Title: The Negative Space Where He Used To Be
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: No Warnings Apply
Fandom: James Bond
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Tags: Getting Back Together
Summary: James knew he needed to fix it.
Word Count: 1,790
Beta: Grammarly



James fixed his tie before he walked into Q-Branch. It would be the first time James had gone in there in six months when it wasn't related to a mission he was being sent out on. Before that six months, he had pretty much lived here. All of his time between missions where he had to be in MI6 was spent in here. Then he stopped once he had broken things off with Q over a small squabble that, before now, James wasn't sure why it had set. He knew now after being subjected to a mission where he had spent about a month undercover getting things set up for the takedown he was doing. He had won the whole thing and come back with a bruised ego and a broken heart.

R looked up at James and put her hands on her hips, arching an eyebrow at him. James pulled the small bottle of very expensive alcohol that was R's favorite from his pocket. She rolled her eyes and waved for him to follow her. James knew the best way to get what he wanted. He had been an idiot, an asshole, and he was willing to beg to get what he wanted.

"What changed?" R asked.

"Perspective and seeing how much of an asshole I was about this whole thing. Is he not working today?"

"006's mission went to hell, and he was here two days straight. I sent him home to get some sleep. He's probably up, but he didn't take his work laptop with him, so at least he's going to relax. I'll take the alcohol, Bond."

James handed it over, and he debated what he was going to do now. Q's flat wasn't impossible to break into, but it took longer than he would like since Q liked to make it hard, even for him. James still has his key, but he wasn't sure it would work anymore. His plans were changed, and he didn't like it. Still, he knew that Q wasn't just sitting and missing him.

"Should I head over there?" James asked.

"That's up to you and how much you are willing to grovel. You started off well with the bribe."

"I'll be there if anyone from MI6 comes looking for me; send them elsewhere unless Q tells you he booted me out of his flat."

"I will."

James nodded and turned on his heel to leave Q-Branch. He wasn't sure what would come of his plans, but he was willing to grovel.

---

The key worked, and James wasn't sure what he thought about that. R might have warned Q that James was on his way over, but James hoped not. Still, the flat being silent was a little rare, but James knew not to trust that. If Q was doing something with headphones, the only sound would be the clack of the keys, and if he was in his office in the flat, James would hear nothing of those.

James locked the door behind him. He wasn't sure what to expect from the cats either.

There was a pair of glasses of James' favorite scotch sitting on the counter that was visible from the kitchen. He grabbed them both and headed toward Q's office. He found the man sitting at his computer, and it looked like he was hacking something, and frowned. He set the second glass down beside the steaming cup of tea that was on the warmer.

"Hello, James,"

"Quin, having fun?"

"Yes. It's a sex trafficking site that has popped up in conjunction with 006's last mission. He'll be going back to get into the server location; I'm using this one to hack the main server, where we hope to find a whole mess of other sites."

"So, another fun day?"

"Yes. I have my black ops team [that doesn't report to R working on it with me."

"Hmm," James said. He settled in the chair that had always been the one he sat in and watched Q work when he was working from home. Much like James, Q had his way of things and never worked on things he didn't love. When work and hobby came together, there was no stopping Q and what he was doing.

After a few minutes, Q reached for the scotch instead of the tea, and he sat back in his chair, watching as the hack worked in taking shit down. There was also a worm that was pulling out data left, right, and center.

It was like poetry in motion watching Q's work undo a site so seamlessly while also looking like it was just a normal denial-of-service attack.

The amount of information that was being pulled out made James gasp. He could see the gigabytes going up as he watched.

"Is this the hub we have spent a year looking for?" James asked; he scooted forward, moving to where he was behind Q but didn't hamper Q's movement.

"Yes, I think so. The team will break it all down. Before starting this, they isolated themselves from MI6; the system will not connect again until the whole thing has been scrubbed for any worms or the like that might be buried in the code. I'll be down for at least five hours after I pull out of the closed connection we have.

"What is this?" James pointed at the small bar at the bottom of the screen."

"Oh, that's the last worm I implanted into their system. It's going to find a close place and have it set up a cascade failure of power around the area, which is centering just to the side of the server farm, then it's going to fry the servers. By the time they realize it was a hack, MI6 should be on site. Once this is done, R will send out two Double-Ohs to deal with it."

Will you be on it?"

"No, I will not be. M talked me into retirement. He agreed that my leg is not worth dying over."

"Leg? You were injured?"

"I didn't disclose the injury to anyone, and it's why I just didn't come home for a month. I was stuck. Mallory knew, and it was the only person I wanted to know. I licked my wounds in private, and then I was just stuck with this idiot who forced me to work on myself. He didn't leave me alone."

"Smart idiot."

"I guess he was some genius who was there on vacation with his lover. The lover was working a little, so he would find me when he had downtime and wasn't with his lover. It sucked."

James still wasn't sure what he thought of the man, just not leaving him alone with his hip. It was impossible for James to leave, and he had no guns on him most of the time. Of course, the lover was an agent himself, and that made James a little leery of actually doing anything like threatening the younger man.

"So you are retired, and now you want me back? That's not how this is going to work, James."

"No, I might have been able to stay a field agent, just not a Double-Oh, but I didn't want that. The younger man who kept talking to me made me work through a lot of issues, Quin. We were stuck together for eight hours, one time in an elevator. I still am not sure he didn't do that on purpose. Anyway, I realized what I was doing by removing you from my life.

"The negative space you left behind was just as horrible as having you there. I looked for you everywhere when you were not, and it hurt. I didn't realize why until I was stuck in an elevator talking to this man who didn't want to shut up."

"And?"

"I realized what a giant cock-up I had made of all of this. I didn't talk, and that was the worst thing. You wanted to talk to me for so long, and it was the one thing that could have saved this. It wasn't going to hurt you less if I died in the field, if we were together or not. It wouldn't hurt less if I lost you to a traffic accident. I'm sorry."

Hmm," Q said. He typed for a few minutes before stopping, and the bar that was at the bottom of the screen went red, and then more code started to scroll on the screen.

James let Q have his time with his thoughts. There was nothing he could do to make time go by faster. He just watched as Q blew up an entire district in Russia on the electricity front, along with what looked like a few stores on the feed. The image was small and granny from the drone that was recording it, but it was enough for James to know what was going on.

"Before your first cup of Earl Grey?" James asked.

"Well, in this case, after my last, but yes. The stores were a front for the FSB. The hack will look like it came from a lovely resort in international waters that only caters to people who do this thing against countries for money. So that will lead to a lot of losses of life there as well."

"Mallory has learned to let you do what you want, has he?" James asked.

"Very much so. Tanner tries to keep me in check, but I figure anything done in the name of Queen and Country that will put our enemies at each other's throats is good."

"Divide and conquer? It's very old school, but the new pups don't trust anyone ever, so it will work well."

"Hmm," Q said. He relaxed back as the feed got shaky before the drone moved up and then backward; the burning stores were disappearing t from the feed.

"Is it too broken?" James asked.

"No, it's not."

James almost asked if Q meant the drone or the relationship that James had tried to run away from before he could; Q laid his hand on James' knee and then leaned into him as much as he could from the chair.

"I'll kill you myself next time, James."

" I understand. I won't run again."

Q nodded before he finished off his scotch. "I need food. Order something good while I get changed into my pajamas. I'm tired as hell."

"Of course."

James would take whatever Q was willing to give, even if it was just waiting on him hand and foot for a while while he groveled. James had nearly lost the best thing in his life. He wasn't going to mess it up again.

The End