[Summary Edited: 25/04/2010]
[Summary Re-Edited: 04/08/2010]
Title: The Parts We Play
Author: Aquanova
Summary: Blunt played a game of risk, and lost. Smithers impulsively called on his little bird, and discovered the identity of a fourteen year old boy. Alex found himself with a mission, a would-be assassin to confront, and a brother named Jayden Rider.
Rating: T
Pairings: None
Disclaimer: Everything you recognize belongs to Anthony Horowitz. I just use his characters to guard the sandcastles.
"I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part..." -William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
**AR**
Mrs. Jones lifted her head.
"Cornwall." She stated, glancing at the man seated across from her.
Alan Blunt gazed calmly back.
"Yes. Cornwall."
Mrs. Jones raised an eyebrow.
"You can't be serious. You'd already risked enough by bringing him there once. Now you're going to do it again?"
"There was no risk," Blunt replied carelessly. "They were too far-"
"With the son of John Rider, it's impossible to tell." Mrs. Jones retorted.
Blunt paused.
"True. Nevertheless, I would have thought you would have wanted Alex to go to Cornwall again. Weren't you always against all this in the first place?"
"Yes," Mrs. Jones snapped. "But allowing him to find out all of a sudden is barely an improvement. If anything, he will detest us even more." If that is at all possible, she added silently.
Alan Blunt gazed at his assistant. "You really are growing a soft spot for the boy, aren't you?" he remarked casually.
"It's hard not to, after all he's been through." Mrs. Jones replied with equal casualness.
The head of MI6 sensed the additional few words she did not speak. All of which we caused.
**AR**
They avoided him.
Some consciously so, some not, but the end result was the same. Some time during his missions, Alex Rider had changed.
Understatement of The Year.
Perhaps it was the rumors that caused them to skirt around him, that gained him the ability to turn a casual conversation stilted and uneasy. Perhaps it was just because they believed he was into drugs, he was seeing a shrink. He was in a cult.
It was what Tom would tell him with, to comfort him. And he, being the stubborn boy that-just-won't-bloody-die (as it was), obstinately grabbed hold onto the proffered escape and didn't let go.
Because however much Alex pretended he didn't care what others thought of him, he did.
He cared that his normal world was cracking before him, he cared that old friends no longer looked him in the eye – guilt?- and he cared that he really shouldn't have expected anything different, yet did. He wanted everything to be normal again, as much as it could be with an uncle that was never there.
He wanted to be able to laugh with his friends, to stop lying, stop having to fight, stop assessing every corner and shadow for assassins and spies.
But he might as well have wished for the sun to stop shining, because even that, at least, was possible.
So much so that it might as well have happened already.
Fred Conroy flicked a swift glance toward the boy sitting next to him. Serious brown eyes were directed toward the teacher, lecturing about something to do with theoretical probability.
As the teacher briefly turned around to write something on the board, a piece of folded up paper was swiftly slipped into the bag beside his chair. Pretending to retrieve a notebook, he reached down and surreptitiously pulled it out, before slouching a little lower in his seat and opening it.
A picture of his Maths teacher lecturing to a dozing class was sketched onto the lined sheet, which wasn't actually that far of the mark in terms of accuracy. At the front of the pencil-sketched class however, a stick figure had been drawn sitting straight up in his seat, face attentive, and small hearts floating above him. From the stick figure's head sprouted two puppy ears, along with a matching tail eagerly wagging back and forth. Below the caricature were the words, 'Alex Rider – Lovesick Puppy'.
Fred couldn't resist a snort, if only because the idea of Alex Rider with such a look on his face was unimaginable. Ever since his uncle had died and he'd started getting…sick, as they were told, he had rarely seen Alex laugh. The few times he did, Alex had been with Tom. The thought brought along a twinge of guilt, because before…everything, he and Alex had been good friends. Not as close as Tom perhaps, but good friends nonetheless.
For some reason, something had held him back, ever since the first of Alex's absences. It had been jealousy at first, perhaps, at having managed to relax at home. It was never meant to last more than even a day, but just from that slight distancing of himself from Alex, when they had next met in class, something held him back.
Something that he knew had affected the others as well, probably even Tom. Except that Tom had been the only one to lock it away.
Fred sighed, and reluctantly passed the paper on.
**AR**
In a two-storey modern house in Chelsea, about a ten-minute bike ride away, a housekeeper by the name of Jack Starbright went to pick up the phone.
A/N: I've seen shorter prologues, as prologues go. Some of them are brilliant too. Next chapter will be up in about a week.