Work Text:
After Cairo - after Julius and Jack and the fall of SCORPIA - Alex has time, he moves to San Fransisco, to recover with the Pleasures. The city is new and a hub of possibilities and by the end of the first month he has the city plan memorised and is known in three separate coffee shops for his unholy love of hot chocolate, and the librarians know him to be carrying around a heavy textbook for physics or engineering or advanced maths and spending three hours a day in a corner steadily going through said textbooks so he can get into a STEM school (and they even let him bed the 'no drinks' rule, just a little bit).
And it's great! He has nothing to worry about while he stays there and there's no one constantly trying to shoot him and he's starting to manage more than three hours of sleep at night. By the end of the second month, he's fully comfortable here and he's ready to send his application, having caught up on everything he'd missed this year thanks to his spying side-job.
Of course, all things must come to an end, especially if your name is Alex Rider; MI6 calls.
"The Royal and General have an urgent situation regarding your and your Uncle's accounts that requires you to be there in person," Crawley's (un)apologetic voice drones. "The bank will pay for your flight scheduled for later today."
Alex refuses, flat-out like he's always done, but it can't actually be that easy, no.
"Have you noticed Mr and Mrs Pleasure looking worried recently? I hear they're having trouble with some custody paperwork," Crawley adds mildly. "I wish them the best of luck."
Alex remembers with a sick sort of dread that the Royal and General, as Alan Blunt had told him just a year ago, are his legal guardians.
And like that he's being told that a car will pick him up at five pm and his flight is at six pm and the meeting he's being called for is scheduled for eight am Greenwich meantime, so best to sleep no the plane (as if ay spy could sleep like that, especially considering what happened to his parents).
Liz is out, as is Edward. Sabina is at a friend's house; the time reads four thirty pm.
Alex sighs bitterly and starts drafting a letter as he packs.