Journey - REVISED EDITION

A Rider's Luck

"Alright." Falcon sighed again and turned to leave. "Goodbye Alex. Don't carry the world on your shoulders."

He shut the door, and a whimper tore from Alex's mouth, tears spilling over.

"Please, come back. I need you." He whispered to the empty room, but no-one heard. "Please"He gripped the pencil in his hand harder and harder, eyes glued to the door, waiting for Falcon to come back. He was coming back, right?

Snap.

The pencil broke under his shaking hands, and with it broke the last shred of resolve and hope he might have had.

He couldn't move a muscle, completely frozen.

Why did everyone always leave? Why did he always have to ruin everything?

The use of his limbs came back to him in a flash and he raced down the stairs and out the door, his lungs burning, his mind tripping over itself, blending in memories of other people who left and never came back.

It's safe to say his scrambled brain didn't registered the others standing outside waving goodbye to their team-mate. He rushed past them, running after the black car quickly pulling out of the driveway. He had to get Falcon to stay. He had to say sorry.

His pulse thrummed against the hands of the soldiers who held him back as he strained to break free.

"Let me go!" He screamed. His face felt wet, while white hot panic simmered under the surface of his skin.

"Alex."

"Breath."

"Stop screaming."

"Eagle, get the tranq."

"I have to say goodbye!" Alex struggled.

His surroundings changed to a dull brown and black, with the rigged Land Rover pulling out of Razim's compound.

"Jack! Don't go!" he screamed, the pinch of the needle lost in everything else.

"Jack? Who's Jack?"

"No idea."

"Alex, can you hear me?"

But Alex was gone, trapped, lost, lost in an endless desert of brown and white and red. Always red. Always burning. Always dead.

Fox's face hovered over Alex's open pupils, but all the boy saw was a burnt-out shell of a vehicle, and a laughing woman with red hair.

He closed his eyes and let go.

******************************

An expletive fell from Wolf's lips as the trembling boy collapsed into his arms, his brown eyes rolling back in his head, no longer struggling.

"Get him inside, and then I want to know what just bloody happened."

Snake immediately took Alex from Wolf and carried him inside and up the stairs, placing him on Falcon's bed, since Alex's own was covered with uncompleted homework. Wolf followed, thoughts swirling in his head.

He watched as Snake carefully lay the boy on the bed, a pair of Falcon's sweatpants that Alex had stolen nearly falling off the teen's skinny frame.

"He's so small." Snake's voice brought Wolf out of his head, and he looked at the SAS soldier in surprise. "How old do you think he really is?"

"I don't know." Wolf replied honestly. "I don't think it really matters though."

"Wolf!" Snake was shocked; it was written all over his sharp features.