Hey readers…

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I know that I said that I wouldn't be updating until after my exams, but this was already half written and I completed my coursework – A's all round! – so I decided you guys got to celebrate to! However, I will not be posting until after the 12th June for any of my stories, sorry.

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Chapter 13

Alex was picking the lock into Rose and Ben's room. It was mid-night on Sunday. Three hours before they all needed to get up and get going to Brecon.

Two weeks had passed since the cinema outing (and the marshmallow fight) and Rose was avoiding Alex.

Alex, however, was determined to talk to her. He glanced towards Snake's door as he heard the man cough, the rustle of sheets and then the sigh of a contented sleeper. Finally the door clicked open. Yes, he thought just as a fluffy pillow smacked him upside the head. He and his attacker fell to the floor, Alex bracing himself and making the impact as soundless as possible.

Alex's hands closed on bare leg, seconds before the pillow was removed from his face.

"What the hell?" Rose whispered fiercely at him. "I thought you were an intruder."

"So you attacked me with a pillow?"

"What else am I going to attack you with?" She made to stand up. Alex kept hold of her legs. Rose glared at him.

"Ben's gun?"

"It's not in here."

Alex raised his eyebrows. "You looked?"

"I'm an assassin; my job is to know where weapons are all of the time. What do you want anyway?" She asked. Alex was silent for a moment. Ben snorted in his sleep and shuffled around, obviously disturbed by their whispered argument. He let go of her legs and she stood up, moving away from him as quickly as possible.

"We need to talk." He said as he got up slowly and handed the pillow back to her. "Put some clothes on and come out to the kitchen, I'll make some tea."

Alex left the room and Rose looked down at her bare arms and legs, her tank top twisted from the struggle and showing off most of the left hand-side of her chest. She sighed, glanced at Ben before grabbing a shirt, jacket and jeans and going to the bathroom across the hall. If Alex was going to make her talk to him, she was going to have a shower first.

"Okay." She said fifteen minutes later as she arrived in the kitchen, hair still damp and tangled, jacket hanging off one of her shoulders. "What are we talking about?"

Alex swung his chair back onto all fours. "Sit." He said. She glared at him but sat. Alex pushed a cup of tea towards her. "First things first, you're avoiding me. Why?"

Rose blinked and took a sip of tea. "I'm not avoiding you, we have conflicting schedules." She looked completely relaxed, as if she were out to tea with an old friend, rather than being interrogated by the best spy in the country.

Alex drew in a sharp breath and his jaw twitched, but he dropped the subject. It wasn't that important. "We need to talk about Scorpia."

She met his eyes and nodded.

"Tell me why you want to leave. You know their motto, you'll never be truly free of them."

Fear flashed in her eyes, but she held his gaze for a moment, then lowered her eyes and cup. She glanced towards the door and then back at Alex for a split second. "Pass." She said.

Alex leant forward over the table, catching one of her hands. "You don't get a pass, Rose." He said. "Not with your background, I need to know what you know in order to help you."

Rose pulled away. "I won't tell you that. Not now. It's personal and private. I'll give you names, locations, safe-houses, base codes, radio frequencies. Anything, but just not that. I'll just say one thing." She paused and glanced at Alex, judging his expression. "I was there. I told her that I'd get her out. I failed. I'm so sorry." Her hands in lap, she looked down, shoulders scrunched.

Alex just sat there, his expression blank. He'd known that she'd been there. She'd made that clear on the first night. But to know that she'd tried to save Jack… His eyes tightened. He blinked and swallowed the tears back. He'd thought it a bluff. Somewhere between 35 and 50 people were killed or injured that night because he'd called their bluff.

It seemed the entire household had been there that night. Wolf and K-unit on the side-lines while Rose and Alex were on the inside, on opposite sites, but there nonetheless.

Alex threaded his fingers putting his elbows on the table and balanced his chin on top. He sniffed. "I'll get you some paper. Write down everything you can remember now, and add to it over the next week or so, okay?"

Rose looked up, unable to believe that he was ignoring the subject. She nodded mutely. Alex stood and strode out of the kitchen, looking for a note book. Rose stayed where she was sat and took another sip of tea.

Alex came back after a minute or two, and gave her the notepad and pen he'd found. Rose immediately opened it to the first blank page and began to write. It was obvious to Alex that she'd been collecting information for this exact reason as she scribbled it all down logically. Rose had obviously been planning an escape route for some time.

