Casino Royale Fic: the key to the city
the key to the city vesper, m, pg
the truth is that it’s not the world they want. it's always been about what to need. spoilers for casino royale. 1,692 words.
notes: happy christmas, or post-christmas, first! and an update later, i promise. this is for gracelessheart and it's has been sitting on my desktop for a little bit due to the copious amounts of bond watching that i love to do. and wine. and a conversation about the women in bond films. so here we are. happy holidays, love.
-
They bring her lunch in the early afternoon. It is something close to toast and tea and all resting next to a single rose.
When M sits by her bed, she straightens the vase on the tray.
“He’s alive, you know.”
Vesper looks up. There are wires weaving under her hospital gown. She is attached to a few machines by her wrist and alive merely for a span of a few weeks. There is no such thing as counting herself lucky; when M says alive, she knows that she is not talking about Bond.
“Yusef?” she manages to ask instead, and shifts back over her pillows, her fingers curling in the blankets. The toast suddenly appears to be cold. A nurse enters quickly but only to open a window off on the side of the room.
After she leaves, M nods. “Yes,” she says.
There is no sure way to understand how any of this has happened.
What Vesper knows is only resting within a few calendar days, which have manifested into weeks and more than a few months. She is alive and she shouldn’t be. Her memories are restricted to a few bits: James, James and the elevator, and then the sensation of the water starting to swallow her lungs.
There are times too, times where she thinks M is waiting for her to ask. But Vesper does not trust herself, then or now or any ideas within reason.
“Some tea?”
Today they have brought her outside. She wears a robe over her needles and wires. There are no machines until she returns inside but a medicine bag hangs over her shoulder. The hospital itself mirrors a castle of the sorts, and underneath the grounds, lays the ocean and then the sand. It’s as the stage was set to mock her, to remind her as a day-to-day occasion. Sometimes she thinks of walking. Sometimes she even wants to believe that they’d let her go.
“It’s quite good,” she catches herself say. Vesper smiles lightly too. “I’ve become rather fond of this tea.”
Her fingers curl around her cup. She does not pick it up.
“No, no thank you,” M says. “Another day, perhaps, within reasonable time, of course; it’s the service, you know, and with the service, there’s never much time for anything but the service itself.”
“Of course,” she says.
Vesper studies M. There is something unintentionally regal about the other woman, almost intimidating and delicate in a way. It fascinates her to no end, and scares her in another; there is no doubt in her mind that her fate is tied to the decision of the MI-6 boss.
There is also too much that is unclear. It makes her nervous.
“He’s angry.”
M is watching her through her sunglasses. She shifts out of her chair and stands, moving away from the table. The woman slides her hands into her pockets and rests a gaze into the beach. There is a wall in front of her, stone woven into an assortment of roses and other flowers. The view is almost kind.
“He’s angry,” M repeats. “Angrier than I have seen in a long time - of course, I have you to thank for this particular predicament. I haven’t decided how I’d like to master the situation, but perhaps it might be somewhat a favor to me.”
It chills her. She picks up her tea and takes a quiet sip. Her lips feel tight and dry as she looks away.
“Bond,” she murmurs and stops.
“Yes. He’s gone on quite the charge. I never understand men and their sudden desire to avenge. But here we are, and I’m quite afraid that he might … well, we will see.”
“He doesn’t know?”
“Should I tell him?” M counters, and smiles too; her teeth are white and sharp, pressed against her lip as she rests her chin over her hand. Vesper feels herself tense and shift in her seat, looking away and out into the water. She feels cornered again.
This is not their first conversation. Her time with M and her time with MI-6 seems to be a long and promised road. It has yet to be revealed what exactly they want with her. Of course, Vesper understands that all her ties draw her to the Quantum. This is all she knows.
“If that is what you think is best,” she says and her voice is sharp, but as if she were a child reacting to scolding. M smiles with amusement, but Vesper tries to ignore it. “I’ve done enough,” she adds quietly, “or so it seems.”
