Chapter Text
James wasn’t sure what woke him at first. He went from fast asleep to wide awake in a heartbeat, tensing and ready to strike. He quickly realised he was at home and in his own bed. He relaxed, ready to drift back off to sleep before feeling Q shift next to him. A whined, almost silent breath alerted him to the fact that his husband wasn’t happy.
“Tom?”
Q sighed and groped for James, finding and patting his hip.
“Sorry Darling. I didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to sleep.” He whispered.
James slipped his arm around Q and nuzzled into the side of his neck.
“Are you OK?”
Q sighed again.
“Cramp.” He grumbled. “It’s been coming and going for over an hour now.”
James leaned over and flicked the light switch on his side of the bed. They both squinted in the low light from the bedside lamp.
“Show me.”
Q indicated his left thigh and James sat up, feeling along his skin until he found where the muscles were bunching. He began to gently press his fingers into the knots. As long as James had known Q he’d suffered from cramping, especially at night. It was a side-effect of the injuries he’d sustained as a teenager.
“You should have woken me sooner.”
“I didn’t want to wake you at all. You have to get up to catch your flight in three hours.”
James looked at the clock. It was two-thirty A.M. He was due to catch the seven-twenty flight to Düsseldorf and wanted to be at Heathrow in plenty of time. Since retiring from being an active Double 0 agent he was in demand as a security consultant. Still working for MI6, he advised and liaised with their allies around the globe. This week it was the turn of the German Federal Intelligence Service.
“I can sleep on the plane.” he admonished Q gently as he eased his leg up until his knee rested over James’s shoulder. His fingers still worked the slowly loosening muscles. He watched as Q’s eyes fluttered shut; the crease of discomfort evident between his eyebrows.
“The flight time is only just over an hour… there’s not enough time for you to sleep.”
James huffed and nuzzled into the leg next to his cheek, kissing the side of Q’s knee tenderly.
“I’m quite adept at functioning on little sleep my love…”
Q shuddered as the muscles in his thigh re-tensed. James placed another kiss on the same spot and continued his massage.
“You shouldn’t have to…”
James watched as the tension slowly bled out of Q’s face again.
“Perhaps not but I want to. I would rather be awake and helping you feel better than sleeping while you suffered.”
Q’s mouth quirked into a smile.
“What would the FIS say if they knew we were sending them England’s biggest softy?” He teased.
James shuffled forward until his knees bracketed Q’s hips.
“I’d never live it down…”
He watched Q’s face intently as he kneaded. The muscles had relaxed again now but he continued to smooth them, warming the skin beneath his hands. His husband was beautiful in a strangely adolescent kind of way. He’d thought so from the very first moment he’d laid eyes on him in the British Museum. His thick dark riotous hair looked like it belonged to a cherub in an old masterpiece, one of Ruben’s perhaps. He was usually as pale as could be but his skin currently looked golden, even in the low light of the bedside lamp. The tan was a legacy of the two week holiday they’d recently had in the South of France. They’d spent the long sunny days together alone; doing little more than eating, sleeping and making love. He smiled as he remembered the hours they’d spent in the pool. Q loved the sensation of being able to stand supported by the buoyancy of the water. He’d sling his arms around James’s neck as they kissed, their naked bodies pressed together deliciously.
It had never bothered James that Q used a wheelchair. He’d seen enough active service to realise that injures and imperfections were a fact of life. He’d even endured his own share of pain and disablement from time to time. His had always been temporary however and it amazed him the way that Q had adapted to and accepted his own. James didn’t doubt that he’d had a hand in that acceptance. The man he’d first met six years before had been angry, fighting his limitations on a daily basis. He’d intrigued James, drawing him in like an unwitting moth to an oblivious flame. James had started spending time with him out of curiosity rather than anything else, delighting in Q’s shy nervousness as they had become closer. James was surprised when his initial interest in his quartermaster turned into an increasing affection. He’d honestly thought himself long incapable of ever falling in love again after Vesper. When they’d finally slept together for the first time, James had found out the full extent of Q’s insecurities about his body and he took his time charming him into opening up to him. Q stretched out like this, dressed only in his clingy black jockey shorts and sleepily allowing James to massage his weakened legs, would have been something unthinkable back in those early days.
