Chapter 9 – Coming Clean?

Kita came back out of the bathroom not long after Alex had finished getting changed and had lay down on the bed, staring up the canopy as he thought; he look up as she came over and watched her, lost in thought.

'What?' Kita asked as she tied her hair into a lose bun. Alex shook himself out of his thoughts.

'Nothing,' he replied. Kita rolled her eyes.

'That's becoming a catch phrase with us,' she muttered; Alex rolled his eyes.

'I was thinking,' he told her; Kita took off the jumper she'd worn over the top of her strappy pyjama top to keep out the slight chill in the room, and shivered slightly as she sat on the bed.

'Aren't you cold?' she asked him, indicating the pyjama bottoms he was wearing and his bare chest. Alex shook his head.

'Cold doesn't bother me that much,' he replied.

'Doesn't usually bother me either,' Kita replied, 'But this is colder than normal, even for the Alps.'

'You've been here before?' Alex asked; Kita nodded.

'Once. With Mum and Yassen,' she answered; and awkward silence ensued. Eventually Alex sat up and placed a hand on her shoulder, frowning slightly when she flinched at the contact.

'It'll get easier,' he told her; he heard her laugh softly.

'Yeah, I know,' she replied, 'Life goes on and death is easier to accept. I've heard it from my grandparents.'

'Look I'm just trying to help,' Alex said, standing up and crossing to the spot by the window he'd been occupying quite a lot since they arrived.

'That's what you said earlier,' she replied. Alex turned to face her.

'What is wrong with you today?' he demanded, 'You throw all the help I offer back in my face and then have a go at me.'

'I'm sorry I'm just…' Kita sighed, 'Can we just go to sleep and talk about this in the morning?'

Alex shrugged, 'Fine, whatever.'

As he went back to his side of the bed he watched her out of the corner of his eye. Something was bothering him and he couldn't quite place it. As he got under the covers on his side of the bed, he noticed Kita tense up again and suddenly something clicked in his brain. Alex sat up and flipped Kita from her side so she was on her back.

'Why are you afraid of me?' he asked her; Kita's eyes went wide.

'Let me go-'

'Answer the question, Kita,' Alex told her, 'Why are you scared of me?'

'I'm not scared of you, Alex,' Kita replied, she turned her face to the side. Alex frowned.

'Then what are you scared of?' he asked her. When she remained silent he sighed and let go of her, lying back down on his side with his back to her.

'Okay, when you think you can tell-'

'I'm scared of what's happened and what could happen,' she replied, voice soft. Alex turned to look at her, she hadn't moved since he'd let her go.

'What do you mean?' he asked her. Kita turned onto her side.

'It doesn't matter,' she said; Alex scowled and opened his mouth to say something.

'It doesn't matter for now,' Kita said, lying on her back once more, 'When I'm ready I'll tell you.'

Alex closed his mouth again and nodded; obviously it was something in her past that was troubling her, and until she accepted it she wouldn't be able to tell him what had happened. They lay on their backs, side by side, in a comfortable silence for a few moments.

'I'm scared too,' he said; Kita turned to look at him but Alex kept his gaze fixed on the canopy above him.

'Why?' she asked.

'Because of what happened, and what almost happened, in the Point Blanc Academy,' he replied; after a short pause he continued.

'It felt like you were being watched 24/7, well you were, but the feeling was still one I'll never forget. Then I saw the one friend I'd made there be taken from his room in the middle of the night, the next morning he was there but at the same time it wasn't him. When I finally worked out what had happened and talked to the boys who had been captured they caught me; they had microphones in the cells and heard every word I said and ended up catching me and taking me to the Headmaster. When I came round after being knocked out Dr Grief explained to me all about the Gemini project; how he'd cloned himself and was replacing 14 year old boys from around the world with 14 year old clones of himself, surgically made to look like the boy they represented. When he'd finished gloating he told me what he was going to do with me, how he was going to use me as an example as to why the boys shouldn't escape.'

Alex paused for a moment. 'He was going to have me dissected in front of the clones that still remained at the Academy; except there was going to be no anaesthetic and they were going to see how long my heart could last for while it was being dissected before it gave out.'

He felt Kita take his hand and squeezed hers before taking a breath and carried on.

'I was lucky that Smithers had given me an earring that could blast open the lock of my cell and I was able to escape. I transformed an ironing board into a makeshift snowboard and took off down the side of the mountain to get out of there. I'd called MI6 for help two days before and they hadn't yet answered. In the end it was the bullet proof ski suit and a lot of luck that saved me; that and the train that came through right as I reached the snipers at the bottom of the mountain. I managed to get the board onto the train and it carried me away.'

