Archive of Our Own

Somewhere deep in the African Congo…

The steady patter of footsteps running. Three sets of breathing, two of them heavy and laboured, the third light enough to make the other two run faster, even if they weren’t being pursued in the first place. More footsteps, heavier, running behind the three of them. Gunfire. A cry of alarm from a bird somewhere in the treetops, as bullets started wildly firing randomly in an effort to draw the three intruders out from wherever they were hiding for the moment. 

A beat of silence, brought alive by the sound of mosquitos and insects buzzing in the twilight. 

Then footsteps heading in the other direction, away from the three that they had been tasked with hunting down. This wasn’t an environment that they could have got very far in, especially with one of them injured. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an environment that the mercenaries hunting them were trained for either. 

Shortly after they left, hushed voices.

“We’ve got to get down to the river. Stat.” one whispered, trying to catch his breath, looking worriedly over at the figure who the two of them were trying so hard to support. The second person surveyed the area, quickly nodding at the other as a sign to start moving again. The third was still breathing, though barely. 

The mission was relatively simple in hindsight. Idiot-proof, as Tom would have said. Any team of SAS would have done as back-up. But Alex had held firm. He wanted someone he could really trust to watch his six. K Unit had been free - ‘someone important somewhere wants your unit specifically to help them so get your fucking arses out of my sight and grab your gear, you’ll be briefed on location’ had been the exact phrasing of the order from the Sergeant, apparently - so as Senior Agent, he had very graciously taken the liberty to assign them to his case. 

Imagine K Unit’s surprise when Alex had rolled into the car park underneath the Royal & General in his Aston Martin and announced that he was the reason why they weren’t enjoying the mud and fun of Brecon Beacons for a while.

From there, it had been a simple matter of handing them their cover story and related identities - a group of men on an jungle adventure stag do with one of their younger step-brothers tagging along because why not (Snake was posing as Alex’s brother due to their similar hair colour and the real reason Alex had chosen the specific story was that Eagle was actually getting married but no one had the time to organise a stag do). Then it had been an early-morning drive to Heathrow for a seven-hour flight down to Yaounde, Cameroon followed by a longer drive to the south-east in a beat-up but actually spacious Land Rover to get them further into the heart of the African Congo. The car had been supplied by a local contact, making their cover even more believable.

It was supposed to be a relatively simple mission. Trek through the jungle as a team, have fun, find a weapon smuggler’s base, be serious, get some intel on an arms deal going on with a high-profile target, let Alex have fun (aka, explosions galore), don’t get found out by local authorities, return back to England without arousing suspicion with the intelligence network there. Oh, and don’t end up dead in the whole process.

Idiot-proof? It was a piece of cake compared to some of the other missions they all had been on, either as a team or individually.

And yet, here we are, Alex thought rather hysterically while running as quickly as he could. Wolf was breathing shallowly between him and Ben supporting his limp form as they advanced quickly toward the river. This is a fucking mess.

Wolf had been shot. In the leg. It had been a through-and-through and missed everything essential, the lucky bastard, but it wasn’t looking too good either. Only Snake had the equipment necessary to patch him up enough until they got him to a hospital. Getting injured out in the jungle was ten times as lethal than normal, Eagle had told them all one night. Where had it all gone so, so wrong?

Maybe around the part where I was somehow discovered setting the actual, not-makeshift explosives and then Wolf and Fox had to come and get me, against my orders if I might add, he carried on, answering his own question and trying to keep his breathing as even as he could. That had also been new for them all. Alex was the one running point on the whole mission, having access to more details about the target who had been making the deal, with Wolf as second due to rank and other details. The intricacies were beyond him at this point. It didn’t matter. Wolf could die from blood loss and if infection set in, well. Alex didn’t even want to think that far ahead. 

The three of them reached the river. Alex let go of Wolf’s arm, leaving Fox to support the man physically and with whispers of encouragement as he slid down a small slope to the water’s edge for their escape. Always have a second way out, he remembered.

Plan B was that, in case they couldn’t disappear into the jungle and get back to camp, there would be a boat to get them safely back using the river as their route out. It was quick and simple, to hide the small boat with some loaded guns as close to the base as possible without being noticed. It had been easy to do so under the cover of night a few days ago.  The weapon smuggling operation was going strong but the man in charge hadn’t tried hard to hide himself from everything like any other relatively sane arms dealer would have done. That was another reason why being discovered at such a critical point in the operation was so surprising to Alex. Security was abysmal at best, non-existent at other times.

But here they were. Plan fucking B. 

“Fox! Get down here!” Alex hissed, almost afraid that the flow of water would tell the crawling insects and colourful birds in their surroundings of the unwelcome guests hiding amongst the wilderness. 

Agent Benjamin Daniels, known as Fox because it was K Unit on the mission and he’d always be Fox like Alex would always be Cub, quickly joined his partner, though trying not to jostle their unconscious leader too much. “Time to go. Wolf’s deteriorating quickly.” he said. 

They picked him up, laying him down on the floor of the boat and Fox grabbed the hunting rifle they had stashed in it, expertly loading the weapon. Alex made to push the wooden structure off the bank, making an executive decision in the snap of a moment.

“Wait! Alex, what’re you doing?” Fox grabbed the younger one’s wrist, feeling the woven beaded bracelet on it.

“You guys have got to go now. Wolf needs help. Quickly.” Alex answered, turning his head behind them to check if anyone was coming back for them.

“And you?” It seemed that Fox had already realised what he was planning.

“I’m going to give them something else to chase.” You have to go without me.

