Chapter Text
The layover from Belgium to Portugal was not the worst Alex had experienced, but still a 5 hour layover was a pain in the ass, no matter how you looked at it. Especially when you have a condescending FBI agent breathing down your neck, and a pair of handcuffs latched onto your wrist.
Alex was currently in a small international airport in Belgium that would fly her to Portugal. This flight would be her last stop before she would step on the plane that would take her back to the States. A few months back that would be no biggie for Alex, all she would have to deal with would be the annoying flashes of cameras and excited soccer girls trying to get her autograph. But she left that life months ago, sure she would get the same flashes of cameras, only this time they would be focused on her being the villain not the last minute heroine they all grew to love. It’s funny how one night can change your life in an instant.
The chain connecting the handcuffs clanked together and it reminded Alex that she had to find a way to escape if it’s the last thing she did.
“Ok, come on. Get up. Let’s head up to the counter and see if we can get on the plane already” the agent said while they both stood.
The FBI agent had been on her tail for the past ten months and he finally managed to get her to the airport for the first time. His name was Micael, a military man who found a way to serve his country, by capturing international fugitives. He was roughly about the same height as Alex, square broad shoulders and one feature she couldn’t help but find amusing. He had a higher pitched voice than hers. Granted she had a gravelly voice since childhood.
As he finished talking to one of the foreign attendants that understood some English, he steered Alex towards the bridged entrance of the plane. From the moment he placed the handcuffs on her the man has refused to lose physical contact by any means. Smart man, because giving Alex Morgan a half chance she would make a run for it if it meant she had the slightest chance of escaping. The last thing Alex wanted to do was head back to the country that screwed her over.
“Looks like we’re sitting right up front, come on let’s get this show on the road!” Micael placed her on the window seat and lowered the food tray.
As he did this the flight attendant asked Micael if he wanted a beverage. “Just some orange juice for the lady and iced water for me, thank you.”
Alex got comfortable on the seat and turned towards the window waiting for an opportunity of escape to appear.
“Alex, what are you thinking?”
Surprised by the question she glanced over her shoulder and stared at him.
“I asked you something Alex, surely you didn’t lose your manners while you were being a criminal.” he chided.
Refusing to acknowledge his stupid remark she turned back towards the window.
“Hey! I’m talking to you!” he snarls and he grabs her shoulder and forcibly turns Alex towards him.
“What do you want to hear Micael? That I’m tired, that I didn’t do it, that I’m actually innocent! Because I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t believe me anyways!” Alex whispered shrugging his clammy hand off her shoulder.
“Um, here are your beverages, Sir.”
The flight attendant glanced towards Alex’s cuffed wrists as she placed the orange juice on the food tray and walked down the aisle. Alex didn’t blame her for all she knew Alex was a fugitive.
“You want to know what I think Baby Horse?” Micael downed his drink in one gulp and turned towards Alex. She rolled her eyes noticing the nickname he used.
“Don’t call me that, and No. I really don’t.” Ignoring her suggestion he went on anyways.
“It really doesn’t matter what I believe, because at one point you had the whole country on your side and now, well… you shattered that pristine image you created. It’s going to take a bloody miracle and some very convincing evidence to make them think otherwise.”
“Why do you think I ran? Idiot.”
“Because that’s what you do Baby Horse. You run and run, until your time runs out.” And with that he laughed.
She tried not to cry out of anger, at what life had thrown at her. As a distraction she chugged her juice and noticed a slight alcoholic tinge behind it. That’s what the flight attendant was looking at. She wasn’t looking at her wrist’s she was trying to communicate to Alex with her eyes. Placing her forehead against the window Alex smiled.
Micael was right she did run, but everyone knew Alex didn’t stop running until she knew she won.
The dinging of the seat belt sign woke Alex up from a nap. The pilot said something over the intercom. Assuming that he was notifying the passengers to prepare to land when the plane shifted in elevation.
“Not too far now. One more day Alex, and you’ll be back in the USA!” Micael said as he made a patriotic gesture yelling USA. He gained some annoyed looks from the fellow passengers.
“You’re an Asshat, you know that?”
