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“You can knock all you like,” Madeleine says, “I don’t think anyone is in there.”
She leans against the wall and watches as Bond continues to pound his fist on the door of room 12. He was calm enough when they arrived at the hotel, but after five minutes straight of knocking to no response, he seems to be growing panicked. It stands in contrast to the operative she thought she was dealing with, and Madeleine finds herself all the more intrigued.
Up until this point, Bond appeared relatively detached from it all. This detachment was most apparent when, just as they were about to flee, Madeleine pointed out to him that one of her would-be captors was still moving. Bond had stalked over, kicked the man onto his back, and shot him clean through the forehead without hesitation. Then, blank-faced, he walked back to the car and told Madeleine they were due at the Pevsner Hotel.
When she asked him why, he only told her that he had a friend waiting there. Now, standing outside the hotel room, with no such friend in sight, Bond is increasingly agitated.
“He should be here. We said an hour, it’s been longer than that. Where the hell is he?”
Bond gives the door one more thump and then pulls his phone out of his pocket. He dials a number, and while he waits, he scans between the door of room 12 and the lifts which are further down the corridor.
Madeleine can hear the ceaseless ringing down the other end of the line. Just like nobody is answering the door, nobody is picking up the call. She follows Bond’s gaze back to the lifts and to the digital panel at the top. They watch the numbers ascend and descend as the lift travels past their floor repeatedly.
“Pick up,” Bond mutters. Madeleine turns back and watches him. When a voice sounds at the end of the line, he visibly relaxes, but only for a second: it isn’t anyone at the other end, only their voicemail greeting. Bond’s jaw clenches. He waits out the message, and after the beep, grinds out, “Where are you? Call me as soon as you get this.”
He hangs up the call, then stares at his phone, and dials the same number again. The next message he leaves is even less polite than the last. “If you don’t respond in some way in the next thirty seconds, I’m breaking the door down.”
The lifts chime behind them. Bond looks past Madeleine and she watches his face fall. He rushes past her, demanding, “What the hell happened?”
She turns to see another man approaching, one half of his face smeared with blood. He storms past the both of them and tries to dismiss Bond’s panic by saying, “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
He tags them into the hotel room and holds the door. Madeleine steps inside, eyeing his wounds carefully as she goes. His left eye is swollen and his nose is bleeding, which has coated his face and mingled with the blood from his split lip to drip down his chin. As well as the keycard, he has a broken pair of glasses clutched in his hands. The way he is gripping them is all too tight, and now that Madeleine looks closely, she can see he is trembling. He isn’t of her father’s ilk, nor Bond’s. Whatever has happened has really shaken him.
He seems confused at her presence, but before she can say anything, Bond snaps, “Madeleine, meet Q. Perhaps he might benefit from some psychoanalysing. It seems he’s suffering from some kind of delusion, since he’s just claimed to be fine when he visibly isn’t.”
Q huffs and shuts the door behind Bond who is hovering and looking most concerned. “I’m fine,” Q says again. He tosses a ring at Bond. “There, have that. It’s very sought after.”
“Were you followed?”
“Yes, I was bloody well followed.” Q removes himself from Bond’ hovering and crosses the room to the desk by the window. He drops his keycard and broken glasses on the desk and then unpacks his laptop. Bond immediately pursues him, and no sooner than Q opens the laptop, Bond reaches over and shuts it. Q glares at him, and challenges, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m trying to find out what happened to you.”
“I just told you, I was followed.”
“By who? Describe them. I’ll go and deal with them.”
“James, can you just-” Q cuts himself short and takes a deep breath, which clearly pains him. Not surprising, given the state of his face. Both Madeleine and Bond take a step towards him, but Q steps well clear of Bond and snaps, “Just leave it, okay? I have something to show you.”
He tries to open the laptop again but is stopped once more by Bond. Stubbornly, he insists, “Not until you’ve told me what the hell happened.”
“I was followed. I thought I had gotten clear, but one of them found me and tried to get the ring and my laptop. I managed to crack him over the head with the laptop which gave me enough time to get clear.”
“Good work.” Bond takes Q by the arm and turns him, gently, to study his wounded face. “What did he do to you?”
“He slammed my head into a banister. It’s fine-”
“Stop saying that.”
Madeleine watches Bond’s hand, which stays curled around Q’s upper arm. His fingers are moving ever so slightly in a tender caress. It is nearly imperceptible but Q is visibly comforted. He relaxes bit by bit, and when Bond asks quietly if he’s alright, Q nods. By that point, the trembling has long since stopped.
“Can I take a look at you, to be safe?” Madeleine takes another step forward and explains, “I’m a doctor.”
Bond squeezes Q’s arm and urges, “Let her.”
