I don't own Alex Rider. That is illegal and would be known as slavery. I don't own the series, I don't own the movie, and this is a work of fiction. That's why it's called FAN FICTION. Enjoy!


Dappled with golden rays of sunlight, the boy's soft blond hair shifted as the wind brushed him like a caress. He was seventeen now, the profile silhouetted against the blue sky paned into harder, more defined lines. A strong jaw jutting up towards the open air, seemingly in defiance, long lashes, and a strong nose. Sharp cheekbones caught the light, highlighted with the sun's bright glow. Beneath them, the hollows of his cheeks were more defined and deep, the face gaunt and thoughtful. Beneath the thick, gold lashes, the brown eyes were dark and series, older than the face they belonged to, contemplative. The lips, shadowed beneath the nose and the features hard as a Greek statue, turned up in an elusive smile.

"Alex," A worried voice hissed from far below the boy, who was perched in the topmost branch of the old oak, his feet dangling into thin air.

The boy just continued to smile, his tanned skin lustrous in the afternoon light as heat shimmered down in waves from the high set sun that outlined his form. His lithe muscles wiry against his recently growing frame were defined in a way that gave him a predatory look.

"Alex," the voice hissed again, the tone mildly disapproving.

Alex Rider smirked down at Sabina Pleasure, watching her full lips turn down in disapproval, her face growing blotchy with frustration as the wind blew a stray strand of midnight colored hair into her face. She stamped a foot as she grew tired of waiting for him.

"Dammit, Alex! Get out of the tree! I'm ready to go to my senior prom and you are not taking me dressed like that!" Glancing up at him, she couldn't help but admire how well the t-shirt showed off his muscle structure. Her fingers itched for a pencil and a sketch book. She could almost feel the paper sliding under her fingers as the pencil darted over the page. She could imagine his form, just like it was now, perched above the world with all of its troubles, emerging onto the paper, permanently recording his elusive smile and that look he gave her, so free. He was like a wild animal in its natural element...

She shook her head to clear it of such thoughts, a smile struggling to emerge from behind her facade of frustration.

It had been Alex that taught her to draw. He saw the world so differently. Black, white, and grey, the tones would grow from pointless smudges into art. That art could be so expressive.

Looking at one of his pictures, she could see into Alex's head, understand her enigmatic friend much better. When he had first begun drawing, when he came to live with them in San Francisco, the drawings accumulated everywhere, dark, turmoil-filled images of a red-haired woman whose hair became blood and whose eye sockets were dark, empty, dead. Gradually, his art changed, and so did he. He learned to smile again, to laugh. He learned not to jump and shy away from touch. He changed, and that was when Sabina Pleasure had begun to fall in love with Alex Rider.

It was the times when she had had a bad day, when she forgot an assignment, and her dark hair flew everywhere, when her Dad's leg was having issues again, and her grades slipped... It was those days when the boy who had been through so much, whose life had been full of so much pain, comforted her as if her problems were the most important thing in the world to him. It was those days that made her fall in love with him.

It was the days when he woke up screaming, sweaty, pain in his every movement, and he ignored it all to reassure her that nothing was wrong, that he knew he'd be moments when he lied to her, those were what made her fall in love with him.

It was something gradual, not just physical. It was the way he was never rude to her parents, the way he didn't always raise his hand although he knew the answer, the way he opened the door when her hands were full. It was the moment she looked at her window to see him standing, palms outstretched and face upturned, as rain ran over him, soaking him.

It started when he held her hand as they crossed the street, the cars blurring past and engines emitting throaty growls. It was his laughter when they reached the other side, and standing outside the grocery store, hearing the rise and fall of a soft waltz drift from the PA system, how he still held her hand is his calloused one. It was how he grinned as he pulled her towards him, bodies flush and aligned, and began to dance. It started as they waltzed on the street outside the supermarket, the burning sun pounding down upon their backs. How he spun her and bowed, his nose crinkling as he laughed. Watching, sh could imagine the ball room, imagine the smooth wood of the dance floor replacing the rocky asphalt. It was how they ran inside the supermarket at the sound of the car horn, cold air bursting through the open doors and driving away the summer heat.

It was the moments when he couldn't hide what he was feeling and he'd run outside, returning hours later with bruised knuckles and a haunted look in his eyes. Guilt.

He was so much more than simple. And slowly she had fallen in love with that.

She had fallen in love with the man the boy had become.

Little did she imagine as she watched him now, slipping down through the branches toward her, exactly what falling in love with a Rider entailed. Eyes sparkling with thoughts of the night ahead, she never considered the blood that was running through Alex's veins. Blood that had been spilled too many times to count in the past. The blood of a spy.

And not even Alex Rider can escape destiny. Unbeknownst to him the hand that guides us all was leading them both in a different direction, sending them hurtling straight back into the life Alex had struggled to escape from.

Little human, don't fight me. You play the game so very well I can't kill you yet. No, not yet. You are too much fun, boy. Too much fun.