Chapter Seventeen: Bed Of Roses

Sitting on the couch in Li's living room, I drained what remained of my hot chocolate and set the mug on the coffee table. I shivered, even though the heater was turned on and I was wearing a sweater and jeans. Harry's funeral had been the day before and I think we were all still in shock over it. There'd been so many people there, all crying and sniffling. The day had been cold and overcast with a light drizzle constantly present. Perfect funeral weather, just as it should have been. I don't know if I'd have been able to stand it if the clouds had parted and the sun had shone. While I was no stranger to death, it never got any easier. Harry hadn't just been my boss. He'd been a friend and very close to a father figure to not only me but to my friends and the other junior officers. And now he was dead.

Jasper had been arrested and whisked away in a police car. It was almost hard to believe that this time last week I'd been just his grip on my shirt away from falling to my death. I was still confused over what I felt in relation to Jasper. While there was definitely a lot of hatred, I found it hard to completely despise him. After getting to know him and spending so much time with him, I'd come to realise how tough his life had been. While I didn't understand how he could bring himself to do some of the things he'd done, I did have some sympathy for him, although it was deeply hidden.

Li came back into the room, plopping down onto the sofa next to me. 'What're you thinking about?'

'A bit of everything,' I answered vaguely. I didn't want to talk about it. What I was feeling was too complicated to put into words, too complicated to share with anyone else.

'Are you sure you don't want to talk about anything? You know I'm always here, Amber.'

I smiled at Li. 'Thanks, but really, I'm ok.'

I found it quite amazing how different we were. While I kept everything in, sorted through all my emotions in my head and hated expressing them out loud, Li would almost always talk, usually in a jumbled mess, her thoughts tripping over each other in a rush to be heard first. Just after we'd been taken back to Headquarters from the flat, I'd heard Li crying and found her babbling away to Paulo at a million miles an hour. I'd sat quietly, holding back the urge to cry. Alex had just disappeared, turning up an hour later with red eyes and a box of tissues. As usual, Hex had just carried on like nothing had happened, although I did catch him blinking a bit more rapidly than was normal.

'Oh, Amber.' Li suddenly had the box of tissues under my nose. 'You're not ok, are you?'

Without even realising it, tears had started to slide down my cheeks. I wiped them angrily away and refused the offered box.

'Is it Harry you're so upset about? Jasper? Just remember what he's done, Amber,' Li said, her voice turning bitter as she said Jasper's name.

'He's not that bad, Li. If you'd known him better…' I trailed off, grabbing a tissue and dabbing at my eyes. 'Yeah, ok, he's done some horrible things lately, but does he really deserve a life sentence?'

It was going to be a while before Jasper was taken to court and sentenced, but apparently he was going to plead guilty and the evidence was stacking up. There was almost no doubt that Jasper would spend the rest of his days in prison, something I knew he was going to have trouble with.

Li looked at me critically. 'Why are you so upset? Did Jasper really mean that much to you? I thought you loved Hex?'

'I do, but-' I broke off, kicking myself for what I'd just said. Damn Li. I'd walked straight into her trap.

A huge grin lit up Li's face. 'Finally,' she said, dragging each syllable out. 'An actual straightforward answer.'

Looking at Li's euphoric face, I suddenly found myself saying 'Great, Li. Grab a megaphone and proclaim it to the world. Turn it into a flippin' musical. Why the hell are you making such a big deal?'

'Because you're in denial,' Li said matter-of-factly. 'Had you come out with the truth straight away you could have saved yourself from years of awkwardness.' She waggled a finger at me. 'Silly Amber.'

I was searching for an appropriate and snappy comeback when the door crashed open and Alex, Hex and Paulo barged their way into Li's flat.

'Knocking is nice,' Li commented drily as they joined us in the lounge room.

Paulo flopped into the armchair, shrugging. 'Why bother?'

Seeing that all the available chair space was filled, Alex lay down on the rug while Hex snagged the multi-coloured bean bag in the corner.

'What have you two been up to?' Hex asked.