“Well, that’s rude” he said as they prepared to land.
They were now in Albuferia, Portugal and Micael was attached to Alex like a blood sucking leech. She just had to find a small window, she needed him to make one mistake, which was all she really needed to leave him in the dust. Nonetheless, she knew it wasn’t going to be at this moment. Alex had to be patient.
He walked them towards the shifting boards that indicated whether the flight schedules were running on time. Alex read the board and couldn’t help but hold in her laughter. She noticed the line that held the flight towards California were all highlighted in red, and that only meant one thing.
“FUCK! Another layover you have got to be kidding me!” Micael said in angst.
The former striker had the brightest smiled over a layover for the first time, which had to have beaten her longest one yet. It was a 23 hour layover, due to a heavy tropical storm that was brewing outside.
“Let’s find a hotel we can wait at, Come on!” He grumbled, yanking Alex behind him towards the exit.
Like clockwork the floodgates opened up in the clouds and it started to pour. Fate was finally on Morgan’s side today. As he leaned over the side walk with one hand waving up in the air trying to wave down a taxi, his other hand kept ahold of her wrists.
All of a sudden, Alex felt a sensation in her gut that traveled all the way down to her toes. Alex had learned in the past year to never ignore her gut in various situations. Now was the chance she had been waiting for since the dumb agent captured her. When Alex began to lunge towards the agent, to knock him off balance, lightning flashed across the sky closely followed by an ear shattering clap of thunder, simultaneously occurring as she pushed Micael off the side walk. Alex was so focused on Micael that the thunderous sound didn’t even register into her senses. The reaction she got from Micael was exactly what she wanted. He was surprised by both Alex and thunder, that it made him lose his grip on her wrist while flying several feet away from the sidewalk. And like hell, Alex ran the fastest she could down the cobble stoned streets of Albuferia.
Having annual tournaments in Portugal with the national team, where Alex and her closest friends explored the city had paid off. Having a slight remembrance of the city, she needed to find a place to lay low, away from the public and gather her surroundings.
Morgan had been running at a full sprint for half an hour at the most, and the drainage system in Portugal really sucked to say the least. At this point Alex wasn’t even running anymore it was more like trotting through water that hit her mid-calf. She made a short detour into a street market looking for some kind of tool she could take the handcuffs off. Noticing a pair of pliers next to a cart that were carelessly hanging on a wire she casually walked by the cart, snatched them and turned into an alley nearby. Leaning against the wall she pinched the chain off the handcuffs into two and pushed the separated cuffs under the sleeves of her hoodie. That would have to do for now. Jogging back towards the cart she replaced the pliers back where she found them.
People may believe Alex was in fact a criminal, but she knew she was far from it. Just because the majority of people saw her as the monster that ‘they’ made her out to be, she could never let herself lose all sense of propriety. Alex would always find a way to make things right with what she is given. Today, she was given a half chance and she acted on it.
Currently, the former striker was desperately trying to remember any of the places her and Kelley used to explore within the city when they had to stay for the Algarve Cup. If she remembered correctly Alex was currently located by the main plaza where there should be a nice hotel and resort, just by the ocean.
She forced her tired legs to push even harder still looking over her shoulder on some off chance that Micael managed to keep up.
The storm did not seem like it was stopping anytime soon and the constant treading of water was beginning to take a toll on her body. Alex was sure she was experiencing the first stages of hypothermia with her drenched clothes. She was wearing a gray Nike hoodie that weighed a ton and blue jeans with a pair of sneakers she found back in Belgium. She was soaked to the bone and in the distance, like a bright light at the end of the tunnel, she could see a veranda leading up to the entrance of the hotel & resort she was looking for, just up ahead.
As she reached the entrance a short elderly man held the door open for her as she walked by. Shortly after walking into the main lobby she was greeted by a bell hop that had several towels draped along his arms. Gladly accepting one of the towels Alex smirked as he took in her disheveled appearance.
“Looks like you ignored the weather forecast today. Next time you should take an umbrella with you.” he laughed.