Madeleine nods towards the bed and Q heads away from the desk. He turns for a moment, signals to the laptop, and asks Bond, “Can you check if that’s working?”
“Sure.” Bond opens it up and taps the keyboard. With an unhappy sputter and continued whirring, the laptop boots up.
Q winces at the sound. “That’s not very promising.”
“Well, at least we know it makes a good weapon,” Bond says, smiling over at Q.
Q sits down on the end of the bed and Madeleine pulls up a chair. He takes his beanie off, revealing more bruising around his temple. His hair is damp with both sweat and blood. Madeleine reaches over and brushes the slick strands away from his face to check the extent of his injuries. There is a plum-coloured bruise that disappears into his hairline. When she touches her fingers to it, Q hisses. Madeleine apologises, but persists in checking the rest of his face. The swollen areas are hot to the touch and stark against his otherwise pale skin, but it seems surface-level, for the most part.
“I don’t think there are any fracture points, but you might be concussed,” Madeleine says, not missing how Bond immediately looks up from the laptop.
Q shakes his head. “I’m-”
“Say you’re fine again,” Bond challenges. When Q scowls at him, Bond bears it, and simply says, “Stop being stubborn and let her help.”
“You have a nerve calling me stubborn,” Q mutters.
Bond smirks. “What’s your password?”
Q recites some incredibly long string of letters, numbers, and symbols, to which Bond says, “Could you slow that down a bit?”
“Why don’t you speed up a bit?”
Madeleine laughs a little, which earns her a smile from Q. It’s short-lived, since it reopens his split lip. “Ah, fuck,” he murmurs, touching his thumb to the fresh gush of blood.
“Here,” Madeleine says, offering him her handkerchief. He thanks her and holds it to his lip, and blood blooms through the white cotton instantly. Madeleine is reminded of blood-drops atop snow, and distracts herself from the imminent flashback by taking out her phone and switching on the flashlight. She holds it up to Q’s face and examines his eyes carefully. “Do you have any ringing in your ears?”
“A little,” he admits.
Before Madeleine can respond, Bond demands, “Is that a bad sign?”
Q whips around and gives him a look. “Will you stop fussing? You’re annoying the hell out of me.”
“You’re annoying the hell out of me,” Bond retorts hotly. “Why didn’t you call? What exactly do you think I’m here for?”
“Beyond giving me mysterious rings that get me stalked and assaulted, I don’t exactly know.”
Madeleine glances over at Bond. It is clear this wounds him, even if he tries to reel that back and conceal it all too quickly. She refocuses on Q who looks a little guilty now. Madeleine extends her hand to his neck and checks his pulse, which is suitably steady. “Alright. I’m going to give you some words to remember. Repeat them, will you? Frog, rose, glass.”
Q takes a breath then echoes softly, “Frog, rose, glass.”
“Good. I’ll ask you again in a little while.” Madeleine drops her hand from his neck and takes hold of his wrist. She looks over at Bond, who is watching Q like a hawk, and asks, “Can you help?”
“What do you need?”
“Recall questions. Short term, medium term, long term memory. Can you do that?”
“I highly doubt it,” Q mutters.
“Of course I bloody well can,” Bond snaps. He comes over and kneels by Q. “The car, where did I leave it?”
“You’re bringing that up right now?”
“Answer the question.”
“The Tiber,” Q says, scowling. “You absolute menace. We’re not done talking about that, by the way.”
“It was mine to sink,” Bond claims, smirking a little, “Or at least, it ought to have been mine, but you chose to reassign it. Who did you reassign it to?”
“009. Say what you will about him, but he wouldn’t have sunk that car.”
“So you admit it was your choice to reassign it,” Bond concludes, “And not M’s.”
Q looks caught out by that. He scowls, and retorts, “Oh, shut up. You deserved it.”
“We’re not done talking about that.” Bond gets up and disappears into the ensuite for a moment, then returns with a damp cloth. Q reaches for it, but doesn’t put up a great fight when Bond dodges that and leans in to wipe the blood away himself. “The cut on my arm that you fixed, what caused it?”
“A hunting knife.”
“The scar on your leg?”
“A broken bottle.”
“What was the first mission we worked together?”
“The Silva case.”
“When we were trying to crack his code, the decommissioned station was…?”
“Granborough.”
Bond finishes mopping up the blood and goes to discard the cloth. When he returns, he kneels back down beside Q and continues watching him near-obsessively.
Since Madeleine is quite captivated by their energetic back and forth, she prompts gently, “Go on.”
Bond pauses briefly in thought, then continues his questioning. “I told you recently that I’ve worked with this person for longer than most.”
“Tanner.” Q smiles, and there’s a glimmer of mischief to it. “I might point out that beyond a mere thimbleful of other agents, the next in line in terms of longevity is 009.”
