Operation: Scorched Earth – No Two Fires (Epilogue)

It's done.

After all this time, after all these years, this story is at it's close.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, reviewers and lurkers, welcome. This is the end. The last chapter in an insanely long story I never thought would ever finish.

To date, it has been more than four years since I published the first chapter of Red Crescent, and now the final arc is complete. I am literally without words.

Some of you (like Tyz and P2D) have been here practically from day one, cheering me on, making my writing better and stronger, helping make this story happen. Others have found it in the intervening years – and it has gained new followers as recently as last week.

So if you've been with my Alex from the beginning, or just caught up with us for the final note; if you've left a review on every chapter, or have never said a word to me; if you read each chapter as it came, or if you binged through the whole thing last night; thank you. Thank you all for loving this story that I've put so much into. It's been fucking incredible. This is the most massive writing project I have ever completed in my life, and the response has been so overwhelmingly positive and supportive I could actually cry. I'm crying a little now writing this, actually. Tears of joy, I promise. You guys are my muses, and without you, it never would have gotten finished. I love you all; you're the best.

And so for the very last time, I invite you to join me for a new chapter of Operation: Scorched Earth!

This is it.

…

Ian Rider opens his office on a Tuesday morning to find his nephew sitting in his chair, his feet on the older Rider's desk. Heavy, mud caked boots are casually resting on top of a small stack of files open in front of the younger man, and arms clad in the sleeves of a black leather jacket are folded behind Alex's head.

"Get your feet off my desk," Ian manages, annoyed because it is too fucking early for this, and shuts the door behind him. He wonders what he did to deserve having to deal with his nephew before he's even had a coffee. Alex chuckles, and checks his watch. His feet don't move off the table in front of him.

"Six-thirty-one, I can't decide if you're a minute late or three hours early."

"I asked you to get your bloody feet off my bloody desk and I'm not asking again."

Alex grins, a predatory, wolfish smile that shows both rows of bright white teeth.

"You going to shoot me if I don't?"

"Do I need to?"

Alex considers his uncle, head tilted to the side, and shrugs.

"Fine," he says, and apparently annoying his uncle in this particular way isn't worth that much to him, because his feet swing off the desk gracefully. There's an imprint of his muddy heel on the top file.

"How did you even get in here?" Ian demanded, shoving his briefcase on the edge of the desk and shooing Alex away from his chair.

"I smiled at your secretary and she swooned at my astounding good looks," Alex replies flippantly, and Ian wonders if Alex knows this persona he's crafted for himself is the very portrait of his father two decades ago, all rouge charm and devil may care attitude.

"Bullshit," Ian rolls his eyes, exasperated. "My secretary isn't in on the weekends."

"A magician doesn't reveals his secrets," Alex says, never dropping the grin on his face. He glances towards the briefcase, his eyes measuring the distance between him and the desk, as if deciding whether or not it's worth the effort to try and snag his uncle's briefcase. He settles against the opposite wall with a glance at Ian's jacket, where his crisp suit hides a pistol.

"Congratulations on your recent promotion by the way," Alex said. "But somehow I thought the director of MI6 would have a nicer office."

"Which brings me back to how the hell did you get in here?" Ian demands again, sitting down in his chair and brushing the dirt off his files.

"The how is immaterial," Alex waves his uncle's concerns away – and really, Ian knows that the Americans have low standards but how on earth does anyone put up with his nephew enough to keep him on a regular payroll?

The answer, of course, is that Alex reserves this particularly antagonistic brand of sarcasm just for his uncle. Lucky Ian.

"Anyway, less with the how, I'm more concerned with the why. After all, you did invite me here."

"Yes, and an appointment was arranged through your… intermediary… for next week, as I recall."

Alex's actual employers prefer not to advertise the fact that they managed to make an attractive enough offer to the teenaged spy that saved the world to get him to rejoin the intelligence community, and while Ian absolutely put forth best efforts to know who was paying his nephew, he still had to deal with a third party intermediary to speak to his own flesh and blood. It was a little ridiculous, but Ian supposed the less direct contact he had with Alex's boss on the subject of Alex, the less likely it was that Alex's cover would be discovered.

"I prefer spontaneity," Alex said, and there's a dangerous edge to that smile now. His voice isn't playful anymore, and its pretty clear that he's dead serious. Ian feels like he should have foreseen the fact that Alex is too paranoid to be anywhere near a place when he's expected to be there, especially not now when there's more than just his own life at stake.

"Would this have anything to do with the lovely Mrs. Rider?" Ian asked with a smile of his own.

