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In Case of Emergencies

Alex had given Sabina Ben Daniel’s number in case of emergencies; she never expected that she’d have to use it, but now she was extremely grateful that he had...

AN: This takes place a few weeks after the events of 'A Complicated Reunion', but you don't need to have read that fic before reading this one 😊

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Sabina scowled at the incessant knocking at her door accompanied by the non-stop ringing of her doorbell. It was a bright Saturday morning, and she was planning on having a lovely lazy day. She was home alone; her father was away on a business trip in Belfast, and her mother had gone to visit him for the weekend. She had made chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast and eaten them while catching up on the latest episode of Arrow, wincing as she watched Oliver stitching his wounds on the screen. Thankfully, seeing blood and gore on tv didn’t really bother her, but something about watching someone stitch themselves up always made her feel weird. Once she’d finished breakfast, she showered and changed into some comfy jogging bottoms and a t-shirt. Tom was coming around later for a movie marathon and she was just settling down to get some inspiration for a film to watch before he arrived when the cacophony of sounds started.

She stopped scrolling through Netflix, and huffed at the still continuing knocking and ringing as she stood up. It had barely been five seconds since the racket first started and she was already on her way to answer, but whoever was on the other side of the door was impatiently banging and pressing the button as if their life depended on it. It was as she reached the hall that she realised it wasn’t impatience. It was desperation. She ran the last few steps, nearly slipping as her fluffy socks lost purchase on the tiled floor, and flung the door open. There was no one standing on the doorstep.

“Help me, Sab,” someone grunted.

Looking down, she saw Alex Rider crouching on the ground, trying to support the weight of an unconscious man. They were both covered in blood. There was so much blood. Without thinking, she grabbed the man's right arm and together they managed to drag him into the house. She hadn’t heard from Alex in over a week. Most couples would find it difficult if they didn’t communicate regularly, but they weren’t most couples. Alex was frequently pulled into missions by MI6 where he could have no contact with anyone, and they just savoured the time when they could be together, but it was not supposed to be like this.

“Alex,” she managed to say as she helped him pull the dead weight of the man into the house, and shut the front door behind them.

“The kitchen,” Alex gasped, and they dragged the unconscious man through the hallway and into the kitchen. After gently putting him down on the tiled floor, Alex said “I need warm water and towels, Sab.”

“Shouldn’t we call an ambulance or take him to a hospital?”

“No,” Alex said forcefully. “No ambulance, no hospital. I need the water and towels Sab.”

She didn’t say anything, but nodded and quickly rose to get them. ‘Warm water and towels. Warm water and towels.’ She repeated the words in her head as she fulfilled the task that Alex had set her. She let a clean bowl fill with water whilst she ran to grab some towels from the airing cupboard, putting them next to Alex before grabbing the bowl and putting it down next to him too. Alex had unbuttoned the man’s shirt to expose some horrific looking gashes and several smaller wounds on his stomach and chest. There was so much blood.

“And your first aid kit, Sab,” Alex said, pulling her back to the present.

“I’m on it,” she said, already moving to the cupboard that their medical supplies were kept in, as she spoke. She had anticipated that that would be his next request, and had planned to drop the towels and bowl and fetch it immediately, but seeing that much blood had thrown her.

Grabbing the box of first aid supplies out of the cupboard, she hurried back to Alex and placed it on the floor next to him. He was now dutifully cleaning the numerous wounds on the man’s chest. To her untrained eye, it looked as though the amount of blood flowing from the wounds was slowing down. And Alex didn’t seem to be panicking. If Alex was calm, there was surely no reason to panic, right? She knew that she was lying to herself, but also didn’t want to let her mind wander to the worst case scenario.

“Get some gauze and bandages ready, Sab. When I’m done with a wound I’ll let you know - put the gauze on and then we’ll bandage.”

She didn’t trust herself to speak, but nodded in affirmation, before tying her long brown hair up in a low ponytail, as she didn’t want it getting in the way. Alex worked quickly and quietly, cleaning the wounds and then directing Sabina on how to apply the gauze properly. Once she had done one, she was able to apply the rest without his help.

She didn’t know how long they sat working on the unconscious man, but eventually Alex sat up straight. The man’s chest was covered in strips of gauze; the largest of them with blood slowly seeping through, although it was much less than it had been before, and Sabina knew that the pressure from the bandages that they were about to tie around the man’s chest would help to staunch the blood flow even more.

She looked into Alex’s face when they were done and saw that he looked deathly pale. Obviously he had been in more shock than she had realised - he must have hidden it in his efforts to focus on, and help, the man in front of them. But then his eyes glazed over and unfocused before they closed, and he slumped to the floor.

“Alex! Alex!” Sabina was panicking. He didn’t respond to her shouts or when she shook his arm. Something was wrong. Wrenching his shirt open, she knew what she was about to see and gasped as she realised that her dread was a reality. She had assumed that the blood on his shirt had all belonged to the man he had been carrying. She had been wrong. Alex too was covered in fresh deep and serious looking wounds, which mingled with the patchwork of recently healed and old scars that his body had become. He had used the last of his strength to get the man to safety and patch him up and now he was in an extremely bad way.

If she hadn’t watched Alex tending to the man first, she would have had no idea what to do; the first aid training they had done at school had not covered this. But she forcefully shut down the voice that told her the situation was hopeless, grabbed a new bowl, filled it with fresh water and began to clean his wounds. Next she applied some ointment from a tube that Alex had used on the other man’s cuts, which she vaguely recognised as an antiseptic, and then quickly applied gauze before finishing with the bandages.

Once she was satisfied that she had done all that she could, the enormity of what had just happened hit her. She stood up, trembling, but panicking now would not help anyone. They needed help. Her hands were bloody from tending to Alex’s wounds, and she wiped them on her jogging bottoms - they were already bloody anyway so adding more wouldn’t do any harm - before grabbing her phone from the kitchen side and finding the name in her contacts list. Ben Daniels. Alex had given her the number ‘in case of emergencies’ and if this wasn’t an emergency, she didn’t know what was.

The line rang twice before a man answered.

“Hello?”

“Are you Ben Daniels?” She didn’t wait for an answer before she continued. “My name’s Sabina. Alex gave me your number in case of emergencies. I need your help.”

“What happened?” The man’s voice was suddenly serious.

“Alex showed up at my house with a man. He was injured. There was so much blood…”

“Focus,” the man interrupted. “What’s your address?”

She told him. “Alex cleaned and bandaged the man’s wounds and then he collapsed and he’s injured too and I tried to clean and bandage his wounds too and he said no ambulance or hospital but I don’t know what I’m doing and there was so much blood…”

“Sabina calm down, you’ve done everything you could. I’m on my way, with medical support. Do you recognise the man Alex brought with him?”

“I don’t know,” she said, realising that she had been so focused on the blood and the injuries that she hadn’t actually looked at the man’s face. She did so now. At first she couldn’t place the face, although she was very aware that she knew it. Then it hit her and she gasped.

“What is it?” Ben asked. “Are you okay?”

She didn’t respond for a moment, trying to process what she was seeing.

“It can’t be. He’s dead. He died in front of me. How is he here?” She was finding it difficult to breathe.

“Who is it Sabina? I need to know.” Ben’s voice didn’t sound desperate. It sounded solid. Dependable. And it grounded her enough to say “Yassen Gregorosomething,” in a strangled whisper.

“Yassen Gregorovich?” Ben asked.

“I think so.”

“Okay I’ll be with you soon Sabina. I need to call some people, but ring me immediately if anything changes. You’ve done amazingly.” There was a click as the man’s phone disconnected.

She stood for a moment, trembling. How could that man be here? He died on Air Force One. She had seen him die. And before that, he had nearly killed her father, had been involved in her kidnapping and had nearly cut one of her fingers off. But then she remembered that the whole reason that he had died was because he refused to kill her and Alex. Her head span as she tried to make sense of everything that had happened in the last however long it had been since Alex had first knocked on her door.

After a few moments, she looked back at the two figures lying prone on the floor. She couldn’t just stand there and wait for Ben Daniels to arrive. She had to do something to keep herself busy, so she began to clean, emptying the bloody water down the sink and washing up the bowls. Next, she used the remaining clean towels to wipe up the floor around the two unconscious bodies, and cleared the trail of blood leading from the front door and across the hall. Their chests were still moving up and down. That was good. They were still breathing at least.

Once she had cleaned the floor as best she could, she gathered up all of the bloody towels, ran the cold tap and left them in the sink to soak. That was one thing she did know - never use hot water to soak and clean blood stained items. The heat reacted with the proteins in the blood and only made it harder to get the stain out. She had just taken up a position on the floor watching the two of them when the doorbell rang. She jumped up quickly, ran across the hall and opened the front door.

“Are they here?” the man standing on the doorstep asked.

She nodded and opened the door to let him in - this must be Ben Daniels. “They’re in the kitchen,” she said. “Follow me.”

As she walked across the hallway, she began to feel uneasy. It struck her that the man hadn’t sounded like she’d expected him to, following their phone call. Admittedly, it could have just been their connection, but some instinct was screaming at her that something was wrong. But she couldn’t do anything about that now. She could see the two figures lying, still unconscious, on the kitchen floor and she knew that the man who was following her would be able to see them too. If she tried anything to take the man somewhere else or distract him, he would know that she suspected him. She didn’t want to think about what would happen then. Alex was still unconscious; he would have known how to handle this situation, but she was on her own and would just have to improvise.

So she did the only thing she could think of. She began to ramble, her voice trembling and hands shaking, about how Alex had just shown up and how there had been so much blood and how she felt like she must have done something wrong and they were probably dying and it was all her fault. If the man thought she was in shock, hysterical and not truly aware of her surroundings, he might pay her less attention, and focus on Alex and Yassen. That was what she wanted right now, and she didn’t really have to fake it either, although she did exaggerate for the man’s benefit.

She was right. He guided her to a chair at the kitchen table, muttered something about how he was sure she had done everything she could, and then focussed on the two bodies on the floor. Now she knew for certain. She hadn’t spoken with Ben Daniels for very long, but from that brief interaction, she knew that he would have said or done something instead of just ignoring the crying, hysterical teenager who thought she had possibly brought her boyfriend and best friend closer to dying. She also remembered that he had said that he was bringing other people, but this man was conspicuously alone.

Surreptitiously, she picked her phone up from the table, and clasped it in her hands, out of sight underneath the table’s surface. Thankfully the man had guided her to a seat where she would still be able to see the three of them, but her hands could be hidden under the table. Turning the volume down as far as it would go, she rang Ben Daniels again. When she saw that he had answered she began her charade with the intruder who was now inspecting both bodies carefully.

