A/N: Sorry for the day late update! As always, would love to hear your thoughts and feedback on the story thus far. Does anything stick out or outright confuse you?

O

Yassen struggled to keep his face smooth as they continued down the dusty trail that ran between the library and the accommodations block. Head still full of debates of the various pros and cons of a multitude of titles, he'd barely noticed Alex's breathing speed up as they left the building but failed to anticipate the oncoming storm. It was only when Alex froze, stiff as a board, that Yassen realized he was in the throws of another hallucination.

He tucked his catalogue under his arm and shoved his hands in his pockets, forcing his expression to remain mild. "What do you see this time?"

"Crocodiles," Alex ground out, eyes fixed straight ahead as he refused to look down at the empty ground. A shudder worked its way through his bony frame and his eyes fluttered shut in what Yassen guessed was dread.

"How long?" Yassen asked him, glancing around. There was nothing nearby for Alex to leap to, unless you counted the raised flower beds. Such a move would net him maybe a foot of height and a lot of ire from the gardeners.

Alex cracked open an eye, uncertain. Locked firmly in fight or flight, the boy clearly wasn't any more keen on trusting him with the details than he had been this morning. He wrapped his arms around himself, already easing onto his tip toes. "A while."

He'd been right, then; showing Alex his anger and frustration had only increased his reluctance to come forward. That would have to stop.

Yassen nodded. "Alright. What do you need?"

Alex snorted. "A flagpole." The boy paused, brows furrowing. "Actually…." He didn't stick around to finish the thought. With a sudden burst of speed, he darted back towards the library, eschewing the path and swerving onto the soft green grass.

Yassen jogged after him, having already guessed the boy's thoughts. Along the perimeter, he noticed the sudden attention of the patrolling riflemen. Guns raised, but no one fired. A handful of the internal guards shouted, calling out. As Alex bolted around the library, Yassen gave the nearest guard a small wave to signal that he had everything under control.

Alex leapt onto the picnic table, already panting from his short sprint but powered by desperation. With a sharp grunt, he hurled himself at the branches of the olive tree, grasping the lowest branch available and scrambling to find purchase. Groping blindly, his left hand sought out the nearest branch. Unfortunately for Alex, it wasn't particularly thick and snapped as he tried to put his weight on it.

He swung, unable to climb further. "Damn it!"

Brushing away a few fallen olives, Yassen set his catalogue on the table before making his way underneath the branches. Grabbing one of Alex's kicking trainers, he pushed upwards and pointed with his free hand. "There's a thicker one above you. Grab it and use the other to brace."

Alex twisted to look down at him, but did as he was told. Suddenly armed with two feet of extra height, he wrapped his arms around the branch above him and dragged the rest of his body into the branches. Panting as he settled his weight, he began testing the ones around him, obviously planning on going higher.

One of the younger guards caught up to them, calling, "Hey! Get down from there."

"He's fine," Yassen said, returning to the table. A couple quick sweeps rendered the bench olive free. He sat and began browsing the catalogue again, listening to the branches shake and occasionally snap as Alex made his way towards the brilliant blue sky.

"He can't be up there, Six," the guard sputtered as two more of his colleagues arrived, radios crackling with static and updates on Alex's position. "It's against policy-"

"He's fine," Yassen repeated, glancing up with open irritation.

The head guard, Mateo, joined them. He gestured at the boy clawing his way up the tree, reaching into the pouch on his belt and pulling free a familiar looking syringe. "This looks exciting. Any ideas on how to get him down?" he asked, shielding his eyes from the sun.

"He'll come down when his hallucination has passed," Yassen informed him, pulling out his pen and carefully circling a title.

"While I'm sure that's true," Mateo said slowly. "I don't think it's very safe for him to be up there. Those branches aren't that sturdy and he's quite a ways up."

Yassen glanced up to check the boy's progress. Alex had made it nearly fifteen feet off the ground, clinging to largest available branch like a blond monkey. Watching. Waiting to see what happened. Yassen doubted that any of the branches beyond that could support him or else he'd have gone even higher.

He met Mateo's eyes. "I'll take responsibility. If he's not down in half an hour, I'll go up and get him myself."

After a long minute, Mateo shrugged and grabbed his radio, shooting Alex another long look. "If that's how you want to play it. Unless the warden says otherwise, he's your problem."

O

Alex stared at the couch, now completely absent of throw pillows. "Are you joking?"

Briar snorted, shifting in her chair. "I know, right? Because surely the pillows were the real problem." She uncrossed her legs just long enough to grab her notepad. "Maybe the warden's wife took it as a criticism of her interior decorating."

"There are an annoying amount of seascapes," Alex pointed out, sinking onto the couch with a sigh. He hesitated. "Sorry. For yesterday."

Briar waved a hand, giving him a lopsided smile. There was something just a touch cautious about it that made Alex's stomach sink. "Don't worry about it. It's hardly your fault. I pushed you pretty hard."

