A quite random and angsty one-shot for my favorite readers! I have to say, it wasn't very nice to me. It stole my sleep until I wrote it.

I don't own Alex Rider and thanks to Pygmymeese for her wonderful betaing!

"You know, I can't believe you, Alex." Ben said, fingers tightening around the coffee mug in his hand. "I stood up for you! Sanders wanted you taken off the team, but I petitioned against it. I said that you were an asset to the group and there was no way in hell that you would have ever done what Garrison accused you of. But then you go and do this!"

Alex glared at the black lacquer on the table in front of him, the only furnishing in the white room other than the chair he was sitting in. He had been in this room once before, two years ago when he had quite unsuccessfully tried to kill Mrs. Jones. "I never asked for you to defend me, Ben," he said quietly.

Ben set his mug down on the table. Hard. "Asked me to defend you? You're my partner, Alex. That's what partners do. And now I find that you have some side job with as free-lance assassin?" The teen stayed silent, and Ben sighed, shoulders slumping in frustration and misery. "Just tell me why, Alex. Why would you do it? Was it because they could pay you more than-"

"No!" Alex jerked upright in his chair, the chains on the handcuffs clanging loudly against the metal seat. "It was never about the money!" His eyes blazed with unadulterated fury. "It was about respect."

There was a moment of echoing silence in the small interrogation room.

Alex leaned back in his seat, a small, unhappy smile making its way on his lips as he studied his former partner. "Do you know what it is that attracts people to the criminal underworld, Ben?" His pale fingers fiddled with the sleeve of his red jumper. The jumper he'd been arrested in that day, two blocks away from the house of a prominent attorney who had been found dead in his home. One quick shot to the head, between the eyes. Cold, calculating, and impersonal.

Ben found himself mesmerized by the casualness of the movement until he was jerked back by Alex's voice.

"It's the fact that they don't care. They don't care about your age or your appearance. Family and personal history mean nothing to them. All they care about is your track record. It's a matter of whether you can get the job done and done well. Those who can are given what they deserve."

Ben gave a humorless chuckle. "So you did it because you wanted to feel important."

"Wrong again, Ben," he snapped, flashes of frustration evident in his eyes.

"So explain it to me."

Alex looked him up and down, before giving the man an acidic smile. "Someone like you could never understand."

"And that's where you're wrong, Alex." Ben planted his hands firmly on the table, looking him directly in the eye. "I understand. I understand that you're no different than those self-serving, power-hungry cowards we give our lives to protect our people from."

Alex rolled his eyes and looked away. Ben slammed his hand on the table. "You look at me when I'm talking to you, Alex! You look me in the eye and face me like the man I thought you to be!"

Alex slowly, condescendingly, turned his head back, his brown eyes mocking as they met Ben's green ones. "A man, Ben? No," he chuckled, "I'm just a kid. That's what makes me so good after all, isn't it? Because no one in their right mind would suspect the government of using and abusing a minor." He leaned back forward onto the table, getting but a few inches from Ben's face. A smirk stole across his features. "I am no one's dirty little secret."

They stayed like that, staring each other down, until Ben finally broke away. The man stood up, his eyes never straying from the teen in front of him. "You're right, Alex. You are just a kid." A small smile of triumph seemed to flit across the boy's features, but it disappeared again with Ben's next words. "I knew a kid once. I met him at an SAS training camp when I first joined. We all thought he was a waste of time – a joke – and gave him hell for it, but he pushed through. That kid took everything that was thrown at him, turned it around, and used it to grow stronger. That kid was one of the best agents and one of the greatest friends I have ever known. I respected that kid." Ben paused, his features hardening as he looked at his former partner. "And you are nothing like him. As far as I'm concerned, Alex Rider died this morning. You're nothing more than a stranger to me."

The mockery had vanished from the teen's face, replaced with a cold mask of indifference. With one last look, Ben shook his head in disgust and headed toward the door. He paused only briefly when the boy spoke up again, not even bothering to turn around.

"No, Ben. Alex Rider died three months ago. You just never noticed."

Ben closed his eyes, jaw clenching, before opening them again in determination. He pounded on the metal door, stepping aside so the guard could open it.

Outside stood Mrs. Jones and John Crawley. He gave them only the briefest of nods as he passed by.

As they entered the interrogation room, door slamming shut behind them, Ben kept on down the hall. He had no business here anymore. He had only come to confirm.

Alex Rider was truly dead.

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