Archive of Our Own

“You’re being reassigned.” 

Alex nods numbly at Diana Taverner. There’s not much he can say, and he’d been expecting this, but hearing it makes it real. What happened is real, and there’s nothing he can say to her to make it right or change the outcome. He doesn’t argue, nor does he add much to what she says over the next several minutes. He simply sits and picks at the corners of his nails and tries not to buckle under the weight of her scrutinising. 

He’s never been able to read Taverner. He’s not sure if anyone ever has. If he’s being honest, she scares the shit out of him and it’s a small relief that he’s being sent somewhere he won’t have to interact with the woman hopefully ever again. He’s still not sure why he’s being reassigned instead of outright fired, though. What she should be doing is throwing him into the Thames.

The conversation doesn’t last much longer. His back is aching where it’s pressed against the chair and Taverner is looking at him with what might be some sort of pity. He barely hears her when she tells him he can go, but he picks himself up with a wince and a quiet thank you, grabs his coat from where it’s hanging by the door, and gingerly pulls it on as he makes his way out of the Park.

It’s raining when he steps outside. It hadn’t been earlier. Alex still hasn’t gotten the hang of carrying an umbrella with him everywhere he goes despite having been living here for a few years. He sighs and pulls his coat tighter around himself. Should probably call a cab, but he can’t quite bring himself to do that yet. There’s no hood on his jacket and the rain starts to soak his hair, plastering it to his forehead. The water flows down over the two gouges above his left eye that are finally starting to heal and it feels almost soothing. He stands on the sidewalk in front of the Park and breathes. People pay him no mind as they part around him like a current. 

Alex stuffs his hands into his pockets and stares blankly at the cement, tries to will it into opening up and swallowing him whole. A rogue rivulet of water snakes its way down the back of his neck into his shirt and he shivers. It shocks him back to himself just enough that he flags down the next cab he sees. 

Traffic is abysmal, but Alex isn’t in a rush. His mother had gone back to Hawaii two days ago, having been staying with him for a few weeks already. He'd practically had to kick her out otherwise she would have moved herself in and Alex definitely couldn't handle being doted on any longer or else he might explode. He loves his mother and he knows she loves him, but being taken care of is just too much right now. There's something in him that aches when he thinks too hard about the fact that he's here being cared for by his mother, having his wounds being soothed and needs met, while the rest of his team are dead and buried. 

He should be in the Thames. 

Watching the buildings pass by through the window, Alex briefly considers asking the driver to drop him off at the waterfront instead. Thinks about how easy it would be and how the scars on his back and the ache in his chest would finally stop hurting. Alex swipes at his eyes and doesn’t care if the driver can see him in the rearview mirror.

But no matter how much he wants to stop the car, he doesn’t. His mother is still here and he loves her and undoing all of her hard work of putting him back together again would be a slap in the face. KC’s cats, Arlo and Scruggs, are still here too. They’re waiting for him to get back to his apartment and take care of them and abandoning them after they’d just lost their mother would see KC killing him again in the afterlife. If anyone could kill a ghost it’d be her. 

The taxi stops in front of his building and Alex pays the man, says a quick thank you, and heads inside. He can already hear Scruggs crying at the front door when he gets to it and the scraggly muppet of a cat looks up at him with a yowl as he steps through the threshold. Arlo is nowhere to be seen, but with him being the literal definition of a scaredy cat, Alex isn't surprised.

Alex kicks off his shoes and shucks off his coat and hangs it, not caring about the water dripping from it onto the floor. There's a towel he keeps hung up nearby for these rainy London days and he grabs it to quickly scrub through his own soaked hair. Scruggs is yelling at his feet the whole time, impatient about dinner even though dinner isn't for a while yet and Alex has to gently shoo him away. 

A dark shape is watching him from the top of the fridge; a sentient void with the biggest eyes he's ever seen. Arlo has come out of hiding and Alex wanders over and gently reaches out his hand in greeting. Arlo sniffs it once but doesn't do much else. Alex wasn't expecting him to. He doesn't want much to do with himself either if he's being honest.

Suddenly thirsty, Alex grabs a bottle of water from the fridge, chugs about half of it before putting it back, then leans over the kitchen counter to quickly scroll through his phone. He'd felt it go off during his meeting with Taverner and he's not surprised to see that it's a text message from his mother. She's only been away from him for two days but his phone has been buzzing with updates about her trip back, gossip from coworkers (He's not entirely sure how they get up to so much but they work in a hospital so he supposes it makes sense), and several “I love you"s sprinkled in between. 

