Chapter 2 - Scars of the Past
Alex smiled as he sat at the kitchen table with his family. It was their normal routine for months now, but now they were officially a family. It was weird. He was happy. Really happy, but also not. It was a paradox that he couldn't quite comprehend in himself. Happy, yet dull. That word was getting old to him. Everything felt dull. The sky, school, the frosted flakes in his mouth.
He forced his lips to spread to make sure that he was smiling. He wanted to be happy, and maybe putting on a smile would help. He knew it was the correct reaction to finding a family. On all logical grounds he was happy with his life compared to last year. But everything felt wrong.
He swallowed his food and sighed. He talked himself into this circle about four times a day, more if he had trouble sleeping.
"So," Sabina spoke after a while. Both of the teens were still half asleep at this time of the morning, so conversation was usually light. "What are you working on, dad?"
"Just an article," Edward said pleasantly. "No worries, not another eccentric billionaire by far. I am collaborating with a medical firm in Seattle to promote their upcoming drug. They claim it as a wonder drug, though that's not to be a surprise. The Americans think every drug is their miracle cure-all."
Alex nodded drowsily to show that he was listening. He was grateful that Sabina's father had chosen an assignment that was a little more ground in safety. The odds were against it, but if he had to intervene for Edward's safety again, MI6 might just take it as an opportunity to snatch him up. He was 16 now… any qualms about being underage were quickly dying. He was taller now at 5'11, and his chest had filled out a lot in the last 9 months. He wasn't quite as fit as he had been a year ago, but he had no doubt that he would be able to survive most things thrown at him; but now, he would have to do it without abusing his youth. No one would look at him and see just a boy anymore. Underestimate him, sure. But he looked more dangerous now with no baby fat to soften his cheeks.
"Honey?" he heard as someone shook him. Alex blinked. He most have fazed out. He did that a lot ever since returning, half the time lost in thought and others floundering in waking nightmares.
"Yeah," Alex muttered. He let his voice sound sleepy so that they wouldn't ask any questions. Liz was standing behind him.
"You ready to go? After the doctor, we should grab lunch. If the timing is right, maybe we can even swing by and grab Sabina from school."
"Sounds great," Alex said.
Fifteen minutes later they were in the car. Alex watched the bustling city and its morning traffic with faded awe. He was mildly used to the sight, but it still amazed him how all of the countries he visited were so unique. Besides that, everyone told him that San Francisco was just one small corner of America and the country had a million different cities that were unique in their own way.
"So, any special plans today?" Liz asked after a while.
Alex frowned. "Huh?"
Liz chuckled. "It's Valentines day. Do you have your eye on a special someone?"
Alex blushed. "I, um…" He and Sabina had been interested in each other nearly two years ago, but as time went on they entered that weird area between distant friends and something more. Ever since he had moved in with the Pleasures, he had been too afraid to bring it up. In a way, they had mutually agreed to let it die through silence. They were technically siblings now.
"No worries, I talked to Sabina. Of course you two aren't seeing each other. I was just wondering if you had found a special girl. Or guy. These last two years... you missed the young love phase, didn't you?"
"I suppose," Alex agreed, feeling guilty for the pity he heard in her voice. He had always kept to himself at school, even before the Stormbreaker incident, and during his time with MI6, he hadn't been around people his age enough to consider anyone. Sabina had been great at first, the type of person he should have been attracted to. But now, that had faded into something closer to siblings. His only other friends were Tom and James, and James had been too short lived to matter.
Alex frowned. Could he be gay? Like Liz said, he missed a whole phase of his life. It was difficult enough to untangle his feelings for Sabina. He remembered telling Tom about how great Tamara Knight's breasts were; he was shocked when Tom was drooling at the mouth. To Alex, it had been a curiosity more than anything else. And he certainly had never - he paused to make a face - touched himself to the memory.
"I am not in a rush. I am pretty messed up." That came out worse than he intended. "I don't want to drag anyone down." He winced. That sounded bad too. Maybe Liz would be taking him to the shrink today after all. "Plenty of people don't date until college or after."
