A/N: told you it wasn't abandoned

Chapter 4

Alex and Sabina were lazily sitting on the sofa, limbs spread about on their respective ends and half watching the Mythbusters marathon they stumbled upon. Alex never had any of those fancy telly packages, relying on whatever extra channels the London apartment came with. Its not like Alex sat still in London, anyway.

Here, Sabina had some sort of elaborate cable package in which Alex would unwittingly get heavily engrossed in television marathons, long enough to elicit concerned comments by Sabina more than once this week. It was so easy though: no effort and no thoughts (and it helped him nap if he was completely honest).

It had been 2 weeks since he came to America. The first week was just a haze, with Alex just doing what he was told and letting himself be guided by the Pleasures. Frequent naps turned into 2-4 hour fits with some exhaust-driven seven hour sleep shifts every couple days. Sabina and her parents managed to calm him down into some semblance of regular sleep and wake.

When Uncle Ian died, he didn't know what would have happened to him if it weren't for Jack to comfort him. Then, it was clear to him though: the man who taught him so much and told him about his parents was gone, but what he lay behind was larger than life, and he was getting sucked into it.

The Stormbreaker mission had felt like closure to Alex, in a weird way. He grieved by finishing his Uncle's work and finally understanding what the man was really about, filling his shoes in a transitional way. Moving into a fast paced life helped the transition. Now, with Jack gone, and the promise of a slower life on a different continent at his feet, life felt coarser than he initially guessed back in the MI-6 rest home.

He normally felt great when he ran, cycled, or football (Alex mentally noted to ask Edward for a new football) after a mission; but it just feels so good right now to just keep sinking into the sofa. Upon seeing the closing credits, he decided to finally get his sorry arse up. Sabina beat him to it, dashing toward the staircase in the hallway that went by the sitting room. Curious, he turned off the TV and slowly followed her, her door opening right when he climbed the last step.

"Where you off too?" Alex asked, glancing at her loose running shorts and sports shirt. Sabina's eyes couldn't hold his eyes, nervously flitting from his eyes to the stairs behind him.

"Just off for a run. I was going to go by the football field and maybe do some suicides around the one of the goal nets," Sabina replied hurriedly, moving forward and closing the door behind her .

He saw her unease but decided to blow past it. "Mind if I join you? I could do with a run, honestly," Alex replied, and mustered up a grin. Initiative and all that, he mentally justified. That was cut short, as Sabina started edging faster towards the stairs.

"No, no, it's alright. Maybe next time?" she said, already past him and tumbling down the stairs. Alex frowned at her abruptness, watching her jump the last 2 steps, quickly do up her laces, and run off towards the front door.

It was sunny and breezy at the field, nothing out of the ordinary. She surveyed the field. It was a simple field, with goalie nets of different sizes on the various sectioned football fields and a wooded area bordering the back of the fields. She took out the folded piece of paper in her shirt pocket and reread it out of nervousness. "soccer park. Exactly 2 weeks after arrival."

Sabina stayed at the park entrance, nervously scanning the fields and expecting someone much scarier than Alex to pop out of the woods. So hearing a light female voice startled her. She turned around to face parking lot, finding a woman that looked like her but older, browner hair, and a few inches taller. Her expressionless face scanned over Sabina quickly.

"It's about Rider. Let's get in the car for a bit, shall we?"

Sabina had half a mind to run right then and there, but hesitated. What would they do to her? Is she really one of the 'good guys' as she increasingly hoped? One look at this woman's face told her that she didn't have much of a choice.

The woman waited for Sabina to move, and they both walked over and got into the unmarked, black Dodge Charger. Sabina just sat still, looking at the woman, one hand near the door handle. The blonde haired woman observed her stiff stance and gave a chuckle.

"Oh wow, I guess you really do know Alex. Relax! I'm Tamara Knight." Sabina gave her a blank look. "oh…I guess Alex hasn't told you everything then. Uh...well, just know that I know him from one of his stints in America." They both blankly stared at each other for a bit until Tamara let out an exasperated sigh. "Of course, I forgot. I'm CIA," she finished, showing Sabina her ID and badge. Sabina lightly pulled it closer to her face to examine it closely. Satisfied, she let it go and folder her arms across her chest.

"What do you want with me? Your people have already done enough shit to him as it is." she said in a low and warily angry voice.

"Oh don't worry, I'll see to Alex later. We've observed the house— "

"Excuse me—"

"—and we know you go on runs and such. He hasn't left the house, which is good, and now we'll use you to get to him. You know as well as anybody how wary he is of 'our type', as you put it."

