First of all, I'm really sorry, that it took me so long to write a new chapter. Suddenly my life got much more complicated and I'm going through some things that I can't deal with… I still can't, but at least I found my way back to writing; I guess… I won't list those things that happened in my life, but believe me, when I tell you that I really have a good reason for abandoning writing like this.

Again, I can't tell you that it won't happen again, especially since there will be two major exams the next few weeks that decide whether I'm allowed to attend an important course at my university the next semester… But whatever happens, even if nobody likes this story, I have no intention to abandon this. Even if it takes years to finish it.

IMPORTANT: Someone pointed out to me that Gregorovich isn't a surname, but a patronym. Because of this I have changed the names of Yassen and his father to "Yassen Alexandrovich Kasakow" and "Alexander Nikolayevich Kasakow". I had an idea that will be disclosed in another chapter. Please bear with it. I said in the first chapter that this story will be heavily AU and I intend to exploit that as much as I like to.

For those who don't know them, the unfamiliar words are Russian... I don't know anything about this language, so I asked my cousin to ask a friend of hers who speaks Russian... I really hope that it means the right things... :D I decided against using the cyrillic alphabet, because the phonetic version shows the way the language is spoken and well, I can't read cyrillic… ;-) The (hopefully correct) translation of those words is in the braces behind them.

C.J.0608, you're a wonderful beta! *bending down my head* Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for your irreplacable help!

And thanks to everyone who reviewed and showed me that you're interested in reading this. I hope you still are. ;-) And now finally to the new chapter…

Disclaimer: I don't own Alex Rider, although I dream of it... ;-) The characters belong to Anthony Horowitz, I just changed the circumstances in this FAN FICTION! :P Some parts of this chapter have their origin in Horowitz' book "Scorpia" and belong to him like most of the characters, the original storyline etc.

"Yassen!" called a melodic voice that caused him to inwardly groan. For a moment he considered pretending that he hadn't heard her, but that would be childish and he didn't want anyone to be confirmed in earlier assumptions that he was nothing but a small child.

So he stopped and waited for his pursuer to catch up. "What do you want?" He didn't want to sound too harsh or unfriendly, but neither had he time for whatever game the Indian woman had decided to play with him this time. He already had to hurry to get to the shooting range.

And after another restless night full of memories of a past he wanted nothing more than to forget, he didn't have the patience to deal with this woman who made a habit of being around him as much as possible after she had fetched him for his meeting with the headmaster a few weeks ago. She talked to him about everything that came to her erratic mind, trying to give him advice... It freaked him out. He just couldn't figure out her motives.

"Oh don't be like this, little Yassen," she teased. "I only want to congratulate you. You're becoming a pretty good shooter."

Yassen turned around and looked into the baffling depths of her amber eyes, dark pools of honey that invited the unsuspecting wanderer to sink and drown in them. "Yeah, right." A slightly sardonic smile graced his lips. "What do you really want, Aruna?"

The almost childish smile never left her beautiful face, but he was sure to have seen a flicker of something else in her eyes. Then it was gone and she answered with careful constructed exasperation in countenance and voice: "Oh come on, Yassen. Don't try to read into something that's not even there. Don't be so naive and see only the side of us you want to see. Yes, we are selfish. But so is every single human being on this planet. At least we are honest in our deception and don't hide our true nature from ourselves. It seems that you haven't listened to me the last time we talked."

Suddenly her voice grew completely serious and he could see the hidden steel in her eyes, when she leaned forward and said forcefully: "We are survivors. We are masters of deception, but so are you, little one. Don't deny this part of you. Embrace it. You want to survive this; you have something that keeps you going. I have observed you closely the last weeks. You have a crazy determination to do whatever it takes, but you distance yourself too obviously. You don't have to like anyone of us. You are smart; you know that you can't trust us. But you jump to the wrong conclusions. You are now a part of us. You know, everyone of us needs connections. We may end up as enemies some day, we may stay allies, but we earn each other's respect and it benefits us all. Each of us walks a fine line between seeing everyone as our potential enemy and the strange camaraderie that develops between us. Don't close yourself to this. It will only hurt you in the end."

Aruna's passionate words left him speechless. Every instinct in his body screamed at him that he should stay as far away from her and his other "classmates" as possible, but he couldn't deny the truth in her words. The question left his lips, before he could think about the wisdom of letting her know about his insecurity. "Why?"