Alex acknowledged that with a wry tilt of his head. "Everyone seems to be doing that lately. At least you're not alone."

"Oh, really?" Briar raised an eyebrow. When Alex didn't continue, she asked, "How are you and Yasha getting along? You hardly talked about him yesterday so I assumed everything was okay."

"Fine, I guess." Alex shrugged. "He was a bit of a jerk this morning."

Briar's lips tightened. "He's only supposed to mind you and intervene when necessary. If he's overstepping his bounds or making things hard on you, I can talk to the warden."

Alex shook his head and exhaled slowly, scrubbing at his face. As tempting as it was to throw the assassin under the bus, he suspected that Yassen was probably the least offensive out of all available options. "No, he's not. He was just acting like the MI6 doctors this morning, but he stopped. I should be used to it by now. Actually, he's mellowed out more in the last few hours than anyone else I've dealt with in the last month."

"I'm curious," Briar said, leaning forward. The concern hadn't quite faded from her eyes. "What do you mean by he was just acting like everyone else from MI6?"

Alex shrugged, suppressing whatever anxiety threatened to coil in his stomach. "Like I was being a brat for the sake of being a brat. That I wasn't trying." He shook his head again. "I think he figured it out after I threw up."

Briar's eyes were horrified. "Jesus, Alex. What did he do?"

Alex raised his hands. "Nothing! He just made me take my medication before breakfast. I told him it would make me sick, but he probably thought I was just dragging my feet. He's taken me at my word since."

"Since this morning," Briar said, raising an eyebrow and looking thoroughly unconvinced.

Alex picked at the hem of his shirt, staring out at the after noon light streaming in from the windows. If that had been her reaction to finding out he vomited, then she probably wouldn't find much reassurance in Yassen helping him climb a tree. "He's better than the others," he repeated.

He wasn't entirely sure what to make of the sudden change. The assassin had begun as a run of the mill asshole, clearly fed up with Alex's antics, but had steadily improved as the day wore on. By the time Alex had sheepishly dropped onto the picnic table in front of him, Yassen had been resigned but amused. Or at least Alex thought he was. At any rate, the man had simply closed his booklet without comment and suggested they get lunch. Alex appreciated the lack of fanfare.

Briar tapped her pen against the notepad consideringly. "If you say so, kid. Just let me know if things get dicey with him, okay? This arrangement he has with the warden isn't exactly…"

"Official?" Alex suggested after the woman trailed off. He made a face. "I didn't think so. Don't worry about Yasha," he added. "He definitely won't kill me even if you pay him to, so I suppose there's that."

Briar gave him another long look before nodding. "Okay, okay. Well, we'd better get back to that timeline. Tell me about what happened after you escaped from the psyche ward at St. Dominic's."

Alex winced. "Or, here's another idea: we watch some trash TV and think about our feelings."

Briar nodded her her head from side to side, wincing as though wishing she could be convinced. "Or, I don't tattle on you for not telling anyone you vomited up your medication. I take it Yasha didn't catch it, or pretended not to catch it, based on how alert you look?"

Alex flinched.

Briar sighed. "Look, one day won't kill you, but you have to promise me you won't try to get out of taking your meds tomorrow. Even if you don't think they help, it can take weeks for them to start working well enough for us to evaluate. I promise I'll get you off of them if it turns out that they don't do you any proveable good. So, do you promise?"

Alex stared down at his knees and nodded. It had been a small vacation from the tiredness after all. He'd known full well that he wouldn't be able to dodge his medication more than once, after which he'd have it force fed to him. A painful lesson, but one he'd had already.

"Okay, so let's get the rest of the timeline out of the way. Seriously, we're almost done. We might even finish today."

"There's not much to tell," Alex said shortly. "I broke out, I went to the party, everything went sideways, and I killed that agent. My symptoms were the same as at the academy."

Briar nodded gently. "It can be hard to objectively certain of what your symptoms are, Alex. Especially since altered thinking is a consideration." She raised her hands. "Look, you don't have to give me every detail. Really. Just try and clue me in to where your head was at and if anything seemed off."

"If I have to." Alex wrapped his arms around himself. "Breaking out was simple enough. I just knocked out an orderly and stole his badge, uniform, and car keys. Once I made it into the general wing of the hospital, I walked right out with the crowd."

"Simple enough?" Briar squinted at her notes. "I thought you were going through withdrawal."

Alex shrugged. "I'm resourceful. I drove to my best mate Tom's house first, to see if he could help me. He wasn't home, but his new step-mother was and she let me in to wait for him in his room. Kind of the airhead type. Anyway, he doesn't password protect his laptop, so while I borrowed some of his clothes, I looked on his Facebook account and found out about the party. I knew I didn't have long before MI6 sent someone to look for me at his house, so I decided to meet him there."

Briar cleared her throat. "Why did you seek out Tom in the first place? As far as my files indicate, he's far from a drug dealer and you were cruising for a fix. Why him?"

