Hey there, I'm C.R. Richardson, your author for this fic.

And what a bad author I am. How long has it been since my last update? Like 2 months maybe? 2 months! That's just shocking! I am so sorry! And I kept getting all these story alert emails and I kept thinking 'awni this chapter is not going to be up any time soon'. So today I finally sat myself down and went 'Finish it. Just do it. Who cares if it's bad (well I do care..), just write it. And get it up. Stop putting it off!'

I am not very happy with how it turned out, it's kind of how I wanted it but it could have been better. *sigh* Oh well. There isn't much I can do about that, all I can say is that I hope you enjoy the next chapter more. The next one is them getting their gadgets, so fingers crossed I can think of good, plausible gadget ideas.

Hope that you enjoy this chapter, and that it isn't too bad...

Please review! It helps me to know what I'm doing right or wrong and whether I should continue and stuff like that :D

Thanks,

C.R. Richardson xx

(Disclaimer: I don't own Alex Rider.)

Beep Beep.

Her eyes flew open as she sat bolt upright. She sighed loudly and raised a hand to cover her eyes. Sabina flopped back on her bed, basking in the few minutes she had left. Her ability to block out the painful beeping sound had matured over the years, and so now she could barely even hear the constant noise.

Beep Beep.

She knew that she had to get up. Her bed was lovely and warm, but that was only one of the reasons why she didn't want to get up. She knew she was facing a day of hard training and that Sue would not be going easy on her.

Beep Beep.

She started to open her eyes slowly, tearing the sleep that glued them together. The soft light that peered through the bottom of her curtains gave the room a pleasant glow. She reached out a hand and hit her alarm clock. Finally the insistant beeping stopped.

It was 5.30, this was an earlier wake up call then usual. But to get to MI6 by seven, this was what she had to do. Dangling her bare feet over the side of the bed she pushed herself off. Stretching her arms above her head she tried to wake herself up more. It was useless, she knew the only way to wake up was to have a shower.

Walking to the bathroom, her silky nighty swished against her tanned thighs and her tousled hair lay boldly around her face.

"Sabina?"

The unsuspected voice made her jump. That's one way to wake me up, she thought. "Mum!" She raised a hand to her heart in order to show she had just been scared.

Her Mum glanced at her watch. "What are you doing up so early? It's six!"

"Um..." She was bad at lying to begin with so her tired frame of mind wasn't helping. "I have to be at school early. Big project at the moment."

"Oh ok, well I'm just heading out to see Dad and then I'm off to work."

"Ok, tell Dad I say hi!" Sabina smiled, glad her Mum bought her lie.

She walked over and gave Sabina a kiss on the forhead. "Will do, Sweetie. Bye!" She rushed down the stairs. Sabina waited until she heard the door shut before continuing through to the bathroom.

"I apologise but Sabina Pleasure will not be attending school today." Sabina held the phone to her ear, trying to do a good impersonation of her Mums voice. "She has a terrible flu and will be off tomorrow aswell. Doctors orders."

The lady on the other end seemed to buy it. After Sabina had given her all the details she hung up. Sabina was surprised to find how much she had lied already, just today. I guess this is part of spy life, she thought.

Looking at the clock she realised it was twenty to seven and rushed to grab her gym bag. She was already wearing her black running shorts, sneakers and a tank top. She knew it was going to be cold outside but figured she would warm up soon. Running to the fridge she pulled out two cool bottles of water and put them in her bag. As she passed her handbag she transferred her wallet, her phone and her iPod over. Convincing herself that she had everything she closed and locked the door behind her.

She had to run to the train station otherwise she would have missed her train. But the running didn't bother her, it wasn't far and the movement helped warm her up.

"You're late." She heard Sue before she could see her.

Sue was sitting in the lobby on one of the chairs. Sabina made her way over apologising and rattling off a list of excuses.

"Just don't let it happen again." She said standing and making her way to the elevator. The experienced spy was ready for the day, she was wearing clothes similar to Sabinas.

It was a silent trip up the 5 floors to the high tech gym. It was a one huge room with a number of different exercise machines; ranging from treadmills to exercycles and rowing machines to cross trainers. Sabina had a subscription to her local gym and regularly went there but she had never seen anything like this. The people at this gym were all trained spys compared to the general public who use Sabina's one. They had come to train and so that was what they did. No one was talking, no one was pretending to work hard they actually were working hard because this was serious for them, this was business.