He ran his hands up Q’s leg, feeling for any remnants of cramp. The muscles under his palms seemed relaxed now. Q breathed out shakily as James’s knuckles accidentally brushed the bulge in his pants. Grinning, James cupped him through the soft cotton.
“That hasn’t got cramp …” Q murmured, a smile ghosting over his face.
“Are you sure?” James asked playfully, “It feels to me like it’s starting to get awfully stiff …”
Q giggled when James ducked down and, easing his leg to the bed once more, mouthed at his cock which was very slowly hardening. He breathed into the material, running his hands up his thigh to grope him again. Q reached down and grasped his hair, encouraging his actions.
“I don’t suppose either of us are going to get much sleep now, are we?”
James hummed, delighting at the twitch it earned him.
“I’m going away… I won’t be able to do this again for ages… How am I going to cope?”
“You’re only going for two days!” Q exclaimed as James slowly drew down his underpants. He nuzzled his naked, and now very interested, cock. Q sighed dramatically.
“Fine, okay. Get the lube.”
~00Q~
Q drove into MI6’s secure carpark a little after seven o’clock. His body ached pleasantly as he parked up and got himself into his wheelchair. He smiled as he waited for the lift that would take him down to his branch’s subterranean offices. He thought about how he and James had spent the early hours of the morning. James had been stunning, making love to him slowly and gently. The way that his abs rippled as he worked himself in and out of Q’s body was probably one of his favourite things in the world.
He rolled into the lift when it arrived, pressing his thumb into the print-reader and allowing the retinal scanner to confirm his identity. He keyed in the passcode for Q-branch and waited for the car to descend. He huffed with laughter as he remembered how they’d barely made James’s check-in time. The way James wouldn’t stop kissing him goodbye in the no-stopping drop-off point outside Terminal One at Heathrow had almost cost Q a parking ticket. Eventually he’d dislodged James by playfully trying to punch him in the bollocks before speeding away. He’d left James to deal with the annoyed security guard. With a muted ‘ding’ the doors slid open and he wheeled himself into the quiet bustle of Q-branch.
“Morning Boss, you’re early.” R greeted him as he picked up a clipboard.
“James had an early flight – I thought I may as well come straight in from dropping him off. What have I missed?”
R began going through his notes.
“Not much. 004 has gone quiet in Beijing – she reported that she was going to infiltrate a party on a private island belonging to that oil magnate she’s tailing. She might well be dark for the next day or two. 003 has landed back in the UK. He’s currently in the East End of London following the trail of that Jihadist cell the French discovered. He’s liaising with Carter from MI5.”
Q nodded. He’d had dealings with Bob Carter before – he was a good man.
“Um… Tanner was down here just after you left last night complaining about his diary not working properly…”
Q raised his eyebrows. Bill had exceptional organisational and working I.T. skills so quite why the basic function of the calendar system should give him problems…
“Anything else?”
“Um. Just a few more things for your immediate attention. Erm… Weapons Testing have completed the first series of tests on the new Walthers – they’ve placed the results on the system for your perusal… Medical have replaced 006’s faulty tracker.” He handed Q a small plastic bag which contained what looked like a large metallic grain of rice, “You said you wanted to check it over personally… The beta-testing of the Integrated Information Network seems to be running ahead of schedule. Looks like we’ll be ready to introduce Italy’s data by the end of this week rather than next. Finally, I bumped into Moneypenny on the way to the canteen last night. She wants to know if you’re free tonight for – and I quote – ‘a girly night in’. Something to do with keeping you entertained while your ‘big hunk of a man’ is away.”
Q groaned and rolled his eyes.
“My God, is she even real?” He laughed. “I’ll speak to her later.”
He propelled himself into his office and was pleased to see that a hot cup of tea was waiting for him on his desk. Positioning himself in front of his computer and extracting his laptop from his messenger bag, he took off his coat and got down to work.
