THE IDENTITY OF THE ENGLISHMAN IS REVEALED IN THIS CHAPTER! THIS IS TRUE!
Since so much is happening in this, it is longer and took me longer too. I'm sorry if there are any mistakes but was just so exited and I wanted to update! But I'm going to make
XxXmaximuM-RideRXxX my beta if she still wants to be!!!
Disclaimer: I don't own.
Mrs. Jones had walked into Alan Blunt's office, wide-eyed. She quickly informed him all would be revealed when he saw their guest. Blunt had agreed, because he trusted his Deputy… Well as much as he let himself trust anyone… So bluntly, he commanded her to collect herself.
The woman nodded, smoothed out her skirt and began to unwrap a peppermint.
Blunt never wondered about her peppermint fetish. He knew it was her way of coping. Almost every human, especially spies, had one way of dealing with things. Everyone is weak, emotional, and don't like to get their hands dirty. But when it becomes necessary to walk in the dark and scary, people just need ways to cope.
Some people find comfort in small things, like peppermints. Others pretend everything is normal in their home lives. Some develop tics, like Crawley 's annoying habit to click pens, or staple random papers whenever he was inactive. Shoot, even the urban legend, James Bond had found his comfort in women.
(Alan Blunt squashed the need to roll his eyes. He was glad he had fired the man. Bond had become a sort of egomaniac in his later years.)
But there were some who had become desensitized to it all. Like a certain Alan Blunt, who had his gray demeanor to prove it.
So as the emotionally challenged Alan Blunt stared at the door, and Ms. Jones calmed down, the door slowly opened.
The Englishman took a deep breath. There he was, standing outside his boss' office. He was standing in front of Alan Blunt's office. There was no telling how he would be received. But he hoped he could get some kind of job back, he needed the money.
The Englishman winced. He was nervous and he was surprised if the whole world couldn't pick up on that little fact already. But it was kind of amusing in a morbid, little way. He had gone through months of torture, and yet here he was, afraid he might not be received as well as he would like.
He snorted.
But still…
No.
He summoned up his courage and pushed open the heavy door. The office was the same, like the lobby. There were the same chairs, the same potted plants, the same desk, and the same people. There was Half-Dead Blunt, and Bad-Haircut Jones.
Oh how he had loathed and missed them.
A flicker of surprise crossed Alan Blunt's face. It caused a smirk to grace The Englishman's.
"'Ello there. Miss me, or were you the ones who tried to get rid of me?" The Englishman greeted them.
He was being reckless, unprofessional, but he had been in Hell for a long time. His professional attitude could be used as toilet paper for an elephant for all he cared.
Ms. Jones blinked. The man was acting as if he hadn't a care in the world! Blunt's eye twitched.
He opened his mouth to speak, "Agent-"
"Please," The Englishman interrupted, "don't call me by my name just yet, Sir. I'm not used to it you see, and it would be very awkward."
Blunt nodding. He didn't care what the former agent would like to be called. He was nonplussed that for the first time in years, someone had dared interrupt him. "I expect a full report of what happened to you. You should be dead. We gave away your mission, burned your files, cleaned out your office, and wiped you off our records. We were not prepared, or are prepared for this development."
The Englishman helped himself to a chair. He had expected as much. "Did you give my office away?"
Alan Blunt looked up at Jones, guiltily. "Well, no. But we were preparing to."
The Englishman narrowed his eyes. Something was going on here.
Ms. Jones cleared her throat. "We have not yet found anyone willing to fill your position."
The former agent felt a growing unease, but he shook it off. Then he grinned, pretending to buy into Jones' story. She meant they hadn't found anyone as good as him. The Englishman had been good, there was no denying that.
Blunt tried to ignore the grin. It unnerved him. This whole thing unnerved him. Here was a dead man standing in front of him. He had made sure of it.
But Blunt shook it off. "You will be questioned by an Agent Daniels. This situation will be good practice for him, since this agency hasn't encountered anything like this for many years. Do you know you cannot leave until we have cleared this up, right?"
The Englishman nodded. He prepared to walk away, but stopped.
"Sir?" They were back to formalities.
"Yes?"
"May I be described a therapist?" The Englishman asked. He wasn't admitting he was weak, or the fact he had cracked under the pressure. But he was acknowledging the fact that the mind was a weak thing.
Blunt fought his hardest not to smile. He hadn't smiled in a long time. There was a smart man.
"Yes, I'll prescribe one now."
The Englishman sat on a steel table in the bowels of The Royal and General Bank. He tapped the table with the tips of his fingers impatiently. The walls were dull and concrete and they reminded him of another place, another time. He fought off the waves of fear.
Fear was weakness, John had told him that. But it could be used to his advantage. He swallowed a lump in his throat. He needed to keep it together. He was good at that.
The door opened, causing The Englishman to stand up. A man, younger than him, in a smart-looking suit walked in. He had a somewhat stern face and slightly red hair. The Englishman excused the stern face. Everyone in this place was stern.
The stern man also had a sling on his arm. The Englishman cracked another grin. "Seems like we both have had a stroke of bad luck." He motioned to his own sling.
Daniels momentarily cast away his severe countenance. "I would shake your hand but…"
"I understand. Same here."
They sat, smiling. But their smiles were soon to fade as they got right back down to business."
The red-head took a breath. "My name is Ben Daniels, or Agent Daniels. I will be conducting the investigation into why you were missing and pronounced dead."
"I was kidnapped."
"Excuse me?"
"The reason I was missing and presumed dead is because I was kidnapped by a criminal organization while I was attempting to escape from the assassin, Yassen Gregorovich, during the Stormbreaker mission, then I was pumped for information about MI6." The Englishman said in one breath.