“Don’t remind me.” Bond smirks, then asks, “You once asked me what my problem with him is.”
“Let me sift through the litany of insults I’ve heard,” Q drawls. “I think the answer in this specific instance is that you find him to be a ‘sanctimonious little prick’.”
“The answer is that he is, empirically and definitively, a sanctimonious little prick.” Bond nudges Madeleine. “Do I need to worry that he got that wrong?”
Q now looks like he’s fighting a real smile, which Madeleine suspects is more for the sake of the cut on his lip rather than resisting Bond’s charms. “I think you’ll find I get off on a technicality, there.”
“Hmm.” Bond thinks for a moment, then continues, “We once got drunk together and I described this person as a repellent paper-pushing fuckwit.”
“M,” Q says, chuckling.
“Which one?”
“Mallory, of course. You were in a real mood with him that night. And you always describe her in far more flattering terms… rightly so.”
Bond smiles. “What were we drinking that night?”
“Gin.”
“With?”
“Lime and mint from my patio garden.”
“And the brand?”
“Citadelle.”
“Which we first drank…”
“After 004.” Q falters, then adds, “Stuart. After Stuart.”
Their rapid-fire pace breaks for a moment as Bond pauses, and then he asks quite softly, “Where did we first meet?”
That makes Q smile again, even if only slightly. “The National Gallery.”
“Where you gave me…?”
“A ticket, a gun, and a radio.” Q sighs. “You only returned the radio, despite my explicit instructions to the contrary.”
“Pity, that,” Bond says lightly. His tone then turns tender again, as he asks, “What painting did you comment on?”
“Like you even remember that,” Q says with a thoroughly disbelieving look.
Bond smiles. He gets up, and as he crosses the room, he calls over his shoulder, “The Fighting Temeraire by Turner.” He plucks Q’s keycard off the desk. “I’m going to go and fetch you some ice.”
Madeleine can see Q is surprised. He watches Bond leave, eyes wide and pulse suddenly quickening. She squeezes his wrist and asks gently, “Do you remember the words?”
“The words? Oh. Of course.” Q frowns, then recalls, “Frog, rose, glass. Right?”
“Perfect.” Madeleine lets go of his wrist. “Any nausea? Headache?”
“A headache, yes. Nausea, no.”
“Don’t move,” she cautions. “But don’t lie down, either. Wait there exactly as you are.”
She goes to get him a bottle of water from the minibar, and fetches a bag of sweets as well. When Madeleine returns to Q’s side, he is staring into space. She touches his arm and encourages him to eat and drink. Once he’s done a bit of both, she asks, “Are you alright?”
“I didn’t think he’d remember that.” Q looks as though he wants to say something more, but then the door swings open, and Bond reappears with an ice bucket. Q visibly shakes off whatever spell he had fallen under, and says, “Bond, we need to talk. About Franz Oberhauser. You were right.”
“Later,” Bond calls, disappearing into the ensuite again. When he emerges, he is filling a hand-towel with ice. He goes to sit beside Q and tries to hold it to his bruised face. Briefly and half-heartedly, Q tries to refuse him, but relents when Bond demands, “Stop being stubborn and let me help. You let her help.”
“She’s a doctor,” Q mutters, but he lets Bond hold the makeshift ice pack to his face anyway.
“Is that better?” Bond smiles when Q nods. “Good. I’m going to call Felix and see if he or someone else can swing by to take you home.”
Q rolls his eyes and bats Bond’s hand and the ice pack away. “I’m not a child in need of minding.”
“You were just attacked,” Bond says tersely. He stubbornly re-applies the ice pack to Q’s swollen face. Q does try to bat him away again, but Bond takes his wrist and holds it, much like he held Q’s arm earlier: tenderly and for long enough that Madeleine can tell it means something. “You’re mad if you think I’m letting you waltz off without any protection. I shouldn’t have done that before. I’m sorry. Really.”
Q turns his head slightly and they share a long look. “It’s okay,” Q says softly. “I’m alright.”
“Good.” Bond’s thumb is moving in circles around Q’s inner wrist, and Madeleine wonders if either of them even realise she’s still there. She is soon convinced they’ve forgotten her entirely when Bond says again, in a tender hush, his eyes never leaving Q’s, “Good.”
*
As the day wears on, they determine next steps. Felix is due to arrive soon, and Q is in the middle of making travel arrangements for the trip to Tangier. He has ignored Bond’s repeated protests that he should be resting, which Madeleine has backed Q up on. Despite her continued assurances, Bond remains unconvinced.
