Work Text:
People move on. It's a fact of life but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt - no matter which side of moving on you're on.
Q can't tell if he hates this or not.
He looks up from his laptop and takes in the empty room. He had sent all the Junior Quartermasters home hours ago, back when the sun was still up. He remembers it then, the room warm and alive with laughter and the static buzz of experiments.
Today – yesterday now – was a rare occurrence, a day that went right on all accounts, and thinking on it makes his heart hurt.
He doesn't regret it, he knows he doesn't.
He fingers the jagged hole in his work table unconsciously yet still mindful of the danger. It was made by Eve when she slammed the heel of one of her stilettos down, proving to Q just how deadly they are without any modifications. He remembers how it was late and he was sat on the table, sitting crisscross as he slurped at noodles from the little place around the corner. His nose still pink from running out with Eve in the cold to get some. He remembers how giddy he felt in that moment, eating, talking, and laughing with Eve as she slouched back in his creaky chair, heel-less and shimmying out of her tights and flinging them somewhere.
He remembers how scandalous it felt and how light his heart felt whenever she smiled.
The memory makes him smile, and he feels the stinging threat of tears. He straightens in his seat and goes to type again, fingers hovering over the keyboard, but doesn't move.
He wonders if he's being fair.
But Eve was once a Double-Oh agent herself and is one of the smartest people Q knows. He has no doubt she'll be pissed, but knows she'll find him faster than anyone.
:i:
Hours later, Q doesn't bother looking up when the lift sounds and dings open, well aware that very few people wander into Q Branch after everyone else has gone home for the night.
“I read somewhere that if you stay in one position too long, you'll be stuck that way forever,” comes Bond's patented indifferent drawl. It almost makes Q smile.
“Are you certain it was something you read and not heard on an elementary school playground.”
He hears Bond hum, amused. “Cute.”
It's quiet then. Q yawns and Bond is silent.
“What are you doing here, Double-Oh Seven?”
“Can't I stop by and see my favourite Quartermaster?”
Q tilts his head to the side and ignores the sounds of Bond walking closer.
“Considering I'm the only Quartermaster you currently have, I'm going to have to say, no.”
“Wounded, Q. Seriously and irrevocably.”
He's on the other side of Q's work table, but Q, having years of practice at being scrutinized by muscle in suits, continues his work, fingers flying across the key pad without hesitation or pause.
So, he repeats himself and ignores the way Bond fiddles with the little trinkets on his desk.
“What do you want?”
Bond doesn't respond right away, too busy making a show of studying the ceramic kitty-cat a Junior Quartermaster had gotten Q a few months ago when she was away on holiday. She had been tan and all smiles and when she presented the little cat to Q, he felt what he believed to be an unbelievable amount of fondness for the little creature. It's been sat on his work table ever since.
“Was still around. Wanted to see if you were too.”
It's simple, and Q thinks he believes it because Bond has no reason to lie about something so simple. But, like almost everything nowadays, his words only make Q feel sad.
Sad because a year ago those kind of words were all he wanted from Bond. Some sense of acknowledgement other than what Q could do for him; what weapons he has, what nerdy voodoo he could do to get Bond's ass out of trouble once again.
To be acknowledged as a human being.
But now the words only simmer in his heart. He still wants to hear them, he can't help that, but now it's like how he wants to hear them from Eve. Or how he wants to make his staff smile when things aren't so serious.
He can't tell if he's disappointed or not.
“Well,” he says with a lazy flourish of his hand, “here I am.”
“There you are.”
He looks up at Bond then, not because he's weak and can't handle a hovering Double- Oh, but because it's Bond, and if anything, Q thinks this is okay.
Bond looks tired, but so does everyone who works in this building. The bags under his eyes are a light grey and Q has no doubt in his mind that his own are a startling purple. But despite the tiredness in his eyes and shoulders, Bond is looking at Q with an expression one could say is gentle, like a content lion.
Disappointment or not aside, Q feels that look in his stomach.
“You should let me take you home,” says Bond, eventually.
Q shakes his head, foot nudging the cardboard box under his desk.
“I'm afraid tonight is one of those nights,” Q says, eyes back on the screen, “My work needs me more than my cats do.”
Q's eyes flicker back to Bond when the man leans down on his work table, the laptop the only thing between them now. Q raises his own eyebrow when Bond slowly lowers the lid down with a finger.
“You know I could carry you out of here, no problem.”
The man is smirking, mischief and fire dancing plainly in his eyes. It's bait, and Q feels the weight of all the times he's taken it, hook, line, and sinker.
“I have no doubt that you could,” he says, pushing the lid back up. “But I know you won't.”
Bond raises an amused eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Because I said no.”
