Weee, Alex Rider! :D FINALLY! I've been waiting for ages to be able to write this, and now, finally, I got to it. But it's a bit rushed, I noticed now, when done with it... But it'd be too troublesome to rewrite it -.- Sorry.

This will probably be quite a long fic, I think...

Oooh, by the way, it's my second fanfiction. That I upload here, at least. Feel free to give me advices.

BY THE WAY, (again), THIS WILL PROBABLY/EVENTUALLY BE SLASH. SOMETIME IN THE NEAR FUTURE. Just so you know :)

Disclaimer: I... I really don't own Alex Rider. If I did, K-Unit would be in the books more often xO And one-two-three of them would be G-A-Y! :D

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"Look, Jack, I'll be fine." Alex sighed as he packed his schoolbag.

"But, but are you sure?" Jack Starbright asked, worriedly. "I mean, leaving you like this all of a sudden..."

"It's not forever, is is?" he turned around to face his guardian. "It's just for a couple of months; you deserve a break. You've been stuck in this house for ages, and to get out and see the world won't hurt either of us. I'll be fine." Alex turned back to his bag, trying to fit in not only his math books, English essay (without crinkling it), the Spanish tape and whatever more it was, in his bag.

"But this... temporary guardian, how do we know we can trust him? Or her?" Jack asked, slightly annoyed that Alex wasn't as upset as she was.

"Hopefully, MI6 know what they're doing," he started.

"For once." she cut in. Alex grinned and kept;

"And you're going to meet this guardian today anyway, aren't you? He or she's supposed to come over so you can and... I don't know, talk about what a problem child I am." Alex shrugged, and this time it was Jack's turn to grin.

"Okay, okay... but--"

"It's your holiday, not mine. It was your idea to start with, Jack, and I agree that you need it." with that, Alex shouldered his bag and sighed again.

He said goodbye to Jack and left the house.

~~.._..~~

Jack was taking a break; that was how she'd put it to Alex two weeks ago.

She was, understandably, tired and sick of worrying about this whole deal with MI6; but Jack loved him way too much to leave him permanently, so she came up with a brilliant idea – to simply take a break. A few months, not more.

Alex had agreed, saying that she deserved it, though he was a bit concerned with what was going to happen to him while she was gone.

But all of a sudden MI6 knew of it all, and had designated Alex a temporary guardian.

Alex had no idea of who it was going to be; they hadn't told him. But apparently, he and Jack was going to meet that person today, after Alex had finished school.

He was nervous; Mrs Jones had told him that it was someone he knew, but Alex couldn't figure out who it was.

He prayed that it wouldn't be Crawley, or worse – Alan Blunt, though he doubted that. Maybe Tulip Jones herself? At least that'd be better than anyone else he could think of.

Alex was still thinking about this as he went to school; but as soon as he got there, his mind had to wander elsewhere. Elsewhere being schoolwork.

Strangely, Tom Harris, a good friend of Alex who knew about Alex... "job", was very excited about this 'temporary guardian'.

"It could be anyone!" Tom grinned. "What if it's a spy? What if he brings you along to work and you'll form the ultimate team? Wouldn't that be awesome?"

Though Alex couldn't quite agree. And he'd pointed out, rather dryly, that he was a spy.

Personally, Alex would have just preferred staying at Tom's house while Jack was gone; though he couldn't imagine anyone letting him do that. Except for Tom, who'd be thrilled, but neither of the teens could decide anything like that on their own.

Better yet; Alex would have been overjoyed if they allowed him to just go to Austria and stay with James – yes, that James, James Sprintz – and so would James. Even said boy's father, Dieter Sprintz, said it'd be fine if Alex stayed with them; but no, MI6 wouldn't let him.

At the end of the day, Tom followed Alex almost the entire way home, not shutting his mouth for even one moment about "Alex awesome guardian".

But Alex managed to send the other boy home, though Tom had insisted on going in with Alex, trying to convince said boy that he'd be a "moral support".

Alex sighed deeply and entered his house.