I shot Li a warning look but she wasn't facing me. Casually, I shuffled closer to her so I could accidentally on purpose thump her shoulder should the need arise.

'Oh, this and that. Chatting, etcetera.'

'What about?' this was Alex, who'd rolled on to his stomach, chin resting on his folded arms.

'You know. Usual stuff,' Li answered.

'What's usual stuff?' asked Paulo.

'Why the sudden interest?' I said, sharper than I intended. 'We were talking about trivial junk. End of story. New topic, please.'

They shared a look and then shrugged a one.

'Fine,' Alex said. 'What topic.'

'Anything. I don't care.' I leant back and closed my eyes.

There was the sound of the bean bag rustling before, 'You ok, Amber?'

Because my eyes were closed, I could do nothing to stop the images that immediately marched into my head,

'Shut up,' I growled, my eyes snapping open as I leapt to my feet. 'Why does everyone insist on asking me how I'm coping? I'm fine.'

'You know, it's not a good idea to bottle everything up,' Li said hesitantly.

Whether the choice of words was deliberate or not, I don't know. But I lost it. Too much had happened. Everything was way too complicated. Tears threatening to spill down my cheeks, I rushed out of the room, heading for the back door and the relative safety of outside.

The night was cloudy but here and there a tiny star broke through. I sat on the grass, knees drawn up to my chest, head tilted back slightly as I gazed at the sky.

'Over reaction much.'

'Go away, Hex.' I forced the words through clenched teeth, but they lacked any anger as I was sort of glad he'd followed me outside.

He ignored me, walking around and standing in front of me, head tilted slightly and holding his hand out. 'Come on.'

'Where are we going?'

He shrugged and pulled me to my feet. 'Walk?'

'Do you want to talk about anything in particular?'

We were sitting on a park bench, a lamp lighting up the immediate area with a soft, yellow glow.

I thought about what Hex had just said. Did I want to talk about anything? Well, there was one thing but I wasn't going to bring it up. 'No,' I said eventually. 'It's just… I don't know, hard to talk about. Do you know what I mean?'

'Yeah. There's actually quite a few things that're hard to talk about.'

I nodded, looking back at the sky again. 'It's amazing, isn't it?'

'What?'

'All that.' I waved a hand at the sky.

'There are more stars in the sky than grains of sand on the beach.'

'Really?' He nodded and I looked back up at the sky. 'I didn't know that. It makes us seem so insignificant, doesn't it?'

'Mmm…' Hex murmured. 'There's heaps you don't know.'

An argument. Finally, something normal for a change.

'Oh yeah?' I retorted. 'Like what?'

'Are we sticking with the universe theme or what?'

'I don't mind.'

Hex grinned. 'Well then. You don't know that the star Alpha Herculis is twenty five times larger than the circumference described by the earth's revolution around the sun, which means that twenty five diameters of our solar orbit would have to be placed end to end to equal the diameter of this star.'

'Well…'

'What about space vehicles? A space vehicle has to move at a rate of seven miles per second to escape the earth's gravitational pull. That's equivalent to going from New York to Philadelphia in a bout twenty seconds.' He looked at me with a smirk. 'Anything else you want to know?'

Yeah. One or two things, like what the hell happened at the end of our last mission. 'Nope. I think my brain's full of useless information now.'

We lapsed back into a silence I found incredibly uncomfortable.

'Hey, Amber. I- I need to tell you something.'

'Is it more random universe facts?'

'Ah… Not exactly. Look, I've been trying to say this for God knows how long, but- What I mean is- I-' Hex stopped and bit his lip, thinking, then pulled his palmtop from its pouch on his belt. 'I think you should check your emails.'

I was baffled by the sudden subject change. 'What?'

Hex pressed the tiny computer into my hands, stood up and started to walk away. 'Just check them.'

Slightly annoyed at being bossed around, I was also curious. I'd checked my emails just a few hours ago; Hex had been there when I'd done it and any way, what was the urgency? Slowly I lifted the lid of the palmtop.

Half an hour later, Hex wandered back, his expression wary. 'Anything interesting?'