“Are they going to be okay?” she asked tearfully, not trying to hide her emotions.

“Their wounds won’t kill them. You did a good job of cleaning and bandaging them.”

She needed to keep the man talking. Ben would be able to hear that there was someone with her, and hopefully he wouldn’t be too far away; he would be prepared when he arrived at the house. And now that she was warning Ben Daniels, Sabina wanted to draw the man’s attention away from the two bodies on the floor, and decided she could use a glass of water anyway. She pocketed her phone, knowing that they would be able to trace her with it if anything went wrong, and walked unsteadily to one of the cupboards, grabbed a glass which she filled with water, downed it and then refilled it, before she turned back to the scene in front of her. The man had stopped examining Alex and Yassen and was now watching her. It was just what she wanted, but she now realised what a risk she was taking. She was in a room with an unknown person, possibly the one who had caused Alex and Yassen’s injuries in the first place and she had no idea how long Ben would be.

“Are you sure they’re going to be okay?” she asked, pleading with the man to tell her the truth.

“Their cuts must have looked bad, but you have cleaned them and bandaged them well.”

“But there was so much blood!”

“The human body can survive amazingly well, even with significant blood loss. And you are probably imagining that the amount they have lost is more than it actually is. We’re very good at overestimating how much blood has been lost, especially when it is spread out on the floor or on towels.”

Almost despite himself, the man had been drawn in. He stood up and moved a couple of steps towards her, away from Alex and Yassen. It was exactly what Sabina wanted. And then the patio door slid open.

“Put your hands up!” the new man ordered. From his voice, she instantly recognised that it was Ben Daniels. Relief washed through her but it was short lived. The first man, whom she had incorrectly assumed to be Ben Daniels, moved very quickly; he pulled a gun out of nowhere as he covered the ground between them shockingly fast and moved behind Sabina, then, in a motion that filled her with terror, he held the gun up to her temple. She understood. If he was here to finish the job that he had started, he wouldn’t be able to do it if Ben stayed and took him out. She was a civilian and by threatening her, and using her as a human shield, he was ensuring that Ben wouldn’t shoot and would probably do anything the man said in exchange for Sabina’s immediate release. Once she was safe, he would be able to deal with this man and tend to Alex and Yassen.

But there was one thing that neither of the two men knew. She had taken self-defence classes for years, her parents had insisted, and, after she had been kidnapped, Alex had arranged for her to have more specific training. She knew exactly what to do if someone was holding a gun to her head. She took a deep breath even as the man behind her ordered Ben to drop his gun. He didn’t move and the man pressed his gun harder into her temple. She blocked everything out, the pressure of the gun, the orders from both men, her terror that Alex was going to die... She acted, taking advantage of the man’s attention being focussed on Ben rather than her, and punched backwards with her elbow and then brought her fist swinging round.

She knew the theory - the elbow jab winded your assailant and the fist then moves the gun aside, giving you time to spin round and kick out with all your strength. This was the first time that she was using the technique outside of her classes and sure enough, as soon as she felt her elbow hit flesh, the man doubled over and she felt her right hand hit the gun and it fell away. Without thinking, she swung around and lashed out with perhaps the most powerful roundhouse kick that she had mustered in her life. The man crumpled and did not move. Although she was pretty sure the man was unconscious, she grabbed the frying pan from the hob, where she had left it after breakfast, and walloped him over the head. If he wasn’t unconscious before, he certainly was now.

Straightening up, she saw Ben stare at her for a moment before he jumped into action assessing Alex and Yassen. As he did, three more people rushed in, all with medical kits far larger and more advanced than the one they had in their cupboard.

“You’ve done so well, Sabina,” someone said. “We need you to tell us what you did.”

So Sabina sat on the floor beside her unconscious best friend, and began to explain again what Alex had done for Yassen and she copied on him when he passed out.

“Do you remember where the biggest wounds are?” one of them asked.

Slowly she pointed to the bandaged areas that hid the worst injuries on both Alex and Yassen. Two of the newcomers, who weren’t Ben Daniels, set to work on removing the bandages and gauze that concealed horrors that she would never be able to forget. She knew that it would get better, that soon enough she wouldn’t see blood every time she closed her eyes, but it would still be there, in the recesses of her mind, and she knew that it would be added to the nightmares. Their holiday home blown to pieces in France. Her dad on a ventilator after the explosion that nearly killed him. Being kidnapped and the entire time with Damian Cray in his mansion and on Air Force One. Alex nearly drowning after riding The Cribber. Being trapped in a car that was plummeting to the bottom of a frozen loch...

Before she knew what was happening, she was in tears and she wasn’t in the kitchen anymore. She was in the hallway with someone, she wasn’t sure who, but they just held her as she broke down. She was grateful for that. She didn’t want to talk right now. She wasn’t even sure if she’d be able to anyway. But soon her breakdown turned from crying into hyperventilating and the person pulled away, knowing that they needed to step in now.

Then she was sitting on the stairs breathing into a bag that seemed to have come out of nowhere and she was slowly calming down. She was aware that there was a person crouched in front of her, but could not take in who they were. After a few minutes, she was much calmer and more aware of her surroundings. Looking up, she was finally able to acknowledge the person in front of her - it was Ben Daniels.

She was grateful that he had brought her out of the kitchen, away from everyone, while she cried. But she was also embarrassed. She had just been having a breakdown in front of one of the hottest men that she had ever seen. She hadn’t noticed it in the kitchen when there was a gun against her head, but now that she was out of immediate danger it was clear to see! Trust Alex to give her his number for emergencies, but not mention how attractive the man was. If she hadn’t been with Alex, and if the circumstances were different, she definitely would have flirted with him

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked gently, seeing that she was calming down and moving to sit next to her on the stairs.

“I don’t know,” she replied truthfully. She didn’t know if she would be able to stop if she started but she also didn’t know where to start or if she even wanted to. She felt the warmth emanating from his body as they sat together on the stairs, and it helped her stay grounded to reality rather than thinking of… those things.

“That’s ok. We can sit here for a while and if you want to talk, you can and if not, we can just sit quietly.”

“Thank you,” she said softly. “Is Alex okay?” she asked, suddenly remembering what had happened earlier.

“He’ll be okay. The best medics I know are with him. And he’s far too stubborn to die from a stab wound. I’m sure you know he survived a bullet to the heart once. And I think the most important question is who taught you those karate moves? You did really well.”

Sabina knew he was deliberately changing the subject, but told him anyway. “Alex arranged it after …” she paused, not sure if she wanted to go on. “After… I was kidnapped... by Damien Cray and… and Yassen was there and why is he here now?”

“I don’t know the whole story, Sabina,” Ben said. “I know he didn’t die on Air Force One but I don’t know much of anything that’s been happening since then. There’s a lot that I don’t know because of clearance levels, so I’m very much in the dark too. I guess we’ll find out more when they regain consciousness.”

“They’re still unconscious? That can’t be a good sign?” she said dubiously.

“Do you want to go through and see them?”

She thought for a moment and then nodded. She didn’t really want to see Yassen but she needed to see Alex. Ben stood up, and then offered his hand to help her to her feet. She still felt shaky, so was glad of it. Taking a few deep breaths as he guided her towards the kitchen, she tried to prepare herself for the sight that would greet her as she walked in. As it turned out, what she saw was not as horrific as she expected it to be. Both Alex and Yassen had been covered in space blankets, they were being given blood (she could see the tubes that were leading from the bags to presumably veins in their arms under the blankets) and their feet were elevated on cushions. Neither of them was conscious yet. Sabina quickly looked around at the floor near the sink and saw that the other man was no longer there.

“Wolf has taken the man into custody. We’ll find out what he was planning.”

“You can sit with him and hold his hand if you like,” one of the medics said, gesturing at Alex. Numbly, Sabina did so, gently pulling his left hand out from underneath the space blanket and holding it in her own. There was blood under his nails and on his hand, so she got up again to get a new bowl of water, a cloth and a nail brush to clean them. It gave her something to do, anyway, as she couldn’t just sit and wait. She felt slightly self-conscious as she sat down again - the medics and Ben had watched her get the supplies - but then she decided that she didn’t care. Alex was her best friend, and she wasn’t going to just sit and do nothing, even if she couldn’t do much.

She worked slowly, gently removing the dried blood from underneath each fingernail in turn, and trying not to think about why Alex was taking so long to regain consciousness. Ben was having a whispered conversation with the medics over by the fridge, but she tried to ignore them too, instead focussing on the job she had given herself. It took all of her strength to stop her mind from wandering to the worst case scenario. She finished cleaning his nails and hands, and decided to carry on, getting a new bowl of water and a clean cloth, and washing the blood from his arms and face, his chest already having been washed as his wounds were cleaned. At some point, the other man - she vaguely remembered Ben telling her that he was called Wolf - came back, but Sabina didn’t pay him any attention either, focusing just on Alex. It was as she finished wiping the blood from his face that he began to stir.

“Oh, Alex!” she breathed, leaning down into a hug - she knew that you weren’t meant to move someone who had suffered from severe blood loss - and tried not to squeeze too tightly to avoid hurting him.

“Sab,” he murmured weakly in response. She felt him trying to move his arms to hug her back, but was impeded by the space blankets that he had been wrapped in.

“Glad to see you back with us,” Ben said. He was no longer standing by the fridge and was suddenly sitting on the floor next to her and Alex. Sabina hadn’t noticed him move to her side and watched as he ruffled Alex’s hair as he spoke.

“What happened, Ben?” he asked feebly, as one of the medics began to check his vitals.

“We were hoping you would be able to answer that,” Ben replied.

“Umm… the usual I guess - there were guns and knives and bad guys…” Alex said, with the briefest smile.

“Har har har,” Ben said without the faintest hint of laughter, but with a smile on his face. Sabina could tell that he was relieved that Alex had woken up, even if he didn’t say anything out loud.

“Please don’t ever change, Alex!” the medic who was examining him said. “Life would be so boring without your sass!”

“Snake!” Alex seemed overjoyed to see her.

“Oof that’s a definite sign of concussion there, right Eagle?” the man called Wolf joked. “The kid’s excited to see Snake.”

“Definitely,” the other medic - Eagle - agreed.

“Wolf! Eagle!” Alex seemed quite delirious with happiness at seeing the four presumably SAS soldiers.

