AN: Thank you to everyone who reviewed the first chapter, reviews are greatly appreciated and spur me on to write the next chapter! And I'm super sorry for not updating this in forever.

AN2: It's been 10 months, I am so sorry! :/

Disappear: Chapter 2

A nurse whom Tom had not seen yet came into his cubical which was surrounded by light blue curtains. She looked kind and as though she was about to give good news.

"Your friend, Alex is out of surgery. Is there anyone we can contact for him? I've tried ringing his guardian, Jack Starbright, but it seems the phone is switched off and no one is answering at the house." She asked and Tom shook his head.

"She's not going to answer, Jack died three years ago. You can call my mum, she'll come and sign any papers, and Alex has been an add-on for the last couple of years."

"You sure, you told the other nurse not to call either of your parents, and your mum isn't on the list as Alex's guardian."

"I didn't want to worry them," Tom told her. "But, everything's okay now. Besides, Alex needs them more than I do right now."

"Alright then." She turned to leave the small enclosed area.

"Can I see him?" Tom rushed before she could leave. It seemed like that was all he'd asked for since he got here. She smiled; was that a yes?

"I don't see why not, he's probably not awake yet though."

"That's okay." Tom just wanted to see for himself that he was still alive. He'd been shot during the explosion which meant someone was out to kill him. If they knew he was still alive who knew if they were to try again.

The young nurse pulled a wheel chair from the corner just outside his cubical and helped Tom sit down in it. An awkward silence engulfed them as they made their way towards the lift of the ground floor. She positioned them into the centre of the lift and Ellen, as it read on her name badge, depressed the button for the third floor. The lift lurched upward and it took only seconds to reach their destination floor.

The doors pinged and opened to reveal an open hallway with a nurse's station in one corner, sliding glass doors with darkened rooms were situated from each of the walls. It was a dead silence on the floor and it made Tom nervous.

"How come it's so quiet?" Tom inquired, he whispered to match the silence.

"Most of the patients up here are sleeping and visiting hours are over." She told him, her voice low. On the right hand wall was the sliding doors to Alex's ward. The nurse pressed a button that looked like a doorbell, though it made no noise and the doors wisped open soundlessly, he was pushed through and wheeled towards a bed in the middle of the room on the left hand side.

Alex was lying perfectly still aside from his chest rising and falling; machines beeping quietly and steadily beside him. The bed sheets were tucked tidily around him and his arms lay on top.

"Do you want me to stay here?" She asked as she parked him right next to the bed.

"I'll be all right." Tom had a plan, something he didn't want the nurse to hear. The nurse checked on one of the other patients before leaving the room.

"Hey, Alex." Tom started, before pausing, as if waiting for a response. "You… You were shot before the explosions started. I mean, I'm sure you know, and I'm sure you can't hear me, but what if someone's trying to hurt you again like the time in the classroom or when you got shot outside the bank.

"You're a sitting duck Alex. I think I have a plan though. Basically, you need to disappear, anywhere, off the face of the earth if you have to. One of the boys in class was talking about his fake ID that he got from some guy in an alley way; yeah, I know it sounds cliché but that's what I overheard. Fake your death and go start a life in a new country, perhaps America, it's huge and easy to get lost there. You could be a different person, no MI6 or assassins trying to kill you, eh?" Tom's plan had sounded much better in his head and now it just seemed like a lost cause, faking your death and starting new lives only seemed like something that happened on TV and not in the real world. "I don't know, Alex, I don't know what to do, I don't know what you should do. But something needs to be done. I'll try when I get out of the hospital and hopefully you'll be awake…"

Tom was discharged from the hospital two days later, but with no news of Alex waking up. His mother drove him home, both quiet in the car. The stitches in the side of Tom's head were to come out in about a week's time but they were itching already.

"Stop it, Thomas. You'll make it worse." Tom's mother, Sarah, warned. Tom bowed his head but said nothing which didn't go unnoticed by Sarah. "What's up?"

"Nuffin'" Tom replied, lying through his teeth. He was worried about Alex, worried that someone would try and kill him again.

"What's up, Tom?" She insisted after a short while. At this point, Tom was about to burst with all the anxious thoughts he'd just thought. He splurged all the information at his mum, hardly taking a breath and sat quiet and exhausted when he'd finished. He'd told her everything, right from the start, day one back when Alec's uncle had died. He'd even told her about what had actually happened the day he received a 'serious injury' to his arm.

"I just need him to go." Tom said finally. He took a huge breath as if he hadn't done throughout the ten minutes of talking he'd just done.

"Okay." His mother said. Tom shot her a look of surprise.