“I don’t like this.” Change your mind, please.

“You don’t have to like it. You need to get Wolf to Snake and we both know it.” He glared at Fox, knowing that he’d have to pull out the big guns this time. In the close distance, they both heard voices shouting angrily in what seemed to be Swahili. Not the mercenaries then, but a group of local hired hands. Not much better. “That was an order, Agent Daniels . Go.”

Fox made a face but let go of Alex’s wrist, instead aiming the gun at the forest behind them while the boat was pushed further into the fast-moving waters heading back to their camping spot.

Alex ran back into the jungle, knowing that Fox’s gaze was burning through his back. But he had to find the people who were after them before they found Wolf and Fox, or worse, their basecamp downriver. 

The jungle was never forgiving. You either learned to live with it or you didn’t live at all. 

This is what wasn’t going through Alex’s mind as he raced through the thick undergrowth, knowing that the local hired hands were right on his tail. And advancing. Like a cheetah, they were just waiting for the right moment to pounce.

He was exhausted, frustrated, thirsty. All he wanted to do was collapse onto his stomach and sleep for a very long time. But that definitely wasn’t possible. He could only hope that Fox had managed to get Wolf the help from Snake in time. 

His ankle snagged on something underneath him as he took another leaping stride across the leaves fallen on the floor. Then the ground was rushing towards him, blood gushing towards his head at the same pace. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he chided himself, rolling to carry on running as he almost face-planted. There’s no way they missed that.

The crack of a gunshot and then part of a tree being blasted off took him by surprise. It seemed like they were trying to steer him in the direction they wanted. Not good. Alex ducked as the hairs on the back of his neck rose, some animalistic instinct taking over as he gritted his teeth in determination. They couldn’t get to K Unit as long as they were chasing him, he remembered. Keep pushing. Come on, Rider.

Running, Alex suddenly found himself halting in the middle of a clearing. It was natural, not made by people chopping the forest down for any reason. In any other circumstance, he would have enjoyed the meagre sunlight filtering in, the cooling shadows across his face and the sounds of life around him.

He wasn’t enjoying it. 

He was surrounded. 

No way out.

It wouldn’t take long for him to fight the six men who were advancing carefully towards him, Alex realised, analysing them. He had been worn out in being captured, escaping, then running through the forest, but he could take them. Not uninjured but alive. If he got back to camp in time, infection wouldn’t set in. 

But what about Fox and Wolf?  

He knew what to do. Slowly, not to spook the local men with the weapons pointing readily at him, Alex raised his hands to rest behind his head and sank to the ground on his knees.

That hadn’t been expected of him, from the way all of them looked for orders from one of the men standing to Alex’s right. He dubbed him Poncho, from the cheap plastic bag he seemed to have as protection from the harsh rain that often fell. Ponch looked puzzled for a few seconds, before deciding to speak to Alex in harsh tones. He couldn’t tell what was being said but the gist of it was pretty clear - where are your friends going?

Alex didn’t say a word, choosing instead to simply raise an eyebrow in challenge. They weren’t going to get any answers from him. And Poncho knew it. He gave another order, this time to one of the other men standing behind Alex.

The cool brush of metal against the back of his head was almost expected. 

They were just going to blow his brains out and leave his body for the jungle to claim as its own. These people didn’t mess around and he had to think of a quick way out before he got shot. He wouldn’t survive at point blank range. Run? Fight? Talk it out? Think, Alex, think. The click of the gun’s safety being pulled off. He squeezed his eyes shut and took a breath, preparing to put his hastily-made action plan into play. 

Bang! Bang! The sudden noise of gunshots took him by surprise. More shooting. Alex dropped down, pressing his body against the dead leaves of the floor. Who was firing? Tentatively, he pried open his eyes. To come face to face with a team of mercenaries, the fallen bodies of the six local hands and wearing jungle camo, Aaron Creed.

“Aaron Creed, aged 28. American. Born in New York City to mother, Hayley Creed. Father unknown. Caucasian, clean-shaven most of the time. Blue eyes, brunette hair cut short. Identifiable by a dragon tattoo that is visible on his neck. Started running weapons along the Iron Pipeline as a way to get money for college. Then continued it full-time when his mother died in a shooting incident a few years after. Also involved in other shady business, such as experimental drugs. He’s turned his attention to dealing in Africa recently, after being promoted after killing another big fish above him. Your job is to disrupt his next meeting by placing explosives at the meeting place. Not enough to kill him but enough to spook him enough to panic. Then he’ll draw his bosses and clients out of wherever their heads are buried in the sand. Any further information that you might need is in this file, including more about the location and the target’s family. Good luck, Agent Rider.”

The words rang clear in Alex’s head, as if he’d heard them the day before, not a week or so ago. 

“Hello, Rider. I had a feeling it would be you.” Creed said, crouching down next to Alex, who was still on the floor, trying to pull himself up. How did he know? “You have something that I want. And you’re going to give it to me.” he continued, voice dropping down to a hiss, as if they were sharing some secret between two best friends.

Alex tensed, prepared to make a break for it. He lifted himself off the ground and then, realised he’d made a mistake. He’d forgotten about the mercenaries in the clearing with him. A pinprick of a needle stabbed into his neck and he felt something rush into his blood as his vision suddenly blurred, swooping as he felt, rather disconnectedly, his body falling towards the ground.

No. 

Creed seemed to catch him before he hit the ground, then he couldn’t hold onto his fading consciousness anymore. 

Everything went black.

