Hi! I took some creative liberties with the scene in Scorpia Rising. I hope you don't mind. I've missed you all, and I hope you enjoy!

Tom thought about getting shot a lot.

It wasn't that he thought of it consciously. It was just something that popped into his mind more often than he'd care to admit. He didn't appreciate the memory, its implications, or the phantom pain it brought, but it was an undeniable part of his mind that he couldn't quite seem to keep a lid on.

Glass shattering, people screaming—his classmates—and pain in his leg. Not at first. At first it kinda felt like he was stopping an opponent's pass in footie with his thigh—a hard pass. More like a punch, really. He looked around, saw Alex look at the window and knew exactly why he wasn't screaming like everyone else. He hated the look on his face, though. He should be panicking, and afraid, like the rest of their classmates. Instead, his stare was cool and clinical as he scanned the rooftops across from their school building. Tom would never say it aloud, but he despised that part of Alex—the part those bloody MI6 dogs forged from his best friend.

No, he didn't feel pain until Alex looked back at him and blinked before his face went sheet-white, and he fixed his eyes on Tom's leg. Tom followed his gaze, confused—there were obviously more pressing matters than—

Oh.

That was blood.

His blood. And quite a bit of it, too, dripping to the tile below his desk.

Then it really hurt.

Tom still got nightmares, because yeah, at first, he'd kind of thought he was going to die. That's what happened when people got shot—they died. Of course, there were the ones who had flesh wounds, which is what he had, but in the moment, with all the blood, the fear in Alex's eyes…

He'd thought he was going to die, and try as he might, he'd never quite moved past that.

He figured, with everything Alex had been through, it wouldn't be as big a deal for him, but the choked I couldn't last time as Alex put his head on Tom's chest in the middle of a cold parking garage, seemingly unraveling because of his failure to protect him over a year ago, when Tom was the one who should be apologizing for not protecting him…

…maybe it was time for a conversation, no matter how little he wanted to bring it up.

…

I smiled as I scrolled through the engagement photos from Snake, watching Eagle propose to Evie in snapshots. It started on the ice rink—and even in frozen time I could tell that Eagle was more than a little unsteady—Evie's face was frozen in a laugh, and I was surprised by how well Fox actually did. I made a mental note to send him a grudging congratulations.

I swiped through, happy to see the joy on Eagle's and Evie's faces, and got to the video Fox insisted be included. It was shaky and a little grainy, but it was still easy to see everything happening. Eagle came to a very careful stop towards the right end of the ice rink, Evie sliding to a stop gracefully beside him. I couldn't hear the audio, but it was obvious by the way Evie's bright grin slowly fell to wide eyes that shone with more than cold and the way Eagle's shoulders tensed that whatever was being said was important.

Tom watched with me, with bated breath as though he was watching a soap opera, as Eagle staggered down to one knee and pulled a box out with shaking hands. Evie's gloved hands flew up to her mouth. Her eyes widened, and she stared at Eagle as the people around them froze to watch the moment.

Evie's shoulders shook a single time with what I was sure was a sob, and she nodded, slowly then frantically, and pushed to skate towards him.

Eagle, with tears in his own eyes, tried to stand too quickly, obviously forgetting he was on ice, and slipped to lie spread-eagle—pun intended—on the rink.

Tom howled behind me as I grinned, watching Evie and Eagle both laugh through their tears. Finally, after it became clear that no amount of struggling was going to get Eagle's huge frame off the ice, Evie knelt to meet him, and they embraced. Everyone around them cheered and clapped, but they were still for a long, long time.

The video ended, and I glanced at Tom, who was fanning himself with a hand and blinking exaggeratedly. "Better than any Hallmark movie I've ever seen."

I laughed at him, still so ecstatic that he was here, even if he had to leave soon. Just being with him for a while had made everything so much better.

We were sat outside a little café in Kensington. It was New Year's Eve and bitterly cold. Tom would have to fly back tomorrow afternoon, so we were making the most of our last full day together and visiting some of our old haunts—saying that made me feel bloody old, but it was so far in the past, it felt sort of natural to refer to them as such.

We'd come to Kensington to see the old campsite we used to go to football camps at during the summer. They'd been grueling and tough, but they were full of sunspot memories, too—especially after Tom and I became close friends. James Hale had been with us then, too. I wondered how he was.

The campsite was still functioning, but it had obviously been worn down. We were careful not to let anyone know who we were—I didn't want any of the counselors still working there to recognize me—but they let us play some football on the turf and walk around the cabins since they weren't being used at the moment.