Eventually, Madeleine is fed up enough that she switches from assuring Bond to asserting herself. “Will you cut it out? I’ve told you countless times now, it won’t hurt for him to keep alert. He’s sitting, he’s doing light work, I’m keeping an eye on him. Calm down and let him be.”
“Doctor’s orders, 007. Cut it out,” Q snipes, before smiling conspiratorially at Madeleine.
They have lapsed back to bickering over the past hour, ever since Q’s phone rang. He asked Bond to fetch it and let him know if it was Tanner calling, but to not say how many missed calls he had from Tanner or M.
“Call it denial, or a stay of execution,” Q had said with a heavy sigh, “But I don’t want to deal with that right now.”
Bond went searching for the phone in Q’s bag, and after declining the call, he remarked, “The only missed calls are from me. I’m not sure if you noticed I tried to call you numerous times.”
“I was busy fleeing those thugs,” Q muttered. “Sorry that I didn’t stop to pick up your ten thousand calls. Was that Tanner just now?”
“No,” Bond said coolly. “It was someone called Matthew.”
Q had started at that. Bond then tossed the phone at him, and while staring him down, asked, “Are you still free for dinner this weekend? According to one of several texts, he’s very keen to know.”
Madeleine had thought that might be the end of it, since they were stuck adrift in an icy silence for some time. She could see it needling at Bond, and soon knew that he wasn’t going to let it go. She could have counted down to the exact second the moment he snapped and broke his silence.
“So are you going to dinner with him?”
“If I ever get back to London and the world as we know it doesn’t come to an end, yes.”
“And who exactly is this Matthew?”
Madeleine had to bite her cheek to keep from laughing at how Bond spat out the name: as though it was not only filthy, but utterly bizarre and deserving of ridicule. She succeeded in keeping quiet and watched Q, who started to blush, turning him a colour not far flung from the swelling around his eye.
Sullenly, Q challenged, “I’ll tell you who he is if you can give me a detailed and reasonable account as to why you need to know.”
That clearly caught Bond out. He scowled and grabbed his own phone, and as he charged from the room in a huff, he snapped, “I’m going to call Felix and find out where the hell he is. Can’t keep Matthew waiting, can we?”
Once the door slammed, Q went back to looking at his phone. After staring blankly at the notifications, he tossed the phone aside. It struck Madeleine that Bond had poured greater energy into his vitriolic uttering of ‘Matthew’, while Q only seemed fatigued by it all. She wondered if he had forgotten Matthew entirely. It certainly didn’t seem like he was pleased at the reminder of this other man’s existence.
When Bond came back to the room, Madeleine returned to observing quietly. It was easy enough, since they soon spiralled back to sniping at each other, all but forgetting her in the process. They remained aware enough that half of their digs at each other were coded and lacking any context.
Now, after a full hour of listening to them bicker like an old married couple, Madeleine thinks she has some lay of the land. While Q would like to make it appear that the sunken car is the crux of the matter, there is a lot more submerged under the surface. She wonders if they realise she is amassing theories: that they were lovers, and though things ended after some kind of conflict in Brussels, neither of them have managed to let go of the other.
While Q is finishing up the travel arrangements, he takes a moment to pull back from his laptop screen. He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose, which he has clearly forgotten isn’t in good shape at all. When he winces and hisses in pain, Bond immediately comes charging over to check on him. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Q says. “It’s not exactly easy doing this without my glasses and with a searing headache.”
“Then let me do it,” Bond says, reaching for the laptop. When Q refuses and snatches the laptop closer to himself, Bond looks incensed. “Can you swallow your pride for a bloody minute and let me help?”
“Am I hallucinating?” Q turns to Madeleine and demands, “Did you just hear him say that? Did he just ask me to swallow my pride?”
The imminent threat of another quarrel breaking out is, blessedly, cancelled out by a knock at the door, which sends Bond storming off. He soon returns with his friend in tow. Bond introduces Madeleine to Felix. He does say hello to her, but he is clearly pre-occupied and regarding Q worriedly.
“Q,” Felix says, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Q grabs the hotel stationery and writes down the travel details. He tears off the slip of paper and hands it to Madeleine, even though Bond has extended his own hand to take it. Q ignores him and says to Madeleine, “Hold onto that, will you? He’s always losing everything I give him.”
Felix laughs and claps Bond on the shoulder. He rounds the desk and pats Q more gently on the arm. “Has he been getting himself into trouble again? You can tell me. You know I’ll sympathise.”
“He left a three million pound car at the bottom of the Tiber,” Q complains, scowling at Bond for a second before turning back to Felix. “You remember, the one I told you about.”
“The one you said I could test drive when I was next in London?”
“The very same.” Q sends another filthy look Bond’s way, and this time, Felix pairs it with a look of absolute horror. “I do apologise on his behalf, Felix, but I expect it’s rather waterlogged.”