Movies were very unrealistic when it came to regaining consciousness. Nobody just got up after being drugged or knocked over the head and decided that everything was sunshine and rainbows. More like headaches and everything else aches, Alex thought bitterly as he woke up slowly. 

He appeared to be laying on a convoluted version of a dentists’ chair, complete with the ridiculously bright lights shining down on his face. His arms were strapped steadily to the chair with several zip-ties, his legs were tangled in rope but at least his head seemed to be free. There was a table with several glass bottles and syringes on it next to him. The whole contraption was in a metal tube that seemed vaguely familiar somehow.

The clang of a metal door opening drew him out of the self-analysis as he decided to look around the room for the source. It seemed to be behind him so he waited for whoever it was to approach him. He could be patient. 

Creed had walked through the door, switching out his earlier outfit for a casual tee and jeans. He still looked every bit the lethal arms dealer, to a trained profiler anyway. And he had someone else with him, a woman with steely eyes that made Alex’s insides crawl under her critical gaze. She looked like the type of person to be seeing him as a fascinating lab rat, only useful for a while, before throwing him out for another toy. It was unnerving, to say the least. 

“Hey,” Creed smiled. It reminded Alex of the shark from Cayo Esqueleto, only the shark had been nicer to look at. “I don’t think we should waste time with pointless introductions so I’ll get to the point. Remember I told you that you have something I need? Good? Well, I’m here to get it. All you have to do is tell me what I want to know, Rider. Simple enough?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Alex rasped out after a stifling beat of silence. It wasn’t very believable apparently, because Creed just sighed, signalling to the woman behind him who walked up next to the chair.

“Not simple enough then. Rider, you know that I dabble in other things than arms dealing. So, this is Svetlana Blakely. She works for me, researching some experiments I have an interest in. Which is going to get me the answers I want from you. Some of them will put you under, some of them won’t. All of them will be painful. Last chance before you enter the whack-job land of your head looking for the answers instead.”

“My head is already messed-up as it is, so why don’t you save us all the trouble and let me go?”

Svetlana apparently took that as her cue, picking up a syringe from the tray next to the chair and filling it with a colourless liquid. Carefully, she inspected it, probably for theatrics, before sliding it easily into Alex’s relaxed upper arm. 

Not good, not good, not fucking good.

He felt the effects of it starting almost immediately. The world started spinning again, like the one ride at the funfair that Sabina and Tom had begged him to go on with them and they had both almost ended throwing up the candy floss they had eaten earlier that day. Alex had just felt really nauseous about the whole ride but it still wasn’t any good to be feeling like that again. Neither was it any good to be injected with an unknown drug. 

Alex could only watch disconnectedly as Creed and Svetlana walked out of another door in front of him. Everything was spinning sickeningly and he felt like throwing up. The door seemed to open inwards, towards him, covering a patch of the metal wall in the strange room. Then it swung shut.

Revealing a familiar face.

“Little Alex.” Yassen inclined his head in greeting. Oh, fuck. Was this real? If it was, then he was screwed, to put it nicely.

“Yass’n.” he slurred out, finding it hard to stay awake but apprehensive enough to watch the other figure move gracefully to him. “Am I dyin’?”

“No. This is worse than that.”

“Hmmm.” It was calm, but Alex was anything but.

“Do you realise what kind of man Creed is? He isn’t like me or like you. This is going to hurt you. Will you tell him what he wants?” Yassen took Alex’s chin gently in his hands, titling it up to lock their eyes together.

Was that supposed to be the man’s idea of a pep-talk? Assassins weren’t very good with the whole motivational-speaking thing.

“ No. ” he answered. The single defiant word was stronger than he realised. Yassen didn’t react. 

Then Alex’s head hung limply as his vision suddenly tunnelled and he blacked out for a second time.

Sunlight on his face. A familiar voice humming softly to the radio. The hiss of cooking somewhere in the distance close distance. The steady ringing of his phone’s alarm tone. Or was it his caller tune? He could never really differentiate. 

Alex groaned, turning over in his tangled covers, reaching blindly for the bedside table, knocking the phone down. He found the charging cable attached to the device though and was able to fish up the still-ringing phone with his eyes closed. 

Checking the screen for the time, imagine his surprise when the too-bright display read 16:59. 

“Jack’s gonna kill me,” he muttered, jumping unsteadily from the bed. When was the last time that he had been so tired as to sleep in the middle of the day? Why hadn’t she woken him up? Dropping the phone on the tangled duvet, he ran for the stairs beyond his door, taking the steps two at a time to the kitchen.

To be met with the smiling face and red hair of the bundle of insanity called Jack.

“Oh, hey, sweetie. You feel any better now?” she smiled, almost filling the room with her contagious energy. Alex instantly felt a hundred times better than he had when he had woken up.

“Um,” He was speechless for some reason, not knowing what to say or how to explain. “I think I just had the wildest dream.”

“Ah, classic dream-land. Don’t just stand there gawping, Alex! Eat something!” she turned back to the stove, signalling for him to take a seat at the island in the middle. Jack suddenly froze, making him feel all disorientated again, like everything was out of balance. She turned around slowly, smiling like a creepy mannequin, before whispering, “ Before the food eats you. ”

“Jack! No, you almost gave me a heart attack!” Alex snapped out, blushing as Jack dissolved into a fit of uncontrollable giggles. “I thought that there was something wrong with you for a second, or that you actually needed psychiatric help!”

It took a while for Jack to actually calm down enough to stop laughing at him and dish out a plate of whatever she had been making. 

