Another set of drabbles from alexrider100! Meant to be read as a continuation of 'Survival Technique', so it's being posted as a follow-on chapter. However, all of the drabbles can be read a self-contained pieces, and the two chapters can be read as separate as well. There will likely be at least two more drabble-sets in this 'verse... Because I suck at limiting myself when I get given awesome prompts like this.

The prompts for this chapter were: breathe, match, ring, safe, and birthday. (I tackled them in that order.)

DISCLAIMER: Alex Rider is not and has never been mine. Anthony Horowitz is safe for the moment. :D

Alex can't breathe. He's moving before he knows it, disentangling himself in seconds, instantly ready to defend himself. He was supposed to be safe here.

(His bedroom is entirely empty. Dreams aren't so easily fended off.)

He goes downstairs and makes himself a tea – Jack sleeps like the dead, she'll never hear him. He doesn't want to go back upstairs – the dreams can't hurt him, but they help him remember past hurt and he's loathe to lie back and let them. With a sigh, he rinses out his mug and puts it in the sink. He's got an early start.

I

MI6 have been leaving him alone, at least for the moment, so Alex has been easing back into school life. (Again.) He's had longer this time and he's settling in well – he's got a football match today, hence the early start. Football's a good outlet for all of his pent-up aggression, he gets to feel in control again – he doesn't feel like the shell that got rescued months back from some forgotten cell in Chechnya. Months of physical therapy, rebuilding muscle tone (and his mind), and he's back now. He's got a football match. It's so normal. Alex loves it.

I

The phone rings and rings before Jack reaches it, and she knows she sounds flustered when she picks up. Her hands still have soap-suds on them, and she's holding the phone gingerly, trying not to get it wet. "Hello?" She listens for a moment, and then makes a grab for the phone as it threatens to slip out of her hand. "Yes – of course, I'll be right there," she says. "Do you know where they've taken him? – Right – thank you." She puts the phone down and wipes her hands. Shit always happens to Alex, she thinks, and grabs her keys.

I

Alex is in St. Dominic's Hospital, and his leg is already in plaster by the time Jack arrives. He actually grins at her when she's ushered into his room. "All safe and sound," he tells her, and she doesn't know whether to shake or kiss him.

"How the hell did you break your leg?" She asks. "And when can I sign your cast?"

"Never," he says, and glances at his cast with satisfaction. "I'm no use to MI6 like this," he adds.

Jack swallows, suddenly unnerved. "Alex, tell me you didn't do this on purpose."

He doesn't meet her eyes.

I

They don't talk about it, like they don't talk about what happened to Alex during his two month absence. The vaguest of details suffice. Jack understands why Alex will go to any lengths to put himself out of commission.

It means his seventeenth birthday is at home, the first one since he turned fourteen, so Jack won't complain. She'll invite his friends round and bake a cake, and she'll never mention hearing him slip downstairs every night after his nightmares, or the way she knows this is his last birthday at home. He'll turn eighteen, and she'll never see him again.

Well, there we go! Hope they're OK!

-amitai