"She prefers Mrs. Pleasure," Alex shot back, but its clear Ian's comment had hit the nail on the head. Alex doesn't like to be where he's expected, because his job and his work are dangerous, and he's not the only one invested in his personal safety anymore.

"Ah yes. Didn't I read something of hers in the paper yesterday? Afghani warlords funded by US arms dealing or something like that?"

Alex relaxes into the couch along the far wall.

"I never thought I'd say this, but I think Sabina's job is more dangerous than mine," he admitted, laughing a little. "She stirs up trouble everywhere she goes, and its wonderful. It's like watching a hurricane – you either get out of the way, or she gets you."

"Still stupid in love I see."

"Always, but that's not why I'm here."

"No, it's not," Ian agrees, shuffling his papers on his desk. He's got most of the mud brushed off them and sets them aside before pulling his briefcase towards himself. He punches in the code, fully aware of Alex trying to get a glimpse at the numbers (even if Alex was able to get the ten digit code, the lock is fingerprint coded and will shock anyone stupid enough to try breaking in) before opening it and pulling out a file.

"This better not be a job offer."

The smile slides off Alex's face almost instantaneously.

"Oh this? This isn't for you," Ian says, and Alex leans back again, watching his uncle suspiciously. "Though forgive an old man for trying to get his nephew to come back to the family business, as it were."

"The family business that sanctioned my torture?" Alex's voice is deadly calm.

"We're under new management," Ian shrugs. "Who are you working for these days, anyway?"
"Classified," Alex says at once. It's mechanical and well practiced.

"Off the record."
"Still classified."

"I'm your bloody uncle!"

"And I'm your bloody nephew and you were going to die letting me believe you worked at a bank!" Alex shoots back flatly, unimpressed.

"Fine," Ian mutters. "How in the seven hells did they manage to recruit you, anyway? Tulip had a good watch on you from the moment the trial started until you went off grid."
"One of my bosses main selling points was their complete and utter discretion on the subject of my employment."

And it's true. Among other things, the FBI had promised him that they could keep him completely anonymous, and make sure that his name never came up on the watch list of any international agencies. They'd funded his college education (his examination scores had gotten him into Dartmouth on his own merits, and the FBI had footed the bill), signed a contract that kept him in their files as an official agent with regular pay and enforced paid leave, among a number of other stipulations Alex had demanded and immediately received.

Of course part of his end of the deal was occasionally working with the CIA – under very strictly regulated terms, of course (even Alex found it entertaining how difficult it was for the CIA and the FBI to get along). It was the director of the CIA at Langley that had passed on Ian's request for a meeting, which meant he was here in his capacity as an agent of the CIA, not the FBI.

"Ah."

"I'm impressed that even you don't know," Alex allows. "I thought there had to be a leak somewhere, unless you're just fishing to see if I'll give you something you don't already know."
He peers at his uncle, who is studying his nails innocently.

"Alright, change of topic then," Ian says, shrugging. "Pirates, Somalia. Thoughts?"
"Mostly hijackings off the coast near the gulf of Aden," Alex drawls, bored. "Usually chartered by businessmen on the Somali mainland, and military efforts have basically had only minimal success protecting privately owned ships from being hijacked and ransoms. Why, got a piracy problem?"

"Possibly," Ian thumbs through the documents in his briefcase as though the subject as a whole is of little importance to him - though Alex suspects that its in large part the reason he's sitting around in his uncle's office when neither of them can much stand the other.

He's patient though, because he knows Ian will work himself around to the point he managed to convince Alex to get on a ten hour flight for eventually.

"When was the last time you spoke to Yassen Gregorovitch?"

And there it is. This is beginning to sound very much like an interrogation to Alex, who tenses in his seat.

"Classified," he says instead of responding.

"Alex."
"Ian," Alex mimics his uncle's tone exactly.

"Off the record," Ian insists. "I don't want to know where or what you talked about, I just want to know when you last had contact with Yassen."

Alex considers this, and sighs. Its not like it costs him anything to part with this information, but he doesn't like sharing information with Ian on principle.

Five years after the tribunal, Alex still wasn't willing to forgive his uncle for everything. However, this is business, and therefore not part of the petty games the Riders play with each other anytime they're forced into direct contact.

"Two years ago, Chicago," Alex says at last. "And I doubt he had many conversations afterwards."
"Hm. Why's that?" Ian asks innocuously.

"I left him doused with kerosene in the middle of a blazing inferno with two nine millimeter slugs in his brain and three in his heart."

"Were you the one who shot him?"

"Classified."

Ian stares at him.
Alex stares back.

