'Who is your hero?' I seemed like a question a year 5 class would do a speech on but maybe that was the challenging part thought the year 12 student. She looked around the small, packed classroom. A lot of her classmates had brought their hero along for the speech. The said heros mostly consisted of mums and dads or friends. The little classroom at brookland comprehensive was quite noisy to say the least.
Finally the teacher got up to silence everyone and get the speeches under way.
Sabina looked sadly down at her cards. All her classmates would talk about how their mum washes their clothes and dad payed for their schooling and that's why they were their hero. Sabinas hero was different. He saved her life and many others. Her boyfriend was a real hero.
She never regretted the decision to move to america with him. She continued her schooling, he continued his work in SAS and MI6 though thankfully MI6 didn't use him very often anymore. They were somewhat a functioning couple. But then there were the diplomas, and the months of endless fear, fear of the phone ringing and telling her he wasn't coming home. That she would never look into those beautiful chocolate brown eyes again. And this was one of those times.
He and his unit got shipped out just over 8 months ago and she missed him. So so much. She was wondering if she could really do it. If she could really stand up in front of all these people while she was going through this. In front of the people who thought her boyfriend, her hero was a druggy and a freak. Of course they didn't know she was dating the infamous Alex Rider. As far as they were concerned, she was dating a 20 something year old SAS veteran way out of her league but still.
She slowly turned her attention to the front where Jess was wrapping up her speech about her how her dog remembers to get the paper every day from the front yard and that how he was a hero.
Riiigggghhhhtttt….
The applause had just died down when their was a light knock on the door.
"Come in" the teacher called as Sabina was preparing to go to the front.
Slowly the door opened to reveal a young man in a khaki Army uniform. He had longish dirty blond hair that almost covered his big, chocolate brown eyes. He was quite skinny but you could tell he was also very muscular and he wore a large, lopsided grin.
Sabina froze, just for a second, making sure she wasn't imagining it before pelting to the door and flinging herself into his arms. She didn't even realise she was crying till one of the men standing behind the reunited couple handed her a tissue. She couldn't believe it. He was here. He was alive. And he was here, with her.
"Hi" he said in a very Its-not-like-ive-been-gone-for-8-months kind of way.
"Hi" She replied in a very shaky voice.
"Did I miss it?"
"No I was just about to go, what… why.. how are you.."
"Got an unexpected rotation. only found out yesterday."
"And..um.. Them?" she asked, directing her attention to the three men standing just out the door.
"Aaa.. yeah, we literally just got back, as in we drove straight from the airport to here. Eagle hasn't stopped complaining about his stomach since we landed though."
"right, I'll make this quick then" she said, grabbing his hand and slowly turning back to the front where a lot of the parents were wiping tears from their eyes and the students were staring in shock at Alex.
"Right, ok. Good afternoon teachers, special guests and peers. My hero is a little different from the others in this room. Alex doesn't wash my clothes or pay for my schooling or anything like that. He's my hero because he puts his life on the line everyday for each one of us. He risks his life for our freedom. He throws himself in the line of fire for his friends. And he never thinks that a life is not worth saving no matter who that person is. He's my hero because no matter how much I plea with him to not be in SAS he sits with me and explains why he must and I respect him for that. He does what he believes is right. He is an extraordinary person. He does not hold his life above others. I know that he would give his life for anyone no matter how well he knew that person, no matter if they were a stranger, not matter if it was a person who called him a druggy at school he would still give his life to save theirs. And that is why my boyfriend, Alex rider, is my hero"