We found the cabin we'd stayed in every summer for five years or so, once Ian and I got back from traveling Europe. I picked the lock to get us inside while Tom stood lookout, and we found a baseboard under the bed at the very back left of the cabin that we'd carved our names into the summer od Year 6. That felt so far away now.

It had been faded, worn by time, so Tom suggested we use my pocketknife to recarve it.

"We've got to stake our claim before some other little gremlins do it first," he'd argued, taking the pocketknife from my hand and scratching at the wood meticulously, retracing his crude letters.

I took it from him and did the same and carving Alex Rider into the wood where it would remain with years to come was somehow so powerful.

If nothing else, Alex Rider would live on in Tom and in this wood. Maybe it wasn't much, but it was enough for me, for right now.

Now, at the café, I was happy to see that, although not strictly according to plan, the proposal had gone well. I couldn't imagine Eagle's anxiety had been very good leading up to it, so I was glad it was over.

Congratulations, I texted him before I forgot.

"So, Al," Tom said, folding his hands on the tabletop and leaning forward, fingers pink in the heat of the store, contrasting to the frozen window to our left. "Let's chat."

I blinked and narrowed my eyes. "You want to do something else illegal." We'd technically done breaking and entering already today.

He rolled his eyes. "No."

"…you want to ask Rhea to the next level."

"No."

"You…uh…wait, do you not like her anymore? Are you asking for breakup advice?"

"No, mate, bloody shut it," he said, turning pink. This time it was nothing to do with he cold. "I like Rhea a lot, I want to keep going out with her. I can be serious once in a while, you know."
Almost immediately, my smile lost its edge, and I frowned thoughtfully. "…did I do something."

Tom, contrary to his last statement, let his head thunk dramatically on the table.

"You didn't do anything, mate. Just because I want to talk doesn't mean you've done anything wrong. I need to wash your mind out with serotonin, or something."

I smiled a little as he raised his head, but that didn't cure the unease in my stomach. "Okay. What do you want to talk about?"

Tom tapped his tables on the fingers, blue eyes concentrating very hard on his half-empty hot chocolate, and said, "You still feel guilty."

I blinked.

That didn't clarify much at all.

"About what?" I ventured slowly, warming my hands around the mug in front of me, full of black coffee. They were out of sugar.

Tom looked like this wasn't the question he wanted, and shrugged hesitantly, eyes drawn to the fire crackling behind me and to our right. "Um. The, uh…the me getting shot thing."

I felt my face, through no conscious decision of my own, go carefully blank.

"…oh," I said into the silence, unsure of how to respond. I listened to a woman laugh from the corner of the café, then turned my attention back to Tom.

"Yeah. Oh. Um…ugh, I hate seriousness. Just…come on, mate, you didn't-that's not your fault that it happened, or that you couldn't stop it."

Tom looked like every word was being chosen methodically and carefully. It looked like it was tearing him up to even talk about this, and I wondered how he viewed the incident. It was my fault, it would always be my fault—had I said no to Blunt and Jones the first time, none of this would have happened. Not to Jack, not to Sabina, not to Tom.

But that definitely wasn't what he wanted to hear, so I stayed quiet.

"I dunno, what you said at the footie game got to me," he admitted, leaning back in the armchair and tapping the sides. "It's not—I know a shit ton has happened to you, Al, and you're obviously way more capable than me, but…"

He looked up and met my eyes, and said very slowly, "It's not your job to protect me. It's not your job to protect everyone. You're only sixteen, too, so…don't take other people's actions or safety as yours, yeah? You've done enough of that."

I held his eyes for a minute more and looked down, nodding slightly. "I'll try."

He huffed out a frustrated breath. "No, you won't. You're just telling me what I want to hear."

"What else should I say?"

"Nothing, just…listen. Ugh, you're bloody frustrating, mate. It's not…I know that no matter what I say, you'll still blame yourself for reacting the only way you could to the decisions of the grown-ups around you, so…if you won't believe it was never your fault in the first place, it's okay to forgive yourself, instead."

I went still, then, and glanced carefully at him. He still looked as serious as ever.

"Forgive myself," I echoed slowly, the words tasting foreign and unnatural.

Forgive myself? How could I ever forgive myself?

"I can't just forgive myself for getting you shot," I said, feeling my blood heat and my eyes narrow. I wasn't angry with him, but how could he suggest I just up and forgive myself for everything I'd done to the people around me? "You think I can ever forgive myself for you or Sabina? For Jack? I got them killed, Tom. I put you in the hospital for a week. People don't just up and forgive themselves for things like that."

And for the first time in a long, long time, Tom looked truly, genuinely angry.