He reads every word fondly, but can't bring himself to respond with anything more than a “Thank you. Love you too.” and a little heart emoji for added effect. The energy just isn't there, hasn't been for weeks. Opening the messaging app gets a pain sparking in his chest whenever he sees the last handful of names in the history. He's backed everything up, messages, photos, videos, everything to it's own separate hard drive already, but he just can't quite make it the rest of the way to deleting it all from his phone. 

Alex is still leaning over the kitchen counter, absentmindedly swiping through photos and trying not to give in to the grief he can feel crawling up his throat. He doesn't know how long he's there for, and Arlo and Scruggs have let him alone for the moment to entertain themselves with the empty cardboard box he forgot about in the living room.

It's quiet. The rain taps gently on the windows and sends him into a daze. He should eat something, but he's not ready to move quite yet. Tries to ignore the ache in his back that grows with each passing minute he stays in his hunched over position. Only half listens to the scratching sound of cardboard being obliterated in the room over.

Something on the floor above him hits the ground and shatters, startling Alex so hard his phone goes skidding across the counter right over the edge and onto the hardwood. 

“ Fuck. ” Alex's heart starts pounding in his chest and he squeezes his eyes shut as hard as he can. The people above him are stomping around, probably attempting to clean up whatever mess has been made. The sound keeps ringing in his ears. A door slams.

He feels dizzy, has to crouch down and press his forehead against the cabinets as his stomach flips. They're coming back for him. They're coming back into the room and they're going to drag him away again. The scars on his back burn in painful memory. Several people are screaming at him. The questions keep coming and he can't answer any of them, can't give them what they want. 

He's breathing ragged now, panicked little wheezes that he can barely take a full breath for. Gunfire and screaming and broken glass. Questions he doesn't have the answers to. Searing pain that lances across his back again and again and again-

Something touches his thigh and Alex freezes, doesn't even breathe. If he breathes it's over. His hands are shaking from the white knuckle grip he still has on the counter top. 

The pressure on his thigh is still there. Why can't they just leave him alone? He didn't want this. Doesn't want this. 

“ Mrrp ?”

That's not right. He doesn't recognize this sound. Trying to place it turns his mind around somewhat, the process tree in his brain collapsing into itself one by one. Alex finally realizes his lungs are burning and he lets out the air in a desperate, noisy rush. He forces his eyes open.

Arlo is staring at him. The tiny void has his front paws on his left thigh, body stretched out and up to try and reach Alex's face with his own. Arlo's eyes are wide and questioning. He mewls again, softly, in Alex's face.

Oh. That's what that was. Alex has never heard Arlo make that sound before. He's not even sure Arlo has ever been this close before. Alex's mother has a weird way with animals and even she hadn't been able to coax him near enough to be pet. Alex stares down at the cat in a mix of wonder and confusion. 

Arlo's head bunts against chin and something in Alex's chest shatters. Tears prickle to life in the corners of his eyes, unbidden, and stream down his face without warning. 

He stays that way for a while, crouched down behind the counter with Arlo standing on his lap, letting himself be pet for once while Alex cries out his griefs and frustrations. 

When the commotion upstairs finally dies down and blessed quiet fills the apartment again, Arlo decides he's had enough. The cat lets out a final, small meow and scampers back to the cardboard carcass that Scruggs is still murdering in the living room.

Moment broken, Alex lets out a wet, shaky breath and steels himself, wiping his eyes before slowly getting back to his feet. His back protests the time spent on the ground with a sharp pull of pain and he winces. Hunger has started to settle into his gut, which means the boys are probably ready for something more substantial than cardboard. 

With a sigh, Alex makes his way around the island in search of his phone. He finds it facedown under one of the barstools, a sinking feeling in his stomach when he goes to pick it up and finds what can only be bits of glass dotted around where it's laying on the floor. 

Flipping it over in his hands, he discovers the screen is cracked and refuses to turn on when he presses any of the buttons. Alex curses. He hasn't even had this particular phone for very long. Needed to get a new one after- well, after everything. It's only a few weeks old.

He's replaced phone screens before. He can fix this one too. At least he'll have something he can do today that he can put all his focus into. Let himself get lost in the repair. 

For now, he sets the phone back down on the countertop and cleans up the mess on the floor. Then he'll make food for himself and Scruggs and Arlo. He'll play some music. Fix the phone. Look into his new coworkers at Slough House just to be sure what he's getting into. 

One step at a time.