"What?" Tom was confused. She was going to help.

"Okay. I'll help. I'll order a passport for Alex, alter a few of his details, no one should know. Visa would be a good idea to. Where were you planning on sending him?"

"I - I hadn't really thought that far. It was semi-theoretical. America?"

"Yes, good choice, plenty of cities, and plenty of places for him to dissolve into. English speaking too, so it wouldn't be so hard for him to blend in." Tom looked at her in disbelief.

"Mum, this isn't one of your books. It's not that easy, people don't just end up in America, there's passports and visas and all sorts of stuff that he'll need."

"I do know Thomas." She told him sternly. They pulled up to their driveway facing their house, Tom's mum got out after turning off the ignition and went to open the door, and Tom was left in the car. When she realised he wasn't following, she paused at the door and turned back to the car. She opened his car door and knelt so that she was below his eye level. "Come on, let's get inside at least, okay?" She placed her hand on his arm and rubbed small circles into his wrist.

XX

Tom had spent the evening on his computer, looking up places to send Alex to in America. He's never been so didn't really know much about all the different states apart from what he'd seen in the TV shows, which wasn't going to help him now. He opened up another tab in his browser and typed in 'how to fake your death and hide from everyone'. It was pathetic, but he was tired, and just really wished that the solution would right itself. There was a knock on the door, and Tom looked at the time, it was ten thirty. His mum came in quietly.

"Hey, shouldn't you be in bed?" She asked.

"Probably," He didn't look up from the stupid web search he'd made. He clicked on the first link which took him to a Wikipedia page that told him that what Alex needed to do was actually called pseudocide, a method in which you faked your death and then started life anew somewhere else.

His mother had left the room and gone to bed herself but Tom carried on searching and writing down a couple of notes and ideas. This was a really childish idea, Tom knew that, but he still had some inkling that it would work.

XX

The next day Tom asked his mum to drop him off at the hospital to visit Alex as King's Hill Sixth Form had been closed for at least the rest of the week while the explosions were investigated; no doubt MI6 were there in one form or another, after all the attack was intended for Alex. She did just that before driving back to their house to finish getting one of the chapters to her book completed.

Tom wandered into the main reception of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and asked one of the nurses where he could find Alex.

"Are you a family member?" He asked. Tom shook his head. "Only family members are allowed to visit, I'm afraid."

"He doesn't have a family to visit him though. I'm his best friend, practically my brother!" He exclaimed, though he didn't shout at him. It wasn't the nurse who made the protocol.

"I don't make the rules; I'm sorry."

"Please…" He pleaded. The man looked at Tom and took a deep breath.

"I can't let you."

"You've got to let me see him. I was there when he came in, I found him in the rubble when the explosions happened. Am I getting anywhere yet?" He asked. The doctor looked left and right before tapping a few keys on the keyboard in front of the screen.

"His name was Alex, right?" Tom nodded his response. "Alright, come with me. I'll take you to see him." Tom followed the man up a flight of stairs, which came so much easier than last time, and then down a corridor. The corridor opened up onto a ward and Tom could instantly see Alex's bed halfway down the room. He walked over to him and pulled over a chair that was placed near the bed. He was still unconscious. "He hasn't woken since the explosions, but the doctors and surgeons think he'll pull through, the kid's strong." The nurse gave him a small smile and wandered off back down the stairs.

Tom made the effort to drag a chair over to his bedside, just like he'd done beforehand.

"We've got it sorted, Alex." He started, he shuffled the chair closer to Alex as quietly as possible. "Well, not all of it, but we have a basic idea." Tom placed a hand on Alex's arm, letting him know he was there. It wasn't as warm as he expected it to be, but it shouldn't have been much of a surprise; after all he had been lying there for nearly four days now with no sign of waking. He knew that it was still early days, even the doctors and nurses weren't too worried that he hadn't woken yet, but worry and anxiety still churned in the pit of his stomach for his best friend.

Alex's forearm twitched suddenly before going still again. Tom looked down and removed his hand. Was he waking up? Maybe he was! Tom stood up from his chair and decided the right thing to do was go and get a nurse. He left the room to find the nurses station which was just down the corridor.

"Alex moved, I mean," he paused, trying to find the best way to explain it. "He twitched a bit. Is that good? Is he waking up?"

"It's quite normal for patients like Alex to move involuntarily. He's probably not waking up though. Not yet anyway. It's still-"

"Early days, I know." Tom interjected. "It's fine, thank you." Tom began to wander back to Alex's bedside slowly. He'd got his hopes up, something he probably shouldn't have done. Not yet.