Chapter Text
I’d do it on purpose. Of course I did. And of course she knew it and she knew why. And she disapproved. But in that way she had where it wasn’t actually disapproval. it was the opposite, but with a begrudging aspect and severe qualifications that managed to still hold you in check. And yes, she used that same tactic all the time in her interactions with me, not just the stern look or cool silence given in response to my pronunciation of the word ‘ma’am’ as a cross between ‘marm’ and ‘mum’.
But I did it because it was true. She was both my queen and my mother. And yes, my boss. My superior. Not just in years in the service, but in successful missions and, at one point, I’ve no doubt, effectiveness in the field. But ever since she recruited me, I was her bairn. Her cub, really. To break (mostly) and train (overly) and put to good use (as the record shows). I wasn’t the only one, and she didn’t play favorites unless she wanted to motivate us with a little ‘healthy’ competition (the sorts of things we competed at were never good for our health, however). But it is possible that of all her agents, I was the one most completely her creation. Her creature. I’ll not make any allusions to Frankenstein and his monster because they don’t apply here (maybe to Silva, but not to me).
I will, however, admit to feeling very much like a pup when I first arrived at MI6, with too much energy to train and a ready attachment to anyone who would throw me a bone. She made good use of that fact and got a tenfold return on her investment. Not without continual hassle, as I never was good on leash. And she was known for keeping a tight rein. Early on I learned I wasn’t to undermine that reputation publicly, even if she made allowances in private for the times I’d slip my collar and it’d take more than a whistle to summon me home.
Honestly, I can’t imagine anyone else putting up with me. But it wasn’t purely my desire to test her boundaries that kept me on the edge of, or out of, her good graces. And, thank all the gods, she knew that. It was in my nature, and in her stubborn refusal to break it. She started out believing, bless her, that we would work better if we hadn’t been broken down completely, when there was some part of us left that hadn’t been trained into oblivion. There were some that didn’t get this leniency (I have a theory Silva was one of those), and others who didn’t want it.
Then there was me. My will was the size of the moor I grew up on, and she appreciated that when I came to her I was half-feral. Said this would serve me well if I learned to manage it. Which I did. Mostly. But management and control are two different things.
She knew this better than I did, luckily. And used that knowledge to her distinct advantage when I was in the field. Our advantage. It was for the greater good, and I knew that, even as the moments of chafing occurred. I was able to endure them only because I knew there would be times she’d do nothing to stop me running free. Which is how she managed to ensure my repeated return.
It wasn’t a game, necessarily, but it was a dynamic, one that included a hefty amount of power play. She was remarkably good at it, though assuredly there was not a soul I could have remarked it to. Even Bill wouldn’t have understood completely. He was always just slightly out of his depth when it came to her and myself. She liked it that way too.
But this whole situation is why having her on comm during a mission was so vitally important. She knew exactly how to pull my strings simply by using her voice. It was a complicated dance that we’d taught ourselves and certainly didn’t look as engrossing from the outside, but it took over my body and mind when we were in it. Because it was a two-way street, that dynamic: the flow of information, the decision making process, the push and pull of giving orders and obeying them. Or not, as the case may be. Dealing with the fallout of all of these was another matter. All that mattered in the moment was that she was there with me as guide and witness and coordinator and, at the end of the day, the responsible party. Giving over that last bit of onus to her was both a relief and a burden. Because it meant I could be free to do what needed doing even if it weren’t strictly allowed, but also, were I to cock it up to an ungovernable extreme it was her neck on the chopping block. And aside from the threat of having to work under someone other than her, it was clear that she would have my bollocks under her knife even if she had to come at me headless.
All this to say I didn’t blame her a jot for the command to take the ‘fatal’ shot. The one she gave agent Moneypenny that took me down. My earwig had fallen out during the scuffle on top of the train so I wasn’t privy to the conversation that led up to it, but I could reconstruct it virtually verbatim from experience and extrapolation. And I knew what it meant that she’d given it. Anyone else can say what they will about the necessity of treating agents as expendable if it means compromising a mission--the greater good and all that--but I know what it did to her. I saw it behind her eyes that first night back in London at her house. I saw it in every interaction we had after. In her insistence on my continuing in the field even after failing the tests. In sending me, of all people, to Silva. It was the same thing she read all over me that let her know there was no other option but to allow my continued service. We were two peas in the proverbial pod and if one needed to be working, the other did as well.