He's remembering a rainy night in Chicago, remembering Yassen being caught in the middle of a drug war between two rival gangs, and the shootout that immediately followed. He's remembering the heat of fire licking at his skin and the cold, dead look in the Russian assassins eyes.

No, Alex hadn't fired the bullets that had killed Yassen. The Russian had already been dead when Alex shot him in the head, and that had been just in case.

He's willing to admit that dousing the man with petrol and throwing him into a burning building may have been overkill.

Just a little bit.

Okay so sue him, Alex was kind of tired of people around him doing the zombie routine and popping back out of their own graves like daisies.

"Alright, back on the record," Ian says. "Are you absolutely, one hundred percent sure that Yassen Gregorovitch is dead?"

Alex raises an eyebrow at the man.

"After taking five bullets and being burned to a crisp? Yeah, he's dead."

"You're positive."

"Yes, damn you, what are you getting at here?"

Ian is watching Alex very hard. Alex supposes his uncle is trying to catch him in a lie, trying to catch some small uncertainty or inconsistency, and Alex gets it. His relationship with his uncle has remained rocky at best, not helped by the fact that Alex vanished without a word after Alan Blunts indictment and the ceremony at Buckingham palace. They've talked maybe a dozen times in the last few years, and it's never without some level of contention and aggravation on both parts. They haven't spent more than half an hour all told in each other's company since they parted ways at Buckingham palace, and they're practically strangers now.

Alex is pretty sure they were always strangers, because he never really knew his uncle.

But now he's dead serious, because they don't play this game when it comes to national security, and they don't cover for infamous assassins. They don't, and Alex isn't ready to start. He knows most of MI6 still thinks of him as a criminal, and he knows that five years off the grid haven't helped that image any.

Ian blinks first, sighing and turning the screen of his computer to face Alex.

"This is security feed we recovered from CCTV cameras in the London tube," Ian explains, and pulls up a black and white video. They watch as scores of people pass under the cameras watchful gaze before Ian pauses the feed.

"Recognize anyone?" he asks.

And obviously the answer is no, because how many random strangers pass through the Underground every day, but –

Son of a bitch. The man in the left corner, with the baseball cap. He's got the right height and build, the same hair, the same watchful features and bright eyes.

And his gaze is turned directly towards the camera, with a small smirk at the edge of his lips.

"When was this feed taken?" Alex asks.

"Yesterday afternoon," Ian replies. "He came in on a flight from Paris, but we've traced his point of origin to Somalia. We believe he may be working as an intermediary with a group of warlords that have been attacking British merchant vessels in the gulf of Aden. So you can see my confusion. My nephew is sitting across from me insisting in all earnestness that Yassen Gregorovitch is dead, and yet yesterday afternoon he arrived in London and was –intentionally, most likely – spotted by CCTV. I'm left with a series of explanations, each less likely than the next."

Alex is shaken, staring at the face on the screen with disbelief.

He saw those eyes, cold and dead. Felt at his neck when his pulse stopped beating. Threw the man's body into the fucking flames – Yassen is dead, has to be dead, and yet…

"First," Ian holds up a hand. "That Yassen is in fact a zombie or vampire or some other supernatural creature. Yes, it was considered. Unofficially, anyway."

Alex snorts.

"Second, that Yassen yet again faked his own death, in a much more elaborate, violent way, simply to screw with you, and by proxy, anyone you might report to about it."

And Alex allows that this idea isn't without its own merits.

Yassen had a very special spot in his heard for messing with Alex. Towards the end, less so, mostly because there's only so awesome a single agent can get, and there's a point at which it no longer makes any logical sense to continue wasting time and resources trying to turn them.

Alex and Yassen had long ago made their peace with being on opposite sides of a war. They'd known up until the end what they would need to do if they ever came up against each other in a professional setting.

Alex got lucky, and walked away from that confrontation.

"Or third, that my nephew is fully aware that Gregorovitch is here to kill someone or cause some form of nefarious mischief, and is lying to me in the hopes of ensuring his accomplices success in the confusion."

Alex's heart feels like it drops through his stomach.

"You've got to be fucking with me," he says. "We are not doing this again. People know where I am, Ian. Powerful people that will protect me if they think you're acting out of line and that accusation is so far-"

Ian holds up his hands in surrender.

"Had to ask," he says. "I know you've had a… complicated… relationship with Gregorovitch, but I doubt you're lying to me right now."

Alex is breathing hard, as though he's just run a marathon. He doesn't like that Ian lied just to get his honest reaction to the accusation.

