A/N: Happy Monday, everyone! I didn't even forget this week. :D I'm on a roll.

To answer someone's question: nah, there's no pairings in this story. I am loosely considering it for future installations, so let me know if you think there's any good chemistry going on here. It won't be for quite some time though; I honestly don't think either Alex or Yassen are in a head space where those would be a good idea. (Also, I'm not willing to consider Yassen/Alex for this story. Not a hater, just don't think it works for this story given the nature of their existing relationship.)

Yassen sighed and suppressed the urge to reschedule his entire morning for the third time. Forced himself to physically put his phone back into his pocket. It would be as ridiculous as it was unnecessary. Everything was fine. Objectively fine- he'd spent the entire morning wasting mental energy on proving to himself just how fine it was. Yet here he was, talking himself out of the idea again.

Perhaps it was just that it was finally the culminating moment of so many weeks of frustration and expectations. A destination of sorts. It wasn't nervousness, per se. More like a baseline stress radiating around a core of disbelief that they'd finally gotten here; a precarious feeling as though the rug could be swept out from under them at any given moment.

Some part of his brain scarcely could believe Alex was finally going to school.

He trailed after the boy. "Take the cane. It folds up and will fit in your bag. Just keep it on you."

"No," Alex groaned. His school uniform had arrived only a day before. All things considered, it was pretty standard looking to Yassen's eye. Navy blue blazer, crisp white shirt, red and blue striped tie. Similar to what he'd seen dozens of schoolboys wear before, though the actual fit was a little loose on Alex. He was gaining weight, but not as quickly as he should. "I won't use it. The physical therapist says I can stop in a few days anyway."

Yassen grimaced, but decided to pick his battles. "Do you have your phone?"

Slinging his nearly empty backpack onto his shoulder, Alex dug into his pocket to brandish the little silver flip phone. "Yes- and it's charged. Yes- I double checked."

"And your pills?"

"Yes."

"And your drops?"

Alex couldn't hold the eye roll back. "Yes. Of course I do. Honestly."

Yassen fought a scowl. Partially won. "Don't blame me. You're still forgetful."

That was only half true: Alex's memory retention had drastically improved, provided he wasn't high. Which was daily. Yassen saw no need to inform the school of that particular shade of distinction. The woman at the registrar had seemed overwhelmed enough by Yassen's doctor notes, lists of activity exemptions, and entries in the 'other medical conditions we should be aware of' category. Fortunately, there weren't too many required academic accommodations that Alex would need from the school, other than requesting that his instructors be mindful of his absence seizures. The drug addiction would just have to be sorted out should it (likely) become known to the faculty. This did not worry Yassen terribly; Dima had assured him that it would be neatly swept under the rug after a quick chat with the headmaster and a small donation to the school's sports department.

"I don't think it matters," Alex said, adjusting the strap. Last night, Yassen had returned the boy's hair to dark blonde at his request and it had been tied back into an untidy ponytail Yassen still yearned to chop. "I'll only be there for a half day. If navigating the campus seems complicated, I might stay and figure out where my classes are but I doubt I'll need to. I found the map online."

Yassen twisted his lips. "Do you think you should have studied more for the placement test?"

"What does it matter? It's a placement test. The point is to get me started with what I already know. Exams won't be for another year or two if they decide to hold me back a level anyway." Alex grimaced. It seemed the boy's general impatience spanned to academia as well. "And I'm already going to get stuck taking classes that won't go towards my scores. Lada told me all the new foregin students have to take Russian Immersion if they can't test out of the language. She says they do loads of day trips more than anything."

Yassen hesitated. "Timofey. Be careful with names. He says, Alex. No slip ups."

Alex gave him a pointed look. "She's transgender, not a spy. It's polite to use someone's chosen name and pronouns whenever possible. Don't worry, she already told me I'm to call her Timofey at school. She doesn't really want to, but it's the deal she has with Dima. I texted her this morning."

"I didn't realize you were familiar with the protocol for this sort of thing," Yassen said, reexamining Alex's tiny bun in a new light.

Just what Yassen needed: another thing to aim this vague anxiety at. Yassen had only occasionally encountered this situation over the years he'd worked with Scorpia, so what were the odds that Alex had without enough regularity to be completely comfortable with it? Or was Alex's interest… from personal experience? Was this where his reluctance to cut his hair stemmed from? A new development? There hadn't been any indication… not really but… it was just a specific thing to know about.

