We're the good guys, Michael.

title: Remember Babylon? (11)
rating: NC-17
summary: "She had to grow up sometime". When Charles Widmore attempts an island coup, the only safe place for Alex Linus is far, far away. With Richard Alpert overseeing her safety, everything should have been fine, but nothing Ben wants ever works out precisely as he had planned, and even for Richard, things do not stay entirely the same. Alex/Richard romance, along with a few other pairings, island history and Richard back-story. AU, utterly.
pairings: Richard/Alex mainly, mentions of several others, particularly rare pairings
author's note: Inspired by any number of Godless things, among them possessiveness and Nabokov, fickle weather, Oscar Wilde, Radiohead, world history and the Marquis de Sade.
author's note for this chapter: I'm sorry this took so long! RL interference. And if anyone is good at Russian, feel free to correct mine.
warnings: semi- graphic sexuality, some violence and character deaths throughout.
previous: part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six | part seven | part eight | part nine | part ten






“Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.” - Maxim Gorky



xi.

The strange part is, after so long alone, he really does mean it.

It would be folly to say Richard Alpert has never been in love. He has, but for someone like himself, who goes on and on after old loves are lost, it is almost like the first time. Of the people he once loved, not even bones remain any longer, and his feelings were often forgotten long before his lovers are reduced to ash in their graves. Love in the modern century is for the island alone; a constant, like himself. He is a man charged with an impossible duty, to protect an island that draws mal-intentioned enemies like a flame draws moths. There is always work to be done, perimeters to secure, new leaders to groom. Richard does not fall in love or develop deep affections, avoids the pendulum of alternate pleasure and abject misery, like the one Ben rides for Juliet, and refuses to experience the swooning some of their people endure at their weakest. Richard does not dwell on emotions any more than he thinks long on the past. If he did, he would probably go mad.

So it is like the first time. Tight nervous bands in his chest loosen when Alex wakes him up the following morning, slightly grim from the deaths of their enemies, but not at all remorseful about their encounter. He rises to the strange sensation of being watched and finds her propped on her elbow, watching him slumber. For a moment when their eyes meet, his betray foreboding, but Alex presses a butterfly kiss to his cheek and another to his forehead, then slides her bare thigh against his.

“Thank you,” she tells him, when he is about to speak. Her eyes gleam silvery, still fever bright, and slowly she raises an eyebrow, smirks a little. A moment later, she pulls him down on top of her, though she is the one who ends up on top, straddling Richard’s hips, arcing and swaying above him in time to the rhythm as he pulls her down against him, thrusting up and into her. There is no more guilt, just vague uneasiness when his mind wanders to his duties and his communications with Ben. As always, Richard’s skilful lies are utterly convincing, even when he tells himself, full of dishonesty, that there is no betrayal involved, that Ben would ultimately understand. Alex’s reaction makes it easier. Her shamelessness is infectious, as is her wonder at the novelty of their encounters. She finds him in the shower later in the morning, and he takes her against the cool tiles of the wall as the water pours down on them like rain, scented faintly of chlorine and rock salt.

Days pass giddy, intense and strange. Ancient as Richard is, Alex makes him feel almost young. A type of unexpected connection catches him, draws him away from important work at all the wrong times: during a meeting with Tom he cannot stop his eyes from straying over to Alex, who sits on the couch on the other side of the suite watching television, and his distraction is so thorough it takes him a few seconds to notice Tom watching. Butterflies tremble in his stomach when Alex walks into his room, knocks on his door. His skin becomes acutely sensitive, aware of her exquisite touch an instant before her hands or lips actually find him. He had thought he had seen everything, knew everything, but she makes it all different.

They live in a fantasy, for a little while. New addresses, different hotels. Work takes them to Berlin, then over to Moscow, then to Saint Petersburg. Letters from Ben - writ in Latin to Richard, Russian for Mikhail - arrive concealed inside ostensibly normal items like the covers of the books he has delivered to Richard or beneath the keyboard of the laptop he sends Alex, informing them they will be there a while. Widmore is on the move but being tracked, and the last of his associations and connections linger often in Санкт Петербург, as Ben insists on writing it in all correspondence. Alex learns Russian from the droning soap operas and is soon capable of instantly deciphering her father’s letters to his most loyal of lackeys, Mikhail Bakunin. She picks up the curse words Mikhail mutters now and then when bad news comes, which is happily increasingly rare. When Mikhail catches on, he tells her bawdy jokes that she in turn tells Richard, though they seem less harmless and more dirty when she whispers them in bed, a smile on her face. Richard sometimes thinks of what Ben might say if he could see what is happening to the girl, but Ben is a million miles away, and Richard has never before been so immersed in the things he's wanted.