Alex swallowed, looking away. "I'm not sure. I just- I just knew that he would try to help me. No matter what. That he wouldn't just turn around and sell me out. The only person I had left."

"So you arrived at the party. Then what happened?"

"It was packed, put on by some guys a few years higher than ours. Tom must have made new friends while I was away." Alex swallowed. "There was a lot of stuff going on and it was hard to find him. The music was loud, people dancing everywhere, everything stank of beer and popcorn. I knew I didn't have time to waste. There was this grand staircase that overlooked most of the party, so I decided to go to the top and see if I could spot him in the crowd."

"Did you?"

Alex hesitated. "I ran into an old… acquaintance."

Briar's eyes narrowed. "You say that like you're uncertain."

"Well, the last time I had seen him," Alex told her carefully, digging his fingers into his jeans. "I dropped his drug manufacturing boat onto a conference center beside a police station. I wasn't entirely sure we were on speaking terms."

She stiffened in her chair. Alex supposed his file must have neglected that detail, not that MI6 had asked him for much about that portion of the night. They'd been far more concerned with him shooting the agent. "Did he attack you?"

"He started to, but I managed to smooth things over," Alex assured her. He stared down at his lap, twisting his fingers. "Mostly because I needed to make a purchase."

"Ah." Briar nodded to him.

"He wasn't happy about it, but once he realized I was serious, he got a lot more cooperative. Said he didn't have oxy or percocet, but that he could still help me out." Alex fidgeted. "I didn't even check to see how much money was in the orderly's wallet. I just gave him the whole thing and followed him into the loo."

"Why the bathroom?"

Alex winced. "I'd never done heroin before. I didn't know how. He had to prep everything for me and help me get the needle in my arm."

Briar's eyes widened. "And you trusted him?"

"I had no choice!" Alex burst out. "I couldn't find Tom. I didn't have a single pill on me. It was hard enough to function and beggars can't be choosers. Besides, I was careful. I insisted he give me only half of what he'd prepped, in case he thought he could overdose me in revenge for the tugboat thing. I'm not completely daft. At any rate, I don't think the rest of the night is useful to you. I was high. It'll be impossible to tell what I was thinking and what was the heroin."

She crossed her hands together over her knee, entwining fingers. "Let me be the judge of that. Go on. MI6 was on the way. You couldn't find Tom. You were doing heroin in the bathroom with someone who probably wanted you dead. Then what?"

He shifted in his seat, staring at the floor. "I was out of it for awhile. Not passed out exactly. It was like floating on a cloud, feeling warm and happy and safe. Next thing I knew, Tom was shaking me awake in the tub. I don't know how I got there, but I don't remember being worried about it or the fact that I'd thrown up on myself, even though the high was wearing off and I was getting tired. He was scared. Had to pull the needle out of my arm. Kept asking me who he should call." Alex paused, squeezing his eyes shut. "I broke his arm. He was helping me downstairs and I told him that he couldn't call anyone because they'd catch me, that I had to just get in the car I'd stolen and keep going. He wouldn't let me. That's when I started to feel upset about how disoriented I was. Tom tried to take my keys. There was an agent at the front door, directly where we were headed. I panicked and when I took the keys back, I must have gotten the angle wrong-" Alex broke off.

-Tom's arm popped, crunched, cracked as it broke-

"Everything seemed to spiral out of control after that. I ran to the back of the house, pushing my way past everyone. It was a dead end. The house had one of those closed in gardens. Concrete everywhere and no way out to the next street, only a side path that led back to the front. There was another agent who'd circled around to cover that exit. He wasn't expecting me and I had Tom's hood pulled up. I knocked the wind out of him, took his gun, and ran back to the front of the house. Everyone got out of my way."

"Why take his gun? You said you didn't have a plan."

"I didn't. I just didn't want to go back to the hospital. Holding the gun made me feel better. Safer." Alex shivered and twisted his hands together. His breathing had sped into rapid pants, but he was determined to finish the fucking timeline. No more questions after this. "The agent at the front of the house raised his gun and I shot him before he could shoot me. I hardly remember what he looked like, just the sound. All the screaming. I dropped the gun and MI6 took me into custody on the porch. That's it, that's the whole story."

"Thank you, Alex," Briar said quietly, gripping her pen so tight that he knuckles turned white. "I know it's hard to talk about. Tomorrow we'll-"

"Tomorrow, we'll do nothing," he spat, struggling to draw in enough air to speak. "My symptoms didn't change. They put me on the anti-psychotics. I kept falling asleep. I'm done talking, so never ask me about it again. Ever."

Briar raised a placating hand. "Okay, okay. Just breathe, Alex. We're done. It's all over."

Julius laughed, around the corner, safety off. Jack, shining with triumph and hope, exploded across the desert while her skeleton sat burning in the driver's seat. Tom's arm popped, cracked, crunched-

"Maybe it is for you." Drawing his feet up on the couch beneath him, he leaned forward onto his knees and shut his eyes. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four….