Disclaimer for the whole story : I don't own Alex Rider. Anthony Horrowitz does. If I owned it, Ian wouldn't have died and he would be married with Jack.

AN: English isn't my mother language, so please excuse me for the probably many mistakes, and feel free to correct me!

Jack sighed as she cleaned the kitchen after another cooking experiment had gone awry. Alex had already retreated to his room, pretending that he had homework to do, and while it was probably true, she supposed that he also wanted to escape cleaning duty – even though it had been his fault the kitchen was so dirty. Honestly, he should have known better than to try and surprise her while she was cooking. An operation who was already dangerous enough without a fourteen-year old teen suddently screaming from behind her, causing her to drop the pot she had been holding, splashing the dough she had been making on the burning cooking surface. The mixture had caught fire, and even if she had managed to stop the fire before the whole house was burned down, the kitchen walls were now covered in soot and the cooking surface was still covered by a black thing. Ian would have a fit when he would see this.

She snorted. No, he wouldn't. He wouldn't because he was away on some oversea conference and didn't knew when he would be home, and when he would be back he would probably leave again less than two days later. And he would again tell her something about problems at the bank. He would lie to her. Again. Like he did since more than seven years.

No matter how childish Jack might act sometimes, she was far from stupid. And it angered her to no end that Ian really thought that she believed the bullshit he told her EVERY. BLOODY. TIME. Buissness meetings didn't normally end up with the bankers coming home with their arms in a sling. Overseas conferences didn't normally results in bruises and cuts. Bankers didn't came home from their job with a haunted look in their eyes. Bankers didn't kept guns under their pillows. And bankers certainly didn't teach their nephew how to handle every kind of dangerous situation, from a kidnapping attempt to premeditated murder.

No, Ian Rider certainly wasn't a banker. The guns, the paranoid attitude, the injuries… either he was involved with the wrong people – and that couldn't be because it was Ian she was thinking about, Ian who always protected her, protected Alex – or he was secretly working for the governement. Knowing Ian, probably the latter. She had found out about this two years ago, when Ian came back after an awfully long "buissness trip" with two black eyes, his right arm in a cast as well as his left foot, and bandages across his stomache.

" There was a gang-fight just outside the building, he had told her, I got caught in the middle when I left the meeting – "

Ian had been exhausted that night, and had fallen asleep on the couch in the middle of her worried rant about how he should have called and why did he had to try and stop this fight and… When she had noticed that he was deep asleep, she had just sighed and hauled him over her shoulder – noticing with worry that he was lighter than last time she had seen him, and that she could actually feel his ribs against her shoulder – and had brought him to his room, where she had dropped him onto the bed before drapping the blanket over him. That was when she had seen the gun hidden in the small of Ians back. That was the day she had put all the pieces together. Ians attitude, the injuries, the gun, the training-like regiment he was imposing Alex… All of this suddently makes sens. And while she was scarred about the implications, she was mostly hurt. Ian hadn't told her. He didn't trust her enough to tell her about his job, about the risk he was taking, about the fact that he might die someday and then Alex and her would be all alone and and and…

She wanted to confront him the next morning, but when she saw him coming into the kitchen, exhausted but obviously happy to be here, and start wolfing down the giant breakfeast she had prepared, she didn't. Because in Ians eyes, even though he didn't knew it, she could see that this was what kept him alive: this attempt at normallicy, a family who didn't treated him like he was in mortal peril, but who tried to make the best of the few moments he was there. And she knew that if she took that away from him, she would risk everything. Ians life, Alexs trust into the man he respected more than anything even though he often resented him for never being around, the fragile, but precious relationship that existed between Ian and herself…

Because even she wasn't stubborn enough to deny herself the truth any longer. She loved Ian. More than she had ever loved any of her previous boyfriends. More than she had thought it would be possible to love someone who was hardly ever there. More than she should love him, because he was her boss and he was dangerous and she knew he wouldn't allow her to get any closer to him because he wouldn't want to put her in any danger. Because she knew he couldn't possibly love her back (because face it, the rare times he was actually there she would either make fun of him or scold him for always putting his job first, how could he love her after that?) and that even if he did, he would never tell her.

She sighed again, and threw away the cleaning rag she was using. It was useless. Cleaning this kitchen, who would probably be dirty again tomorrow, was useless, and so was thinking about a relationship that wasn't there. She needed some fresh air, she decided. And it didn't matter that it was ten in the evening, and that it was freezing cold outside. She needed air. And a drink, she added reluctantly. She was never one to drink to forget, but somehow, today, she really needed it. She had been out the entire day, without knowing why, and she felt that she needed the alcool if she wanted to keep going. Somedays, when she felt like this, it was either drink or die. Or hurt, at least. She had never tried to kill herself – but there had been days when she had contemplated it. She had been what people called a "cutter", for a while. But that had been before she met Ian. Before she had started to hope again. To hope that maybe life wasn't that bad, that her parents weren't really fighting the whole time and that maybe it wasn't her fault that they were going to divorce, even though her mom told her so everytime she talked to her. But last week, she had received a phone call from her father telling her that her favourite cousin had tried to kill herself and that she was now in a coma, and that her uncle and aunt had renied her because such a coward cannot be considered a Starbright, and she just couldn't take it anymore.

"Alex! I'm going for a walk, don't wait for me, ok?"

"Allright!"came the teens response.

Without anymore words, she left the house, stopping only to grab her favourite woolen, emerald green coat. It was her favourite because it was the first present she had gotten from Ian, seven years ago, on the first Christmas she had spent with the Riders.

She wandered throught the neighboorhood for what seemed like hours, walking aimlessly between the houses and work buildings. When she finally stopped walking, she saw that she stood in a little park, where Ian used to take Alex when he was little, when he was actually there. She could still remember the beaming face of Alex, and the soft smile of Ian whenever they could come here.

She snorted. Here she was again. Thinking about Ian. Thinking about how he would be a good father if he could quit the damn job that was killing him slowly. Thinking about how good he looked when he flashed her that smirk of his – that was apparently a Rider trait, because she had seen Alex use the same to charm a girl when she had gone to one of his football games. Thinking about how safe she had felt in his arms the only time he had hugged her – she had just gotten back from a week with her parents, and she had been an emotional wreck. She had broken down two days after, and Ian had come into her room, and had held her as she cried. Thinking about how much she wanted to tell him she loved her, and about how scarred she was that he would reject her. Thinking about the fact that the job he was doing was dangerous, and that next time he might not come back with bruises and broken bones, but in wooden box or not at all.

As her thoughts wandered in that direction, she felt the tears rolling down her cheeks and let herself fall on the ground next to the plastic slide. With a barely contained sob, she brought her knees under her chin and circled them with her arms.

She was scarred. Not for herself, but for Ian. Scarred that he might die, scarred that he would come back with more injuries, scarred that he would finally reach his breaking point which, she could tell, was close to exploding, scarred of what he might do to himself if this shit was allowed to continue any longer.

And she cried. She cried as the snow started to fall, not caring at all about the dropping temperature or about the sickness she might catch. She just sat there, her knees under her chin like when she was very little, like when her parents had started fighting, and she cried. And every tear was a small pleading to whoever was in charge of Ians souls to keep him safe and to bring him back to Alex. To bring him back to her.