A/N-So many updates, so little time. I've been too busy to fix my modem, yet I have time to write astronomical amounts of chapters. Hi.

Xx

11:30 PM

Sunday, December 24, 2006

His phone rang suddenly and he held up a finger to Rachel. She stalked away, back into their bedroom.

"This is Rocher."

"It's me. We have a bit of a problem." Right. His guy surveilling Rachel's house.

"Okay. What is it?"

"The girl's sister figured out the little clue your bitch gave her."

"She's not a bitch," Alec snapped, then cleared his throat. "That is a problem. What about Nolan?"

"Let me check the monitors." There was a pause. "I don't think he's there. A lot of her family is coming down to Orlando as we speak with the cops to do some poking around. But don't worry, I'm still following them."

"Why didn't you tell me this sooner?"

"I…uh…" he hesitated. "I wasn't sure how you would take it."

"Well, now I'm screwed and this is going to have to be completed sooner than I thought," Alec growled. "Mess up again and I promise to personally kill you." He hung up and slammed his phone onto the coffeetable. It beeped in response.

He called Rachel back out, and, true to her promise, she obliged. "What?"

"I'm sorry to tell you this, but we have to complete the job today. Because of the little clue you gave your sister. I'm going to call your uncle, go clean yourself up and get your coat." She walked back into the bedroom and silently shut the door. Her silence disturbed him, but he had requested it, so he said nothing, picking up his phone once more.

"Yes, hello, this is Frederick Nolan."

"Mr. Nolan. This is your niece's little friend."

There was an angry pause. "You haven't touched her, have you? I'll kill you!"

"As warm and fuzzy as that promise makes me feel, Mr. Nolan, I'm going to remind you that I have the upper hand here, the upper hand in the form of Rachel. I haven't hurt her. Much. Touched her, yes, but not wounded her."

"You asshole, just let her go!"

"We had an agreement, Mr. Nolan, one which is coming full circle today. I'm afraid that because your niece spilled the beans about our location to her sister and you're on your way, we'll need to meet now. Not Wednesday."

"Fine, fine, just as long as your stupid company lets her go!"

"I promise they will. Now. Meet me at the Shorebridge Café in Kissimmee in one hour, if your travel plans permit."

"They do."

"Good. See you then, Mr. Nolan."

He hung up and dialed Jackson to inform him of the change. When that little job was done, he began to ready himself for the job.

1:00 PM

Sunday, December 24, 2006

"Find a way for this to happen, Rick, or you're out of here," Jackson ordered. "This is important, to my customer and to the case. So just do it."

"Fine, fine," Rick sighed as Jackson hung up.

So that's taken care of. Now, to figure out something about why Alec seems so familiar.

He shifted through his files and Alec's work folder. He was a damn good employee, he'd give him that. One hundred and fifty seven jobs that he'd successfully pulled off within the last two years, and only one mishap.

The famous mistake that had almost cost his life and had granted him the dunce title around the organization for eight months.

The first Operation Nolan job.

Alec had been assigned to it the moment it had arose. It was perfect. All he had to do was find Nolan and shoot him. While he was tracking his victim, however, he was 'delayed', distracted.

By a girl.

Luckily he'd had his pseudonym ready. Dan Gregory, high school senior with a working class mom who just happened to secretly carry a loaded pistol everywhere with her.

He'd run into trouble during his tracking when he ran into Rachel Redford. Jackson had scolded Alec heavily on his unprofessionalism in dealing with the situation. Assassins weren't supposed to fall in love. Or so he thought, up until he met Lisa. But then, it was a different situation entirely. Alec risked everything from his freedom to his life by chancing a romance with Nolan's niece. At first, Jackson had prided the boy on his cunning, believing that it would be easier for Alec to use Rachel to get to Nolan.

But the fate cards had changed, and Alec was left a lovesick schoolboy. The job was foiled and Jackson, fed up, took matters into his own hands. He sent his men into the coffeeshop that Alec pretended to work at and had them pretend to hold it up. Alec had of course recognized them and jumped to assistance, getting himself shot, of course, by a harmless sedative weapon.