M returns to the table. She reaches for the teapot and pours herself a cup, picking up the saucer and settling in the chair next to Vesper. She brings the cup to her mouth. The motion is poised and practiced.
“So it seems,” the older woman echoes finally.
There is a smile as a nurse returns to them, a note in hand and a small plastic cup in the other. When she reaches the table, Vesper counts three pills: red, yellow, and white.
“I hope your recovery continues to be a successful venture, Ms. Lynd.”
M nods at the nurse. The plastic cup is placed between them. Vesper thinks of Alice and the promise of wonderland.
She says thank you by reaching for her tea.
Mostly she finds herself waiting.
There is the odd conversation with M, M who comes to visit and fills her with the bits of stories about James and James as her conquest. There is nothing for Vesper to say but she listens.
She listens because this is what she lives to do. She listens and thinks of James, thinks of dreaming and drowning, and thinks of the ocean below, waiting for her to make a decision.
Vesper wonders if M is waiting too.
A car waits in the driveway. There are suitcases sitting down on the bottom of the stairs and agents walking to them.
“Where will I go?”
She asks, months later, with color in her cheeks and the sudden, strange indulgence to laugh. The doctors still tell her things like you’re lucky to be alive and the nurses smile with miracles. There are things that Vesper still finds funny and things that she thinks James might find funny too.
She no longer thinks of him as loving her back. She just knows she hasn’t stop.
“Go?” M asks.
Vesper studies the other woman, clutching at the folds of her coat. M watches her curiously and with some amusement too, nodding at the agents as they come for her bags. In front of them, the entranceway opens to stone and gravel, an entire yard that seems to remain untouched.
There are cars too, folded into a lot off to the side. The illusion of patients remains attached to signs and the door behind her. It’s the gardens and the ocean the reminds all of them that they’re hidden. Once, Vesper wondered if there were others like her too. It’s easy to believe.
“I imagine somewhere,” Vesper continues and shrugs. “Unless, of course, this is the part where I start to assume you are to kill me.”
M laughs. There is no comfort to sound.
“Such a sweet girl,” she says, shaking her head. She turns her gaze out into the driveway, watching the agents pack her bags into the car. Vesper imagines somewhere far, and hopes to be away from the water, away from the memories and the cities. She has no choice anymore.
The car doors startle her though. One of the agents climbs into the car and the other walks over to them, offering a hand to Vesper. Vesper sighs and tightens her hand into a fist, still over her coat as she looks back to M.
“Goodbye then.”
M nods. “Goodbye,” she replies and then steps back into the frame of the doorway. “I trust you will have a safe journey,” she says, “and that you and I will see each other again, Ms. Lynd.”
It’s a promise. “Perhaps,” she murmurs.
There is a long list of cities in the following years, in ten years where she’s lived in the same city as James and her family, her friends, and people who lined up to bury her months into her stay at the hospital.
There is Paris though. She is older and somewhat wiser and wears that to the market, dressed in a long coat and carries her basket out of her apartment. She walks slowly as if she knew she was being followed; there are habits that are still harder to lose, some she thinks she learned from all those strange conversations with M those years ago.
When she reaches the market, she starts to smile.
There are wrinkles in her mouth as she weaves through people and their conversations. She sees families and longs, girlfriends and tourists and all sorts of people that she’s come to know living here, that have made it too easy for her to disappear and live her life.
She finds a spot at a fruit stand.
There is a row of apples in front of her. She picks one up and brings it to her nose, inhaling softly. A vendor comes to great her, smiling as she asks for a bag and then searches for more things to bring home.
Behind her, a child laughs. Someone else yells mama! and she stops to listen.
“Strawberries,” he says next from next to her.
Her eyes close just as the vendor hands her the apples for the basket. She can feel him next to her - James, she allows herself to think. His arm brushes her arm and there is a heaviness that settles into her shoulders.
“She likes strawberries,” he tells the vendor again.
Vesper forces herself to cough. “They are not in season,” she says and can feel her hands begin to shake. She smiles weakly at the vendor who disappears to finish ringing her purchase.
As she turns to him, Bond stops her with a steady hand on her arm.