"That's true, honey," Liz agreed. "You will find your special someone."
"Maybe," Alex admitted, but he didn't really believe it. He was attractive, he knew. Tons of girls at school ogled him. He had a nice face, too. It was about the only part of his body that he was okay seeing in the mirror - his scars almost felt like they were pulsing as he thought of the way they marred his body. He let out an angry sigh as thoughts of his own face brought back memories of Cairo.
Luckily, they were already pulling into the doctor's office.
The wait was short. Suspiciously short, Alex noted. He didn't want to think that way, but all of his time as a spy prevented him from feeling joy that they hadn't had to spend more than two minutes in the waiting room. His mind was racing with things that could be wrong. Were they trying to get him to a back room before anyone had a chance to remember the blonde kid in the waiting room? Or perhaps they had found something in an x-ray - like a bomb buried under his skin during one of his many times he was unconscious and in the hands of a crazy villain?
Both were crazy - though only because logic told him that it was unlikely, contrary to his past experiences.
His stomach was tight and he forced himself to breathe and to tell himself that everything was okay. He was a normal civilian now. Again. There was absolutely nothing that the doctor could tell him that would hurt him. Nothing that he could do to him, too, Alex thought with a shudder that sent a chill through his body. People have threatened to cut him apart too many times.
Thankfully, Liz seemed unaware of his struggles. He was under more control than he felt.
He was chewing on his nails when the doctor came through the door. Alex grimaced at the mess he was making of his hands. It was a bad habit that Ian had straightened out of him when he was seven, though he drifted back into it occasionally. The mission at Point Blank had been a particularly awful bout of nail biting, though it faded over time as his missions became worse and worse with less time to sit around as a nervous mess.
Alex gulped as he looked up at the man who just walked into the room. His name was Dr. Livingston, he recalled from previous meetings. Even though he just convinced - forced - himself to think of all of this as normal, he couldn't help but view the doctor as the bad guy. His death humor kicked in.
"What's up doc?"
Dr. Livingston sighed and pointed at a gown. "We are going to need to do some x-rays to be certain. Go ahead and get your gown on."
Alex felt his face fall. This sounded bad, and suddenly, he was the scared little kid who was afraid to ask the villain what horrifying torture was facing him.
It was Liz who spoke. "What do you suspect, Dr. Livingston?" Her voice was sad, and she was patting Alex on the arms to give him comfort. "I'm sure everything is fine, Alex. We'll get you an x-ray, everything will be fine, and then we will go and get you some Valentine's day chocolates just for you."
Alex pulled away from her slowly and crossed the room, picking up the cloth gown. He had already spent too much time in these. He dreaded the words the doctor was about to speak. Alex could feel it. He felt it last night when Liz had told him about the phone call.
Dr. Livingston spoke after a moment. "I don't want to alarm you. This is just a preliminary test due to an abnormality in Alex's blood work. If we notice anything, we'll send you to a specialist." The doctor paused for a moment. "Alex may have a as of yet undetermined form of cancer."
Alex froze. The doctor's words startled him more than any near-miss gunshot ever had. He brushed his thumb over the scar above his heart. He had survived so much, but the spy game was still trying to claim his life. In the back of his mind, he knew that he never really escaped.
They didn't get lunch. He wasn't ready to face Sabina after what they had just learned. Liz made sure to grab him some chocolate at a gas station on the way home. "Chocolate always cheers you up. Trust me, this chocolate is better than that generic heart chocolate."
Alex nodded numbly and took it, nibbling on it on the way home. As they pulled into the driveway and Liz turned off the car, Alex spoke. "I need a minute alone."
Liz nodded reluctantly. "I'll have you a nice mug of hot chocolate ready inside."
Alex nodded in thanks. What would he do without her? She was almost as good as Jack. Almost.
He slammed his head back on the car seat. Why did everything have to go wrong? He was already struggling with being happy here. He pulled down the overhead mirrored and glared at himself. Don't cry. Don't cry. And instead of crying, he was angry at himself. All the anger he felt towards Julius, all the anger he felt towards himself for Jack's death.
