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[Ringringringing]

[Ah--just a moment, the phone is currently attached to a nest of wires--there we are--??--]

Bond. [If Q is relieved, you'll never know it from his tone.]

Hello, Q.

[Bond's letting a very, very vague amount of fondness creep in to those simple words.]

[Dear God. If Q were a lesser (or perhaps simply more emotive) man, he might have smiled properly, but as it is, his mouth just turns up the smallest bit at the corners. Not that James will know, of course, because his reply is full of chastisement.]

It certainly took you long enough, 007.

[It's okay. Bond knows, deep down, that Q is happy. Who wouldn't be happy to see him?]

Good to hear you too.

[This list would probably be a lot longer if we counted dead people.]

I was beginning to think your knees were going to give out before you got everything sorted. [All the vomiting and such.]

[A beat.]

Is it finished, then? [He assumes that if it is, Bond will know what he means. Silva, M -- all of it.]

Mm. It's done. [Some reluctance. The outcome wasn't exactly what he wanted, but the job got done.]

What's the last thing you remember?

Good. [He sits a little more easily, relaxing just a fraction in his spot on the floor.]

Miss Moneypenny was going to find you on the roof. I was packing up in the bunker. [His tone suggests that he was unsure which was the more odious task.] There were bricks everywhere. [It's clear that he blames this on you. They had had to repair the tube tunnels, of course, and cordon off the tunnels and hatches and escapes that Silva had known about and the dust. He was going to have to dismantle everything and clean it.]

Ah. Then we've caught up at last. Lachesis thought she'd rather piss me about for the last few months, I suppose. [He doesn't sound too happy about it, but has the sort of resignation reserved to a man who knows he can't do anything about it.]

Well, you're certainly not as quick as you used to be. [It's taken rather longer for him to catch up than Q would have liked. He doesn't mention it further than that, having no real reason or desire to bring up M or her choices.]

It's quite rude, for a machine. [They'd gotten into a bit of an altercation, Q and Lachesis, on the subject of his name, and he'd come away feeling rather poorly about its (her) disposition, and whoever had had the ill manners to create the stupid thing in the first place.] Though if I were an omnipotent machine, I might have done worse. [He sniffs, balancing the phone on his shoulder and untangling a mess of cables. James Bond was rather rude himself. In general.]

Now, are you going to be honest with me about this place, or are we going to have to play twenty questions and russian roulette again? [There's the distinctive series of clicks as Q unplugs a (now gloriously complete) gun from a skeleton computer and fits the pieces back in place.]

[James is carefully listening to all those little background sounds, sketching a picture in his mind of Q's current activities. It's something he's always done over the phone, just in case something sounds out of place, in case there's foreign sounds, in case there's strain in Q's voice, in case there's someone else there that shouldn't be. Paranoia is something every agent gets used to in time.]

I know you now. [Said with a slight duh tone, as if it's obvious he's going to be better behaved now.] I'll answer what I can, but I don't know what help I can be.

Good. [He stretches, feeling vertebrae pop in place.] I've just finished a Walther [not your Walther] and it would have been a shame if I'd had to get it dirty so quickly. [Some people were nervous eaters. Q was a nervous gunsmith. Not that he'd been nervous, but he doesn't like to loose track of things.]

I'll want to compare notes as soon as possible. [And his notes are considerable. Obviously not over the phone, and certainly not over this phone, odious little thing that it is, but soon.]

Of course you will. [Hopefully these are metaphorical notes, because Bond doesn't believe in writing anything down... He does, however, believe in guns, like really useful palm coded Walthers. He wouldn't mind one of those again, even if his previous one lasted him all of a few days. It saved his ass though.]

What's the computer situation like for you, Q?