Chapter Text
James had it all down to a science. The slightly bored expression, the hint of a knowing smirk when anything was said to him, the one that told his captors that he knew better, that he was always one step ahead of them. Even when he wasn’t – like now – James would ensure they didn’t know that; as far as they were concerned this was all part of his plan, and even if they were just as good as him at not showing anything he knew there must be some part of them that was uncertain. Maybe even a little nervous. He knew that to be fact, because he felt the same way.
It was always the same, really – hands tied behind his back, feeling slightly bruised, far too many men in a room for one restrained person. James looked around himself slowly, taking absolutely everything in. Somewhere above him he could hear the wind howling. It was the loudest sound in the room.
He blinked slowly, the side of his face aching. His left eye was beginning to swell, and he sincerely hoped it didn’t swell itself closed. He would need it for his aim, when he undoubtedly had to shoot his way out of this place. As for what he would do afterwards, he had no idea. He remembered enough from his hazy recollections of the journey here to know that he was in the middle of nowhere, somewhere mountainous. He scraped his teeth over his bottom lip and tasted some of the blood drying there; he could see specks of it on his shirt, too, and found himself vaguely annoyed.
There were footsteps behind him, distant and growing quickly closer, and then a door opened and closed again and James tensed his shoulders only slightly, not knowing what to expect but knowing that it should always be the worst. He didn’t look, because he never looked, but already he found himself profiling the newcomer from the sound of their footsteps. They were light, and James would have said they were cautious if it wasn’t for the fact that their unobtrusiveness came so naturally. Whoever they belonged to walked that way because they themselves were light, small, and Christ, James knew those footsteps, didn’t he?
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Q said, in the same moment that he came into James’s field of vision. “I told you not to rough him up. How did you manage to get ‘do the total opposite’ from that?”
“We didn’t really have a choice.” One of the men to James’s right spoke up. “He did start hitting us first.”
“And I assume you tried to tell him to cooperate?” Q asked, now looking right at James, who held his gaze as best as he could. “No matter. I believe you. He’s never been good at following instructions.”
“Is that why you did a runner?” James asked. “Couldn’t stand dealing with me anymore?”
Q smiled. “Actually, you were one of the reasons I considered staying.”
James snorted. “I’m flattered.”
“Leave us for now,” Q said, glancing away from James to look between the others. James heard one of them begin to protest; Q held up a finger and immediately silenced him. “I know what you’re going to say, and I’m sure you know what I’m going to say. Even if he does get out of the restraints…” Q let his words trail off, slowly turning back to James. “He won’t kill me,” he finished, looking right at him.
James held his gaze, keeping the slightest amused smile on his face as, with some muttering, they were left alone. The door closed behind them and the beat of silence was broken by a sudden gust of wind high above them; it faded, and then Q finally spoke again.
“I wasn’t lying, you know,” he said, and James detected a certain weight to his shoulders as he said the words. “I really did hope you would come along.”
“I did,” James said, still smiling. “I’m right here.”
“But you didn’t come to join me, did you?”
“I don’t know yet,” James said. “I was hoping for a pitch, actually.”
Q looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “A pitch.”
“They all have them,” James said. “A little speech where they try and persuade me over onto their side. It’s usually very dramatic, and they of course always know I’m going to refuse, so they make sure to drop some foreshadowing and lace it with references to the fate they hope I’ll meet. It’s all very good fun, actually. I was hoping you would try it.”
“I can’t say that’s my style,” Q said, and James could feel his eyes on him, searching for something.
“Shame. You were always so cutting with your words.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, James,” Q said, sighing, and James replayed the sound in his head, certain he would find some theatrics there. He found none, and for some reason, felt himself growing unnerved. “I was hoping if you came here you might want to at least entertain the idea, but… well, you did always tell me I was a bit of a romantic. I suppose you’re right. How long do I have?”
“How long do you have?” James repeated, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t think I follow.”