All Alex had to do was twiddle his thumbs and drink his tea as Rose continued to write down everything she could remember. It took about ten minutes before she put the pen down and began to skim read. Her brow crinkling slightly as she tried to see if she'd forgotten anything. Finally she put the pad down again, added a couple of lines and then sighed.

"I'll have another look at it later. That's all I can remember right now."

"How long have you been planning your escape?"

She glanced up at him and smiled sadly. "A while."

They sat in silence for a moment, peaceful, before a loud curse split the air and the sound of a person rushing to put on jeans brought smiles to their faces.

Ben rushed into the kitchen; gun in hand, jeans undone, only to find Alex and Rose with perfectly straight expressions watching him, tea in hand. He closed his eyes momentarily, put the safety back on his gun, before tucking it into the waistband of his jeans and doing them up.

"Any tea left in the pot?" He asked.

Alex put his hand on the teapot; "it's barely warm, sorry Ben."

Ben nodded and went over to the kettle. "What are you both doing up so early?" He asked as he filled it with water and turned it on.

Alex gestured to the notepad still on the table. "Getting the information I should have got weeks ago off Rose."

Ben nabbed a cup from the cupboard, stuck a teabag in it and grabbed a teaspoon, "it couldn't wait till morning?"

Alex leant his chair onto its back legs and smiled at Ben shaking his head. Ben glanced between the two of them for a moment.

"Well, since the pair of you are up, why don't you go and finish packing?" He suggested after a beat of silence. Alex looked at Rose and stood. "And don't forget to dye your hair, Alex."

Alex nodded at Ben, drank the last gulp of his tea and pulled Rose out of the kitchen and down the hall into his room, leaving behind a shirtless Ben to ponder the notes Rose had left on the table.

Rose sat on Alex's bed as he grabbed the last few stray pieces of clothing and folded them into his suitcase. He then picked up one packet of dark brown hair dye and one black from the dresser and the package of contacts he'd requested from Smithers.

He handed the brown hair dye to Rose and kept the black. He'd had to buy another box because Rose was coming as well and had met Sophia, Alice, Phil and Sam, so he had decided to go black instead of brown. It made him more unrecognisable. Rose raised her eyebrows at the packet.

"Have you got any dye remover?" She asked.

"What?"

"Hair dye remover. I dyed my hair blonde, it's actually auburn, like my mothers."

"Oh, um, yeah." He found another bottle that had been left over from his last mission. "Here."

"Thanks." She paused for a moment, considering Alex's hair. "If I were you… I'd probably get your hair cut. Military grade, or at least shorter than it is now. It'll be a dead giveaway if you leave it like that."

Alex ran a hand through his hair, grimacing. He hated cutting his hair, hated how long it took to grow back, but knew that Rose was right.

"I'll get Ben to do it before we leave, let's go get the stuff out of your hair."

He turned to the door; Rose slid off the bed and followed him out.

Ben was still reading Rose's notes when Wolf slouched through the kitchen door. He grunted at Ben and made his way straight towards the kettle.

"Make a pot." Ben said. "The others will be up in a minute, we've all got to get ready."

Wolf grunted again, but made a pot.

He sat at the table, opposite Ben, watching him as he flipped the notepad shut and slid it to the middle of the table.

Wolf took a huge gulp of piping hot tea and let his head drop to the table.

"You know, James, I think Alex and Rose could be good for each other."

James glanced up at Ben. "What makes you think that? She's an assassin and he works for MI6."

"He's younger than he looks, James, and I think it's good for him to have someone around who's his age and understands what this world is like."

James scrutinised Ben and then said quietly, "How old is he, Ben."

Ben sighed. "I can't tell you much about him, James. He's a piece of classified information and that's the way my boss wants to keep him." He paused for a moment, considering his words. "And getting Alex to trust a person isn't easy. If I'm going to help him, I need that trust."

James nodded slowly and reached for the notepad still lying on the table. He flipped it open and found rows upon rows of the same neat loopy hand-writing detailing codes, names, places and radio frequencies. Someone had obviously done their homework.

"He finally get around to asking the girl some important questions?"

"Yeah, looks like she's been planning this for a while."

