Ghost of Christmas Eve

Summary: Two years after SR Alex is heading home for Christmas Eve when he sees a ghost of his past, but is he a real ghost or a not-so-dead man.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

It was Christmas Eve and a young man stalked the streets of California like a ghost. He stuck to the shadows even though it was late at night. His tall and muscular frame walked gracefully along the footpath, his footsteps silent and his head covered by a beanie.

His breath puffed out in smokes and in his long winter coat, he looked like any other man on Christmas Eve. He seemed as if he was heading somewhere, his footsteps fast and eager, yet his pace was even and controlled. His hands were covered by woollen gloves, stylish and yet simple. Around his neck he wore a plain black scarf that looked like it had been handmade.

To the civilian world he was known as Alex Pleasure, a young man who had been adopted by the Pleasure family two years ago. To the underground world he was known as Alex Rider, extraordinary teenage spy and a weapon to be reckoned with.

Turning onto the street that the Pleasures lived on, he caught sight of a man that looked familiar. It could have been a trick of light or maybe the cold was messing with him, but he swore that he saw a scar on the man's neck. The man stood on the other side of the road and he could have easily seen wrong, yet his instincts screamed at him to run.

So in true Alex Rider style, he crossed the road casually as if that was what he had meant to do all along and headed in the man's direction. As if the man could sense him walking after him, his strides became larger and he picked up his pace. Alex followed as the man abruptly turned onto another road, picking up his own pace to make sure that he would not lose the man.

As he turned onto the new street his instincts flared, he turned to the side and before he could turn around fully, the tip of a gun rested on his back.

He watched his foggy puffs of breath in the cold air and tried to stay calm. The gun was pointed at his spine but if the man holding it was who he had thought he was then there would be no shooting until he said something to anger the man. He thought there is a fair chance that he would, after all not everyone appreciated his sense of humour.

"You know, if you're gonna point a gun at me you might as well tell me who you are and what you want."

"I believe the right question would be what do you want?"

The voice was calm, steady and accent-less. It was a voice that should not be memorable, yet Alex Rider could tell exactly who the man was from the moment the first word came out of his mouth.

His own voice was quite as he suddenly became breathless and he puffed out, "Yassen," his chest heaved once and he took a deep breath, "You know it's not nice to let someone think you died when you're actually alive."

"Alex, did you want something or do you just want to catch up?"

Yassen said this was a tinge of annoyance that Alex thought was faked, however he was not an expert on the Russian assassin and he could not be sure.

"I've got a lot of questions for you and some things I think you have the right to know."

He was completely calm and relaxed as he said this. He had not been a spy for four years without learning how to disguise his every move, breath and expression.

"Alex I do not think tonight is the best night for this talk."

Alex prayed that the Pleasures would understand what he was about to do, it was only his second Christmas with them and he did not want to mess it up yet he knew that if he let Yassen go he may never see the man again.

"Do you have dinner plans then? I'm sure you can fit me in somehow, I don't mind waiting."

He heard the assassin sigh softly before his unnerving voice said, "Alright Alex, where would you like to have this talk?"

His mind raced as he tried to think of an appropriate place. A restaurant or bar would be too public, anyone could overhear. His apartment in town was not an option. He doubted the assassin would want to bring him to his (no doubt) temporary home. He made a decision that he knew he would regret if the assassin became angry over what he told him for no one would know that the assassin was attempting to kill him until it was too late.

"How about we rent a hotel for the night and talk there, that way we won't find out anything about where each other live."

He waited until the gun disappeared from his back and instead a hand rested casually on his hip, "Alright we can go to Height's Hotel for the night, however I will need to leave before three in the morning. I have business to do."

The Russian now stood at his side with his arm wrapped around his waist and his hand still on his left hip. It felt intimate and yet not uncomfortable with an assassin's arms around him. He wondered if it was just this assassin or if assassins in general just made everything feel natural. For some reason he doubted that assassin lived to make people feel comfortable.

As they walked towards the hotel, Alex thought about how Yassen had said 'I have business to do.' He wondered who was the assassin's target this time and for a second he wondered if it was himself. He dismissed the idea almost immediately, and even if Yassen's target was him he'd give the assassin a run for his money. Alex Rider was not an easy target.

::::

Renting a room had been a bit complicated, the receptionist had told them there had been no rooms with two beds left and they had simultaneously said that a single room with one bed would do. They were only going to talk and neither had actually wanted to sleep in the hotel but the receptionist had looked at them and blushed. From there on the geeky looking girl kept stuttering and looking at them from under her lashes, blushing every time the two of them made contact with each other.

The spy and assassin had somehow come to a mutual agreement and both teased the girl by touching each other and saying innuendos at every opportunity they had. By the time they headed towards their room, the girl was bright red and refused to look either of them in the eye.

Yassen opened the door with their key card and Alex all but ran past him and burst out laughing, flinging himself onto the bed. He laughed and giggled as he stared up at the ceiling and finally lifted his head when he realised he had no idea where Yassen had gone.

