Lunch

James has been in London for over three months now. He got his old flat back – cleaned even – with all his clothes in his wardrobe, his books on his shelves and the pantry still stocked with cans of beans and chickpeas. When he had asked Monneypenny why they hadn't sold his flat again, she had just raised an eyebrow. “We didn't expect you to stay away for long,” she had said and there might have been something like pity in her eyes.

He had tried. He had honestly tried to retire for good this time, go skiing for fun, read a book in the sun, have wonderful sex with a beautiful woman. They had lasted about a month until they'd both gotten anxious. Madeleine hadn't felt save anywhere but also did not want to be on the move her entire life and James? James was just plain bored. He had been on long (unofficial) holidays before, but he had always known that there would be a time when he had to go back.
They had been staying in a rustic but cozy hotel for two days, about two months after they had driven into the sunset with the spotless DB5. When James got back from an aimless drive through the countryside, Madeleine sat on the edge of the bed with her bag packed, her back straight, her face determined. And James could not help the relieved breath that had escaped him.

James has been in London for over three months now and everything is back to normal, except it isn't. His flat feels so much emptier now that he has gotten used to company. It was not even that Madeleine and he had talked all evening, but there had always been some kind of noise or movement. Even if it had only been the occasional sound of a page being turned on the other side of the room. Sure, they had not worked out romantically in the end, but they had been friends and it had been nice to spend some time with someone he wanted to spend time with instead of charming a mark in a fancy bar at night to get intel out of them.

His evenings now consist of cooking, drinking, and watching documentaries. He does not even bother to set the table but eats leaning against the counter or lounging on the sofa.

Five months in he is on mandatory leave for a whole month because he set a building on fire again. He spends most of his time off in the swimming pool, in the gym and in the shooting range trying not to think about the fact that what bothers him most since he has come back to London is not his empty flat but the unsatisfying conversations he has with Q now. They used to banter and quip but now it is mostly just the quartermaster giving 007 orders and 007 ignoring them. Sometimes Q cannot keep an exasperated frown slipping out but that is it. If James allowed himself the thought, he would have to admit that he misses the relationship he used to have with Q. He does not and spends more time swimming laps.

One morning he gets up at 6am sharp despite being hungover because he thought it would be a good idea to drink half a bottle of scotch after having come home from a bar where he sat alone for three hours. He cleans his flat, hangs up some post cards on the fridge, gets groceries and cooks lunch for four.
Eve gives him a kiss on the cheek when he drops off one of the still warm lunch boxes at her desk. Tanner raises an eyebrow but in exchange offers him a bottle of fancy lemonade he keeps stashed in his office. Q is not in the open working space, so James just leaves the bottle of lemonade and the box filled with mushroom risotto on the desk at the front, ignores the minions staring at him and eats his lunch alone on a park bench.

The lunch becomes a routine pretty fast. After the third time, Monneypenny asks him to spend the lunch break with her and he does. When the sun shines, they eat on the bench on the roof, when it rains, they stay in her office. Tanner joins them sometimes and brings more of his fancy lemonade.
He only drops off Q’s lunch in his office when Q is not there. Once, James loitered in a corner where he could not be seen by him for twenty minutes, waiting for Q to leave, until a minion wordlessly took the box out of his hand to bring it to Q.

When he gets the information for his next mission – finally – it is R who gives him his equipment. Q apparently is in a budget meeting. James wants to believe it but does not. It is a boring and tedious assignment, and he is pretty sure M assigned it to him as a punishment for burning that building down.

He has been lying on a roof sweating and looking through the lens of his rifle for four hours now when Q’s crisp voice comes through the comms.
“Q speaking. Sitrep please,” he says, and James automatically imagines him sitting in one of his ghastly cardigans at his desk sipping a tea. He can almost smell the bergamot of his Earl Grey. So instead of giving an equally professional response, he says:
“It’s fucking hot and Kurner hasn’t shown up yet.”
It is silent on the other side but since it is just as silent on the bloody roof, James can hear Q breathe. There is a familiar click on the other side that James has not heard in a while. He is on a private line with Q now.
“Thank you for the lunches.” James only grunts in acknowledgement.
They stay silent for a while and James focuses on Q’s breathing or his typing while he is staring through the lens. The silent company makes the waiting so much more bearable.
“You’re still mad at me,” James says after the sun has already set and he is still lying on that roof. At least he is not sweating anymore. The typing stops, but Q stays silent. James does not want to elaborate but does it anyways.
“I brought the car back. It doesn’t have a scratch.” After a moment of hesitation, he adds: “Or is it because I left? I came back in the end.”
He can hear Q taking a deep breath before he gets a response.
“It was more about how you left.” When James doesn’t say anything, Q says: “I'm not mad, even. I just … I wish.”
It is silent again except it is not because he can still hear Q’s breathing.
“Say it.”
James’ voice is calm and there is nothing that betrays the feeling of dread that slowly washes through his body.
“See, you're expecting something like ‘I expected better than this’, and the problem is that I didn't.” Q’s voice is just as collected, but it is barely more than a whisper. “I just wish that you would've proven me wrong.”