Sabina gave a tight sigh. "What do you lot want."

"Just give him this." Tamara handed her a small box, about the size of her hand. "And before you ask me another loaded question," Tamara added quickly in response to Sabina's frowning face, "it's a phone. Give this to Alex. He'll know what to do with it. And, uh, while you're at it," Tamara hesitantly adds, "just ask him to tell you about his missions. He needs someone, you know?"

Sabina's face softened. She weighed the box in her hand, looked down, and looked back up at Tamara. "How old are you? And what's the deal here, what do you really want?"

Tamara paused for a bit, considering her words carefully. This girl wasn't that much younger than her, in the scheme of things. From what she remembered, Alex was pretty receptive to finding an agent who actually cared and interacted with him. If his file was indeed correct, Sabina needed to be valuable emotional asset to Alex.

"Um…I guess I'll start with that I'm 26. I met Alex a bit more than a year ago on a mission. Oh, and before you ask me anything else," she said upon seeing Sabina open her mouth to interrupt, "ask him about Ark Angel. Actually...ask him about everything. He could do with some talking. I mean, you signed the OSA…at least that's what you file said," she finished, trailing off quietly.

"Wait what, I have a file? Why the—"

"Just ask Alex, I'm sure he'll explain."

Sabina lightly huffed and muttered "Fat good that'll do," remembering the difficulty and rarity that Alex spoke about the shit he's gone through. "Alright, well, then why are you giving me this? Why isn't it MI6?"

"Well…there's a new head at MI6, and she's close to Alex. She was already against using him, and let's just say after Egypt, she had more than enough reason to let Alex go after she got her position. I guess she knows his stance on MI6."

"More than enough? Uh—"

"See to it that Alex gets that. I've already said too much and you'll have to talk to Alex," Tamara said a bit too loudly, gesturing towards the box in Sabina's lap. "If we need anything else, we'll let you know."

Alex spent the time mowing the lawn (much to Mrs. Pleasure's surprise) to keep his mind off things. He recently found that mundane tasks put him in a peaceful and almost meditative state, something he used to laugh at until he felt the refuge it gave from his guilt and ball of unease low in his gut. He chose the push-reel mower (which surprised him in the garage, but what would a city boy know anyway) because of its silent nature. As he was mowing around the tree, he remembered the surprise he gave Mrs. Pleasure when she woke up and found Alex doing the dishes at 7 in the morning. A pang of guilt hit Alex low as he remembered Jack's scolds over unwashed dishes.

What he would give to hear Jack scolding him again.

He finished mowing the back yard and tried to recall what he saw Sabina do last week. Rolling the push mower back up the garage, he found the electric blower. Carefully, he reached up and unhooked the extension cord from the wall hook, picked up the blower his feet, and walked with a slight march to the backyard.

He felt a bit like a patient in the MI-6 rehabilitation ward, but for the moment he didn't care. When he and Jack lived in London (his stomach falling again in that familiar pain), he hated vacuuming the flat because of that damn cumbersome electrical cord. Well, that and it meant that he'd have to clean up his room. He fought through his self-imposed awkward atmosphere and now, he didn't mind unwinding the cord, finding the outlet on the porch, plugging in the blower, and planning out his route.

With everything plugged in, he stared at the blower. Something in him resisted with a prickling discomfort that radiated up and away from his back. Turning on the blower meant creating noise, a deadly a violation of code in his previous "employment" life. This face of life was never really told to him until his time in Scorpia, and thereafter he forgot the verbalization of something so innate because, well, it was something bred into him and the business he was in.

He felt weak as he struggled to do such a simple task, and struggled with this faceless challenge. After 5 minutes of staring at the blower in his hand, he took a few deep, slow breaths to calm his heartbeat, and put his thumb back on the switch. He looked up at the rectangular yard, and in what strangely felt routine, planned a route for his task.

Looking back down to his blower, he confidently turned on the blower by the porch, walked to the corner of the yard opposite the tree and by the left side of the house, and started working his way to the tree. His methodically sweeping movements put him in a peaceful trance. A particularly damp pile in the corner opposite the tree took him more effort, breaking his trance.

Something shifted in his periphery. Slightly turning his head towards the porch to investigate with his mission sharpened eyes, he noticed Mrs. Pleasure watching him from the kitchen window that faced the yard, arms folded. Alex couldn't see her well with the way the sun hit the house, so he just surveyed the yard and went back to his work.