He spotted Yassen leaning against the wall next to the door, one had on his belt and one foot rested against the wall. His right eyebrow was lifted upwards and Alex suppressed a grin and asked wearily, "What?"

Yassen simply looked at him emotionlessly and said, "You find humour easily."

Alex eyebrows shot up and he replied, "Well, in our world if you don't find humour in things easily then how do we live? We need the humour Yassen," and underneath his breath he said, "I need the humour."

The assassin stared at him intently, enough to make him uncomfortable although he showed nothing on the outside and just stared right back at the assassin.

"Our world? Alex I had thought you had quit, did you not?"

This time Alex looked away, he opened his mouth and then closed it. After a moment in thought he replied carefully, "I quit MI6, I didn't want them to use me anymore. But spending two years of your life spying… it's hard to forget all you've done. I tried, I truly did, to become a normal teenager but there was always something… there keeping me from being normal."

Alex darted a quick look at Yassen and when he received a nod, he continued, "At first I did small things, like help out the kids at my school who were bullied. I never did care for bullies. Then I went a bit bigger, stopping a drug deal around school. I slowly realised that I was a bit… different with my reactions to things than normal kids my age. In History class, we were studying World War I and II, when our teacher told us what weapons they'd used and created, I found that I knew about all of them. How to use them, how to make them, the history of each weapon and I realised I knew how to kill with them. That's when I first realised that perhaps normal life was not going to work for me."

He paused again and looked at the assassin, when their eye's met; Yassen pushed off the wall and walked to sit on a chair opposite Alex.

"I found that the problem wasn't what I couldn't do, but it was what I could. Yassen I know how to kill with my bare hands. I can keep up a conversation with a politician and seem like I've been doing it my whole life. I can take up a job, any job, and be great at it. I can speak so many different languages and each one fluently that I could pass for a local of that country. I realised that I was too curious for my own good and that if I didn't do something, I'd go mad."

Alex walked up and grabbed a bottle of water from the counter. He rested his body against the counter in a casual pose. His voice was quieter as he said the next part and he kept his eyes down, not wanting to see Yassen's reaction.

"I found Joe Bryne, head of CIA, and got a part time job from him. I'd work for him when I wasn't attending school; sometimes it'll be weekend jobs, sometimes it'll take up my summer holidays."

He waited with his head down, almost feeling ashamed. He had been given an out on the underground world, yet he chose to jump back into the fire pit. He looked up at Yassen when the assassin finally spoke.

"What did you do for him?"

His voice was calm, emotionless and uncaring yet Alex could see a tint of worry in those ice blue eyes. He could see that Yassen cared about him, probably more than the assassin wanted to. He opened his mouth and spoke louder than before.

"For the weekend jobs, it was simple things, a drug duel that needed to be busted that was easy for a teenager like me to do, listening in on a conversation at a local restaurant or easy things like that. For my longer jobs it was a bit more complicated, most of the time it was out of the country since Joe believed that my summer holidays were my time for 'vacations'. He'd send me to somewhere like France and I'd have a new identity, I'd have to work from the bottom up in some organization and find out some things, if I have time, I bring them down."

He smiled a bit ruefully as he said, "Joe fully believed that my education was the most important part of my current life so even if I was halfway through a mission, he'd make me come back in time for school. None of my missions were like the ones MI6 gave me, where the world depended on my success. Joe is… easier to work with than Blunt and a lot more caring. I think it's because he has a soft spot for children."

He grinned, thinking of the first time he met Joe Bryne's daughter. The pretty blond girl was nine years old and believed Alex to be her Prince in Shining Armour. He'd babysat her a couple of times when she visited California with her father when he was on business, her mother had died when she was three, leaving her father to care for her himself.

Yassen's sceptical voice brought him back to the land of the living, "So Joe Bryne has agreed to only use you for simple missions?"

Alex nodded his head and replied warily, "Yes, but I know what you're going to say. I know that one day something will come up that won't be simple and easy, something that will determine the world's safety and I'm going to be the best suited one for the job. I know that he'll offer and if I refuse, he'll think of a way to make me and I know that one day one of these 'Alex is the only one who can do it' missions will kill me."

Yassen's eyebrow rose up again and he stared at Alex, scrutinizing him. His lips formed a flat line and he seemed extremely displeased by what he just heard.

"If you know this, then why have you not quit Alex?"

Alex looked at him and smiled softly, "I guess once you experience the spy world, you just can't get out of it, no matter what. My life is good and I am happy, death is a price I'm willing to pay."

Yassen sighed and he bowed his head down and covered his eyes with his hand. Alex was shocked, the move was so out of character for the assassin and he knew in that moment that the assassin trusted him like how he trusted the assassin.

They had both decided that they shall not kill each other tonight.

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The room was silent as Yassen walked towards Alex and grabbed a bottle of water himself, the silence seemed natural and comfortable between them. Alex smirked at the thought of feeling comfortable and safe in a room alone with Yassen, he never thought he'd see the day where he'd think spending time with Yassen would be relaxing.