Daniels blinked. "What?"
"So let me see if I have this straight. You were shot by the assassin, Yassen Gregorovich, who was hired by Herod Sayle, during the mission with the Stormbreakers."
"Yes."
"But you didn't die because your car was a proto-type for a special bullet-proof car, and thus, even though the bullets still hit you, their impact was lessened."
"Yes."
"So then as you tried to escape from your car, you were apprehended by the criminal organization, Veritas."
"Yes."
"You were then pumped for information (tortured), for more than eight months. You tried to escape many times, but you failed."
"Yes."
"Yet, one night, you managed to escape with a team of SAS men, who had been captured that day."
"Yes." The Englishman was calm, now serious. If they didn't believe him, they would kill him. There was no doubt about it. So he wasn't going to tell them how close he had gotten to insanity, which had given him the opportunity to escape.
Daniels looked at him, his eyes strained and tired. "Mr.-"
The Englishman leaned forward. "I know you don't believe me Agent Daniels. You're a suspicious man. You have to be in this business. But I am and was a suspicious man too. Now, I am just plain impatient. All I want you to do is tell MI6 that I am back, maybe get some kind of income and go home.
"I do not appreciate you questioning me about that fact I was tortured. You want the truth? I was beaten within an inch of my life. I experienced more pain that I thought was possible. And yes, I screamed like a little schoolgirl. So if you would please just listen to what I have to say, you'll have more time to investigate. Agreed?"
The Englishman and Daniels locked gazes. Daniels was trying to break the man down, intimidate him. But The Englishman had been playing this game much, much longer. Daniels blinked.
Daniels mentally sighed. He was good at figuring out when a person was lying. He could tell when Wolf said everything was alright at home. It wasn't. His girlfriend had dumped him.
He could tell that Snake had an unexpected visitor, but tried to hide it.
He could tell that this man wasn't lying. Damn.
More than three weeks had passed. Almost a month. The Englishman's days had been comprised of questioning, people confirming his story, and getting his legal affairs in order. MI6 had handled most of his legal affairs so it hadn't been that hard.
It was midday and there wasn't even a cloud in the sky. That was strange for this time of year. People all around were soaking it up. Kids played, even though it was a school day. Parents and couples walked hand in hand in a nearby park. Everyone seemed to be happy. Everyone except The Englishman.
Why couldn't he be happy?
He was nervous, plain and simple. Jones had cornered him on the lift right before he had left and given him a talking to. She had informed him how much had changed. She told him so much had changed with a certain Alex Rider. His heart had sunk to his toes and he had wondered if all that had happened to the boy was his fault.
The lone man stopped with a start. He was in front of his house and he hadn't even realized it. He looked on it, trying to quell the butterflies in his stomach. There were flowers all along the front, but other than that it was the same.
The Englishman tugged nervously at the shirt MI6 had issued him. He felt inadequately dressed for an occasion like this. His heart rate was elevated and his abdomen felt like jelly.
He chuckled. He had faced many, many life or death experiences without even blinking. But a simple reunion had him whimpering in the corner like a little girl. His therapist said it might be uncomfortable. But he hated therapists.
He could do this.
A certain Ben Daniels watched as a man walked out of The Royal and General Bank. He shook his head. The man had called himself 'The Englishman'.
Daniels pulled out his phone and dialed a number he had memorized.
"Yes?" a rough voice asked.
"Your Englishman just left the building. Remember, I had no part in this."
"Agreed."
Ben had already begun to hang up.
The Englishman took a deep breath, composed himself and rang the doorbell.
"Just a sec!" He heard a feminine voice call from inside the house.
His throat constricted. He was being more emotional than he was used to… He swallowed a ball in his throat.
The door flew open, and The Englishman was immediately frozen in his place. He could do nothing but stare at the woman in front of him with wide-eyes. He had forgotten how beautiful she was.
She also stared at him, stiff in the doorway.
He was about to say something, anything that popped into his head, but Jack beat him to the punch. She grabbed a nearby umbrella and wielded it like a sword. In her hands, and with her expression, it almost looked dangerous.
"I don't know who you are, or who you're trying to trick," she growled, "but I want you to get off my property. Now."
Panic rose up in him. "No. No, Jack it's me."
"I said to get off my property," she snarled.
"No. I- I can prove it." He looked around, grasping at straws. But nothing came.
"I'm gonna call the cops, if you don't get off in three… two…"
"I can prove it's me. Just give me a second." With her ultimatum he had snapped back to reality. He needed to be calm. That's how she remembered him.
An idea hit him. "You have a tattoo of a butterfly right above your navel. I saw it when I accidently walked in on you one time."
She just looked at him and he winced. Any one of her boyfriends would have known that. But she didn't give him another chance. Jack quickly tried to slam the door close.
"Wait!" He stuck his foot in the door. He became panicked again. "You have a Berretta semi-automatic handgun that your father gave to you. He received it from a friend the year he quit the military. He gave it to you, because you both didn't know about the gun laws over here. You snuck it in, you know how to shoot it, but you asked me if I knew how to clean it because you had forgotten."
The anger slowly faded off her face. "W-what color was it?"
"Sliver. Expensive. I never told anyone."
Her suspicion was fading, he could tell. "Why… do you remember why I asked you of all people?"
"You knew I went to a gun range once or twice."
Her jaw dropped to the floor, and the door swung open. "It's you…"
The Englishman grinned, warmth surging through his heart. "Yes, Jack. It's me."
"Ian!"
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Man, I had fun….