Business completes itself in Russia, and they board another flight, meeting Harper at the airport. Harper raises her eyebrows as he walks down the concourse with his arm around Alex's waist, but she confines herself to acting as courier and delivering yet another list from Ben. Crisp and businesslike, she shoots Alex a scolding look, then hails a taxi. Richard unfolds the crumpled piece of paper on which words are scrawled carelessly; not Jacob's dictation, he is certain of that, and feels a pang as he considers the island, wondering what indignities it presently suffers.

"Another boat arrived," Harper says, as though reading Richard's thoughts.

He does not ask for specifics, just, "when?"

"I found out about it a week ago," she says significantly, implying that her source might not have contacted her instantly. "We have the Lamp Post. They must be using some alternate means of tracking. Our landing strip is complete," Harper continues, nodding as Richard looks at her curiously. "Ben won't tell anyone what it's for. I trust him..." she says, as though trying to convince herself of that fact. "But I'm concerned. If Widmore finds out he can land a plane -"

"Give me a week," Richard interrupts, crushing the paper in his fist and placing it in his pocket. He glances at Alex, who is looking out at the world through the thick window of the taxi. Lowering his voice, though the driver seems intent on his radio programme, he continues. "I'll take care of it."

She blinks. "He's here?"

Richard looks at her, then away, without bothering to answer. For a moment Harper waits quietly, expecting him to engage her in conversation once more, and to report on their success in Russia, news she can take back to the island in several days, news which will not be enough to coax a smile out of Ben, but which will perhaps smooth his furrowed brow, maybe even earn her a warm glance. She has given him everything, even her husband, a sacrificial lamb. Like any obedient servant, she looks up to her leader with adoration, eager to be well received and appreciated. A futile goal, Alex might have told her, but Harper carries on.

"I didn't realize you would be coming too, Alex," Harper speaks, finally glancing over at the brunet, who looks at her distantly, tired from the flight. Jet lag is becoming a constant with Alex; even after sleeping most of the flight and practically sleep-walking through their two stopovers, she feels weighted down and drained. "Ben didn't mention you. When I made the arrangements, I only scheduled three rooms - Tom will be joining us after all," she explains as Richard turns to her, perplexed.

"I'm -" Alex begins, then falters. She is older now, but still a child in Harper's eyes, and her father's, and uncertainty steals over her as Harper gives her an appraising glance, even as she burns, frustrated by her father, who brought her into his war, then apparently forgot her existence. "Yes."

Smiling icily, Harper shrugs. "We'll check on availability when we get there. I suppose you can share with me, Alex, if there are no vacancies. If need be, we can order a cot from the desk."

Richard steps in, speaking in a careless, dismissive tone. "It won't come to that. Alex will be staying with me."

"But I only requested one bed," Harper adds. "Each room has a king bed." Shrewdly, she watches as Alex reddens. The truth clicks into place abruptly as she notices Alex's blush and the fact that Richard's fingers are splayed over Alex's hand. Richard, in her experience, is someone capable of civility but devoid of attachments or normal human feeling. What in someone else might look like a mere comforting gesture is for Richard something else.

"Then there is plenty of room," Richard speaks, almost a monotone, as though the conversation is not even worth animating his voice. "You mentioned you had a contact in this city," he goes on, changing the subject. "Who?"

Harper sits up straighter in the cab, glancing over Richard, who sits in the middle, then turning her attention to Alex. She remembers the first time she met the kid, when Alex was eight, and thinks of the brief words Ben has rationed out when speaking of his daughter, the implication of a highly inappropriate relationship - in Ben's eyes at least - with Karl. Karl who betrayed us, she thinks viciously. "No."

Something like amusement flickers over Richard's face. "No?"

"She's too young, Richard!" Harper says hotly. "You know that. She's barely sixteen!"

