John Rider left again in early November for what was planned to be a five-week job. By silent agreement, Yassen remained at the safe-house. Helen had argued it was hardly necessary but Yassen hadn't budged and Helen hadn't tried all that hard.

Alex was over the moon, Matilda was always happy to have both of her brothers around to give her attention, and as for Helen, it would be the longest she and Yassen had spent together without John around.

The company was nice; the knowledge that she was not alone in protecting the children was priceless.

Eventually, they would settle somewhere else under new identities. Eventually, Alex would be back in school – a new one, with new friends – and Yassen would return to work. For now, the days would be spent with the children and the evenings brushing up on lessons. Self-defence of various sorts in Helen's case; medical knowledge in Yassen's.

"This is well beyond what is expected of a nurse."

Yassen opened Helen's most recent bit of reading material – Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases; the fourth edition so new that the ink was barely dry – and flipped slowly through the pages. Helen remembered his stories, of Estrov and his family and anthrax, and wondered what he saw on the pages.

It was evening, both of the children already asleep, and it was the first night without John. She wondered if Yassen felt that as acutely as she did.

"I had to find some way to keep myself busy," she said when Yassen didn't speak again. "I had Alex and Matilda but the evenings could be lonely and I wanted to be more than just Alexander's mother. It was something practical to fill the time. Something that might become useful one day."

By now, both John and Yassen had a sound foundation of the sort of medical skills they might need on their own in the field. Helen did what she could to continue supplementing that; sorting through books and articles and new research to find anything that might help them. Just as important, it was interesting. She enjoyed it.

"I wanted to become a doctor," Helen admitted. It had been a child's dream, encouraged by her teachers. A respected profession and a secure, well-paid job, though she had known better than to say that even then.

I want to help people, she had told her English teacher as earnestly as she could manage when he had asked.

I want to be more than my parents was something she knew not to say. I want to be strong and skilled and independent enough that I won't ever have to rely on anyone else.

"It wasn't a realistic option," she continued. "It cost time that I didn't have. It's a lovely idea, to choose your career with your heart, but hardly practical to most. I could pick whatever job would hire someone without any qualifications, find an alcoholic husband, and settle for the same sort of life as my mother, or I could make my own way out. It didn't take nearly as long to become a nurse, it had the same sort of job security, I appreciated the practical approach, and I could always continue my education later."

Financial independence had mattered more than anything, a way to escape, and that was what she had prioritised. Her childhood had been nowhere near as bad as Yassen's but she knew he understood, anyway.

John had been born into money. He'd had the world at his feet. Helen and Yassen had both learned the limitations of the world at a very young age.

Helen had moved out. Found a place to live, found room-mates as determined as she herself was, and she had worked when time allowed and saved up what she could and had a small nest egg by the end of it. She had pushed through her studies as fast as she could and done well enough that her first job had been at a private hospital.

She had not been home since. She had been twenty-four when her father died and she hadn't gone to the funeral.

Yassen didn't speak. Only the sound of shifting paper broke the silence; a few pages at a time as he flipped through the book. The spine groaned slightly; the book so new that Helen herself had only really had the chance to skim the first fifty or so pages so far. It had been a gift from John, who knew her taste in literature better than anyone. Now it would help make the evenings pass a little faster.

Another flip and Yassen stilled. Helen caught a glimpse of the page across the table, the letters sharp and damning.

- Bacillus anthracis (Anthrax) -

Yassen closed the book.

"I wanted to be a helicopter pilot," he said abruptly and echoed words Helen had first heard spoken years ago. It had been a cautious confession back then; the skittish, abused stray testing her reaction. He had come a long way. "In retrospect, I think I always knew it would remain a childish dream. No one left Estrov. I did not know why at the time, but I still noticed. A few people arrived. No one ever left. Perhaps a military career would have allowed me to fly. More likely, I would never have been stationed further away than the nearest base to Estrov. It was – unwise to have potential loose ends elsewhere."

In another world where Yassen had not been made an orphan at fourteen, where Estrov still existed, and he had never heard the names 'SCORPIA' or 'Cossack' or 'Hunter', but neither of them said it out loud.

There was nothing Helen could say to make it better and she didn't try. Yassen had opened up slowly over the years on his own terms and schedule. Small comments in-between everything else, snippets of a history pieced together over time, and if that was all he ever wanted to share – ever felt comfortable sharing – then Helen wouldn't push.

It helps to talk about it worked for a lot of people. Even for John; quiet conversations late at night when no one else would hear. Helen doubted she would have been able to handle seven and a half years of life on the run if she hadn't been able to share everything with him as well.

