Alex Rider One Shots

1 - Cello

Alex had a secret and it wasn't that he was a spy. His secret was known only by Ian and after he died, only Jack. He was now alone with this secret, he'd been living at the SAS for a year since her death and had still told no one his secret, not that it was one that would be easily discovered at a military camp. He was a musician, a very good musician at that. He'd been playing the Cello since he was 9 years old and had practically begged Ian for lessons with a teacher at school, he had kept it under wraps quite well. He took lessons after school so no one at school knew and he had gotten quite good since Ian had died. He had poured his heart and soul into music since then and even more so after Jack. It was his therapy. He had spoken through music as many would speak to a therapist.

And then it had stopped, he was shipped off to the SAS with his only friend left behind. Sabina lived in America and Tom had moved in with his brother in Italy. Music wasn't all lost to him though, many times his unit had heard him humming or singing a song under his breath so they had to work to hear him. Other than that it was gone though. His passion and his love were taken from him.

Then it happened, the moment he realized it wasn't a secret at all. Ms. Jones had roped him into a college talent show, someone in the audience was someone that MI6 had been after for a long time. To be in the audience you had to have tickets from someone performing, that's where he came in. He would get tickets for K-unit to be there and Fox would tail him home and take him in. He couldn't believe it, they had found out the one thing that he had left. His only safe thing was only an illusion of personal freedom. That's how he ended up on a college stage in front of hundreds of people, a cello in his left hand and a bow in his right.

He tapped his foot finding his own beat in a room full of complete silence. Then his fingers pressed the strings with a vibrato before pulling his bow across the strings. Again and again, his left hand steadily moved across the frets and in an instance he was gone. He was no longer on a stage but in his old bedroom, playing for Ian, Jack, for his parents. For everyone he'd lost. He was pouring his feelings into the room, carried by the song.

"Achilles, Achilles, Achilles come down." His voice was low, pure, and carried a song that only his walls had heard before. "Won't you get up off, get up off the roof." It was a song about a million things. It was whatever you needed it to be about. It was about coming off the piliar you had built yourself on. A metaphor of Patroulos asking Achillies to come down from his pride and honor and see himself as the human that he was. A challenge to be human. "You're scaring us and all of us, some of us love you. Achilles, it's not much but there's proof. You crazy- cosmonaut, remember your virtue. Redemption lies plainly in truth. Just humor us, Achilles, Achilles, come down

Won't you get up off, get up off the roof?" But then again, maybe not. That's the beauty of music, it is whatever you want it to be, it becomes whatever you need it to be.

"Je vois que beaucoup de gens meurent. Parce qu'ils estiment que la vie ne vaut pas la peine d'être vécue. J'en vois d'autres, qui se font paradoxalement tués pour des idées. Pour des illusions, qui leur donnent une raison de vivre. Ce qu'on appelle une raison de vivre est en même temps une excellente raison de mourir" He stopped singing, turning to speak in French instead. They couldn't understand it but that wasn't the point, they could feel it. Music is the language that everyone understands.

The song continued like that, English that was full of pleadings and temptations. Pushing and pulling, up and down. All the time taking the crowd with him on this journey of music.

"Today, of all days, see. How the most dangerous thing is to love. How you will heal and you'll rise above. Crowned by an overture bold and beyond. Ah, it's more courageous to overcome"

Then it was over, the song, the story, the peace all ended as the crowd erupted into applause. But it didn't matter to Alex because he was able to play again, to truly breathe again after sharing the part of himself that he had worked so hard to keep hidden.

K-unit simply stared at him in the audience and it was easy to say that they made sure a cello made it back to camp with them. Musical Mondays became a thing in their cabin. 

This song is 'Achilles come down" by Gang of Youths