He spent an hour catching up with his emails before going to his workbench and examining the tracker. Under a powerful Mantis magnifier, he soon saw the problem. One of the contacts had come loose within the tiny device. He reattached it and then sent an email to R&D explaining how he’d carried out the repair and asking them to look into how they might avoid it happening again. He added that he would drop this one back to them later in the day. He was inordinately proud of these little devices. They were completely inert until inserted under the skin. Once implanted, the low level electrical field of the body activated them. All field agents and key personnel had them implanted as standard now. He popped the device back into its bag and slipped it into his shirt pocket, under his cardigan. He was about to go through 003’s last update when his phone rang. He snatched it up.
“Q here.”
“It’s Moneypenny.”
“Eve. What can I do for you?”
“Don’t you read your diary? You were supposed to be in M’s office for a meeting ten minutes ago.”
Q frowned.
“Really? I looked at it when I came in. I saw nothing booked in before my meeting with Scotland Yard at noon…”
He pulled up the calendar screen.
“I’m double-checking... there’s nothing.”
There was a pause.
“Q darling, I’m looking at the appointment right now on the shared system.”
A small alarm bell began to ring in his head and he went through R’s notes from the morning’s handover. Bill Tanner had been complaining about his diary.
“Moneypenny. Tell M I’ll be up presently. I think there’s a problem with the IT system and I need to get it chased down ASAP.”
“Understood.”
Moneypenny rang off and Q immediately pushed himself out into the main room. He would need every available programmer to assist him in tracking down the problem. He raised his voice.
“Guys? Put your hand up if you’re currently working on time-sensitive projects.” Half a dozen technicians raised their hands. “OK the rest of you, come with me.”
He led them through to the conference room. When they were settled he spoke.
“Tanner from Operations was down here last night complaining that his calendar was having problems. Did anyone look into it?”
Waites raised his hand.
“I think Dunn sorted it out for him, Sir. Got him to re-boot his terminal.”
Q pinched the bridge of his nose. He could almost hear Michael Dunn telling Tanner to try turning his computer off and on again. He really wasn’t the most brilliant employee in Q Branch. He was a decent enough coder but tended to overlook the bleeding obvious on occasion.
“Did it occur to Dunn to run a systems check?”
There were a lot of blank faces.
“The calendar is a live system.” He said slowly, feeling like he was talking to three year olds and not part of what was essentially the country’s finest IT department, “If I place an entry on it, anyone authorised on the network can see it immediately. Did it not occur to anyone to check why there was an inconsistency?” More blank faces but this time they were accompanied by uncomfortable shifting. He sighed. “OK. Level one checks. Comb the system, look for entry points, anything unusual. I want a preliminary report on my desk by the time I get back from my meeting with M. If we’ve been hacked I want to know how the hell they got in.”
His staff dutifully left, rushing to their terminals, each eager to be the one to solve the problem. Q followed them out and then took the lift to M’s office.
When he returned an hour later, R met him with their findings. They’d found evidence of tampering on several functions, not only on the calendar but also on other key personnel records. The strange thing was that no-one had managed to spot where the system had been breached. Q frowned. He couldn’t understand it. Why break in so cleverly they left no trace and then be clumsy enough to affect a basic function of a well-used program? He shook his head. It didn’t make any sense at all.
~00Q~
James sat on British Airways flight BA936 and sighed. There’d been a small engine fire on a plane ahead of them in the queue as it had tried to take off. James’s flight been delayed by over two hours waiting for the ailing aeroplane to be emptied of its passengers and removed from the runway. They were in the air now though and due to land in fifty minutes. He looked at his watch. With any luck he’d still make his first meeting in time.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his mobile phone. The screen activated and he smiled at the picture that greeted him. James’s passcode was obviously no deterrent for his computer genius husband. The desktop photo had changed from a generic rolling landscape to a shot of an obviously shirtless Q lying in bed and grinning cheekily up at the lens. Q must have snapped the selfie while James was out of the bedroom making them breakfast earlier that morning. A thickly German-accented voice spoke;
“Ooh… who is that handsome young man?”
James looked up at the elderly woman who was sitting in the window seat next to him. She must’ve been eighty years old at least. He smiled at her nosey enquiry. He usually kept his personal life exactly that; personal, but the old dear looked harmless enough.
“He’s my husband."
“How thoroughly modern of you.” She tittered. “May I see?”