“Vesper,” he greets. This is M.
the truth is that it’s not the world they want. it's always been about what to need. spoilers for casino royale. 1,692 words.
notes: happy christmas, or post-christmas, first! and an update later, i promise. this is for gracelessheart and it's has been sitting on my desktop for a little bit due to the copious amounts of bond watching that i love to do. and wine. and a conversation about the women in bond films. so here we are. happy holidays, love.
-
They bring her lunch in the early afternoon. It is something close to toast and tea and all resting next to a single rose.
When M sits by her bed, she straightens the vase on the tray.
“He’s alive, you know.”
Vesper looks up. There are wires weaving under her hospital gown. She is attached to a few machines by her wrist and alive merely for a span of a few weeks. There is no such thing as counting herself lucky; when M says alive, she knows that she is not talking about Bond.
“Yusef?” she manages to ask instead, and shifts back over her pillows, her fingers curling in the blankets. The toast suddenly appears to be cold. A nurse enters quickly but only to open a window off on the side of the room.
After she leaves, M nods. “Yes,” she says.
There is no sure way to understand how any of this has happened.
What Vesper knows is only resting within a few calendar days, which have manifested into weeks and more than a few months. She is alive and she shouldn’t be. Her memories are restricted to a few bits: James, James and the elevator, and then the sensation of the water starting to swallow her lungs.
There are times too, times where she thinks M is waiting for her to ask. But Vesper does not trust herself, then or now or any ideas within reason.
“Some tea?”
Today they have brought her outside. She wears a robe over her needles and wires. There are no machines until she returns inside but a medicine bag hangs over her shoulder. The hospital itself mirrors a castle of the sorts, and underneath the grounds, lays the ocean and then the sand. It’s as the stage was set to mock her, to remind her as a day-to-day occasion. Sometimes she thinks of walking. Sometimes she even wants to believe that they’d let her go.
“It’s quite good,” she catches herself say. Vesper smiles lightly too. “I’ve become rather fond of this tea.”
Her fingers curl around her cup. She does not pick it up.
“No, no thank you,” M says. “Another day, perhaps, within reasonable time, of course; it’s the service, you know, and with the service, there’s never much time for anything but the service itself.”
“Of course,” she says.
Vesper studies M. There is something unintentionally regal about the other woman, almost intimidating and delicate in a way. It fascinates her to no end, and scares her in another; there is no doubt in her mind that her fate is tied to the decision of the MI-6 boss.
There is also too much that is unclear. It makes her nervous.
“He’s angry.”
M is watching her through her sunglasses. She shifts out of her chair and stands, moving away from the table. The woman slides her hands into her pockets and rests a gaze into the beach. There is a wall in front of her, stone woven into an assortment of roses and other flowers. The view is almost kind.
“He’s angry,” M repeats. “Angrier than I have seen in a long time - of course, I have you to thank for this particular predicament. I haven’t decided how I’d like to master the situation, but perhaps it might be somewhat a favor to me.”
It chills her. She picks up her tea and takes a quiet sip. Her lips feel tight and dry as she looks away.
“Bond,” she murmurs and stops.
“Yes. He’s gone on quite the charge. I never understand men and their sudden desire to avenge. But here we are, and I’m quite afraid that he might … well, we will see.”
“He doesn’t know?”
“Should I tell him?” M counters, and smiles too; her teeth are white and sharp, pressed against her lip as she rests her chin over her hand. Vesper feels herself tense and shift in her seat, looking away and out into the water. She feels cornered again.
This is not their first conversation. Her time with M and her time with MI-6 seems to be a long and promised road. It has yet to be revealed what exactly they want with her. Of course, Vesper understands that all her ties draw her to the Quantum. This is all she knows.
“If that is what you think is best,” she says and her voice is sharp, but as if she were a child reacting to scolding. M smiles with amusement, but Vesper tries to ignore it. “I’ve done enough,” she adds quietly, “or so it seems.”
M returns to the table. She reaches for the teapot and pours herself a cup, picking up the saucer and settling in the chair next to Vesper. She brings the cup to her mouth. The motion is poised and practiced.