“Now, eat up. Chicken noodle salad. Here’s the chopsticks.” she faux-ordered him, before turning to get a plateful herself.

“Yes, Chef.” he teased back. Alex really didn’t have any inhibitions as he dug in. He really was ravenous in a way he couldn’t remember being for a long time and the food was too good, with Jack’s own twists of flavour on it anyway.

A file lay on the table to the side of his plate, the manilla cover intimidating in its own way. Alex tried to ignore it but couldn’t sate his curiosity as it seemed to stare at him while he ate. As Jack sat down next to him, he asked, “What’s the file about?”

She shifted a bit, looking guilty about something, then forcing a light smile as she replied. “The Bank sent it. I guess they want you to look over it.”

He opened it, to be met almost instantly with a face that was all too familiar despite their short initial introductions. 

“Aaron Creed. Who’s that?”

Alex knew he couldn’t read any further. He slammed the file shut again, knowing instinctively that this is what Creed wanted.

“No. I can’t tell you, Jack.”

She took the file from where it was resting, reaching to open it again. Alex grabbed her wrist, trying to stop her but not upset her in the process.

“Why not, Alex?”

“I can’t.” he whispered numbly, pulling away.

“Why not?” Some other tone had crept into Jack’s voice in the innocent-enough question. It was honey sweet but sharp like a razor blade. It wasn’t like Jack. She had never asked about his missions before unless he offered to talk first.

“No.”

“Tell him what he wants to know, Alex. It’s simple enough.” Jack grabbed his wrist this time, in a grip too strong to be considered normal.

No, Alex realised. No. Jack died. In Cairo. This isn’t her.

He relaxed, as if to give in, and for a moment, the not-Jack looked proud of him. Jack would have never been proud of him for giving up so easily, he thought with a new burst of anger. Creed wasn’t winning this twisted game. Not on his watch.

Alex jumped out of his seat, scrambling backwards the instant that not-Jack’s grip on him was slightly lessened. With the belated realisation that he was wearing the clothes from the jungle mission and that there was dried blood over him, he made for the front door. 

He didn’t know what would be on the other side. But he had to get out.

“He’s not giving in.”

“What did you expect? He’s been trained by the best in the world.”

“Another round then. Before he wakes up properly.”

This time when he came to, he was laying face-down on an itchy carpet, the kind that cut into whatever clothes you were wearing, no matter how thick, with a thousand needle-like spikes. 

“Hey! Mate, are you done? We need to carry on practising. Hey, Alex!” A young male person somewhere to the side of him was calling his name.

Alex blinked out the blurring in his vision, turning over to look up at one Tom Harris. His best friend. He was grinning impishly, exposing two dimples in his cheeks. He was wearing the Brooklands uniform, but the tie appeared to have been stuffed in his pocket with the top button of the white school shirt undone. In one hand of his was his phone, the familiar device with the hideous neon yellow case, and the other hand held a pair of battered drumsticks. 

They were in one of the school’s five or so music rooms from the look of it, ideal for students hanging out or practising over lunch or after school because they were all sound-proofed. Great for music or for simply messing around if you had enough of an excuse.

“Good, you’re back with me.” Tom was tugging uselessly at his arm. He hadn’t noticed or was choosing to ignore all the red blood dried on Alex’s khaki shirt. “What did you eat for lunch? You’re getting fat, Alex.”

“I’m getting up. Let me, Tom.” Alex replied, standing unsteadily and choosing to inspect the room blankly. Everything was as it should be. Tom walked back behind the drum set in the room, sticks poised to break into the song. At his friend’s blank look, he groaned theatrically then pointed to the table and mouthed the words ‘play the track and sing, you idiot’. 

The table on the other side of the room nearer to the door didn’t have a lot on it. A laptop with a music track loaded and ready to be played. A microphone with cables already connected to an amp waiting to be picked up. A messy stack of papers that seemed to be music notations for several instruments and a range of songs. 

And a file in the middle of it all. Aaron Creed’s file, from the first page opened. 

Alex swiftly turned on his heel, lifting the file to confront his friend, who was tapping experimentally on the snare. 

“Where did this come from?” he hissed.

Tom looked taken aback by his tone. “I dunno, mate. I figured it was yours. You know, Bond shit and so forth. Everything okay?”

No. No. No, it wasn’t okay. What was this all about? What did Creed want from him? Alex didn’t kn-

A giggle of an innocent voice drew his attention. The door to the room was slightly open and it seemed to be coming from out in the corridor. 

“Alex?” Tom asked.

“Yeah?” he turned again to lock eyes with Tom’s unusually serious blue orbs.

“Tell him what he wants to know.” 

Alex’s blood ran cold all over again. 

He dropped the file, making once more for the door. Instead of transporting him somewhere else like he expected, it led right into the all too familiar school corridor, almost tripping him up in confusion. Which way, which way?

“Hello again, little Alex.”

No. What was this ? Some kind of cruel joke that Creed was pulling the strings of? The file hadn't marked him as someone who liked to mess around. More like the kind of man who would leave your half-insane and all-useless body in an alleyway after leaching every drop of information from your head the hard way. Then why all of this? Why Yassen of all people?

“Because it’s strangely fitting for me to be the one guiding you here.” Yassen tilted his head, almost reading Alex’s mind, before adding, “Besides, you’re not going to give in. Are you?” Both of them knew that it wasn’t really a question.

The patter of small footsteps to Alex’s right made him turn his head to where he instinctively knew the stairwell was. 