"I'm seventeen, actually," Alex speaks coolly, to no consequence.

"A child," erupts Harper meanly. "Ben's daughter! Do you have any idea what Ben will say when he finds out what's happening, what she's doing?"

Richard cocks his head slightly. "What is it she's doing, Harper?" he asks. His voice is mild, but the glint in his eye promises retribution.

"I know what's going on here," she says sternly, though inside she quakes with fear, knowing Richard is not someone to mess with. "And Ben will, too," she adds bravely. "As soon as I have an opportunity to speak to him. I don't think he'll be pleased, Richard. Bad enough Widmore is still alive, when you've twice been in the same city, and once encountered him. Yes, I speak to Tom too," she continues, running her fingers through her long hair and sitting up taller, trying to look imposing. "He told me what happened, how Alex's carelessness nearly cost her life when Widmore -"

"It did not!" Alex breaks in, rekindling her old temper. "I wasn't being careless, I was going to breakfast, Tom knows that, and -"

"Why weren't you armed?" Harper interrupts furiously. "If you had acted as you've been trained to do, and killed him then and there, the problem would have been solved!"

The cab driver flicks his gaze back at them through the rear-view mirror, looking nervous. Richard notices.

"Stop here," he instructs.

"We're sixteen blocks from the hotel!" Harper exclaims.

The taxicab pulls over onto the side of the street, the driver obedient to Richard's words. Richard stuffs a fistful of bills into the man's hand and beckons for Alex to open the door. They step out into the brisk winter, watching the taxi, having disgorged its occupants, speed hastily away.

"Which way?" Alex asks, shivering in the cold.

Mutely, Harper points her west. Without bothering to wait for either of them, Alex hurries off, face flaming with humiliation, fever and windburn, stamping her feet with each tense step. Anger sweeps over her: anger at Harper, for making her feel like a troublesome kid, someone who needed to be controlled and restrained and mistrusted; anger at Ben, for many things; anger even at Richard, though she cannot precisely say where he is to blame. Could have stuck up for me, she thinks violently as she storms onward, feeling the slap of the wind against her face.

"Richard!" Harper calls as Richard goes to follow Alex. "Listen to me. I don't know precisely what happened between you, but whatever it is, it cannot continue. You understand that. She'll be a distraction, she'll get in the way. You have work to concentrate on!" Catching her breath, she sighs. "Listen, I'm flying out to Oahu the day after tomorrow. I want Alex with me. There is a submarine there, one of ours, and we've calculated return coordinates back to the island. It's leaving in four days. Alex needs to be on it. I've spoken with Ben," Harper adds seriously as Richard turns away. "I talked to him several days ago. He knows about what happened, with Widmore, and he believes it's time for her to return home. He thinks she’ll be safer at the Temple.”

Richard stares at her. "She'll be safer on island? In the middle of this war, with Widmore sending another boat into the island's waters?"

"I don't question Ben's orders, Richard, I follow them. Apparently, not everyone can make that claim. Mikhail apparently had instructions to put her on a plane out to Maui yesterday, and Jeremy was going to pick her up and bring her to the secure launch. I'm not sure where the mix-up happened. Alex didn't seem to know she was supposed to be on a different flight. I'm guessing you had involvement?" When Richard does not answer, Harper continues. "I see. Well, then, I'll break the news to her when we get to the hotel, let her know not to unpack, unless you want to tell her?"

For a minute he does not reply, or even look at her. He watches Alex - a block ahead now, her dark hair tossed in the wind, her body rigid. Finally, fog engulfs her and Richard spares a minute to turn to Harper, his dark eyes irate.

"I want you to leave her alone."

Nonplussed, Harper gapes at him. "Richard, I'm not the one who needs to leave her alone. What do you think you're doing? Sixteen, seventeen - it makes no difference, she's still underage, and she's still Ben's daughter! Look," she continues, lowering her voice conspiratorially. "I know she's pretty, and I know we're on assignment away from home, but take my advice, Richard, and find somebody else. There are lots of pretty girls if you‘re lonesome, and -"

"That's enough," Richard says quietly. The look in his eyes is deadly, and Harper gulps, realizing she has gone too far.

"What about Ben?" she asks after a moment, bristling with pride for her leader. "I can't pretend I don't know what's going on."