“You gave us all quite a fright Alex. And on a more serious note, we do need to know what happened… and how you ended up here with Yassen Gregorovich.”

“Yassen?” Alex asked, puzzled.

“You brought him with you…” Ben said. “From what Sabina said, he was already unconscious. You cleaned his wounds and then collapsed yourself. She cleaned you up and then called me.”

“Sab!” he exclaimed, now looking up into her face, his brown eyes wide and, after fighting to extricate his hand from the blanket successfully this time, he reached up and gently stroked her cheek.

“Tell us what happened, Alex,” she encouraged, seeing that Ben’s words had already been forgotten.

Alex scrunched up his face, as though trying to remember. “I was in a warehouse,” he began, “I was looking for something… or someone?” he suggested weakly, but it was obvious that he wasn’t sure. It was as though the excitement of seeing the five of them had drained him.

“I was looking for some blueprints!” he recalled. “I don’t know what for though, I was just told to find the blueprints and leave.”

“But something went wrong?” Ben suggested.

“When doesn’t it?” Alex replied sourly.

“Did you have any backup?”

“What do you think?”

“Stupid question, I know. Okay, so did you find the blueprints?”

“I think so…” he paused and wiggled his left leg. “Well there’s something tucked into my sock, so I must have done.”

Ben quickly pulled the space blanket back, and rolled up his left trouser leg. Sabina saw Ben twist his leg and pull a bundle of blue papers, which must be the blueprints that Alex had been assigned to retrieve, from the back of his socks.

“I was on my way out when the alarm began to blare. But I was sure that it wasn’t because of me because I heard gunfire from a section of the warehouse behind me, away from the exit.”

“So you went to investigate?”

“Must have done. Don’t really remember though.” Alex scrunched his face up again in his effort to remember what happened next. “I found the source of the gun shots, and it was Yassen. He wasn’t shooting though. He was being fired at. But…” Alex cocked his head to one side as he tried to remember. “... He was tied up?” he said uncertainly.

“He was tied to like a dentist's chair and it looked like he was asleep. And they weren’t actually shooting at him just like around the room? But he was already bruised and bleeding from some deep knife wounds. Oh I remember. There was a table next to him and there were syringes and bottles of what must have been different drugs. He couldn’t have been answering their questions because he didn’t look in good shape. And then I think someone saw me? Yeah they dragged me forwards by my hair, which was just rude. And then one of the men said something about his ‘resistance’ and then Yassen was awake again? Or he just opened his eyes? Maybe? I don’t know. But either way, he looked furious.

“Oh and there was a picture of me on the table next to the syringes. One of the baddies was still holding me, and another one went to get someone or something, leaving just one other person in the room. So there were two of them and me and Yassen was still tied up. The other man in the room can’t have liked the expression on Yassen’s face or knew his reputation or whatever, and injected him with… something, and he went to sleep or back to sleep or whatever. Smithers had given me a gadget… what was it? Oh yeah it was the watch. It was a Taser and the face could be electrified which had the same effect as a Taser but worked better when someone was holding you from behind.

“So I knocked out the man who was holding me while the other one was drugging Yassen and by the time he turned around to me, I knocked him out too. And then I untied Yassen, but more people showed up. The guy who had run out of the room first was back with a chair and someone else. And they weren’t happy when they saw their two friends unconscious and me releasing Yassen. They didn’t have any guns, but they had knives and I had no other gadgets that would help. Yassen was no help, being asleep from whatever they drugged him with. So I fought the two guys - I don’t think any more joined the fight, but they managed to get me with their knives before I knocked them both out. But it wasn’t too bad and I used one of their shirts to bandage it temporarily. And then I just about managed to pick Yassen up and got out.”

“Do you remember where the warehouse was? Or how you ended up in Wimbledon?”

“Umm no..? I can’t remember anything after picking Yassen up… Oh wait no. I think I remember walking down a corridor. Yes! It was getting harder to carry Yassen. I don’t know how to describe it. Like, I felt like I was getting weaker and not just that I was tired from carrying Yassen. Oh I don’t know, Ben. I can’t remember.”

“Okay Alex. Just rest now,” he said, ruffling Alex’s hair once more.

Ben stood up, and went back over to the two soldiers who were all once again stood by the fridge. Snake stayed with Sabina, checking Alex’s vitals first, and then Yassen’s. Sabina couldn’t hear any of the murmured conversation from the other side of the kitchen, but Ben quickly left the room, pulling his phone out of his pocket as he went. Less than a minute later he was back, his face pale. He beckoned Snake and Sabina over to the fridge.

“I just called Mrs Jones. She said that Alex went into the warehouse a week ago and hasn’t been heard from since. They sent a team in and there was no one there, but they did find that room that Alex talked about. The one where Yassen must have been tied up. They had scrubbed the place until it was spotless, but they left the bottles of drugs and the picture of Alex, as though they were taunting the team that went to rescue him.”

“So he’s been missing for a week and no one told me?” Sabina hissed. She was angry. She knew she didn’t really have any right to be - it wasn’t like she was his next of kin or anything - but it still hurt to feel forgotten.

“Apparently,” Ben grunted and Sabina was surprised to see some of her own anger reflected in the man’s face. “So he’s been missing for a week, in some unknown location, but he has no idea that so much time has passed. We can’t trust his version of events, Mrs Jones and I both agree on that.”

“What are you saying?” Sabina was confused.

“He’s saying that we can’t trust that Alex hasn’t been compromised,” Wolf said matter of factly.

“Compromised?!”

“Sabina,” Ben said more gently. It occurred to Sabina that Wolf was angry too. She looked around at the faces of the other soldiers and saw that they all were. “Alex has been missing for a week, and now he’s turned up without any memory of the last week. Anything could have happened to him to make him lose his memory. As much as I hate it, we have to suspect that that isn’t the Alex we know, at least until we know otherwise.”

“So what do we do?”

“Right now, we pretend nothing’s wrong. But we need to get both of them to a secure location so that we can work out what’s going on. Go back and sit with him, Sabina. Your presence might help him.” He must have sensed her hesitation because he added “we won’t let anything happen to you. You’ll be completely safe. And from what I saw earlier, you’d be fine by yourself anyway.”

“Okay,” she whispered, taking a few deep breaths before turning back around, walking back to Alex and sitting at his head, and absent mindedly stroking his hair. He had fallen back into unconsciousness, so that was a small mercy. She had some time to work out how she was going to be normal when he woke up.

The four soldiers had joined her around the two unconscious bodies on the floor - they certainly weren’t taking any chances. A thought struck her, and she looked up. “If you’re really worried that he’s not on our side, why can’t you use drugs?” She kept the question as ambiguous as she could, hoping that if Alex was faking unconsciousness, he would think she was referring to Yassen, rather than himself.

“We don’t know if there are any drugs in his system,” Snake replied. “If there are, we could cause a reaction which would be a problem. We could do it, but it would be a last resort if we have no other alternative. I’ve taken a blood sample and put it into a field test kit, so we should have the results of that in the next half an hour or so and then we’ll be able to decide on a plan from there.”

Sabina nodded, understanding their reasoning. She wouldn’t have wanted them to do anything that could hurt Alex any more than he was already. He looked so peaceful as he lay there, more peaceful in fact than she had ever seen him when he was awake. Even when they were just laughing and joking around, he was always slightly on edge, ready to react at the smallest sign of danger. It was only when he was asleep that he could sometimes experience true peace, when he wasn’t tormented by nightmares. Even as she watched him sleep now (could you even call it sleep if the person was unconscious?), she knew that she would do everything she could to get Alex back.

While they were waiting for Alex and Yassen to regain consciousness, the other three soldiers introduced themselves properly, although they still only used their field names. Snake was the main medic of the group, and had stitched up both Alex and Yassen’s worst wounds. In situations like this, Eagle was their secondary medic. She didn’t say what her role was when they were on more active duty in the field. Wolf was the leader. At a guess of at least 6 feet tall, he could have been very intimidating, but Sabina didn’t feel afraid of him. He was being as non-threatening as his height and stature allowed, and as much as they had joked when Alex had woken up briefly earlier, she got a sense that he was deeply concerned about Alex. They all were.

Wolf explained that they were an SAS team, K Unit, and they had worked with Alex several times after training with him in the Brecon Beacons. They provided back up when it was required, and all genuinely liked and cared about him, and looked out for him as best they could when they were in the field. Sabina could tell that they were furious that they hadn’t been called as backup when he went to the warehouse, although none of them said as much.

“You know his blood type?” she asked Snake a little while later, pointing at the blood bag.

“It’s actually his blood. We’ve got several pints in storage for situations like this.” Sabina wasn’t really surprised to hear that, although she felt like she should have been. Their conversation had faded away, and they were all sat in a companionable but worried silence when, for the second time that day, someone began pounding on the front door.

The soldiers all jumped to their feet, their weapons, which seemed to Sabina to have appeared from nowhere, were suddenly raised. And then realisation hit her.

“It’s probably Tom,” she whispered.

“We can’t take any chances,” Ben said. “Wolf, Eagle, watch the back door. Snake, Sabina, you’re with me.” The four soldiers were deadly serious as they sprung into position. Ben led the way down the hallway, with Snake following behind Sabina, and they were nearly at the front door when her phone began to ring.

“It’s Tom,” she said, after quickly looking at the screen.

“Answer it,” Ben said, signalling to her and Snake to pause on their journey down the hall. She answered and put the phone on speaker so that the two soldiers would be able to hear.

“Tom?”

“Sabina! Are you okay? There’s blood all over your doorstep and you aren’t answering the door!”

At his words, Ben quickly crossed the remaining few steps between them and the door and opened it quickly. Tom, who had nearly been leaning on the door as he knocked, was taken by surprise and would have fallen as the door opened if Ben hadn't pulled him through and quickly shut it again.

“Sab?” Tom asked uncertainty, and for the first time it occurred to Sabina how much of a mess she must look. He looked around the hallway and saw the two SAS soldiers. “Ben. Eagle”.

“Oh Tom!” she exclaimed and pulled him into a hug.

“What’s going on, Sab?” he asked in the softest whisper that she had ever heard him use. Subtlety was not usually Tom’s strong point; he was like a whirlwind, bringing noise and chaos with him wherever he went.

“It’s a long story,” Sabina replied. She didn't know if she had the strength to explain to Tom what had happened that morning - it had been bad enough recounting the events to the four soldiers.

“And how do you know each other?”

“We met the last time Alex was hurt,” Tom explained. “It was when you were on holiday a few weeks ago,” he added.

