Rating: PG13

Disclaimer: None of this belongs to me and I make no money with it.

Spoilers: Up to and including Snakehead.

Summary: Alex Rider isn't quite sure what love is.

Date: No time in particular; before the start of the series (Timeline: http :/ shiruy. livejournal. com/ 3602. html)

Edited: 29.11.10

2. Love

Alex Rider isn't quite sure what love is.

He once thought he knew - was convinced that he did, really. But then again, he was convinced of a lot of things back then.

The good guys are good. The bad guys are bad. Jack will always be there. Alex is a normal kid. Ian works at a bank and is gone often.

[He loves his nephew.]

But then one cold night in March - a few minutes after three, Alex remembers - two police men rang their doorbell and everything changed.

Slowly, at first - [no, you can't see the body][no seatbelt, his own fault][funeral tomorrow, the school][a gun at a funeral?] - and then faster and faster he started to lose control over his life. There were demands he didn't want to fulfil, questions that no one answered, prices he wasn't prepared to pay - and no way forward but the one they laid out for him.

He learned a lot in the next few months. Is still learning, in fact.

[Sometimes he would like to forget.]

The good guys are good. They are ruthless, merciless, shameless. They use, they abuse, they manipulate. They force and threaten and blackmail and coerce and they lielielielielie. But still - they are the good guys. They always work towards the greater good.

[And they will stop at nothing to get there.]

The bad guys are bad. They are ruthless, merciless, shameless. They use, they abuse, they manipulate. They force and threaten and blackmail and coerce and they lielielielielie. They are selfish and greedy and violent. They have to be stopped.

[They save your life and die for you.]

Jack is tired. Every time he comes back she's gotten thinner, paler, older. Her eyes are murky with worry and dark with anger. [What if you don't come back next time?] She takes care of him, showering him with closeness and affection and normalcy, helps him to regain his feet again and again. [He repays her with lies and more sleepless nights.] She has done so much. And she is so, so tired.

[pleasedon'tleavemetoogodpleasedon'tgodon'tgodon'tgo]

Ever since he told Tom the truth, his [once] best friend has been fascinated with the idea of being a spy. He drags Alex into every James Bond movie [do people really think you can come out of a burning building and look like that?] and to go paintballing [he's so, so sick of being shot at] and to different parks, wanting to learn how to move silently. And so Alex sighs and teaches him and they laugh when Tom trips over a branch which snaps with a loud crack.

[Has he ever been that innocent?]

For years and years, Ian was Alex's best friend. They went climbing, canoeing, surfing, hiking, swimming, diving... They spent every free minute together, and if Ian had to be gone for a month then he came back with a present and made it up with a week-long vacation in a new, exciting place. They lived abroad for months at a time, in high-class hotels and small, dirty huts. Ian showed Alex so much, taught him so much - [pick-pocketing, lying, first aid, driving, picking locks] - he is very grateful.

[And so very angry.]

For years and years, Ian was Alex's best friend. And then Alex found out that the man who played snooker with him, who hated the word 'uncle', who liked classical music and went on long business trips... That man didn't exist at all.

Ian Rider was one of the good guys. [ruthless, merciless, shameless] Did he teach Alex all those things simply to help Alex? [To make him a better weapon?] How many times did he come close to dying and his nephew never knew? [Am I speaking to Alex Rider? Ah, yes, your uncle called us, something came up. He'll be home a bit later than expected-] Hell, did he ever even like classical music?

[How much of the man Alex knew was a lie?]

And why had he left Alex to MI6, knowing fully well what kind of world he was pushing his nephew into?

[the world that had killed Ian and is now sinking its claws into his nephew, dragging him downdowndown]

Alex Rider isn't quite sure what love is.