Chapter Text
"I'd recognise you anywhere."
Q gasped loudly as he struggled upright in bed, heaving breath after breath in an attempt to calm his shaking hands and racing heartbeat. The dreams still came, even months after it had all unfolded. Shaking his head slightly, he tries to banish the lingering thoughts of Bond's eyes staring up at him from beneath the restraints of the chair in the white, sterile prison. Q draws in a stuttering breath as he finally regains control over his nerves, and looks at the bed next to him, empty where it used to be occupied by his partner. His agent.
Snagging a t-shirt from the floor, Q walks towards the door and down the hallway of his flat, stopping outside a closed bedroom door. He eases it open and leans in carefully, making sure James is still slumbering peacefully and hasn't gone anywhere during the night.
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Sleep, the doctors had said. It's the only thing we can think of that might have exacerbated the injury to his brain. Q nodded as the knot in his chest tightened. Trust James Bond. Functions perfectly well through the most stressful situations, almost 72 hours without sleep between the encounter at Blofeld's compound and the final showdown on the bridge, only to finally give in and wake the next morning lost within his own brain.
Q watches James shovel in spoonfuls of Choco Rice Crispies - 'it's my favourite!' he'd protested at Tesco and Q had sighed and allowed it to be added to the basket - with sad eyes over his cup of tea. The older man's eyes are glued to the television, attention focused completely at the program. If Q turned slightly, ignored the chattering emitted from the speakers, he could pretend everything was normal, just the same morning routine as usual.
But their routine had changed, and every giggle that the cartoons in the bloody program made grated on Q's nerves like nails on a chalkboard.
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Old James had been whip smart, interested in literature, art, culture. He'd devoured endless collections of books, anything he could get his hands on. Fiction, non-fiction, autobiographies, do-it-yourself books, coffee table books, anything to keep his mind active, learning, moving forward to avoid stagnation. On a Sunday, they'd buy two copies of the Sunday Times, make a pot of tea and race each other to finish the crossword, the winner adding a tally mark to a whiteboard kept in the kitchen, the loser forfeiting the right to select the day's activities.
New James still enjoyed word puzzles. The competition had been ended though. It didn't seem fair for Q to compete with a man who struggled with the find-a-word book he'd selected and purchased from the children's section of the Newsagents.
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Once upon a time, James was so sure-footed he'd happily scale the sides of buildings. Now, on the bad days James struggled to stand upright without stumbling.
Once upon a time, he'd been a true connoisseur of food and wine, cooking elaborate meals for Q on days off and pairing the dishes with the most incredible wines to perfectly complement his cooking. Now his food selection tended towards asian takeaway or fast food, things with a high sugar or salt content that he could taste with his diminished senses.
Once upon a time, he'd been selected to stand by the Prime Minister's side as a bodyguard and personal assistant during a world summit, a decision based purely on his ability to remember faces and connect them to names. Now, it sometimes takes James a moment to place who Q is as he wakes up in the mornings.
Sometimes he doesn't remember at all. Those are the worst days.
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"NO!"
Q ducked quickly to avoid being struck by a flying lamp. It shattered on the wall behind him as he held up his hands in surrender. "James," he murmured softly. "James, it's me. It's Q. Your Q. I promise it's me."
James' breathing was laboured as he cowered against the wall on the far side of the bed. "No. I know my Q and you're not him."
"I promise. I promise, love, it's me. I know this is confusing, but it's me."
"If you're Q, sing the song. Sing it!" James flinched away from the hand Q was reaching out to him, turning back towards the wall and shaking, almost imperceptibly.
Q drew a long breath in, steadying himself as much as possible. "Somewhere. Beyond the sea.... somewhere, waiting for me..." he sang softly, watching the tension drain from James' shoulders as he slumped against the wall. "My lover stands on golden sands... and watches the ships that go sailing..." Q sits carefully on the bed and touches a gentle hand to James' back. Immediately, James turns around and throws himself bodily into Q's arms, face tucked against the junction of shoulder and neck.
"Q..." he breaths, and Q's voice falters for a just a moment, before continuing singing again.
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"T...R...E...E..." James' brow scrunched in concentration as he laid the tiles on the board. "Tree. And it's on a triple word score." He added smugly.
Q smiled back. "Well done. How many points does that give you?"
James looked back down at the board, smile fading into a frown. He stared for a beat before looking back up at Q. "You said that I wasn't good at numbers, not even before."
"That's true. But don't you want to be better than you were before? The only way to get better is to practice. Besides, the rule was, you don't get any points unless you count them up yourself."
Huffing, James contemplated the board again. Q waited in silence, schooling his expression into the most patient face he could summon.
Another minute passed, and Q as about to give in and start offering suggestions when James stood abruptly, overturning the board and stomping out of the room. Q felt his face drop as the door to James' bedroom slammed down the hallway and tried not to think of the record-breaking Scrabble tournaments they used to play.
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James' room was at the back of the flat in an attempt to provide an environment as far away from the street noise as possible, to give the man the best chance of sleeping. What Q hadn't counted on though, was the lights that filtered through the trees, projecting all manner of shadows on the walls. Normally, James slept with a nightlight, the head of a stormtrooper providing enough light to negate the looming shapes the tree created.
But this week, caught up in multiple episodes of memory failure and an accidental kitchen fire, Q had neglected to purchase new batteries for the nightlight.
Trembling, James sobbed quietly into his crossed arms, wrapped tightly in blankets and enveloped in Q's embrace. Q shushed the man as best as he could, rocking him gently and running his hands through cropped grey-blond hair the way his mother used to.
It takes a good hour to get James relaxed enough to sleep, but even then Q knows better than to leave the man alone. He gingerly untangles an arm from James' slumbering form and tugs a blanket over himself, settling in for the night.
Much later, he has a hand clamped over his mouth, focused less on James and more on keeping his breath as controlled as possible. Tears stream down his face, and he struggles to breath through his nose as he cries, alone and in the darkness.
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