An Intangible Pattern - Fate Bound.

The only alpha

The snow came and went and left in its wake an icy rain, which drizzled ceaselessly on Westerlea like a lament.
The seasonal goodwill soon gave way to restlessness, as everyone found themselves longing for the return of the sun and with it, the promise of Spring.
At the sound of a knock on the study door, Alex looked up from her work to see Ben standing in the doorway.
“Hey! What are you doing here?”
“I came to see if you needed some help.”
She glanced at the ever looming stack of boxes that never seemed to diminish, no matter how much effort she expended, then glanced back at Ben with an apprehensive look.
“Are you sure?”
Ben nodded and answered, “Yes, I'd rather do this than sit around doing nothing.”
The look of concern did not leave Alex's face.
“I'll be fine. Just… if anything happens, just talk to me until I come out of it.”
“You don't have to push yourself.”
“I'm not. Don't act like I'm going to die.”
“Alright…” she hesitated, unsure if it was appropriate to ask what was in her mind.
Ben sat down in the chaise lounge and sighed, hugging Saoirse close to him.
“You're wondering what happened?”
“Yes.”
“That makes two of us. Honestly, I don't know either, it's not like I recognised anyone in the photograph. I just felt sick all of a sudden.”
Alex nodded, afraid to interrupt him
“I assume someone told you about me.” he mumbled awkwardly.
“Not really, but I've pieced together an idea.”
Ben nodded and was silent.
“It’s ok if you don't want to talk about it. You don't owe me an explanation, it's enough that I know you've been through something...” She said gently, “I'm not going to make you relive it for me.”
Shimmering eyes met hers and conveyed inexpressible gratitude. He took a breath and croakily answered, “So you understand why it's important I do this?”
“Yes, but I also understand why it would be important not to.”
Ben shook his head, his jaw set with grim determination, “No, it's personal now. If it's connected to… what I went through, it might be my only chance to hit back. I can't just stay silent while they keep getting away with it.”
Saoirse, sensing his distress, licked his face and whined.
“If I don't confront it, how many more lives will they ruin?”
A wave of guilt washed over Alex and she heard Robert's words echo uncomfortably in her mind.
“If he did this to you, he might do it to someone else!”
Was she making a mistake? Would she sit where Ben was a year from now, wondering if another victim had paid for her silence.
What is the right thing to do?
She looked from Ben to the pile of boxes. She had come looking to spare Cat and Arthur from disaster; but if she was truly honest with herself, she had also come looking for something to expose Noah, some irrefutable evidence to kill the stifling sympathy she felt for him, something to tip the scales so it made sense; and there was nothing. At least there was nothing for her.
Ben could still have justice.
Ben could have answers.
He could take control of his nightmare because somewhere, in these boxes, was something he never had as a boy: a weapon.
“Alright, I've been working through this box here. Have you eaten today?”
Ben smiled at her, “You’re as bad as Noah.”
She balked at the comparison, another chip in the monolith she’d built in her imagination of him.
“Yes I had something.” He leafed through a handful of documents and flipped the lid of the scanner.
She turned back to the screen, “I take it he left for London then?”
“Yeah, he left this morning.”
“You must miss him,” she probed.
Ben laughed, “He was getting on my nerves if I'm honest. He isn't keen on the idea of me coming back to work.”
“Does he know you're here?”
“Nope, don't tell him either. He has a tendency to fuss.”
“He must care a lot.”
“Too much.”
“Well, you're an adult, it's not like he can stop you.’
Ben smiled humorously, “It won't stop him nagging.”
Even as he complained, Alex saw clearly the deep affection in his smile. Her intestines squirmed.
Oh god! I've already torn your heart out and you just haven't realized it yet. Please don't hate me, I won't be able to stand it.
Her fingers rattled across the number pad with renewed determination: the least she could do was give him the full extent of her abilities.
They worked on until the rain stopped in the afternoon. Ben looked out the window and glanced at Saoirse. Alex caught the glance and asked, “Should we take a walk while it's dry?”
Saoirse’s ears pricked up and her tail thumped on the rug.
Ben nodded, “I'd like that.”
They hurriedly pulled on coats and boots and went outside, steam billowing from their mouths. Daylight was beginning to fade but neither of them cared, their feet found the familiar route down the garden path, through the moon door and along the winding forest trail. As they walked, they chatted easily about the weeks that had elapsed since they last saw each other.
“...We just play a lot of cards. It’s about the only thing I can actually beat him at. He doesn't have much of an advantage when it comes to luck…unless it's snap, I can never beat him at snap.”