In the end, Ben explained the day’s events to Tom, whose eyes opened wider and jaw dropped lower with each passing second. For a few seconds after Ben had stopped talking, Tom said nothing. He just stood there looking from Ben to Sabina and back again.

“Is Alex okay?” were the first words he was able to say out loud.

“Physically? Yes. He’s got some bad injuries, but he’s been stitched up and he’ll recover just fine. Mentally? We hope so. As I said, there’s the possibility that his missing time is an indicator of something more sinister, but we’ll get to the bottom of it. If something has happened, we will do everything we can to reverse it and bring Alex back.”

Tom nodded but said nothing in response.

“Come on, I’ll take you through,” Ben said, leading the way into the kitchen.

Snake was removing the tube that ran from the now empty blood bag to the vein in Alex’s arm as they came into the room. It was as she was putting the empty bag and tube into the small hazardous waste box in her first aid bag that Alex began to stir again.

“Good to see you back, Cub,” Wolf said when he saw Alex open his eyes.

“Yeah good to see you too,” he responded weakly, and didn’t complain as Snake began to check him over again, asking him questions about his pain levels, checking for a concussion or other head trauma and generally making sure there was nothing they had missed before.

“Alright Cub, you’ve responded to the transfusion well, and your vitals are stable,” she concluded. “I’ve left the cannula in, just in case, and you’ll need to move gently - you’ve got yet another round of stitches in your chest and stomach - but you’ll be just fine,” Snake said after checking him over.

“Thanks,” he said, before gently sitting up, with their help, and looking around the room. “Tom! When did you get here?”

“A few minutes ago. You look awful mate!”

“Rude,” he replied. “Honestly,” -he said, glancing around to the room- “you see what I have to put up with?”

“You get no sympathy from us, Alex,” Wolf said grinning. “You do it to us all the time.”

After a minute or two, Tom and Sabina helped him to his feet, at his request, and supported him as he made ginger steps around the kitchen. After one and a half laps, he seemed a lot steadier on his feet, and stopped at the sink.

“Could you grab me a glass, Sab?”

“Of course!”

“Anyone up for a game of cards while we wait for Yassen to wake up?”

There were general sounds of agreement from everyone present, and Tom headed off to get a couple of decks, while Sabina handed Alex a glass. He filled it with water and took a few sips before putting it down on the counter. At that exact moment, a phone began to ring. She looked at the four soldiers, who were all looking around for the source of the noise.

She saw that something was wrong in Ben’s face first, but almost instantaneously, she felt Alex spring into action beside her. But he wasn’t moving into a defensive position. He had grabbed a knife from the draining board, and was now holding it against her throat. Her heart was hammering in her chest. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck and his hand steadily holding the knife, and it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. It was such a contrast to how he usually was; even when she had been with him when he was ‘actively being a spy’ like in Damien Cray’s mansion, he had never terrified her before. The phone was still ringing, and he pulled it out of his pocket, declined the call and then pinned Sabina’s arms to her sides, the knife still against her throat.

“Alex, what are you doing? Put the knife down.” Ben’s voice was low and steady, trying not to alarm or provoke the teenager into action.

“I’m getting answers. Who are you and why are you wearing their faces?” Alex growled.

That threw everyone in the room, and there was a silence, broken only by heavy breathing.

“It was very arrogant of you to come here pretending to be her,” he snarled, taking advantage of the silence. “And you three,” he said, his voice now full of contempt for the SAS soldiers sat at the table and kneeling on the floor, “I don’t know why you thought that would trick me! Did you think you could intimidate me into talking?” Sabina felt his head move as his eyes shifted to focus on Ben. “And you. Maybe you thought you could take advantage of the relationship Ben and I used to have? Use the brotherly concern Ben had for me and twist it into getting your own way?”

At that exact moment, Tom walked back into the room with the playing cards. He dropped them in shock at the sight which met his eyes. Alex, holding Sabina with a knife against her throat over by the sink, Ben standing in the middle of the room with his hands raised in a gesture of surrender, Snake kneeling beside Yassen on the kitchen floor and Wolf and Eagle sitting motionless at the table, trying to look as non-threatening as they could. Alex let out a groan that was almost inhuman, and Tom immediately copied Ben’s ‘hands up’ position.

“You,” he said with such hostility that Tom felt his whole body shiver in fright, “sit at the table. Do not say anything. I’ll deal with you later.” Tom did as he was told, backing slowly towards the table without saying a word, and sat down next to Wolf.

“Alex…” Ben began, but Alex cut him off before he could say any more.

“How did you get their faces, huh? Are you all wearing masks like Kaspar? Or did you have surgery like all of Grief's clones?” Alex growled, more aggressively and holding the knife even closer to her throat. It wasn’t close enough to draw blood, but she could feel the anger and power emanating off of Alex. He was very close to snapping and acting and the thought absolutely terrified her.

“I don’t understand, Alex,” Ben said gently. “Whose faces? None of us are wearing masks and we haven’t had surgery. If you let her go, you can have a look and see for yourself.”

“Don’t play dumb with me!” Alex snarled, holding Sabina tighter than ever, causing her to whimper in fright. “I know you’re lying. You’re wearing the faces of some of the people that I cared for most in the world. People who are dead. I’m surprised you chose to come as the SAS jerks who bullied a fourteen year old and that none of you came as Jack. I know you’re trying to trick me into talking but it will never work. They’re all dead. I know they’re all dead because I watched every single one of them die. I see it in my mind every single day. You’re lucky that I need information from you. Otherwise you would all be dead right now. Do you really think I would let go of my one bargaining chip to get out of here alive with the information I need? You must be such a fool.”

Sabina’s eyes filled with tears. What had they done to him? She had never heard him speak with such fury in his voice, and why did he think that they were all dead? Would he really follow through on his threat to kill them all?

“Alex…” she began tentatively, but stopped quickly when he squeezed even tighter and moved the knife to within millimetres of her throat; she could actually feel the coolness of the blade against her skin and she could barely breathe with how tightly he was holding her. As he had her arms pinned to her sides, she wouldn’t be able to use the same move that she had used earlier to knock out the previous man who held her hostage. Not that she would have wanted to use that move against Alex, especially as he was being held together by stitches.

“No!” He almost screamed the words. “You do not speak. You’re the worst of all. You’ve stolen the face of the girl I loved. She was one of my best friends, and she died alone at the bottom of a frozen loch because I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t save any of them. Sabina, Jack, Tom, Ben, any of them. It’s all my fault that they’re gone but I won’t let you destroy their memory like this! ...I couldn’t save any of them!” he repeated, mumbling more to himself than saying it to the room at large.

“Alex, I promise you,” Ben began, taking a step closer to the two of them. “That really is Sabina. She didn’t die in that car. She’s alive and well and safe because of you.”

“Don’t come any closer!” Alex yelled. Ben stopped moving and kept his hands palm up to show that he was unarmed and meant no harm. “And stop lying to me. You’re trying to distract me so that you can get the better of me and overpower me, but it won’t work.”

“We don’t want any information from you. Just let her go,” Ben implored. Sabina noticed that he didn’t use her name and guessed it was to avoid provoking Alex any further.

“What and lose my one advantage against you? I don’t think so. It was six against one. Now it’s slightly more even - I doubt you want to risk the life of one of your agents. None of your tricks will make me let her go! Now, you’re going to answer my questions. Who are you working for? Who wants the blueprints and information?”

“The four of us-” Ben said, gesturing to himself and the SAS soldiers at the far end of the room “-are currently working for MI6. But they-” he said, now pointing to Sabina and Tom “- aren’t working for anyone, Alex. We don’t want any information from you, and we don’t want to hurt you. We just want everyone to leave here unharmed.”

Alex didn’t believe him and Ben must have seen that in his eyes.

“Look Alex, none of us are pointing our guns at you, but we’ll all put them on the table and you can probably tell that she isn’t armed anyway. Once we’ve done that, could you put the knife down? We just want to talk and we don’t want anyone to get hurt.” Ben was repeating the fact that they didn’t want anyone to get hurt, presumably trying to get it to seep into Alex’s subconsciousness and stop him from acting.

Alex said nothing, but prompted by Ben’s speech, the soldiers all began to disarm themselves, putting their guns and knives onto the table.

“Put them in a box.” Alex ordered.

Ben looked at Sabina - he didn’t know where anything was in the house, and needed her guidance, but he didn’t want to provoke Alex into action.

“The five of us-” he said, again pointing to the other soldiers and Tom, “-don’t know where any boxes are, but she does. She’s going to have to let us know where they are so that I can go and get one.”

Alex nodded, and Sabina felt the knife move away from her throat slightly, but his grip on her was as tight as ever.

“The Tupperware is in that cupboard,” she said shakily, nodding to it. “The one underneath the oven.”

Ben nodded, and slowly made his way towards it. Sabina could feel Alex tense as though he was expecting a trap. Thankfully, the cupboard opened so that he could see the inside of the door and into the cupboard when it was opened. As she had said, it was filled with Tupperware and old ice cream tubs. Ben picked up a few of the largest ones and moved back to the table, and slowly began to move the first gun.

“Take the clips out first,” Alex ordered. Ben complied, methodically removing each clip, and placing them into the tubs. Alex hadn’t told him to, but he split the clips into one of the tubs and the guns into another, showing that he really meant what he said. The knives all went into a third tub.

“Okay Alex, that’s everything. Please can you put the knife down?”

“Bring the tubs over here, one at a time.”

Ben looked around uncertainly. He didn’t want to leave them completely disarmed while Sabina was still in danger, but she nodded at him to let him know that it was okay. So, still moving slowly, Ben brought the first box over to the counter where Alex and Sabina were stood.

“That’s close enough,” he said when Ben was a few paces away. “Just put them all there.”

“Okay Alex, that’s all of the boxes of weapons out of our reach,” Ben said after he had moved all of the boxes. “Please can you put the knife down now?” Alex was still seething with rage, but he did put down the knife. It clattered onto the counter, and Sabina almost felt as well as heard the soldiers breathe a collective sigh of relief. She knew that Alex would still be able to kill her without the knife, but at least it felt like the immediate danger was gone.

“Thank you. Now, what do you want to know?”

“How did you know about the blueprints?”

“I don’t know much of the story, but I’ll tell you what I know. We had intelligence. An agent was briefed and sent in to extract them. That’s all I know. I don’t know where the intelligence came from or what it was specifically. I don’t even know what the blueprints are for.”

“Who was the agent?”

Ben paused. “I don’t know.”