"Why?" She let the word melt in her mouth like it was an exotic sweet whose taste she wanted to fathom. Then her expression changed at the split of a second. He couldn't help asking himself if she had a split personality or if she wanted to project this impression. Her sudden mood changes were somewhat unsettling.

Mirth danced in the beautiful amber when she pressed her lips beneath his ear and whispered with an alluring voice that sent shivers down his spine: "Maybe I just want to ensure that you will stay here with me."

Then she turned around and left laughing. "Or maybe I'm just a nice person. Who knows? The instructors have a meeting in the evening to discuss our progress. We students usually meet in the training hall to have a friendly spar, swap ideas and then grab something to eat together. Be sure to be there and maybe I will tell you my reasons." Then she quickened her steps and hurried to the shooting range, and Yassen couldn't do anything but run after her.

It came as a surprise to everyone but the Indian woman, who wore a satisfied grin on her face, when a rather sullen Yassen settled down at the edge of the training hall that evening.

Under his cold façade, he was a little bit uneasy when he watched the other trainees going through several practice fights. Until now he had tried to spend as little time as possible outside of classes with them.

"Don't be like that!" admonished Aruna, who had just bowed to her sister to indicate the end of their fight and seemed genuinely pleased to see him. She approached him and he couldn't help but admire the way her tight jogging suit showed her slender body.

"How about sparring with me?" she continued with a knowing glint in her eyes.

He shrugged and rose careful not to lose sight of her. Yermalov's lesson about keeping an eye on your surroundings was deeply engraved into his mind.

He entered the fight with the expectation of being beaten to the ground like her sister did, but while Aruna was every bit as vicious as her sister she always took the time to explain his mistakes to him.

He collapsed in bed that night, tired, sore, but with a content smile on his face. He really had fun.

Aruna had been really helpful. But then they all were. That was the strange thing. He had been accepted without any problem in the strange fellowship of the Scorpia students. That in itself was remarkable.

He was by far the youngest person here, but that didn't seem to matter. Quite the opposite. He was accepted and even admired by the other students in a manner he hadn't thought possible. It seemed that Aruna's words about mutual respect had been true after all.

Even Miguel the guy that appeared to have a reciprocal relationship of hate with Aruna had trained earnestly with her. He had even come to Yassen and told him in no uncertain terms that he was glad that Yassen had diverted Dr. Three attention from him. Apparently Three had liked to extend the standard resistance to interrogation training to him, before he had taken a personal interest in Yassen. And even if Three hadn't favoured him as much as he did Yassen now, Miguel seemed honestly grateful about Three's new project.

Although he didn't know what to make of the strange compliment, it was nice to feel like a part of something once. He had never experienced the feeling of true acceptation or even gratitude before.

The smile was still on his face, when he fell asleep and his thoughts drifted into dark areas he had managed to avoid until now. It wasn't long until the smile twisted into an expression of absolute horror.

The meeting with the other instructors had been long and rather tedious. Their interest and praise in Yassen had been a relief since it meant that Three wouldn't have a reason to act on his threats, but also made him uneasy.

A part of him didn't want Yassen to be good at creating almost flawless assassination strategies. The more he learned, the worse were his chances to ever live a normal life when John finally managed to get him away from everything. He had already made some arrangements without anyone noticing. The difficulty was to make sure that it looked like Yassen had fled alone. There could be nothing to trace back to him or else his family. He couldn't risk his wife or his unborn child. His mission that was still important to him would also be in danger.

But the biggest problem was still to make sure that Yassen would trust him enough not to suspect a trap, not to betray him to Scorpia. And John couldn't take chances. There was too much at stake for that.

He inhaled the cool night air and quickened his steps towards Yassen's apartment. He had contracted a habit of looking in on Yassen every evening since he had found him after Three's first visit.

He had been forced to patch up the youth four times since then. Although Yassen had never been an emotional wreck again like the first time, it hurt John to be unable to do anything to prevent the child from getting hurt like this. Especially since their meetings every evening had let him feel closer to the child.

Most of the times they just sat together for an hour, and John taught his young charge useful tricks that would help him on this island and the live as an assassin after that, even if John had no intention of letting him become one.

But he had to admit that he simply enjoyed talking to Yassen. The boy was an exceptional student; there was nothing that escaped his sharp mind. He was truly brilliant. Quiet, observant, but sometimes surprisingly sarcastic with a strange sense of humour that I didn't always get.