"Fuck you," he hisses, and he doesn't have to take this shit. He's about three seconds from just leaving, and the only thing that's keeping him here is an increasingly fraying respect for the kinship he shares with the man in front of him. "What is it you want from me here?"

Ian tosses a file across his desk.

"You knew Yassen best," he begins and Alex is already halfway to the door, his right hand raised in a middle fingered salute at the man behind him.

"Fuck you," he says again. "Deal with your own fucking problems."

"Of course I could just arrest you on suspicion of being Yassens accomplice…"

Alex whirls around and in a second he has his uncle pinned to the wall, his chair spinning away precariously.

"Don't you dare threaten me," Alex growls. "You'll remember that Alan Blunt did the same thing to me, but I'm no frightened teenager anymore."

"Then call your boss, see what he has to say."

Alex releases his uncle and stalks away, pulling out his phone. Still glaring at Ian, he holds the receiver up to his ear.

"Good morning, sir," Alex says, and it's as insubordinate as he can manage it. "I really hope that you have no idea why I'm calling you right now."

There's silence from the younger Rider while he listens to the person on the other end of the line, a scowl firmly fixed on his face.

"No, I wouldn't have," Alex snapped, in response to whatever the person on the other end of the line says. "This is in direct violation of what we negotiated-" Then

Alex cut of, and a slow smirk spread over his face. For the first time, Ian's smug smile faltered; the game had changed, and he had no idea what cards his nephew was holding now.

"I see. Thank you sir, and I'm sorry for waking you up so early," Alex said at last.

It was practically polite.

Alex snaps the phone shut in a movement that reeks of satisfaction.

"I've been authorized to tell you that this investigation is going to be conducted by a joint task force of British and American agents," Alex grinned up at his uncle. "And that my purpose here is to ensure that you understand that this investigation will be led by the CIA primarily, and not British SIS."

The words are no less delicious coming out of his own mouth than from his receiver. "I suppose that makes me the one in charge, doesn't it?"

Ian's left hand twitches, as though he's sorely tempted to go for his gun and shoot his nephew in his smug, smiling face, but decides against it.

"The director of the CIA doesn't have the authority-"

"I didn't call the CIA," Alex put in helpfully. "I'm not their agent – not this week, anyway, I don't think. I'm officially scheduled for a rotation on drug trafficking but the President thought this was important enough to leave me in charge."

"You did not just call the President of the United States," Ian decides, trying to figure out whether or not Alex is bluffing.

He's way to satisfied to be lying.

Alex holds out the phone.

"You can redial the last number called if you like," Alex offers with a smile that is all innocence and helpfulness. "However, I'd advise waiting until you hear from your boss in a few hours about this, because while the President doesn't mind taking my calls once in a blue moon..." he doesn't finish, but he doesn't need to. Ian would be crucified for trying. "In the meantime, I'm going to my hotel and getting some sleep."

It's always worth loosing a few hours to get one up on his uncle – though Alex hadn't realized just how well this meeting would actually turn out for him.

If he'd waited, he knows he probably could have just gotten this information from his boss and avoided the confrontation entirely, but even given his late night call to his Commander in Chief, he thinks this round goes to him, on the whole.

Which reminds him.

"Oh, and one more thing," Alex turns around, and the smile is gone.

"Don't ever threaten me again," he said. "Ever. I'm not saying that because I have the President on speed dial. I'm not saying that because I have powerful friends. I'm saying that because the next time you try and threaten or blackmail me like Alan Blunt did, I'm not going to call someone on my contacts list. I'm not going to sic the President on you. I'm not even going to file a report about misuse of authority with my boss. I am going to come into your home when you are sleeping, dismember you, and leave the remains of your flayed skin hanging from this building like a flag. Can I make myself any clearer?"

Ian stares at his nephew like he's never seen him before, and maybe he hasn't. Aside from a brief interlude where he got shot on a friend's yacht in D.C, Ian has never seen this side of Alex, all taught lines, bloody hands and violent, violent eyes, ready to destroy anyone who stood in his way.

And it was a mistake, he knows, to play their game this way. He knows he never should have tried roping Alex into this with subterfuge, because nobody plays the game better than Alex. He'd spent the first seventeen years of his life being manipulated and blackmailed, and now he's made sure he's good enough that nobody will ever hurt him again. Ian had gone for what he'd hoped was the easiest way to get Alex to work with him, not recognizing just how much of a sore spot he was pushing until Alex lashed back out.

It's so hard to reconcile this man with the boy he left behind, the sweet, kind, clever child that Ian had been forced to abandon to the wolves. It was difficult to remember that kid in the face of this jaded, violent man that has been through far too much.