She tilted her head and he obligingly turned the screen so she could get a better look. She clapped her hands together once in delight.
“Oh, but isn’t he a cherub! You must love him very much.”
James turned the phone back towards himself.
“Yes,” he admitted honestly, “I do.”
“Why does he not fly with you today? Düsseldorf is beautiful at this time of year…”
James tucked his phone away.
“I’m visiting on business so I had to leave him at home sadly. He would have hated it anyway. Can’t stand flying.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. After all, the aviation accident the crippled him killed his poor family.”
James’s blood ran cold at the old lady’s words. He made to move out of his seat but her cold, dry hand clamped around his wrist, stilling him. She leaned in and spoke quietly.
“Don’t be foolish Commander Bond. I am not here to injure you. How could I? I am an old lady. I am merely a messenger. A chaperone if you will. Do not be deceived however Commander, there are others who watch and who will not hesitate to cause you harm. Men will meet us off the plane in Düsseldorf. You will go with them and do as they say. If you don’t your beloved husband will die. If this plane is diverted, he will die. If you try to warn anyone, he will die. Do you understand the message I have given you? You will do as you have been instructed to the letter or your husband’s blood will be on your hands. And I have been instructed to inform you that he will not die well.”
“Instructed by whom?”
She didn’t answer but turned the newspaper over in her lap and started doing the crossword puzzle. His hands tightened into fists in frustration. Without knowing who was watching he would be stupid to try anything. He couldn’t see any alternative but to do as he was bidden until he could see a way out.
He just wished he could warn Q.
~00Q~
Q pulled out of MI6’s carpark and eased into the busy lunchtime traffic. He checked his watch. He had twenty minutes to get to Scotland Yard. It was only a mile and a half away but he would be lucky to make it in time. James had expressed surprise when he’s first discovered that Q preferred to drive himself to meetings but as there was no directive preventing him from doing so he enjoyed using the time to think. As his car crawled along he fiddled with the stereo until he found the Team Rock radio station. They were playing AC/DC and he hummed along with “Whole Lotta Rosie”. The sun was out and the day was unseasonably warm for late September. He knew his security protocols inside-out however so rather than open a window, he turned on the air conditioning.
He thought over the conundrum of the calendar. His staff had found anomalies in several people’s appointment calendars. Tanner’s, James’s, his own, three of the lower-level staff members in Logistics and several of his own staff’s; R, Moss, Dunn, Cressington to name but a few. It didn’t make any sense. What had they been looking for? And why those staff members? Another thought kept niggling at him. When Tanner came into Q-Branch about his calendar, why hadn’t…
His chain of thought was abruptly and brutally cut off.
As he approached the roundabout where he would turn onto Lambeth Bridge there was a sudden jolting shudder and the sound of tearing metal as the front of his car suddenly slewed to the left, shunted by something slamming into the back of it. The airbag in his steering column deployed but the one in his door failed and his head slammed into the window. He saw stars as his glasses were forced into the bridge of his nose and he was vaguely aware of something crunching before a nauseating pain and a warm wetness enveloped his face.
“Wha’ the fuck?” He shook his head, trying to clear his vision and groaned as the pain intensified. He must have been hit by something. What the fuck just hit him? He wiped his face with one hand, wincing at the pain, even as he groped for his phone. His hand came away from his face bloody. His nose felt broken. He initially intended to dial 999 but froze as he saw two men in balaclavas rushing towards him. Instead he dialled 01#. The call was immediately answered by Tanner.
“Go ahead.”
“It’s Q. I’ve been compromised. Repeat, I’ve been compromised. Emergency Protocol Alpha. Emergency Pro…”
He stopped talking as the first man to reach him produced what looked like an enormous bolt gun. He pressed it to the corner of the driver’s side window and deployed it. It shattered the corner of the bullet-proof glass and his associate used his crowbar to lever pieces of it free from the frame. Q undid his seatbelt and desperately tried to drag himself away, keying a kill code into his mobile. If they searched its call history now all it would show would be an aborted call to the emergency services. He fumbled for the glove compartment where a Walther, coded to his palm, was stashed. He grunted as one of the man grabbed him by the shoulder before he could get to the gun and tried to haul him out of the car through the broken window. He turned and, balling his left hand into a fist, swung his arm and punched his assailant as hard as he could in the face. There was a satisfying crunch as the man’s nose broke under the impact. Payback for his own. The man snarled, momentarily stunned and then grasped Q’s arm, yanking him out of the car over the broken glass. Q yelled as the jagged edges cut into him through his clothing, scratching him raw. Once clear of the vehicle he was dropped onto the floor and immediately kicked in the stomach.