Alex heard a crunch, and looked down to find the bar of chocolate crushed in his hand. Everything he touched became broken.
He sighed and got out of the car. Any longer in there, and he felt like he would break beyond repair. He ate the chocolate bar down to where it broke to hide the evidence, not that anyone would notice. Only a spy would notice such a minute detail.
It was quiet when he walked inside, and his senses were on alert. Something was wrong… but no, it wasn't. He had to tell himself that. He had to be strong. He had to beat this dark game. He couldn't live every day expecting someone to kill him. What was the point? His spy career gave him cancer.
It was all just unfair. Everything he survived, every piece of his life he tried to keep together, was going to fall apart.
The doctor didn't know what type of cancer he had, just that there was a lump on the back of his neck and the blood test showed abnormalities. Alex hadn't paid attention to the details. All he knew was that he would have to go see a specialist next week. He knew that one of his missions caused it. Had the nuclear bomb in Russian leaked? Or maybe it was on Ark Angel, when the sun, uninhibited by the atmosphere, scorched his neck? Or maybe his genes suck - they were the reason he was raised as a spy after all.
Alex found himself in the dining room, a mug full of hot chocolate waiting for him. He mumbled thanks under his breath, but Liz wasn't in the room to hear it.
Edward's stuff was scattered across the table. He was likely at work, Alex noted, as he began to skim the papers. He knew that he shouldn't invade Edward's privacy, but snooping always did the world to distract his mind. Perhaps, in some way, that was one of the reasons his time as a spy had been so addictive, even when he wanted nothing to do with that life. He remembered clinching his fist in anger as Mrs. Jones implied that he wanted to do spy work - but he couldn't deny that half of his missions were started of his own accord.
A bold phrase caught Alex's eyes. The Fountain of Youth. Edward has circled it it with a red pen and made a note. Based upon the Fountain of Youth myths?
Alex hummed in curiosity. Some distant part of his mind knew that multiple cultures had myths about a fountain of youth, or something very similar. They were said to bring eternal youth. Immortality.
And then he snorted. Miracle drug, alright. The advertising in America really was extreme.
There was a picture sticking out of the stack. Alex lifted the papers off of it and placed them to the side to get a good look, keeping the two piles separated so that he could make it look like he hadn't gone through Edward's stuff.
His blood ran cold. Two murders in the suburbs of Seattle. Both were employees of The Fount of Health. Alex frowned. This wasn't good. He looked back at the article on the Fountain of Youth and found what he was looking for. The drug was being developed by The Fount of Health.
Alex wracked his brain trying to figure out what he knew. It was a fairly well-known pharmaceutical company, to his knowledge. It was a brand that was new to him, having just arrived in America, but he recalled having noticed drugs with The Fount of Health brand name on them. People even referred to it in short hand as The Fount.
His spy senses were tingling. That buzz in his head and the tingle in his stomach that told him that something was up. Something that he had to intervene with in order to stop. It was the same feeling back in the South of France when he saw Yassen… he had ignored that feeling then, and Edward had almost died as a result.
Alex placed the papers down and backed away slowly. This couldn't be. It had to be nothing, his hyperactive sense that he was in danger. He knew it was paranoia, but that didn't mean it wasn't real.
A darker thought crossed his mind. What if MI6 or the CIA - probably both - had planted this information with Edward in order to make sure that he had to investigate it. They knew that he would run across it and then he would be off, researching it all on his own. Just like Damian Cray.
He just wanted to cry, but he couldn't let himself break. He took a gulp of the hot chocolate that he had almost forgot he was holding, letting the hot liquid fill him like a warm embrace.
He looked down again at the papers. Two murders. He wouldn't let Edward be a third.
Alex felt a buzz in his pocket and retrieved his phone with his free hand. A message from Tom.
'Just got my ticket! I'll be there tomorrow afternoon!'
Alex smiled and rearranged the papers to just how they were when he walked in. He knew just how to keep his mind off the scars of his past.