«´¨·. ¸¸.¤ The Vast Ocean ¤.¸¸.·´¨»
Disclaimer: I do not own any of Alpha Force and don't claim to, it belongs to Chris Ryan
Introduction: One shot of Hex thinking about his feelings towards Amber, set in the school term after Hostage.
Hex's fingers flew across his desktop computer; he slurped at a glass of diet coke that had adjusted to room temperature a long time ago. His eyes never moved from the screen. This was his life, sitting in his room with the navy curtains shut ( to eliminate any glare from the sun on his monitor) and tapping away at the keyboard. At least this was his life between his school holidays when he met up with the only 'real life' friends, who had formed a team called Alpha Force. They went all over the world to help people and improve their lives to carry on what Amber's parents had started.
He sighed as he keyed in some HTML code and saved his blog entry. Amber. The willowy, New Yorker who had come into Hex's life as a stuck up, spoilt little rich girl but now was a close friend. A voice in his head nagged at him… that's not all she is, is she? Hex scrunched his face at the imagining voice. No, Amber was just a friend, right? He closed his eyes and imagined her pretty face with her big, chocolate eyes looking at him… okay, so he fancied her a bit, that wasn't his fault. She was really pretty. It was just a crush, a silly school boy crush because she's not grossly disfigured. He groaned. He really wasn't used to these stupid hormones pumping through his body and manipulating is feelings. It completely changed the normal coding for his body. It was like a virus creeping through his system and slowly infecting him with more than friendly thoughts about Amber.
He began to hit his head rapidly and repeatedly on his wooden computer desk, trying to think of Amber to associate her with pain instead of this mushy feeling he had inside of him that was growing slowly. He fingered his forehead gently and he felt a lump emerging like the scarabs erupting out of the sand in the Mummy, one of his all time favourite films. Okay, so maybe he more than fancied her. He practically spent all the time on their Alpha Force missions with her and always made sure she was okay before attending to anyone else's (including his own) safety. He thought about her all he time, even when the Atlantic Ocean separated them, wondering what she was doing now, several hours behind him. He wondered if she had just woken up and if anybody was around to make sure she had injected her insulin and was watching to make sure she was eating enough. His green eyes turned to slits, this virus has really taken a hold of his system.
"Who's got an anti-virus program capable of locating and deleting this feeling from my system?" He drawled out a lot. Then a new thought began to form in his head, what if this wasn't a virus, but a new software, a new more advanced piece of software that would be better for his system. It wasn't always good to cling onto the old systems, just like Pentium 3 gave way to Pentium 4. Maybe he should embrace this feeling, tell Amber how he felt. Maybe she felt the same way. He ran his hands gingerly through his soft brown hair leaving it spiking in all directions. He thoughts travelled back to the time they had just spent in Canada. How she had saved him when he took his breathing apparatus out of his mouth and she came back to save him. He shook his head, she would have done that for anyone like he would have done it for anyone. Then his mind raced back to the time he had spent in the desert with the rest of Alpha Force. Khalid had been teasing Amber about him, Hex had pretended that he wasn't listening but he really had caught parts of the conversation. Maybe Khalid was right, maybe she did like him. That would explain why she didn't want him to play hero when he had retreated to the Unimog to save one of the kidnapped children. He smiled, but then his face soured. There was one great big ocean separating them. The vast Atalntic Ocean. Hex's life was here in London while Amber's was in New York. They were on different continents and lived completely different lives and not to mention lived different types of lives. Amber was extremely well off and lived in a gorgeous, huge house on the outskirts of New York enjoying rich-girl sports such as lacrosse and fencing whereas he lived in a semi-detached with his family and dreaded going back to school and spending time away from his keyboard and having to compete in a football match with people he hardly knew. No, this wasn't right and it couldn't be right. Besides, Amber probably only felt friendly feeling towards him. He knew she had just been teasing him, but she often referred to him as a geek. He probably wasn't the type of guy that she wanted to spent her life with, especially as she was surrounded by some of the world's most eligible bachelors. He sighed, his shoulders slumping and he rocked back on his chair. He breathed deeply. Just stop thinking of her, he thought to himself.
His thoughts wondered back to the Mummy and the story line. He used every bit of his strength to stop envisioning himself as Rick and Amber as Evy and replaying the last scene in his head with Alex as Jonathon. He chucked to himself as he imagined Alex kissing the camel, Jonathon style. He wondered where his precious DVD of the film was, knowing he wouldn't put it anywhere unsafe as that would be completely out of character. He groaned loudly, his shoulders sagging as flashbacks of him handing over the valuable DVD to Amber last time they had seen each other. He began to hit his head on the mahogany desk once more filling the silent house with a steady rhythm.
He pulled away as he heard a second pulse of thumping that wasn't coming from him. He head was stinging from the desk-thumping and his disorientated brain took longer than usual to realise that someone was knocking on his front door. It was midday so nobody was home and he stomped down the stairs with a slightly disgruntled look on his face. The visitor was disturbing his thoughts, then again a distraction may keep away any thoughts about Amber.
It was a delivery man delivering a package for him. Immediately his brain started to try to think of any packages he ordered, he drew a blank. Anyway, this package was wrapped in holographic blue paper. Who would send him package wrapped in blue paper? He signed the clipboard and thanked the man and retreated back into his room up the stairs burdened with the package which he dropped on his bed. What on earth was in here? His green eyes looked quizzically at it before he tore open the package. It was a brown box. He carefully opened the sides which revealed a polystyrene block. He began to dislodge the polystyrene block and remove the contents of the package onto the floor leaving a trail of polystyrene balls which had exploded from the package.
A laptop fell out. A brand new, state of the art, compact, shiny, metallic silver, expensive looking laptop fell out onto his grubby bed sheets. Who would send him something this expensive…? His green eyes widened as his brain stepped up a gear. It couldn't be. He flung the packaging across the room trying to find a card of some sort. No form of any note. He looked at the laptop lying there with the mains cable next to it. Maybe…
He started up the laptop and muttered "come on, come on," under his breath as he started it up. He needed to check some things on the user interface. However, something engulfed the screen in fuchsia pink and the sudden change of colour sent him flying backwards a few metres. He read the message which was scrawling across the screen in brilliant white letters.
"HEX! I was over at my parents' company and found they had developed a new range of laptops, they were still being tested but they are pretty much done so I snuck one out just for you! I thought of you when I saw it and don't worry I smoothed it over with Uncle so we're not stealing anything. Anyway, I miss being able too tease you about your geekyness and I bet you're wondering how I wrote this message not on the normal user interfacey thingy. Well, I learnt a few things. P (Okay, fine, I got a programmer dude to help me). I'll see you soon.
Love, Amber xx"
He looked at the message, dumbstruck. Maybe the Atlantic wasn't so vast after all...
A/N: Please, please review! I like reviews. P