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Chapter Text

Name:
James Bond.

Place of Birth:
Dál Riata territories now known as Glencoe, Scotland.

Date of Birth:
13 April, 498 Anno Domini

Profession:

--The last thing the King said to me was, ‘Thou art a true knight. Keep faith. Keep to the code’.

Thou shalt not tell a falsehood: that was the first to go.

Keep the faith: that was next.

Over the years, every part of the code has come into conflict with every other part. Shall I keep my faith or shall I keep from telling falsehoods?

In the end, I had to choose only one tenet that would remain sacred. Because the true question that every knight one day has to face is whether he will keep the code or serve his country.

He lived and died and sleeps in stone by the code. He never doubted, never lied.

He never had to.

~

“Q, where in god’s name is Bond’s file?”

Hand still on the doorknob, Q had only just stepped into M’s office when he was met with an interrogative frown.

Q tried not to look like a baffled idiot in light of M summoning him to his office and demanding paperwork that Q had no reason to have. “Sir?”

“Bond’s file. It isn’t with the others. I can understand the paper copy being lost in the disaster, but I thought you’d told me there had been no significant loss of data due to the back-up servers in Bristol.”

“That’s correct, Sir,” Q said, not certain whether he was being reprimanded. “We lost less than a month of data. All personnel files were preserved.”

M gestured at his computer terminal, in no mood to be patronised. “If you would kindly locate that file for me, then, Q.”

Feeling like this was some sort of trick, Q sat down at the terminal and logged in as himself. A few keystrokes brought up the active agent profiles, including 007, and the list of included files was intact.

Resisting the urge to look over his shoulder in confusion at M’s difficulty finding this, Q opened the top few files and found them likewise intact, detailing Bond’s involvement in the recent Silva conflict and his test results upon his return to active duty.

“Sir,” Q said tentatively. “I don’t—“

“When did Bond begin as a 00-agent?” M specified.

Now with a goal in mind, Q opened up Bond’s history file and clicked on “Recommendation for Promotion to 00 Status.”

File does not exist.

Frowning, Q tried another one. None of the files prior to 2012 would open.

Irritated primarily at a flaw in his pristine computer systems, Q switched to command prompt to track down the files. They all appeared properly in Bond’s folder, but each one had been set up to reference another file of the same name in a directory which did not exist.

“Looks like a simple server transfer error,” Q explained. “At some point, the personnel server switched from S: to D: and someone copied these as shortcuts rather than copying the actual file. We’ve been using Q: for as long as I’ve worked here. The most recent timestamp reads as 2005, but that doesn’t mean—“

“Have the files been accessed since then?”

Q frowned at the screen for a moment, realising the purpose of the question. “They can’t have been.”

“None of the files of the most troublesome agent in the field have been accessed since 2005, and then only to be incorrectly copied from an old server?”

Grimacing, Q went back to typing, trying to see if he could find any further trace of them. It seemed like such a basic mistake to make. Only Q and R should have had any access to the secure file transfer process, so it wasn’t a mistake that could be blamed on a rookie.

“There’s nothing, Sir,” Q admitted, accessing the back-up servers and the archival records. “All of Bond’s existing files are either from the past year, or they share the S: drive error, and we haven’t any remaining paper files but the deep archives before 1982.”

“Somehow I find it hard to believe that we’d find anything on Bond in files from 1982,” M said wryly, turning away from the terminal. “He would have been, what, about fourteen at the time?”

“Sir.” Q fidgeted, feeling foolish although the data loss hadn’t been his mistake.

“I’d like you to take responsibility for reconstructing the file,” M decided, gazing thoughtfully out of his window.

Logging out of the terminal, Q stood and tried not to look as confused as he felt. “Reconstructing the file? From what?”

“From the one source we have who does know 007’s history.”

Q declined to point out that Moneypenny would probably be better at tracking down the information, and nodded his agreement. Bond was his responsibility, and data management fell into Q Branch’s specialties. Bond wasn’t going to like detailing his history while Q or R took notes, but it could get done.

“Sir,” he agreed, standing sheepishly in the centre of the room until M officially dismissed him and Q went off to figure out how to fulfil his task.

~

Curled up in bed with a mug of tea and his laptop, Q remotely monitored Bond’s progress.

He was making a mess of being chased through the streets of a foreign city by men with guns. Already he’d taken two gunshot wounds and was moving slowly. Too slowly.

Heart pounding with worry, Q kept his voice steady as he guided James through the city and back to the extraction point.

It seemed impossible that this was the same man Q’d fancied so hopelessly when he’d been just an anonymous underling in Q-branch. That man had moved like a lion on the prowl: confident, deadly and gorgeous. This one was more reminiscent of an old, sick beast dying in a cage.

There was nothing wrong with him physically, and his recent tests--the ones for which they still had records--showed nothing out of the ordinary.

Suggesting or even ordering Bond into psychological therapy was useless. Q had tried it and had even gotten M to do the same. Bond just brushed off the suggestions and volunteered for the next dangerous mission.

“Status, 007,” Q said, once Bond had made it to the docks and dropped into a nook to hide while he waited for his pursuers to give up.

“Mission success,” Bond drawled.

“You know damn well what I’m asking.”

“I’m not going to die of my wounds, Quartermaster,” Bond amended, with a ghost of his customary humor.

Q’s heart gave a thud of relief. “Can you speak freely?”

“Relatively.”

Q had a hundred things he wanted to say or ask, but the words eluded him.

“Q?” There was the slightest waver in his voice.

“Still here, 007.”

“Can you speak freely?” Bond teased.

“Why can’t I access your files, 007?” Q asked, the words falling from his mouth before he could stop them. He should be asking this once he had Bond back in MI6, in a wire-tapped room where government analysts could comb through the nuances and pauses of his response, not on a secure private line while Bond was halfway across the world and possibly bleeding to death.

“Maybe they haven’t updated your security clearance.”

“I’m serious. It looks like your files were deleted eight years ago. How can no one have noticed that before now?”