The first thing he noticed, was the pair of dark, worn shoes at the door. He noticed the brown jacket that obviously belonged to the same person as he heard voices from the kitchen.

"You're aware of Alex... position? About his... job?" that was Jack, a very suspicious Jack, but Jack nonetheless.

"Yes." grunted another voice. Male. A rather dark, familiar voice.

Alex frowned, disbelief and confusion written all over his face. He took a couple of steps toward the kitchen, not making a sound. He stopped right outside, glancing inside, without being seen himself.

Well, he thought he wasn't seen. But apparently Jack noticed him, and her face cracked into a big smile.

"Alex! Welcome home. Your soon-to-be-temporary-caretaker got here before you," she went over to him and dragged him into the kitchen. "Let me introduce Eric Damon."

Or rather "demon", thought Alex, sourly.

Facing him was no one else than Wolf.

Big, evil, bully, leader of K-Unit – yeah, that Wolf.

"Cub." Wolf – Eric – grunted and stood up.

"Wolf." Alex replied steadily, meeting Wolf's eyes. He hadn't changed at all – well, except for lacking the rest of the K-Unit and not wearing his uniform (though it really made him look a lot less intimidating).

"Oh. So you've met." Jack stated dryly and shook her head. "Nice to see that you're getting along so well..." she sighed. "Tea, Alex?"

"Yes, thanks, Jack." the teen turned to his guardian (there was no way in hell he was ever going to consider Wolf his guardian, even if it was just temporarily) and offered her s light smile.

Alex left the kitchen; he escaped to his room, even if it was only to leave his bag. He sat down on his bed and took a deep, calming breath. Well, it was supposed to be calming.

Wolf was going to take care of him, for God's sake!

Alex grit his teeth and shook his head; he couldn't afford to let Jack see how much he disliked this man. She'd blame herself for it all and probably cancel her trip... and Alex didn't want that. Jack deserved a break, and she was going to get one, even if Alex would be sent to the House of Doom while she was gone.

He returned down to the kitchen after a couple of minutes, appearing calm.

The teen sat down at the table, opposite of Wolf. Neither said anything as Jack made them tea.

She offered each of them a cup, both teen and man merely grunting "thanks" as response.

There was an awkward silence, as Jack sat down and stared from one male to the other.

"I'd rather have you screaming at each other than this quiet!" she exclaimed after a while.

"Sorry." Alex murmured, automatically. "It'll probably get better after a while. It's just such a... shock, to see Wolf here. As my guardian."

"Eric," muttered Wolf. "We're not on an assignment, call me Eric. Or Damon. Whatever you prefer."

"Okay, Eric," Alex started, trying not to sound too sarcastic. "How come you have to babysit me for months? What'd they threaten you with?"

"Alex!" exclaimed Jack. "Could you at least try to be nice?"

"Sorry, Jack." the teen murmured, without taking his eyes off the SAS agent.

"Got hurt," Wolf was apparently not happy to admit this. He glared at Alex (he glared at everything, really) and took a sip of his tea. "Got hurt during an assignment."

"Is that so?" suddenly Jack was involved in the conversation as well. She frowned slightly, concerned. "Alex comes back from his... assignments hurt, every time. Do you... what with being in the SAS... get... similar jobs?"

Wolf's glare softened somewhat; he looked from Jack's worried face to Alex, who was shifting uncomfortably in his seat and then back to Jack again.

"I've no clue what Cub's doing. But we work in teams in the SAS, so it's never as dangerous." he answered, carefully. "What kind of assignments... does he get?"

"I'm sitting here, Wolf." Alex muttered quietly, but was ignored.

"I... I don't know. I'm not sure," Jack sighed, frowning again. "he won't tell me. And I'm not even sure if he's allowed to," she threw Alex a worried yet clearly annoyed glance. "all I know is that he gets back bruised and cut up. Sometimes I can barely recognize him when he comes back!"

Now she was angry. But Jack was angry for Alex, not at him, which he appreciated, even though he thought that it was unnecessary.

"Jack, enough," the teen said, softly. "didn't I say that you're supposed to tell him what kind of a problem child I am?" he grinned. Jack couldn't help but grin back.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry, forgot that, Alex." she chuckled lightly.