'You did what?' Kita asked; Alex carried on with his story.

'The train turned a corner and the only thing that caught me was the barbed wire fence and a lot of undergrowth. MI6 faked my death and then manipulated me into returning to the Academy to help them capture Grief and get the boys out,' he finished.

'What happened? To Grief?' Kita asked.

'He was trying to escape in a helicopter. The only way I could think of to stop him was to drive a snowmobile off of the ski jump and into the helicopter,' Alex replied.

'He's dead,' Kita said; it wasn't a question, just a statement. Alex nodded in reply.

'How are you still alive?' Kita asked him, turning onto her side to face him. Alex shrugged.

'Just got lucky I guess,' he replied. Kita shifted closer to him and placed an arm across his chest, pulling him closer into a one armed hug and resting her head on his shoulder.

'I'm glad you did,' she said; Alex wrapped his arm around her, feeling slightly awkward. He'd never really been this close to a girl before; most of the people at school avoided him, thinking he was in and out of prison all the time or that he did drugs.

'What happened to you, Kita?' he asked; she tensed slightly against him, but Alex held her firmly where she was. They both knew what he was referring to.

'I had to train with the SAS,' she replied, 'Like you did. Except women don't usually train with the SAS so the only bed free was with three men.'

Alex could guess the rest and pulled her closer against him.

'Kita-'

'Don't, Alex,' she said, he could hear the tears in her voice.

'Why didn't you report it?' he asked; Kita laughed sourly.

'It would have made it worse,' she replied shortly, before the tears finally broke free and started to fall down her cheeks. Alex wrapped both arms around her and held her as she cried silently; inside he cursed MI6. They couldn't stop at ruining his life, they had to ruin hers as well; but Alex knew that Alan Blunt didn't really care about what happened to his agents. Tulip Jones, on the other hand, cared to some degree, but in their positions it wasn't advisable to get too attached to your employees.

& & & & & & & &

Alex woke the next morning to find that neither of them had moved during the night and Kita's head was still resting on his shoulder; Alex still felt slightly awkward as he watched the girl sleeping next to him. He'd never really been with any girls in his life, the two girls he'd been closest to were Jack and Sabina, and MI6 had all but stamped out the possibility of having a proper relationship with anyone, including his friends. When Alex had first been told he'd be getting a partner for this mission he'd been angry, thinking the partner would have either relied on him the whole time or thought they were better than Alex; either way he'd imagined this being the most difficult and frustrating mission of the lot. He'd been surprised to realise that Kita would actually be a help rather than a hindrance, he knew she could look after herself, she'd proven that with Michael Cook, and, somehow, they'd become good friends in just a few days. Alex's thoughts turned to the mission at hand and the precious little they knew. So far they knew it was almost the same as the Point Blanc Academy Alex had investigated a few months ago, run by Hugo Grief's half brother, Daniel Hope, so far there had been nothing to prove that Hope was doing what his half brother had been doing by replacing people with clones; Alex had to admit it sounded a bit far-fetched to think that the two brothers could have done exactly the same thing but they couldn't rule it out as a possibility. The only thing they had to go on was that they would, eventually, be moved to different rooms; this was the only lead they had to go on at the moment. The thing that was really annoying Alex was the question where had the building come from? He couldn't remember having seen it when he was at the Point Blanc academy, nor any mention of it, so where had it come from, and if it had been here then why hadn't MI6 told him about it last time? He was drawn from his thoughts as Kita stirred next to him, she yawned and looked up at him, blinking away the sleep from her eyes. Alex grinned.

'Now I know why you girls need your beauty sleep,' he said; Kita slapped him on the shoulder and rolled over, pulling the covers over her head.

'Bugger off,' she muttered; Alex yanked the covers back and climbed out of bed,

'Come on, we've got work to do. The sooner we do it, the sooner we get out of here,' he said, looking out over the beautiful scenery of the Alps with a knot of dread in his stomach.

A/N: Well here it is another chapter. I've got my exams coming up so this will probably be the last update until the exams are over. Blame the government, if I had my way exams would be illegal!

Thank you to everyone who reviewed, reviews really do make my day and cheer me up when I've got the shadow of revision hanging over my head, poking me with pointy sticks and hissing menacingly in my ear about Es and Us. Really not nice…

Please R&R it'll make me happy and maybe help me to find a spare few minutes to update again.

Thank you to all my wonderful readers and thanks again to everyone who reviewed.

Ciao for now,

Starsword