“So it seems,” the older woman echoes finally.
There is a smile as a nurse returns to them, a note in hand and a small plastic cup in the other. When she reaches the table, Vesper counts three pills: red, yellow, and white.
“I hope your recovery continues to be a successful venture, Ms. Lynd.”
M nods at the nurse. The plastic cup is placed between them. Vesper thinks of Alice and the promise of wonderland.
She says thank you by reaching for her tea.
Mostly she finds herself waiting.
There is the odd conversation with M, M who comes to visit and fills her with the bits of stories about James and James as her conquest. There is nothing for Vesper to say but she listens.
She listens because this is what she lives to do. She listens and thinks of James, thinks of dreaming and drowning, and thinks of the ocean below, waiting for her to make a decision.
Vesper wonders if M is waiting too.
A car waits in the driveway. There are suitcases sitting down on the bottom of the stairs and agents walking to them.
“Where will I go?”
She asks, months later, with color in her cheeks and the sudden, strange indulgence to laugh. The doctors still tell her things like you’re lucky to be alive and the nurses smile with miracles. There are things that Vesper still finds funny and things that she thinks James might find funny too.
She no longer thinks of him as loving her back. She just knows she hasn’t stop.
“Go?” M asks.
Vesper studies the other woman, clutching at the folds of her coat. M watches her curiously and with some amusement too, nodding at the agents as they come for her bags. In front of them, the entranceway opens to stone and gravel, an entire yard that seems to remain untouched.
There are cars too, folded into a lot off to the side. The illusion of patients remains attached to signs and the door behind her. It’s the gardens and the ocean the reminds all of them that they’re hidden. Once, Vesper wondered if there were others like her too. It’s easy to believe.
“I imagine somewhere,” Vesper continues and shrugs. “Unless, of course, this is the part where I start to assume you are to kill me.”
M laughs. There is no comfort to sound.
“Such a sweet girl,” she says, shaking her head. She turns her gaze out into the driveway, watching the agents pack her bags into the car. Vesper imagines somewhere far, and hopes to be away from the water, away from the memories and the cities. She has no choice anymore.
The car doors startle her though. One of the agents climbs into the car and the other walks over to them, offering a hand to Vesper. Vesper sighs and tightens her hand into a fist, still over her coat as she looks back to M.
“Goodbye then.”
M nods. “Goodbye,” she replies and then steps back into the frame of the doorway. “I trust you will have a safe journey,” she says, “and that you and I will see each other again, Ms. Lynd.”
It’s a promise. “Perhaps,” she murmurs.
There is a long list of cities in the following years, in ten years where she’s lived in the same city as James and her family, her friends, and people who lined up to bury her months into her stay at the hospital.
There is Paris though. She is older and somewhat wiser and wears that to the market, dressed in a long coat and carries her basket out of her apartment. She walks slowly as if she knew she was being followed; there are habits that are still harder to lose, some she thinks she learned from all those strange conversations with M those years ago.
When she reaches the market, she starts to smile.
There are wrinkles in her mouth as she weaves through people and their conversations. She sees families and longs, girlfriends and tourists and all sorts of people that she’s come to know living here, that have made it too easy for her to disappear and live her life.
She finds a spot at a fruit stand.
There is a row of apples in front of her. She picks one up and brings it to her nose, inhaling softly. A vendor comes to great her, smiling as she asks for a bag and then searches for more things to bring home.
Behind her, a child laughs. Someone else yells mama! and she stops to listen.
“Strawberries,” he says next from next to her.
Her eyes close just as the vendor hands her the apples for the basket. She can feel him next to her - James, she allows herself to think. His arm brushes her arm and there is a heaviness that settles into her shoulders.
“She likes strawberries,” he tells the vendor again.
Vesper forces herself to cough. “They are not in season,” she says and can feel her hands begin to shake. She smiles weakly at the vendor who disappears to finish ringing her purchase.
As she turns to him, Bond stops her with a steady hand on her arm.
“Vesper,” he greets. This is M.