He hadn't mentioned any friends of this particular type, but perhaps his insistence on preferred pronouns was the reason Yassen hadn't noticed when the boy offhandedly described his life back in London. Surely Yassen hadn't been so out of touch or negligent that he'd missed something this-

Alex snorted, obviously seeing something in his face. "A boy at Brooklands killed himself because everyone kept calling him by his girl name. I didn't know him, but the school administration made us all attend an awareness lecture."

Yassen made a noncommittal noise. Of course Alex was the type to pay attention to a social awareness lecture. "Is there anything else you need?"

"Not really. The taxi will take me right there and then I just have to meet the assessor at the front office." Alex bit his lip, halting suddenly in his preparations. "Why? Are you worried I'll mess it up?"

"Of course not." Yassen glanced at his watch. "Go on. You'll be late if you wait any longer."

Alex groaned, striding to the door. His limp was more or less gone, to be fair to the boy. Skipping the cane would probably be fine so long as he stayed off his feet whenever possible. "Whose fault is that?" He huffed as he reached the door and pulled it open.

"Just-" Yassen wasn't quite sure what he meant to say. Good luck? Take your pills? "-don't strain yourself," he settled on.

"Have a good day too, Mum," the boy called back and shut the door behind him.

Yassen fixed the innocently shut door with a mild glare, in absentia of the teen deserving of it. Dima's words echoed back to him, uncomfortably true: it really was like drowning constantly, only somehow more stressful and embarrassing. Not only was Alex his obvious weakness, not only was he moody and high constantly, not only was he wearing his hair like an aspiring homeless degenerate with a loosely formed garage band- but now the boy was calling Yassen mum on a semi-regular basis. In front of other people. It had admittedly lightened the tension between the siblings at Dima's dinner, but Yassen prayed it wouldn't become a regular thing.

Some instinct told him he wouldn't be so lucky.

Of course, luck was a rather hit and miss force with them both. Alex especially. Knowing him, he'd come back shot again, having bumped into three ex-criminals hiding out at the school, before dismantling their operation, destroying some sort of expensive property, and winding up in the papers.

Yassen snorted. No. Alex's problems were going to be far more mundane, realistically speaking. Steady absence from school for the past year would no doubt result in him struggling at least temporarily with his grades- not even counting whatever he'd miss from his absence seizures. He'd grow tired more easily. Perhaps he would even have difficulty in making friends because of the relative social isolation of being on the run.

Yassen frowned. Alex had mentioned the children at Brookland avoided him because of the rumors that he was insane, in a gang, or on drugs. Technically speaking, all of those were true now given that Dima had enthusiastically lumped him in with the other 'mafia brats'. Surely that wouldn't ostracize him completely? If it did, that might… decrease potential friend candidates to other outcasts. But Alex wouldn't be so foolish as to make friends with similarly addicted children. Hopefully. Yassen groaned. It would be just his luck if Alex became best friends with a heroin dealer. Of course, Alex's drug addiction was already bad enough with Yassen's constant monitoring of the situation. How much worse could it get surrounded by the children of the rich and the selectively amoral?

The rolling anxiety taking up residence in his chest demanded a cigarette or two in tribute. Yassen pinched the bridge of his nose before returning to the cabinet in the kitchen and pouring himself a quick drink. Just a small one.

At any rate, standing around wasn't going to do him any good. Alex would be fine on his own and Yassen had already researched the school's security to his satisfaction. He grabbed his coat off the rack by the door and yanked it on. There was plenty of time for him to scope out the rendezvous point, though he suspected if his contact really wanted to cause him trouble, there was a decent chance Yassen wouldn't see it coming. Still, it was not in his nature to blindly trust intelligence agents of any capacity. Especially former ones.

Just because Smithers had assisted Alex before did not mean he wouldn't turn on Yassen.

Alex rapped on Ms. Belkin's open office door with an uncertain smile. When she glanced up from her desk, he gestured back at the computer lab behind him. The last few hours of squinting at his monitor and wracking his brains for whatever vague memories of his lessons were at last behind him. Hopefully. It had gotten easier once Jack had stopped burning somewhere in his peripheral vision. "I submitted the last few questions. Is there something else I'm supposed to click on?"

She motioned for him to sit in one of the chairs set up in front of her desk and began tapping at her keyboard. Short and redheaded, she reminded him a bit of one of his drama teachers from Brookland, sans the Irish accent. "No, not necessary at all. I've got your scores right here, Sasha." She studied the screen for a long couple of seconds before giving him a pleased smile. "Let's discuss your core skill set first. So far, so good. You're testing more or less on point with maths and science. Wonderful. While it looks like your reading comprehension is acceptable, your writing portion of the assessment is a bit lower than we'd like to see."

Alex sighed and shrugged. "How far behind will it put me?"

