I'm afraid I've got a bit of a timeline error on my hands...It says in Scorpia that it was a few weeks after John and Helen got married that he was in the bar fight. I'm going to ignore that. :P To compensate, I've made it so that he was only in the army for two years, instead of three. (If you're at all interested in a timeline, CunningMascara has made a great one at http://sunny-and-the-walking-contradiction (dot) blogspot (dot) com/. You can add stuff, too, if you find it in the books.)
(By the way, I really shouldn't be writing this right now. I have two papers and a bunch of other miscellaneous stuff due tomorrow that I should be doing. But I love you guys too much. Please do enjoy the efforts of my procrastination!)
By the way, anyone who guesses the name of the song the title comes from wins a special prize!
Disclaimer: I do not own Alex Rider.
John was still sitting at the table, head in his hands and manila folder untouched, when Helen came down the stairs a half-hour later. He saw her pause out of the corner of his eye, standing in the entryway to their small kitchen.
"John?" Her voice was tentative. "Is everything all right?"
He let out a deep sigh to look at her. Even with her hair up in those absurd curlers, she looked wonderful—and worried. "No. No, it really isn't."
She frowned and pulled out the chair next to his. Putting her hands over his, she asked quietly, "What is it this time?"
His fists clenched under the warmth of her fingers. "Deep cover." He avoided her eyes. "I leave next Sunday."
Helen twisted her hand so that their fingers were intertwined. "What does it involve?" Her voice was tight with nerves that she tried to hide. But John, like he had told Crawley, wasn't a spy for nothing. He noticed these things—and it helped that he knew Helen better than anyone on earth.
His Adam's apple bobbed up and down. When he spoke, his voice was steady. "Next Saturday night, they've set it up so that it will look like I kill a man in a bar." Helen's fingers tightened around his. "Apparently this is supposed to make a big shot criminal organisation recruit me—and that's where I have to stay. It's purely intelligence, he told me."
Her voice barely more than a whisper, Helen asked, "How long?" She was clenching his hand almost painfully tightly.
He shrugged hopelessly. "I'm not sure. I'm supposed to gather as much information as I can about this organisation—I'm at MI6's mercy. I'm only done when they say I'm done."
Helen let go of his hand and brought her fingers up to rub at her temple. "There was no one else qualified?" She sounded desperate.
Something in John tore a little bit at her question. He didn't even consider lying to her, but this...this was bad news.
"According to Crawley, there was one other agent who qualified." Helen's eyes snapped from the opposite wall and locked gazes with him.
"Why are you doing it, then?" A hint of hope had creeped into her voice, and John cringed.
"Just one problem with that, love. The 'other agent' that Crawley mentioned...it was Ian."
There was a long, long pause. Helen looked at him with something akin to fear in her eyes.
"I know!" John laughed bitterly. "My brother, working the same job as me, and I didn't even notice! Hell, my brother, working in the same bloody office as me and I still didn't know!" He stood suddenly, the chair sliding across the linoleum flooring. "What kind of brother am I?"
He turned and faced the counter, unable to look at Helen's frozen face. He rubbed at his eyes wearily. He heard Helen's chair scoot across the floor, and her footsteps as she approached him.
"John," she soothed, putting a hand on his shoulder, "you can't blame yourself. Ian's grown now; he makes his own decisions. I know he doesn't think of it like that."
John, who had loosened under Helen's hand, stiffened again. "You know he doesn't think of it like that?" He spun around suddenly, accidentally knocking Helen's hand back to her side. "How? Have you spoken to him?"
He was expecting her to deny it. He was expecting a soothing denial, a correction to an earlier misstep. She paused just a second too long.
"No, no, of course not. It's just; he's your brother..." Her sentence petered off at the betrayed expression on his face.
"You knew," he said, comprehension dawning. His voice was incredulous. "I can't believe it. You knew my brother was a spy and you didn't tell me!"
Helen flinched. She grabbed John's arm, but he couldn't feel it. "John, listen! I see how you look when you come back from assignment, and I started to notice the same thing happening to Ian—so I put two and two together and confronted him about it."
"And you didn't find it necessary to tell me?" His voice was harsh, and he inwardly cringed. He hated fighting with Helen—but Lord! What had she been thinking!?
"John, it was his decision to keep it from you. It's not my choice to make!"
He wrenched his arm away. "Helen, I didn't think I would have to remind you of this, but we're married! He's my brother! I need to know about things like this!"
He knew immediately that he had gone too far. Helen had an infamous temper when provoked. She snapped. "Well then you should have bloody paid attention to your family, shouldn't you have, John? Like you said, he's your brother!"
With one last, scathing look, she turned away, grabbed her coat and keys, and walked out the front door, slamming it behind her. She hadn't touched her breakfast.
John fell into his seat. Shit. He had screwed up, big time. Looking at the manila folders lying innocently on the table, he scooped them up to carry them to his office. He would enjoy burning these.
John stood outside of Ian's house in his raincoat, staring at the front door. His hair was sopping wet. He couldn't bring himself to knock on the door—couldn't even bring himself to walk up the front steps.
It felt as if he had been standing there for hours when his brother opened the door, sporting a grin. It looked forced and fake.
"You coming in, or are you planning on standing there all day?"