“You’re lying,” Alex snarled, his hand reaching back for the knife.

“I only know a code name!” Ben blurted out. “The agent’s code name is ‘Buck.’”

Sabina was relieved to feel that Alex had stopped reaching towards the knife. “Where are the blueprints?”

“I don’t know,” Ben said. “We haven’t heard from our agent in a week. We don’t know where he is or where the blueprints are.”

That seemed to confuse Alex. “No, the agent is here. I was told that the agent was here.”

Before he could go on, another phone began to ring.

“That’s my phone,” Ben said. “If I don’t answer it, a strike team will be sent to this address, and we’ll end up with a lot more mess than we need too. I have to say a code so that they know it’s me, but I’ll put it on speaker so that you can hear.”

Sabina felt Alex nod in reply, but also felt the cool metal of the knife back against her neck.

“One word about what is currently going on, and she dies,” he threatened, and Sabina knew that he meant it. Her breath caught in her throat - she knew that Alex was showing Ben that any attempt to trick him would be rewarded with her death.

“This is Daniels. Code: Foxtrot Oscar X-Ray One Nine Three Five.”

“What's your status?” a woman’s voice asked, coming out of the phone’s speakers.

“Everyone is fine at the moment, Mrs Jones. There has been no change since we last spoke.”

“Okay, Daniels. Keep me updated.”

Ben hung up the call, and put his phone back in his trouser pocket. Sabina had felt Alex tense even more during Ben’s conversation. She wasn’t sure what had upset him, but could feel his anger crashing into her in waves.

“Of course you’re working for Mrs Jones,” he spat out. “She’s obviously behind this. How else would you know whose faces to wear? I’m still surprised she sent them here as them instead of Jack,” he said, nodding at the other members of K Unit again. “Maybe she thought a mix of people I genuinely cared about and people who once intimidated me would work.

“Did you know that Jack was killed by Razim in Egypt. He was studying pain and blew up the car she was in just to hurt me. Tom was killed because we just happened to be walking together, so he was kidnapped with me and used to torture me. I didn’t have the information they wanted but they tortured and killed him in front of me anyway. Ben died when we were on a mission together. Don’t you see? I have lost everyone important to me because of her. If she wasn’t in my life, I wouldn’t have been forced to be a spy for her at fourteen years old! I would have had a childhood. A proper childhood. Safe and happy. But no, she killed my parents, and forced me to be a spy when she killed my uncle too!” He was almost screaming the words by the end, and Sabina could feel hot tears falling onto her shoulder.

“Alex,” Ben’s voice was level, but before he could go on, Yassen stirred and sat up suddenly.

Snake, who was kneeling on the floor beside Yassen, sprang into action telling that he needed to lie back down and be careful of his stitches, causing Alex to startle and squeeze Sabina even tighter. She was terrified that he would hurt her without meaning to and made a snap decision.

“It’s okay, Alex,” she breathed, so softly that her voice wouldn’t travel very far across the room. She could see that Ben had heard her, but everyone else was either focussing on Yassen, or couldn’t hear her over the commotion. He held on even tighter - tears were streaming down her face and she was finding it hard to breathe, but needed to say the words.

“This isn’t your fault. I don’t blame you, whatever happens. I could never blame you for anything. I love you and I will always love you.”

“I told you not to speak. Don’t. Just don’t do that.” Alex’s voice seemed more numb than angry as he hissed the words into her ear, but it still had an edge that Sabina had never heard before and did not like. He didn’t loosen his grip at all, but she could tell that he was conflicted. It was probably one of the most dangerous things she could have done, but she needed him to know that she didn’t blame him. If anything happened to her because of him, he would never forgive himself, but at least her last words might provide him with some comfort.

Everything changed very quickly. Snake was still taking Yassen’s vitals but was suddenly pinned to the floor. Yassen had moved incredibly quickly and must have been extremely strong to knock the medic off balance from his position lying flat on the floor, but now he was crouching, his arm against Snake’s throat. He looked around surveying the scene. Alex holding Sabina at knife point. Ben in the middle of the room with his arms still up in a gesture of surrender. Wolf, Eagle and Tom sat at the table at the far side of the room and Snake pinned beneath his arm.

“Alex. Daniels. Miss Pleasure.” he said, slowly acknowledging the three people in front of him, and showing no emotion on his face. Sabina shuddered at hearing his voice again. Just seeing him unconscious had been bad enough, but now her legs felt like they were going to give way and the tears were prickling in her eyes again. Yassen looked around the room, taking in the sight of the other members of K Unit and Tom.

“Don’t kid yourself. It’s not really them,” Alex snarled. “Mrs Jones has got them wearing their faces. She thought that I would be tricked by it, or intimidated by it and that I would give them information, but I saw through that quickly enough.”

“I see,” he said, now standing up. “You have done well, Alex. Overpowering them by yourself and getting the advantage against them. But you are not alone now.” He stepped forwards as he spoke, and was now right in front of Alex and Sabina and whispered softly in his ear. “Now we can work together to find out what they know, and plan our escape.”

What was going on? Did they both really think that they were imposters, all part of an elaborate trick to get some information? And then an even worse thought entered unbidden into her mind. What were they going to do to them? Were they going to hurt them? Kill them? She tried to put the thoughts out of her mind, but it was very hard given that she was currently being held at knifepoint by her spy boyfriend and best friend who no longer seemed to be himself and was also in the presence of a known assassin who had previously shown no qualms about hurting her.

Turning to Sabina, Yassen asked “I presume you know where things are in this house?” at a normal volume now. She nodded slightly. “Are there any zip ties or rope?” Sabina felt her face pale more than it was already. That could not be a good sign. “Put the knife down, Alex, let her speak.” She breathed a shaky sigh of relief as Alex did what he was told, but she couldn’t relax with Alex still holding her and Yassen standing intimidatingly in front of her.

“Umm…” she began shakily. “There might be something in the utility room. I’m not sure…”

“Okay. Alex, I will take the girl and we will look for something to tie them up.” Then continuing in a whisper that wouldn’t carry across the room, “then we can discuss what our next move will be and how we get out of here.” She felt Alex releasing his grip on her, it being replaced with Yassen’s vice-like grip, and her stomach dropped like a stone as she was filled with dread. It was all she could do to stop her knees from buckling beneath her. Pulling her forward, Yassen turned to face Tom and the soldiers. “Pull out chairs from the table and sit down. Do not speak and do not move once you are seated.”

No one said anything, but Ben moved towards the table and began to pull out a chair. Yassen dragged her forwards. Her legs felt like jelly and it took all of her strength to remain upright as she was propelled forwards, unable to even think about resisting. He would overpower her easily enough, she knew that from experience. In the hall, he asked for directions to the utility room, which she gave numbly. He pulled her into the room, and closed the door behind them, and then found a plank of wood and jammed it under the door handle. That did not seem like a good sign, but bizarrely, Sabina found that she was now in too much shock about everything that was happening to pay that much attention to the assassin.

The utility room was a cross between a laundry room and a workstation. There were tools on shelves lining one wall and the other had the washing machine and tumble dryer under a countertop where they folded the clothes as they came out of the dryer. She had locked her knees, forcing her legs to keep her standing, but did not protest as he pulled her forwards and put her on the countertop above the tumble dryer. Whatever was going to happen next, at least she was sat down now.

“Miss Pleasure, please can you fill me in with the events from today?” To say that she was shocked by his question would have been an understatement. This hadn’t been what she expected, and he had called her by her name! And the politeness of the question confused her. “Quickly. We don’t have a lot of time. We need to find out what’s happened to Alex and why he thinks you're dead.” Turning his back on her, he began to search the shelves, presumably looking for something that could be used to tie them up.

“Wait, you don’t believe him?”

“No,” he said simply, without glancing back at her. “If you could fill me in, please?”

“Alex just showed up with you. You were unconscious and injured. He cleaned your wounds and I bandaged them and then as soon as that was done, he collapsed. He was injured too, but he hadn’t said anything. So I cleaned and patched up his wounds as best I could and then I called Ben Daniels. Alex had given me his number for emergencies.” She knew that she was rambling but carried on anyway, unable to stop herself. “But then before Ben got here, someone else showed up and like an idiot I let them in thinking it was Ben, but something told me it wasn’t him so I rang Ben again but hid my phone and I just started having a conversation with this man so that Ben would know there was someone else here. And then when he showed up, the first man held me at gunpoint, but he was more focussed on Ben than me so I managed to knock him out.” Yassen turned around and seemed to appraise her ability to knock out a man who was holding her at gunpoint, before turning back to his search of the shelves.

“And then the other three came in and started to check you and Alex over - you were both still unconscious and laying on the floor. And then I started spiralling, thinking about all of the other nightmarish things that have happened to me-” she looked up and glowered at Yassen as she spoke, but he still had his back towards her. “-and Ben took me outside to calm down. And then we went back into the kitchen and Alex woke up after a while and Ben asked him some questions about what he had been doing and said that he’d got some blueprints and then he went and called Mrs Jones who said that Alex went to get the blueprints a week ago and they hadn’t heard from him since and then Tom showed up and then Alex woke up again and we were talking and then a phone went off and then it was like a switch flicked in his head because then he got the knife and started going on about how we were all imposters just pretending to be his friends… he thought I drowned in a car crash that we were in in Scotland...” her voice trailed off as her train of thought came to an end.

“Okay. Did he say anything else after he changed? Did he ask any questions?” He had found some zip ties and had now turned back around to face her.

“He mostly went on about how we wouldn’t be able to trick him, but I think he asked about the blueprints. I think he thought we were taking them back and he wanted to know where the information had come from and about the agent who had been sent to get them.”

“Thank you,” he said. And then before he could go on, Sabina blurted out a question that had been eating away at her ever since Alex had first grabbed her.

“What have they done to him? Will he be okay?”

“I will do everything in my power to get him back, as I know Ben Daniels and K Unit in there will too.”

It wasn’t a proper answer, but she knew that it was all she was going to get. At least she thought he was telling her the truth.

“When we go back outside, you’re going to have to act and pretend that I am completely on Alex’s side. I’m going to guide you to a chair and you’ll have to be cuffed, as will the others. It’s the only way that Alex might let his guard down enough to let me in. This is going to sound peculiar, but can you give me directions on how to get to your bedroom? I’ll take Alex up to see if seeing a room that is clearly being lived in breaks him out of it,” he explained after seeing the clearly puzzled expression on her face. She told him. He nodded briefly, and then helped Sabina down from the countertop and walked her over to the door, but pausing before he removed the plank of wood. “In case we don’t get a chance to talk later, I’m sorry for everything that happened with Damien Cray.”

