M's Office Hours, Thursday (04/12)

[mi6_m]

The end of the semester was creeping closer, and M found herself busy with preparing the final exam for her class and catching up on agency business. She'd already started taking up the reins again, and was in fact at that moment on her phone and busily typing at her laptop, discussing the activities of a suspected weapons dealer with her assistant

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[l1ttle_billy]

Billy knocked on M's door. He'd missed the last week or so. Hopefully she wouldn't shoot him.

[mi6_m]

M never shot anyone. She had people who took care of those sorts of things for her.

She looked up at the knock, and nodded toward Billy. "Come in, Kessler."

[l1ttle_billy]

"Ma'am." Billy nodded. "How are you?"

[mi6_m]

"I'm well, Kessler, thank you for asking," M replied, waving him toward the chair.

"So then, bring me up to date. I haven't had any calls or visits regarding you, so unlike some of my students I have to assume you've managed to keep yourself out of trouble."

[l1ttle_billy]

Or not get caught at any rate. "I have. The nature of Fandom has kept things interesting, but I've not had too many problems." He sat. He still felt ill at ease here. Her poking at his cover story and her apparent resources had him worried.

[mi6_m]

M could sense his unease, since that was a tool she generally used to her advantage. But she also decided that, as one of her students, she ought to be giving Billy a little bit more reason to trust her. Whether or not he chose to do so would, of course, be his call.

"I want you to understand something, Kessler. I've been doing some investigation into your background, and I imagine I know more than you'd probably like. But that also means that I know enough not to hold your associations against you. You're a good student, and you don't seem to be troublemaker. Or at least you're good enough at it to not wind up getting caught, which in my line of work is generally a lot more useful. So I'm going to offer you a deal. Don't try to lie to me or hide things from me, and I'll make an effort to answer your questions -- the ones that aren't classified, at any rate."

[ooc: Because "unease" is a better word than "disease".]

[l1ttle_billy]

Billy thought about that. And then had to try to phrase the question. "All right. May I ask Ma'am, who do you work for?"

[mi6_m]

That was a good place to start, M thought. At the beginning, get the basics.

"MI-6, which is the intelligence branch of the British government. Our version of your CIA."

She'd discovered that not everyone here knew what MI-6 was, or called it by the same name. So better to give a little too much information in this case, than not enough.

[l1ttle_billy]

"Oh." Billy said, relaxing visibly. "Wow. And you're teaching high school?"

[mi6_m]

"Only temporarily. I'm on sabbatical."

M said the word as if it was something distasteful.

[l1ttle_billy]

"Not exactly by choice?"

[mi6_m]

M raised an eyebrow. There wasn't much she didn't do by choice, but Billy had a point.

"It wasn't my idea, but the PM felt that I had earned a vacation. Whatever gave him the idea that teaching at an American high school would be anything like a vacation I do not know," she answered drly.

[l1ttle_billy]

Billy snickered. "Clearly he's never dealt with the average American teenager."

[mi6_m]

"No, I would say he has not," M agreed. "My agents have nothing on you lot when it comes to consciously setting yourselves up for trouble. Or for being secretive, and absolutely certain you're invincible."

She raised an eyebrow, and then added, " I wonder what they would do if I tried giving them detention."

[l1ttle_billy]

"Your agents? Depends on who you got to run the detention."

[mi6_m]

"It would be as much punishment for me as for them if I had to do it," M replied, with something that was almost humor. "Maybe I'll call in a few of you students to do it for me."