AN: This story was written for the 00Qreversebigbang based on a piece of art created by chuuland. Betaed by the lovely lahtili and fightyourdragon. All remaining mistakes are mine.

Carefully, James slips his mother's hairpins in the lock and wiggles them around. Every scratch sounds awfully loud to his ears and he stops every so often to listen whether anybody reacts to what he is doing. But the only thing he can actually hear is the clinking from the kitchen where his mother cleans up after their lunch and of course the howling of the storm outside. He knows that if he looks out of the small window to his left he will only see a dark grey mass. It doesn't take his mother's favourite weatherman or the gamekeeper's experience to know that the storm made the roads impassable. His father won't return tonight which leaves him alone with Kincade, the gamekeeper and his mother, who doesn't like storms at all. And of course it also means that he is a prisoner in their house since the combination of fog and storm makes it quite impossible to see more than a few feet ahead of oneself, so one might easily fall down the cliff – that is, at least, his mother's conviction.

That is also the reason why he tries to break into their attic, hoping to find something to entertain him for the next few hours. The few times he had been up here, he'd seen various boxes and old trunks which had looked ready to be explored by him. If he had to spend his winter break at Skyfall, which was too far away from anybody else in his opinion, there should be at least some form of entertainment. With his ten years he envies his father, who regularly travels for his business and can leave this isolation while he has to stay.

A loud click brings his mind back to the lock in front of him. It sounded like the lock opening, but could it be really this easy? Some mindless wiggling with the hairpins and he succeeds in picking his first lock? With only the knowledge he has gained from some cheap crime novels Kincade keeps around and the very superficial description in the radio plays his father listens to? He hesitates for a moment but then removes the hairpins from the lock. Indeed, when he turns the handle the door opens and he can make out the shapes of all the stuff their family had acquired and left in the attic.

Shortly checking whether or not he can still hear his mother in the kitchen, he then enters the semi-darkness below the roof. Although he switches on the light, the light bulb doesn't do much to illuminate the room more than the windows already do and they barely offer any light. It leaves him without much of a choice since even the semi-darkness suffices to see how haphazardly everything is stored in here and how much debris lies around, so he only goes to explore the boxes that are at least partially illuminated.

The first boxes contain nothing more than old-fashioned clothing and some photographs, but his attention is soon drawn to a little trunk looking much older than all the other stuff in the attic. He wipes over the surface, but even without the layer of dust the illumination is not enough to recognise any details on the trunk. Only when he tries and fails to open the lid he finally sees the lock on the front. There is no key in it and a short search on the floor around the trunk also shows no sign of it. Exploring the lock with his fingertips, he is indecisive if he should try his luck again. It hadn't taken him that long to open the attic door; maybe he should give it a try? He takes the hairpins out of his pocket and after another moment of pondering he starts probing the lock with them. He still has no idea what he is doing but apparently luck is on his side because only a few minutes later he hears again the tell-tale sound of a lock opening.

Slowly he opens the lid, instantly inhaling the smell of old paper and a weak trace of lavender. A layer of tissue paper covering and protecting the content is the first thing he discovers. He removes the paper carefully, every crinkle sounds unnaturally loud in the stillness of the attic. He hasn't been sure what to expect but he certainly is surprised. In front of him lies an antique doll with its eyes open and looking up at him. Due to the dim lighting he can't really figure out which colour those eyes are, but he still can see that this doll doesn't look like a child's toy.

In fact it looks more like a miniature version of a real person. Under dark curls that look almost like real hair, the face isn't one of the simplified baby faces of other dolls. The body is evenly proportioned and it is wearing grown-up clothes – dark trousers and sand-coloured cardigan over a chequered shirt. It is also quite obviously a male doll.

He lifts it up, adjusting his grip to deal with its unexpected weight and almost lets it drop, when with a soft click the doll's eyes close for a second only to open immediately again – just as if it was blinking like a normal human being. He takes the few steps closer to the light bulb and holds the doll under it to get a better look at its face. Strangely enough, he has the feeling as if he is scrutinized as well and it almost looks as if the doll squints its eyes a bit. Noticing for the first time the small glasses it is holding, he wriggles them out of its hand and carefully places them on its nose.

"Thought you might see better with them," he murmurs as the doll blinks once again. The squinting is gone, instead now it almost looks as if the doll is looking at him with gratitude.

"What do you think of some more exploring? I bet you'd be a great companion for exploring. I mean with lying in the trunk the whole time, I certainly would want to see something else. Oh, I know, we could pretend to be pirates?" The doll just blinks again which James takes as an agreement so he turns around to search for a place that could interest a pirate in a treasure hunt. He takes off to a darker corner of the attic, taking the doll with him. It is still hard to see all the outlines of the boxes and other stuff that is compiled under their roof but now it feels as if a voice is guiding him when to turn or when to jump.

And he definitely finds things worthy of a pirate: crystals from an old chandelier, some old and rusty duelling pistols, chains and even an old cannon ball. He spends the whole afternoon in the attic exploring everything, never letting go of the doll until he feels exhausted and returns to the trunk where he had found the doll in. He doesn't want to let go, so he just sits in front of it, telling it stories of his life and stories that Kincade has told him until he is basically yawning at every second word. But he doesn't stop, even when he slowly sinks down and falls asleep, keeping the doll in his arms the whole time.

Just a little while later, his mother finds him and his sleeping companion. It's an adorable sight and she wonders for a moment if she should leave the doll with her boy. But then her mother-in-law's stories come back to her mind and she carefully extracts the doll out of her son's grip. The doll watches her as she takes off its glasses and lays them next to it in the trunk. She places the tissue paper carefully on top of it and closes the lid making a mental note to come back with the key later. She calls Kincade to take James down into his bed and the next morning Kincade shows James the priest's hole and his father comes back so he forgets all about the doll.

He only dreams of it later in those long nights in the orphanage when another storm fights against other old walls.