“M--” There was a pause, a falter in his voice, but that was to be expected. Everyone at MI6 made that falter when they were talking about her. It seemed disrespectful to call her anything else, but now she was no longer M, and the void left behind seemed to hang in the air around Mallory. He was smart, skilled, and more than qualified for his job, but he wasn’t her, and the letter felt haunted--no longer hers and not yet his.

“--She didn’t like paperwork,” Bond finished.

“She can’t have had your file memorised.”

“She didn’t need to.”

Q frowned, wanting it to be that simple. A copying error, and no one had ever noticed because the three people with access--M, Q and Tanner--had damn well asked Bond if there was anything they needed. What could be in the file that anyone would need to know? It was common knowledge that Bond had no family and came from Scotland. Studied at Eton college, where he was something of a legend. Even recent graduates knew his name and spoke of him as if he were some fond school mascot.

“When you come back, we’ll need to reconstruct it,” Q said, thinking to himself that he shouldn’t be giving Bond time to plan out his story.

As if he hadn’t had eight years to plan out his story since the files had gone missing.

It was strange to suspect Bond of any involvement in his own deleted files. He was their oldest and most trusted 00 agent. His loyalty was completely above suspicion, and he had time and again put himself through hell and skirted death because M had asked it and Britain required it.

But there was no one else to suspect. Either it was a massive oversight on a very simple procedure by one of the most intelligent men in Britain, or Bond knew something about it.

“I don’t like paperwork,” Bond said.

“Hurry back, Bond,” Q said, gentler as he let his voice be more genuine and less Quartermaster.

“To a stack of paperwork? I think I might take a detour through the tourist district. I could pick up some souvenirs for you.”

“Don’t leave me to worry,” Q chided, and the crisp, formal edge in his voice might have wavered enough to reveal the personal concern.

“I’ll be on the next boat, Quartermaster,” Bond promised.

Chapter Text

The King united the British Isles, along with Iceland, Norway, and Gaul. He established a fair and generous kingdom that lasted for centuries, and the Britons called him ‘Arthur the Blessed’.

In Gaul, they called him ‘Dux Bellorum’, the leader of battles. In Norway they called him ‘Conqueror,’ and they spat upon mention of his name.

Norway was the first to rebel.

It was a long and bloody war, and fruitless.

Year after year, I led the troops in Norway. They were cold, wet battles against a people who were fighting for the right to freedom and self-governance.

I was fighting to obey the last words of my king, who bid me to stay and safeguard his kingdom.

As the years passed and my men died slow, screaming deaths of wounds taken septic while we ‘requisitioned’ food from starving, resentful villagers, I began to question what it meant to safeguard the kingdom.

Was it the kingdom’s unity which mattered? The lives of the soldiers who were dying for a cause they no longer understood? The freedom and happiness of the Norwegians who were no longer British citizens?

I never decided on an answer. But as the war dragged on, there became a point where I was no longer willing to lead men to a futile death on the words of a dead--

--sleeping. A sleeping king.

Britain’s king sleeps and will rise again.

And perhaps, when he does, he will blame me for letting his empire crumble.

Let him judge me, when he wakes. And if he asks, I will say:

You were not there.

~

James Bond entered Q’s office and shut the door.

The space was enormous, an honour designated to the head of Q Branch, and Q never used it. He preferred being out on the floor, collaborating and assisting the work of his department. Q Branch used it as storage, so that half-built high-security inventions and components cluttered the corners of the room, and Q’s desk was covered with papers from a dozen projects that were high priority but not yet crucial enough to be saved from the mess.

Feeling out of place in his own office, Q sat cross-legged in a chair with his computer on his lap. He looked up with a sheepish smile when Bond entered, but the agent merely looked tired.

“I hate answering these questions,” Bond said, taking the seat next to Q and staring at the empty chair left behind Q’s desk.

Brow furrowing at the statement, which seemed to imply that this had happened before, Q disregarded it with a shake of his head and focused on the task at hand.

“Name,” he said, fingers briskly pulling up a fresh file and beginning to enter data.

“James Bond.”

“Place of birth.”

“Glencoe, Scotland.”

“Date of Birth.”

There was an almost imperceptible pause.

“April 13th, 1968.”

“Education.”

Q’s fingers moved swiftly over the keyboard as he poured Bond’s life into the rote form. Bond answered each question simply, without elaboration or inflection. Occasionally, he paused.

Q began putting an asterisk into each entry that was prefaced by a pause. When they were finished with the first set of forms, Q dismissed him and read back over the interview log.

Every single asterisk had been on a date or a number. Q cleared them out, explaining it to himself as a harmless quirk. Bond had no skill with technology or computers--probably his slight delay on numbers and dates was explainable as a difficulty with mathematics.

It made no sense for him to be lying about the dates. Of all the things to be worth lying about, his date of arrival was the easiest to check.

Straightening up and starting to type again now that he had a trail to follow, Q searched the employee files by date. M had been the most senior employee, and before that, Q’s predecessor. With them gone, and after the destruction and loss of life at the former headquarters, MI6 was suddenly a much younger organisation.

Surprisingly, the man he wanted was a janitor working on a lower floor. Q sent out a summons, and within minutes the man had been delivered to his office door.

Realising that he should recover his forgotten formality, Q straightened his spine and greeted his coworker with a polite nod. “Mr. Beale, I’m sorry to take your time. I only have a few brief questions.”

The man stood with shoulders hunched forward and hat in hand, the habitual posture of a working-class man who had spent his life around the government elite of MI6.

“Sir,” Mr. Beale said, gruff but respectful.

“Are you familiar with Agent James Bond?”

“I am.”

“I’d like to hear your memory of the first time you encountered him.”

“I don’t remember the specifics, Sir, but I do remember that he was cordial to me, right from my first day. It’s unusual for 00 agents to be friendly with the staff, but he was. He always knew my name, and I appreciated that.”

A tingling suspicion tugged at the back of Q’s mind, something unnervingly impossible.

“What do you remember of him before he was a 00 agent?” Q prompted.

Mr. Beale shook his head, not a hint of doubt in his expression. “Mr. Bond was a 00 when I started, sir.”

“I hope you’ll forgive my questioning your memory, Mr. Beale, but that isn’t possible. Bond would have been twenty two when you began working here.”

