AN: Well, don't kill me. I've had a lot on my plate and...you know what? No. No excuses. I suck. You could decide not to continue reading or you could decide to keep dealing with me and my problems. Either way it's your choice. That being said, if you have yet to read Where Others Fail then this story probably won't make any sense. Go back, read it, and then read this one. You'll be glad later. For those of you who have already read Where Others Fail, Where Others Run picks up right where Where Others Fail left off. Hope you enjoy!

DISCLAIMER: (cause I didn't do them last time) I don't own Alex Rider because slavery is illegal in the US. However, if slavery wasn't illegal then I would probably own him because I'm awesome like that. Just saying.

Alex POV

Alex followed Jane down the hallway full of cells. The last cell on the left Alex knew would lead to Smithers' room but instead of turning left Jane opened the cell on the right. Alex arched an eyebrow. "You lock up your leaders?"

"No, we keep them hidden in unusual places." Miss Doe said. "Would you have looked here?"

Alex had to admit he would not have.

The cell wasn't actually a cell but a hallway. A very long hallway. Together they walked down the hallway in silence. At the very end of the hallway there was a solid oak door with a small window, much like an office door. Jane opened the door and motioned for him to go inside. "He's right here."

"Good. Now leave." Alex walked inside but the office chair had a high back hiding the identity of the person. Jane left without another word and Alex and the other person in the room sat in silence. Impatient, Alex said. "Well?"

Suddenly a hand reached out from behind the chair and reached into a candy bowl. "Peppermint Alex?"

Alex's heart sunk. "No. It can't be."

"It's been awhile." Mrs. Jones said as she turned to face him. "I hear you have a family now."

"You...you threatened them." Alex choked out the words. "You threatened my family."

"Alex, listen-" Mrs. Jones started.

Alex cut her off. "No, Mrs. Jones, you listen to me. I lost my father, my mother, my uncle, my housekeeper, my godfather, and a year of my life to you...but that wasn't enough? You had to threaten to take away my wife and child too?"

"Alex I-"

"We had an agreement between MI6 and me. We agreed I was done. We agreed that I could walk away from with the Pleasures and never look back." Alex said. "How dare you drag me back into this life!"

"Alex, don't you-"

Alex slammed a fist on Mrs. Jones' desk. "I put them in danger, damn it! I got married and had a child and started a business because I was crazy enough to believe that you would hold up your end of the bargain. I would never have started a life if I'd known you'd use them against me."

Mrs. Jones hesitated to make sure Alex was done and then said, "First of all, Alex, you are hardly unused to this sort of arrangement-"

Alex's jaw dropped. "This arrangement? This is not the arrangement I'd worked with before. Last time it was boarding schools and deportation, not death!"

Mrs. Jones frowned. "You're aren't fifteen anymore. The stakes had to be raised for the same effect."

"I. Was. Done." Alex said slowly. "What part of that don't you get?"

"Alex, there are two ways to leave active duty in this business." Mrs. Jones said. "Death on a mission or demotation to sleeper cell."

"So?" Alex asked.

"You say you left the business but here you are alive and well. If you did not leave the business via a casket..." Mrs. Jones trailed off.

"You just took me off of active duty." Alex finished. "You left open the ability to call me back whenever you wanted."

"That was not the intention when I put you down as a sleeper cell." Mrs. Jones said. "I never had any plans of calling you back in."

"But you did anyway." Alex said.

"I put you there so that we could still be there for you." Mrs. Jones snapped. "If I'd written you off as dead or just cut you off completely MI6 would never come to help you...or your family. If, god forbid, you ever died we would be there to help financially support your family and protect them. It also prevented many people from attacking you when they thought you were weak."

"You think you did me a favor?" Alex asked.

"I know I did you a favor." Mrs. Jones said.

"Fine. Thank you. Now, if you'll excuse me my family and I will be leaving to go back to our normal lives." Alex said. He stood up to leave.

"Alex wait!" Mrs. Jones said. He turned around. "It wasn't my idea to blackmail you into this job."

"I don't care whose idea it was I just-" Alex was cut off.

"It was the Board's decision. They also decided to keep you on active duty." Mrs. Jones said quietly. "I'm sorry."

Alex tensed. "You're putting me back on active duty?"

Mrs. Jones sighed. "You don't understand, Alex, a lot of things have changed in fifteen years. We still have the Head and the Deputy but we have the Board too. Now they're all involved in the decision making."