James wishes he could close his eyes for a few seconds, but he cannot. His knuckles around the rifle turn white, but he still stares through the lens with alert eyes. Neither of them says anything for a while because what is there to say? Q keeps him on the private line and resumes his typing. After an hour or so when it has become chilly and James is fed up because he has done nothing but lie on this roof for the past seven hours, there is finally movement in the room he is watching. Kurner walks right into the rifle’s lens, his face crystal clear. James does not tense.

“Objective spotted,” he murmurs and takes a deep breath. The typing in his comms stops and it becomes so quiet he can almost hear the silence ringing. It makes the shot appear so much louder. He informs Q of the hit while he disassembles the gun. Two hours later he sits in the Eurostar back to London. Four and a half hours later he is soaking in his tub, a glass of scotch dangling in his hand.

The next day, when he strides into M’s office for a debriefing, he sets a box down on the corner of the desk. Neither of them acknowledges it even though the scent of the spices slowly fills the room.
He sets the bag with the other lunches on Monneypenny’s desk on the way out and tells her that he will call as soon as he is through Medical and Q-branch. She flashes him a smile and goes back to her screen.
He is through Medical in under ten minutes which might be a record.

“007,” Q greets him professionally as soon as he walks through the branch’s doors.
“Q.” James’ response is equally calm. Slowly, he takes out the rifle, his Walther and a radio and sets them down on Q’s desk. The rifle has a few scratches but apart from that everything looks spotless. Q takes them apart and looks them over thoroughly before setting the equipment down again.
“They are fine.” Q’s voice is not loud, does not sound surprised even, it is just a statement really, but the content itself is unordinary enough that the minions stop typing to stare openly at them.

When James does not respond, Q adds in a businesslike tone: “If you keep this up and continue with the lunches, we might have enough budget to get you that exploding pen.”

James’ lips twitch. It is a tiny step back to how they were before. Or maybe it is a step in a totally different direction but as long as it is away from the lifeless information exchange he has had with the quartermaster for the past months, he will take it.
“The lunches are currently sitting on Monneypenny’s desk while I have to go through my post-mission routine.”
Q then turns back to his computer, types something and turns to his second-in-command. “I’m taking my lunch break. Call me when something urgent comes up,” he says as if it is a normal occurrence for him to step out for lunch. R just smiles and nods at him. She also throws the minions a warning glance and suddenly the background noise is back to normal with people typing and talking.

Monneypenny does not look surprised when Q is standing in her office. They pick up Tanner on the way to the roof. They chat about office gossip and that film Tanner watched with his wife the day before and their disgustingly mundane and normal conversation makes James feel like home again.

Q becomes part of their routine. Sometimes, he brings his laptop with him and oversees some codes running while they eat, sometimes, Tanner does not have time and sometimes, Monneypenny is accompanying M somewhere, but most of the afternoons James is in London, they spend their lunches together. Sometimes, James brings back his equipment in one piece. One day, he adds a key. Q stares at the Aston Martin logo for a full minute before he asks: “Can you also do dinner?”
James does not dare move. “I’ll pick you up at 7”, he says calmly and turns right on his heels to stride out of Q branch. He has a flat to clean and groceries to buy.

Q sits on a bar stool at his polished kitchen island that evening, sips a glass of wine and watches James cook. They stay on light topics for conversation that night, it is almost like lunch but it really is not. It is just as companiable and easy, but then it is also intimate in a way they have not been before. They add countless shared dinners to their countless shared lunches.

Q never stays the night, they never partake in any kind of physical contact, they mostly just talk a little and eat. But something has already shifted, and they both know it even though neither acknowledges it.

Bond pencils Q in as his next of kin. Monneypenny raises an eyebrow as a silent question at him when he hands her the document. Bond shakes his head as a silent response. She is fidgeting and James knows there is something she wants to tell him.

“Say it”, he demands and tries to swallow both the hope and dread that come up at the same time.
“He handed in a conflict of interests form”, she says in the end. James is itching to ask more about it but decides against it.
James does not have the patience to wait, so when Q opens the door with the key James gave him two months ago, he says: “You’re not mad at me anymore.”

Q’s face looks confused, still standing in the foyer with his peacoat on, wearing gloves. Then his face lights up in understanding and he closes the door behind him. Slowly takes off the gloves, his coat, his shoes. He stands before James and the minute that just passed feels almost as long as these bloody seven hours on the roof when they had the conversation James is referring to.

“Maybe you’ve proven me wrong after all”, is all Q says.