“Was he really?” Mr. Beale seemed surprised by the number. “Suppose he’s always had that face.”

“According to what I have here, James Bond worked his way up through the ranks in MI6 for years.”

“Begging your pardon, Sir, but that’s not the way I remember it. I seem to always remember him like he is now. Wearing them sharp suits and flirting with the secretaries.”

An old man’s memory against all logic, sense, and the word of their best and most loyal agent.

“How sure are you of this?” Q asked.

Mr. Beale gave a slow nod. “It’s what I remember. Sir.”

Q tensed his jaw, trying to decide what to believe. “Thank you, Mr. Beale. I appreciate your assistance.”

Mr. Beale knew better than to argue with his superior. He accepted the disbelief and the dismissal, and showed himself out of Q’s office.

~

The evening was wet and dreary, and Q stood by the window of his flat with a mug of tea so that he could worry.

Those gunshot wounds should have killed him. Q hadn’t forgotten, and hadn’t stopped worrying, even as the wounds healed and medical pronounced him fit to return to duty.

But what worried him more was the suspicion that James wouldn’t have cared.

Q knew about cases like this, in theory. At a certain point, if a field agent lived long enough, the job started to get to them. There were only so many times you could risk death and watch the deaths of those around you before it started to get inside your head.

In the training manual, there was some nonsense about a therapy regimen and helping the agents stay connected to the world around them.

Hard to do that when James had recently lost his Quartermaster, his M, his ancestral home, and the MI6 headquarters that had been like home to him. He had no family, no significant relationships, and no reason to live but sheer dogged stubbornness.

What the training manual had only politely hinted was that field agents didn’t recover from despair. They took it out in the field and they died, or they were put on leave for their own good and they ate a bullet within two weeks.

It was for that reason that Q kept his mouth shut and didn’t make the recommendation to put James on leave, even though he knew he should. More dignity in dying in the field for your country than in dying alone in an empty apartment.

He wasn’t sure when he’d switched the mug of tea in his hand for his mobile phone.

The window glass was cold against his shoulder, and on the phone’s little glowing screen he’d written the address to his flat and the words I’ll make tea. Q

It was such a stupid, pitiful gesture. Inviting a self-destructive 00 agent over for tea, as if the company of one socially awkward quartermaster with a lingering schoolboy crush would be enough to wipe James’ memory of two decades of trauma and dead comrades.

Two decades. Was that right? But Mr. Beale--

Mr. Beale was an old man with a fading memory, and the reconstruction of Bond’s files was just a formality.

Q hit send.

It took five minutes for him to get a reply, which wasn’t surprising. Q smiled to himself at the thought of how painstakingly Bond typed out each letter when he was texting, with a scowl furrowing the space between his brows. He knew it was a little sadistic to have sent his message by text in the first place, but he couldn’t help but find Bond’s discomfort charming.

007 was so damned talented at so very many things. Q couldn’t deny himself the little bit of enjoyment he got from seeing Bond struggling with something that Q’s grandmother had taken to like gin.

Business or pleasure? 007

I make no promises. Q

He knew that Bond would come, although when he thought about it he wasn’t sure why he knew that Bond would come. Trust, he supposed. Working as closely as they did, with Q a murmur in Bond’s ear in the field guiding him through death and out the other side, Q didn’t doubt that he would drop everything and go if Bond ever sent him an address and no explanation.

There was something oddly formal about having Bond show up to ring his doorbell. Q let him in and inquired if he was allergic to cat dander, feeling sheepish about having invited him in the first place.

He led Bond to the kitchen and put a cup of tea into his hands.

Bond leaned against his counter as though he neither expected nor wanted anything more. He made himself look somehow completely at home, as if it were common for gorgeous men in suits to stand around Q’s kitchen drinking tea. It was Q who felt sheepish. The whim to invite Bond over now felt hollow and foolish, and all of his conversation topics seemed to have narrowed down to some crazy old janitor says that you’ve been a 00 agent for the past twenty-plus years, and oh, odd coincidence, you gave me a date of arrival at MI6 that’s exactly three months before the next most senior employee. Funny, isn’t it?

“You’re leaving tomorrow on the Cairo mission, aren’t you?” Q said, finding another topic at last.

Bond lowered the tea mug from his lips at the breaking of the fragile silence between them, and now it was Bond who seemed to have misplaced his words.

“Now that medical has declared you fit for duty,” Q added.

“I don’t tolerate leisure well,” Bond confirmed.

Don’t get shot, Q thought, but the words died on his lips.

Why did you lie for the MI6 official records?

How long have you been lying for—

Q cut that thought off sharply, irritated by it. The facts didn’t line up, and he couldn’t make sense of the data he had. It drove him mad.

Tea sloshed onto the counter as Q set down his mug too fast. His frustration was fraying at the edges of his good manners, and Q was poor enough with small talk on a good day. The silence was tense between them now.

“Who are you?” Q asked, voice sharp.

Bond didn’t answer, and Q looked up, finding Bond’s eyes fixed on him.

“Bond,” he said, locking Q’s gaze. “James Bond.”

Q’s lips tilted crazily to one side, despairing of his own hold on reality. “Where were you born?” he asked, because it was the question that came next, that had to come next, on that damn personnel file where James had lied to him.

A subtle tilt of Bond’s lips mirrored Q’s, but his was sympathetic, and almost sad. “Glencoe, Scotland. The locals call it A’ Chàrnaich, the place of the cairns.”

“Cairns.”

“Are you familiar with the Massacre of Glencoe?”

Numbly, Q nodded. “I learned about it in secondary.”

“I wasn’t there that day, but I had family among the Maclains.”

“Ancestors,” Q corrected, crossing his arms firmly. Bond held his gaze at the correction, and it was Q who looked away.

“Tell me something true,” Q pleaded. “Something about yourself.”

After a long and thoughtful pause, Bond said; “Major Boothroyd reminded me of my father.”

“Q.”

Bond nodded. “You knew him?”

“He trained me. He was a father to me, as well. When he died, I became R, but the interim Q was... rigid.”

“I’m glad to have a Q who doesn’t hate me, now.” Bond smiled, and Q shared it, united in their dislike for Q’s predecessor.

