Work Text:
It all starts innocently enough, of course.
It’s not that Eve is fond of children, especially. She’s more partial to animals - Mallory’s husband’s rabbit, her own chinchilla at home, even dogs of any breed are usually preferable to children in her mind, but Bond looks so very harried the morning he stops by her office, one child in a sling on his back and another one holding his hand while the third - Kit, she thinks, or is Kit the youngest and Alistair the eldest? - stays close by his side, seemingly old enough to be a bit more independent.
“I have a meeting in fifteen minutes and Kit’s the only one I trust to be quiet, can you please take Sarah for a bit? It should only take half an hour, maybe less. Vesper’s working today and the daycare’s had an outbreak of something or other,” Bond pleads, and well -
She can’t resist, she just can’t, not when she was the one who talked him into taking the plunge into domesticity in the first place. Besides, how bad can one half hour with one small girl possibly be?
She nods at Bond, who looks massively relieved. He kneels down for a moment, looking directly at his daughter.
“Stay with Miss Moneypenny until I come to get you, alright?” he asks. “Don’t bother Mallory and don’t break anything.”
Sarah pouts.
“Want to go with you,” she says, and Bond -
Bond smiles, and ruffles her hair, and Moneypenny tries very hard to pretend that she’s allergic to something or other and not misty-eyed at the sight.
“I know, sweetheart, but it’ll be boring,” Bond answers. “You hated the last one, remember?”
Sarah frowns.
“The last one was all about stupid hiring stuff,” she says. “This one’s gonna be better.”
Bond grimaces.
“This one’s going to be about accounting,” he whispers in his daughter’s ear, and she screws up her face.
“Yuck!” she answers, and Bond smiles again.
“You’ll have much more fun here,” he says. “Eve, if she gives you any trouble, feel free to tell her all about maths and paperwork.”
“No!” Sarah shrieks, and Bond grins.
“Be good,” he cautions on the way out the door, mouthing “thank you” to Eve as he leaves.
She should have known it would never be as easy as it sounds, Eve thinks fifteen minutes later.
“Sarah,” she calls, looking up from her paperwork, “do you want to draw or -”
Sarah is nowhere to be found. The room is empty - no child, no backpack, no sign of her. Eve stands, panicked.
“Sarah!” she calls. “Sarah where are you?”
The door hasn’t opened. She’s positive of that. The door has not opened, nor shut. The window is closed, the filing cabinets are shut -
“And who might you be?” she hears Mallory say, and she hurries toward the door.
It’s a perfectly normal morning until the moment the small, dark-haired child appears in Mallory’s peripheral vision crawling through the very slight opening between his door and Moneypenny’s office.
For a moment, Gareth thinks he’s hallucinating. It’s not exactly a usual phenomenon for him, but there’s a first time for everything, and truly, he’s not sure how else there could be a child in his office. Still - just in case she turns out to be solid -
“And who might you be?” he asks, and the child stops mid-crawl.
“Poop,” she says, and stands up.
Alright, then, Gareth thinks - probably not a hallucination.
“Do I know you?” he asks, and the girl shakes her head.
“I’m Sarah,” she introduces herself, and now Mallory can place her. Bond’s second-eldest, the only girl thus far. It’s been a while since he’s seen her, but she looks enough like her parents to be recognizable.
“You’re contraband, that’s what,” he scolds. “What was your father thinking bringing you in here?”
In retrospect this, he thinks, is where it all went a bit wrong.
“Contraband?” the little girl asks, sounding out the new word.
“Sarah!”
Moneypenny’s voice sounds from beyond the door, and the child winces.
“Uh oh,” she murmurs, and then Moneypenny hurries through the door.
“Sarah, there you are!” she exclaims, and then looks to Mallory. “Sorry, sir, I’ll just take Sarah back -”
“I’m not Sarah, I’m Contraband!”
Moneypenny blinks.
“You’re what?” she asks, and the little girl nods fervently.
“Contraband,” she repeats. “Uncle Gareth says so.”
She points to Gareth, who suddenly realizes that he just might be in trouble.
“Oh he does, does he?” Moneypenny says, looking to Gareth with an amused expression. “Well he’s right, you know. Little girls without security clearances definitely count as contraband in this office. Let’s go back to my office and maybe you can go back to being Sarah.”
“Nope,” Contraband says firmly, and plops down on the floor. “I like it here. Bye!”
Three hours later:
“So what you’re telling me is that my child is refusing to leave your office because, and I quote, she has to be Sarah on the other side of the door and she’d rather be known as Contraband henceforth.”
Bond does not sound pleased. Moneypenny winces.
“Yes.”
“I’ve said I’m sorry,” Gareth insists. “I had no idea she was going to take to it quite so strongly!”
“Sarah-” Bond tries one more time, and gets a fierce glare from the five-year-old.
“It’s. Contraband!” she insists for perhaps the tenth time.
“Fine. Names don’t change based on whether there’s a door in the way. Connie Bond -” Bond starts, and his daughter beams at him.
“Yes, daddy?” she asks.
“Do you want to go home, Connie?” he asks, and she nods.
“Yes, please,” she answers. Bond turns to Mallory.
“You’re telling Vesper why her name’s changed,” he insists. “And you are doing double maths tonight,” he says to Connie.
“Ok!” Connie chirps.
Bond blinks. Gareth and Moneypenny blink, and then, slowly -
“Your mother’s going to object,” Bond observes, and Contraband scowls fiercely.
“It’s my name,” she insists, and Bond sighs.
“It is your name,” he agrees. “Alright. Let’s go home. Kit - it is still Kit, right?”
Christopher “Kit” Bond nods.
“Uh huh,” he answers.
“Great,” Bond answers. “Let’s go home. You coming, Uncle Gareth?”