Alex knew there were things in Yassen's past, secrets still affecting him today.

He knew that just because the man protected him didn't mean he was entitled to know everything.

But he wants to know how his father fits into the man's story.

He knew the expression "you look like you've seen a ghost" didn't mean someone had seen a ghost, but that something was a blast from the past or someone looked like a different person.

His parents and uncle were dead.

Alex had been told by Ian (usually when the man was drunk) that he looked like his father.

It didn't take a genius to put the two together.

He'd seen classmates experience panic attacks, had seen how the teachers helped them, and had silently taken notes.

Yassen had shown barely any of the signs.

There was only the odd expression after the last question, a twitch in his eye after looking at Alex's face, and the prolonged silence.

He was still unsure whether he or the other man was the person who'd killed Ian. No one had told him; Julius had died soon after, and he knew asking someone if they'd killed his uncle mere minutes after an anxiety attack wasn't the best idea he could come up with.

They returned to the apartment long enough to grab their documents and remove any evidence they had been there. Yassen almost flooded the apartment with the amount of bleach used. Alex thought it was a bit excessive, but the man seemed to be the expert with this sort of thing, so he wouldn't argue.

He followed the man through the street, down a lift to the RER line, and got on the train just before the doors closed (without buying a ticket). Alex looked at the map over the door. The last two stops on the line were Charles de Gaulle Airport terminals 1 and 2. He considered running away from Yassen while he seemed distracted but eventually decided not to.

Better the devil you (barely) know.

Also, he knew he wouldn't last a day without being caught if they separated. He didn't have the street knowledge needed to keep himself out of Blunt's hands.

Yassen printed their boarding pass before they entered terminal two, binning the baggage stickers. They skipped the queues for Baggage Check-In, waited a few minutes to present their (fake) passports, walked through the x-ray machine without a blip, ignored the duty-free shops, and walked along the long hallway with all the seating areas for the boarding gates.

Alex sat five seats to the man's left, a woman with a young girl in between them. The girl was playing with a stuffed Winnie the Pooh toy, narrating a story about how the bear wanted to come first in the World Tree Climbing competition. However, Winnie needed to learn how to climb before he could practise on trees.

Alex volunteered his services as Something To Climb, to the girl's joy and her mother's gratitude. He spent an enjoyable thirty minutes indulging Winnie in his practice sessions and was pleased to notice that Yassen soon appeared to emerge from the fugue he'd been in after his incident in Versailles.

"Sorry, could you please watch over her for a few minutes? I need to nip to the bathroom," the mother asked, shifting slightly in her seat.

"Not a problem," he replied, waving his hand. She smiled, told her daughter to "be good for the nice boy," and headed towards the sign for the toilets.

"Why?"

He turned towards the man, eyebrow rising (Winnie now making his way up his back).

"Why, what?"

"Why are you indulging the adolescent in her frivolity?" Yassen responded; Alex presumed the sudden transformation into enigmatic appellations was so he could converse about the child without her realisation. (1)

"Why not? It passes the time, and I might as well use the opportunity to act like a child: it's not like I had many chances recently."

"You know that I understood you?"

The girl had stopped helping Winnie climb his back. She moved to stand in front of him while glaring at Yassen, who raised an eyebrow.

"Excuse me?"

"I said that I understood you. When you were asking why he was playing with me. Don't assume someone can't understand you if you use complicated words - it makes an… well, a ruder word for a donkey, out of "u" and "me"," the girl declared.

Behind her, Alex was sure his sides would burst as he desperately tried not to laugh aloud. He didn't think he'd seen anything funnier than Mr Serious being told off by this child.

The man didn't take his telling-off personally (though his gaze promised retribution when it landed on the still-laughing teen).

"I apologise," Yassen declared, somehow managing to bow while remaining seated. The girl huffed and went to resume helping Winnie climb. Unfortunately for Winnie, Alex was now unavailable to climb, as he hadn't yet finished laughing. Winnie, undeterred and presumably wanting some variety in his practice sessions, started climbing the seated adult.

There was silence for a minute; Winnie was ascending his new climbing frame, the "climbing frame" was subtly scanning the area, and the girl was concentrating on Winnie. Alex noticed the man's shoulder twitch a second before the girl coughed.

"Are you celebrities?"

He blinked, blinked again. Yassen looked bemused at the non-sequitur.

"...No?" he responded, "Not as far as I know, anyway. Why do you ask?"

"You seem to have acquired a few… fans," she replied.

Alex fought the urge to glance around, gaze jumping to the girl as she held up four fingers while pointing to something on the ceiling.

"Can you see your mother?" he asked, hoping to get her out of the way before things turned ugly; Yassen handed Winnie back to the girl.