“Until Six gets here,” Q said, sounding briefly exasperated. “I know that you’re no stranger to running out on solo missions, but I get the feeling that this time would be different. You must have told someone you were following my clues. You must have let them know where you are. I want to know how long I have, because I’d rather like to get packed up and get out of here. They can have you back, it’s no concern of mine.”
“So, let me just get something straight,” James said, shifting in his chair slightly as the familiar tingling began to settle in his fingers. “You decided to lead me on a treasure hunt to find you, after you vanished without a trace – believed defected, by the way, and I suppose this isn’t too different – and then you thought… what? That I would just stay with you? That I would think this was totally normal?”
“No,” Q said, shrugging. He leaned back against one of the tables shoved against the back wall, looking James over briefly before continuing. “I hoped you would at least want an explanation, I suppose, but mostly I wanted to see you again. I think, out of everything, you’re probably the only thing I regret leaving behind. Well, what we had, I suppose.”
“Had,” James repeated, and Q gave a thin smile.
“Can’t exactly use present tense now you’ve made your opinion clear, can I?”
“Q,” James said, and surprisingly the name didn’t sound odd in the circumstances. “You have to see it from my point of view. I’ve met a lot of people in similar situations – walking into a room while I’m tired to a chair surrounded by muscle for hire, that is – and they’ve never wanted anything that was compatible with what I was doing. Now, picture yourself coming in like that and combine it with what I know, and you’ll get a decent picture.”
“You think I’m some kind of supervillain,” Q said, genuinely amused. “Oh, I’d love to be a fly on the wall during that debrief. I suppose I could be, really. There’s nothing stopping me.”
“When you say things like that, you don’t exactly defend yourself,” James said, before shaking his head. “Oh, Q. You really blew it, didn’t you?”
Q blinked at him, slowly, in the way he always did when he thought James was being ridiculous.
“Hardly,” he said, dismissive.
“You left it all behind,” James told him. “And even if you were fed up with what you were doing, you could have just handed your notice in like a normal person. There was no need for you to do what you did. There was no need for you to make yourself public enemy number one, at any rate.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Q said, his voice suddenly harsh. It had a bite to it that James had never heard before. “You’re going to pretend like this is a surprise to you? Of course you are.”
“I have to admit, Q, this was a little bit surprising.”
“Don’t give me that,” Q snapped. “You were creeping around the subject just as much as the rest of them.”
“I didn’t creep around the subject,” James said calmly. “I told you that some secrets should stay that way for a reason, and that it was alright to realise that things were too much. I said if you felt that way, you should quit. I didn’t say you should steal every single bloody file you could get your hands on and vanish into nowhere and spark the biggest intelligence manhunt since the Cold War.”
“I haven’t done anything with it yet,” Q said, waving a hand.
James raised an eyebrow. “Yet.”
“I’m not going to stand here and justify myself to you,” Q said angrily, standing up straighter from where he had been slouched against the table. “You know my reasons. You know why I did it. You knew I was – that this was getting to me, and you turned a blind eye. You’re just as bad, really.”
“Oh?” James asked. “Last I checked, I wasn’t the traitor.”
To his annoyance, Q didn’t even flinch.
“You knew I was a flight risk,” Q said simply. “You knew that I was planning this.”
“I did not.”
“You did too,” Q said, suddenly triumphant. “And I have the proof, James. Don’t you remember? I told you I was thinking about something like this. I even asked if you would come with me. I told you that sometimes it was the only thing getting me through the day; the possibility that if it ever did get to be too much, if I ever had to see or do or hear about anything that was so vile it finally crossed a line, I would have this option available to me. You agreed. You said that you had to take whatever you got.”
“That isn’t the same as encouraging you,” James said, his voice cold. He could feel something tight in his chest. “That isn’t the same as telling you to do it.”