Finally, Bond pushed away from the counter. “Thank you for the tea, Quartermaster.” He reached out to set the mug on the counter, but the muscles of his arm locked partway, and he stopped.

Quickly catching the mug, Q set it aside and reached out, his fingers brushing over Bond’s arm. On anyone else, there would have been an expression of pain at a muscle spasm like that. “James.”

“It’s fine. Strained the muscles.”

Q pressed his fingers tighter against Bond’s arm, not wanting to let him go. “Please,” he murmured.

Tense, Bond set his jaw, but after a moment he relented and relaxed the arm that Q was holding.

Carefully, Q let his thumbs glide down the muscles from wrist to elbow. When Bond didn’t pull away, he continued, carefully deepening and expanding the massage to try and release the tension in the locked muscles.

No thought to time or propriety, Q kept it up until Bond took the arm away from him.

Looking up in surprise and confusion, Q caught his fingers as they drew away. He was standing very close to Bond, but somehow hadn’t noticed it as long as he could distract himself with the excuse that he was doing his duty and aiding a 00 agent.

Bond’s fingers stilled against Q’s, letting him keep hold, and they both leaned in. Q closed his eyes.

There was no kiss.

Confused, he released Bond’s hand and opened his eyes.

“I should go,” Bond said, turning from him.

Q stared at his retreating back, hurt. “James.”

Bond glanced back at the door, face unreadable.

“Come back safely.”

His eyes warmed with a smile, and then he was gone.

Q sank down onto the kitchen floor and leaned back against the kitchen cabinets, feeling lonely and useless, until his cat came over to demand her dinner.

Chapter Text

I was too young to remember Scotland before the King came.

We were the Dal Riata, then. My father was Fergus. My mother, Moiread. Whatever name I had before the King’s Men christened me James is lost.

One thing I remember, of the days before the King took me as surety against my father’s rebellion, was my father saying to me that the King was no different than the Romans: They trampled the world and called it peace.

In the King’s court, I learned his code of honour. They made me a Christian and taught me that I was a creature of mud and sin. They told me that if I were a loyal knight and a true Christian, I would receive my eternal reward.

~

The Cairo mission didn’t need his direct oversight, and Q felt too foolish and worried to try, so he left it in R’s hands and took the day.

He hopped a train to the MI6 archival facility, a lurking brick building from the Cold War filled with 60s era technology and flickering lights. The primary stacks were filled with dockets of information on countries that no longer existed and dangerous antagonists long dead, and populated by frustrated admins trying to track down connections in cold cases.

Q showed his identification and submitted to a routine search before they granted him access to the secure archives.

Any agent in MI6 could have skirted that security blindfolded. It was the sort of precautions built from red tape and cross-referenced file cards that had been useless for decades, but it wasn’t worth the trouble to improve the security. Except for the occasional stray journalist trying to track down a scoop on a conspiracy from the 70s, no one cared enough about the secure archives. Everything that anyone needed had long since been moved onto the computers.

He was alone in the secure archives once they let him in. The white walls and fluorescent lights were meant to create a sense of exposure, to limit any inclinations toward treasonous activity, but they were so dusty and faded that it only gave a sense of loneliness. An entire bank of lights were out across the length of the room, and one corner was lit only by a sputtering bulb.

Q felt the immediate urge that someone needed to do something about this, and that MI6 was responsible for cleaning it up and protecting the files, but the urge was quickly followed by a sense of resignation. It wasn’t worth the trouble.

He wondered if everyone who came here had the same reaction.

It wasn’t difficult to figure out the filing system, although the years that he looked through didn’t contain any files on agents with the code 007. Finally he found a file from the 60s marked James Bond - 007, and took it to a table at the center of the room where the light was a little better.

Inside he found mission files and photographs of a blond man in his forties wearing suits and driving gorgeous cars, with beautiful women on his arm in most of them.

Q turned the photographs over as he flipped through them, because he didn’t want to see James’ face staring up at him inexplicably from the faded paper.

When he checked the dates, he found inconsistencies all through the files.

Heart aching with the desire to just bolt out of here and burrow into denial, Q put the file away and searched back through the oldest files. In 1909, when the department that would become MI6 had been formed, there was a blond man named James Bond with the code 007 on their roster.

Q put the files back where he’d found them and left.

~

R rang up while he was on the train home. “He asked after you.”

Q rubbed at his face to discourage the blush spreading across his cheeks. R had been monitoring four agents in the field today, but he didn’t need to specify.

“Did he?” Q asked, calm and cool as he could manage. “At least tell me he hasn’t gotten himself killed.”

“Not even shot, miraculously.”

“How is he?”

“Not top form, but if he was in top form things would probably be exploding, so I intend to be grateful.”

Smiling fondly, Q shook his head. “Thank you, R.”

“He asked if you were upset with him.”

“Upset with him?” Q repeated, surprised that was how James had interpreted events.

“I told him you were furious and never intended to speak to him again.”

“R!”

“And then we flirted outrageously with each other.”

“R.”

“He’s quite forgotten about you now.”

“Remind me to put out a memo about docking the pay of anyone in my department who flirts with Bond.”

“Sir,” R acknowledged, unrepentantly.

“Thank you, R. I’ll be sure to check in.”

With all the modifications Q had put into his phone, it only took a few taps to connect himself through to Bond’s earpiece.

“It’s me. Everything okay?”

There was a surprised silence on the other end before Bond replied, “I’ve never heard you so informal.”

“I’m on the train. How are you?”

“Unhurt. Preparing for the dinner reception. Were you worrying?”

“Not that I plan to admit,” Q said, trying very hard not to blush.

“I was surprised you weren’t my contact today.”

“I had an errand.”

“Q.”

“James,” Q countered.

“When I get home, I’m taking you to dinner.”

Q caught his breath, surprised. “Did you just ask me on a date?”

A young lady across the train glanced over, curious.

“I didn’t ask.”

Q blushed and slumped down in his seat. “No.”

“No?” Bond didn’t sound disappointed. He sounded amused.

“Are you being sincere?”

“As much as I can be. You asked me to come home safely. Seems like a fair trade. I come home unhurt, you go to dinner with me.”

