Readers, darlings, light of mine eyes.
Well.. nearly. Ya get the picture. But, thank you all for the PHENOMENAL response to this! 72 reviews for one chapter!? I'm amazed. Thank you all - you are sweet and lovely people, and you will all have a place in Heaven.
...don't hold me to that one, yeah? (grin)
This was supposed to be updated regularly once a week, but I was very very busy on Tuesday, and ill on Wednesday - it was very Elizabeth Barrett Browning, I had to lie in a darkened room and moan; I'm just a martyr to my headaches - so. Thursday it is. But, it will be Wednesdays most weeks. The end of the story is currently undergoing strenuous revision - and I mean strenuous - but it's basically finished.
Thanks as always to Von, who normally has the good sense to bully me through writing the bits I get stuck on, and encouraging me through the bits I'm enjoying. Such a lovely friend. :D
And I suppose xaritomene can have a look in too. If she's very, VERY nice. (grin) Go read her story, please?
Oh... be wary in this chapter, folks. Because Wolf's got a mouth on him; he's SAS. Do you REALLY think he's going to run around using 'heck' as his strongest word? Yeah, I didn't think so either. No complaints because of the swearing; I understand your point, but I have considered it, and decided to discount it for the moment. It's valid, but it doesn't work here.
DISCLAIMER: It's all mine. Except for the bits which are, y'know... not.
When Wolf got back from their latest assignment, he was shattered – it was only 2.15 in the afternoon, but he was quite seriously jet-lagged, having just come back from Mexico, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep for about a week. And that was the reason that he ignored the post waiting for him, and went straight to bed without bothering to do more than turn on the heating, and check his answering machine for messages.
He finally stumbled out of his bedroom the next morning at nine, his body clock protesting; and he dressed and ate before he even remembered the post.
Wolf flicked through it, rather absently – several bills, an obscene amount of circulars and junk mail, one of the normal, rather depressing letters from his parents, a postcard from his sister, an invitation to his brothers wedding. He hadn't even known that his brother was engaged.
The last envelope, though, intrigued him. He didn't know the handwriting, and he couldn't think of anyone outside his family who would bother to write him a handwritten letter.
Putting down the rest of the mail, he ripped the envelope open, and unfolded the letter.
Right from the first word, he was tense, and he scanned the letter through once, without taking it in hardly at all. By the time he finished reading it, he was cold, and he went through it again, more slowly, to try and properly understand what he was being told.
Wolf, the note read. I'm sorry to have to bother you with this, but there's no one else I can ask. Can you organise my funeral? I don't want MI6 doing it, and you're the only other option I've got. If everything's gone according to plan, you should find my body at St. Thomas's Hospital.
The note was signed from 'Alex Rider', apparently 'Cub's real name – but that couldn't be right. It couldn't be. The boy had – had parents, or whatever, and this looked like some sort of twisted suicide note. Why would Cub commit suicide? Granted, it had been nearly two years since he last saw the boy – which begged the question why the hell he was writing to him, Wolf, and, indeed, how he'd found his address – but, surely, nothing so drastic could have happened in that time to make Cub not only commit suicide, but also ask a man he barely knew to organise his funeral!
But, this was Cub, the kid who was an MI6 agent at the age of fourteen. If he was writing a letter like this, even if it was just a post-GCSE practical joke – and if it was, he'd fucking kill the boy himself – he couldn't ignore it. He didn't know what the hell was going on here, but he did know that he had to verify things. Once he knew the facts, he could go on from there. He didn't know the kid, and he'd been a bastard to him, sure, but he did owe him that much.
And he hoped to God that Cub wasn't dead.
"Fuck." He swore once, violently, and paused only to grab his keys, some money and a jacket, before heading out of his flat to St. Thomas' Hospital
At the hospital, he said to the girl behind the desk, "I'm looking for an – Alex Rider?"
Despite what he'd been hoping, he was fully expecting to be given a sympathetic look, and a direction to the hospital morgue. From what he knew of Cub, the boy didn't do things by halves, and if he decided to commit suicide, chances were that he'd have succeeded.
But the girl just nodded, and typed something into the computer. Then she looked back up at him, smiled politely, but with a faint hint of sympathy – Wolf steeled himself – and said, "He's only recently woken up sir, and it's still relatives only – are you a relative?"