With his shocking apology still hanging in the air, he swiftly removed the plank of wood, opened the door and then pulled her back towards the kitchen. She was too stunned by his apology to do anything but allow herself to be pulled forwards back into the kitchen.

Ben, the other soldiers and Tom were all sitting quietly on chairs and Alex was still over by the kitchen sink, glaring at them, but silent. Yassen guided her to the empty chair that someone had pulled out for her and she sat down. She was positioned between Ben and Snake, with Eagle next, then Tom and Wolf at the far end, by the patio door. And then Yassen began methodically to zip tie each of their wrists to the arms of the chairs in turn, starting with Ben, then Sabina and moving down the line. When they were all securely tied to the chairs, Yassen turned to Alex.

“Come with me. We need to talk, out of their earshot.”

Alex looked uncertain, but wordlessly followed Yassen out of the kitchen. When they were gone, Ben turned to face her.

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly, his voice full of concern.

“Yeah,” she whispered.

“Did he say anything?”

“He asked me what happened. He doesn’t actually believe that we’re dead and that we’re people acting as imposters. And then he said that he would try his best to get Alex back,” she said, holding back tears. “What do we do now?” she whispered.

“Now, we leave,” Ben said standing up. “Yassen whispered ‘five minutes’ as he tied me up, so I guess that’s how long we’ve got until they’ll be back. Sabina was too surprised to see him out of the zip ties to say anything.

He grabbed a couple of knives, freed Wolf and gave him a knife to cut the others free, and then came to cut hers. Eagle grabbed the boxes of weapons, and quickly reassembled their guns, handing them out to each of the soldiers in turn. Once they were all untied and K Unit were armed once more, Ben moved to the patio door and slowly slid it open.

“Wolf, you’re with me. Snake, Eagle, get them to safety,” Ben said as he threw a set of car keys, which Snake caught.

“What?” Sabina and Tom asked at the same time. They were confused.

“We don’t have time to argue. You need to go, now.”

They weren’t given a choice, but were pulled out through the patio doors, Snake in front, Sabina then Tom and then Eagle bringing up the rear. They both had their guns raised, ready to fire if necessary. There was no one around as they made their way down the street and stopped beside a grey car. Snake unlocked it and jumped in the driver's seat, while Eagle pushed her and Tom into the back and then got in the front passenger seat.

As the car quietly moved away, Sabina looked out of the back window, feeling incredibly guilty for leaving Alex when he needed her so badly.

“You will be able to help him. But in a place where he can’t hurt either of you,” Eagle reassured them.

Back inside the house, Ben and Wolf had armed themselves with their guns and knives and a couple of syringes of anaesthetic. They didn’t want to knock him out with a blow to the head and risk causing a traumatic brain injury, and anaesthesia would be safer. Snake’s field test has shown that there were no drugs in his system, so they wouldn’t risk a dangerous reaction by mixing anything.

About three minutes had passed since Yassen had led Alex out of the room, so they had just under two minutes to plan their move. Ben stood behind the door, ready to grab Alex as he came in and Wolf was positioned behind the kitchen island, so that he could jump out and administer the initial injection of Sodium Pentothal which would render him unconscious in about thirty seconds. Ben had counted a total of 270 seconds when he heard footsteps on the stairs. He guessed that Yassen was stepping deliberately heavy-footedly to warn them of their approach. Both he and Alex could have moved through the house silently if they wished to.

286... 287... 288, the kitchen door opened and Alex stepped in and let out a torrent of swear words at the sight of the empty chairs. At the same moment, Ben stepped forward from his hiding place, successfully pinning Alex’s arms behind his back and preventing him from moving anywhere. Simultaneously, Wolf appeared from behind the island with his syringe raised. Alex started thrashing about, trying to wriggle free from Ben’s grip but it was no use. Alex might have a black belt in karate, but he was still a teenager and Ben was a lot stronger than he was. The needle went into the cannula which was still in his vein, and although Alex continued to struggle furiously, he was no match for the SAS men. His legs buckled, and he would have collapsed to the floor if Ben hadn’t caught him. Whilst Wolf rummaged around in the first aid kit, he asked “where did ‘Buck’ come from?”

“It’s ‘Cub’ backwards,” Ben explained, still holding Alex just in case he was faking unconsciousness, although he didn’t think he was. Wolf found the small bottle of Midazolam, and drew up a small dose; they didn’t want Alex to be unconscious for six hours, but needed to keep him under whilst they took him to Liverpool Street.

Looking around the kitchen door, Ben saw Yassen appear from out of what he supposed was the utility room, “I said I was getting some duct tape,” he said, now coming into the kitchen. “I thought it would be better if he still believed me to be on his side.”

Ben nodded his approval.

“Seeing Sabina’s room didn’t help then?”

“It started to. It’s like his brain has been programmed to reprogram itself. As though whenever a new memory or suspicion creeps into his mind, his brain attacks itself to eliminate it, and bring him back to thinking that he’s alone.”

“They managed that in a week?” Ben asked incredulously.

“It’s very impressive,” Yassen admitted.

“You do realise that you’re going to have to come with us and tell us your version of events too?”

“Yes. But I’m only doing it for him.”

“We’re all doing this for him…” Ben said, running his fingers through Alex’s hair and moving it away from his face. “We best get going,” he said, standing up. “And we’d better cuff him to be safe,” he added, looking disgusted with himself for even suggesting it.

“You’re right. He will not be amused when he wakes up, and although it shouldn’t be before we get him back to base, we can’t know for sure.” Wolf said. “I’ll go and get my car and park it on the drive.” Ben agreed that it was a good call - they didn’t want the police to be alerted to a suspected kidnapping, and carrying a clearly unconscious and tied up teenager down the street would certainly ring alarm bells for anyone who saw them. They would be able to explain it, but it would cost them valuable time that they did not have.

Yassen grabbed the zip ties and expertly tied Alex’s wrists and forearms - “it’ll stop him from being able to contort his arms and get his wrists and hands free” - and then his legs in three different places - ankles, knees and thighs.

Before they left, Ben and Yassen tidied away the last remaining bits of evidence of their being in the house. They put all of the bloody towels and rags that had been soaking in the sink into the washing machine and set it, rearranged the chairs around the table, quickly mopped the floor and put the remaining zip ties back into the utility room. It was all very domestic. They worked quickly, and were done by the time Wolf reappeared in the kitchen.

“Let’s go,” Ben said, before bending down and gently picking Alex up. He looked so peaceful as he lay there in his arms. Wolf grabbed their first aid kits, and the three of them left. They reached the front door, which Wolf had left open, and Ben could see the Oyster Grey Vauxhall Astra Sports Tourer, which was standard issue for MI6 agents as their company car, parked on the drive. Wolf opened the back door.

“There’s a hidden compartment,” Ben said to Yassen. “I’m not putting Alex in because we need to watch his vitals, but if he does wake up sooner than we anticipate, he can’t see you.” Ben knew it was a great show of faith on Yassen’s part that he climbed into the compartment under the back seats without complaint. “We’ll let you out when we get there.”

Yassen nodded and Wolf brought the seats down. Ben gently placed Alex in the seat behind the front passenger seat, strapped him in and then climbed in behind Wolf. Even with the zip ties, they couldn’t risk Alex waking up and doing something to sabotage Wolf whilst he was driving. Once they were both strapped in too, Wolf set off towards Liverpool Street.

It took a lot longer than Ben would have liked to arrive at the MI6 headquarters, but they were there within an hour. He called Mrs Jones on the journey and updated her with the situation. Alex hadn’t had any negative effects from the injection of anaesthetic, and was still dead to the world as they pulled into the underground car park.

A hoard of people were waiting for them, including but not limited to Sabina Pleasure, Tom Harris, Snake, Eagle and a couple of doctors. Mrs Jones stepped out of the lift as the car pulled up. Ben gently undid Alex’s seatbelt, picked him up and then put him on the waiting gurney for the doctors. Wolf had also climbed out of the car and released Yassen from the hidden compartment; he got the impression that Yassen was forcing himself to not follow Alex but Ben wasn’t really paying them much attention and, ignoring Mrs Jones, he followed the trolley as it was wheeled away.

Sabina and Tom caught up with him and they walked purposefully together behind the gurney as it was taken into the lift in the car park, leaving everyone else behind. The five of them just about squeezed into the lift with the hospital bed, and were silent as the lift sank, the two doctors quietly checking Alex’s vital signs as he lay motionless, other than the rhythmic rising and falling of his chest as he breathed, on the trolley.

Ben knew that they were going deep underground, to the most secure cells that the headquarters of MI6 Special Operations housed. It was on a completely separate electric supply with back-up generators for their back-up generators, and could be locked down in seconds, with two meter thick concrete walls and security doors. For Alex, with no weapons or gadgets, it would be impossible to escape.

The lift stopped, and the doors opened with a loud ding that echoed down the corridor. Ben, Sabina and Tom stepped out to allow the doctors and the trolley with a still unconscious Alex on out too. They walked down the corridor, the wheels clacking on the slabs of concrete flooring, and made their way towards the security office at the far end of the hallway. The wheels rolling along the floor and their footsteps were the only sounds that could be heard, other than the faint buzz of the fluorescent strip lights that ensured every inch of the corridor was bathed in light. The office could not be reached from inside the secure complex, so even if the impossible happened and someone escaped, the guards could not be threatened to allow them to get out any further. The guards in the office were expecting them, but one of them came out to search them to make sure they weren’t carrying anything dangerous. He hesitated when he reached Sabina and Tom.

“I'm afraid you two can’t go in.”

“What?” they asked incredulously. Ben stepped in.

“They’re with me.”

“Agent Daniels, we can’t let two civilians through those doors without the express order of Mrs Jones.”

“And she’s given it,” Ben lied. “Miss Pleasure and Mr Harris are authorised to enter, provided they stay with an agent, in this case, myself.”

“We’ve got to move and get him connected to the monitoring equipment,” one of the doctors said.

“Just this once. And I will be checking with Mrs Jones, Agent Daniels. You are not to let either of them out of your sight.”

“Understood.”

The guard went back into the office and checked the security cameras for the other side of the door before opening it with an electronic buzz to allow the five of them and Alex on the bed through. The corridor on the other side of the door was very much the same as the one they had just walked through; concrete floors, walls and ceiling, broken only by an occasional door, which Ben knew led to a number of self-contained prison or therapy suites. Alex had been assigned to the third therapy suite.