"What about him?" Richard shrugs dismissively. A flash of memory provides him with Ben at fourteen, tired and hurt against the stones of the temple, partially obscured behind a swirl of smoke.

Harper looks at her feet. "I have to tell him. He trusts me. I have an important job to do -"

"Tell him whatever you want," Richard decides, glancing towards the direction Alex walked. "I don't answer to Ben."

Harper looks towards the fog too, a flicker of anger racing through her, though she suppresses everything she wants to say. "She does," Harper points out, a cool partial smile across her lips.

Richard spares Harper a brief glance over his shoulder as he begins walking in Alex's direction. "Not anymore."

_____________

"Alex!" Richard calls six blocks later as he catches up close enough to glimpse her waiting at the crosswalk. The light turns on, telling her to walk. He watches as Alex pauses for the briefest of instants, as though frozen in place by the sound of his voice, then moves on again, not bothering to wait for him.

Nodding to himself, Richard realizes he has expected this. Although Tom and Juliet have always gotten along well with Alex, the rest of her father's people treat her like a child, one particularly prone to making trouble. It is hard enough breaking her own view of herself that way, much more difficult for her to adopt a dismissive attitude towards the people that have, for all her lifetime, summoned her to Ben and dragged her places against her will, checked her travels through the jungle, followed and spied, stolen away the few friends she has known, even kept her captive. For the first time, he begins to understand that as much as Alex professes to miss the island and the jungle, she will never be able to go home again. Even if she does arrive on the island's sands again, her old life was too constricted for her to fit back into.

"Alex, wait," he speaks when they have travelled a block further, and this time she holds still, waiting a few seconds for him to catch up.

"Where's Harper?" she asks him coldly.

"On her own," Richard answers carelessly as they resume walking. "I have all the information I needed from her," he says, withdrawing the crumpled list from his pocket, smoothing it out and passing it to Alex. "She flies out the day after tomorrow. The sub is leaving from Hawaii in four days, returning to the island. She'll be on it." He slows down as Alex looks at him. "Look, Alex, if you want to go home -"

She shakes her head, continuing on, her arms wrapped around her body to shelter herself from the cold, and does not even slow down when Richard drapes his jacket over her shoulders. "No," she tells him after a few minutes. "No, I don't, not yet, unless..." She glances up at his face. "You're not going, are you?"

"Not yet," Richard replies.

Walking onward, Alex glances at the note, then hands it back. "I knew it. I'm surprised she didn't have a list for me," she adds, heavily sarcastic.

"It wouldn't come from her," Richard says. That is not how Ben operates, he knows from experience. He has no qualms about making his people do his dirty work, but he has an uncanny ability to know how to convince each one, and Harper, Richard knows, is the sort who would crush Alex's faith in herself, making it difficult for her to complete any assignment.

Nodding, Alex keeps walking. Two blocks from the hotel, she can see the reassuring lights, after the darkened, wintry industrial district she has just walked through. The light chases away the fog, welcoming. "Do you think he'll ask me..." she begins, then trails off, shaking her head.

"He might," Richard answers smoothly. "Does it matter?" When Alex looks at him sceptically, Richard continues. "When did you ever obey everything Ben told you to do?" he asks. "If you think you can complete the assignment, take it, make it your own choice. Or refuse. You don't belong to him, Alex. Harper was wrong. You decide what you want, not Ben."

"Easy for you to say," she retorts, but a weight seems to fall off her shoulders anyway.

Contrary to Alex’s belief, Richard does not have that option, bound as he is to Jacob, but does not say so, not wanting to upset the equilibrium. "Come on," he speaks, reaching for her hand, surprised at the iciness of Alex's fingers. "We're nearly there."

____________


They sweep past Harper in the entrance lobby, ignoring her hostile, confused glances as she surveys Alex's faint smile and Richard's arm over Alex's shoulders. Richard knows there will be hell to pay for them both, once word gets back to Ben. He might not answer to Ben, but it is never easy, and rarely do leaders last once Richard no longer provides his allegiance. His own sympathy for the boy that was Ben still intrudes at all the wrong times. Jacob will have something to say as well, once he returns, but even though Richard measures time differently from others, it seems a long time until he will make his way back home. Instead of dwelling on Harper's sour expression, or the fact that as soon as Harper can screw up the courage, the situation will be reported to Ben, Richard draws Alex close as they ascend in the elevator, one wall of which is glass, providing a lookout over the city as they climb thirty floors up.