“I don’t see how that’s my fault,” Bond says drily. “You’ve only yourself to blame if you’re making cars that can’t survive a dip in a river.”
Q looks so outraged that Madeleine wonders if he’s about to employ his laptop as a weapon again. Fortunately, Felix diffuses Q’s anger by siding with him. “You owe him, James. And you owe me. I’ve been looking forward to that test drive for months.” He nudges Q. “Don’t you worry, I brought an absolute beauty for the drive home.”
“The drive home? That’ll take far too long.”
Felix glances between Bond and Madeleine. “James said I had to drive you. Something about a concussion?”
“Yes, well, you can’t fly if you’re concussed,” Bond says, almost smugly. “I’m sure Dr. Swann would agree.”
“She said I was fine!”
Madeleine doesn’t want to side with Bond but she finds she has to. She hopes Q can hear how she sympathises when she concedes, “You seem alright but it would be safer to drive rather than fly.”
Bond is now categorically smug. He smirks at Q and says, “Doctor’s orders.”
Q sighs and starts packing up his bag. Haphazardly, he shoves his phone and broken glasses into the front pocket. Felix pats his arm again, and promises, “We’ll be back in no time. And on the way you can tell me all about what he’s done to piss you off.”
“I haven’t done anything,” Bond protests. “Well, other than the car.”
Q abandons his packing and leans across the desk to challenge, “What about absconding across Europe and forsaking my job? When M finds out I’ve been lying to him for forty-eight hours straight, he’s going to gut me like a fish. Beyond that, you’ve been incredibly, insultingly overprotective.”
“And you’ve been tetchy as all hell,” Bond accuses. He looks at Madeleine and demands, “In fact, can you check him again?”
Felix glances sidelong at Madeleine and remarks, “What, for tetchiness? Is there a test for that, Doc?”
“I just think he’s acting a little irrational,” Bond continues, glaring at Q. “I’m hardly being overprotective when you look like that, am I?”
Q snaps his laptop shut and stashes it in his bag. He turns to Felix, pointedly angling himself well away from Bond, and says, “Felix, can we go? I’m bored of his fussing.”
Felix nods, and Q goes to head out of the room, but Bond grabs his arm. “Can I speak to you privately for a moment?”
He hauls Q off into the corner, which isn’t all that far, but they immediately descend into a whispered back-and-forth. Felix heaves a sigh and gives Madeleine a weary look. “Have they been like this the whole time?”
“For hours now.”
“Do you know what started it?”
Madeleine may have theories but she isn’t sure she’s put her finger on the exact trigger point. With a shrug, she says, “No idea. They keep griping about the car and something that happened in Brussels.”
“If I were a betting man, I’d place a hell of a lot of money on James having fucked up worse than just the car.” Felix smiles. “Actually, I am a betting man. Are you a betting woman?”
“Yes, but I’d put money on that also.”
“Pity.” Felix sighs again. “At least it makes for a good spectator sport.”
Madeleine has to agree that it does. At first it’s just more of the same, a prolonged bickering match where she and Felix can only catch the occasional snippet when Bond or Q raise their voices.
I said I was sorry.
You’re treating me like I’m an invalid! How about an apology for that?
I won’t apologise for caring when you get hurt.
For the most part, they are careful enough to descend back into whispering, so much so that Madeleine loses the thread of their argument. She supposes what they are fighting about doesn’t matter. What matters more, in her view, is that Bond hasn’t let go of Q’s arm this entire time. Q doesn’t seem bothered by it at all. It isn’t a tight grasp, just a continued gentle touch. At first it remains static, but as their conversation continues, Madeleine notices something. Bond’s hand stays curled around Q’s bicep, but his thumb is moving up and down in a slow, sweet caress.
Eventually, their argument dies down, and they return to normal pitch.
“Call me when you get home,” Bond says. He overrides Q’s impending objection by insisting, “I just want to know you’re safe, is that so terrible?”
Q glances down at Bond’s hand, still cradling his left arm. He reaches with his right hand and removes it, but it doesn’t seem like a rejection. Madeleine watches as Q holds Bond’s hand in his. It lasts for all of a few seconds, but though short-lived, it isn’t without tenderness.
“I’ll call you,” he promises. “Look after yourself, okay?”
Bond nods, and Q drops his hand. He turns back to Madeleine and Felix, and says with obviously forced lightness, “Shall we?”
*
When Madeleine and Bond arrive at l'Americaine, their room is soaked in radiant light. Madeleine heads over to the window and basks in the warmth. Bond has been on the phone for the past five minutes and seems intent on pestering Q. Madeleine can’t hear Q’s side of the conversation, but it seems like he’s pushing back at Bond’s repeated questions about whether he’s feeling alright or if he’s in any trouble.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” Bond scowls at whatever Q says, then retorts, “I’ll stop fussing when I’m good and bloody ready. And it’s not fussing, as you so kindly put it— Q? Are you there?”