"Bring her to her mother," he ordered.

"What? No, why-"

"Do it. If they try to do anything, people will rush to help the child screaming "Stranger danger" or whatever the phrase is these days. You will be helped by proximity."

"No! They're after me, the "Runaway Sub" - you really think I missed those headlines?" Alex demanded, rising to his feet. The man's lip twitched.

"They're after me. Why would they care about a Sub when an internationally wanted criminal sits five seats away."

"But Blunt-"

"Bringing you back would gain them a favour from the head of London intelligence - useful, but it won't put food on the table. I'd get them a few million dollars of bounty and bragging rights for the next decade. If you were them, which would you go for?" Yassen explained, still seated. Something passed through his face, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it change of expression.

The girl, unnoticed by either male, made a beeline for her mother, who had come into view.

Alex saw as the man slipped something from his pocket, palming it. Yassen extended his hand, grabbing Alex's in a firm handshake.

"I'll join you here," he stated, gaze gliding down to their clenched hands and the paper within. "The flight is boarding - it'll get you close. Go."

Hoping this wouldn't be the last opportunity, watching four people creep ever closer, he asked the one thing that had been on his mind for over a week.

"Did you kill Ian?"

There was a second, and then Alex was surprised at how much his heart soared at the sight of the man's head moving left to right in denial.

"Stay safe," he ordered Yassen. Surprise bloomed in his eyes, and an almost smile affected his mouth.

"Go - you don't want to miss your flight."

Before the four plain-clothed agents (or policemen) could encircle them completely, Alex ran, swiping his boarding pass through the automatic-boarding machine at the gate. There were no shouts, no cries of "Stop!" Yassen had been right about their priorities; despite what their orders may have been, they had chosen the person who'd gain them the highest monetary reward.

As he collapsed into his window seat, the empty middle seat a stark reminder of who should have been there, he bit back a sob, already missing the quiet reassurance the man's presence had brought him.

As he watched the boy run through the boarding gate unstopped, Yassen wished he could pull his heart out.

Any trouble throughout his life, it had gotten him into.

Dima had led to Sharkovsky, which had led to SCORPIA.

SCORPIA led to John Rider, which, through Point Blanc, had led to Alex Rider.

True, it kept him alive throughout the endeavour, but it also brought him pain when it made him care for someone, and they inevitably let him down.

It still hadn't learned the lesson.

It led him to ignore one of SCORPIA's orders just because Alex had asked nicely; it led him to direct opposition of an intelligence organisation just because the boy hadn't wanted to have Blunt as a Dom; it resulted in him giving someone the location of one of his safe houses!

Never trust anyone had been drilled into Yassen by prior experience, over and over and over.

Yet, like a dog hoping for scraps of affection, he still let his heart put him in these situations, hoping someone wouldn't let him down.

Yassen hoped it would quit putting him in impossible situations when the boy inevitably betrayed him (he hoped, just once, someone wouldn't).

Especially since Alex probably still thought he'd killed Ian.

Which he hadn't.

However, his heart needed him to escape these four (he subtly eyed up the four agents making no effort to hide their glee) amateurs before it could suffer its latest disappointment.

(They weren't even carrying guns! What was he, a common burglar?)

"Tu es Yassen Gregorovich?" enquired the one whose expression was most gleeful.

Yassen stared for a few seconds, then allowed himself to sigh and rub his forehead.

They grow stupider every year.

"Non. Arsène Lupin, à votre service," he replied, bowing from his seat. To compound his already low opinion of them, one looked half-convinced.

The mother of the child Alex had been playing with strode over, hands on her hips.

"Oi! Why are you harassing him? Back off before I call security!"

"Madame, écartez-vous, s'il vous plaît," asked one of the agents, trying to move the woman away. Unfortunately, their lack of uniform was working against them, leaving them without visible authority.

"Get your hands off me!! Sweetie, will you go grab someone from security?" the woman asked; her daughter scampered off, running towards a security officer who'd been attracted by the commotion. As the argument started between the security officer, woman, and four plain-clothed agents, Yassen, realising no one was watching him then, stood up and walked towards the exit (Alex's plane had already "Departed", according to the Flight Information Display).

If he could get the next TGV and then rent a car in Strasbourg, Alex landing in Stuttgart and having to arrange transport heading East, they could reach his house in the Black Forest around the same time.

(A.N:

(1) R.I.P. my thesaurus *laughs*

(Why are you playing with the child? - Alex guessed the sudden switch to complicated words was so he could talk about the child without her realising)

You know when you just need a bit of stupidity to change the mood?

You're welcome *laughs*