They stare at each other, the fire in Bond's eyes now dimming as he realizes Q isn't playing, not tonight. Q would feel bad, but he feels more like telling Bond he had his chances, and that maybe he should have taken them a bit more seriously.
That not everything lasts forever, though that's a lesson he knows Bond is intimately familiar with.
Bond stands, hands smoothing out the creases in his jacket as he walks around the table. He stops next to Q and places, what Q is assuming, a friendly hand on his shoulder.
“I'll see you tomorrow, Q,” Bond says, hand lingering for just a beat too long. Q looks up at him from under his fringe, a small smile in place. They stare at each other for a moment and for that moment, Q entertains the idea of telling Bond. But for some reason there's no real want to. In fact, it makes him feel a little pitiful, and for once when it comes to James Bond, Q isn't feeling it for himself.
“I'm counting the seconds, Double-Oh Seven.”
Bond smiles – smirks – smiles, Q honestly can't tell anymore - doesn't think he was actually able to in the first place. But regardless, it's a pleasant thing. Bond leaves after giving a gentle squeeze and for once, Q doesn't watch him go.
He's a little surprised at how easy it was to make Bond leave, the man usually needing a lot more words and coaxing out of Q Branch. But Q doesn't question it now that he's alone again.
He picks up the ceramic kitty-cat that had captured Bond's attention. It's very old lady, and Q loves it for that very reason. It has a nice weight to it.
He puts it back down and wheels back in his chair, and watches the past few years of his life play out in his minds eye.
:i:
He walks to the elevator, box in grip, more aware than ever before. The only time he felt this exposed making this journey was the first time he ever did it as Q. When he couldn't believe it was all his, awe and emotion caught in this throat thick and uncomfortable, but exciting all the same.
Tomorrow, when Eve walks into Q Branch like she does almost every morning for a hello and a chat, she'll find someone else in his place. Someone else as Q. The thought makes his body feel numb and his heart pound.
He thinks about how, if he wanted, he could stroll into Mallory's office tomorrow and ask for Q back. He knows the man will wring him out, just like he did when Q slid his resignation across the mans desk and asked in a low tone for this to be kept quiet, but that he'd get it back.
The knowledge that he could is a small comfort, but an unnecessary one. He knows he won't do that.
He has many years ahead of himself, he knows also. He could be Q of MI6 until he becomes grey and old and once upon a time, that was exactly what he wanted. But watching those who are exactly that, watching people like Bond test the limits...the thought of himself doing the same made him take pause and think about his future, and it was then that he knew he was done.
Walking through the halls was no longer thrilling and while he still got fire under his skin from working an assignment, and his heart still beats loudly for the feel of metal and wire under his finger tips, these halls now feel like a tomb and he can't breathe.
He can feel his time ticking on and on and the thought of dying in that wonky chair in the depths of MI6 makes him want to cry.
He presses the lift button.
The button lights up orange and Q fights the urge to look back. He'll have that chance in a moment.
He thinks about Bond. James. How tomorrow he'll saunter his way into Q Branch for his daily annoy-Q-time and how he won't be there. Q thinks about how that won't bother Bond. How he'll assume Q is elsewhere. But once he checks Q's office and the kitchen and the little nooks and cranny's of Q Branch and finds Q truly gone, he'll ask.
Q likes to think Bind will be upset about it, that he will be the one to pull the rug out from under the great Double-Oh Seven, this time around, though Q knows that has nothing to do with any of this. That this is about him, and not Bond.
Bond had left and then he had come back. They moved passed it as best they could even though it was never the same.
The lift opens and he steps inside. He turns slowly, eyes raising to take in Q Branch for the last time. The room is dark and dim, the only lights are those flashing from shut down computers and the overhead lights that shine over the now empty work table.
It hasn't really hit him yet. That once he steps out of MI6's doors he's no longer Q. That he'll be a regular citizen. How this place will keep going without him.
Just like he'll keep going without this place.
The people? Well, he's about find out.
Oh, he knows he'll worry about them. About the Double-Oh's, about Eve, and Mallory, and Tanner. That he'll miss his staff and the old man who cleans at night and the young lady with the loud hair who works at the coffee shop across the street.
He gives Eve a few days, a week maybe, before she finds him (though he won't be hiding, not really) and strangles him to death.
He thinks about his skills, his mind, his youth. How MI6 was probably the highest he'd ever get, but then again, if he stays, he'll never really know for sure.
Before the doors close on this chapter of his life, he thinks about Eve's shock, about James'. About how when they find out what he's done they'll try him at home, and how when they look all they'll find is an empty flat, nothing of himself left behind - much like his office and the files at MI6 will be. As if he was never there to begin with.
He's scared shitless, his hands shake and his stomach churns red-hot as the lift doors close with finality. But he's ready, and for the first time in months, he smiles as he stands in the lift, tears staining his cheeks.