Perversely, however, it was also true that if one couldn’t continue, it was the other’s job to take up the mantle. Hence my ready pledge of allegiance to Mallory and my immediate return to active duty directly after the funeral.
I wasn’t ready, however. Not physically, that was fine. In fact, not in effectiveness as an agent in any circumstance under the sun, except being on comm. The first time there was a different commanding voice on the line I tore out the earwig and crushed it under foot before going a bit rabid and exceeding even my previous record for overkill. I got a stern talking to and was grounded from missions for six weeks. I resolved to use that time to address the issue. The only option I could come up with was learning how to hear that voice as something I could connect to, on a minor level at least. I knew there was no way to find the sort of connection she and I had achieved, that was impossible, we were so locked in we were embedded in each other. But something, anything to make me feel even remotely cared for while out risking my arse for a Queen and Country that no longer included my original definitions of both (ie, Ma’am and Skyfall). If I couldn’t be one with my guide, at least I could learn to see us as on the same side.
It was a challenge initially, however. Because they gave me Q. The new Q, who was all of seventeen by the looks of him. He was brilliant and more than competent, and could be relied on in many capacities, but as far as I was able to tell, mostly in the army definition of Quartermaster: ‘responsible for providing supplies ’, not the Navy definition: ‘responsible for steering and signals’.
Dear old Boothroyd had never fancied the Navy’s way of doing things and had left comm duties to his Ms, and Ma’am, of course, would never have thought to allow anyone else the reins. When Boothroyd was replaced and Mallory took over, there was a shift of duties mostly due to the highly technical nature of gathering the intel needed for the optimal guidance of an agent in the field. I understood this, logically. But having to listen to, and obey, Q’s voice as he figured out where to steer me in the Tube when chasing Silva grated on every nerve I had. I wanted to like him, I did. Tanner and Eve were big fans on contact. Mallory lavished more praise on him than any other acquisition during that strange reorganisational time when headquarters was more an idea -- and an underground one at that -- than a reality.
Which meant he couldn’t come any more highly recommended. And he really was a wizard with information, as if he had magnetised fingertips and the right shards just flew to him and aligned themselves the moment he asked. And he had a pleasant voice. Which, oddly, goes a long way in purely aural situations. And so, I did what I could to convince myself that he was worthy of holding the tether we needed between us to work symbiotically thousands of miles apart. And to my complete surprise, the moment he copped on to what I was doing (which was damn near instantly), he made it exceptionally easy.
His secret? Banter. A solution that could have been lifted directly out of my own playbook. I bordered on astonished the first time he used it. Well, to be truthful, I almost didn’t catch on the very first try. His approach is more sardonic than my own, but that tends to fit the situation well, so it was almost lost to me as his very dry way of being charming. And yet, it brought out fitting responses from me once I’d caught my footing. Which quite readily turned into a series of volleys that we soon revelled in, despite minor expressions of disapproval from others within earshot. Double oh nine would roll his eyes at me (or the aural equivalent when not in my sights: a grunt) whenever we were on a mission together. I quickly ceased to care, as ‘flirting’ with Q became my lifeline.
The way Q and I teased, cajoled, flirted, and joked came to be our own personal line of connection, our way of gauging each other’s situation, the strings upon which we pulled to assess tension. He couldn’t anticipate me quite as Ma’am was able, but he knew within a fraction of a second which tightness in my voice meant which potential for destruction, as well as whose, and I’d graphed his pauses, their weight and length, to be as precise as a richter scale for obstacles to my continued existence. In a much shorter time than I’d thought possible, we became a very good team that others in the field either made note to avoid or asked to be assigned to.
The memorable mission where we had Moneypenny as our third will go down in the annals of MI6 as the most frequently replayed recording of a comm conversation since their advent. It was incidentally her last field op and she will maintain there’s no way to top it so it might as well be her parting shot. And a dead shot it was. (I think Q misses her on comm sometimes, as he once in awhile affects his ‘Evie’ voice when cajoling me, though that could only be because it invariably works to get his desired end).
I still missed Ma’am and her imperious way of commanding and expecting obedience, which she then counted herself lucky if she received 75% of the time, but only in a nostalgic sense. Now there is less of an adversarial tone and more a cooperative one, which makes sense given our relative ages and levels of experience. But also, it just fits Q in a way that has endeared him to me much more, and more quickly, than I’d expected. I’m not sure I will ever count him as family, per se, but at least I don’t feel rudderless anymore. In which case I’ve come to believe that for me, he now inhabits every definition of quartermaster out there.
--J.B.