So I tried to write this in such a way that, (hopefully) it doesn't sound too melodramatic and make you all want to be sick with its cliché and stereotypical angst. I am very aware of the potential to make fanfictions/oneshots of this nature very… well not good. Should you be disgusted by this writing feel free to let me know, also any suggestions and/or insights on making it "less disgusting" would be greatly appreciated.
Disclaimer: I do not own Alex Rider or Jack Starbright. They both belong to Anthony Horowitz, etc.
Time doesn't stop because Alex is away…
While Alex is sitting in a cell in Beijing, Jack is sitting at the kitchen table, the day has just begun, she's making coffee.
Footsteps approach the prison. Alex smiles, he won't let his captors get the better of him. The door bell rings, Jack will smile too, she hopes her friend is fooled, how could she explain the truth?
When Alex is dragged away for questioning, Jack is being pulled into a car. They've decided Alex might be useful after all, and who was Jack to think her friends wouldn't notice the lines on her face.
Alex is screaming, the pain is killing him, he'll say any thing to make it stop, never mind that he doesn't have the answers they're looking for. Jack isn't screaming but she wishes that she could, she wants to scream the truth, loud enough for everyone to hear. She wants to make them pay for using Alex this way, she wants them to have to pay for making her suffer, never mind that she hasn't yet decided who "they" might be.
Alex never knew he could hurt so much, he wasn't going to be intimidated, he wasn't going to beg for mercy, but its easier to be brave when you don't know what's coming. After the first two minutes Alex knew enough to know that he didn't want to know anymore. Alex isn't stupid, logically he knows there's nothing else he could have done, theoretically he knows he isn't weak, but the truth is he can't shake the feeling that he's failed. Jack feels like a failure too, Alex says that he needs her to stay, that this is not her fault, and there is nothing else she can do. She wants to believe him, she needs to believe him, but sometimes she can't help wondering, is she believing him because she knows he's right, or does she believe him only because she's afraid to admit that the boy she knew is dying, and she hasn't tried to save him yet?
Alex is taken to his cell and left alone to "think", he breathes a sigh of relief. He never thought he would be relived to find himself back here. Jack comes home and in the silent stillness of an empty house she can almost forget that there is a world beyond these walls, as if this is all that life can be. With the curtains drawn Jack can't see the world outside, she likes this idea, as if the even life itself is waiting for Alex to return.
Jack doesn't like waiting, never knowing when he'll be back, if he'll make it back at all (she wont think about that for now).
…Time doesn't stop when Alex is away; she only wishes that it would.