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Bond, James Bond (orbisnonsuficit) wrote in utr_logs,
@ 2008-08-06 13:44:00

Entry tags:

james bond (au), shannon weiss

Who: James Bond (AU) and Shannon Weiss
What: Meeting of lovers who aren't.
Where: A bar in Quantico, Virginia.
When: Wednesday afternoon
Warnings: A little swearing possible, but that's it.
Status: In progress

Bond couldn't remember when he'd been this nervous about meeting someone. In fact, he wasn't sure he'd ever been this apprehensive. The worst of it was that every memory of Shannon-- his Shannon, Bond supposed-- was of how comfortable and at-ease she had always made him. But there would be no stopping his at least getting to meet the woman with her face and her name, but none of the memories he shared.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Bond considered every outlandish scenario he could conceive of, from genetic duplication to brainwashing. He'd keep those concerns to himself, though, shoved into a mental compartment until needed.

The waiter brought his vodka martini, and Bond's icy glare insisted the man stay until Bond could take a sip. He did, pronounced it passable, and dismissed the server with the advice to add just a breath more Kina Lillet to his next glass. When he glanced up to see Shannon Weiss walking through the door, he let out the breath he didn't know he'd been holding and stood up.

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sgc_spybarbie
2008-08-06 04:22 pm UTC (link)

Having slipped out of the office at lunch, Shannon had gone home and changed out of her working business suit. Instead, she's changed into a dress suitable for the afternoon. Red, not too sassy, but something appropriate.

She walked into the bar and gave her name to the host before spotting the man she just knew to be James Bond. She smiled at him, even though it didn't quite reach her eyes. She was more than capable of taking care of herself but knew just as certainly that it wouldn't come to that.

Shannon held out a hand as she approached. "Mr. Bond. A pleasure."

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orbisnonsuficit
2008-08-07 01:23 am UTC (link)

Bond could see it: the slight hesitation, the smallest slip that let him know that at least part of Shannon was on her guard. If she'd have been meeting an Afghani arms dealer or Monacan prince, they would never have noticed. Given their conversation, he supposed it was to be expected.

"Please, call me James," he asked, taking her hand and noting again for the first time the dry, firm confident handshake. Very nearly a man's handshake, he'd always thought and been impressed by.

Gesturing toward a seat for her, Bond took his own. "I'd take the liberty of ordering," he said after a moment's hesitation, "but I'm afraid I might not get it right."

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sgc_spybarbie
2008-08-07 01:32 am UTC (link)

"James," Shannon repeated as she shook his hand.

Slipping into the chair he indicated, Shannon gave her head a slight shake to toss her hair over her shoulder. The movement gave her an extra second to study the man in front of her. Attractive, obviously knew what he was doing, and she was fairly certain she could pick out the weapons on his person.

That was fine with her. Her own pocketbook made a solid thump as she set it on the table and gave him a smile, one that unbeknownst to her, was one that he was used to seeing. Mischievous and coy, she said, "I would have been afraid you would have."

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orbisnonsuficit
2008-08-07 02:07 am UTC (link)

It was all the little details that hit him the hardest. The way she tossed back her hair, the angle of her body as she sat, the sound of her pocketbook settling on the table indicating that she'd brought one of her sidearms with more than sufficient stopping power. But it was the smile that did him in.

Bond drained his martini without a word, cursing the wind that had brought him here and cursing himself just as hard for the effect this woman had on him and everything that implied. He schooled his face back to its self-confident lightness, but if this Shannon was anything like his, there would be no hiding it.

"Then by all means," he told her, "feel free." Bond raised a hand to summon the waiter.

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sgc_spybarbie
2008-08-07 06:33 pm UTC (link)

Shan wasn't even sure what it was that she had done that had set him so on edge. She could make a few guesses, though. The fact that he had been very seriously romantically involved with... well, her, was probably the major problem.