Bond pulls the phone away from his ear and sighs. He dials Q’s number again and glowers out the window as he waits for Q to pick up. As soon as he does, Bond snaps, “Don’t hang up on me like that.”
He punctuates that by immediately hanging up. This retaliation seems to please him; he pockets his phone with a smile.
Madeleine sits down and slips off her shoes. She rubs the soles of her feet, trying to ease the ache away. As Bond roams around the room, inspecting every last inch of it, she asks, “Why are you two feuding?”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m curious about your feud. Lovers’ quarrels always intrigue me.”
Uncertainty flickers across Bond’s face. After a beat, he says, “We aren’t exactly…”
“Lovers?”
“A bit of a stretch to call it that when he absolutely loathes me at the minute.”
“He doesn’t loathe you.”
“I’m not so sure about that lately.”
“Perhaps you had to see it,” Madeleine muses. Bond frowns at her, and she elaborates, “The look on his face when you named the painting. He said he didn’t think you’d remember.”
“I remember everything.” Bond says this impulsively and with no small amount of regret. He glances over at the liquor cabinet. “Would you like a drink?”
Madeleine nods and watches as he pours two glasses of whisky. When he hands hers over, she smiles at him. “Not gin, like you drank with him?”
Bond ignores that and heads over to sit by the window. He doesn’t drink, not right away. Instead he sits, staring into the glass as he swirls the whisky around and around.
“Tell me about him.”
“Why?”
“We never finished our session.”
Bond looks like he wants to challenge that, but though he opens his mouth, nothing eventuates. He ends up tossing back the glass of whisky in one.
“Or would you have wanted to talk about something else?” Madeleine sets her glass aside and focuses on watching Bond. He doesn’t look at her, only out the window, at least until she ventures, “Perhaps there’s someone more meaningful.”
That grabs his attention. Madeleine soon suspects she’s touched upon a sore spot, for Bond retorts, “There isn’t. Try convincing him of that, though.”
“Why isn’t he convinced?”
He regards her with suspicion. “What does any of this matter to you?”
Madeleine shrugs. “We have to pass the time somehow.”
Bond still looks far from convinced. He stares into his empty glass and says, “Look, he’s made it quite clear he’s finished with me, so there really isn’t anything to talk about.”
“This might sound terribly predictable,” Madeleine says, smiling, “But how does that make you feel?”
That wins him over a little. Bond laughs and then looks at her quite differently. The suspicion is stripped away, and in its place, is genuine contemplation. Soon enough, he answers the question, just as she hoped he might. “I suppose I would prefer that he weren’t done with me, but it was bound to run its course. Anyway, I fucked it all up so I’ve only myself to blame. I certainly should have seen that coming.”
“It can’t have run its course if you care this much.” Madeleine picks up her glass and offers it to Bond. He comes over and takes it, and like with the last, drinks it down in one. “I haven’t ever been in love, but as much as I imagine it isn’t something that just goes away, I also think it means something when it lingers.”
Bond laughs again but this is a pale imitation of the last: uneasy and tinny, a weak façade. “I’m not…”
“Aren’t you?” Madeleine arches an eyebrow at him, but when all she gets back is a practiced blank stare, she shrugs and concedes lightly, “My mistake.”
She waits him out, and is pleased when her instincts are proven right. Eventually, he takes the bait, and asks, “What made you think I was?”
“You said you remember everything. You remember the gin you drank and the exact accoutrements. You know his scars. You remember the Turner painting.” Madeleine watches that last one hit him. He is still exercising enough control that it’s subtle and fleeting, but she sees it, a slight trickle of emotion, something like nostalgia. She is determined to continue pulling at this thread, and continues, “You can’t help but look at him; in fact, you rarely take your eyes off him. You touch him and sometimes barely seem to notice you’re doing it, like it’s some well-worn habit. And you were terrified for him. Him being missing really rattled you. You offered to kill the men who hurt him.”
Bond turns his head slightly and stares out the window. “Well, that’s my job, isn’t it?”
“What if it weren’t? Would that dull your desire to seek revenge?”
“No,” Bond admits.
“I imagine,” Madeleine pauses, then self-corrects, “I happen to know that your kind go missing and come to harm somewhat routinely.”
“Other agents, yes, but he isn’t-” Bond cuts himself short, then laments, “He was only there because of me. I gave him the bloody ring and let him run off on his own. It’s my fault, what happened.”
“Haven’t you ever been responsible for someone coming to harm before?”