It worked for a lot of people. Yassen Gregorovich was not one of them. The last thing he needed was for someone to try to force their way past old injuries with all the care of a bull in a china store. Just to help.

"Alex and Matilda will never have a normal life," Helen said instead. "They will always be Hunter's children. I can't change that, but we can give them the tools necessary to survive in the world and give them the best chance possible and hope they will never need it."

Hope, like all decent parents did, that their children would do better than they had done themselves. And maybe all they would eventually want would be to settle down in a small town in the middle of nowhere and live a quiet life under a new identity and never have to use those lessons, but Helen knew better than to hope for that. There was too much of John in them. Too many of the Rider genes. Too much from a family history of career military men and risk takers and troublemakers.

All Helen had ever wanted for her children was for them to be safe and happy. If that meant unusual lessons and a unique upbringing, then so be it.

She already gave John and Yassen medical lessons. Matilda was a little young still but maybe it was time to tailor some lessons to Alex as well. Toned down a little, of course. First aid to begin with. He was curious and intelligent and – it would be useful to know. A toy anatomy set for Matilda, perhaps. Something to start out with that could offer a foundation for later lessons.

They had been lax and overconfident, and Geneva had been lovely. Had been home. The illusion of safety had been easy to accept.

Would they have been safer in London or France, under Alan Blunt's dubious protection? Helen doubted it but she would never know for sure.

Yassen didn't speak. Not to agree, nor to refute her words, but his silence said enough. He was not a talkative man and there was little reason to agree when they both knew the truth.

"Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases isn't going to be of much use to you," Helen said and switched the topic with practice ease, her mind already shifting through the options, "but I have another one you might like. Ditch Medicine came out last year. It's reasonably advanced and assumes a pre-existing foundation of medical knowledge, but you've learned enough already that it should work for you. I left a copy in each of our safe-houses."

Some of the material would be familiar from Helen's lessons but a lot would be new as well, and she liked the way it was presented. As practical and pragmatic as necessary in the situations it would be needed in.

This time Yassen nodded and Helen got up from the couch to grab the book from its place on a shelf, crammed between The Andromeda Strain and a brand new copy of The Bourne Identity that had mysteriously appeared right around the same time Principles and Practice had.

Yassen accepted the book, then glanced at the bookcase and back at her, a flicker of what might have been an amused sort of exasperation in his expression.

"Ludlum?"

"John has a dreadful sense of humour. When Ian joined MI6, John gave him a copy of On Her Majesty's Secret Service and a Walther PPK."

Ian hadn't found it nearly as amusing as John had, though the gift had carried its own warning. Don't be reckless. You're not James Bond. If Ian had heeded that warning, Helen certainly hadn't been able to tell.

John genuinely enjoyed the books, though. He travelled a lot, in circumstances where more useful reading materials might draw unwanted attention, and he enjoyed the books as much when they got something right as when they got it horribly wrong. With a paperback and a carry-on bag, John was effectively invisible. Just another business traveller in an already busy airport. Helen could see the appeal.

Yassen was not the type for it but that was no matter. Books helped pass the time; long, lonely evenings spent waiting, and while Yassen might prefer practical books, Helen still had options.

It would take Yassen maybe a week to read through Ditch Medicine properly. There were several parts he would want to reread and Helen didn't doubt he would have questions as well. Once he was done with that one, she would have several other books already waiting.

If Yassen was stuck in the safe-house with them until John returned, the least Helen could do was ensure he had the opportunity to spend his free time in as practical of a pursuit as he wanted. He wouldn't be Yassen otherwise.

No one had been happy to see Hunter leave – Hunter, Yassen suspected, least of all. It was not that it was a risky assignment. Close proximity to clients carried risks of its own, but unlike most in their line of work, Hunter was not alone. Yassen was half a world away but he had the information on Hunter's client and that sort of insurance mattered. Should something happen to Hunter, Cossack would demand answers.

SCORPIA would not have bothered. The client would have been charged for the loss of a valuable operative but they would hardly have cared beyond that.

The silent threat of Hunter had seen Yassen through … uneasy situations before. It had stung the first time, that reliance on someone else, but time and pragmatism had made it easier to accept. If Hunter had no issue with relying on Yassen's reputation for his own security, Yassen would be a fool to deny himself that same advantage out of pride.

Hunter would have preferred to stay. With his family a target, Yassen doubted he would have wished to leave their side at all until they had settled permanently elsewhere, and even that would be from necessity more than anything. Practical concerns dictated otherwise.