Grinning despite himself, Q shook his head. “That’s blackmail.”

“Say yes.”

“Yes, James, I’ll go to dinner with you.”

The girl across the train bit her lip to hide a delighted smile. Q’s blush deepened.

“I look forward to it, Quartermaster.”

“I’m hanging up on you now.”

Chapter Text

Only one time did I ever curse the King’s name.

Piece by piece, his kingdom was sundered. After Norway went Gaul, and the French and the Britons traded invasions for a thousand years. Wales stayed the longest and returned first, simmering in resentment. Ireland broke from the union in fire, and kept its independence until Britain became a sea empire again.

Scotland paid the price in blood.

The north had always chafed beneath the bridle, and the Britons knew it. I looked the other way for centuries as they taxed the Scots higher and garrisoned it more heavily.

When there were skirmishes--always bloody--I laid the blame to poor governance by kings who were not my king. When he returned, as he’d promised, he would unite the lands in peace and prosperity once again.

One of the kings who had possession of me chose to garrison me in Scotland. A Scot would do better to keep peace among Scots, he said, although I tried to explain to him that I had not been a Scot in centuries.

He should not have sent me.

For years, I obeyed. I fought skirmishes against the blue-faced barbarians who cursed their rightful king. I beat them down and sent their corpses home to their mothers.

Until the year I went to Glencoe.

I met a boy there who, unknowing, told me he was descended from my father.

I stayed, and I pulled upon centuries worth of accumulated power and wealth to indulge my whim, though I knew that I could not hide my face in Glencoe forever.

When you trample the world, nothing will grow from the dirt but thorns.

The first War of Scottish Independence began while I had turned my back on the world and my duties, and when the word of English atrocities reached me, I chose my side.

Of all the wars I’ve fought and seen, that was the bloodiest.

The Scots were ruthless; the English merciless. They slaughtered each other across the highlands for decades.

I stood once on a hill that had been painted black with the blood of my kinsmen and the soldiers of my oath-bound King, and I cursed his name.

His great, gilded vision of a prosperous kingdom that would last for centuries had reaped nothing but blood for all the years of my life. My family by blood slaved and suffered under the hand of his descendants.

I broke my oath and sundered the last piece of his kingdom. And when it was done, I took my leave of all men, and went north into the ice to die.

~

When Bond returned to London, he took Q on their date.

They went to see Doctor Faustus at the Globe, and then strolled past the Tate and onto the Millennium bridge to watch the Thames by night.

“I’m not sure if I liked it,” Q murmured. Content and thoughtful, he leaned against the bridge rail and gazed off at the city lights.

“It’s not for everyone.” James leaned against the rail next to him, watching Q with the fond half-smile that it seemed like he saved for Q alone.

“I don’t mean--It’s brilliant, really, and the performance was exceptional. It’s just very fatalistic.”

“Tragedies,” James specified, “aren’t for everyone.”

Q elbowed him.

Sighing, Q tried to process through his thoughts and feelings about the play, all the more muddled because of his thoughts and feelings about the man next to him. “I thought it was interesting that Faustus damned himself. Again and again, he was given warnings and choices, but he always disregarded them. He was damned not because of his actions but because he didn’t believe himself worth saving.”

“Was he worth saving?”

Q looked over, puzzled.

“That was the part I always wondered,” James elaborated. “Why the angels went to such trouble trying to save a damned soul.”

“I suppose they saw the man he could have been. He was a genius, after all. He could have done good things, if he hadn’t been so self-involved.”

“The play was a scandal when it was performed.”

“I can see that.” Q smiled musingly. “It’s not the most traditional version of the good versus evil story.”

“A relatively minor scandal by Marlowe’s standards. He shouted blasphemies in the streets on a daily basis.”

“Why, Mr. Bond,” Q said. “I had no idea you were such an Elizabethan scholar.”

“I knew him.”

That stopped Q’s teasing. Breath caught in his throat, he turned from the river to stare at Bond. “You what?”

“He was a spy for the Queen,” Bond said, and now he was the one gazing off across the river. “One of her best. He used his public persona to draw and deflect attention, and had connections across the nation. Clever, shameless and brilliant. I’ve never met anyone else like him.”

“James,” Q murmured. He couldn’t bear to believe it.

“You could say that the play was Marlowe questioning his faith, although he swore up and down that he was an atheist. I don’t see questions in Doctor Faustus, only the passionate fury that was Kit’s nature.”

“What are you?” Q asked.

The question drew Bond back to the present, and he looked over at Q as if only just remembering he was there.

“Who are you?” Q repeated, voice breaking.

“James Bond.” He smiled apologetically.

“Why is there a picture of you in MI6’s files from the 1960s? Why is your name on the first roster, from 1909? Why are you doing this?”

Bond shook his head and looked back off across the river.

“James.”

“I’m a vampire.”

A half-hysterical giggle escaped Q, deflating his questions. “You are not.”

Pulling him over, Bond wrapped both arms around Q’s waist and held him close. Unable to resist the physical comfort that he’d been craving, Q leaned into it and set his head on Bond’s chest.

“You’re a very warm vampire,” Q commented. “With a heartbeat.”

“And a tan.”

Q’s giggles weren’t as hysterical this time. When the fit of giggles passed, he sighed and cuddled deeper into Bond’s arms. “James.”

“Shh,” Bond said, giving him a soothing squeeze. “Let’s get you home, Quartermaster.”

~

“Tanner?” Q asked, trying to make his tone as normal and conversational as possible. They were monitoring 001’s progress in the field, which was currently slow while 001 was camped out waiting for his target to appear. “You went to Eton, didn’t you?”

“Hm?” Tanner replied, curious. “Yes. Why do you ask?”

Keeping his eyes on the screen in front of him, Q hoped that he wasn’t sweating visibly. His skills at acting and lying were shoddy, which were the least of the reasons why he was grateful to be unsuitable for field work. “Curiosity. Did you know that Bond went to Eton?”

“Everyone knows that Bond went to Eton.”

Puzzled by how Tanner said that, Q looked over. “What do you mean?”

“He’s a legend there. Comes to visit all the time, too. The boys all recognise him and the schoolmasters all indulge him. He’s a great supporter of scholarship funds. I remember him coming to visit when I was a boy.”