“Yes.” Bond grimaces. “I’m sure you, of all people, know that’s part and parcel, as much as one might try to avoid it.”
Madeleine knows a rabbit-hole when she sees one, and dodges it effortlessly. She won’t let Bond bring it back to her father, nor herself, and persists by asking, “So you would fret like this for any other colleague?”
“No,” Bond admits. Then, sullenly, he adds, “I’m not fretting.”
“Would you seek revenge for another like you would for him?”
“Perhaps to some extent.”
“But not to the full extent,” Madeleine muses. “Imagine that you had the man here now, the one who hurt him. Would you put a bullet through his skull, like you did to… what was his name, Hinx? Or would you do worse?”
This time, what Madeleine sees is far more than some fleeting trickle of emotion. If that was a raindrop, this is a thunderstorm. Bond’s voice goes low and rough with conviction as he concedes, “Far worse.”
Madeleine gives him a moment. Exactly as she predicted he would, Bond picks himself up and goes to pour another drink. He fills the glass nearly to the brim. When he returns to sitting by the window, he takes a drink, albeit slower than he did with the last. After a couple of sips, Bond asks, “Do you think he…?”
Madeleine nods. “He can’t take his eyes off you, either. He lets you touch him even when he’s upset with you. He clearly draws comfort from it.” She smiles to herself as emotion washes over Bond’s features again. This time, it’s like lightning illuminating a dark sky. “And he seems to remember it all, just like you. I expect that means something. Everything, perhaps.”
She is prepared for what happens next, the inevitable push-pull. Madeleine always finds it fascinating, energising even, when a session hits this point of tension. With someone like Bond, it feels like a tug-of-war. As he visibly tries to rebuild his walls, he asks snarkily, “And what of his beloved Matthew?”
“You mean the person he forgot entirely while he was with you? I dare say that date won’t come to be.” Madeleine smiles at Bond. “If he has a beloved, it’s you.”
Saying that feels like wrenching the rope. It clearly sends Bond stumbling. Madeleine takes the opportunity and asks, “If Q were here, if he were really listening, and you could say anything at all… what would you say?”
Bond stares down into his glass of whisky, now half-full, and then sets it aside. He studies Madeleine and then says, genuinely, “You’re very good at what you do.”
“I know,” Madeleine says, and they share a smile. “Maybe you should call him.”
Bond laughs. “Why, so he can hang up on me again?”
“Well, perhaps it’s better saved for when you see him. Some things are best said in person, no?”
She gets a mere shrug in return, but there is something promising about it. Bond stands up and scans the room again. “We need to figure out why we’re here.”
And just like that, their session is over. Madeleine doesn’t mind. She wasn’t sure she would win their tug-of-war, but this certainly feels like a victory. She gets up off the bed to join Bond, and they begin their search.
*
You won’t know who she is. Just another passing face on your way to the grave. He dies not knowing who you are. The daughter of an assassin. The only one who could have understood him. Shame.
As the needles drive into Bond’s skull, Madeleine’s stomach lurches. She tries to hide her horror, for she knows all too well how men like Blofeld feed off it. It takes all of her might, to keep as still as she can, to keep her face blank, while she tries to figure out how they can possibly escape this.
There is some strange relief in the fact that Blofeld seems to have taken her for Bond’s beloved. Perhaps it was seeing Q so bruised and battered, or possibly, she has formed some attachment after unearthing Bond’s adoration for him. Madeleine doesn’t want to die here, but she takes comfort in knowing that Blofeld isn’t as all-knowing as he believes himself to be. She and Bond aren’t safe, but Q is, and that’s something.
Through it all, she is sure there has to be a way out of this. Her mother used to condemn her for her optimism, and Madeleine has gone through spells of trying to discard it like unwanted baggage. Now, she clings to it. It takes everything she has, especially when Bond starts convulsing in the chair.
When he goes still, she can’t hold herself back. Madeleine runs to his side and takes his face in her hands, playing at intimacy for Blofeld, and hoping to offer some comfort to Bond. “Are you alright?”
Bond’s eyes flicker open, just as Blofeld asks, “Do those blue eyes still recognise you?”
At that, Bond opens his eyes properly. He looks at her, not through her, which is promising. Madeleine leans in closer and whispers, “The painting, what was it?”
James smiles, and whispers, “The Fighting Temeraire.”
“You remember,” Madeleine says, relief racing through her.
“Everything. Tell him, won’t you?”
“Only if you can’t.” Madeleine drops her hands to his shoulders and squeezes. “But I’d like to think you still have a chance.”
“I tend to agree.” Bond’s gaze shifts to the side, like he’s trying to signal something. He smiles, and almost as though he’s reciting it from memory, murmurs, “The inevitability of time.”
