lastrat

[Spam/Narration]

[He's been thinking about home a lot, lately.

That's an understatement: he's been thinking about it almost every minute of every day. He's been thinking of it every time he jogs in the gym, every time the CES shows him something like Regents Park or any of his other habitual running spots in London. Sometimes it shows him Skyfall, and even his reaction to that has changed.

He's been thinking a lot about his results for active duty, too. Not the false ones M gave him - not the ones she passed to him, knowing he would need to be buoyed for the coming mission. The true results, shown to him on a series of screens on an abandoned island while he was tied to a chair. It's always alarming when truth comes from your enemies, but recently Bond's found it more alarming when the truth comes from him.

He doesn't belong here. He hasn't belonged here since he graduated.

He knows that, and still he's stayed. For M, he told himself. He's been waiting six months for an inmate, six months hoping he'd have an inmate who didn't just vanish. Six months spent doing nothing but avoid floods or cope with the after effects at his liquor cabinet - he's even stopped going to the pub as of late. Elena was right, he's become a recluse. He hasn't bothered to meet any of the newcomers, really - he hasn't bothered to keep up well with any of the people he could still say he cares about. He hasn't been a presence in anyone's life - not even his own.

It doesn't help that he's sitting in his room now, with a glass of scotch in his hand. He's actually grown used to 50-year Macallan. That's disappointing all on its own, but of course, it makes him think of the psych eval. Substance and alcohol abuse indicated. He throws back the rest of the scotch and runs a hand over his jaw. He needs a shave.

Heading for the bathroom, he finds his razor and shakes his head quietly. Sometimes the old ways....well. Going back in time didn't help much, in the end. That's why he's here.

He thinks, as he drags the cut throat razor over his skin, that maybe that's just the excuse he's been using. Would M thank him for being here all this time, accomplishing nothing, turning into a hollow shell of himself? Silva asked him if there was anything left of the man he was - then, the answer was yes, unequivocally. Now, maybe it wouldn't be so clear.

After the shave, he shrugs off his clothes, kicks off khakis and tosses away his tee shirt. When he dresses again, it's in a tailored suit. Part of him thinks it's ridiculous: suits are for occasions, and there are none here. But as he adjusts his collar, he thinks that maybe it's time to make his own occasion.

He hates it here, he realizes. He really hates it here, where he is never on a mission, where he never has the ability to act. Where, left drifting, he acts badly.

In the end, he heads for the deck, for one last, long look at the stars. He's always enjoyed the view, though mostly because it makes him feel small. Now, it convinces him that this is the right decision. This is no place for a man like him.]

[Public]

[When he finally turns the video on, he's still freshly clean-shaven, still wearing a suit. He's leaning on the rail on deck, eyes on the stars before shifting down to the camera.]

I'm heading off.

[He's tempted to leave it there, even shifts his thumb toward the power button. But he pauses and straightens instead, looking around him.]

Never chose to leave, before. [Well, once, but he kept that a secret then and it still is. At least now he has the spine to say something, first.] To be honest, I never should have come back in the first place. Seems I'm not much for authority figures.

[Pathological rejection of authority based on unresolved childhood trauma. It hadn't really surprised him. He knows how he lives his life. He knows how he copes. And he is not built for making deals with unseen men. He's not built for trusting what he can't see.

Bond exhales through his nose.]

I haven't done any good here.

[James is not one to apologize easily, and he's certainly never apologized to his enemies. He doesn't start now, but the admittance is close, as close as he can come. He knows what he did, here, he knows who he hurt, and he knows he hurt people he never intended by failing to think things through. For that, he's sorry. But it's too general for him to put into words, requires more eloquence than he has to give.]

I'll be around, for a bit.

[A few hours at most, because there are only a handful he'll seek out, if they don't come to him first. He doesn't bother smiling, but he looks clearer than he has in a while. He's needed elsewhere.]

[Backdated immediately post flood - Bond's camera comes on, and he is absolutely covered in paint of all colors save purple. It's hard to read his expression beneath it - he's half out of breath, half annoyed, half entertained.]

Wankers. Level six should have bagged it.

[There's a beat as he wipes - or tries to - his face on his sleeve. It just smears some more orange across his face.]

Don't think this makes up for a full-bore range.

[And three seconds before he kills the feed, he actually smiles. Let's be real, this is the best flood he's been through.]

[When the video clicks on, Bond moves away from the screen to sit forward on his bed, scooping something off the comforter in the process. The communicator is propped up on a chair in front of him; the cushion is just barely visible at the bottom of the screen. Both his hands are full - in his right is a glass, with two fingers of a dark, orange-gold liquid; scotch, a gift from Pepper for Christmas. He doesn't have much more left.

And in his left hand is a necklace - specifically, an Algerian love knot. His thumb keeps running over it, his attention settled on the necklace like it's the only thing that matters. He isn't drunk, but he might be heading in that direction.]

Before I came here, I was in a bar, in Bolivia. The man I was meeting was CIA, and I suppose as close to a friend as I have. I don't make friends, generally. I have colleagues, and acquaintances, and enemies. Felix is a good man, though. The CIA had a capture or kill order on me, but he gave me the intel I needed. Greene was meeting Medrano at the Perla de las Lunas. That was my chance. That was our chance.

There was a girl, Camille. Former Bolivian secret service. When she was a child, Medrano killed her father, raped her sister and mother and killed them, too, all in front of her. He set fire to the house, and left her to die with her family. [This isn't just rote information; he sounds in control, but there's anger, under the surface.] Orphans make the best agents. She escaped, obviously. I don't know how long she's waited for this opportunity. [Because he doesn't know exactly how old she is or was, but.]

I wanted her to have her revenge. Because I don't think I'll have mine.

[He takes a long drink, glances down at the necklace, and stands to pocket it. On his way back down, he grabs the communicator, holding it up to eye level now. He holds up the glass - there's less than a finger left now - contemplating it.]

I think I've started drinking too much. That's part of being a double-oh, you know - drinking. So many covers require blending into high stakes environments. But it's different, here. Everything's sedentary. I feel it more.

[He knocks back the rest of the glass with a vague shrug.] But it's better than grieving.

Let's lighten the mood some, shall we? Ivy told me, on my first day here, that I'm featured in a series of books, and movies. Tell me about them. I think they might be absurd fiction, but I'm concerned there will be a degree of accuracy that I'm extremely uncomfortable with.

[Sup Barge. Here's a funny thing you might have noticed, if you've been in port and paying attention to the news: there was a break in and, so news anchors say, attempted burglary at an affluent townhouse. A blurry camera image has been making the rounds, and a police sketch, and you know what?

Both of those pictures look a lot like James Bond.

Yeah, the second he recognized London, he headed for MI6 and couldn't even get past the lobby. So, he went for M's apartment. Which, in this world, was definitely not M's apartment.

It all kind of went downhill from there.

The past almost forty-eight hours have largely been spent awake and avoiding cameras and cops. Which is really not an easy thing, do you have any idea how many CCTVs there are in a city? All in all, nowhere near his worst two days, but definitely, definitely not his best. There's nothing quite like hope dangling in your face only to see it ripped away.

He doesn't bother with a video this time, just clicks on the audio function; he sounds short, maybe even tired, and there's an edge that really just says he's not in the mood for anything.]

I need money.

[He knows you wardens have cards. He is fully planning to take one, he just needs to pick a target. And no, he's not going to mention is foray as a wanted man because it's really not that new to him.]