But sometimes Yassen told John tiny bits about himself that John treasured above all else. It surprised him to hear that Yassen loved learning new languages and perfecting them until nothing could set him apart from a native speaker. Languages weren't just a tool for him, he loved them in their own right.

Today he was rather late. He didn't think Yassen would have waited for him, before going to sleep. The days on Malagosto were exhausting, and with his sleeping problems the boy truly needed every hour he could get.

But even so he didn't think he could go to sleep, if he hadn't looked in on his charge.

John opened the wooden door as quiet as possible and sneaked through the dark room to the bed.

There he looked at the sleeping child. Normally Yassen's sleep was light and troubled. Every slightest sound, even the mere presence of another human being caused him to wake up with a violent reaction, courtesy of Dr. Three.

He had to be beyond exhausted to sleep this deep, even if it seemed to be restless slumber. It was clenched John's heart that the only deep sleep the child had gotten in a while had to be haunted by the same horrors that lingered in his eyes when he was awake.

He trashed around drenched in sweat that appeared sickly on his pale skin. A slight moaning came from his throat. Whatever nightmare had its teeth brutally driven in his mind had to be terrible.

John didn't even want to imagine the horrors that awaited the child when he closed his eyes.

Suddenly the trashing grew more violent and Yassen began to speak slurred words, his hoarse voice pleading. At first John didn't understand a single word, but when he listened more closely he recognised the desperate plea. "Mama, pamagi mne paschalusta!" {Mother. Please help me!}

The sick feeling that had been growing inside his stomach ever since he saw Yassen for the second time doubled. He had suspected that there was more behind the boy's family. There had to be something wrong with them. After all what kind of father left his child to be tortured?

The soon to be father was horrified. He couldn't resist the urge to run his fingers through Yassen's hair in a soothing motion. "It's alright..." he began to whisper, but as soon as his hand touched the blond head, Yassen cast up his eyes that were unnatural glazed and frightened. He began to lash out in a desperate attempt to get away, to defend himself against his brutal attacker.

With a weary sigh, John held his hands up and tried to calm the panicked youth. "It's alright, Yassen. It's alright. You're safe. Wsö choroscho, ti w besopasnosti. {I'm sorry. You are safe.}"

The familiar sound of his mother language seemed to snap Yassen out of his nightmare.

He blinked and then the usually stoic child slowly lifted his head and looked directly in John's eyes. This time he seemed to really see him.

It wasn't the strong and wilful genius that sat there, but a frightened and traumatized child. The nightmare seemed to have ripped Yassen of all his masks, of his carefully constructed defences.

The sight of the shivering and frail body, the scared eyes that showed all the horrors that this strong child had witnessed brought tears to the eyes of the soldier.

It frightened him how easy it was again and again to forget how young and vulnerable Yassen really was. Even after witnessing the after effects of Three's torture hadn't let him realize the true damage that had been done.

"Yassen," John spoke softly, careful not to disturb the youth further. He was unable to put his conflicted emotions in words. He didn't know how to deal with this. He had learned to kill people, not to deal with traumatized children. Hell, there was a reason why he hadn't studied psychology. He had wanted to protect his country, protect children like this, and not patch them together after they had completely fallen apart because nobody had been there to protect them. Suddenly he realized how naive he had been to think in these categories.

His name seemed to break a barrier inside Yassen. Crystalline tears rolled down his cheeks. He broke down sobbing and clenched his fingers tightly in the white sheets of his bed.

John swallowed. He felt useless und helpless. The sight of this complete breakdown of a child whose strength and determination he had come to admire troubled him deeply. He didn't know how to comfort him. What use were empty words of comfort? Everything will be alright! Nobody will hurt you anymore! What use were these words, when the both of them knew how far they were from the truth? He was a soldier. He just wasn't good with the whole emotional part.

Anxiously he placed his hand slowly next to Yassen's, careful not to touch him, since he remembered his earlier reaction to being touched clearly, but close enough to let him see his silent offer.

Suddenly he felt a small hand clasping his with a desperation he couldn't fathom. It was hard to resist the impulse to look at his companion, but he didn't want to disturb this fragile moment of trust.

They sat together in the dark, the silence only interrupted by Yassen's sobbing and the agitated breathing of the two of them.

John didn't know how long he sat like this, a silent protector that kept the nightmares away, when Yassen's breathing evened out and a voice weak and hoarse from crying whispered: "You speak Russian?"

