If anyone had been awake at precisely 2:56 a.m. that lonely Saturday morning, they might have noticed that something was wrong. Then again, if anyone had been awake, they'd have heard the tremendous crash of the door to the flat down the hall and would perhaps have even thought to contact the police. But there was no one there. They'd made sure of it long before they went after their target, the scrawny, dark-haired man who had just been thrown against his door, causing the whole thing to shatter and send him falling backward into the hall, stunned, with blood seeping from his hairline.

Even through his half-conscious state, Q could tell that these men were more than your average intruders. Each was heavily armed, wearing protective body armor, and had somehow managed to crack even his best security measures. They'd come in silently while he'd been working, managed to not even wake the cats, and grab him before he knew they were there. He had not time to call for help and, in the struggle, his laptop had been smashed, meaning even if he did get away, he couldn't contact anyone. They knew exactly what they were doing and what they were after, and he had the feeling that, whatever it was, he wasn't going to like its results. But he couldn't run. He couldn't even stand up, and every nerve in his body felt on fire.

Before Q could recover enough to move, he heard the distinct sound of a gun being loaded near his head. A Glock by the way the cartridge was loaded. "Get up," the voice snapped. A fist grabbed a fistful of his shirt and drug him up. He squeaked in terror, his feet swinging limply in the air. His glasses sat so askew that he could see nothing out of them. The intruder's faces were just blurs to him and were useless for identification later. Assuming he lived long enough to identify them. The man holding him leaned in as though to be sure. Q grimaced and frantically felt his pockets for anything he could use as a weapon. But he wasn't like Bond. He didn't carry a pistol around with him everywhere. He hated shooting them even more.

To his luck, his fingers brushed against his lone creation, an ink pen. He almost smiled to himself. Imbedded within the ball of the pen was a dagger. He'd intended to give it to Moneypenny for her birthday before the double-oh program had been shut down by C. Now, he carried it everywhere with him. Just in case.

As he started to take it from his pocket, however, he felt the grip on his shirt loosen and his brief moment of relief quickly vanished as the man elected to grab him by the throat and shove him up against the wall instead. He choked as the pressure increased, wheezing, desperately trying to inhale. "Drop it," his captor spat icily. When Q didn't react immediately, the man tightened his grip. The hacker brought his hands up to try weakly to pry the vice-grip away. Already he could see the darkness overtaking the outer edges of his vision. "I said drop it!"

Q obeyed, his heart sinking as he heard the clink of the pen hitting the ground, along with any hope he had of escaping. It was getting harder to breathe now, and it looked like the man had no intention of letting him go any time soon. "Please…" he wheezed, eyes widening as he realized he couldn't feel his hands anymore. "I…don't…I don't…" He blinked, struggling to stay awake. "Know…a-any…thing."

A laugh echoed from a second figure. Q tried to twist his head to see where it had come from but couldn't. He flicked his gaze to behind the man holding him, making out a dark blur which he assumed was another person. Q tried to twist his head to see where it had come from but couldn't. He flicked his gaze to behind the man holding him, making out a dark blur which he assumed was another person. "You're lying," came a voice. Definitely female from what Q could tell. It took all of two words for him to know that this woman was cocky, arrogant, and, as much as he feared to say it, almost if not smarter than him. "You work for MI6. Their Quartermaster." She took a step toward him and he squinted, trying to see more than just her blond hair. "Surely you don't take us for fools, Quinten Miller?"

Q felt himself freeze at the use of his real name. How had they found him out? His name was so classified that not even M knew it! He stared at them with a new sense of dread. If they knew who he was, what else did they know?

The woman had apparently seen enough. "Let him go," she snapped at the man who released Q rather reluctantly. The hacker hit the ground on all fours, heaving, disheveled, and utterly disoriented. "There, there," the woman went on, crouching down beside him and patting him on the back in a kind of creepy reassuring way. "Can't rightly kill you can I?" she hissed in his ear. "Not when you can be of much more value to us alive."

Q shook his head quickly, refusing to look up at her.

"'No'?" the woman pretended to be confused. "'No' what?"

"Whatever you want...me...to do...I won't...do it." Q tried to sound confident but his voice came out in a pathetic squeak instead.

The woman laughed. It was a truly awful sound. "Oh," she hissed. "Oh, I think you will." And then, to the man. "Serge, take care of him." Her voice was cruel, empty, heartless. She wasn't afraid to kill him if he didn't do what she wanted. And he wasn't about to compromise MI6 for any number of door-smashing, laptop-killing, smart-aleck, terrorists.

He caught a glimpse of a shadow moving from his right and he reacted almost on instinct, swinging around to punch the man in the face. It took a whole second for the situation to turn against him. The man sidestepped the strike, caught his fist mid-punch, twisted his wrist into a painful angle, and flipped the quartermaster over his shoulder. Q hit the ground, groaning. He heard the man pull the trigger and he hastily rolled away, feeling the bullet collide against the tile near his head.

He scanned the hall frantically, searching for something to use to defend himself. His eyes fell on his pen which, in the skirmish, had been kicked against a wall. The woman followed his gaze. They both spotted the pen at the same time. Both lunged for it. Q got there first, feeling a wave of relief wash over him as he rolled over and pushed the end, releasing the dagger. He stumbled to his feet, pointing the pen warningly at the two.

The woman laughed. "Clever," she hissed. "But not clever enough." She turned to her partner. "Kill him."

There was a gunshot and Q felt his body falling backward. His hand opened and he dropped the knife. He didn't know immediately what had happened. For a minute, his brain shut down and the pain was slow in coming. Once it hit, however, it was like a tidal wave. He felt the warm sticky trickle of blood erupt from his shoulder and the nausea followed seconds later. He'd been shot. Luckily, it seemed the man was a bad shot and had the important organs.

"You fool!" the woman screamed. There was a shuffle of moment where Q guessed she'd taken the gun from her henchman. "How could you miss? I thought you were highly trained! Never mind! Get out of the way. I'll do it myself."

Q couldn't move. He could feel the pain shoot through the rest of his body, and, as his eyes slowly closed for what he guessed would be the last time, the only reassuring thing that came to him was: at least MI6 is safe.

There was the sound of a door crashing down the hall. Guns cocked. Shots rang out. Shouting ensued. He didn't hear the gunshots from his right. He didn't hear the return fire. He didn't even notice when someone gingerly lifted him into their arms and carried him away from his flat. He could barely hear the quiet and fearful voice of his rescuer.

"Stay with me, Q. We're here now. We've got you. You're going to be alright."

Moneypenny. Q wanted to warn her, to warn MI6. They were all in danger. Everyone. What had those people wanted? It was simple. Some people where not who they said they were. It was something that everyone in the double-oh program understood. Him included. After all, he had a few secrets of his own. Secrets that, if revealed, could endanger the lives of everyone he'd begun to consider his friends. The only trouble was, as soon as he was patched up, he knew M would be pounding at his door, demanding answers. But what could he tell him? The last M had known his past when she'd 'hired' him. She had known the risks and had made a desperate gamble on him. It had proven to be a good decision, if for MI6 and not her.

Still, he knew it was all his fault. He should have known better than trusting anyone. It was the same story every time. Get too close, make friends, end up burying them. Some said he was too antisocial, preferring to hide behind a screen. In reality, it was just safer. No one could get hurt from a computer and no one's blood would be on his hands.

He'd heard for years that giving up some secrets could be releasing, but, as he'd proven on many occasions, some could get you killed.