Q rounded on him at that. “What do you mean you remember him coming to visit when you were a boy? How old was he?”

“Oh.” Tanner seemed surprised to make the mental calculations that Bond couldn’t be really that much older than he was. “Suppose he’d graduated not long past, then. Seemed older, but adults always do when you’re a lad, don’t they?”

“What else do you remember?”

“I remember he had a way with the boys. Everyone loved when he visited, because he had the most fantastic stories about the old place. He has that quality with boys that makes him seem like the cool older brother. He knows his way around Eton better than anyone. I remember a secret passage from the dorms that we learned of from him.”

“Who were his teachers?” Q prompted, trying to puzzle out how James had pulled off this massive deception at Eton.

“Couldn’t say, specifically. Almost all of them seem outright fond of him. What’s got you so curious about this, anyway?”

Q didn’t need to fake his blush. “You know damn well I fancy him.”

“True.” Tanner accepted the explanation without question and gave Q a little smirk. “Rumour has it you went on a date with him.”

“I did. We went to see Doctor Faustus at the Globe.”

“Oh? How was it?”

“Comedically fatalistic.”

“That’s Marlowe for you. Production any good?”

“Brilliant,” Q said, more interested in steering this conversation back toward the mystery around James Bond. “Tanner, why hasn’t the MI6 Chief of Staff accessed Bond’s file since 2005?”

Tanner’s demeanour instantly closed off, and he turned to a nearby desk in order to shuffle papers as a way to hide his reaction. Q waited, supposing that Tanner was putting together the information that Q knew the files were missing. It also meant that M hadn’t yet asked him that question.

“I was told it was above my clearance level,” Tanner answered at last. “Any information on him I needed went through M.” He hesitated, glancing over at Q, then over at the door to make sure they were alone. “Her answers...”

No one had been more devoted or loyal to M than Tanner. He’d been at her elbow whenever he wasn’t being perpetually present everywhere else in the building, the way a good chief of staff should be.

“... Weren’t always consistent,” Tanner finished at last.

It must have hurt that M hadn’t trusted him with that secret.

“Why didn’t you tell...” Mallory. “... M?”

Tanner looked shocked. “He doesn’t know?”

“He found out when he tried to access Bond’s files. They’re gone. They’re just... gone.”

Except for the files from 1909. Somehow Bond had been covering his tracks for over a century, taking advantage of the frequent employee turnover in MI6. It was unusual for a 00 agent to survive 10, 15 years in his job, and everyone simply assumed that it hadn’t been much longer than that.

“If you find out...” Tanner stopped himself, knowing that he couldn’t just ask for information that was above his security clearance.

It seemed that information on James Bond was above everyone’s security clearance.

“If I can,” Q promised. “I will.”

~

Today, Bond was playing the part of a rich playboy-cum-journalist chasing a story through a recently-independent African country now in the midst of a civil war. His actual mission involved forming an alliance with the currently-losing liberal faction.

Every time Bond and his lethal weapon of a camera were stopped by men with guns on the street, Q’s heart started thudding with panic. He knew that Bond was more than capable of handling this and any other situation, but it was an adrenaline rush nonetheless.

“Was it really prudent to flirt with the heavily armed soldiers?” Q commented once Bond had gotten past and continued along his way again. He sipped at his tea, voice as prim and wry as Bond would expect of his Quartermaster, betraying none of the nervous blushing going on back in England.

“Completely,” Bond replied. His voice was layered with a honeyed gravel of cheek, adrenaline and playfulness, which made Q smile. “You’ll notice that it worked.”

“I noticed that it looked like he was considering shooting you on the spot.”

“I have a face that inspires that in people.”

Q pressed a knuckle to his mouth to stifle a laugh, and quickly fell quiet again when James stopped to take photographs of a group of children playing. The camera around James’ neck was Q’s primary visual feed, although he was counting on the mic tucked into James’ ear for his primary auditory feed.

“I’ve never wanted to shoot you,” Q said, dropping his prim facade in favour of flirting.

“No?” James sounded intrigued. “What does my face inspire in you?”

“Kissing, mostly.”

James laughed aloud, which caught the attention of a suspicious soldier coming around the corner, and Q had to stay quiet to let him deal with the situation.

“Promise me something,” James said, once he was alone again.

“Is this anything like the last promise, which was actually blackmailing me into a date?”

“Yes.”

“Then no.”

“I don’t understand why you get such enjoyment out of saying no to me.”

Smiling to himself, Q chewed at his lip and enjoyed his own blush. “Because I can. Because no one else ever does. Because I like saving my ‘yes’ for when I can see your face light up in person.”

“Promise me a kiss when I get back.”

Q couldn’t resist the flirtation. Smiling happily, he nodded. “Come home safe and I’ll kiss you. I promise.”

Chapter Text

The King’s Wizard said that the King would return in Britain’s Darkest Hour.

I saw England fall in 1066, and bow to her conquerors. I followed the House of Wessex in exile for years, until I saw the clever and kind Edith--later Matilda--of Scotland married to the usurpers.

That day, and in those years, I prayed to god and my King. I could not fathom why they did not come. I felt rage and despair, but I trusted that the judgement of my King was better than my own, though I could not understand the reason for his delay.

I watched for years as the royal line was weakened. Political crimes were legitimised by marrying a younger cousin of the King’s line with a drop of blood in her veins, until his legacy was all but lost and forgotten beneath the blood of conquerors and politicians.

I watched London burn in 1666. I saw the sky glowing red with smoke and flame. The fire raged ceaselessly for days, devouring the homes and persons of the poor trapped within the City of London.

That was when I began to fear the passing years. If Britain would face a greater threat than invasion, corruption, and fire, I did not know if I could bear to see it. Through blood and fire I had waited for him. For him and for Britain, I had forsworn every last one of my oaths. And for every last one of the hells and horrors I had seen, nothing frighted me more than the knowledge that there would still come something worse to Britain.

And, at last, I stood in London in despair as the bombs fell.

London breathed within that silence, hearts pounding. Absolute darkness blanketed the city, as our first and greatest defence against the Blitz, and we waited, night after night, for the horror of the sirens and the reverberating concussions of the bombs.

