CHAPTER 3

Alex's mouth and throat went dry. Wouldn't it be nice if a big hole opened up under my feet that I could fall into? Or maybe I could wake up right about now. This would definitely be a good time to stop this nightmare.

"You… you're right," he surprised himself by stuttering. "W-we do need to talk."

She frowned slightly, her brow pinching and her mouth thinning. Her eyes glittered dangerously; he had never felt so threatened before in his life. He felt horribly defensive. "Look, Fidge… I'm so, so, sorry…"

Her head then snapped up in a violent movement. "What's gotten into you?" She burst out angrily. "I am not going to be one to drool all over you, famous or not! I have no idea what you were thinking last night! Hell, I have no idea what I was thinking last night either, but that does not excuse you from-"

He didn't know what she was going to say next –simply because her sentence was abruptly cut off by the sound of a door slamming shut, and the vague noises of people laughing.

"We're home!" Rikki's high-pitched voice was coldly startling and unexpected. It was almost as if Alex had forgotten he knew Rikki as a brother; sometime in the night he had become a vague, remote idea. Threatening, but in a distant way.

Rikki and Grinder were grinning when they trounced into the kitchen; Alex and Fidget still frozen to the spot. They both looked mussed and happy, but mysteriously guilty. There was an odd something lurking in Grinder's eyes, and Rikki's smile looked fragile beneath its normal nervousness.

They… They couldn't know. It was impossible. But Alex sensed intimately, that something was just not right with the two of them. Not obvious, but there.

And Fidget was looking at him again, a baffling mix of anger and panic in her eyes. Her lips parted, and just as Alex thought she was about to speak, she turned on her heel, left the pancakes, and stomped off towards the back of the plane.

Well. That temporarily took care of that. At least they weren't going to deal with it now.

"What's eating her?" asked Rikki uneasily. He looked disturbed and vaguely ill, but when Grinder laid one large, blunt hand on hi shoulder, he seemed to relax.

"I don't know." It surprised him how easily the lie came to his lips. "I'm going to have a shower," he said to their baffled faces. He didn't wait for a reply before striding off to the bathroom.

There was a hot, shameful relief in his stomach, and it made him feel rather disgusted with himself. Eventually he would have to stop running, he knew. But right now he felt more relieved than guilty.

After a long, hot shower, a shave and clean clothes, Alex was revitalized.

Feeling confident, and as if he were ready to face anything, he traveled down the hall, heading towards the kitchenette, every last part of him praying Fidget wasn't in there. Lucky for him, she wasn't. And nor was anyone else.

Well, he didn't mind, and hummed quietly to himself as he removed a clear plastic cup from a cupboard, and filled it with orange juice from the fridge. Popping a couple of cold pancakes into the toaster, he rummaged though the fridge, fingers questing for jam. He flinched when the pop of the toaster happened unexpectedly, and nearly burnt his fingers taking the hot pancakes out.

Setting his plate and cup onto the stainless steel tabletop, he chewed steadily at a sweet, buttery pancake. Mouth full, he snatched up the paper, browsing the headlines. A fire; a shootout at a seedy hotel; a charity function set to take in millions.

He scanned each article with an intensity he had never employed when reading the paper before, carefully not thinking about anything else. Or anyone.

Or the fact that he had completely and utterly fucked up the last conversation with Rikki. If you could even call it a conversation, with all the avoidance issues that had hovered overhead. Alex glared at his plate with a malice it hardly warranted.

At any rate, the past hour had made it perfectly clear to him that maybe he wasn't as knowledgeable about himself or others as he liked to believe. It had become rather obvious that he didn't know what to do.

He scrunched his nose and snorted.

Although he knew he wasn't going to be winning any Nobel prizes, he was at least smart, most of the time. This raging incompetence was rather unlike him, and he wasn't totally sure what was wrong. His thought process was usually much more fluid –Dr. Gray had insisted that it was in part due to the AMP factor. Even now, he had an idea of what to do: the only issue was the ethics of it.

He had to speak to Grinder.

This solution, unfortunately, was a bit complicated. He knew he'd feel guilty if he dragged his best friend into something that had nothing to do with him, but on the other hand, he needed some advice rather badly.

But… Living in such close quarters with others made a bad environment for keeping secrets. Without speaking, they would instinctively know what the other was feeling. Ginder would definitely know: Alex was a little surprised he hadn't spoken to him about what was happening already.

Well. There was no argument then, was there?

TBC