John smiled softly and pulled the still shivering child gently to him until his head rested at his chest and he could hug the frail body that stiffened, but finally began to relax slowly, when John began to speak: "My mother had Russian origins. She used to hold me like this, when I was a child and couldn't sleep because of a nightmare. Then she always told me a fairy tale in Russian until I was asleep again. That was her personal memorial to her father Gregor. He was a scientist who came to England to work with my grandmother. They fell in love and married shortly after."

"What... What happened to them?" asked a hesitant voice. "They died before I was born. My mother wanted to name me Gregor in honour to her father, but my father convinced her that John would be a better idea. But that didn't stop her from calling me Gregor from time to time as a nickname."

A long silence followed his statement. Yassen seemed to be holding his breath. "Then... your name is John?" John smiled. "Yes. Hello Yassen. My name is John Rider. But you should continue to call him Hunter." Astonishment lit the ice blue eyes and bestowed them a childlike joy that he had never seen in them before. The ever-present distrust and suspicion were still there, but it seemed that somehow something had changed between the two of them. "Hello John. My name is Yassen Alexandrovich Kasakow." Then he winced. "But I don't like my name. Call me Yassen and forget the rest. As soon as I can I'll change my name."

The soldier scrutinized the child in his arms, honest curiosity in his gaze. "Why?" Yassen bit his lip and looked hesitant up in his eyes. Then he seemed to come to a decision and answered: "Because of my father. I don't want to share a name with him." His voice grew flat and a strange glint entered his gaze that disturbed John. He didn't know what to make of this, didn't know if this strange outspokenness between them would last. He didn't dare to voice a question.

"You won't tell them about this, will you?" asked Yassen quietly. John didn't need to ask who them where. The fear in the pale blue eyes spoke volumes. John didn't want to know what Three would do should he ever learn of this incident.

"No," he assured his charge firmly. "I won't tell them anything about today. And you should do the same. It wouldn't look good, if they learned that I lost my objectivity with you. They know that I will become a father soon and I don't want them to charge another one with looking after you."

"Are you sure that they don't have eyes or ears in here?" Yassen looked around with a fearful expression in his unguarded face. It was just so out of character, but then again this whole night had been rather unusual. "You tell me that. Are these rooms bugged?" John couldn't help it. He grinned brightly at Yassen's sour expression. "Don't worry, Yassen. I think the classes for bug detecting are next week. But you don't have to worry. There is no single camera or listening device in here. I already checked it. They may want to monitor you every single moment of your training, but even the paranoid Three has better things to do then watching you when you sleep."

At the mention of Three Yassen's face grew serious, and John couldn't help but remember the sight of a scrawny child clad in rags whose body was a battlefield of scars, a child he had retrieved out of Three's private torture chambers. Yassen's halting report of the things that this monster had done haunted him.

"Stop it!" his charge suddenly cried and what he said then surprised John more than anything else:

"You really feel sorry for me, right? I know fury, when I see it. My father was always furious with me. What Three did to me really upsets you," he said in wonder, as if he couldn't believe it. "Either you are a really good actor or you are honest... I don't know what scares me more... but I think you are honest. Maybe it's because you are nothing like them... But whatever it is, stop pitying me! I'll survive this and I'll be strong, when it's over. Stronger than Three and stronger than my father!"

The unconcealed hatred in his child's voice shocked John just as much as the sudden darkness in his eyes. Suddenly he couldn't help asking himself, if there even was hope was this broken child. After everything that he had experienced how could he ever fit in a normal society?

He coughed unsure how to respond. . "Well, anyway if you want, I can show you some tricks for bug detection in the morning."

As soon as she had come, the darkness vanished and brightness took her place. "Really?"

"Yes, Yassen. Really! Now would you like to hear a fairy tale?" John asked suddenly, shocking even himself.

"I'm not a child!" scoffed the child.

"Maybe you are not. But I would like to tell one. Would you do me this favour? After all I have to practice. My wife would kill me, if I scarred my child to death with my terrible storytelling."

John wasn't sure what had possessed him to even think let alone asked it, but now that he had declared it, he realized that he really wanted to do this, as crazy as it sounded.

"Well, if you really want to..." responded his charge uncertainly.

"Yes, I want to. Schil-bil… {Once upon a time…}"

I guess you already know how much I appreciate reviews. ;-) I'm really interested in your thoughts, critism...