A small girl, wearing a pure white dress and innocent blue eyes, stared back curiously. She had her brunette hair tied back with what looked like flowers weaved into the braided crown on her head. Alex thought that he’d seen her somewhere before. She couldn’t have been more than five years old either.

Am I dead? The thought came rather randomly. It made a certain amount of sense, he supposed. Not so much in other areas. Yassen and Jack were dead. Tom wasn’t. And he didn’t know about the girl.

“You’re not dead.” Yassen shrugged, inspecting his manicured nails. Again with the man reading his mind. “Though you might as well be if you don’t tell Creed what he wants to know.”

“Is that a threat?” As always, Alex’s mouth ran faster than his pain-addled mind.

“No. It’s a choice.”

The girl ran off towards the door that would lead to the school canteen, somehow blurring his vision as she ran, like looking at an image from across a fire. Should he follow her? Then- 

“I want results, Svetlana. You’re not giving them to me.”

“It’s not up to me. Rider’s mental state may be a mess but his mind is stronger than anyone else who I’ve done this on.”

“... A higher dosage then.”

“That might not work.”

“I don’t care! Just get it done!”

He’d been yanked out of the school somehow to land sitting at the counter of an old-style coffee shop. Wasn’t this place in San Francisco? Where he would go after hours of rehearsals in the studio to unwind with Sabina?

Alex, this time, felt wretched. Everything ached. Like he’d gone a hard round or five while combat training, like he’d been pushed to his physical limits, like he’d ran and ran and ran and he hadn’t stopped. 

Or maybe like he’d just ran through the jungle supporting an unconscious teammate and then got captured by an enemy who somehow knew about him.

That made a lot more sense.

“Alex!” 

He lifted his head off the glass tabletop in front of him, twisting his body in the chair just in time to be bear-hugged by Sabina. The impact of it left him breathless, but somehow it felt real enough for him to hug back. Sabina felt real, from the silk scarf she was wearing with a denim dress, to the rose scent in her dark locks and the way she was clinging onto him with a ferocity that would give even Tom and Eagle a run for their money.

After a few more long seconds of embracing, she pulled away enough to cradle his face in her hands. 

“Look at you, Alex.” she whispered, concerned, running a hand softly over a gash on Alex’s forehead. He hadn’t even noticed it. Neither had Tom or Jack, which had been uncharacteristic of them. Further proof that she was real or he was just on stronger drugs.

“Am I really that horrifying?” he shot back with no bite to the words.

She half-stifled something between choked laughter and a sob at that. Alex reckoned she was still upset about his injuries. He couldn’t bring himself to care much. Even though Sabina was really just - 

“You’re here.” she continued, awestruck.

“I am.”

“Alive.”

Well, that didn’t make much sense seeing as she was the one who had - 

“Alive.” Alex confirmed anyway. He ignored the small voice nagging at him to stop being so stupid and to run but this was Sabina. He had missed her.

“I have to show you something. Come on.” Sabina smiled conspiratorially.

She tugged his shirt, leading him to a small booth near the back. There were what seemed to be pictures of a crime scene on the wooden surface of the table. Photos of an overturned Ford Mustang, a modern one, of each part of the machine being catalogued, then pages of words in an official-looking font. Some kind of report. Fingerprints and pictures matching them. A few pages that seemed to be a criminal profile. He’d seen all of this before. He’d gone through each page obsessively. The words themselves were unforgettable, etched permanently into his memory like the scorpion tattooed across his right shoulder. 

“Alex. Come on. We can find the answer. Together.” 

Sabina glanced at him, smiling wide enough to light up the whole room. It filled Alex with a kind of hope, pure and sweet. Could they find the answers to this together? Sabina wouldn’t stop when she got hooked into something, he knew. He’d had to pull her away from her desk when she got too invested in her work before. They could do this, even if she had next to no knowledge on how to start. 

“Where do you want to start?”

“Um, you go over the profiler overview and the accident itself. I’ll do the forensic evidence.” 

It sounded like a plan. Rather than taking a seat, they both chose to stay standing, Alex taking a stack of papers in his hand. The first page was a preliminary examination of the crime scene and speculation on the type of person who could cause such a crash. The next were transcripts of interviews with witnesses. There were profiles on several possibilities of the cause of the crash after that. But no one was marked as the killer. 

The last three pages in the stack were all too familiar. The victims. Killed almost immediately. Edward. Elizabeth. And - 

“Alex?” Sabina turned back to him as he froze up. 

The last page was Sabina’s. 

“You died.” 

Silence. 

Alex was almost afraid to look at her. But he did. Turning to watch as she looked at him like he’d killed a puppy. Then came the blood. As if cut by glass, seeping out of a large cut of her head, on her neck, her arms, staining her scarf and clothes a shade of deep wine red. 

No. 

Alex rushed forward, catching her body as it went limp and she collapsed. Both of them sank to the floor, narrowly avoiding the edge of the table.

“Sabina, no. Talk to me.” The words were short, clipped with tension.

“Why...aren’t you telling...him...what he wants...to know?” she breathed while in his arms, almost like a secret prayer between the two of them.

“I can’t! I can’t tell him! I won’t!” Alex cried. The idea of giving in was appealing compared to watching Sabina bleed out in his arms. It was better than knowing that he was supposed to be in the car with her that day. But Sabina wouldn’t have told him to give up. No one he knew would.

“You know...what it’s like, not...not knowing.” She coughed up a bit of blood while talking, her lips an unnatural shade of bright red. Alex felt like his heart was being wrenched out all over again. He did know. It was worse than anything. But he couldn’t give in. 

