Ranger's Apprentice; The Final Pieces

AU - Halt & Trump pt.2

Part two of the AU as inspired by drowned-in-books on tumblr, and fully based on the three chapters that John Flanagan wrote in The Burning Bridge.

Enjoy from a non-political standard and please let me know what you thought!

>>>---------->

The girl was smiling at him again. Halt sensed it. It was as if he could actually feel the smile radiating at him. He knew if he were to glance sideways at her, where she sat next to him, he would see it once more.

But he couldn't help himself. He looked and there it was. Wide, friendly and infectious. In spite of himself, it made him want to smile back in return and that would never do. Halt hadn't spent years cultivating a grim, unapproachable manner just to have it dispelled by this girl and her smile.

He glared at her instead. Alyss's smile widened.

"Why, Halt," she said cheerfully, "what a grim face that is to sit alongside."

They had left the Parliament House the previous day for the long flight to Washington DC. He had agreed readily when Pauline had asked him to escort Alyss on her first assignment – in point of fact, he would have agreed to most things suggested by the Governor-General. Of course, as a NATO diplomatic, Alyss rated an official guard of two police officers, and they sat at the chairs in the row behind them. But Pauline had suggested that Alyss might need advice or counsel in dealing with Mr. Trump. Halt had agreed to provide it if necessary.

What Pauline hadn't mentioned was Alyss's innate friendliness and the fact that she was so eminently likable. And cheerful, he thought, and that reminded him of someone else. He had been missing Will's lively presence over the past week or so, he admitted. After years of living by himself, attending to the secret and sometimes frightening business of the country, he had enjoyed the light and laughter that Will brought to his life. Now Will was far away, on his way to the New Zealand court, and Halt himself had sent him there. He realized that he boy's absence left a void in his life. Reluctantly, he told himself that he must be growing old – and sentimental.

Now there was this girl, barely 20 but already poised and aware of herself, chiding him gently for his black mood and grim countenance and fixing him with that damned smile.

"And such a silent face as well," she mused to herself. He realized that he had been ill-mannered and she didn't deserve that.

"My apologies, Ms. Alyss," he said curtly. Traveling on official business, Alyss was entitled to be addressed as "Ms. Alyss". She frowned at his formality.

"Oh, come now, Halt. Is that any way for friends to speak to each other?"

He glanced at her now. The smile was still lurking there at the corners of her mouth. The frown was an artifice. She was gently teasing him, he realized, and he determined that he would not give her the satisfaction of rising to her bait.

"Are we friends, Ms. Alyss?" he said, and she inclined her head thoughtfully. The action reminded him of Pauline and he realized how much this girl was like her mentor. He remembered Pauline when she was much younger. It could have been her sitting beside him, he thought.

"I would hope so, Halt. After all, I am a friend of Will's and I'm assisted to one of your oldest friends, I believe. Doesn't this give us some kind of... special relationship?"

"I am your... counselor, Ms.," he replied and his tone left no doubt that the conversation should end there.

With most people, that would have been the result. Halt could be quite a forbidding figure when he chose. And many people knew that Special Agents were people who should not be annoyed. Obviously, however, this girl wasn't one of those people.