Each suite contained a consulting room with an adjoining observation room with one-way mirrored glass and a bedroom next door. There were different medical facilities (including a fully equipped operating theatre, radiography room and therapy rooms), three guest rooms with en-suites, a well equipped kitchen-diner and a lounge area.

One of the doctors turned and said “it will be better if he doesn’t see you while we’re examining him. You can go into the observation room though,” pointing to a door.

Ben nodded. “Thanks,” and then opened the door the doctor had pointed at, allowing the two teenagers to go in first and then shut the door behind them. It was a reasonably comfortable room, with a sofa, several arm chairs and a coffee table in the middle. His eye was instantly drawn to the mirrored glass which occupied most of the wall to his right. Sabina and Tom were already there, staring intently through the glass and they all watched as the doctors gently lifted Alex from the gurney to the bed in the room. They then removed all of the zip ties and replaced them with softer straps which would be strong enough that he wouldn’t be able to break out of them.

Sabina sobbed quietly as she watched them re-tying Alex to the bed. “Will he be okay?”

“I don’t know, Sabina,” he said truthfully. Lying to her would have been worse - false hope was not what any of them needed right now. “But I do know that we will do everything we can to bring him back.”

Alex began to wake up after a few minutes, and he was clearly disoriented. They watched as the medics took his vitals and asked him questions.

“Calm down Alex. You’re safe. You’re tied up for both your own and our safety. We just want to ask you some questions as we check you over okay? Can you tell me your full name?”

“Alexander Jonathan Rider.”

“Can you tell me what date it is?”

“24th April 2021.”

“Do you know what’s happened today?”

“Are they standing behind the mirror?”

“Alex, I just need you to focus on us and answer our questions okay? We’re here to help you. Do you remember what’s been happening today?”

“No.” It was obvious that he was lying, but the doctor moved on anyway, continuing to ask the standard questions to ascertain Alex’s current mental state.

The doctors had been working away for about half an hour when the door to the observation room opened and Mrs Jones walked in, followed by the rest of K Unit and Yassen Gregorovich.

“Agent Daniels. Miss Pleasure. Mr Harris,” she said curtly. “Could you come with me, please?”

Sabina opened her mouth to protest, but Ben had known that this moment would come.

“Of course, Mrs Jones,” he said, abruptly cutting Sabina off before she could speak. He could tell that both she and Tom were unhappy about leaving Alex, but they said nothing as they followed Mrs Jones out of the room.

“We’ll watch over him until you get back,” Snake said kindly, but Ben knew that she meant it, on behalf of all of them. He might not know it, but Alex would never be alone.

The four of them walked in silence back through the corridor, pausing at the guards office to be let through the door and then on into the lift. Mrs Jones pressed the button for the sixteenth floor and Ben could feel the pressure in his ears again as the lift rose up. The lift door opened with a much quieter ding than downstairs, and the three of them followed Mrs Jones to her office. Once they were seated in front of her desk and Mrs Jones was sat opposite them, she began.

“Please could you give me a run-down of the events of today? Miss Pleasure, if you could start?”

She looked a bit uncertain, but began, for what Ben realised must have been at least the fourth time that day, to recount the events from when Alex had first knocked on her front door to being in the car with Snake and Eagle.

“Thank you. Is there anything you can add, Daniels?”

Ben began, filling in the gaps from Sabina’s version of events; how he had alerted K Unit whilst he had still been talking to Sabina, and then called them to explain the whole situation. How Yassen had released the knife in his watch to enable him to cut the zip ties that bound him, and how Wolf injected him with Sodium Pentothal and a small dose of Midazolam to keep Alex sedated for the journey to Liverpool Street.

“Thank you. Do you have anything to add, Mr Harris?”

“Umm, no, I think they covered everything.”

“Very well, thank you,” Mrs Jones said. “I have arranged for Alex to receive the very best care. We will help him in every way that we can.”

“Has anyone told Jack what’s going on?” Sabina asked.

“Yes. I phoned her while you were on your way here. Her flight back from America was already booked for tonight - 19:00 Eastern Standard Time. She will be kept up to date with all developments and will be brought here from the airport when she lands.”

“Can we go back and see Alex now?” Tom asked.

“You may. But I must tell you that you will not be allowed into the room with him. You need to let the doctors and psychologists assess and treat him. You are welcome to stay as long as you wish. There are sleeping and living quarters in Alex’s suite, and I can arrange for drivers when you wish to return home. You will need to have protection when you leave this building; we know that whoever captured Alex knows about his relationships with you, so we cannot allow them a chance to reach you.”

Sabina and Tom sat in a stunned silence, taking in what Mrs Jones had just said. They could be targets themselves? This must be a very surreal experience for them, if the events from earlier in the day weren’t surreal enough.

“If the two of you could please wait outside for a moment, I need to have a word with Daniels and then you may all go back downstairs.” She waited while the two teenagers stood up and left the office. “You lied to the security officer downstairs,” she said without preamble. Ben had anticipated that this would be their topic of conversation.

“I did,” he said simply.

“It slightly undermines our security down there if you vagrantly disobey the rules of access… if you had asked, you wouldn’t have had to lie to Agent Henley as you would have had my permission, and the passes to prove it,” she said pulling two visitors access passes from the top drawer of her desk.

He nodded, taking the passes that Mrs Jones was holding out for him. “Thank you,” he said, then unable to contain himself any longer, “why didn’t you tell me that Alex was missing? Why weren’t we the team sent into the warehouse when he missed his check in?”

“Because you are too close to him. We had intelligence that there was someone trying to get to Alex, and if you had been sent in and captured, you would have a lot more to tell than a team who has never met or worked with him.”

“You don’t trust us?” Ben’s voice was level, but inside he was raging.

“No, that’s not it,” she insisted. “I know that you would all protect Alex Rider with your lives. That you would resist all manners of torture to protect him. That you would die before you gave him up. I couldn’t risk that it was all part of a trap to get both Alex and yourselves, and wind up losing some of my best agents.”

He supposed that made sense, but there was still more that he needed to know. “That explains why you didn’t send us in. It doesn’t explain why we were all kept in the dark that he was missing, or why Alex was sent on a mission if you knew that someone was after him.” Ben paused for a moment before adding “he can barely have recovered from his most recent injuries before you sent him into that warehouse.”

“He had been medically cleared, Daniels, and he was the only person who could get into the building. At the time, we had nothing concrete confirming that Alex was being targeted and we had no reason to suspect that the retrieval of the blueprints would be dangerous. As to why I didn’t tell you, could you honestly look me in the eye and tell me that you wouldn’t have gone behind my back to organise a rescue mission with K Unit if I had told you that Alex was missing?”

He didn’t answer that, knowing that the answer would have only proved her point, so instead asked “what about Sabina and Tom and Jack? None of them knew that anything was wrong. When were you going to tell them?”

“When we had answers.”

“What if you never got any answers, Mrs Jones? How long were you going to let them wait before you said anything?” She opened her mouth as if to speak. “It’s not me that you need to answer that question to, Mrs Jones,” he said, nodding at the door. “I’m sure you had your reasons, and at the time, they probably felt like good ones, but none of them signed up for this. You forced Alex to work for you, and when you did, you dragged them in at the same time. The least they deserve is the honesty from you to know as much as you can tell them, especially if Alex goes missing whilst on a mission.” Having said what was on his mind, Ben stood up and, without waiting to be properly dismissed by his boss, left the office.

“Here you go,” he said, handing the passes to Sabina and Tom. “These are your passes for downstairs. You still won’t be allowed in alone, but as long as you're with me or another agent or a member of K Unit, you’ll be allowed in without any questions.”

There was never a moment that Alex was left alone. There was always at least one person, other than the doctors, in his suite, and it was usually more. Jack had pretty much moved in, and Ben, Sabina and Tom visited almost every day, although the two teenagers still had school to attend. K Unit popped in whenever they weren’t on active duty and, as they were currently assigned to protection duty for Jack, Tom and Sabina when they left the MI6 headquarters, that was very frequent. Mrs Jones had managed to pull the strings for that. Although they were technically an SAS unit, their involvement with Alex meant that MI6 could assign them missions and arrange things in their favour. Yassen came in for sessions with Alex; being the only person that he didn’t believe to be an imposter meant that they were allowed in to have conversations.

He didn’t stay in the suite other than his sessions with Alex although he was repeatedly invited to stay with them and eat if it was a mealtime, but he always politely declined. The only trouble for the rest of the group was that they still weren’t allowed to actually see Alex; they could only watch from the wrong side of the one-way mirror when he was in the consulting room. Alex’s bedroom and the other rooms in the ‘patient’ side of the suite were cut off from them, so there were long periods in the day when they could not see him.

Ben had also found out that their interrogation of the man who Sabina had knocked out in her house hadn’t been very successful thus far. He had revealed that he had planted the phone on Alex whilst he was checking him over, but not the identity of the organisation that had kidnapped Alex, nor what they had hoped to gain by hijacking his brain.

Although they hadn’t managed to get any information from their prisoner, MI6 surmised that it was linked to Alex’s kidnapping just a few weeks before he went to the warehouse. The debrief from that occasion had revealed that Alex had been unconscious for about four hours and the theory was that the organisation had used that time to lay the groundwork to be able to manipulate his mind and memories. That was how they had managed to get into his head so quickly this time; it would have been impossible to alter his brain so quickly otherwise.

A few weeks ago, they hadn’t known who Alex was, but they had worked out that he had an association with an intelligence service, and used the time while he was unconscious to tap into his subconsciousness. They had used the time between then and the warehouse mission to find out who he was and what relationships they could exploit.

After inspecting the blueprints that Alex had recovered, they had discovered that they were fake. The intelligence which had led to the warehouse mission had probably been fake too - lies fed to them as a way to get to Alex. Ben reflected that Alex must have been their main target all along, and MI6 had fallen straight into the trap. They would have been able to use him as a mole to get into MI6 if K Unit hadn’t been there to stop him.

It had been three weeks since that Saturday, and although he had met with his doctors and psychologist, Doctor Jenkins, multiple times a day, he still believed that they were all dead. The psychologist had said that he was making progress though. He had been able to work out that a week had been missing from his life, although he had no idea what had happened during it. They had introduced him to various other people, including Derek Smithers and a man that Ben didn’t recognise, and Alex hadn’t reacted badly to either of them being in his presence. Ben had spoken to the stranger after he had left Alex’s room and established that he was James Adair, and that he had actually met Alex before in a similar but much less sinister circumstance.