Once the waiter arrived, Shan ordered quickly. Grilled chicken, a small salad and, since she had no intention of going back to the office, a glass of white wine. After the man walked away, she cocked a brow at her dining companion. "Well? Was I me?"

Her smile faltered just a little. It seemed cruel to tease and she stopped, taking a deep breath and leaning forward just a little. "I'm sorry, Mr- James. I didn't mean to cause you any distress."

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orbisnonsuficit
2008-08-08 01:37 am UTC (link)

The condensation-frosted glass was dry, so Bond followed his dinner order-- a small steak but not whatever passed for filet cooked medium rare and mashed potatoes, one of his few favourite American dishes-- with a request for a glass of their best whiskey, neat. "If you're saving anything behind the bar," Bond insisted, "now's the time to air it out."

Bond shook his head at Shannon's apology. The timbre of her voice sounded entirely sincere, and for once, he was willing to take that appearance at face value. "No, no, nothing to be sorry for. I've seen enough since my arrival that I really should accept that you are not who I think you are." Heavy-bottomed, the glass tumbler of amber liquid was set before him. Bond cupped his hands around it.

"And to answer your question: yes. You are you, and no one else, no matter what I might recall."

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sgc_spybarbie
2008-08-08 11:02 pm UTC (link)

"And yet, you seemed to know exactly who I was," Shannon insisted, leaning forward to rest her chin in her hand. "You'll have to forgive me, the work I was involved in before I arrived allowed for..." She visibly searched for the right words, "Well, for futures or pasts to make themselves known."

Another glorious smile. "I can't help but wonder if you know me from another time." She transferred that same smile to the waiter as he brought their drinks. As soon as he'd left, she took a deep breath and became serious again. The man in front of her clearly remembered her from her straight CIA days and nothing to do with the Stargate program. That meant it wasn't later, it had to have been before.

Her expression softened and she took a deep breath. "For what it's worth, it sounds as if she thought very highly of you, too." A pause. "And that she cared deeply."

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orbisnonsuficit
2008-08-09 04:27 am UTC (link)

Bond's face lost just a bit of its façade. Even with all the fantastical things he'd heard and seen since arriving, the thought hadn't crossed his mind-- it was just too far fetched and science fiction for his tastes, but then his entire existence had become science fiction, so why not? "I see," he commented simply. "You've really led quite the career, then."

"I... I suppose it's possible, especially in light of our circumstances."It would explain how there could be a woman so identical, and yet not precisely alike.

"I'd like to think so, but..." Bond lowered his voice, the words taking just a bit more effort than before. "But it really wasn't something we discussed. Things were always very light and casual, at least on the surface." A smile just started to touch his face. "In fact, I remember one time in Hong Kong that you--"

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sgc_spybarbie
2008-08-09 04:38 am UTC (link)

Shannon shook her head again, just enough to allow her hair to fall over her shoulders. "It has to do with solar flares and wormhole physics."

It was the way his face had fallen. Perhaps it wasn't something she was supposed to have noticed or something that he was even aware of, but the way his voice changed and the way the smile barely touched his lips- It reminded her of someone who's hold on themselves was slipping. He'd said light and casual on the surface, but Shannon wondered if he had cared deeper than he wanted to say.

"Hong Kong?" Hoping that her tone was encouraging, she took another sip of her drink. "What happened in Hong Kong?"

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orbisnonsuficit
2008-08-09 12:26 pm UTC (link)

Genuine amusement for a moment. "All a bit over my head. They usually just hand me the gadgets and show me which button to push."

Bond hated this. It was everything he had been trying to keep from happening since Tracy. There was no denying now how badly Shannon Weiss had gotten under his skin, and it was making him quietly furious to realise it.

But if there was one thing that James Bond could do well, it was adapt to new and precarious situations. That was all he could do. And for her part, the woman sitting across from him hadn't turned her back, even if he was a complete stranger to her. It was a start.