Sabina was a little intimidated by it all as Sue led her through the room and into the changing room, showing her were to put her bags. Sabina felt her stomach turn as she walked past all the training spys again. She was nervous because she knew that was going to be her soon and she knew that Sue would be ruthless.

They came to a stop at a floor of mats. "Have you had any previous training?"

"I've been trained in the art of origami..." Sabina joked with a smile.

Sue gave her an unamused look. "This isn't a game. This is reality. And when you're out there in a real life-or-death situation, you're going to want to make sure you've had some training."

Her comment quickly wiped the smile off of Sabina's face. "No, I haven't had any training." She said, feeling guilty. That was the second thing she had done wrong and it was only 7.30 in the morning. Sabina was dreading the rest of the day. "I've done a manditory self defence course at school!" She remembered, trying to be helpful.

"Well that's something at least." Sue muttered, looking doubtful.

Kick. Punch. Defend. Spin. Defend. Duck. Kick. Was all that was going through Sabina's brain as she fought with Sue for training. She was getting pretty good; she could now predict almost every move Sue would make before she made it.

Sue glanced behind Sabina, loosing her concentration for a split-second. Sabina took her chance and brought her opponenet down onto the soft mats below them. She heard a slow clapping from behind her.

Turning around she saw Alex with a smirk on his face. He had watched the whole fight and she had been too busy to notice. She turned around, trying to ignore him. Holding out her hand she helped Sue off of the ground and checked to see if she was ok.

"That was pretty good," Alex whispered in her ear, he had come up behind her. "You know, for a beginner."

She rolled her eyes and chose not to respond to his snide comment. "Why are you here?" She asked none to kindly.

"To help. Apparently I'm needed, although you seem to be doing a good enough job on your own." He said pointing to Sue.

"I have real work to do." Sue joined their conversation. "Alex will be taking you for a couple of hours and the same will happen tomorrow." With that out of the way she left to go to the changing rooms.

Sabina was tired, she had already been working hard for eight hours, stopping only for a one hour lunch break. Sue had been ruthless and reluctant to even allow her the hour for lunch. The worked on her defensive skills and some basic offensive ones too. After her last training fight she felt more confident. Now I just need someone to distract my opponent while I'm fighting them, she thought, and I'll be fine.

"So what are we going to do?" He asked, breaking the silence.

Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "You're the boss. No plan?" She used as few words as possible.

"No. I was expecting to do this!" Alex defended himself. "Want to go for a run?"

No. She thought. What she really wanted to do was crawl into bed and stay there forever but she didn't want Alex to know this. "Sounds good." She said with a smile. "Mind if I grab my iPod?"

"Not at all."

Sabina walked away from him towards the changing room, where she got to sit for a few minutes trying to regain some energy. Pulling out her iPod, she stood up sooner than she would have liked. Alex was still on the mats, he was already dressed in appropriate clothes so he was doing some warm up stretches.

When he saw Sabina he stopped. "Ready?"

"Yup." She help up her iPod and walked with Alex to the elevator. Before he tried talking to her she pushed the earbuds into her ears and blasted music.

The next day at four Alex arrived again to take over training. This time Sue had pushed Sabina even harder and she hadn't recovered from yesterdays training yet.

"Bye!" Sabina waved cheerily as she watched Sue walking away leaving her alone with Alex. As soon as Sue disappeared behind the door, Sabina quickly collapsed on the mats in a small heap.

Alex looked on worried. "Are you ok?"

"Please don't make me do any exercise!" She panted, as she tried to get air into her lungs, begging for him to agree.

"What?" He crouched down on the mat next to her head.

"I can't do anymore! I'm exhausted!" She lifted her head, leaning on her elbows. Just doing that took all her remaining strength.

"Ok, come on." Alex grasped Sabina's arm and started to pick her up of the ground. "Let's go, come on!" He tried to motivate her.

She sighed and relunctantly stood on her shakey legs. "What are we doing?" She asked, fearful that he was going to make her do more exercise.

"I'll take you home." He said, smiling as she sighed in relief. "Now go and get dressed so we can go."

She happily ran to the changing rooms with a renewed strength. Stepping into the shower, Sabina let the hot water soak through her skin and loosen her tight muscles. She had just been through two days of hell. The exercise regime Sue had set up was ridiculous, she didn't even have to do everything she just 'supervised'.

Alex accompanied Sabina on the train. They talked amicably between themselves. However there was still tension as Sabina never wanted to be there in the first place and Alex feels guilty for her being recruited by MI6. Getting off the train, Alex walked Sabina to her front door. They were definitely getting on better than before, but there was still restraint and distance in their relationship.