Wolf paused for a half a second, completely shocked, then collected himself almost instantly, and said, firmly. "Yes. His uncle." He paused, again, more obviously this time. "Is he –alright, then?"
The nurse frowned. "I'll have to see some ID, sir."
Wolf frowned right back at her, but handed over his driving licence as proof of ID. "Sister's son." He said, shortly, to explain the different surname. The nurse nodded, and said, quietly.
"Yes, sir."
"So?" he asked, impatiently. "Is he alright?"
The girl paused, then said, slowly, "He's been unconscious for over a week, sir – he only woke up two days again."
"What…" he paused, choosing his words. "What happened to him?"
She frowned again. "Don't' you know?"
"Obviously not." Wolf snapped.
"Then – why are you here?" she began to fire questions at him, obviously suspicious. "You're the first member of his family who's visited, according to the register – in fact, you're the first person to visit at all! Where are his parents? How did you find out he was here? Why haven't you come before?"
Wolf glared at her, darkly. "His parents are dead." He told her, hoping it was true – he'd never bothered to pull a file on the kid he never, or rarely ever, saw, but if no one had visited before now, and the kid had felt the need to ask Wolf to organise his damn funeral… "He – lives with me," OK, a lie, and an easily falsified one at that, but necessary if he wanted to get in and talk to the kid, which, he found to his surprise, he did, quite badly – if only to settle his curiosity. He suddenly had a hundred and one questions for the boy. "I've been away, on business – I only just got back. The woman I employed to look after him told me he was in hospital, but said no one would give her any details…?" he let his voice become blatantly accusing at that, and she blushed a little.
"Ah. Sorry, sir." She bit her lip. "I'm sure you understand – patient confidentiality…" he nodded, tersely. "So, if you could just verify your address for me.."
For a couple of seconds, he stared at her, then, assuming that they wouldn't have any real information on Cub other than his name, from a school ID card, or some such, he said, calmly, "Flat 3, Walsmore Street, London, SW1 5GF."
Sure enough, she nodded, typing it in. "And a telephone number we can contact you on?"
Rather reluctantly, he told her, and she smiled, nodded, and said, calmly, "Right. Well, that all seems to be fine, then, sir…"
"Then will you please tell me what the hell happened to him?" he asked, impatiently.
The nurse bit her lip again, and looked at him, eyes dark with pity. "I'm terribly sorry, sir – I'm afraid your nephew was in a car accident. The driver of the car said that he just stepped out in front of him."
Wolf was directed up to Room 153 and left outside the door by a rather more trusting – and very pretty, he noticed, absently – young nurse. Then, with a deep breath, he pushed the door open, and stepped inside.
As he stood in the cool, white, sunny room, it hit him that he had no idea what he was doing here. He didn't know this kid; he could have walked away when he found out that the boy was still alive, rather than a body needing to be dealt with – by him, on the boy's own wish. Instead, he had lied his way into this hospital, had handed over his real address and telephone number, and was now irrevocable linked to the boy, at least in the hospital's eyes.
Maybe it was just because the boy was obviously so damn alone that he'd come, or possibly simply because that letter had asked him to, or maybe it was out of sheer curiosity, but Wolf really didn't know, and his own uncertainty made him snappish – so when he next spoke, he sounded rather angrier than he had intended. "Cub." He practically spat the word.
The still figure on the bed gave a movement which might have been a flinch, on hearing his voice, and struggled to sit up. For a moment, as he waited impatiently for the boy to actually look at him, Wolf wondered rather contemptuously why the boy was finding it so difficult just to sit up – then he saw the plaster cast and the bandages.
Cub's right arm and some of his ribs were broken.
For some reason, the flinch, and the kid's obvious physical vulnerability made him even angrier. "What the fuck was this?" he demanded, holding out the letter Cub had written him.
The boy glanced at him. "Oh." He said, voice quiet and tired, "Sorry about that."
"I don't want your fucking apology, Cub, I want to know what the hell you were thinking!" Wolf snapped at him.
Cub just shrugged.
"That's not an answer." He growled, crumpling the note in his fist. "You stepped out in front of a fucking car, and you haven't got a reason for it?"
The boy looked at his knees, and shrugged again. "Seemed like a good idea at the time." He said, listlessly.