"It was after one of my missions-- we would often meet 'after work'-- and we were just sitting in a bar. We overheard a group partying too loud and talking too much about a heroin deal they were going to make. Shannon and I split off one of the men and one of the women for the evening, got our information and ruined the deal. We didn't speak much afterwards. I think she got a little bit jealous. I think I did a little, too."

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sgc_spybarbie
2008-08-09 11:49 pm UTC (link)

Shannon listened with what she hoped was an open mind. Still, she couldn't imagine being her and doing what this man had implied she had done. Then again, she wasn't that Shannon. That Shannon wasn't her. THAT Shannon had clearly made the best decision for the time and, well? This Shannon couldn't say exactly what she would have done.

Still. It didn't sit well and she gave a wry smile, finishing off her glass. The clearly observant waiter made an immediate appearance. "What he had, please. A double."

As soon as the man was gone, she tucked her hands under her chin and nodded. "I can imagine that you both did. I know I would have."

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orbisnonsuficit
2008-08-10 10:24 am UTC (link)

Bond's mind flashed back. Buenos Aires, for him a year and a half in the past. She had deferred to his selection in cocktails then, too. It seemed a world away, as the saying went. Of course, Bond noted with chagrin, it was. He gave a noncommittal shrug.

"I wasn't as if there had been anything involved on either side but flirting, alcohol and patience, but..."

Shaking his head, Bond drained the last of his own martini and raised his glass in the direction of the bar, making sure the waiter would bring two when returning. "No, I really shouldn't be doing this, going on about another woman when sitting at a table with someone as beautiful and charming as yourself. Perhaps we should start this all over."

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sgc_spybarbie
2008-08-12 10:09 pm UTC (link)

"Still." A smile quirked at the edges of her mouth. "I can just imagine how well it went over."

At least on her side. If she had seen the man across from her, supposedly her... her what? Boyfriend? Yes, her boyfriend, flirting and drinking with another woman, she could just imagine the ways in which she would have stepped up her own game to match. Their targets probably hadn't known what hit them until it was far too late.

"It's interesting. Hearing about myself." A very egotistical thing to say, sure. In reality, she was learning far more about him than he was letting on. "If you'd like to start over, I'm sure we could do that, too. You still have me at the disadvantage, James." Her smile widened. "You know far more about me than I do about you."

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orbisnonsuficit
2008-08-13 12:00 pm UTC (link)

"As horribly as you expect," Bond replied, smiling himself and meaning it just a little bit more. He could feel himself relaxing, just slightly, from the anger of opening himself up. This might not be the exact same person he knew, Bond told himself, but she had the traits that had engendered that kind of trust in him in the first place.

Bond laughed. "It always is." The waiter arrived, brought the two large drinks. "Just wait until you get to read your own obituaries."

A smile again, this one far closer to Bond's knowing, confident smirk than he'd shown since arriving. "You mean where you went to school and what music you like, or things like your tattoo?"

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sgc_spybarbie
2008-08-13 02:41 pm UTC (link)

Shan's smiled widened when her companion's did and she nodded absently, ducking her head. "Obituaries aren't something I'm looking forward to. I've read a tribute or two and that's been enough. Nothing with details, of course. Not that there ever will be," she added, a bit of a wistful tone entering her voice.

It wasn't that she wanted to give up the life, but she did wonder if she was going to catch a stray bullet (not any time soon, she was sure) or if she'd wreck her Toyota on the way to the grocery store (hopefully, not this either). Whatever the cause, she held a certain certainty that she had a bit of time before she kicked the proverbial bucket.

Raising an eyebrow, Shannon didn't try and hide her surprise. "My tattoo?" She wasn't even going to ask how he knew about it. Clearly, they were very intimate. "I see." A pause. "Do YOU have any such identifying marks? Or... you can start with where you went to school."

