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Finally back in his own flat, Bond welcomed the falling dusk as he easily navigated the familiar surroundings despite the dwindling daylight. He didn’t bother with the lights, all he wanted was to wash off the grime and dust of endless travelling. The long shower he took felt luxurious, but despite having scrubbed himself raw with hot water, did nothing to make him feel clean. The feeling would fade, he knew, but he hated this part of the post-mission crash. There was never any dignity in confronting one’s reflection in the mirror after a kill.
Streetlights outside the small, high-set windows turned on, flooding the unlit bathroom with a soft, yellowish glow. It illuminated half of his face in the mirror, drawing sharp edges and casting the right side in deep shadow.
There he met his true self, staring back at him with unflinching seriousness.
The two faces of James Bond.
He wanted to smash the mirror.
That’s something Alec would’ve done, so he didn’t.
It had been three days since he’d left Natalya Simonova at the airport in Kingston and boarded another flight back home to London. He’d needed the time in his island paradise, soaking in the sun, and the warmth of a willing body. They’d spent a full month there, both perhaps working in their own ways to come to terms with what had happened in Cuba, and long before that. Bond had never been prone to building castles in the sky; he didn’t delude himself by thinking any of these flings would become a permanent refuge. It never worked that way. Still, it didn’t stop him from enjoying the good things in life – sometimes as a reward, more often an escape, even if he’d barely admitted it to himself. Always resorting to the superficial to drown out the internal, when it became too much to bear.
And this time it was more unbearable than ever. Even after a month of mulling it over, he wasn’t sure if he’d subconsciously known something about Alec that his mind so far had refused to acknowledge. Either way, he’d shared his life with a traitor and let him in like no lover, no family member ever. He’d worked side by side with him, killed for him, saved him and been saved. He’d mourned a dead friend, the dearest of them all. Still mourned him, every second.
He’d considered them equals, mirror images of each other.
Of course, that mirror had shattered forever back in Archangelsk.
He
should
have known.
This realisation cuts him deeper every time he thinks of it. He should have known. Alec had finally made him see the truth that he’d denied for years.
“For England, James?”
“No. For me.”
In the end, he’d killed Alec for his own pride. Not in revenge, he’s professional enough to not find any satisfaction in petty acts of revenge. He’d killed Alec because to do anything else would not have offered him the closure he desperately needed. He’d needed to sweep away the shards of the broken mirror, each reflecting only a slice of the truth that didn’t make any sense without the whole picture.
Now the image was complete in his mind and everything made sense, a fitting end to an epic. But at what cost?
Alec surviving and hating him —and being entirely justified— would have slowly killed him. Would saving him have been the right thing to do, regardless? A useless thought exercise, Bond knew. If he'd offered his hand to pull Alec up at that last moment, Alec would have laughed and let go just to spite him
.
It had all been determined in Archangelsk. They had both chosen their final paths there. And he had known. Well, to be fair, he’d suspected more than consciously known that Alec had turned on him. Had acted on that suspicion, because there was never any room for indecision.
He’d reset the timers; three minutes instead of six.
He hadn’t counted on Alec surviving the blasts and confirming if he’d been right.
He’d do anything for Alec, to bring him back, given the chance. Just as he’d kill Janus over and over again because there was no other choice.
A spy and a government-sanctioned assassin was, by definition, always a two-faced creature.
But for them – for Bond himself, and Alec Trevelyan, it wasn’t merely a requirement of the job. The shadow on his face was as permanent as the scarring he was responsible for on Alec’s. As much a part of him. He might walk in broad daylight and it’d still be there, unseen by people just because he was very good at what he did for a living.
He pretended.
Alec would have smashed the mirror, so he didn’t. How pretentious.
He did the opposite, as always, because deep down they were more than similar —they were the same.
He’d rather kill than be killed.