"That's not damn well good enough." Wolf hissed. "What, you got all emotional one day, and decided that you couldn't hack it any longer? Yeah, that's real fucking adult, Cub."
The kid looked up at him, and for a moment, Wolf was taken aback by the look in his eyes. Cub might still be alive – however tenuously – but you wouldn't have been able to tell by looking in his eyes. "I've had enough of 'adult'." He said, simply, though there was an undercurrent to his voice that Wolf couldn't decipher.
"Really?" Wolf said, sarcastically. "Adults deal with their problems, they don't kill themselves when things get tough. Suicide's the coward's option."
"Yeah, I guess it is." Cub nodded, and looked away again.
Wolf frowned. The Cub he knew – or had met – wouldn't have been so… passive. "Fuck, Cub, what's so damn wrong that you couldn't deal with it?"
"I thought we'd established that I'm just a weak and pathetic teenager who couldn't 'hack it' anymore?" Cub said, dully.
Wolf shifted, uncomfortably. He had a nasty feeling that he'd really, seriously fucked up here. "Yeah, well – prove me wrong." He said, slowly.
"I don't have to prove anything to you, Wolf." Cub said, harshly. "I wanted you to organise my funeral, but, turns out you don't have to, because I can't even fucking kill myself properly…"
"Why'd you want me to organise your funeral anyway?" Wolf interrupted, moving to sit down.
"Don't sit. You won't be staying long enough." Cub told him, flatly. His hostility would have been threatening if his voice hadn't been tight with pain.
Wolf raised an eyebrow, and sat anyway. "You haven't answered the question."
"Because I don't damn well want to answer the bloody question." Alex snapped.
"I think I've got a right to know."
"I don't think you've got 'a right to know' shit about me, Wolf." Alex told him, sharply "I wanted a favour from you; I don't need it any more. So, thanks for trying, but you can go now."
"What the hell is wrong with you, Cub?" Wolf frowned. Alex opened his mouth to answer him, but he interrupted. "Look. Just tell me why it was me, rather than – your parents, or an actual relative, or someone like that?"
Cub shook his head at him. "I ran out of relatives." He said, with a humourless little laugh. "They're all dead."
"Fine, then." Wolf said, impatiently, leaning forwards. "Your guardian, or whoever."
"That'd be MI6." Alex said, emotionlessly.
For a second, Wolf sat there, contemplating it. Then he said, slowly, "Your guardians are MI6?"
Alex nodded.
"So – who do you live with?"
The kid shrugged again, obviously considering the subject closed.
"Just answer the damn question, Cub."
"It's none of your damn business, Wolf."
"I think it is."
"Yeah? Well, I beg to differ." Alex snapped, irritated. "Wolf, I'm not going to tell you who my guardian is, and I'm sorry I bothered you with that note, but don't worry, it's all fine now, isn't it? You don't have to do anything, so you can just go back to ignoring me. I'm fine with that."
Wolf sat in silence for a few seconds, with a rather annoyed frown. "Just tell me this then." He said, grimly. "Why did you try to commit suicide?"
"Oh, saving the difficult questions till last, were we?" Alex asked, flippantly.
"Well, what does your guardian think about it? What have MI6 said?" Wolf asked, fed up with the kid's non-answers.
At that last bit, Cub's face went stony. "Oh, they think it was a brilliant fucking idea." He snarled. "What do you think they think about it?!"
"I don't know!" Wolf flung up his hands, utterly frustrated. "I've got no bloody idea what your job with them is like!"
"Then you know bugger all about me, since, suddenly, MI6 is my entire fucking life." Alex said, angrily. "So you can just fuck off, Wolf, OK? Just get out."
"Cub, I'm sure I can help…" Wolf began, rather awkwardly.
"Well, I'm not sure, so just get the hell out." The boy snapped back at him.
"Cub…"
"I said, get the hell out!" The kid practically screamed him, but his good arm curled rather weakly around his ribs, and his expression twisted in pain.
Wolf stood, then paused, and said, quietly, "You haven't exactly restored my faith in you, kid."
"I don't think I ever had your faith, Wolf, so you can take your trite fucking platitudes elsewhere, alright?" Alex said, wearily, and turned away.
And there you have it. Please read and review!
lol,
-ami xxx