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orbisnonsuficit
2008-08-13 04:04 pm UTC (link)

"I've seen the memorial wall at Langley. We have something similar." Shaking off the momentary tenor of sadness, Bond lowered his voice. "The really entertaining stuff came out when I went rogue for a cover. People had a lot to say," he said with mischief in his voice.

He gave Shannon a knowing look when she evinced surprise at his knowledge. Bond opted for the better part of valour not mentioning his familiarity with how much she enjoyed when he kissed that particular patch of skin. Not on the first date, of course.

"Nothing out of the ordinary," he answered. "A handful of scars here and there. I've fallen afoul of a few nasty people in my time."

Bond tapped his glass a moment, wondering where he ought to start, and just how much to say. Instinct, nearly always his friend and aide, pointed him to candor. "Eton," he answered, "as a young man, though I was asked to leave after a year. School in Edinburgh after that, then Cambridge."

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sgc_spybarbie
2008-08-13 04:11 pm UTC (link)

"I bet they did," Shannon said with a grin. "I'm sure that I, knowing you for forty minutes, could have come up with something rather colorful myself."

Knowing it was coming didn't stop the blush that heated the apples of her cheeks when he gave her LOOK when she showed surprise. He didn't have to say a word. She knew just from the smug smirk on his face that he probably knew just how to touch her body to make it sing. Shaking her head slightly to clear it, she took a deep breath and went back to listening.

"Who hasn't?" Was the remark to his scars and she nodded and laughed outright when he mentioned his early dismissal from Eton. "You? I'd have never guessed."

A pause and she thought a moment. "I suppose you know I attended Wellesley before UCLA. Recruited from college and then-" She spread her hands. "Here we are, really. A side job with the US Air Force?" She raised her eyebrows to see if her counterpart had that same job description. She hadn't thought so, but one couldn't be too sure. "I like pickles. From the jar. Big ones."

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orbisnonsuficit
2008-08-14 11:22 am UTC (link)

"Colorful is the only kind of life or legacy to have," Bond replied. All those lives of quiet desperation that the writers described were anathema to him and every fibre of his being.

He'd mentioned the tattoo on purpose, of course, and now Bond studied the minutiae of Shannon's responses. The idea of him knowing "her" intimately was surprising and shocking, but, he surmised, not as off-putting as one might have predicted. But she covered it with skill.

Bond shrugged at her amusement about the incident at Eton. "The girl was a maid, and swore she was sixteen. She was twenty."

Nodding along with her description, he found the parallel points he'd expected, and then the anomaly. "Air Force? Interesting. Can you say what the assignment was?" Bond wasn't sure if he could picture Shannon in a military environment, but that was more than likely coloured by his own beliefs about the armed services.

It was the last, though, that made him cock his head slightly. "Really?"

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sgc_spybarbie
2008-08-14 05:39 pm UTC (link)

"Very true. I hope my own life AND legacy are something of note."

Shannon couldn't help the smile or the shaking of her head when he qualified the Eton incident but she didn't say a thing more. She had a feeling that this man wasn't one to care whether the woman was sixteen or twenty.

"The assignment?" She paused and thought of the best way to describe the SGC. "Solar flares and wormhole physics," she said with a grin, then leaned over the table, tucking her hands under her chin. "Using wormhole physics to travel light years to other planets. Making nice with other civilizations. Trade agreements. I was the... interagency liason."

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orbisnonsuficit
2008-08-15 11:23 am UTC (link)

Bond raised his glass slightly. "To leaving something behind," he toasted, then took a long sip, letting the icy-cold liquid burn its way down.

He saw the shake of Shannon's head. He knew that shake, and felt the compulsion to defend himself, just a little. "I was thirteen," he told her, "how was I supposed to tell?"

His eyes narrowed slightly as Shannon explained her assignment. Even for a man who'd fought a battle aboard a privately-owned space station, the idea-- delivered with such mischievous delight-- was well beyond his ken. Dubious, Bond mirrored her posture, leaning in toward her with a smirk. "You could have just said it was classified, you know."