"And collectively this group of people all decided that I needed to be on active duty?" Alex asked.

"It was a unanimous vote. The collective idea was that the world was safer with you as a spy than as a diving instructor." Mrs. Jones said.

Alex glared. "I'm glad you pulled me out of my democratic county so you could force me into the job you wanted."

"I said I was sorry." Mrs. Jones said.

"Sorry doesn't stop them from sending me on another mission. Sorry doesn't protect my family from facing the consequences if I fail. Sorry doesn't do shit Mrs. Jones and I'm tired of listening to you tell me how sorry you are." Alex said. He stormed out of the room as best he could with handcuffed wrists leaving a slightly regretful Mrs. Jones at her desk.

Eve POV...Two years later

"I don't understand why you decided to stop homeschooling him." Alex said.

Eve threw her hands in the air. "Because he needs friends, I need a real job, and besides we're going to be in England for the rest of our lives. Might as well get used to it."

Alex sighed. "Well, what does that have to do with meeting James' teacher?"

"It's pretty normal for the parents of a student to meet the student's teacher and I will have some normalacy in life!" Eve said.

Alex couldn't deny the love of his life that. "Fine, but what kind of teacher sets up a meeting in the middle of a school day?"

"All the kids are out of school today. The teachers are meeting with the current parents and James' teacher was kind enough to let us sit on the said meeting." Eve said.

Eve directed him to turn left ahead. "This place feels awful familiar. What did you say the school was called again?"

"I didn't." Eve said. Alex pulled ahead of some trees and a great building loomed ahead. "It's called Brookland Comprhensive."

Alex POV

To Alex, his life was just one big ironic joke that tended to slap him in the face. This was one of those moments when he wondered if karma existed and if so, what had he done in a past life to deserve this? Eve and him got their passes from the secretary and left in search of Mrs. Cole's room. Now out of earshot of the secretary Eve asked, 'What's wrong with Brookland Comprehensive?"

"Nothing." Alex said. "This is the school I used to go to when I lived in England."

"Wow, what are the chances?" Eve shook her head. "Does anybody know about, you know?"

"None of the teachers did and the one friend I had that did...I don't know what happened to him after I left." Alex said. "It shouldn't be a problem. Probably everyone has forgotten me."

They walked into the room but the teacher was already in the middle of her meeting. She turned her head to see who was at the door. "Oh, can I help you?"

Eve walked forward and shook hands with the friendly teacher. "Yes, my name is Eve. We talked on the phone."

"Oh yes, Eve!" The teacher turned her head to Alex. "And who might you be?"

"I'm James' father, Alex Rider."

There were several sharp intakes of breath and then complete and utter silence. You could have heard a feather hit the floor. Alex scanned the faces of some of the parents and spotted a few people that might have been in his class fifteen years ago. They wore shocked expressions complete with dropped jaw and wide eyes. Even the teacher, who had obviously not recognized the Rider name for what it was when Eve used it on the phone, looked horrified at having Alex Rider in her classroom. Alex shifted uncomfortably under the weight of their gazes before looking pleadingly at Eve for help. She cleared her throat. "As I was saying, my husband and I are planning on putting our son James in Brookland Comprehensive. We knew he'd be in your class so-"

"Hopefully he shows up more often than you Alex." A man from the back staggered his way to the front. Alex tried to place his face and came up with Benjamin from the soccer team. "Do you remember Alex? You were, like, never at school. Never!'

A woman he didn't recognize at all came up and tried to pull him back into the group but Benjamin was having none of that. He shook her off and staggered closer to Alex. "We, like, all thought you were dead or something from those drugs and gangs."

Alex could smell the beer on Benjamin's breath from five feet away, and this guy had the audacity to accuse him of being a drug user? Alex ground his teeth together. "I was never in a gang and I never did drugs. I was sick, that's why I wasn't in school."

Benjamin laughed. "Yeah right man. We all saw the bruises and the injuries from your little gang fights. We weren't stupid."

Alex would beg to differ. "Look I don't want a problem Benjamin, I just want to put my kid in school."

But Benjamin just continued like Alex had never said a word. "And then one day, BAM! You were gone from school without a single word. No notes or doctor's excuses or anything. Just one day you're there and the next you're not. Your house was empty, and poor Tom. He never knew what happened to y-"

Benjamin never got to finish because right then he got a powerful right hook to the jaw that spun him around before knocking him to the floor. Alex looked at Eve amazed. "Remind me not to piss you off."