James murmured his agreement as he continued to scan the pages. "That." He said. "Is a lot of information. There's no way they can change all of that before we get there."

"They've had almost three weeks already. But they probably believe her to be dead, rather than the traitor, considering she killed the men who knew."

"So they'll think they're safe."

"No, James, never that. They'll think they are secure for the time being. We haven't attacked or attempted to infiltrate, which means that they don't know this information is here, with us. But on the other hand, Scorpia hasn't survived so long on beliefs. They will change their codes eventually. Rose has given us a head start, but we won't be able to keep it for very long."

James nodded, put the notepad back on the table and took another drink of tea.

"Morning." A sleepy Will said as he slouched into the kitchen going straight over to the cupboard for a glass, raided the fridge for the orange juice and chucked a couple of slices of toast into the toaster. "You want anything?" He asked James and Ben.

Ben shook his head, but James grunted a yes. Will chucked another couple of slices in the other side of the toaster.

"Are those two having a water fight?" He asked James and Ben.

Ben shook his head, grinning. "They're supposed to be dying their hair."

"I sent Kyle in to join them."

James and Ben laughed out loud. Kyle was still a kid, a sharp-shooter, but still a kid.

"Come on, kiddywinks," A voice said, as it came nearer to the kitchen door. "Kyle is hungry and needs feeding." The three men in the kitchen tried to smoother their smiles as a sopping wet Eagle, pushed an equally wet black-haired boy and red-headed girl through the kitchen door.

"They've promised to cook me breakfast, isn't that nice of them?" Kyle beamed at the three men. Will snorted as Alex and Rose pouted.

Alex ran a hand through his newly dyed hair and grimaced. "Ben, would you mind cutting my hair for me?"

Ben glanced at Alex in surprise.

"Rose mentioned that if I want to fit in, I'll have to have a military hair cut."

Ben cut a look at Rose, and then nodded. "I'll cut it just before we leave."

"Thanks Ben." He paused for a moment. "You know, Kyle," Alex said as he looked at Rose who was sopping wet. "Rose has already had a shower this morning." He grinned as she scowled at them all.

"I'll tell you what; I could do with'a shower." A sleepy, Scottish voice said. "But I'll settle for a good cup'a tea first." Drew shuffled into the room and sagged into the only remaining chair.

"Hey!" Will exclaimed. "I was gonna sit there!"

"These are the hero's of our country?" Alex commented to Rose, and when she didn't reply, looked around for her. She wasn't there.

He glanced at the SAS men and Ben and then slipped out of the door. "Rose?" He said as he moved towards the room she was sharing with Ben. "Rose?" He said again. Alex paused in the doorway of the room. She was in there. He breathed out a sigh of relief before realising that she was half-naked.

She turned and gave a girly yelp. "What the hell, Alex? OUT!"

He back-tracked quickly and she shut the door hard behind him. Damn. But god, did she have nice... No Alex, she's a prisoner for Christ sake, keep your mind out of the fucking gutter! He bashed his head on the wall behind him trying to clear it. Drew came out of the kitchen heading towards the bathroom and caught Alex at it.

Drew looked at him strangely. "What are you doing?" He asked.

Alex felt his cheeks heat up. God, Alex, calm would you calm. You have to hit on girls all of the time to get somewhere when you're on a mission, get your head in the game. Pretend this is all a mission. "Nothing, Drew, nothing." Well played, Alex, now he knows something is up! Dollophead!

Drew was still looking at him suspiciously, but he let it slide, he was too tired to deal with the young spy this morning. "Whatever, I'm going for a shower and then we just about ready to head off to Breacon, okay? Make sure you grab something to eat before we go."

Alex just nodded, still trying to calm his flaming red cheeks. "I'll just, go and... erm... grab something." He scurried back to the kitchen, ignoring Ben, James, Will and Kyle and stuck a couple of slices of bread in the toaster.

Ben raised his eyebrows. "You alright, Alex?"

"Yeah, fine, cool... peachy, Ben, you?" Alex spluttered. Ben and the others glanced between themselves.

"Okay," Ben said. "Make sure Rose gets something to eat as well."

Alex nodded jerkily and grabbed another couple of slices, turning away from the SAS men and finally breathing out. All he had to do was act normally and not like he had seen Rose almost naked. And reacted. To an enemy. Sometimes it sucked to be a man.