"Not much, really." Ms. Belkin scribbled something on a notepad before giving him a sympathetic smile. "I know this probably isn't the best news, but you are a bit behind because of your illnesses, but not by an impossible amount. We're quite used to being flexible, you know. If you do summer lessons this year and possibly the next, you should be caught up in time to graduate with the rest of your class."

Alex perked up, unable to help himself. That was only a bit late considering he'd been preparing to go to uni at sixteen, but eighteen was the norm here. He'd expected worse considering how long it was since he'd even thought about his lessons. Surely he'd forgotten everything. "Really? What about exams?"

Ms. Belkin waved a hand. "We have a somewhat independent curriculum at Goldstone, but our credits transfer well. You can request whichever major exams that you'd like to sit for, depending on where you hope to apply afterwards, but they're not all required and generally not on a fixed schedule. Lots of students take them a year or two late while they make up their minds about which country they intend to study in. I assume you'll want to schedule the GMAT if you plan to return to Canada?"

"Oh. Perhaps." Alex felt a small prickle of cheer spread across him. "That's not so bad at all."

"No, not at all," she agreed, giving him another smile. She tapped at her screen a bit more. "Now, let's go ahead and pick out some classes for you. You didn't score high enough in Russian to make competency, so we'll start you with Immersion…"

Twenty minutes later, Alex had a printed school schedule and a lighter spirit. Admittedly, his course load was pretty heavy and he'd almost certainly have an overabundance of homework, but it wasn't as bad as he feared, especially in maths and science. (Maybe he'd tell Yassen those homework drills had been good for him- maybe.) He'd still be in classes with students mostly a year or so younger than him, but that didn't seem to be entirely unusual, given the varying curriculums the international crowds brought. He sighed and rubbed at his still completely hairless cheeks. At least he looked the part, but with any luck, he'd be growing soon and moving on to other classes with students closer in age.

He strode carefully through the hallway towards the lunch room. While technically his day was done and he was free to leave, the headmaster had stressed that he was welcome to explore the campus and join the students for lunch now that he had his student ID badge. He was even encouraged to join his scheduled lessons, though his teachers wouldn't expect him until tomorrow.

Goldstone International Academy reminded Alex quite a bit of the Cairo college he'd gone to before Rosethorne. Rather than the open desert and exotic vegetation, this campus was made up of a series of brick buildings, some of which dated back to the communist sixties, interspersed with several modern additions and connected by glass tunnel walkways. The same universality of school applied here as it did to all the others Alex had visited by now: there was a gymnasium and classrooms, a big commons area for lunches and a theatre area that also functioned for assemblies. A library. Art rooms. Even a greenhouse. Everything a school should have. Even the same sounds and smells.

It was reassuring how boring and normal a series of buildings could be.

The biggest difference between Goldstone and every other school he'd been to was the security. Black domed cameras were scattered across the ceilings in the high traffic areas: hallways, lunchroom, and the library. It certainly wasn't rigourous, however. Even without the help of his iPod, Alex could tell that there had to be dozens of blindspots within the building. Perhaps the point wasn't to worry about threats from within. The exterior was the real focus of the security features: despite the ample amount of snow piled up around the front courtyard areas, he could still see the brick and wire fencing that surrounded the property, broken only by the two checkpoints that allowed students to pass in and out of school. Guards patrolled the hallways and shoveled paths, armed only occasionally and mostly with non-lethal weapons. They'd be quite serious looking if they didn't occasionally stop to high five passing students and scold anyone straying from where they should be. Alex wondered if they were instructed to be more approachable or if they had all just quickly realized they were essentially menacing-looking hall monitors.

Alex plopped down on the closest bench to rest for a few minutes, plucking out his iPod ever so casually and opening up a handful of it's secret functions. The school's alarm system was certainly decent- so much as a cracked window should send the guards running. Several of the staff areas seemed to have fingerprint scanners as well. Most classroom doors seemed to be reinforced and the glass windows appeared unusually thick in areas according to his thermal imaging.

Yassen had mentioned the security was decent, but hadn't seemed particularly impressed. Alex was pretty sure he understood now. There were plenty of ways to compromise the individual features, but with so many stacked atop each other it would require a lot of advanced planning. He imagined the school had a bit of a balancing act to maintain: any more obvious security features and it would quickly feel more like a prison than a place of learning. Like in Cairo, the students wanted some sense of normalcy and armed bodyguards in every classroom would certainly rob them of that. As for kidnapping risks, Alex would rank most of these students at a warm medium: millionaire parents rather than billionaires or semi-important mafia children with parents not wealthy enough for private tutors or Point Blanc level boarding schools. At any rate, the current measures were enough to deter the unprofessionals and medium grade snatchers: it would be difficult for anyone without Scorpia sized resources to mount an attack that couldn't be interrupted and without leaving ample evidence. In this, the school did its job: educated a handful of children while discouraging any kidnapping attempts within their walls.