Hours later, secure in their suite, Richard orders champagne from the room service and they sip it lying nude in bed, watching the snow flutter down in great cottony tufts. The wind beats, glacial, against the window, but the room is cosy. Late in the evening, Alex rises from the mattress. She eats sugar-crusted strawberries, a specialty of the restaurant downstairs, while sprawled naked in a wide, curved chair by the darkened window, looking out into the night. The city never quite grows dark, the greyish sky perpetually backlit with pale pink ribbons, a flickering blue-green-yellow-red of the artificial neon aurora borealis. Distant city lights send yellow luminescence against the low-lying clouds. Stars flash, vying for attention. Alex studies the cars below, miniature from their great height.

Richard sits in the bed, watching her instead of the city, though the view from the thirty-second floor is immaculate. He has seen the scenery before, and will again. Alex’s hair has grown longer, and the gentle waves fall past her elbow to her waist, dark and gleaming against her fair skin. Her body, naked, is cast in shadows as she waits near the cool glass, gazing down rather regally.

“Я тебя люблю Ричард,” she whispers twenty minutes later, not gazing at him directly, but looking at his reflection in the glass. The Russian sounds practised on her tongue, stranger and more precious spoken in Toronto even than it did in St. Petersburg.

Richard smiles back, glowing. It is a test as well as a declaration, of course, and he has no trouble passing it, even though it will make her more suspicious of him. Richard cannot resist making a reply, though it may someday lead to awkward questions. Unlike Ben, Tom, Mikhail and the other closest, most trusted of their people, Alex does not know the complete truth about him, though she understands the fact that he does not age. Of course, Richard often assures himself, it is better she does not know why. It is enough, now, to admit that he has a longer lifespan than twenty of her own. Now, she is a part of that agelessness, a memory he will keep for an eternity. He wonders how anyone of seventeen simple, impossibly fragile years could possibly understand that, and believes that puzzle is enough for her to cope with.

“Я тебя люблю слишком, Алекс.” Straight faced, he turns to her, his expression giving nothing away, testing her in return. Blandly, he speaks; he might be talking about the weather. “Пожалуйста имейте секс с мной.”

Whether it is a credit to her studying or something learned from Mikhail’s jokes, Alex understands. She reddens, though she smiles too. She understands enough of the language to rise up slowly, silhouetted naked against the darkened window, and to push Richard down onto the bed. She crawls slowly across the mattress and tangled sheets, catlike. Her innocent face and pretty pursed lips make her seem too young for the words that roll over her tongue; though Richard does not blush as she speaks, he would if he could. Alex’s settles her bright eyes on him calmly as she whispers in the things she wants him to do to her, and she continues, gutter phrases trailing from pale pink lips, her still-innocent eyes studying him, until Richard takes hold of her hair, yanking her roughly against him, plundering her mouth with his own.

Richard, atypically, is late for a meeting the following morning, soreness coursing through his body as he tries to focus on what Harper is saying. He is barely focussed on Mikhail's rage over two fresh deaths and does not notice Tom's molasses-slow contemplation of the navigation coordinates Harper provides, the results of an equally late night with a friend from the city. He listens, nods at the right intervals, his mind recalling the details of Alex's body.

He returns to the suite and finds Alex resting on the bed undressed, her body highlighted by the brilliant winter sunshine. That is the last he thinks about work, though it is the raw energy and emotion from the news of the meeting that spikes his adrenaline as he goes to her. Charging across the room, he takes away the magazine Alex is reading, catches the knowing look in her eyes, and takes her from behind up against the window, the hint of voyeurism making it even more delicious. When he comes, he whispers Alex’s name, sucks her neck hard enough to leave marks, and presses a hand to her mouth so Harper, in the next room over, will not hear Alex screaming his name in return.

For a little while, it almost seems perfect.






*Санкт Петербург - St. Petersburg
Я тебя люблю Ричард - I love you, Richard
Я тебя люблю слишком, Алекс. - I love you too, Alex
Пожалуйста имейте секс с мной - Come sleep with me (ahem)