M stood in the shower, working shampoo into her hair. She breathed a sigh of relief when it occurred to her that she was going back to work the next day. Being stuck at home alone with nothing to do had been driving her near demented. A month after Skyfall, and M was feeling better than she had in quite a long time. Apart from an occasional stab of pain in her side when she thought about the incidents of the night she was shot, she felt nothing at all, she had regained use of her left arm and she felt as if a new life had been breathed into her. M wasn't exactly the deliriously happy type, but she was feeling pretty damn good to be going back to what she loved doing the most.
She stared down at herself. A twenty-eight year career in the field, plus a series of 007-related incidents had earned her a fair collection of scars across most of her body, now with the editions of her gunshot wounds, both of which were courtesy of Silva. She had known all along, even when he was an agent, that that man was no good.

M got out of the shower, slipped on the dressing gown she had brought into her en suite with her, wrapped her towel round her head and picked up her well-thumbed copy of 'To Kill A Mockingbird' (though for a joke, her daughter Patricia had written on the black cover with Tippex when she was nine, so it now read "How To Kill A Mockingbird") as she walked over to the chaise lounge in the corner of her bedroom. She sat herself down, and read the first sentence of the book for the six billionth time, though by now she knew it off by heart. "When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow..."

"Hello!" A loud and oddly familiar voice called out. M screamed and nearly fell off of her seat when she saw the face of James Bond just centimeters away from her own.
"Jesus, Bond! What the hell are you DOING here!?" She yelled indignantly and perhaps a little louder than she had meant to. "I have a bloody doorbell for a reason! Would you please learn how to use it, or work on a way of getting my attention that DOESN'T involve breaking into my home. Look, I don't know why you're here, and quite frankly I don't want to know. Just... remove yourself from my line of vision please."
Bond had been crouching by M's side, and he extended to his full height. "Well it's for good reason. What did you think I was going to do?"
M got up, yanking her dressing gown fully over her cleavage as she did so. "Bond, you will try and shag anything with a pulse. I think I am entitled to have my suspicions. And this had better be damn serious."
"You know about all the girls I've slept with?"
"Bond, I keep 24/7 tabs on you. You can't stick a finger up your nose without twelve people knowing about it, me included. Now what is it?"
"Oh, well, y'know I thought I'd just pop in for a quick chat, get you even more pissed than you already are for your first day back..."
"Oh Jesus, not now..." M groaned. " Right, since you're here, that's my chance of sleep completely down the loo. Look, let me get dressed, then do you think that it'd make this conversation any less awkward if we were to relocate somewhere other than my bedroom?"
Bond shrugged. "Probably not, but it's worth a try."