Work Text:
1989
Royal Navy Lieutenant James Bond was taking his late-afternoon jog in Hyde Park when he saw a boy, between nine and eleven, eyes red and puffy from crying, crouched beside the root of a maple tree. He had jogged a few paces away from the said boy, but something in his heart tugged at the sight, for it reminded him so much of himself after he learnt that his parents had died in a mountain climbing accident in Chamonix. With this, he stopped, caught his breath a bit, and looked back at the boy. He was as still as stone, but from his eyes streamed silent tears. Having collected himself a little, he took furtive steps towards the boy, and bending at the waist he levelled his face to his.
"Lad, are you lost?" He asked in his most calm manner.
The boy merely shook his head.
Learning from past experiences, asking "why" was the worst way to go when faced with a grieving, melancholic or forlorn person, or so James thought. Yet, a little voice from the back of his mind encouraged him to go on and to try and coax the boy out of his sadness. Perhaps it is fate's way of giving back, he mused.
"Well, there must be something that vexes you." He spoke again, this time he sat cross-legged in front of the boy, but still not breaking his gaze. They were like that for a few moments, James sat observing while the boy, now with his interested piqued at the soldier, stared at the metal tag that adorned James' neck. Finally, the boy answered, sobs breaking into every other word.
"M' brother Sh'rlock threw my fav'rite book into the fireplace."
James was never the type who liked books, but he figured out that there is some misery in having someone’s favourite thing thrown into the fire. Not knowing what to say, he nodded at the boy’s statement and waited for another, he knew he had so much to tell.
“My mum and dad said they’d get me another copy, but of course it isn’t the same book…” The boy had started crying again, and James almost panicked, but managed to fish out a crumpled handkerchief from the pocket of his track pants, which the boy immediately grabbed and blew his nose with it. “I wrote Newton’s laws of motion in them, and I just memorized them by heart.”
“You know what, get that new book. Write again those laws of motion. Heck, even write the Pythagorean theorem in it.” James regretted thinking out loud the moment he heard himself speak. It was rather too straightforward, harsh even, for a young boy who had lost his item of comfort. However, the boy lightened up when he had said this, and followed with “I actually could?”
“Yes, as long as you know them by heart you could.”
He had not the slightest idea of what he did, but James found himself listening to the boy reciting those laws of motion at the same time signalled to the falling maple leaves, setting them as examples. Somehow, he had envied the boy, for while at his time he only knew about Newton and childhood, he had already known about Death and solitude. Time seemed to pass for the next thing he knew, it was almost twilight and the boy now quiet sat across him, cross-legged as well, cheeks slightly flushed not from crying but from all the ministration.
“Sir, when I grow up, I want to be like you,” the boy had found himself saying sheepishly, but recoiled, “but I guess Her Majesty might not need a scrawny little git like me.”
“Of course she does have a use for an intelligent boy like you are!” James cheerily replied, ruffling the boy’s impeccably combed hair on impulse. The boy chuckled, and looked up at his bird’s nest of dark brown hair. “Oops.”
James was attempting to fix his hair when a voice called from a distance. “Quentin!”
The boy whipped his head immediately to the voice. “My!” He hurriedly replied, stood up and ran to another boy, adolescent-looking but with the same combed-over hair. They held each other for a while, and then the older boy looked like he scolded the younger, but in a rather kindly way. James gazed longingly at the pair, wondering if life would have been different if he had a brother like that Quentin lad, or if his parents hadn’t passed on. His recollections were interrupted however when the boy ran back to him.
“Thank you, sir.” He said, and held out the handkerchief long forgotten by James.
“No, keep it…” His voice trailed, meaning to call the boy by name but it might appear imposing. He let the boy say him it himself, and eventually did.
“Quentin, Quentin Alexander Holmes!” The boy beamed at him.
---
2012
Commander James Bond, agent to Her Majesty’s Secret Service watched as the MI6’s rather young quartermaster plot a complex diagram on his computer, adept fingers flying on the keyboard as the images unravelled themselves on the giant screen in front of him.
“I wonder if you could still do that when you’re old and greying.” If there was one thing James never learnt to do, it was not to speak his thoughts aloud. Thankfully, the quartermaster took it as interesting and replied, “Someone once told me that as long as I knew it by heart, I could.”
James tilted his head a bit, sensing a familiarity in those words. He suddenly remembered that fateful day in ’89, when he saw a boy crying over a book with Newton’s laws. He remembered that boy whose hair he tousled and strangely enough, it looked like… A thought pinged into his mind, and he felt that it was no better time to bring it up than that moment.
“By chance, is your name actually Quentin Alexander Holmes?”
The pattering of the keyboard stopped and the next thing James knew was he could feel a green, wide-eyed stare penetrating into his body.