London crept from hiding in the morning to count her new wounds. How many lives lost, how many buildings crumbled. How much of London and of Britain gone forever as we fought for our very existence in that war.

That was when I began to doubt if the King would return at all.

~

“I must admit, this wasn’t precisely what I had in mind,” M said, with his usual dry tone. Q couldn’t read him. The slight sarcastic curl in his words could indicate either humour or rage.

“Sir,” Q replied, cheeks flaming. He lifted his chin and straightened his shoulders in something like military posture.

“I thought you were supposed to be interviewing him, Quartermaster.”

“I was.” Q winced. “I am.”

“And?”

“I’m making progress.”

“Q,” M said, exasperated. Q still couldn’t tell if he was irritated or amused.

Breaking posture, Q looked over. “Are you going to order me to stop seeing him?”

M levelled a gaze at him, studying Q’s eyes before he answered. “No. As much as I disapprove of interoffice relationships, it’s clear that I need the two of you together. He was on the edge of being decommissioned before you started interviewing him, and now he’s performing back at the level I expect of a 00.”

Q bit his lip.

“There’s just one thing I don’t understand. Why haven’t you reported in to me on the reconstruction of Bond’s files? The files are complete and in the system where they should be, and I’m beginning to suspect that you’re avoiding me.”

Q swallowed, gazing off past M’s shoulder. “I haven’t yet confirmed--” Q’s voice faltered. “When I looked into what Bond told me, I found classified information. Deeply classified information. I think M and Q--” Faltering again at being under such direct scrutiny, Q blushed. “--Our predecessors--Boothroyd...”

“I know who you mean, Q.”

“I think they were the only ones who knew.”

“Knew what, Quartermaster.”

“With respect, Sir.” Q took a breath and drew himself up. “I’d like to finish my investigation before I report.”

M studied him again, but he nodded at last. “I trust you, Q.”

“I need a few days,” Q said, relaxing and becoming more forthright once M had agreed to trust him. “I need to look into something.”

“R can manage the department for a few days without you. Stay in touch, Quartermaster.”

Q went.

~

Perched on a pile of rubble, Q stared into the burnt ruins in front of him while the rain soaked through his coat and dripped from his curls. He heard footsteps behind him, but didn’t look up.

Bond walked up alongside him and stopped. They watched the ruins for several minutes together before Q at last looked up. He felt out of his depth and wanted to turn away from the questions Bond posed by simply existing. And yet, here he was, chasing answers despite himself, all the way to Skyfall.

“Tell me about this place,” Q said.

“I did,” Bond reminded him.

“Tell me the truth.”

Bond nodded, looking off into the ruins. “I had it built. It was constructed on the site of an older building, a fortress that was destroyed in one of the wars. I had built that one to defend the region, and built it on the site of the little village that had been here before that.”

“You were born here.”

Bond nodded, brow furrowing a little as he scanned his eyes across the valley. “I think it was… no. The terrain’s changed too much. The place I was born is long gone, forgotten even from my memory. But yes, I am from this region, if not originally this spot. I chose this place when I built the first Athair Tuite.”

“Why?” Q asked, his voice hoarse.

“I wanted a link to the world. My parents had other children after I was taken. Their descendants stayed in the valley, and when I found them again, I used my money and power to build them a home. It helped, even though I never visited. It provided a concrete reminder that I had been born, that I had family, and that I had once been something… else.”

Bond spoke without emotion, as though he were simply repeating words that he’d forgotten the significance behind. Q bit his lip to fight back the rush of emotions within himself. “Who took you?”

“Arthur.”

“Bond,” Q said, struggling to accept something so impossible.

“He made me his ward, as a protection against my father’s rebellion.”

“You told me your father’s name was Arthur.”

“Isn’t it?” Bond said.

“You didn’t build this place in Arthur’s memory.”

Bond laughed and shook his head, giving Q a broken smile. “No. I suppose I didn’t.”

“How did it happen?”

Settling back into the story, Bond looked back off across the ruins. “I grew up. He made me a knight. I defended the kingdom and protected the poor. I sat at his table. I worshiped him. We all did. He had charisma such as the world had never seen. Even the people he conquered were hard pressed to hate him.”

Shaking his head, Bond laughed humourlessly. “They did, though.”

Q hugged one of his knees to his chest, listening as Bond told the story in his own time.

“When he died, I was still young. I was his favourite, then. The King’s Wizard told a prophecy, that the King would return in Britain’s hour of need. He asked me to wait for him, and I swore that I would.

“I didn’t understand, then. I didn’t begin to understand until two decades had passed, and all the other knights had died of age, but I hadn’t changed a day.

“I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if it was the King’s will or the Wizard’s power that cursed me.”

Q reached out, hesitantly winding his fingers through Bond’s. Bond looked down at their entwined hands in surprise.

“How long?” Q asked, voice cracking.

Bond gave Q’s hand a gentle squeeze, his voice still dispassionate. “Fifteen hundred years.”

“Fifteen hundred years you’ve been a 00 agent,” Q murmured. “Haven’t you? Even when it wasn’t called that.”

“Fifteen hundred years I’ve been a knight.”

“M knew.”

“It’s not a secret that I can keep. I’ve gone centuries without being caught, but sooner or later someone puts the pieces together again. Many of the Kings and Queens of Britain have known. I’ve served some openly, as a knight, and others in secret. I’ve been a legend and a myth, and I’ve been a curiosity. Those who understood best helped me keep the secret. I can serve Britain best if I’m just an ordinary man, and not a legend.”

“Fifteen hundred years,” Q murmured.

Bond pulled him to his feet, putting a supportive arm around Q’s waist. “You’re shivering.”

Q wound his arms tightly around Bond’s neck and pressed himself close. His heart ached for Bond’s curse, and all the suffering that Q couldn’t even begin to understand. “James.”

“I know a Bed and Breakfast not far from here.” Bond said, letting his arms wind just as tightly around Q’s waist. “I’ll take you there. Warm you up.”