The department at the organization worked on him and within two weeks, he didn't remember Rachel Redford or Christiansen at all. They'd succeeded in wiping that memory from his brain, and Alec was a set killer again.

He just hoped that Alec wouldn't have a relapse and remember 'Dan'. He knew that Rachel had most likely been forced to tell him her sob story—how she'd tragically lost her boyfriend in a shooting—and he prayed that Alec hadn't figured it out already. The mere sight of Rachel was enough to jog his memory, it was bad enough that he was falling for her now.

But that was fine. He could steal her now, make her his forever, that was fine and dandy. But if it got in the way of the job with her uncle, Jackson hated to admit that he'd be forced to kill him.

Which he didn't want to do, because Alec was undoubtedly his one best friend. For some reason, the two clicked. Maybe it was because he'd saved the kid's life.

"Breathe, dammit!" Jackson yelled as the department worked on Alec. The monitors were whirring and Jackson couldn't help but scream at whomever happened to be closest to him. He didn't know why he cared so much. He didn't even know the kid, for Christ's sake.

"Mr. Rippner," one of the doctors gasped, snapping him out of his reverie. "We have it! He's stable!"

"Good," Jackson snapped, placing the nonchalant mask back over his face. He didn't care. "Now, we need to find the identity of this kid."

"And then what? Is he a member of the organization?"

"No," Jackson admitted honestly, with a hint of coolness. "But he will be. With some training, he looks highly competent. We'll just need to wipe his mind of his past, in case he's afflicted with morals or something."

"Eh…"

"What?"

"We don't think he'll have any lasting memories as it is, sir," the doctor admitted sheepishly. "He had a severe concussion when we brought him in, and he'll be lucky if he gets any fragment of a memory back within his lifetime. So the memory modification won't be necessary."

"Good. We just need to figure out who the hell he is."

"His personal belongings are over here, sir."

Jackson strode to the small table and sifted through the pile. No wallet, but the backing on his shirt had a set of initials.

"AR," Jackson said aloud. "That's his monogram."
"Andy Rodriguez?"

Jackson looked around some more and seeing nothing of value, sighed. "We'll have to create a name for this fellow. Alex Roberts. No. Alec Rocher."

"That's fine, sir." The doctor buzzed off to the documents written.

Jackson looked down at the boy asleep in the bed and smiled. "Welcome to the organization, Mr. Rocher."

Jackson continued to sort through the massive folder, thumbing past the various job completions. His mind drifted to Lisa and his heavy eyelids began to close…

Jackson cut the engine and eased it up to the curb across from Lisa's house. Her curtains were tightly drawn, but he had cameras and anyway, she wasn't home now. He climbed out and glanced around at her neighbor's homes. Nobody was home.

He found the hidden key under the placemat, cursing her dim-wittedness, and let himself in.

It was time to look around, for the tiny pieces of information that his distant eye and camera wouldn't pick up.

Jackson went first to her movie collection. It was nonsense, as was her cd rack, but her bookshelves weren't bad, once he got past the self-help books. The pages on those were still crisp and plastic-like. She hadn't bothered much with those, he could tell.

She had an assortment of photographs resting in frames on her shelves. He let his fingers graze them. The family ones were the most important. If he needed to threaten somebody in this operation, they would be it.

He could tell that she wasn't close with her mother. The frame was turned down shamefully, and he'd tapped her calls, anyway. Only one in a month's time to her mom, about sixty-eight to her father.

Jackson looked more closely at a picture on the shelf of her and her brother, he assumed. Their facial structures were a lot alike. He carefully and intricately pulled the photograph out, searching for a label on the back. Oh, yes.

Me and Alex, my dear baby brother, October 3, 2001.

He was tall, thin but wiry with a thick shock of blonde hair that fell over one of his piercing green eyes. He cocked his head at the picture-

"Oh my God!"

Jackson realized.

He realized how he knew Alec.