Eve put her hand on Alex's cheek to comfort him. They looked into each other's eyes for a moment and then Eve turned away. "Mrs. Cole, I think it's best if I set up a more private meeting to discuss my son's placement in your class. Have a nice day."

Alex took Eve's hand and they walked out together.

James POV

"Mom?" James asked. "Do you know anything about poisonous plants?"

"No but your Dad will." Eve said. She was at the stove making some wonderful smelling pasta.

"Dad! I need your help!" James shouted. There was a moment of silene and then Alex enetered the room gun drawn. Eve shook her head. James laughed and held up his homework. "You can put your gun away Dad, my homework surrenders."

Alex scowled. "You two have really got to stop doing that."

"I need some help with these questions and drawings." James said.

"What class?" Alex asked.

"Science." James replied.

Alex grimaced. "I missed a lot of my science classes. I'm probably not the best person to ask. Now if it had been foreign languages or geography or computers..."

James sighed. "Mom said you would know something."

Alex looked at Eve curiously. "Why?"

Eve didn't look up from the sauce as she said, "He's studying poisonous plants."

Alex winced. "Yeah, I can help you with that."

He sat down at the dining room table and took a look at the paper. The phone rang. Eve stirred the pot. "Don't everybody run at the same time. I'll get it."

Alex fixed a picture of one of the plants. "It should have six leaves and not five."

"Alex! Can you come in here real quick? The caller wants to talk to you." Eve yelled from the living room.

Alex ruffled James' hair and got up. "I'll be right back Squirt."

After a pause James tip-toed after him into the hallway outside the livingroom. Eve had her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. "It's the bank Alex."

Alex's hands curled into fists. "I'm sorry Eve."

Eve nodded and looked down trying to hide her wet eyes. "It's just, we didn't hear anything for two whole years. I started to hope..." She trailed off unable to finish.

"We'll get through this." Alex took her into his arms.

Eve wiped the tears off her cheeks. "You come back in one piece, okay?"

Alex nodded. "I love you."

"I love you more." Eve said.

Alex took the phone and Eve started back to the kitchen. When she got there James was already at the table hard at work on his homework.

Alex POV

Maybe he had been foolish to believe that he would never have to walk into this building again. He of all people should know that MI6 had never been real good at letting go. Once they got their claws into something they refused to release it. Alex tried to force his body to relax but found the action impossible. He had too much on his mind. He hated having to jump whenever MI6 called, he hated that he was being dragged back into a dangerous world he had no real place being in, and he hated that his family was being dragged in with him. The spy life wasn't the place for a family. It was a place for people with nothing to lose. Weaknesses were exploited in this world and Alex's choices had put him in the position where MI6 could use his weaknesses to put him on a leash to be released only to do their bidding. That's how Alex felt, like a guard dog on a leash.

Alex walked up to the woman at the ounter with his hands in his pockets. It was a different woman than the one who'd used to be there. Alex gave her an easy-going smile and got one in return. "I have an appointment with Mrs. Jones."

The woman's eyebrows shot up. "Mrs. Jones?" She lowered her voice. "You're one of them?"

"Yeah, I guess you could say that." Alex said.

The woman pushed a couple buttons on the computer. "Alright. Go on up."

Alex's gaze followed the direction she was pointing until it stopped at an elevator. "Thanks."

Alex got in the elevator and without him pushing any buttons the doors closed and the elevator began to rise. When the doors finally opened and Alex stepped out he had to do a double-take. The layout had changed so that he was now in a waiting room. There were two other men and one woman sitting in the waiting room already as well as a man at a desk who was probably a secretary of sorts. "I have an appointment with Mrs. Jones."

"First name?"

"Alex."

"Last name?"

"Rider." Alex said. The man's jaw dropped. He stared at Alex for several minutes. "Take a picture buddy, it'll last longer."

The man's mouth snapped shut. "Sorry. I mean, we've all heard of Alex Rider but I figured you were just a legend like the Yeti and the Loch Ness Monster. The guys at SAS told us about their version of Alex Rider, some kid named Cub, but no one actually believed in a teenage spy."

"Well," Alex scowled. "The stories were true. Now about my appointment with Mrs. Jones?"

"Yeah, sure, right away." He picked up his phone. "Mrs. Jones? Alex Rider is here to see you. Just go in through those doors. It's the last door at the end."

AN: Well, like I said before. I'm sorry. Please don't forget to review on the way out. Ciao (till Sunday at the very latest I promise)