A/N: Before this chapter begins, I would like to lay to rest any and all concerns about Jess' Mary Sue-ness. I'm trying my best to make sure that she does NOT turn into a Mary Sue. Alex will be the better spy – heck, Alex may even be the spy. She has a severe phobia that will definitely come into play and may even come close to costing them the mission – I'm not certain yet. I'll go ahead and say right now that there is an aspect to this story that has been done before – I'm not telling you what, you'll find out in a later chapter – but I had no idea that this was so when I began the story. And no, I couldn't change that aspect because the title is tied to it. xP So, I just wanted to reassure y'all of that, because I've had a couple of reviews expressing concerns about Jess turning into a Mary Sue. That being said...Onward! Lol

Disclaimer: I don't own Alex Rider, the Lord of the Ringsfranchise, Boeing (the makers of 747s, if I remember correctly), or even a pack of gum. *sniffle*

Chapter Six: Off to Spain

After saying good-bye to Alex in front of the bank, Jess made her way to the hospital where her aunt was staying. She received directions from the receptionist and took the stairs to the second floor – she didn't think she could ride in another elevator without thinking of MI6.

Upon exiting the stairwell, she got her bearings and set off for room 227. Easing the door open, she peered inside. She was startled to find herself praying that Lynn was asleep. She knew she shouldn't have been surprised – after all, she had been gone for nearly a month.

She was out of luck. Lynn was wide awake and reading. She glanced up as the door opened, her face breaking into a wide grin. "Jessie!" she cried happily, using Jess' childhood nickname.

Jess made her way over, smiling in her turn. "Hi, Aunt Lynn," she replied, leaning down to hug her.

They sat and talked for a long time. Jess avoided questions about her whereabouts, and eventually Lynn stopped asking. Jess was grateful for that, as well as the fact that Lynn was healing well. She was curious, though, as to why she was still in the hospital three weeks after being shot.

"They said there were complications," Lynn explained, making a clearly disbelieving face. "I don't mind it, though," she continued. "The people are nice, the food is actually decent, and I don't have to wash the dishes!"

Jess laughed. "But that's my job!"

"That you hardly ever do," Lynn rebutted.

"I guess I have to give you that one," Jess conceded.

When a nurse came in and told Jess that visiting hours were over, the girl left reluctantly, careful not to make any promises as to when she would see Lynn again.

That went well, she thought as she descended the stairs.

oOo

Lynn sat in her hospital bed, her book open in front of her, unseen. She thought about her niece's visit.

Jess had been tense, nervous. She had dodged every question about why she hadn't visited – that made Lynn nervous herself. Jess had never kept secrets from her. Oh, sure, there was the incident a few years back when Jess had amassed a small army of fruit flies for a genetics experiment that she "neglected" to mention, but that had been years ago. Now, Jess was totally honest with Lynn, if not always open.

Today, though...Jess was hiding something. Lynn was certain of it. And she couldn't shake the feeling that it was something big, and very, very bad.

oOo

Jess did not sleep well that night, tortured by dreams filled with angels, demons, and sharp pieces of something shiny that could have been knives or shards of glass. Later, she would alternately look on them as premonitions or sugar-induced weirdness – she had eaten several candy bars to keep herself awake as she packed. Either way, at ten o'clock the next morning, she sat in the terminal at London Heathrow Airport, next to a boy she barely knew, waiting for a flight to somewhere she would really rather not go.

She had read Alex's file – what she was allowed to read, anyway. She knew about the Stormbreaker incident and why he was involved in the first place. She didn't know him as a person, though – only as words on a sterile, dispassionate government report. As a result, she wasn't entirely sure what to make of him.

The mission, on the other hand...she knew exactly what to make of that. She shouldn't be doing it. She should be waiting patiently for her aunt to recover. Instead, she was being blackmailed into risking her life for someone so that that someone could pull a few strings. Yeah, it was a perfect situation. She mentally rolled her eyes at her own sarcasm - that was another habit to try to kick. She should probably concentrate on one resolution at a time, though. She was doing pretty well with the not-swearing one, and didn't want to slip up just because she was concentrating on not being sarcastic. Although-

"Sucks, doesn't it?" Alex interrupted her musings.

"Yeah, it does." Whether he referred to their mission, her being there, his being there...every part of it completely and utterly sucked.

Alex opened his mouth to respond, but before he did, they heard the announcement that their flight was boarding. With simultaneous sighs, they reached for their carry-on bags and walked onto the jet.

Halfway into the flight, Alex glanced over at his partner, who hadn't said a word. He smirked. No wonder she had been so quiet – she was reading. He tilted his head to better read the title.

The motion must have caught her eye, because she said, "Return of the king."

He looked at her. "What?" he asked smoothly.

"The book," she clarified. "It's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King."