Helen's unease was well-hidden but clear to Yassen who had come to know what to look for. Carefully controlled but a constant presence as days became a week and all they had were the rare, brief check-ins to confirm Hunter's continued good health.

Matilda was too young to grasp how long her father would be gone and how much their world had changed. Alex was a different matter, and Yassen had woken up more than once to hear Helen's voice as she comforted Alex after a nightmare.

Alex did his best to hide it but he was still only seven years old. Helen could balance the stress and worry. Alex did his best but the pressure was obvious to those who knew him. Yassen understood but had little idea of what to do about it. At least Helen seemed to have a better grasp of the situation.

"He needs someone to talk with," she told him with familiar bluntness ten days into Hunter's mission, with the children asleep and the world beyond the cabin dark and silent, "and he doesn't want to worry me. They were alone in the safe-room during the attack. He was responsible for Matilda and he didn't know when – or if – I would be back. He won't talk about it but it still wakes him up at night."

It was – not surprising to Yassen. It was not a thought he had considered but it made sense to hear Helen speak the words. She could not have handled the attackers with the children along. With escape impossible, the safest place would have been that heavily protected pseudo-bunker; intended to hold against worse than what those four attackers could have done and well-protected in case of fire.

Helen had done the best thing she could. She had kept the children safe and stopped the attack. Alex had still been entirely alone in the silence of that room, with only his young sister and the unreliable view on the screens to keep him company. Helen could easily have been killed and Alex understood that on some level, too. Perhaps he had not yet admitted that fear to himself but the knowledge lingered nonetheless.

Alex needed someone to talk with. With Helen herself out of the question and Hunter away, the point of her comment was obvious.

Alex was attached. Yassen had always made an effort to visit regularly and sometime over the months and years, the small infant that Alex had been had grown into a toddler and a young child, and Yassen had come to matter. Even now with the truth revealed, Alex still treated him like an older brother.

Alex needed someone to talk to and Yassen supposed he understood better than most.

Yassen himself had been fourteen, not seven, when his world had burned to ashes around him, but he had also been far more shielded than Alex had been. The endless poverty of Estrov had not been an optimal place for a child but he had known nothing else. Danger had come in the form of the ominous but abstract idea of war and not the very real threat of an attack. Alex had been raised in comfort but he had been introduced to the realities of the world at a young age. Yassen had learned to shoot at eight as part of military training. Alex had learned at six; the same methods that Hunter had taught at Malagosto.

Their upbringings had been very different but the uncertainty afterwards was the same. The sense that the ground had somehow fallen away beneath them; trapped in free-fall and scrambling to find some amount of stability again.

Yassen had mourned his family. Alex hadn't needed to but the fear was still there. The very real thought of what could have been.

How to handle such fears in a child, Yassen wasn't sure, but he didn't voice the thought. Just nodded. If Helen was not already aware of his lack of such experience, he would be surprised. She knew the children best. If she felt this was better for Alex, Yassen wasn't going to argue.

Helen smiled, brief and tired but genuine. A silent reminder of the pressure she was still under; the constant edge of exhaustion that gnawed relentlessly at all of them. It only confirmed what Yassen had already agreed to. If this could ease some of that exhausted worry, he would do that.

Yassen found an opportunity in the early afternoon the following day. Matilda was young enough to need a nap; Alex, restless and energetic, was not.

There was a thin layer of snow outside, enough to crunch under their boots and turn the wooden terrace into a slippery, insidious experience, but not enough for any games. Some snowballs at the most. No snowmen and no real snowball fight. Yassen had offered to take Alex outside to run off some energy and Helen had accepted with a tired nod.

Alex had not slept through the night. Helen, with two children relying on her, needed her sleep more than ever and Yassen expected she was already napping next to Matilda. If his talk with Alex would allow her an hour or two of sleep, Yassen merely considered that a bonus.

In the garden, Alex tried to scrape enough snow together for snowballs but ended up with more grass and dirt and pine needles than anything useful.

His winter clothes were brand new like almost everything else they owned now. It was another reminder of Geneva and the life they had been forced to leave behind, and Yassen didn't doubt he was acutely aware of it.

Hunter's children. Alex had a softness to his features from both Helen and his young age, but Hunter's parentage was obvious to those familiar with the man. It would likely become all the more obvious as he grew into his adult appearance. It was echoed in Matilda already as well; her height and features far more Rider than Beckett.

They could have a normal life. With Hunter retired, under new identities, safely away from those who knew exactly who their father was – they could have a normal life. Could. Yassen knew better than to expect that to be the case.

They were Hunter's children. Yassen understood the reality of that just as well as Helen and Hunter themselves did.