He bared his teeth at the loud noise of the blower, feeling the unease of being the cause and center of it. It was funny to him that he was using this blower, seeing that he was a city boy. Nothing made that more clear than him just watching the men blow grass clippings at the MI-6 rehabilitation center.

He bounded up the stairs, feeling accomplished and a small grin on his face. he swung open his door, ready to take a satisfying shower only to reveal a nervous, pensive Sabina sitting on his bed.

He came to a sudden stop, eyes widening. Sabina looked up quickly, slightly startled. She unraveled her limbs and stood up.

"Oh hey," said Sabina a little quicker than usual. She had a small nervous smile on her face, but it quickly faded into a sort of pensive look. "Nothing urgent, but we need to talk about something. I'll be in my room, but we'll talk in your room," she said quickly. She gave a small snort of laughter, "you probably haven't noticed but mother gives you miles of more space than she gives me, so it'll be safer in here."

Alex just stood there, taking it all in, trying to read Sabina. It was hard; they'd both grown up and she'd lost her predictable tells that he'd memorized. Deciding to give her the benefit of the doubt, he gave her a small smile.

"Sure, no problem. I'll be quick in there, don't worry," he replied, moving to his dresser and pulling out a change of clothes. He saw her biting her lip and watching him, so he walked back to her and squeezed her shoulder with his free hand. "It's okay. Whatever it is you want to tell me, I'm sure it'll be okay."

"Right."

"So."

"So, I don't wanna alarm you, but do you know a Tamara Knight?"

Alex shifted nervously. He hadn't heard that name in a long time. "Er, yeah I do. But Sabina, what—"

"Yeah I know it's weird, lemme explain." Sabina walked backwards a bit and sat back down on the bed. "So a couple days after you came, I was jogging in the neighborhood when this blacked out car just smashed on its brakes right by me! This woman rolled down the window a bit, handed me a note, slammed the gas and drove off," she finished, her right hand in the air from her gestures.

Alex's face began to show multiple emotions, none of which inspired confidence in Sabina, so she chose to speed things up.

"Right, so then today I go to the soccer park, and long story short," said Sabina, growing increasingly nervous at Alex's frown, "she gave me this," Sabina said, raising up the box in her hand.

Alex walked closer and took the box into both of his hands and gave a small chuckle while opening the box. "Reminds me of the time MI6 told me that they had a no gun policy for me because I was just a kid." Alex sat down next to Sabina, not noticing the contemplative look on her face. She never really heard him talk about quirks of the job, especially not in this random and slightly free sense like he just did.

Alex finally undid the box. "It looks like a really recent release," Sabina said, slowly. To Sabina's slight surprise, who was ogling the phone with a slack jaw and wondering what it could possibly do, Alex started to take everything out and inspect the box. Squinting his eyes, he was slowly rotating and feeling the box's sides.

"Uh Alex, what're you doing? It's just the box."

"It was a bit harder than usual to open," Alex replied. "Which means," Alex grunted, still looking at the box. "Aha!", he said, pulling the box close to his face. "See that?", he asked, pointed at a small square shaped rise in the white paper lining the inside of the top of the box. "I'll bet you anything that it's a magnetic receiver, and if I look at the bottom half of the box..." He trailed off, taking the bottom half from the bed and inspecting it. "...There will be a GPS square and mag sensor," he finished, pointing out the second raised square section.

Sabina's brows drew together in concern and confusion. "Wait, don't they know you're here? I mean, who'd need that?"

To Sabina's dismay, they heard Mrs. Pleasure. "Alex, Sabina!"

Sabina hurried off the bed and ran to the door, opening it slightly. "Okay Mum we'll be there soon!" She shut the door with a slight huff of annoyance.

"I don't really know, honestly. I'll check out the phone after dinner, see if that helps. Honestly, I might see if I can save it for later, see what I can do with it."

Sabina drew her eyebrows together a narrowed her eyes a bit. "You see awfully calm for a drop off from one of them. I mean, I was scared half to death waiting in that park!" Sabina waved her hands around for effect.

"I'm sorry. I dunno honestly..." Alex murmured, evaporating Sabina's fervor. Her face fell as well, and so crossed the room, carefully approaching Alex and placing a what she hoped was a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"It's okay. I was just a little thrown off, and... I'm sorry for scolding you." She lightly tugged at his shirt. "Come on we have to go downstairs." Alex pushed up off the bed, gave a soft smile and squeezed Sabina's shoulder.

As they made their way downstairs, Alex had a sudden funny thought. Sabina apologized to ME. Things really have changed, haven't they?