Alex kept his head low as he pushed his way through the bustling corridors. The school was exactly how he remembered it; cramped, busy, noisy and slightly strange smelling. Alex was just glad that Brooklands didn't have lockers lining the main corridors like they did in every American film. That just seemed so inconvenient and annoying and would make the already narrow hallways one-way tunnels.

Alex made his way to his form room where his locker was situated. He and Tom often hung out there before first registration and Alex hoped that he would be able to find him there now. He was in luck. Upon opening the door, Alex was pleased to see that Tom was there, sitting on a table near the front of the class room, engrossed in a very animated discussion with some guy from their physics class. Alex frowned a bit as he tried to recall his name. Ray?... No…Brain…maybe…

Alex mentally shrugged, the name would come to him later. For now he decided that today was finally the day that he would put this whole past year behind him and start his new 'normal' life. Quietly, he sidled up behind Tom, bent down and whispered in a low voice,

"I have returned."

Tom jumped and spun round to face Alex. His eyes widened, a flicker of concern momentarily passed through them, then a grin plastered itself on his face.

"Alex! You're back?! When did you get back from-Ow…Err, the hospital?" Tom corrected himself as Alex subtly kicked him in the shin. He had told Tom before he left to Cairo that he'd be gone for a while, and Tom knew that that meant Alex was going on a mission. Brian-if that was his name- shot them a quizzical look. Playing along, Alex spent the next few minutes discussing the details of his most recent "illness" and how boring the hospital was.

Deciding that is was time for a change in topic before he asked too many awkward questions, Tom diverted the conversation to what he thought was safer ground.

"So how's Jack lately? I haven't seen her around much." Alex's face instantly darkened. Tom wondered where he'd gone wrong. What could have happened? Awkwardly Alex looked around and scratched the back of his head.

"Oh, well, I guess she's, er, okay. She left a while ago, err, back to America- I have a new house mate now, Kyle. Um, I have to go put my stuff in my locker." Alex quickly got up and made to walk away when Tom caught his arm.

"Tom…" he started. Tom shot him a look that said, 'you're gonna tell me what happened later'.

"Before you get your books, you might find it useful to know that they changed the class timetables when you were away. Here, I got yours for you." Tom handed Alex a slightly dog-eared piece of paper which Alex gratefully took. He silently thanked Tom with a small smile, then wandered off to his locker.

The room had been getting steadily busier as it drew closer to 8:35 and Alex had just crouched down by his locker on the bottom row when his form tutor Miss Millet slammed through the door. Miss Millet was one of the four P.E. teachers in Brooklands and was always almost late to everything. Alex liked her, she got his awful puns and almost never picked on him in class- a winning combination.

She sat down and began to take the register. Alex decided to make his presence in the room known so that she didn't just assume he wasn't there and skip his name like she normally would during his long absences. Dramatically, Alex threw open his locker door, making as much noise as he could in the process, then proceeded to shove all of his books inside making sure they clanged loudly on the back of the metal cupboard.

Miss Millet's gaze flickered in his direction.

"Ah, Alex, nice to have you back. Glad to see you're still alive, but please stop making such a racket back there, there are easier ways of letting me know you're here. Like telling me."

Alex smirked, "Sorry Miss," he said, trying to sound sincere.

"Yeah, well you can use all of that energy you seem to have in class today, your class is using the pools and it probably will be as freezing as it sounds."

Alex froze and Miss Millet continued with the register. He scrambled for his new timetable and to his horror, saw that he did indeed have P.E today for his second lesson. Alex swore quietly to himself. The standard kit for swimming lessons was shirtless with some form of swimming trunks and although he was anything but self-conscious about his body, Alex suddenly knew that he couldn't be shirtless on front of his entire class. The very obvious bullet wound scar on his chest would be sure to raise a few questions, not to mention the numerous other scars littering his chest, arms, legs and back. Now that he thought about it, Alex realised that he had collected a horribly large number of mementos from each of his escapades.

Shuffling back to his desk, armed with his French books and P.E bag, Alex's mind was furiously trying to come up with some sort of valid excuse that would get him out of swimming.

'I could just say that it would badly affect my health…no, they'd want to see a doctor's note. Maybe I could suddenly have a coughing fit and they'd just assume that I'm too ill to swim…no, they'd just tell me work harder to make sure I don't get cold…'

His inner conflict continued all through French class and Alex was too distracted to pay attention to anything the teacher was saying. It was at times like this that Alex was happy Ian had 'trained' him from an early age. If he hadn't already been more or less fluent in French, he would have had a detention for not paying attention in the first ten minutes.

It was then that Alex suddenly had what he later called, his 'idiot brainwave'.

He remembered that the back of his painkiller boxes said that the drugs could cause severe drowsiness. Did that mean that if he took enough he would fall asleep? Maybe. Glancing around the class to check that no one was watching, Alex slowly leant back on his chair, opened the window behind him and emptied his water bottle into the bush outside.

A few minutes later he raised his hand. Knowing that it would that it would help his campaign to leave the classroom, Alex asked in French, "Can I go to the toilet please?"

His teacher sighed, "Can't you wait for fifteen minutes?"

"It's kind of urgent sir," He held up his bottle and shook it to emphasize the fact that it was empty. Monsieur Duforêt, rolled his eyes, "Alright, but be quick. If you take more than five minutes I'm sending someone to go and get you."

Alex thanked him then awkwardly left the classroom.

Meanwhile, the entire class was left slightly confused by the fact that Alex, who hardly ever paid attention in class was suddenly able to have a full on conversation in French with their teacher and had then been allowed to leave. First lesson back and he was already running off.

Tom was slightly confused as well but also slightly suspicious. He had seen Alex empty his bottle out of the window- he had used that trick a number of times to get out of class before as well, but the question was, why?

/AN/

I still don't know where I'm going with this and I think I'm just digging a massive plot hole that I'm never going to be able to get out of.