Yassen didn't break the silence. Merely watched and considered his approach until Alex finally stood back up, snowballs dismissed as a lost cause.

Alex didn't speak. He had been quieter after Geneva. More serious. He was still only seven, still played and watched cartoons and had the endless energy of all children, but he felt older now. The full weight of their situation had settled in a way it hadn't before.

He needs someone to talk with.

Long, restless nights and relentless nightmares told Yassen that Helen was right. Alex needed something, at least.

What would Yassen himself have wanted at fourteen, terrified and traumatised and with nowhere to go? He certainly wouldn't have wanted to talk about it and he didn't doubt that Alex would stay stubbornly silent if he tried.

What would he have wanted? The skills and knowledge to survive. To not have been entirely on his own in Moscow with no experience with the world beyond Estrov and no idea of how to provide for himself. To not be at the mercy of luck and taken advantage of by others.

The snow was a whisper beneath his boots, the temperature barely below freezing. The memories of Moscow were still clearer than they had been in years.

"… I learned to pickpocket when I was fourteen," Yassen began, careful and measured, and felt more than saw the way Alex's attention immediately shifted to him, snow forgotten. "It is a useful skill, best learned at a younger age. I will teach you the methods and allow you to practice on me. When you can do so to my satisfaction, we will improve those skills through practical experience."

There were a lot of things Alex could have said to that. A normal child might have asked why. Might have pointed out it wasn't allowed. Might have had a dozen other objections to the idea.

Alex Rider – Hunter's son – merely paused and seemed to consider it for long seconds before he spoke.

"Can dad pickpocket, too?"

Not a question Yassen had expected but perhaps not surprising, either. Alex was a curious child and Hunter had always been a larger than life figure in their world. Alex didn't know that part yet but it didn't change the fact that Hunter at home was still a polyglot with an eclectic collection of skills, encyclopedic knowledge about a number of subjects, and an effortless competence with any weapon he touched.

"He can. I am better."

There was no false pride in the words, just certainty. Necessity had seen to that. Hunter had learned as a convenient supplement to his other skills; a useful ability that occasionally made his job easier. Yassen had learned through desperation.

Succeed or lose the little protection he had left. Starve in the cold, however long he might have survived. Desperation always lent a degree of motivation that nothing else could match.

Alex didn't respond but seemed to consider the situation. The seconds stretched on. Eventually he nodded, familiar determination in his eyes, and Yassen continued.

"There are other lessons once you have mastered this but this is a suitable place to start. It will allow you to survive on your own if necessary. You may not have the time or opportunity to prepare if you need to escape. You may need to remain completely invisible to those hunting for you. You may have others relying on you. I will teach you about suitable targets and the risks of such an approach."

Yassen didn't mention Matilda and didn't have to. Alex clearly remembered long minutes in a safe-room, with his mother gone – maybe permanently – and no one else to protect his little sister. Perhaps Yassen's lessons would have made no difference in that situation but it would leave him better prepared in case of another attack. An escape on their own would remain a last, unwanted resort but it would actually be an option then. Some way to survive until Hunter or Helen or Yassen himself could track them down.

This time the nod came faster. Yassen had hoped and expected as much. It was not an immediate solution to Alex's nightmares but it was an offer of some degree of assurance. The sort of knowledge that might let him sleep better at night, knowing he would not be defenceless again.

There were a number other useful skills and important lessons Yassen planned to teach him, though that was for later. Undercover work. Navigating a hostage situation. Surviving in hostile situations – not merely an attack but painful lessons Yassen had learned himself in Moscow. How to find shelter. How to stay warm. How to read people and avoid whatever dangers possible. Lessons in additional weapons as he grew older. Perhaps hunting as well, to make him familiar with firearms outside of a range. It was something to consider. Alex was young but children were fast learners. He would appreciate those lessons all the more when he was older and did not have to start from scratch.

The world around them was silent, any sounds swallowed by distance and the thin layer of snow. Alex glanced over again, something cautious but curious in his expression and Yassen waited for him to speak.

"… Where did you learn?"

Yassen had never spoken of his past before, not even the credible cover of James Morrison that he had grown used to. Alex had been too young to care and the topic had never come up. Now, with Alex aware of the truth … Yassen's past would have become a subject of interest eventually. It had only been a matter of time.

He could lie. He could refuse to answer. He could settle for a brief but truthful response. Alex would be disappointed but had been raised well enough to accept it.

Yassen is a stupid name.

Alex Morrison had loved his brother, and that brother had been a lie. Yassen had expected the question. He expected to hear a lot more of them in the weeks and months to come as Alex started to merge the memories of James Morrison with the person that had taken his place.