"Ah." Alex didn't really know what else to say. Naturally, his mouth then decided that he was going to speak with or without his brain's input. "So you like fantasy?" Instantly he winced, inwardly yelling at himself for asking such a stupid and obvious question.

She didn't seem to mind, though. Smiling, she marked her place, closed the book, and faced him directly. "Yeah," she said, "I do."

"Didn't know that." And again, his mouth acted independently. But at least she was talking back, he reasoned.

"You had no reason to," she was saying. "We haven't exactly talked – unless you count a grand total of a dozen or so sentences. Which, personally, I don't."

Alex couldn't help but smile. "Okay, then – so let's talk."

"About?"

"Well..." Alex trailed off as he tried to figure out how to phrase what was going through his head.

"Do you want to go first, or do you want me to?" Jess prompted, saving him from something potentially embarrassing.

Smiling his thanks, he said, "I will."

So he talked – about how his parents had died when he was young, about how he had been raised by his uncle until about a month prior, about Jack. He even told her about how his uncle had died. He figured that if he couldn't talk to – if he couldn't trust – his partner, who could he?

At the end of his pseudo-monologue, Jess sat back in her seat. "Whoa," she whispered. "That's a lot for one person."

Alex nodded. "Yup."

Jess sat in silence for a moment more, perhaps absorbing what she had heard. Then she said, "Guess it's my turn now, huh?"

Alex nodded again, biting back a grin. "Yup," he repeated.

Jess rolled her eyes, but began to speak.

Over the next half hour or so, Alex learned that Jess had grown up in Ireland, but moved to Southwark soon after she graduated. When Alex expressed his surprise on the matter, she smiled – a little wistfully, he thought.

"Yeah, I graduated when I was about a month shy of thirteen." She paused. "Wasn't long after that I dropped out of gymnastics, actually," she mused aloud.

"You were in gymnastics?"

"Yeah, that's pretty much how I got through training without broken bones."

"How'd you do that?"

Jess smiled a half-secret, half-wicked smile. "People tend to make mistakes when someone smaller than them keeps avoiding them," she said.

"What on Earth does that mean?"

"It means that I tend to be more agile, flexible, however you want to word it, than grown, bulky men."

"I see."

She went on to talk about how she lived with her aunt because her mother had died in childbirth, because even though it wasn't as common as it used to be, "I was always stubborn, even as a baby. My aunt said – how did she word it? I was 'determined to stay where it was warm.'" She smiled, but the expression quickly faded. "The doctors did everything they could, but..." she trailed off with a shrug.

Alex was quiet for a moment. "I'm sorry," he finally said. "But-" he hesitated.

"But what?"

"What about your father?"

Jess sighed. "I never knew him," she said. "And before you think what I'm pretty sure you're thinking, let me explain." She looked hard at Alex for a moment. "Unfortunately, all I can tell you is what my aunt told me. According to her – and I have no reason to disbelieve her – my mother disappeared twenty years ago. Left the house where she lived with her parents and sister and never went back. For all her family knew, she was dead, or kidnapped, or something else horrible. But a few days before I was born, she went to her sister, alone. She wore a wedding ring, but only mentioned her husband once."

"Your father?" Alex interrupted, against his better judgment.

"Yes," Jess answered, seeming not to mind. "While she was telling my aunt about why she was there, she said that he had died – Aunt Lynn never pressed for details. Two days after that, she – my mother – went into labor. At the hospital, she told my aunt that the child's name – my name – was to be Jessica. Jessica Rhiannon. A contraction kept her from giving the last name, and she was wheeled away before she could catch her breath. After that..." she swallowed hard. "After that she never got a chance to tell the doctors. I don't think she ever even got to hold me."

Alex was silent for a moment. "I'm sorry," he said simply.

Jess sniffed – Alex hadn't even realized she had been crying. "S'okay," she said thickly as she dug in her carry-on, presumably for a tissue.

Five minutes or so later, the captain announced that they were beginning their descent and to please fasten their seatbelts. Jess checked hers as she muttered, to no one in particular, "God, I hate flying."

Alex raised his eyebrows in surprise. "What? You're one of the calmest people I've seen on a plane. That I know personally," he added quickly.

Jess smiled bitterly. "That's because I'm jacked up on Dramamine. The magic motion sickness pills, you know? I learned from my mistake when I flew in from Ireland."

"Ah," Alex said, scooting to the far edge of his seat almost unconsciously.

Jess noticed the movement and snickered. "I'm not gonna hurl, O Brave One, if that's what you're afraid of," she said, taking out a pack of chewing gum. "Want a piece?" she offered, sticking her own in her mouth. "It helps."

Alex took the stick gratefully as the 747 dropped into its descent pattern over the Barcelona International Airport.

A/N: A paltry offering, I know, given when I last updated. BUT IT'S A CHAPTER! Right?

Right?

Anyway, many thanks to authorEmilyRay for the beta job and for being so darn awesome. :D