Author's Note: Hi! Sorry about the time skips, but I wanted to keep this down to one chapter. Oh, and this is set years before Yassen ever met Alex Rider, if that wasn't obvious. Thanks!
Disclaimer: I don't own Alex Rider.
Yassen Gregorovich sighed. "Yes?"
Shannon smiled, the brilliant smile that he'd fallen in love with, though he'd never admit it. "Umm… I was wondering… would you… umm…" She blushed. "Never mind."
Despite everything, Yassen couldn't help the smile that crept across his face. "Yes…?" This time, his tone was kinder.
"Umm… would you… you know, if it's not too much trouble…"
He smiled. "You want me to go out with you?" He'd seen the question playing across her face for days.
She nodded quickly. "Would you? Please?"
He looked at her, pretending to think about it. "Well…"
"Please?" Her eyes grew pleading, a hint of panic dashing through them.
He broke out into a grin. "Of course." He replied with a smile.
Her eyes widened. "Really?"
He nodded.
"Wow! Ok, umm… when?"
"Friday?"
She nodded again. "Yeah."
"Eight o'clock?"
She nodded again. "Yeah, that sounds great." Her cheeks were still bright red.
His smile widened. "I know the perfect place." He told her. "See you then."
"Ok. Yeah. See yah." She kept nodding, her smile huge.
Yassen walked away calmly, but inside his stomach was twisting, tying itself into knots as his common sense warred with his thoughts about her. Relationships with assassins rarely ended well. In fact, all of them ended with someone dying.
He sighed and kept walking until he reached his 'home,' a simple place that kept him hidden from other assassins or spies that might want him dead.
He opened the door, and immediately his instincts were screaming at him. The faint twang! That sounded when he opened the door, the small red light, flashing in the distance, and simply thoughts of self-preservation saved his life as he backed out the door and flung himself away. Roughly three seconds later, his house disappeared into a blast of flame.
Smoke and ash filled the air. The burning remains of his house were crumbling, collapsing in on itself.
"Shit!" Yassen swore, followed by any and every other foul word he could think of. When that was over, he forced his face to go blank. Great. Now, he had no where to live, and he knew that someone was trying to kill him. Someone new. Someone bold enough to actually wire his house to explode in broad daylight.
"Shit." He whispered again.
The hotel was not Yassen's first choice. It was an assassin's nightmare. Trees gave cover for a sniper. There was a large window, and it wasn't exactly bulletproof glass.
He sighed and sat down on the bed. It wasn't the ideal place, but it was the only one. He couldn't go back to Italy and ask Scorpia, the people who had trained him in the first place, for help right now, and it was too late at night to buy a proper house. The hotel would just have to do.
He sighed again, thinking about Shannon. The bomb had done one good thing; kept his mind off of his future with her. It wasn't uncommon for assassins to fall in love and end up having to kill those they'd fallen in love with. It was best to keep a cold eye to the world, to never think about people as actual people, but simply as targets.
Yeah. Right. Try as hard as he could, Yassen couldn't think of people that way. He'd always been good about that. Until he met her.
And it didn't help anything that she was a journalist.
Yassen swore. If there was one thing people hated, it was journalists who stuck their nose into everything. And Shannon was a hard-core journalist, the kind who would always stick her nose where it didn't belong.
He sighed again, and allowed the day's worries to slip away as he placed his head on his pillow, the world turning black…
Twelve months later, nothing had changed.
Yassen looked at Shannon. Her beautiful deep brown eyes stared into his own. "Yassen…"
He looked at her, then turned back to the window, where the sun was setting in the distance. "I'm sorry, Shannon. I'm just… tired."
She smiled. "That much was obvious."
He turned back to her. "I do love you, Shannon."
He found the words slipping out, and he would not take them back. He would never take them back. He loved her, despite the fact that he never should have. He'd allowed himself to slip into a world he never wanted. A world of further lies, further deception. He had entered that world once before, when he'd become an assassin. He'd given up any and all hope of a family, something he never knew he wanted. But now, with Shannon, he wasn't quite so sure…
She looked at him. "Yassen, what's wrong?" her deep eyes searched his.