He opened his mouth, and closed it, and let out a frustrated grunt somewhere between livid and desperate, and said far too loudly for the little café, "Well, then I guess we're both shit out of luck, huh? What about me forgiving myself for getting you shot? Can that never happen, either?"

Conversation around us quieted, and I glanced up to see the baristas and a couple of the patrons looking at us with eyes the size of saucers. That was a distant worry, though. Distant, behind Tom's words, because…what?

"What?" I barely articulated, blinking at him.

Tom cursed, scraping a hand through his hair, and shook his head. "I didn't want to bloody make it about me. Just—shit. I took you to Italy, Alex. Jerry and I, but I was the one who convinced him. I helped you sneak into that party that started the whole thing. I helped you get to Italy, where you undertook that stupid fucking mission because those stupid fucking pricks asked you to, and in return, you got shot."

Tom's anger faded as he spoke, and by the end, my best friend just looked…tired, and I was suddenly flooded with a newfound sense of guilt.

I'd been so consumed by my own issues that I hadn't been able to see that this had been tearing at him…for months. The grief in his eyes was raw and real, the set of his jaw too sharp to be anything but time-soaked guilt that I knew far too well.

Not for Tom. Tom was too good for that.

"Tom, that wasn't your fault," I said carefully, momentarily ignoring the original line of conversation, though I knew it would be used against me eventually, even as I spoke. "You couldn't have known any of that would happen. I wasn't telling you every little thing, you didn't have all the facts."

"But I had you, and I know you, Alex," he argued vehemently, his eyes shining. "I knew there was more to it. I always knew. I made the decision completely aware that it was dangerous, and you were only fourteen, just like me, and I knew I'd never be able to do something like that. Still, I let you. I helped you and encouraged you." He looked away, and his voice became so quiet, and so honest. "You might not have been shot if I'd just told you no. No matter how angry you would've been with me. I'd take it back if I could no matter what, God, I swear I would, Alex…"

He trailed off, and within seconds, he was crying.

I'd only seen Tom cry a handful of times, and every time, it felt like it tore a piece of me open.

I was out of my seat and at his side in seconds, my hands on his shoulders. I knew instantly that this was something he'd carried within himself probably since I'd told him the real reason behind my absence—not the appendicitis—and he couldn't tell anyone else, not with all the circumstances, and he sure as hell hadn't told me. This had been festering and rotting inside of him for years, and now it was just…overflowing.

"Tom," I said quietly, nearly joining him as he just sobbed, knowing it wasn't some jackarse I could punch, some family issue I could soothe. Knowing this guilt intimately and personally, and knowing how heavy and how unbearable its weight could be. "I'm here. I'm alive. It's not your fault."

"It is," he argued through his tears, his head buried in his arms on the table. He hated people seeing his face when he cried. Every other time I could think of, he always buried himself somewhere until he was done, even if he talked all the way through it. "It is. It is. I should've s-stopped you."

"I made my own decision," I argued gently, as gently as I could when my own voice was shaking so much. "It wasn't your fault, Tom, I promise. I've never once blamed you."

"And I've never once blamed you, but that doesn't help you, does it? It doesn't help m-me either."

Something fractured in my chest. I put my forehead on his shoulder as he heaved sobs that had been buried for far too long, my best friend I'd abandoned without a thought to him, and just sat with him until he was finished. His shoulders still shook, but I could tell the tears were done. I was grasping his forearm with enough force to bruise, my own hands shaking.

"I'm sorry," I said quietly.

"I'm sorry," he argued, folding his arms tighter around his head. "God, I'm so sorry."

Impossibly, I tightened my grip on his forearm.

Forgiveness was foreign.

Before—well, everything, it was a rather simple thing. Nothing very catastrophic had happened that needed to be forgiven. Bullies here, snide remarks there, mistakes, but nothing that wasn't blown over on its own—everything was mostly fine without needing conscious forgiving. The biggest thing was always forgiving Ian when he missed a holiday, and I couldn't stay mad at him for more than an hour, at most.

Then I found out that Yassen, the man who saved my life, was the one who murdered Ian, and forgiveness was the last thing on my mind. I still haven't forgiven him, and I wasn't sure if I'd ever be able to, but the things to be forgiven began to pile up so high that it seemed impossible to remember them all.

And why should I forgive them for doing what they did to me? Any of them?

And why should I ever forgive myself for the parts I played?

Forgiveness was a luxury for those who could afford to give it and survive.

I could never say those words to Tom.

