A/N: I'm baaaaack...

As promised, here is the sequel to Malaise. At first, the chapters are going to be about half the size as they used to be until I finish the rough draft and structural edits. As always, let me know if you have any questions, concerns, or general commentary! I'm always looking to improve my writing, so if you see anything that seems incorrect or poorly executed, feel free to let me know as well. :)

O

Yassen readjusted the rear view mirror before returning his eyes to the road. Alex dozed in the front passenger seat of the car, half hunched around the belt Yassen forced him to secure before falling back to sleep.

Drumming his hands on the steering wheel, Yassen double checked the time. Just about three in the morning. Infrequent headlights carved through the darkness, usually moving in the opposite direction. Firmly sticking to the posted speed, Yassen quickly searched his memory for any hint that the car was in less than perfect condition. None of the rear lights were out, none of the tires seemed odd, nothing that should stand out to a policeman. While the identification Yassen had stolen from the owner of the car would stand up to casual inspection if he were pulled over, it wouldn't take long for any officer worth his salt to determine the ruse. Being stopped would still require he fight his way out and he only had three bullets left in the clip he'd stolen from the British soldier in the van.

Yassen grimaced. A gunfight would only draw attention to them. It was far better to play it cautious while putting as much distance between them and the abandoned helicopter as possible.

As soon as Yassen had landed behind the woods of a small, coastal Spanish town, he'd stashed a sleeping Alex in a sheltered sightseeing point along the cliffs and canvassed the area on foot. Late in the evening as it was and given the Gibraltar prison's lack of traditional inmate uniforms, he'd been relatively safe from recognition or attention as he strolled. He'd staked out a small, local pub until a man roughly Yassen's height and description wandered out alone to his practical black sedan. Killing the man and concealing his body had bought him some time, more so than they would have had Yassen left him alive to report the theft, but Yassen couldn't help but watch the clock as the minutes ticked by.

MI6 had to know that he'd escaped Scorpia's custody by now, unless Walker's operatives had both the inclination and the opportunity to retrieve the bodies of their fallen comrades. He doubted it, which meant that by this hour, the British intelligence agency had more than enough time to work out what happened. All the major transportation centers within travel distance would be heavily monitored. With Scorpia's support, Yassen and Alex would already be ghosts, but on their own and unprepared, there was a decent chance they could still be apprehended.

Yassen had deliberately touched down somewhere well within the travel range of this particular helicopter, hoping that MI6 would assume that he'd try to put as much distance between the prison and himself as possible by air. Generally, such a move would be considered smart. Instead, Yassen knew the value of behaving erratically during an escape: more than once, he'd slipped out from under his pursuers noses by simply refusing to do the most logical- and thus most expected- thing.

Alex slept on. Probably would for at least another four or five hours. Exhaustion was the most likely culprit, if not the heavy amount of sedatives still in his system. The last few hours had been rather taxing and Alex was far from healthy.

Yassen felt strained himself, though it wasn't anything he wasn't prepared to push through. If anything, it irritated him. While he'd kept himself in shape and prepared himself to act, the truth of the matter was that he'd been out of the field for over a year. He hadn't gotten rusty, per se, but it would take him a while to adapt to the sudden spurts of activity required of a man on the run.

He yawned absently and glanced down at the radio. Alex was too far out of it to care about the noise and it might help keep Yassen awake. Another few hours would see them arrive in Cordoba, after which Yassen could catch a quick nap. A random station would be perfect in the meantime, he thought, reaching for the dial. Classical music was ubiquitous, so he might even find something he liked. If Alex woke, Yassen would let him set it to whatever he wanted, though Yassen suspected that Alex was more likely to default to listening to his iPod if he really-

The iPod.

Yassen swore aloud and pulled onto the shoulder of the road sharply. How had he forgotten? He should have left it behind in the van before they even began running.

Had all those months in prison really made him so soft?

The only possible way Alex could have such a device was if it was provided to him by MI6. While Yassen had no earthly clue as to how it had made it into the prison with him, he knew that the odds that it contained some sort of GPS tracking was high. MI6 would be on them in a heartbeat if Yassen screwed up like this again.

Alex let out a grunt of surprise as he felt Yassen tug at his pockets. Swatting him away, the boy straightened in his seat and exhaled in sleepy frustration. "Whaddaya wan'? I'm tired-"

"Your iPod, Alex," Yassen snapped, still trying to reach into the boy's jeans pockets. "It probably has a tracker."

Alex scowled, not quite opening his eyes as he tried to twist away. "Why? They knew where I was the whole mission-"

Yassen sat back and folded his arms. "We can't take that chance. Throw it out."

Alex sat up, eyes blazing. "No. It's mine. Smithers gave it to me. He would have told me if it had a tracker so I could call for help."

"Do you want to go back to prison?" Yassen demanded.

Alex glowered at him, biting his lip. "It's mine," he repeated at last.

Yassen sighed. "I'll buy you a new one. Toss it," he ordered, knowing that Alex would object. It wasn't really about the music, after all.

"Where are we?" Alex asked instead, glancing out the dark windows at the indistinguishable landscape. Lights flickered in the distance, lining the highway here and there, in small reminders of the dozen or so towns dotting the area.

"Spain." Yassen didn't budge, just sat there with his foot on the brake and drilling holes in the side of Alex's head. "Alex."

"Fine," Alex snarled, yanking the small silver device from his right pocket and rolling down his window. He tossed it out. Yassen heard the plastic casing impact against the pavement. "There. Now I have nothing but the clothes on my back. Happy?"

Yassen rolled them back onto the highway, eager to get going before any well-meaning motorists stopped to see if everything was okay. As a solitary male, he didn't normally have to worry as much about such annoyances but with Alex in the car, he couldn't count of people's distrust of strangers to win out over their concern for a stranded child. "Go back to sleep. We'll stop in another few hours and rent a room. It won't be long."

Alex groaned and rubbed the sides of his forehead with his fingers. "Can we get some painkillers? My head hurts."

"I'll grab some when I stop for petrol," Yassen told him. Another short beat. "How are the hallucinations?"

"Gone for now," Alex told him, settling back against his seat. He shut his eyes. Yassen thought he'd slipped back into sleep when he spoke. "Yassen?"

He glanced away from the road. "Hm?"

"Are we dead?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Alex. I'm certain that neither of us are dead."

Alex gave only a short hum in response, clearly unconvinced. At least he was entertaining the idea. Yassen supposed that was an improvement.