Yassen had lied enough. Alex deserve whatever truth he was old enough to handle.

"… In Moscow," he finally said. "I grew up in a small village in what was the Soviet Union at the time and I knew very little of the world beyond."

The words were careful and measured but came easier than he had expected. Alex never interrupted and never fidgeted, his attention solely on Yassen as he told the story property for the first time.

Not in bits and pieces, not as a debriefing or thinly veiled interrogation, but an honest attempt to explain the past to a young child he had come to see as family.

John returned the second week of December in a flurry of snow and with gifts for Alex and Matilda. With him returned the quiet comfort that the family was complete again. John himself never allowed personal feelings to distract him while he worked, not when a single mistake could get him killed, but even then the weight of long weeks away had been – unusually heavy.

He wasn't alone in that feeling. Alex's hug was a little too tight and a little too clingy for the child he had been in Geneva, and the quiet relief in Helen's eyes was obvious. Even Yassen, as skittish and proud and suspicious as a stray tomcat, seemed to relax a little when John closed the door behind him.

For a little while, they were together again. Yassen would need to leave for a week or so to handle reconnaissance for his new job, but it was with the promise that he would be back again for the Christmas days. A small thing that would matter the world to the kids and offer a bit of familiarity in a life that had been uprooted once already and about to be uprooted once more.

John also brought home a road map of Europe and a large, black marker. It became the basis for their decision of a new home.

The UK was out. John had written it off the day they left London and hadn't been back since, not even for work. He didn't plan to set foot there again for the rest of his life. Switzerland, too, for the obvious reasons. Italy – northern Italy had too much SCORPIA activity, too close to Venice, and the southern parts came with other criminal complications John had no desire to get his family or himself tangled up in.

Austria, like northern Italy, was too close to both Geneva and Venice to risk. The former Yugoslavia and surrounding neighbours was definitely not anywhere John wanted to risk anytime soon, not when a number of criminal organisations were eyeing a potential expansion of business there. France … logically, John knew it was a large enough country that there was no reason to write off all of it. Instincts and some uneasy gut feeling he couldn't explain said no. France was still the place MI6 had chosen for their relocation and John had the nagging suspicion that Duval still lived there, hidden in plain sight. France was definitely out. Ireland was an option but the thought of being backed into a corner somehow, isolated and with the UK as its sole neighbour … it felt claustrophobic and was enough to make John remove it from the list as well.

With each country covered in black marker, the map grew increasingly small.

Benelux was an option. The Nordic countries. No unwanted associations, easy escape routes. Just the way he preferred it.

Spain and Portugal. Greece. Nice weather, warmer, but with the added complication of languages. Alex had grown up with a mix of English, German, and French, and Matilda's ever-growing vocabulary already included English and French. Helen had learned French in school and German by necessity. John spoke more languages than that but he wasn't the one who would spend his time at home. They would do fine in Benelux, and English was commonly understood in the Nordic countries. Spain, Portugal, and Greece would be more of a challenge.

Helen took the decision – and the marker – out of his hands and extended the large, black spot that took up a good part of Europe to cover the remaining parts of Southern Europe as well.

"I don't have your ear for languages," she said and echoed John's own thoughts.

It wasn't like they could afford to stay in one place for more than a few years, anyway. Not after Geneva. A few years and … somewhere else, then. Look into somewhere permanent to retire to. Until then, it was better with somewhere that let Helen and the kids rely on one of their familiar languages. For convenience if nothing more. They would be alone more often than not.

Eastern Europe … was probably out as well, then. John took the marker back and filled in the bits of colour left on the eastern side of the map. The Baltic states, too. Russia had barely pulled the last of her troops out and John would prefer not to deal with that.

That left … Benelux, northern Germany, and the Nordic countries, then. Politically stable, no real issues with languages, suitable for the stay-at-home mother of two children with a frequently travelling husband.

John's attention drifted to Finland and stayed there. Farther from the rest of Europe than the other options but … that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Less likely to draw attention, less likely to be the first place someone would search for them. The country was still recovering from an economic depression but John's line of work hardly care about that sort of thing and that should leave housing prices at a very reasonable level. Sure, it would have been convenient to be within the Schengen Area – John certainly expected it to make jobs in Europe easier in the future – but it wasn't enough to tip the scales.

Helsinki, maybe. He had been there a few times. It was a nice enough place and he suspected Helen and the kids would like it, too.

Finally he looked up and met Helen's eyes above the map.

"So how do you feel about snow?"