He heard a man’s voice shout “hey” from down the road followed by a gunshot and screaming. Q squeezed his eyes shut for a split-second and hoped to God they hadn’t killed the poor man who’d obviously just tried to help him. More balaclavas appeared and Q fought like a wild animal, punching anyone who neared him but he was helpless to prevent two of them from pinning him as a third pulled out a scanner. He ran it over Q’s left thigh until a low beep sounded just above his knee. Pulling out a switchblade the man stabbed it into the spot. Q found a gloved hand clamped over his mouth when he screamed as the knife dug deep. After what seemed like an eternity (but was probably no more than a couple of seconds) blunt fingers pushed obscenely into his leg and pulled out his locater. Q had limited sensation on that side of his leg but the sense of violation was overwhelming. Dropping the locator chip onto the tarmac, they dragged Q into the back of a waiting van.
He continued to fight and struggle - cursing his stupidity at being caught out, cursing his insistence on driving himself and cursing his useless fucking legs – until a rag that smelt sweet at first and then increasingly sour was held over his mouth and nose. He briefly recognised the smell as chloroform before everything faded away…
~00Q~
“It’s Q. I’ve been compromised. Repeat, I’ve been compromised. Emergency Protocol Alpha. Emergency Pro…”
The line went dead.
“Emergency Protocol Alpha!” Tanner barked and all staff in the department immediately stopped what they were doing. He accessed Q’s travel plan for the day and brought it up onto the large screen which dominated the Operations department. “The quartermaster has been compromised. Jones! Call up the traffic cameras on his route. Murphy! Mobilise a Rapid Response Team. I want them at his location ASAP. Stephano! Liaise with the local law enforcement.” He dialled Moneypenny’s extension.
“Moneypenny.”
“Inform M that the quartermaster has been compromised on his way to Scotland Yard.”
“Oh God. Kidnapped?”
“Too soon to say.”
He rung off. His staff immediately began to call out, updating him.
“Sir, traffic cams are all down on that section of the South Bank.”
“Sir, 999 calls are coming in from the south end of Vauxhall Bridge reporting gunshots.”
“Rapid Response Team Five are on their way Sir. I’m directing them to the site of the reported shots. ETA six minutes. Patching you through to their leader now.”
“This is Beckett.”
“Tanner here. Q phoned me two minutes ago. Emergency Protocol Alpha. No details but emergency service calls indicate gunfire.”
“Understood Sir.”
Tanner waited nervously as news trickled in. His staff worked efficiently, gathering information. Social media was scanned. One tweet mentioned five masked men. Another, a white van. A grainy, shaky camera video appeared on Facebook after four minutes entitled “Shit Goin Down!!!1!” which showed a man being dragged out of a car and kicked. The amateur cameraman lost interest in filming after a gunshot was heard and he ducked behind a car. Tanner calmly relayed all pertinent information to Beckett who was racing towards the scene with his team as another member of staff quickly and efficiently adjusted all traffic lights in their favour.
M appeared at his elbow.
“Situation report.”
Wordlessly, Tanner replayed the video. It was clear to both of them who the struggling man on the ground was.
“Christ. Q. Taken? Killed?”
“Unknown at this present moment Sir.”
They listened as Beckett and his team moved in.
“This is it guys. Move with a purpose. Let’s get our quartermaster back.”
The six-man team’s body camera feeds appeared on the main screen. They briefly whited out as the men deployed out of the back of their truck and then adjusted to the bright daylight. They all showed the same thing.
No masked men.
No van.
Just smears of blood by the quartermaster’s wrecked car.
Beckett spoke, his voice low.
“No sign of Q, Sir. He’s gone.”