Madeleine glances down and sees his watch clutched in his hands. Her hope is well placed, there is some way out of all of this. She reaches down and takes the watch.
“One minute. One minute. Tempus fugit.”
*
When they arrive back in London, Bond takes Madeleine to a safe house. They have little time before M is due to arrive. Since Bond has been quiet for much of the journey home, Madeleine decides to take these last few moments to say something.
“If you ever need another session,” she offers, to which he smiles, as though he finds that funny. “Did our talk the other night not help?”
“It did,” he admits. “But I can’t say I’ve ever been one for therapy.”
“Maybe you should be.” Madeleine returns his smile and points out, “You killed your brother today.”
“He wasn’t my brother. Not really.”
“Well, still. That’s worth at least a half hour session,” Madeleine jokes, which draws a laugh from Bond. “Since you saved my life, I’ll offer that free of charge.”
The mention of Blofeld hasn’t shifted the smile from Bond’s face one bit. That doesn’t surprise Madeleine, but as ever, it fascinates her. When they had dinner on the train together, she confessed one of her best kept secrets, and recounted the day of her mother’s death. Bond had seemed impressed when Madeleine admitted to killing the man who did it. She was willing to admit to taking the assassin down with several shots, then finishing him off with a bullet through the head. She even confessed to weighing his coat down with rocks and sinking his body in the lake by her house, after cracking the ice open first with another gunshot and then with a shovel.
What she didn’t admit to is how that tore her to pieces, how she was sick through the night until her father finally returned. He was proud of her for what she had done, and she hid her distress from him for fear of seeming weak or damaged. It was only when she was alone that Madeleine could descend into her full despair over having killed someone.
She still remembers that anguish well. She wonders if Bond feels anything like it, after watching his brother die so violently. Madeleine doubts she will ever forget it, the way Blofeld’s head split nearly in two, the incredible bloodshed. Even more present is the memory of James’ reaction, which was to storm away, disarm and kill a guard, and come back to finish off Blofeld with a bullet to the heart. He was as stony then as he was back in Austria, where he put an end to Hinx as though it were some meagre chore.
“I have no qualms about killing him,” Bond says. The smile drops from his face, but not for sorrow or anger. Madeleine expects his walls to go back up, but they don’t. They are caught in some strange in-between where Bond is just shy of an open book, one which Madeleine is reading through blurred vision. He is an enigma in this moment, at least until he confesses softly, “He killed my only other chance at a family.”
“I think you might have another chance at that.” Madeleine smiles at Bond, who looks as though he might have more to say, but then there’s a knock at the door.
In comes a man who Bond introduces as M. Madeleine notices Q and another man out on the landing, who M had asked to wait, but Bond asks M to let them in. Though he seems reluctant, M does just that, and Madeleine trains her eyes on Bond as Q and the other man walk into the room.
It’s all so subtle that nobody else has a chance of catching it, but to Madeleine, it’s as clear as day. Bond greets both Tanner and Q, but his gaze lingers on Q. As they get to talking through next steps, she catches him returning to Q again and again. When M suggests that hacking the system to prevent it going online won’t be easy for Q, Bond responds with absolute faith, “He’ll find a way.”
He looks at Q, who smiles slightly. Bond holds his gaze. As though everyone else has suddenly vanished from the room, he says directly to Q, “You always do.”
There is no question or quarrel to be found there. Once they’ve settled on their plans, they part ways. M and Q head off with Bond, while Tanner promises Madeleine that he will help her get home safely. As they head out together, Q turns to Madeleine briefly and thanks her for helping.
“You’re welcome,” she says. It isn’t lost on her that Bond is watching them, so she turns to him and thanks him again. “Good luck to you both. Not that I think you’ll need it.”
She thinks Q catches that: not good luck to them all, but just to Bond and Q. He looks at her with curiosity, and she smiles. Something seems to spark in Q, like he grasps at her meaning, and Madeleine is glad when he smiles back at her.
M calls to them from over by the car, and as Bond and Q set off, Madeleine heads in the opposite direction with Tanner. She turns back once, to see M climbing into the car, and Bond walking closely enough to Q that he can brush their hands together. It makes Madeleine smile again, and she revels in her optimism, which has paid off once more.
“Let’s get you home,” Tanner says, leading her to his car. He opens the door for her and Madeleine gets in. She glances in the side mirror and watches as Bond opens the door for Q. As Tanner slips into the driver’s seat and starts the ignition, he looks over at her. “It’s been a rough few days, I’m sure. Are you alright, Dr. Swann?”
“I’m alright.” Madeleine can still feel it, that bright spot of hope nestled at her core. She settles into her seat and lets that feeling take hold, and looks forward to the journey home.