Sabina suddenly went completely still, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.

“Listen to what she said, little Alex.” 

He turned his head rather desperately, only to meet Yassen’s cool gaze as the older man sat on the edge of the table behind them. Bloody hell, why was the assassin popping up everywhere he went? 

“Creed is still giving you the chance.” This time, the words were injected with faint disapproval. Yassen wasn’t the kind of man who would have the patience to give his captives as many chances, Alex guessed. But he was going to carry on, no matter how painful this got.

Yassen just nodded in understanding, cataloguing the emotion on his face.

“Then it’s time to go.” 

He signalled towards the door leading to the kitchen and Alex rather stupidly turned to look. He felt like he was going into shock over Sabina’s death all over again. The contract killer was the only one who seemed to have any control over the situation though. 

The girl was back. The same flowers, the same dress. Only this time, she wasn’t looking at him. She was playing with some kind of necklace, a pendant with a metal dragon cut as the shape. It wasn’t the kind of thing you would expect a child to be interested in.

What the fuck is going on here? It was a hysterical plea. 

Alex just wanted it all to make sense. 

It wasn’t making any sense.

In the blink of an eye, literally, the location changed again. 

Alex surveyed the room, training kicking in even though his thought process was well past functioning normally.

An open living room leading to a spacious kitchen and a wooden staircase to the left of him. The room was tastefully furnished, with everything in vibrant colours like blue and orange that would have clashed anywhere else but somehow didn’t. The tall windows were reinforced, bullet resistant, to his trained eye. The place was obviously lived-in, from the smell of spices and coffee coming from the kitchen. But there was nothing personal that would speak volumes about the person living here. They were organised, liked an unusual style of decorating, liked their security more than average and were a good cook. They had plants that didn’t need much watering too. But nothing apart from that which suggested profession - just a Dell laptop on the wood coffee table. Alex looked closer for something else. 

He’d missed a photo frame on the mantle, above the blocked-off fireplace. It was K Unit, the four original members standing close to each other. Eagle had jumped up using Snake’s shoulder’s as leverage. Snake didn’t seem to mind much though. Fox was laughing, arm around Wolf’s shoulder. Wolf stood in the middle of it, smirking with his teeth showing. A combat knife in its sheath was next to the picture.

“Cub.”

Alex smoothly slid the knife out of its leather case, dropping down into a point-forward stance ready to fight in an instant. Pivoting on the balls of his feet, he came face to face with the person behind him but didn’t attack. Something told him not to. Then he looked at the person properly, pushing back the sudden rush of adrenalin.

Wolf?

“What are you doing here?” they both asked at the same time, completely in sync. 

“Um, I live here.” Wolf replied awkwardly after a few seconds of stunned silence. He reached out to take the knife from the other’s hand apprehensively, making sure both of them could see exactly what he was doing. Alex loosened his grip, still trying to process why Wolf of all people as the knife was put back in the holster.

Wait.

“Are you okay?” Alex snapped out, quickly inspecting the man for any obvious injury. Nothing in his stance, except that he was on guard. He was standing completely normally too. 

“I’m, uh, fine.” He was obviously confused as to why the question was being asked.

“You got shot and all. In your leg. Remember?” 

“Oh. That.” He paused. “You’re worried about that?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’m alive. And so is my career. It’s good.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Another awkward silence. Neither of them were any good at making small talk, it seemed.

“Are you okay, Cub?” Wolf asked seriously.

“I didn’t think you cared.” Alex teased back, laughing nervously.

“I just need to make sure you don’t turn into Eagle by getting knocked over the head one time too many.” Wolf raised his hands in mock-surrender. “We already have one insane fucker in the unit. I sure as hell don’t need another.”

“Snake’s the one who has to watch him most of the time, not you.”

“Hah!” Wolf moved to kick back on the sofa, putting his feet up on the coffee table. Alex sat next to him, shifting a little in the strange environment, even though the ice was virtually broken. “I think I’d go loony with him. Iraq was bad enough.” 

“How bad?”

“Fucking nightmare. Fox just sulked, like the antisocial bitch he can be when he’s annoyed. Eagle drove us all mad. Constantly singing. Half considered running into enemy fire to escape. Snake got pissed when you weren't taking care of yourself. And you don’t mess with the angry Scotsman. In any circumstances.”

Alex gave a short bark of laughter and the man laughed with him. It was completely Wolf to say something like that. Before, while being chucked in with K Unit for ten days, he wouldn’t have even imagined any of them to have a sense of humour, let alone one so similar to the kind of jokes said. 

“I have pictures. Well, a few. Come on, to the kitchen.”

“Why the kitchen?”

“Because food.” Wolf shrugged. “Why else?” 

The kitchen, it turned out, did have food. And other things. Like ceramic pots in various patterns, the smoky earth tones and brightness streaming through more reinforced windows. Alex didn’t know how he’d forgotten the decorating style before - traditionally Hispanic with some modern additions. Classic Wolf.

“So,” the older man drew out the word, “what secret squirrel shit have you been doing that you can tell me about?”

“Um, it’s complicated.” 

“Ah.” Wolf turned away from him, dropping a file in front of him. “That’s the stuff I have from Iraq. Had to keep it hidden, though.”

Alex just stared blankly at the manilla file on the counter. Was this something else that Creed was trying to get answers from him again? Or was he just being paranoid? This was Wolf . Wolf always had his six. Sure, there had been a few cruel jokes off-duty but nothing trust-breaking. Not like that had mattered in his previous encounters.

“Cub?”

He’d been staring at the file too long then. 