He started back at her for a long time. After a while, he saw her becoming restless under the awkward silence. He stayed silent for another moment before speaking at last. "Shannon, I lied to you. I don't work at a bank. I'm a trained assassin. I kill people for a living."
Her eyes widened, and this time, the silence stretched on for longer than it had before. In fact, it was the longest time they had ever been silent when they were together.
Finally, she carefully stood up, and left the restaurant.
Yassen watched her go, but made no move to follow her. It had always been an option. Tell Shannon what he did, and she'd leave him. Hopefully forever. That way, she could never get hurt.
He sighed. "If you love something, let it go." He whispered softly.
An entire week had passed since Shannon had left him. An entire week! His heart skipped. He was finding it hard to concentrate on anything. He'd almost compromised a mission because of it. He'd been told to take time off, a request he complied with gratefully. He sighed and sat down. This house, which he'd only been able to acquire a few months ago, was smaller than his old one had been. But it was good enough for him.
Someone rang the doorbell, and Yassen jumped, a knife in his hand in a split-second, coming from under his bed. He'd almost forgotten he'd put it there, but apparently instinct didn't care much about memory.
He looked at his hand for a long time, trying to remember how to open it and let go of the weapon. Slowly, carefully, one finger at a time, he let it slip out of his hand. He let out a small sigh of relief as it clattered to the floor.
The bell rang again, and he walked over to the door. He looked out the window.
His breath caught in his throat.
He opened the door immediately. "Shannon?" He was surprised at the shocked tone in his voice. "What are you doing here?"
Shannon didn't reply. She simply stepped forward and kissed him.
Yassen didn't know how to respond, but he didn't complain. She pulled away and stepped inside while he closed the door.
"I'm so sorry!" Shannon said quickly. "I didn't mean to just… walk out on you like that…"
She was cut off as he kissed her again. When he broke off, he was smiling. "It's ok… it's ok…"
She looked at him for a long time. "I'm so sorry." She whispered again, wrapping her arms around him. "So sorry…"
Yassen sighed as he walked outside. He'd lost count of the days, the weeks, the months since Shannon had come back. But now he loved her more than he ever had though possible.
Which brought back old questions.
What if someone wanted Shannon dead?
What if she got in the way?
What if someone killed her to get to him?
His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it out. "Yes?"
His face paled.
"By Friday." He replied, his voice barely a whisper. "Yes, sir."
He hung up and looked away from his home, where Shannon was undoubtedly waiting. His stomach twisted, tying itself into knots. There was a lump in his throat. His mouth was dry.
The inevitable had finally happened. Someone wanted Shannon to die.
Scott carefully walked up to Yassen. "You did what you had to do."
Yassen looked at him. "I know." He replied.
Scott sighed and looked away, his eyes gazing into a distance that only he could see. He'd worked with the police for years now, and no one ever knew that he was really working for Scorpia. That he was really talking to the assassins that he was claiming to be trying to capture.
He sighed. "Yassen, there's no easy way for me to tell you this…"
Yassen looked back to him, his eyes locked on Scott's. "Yes…?"
Scott looked down. "Yassen… None of the others have your DNA, but I have some of it on hand, for when I need to cover up for you…" He looked at Yassen. "I want you to know… Shannon was pregnant when she died."
Yassen's already pale face went completely white.
He knew the next words before they were out of Scott's mouth. He knew what he was going to say. He knew, without really knowing how he knew.
"The child was yours."
Yassen sat, alone in the same hotel room he'd gone to when his house had blown up. The gun he'd used to shoot her, and in effect her unborn child, was in his hands. He was slowly turning it over and over, and more than once the lethal weapon was pointed at him. The metal felt cold in his hands, never changing from that state.