Wolf cleared his throat quietly, demanding, in a polite way, to know what the hell they were talking about.

"Well, I'll leave this to you adults. Got homework to do," Alex couldn't help but grin at that. It felt wonderful to actually be back in school. "I trust you to work things out. Jack," he nodded at her. "Wo-- Eric."

"Cub." Wolf replied, with a hint of amusement glinting in his eyes.

Alex grinned and left for his room.

~~.._..~~

"An SAS agent?" James exclaimed, incredulously. "You're staying with an SAS agent? Those MI6 guys, what are they, stupid?"

"Yeah. Probably," Alex sighed, but grinned slightly. "But that's really nothing new... and I kind of know him already..."

"Oh, at the start of your training? One of them?" James sounded faintly worried, but tried to hide it.

James was the one person who knew the most about Alex – more than Tom, even more than Jack – though he didn't know it all. But Alex trusted James very much; more than he'd ever like to admit.

Then again, if anyone heard that he confessed that, it'd be pretty dangerous anyway...

Anyway, since the two had met on Alex' second mission, the one at Point Blanc, Alex had visited James in Austria twice. The two were close friends (though James kept saying that they were something more, which the other teen stubbornly denied), and kept contact.

They called each other, almost every day – and if not that, they mailed. It was easy.

"Yes, one of them," Alex muttered. "The worst one. The leader, y'know... his name's Eric Damon."

"Am I the only one thinking that his surname reminds of a certain evil creature...?" you could hear the grin in James' voice. Alex chuckled lightly.

"It was very hard to resist the urge to ask whether he'd changed his name from "demon" to "Damon" to make it sound more real." the spy explained, causing the other boy to laugh.

"You surprise me, Alex!" James laughed again. "I was sure you'd ask him that!"

Both of them laughed. They talked for a good while – as they did so often. Mostly simply joking and telling each other about how their day had been, or discussing what they could do next time they met, or asked each other about "his life"; James wanted to get to know Alex as much as possible.

Alex was afraid that they'd eventually get tired of each other if they kept on like this, but James shrugged it off with "Get tired? Of you? Not in this lifetime, Alex".

Sometimes they talked about Point Blanc; discussions that mostly ended with either of the boys making fun of Dr Grief and/or Eva Stellenbosch, the other boy agreeing, laughing and helping with ridiculing the, in reality, wicked, twisted, sadistic adults that had been in charge of the school.

After about an hour, Jack knocked on his door and told him that Wolf was leaving and that if he didn't hang up now, their phone bill would be sky-high. Teasingly, she added that he was worse than a girl talking with her friend or her boyfriend, marking that word extra.

Alex glared at her, blushing ever so slightly (he really was a teen, after all) and told James that he had to go. James, having heard what Jack said, snickered, amused.

They said goodbye, and Alex went down. Wolf was standing by the door, now wearing the dark, worn shoes and the brown jacket.

"So. You and Jack have discussed everything there's to know about me, then?" Alex raised an eyebrow and leaned against the wall. He could be confident now, he knew, while he was in his own house. But as soon as he was at Wolf's place, it'd be a lot harder to be as confident...

"Yeah," grunted the man. "Pretty much."

"So, tomorrow...?"

"I gave her the address. You'll know where to find me." Wolf almost grinned. But instead of grinning, the corners of his mouth simply twitched, implying that the man could have grinned.

Alex nodded, keeping his face blank. He wouldn't trust this man so easily; though Wolf did seem a whole lot less intimidating without his teammates or the uniform. Or the camp and the Sergeant. Really.

Jack, whom obviously had been waiting for the two males to give their "goodbyes", descended the stairs, smiling. Obviously pleased, thinking that maybe they would get along, after all.

She said goodbye as well, along with "Thank you so much, Eric" and "I really appreciate that you're going to take care of Alex while I'm gone, Eric", et cetera, Eric, Eric.

Wolf, clearly embarrassed in this situation, merely muttered that it was fine, wished her a good trip and left.

And that was that.