John gritted his teeth and pushed his feet forward, up the concrete steps and into the warm entryway. "Thanks," he muttered when his brother took his coat. When had Ian grown up?
"Tea?"
John shook his head. "I'm fine. I just need to talk to you."
Ian shrugged, facing the stove with his back to John. "Whatever you say. I'm going to have some."
John took a seat at his brother's table, still dripping onto the floor. He was cold—inside and out. God, what an idiot he had been.
After a moment, Ian sat down across from him, both hands wrapped around his mug. "All right. What have you done?"
John frowned. "I've been an idiot, but that's not why I've come to see you."
Ian leaned back in his chair. "Okay. Then why did you come to see me? Then you can tell me what you've done."
John felt suddenly bitter. He was supposed to be the older brother—but Ian was doing his job for him. Couldn't he do anything right?
"You didn't tell me that you work for MI6. Why?"
John doubted that anyone else would have seen it, but Ian paled slightly and his hands stiffened around his tea. There was a pause. "How did you figure it out?"
John didn't pause. "I put two and two together," he lied, borrowing Helen's earlier line. "Once I started paying attention, it was obvious. But I asked a question—why didn't you tell me?"
He wasn't sure why he was lying. Really, he could tell Ian about Scorpia—his brother was a part of MI6, and immediate family. Legally, Ian was allowed to know. But something was stopping him.
Ian's shoulders slumped. "I'm not sure. I've always lived in your shadow, John. It was an honest coincidence that we ended up in the same job, but I wanted to work through my own means, not boosting myself up through your reputation."
John couldn't help but stare. "Ian, I think that is possibly the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. You fight for your own arse at MI6. You weren't going to get any special treatment. Surely you realized that after you started?"
Ian sat up straight. "Yeah, I realized it. But I liked it." He let out a bitter laugh. "I liked knowing something you didn't. I'm not sure if you ever realized this, John, but it was pretty damn hard coming after you—you of the perfect marks, perfect girlfriends and perfect life. I didn't join the army specifically because you had, even though that was all that Dad ever wanted of me. All I wanted was to stop being compared to you—and spying seemed the way to do it.
"Of course, I found out about two days after I started that you'd already been recruited. Quite the slap in the face, that was." He paused. "I could have told you then, but I...couldn't. I kept telling myself I would do it later, but I never did."
"And then Helen confronted you about it." It wasn't a question, but John wanted his brother's confirmation.
Ian made eye contact for the first time. He seemed to be searching John. "Yes," he said, finally. "About four months ago. I made her swear not to tell." His eyes narrowed. "She didn't tell you, did she?"
John shook his head mutely. "No. I figured it out on my own."
Something clicked in Ian's eyes. He leaned back in his seat. "You had a fight?"
John nodded and put his head in his hands on the table. "I was such an idiot." His voice sounded muffled. "I can't be fighting with her—not now."
"Not now?"
"Big assignment coming up." Minor understatement, there, but he couldn't bring himself to think of Scorpia.
Ian looked understanding and didn't ask questions, for which John was immensely grateful. He already felt weird enough lying about it when Ian was being so honest with him.
There was a moment of silence where neither of them said anything. John's head was still spinning somewhat from Ian's...confessions, of a sort. Not really confessions, but he didn't know what else to call them. It sort of boggled his mind to think that Ian—easily one of his best friends growing up—had felt this way. How had they grown so far apart?
"So. How do you plan on fixing the mess you made with Helen?"
John frowned. "I'm not sure. She was...very angry, when she left."
Ian's face retained its characteristic stoicism. The moment of vulnerability was gone. "Visit her at work. Let her know that you know you made a mistake. Knowing Helen, she won't be able to stay angry for very long."
Helen had a temper quick to ignite, but also—thankfully—quick to extinguish. Maybe he would bring her flowers.
John smiled at his brother. "Thanks, Ian. How did you ever get so good with women? Some secret girlfriend I should know about?"
Ian allowed a small grin. "No, just experience in the field. For some reason, I've gotten a lot of missions that require me to seduce women. Temperamental creatures, the female species...but I'm not complaining."
John let out a bark of a laugh. "Seems the higher-ups know how to utilize your good looks! So, where have you been so far?"
Ian leaned forward, his face coming alive. "Everywhere! Paris, Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, Amsterdam...it's been amazing. And it's not like the missions have been hard, either, considering that I'm a beginner."
John smiled. His brother seemed to fit perfectly into the world of espionage—he'd always loved to travel, and had taken to new cultures like he'd lived there his whole life. Still, he was inwardly apprehensive. Spies didn't usually live very long.
But he supposed that he really couldn't judge. Especially with the Scorpia assignment hovering in front of him like some sort of malevolent spectre. Another stab of guilt and dread shot through him at the mere thought of it.
They talked for a while more; John thankful that he had taken the opportunity to get to know his brother again, before he had to excuse himself.
"It's no problem," Ian said, standing and pushing his chair in. "I understand that you've got a marriage to mend?"
John laughed. "Thanks again for the tips." He paused in the entryway, his hand on the doorknob. "And...I'm sorry we couldn't talk about this sooner." It came out in a rush. "Don't...don't be afraid to tell me things, all right? I'm your big brother."
Ian looked at him in that way of his—as if he could see his soul. "All right, John. I will."
With that, John turned to walk back into the rain.