He'd thought he'd done the right thing, leaving Alex to MI6. Jack was wonderful, but she wasn't Alex's mother, and had to be allowed her own life, her freedom. And she certainly couldn't protect Alex like MI6 could have.

But they hadn't protected him. Ian had gambled that his bosses would never abuse a child. And Alex had lost for it.

He understands his nephews' anger. They play this game because Alex can't forgive him, will never be able to overlook everything he's done.

He thinks maybe Alex hates him, and knows that if he does, Alex is in the right for it. It's perfectly fair, but Ian can't bear to see the look in Alex's eyes, the look that only barely disguises how much he hates the older Rider.

"I understand," he says, feeling tired. "Ten thirty, then? We'll pick a team, decide how you want to approach this?"

Alex relaxes a little, watching him suspiciously as though still waiting for the other shoe to drop. For an instant, Ian catches a flash of Alex – sensitive, hurt, curious, genuinely interested in looking into a new case and saving the world for the nth time, but the sarcastic smile slips across his lips again, and he nods sharply.

"Bring coffee," he says (orders) and then before he can turn to leave again, Ian interrupts.

Who do you think told those guards to set the damn fire?" Ian asks quietly, and Alex freezes. It takes him a second to process what his uncle has said.

"Even when I was drugged up to the gills, there's only one person I ever wanted to fight for. You're the only reason I was even able to get up most mornings when John-"

And he's breaking so many taboos between them here. They don't talk about Alex's parents. They never did, even when Alex still thought his uncle worked at a bank, not when Alex walked in on his uncle slowly trying to drink himself into oblivion on the anniversary of his brothers' death.

And in five years, they haven't spent much time together. They fight and prod at each other because Alex is angry and Ian will always fire back because its easier than this, than talking about their feelings and the decisions Ian made. They haven't ever talked about Alex's incarceration with MI6, about Ian's role in everything that happened after he'd been kidnapped and drugged.

The words are so damn hard to get out because Riders don't talk about their feelings, don't make themselves vulnerable like that, and Alex is watching him with an impassive expression.

"I want to say I'm sorry, Alex," Ian said. "For leaving you to MI6 most of all, for lying to you, for everything."

His office is utterly silent for a long time.

"Who in gods name leaves a fourteen year old to a bank?"

"I didn't want to put any pressure on Jack to stay," Ian said, running a hand through his hair. "I thought you'd be protected, and not used. I thought… well, fuck. At the time, it seemed like the best of many bad options and I hoped for the best. I was wrong."

Alex frowns, but doesn't say anything else.

"We're not doing this," he says finally. "We're not having a tearful happy reunion or whatever you're trying to do. I understand, I do, but we're never going to have what we did. You trained me for a war I never wanted to fight, you gave me over to the people who used the skills you cultivated, and I nearly died so many times I don't keep count anymore."

"Alex-"

"I WAS FOURTEEN AND YOU HAD NO RIGHT!" Alex roars, and his body is perfectly still, frighteningly so.

And in the silence that follows, Ian can see the crack in Alex's cold mask.

"I know you didn't have a lot of choices, but fuck," Alex whispers.

There's another long uncomfortable silence before Alex speaks again, and this time he's regained his composure, covered up the crack that Ian had found in his nephews armor, the still raw, hurting wound that Ian himself had carved by inadvertently abandoning a teenager to the whims of a crazy person.

"I don't know if I can forgive you, but I do know that we have a job to do, and that I'm a professional, and so are you. I'll be back at ten thirty, and there better be coffee when you give me an actual briefing."

This time he's really gone, thankfully using the front door this time (thankfully because Ian can guess that the only other way Alex would have gotten in is through the window on the twelfth story and the thought nearly gives him a heart attack).

"Yeah," Ian rubs a hand through his hair, and returns to the files on his desk.

Yassen Gregorovitch isn't even his biggest problem this week, and he's actually quite happy to delegate the matter to Alex to take care of, because at the very least, he knows his nephew will take care of this in a way that will require very little paperwork being written up.

At the very least, he feels assured that Alex isn't being manipulated at his job. He knows Alex would kill or die to remain free of another Alan Blunt, but he worries about his nephew, much as he refuses to show it.

A few miles away, Alex flops into his bed at the hotel, so jetlagged that he never noticed the doorman's far too interested eyes following him as he made his way to the elevator, or the phone he pulled out of his pocket the second Alex was out of sight. He didn't bother with conversation - he just texted a single sentence to the only other contact in the phone.

"Alex Rider is here."

…..

FIN

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With literally all my love,

~InK