He watched as the assassin took the bottle and walked back to his seat, his closed his eyes again and Alex saw the bags under his eyes that he had not realised before. He questioned himself whether or not to let the assassin have a nap but decided that it would be better for the man to have a full out sleep later than it quick nap now.

"So, I've come to ask you questions and all we've been doing is talking about me."

"It's only fair that we both get to ask questions."

The man's eyes were still closed yet his voice was clear and not sleepy at all.

"Well then it is my turn to ask questions."

Alex waited for the man to open his eyes before asking, "Why are you not dead?"

::::

Yassen stared at the teen before him and wondered when he had become so attached to him. He looked into the globes of brown that made the boy look so old and tortured. He had felt his heart miss a beat as he had watched the youngest Rider smile at him. He wondered why it was the young man in front of him that made him feel unsure of himself.

When the boy, no he was a man now, had first started following him, he had speculated on what to do. When he had pointed the gun at Alex's back and silently threatened him with breaking his spine, Yassen had not expected himself to feel joyful as he heard the sarcastic boy's answers to his questions.

He reminded himself again that he was a man now, not a boy. Little Alex was gone and in his place was a confident and, dare he say it, handsome man. He could feel how the man had been relaxed when they had walked to the hotel, his arm wrapped around Alex's waist. He almost wanted to ask the man if men held him around the waist often, for him to be so comfortable with an intimate gesture between two men.

There were a thousand questions he wanted to ask the Alex Rider in front of him but first he had to tell the man how he ended up alive when it was clear he had died.

::::

Alex waited patiently as he watched Yassen collect his thoughts and think of a reply. He knew that whatever happened to the man afterwards would not have been pleasant. He could guess that MI6 would have detained Yassen, healed him up and maybe tortured him. However he has no idea how the man survived the bullet in the first place, he was sure the man had been dead and now he was sitting in front of him like he never died in the first place.

"Alex my story is a long one and I am tired, I shall shorten it for you and if you have questions then you may ask me at the end."

Ice blue eyes locked on his own brown eyes and questioned Alex whether or not this was okay. He gave a nod back and watched the man straighten in his seat.

"The bullet that hit me did kill me, but only for a second or two. Someone was able to restart my heart when we touched ground and I believe that I flat lined a couple of times on the way to the hospital but I always lived. I was in surgery for a long time, I don't know exactly how long. MI6 gave the hospital permission to treat me and they took me away as soon as I got out of surgery. I knew that being captured by MI6 would only lead to further pain, the British SIS is not above torture to get the information they want."

It unnerved Alex that Yassen could talk of such things in an emotionless voice that rivalled his own. He knew that the man was probably uncomfortable thinking of such times and he asked himself why he had asked for the man to explain. Alex did not know why but he did not like the thought of Yassen in pain and hated the fact that Yassen was probably in pain right now telling him about what happened because he had asked.

"I was lucky that Tulip Jones, the current head of MI6, was merciful and wanted me to recover from my surgery before damaging me more. She gave me a week of recovery, it was not long but I was able to escape in that week. How I escaped I would rather you didn't know."

The assassin cleared his throat and then opened his eyes. Alex had forgotten that Yassen had his eyes closed until he opened them to reveal ice blue globes looking directly at him.

"After that I went into hiding to recover for about six months. I reconnected with most of my contacts and found people who were willing to employ me without handing me to SCORPIA. Failure is not acceptable in SCORPIA and I knew that I was liked to be tortured to death if I returned. I was careful at selecting my jobs at the beginning; I needed to earn the trust of the underground organizations again before they gave me bigger jobs."

Alex interrupted with a question that he later realised he should have saved for the end, "Why did you not retire?"

Yassen smiled at him humourlessly and replied, "You cannot stop being a spy, I cannot stop being an assassin. I am a man who needs to do something; I cannot live with a common job like as an accountant and I cannot walk around freely for fear of being sighted as an assassin."

"Yes but if you are an assassin then they will still sight you as an assassin."

This time the grin was more real and a bit cheeky as Yassen said, "Yes and I have the means to kill them off before they say a word to anyone."

Alex refused to look away from the assassin's piercing gaze. He was not an old hand at the spy game but he could see that Yassen was testing him, trying to see just how much had changed since he last saw Alex. He needed the assassin to know that he was no longer a young boy who survived the spy game on borrowed luck; he needed the man to see that this game they were playing had officially become his game too.

"Well Yassen, didn't your teacher ever tell you that violence is not the answer?"

It was Alex who grinned in amusement at his own joke and Yassen simply looked at him as if he had gone a bit mad.

"Alex, you said you had some questions to ask and some things to tell me that I should know. Now is a good time to tell me what these 'things' are."

Alex gulped and wondered if the assassin would kill him after he revealed what he had learnt just after the man's death. He took another drink from his bottle and slowly met the assassin's eyes.

It was time Alex Rider told Yassen Gregorovich about John Rider's betrayal.

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