He had been contacted by MI6 after Alex had taken on Scorpia for the first time. They had tricked him into thinking that MI6 had killed his father, and that Mrs Jones had been the one responsible for ordering the shot. Alex’s doctors clearly hoped that a non-threatening presence who had helped him before might be able to trigger something in Alex’s brain; the fact that James Adair had helped Alex see through the truth of Scorpia’s lies also gave them hope that he would eventually be able to break through whatever rewiring had been done in Alex’s brain to help him see the truth this time, but so far it hadn’t worked.

Ben had also heard a little of one of Alex’s conversations with Dr Jenkins, but felt that it was too private to eavesdrop on the whole thing.

“The pain that you are feeling is real. The hurt and grief and loss that you are feeling is real. And whatever happens, it will still be real and it’s okay to feel those feelings…” she paused. “I know that you watched your father die. You saw the video of his death and you believed it because of how it was presented to you and the lies that you were told by some horrible people who wanted to use you for their own ends. Could you just consider that it’s possible that you’ve been lied to and manipulated again; that there are people who want you to believe that your friends are dead, that you saw them die and couldn’t save them?”

Ben walked away after that, his eyes brimming with tears. He had known that Alex must be hurting, but the extent to how much pain he had been in hadn’t hit him properly until that moment. Alex could see him, Jack, Sabina, Tom, probably the rest of K Unit and possibly others dying. His pain and grief was real and it was no wonder that he had been so angry at Sabina’s house. He was sixteen years old, and not only did he feel that he had no one left in the world who loved and cared for him, he believed that their deaths were his fault.

Smithers had gone in a couple of days after James Adair, and Alex had been distrusting to start with, knowing that the man worked for MI6. But, as their conversation had gone on, he had seemed to relax. In fact, he’d laughed and joked with Smithers throughout their meeting, and clearly hadn’t seen him as a threat by the end of it. His first escape attempt had been that evening, when everyone was eating dinner. They had become very domesticated with everyone who had been in to see Alex, and was still there, all eating together. He had managed to steal Smithers’ watch from off his wrist. It was a standard issue MI6 gadget, which had a miniature knife which was revealed if you pulled the knob which changed the time. Alex had cut through his restraints in no time, and had somehow managed to make his way through the security door that sealed his rooms off from the rest of the suite. Ben, Snake, Jack and Tom were sat around the table when the kitchen door burst open and Alex was there.

“Alex!” they said in unison, unable to hide their surprise that he was there. Ben saw that he too was surprised, but hid it well. Alex scanned the room quickly, saw that there was no way out, and then bolted. Ben went after him, ordering Tom and Jack to stay where they were. Snake stayed with them - they didn’t want Alex to be able to double back and surprise them by holding someone hostage like he had at Sabina’s house. Snake would also hit the panic button which would send an alert to Alex’s doctors to say that there was a problem.

It was probably an extremely stupid decision, but Ben did not draw his gun. He didn’t want Alex to perceive him as an active threat, any more than he probably already did. He made his way silently through the suite, clearing each of the rooms in turn and eventually found Alex in the bedroom that had become Jack’s. Since she had basically moved in, the wardrobe was full of her clothes, there were pictures on the various surfaces and a few books on the bedside table. Alex was sitting on the bed and was gently clutching a one-eyed teddy bear to his chest, sobbing.

“Alex,” Ben said gently. He didn’t want to alarm Alex but sneaking up on him from behind wasn’t an option either. He didn’t know if it was a good sign or not that Alex didn’t react to his voice. “Alex,” he said again, a little louder this time. The only response he got was sobs. They had started quite quietly, but now the teenager before him had lost all of his composure. Ben was desperate to comfort the boy who he considered to be the younger brother he never had, but didn’t want to alarm him into acting. Instead of putting a hand on his shoulder from behind or sitting down next to him on the bed as he was so desperate to do, he slowly made his way around Alex, passing him with plenty of space so that he didn't come across as a threat, and then crouched in front of him. “Alex,” he said for the third time. This time, Alex seemed to take in the sound of Ben’s voice because he opened his eyes and looked at him.

“Ben?” he asked, his eyes widened as he saw him and Ben could see that they were bloodshot from crying.

“Alex!” Ben breathed in a sigh of relief. He recognised him. In a positive way! Alex threw himself into Ben’s arms and continued sobbing.

“What’s going on? Where are we? Where is everyone? Where’s Jack? Why are her things here?” But then his brain seemed to short circuit. Ben felt him pull away slightly and shake his head and he remembered what Yassen had told him. ‘It’s like he’s been programmed to reprogram himself.’ Alex stiffened and the next thing Ben knew was darkness.

He came to, and heard the steady beep of the heart rate monitor that had been attached to his chest. At least Alex had only knocked him out and hadn’t killed him. According to Snake, Alex’s doctors had arrived just in time to see him leaving Jack’s room and had managed to detain and sedate him. He was back in his room with new restraints and an agent on guard, at least for the moment.

“I need to speak to one of his doctors,” Ben said after Snake had filled him in. “He knew me. It was only for a moment, but he knew me!” Snake hadn’t needed any more encouragement, and ran from the room, and was back in a few moments with Doctor Jenkins, Jack and Tom.

“What happened?” the doctor asked.

“Alex recognised me and knew that it was me, not someone pretending! He escaped and I found him in Jack’s room. He looked at me and he knew me… even though he was extremely disoriented and confused.” He paused for a moment. “But then it was like his brain seemed to reset itself, and he knocked me out.”

“He knew you?” Jack asked, hope shimmering behind her eyes for the first time since Alex had been brought here.

“Yeah, he knew me! And it seemed like he knew you’re alive too!” Ben said excitedly, before contentedly laying his head back on his pillow. Jack wasn’t the only one feeling hope for the first time in a long time.

It took a long time, and several more visits from various people including James Adair, but Alex began to improve. As he improved, his escape attempts increased. He was never able to escape from the suite, that was how it had been designed, and each time he got more inventive, finding new ways to try and escape. He never threatened anyone that he came across - he tied people up a few times, but never hurt them or took and used their weapons, which was a definite improvement on Alex from a couple of months ago.

The furthest he got was when he climbed on a chair, punched out some ceiling tiles and got into the crawl space. But MI6 had thought of everything; the suite boundaries were sealed with metal sheeting, and the ceiling of the crawl space was concrete blocks. He managed to crawl around above the whole suite, and on finding that there were no escape routes or electrical wires that he could sabotage, he made his own way back down through the hole he had made in the ceiling, and just went back to his bedroom, showered and went to sleep. After that, he stopped trying to escape, seeing that it was futile.

With his mind less focussed on finding ways to escape, he began to actually engage in his therapy with Doctor Jenkins. She knew that it was more for something to do than anything else, but at least he was actually engaging with her now. Before that, he had participated but only at a surface level, never fully occupied or captivated by their conversations. Now that he was making an effort, the progress they made together was remarkable. His brain needed to be kept active, and working through the different exercises that the doctor gave him to do was one of the more stimulating things he had to do. There were books, a TV with family friendly shows and films, and a games console, also with appropriate games, but the exercises from his psychologist were much more interesting to him.

The result of throwing himself into his therapy was that Alex’s neural pathways began to revert to their former states and his brain no longer forced itself to reset. It still took several more weeks of hard work before Alex’s doctors thought that he was in a place where he wouldn’t react poorly to being in the same room as his friends, and being forced to interact with them.

97 days after Alex had held her at knifepoint in her kitchen, the day finally came when Sabina was allowed into Alex’s room. They had worked up to this moment, beginning with a telephone call, followed by a video-call and finally a conversation through the mirrored glass (which could turn into a normal window at the press of a button). She had been told that she shouldn’t get too close, but she could sit on the chair and talk, if Alex wanted to. It was ridiculous, but she was really nervous about going in. Even though Alex would be restrained, and wouldn’t be able to harm her, she could still feel the cool metal of the knife against her throat. She could feel the anger that had come off of him as he held her, and although she knew it wasn’t really Alex who had done those things to her, the memory of that day would always be with her.

Alex’s doctor thought that it would be best if they only went in one person at a time, so that he didn’t get overwhelmed. Jack had gone in first, a couple of days ago. She had come out of the room beaming from ear to ear at being able to actually talk to Alex for the first time in months. And they actually had talked! Alex had participated in the conversation and Jack said it had been just like talking to Alex from a few months ago, if you ignored the restraints and the fact that they couldn’t physically hug or touch him. Alex was someone who thrived on physical touch, so not getting any physical affection from the people he loved most in the world was difficult for all of them.

Sabina knocked on the door, heard someone say “come in” and opened the door. Alex was sat on a chair, with his arms, chest and legs bound, and his doctor was sat on a chair next to him. A third chair had been brought into the room and placed against the wall next to the door for her.

“Ah hello, Sabina.”

“Hello,” she said softly.

“Sab!” Alex exclaimed. He seemed really excited to actually see her in person.

“Hello Alex!” she said, feeling her nerves begin to disappear at how happy he was to see her.

“Please, come in and sit down,” Doctor Jenkins said.

“Thank you.” She felt awkward and didn’t really know what to say, but she was still glad to be there, physically in the same room as Alex for the first time in months. Although they had spoken on the phone and through the glass between the two rooms, it was very different to actually be in the same room together, especially with the doctor present too. After a few minutes, however, they were chatting away like they had used to and it seemed like no time at all had passed when the psychologist interrupted and said that Alex needed to rest and Sabina had to leave. She was pleased to see that Alex looked sad when she stood up and was ushered out of the room.

From that first meeting, they progressed to meeting without Alex’s psychiatrist present, although Sabina knew that she was watching from the other side of the mirrored glass. Then, Alex was allowed to be unrestrained and they played card and board games, or she would read to him, or they would sit and watch a film. Their time together felt like it used to; easy, comfortable, congenial. Best of all, they were now allowed to hug, and much of their time was spent in companionable silence, snuggled up together, just holding each other close.

A couple of months later, Alex had been cleared by Doctor Jenkins to return home, although he was to continue to have sessions with her twice a week for the foreseeable future. Mrs Jones was still searching for whoever had kidnapped and hijacked his brain, but he was no longer triggered into action by a ringtone, or any other noise that they had been able to find. And Doctor Jenkins seems to have tried every noise in existence. He was safe. It was a beautiful morning. He and Sabina walked hand in hand down the street, and they were both unbelievably happy. It had taken an extremely long time, and they still had a way to go, but they could now both begin to live their lives again.

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