“No? Not strictly, I suppose,” Q said, smiling now. “But in their eyes, it’s just the same. Isn’t that what they’re always telling us? At the slightest hint that someone might be planning something, or getting to the mental state where they would consider it, you report it as a possibly compromising situation. And you didn’t. They’re going to want your balls for this, too, James. And face it, you’re not as young as you used to be – this might just be the excuse they need to put you on the bench. Nice desk job, I think, and that’s if you’re lucky. You were the partner of a traitor, weren’t you? I doubt they’ll think that everything went over your head. They’ll know you knew something, and they know what you’re like when it comes to love.”
“Tell me, Q,” James said, feeling himself practically shaking with rage. “What am like when it comes to love?”
“You’re a fucking idiot,” Q said simply. “How many times have you gone against what they wanted for love? How many people have you covered for, killed for, when you should have been focusing on the mission? This isn’t an insult, James. Actually it’s one of the reasons I fell in love with you in the first place – it was refreshing, to see someone feel so sincerely in that place. But you can’t deny that it has been a weakness before, and for someone trying to write up a report to explain why you need to be fired, it’s gold.”
“You said you had proof,” James said, looking questioningly at him, and Q shrugged.
“Recordings,” he said. “Insurance, really. I knew you would put up a fight.”
“I was just going to get the files, you know,” James said, leaning back in his chair. “Just going to take them, persuade you to get rid of all the copies. I was going to try and work something out, but it seems you’re one step ahead. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that it’s not nice to leave people with no choice?”
Leaning back in the chair had finally given him the slack he needed to twist his wrists free of the rope; he had stood up and cleared the space between them before Q had even finished processing that he had freed himself in the first place. James wasn’t sure what he was going to do when he got to him, but it seemed that the anger answered that question for him; he gave Q no time to cry out as he pinned him against the wall, his hand tightly around Q’s throat. Q’s eyes widened but he didn’t make an attempt to call for help – James wasn’t sure if that was because he knew it was useless, or because he still believed the bullshit from earlier.
“How long?” James demanded, his voice a low hiss. He tightened his grip on Q’s neck briefly, giving him a shake. “How long were you planning this for? How long were you stealing files, copying them? Squirreling them away knowing what you were going to do? When did you decide? Was it when you started asking me all those leading questions? You were testing the water, weren’t you? You were trying to see if I would come with you. And when you realised I might not, you started trying to force my hand.”
Q stared at him, his eyes wide, though there was a hint of defiance alongside the certainty there. James tightened his grip further, suddenly desperate to see it vanish.
“Clever,” he practically sneered. “But you always were clever, weren’t you?”
Q finally moved then, reaching up to grip at James’s wrist. He dug his nails in enough for it to be painful, but both of them knew it would be no competition.
“Still think I won’t kill you?” James asked, and he could tell from the rapid flickering of Q’s eyes that his vision was beginning to go dark around the edges. “Still think I can’t do it? Do you really think that this isn’t deserving of it? You traitorous, lying little –”
A door slamming open, a sudden impact from his side. James crashed against one of the tables and caught a brief glimpse of Q staggering away from the wall, gasping and clutching his throat, before a fist collided with the side of his head and he felt himself hit the floor. No sooner had he landed was he pulled upright, someone holding an arm each, his knees barely touching the floor as they held him in place. Dazed, he looked up, catching Q staring back at him – still rubbing his throat, his glasses slightly out of place, his eyes wide and his face so young that for a moment James was back in Q-branch, watching him from a distance and wondering just how he managed it.
They held their gaze for a moment; finally, Q broke it.
“What?” he asked, raising his eyebrow ever so slightly, rubbing at his throat again as his voice cracked.
“A fucking idiot when I’m in love, am I?” James asked, his voice almost back to their old way of taunting. He laughed, dropping his head and shaking it, the grin still clinging to his lips despite the heaviness settling over him. “God, I love you.”
“Well, I suppose you must,” Q said, clearing his throat. “I’m still alive, after all. And you’re here.”
Q gave a nod to the others, still looking shaken. James shook his head again, his shoulders trembling with laughter that Q couldn’t hear, and let them drag him out of the room.