Well, here it is! The last chapter of my first ever fanfic. And I hope you won't be disappointed since there isn't going to be a total lack of kissing scenes. Thanks again to everyone who's ever reviewed this and thanks to anyone who's reading this but don't forget … press that little button at the bottom which says 'Submit Review' …
Thanks most of all to Fudge 1 for all her consistent 'help' (in inverted commas), encouragement and rude comments about Alex's teenage blues. I don't know where I'd be without you!
Epilogue
Alex gazed out of the window of the aeroplane. He was heading home, and for once, he felt like he'd left a part of himself back in the tacky little Kentucky airport.
The farewell had been so awkward. Lacey had been gazing at her scuffed trainers, barely raising her eyes to his when he said goodbye. She wasn't in zombie mode, Alex understood, she was embarrassed. And she was preoccupied. He would be, too, he reasoned with himself. KSR had been uncovered, so Lacey had no appointed guardians of any sort. She thought she'd be sent to a state orphanage to finish her education, and then what? There was no money to send her to college. She'd wind up wiping greasy tables in a downtown burger bar.
Alex couldn't even work out his own feelings now. He'd been hoping to get some sleep on the plane ride, but he still felt as jetlagged as he had when he'd first arrived in Kentucky, and he still couldn't sleep. Lacey preyed on his mind. Lacey was everything. Lacey was stubborn, noncommitive and sarcastically nasty. She was rude and uncooperative. But she was the only girl Alex had really had any respect for; she was the only girl Alex had ever marked down as an equal.
She was the only girl Alex could ever have imagined himself spending the rest of his life with, and she was the only girl he could now, in all honesty, admit to himself that he would most likely never see again.
'I'll write to you,' she'd said. This was all he could get out of her. In those cool blue eyes, he'd seen something of his own feelings reflected, but Lacey was so closed in. And she had been getting tighter and colder as their final meeting drew to an end. She was counting the minutes, he thought. Counting down until she was told to pack up and leave her home, and go to an orphanage.
Alex had a fleeting thought. Did she blame him? Lacey was so unpredictable. Perhaps she would have preferred the life of a contract killer to what lay ahead of her. Unwillingly, Alex thought he probably would, too. There was a certain chilling romance about it all.
'Any orders, sir?'
He glanced across the empty seat beside him at the aisle. The air hostess was standing over him, her face in shadow. He could feel her eyes piercing him. A feeling of déjà vu pricked his skin.
He said, 'Lacey, for goodness' sake, I'm not stupid, you know.'
Lacey Jayne Anders slid into the seat beside him, and pushed her arms around his neck, but her touch was gentle, so unlike the first time she'd fastened her fingers around his neck. She tipped his chin up, and then she kissed him.
'I know you're not,' she breathed into his mouth.
'What are you doing here?' he asked, aware that he was breaking the magic of the moment. She laughed and pulled herself out of his arms, sitting up to unbutton the outfit. 'You planned all this, didn't you?'
She nodded, still giggling. It slowly dawned on Alex that he'd never seen her giggle like this before. It was as if all her troubles had simply been wiped off the face of the earth.
'Well? You gonna tell me or what?'
'I'm gonna tell you,' she whispered. 'I'm gonna go to one of your posh London schools. I got some money from the council for the case. They offered me school funds. And asked me where I wanted to go.'
'And you said London?' Alex asked in disbelief. 'Seriously, Lace, you are under some delusion. There are plenty of better places.'
'But you're not any place else,' Lacey murmured. 'I wanted to be with you.' She leaned over and kissed him again. 'Isn't that OK?'
'That's fine by me,' Alex whispered huskily. 'Just … do me a favour, Lace? Don't tell MI6 that you're here. I don't want you getting mixed up in anything again.'
'It's in my nature,' she whispered, and he saw those familiar blue eyes flash. 'I'm gonna be a spy always. Like you, Alex.'
'Like me?'
The plane began to dip into the clouds above London. Alex watched the wisps of cloud pass the window, watched as the tiny, doll-sized city below him began to grow in size, and trees appear by the ribbon roadsides. He couldn't wait to get home.
Even if that meant going back to where Alan Blunt could reach him. It dawned on him that he didn't hate Blunt, and never had. Blunt was pitiable, he realised. He never went out there and experienced life. Alex thought, for one, fleeting instant, that he was lucky. He had lived, so far, unscathed, and he knew more about life than any fourteen-year-old of his age had any right to know. This might, one day, save his life.
If Blunt and Mrs Jones didn't kill him first. He wondered idly what they would ask him to do next. He had given up all hope of being left in peace. There was always something that a teenage spy would be invaluably useful for. He wondered if, when he was older, he could hand in his gadgets and go to college, and he realised suddenly that he did not want to do this. There were a few people, he realised, that kept the world safe for all the others. He looked about him at the bland, peaceful faces of the other passengers, and the alert, watchful gaze Lacey snapped onto him. He and Lacey were so unlike these people. They had a job, he thought. A mission. A vocation. It had been thrust on both of them, but they had to do it.
It was a destiny, Alex realised. However hard he tried to ignore it, it was a destiny.
But I don't need to face it alone this time, he thought to himself, looking sidelong at Lacey's face. She had closed her eyes now, as if she were tired, or just listening idly to the whirring of the engine and the low chatter of the passengers around them … I have Lacey. She'll always be there for me.
Alex Rider closed his eyes and smiled.
Author's Note:
Ahhhh, isn't that sweet? This is my first ever fanfic finished. Totally. Took me a while, and I must say it is a relief to have finished Lacey and Alex. They might have another adventure, but not yet. The first Alex Rider film is gonna be out very, very soon, and Alex is a total hunk! Check him out. Also, watch this space. I'm gonna write another fanfic soon. When my stupid school festival is out of the way.
Until then, good luck with all of your fanfics!
Lotsa luv
Jen X