“For some reason I can't picture him playing snap.” She replied dubiously.
“He's not as stiff as he seems. It was something we started doing while I was in rehab…” Ben trailed off apprehensively, unsure if his slip would be met with judgment.
Without missing a beat Alex calmly asked, “Did you teach him, or did he teach you?”
Ben relaxed, “Actually Greame taught us both. He used to say, “You need a good poker face if you're going to survive in this company. You can't walk around with a face broadcasting that you think your boss is an arsehole’.”
Alex laughed at his gruff impression of the old Scotsman.
“I don't think Graeme has ever hidden what he thought of anyone.”
“Probably not, and he usually turns out to be right.”
“He doesn't seem to like other alphas does he?”
“Most alphas dislike other alphas, but I know what you're getting at. I think elitism rubs him up the wrong way.”
“It makes you wonder how he wound up working at Courentin and Stone.” she reflected, remembering how Julius refused to hand his position to anyone but an alpha.
“He was Noelle’s friend from University. She wouldn't take the job unless Graeme was on the team so Julius gave in, but they did really detest each other.”
“And yet he let Graeme take over R and D?”
“Well, they’d both just lost their wives. I think they just understood what the other was going through.”
“Ah!” she acknowledged. That had to be it, by all accounts losing a bonded pair was extremely painful. Although it was difficult to imagine Graeme as anything other than an irreverent bachelor, there was someone he loved and admired once. While Greame plodded on alone, Julius had remarried and remarried again.
“Just a thought, but do you know anything about Julius’s other families? What happened to them?”
“Oh yeah, well from what I've been told, the second wife was a beta and had one kid, but she was pretty young and when she realized that Julius had married her as a stand-in mother for his previous two children she left. She met someone else within a year and took her daughter to America with her. His third wife was widowed and she also ran her own company. I think it was just a political arrangement, there didn't seem to be much real affection, she just wanted children with someone well connected. All three of her children went to work with her and they don't really keep in touch. There's a pretty big age gap between Gillian, Henry and their younger siblings.”
“So you don't think any of Julius's other family would be involved?”
He shook his head, “I doubt it, unless Julius knew how to produce formula 52 and told them, but Graeme says he wouldn't have told anyone, even if he did.”
Alex frowned, the list of potential suspects was short. A sickening possibility occurred to her.
“Are we sure Graeme wouldn't?”
Ben stopped abruptly and stared at her. His answer came with an unexpected edge.
“Absolutely not.”
“Right, but so far he's the only one…”
“No!”
“But…”
“No way, no how. You don't know him well enough and you have no idea how upset he'd be if he knew what you were suggesting.”
She clammed up under his severe expression.
You don’t know your friends as well as you think you do - she thought, but she bit her tongue.
She walked on in silence, suspicions tumbling over and over one another in her head, unaware of her surroundings.
“Alex. Look up.” said Ben softly.
They'd reached the clearing overlooking the valley. The sun was setting on the horizon, staining the clouds glorious shades of pink, red and gold. The scene was breathtaking.
“Wow!” She whispered.
“It's beautiful isn't it? This is my favorite place…” he murmured, “... but for a long time, I couldn't appreciate it. It was like I had tunnel vision… a long, dark, narrow tunnel. My world was small and gray and it was crushing me. I'd be too fixated on the next fix... it felt like the only way to keep going. One hit to the next, stringing me along while I was too afraid to die and it hurt too much to live, until it became all there was. Then people like Noah and Graeme came and pulled me out.”
He looked at her, his face stained red in the dying light, as though his skin had become translucent and she could see the rawness beneath.
“They saved me, Alex. They were the only ones who saw me at a time when hardly anyone wanted to acknowledge I existed. When I didn't want to exist. Let me tell you, there aren't a lot of people like them. They wouldn't.”
She swallowed, and looked back up at the sky. His words resonated painfully in her chest and her eyes pricked, but she couldn't quite place why.
“I understand,” she croaked.
“I thought you might,” he sighed enigmatically.
Gradually the light began to fade and Ben gently touched her shoulder.
“We should get back.”
She watched him call Saoirse and turn back up the path.
“Ben… Can I ask you something personal?” She stammered. He turned to her and raised his brows curiously.
“Are you in love with Noah?”
He smiled serenely and answered, “Noah is, and probably always will be, the only alpha I'll ever truly love.”
She stood rooted to the spot, staring at his back as he melted into the forest.