“Can you open it?” Alex asked instead.

“No. You've got to do that.”

Well, that wasn’t right. That was downright ominous. If Wolf said those words though…

“Or what?” Alex dared. 

“Tell him what he wants to know.” 

It was toneless and completely wrong , coming from the man who would personally chew him out more than anyone if the unit failed RTI. 

Nope, Alex decided he was done with this fuck-up. 

To the door, we go. He turned to walk out, calm on the outside, but inside him was a whole storm. How much longer could he hold onto the cliff ledge before giving in to Creed?

Wolf was walking right up behind him, he had dissociatively realised.

That didn’t take away the shock of when he put his hand on his shoulder as they reached the living room.

Alex pivoted smoothly, bringing his knee up as hard as he could to move the hand still firmly attached to his shoulder. Wolf’s own arm made a faint ‘pop’ sound and he looked stricken as he abruptly reeled backwards a few steps. Completely unlike he’d been trained to do.

Oh. Oh. I've dislocated it, he thought.

For a few more moments, Alex simply stared at the ever-changing emotions that he could see in Wolf, even though he was good at hiding them. Surprise, anger, shock, anger, acceptance, more anger. Oops. That wasn’t good. Triggering Wolf’s temper never was.

Almost like the bull from the ring in France, he lunged with no warning. If Alex hadn’t been expecting it, it would have knocked him down as Wolf easily pinned him.

Instead, Alex dodged the initial lunge, moving his feet to trip the man up. He just locked his feet with Alex’s, dragging them both down to the wooden floor.

What followed was more like a scramble between two five-year old kids in nursery rather than two professionally-trained lethal killing machines.

One of them was near exhaustion and the other had a dislocated arm, sure. 

Still, it ended with Wolf pinning down Alex with his non-dislocated arm across the other’s collarbone. Brute force was a lot more effective against his fighting when he was mentally fucking done with everything, apparently.

“Tell him what he wants to know.”

Fuck this shit.

Alex lashed out, both of them knowing that all this time they’d both been holding back. Springing up, he pushed Wolf backwards and spun into a perfect roundhouse kick. Wolf caught his foot with his good arm, pulling him inward towards him as if they were dancing a tango. 

What Alex expected to happen next was to be knocked out with a quick but powerful punch to the jaw.

Not to be choked. 

Very quickly, he was laying down on the ground again, trying desperately to grasp as much air as he could but there seemed to be a vacuum in front of him, even though Wolf was only using one hand. But oh, he couldn’t breathe.  

As he closed his eyes, knowing that he was only seconds away from passing out again, the pressure abruptly lightened and he heard a small cough-like sound clear despite the deep-sea pressure in his ears from the lack of oxygen.

Alex’s eyes flew open on their own accord. 

Just as the soldier collapsed on top of him. Dead.

Shifting and scrambling out quickly from underneath the still warm corpse - fuck, fuck, fuck -  Alex looked around wildly like a spooked colt for where the shot had come from. And his eyes landed on the stairs.

Yassen - again? - was standing rather calmly above both of them, pistol with a suppressor attached to it in his hand.

“He would have killed you.” he said.

Well that wasn’t obvious. 

“Little Alex, why do you fight?”

Alex just coughed, throat throbbing painfully from being strangled. He could taste bitter copper in his mouth as well; he’d bitten his tongue while struggling. But Yassen waited patiently for a reply.

“Because it...it drives you nuts...but at least...you, you tried.” he snarked back, gasping for breath. But it wasn’t enough as he collapsed back onto the floor, vision blurring a different shape in front of him, his hand suddenly grasping another’s. Small and delicate. Like a child’s.

“Why won’t he just give in?!”

“Like I said before, Mr Creed. He’s stronger.”

“Or my money invested in your experiments is wasted. Up the dosage.”

“But that wi-”

“If you won’t do it, then I will, Svetlana. Remember that you’re just as expendable as your predecessors and that I want results, not excuses.”

“Ian.”

Alex didn’t know what to think of the man in front of him. His uncle. He was dressed exactly as Alex last remembered him, crisp sky blue shirt with darker navy trousers to match.

“Alex.”

Awkward silence.

“I’m so sorry.” Ian swallowed, squarely meeting his eyes and Alex just really wanted him to look away. Creepily maintaining eye contact was something that both of them liked doing often in the past. It had always unnerved people, even if they were staring at each other.

They were both standing on the doorstep of a small house. It was somewhere in a village, from the lack of noise and the large garden that faded into the woods in front of them. The address of the house was on a letter left just on the doormat with the name of some lady - Tamsin Jackson.

The girl from before was back. She was swinging on a wooden plank that had been hung from a large and sturdy tree, humming contentedly to herself and Alex noticed that the dragon pendant was around her neck this time.

“Who is she, Ian?” Alex asked, deciding to focus on something other than the fact that Ian was standing right next to him .

“I don’t know.” he said honestly, playing along. “But she reminds me of you, in a way.”

Alex looked at him quizzically. 

“The way she walks around, the way she spends all of her time finding ways to play alone, the way she’s sitting on the swing.” Ian turned to look at his nephew. “You did the same thing, I remember. You would play for hours on your own before you met Tom. I supposed that’s my fault.”

“How?”

“Because you were pretty much alone until Jack. We always moved around. You couldn’t really get settled anywhere. You made friends easily enough but always had to adjust to a new place quickly too. My fault, Alex.” Ian’s voice was thick with guilt. 

“So she’s lonely like I used to be?” 