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sgc_spybarbie
2008-08-18 12:57 am UTC (link)

Shan raised her glass in Bond's toast and then took a long drink as well, barely reacting as the alcohol hit her throat.

"Hey," she said, raising both hands as soon as she'd set her glass down. "You don't have to explain a thing to me. You know that," she told him with a look that was all Shannon. "I was just saying..."

She let the challenge hang in the air anyway with a smirk and then saw the change in his demeanor. "I could have," she agreed. "But you would never have been satisfied with that and I would have eventually felt the compulsion to tell you anyway. Right?" She cocked a brow and took a smaller sip of her drink.

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orbisnonsuficit
2008-08-18 01:41 pm UTC (link)

"No, no," Bond protested playfully. "I felt I really ought to have clarified. Can't have you imagining I was some sort of teenaged lothario in my youth." The smiling came warmly and unbidden as the conversation with Shannon went on. Something stirred the experience-honed sixth sense he had for trouble, but not nearly enough to raise the hairs at the back of his neck. Willfully, he stifled the impression, enjoying himself too much.

"It wouldn't have sufficed, you have that right," he told Shannon. "Though I have to say I'd much prefer learning your secrets through my charm and wit, rather than being handed them."

Also unbidden came a scrap of memory: Bond had looked over his desk before leaving Houston, and noticed an operation folder. He'd flipped through it and locked it away, thinking nothing of it until now. "To that end," he said thoughtfully, "I believe I have a favour I could ask of you."

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sgc_spybarbie
2008-08-22 02:32 am UTC (link)

"You? No." Clearly teasing, Shannon let herself get caught up in his smile for the moment. It was so easy, once again, to imagine another her laughing with this man, enjoying herself.

Just then, the waiter arrived with their food and she used the opportunity to compose herself. She wondered if he was fooled when she looked back at him over their plates. "Your charm and wit? I'm sure you've learned many secrets that way, James."

Her fork froze halfway to her mouth when he mentioned a favor and she lowered it without taking the bite. "Oh? What kind of favor would that be?"

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orbisnonsuficit
2008-08-22 01:22 pm UTC (link)

"A few secrets," Bond replied, "here and there." It was as casual and off-hand an answer as Bond could give, but the truth was that there was plenty of here involved. He supposed it was a bit of cheating, as if they were playing chess and Bond knew in advance what moves Shannon might make. It wasn't fair, in a way, but it was becoming more difficult for Bond to stop.

"I have an assignment-- nothing overly sensitive," he added before Shannon might object to unauthorised breaking of confidence. "And nothing I can't handle alone, but something I do require a companion for. Having someone to escort who doesn't need to be lied to or coddled would be a great help."

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sgc_spybarbie
2008-08-22 01:38 pm UTC (link)

Shannon would have hazarded a guess that he knew far more than he was telling but she didn't want to ask. The truth was, she didn't want to know. It was far easier to go along and see if he would give up any more secrets about this other her.

"Never let it be said that I need to be coddled," she said airily, putting the fork down completely, and folding her hands once more. Her food was nearly forgotten, the thrill of an assignment taking over. "Can you tell me more here or-?"

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orbisnonsuficit
2008-08-25 03:15 pm UTC (link)

"Oh, I can give you the broad strokes," he answered, "enough to give me an answer, I should think."

Bond noted that Shannon knew enough to ask the question, meaning that no matter what her side assignments might or might not have been, she hadn't forgotten her protocol.

"I'm sure you've heard of the Vienna Opera Ball. Well, it seems I've be asked to have a polite, but insistent conversation with a couple of gentlemen who will be attending this year. No trouble is to be expected, not even a few raised voices, and certainly nothing that might get you reprimanded for taking part in an actual operation."

He slipped into one of his more charming smiles. "And the Ball is not an event for attending stag."

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