And I knew he would never, ever say those words to me. He wanted to me to heal, and I would have never understood what that felt like if he wasn't crying against me now. All I wanted was for him to heal, and I didn't have the luxury of ignorance to that anymore.

"…it's New Years," I said quietly after a long silence, long since ignorant of the patrons watching us with concern.

He sniffled, face still buried. "Yeah."

"I don't have a resolution yet," I admitted slowly.

He stilled, the shaking dying down a bit. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"…I don't have one either."

I huffed a laugh. "Let's…do this one together. Forgiving ourselves."

After a long second, Tom said, watery and uncertain, "You're not gaslighting me, are you?"

I snorted into his shoulder, hand on his back and forearm. "Nah. You'd see right through me, mate."

Slowly, hesitantly, he nodded. "Okay."

"Okay."

He kept his head buried, and I kept mine against his shoulder, but I had a feeling we were both smiling through the tears.

…

We met the rest of L-Unit and K-Unit in a park near Cookham that would be shooting off fireworks at midnight, counting down the time on the huge television they'd rolled in for the occasion. By the time we got there the festivities were fully underway. Eagle brought Evie, and Bella came with Bear.

I greeted everyone and stuck by Tom, and we made our way to the activities set up around the park. Some of the guys tagged along with us and some split off, but we met back up at the main grass area among the other attendees at three minutes to midnight.

As the bodies pressed in around me, I caught several of the others giving me nervous glances, but for once, the crowd wasn't causing me anxiety. In fact, it was the opposite—I was a live wire, alight with the energy from the crowd, ready to usher in the new year because it was another year I'd get to see. Another year, after this hellish one that somehow led me to family and friends and Tom and something on the verge of happiness after so long.

The countdown started. 60.

I'd lost so, so much this year.

50.

I'd gained so much more than I thought I could ever have again.

40.

Forgiveness—for myself and maybe even for others—didn't sound so horrible anymore. Difficult, scary, but not impossible.

30.

There were times I truly didn't think I'd make it to another year, be it by my hand or someone else's, but against everything, I had.

20.

And this year was mine. I was starting it with the people most important to me right now.

10.

I shouted at the top of my lungs with my best friend and friends and my family and my home, this city I'd only visited a few times before that was now so important to me, the people who were now my entire world. The numbers ticked by and I watched a new year come, one I didn't think I'd ever get to see, and the riotous applause and joy around me was far too contagious to fight.

I let myself be swept away on a wave of elation and ecstasy, the kind I could only find in the normalcy of this place and these people, and for a moment, I was just a boy celebrating the new year with the people he knew. I wasn't Alex Rider, teenage spy, or Matthew Smith the liar, or any of my aliases, or even Alex Rider the schoolboy—I was just Alex.

Lion ruffled my hair as we continued to shout and scream Happy New Year to the skies, and for once, the chaos was comforting instead of damning. It was a sea of strangers all like me—just happy to see another year.

For tonight, for now, it felt like everything, everything, everything would truly be alright.

…

…

…

Mrs. Jones was not a heartless woman, but she was not what one could call gentle, either.

Nevertheless, the bitter taste as she signed for the order to retrieve Alex Rider was far too strong for any peppermint to wash away.

Had the decision been left to her, no MI6 agent would be allowed anywhere near him—she herself hadn't wanted to go to California to see him, let alone bring him back to England, and she was quite truly relieved to find he'd been smart enough to run before she got there.

She shouldn't have been surprised, however. He never would have come this far if he couldn't predict his enemy's moves.

Mrs. Jones regrets having to call himself her enemy, but with the final stroke of her pen, that it what she has officially become.

"You've done an excellent thing for your country," her supervisor said.

Mrs. Jones' face remained impassive, but she wished death upon the insufferable man. "Thank you, sir."

She then turned to Amell Fischer, the new Assistant Deputy Head of MI6—a new position that put him third in line for her job—and wanted to fire him immediately. He'd been chosen by her supervisor, and he was a terrible choice. Retired from the British special forces, nearly with a dishonorable discharge that was dismissed because of the flimsiest witness testimony Mrs. Jones has ever had the displeasure of reading, he was, in a word—forgive her language—a hardarse. Known for excessive discipline and cruel treatment of both his men and prisoners of war. A detestable man who knew nothing of restraint or compassion—only of means to ends.

And he would not only be in charge of retrieving Alex, a sixteen-year-old boy who was finally rebuilding the life that had been stolen from him—he would be in charge of making sure he stayed retrieved.

"You have permission to use your own discretion to retrieve Alex Rider," Mrs. Jones said through her teeth.

"By what?" Her supervisor prompted, and she could have strangled him, were she anyone else.

