A/N: Life is good. It's ten o'clock and I'm still in my dressing gown; I have a furry little lawn mower called Kitty curled up next to me; I have a fantastic bacon butty to eat for breakfast; my skin has darkened to a toffee-ish colour after a few days in the sun and I finally have time to update. (I am currently ignoring that I have some stupid online thingy to do for work, that I need to complete within the hour and the 800 word article I have to write with the same deadline.)
Anyways, I'm sorry the update is late, it's been a hectic fortnight!
Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognise.
-o-O-o-
Alex nearly tripped over Sabina as he walked out, distracted as he was by Yassen's accusing stare. Sabina went sprawling backwards landing on the floor woth an oomph and a sheepish grin.
"Sabina," said Alex, frowning as he helped her up. "What are you doing here?"
"I was curious about the kid," she admitted. "I guess I picked up a few of your bad habits, huh?"
Alex smiled weakly.
"I'm sorry, Alex," she said, softly. "I know this must be killing you."
"You'll be staying here," said Yassen. "You should not have heard what you did and I want to keep an eye on you."
"Who do you think I'm going to tell?" asked Sabina, indignantly. "The Americans? Do you know how I realised this war was starting? My parents disappeared. My dad had been writing a piece on the new government. They went to bed one night and then weren't there the next morning! Do you really think I'm going to help the people who probably killed my parents?"
"No, no Sabina, that's not it at all," said Alex, placatingly.
"We don't want you letting it slip to anyone. Whether they're part of the resistance or administration," said Yassen coldly. "Stay here, for now. I'll be back soon."
-o-O-o-
Talking to Graham and Tom was difficult, Alex stumbling over his words as he tried to explain himself, but it was Yassen's cold unforgiving stare that made him want to run away and hide from it all.
The assassin had only said six words. "He's the same age as David." Alex hadn't known he could hurt anymore over his decision until the Russian had said that.
It was Aaron who saved him in the end. The four of them had been having the heated discussion in one of the upstairs rooms, abandoned now that the occupants were preparing to move out, but they were interrupted by the seven-year old standing sleepily in the doorway.
"I heard voices," he explained.
"You're not very good at sleeping through the night, are you?" asked Alex with a smile.
Aaron shook his head. "It's why daddy takes me to work with him. I like it when he tucks me back in."
"Well then," said Alex, crossing to the boy's side. "Let's go get you settled back down, shall we?"
He took the kid's hand and led him out of the room, missing the significant looks exchanged behind him.
When he returned, having tucked Aaron in, it was to three thoughtful stares.
"What?" he asked, uncomfortably.
"There's no way you're going to hurt that kid," said Graham. "Not a chance in hell."
"What? Of course I won't!" said Alex, indignantly. "What kind of monster do you think I am?"
"As long as Aaron thinks it's ok," said Tom, "Then it's ok with us."
Yassen nodded once. Alex knew the assassin well enough to realise that that was all he would get out of him in front of the others, so smiled back.
-o-O-o-
It was amazing how much emptier the house seemed once the men and women had left. Admittedly, it was a lot emptier, but somehow it seemed to drown them all in it. Whereas before there was always a steady murmur of conversation and activity, now there was just silence. A six-bedroomed house should not have felt cavernous when housing thirteen people, one of them a child, constantly running around, but somehow it did.
One of the bedrooms was converted to the Strategy Centre, which had yet to be renamed despite almost everyone's aversion to it. This was mainly due to Eagle's obsession with the title, and his threat to shave eyebrows/beards/scalps when people were unconscious if they didn't agree. Matt had not been pleased when he woke up to find that the beard he had been cultivating since his rescue had been shaved into stripes. Needless to say, no one else had objected strenuously after that.
Sabina, Emily and Aaron shared the second largest bedroom, the largest having been converted, which left four bedrooms between the ten men. Alex was sharing with Yassen, as no one else felt even remotely comfortable around the assassin. Fox had ended up sharing with Tom and Graham, while Wolf and Snake took charge of Eagle, which left the slightly odd pairing off Panther and Matt. Considering the lack of familiarity between the two, they had been allowed to bag the room with twin beds, which in hindsight might have been a mistake as Eagle quite regularly got kicked out of his room by Wolf and was forced to camp out in the far less comfortable attic.
While Sabina looked after Aaron, the others busied themselves looking through the files that Alex has acquired and finding relevant information to add to the various boards. So far they had one for each prominent member of the administration and each base of organisation, as well as three others, one each for plans to access and disable America's nuclear weapons, the enemy's knowledge of the resistance and the location of Joe Byrne, who had apparently gone missing as soon as he had lost his job. Given the searches authorised in an attempt to find him, they were ruling out assassination by his previous employers, but so far they had had no more luck tracing him down that the government had.
The board of plans was depressingly empty, but it wasn't that which disturbed him most. No, that honour belonged to the practically overflowing board of the enemy's intel on them.
Pushing the worries out of his mind for the moment, Alex headed downstairs to where the others were gathering for dinner. Sabina had cooked, as she usually did claiming it helped her keep busy, and they all scooped up food from the table before heading through to the living room; as much as they might wish otherwise, the kitchen table was just too small to seat all of them.
For a moment, with Sabina swooping down to set a tray of lasagne on the table and with Aaron clutching at the leg of her jeans, Alex was taken back to when David was younger and used to follow Amethyst around everywhere. If Sabina hadn't moved to America, and if he hadn't been forced to leave the country, could the two of them have worked as well as Yassen and Amethyst? Sabina was pretty, sure, and yeah he enjoyed spending time with her, but he'd never felt anything more for her than he did for say… Tom. In fact, he'd say he was closer to Tom, but either way he was pretty sure that his feelings for Sabina were completely platonic, albeit with a strong overtone of protectiveness, but that was only to be expected after he had gotten her into so much trouble.
Actually, that was a good thing, he thought as he watched Sabina settle on a two-seater couch next to Matt. The two of them had seemed very friendly over the last couple of days, and he wouldn't have wanted to risk his newly developed relationship with Matt because of petty jealousy. He wished them every happiness, though what happiness could be secured when hiding from the government and organising an illegal resistance to a despotic dictator, he wasn't quite sure.
Aaron, as usual, carefully carried his plate over to Alex's chair before ruining the conscientious manner by scrambling over the blond to sit happily on the arm of the chair. Thankfully, tonight was one of the nights when Alex didn't have to hastily grab the plate in order to avoid a lapful of hot pasta.
Conversation was quiet, but happy, as everyone allowed themselves to relax for the evening and after an hour or so, Aaron even managed to persuade Fox to continue his retelling of The Hobbit. Apparently he had read it as a child, and remembered enough of the details to actually be a rather good storyteller, good enough at least to keep more than just Aaron captivated.
When the clock struck nine, Alex carefully shifted Aaron into his arms and carried the barely-awake child to bed. By the time he had tucked him in everyone, bar Sabina, had convened back in the Strategy Centre to go over the information one more time before turning in.
Emily moved to pick up a file, but Alex stopped her with a gesture.
"Don't worry about that right now," said Alex.
"Why's that?" she asked, turning to look where Alex was staring, towards the Enemy Intel board.
"Because we've got bigger problems," said Alex. "We've got a spy in our midst."
-o-O-o-
A/N: So, review and tell me what you thought? Who do you think the spy is? I'll give you a hint: It's not Alex! :P