Rating: PG13

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

Spoilers: Up to and including Snakehead.

Summary: Once again, Alex has to put up with stupid people being stupid.

Author's Notes: So this was kind of fun to write. It took forever though until I came up with something fitting for the theme.

Date: Dec. 28th - 9 am (Timeline: http :/ shiruy. livejournal. com/ 3602. html)

Edited: 30.11.10

7. Heaven

Alfred Barner was a serious kind of man. He wore an expensive black suit, had a severe expression on his face, and didn't believe in small talk.

Apparently, he also didn't believe in teenaged spies.

Alex sighed quietly and sunk lower into his window seat. The man next to him had only talked to him when he absolutely had to during their drive to the airport and their boarding of the plane. Now, half an hour after takeoff, he was still studiously ignoring Alex and doing his utmost to look like he was completely absorbed in his paper.

It was starting to piss the teen off.

Barner's behaviour reminded him of Belinda Troy, the CIA agent he had worked with during the Skeleton Key mission, but at least she had talked to him. This man seemed to hope that if he just didn't acknowledge Alex' existence for long enough he would simply go away.

As if that was going to happen.

It wasn't as if he was all that eager to do this job, but hell, that didn't mean that he was going to screw it all up the second they stepped off the plane. He was still alive after all, wasn't he? The same couldn't be said for a lot of other people he had worked with, unfortunately. So it was kind of insulting that he had to put up with this kind of attitude from someone who was supposed to be a professional yet again.

He stared out of the window at the sea of clouds below them, looking like giant marshmallow mountains. They reminded him of a few of those paintings he had seen in the museums Jack had dragged him to over the years. Angels frolicking among the clouds, big pearly gates and some random guy that apparently represented God.

Alex snorted quietly. That was not what death was like. At least he didn't think so. In his experience, death was cold and dark and strangely silent. Feeling weak all over, as if all your strength is flowing out of you, and you can't breath anymore but it doesn't really hurt, and then it gets hard to think and you feel so, so tired. Tired of fighting, tired of living. Tired of making any damn effort to get up yet again.

And he had given up, those scant few months ago.

He crossed his arms to hide his shaking hands and turned to Barner. "Are you actually going to talk to me during this mission or are we going to continue pretending that we have nothing to do with each other?"

The agent finally looked away from his paper and gave him a sharp look. "You are to be part of my cover tomorrow. You will mingle with the other guests, behave according to your assumed persona and then we will fly home again two days from now. Excess interaction between us is not necessary."

For a moment Alex just stared, speechless in the face of such condescension. Then he took a deep breath, nodded cooly, and leaned back into his seat, staring straight ahead. And if anyone asked, he most emphatically did not mutter "Stuck-up bastard!" under his breath either.

He couldn't wait for this mission to be over.