Nodding agreement, Q let himself be led away from the ruins and packed into Bond’s car. Bond took the soaked coat from him and put his dry suit jacket over Q’s shoulders instead, blasting heat in the car until Q felt human again.

“Will he really come back,” Q asked, as Scotland sped by them through the car windows, “in Britain’s hour of need?”

“I don’t know.”

Q glanced over, surprised by the evasion. “James?”

“I’ve seen all of Britain’s darkest hours,” Bond told him. “If there’s a worse one waiting for us, I don’t want to see it.”

~

Q curled up in the windowseat of the converted manor Bed and Breakfast that Bond had chosen for them. He wrapped his hands around a mug of tea to help warm them, and watched the rain. Bond sat across from him with their knees touching.

“Does this mean it’s all true?” Q asked numbly.

“No. Most of it is legend. People have been telling his story for centuries. Most of the stories you’ve heard are just embroidery on a story that has long since receded into myth.”

“And you just have to … wait?”

“I don’t have a choice. I never did. All I have left is my devotion to duty and Britain. If I lose that, I’m afraid I’ll go mad.”

“The stories—I’ve always thought of a great, golden hall where Arthur and his Knights sit asleep on thrones, and when they awake, they will mount their sleeping horses and ride out to save Britain.”

Bond laughed, then shook his head apologetically. “It isn’t like that. It wasn’t. When he—“ Bond paused. “When he went to his tomb. He was an old man. The king I knew had grown frail and forgetful. He mumbled to himself and left the governance of the kingdom to those around him. I was out of favour with those who actually held power.

“The day they buried him, it was raining. They buried him like a Christian. Feet toward Jerusalem, so that when Christ comes, the dead will sit up in their graves and see him. It didn’t seem such a contradiction, then, that his most powerful advisors overlapped the legends of Christ with the reality of our king. On Judgement Day Christ will rise and the dead will wake. In Britain’s Darkest Hour Arthur and his knights will return to take their rightful place.”

Q studied his face, wondering whether James was doubting Arthur, Christ, or both. The question stuck in his throat, and he decided he didn’t want to know.

They sat in silence in the rain, while James stewed in his memories and Q stared at him in uncomprehending sympathy.

“Can you die?” Q asked at last.

“I don’t know. I heal rapidly, and all scars fade from my body after decades. I cannot starve to death or freeze.”

Q’s mouth went dry in horror at the insight that at some point Bond had gone days or years starving and freezing. Bond kept gazing out the window without emotion.

“Is that all you’re living for?” Q asked, horrified. “Duty and your king’s return?”

Silent, Bond nodded once.

Reaching out, Q took his hand again, holding Bond’s cool fingers. “I’ll help.”

Bond didn’t answer, but he didn’t draw his hand away.

After a few minutes, Q set his cup aside and moved so that he could curl into Bond’s embrace. Warm and steady, Bond’s arms tightened around his waist, and he held Q until he slept.

~

Bond drove them home, while Q curled up in the passenger’s seat and frowned out into the rain.

“It doesn’t matter,” Q said at last, as they passed through London. He sat up, feeling furious and passionate.

“What doesn’t matter?”

“Arthur doesn’t matter.”

Bond fell silent, staring ahead at the road.

“Nothing that Arthur did impacts my life today as anything more than a story. He’s been dead for fifteen hundred years. He hasn’t been here when we needed him. You have.”

Bond still didn’t answer, and Q sank back into his seat. He’d just insulted the one thing that had kept Bond going.

They parked in front of Bond’s flat, and Bond came around to open Q’s door for him, helping him out of the car.

“I mean it,” Q said. “You have your duty, but I’m not doing my job on account of Arthur.”

“Q,” Bond said, long-suffering and fond as he tilted Q’s chin up for a kiss and then nudged him inside.

Q felt patronised, but he supposed that was forgivable from a man who had lived fifteen hundred years. He wandered in and found the kitchen. The kettle was empty, but he filled and switched it on anyway, finding a forgotten box of tea in the empty cupboards.

Bond hung their wet things up and followed him into the kitchen, where both of them could lean against opposite counters and not talk the way they’d done in Q’s kitchen.

Q watched his lover’s face. Bond looked weary again, and Q felt guilty for it, but he still hadn’t gotten his point across. When the tea was done, he put a mug into Bond’s hands and tried to find the words he needed.

“I’m not going to safeguard Britain for Arthur,” Q said, as gently as he could. “He isn’t my king, and Britain isn’t his anymore. We don’t need him.”

Bond ignored him.

“We need you.” Q set his chin stubbornly. “You’re the one who has actually been here in Britain’s hour of need. You’ve fought and bled for us. You’ve seen your loved ones die time and again. You’re what matters. Not Arthur.”

“I’m nothing if I’m not his knight,” Bond said.

Setting aside his own mug, Q stepped into Bond’s arms and hugged him close. “You’re everything to me.”

That earned a little smile, and Bond returned the hug.

“I’m going to protect you,” Q promised. “I’ll found the Order of the Quartermaster or something, so that even when I’m gone, there will be a system in place to support you.”

“Q, I have money, I don’t need—“

“You need emotional support,” Q interrupted. “And you need someone who believes in you. Also you’re going to need someone who knows how to operate modern information technology on your behalf. I’m going to see to it that that happens.”

“Q.”

“You’re the most important thing on this damn island,” Q said, not willing to hear argument. “And I’m in love with you.”

Smiling, Bond pulled him in for a sweet, sad kiss.

When it broke, Bond brushed a thumb over Q’s cheek. “You’ll grow old, and I won’t. You’ll resent me.”

“I will invent a way to upload my consciousness into a computer so that I can annoy you for all eternity,” Q said stubbornly, which set Bond laughing.

“You would.”

“I will.”

Bond grinned, holding him close. “I object to this Order of the Quartermaster and I intend to complain every step of the way.”

“I don’t care,” Q said, devoted. “I’m going to find a way to give you things to live for other than duty and Arthur’s return, and I’m going to make sure that you always have the help and support you need in doing that duty. Complain all you want.”

“Found your mad Order of the Quartermaster tomorrow,” Bond teased, picking Q up by his thighs so that Q yelped and had to wind his legs around James’ waist. “I have plans for you tonight.”