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het_reccersFandom Category: James Bond (Craig)
Pairing: Eve Moneypenny/James Bond (as much as you see it in "Skyfall")
Fic Title: Heart-Shaped Stone
Author: seriousfic
Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/569063
Rating/Warning(s): teen and up, spoilers for Skyfall
Genre: movie-related missing scenes
WIP?: no
Why This Must Be Read: Insta-rec, and it's sorta cheating because it's not quite a shippy fic. Well, it's a shippy as the movie, which straddles a line. Eve is going to be the first female 00. Okay, this is an absolutely gorgeous look at Moneypenny. Like I said, the Moneypenny/Bond tones are as apparent as it was in the movie, but mostly this is about Eve and her place inside MI6. How she sees Bond, M, the others, herself. Wonderful prose. It's just very, very well written that I knew I was going to rec it only halfway through reading the story. If that isn't an endorsement to read this, then I don't know what is.
The new job thickened her skin right quick. No one made it easy for her, Mallory because it wasn't his nature and the others because she'd killed their golden boy. She didn't care. They couldn't think worse of her than she did, so she did the bloody job and let them and their stares go hang.
She ended up redeeming herself in their eyes in what had to be the stupidest way possible. Bond just walked back into MI6. He looked the worse for wear, but she'd have expected a zombie. He was still wearing a tie! Mallory, thankfully, announced the news himself. M stayed holed up in her office, everyone trying hard not to glance at the door.
It was the first good news since they'd moved into the old bomb shelter, and no one held a grudge against Eve in their delirium. She actually got clapped on the back as the champagne was poured out, like she'd willed the bullet not to actually take Bond's life. She let herself have a drink.
Her therapist had told her she should write a letter to James, back when he was dead. She hadn't. It'd seemed too personal. They'd been acquaintances on the rare occasions they were both at headquarters, worked together for mere minutes in Istanbul, then… the train. Now she wished she'd written that letter, if only so she had some idea of what to say. She thought of pulling him aside, privately apologizing to him.
Even then, the rumors were circulating that his recovery process was women and wine, as the admiring males put it. She wasn't surprised. But still, she felt she owed him something, that there was something incomplete between them. Like… a blood transfusion had been started and not finished. Eve wondered if he had that same feel of absence. Or did a man like that even notice.
But then she saw him, wearily making his way through the underground at M's side, the loyal guard dog, now showing signs of having been kicked too many times. And she just knew he didn't care. Maybe he didn't care about anything. Sure, in the field, he'd been engaged, he was alive, he was surviving, but take away the gun and the cars and the blood… what was he doing then? Existing? Sleeping?
They finally ran across each other. The sleeping dragon stirred in its sleep. She didn't remember quite what she said to him. She remembered being very cool and subtle, staring into his eyes and almost wishing he'd scream at her for putting a bullet hole in one of his impeccable suits. But it didn't make a difference to him. The chill in the air was between Bond and M; Eve didn't factor into it. She was just a weapon that'd misfired.
How could people see each other like that? How could they divvy a room up into people who were real and people who didn't matter? How could they judge the difference by murders and plots and card games? It didn't make sense to her.
Then he was woken up, sent back into the field. Eve couldn't shake the feeling that this was the burial, not the sparely attended ceremony in the heart of London without so much as a body for his home soil to take back. She tried to put him out of her mind, but Mallory had taken a keen interest in 007. Bond's file made its way across his desk, and therefore across Eve's. As someone who might laughably be referred to as Bond's comrade-in-arms, Mallory let her see it, wanting her insight.
There were thirty confirmed kills in his record. Those were just the ones that MI6 kept track of. People like Patrice or Ronson, fake people, employees, they weren't asked about and Bond didn't share. And even thirty wasn't a real number, because there were rumors. When he'd first started out, Bond had practically been a rogue agent, shooting up South America like a madman. There'd been a villain found in the desert with a mouth full of oil. Everyone knew Bond had done it. No one cared.
Those were the kills that mattered. The ones Bond had thought about. Dwelled on. Lived with. Then, at some point, he became a company man. He stopped thinking about pulling the trigger. It stopped being his life and started being his job. And that balance, of martinis and girls and gunshots, somehow evened out. It was acceptable.