He looked at it for a long time, before bringing it to the side of his head, his finger slowly tightening on the trigger. It would be so much easier. It would save months, possibly years of pain. It would end everything, and he'd never again have to wonder if he made the right choice. He'd never again have to wonder how his life could have been if only he hadn't pulled the trigger than one single time. He'd have an escape, an easy way out. He wouldn't have to face himself, a cold-blooded killer, in the mirror every morning. He wouldn't have to wonder what it would have been like if he hadn't killed his child.
His child! The finger tightened further on the trigger. His child! A son? A daughter? A beautiful little baby that would giggle and laugh and play and live the normal life he'd never had! A CHILD!
His child. His child. His son or daughter. HIS.
And he'd killed it. He'd murdered his own child.
Pain washed through him. It would be so easy. Perhaps a brief amount of pain before the world went black, but then he would never have to wonder again! He'd never have to think about his child, the one he'd killed!
He'd made the decision. He was going to pull the trigger.
As his finger tried to do what his mind told it, something strange and unexpected happened. Someone entered the room.
She had brought along cleaning supplies, which told Yassen what she was here for. She was humming quietly to herself, until she saw Yassen standing there, a gun to his head.
She didn't scream. She didn't beg for him to stop. She just looked at him for a long time with wide eyes.
Finally, she sighed and spoke. "Just don't get the carpet bloody. I can wash the sheets."
She turned and walked out of the room.
Yassen stared at the closed door where she'd left, almost wondering weather the incident had happened at all. Shock made him unconsciously lower the gun.
Suddenly, he smiled. It grew into a chuckle, and finally, he was laughing. He laughed so hard he was forced to sit down.
The laughter kept coming. He'd been so intent on killing himself, on pulling the trigger and ending the misery, that the one simple little ray of light that trickled in seemed like a part of paradise. He couldn't stop himself. He didn't want to.
When he finally managed to stop, he looked at the gun. Suddenly, everything didn't seem quite so hopeless.
Carefully, he placed the gun on the nightstand. Perhaps there were one or two reasons to stay alive.
Perhaps.
He walked to the door and opened it, looking into the hall. The woman was standing there, as though she was waiting to hear the sound of a gunshot, so that she could go inside and clear up the blood.
He placed his hand on her shoulder, and she looked at him. "Thank you." He whispered.
She smiled, a dazzling smile that shone like a ray of sunlight. "You're welcome." She replied simply.
Yassen had decided. He walked back inside and took the gun out of the room. The woman went inside and began cleaning, while he exited the hotel, never to return.
Three months later, Yassen was looking at his target.
"This is your last chance!" The man was whispering. They had been assigned on this together. "Kill him while you have the chance!"
Yassen swore. "I can't. There's someone in the way."
"Shoot through them!" The man hissed.
"It's only a CHILD!" Yassen snarled in reply.
The man snorted. "So?"
"I won't kill children." Yassen's voice was firm.
The man looked at him like he was insane. Finally, he snarled and pushed him aside. "Then let me…"
"NO." Yassen hissed. He knocked the man away just before he pulled the trigger.
"What is your PROBLEM? We won't get another chance!"
"I don't CARE." Yassen snapped. "I won't kill children!"
The man tried to get to the position again, but Yassen blocked his way.
"Let me through!" He snarled.
"NO."
The man tried to push him aside. "Let me through!"
"NO!" Yassen brought out his knife. Almost without thinking about it, he brought it to the man's throat.
The man's eyes widened. "He's getting away!" He spat.
"I don't care." Yassen replied coldly.
"LET ME THROUGH!"
But Yassen was done with trying to reason with him. As the man tried to push past him a final time, Yassen's knife slid into his chest.
The man's eyes glazed over. He took a step back, then another, before stumbling over the edge of the building, where they had been hiding the whole time.
He didn't even scream as he fell down the five stories down to the ground below.
Their target carried on, never knowing how close he had been to death at that moment.
Yassen looked at the body below him.
"I won't kill children."