AN: I wanted to try writing this from a slightly different perspective than what I've seen before. (Alex is depressed and dies and every one sees how wrong they were about him, etc.) I'm not sure how well that actually worked... well, we'll see I guess.
Disclaimer: I don't own Alex Rider and and related whatsits, etc.
When Alex Rider killed himself he didn't dwell on the reasons why. If there had been time to think of anything at all he never would have done it. He had only to pick up the gun beside him and pull the trigger.
It was unexpected to say the least. The reports were quick to point out, that in the days before; there had been nothing to suggest that Rider wasn't perfectly all right. The only exception, was the three seconds that would later be extracted from the surveillance footage, one second to grab the gun from the drawer in the beside table, two more and the weapon was at his head. He died instantly.
Alex Rider wasn't the kind of man to kill himself, no one could believe he would just give up, he would have laughed in your face, if you had told him you thought he could. If he had known, if he had ever even suspected that he might let himself die he would have taken steps to prevent it. That's the kind of man Rider was. Doubtless he hadn't thought "I'm ready to die." He may not have been happy with his lot in life, but "there was no reason", as he was always said "to be unhappy about it."*
Perhaps it was because death didn't move him the way it did for other people. Every one dies, that's a fact. Alex couldn't afford the time it took to feel guilty every time he killed some one. That time in Canada, he had killed the guards out side his cell. He hadn't stopped to wonder was there a wife who would stand silent and lonely at the graveside? There hadn't been time to consider who the nameless guards might have been. Killing was easy; it was instinctive, habitual even.
The thing to know about habits is that they all follow the same pattern. You never realize you've spent the last hour biting you nails, at least, not until the finger begins to bleed. Maybe it was the same for Alex, but when the blood came he didn't notice anything. It was too late for that.
Everyone's asking "why did he do it?"
"We may never know," they shake there heads and say…
"If only he could tell us"
The truth is, no one, not even Alex, ever knew that answer.
*The History Boys, film