Ian laughed hollowly at that. “Way to change the subject. But yes.”

“What do I do, Ian?”

“About what?”

“Creed. He wants something from me. I don’t really know what. But I think I’ll go insane if this carries on any longer.”

“...You really want my input?”

“Why else would I ask?” Alex deadpanned.

“There’s that saying. Run away to live to fight another day.” Ian shrugged, knowing that what he was saying was coming across.

“So you’re saying that I should break?”

“No.” Ian paused, being dramatic for once, “I’m saying that even if you lose a battle, you still have the chance of winning the war. That isn’t breaking under the enemy. Breaking is when you lose you. Not to the enemy, but to yourself.”

“...I think I know what to do. What he wants.”

“Good. Now go.”

“What?” Alex was taken aback.

“Tell me what I want to know, Rider! It’s really that simple!”

“You can’t stay here. You have things to do.” Ian elaborated.

“Give it up…. Please .”

Alex took a deep breath, trying to calm his heart from its lightning-fast pace. 

Then, he gave in.

“An-angel Creed. Now known as Angel...Jackson. Lives with her...mother. RG1 2GH. Reading, Berkshire.”

Then everything went wild. 

“They upped the dosage and the effects of it are kicking in now. Hold on, Alex.”

Alex snapped open his eyes. 

He’d been moved from the metal tube. Into a room somewhere. He was still restrained to the chair, with a different man wearing dark grey - he hadn’t seen him before - looming ominously over him, blocking the light.

“Are you afraid, Alex?”

Razim? No. This wasn’t happening again. He wasn’t watching Jack die all over again, wasn’t watching Julius blow up the Jeep and laughing derangedly. But he still had to fight back.

There were various sharp implements and a few syringes on a tray next to him, filled with some clear and colourless liquid, presumably the drug he had been injected with beforehand. The man above him was loosening his ties for some reason. 

A sudden rush of adrenalin and pure instinct took over as his arm was freed. 

The next thing Alex knew, the man was screaming , loud and terrified, kneeling down onto the ground and clutching at a needle in his skin. A few pinpricks of blood were leaking from his neck but he had somehow judged the distance and location of where to strike correctly. 

It was only a simple matter of grabbing a surgical knife from the table and cutting the rest of the restraints. The ‘doctor’ was still writing on the floor, eyes wide but on the verge of shouting out again. Alex knocked him out before it could alert the guards outside further than his initial cry had. A small mercy. It didn’t matter. 

“Would you like a glass of water before we begin?”

The drug from earlier was still coursing through his veins like liquid blood, burning him alive in every way. It wasn’t a nice feeling but he had to go after Creed, especially now that he knew where the gunrunner was heading.

All he needed was a weapon.

The good news was that he had ‘retrieved’ a gun. It was his own but did that matter?

The bad - or better - news was that there was an awful lot of shooting and shooting somewhere below him. 

Also good news was that he hadn’t caused it. It looked more like the SAS had traced his location from one of the beads in his bracelet.

The bad news was that Creed was also nowhere to be found.

He had seen that Svetlana woman somewhere downstairs in this mansion-like house anyway.

Maybe things would be going right. For once.

Things were not going right. Not right at all. 

Alex was still running around hopelessly lost in the manor-too-big-to-be-a-house-but-too-small-to-be-a-manor. He hadn’t run into anyone except the occasional guard (they didn’t even know what had literally hit them) even though it was practically impossible to accidentally avoid the soldiers on his side. To make things worse, the experimental drug he had been injected with had him figuratively on his knees. 

The whole thing was making his heart pump harder which was probably why. He was so on edge. Just the slightest movement sent his pulse into a drug-induced frenzy. Every time.

Why was it so loud and smoky in here? And why were there no fucking SAS operatives ? 

Alex turned around a corner, quickly checking behind him before -

“And you think you’ve won?!”

Bang! Bang! 

The crack of two gunshots rang out, echoing wildly in his hearing, like a wind chime, despite everything going on around him.

He had just shot Julius.

Again.

He had killed himself.

All over again. 

“...ub! Put down the gun!” a voice yelled from somewhere behind him.

The weapon, cold and somehow still burning in his grasp, slid from his hand.

Alex collapsed onto his knees, processing what had just happened poorly. 

This wasn’t Cairo, was it? 

No. There were guns firing and voices yelling, just like the fort outside Siwa. But it wasn’t in Arabic or American-accented English. 

Instead, curses in a thick Scottish accent from right next to him, the man telling him to breathe .

He gasped for air, almost choking as he felt it in his sore throat. 

So I had been strangled, Alex considered detachedly. Everything was spinning horrifyingly around him but he felt like he wasn’t even in his own body. Just an extension of his physical body. 

“Oh, fuck, oh, God,” someone else was saying into his ear on the other side. Was that... Eagle?  

“Cub, hang in there,” the Scottsman grunted, checking his eyes with a quick flash of pen torch. 

Had Fox and Wolf got out okay? Where even was he? 

“You’re in England. We had a hard time tracking you cos’ you were constantly on the move but yeah.” Eagle continued, supporting the back of Alex’s neck and watching Snake perform checks on the various catalogue of injuries. “Wolf is in St Dominics recovering but he’s on comms from there. Fox is somewhere downstairs.”

“Stay awake, Cub. Alex?” 

But Alex was watching something beyond them.

At the end of the corridor, just leaning on the broken mirror was Yassen Gregorovich. He smiled with his ice-blue eyes and nodded in approval, before sliding to smoothly glide away, fading like the snow melting when the sun finally came out after a storm.