I avoided his eyes and handed the computer back. 'One or two things.'

He sat down next to me and put the palmtop away. 'So…'

'What were you talking about?' Curiosity got the better of me. 'About humans being so weak.'

'I, ah, wrote that a while ago actually.'

'Oh,' I said, feeling slightly overwhelmed. 'You- you wrote that when you were trapped in the museum, didn't you? In Belize.'

Hex nodded, looking cautiously sideways at me. 'How are you reacting? I can't really tell.'

I smiled suddenly, surprising even myself. 'Do you want me to tell you? Or show you?'

Hex returned my grin. 'If I'm not about to get slapped, I'd prefer the latter.'

FOUR MONTHS LATER

I sat down in the hard plastic chair, unsure how I was feeling. My visit here was meant to be official, but in reality I just needed answers. The one person I wanted to talk to, the one person I wanted to talk about what I was feeling with, the very person who'd caused me all this heartache.

'Jasper,' I said coolly.

'Annie.' He nodded at me through the Perspex. I'd never been Amber Middleton to him, always Annie Hamilton and I'd accepted the fact that that was never going to change.

'How are you?'

'What do you think? I'm in prison.' Jasper's voice was bitter, his face hard.

'And whose fault is that?' I snapped. 'You need to start taking responsibility for your actions, Jasper. Grow up.'

'I am taking responsibility. I'm serving a life sentence.'

'So? Do you really care about the people whose lives you've broken? God, Jasper, you be grateful that there's a wall between us.' Seeing Jasper again, talking to him, I once again felt the sympathy drain away. I stood up, more than ready to leave and regretting even coming here.

'Wait!' Jasper called. 'Please.'

I half turned, took in Jasper's pleading expression, saw the hurt in his eyes, heard the desperation in his words.

'I'm sorry, Jasper. You were right. We're from different worlds just about. I can't forgive you for what you've done.' I took a deep breath, a twinge of guilt and hurt creeping up on me. 'Goodbye.'

I hurried through all the security, all of it just a blur. Outside, Hex was sitting in the car waiting for me.

'That was quick,' he remarked with surprise as I collapsed into the passenger seat.

'Wasn't much to say.' I shrugged and smiled. A genuine, happy smile. 'Let's just get out of here. Li will kill us if we're late.'

As Hex pulled out of the parking space and we drove through the streets of London, I leaned back and closed my eyes. Talking to Jasper had lifted a weight off my chest, even though I'd barely said a thing. Although I knew it would take a while for me to get over the events of our last mission, I at least felt that now I had a chance of being ready to tackle something else in the future. With my head free of worry and doubts for the moment, I looked out the window, once again my eyes travelling upwards.

The sky's the limit.

A/N And it's done. My last Alpha Force fic for the next few months. Hope you all liked it and I really hope that I got Amber and Hex right in this chapter. I'm now moving to WEbook for a bit as I have an idea or two for original stories that I want to do. But I will be back! In fact, I have two ideas for long Alpha Force fics starting to formulate in my head. One is set after this one and will be the fourth and final episode in my What Happened Next? series. The other one is a completely unrelated fic that I've had swimming around in my head for a while now. I will be planning and researching for these two over the next few months and maybe writing a bit for them as well, but I just wanted to know what you guys want me to write first. Do you want a break from "grown up" Alpha Force or not? I'll also be looking for a beta for these two fics as well, as I really want to make them tip top.

Thank you to every single person, once again. When my inspiration pot runs dry, the reviews you guys send are just the thing to keep me going. Thank you especially to lepidopteron, who unfailingly reviewed every single chapter I put up. Your reviews always made my day :) Thanks also to be-nice-to-nerds and spinkle22 for your reviews as well.

So, as my final (for the moment) Alpha Force fic comes to a close, I just want to remind everyone of the Challenge and Pass The Story sections in the AF forums. Go and check them out guys! They're really great. be-nice-to-nerds recently proposed three awesome challenges and there are quite a few older ones as well.

Emmalea xxx