Typing furiously into his computer, he quickly hacked his way into the news archives and found what he was looking for.

Alexander Reisert was reported missing on November 22, 2002 at approximately twelve hours after his estimated disappearance. Witnesses claim seeing the twenty-year old Miami, Florida resident running on the street at around eight in the evening. They report seeing a gun in the young man's hand, though these suspicions have not been confirmed.

His sister, Lisa Reisert (26), also of Miami, says that her brother walked out of her father's (Joseph Reisert, 69, Miami) home after an argument and has not been seen since. Any news regarding the whereabouts of Mr. Alexander Reisert

He heard a noise in the doorway and turned.

"Can I go see Rachel?"

"Lisa," he sighed, running a hand through his already tousled hair. "I'm busy. Can it wait?"

"I'm worried about her," Lisa said quietly, playing with the sleeve of her light blue button-down blouse. "She's so young, and if Alec is anything like you, she's not safe."

"I know Alec," Jackson returned to his files. "And trust me. If he does anything to her, it'll be because she pissed him off. And it takes a lot."

"Now, are you basing that on your standards?" Lisa rolled her eyes. "Because that's not a whole hell of a lot, and I'm still uneasy."

Jackson stood up and took her elbows in a comforting gesture. "Leese- calm down. She'll be fine. And Rachel will be leaving here soon, anyway. Alec told me the job will be completed by Wednesday. She'll be safe under her own roof by Thursday at the latest."

He looked at her face then and saw the solid tears zigzagging down her cheeks. "That's not true," she half-whined. "He's not going to let her go."

He rubbed her shoulders. "Come on, now, what are you talking about? Of course he'll let her go."

"I heard them talking today, Jackson," she replied a bit snappishly. "The walls are thin; they're our neighbors. She sold herself to him to save her brother. It was a bet, or something. But he was going to keep her anyway."

"For what?"

"The same reason that you're still here. Companionship."

Lisa's lip curled in disgust. "You men are all sick. I can't believe you. She's sixteen."

"And, Lisa, he loves her."

"Love isn't a one-way street. I find it hard to believe that she harbors feelings for him as well."

"She used to."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"You heard about the boyfriend who died?"

"She mentioned it but didn't go into detail," Lisa murmured sadly. "But yes."

"That was Alec."

She stared at him. "You've lost it."

"I haven't. That was one of his earlier jobs about a year ago. He messed it up big time when he fell in love with her—he was under the alias of Daniel Gregory, though—and we had to feign his death. With a little work, we wiped her from his memory so that he could come back to work."

Lisa was shaking her head now. "Two weeks ago, before I was here, I wouldn't believe that. But now, for some reason, it makes perfect sense. And that's why he's so obsessed with her?"

"He doesn't know it, but yes. Subconsciously he's being brought back to the Dan/Rachel days and he's trying to get that feeling again by keeping her here and forcing her to love him. Even though, technically, confusing as it is, she still does."

"Are you going to tell her who he really is?"

"I don't think I'm even going to tell him who he really is. Can you imagine how weird that would be, Leese, to hear that the girl you love was the same one you loved before but didn't remember?"

"But Rachel?"

"I don't think she would believe me, anyway. He doesn't look the same, he was disguised when he went up there. Had a fake family and everything."

She sighed. "This still doesn't explain why the hell he looks so familiar to me."

Jackson bit his lip. "If I could tell you, I would."

"You know why?"

"I do. But if I told you, you really wouldn't believe me and besides, you'd try to talk to him somehow about it and he'd be even more distracted."

"Tell me. I have a right to know."

Jackson walked away, ruffling his hair with his fingertips as he poured a glass of water. Lisa grabbed his arm, her eyes fierce.

"I said, tell me."

"Okay, Lisa, but don't get angry or do anything stupid," Jackson urged her. "Are you ready? Maybe you should sit down."

"I'm fine. Just tell me."

"Alec Rocher is not Alec Rocher. I'm just figuring this out now, Leese, but I'm certain that I'm right."

"About what?"

"His name is Alex Reisert. Your brother."