A hand tapped Alex's shoulder.

He jerked his head up in surprise, quickly stowing his iPod screen out of sight in the split second it took him to recognize the teen trying to get his attention. "Hey, L- Timofey."

"Good save." Timofey shrugged and tucked a notebook under his arm. Dressed identically to Alex in his own neat school uniform, he still seemed to give the irritated air of a minimum wage worker crammed into a barely tolerable costume and desperately looking forward to the moment he could punch out. His hair had been brushed straight down and his plain black backpack offered no interesting features. Just an average school boy. If Alex hadn't been looking for the small hints of rebellion, he would have missed it: the small tightline of black eyeliner, the almost perfect shave-job, the unusually immaculate yet neutral manicure. Timofey certainly didn't stand out among the crowd, but upon close inspection, he didn't fit it perfectly either. "Are you staying for lunch?"

"Thinking about it," Alex said. Truthfully, his hip was beginning to ache but he had pills for that.

"You can sit with me and my friends, if you'd like," Timofey said, spotting Alex's schedule in his hand and gesturing for him to hand it over. He glanced around. "I thought you had a cane."

Alex huffed. "Don't need it. Physical therapist says I can stop soon anyway."

"Bet your mum doesn't like that," Timofey said, lips twitching. He pointed to one of the lines on the paper. "You share literature with Martina. Come, I'll introduce you. She talks a lot but her notes are good…"

Alex did end up staying for lunch. The canteen offered a delightful array of options for every dietary need imaginable. Most of it was Russian cuisine, but Alex spotted enough familiar dishes to know he wasn't going to starve when he wasn't feeling adventurous nor in the mood for pickled everything. Timofey's friends overran the table furthest in the corner, half obscured by a series of indoor potted trees. About ten students altogether, mostly girls, all friendly enough. Since only about half of the student body were locals, an endlessly rotating group of friends was an accepted norm among the international crowd. Alex joined the group the same day as a shy brunette named Patrice did, who was actually from Canada. For a split second, he'd been worried she'd somehow call Sasha Lebedev out on his lack of Canadian-mannerisms and knowledge, but he quickly learned that she'd lived abroad for most of her teen years and had no real baseline to do so.

True to his word, Timofey introduced him to Martina, a local who spent most of the meal complaining about spending the holidays with her German father and intolerable new wife, whose biggest crime seemed to be that she kept trying to knit her sweaters. Alex didn't necessarily mind his role as audience, since she was actually quite funny and it saved him from having to give more than the basics of his prepared backstory. He wondered briefly if Timofey had been given any particular instructions about how to behave around him, beyond what Alex assumed was a generalized expectation that they be surface-level friends for the sake of business.

It didn't matter, he supposed. It was nice to just sit and be around people his own age for once and listen to their silly problems and laugh at their exaggerated responses. By the end of the meal, Alex left thoroughly cheered and hindered only by the sudden influx of cell phone number exchanges.

Alex made it to the gate, tapping his card at the turnstile and waiting for the guard to wave him through. He glanced through the open door of the station, spotting a small set of pill bottles lining a shelf in an open lockbox, next to a pipe and a small bottle of liquor. Confiscated goods, probably.

He hesitated looking at them, fingers digging into the straps of his bag. What were the odds they had anything like what Alex was carrying on him? Percocet wasn't exactly a party drug, but most of those didn't come in pill bottles anyway...

With a jolt, Alex stepped through, realizing he'd forgotten to take his oxy before lunch. No wonder his hip was sore. He pressed a hand to it, rubbing it through his jacket. It was odd, though, normally he watched the clock as it crept towards noon, waiting impatiently for Yassen to give him his next dose. He hadn't even bothered with his weed drops today.

Alex glanced away from the door and refocused on the street. While part of his mind was already noting the placement of another security camera above the checkpoint and the relative inattentiveness of the guard, a much more conscious part of him shoved the thought away. It didn't matter whether Alex could get it because he wasn't going to. He didn't need it. Yassen got him plenty and he was feeling fine anyway.

Safely outside the gate, Alex popped his late oxy into his mouth and put the lockbox out of his mind. Yassen had mentioned something about a nearby train station, but Alex didn't recall exactly on what street it was on. Now to figure out how to get home.