Their conversation was cut short by the loud hiss of airbrakes locking just outside in the veranda. Morgan turned towards the entrance and noticed a charter settling and opening its doors to its passengers.
“We have complimentary coffee and cookies at the breakfast bar up ahead. I say you make it there before it’s all gone.”
“Thanks for the towel.”
She turned back towards the main lobby and made her way to the bar and grabbed a hot cup of coffee along with a cookie that Alex clearly deserved after the run she just had. At the far end of the lobby she could make out a janitor closet with the door slightly ajar. Alex bet she would be find a set of keys and something she could take the handcuffs completely off, somewhere inside that room.
Drinking her coffee as she walked towards the door she shuffled inside making sure she went unnoticed. First, she looked for some kind of hardware to pick the lock on her cuffs. She had managed to find a small pin and quickly picked the locks open, something she had to learn in order to survive. Alex didn’t find a set of keys but something even better. Along the shelves of cleaning products there was a key card with a label that read “master”. Her luck was finally starting to make a turn for the better today. She grabbed the key and walked out the closet while hiding the card in the inside pocket of her hoodie.
“Hey what are you doing in there?”
“Oh sorry, but I was trying to find another towel, perhaps a dry one?” Alex gave the man her trademark smile as she raised her hand showing him the wet towel she currently had.
“Oh well, luckily we have our staff handing out fresh towels in the front of the lobby.”
“Yes I saw that, but I really don’t want to go out there with my clothes looking like this could you maybe get me one from the back, please”
“Of course. No problem you can follow me to my office and I can show you the number on how to order fresh towels from your room, for next time.”
“Great! That would be excellent.” Alex followed him behind the counter into the manager’s office.
The manager sat down behind his desk and started messing with his desktop while Alex sat down on the chair facing his desk. One of the staff members poked their head into the office and started speaking to the manager in Portuguese. The manager got back up from his desk and walked towards the door.
“I’m sorry Ma’am, but if you don’t mind I have to attend to something real quick and I’ll be back here soon enough.” “No problem, take your time.” Alex smiled as her brain started coming up with the perfect plan on how she would find a free room.
The manager left her alone in his office she hopped out of the chair and walked behind his desk. The man had carelessly left his desktop on and had the full directory of the hotel opened up. Alex scrolled through the room assignments and saw that one of the suites on the eighth floor was free for two weeks. This wasn’t Alex’s first rodeo she easily copied some files from another room and placed her false information to correlate someone else’s credit card and ID. And that’s how Alex managed to book herself a free hotel suite for two weeks at a five star hotel & resort. Making sure she left everything as it was she left a sticky note on the table.
‘I realized that I am currently soaking wet by the rain and I’m freezing. I couldn’t wait but thank you.’
Walking back out behind the counter Alex noticed the room next to the office had a plaque that read, “Airport Luggage” in several languages.
“Shit yeah!”
Really needing some dry clean close Alex unlocked the door with the master key card and grabbed a big burgundy bag that was a decent size. Along with a black Nike trainer bag that she hoped had better sneakers than the wet, soggy ones she was currently wearing.
She made her way out from behind the counter with her new clothes, grabbed herself another cup of coffee and made her way to the elevator in the back end of the lobby. Pressing the call button for the elevator, she hugged her warm cup with both hands and savored the delicious taste of her black Portugaian coffee. As the doors slid open she got on and pressed the highest button on the list, the eighth floor. Go big or go home was always Morgan’s style.
Just as the doors began to close shut Alex saw someone’s hand hit the door trying to catch the doors from closing. Raising her head out of her coffee cup the only thing she saw before the doors closed was someone wearing a neck scarf that covered half their face along with bright Hazel eyes.
“Tobin?” Alex couldn’t help, but say her name out loud.
‘That’s ridiculous it was only hazel eyes Alex. You can’t assume it was her just because of her eye color.’
Alex convinced herself she just needed a fresh bed and a hot shower and everything would be fine. She shuffled her feet in place and looked at her reflection on the mirrored walls of the elevator. She couldn’t help but give herself a well-deserved smile that reached all the way to her eyes as she took another sip of her coffee.
Alex Morgan won today.