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There was nothing about this that was inevitable.
That she should find herself pinned beneath the delicious weight of this man young enough to be her son and only slight less off limits was not written in the stars. He was a highly trained killer with more emotional baggage than a Louis Vuitton boutique, and she the only person in a position of authority that he at least pretended to respect, yet there they were. She couldn't blame a near death experience or drugs or kismet for this fact. What she could, and did, blame was her own avarice.
It began with something as pedestrian as an elevator ride.
X X X X
They had finished a meeting on the top floor of a generic government building in another part of London. If they had been in Vauxhall Cross, nobody would have dared to enter to enter a lift with Her and The Chosen One. That he was her favorite was not spoken of openly, it was simply known. Like any office, gossip ran rampant through the halls but the spectre of a slow and painful death at the skilled hands of M was enough to keep people quiet lest the walls that had ears could speak.
This building, unfortunately, was not Vauxhall so a full assortment of England's best policy wonks who neither knew, nor cared, who they were piled in to the lift ahead of them. They were the last two to enter and there was just enough room for her to stand in front of him without their bodies touching.
Behind them, a man broke in to a loud, braying laugh. She shook her head and sought out Bond's practiced, controlled glare in the reflection of the deeply polished stainless steel doors directly in front of her. Once she caught his attention, she gave an exaggerated roll of the eyes and she noticed the corner of his mouth twitch as he tried to withhold a smile.
Normally she would have turned her attention elsewhere, habit forcing her to scan every inch of confined space available to her, but she found herself staring in to his eyes instead. He did truly have the bluest eyes she had ever seen. The most distinct memory she had of their first meeting, besides the immediate desire to knock the insolent little smirk off his face, was that she didn't think his eyes were a color that she had ever seen outside of the warm waters that surrounded the Maldives.
His head tilted slightly as he regarded her in the mirror-like surface of the doors but he still looked straight back at her, unwilling by nature to be the one who looked away first. Seconds passed as the lift hurtled itself to the ground while they held each others gaze. Somebody with a captive audience rattled on about something but she was focused intently on the man who stood silently only a step behind. It was probably nothing, it should have been nothing, but she thought she saw something flash in his irises as they stared each other down that was gone as quickly as it took him to blink.
She didn't know what it was, but she wanted to see it again.
Finally the lift slowed as it reached the ground floor and the ding of the doors as they opened forced her vision back to the outside world. His hand found the small of her back and he ushered her in to the bustling lobby where they were quickly swallowed up by the crowd.
In the weeks that followed, she didn't have much occasion to see him. She was tied up in more soul crushing meetings defending the department's spending practices than she could count and he was flung far around the world. But on those rare occasions where they crossed paths in the halls or in a debriefing, she would search his eyes for a hint of what she saw that day. If he noticed her looking at him more critically than usual, he certainly didn't let on.
For as closely as she looked, for the risks she took to find it, the flash never returned and so she went about the business of convincing herself that spark she thought she saw was nothing but a figment of her imagination. The harmless daydreams of an old woman with too much on her mind.
X X X X
Bond waved off her secretary as he impotently tried to deny him entrance to her office. If he could let himself in to her flat without a visit from MI6's crack internal security team, a baby-faced young man in an off-the-rack suit wasn't going to stop him from satisfying a curiosity.
She was flying around her desk like a dervish and could barely spare a glance when the heavy doors closed behind him.
“Ma'am, may I have a word?”
“Not now, 007. I am now,” she took a look at her watch, “six minutes late for a meeting with the Q branch and...”
“Is there a particular reason why you've been eye-fucking me for the last month?”
His words had the effect of a flash grenade on her brain. Momentarily stunned, she paused just long enough as she violently stuffed file folders in to a briefcase that he knew his suspicions were correct. He shoved his hands in his pockets while he waited for her answer. To his credit, he somehow managed to keep a self satisfied grin off of his face.
Her mental compass spun helplessly trying to find true north. As the systems came back on line, she knew that the only appropriate response was to throw him out on his ass and instruct him to go fuck himself while he was at it. He would smile, turn around and swagger his way out of her office she was sure. It was a far more attractive option than trying to bluff her way out of getting caught with her hand in the cookie jar. But then, when had she ever taken the easy way out of anything?
The flurry of activity stopped as she carefully considered her answer. She dropped the briefcase, leaned back against the desk and she heard herself say, “You flatter yourself, Mister Bond.”
Oh, yes, that will certainly dissuade him.
A snort. “Yes, I suppose I do.”
He rocked back on his heels for a moment before advancing. His movement was slow and calculated, almost to the point of telegraphing his intentions. Ever the gentleman, he gave her ample opportunity to escape if she wanted. But there was no way in hell she would let him chase her around the desk like a bloody Benny Hill sketch.
“You are aware that I get paid quite handsomely to notice things, aren't you?”
There was nothing genteel, however, about the way he looked her as he approached. Those ice blue eyes bored in to her and she couldn't look away. She might has well have been stripped bare and she realized all at once that only the truth would do.
“I just thought,” she stopped, unable to pull the trigger.
“Thought what?” He crowded in to her space, staring down in to her eyes that were not too many shades away from his own. The man was a Svengali; it was the only possible explanation as to why she was moments away from a full swoon. The air raid sirens were going off and there wasn't a single damn thing she could do to stop them because this time when that light did flash in his eyes, she knew it was all over but the crying.
“I just thought that I saw something.”
“I see,” He reached out and put his hands on the cold surface of the desk on either side of her body, effectively trapping her against it. The faint scent of his cologne while he loomed over her was too, too much and her eyes slipped shut. His breath was humid against her ear when he leaned forward and whispered, “Did you want to see something?”
X X X X
At her age, the time would come sooner rather than later that her spirit would be willing but her body unable to accommodate him, and she would have to to shoo him away to find girls his own age to play with. All she could do was hope they were both alive long enough to see that day. For now despite how it could irreparably damage his career and cause her to lose the pension she had given up her life for, the risks were worth it.
And if she ever had any doubt, all it took was one glance from him in her darkened bedroom, what little light there was reflecting off his brilliant eyes, and this terrible, ill-advised idea suddenly became the only thing she had ever done that made sense.