City Spies Oneshot Collection

GCHQ

Working in a place dominated by men wasn't something that Monty thought she could point out the specific problems with until she had done it. And, well, now she had done it, and now she was just about done with it.

Monty had been one of only a handful of women in different spaces over her life before coming to MI6. Exeter College at Oxford, where she had gone to school, had only begun admitting women a mere ten years before Monty was born. And the subjects she studied had far fewer women in them than some of the others. But somehow that hadn't bothered Monty as much as the men at the Doughnut did.

Maybe it was because Monty had felt more of a sense of belonging in college. She certainly was having doubts that she belonged at MI6. She didn't have any question that she was qualified when she was recruited, but some days now made her question even that.

Maybe it was that some of her colleagues were intimidated by her, that they didn't like that she was smarter than they were. Monty had attended the same sort of prestigious institution that most of the rest of the people at the Doughnut had, but she still felt some sort of divide that couldn't quite be fully explained.

Maybe it was because she came from a family of normal people, with normal income and an average social status. Because as much as the people who she worked with tried to pretend that they didn't come from super privileged backgrounds, they still did, and they were still profoundly affected by that in the way that they saw the world. That had been the case at Oxford, too, more so there, even, but it was still an issue behind the scenes at MI6, now compounded by all these other problems.

Monty found herself concerned with different aspects of the problems MI6 was faced with than most of her colleagues. Which she guessed was to be expected given everything else, but it's really hard to be the only one thinking about something differently. It's hard being the only one doing something differently, no matter how right you think you are. Taking that risk to point out something no one else is even close to seeing, risking that what she said might not make any sense to them was incredibly hard.

It was hard to be right at work, but it was even harder to be wrong. And since there's a lot of trial and error in cryptography, Monty was wrong plenty. So was everyone else, but it felt different when they were wrong compared to when she was wrong. Whenever Monty tried something that didn't work out, she felt it was just confirming that she wasn't up to being able to do what she had been hired to do. There wasn't any way that people were reacting to her failures that she could quite pinpoint, but there was still something just a little bit off about it.

There was the problem of the conversations her coworkers would have all the time, big noisy discussions about things that were completely off-topic from what they were working on that happened during breaks, making it impossible to focus on anything else without leaving the room. Monty could have stayed and listened to their conversations that they clearly did not care to keep private, but she never could have joined in on them. She knew she didn't fit in.

Monty hadn't been raised to expect that she would necessarily enjoy every aspect of her job, but she still wanted to not be miserable. She didn't want to feel like such an outsider, constantly but unintentionally told that she was less than everyone else.

When the chance to go out to the FARM arose, Monty really wanted to say yes. She so desperately wanted to get away from office politics and that feeling of not fitting in with her colleagues.

But of course no big decision can ever just be that easy. There's always a catch, right? Everything was so complicated, and Monty knew that she absolutely could not screw this up, not when there was a kid involved.

Was this starting a family? Given the newness and suddenness of the situation, Monty wasn't sure yet. It certainly wasn't what she had pictured, though she had to admit that this was maybe preferable.

Everything was ending and starting all at once, and it was a confusing mess, and Monty just didn't want to make the wrong choice. She knew what she had to do, but she just couldn't screw this up.

She wouldn't be able to forgive herself if she did.

I'm actually finishing things today I guess. (I've been sitting at "almost done" on this for like a month.)