Eve couldn't fathom it.
Pairing: Eve Moneypenny/James Bond (as much as you see it in "Skyfall")
Fic Title: Heart-Shaped Stone
Author: seriousfic
Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/569063
Rating/Warning(s): teen and up, spoilers for Skyfall
Genre: movie-related missing scenes
WIP?: no
Why This Must Be Read: Insta-rec, and it's sorta cheating because it's not quite a shippy fic. Well, it's a shippy as the movie, which straddles a line. Eve is going to be the first female 00. Okay, this is an absolutely gorgeous look at Moneypenny. Like I said, the Moneypenny/Bond tones are as apparent as it was in the movie, but mostly this is about Eve and her place inside MI6. How she sees Bond, M, the others, herself. Wonderful prose. It's just very, very well written that I knew I was going to rec it only halfway through reading the story. If that isn't an endorsement to read this, then I don't know what is.
The new job thickened her skin right quick. No one made it easy for her, Mallory because it wasn't his nature and the others because she'd killed their golden boy. She didn't care. They couldn't think worse of her than she did, so she did the bloody job and let them and their stares go hang.
She ended up redeeming herself in their eyes in what had to be the stupidest way possible. Bond just walked back into MI6. He looked the worse for wear, but she'd have expected a zombie. He was still wearing a tie! Mallory, thankfully, announced the news himself. M stayed holed up in her office, everyone trying hard not to glance at the door.
It was the first good news since they'd moved into the old bomb shelter, and no one held a grudge against Eve in their delirium. She actually got clapped on the back as the champagne was poured out, like she'd willed the bullet not to actually take Bond's life. She let herself have a drink.
Her therapist had told her she should write a letter to James, back when he was dead. She hadn't. It'd seemed too personal. They'd been acquaintances on the rare occasions they were both at headquarters, worked together for mere minutes in Istanbul, then… the train. Now she wished she'd written that letter, if only so she had some idea of what to say. She thought of pulling him aside, privately apologizing to him.
Even then, the rumors were circulating that his recovery process was women and wine, as the admiring males put it. She wasn't surprised. But still, she felt she owed him something, that there was something incomplete between them. Like… a blood transfusion had been started and not finished. Eve wondered if he had that same feel of absence. Or did a man like that even notice.
But then she saw him, wearily making his way through the underground at M's side, the loyal guard dog, now showing signs of having been kicked too many times. And she just knew he didn't care. Maybe he didn't care about anything. Sure, in the field, he'd been engaged, he was alive, he was surviving, but take away the gun and the cars and the blood… what was he doing then? Existing? Sleeping?
They finally ran across each other. The sleeping dragon stirred in its sleep. She didn't remember quite what she said to him. She remembered being very cool and subtle, staring into his eyes and almost wishing he'd scream at her for putting a bullet hole in one of his impeccable suits. But it didn't make a difference to him. The chill in the air was between Bond and M; Eve didn't factor into it. She was just a weapon that'd misfired.
How could people see each other like that? How could they divvy a room up into people who were real and people who didn't matter? How could they judge the difference by murders and plots and card games? It didn't make sense to her.
Then he was woken up, sent back into the field. Eve couldn't shake the feeling that this was the burial, not the sparely attended ceremony in the heart of London without so much as a body for his home soil to take back. She tried to put him out of her mind, but Mallory had taken a keen interest in 007. Bond's file made its way across his desk, and therefore across Eve's. As someone who might laughably be referred to as Bond's comrade-in-arms, Mallory let her see it, wanting her insight.
There were thirty confirmed kills in his record. Those were just the ones that MI6 kept track of. People like Patrice or Ronson, fake people, employees, they weren't asked about and Bond didn't share. And even thirty wasn't a real number, because there were rumors. When he'd first started out, Bond had practically been a rogue agent, shooting up South America like a madman. There'd been a villain found in the desert with a mouth full of oil. Everyone knew Bond had done it. No one cared.
Those were the kills that mattered. The ones Bond had thought about. Dwelled on. Lived with. Then, at some point, he became a company man. He stopped thinking about pulling the trigger. It stopped being his life and started being his job. And that balance, of martinis and girls and gunshots, somehow evened out. It was acceptable.
Eve couldn't fathom it.
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