"…by any means necessary."

Mrs. Jones knew she had made the wrong decision when Amell's indifferent mask broke, and he smiled.

Mrs. Jones heard the shouting on the streets outside, welcoming the new year, and thought this was a sour, awful start. His next words confirmed her suspicions.

"Give me three weeks, and he'll be yours forever."

…

…

…

"I am sick of waiting," the man seethed, slamming his hands on the glistening teakwood table before him, looking around the room at the spineless pawns obstructing his plans. "We have let that insufferable child be for months. He defeated our only assassin, and then we didn't even use his injuries to our advantage! We let him heal! How can we sit quietly like this and ignore what he's done to our predecessors?"

Mathias Yarrow was one of the newer members of Scorpia, hand-selected by the others to replace one of their fallen leaders, but even he knew that this man's performance was unbecoming. Mathias reclined in his chair, watching Julian LeBlanc work himself into a right tizzy over an insignificant boy. Of course, he'd heard the stories, but the fact of the matter was he was still a child. Children were quite simple at the end of the day.

"Then what do you propose we do, Monsieur LeBlanc?" Anyssa Rothman asked with a bored stare. Mathias was begrudgingly impressed with the illegitimate daughter of Scorpia's former leader—she'd risen from the shadows and seized power after her mother's death quickly, quietly, and without issue. It was made clear from her brutality and cold exterior that nothing and no one would create an obstacle too large—everyone around her was simply a steppingstone to be used and cast aside. Mathias knew that this was his role, as well. He couldn't say he wasn't impressed, despite that.

"I'm sure you'd have us kidnap him now, knowing full well MI6 is also after him," she continued, looking positively disgusted by the man's behavior. "The goal is to do this in secret. You were already aware that the assassin was nothing more than a test to make sure he was still of use to us—of course we've let him be since then. Rider is not stupid, and it's fools like you and my mother thinking so that led us to the ruins we stand upon now."

Mathias cut curious eyes to LeBlanc, amused to see his face reddening the longer Anyssa spoke. With a French curse and a sip of wine with a shaking hand, he sat, looking properly admonished.

"Does anyone else have any objections to my plan of action?" Anyssa said calmly, glancing around the seven present members of the resurrected organization.

"None that you would consider," LeBlanc muttered under his breath.

Mathias had just enough time to mentally correct himself to the six present members of the revitalized organization before LeBlanc's head was shattered by the bullet of Anyssa's gun.

Mathias flicked away a speck of blood from his hairline and wiped another off his glasses, glancing at the body sinking in its seat and then to the unaffected eyes of one of the most dangerously unknown terrorists in the modern world.

"Now that I can hear myself think," Anyssa commented, smiling serenely as though she hadn't just shot a man, "let's continue."

They moved on to more mundane business—their current targets, their plans to amass more resources and retrieve the resources in their frozen or confiscated accounts, which left Mathias terribly bored. However, his mind wouldn't stray from the boy in front of him, whose candid picture was on the front of his file.

Alex Rider.

Mathias felt a smile cross his lips as the clock struck twelve, ushering in another year of life. What a fantastically exciting start to the year.

Perhaps this would be interesting, after all.

A/N: Hehe. Is that plot I see? Update: I hate my job and I'm sad all the time, but I'm starting therapy, so. Yay? I don't want to go to work *cries* but I hope you enjoy :)

Thanks so so so so much to my incredible reviewers: Cortanacordeliacarstairs, Em0Wolf, MillieM04, Lira, OnlyBookworm, storyspinner16, Cakemania225, Fox, Asilrettor, GrangerWinchest, Psycloptic Fury, PuffAndProud, Guest, Cirque De La Folie, , MistyToryRabiyah, doryshotgun2, Guest, SupernaturalCanary19, Guest, Guest, and Eva Halier!

Cortanacordeliacarstairs: Ahhhhh thanks so much! You reviews always make me smile :)

Lira: Ahh omg thank you so so much! And wow, good luck with everything! That is so sweet of you to say, and I'm so glad I get to look forward to your reviews :)

Fox: THANKS! Lol same. You too!

Guest (I was so excited when I saw…): omg thank you so much! You're too kind! I'm so glad you're still reading :D

Guest (This is great): Thanks!

Guest (Can you make Alex get sick)…: I'll definitely try! It's going to get plot heavy here soon, but I'll do my best to work it in! Thanks for the idea!

Guest (I am always positively ecstatic): That's SO SWEET omg thank you! Wait that's such a nice compliment because I try really hard to do that, thank you! You're wonderful, thanks!

…

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