said.
“And he wasn’t fast enough.”
“I wasn’t skilled enough to realize that last bullet was stuck in the chamber,” Alex said.
“These things happen from time to time,” Bond said. He began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Alex asked.
Bond stopped and turned to Alex. “None of us are concerned about your injury. We know you’ll heal. We know your arm will be perfect in a few weeks. We know that we’ll all be more careful at the firing range,” he said. “But we’re more concerned about upsetting Danny than anything else.”
Alex laughed with understanding. “He’s like that, isn’t he?”
“He’s not happy, unless he’s fussing over us,” Bond said.
“You have a point,” Alex said.
“Danny has a good point,” Bond said. “It took so long for you to get back to him. He realised what his life would be like without you and he’s terrified that something would happen to you that would separate you from him again. And now, from us again.”
Alex nodded in agreement. “He’s worried about something happening to any of us in the field. He’d be alone again. And this thing,” Alex gestured toward the house, to Bond, and to himself, “this thing we have going on between the four of us. It’s like a family, the only kind of family Danny ever wanted.”
Bond smiled at the memory of how the four of them had fallen into this easy routine. After Q’s flat exploded, Danny had offered him a place to stay. Bond’s flat was too small for the two of them as Q began to rebuild his cardigan collection and acquire his other ridiculous fashions. Alex had not only been released from MI6’s custody, but Bond had been assigned as his bodyguard and M had offered him the opportunity to train as a field agent.
Scottie’s house had stood vacant for only a month after his death. Bond had never met the man, but he thought he’d be pleased to know that the four of them had put each of the sprawling home’s rooms to good use.
“Danny’s the only member of the family who’s not with MI6,” Bond mused as they followed the path through the frozen meadow.
“Perhaps if we got him more involved, he’d understand the difference between the real dangers we could face and the minor dangers—like a sore arm from a bullet’s graze,” Alex said.
“He’d understand that some things aren’t important enough to fight about,” Bond said.
“I think he likes fighting with me because it makes him feel better about fucking Q,” Alex said.
Bond chuckled. “Whatever you say, Joe.”
When they arrived back at the house, Q and Danny were bundled up in their winter coats and heading out to the car.
“Where are you two off to?” Bond asked.
Q kissed Bond and excitedly said, “I going to bring Danny over to Q-Branch so I can inject him with Smartblood.”
Bond didn’t even begin to wonder whether this was an official procedure or not.
“Then, you guys will always know where to find me, in case I go missing,” Danny said brightly.
Bond watched as Danny and Alex embraced, murmuring their I’m sorrys and their I love yous.
“Come on,” Q said, dragging Danny behind him, “if we have time, I’ll show you what I’m designing for Bond’s Christmas present.”
~
Three months later…
Barbara Bradford still hated math. She scratched a tally mark on the door frame for each of the ninety days she spent in jail. The wood was covered in a peeling paint that once was white when it was new. On Sundays, the warden gave her a ream of blank paper that she could use to write to friends, but there was no one to whom she could write. Instead, she folded the paper into origami animals that she’d make talk to each other when she was bored.
She tried to make an origami cat, like the one she had seen in the photographs Mr. Blofeld had sent her. The same cat she had seen on the floor of a safehouse flat that she was charged with cleaning. It was futile. The paper kept ripping before she even got to considering how she would shape the cat’s white ears.
During exercise time, she rarely mingled with the other girls who were held in the confines of the four walls. She felt lucky that she would be leaving them soon. No visitors came to call on her during the ninety days that passed. Not that she expected to have company.
The one man who had paid any attention to her was no longer permitted to write. She wondered what had become of him, but her thoughts only rested on him briefly. Because of her plain looks and marginal intelligence, her potential for marriage or a career were still few. If Mr. Blofeld was imprisoned for as long as she had read that he would be, she had little hope of reuniting with him, no matter what he promised her in his letters.
She wondered if she would see her father again. Would the same luck find her as it did that distant day when George ran into Ingmar, who gave her the job of waiting on tables at Le Papillon?
She couldn’t go back to her old job, not because she lied about being fired, a truth that Ingmar and Sylvan had undoubtedly read about in all of the newspapers that had been published since Mr. Blofeld’s trouble with the SIS. It turned out that his troubles stemmed from matters more serious than outstanding parking tickets. And now, she was known as his accomplice.
Barbara doubted that she would be able to draw a job-seeker’s allowance, since she had a criminal record. The notion of moving back to live with the Bradfords, who barely scraped by, filled her with dread.
She supposed she could try her hand at waitressing again, but certainly not at Le Papillon, where her mind would drift to the thoughts of four men living together.
~
