Title: Christmas With K-Unit

Rating: T

Summary: Christmas was a time for family and friends, turkey, presents and those little moments that make you smile. Not SAS Soldiers, burnt cooking, bad language and moments that made you wish Scopia was on speed dial...

Ah so it's been a while, yeah I felt guilty... So I did some thinking (and some digging) and I found this little story... So please enjoy.

Christmas - the annual festival of the Christian church commemorating the birth of Jesus: celebrated on December 25 and now generally observed as a legal holiday and an occasion for exchanging gifts.

That was what it meant according to the mighty , why he was currently searching for such a thing he would never know. But it was also a time meant for family and friends right? Well not if you were Alex Rider, who had become an icon for being exception to many rules, as for the family bit he could have turned round and said what family?

After all his parent were gone, killed off by his own godfather Ash, who was now also terminated, which had surprisingly upset him more than he would have thought it would (him murdering his parents and all). Ian, his uncle, the only sort of role model/father figure he had really ever had was gone ironically shot by his dads so called best mate from assassination school, who turned out to save his life on some policy that he never killed kids and from the fact that he owed his dad a favour for saving his life. The whole thing was so messed up, but he ended up being looked after by his American housekeeper, who was now refusing to cook a Christmas dinner.

But aside from the messed up movie like life he lead, Alex had come to realise that this would be his first Christmas without Ian, not that he had been here for many anyway; but the thought still left him slightly cold and lacking the feeling in his fingers weirdly enough. It had only seemed like yesterday that he had been standing at his funeral to say his "goodbyes" to the man who had done his best to raise him to be a half decent person, he wondered what he would say to him now.

After all it couldn't have been his dream for Alex to end up behind the barrel of a gun, being half responsible for the deaths of many people and in and out of hospital more than 60 year old diabetic. Also there was the fact that his uncle's ex-employer was the sole reason for this. However it had been made clear that Ian was aware of the fact that, should he unexpectedly die on the job, MI6 could take no responsibility for their downright greediness and would but of course snap Alex up for recruitment.

Yet here he was fresh out of school for the holidays, though it hadn't been your average school; no he had just got back from another mission. Well on holiday from that mission anyway, the most recent disaster/mission had been to infiltrate an all girls school under the identity of Alexis Beckett, it had not been fun. To make it all worse he had had his old unit present at all times making sure no one was about to suddenly take out a gun and shoot his cross dressing ass into next week.

But when Blunt had come to tell him the news of him having around a week off from the place he couldn't have been happier, it was apparently a rule that the girls have around a week at home at Christmas to spend with their family and friends. Jack had of course met him at the airport yesterday and laughed herself stupid when she saw him dressed in the school uniform, the girls from school behind waving him off and one complete SAS/Mi6 unit at his side faithfully. Yes K-Unit had also seen him off and made sure he went home safely Blunt had made sure that they had and when they had left to go God knows where he had immediately got in touch with Alex, via his home phone, to partly debrief him on what he had found out.

So after a good hour of constant ranting in the hall way of his Chelsea home and Alex ending the call by slamming it down on its receiver and ripping out the power cord so as no one even thought to annoy him he had called Tom by mobile and gone to bed without tea seeing as Jack had decided to do the same.

Though when morning had come they had been discussing on what to do for Christmas seeing as it was now the 23rd of December and Jack had had no time to get anything in seeing as she had been worried about Alex for the whole time since he had been gone, which Alex had apologized for, as part of the usual routine when he got back from lord knows where. This had only left one option for the two of them that was if they wanted to actually eat over the so called festive period, it involved Alex having to cook and Jack having to make sure nothing went up in flames and died a fiery death.

But you see that wasn't the problem... Alex didn't mind having to cook, oh no he enjoyed a bit of cooking here and there, sure why not. At least he could cook unlike some people he could name, who just couldn't be bothered *ahem Jack, cough cough Tom*.

The problem was that an hour after said discussion/argument/he was never spending Christmas with Jack again if she was going to be so damn prissy with him, even though he didn't have a second choice of residence, something had arisen...

There had been a knock at the door, and a sudden sense of déjà vu had crept over Alex in the form of shivers. Now being the paranoid teen that he was, he had of course jumped to conclusions and refused to answer the door or even look out of the window to determine who it was who had dared to bother him, at the door.

See this would have worked if Jack had been in, as she could have answered the door and told whoever it was that she was in no mood to deal with them. However said housekeeper in her angry fit of rage had decided to up and abandon him for around 3 hours till she calmed down and as she had put it was in "an ideal state of mind to deal with him".

Sadly this meant Alex himself would have to deal with the stress of handling the situation that a calm and level headed adult would have dealt with it. So he walked down the stairs swiftly making sure to not trip over a pile of washing that had been dumped very inappropriately on the landing, again nearly causing his death. When he reached the bottom of the stairs the knocking had still not ceased something that was beginning to do more than just wind him up. Giving himself a quick glance over in the mirror that hung at the bottom of the stairs he gave his reflection a nod signalling that he was suitable for the public eyes and with as much anger as he could muster flung the door open.

What he saw would give him nightmares for weeks on end...

There stood, very awkwardly may he add, a disgruntled and cold looking K-Unit dressed in a winter get up with scarves included. Eagle was wearing his usual smile and cheery features, Snake had his eyes downcast in a book, Fox was smiling warmly though had a hint of an apologetic look in his eyes once he saw Alex and the look that had began to crawl across his face, and Wolf... Well he look like he would rather be somewhere else.

A moment of utter silence passed, and no where dared to say anything in case Alex erupted into a mad rage and killed them all off, not that Snake looked bothered. After all K-Unit had grown used to Alex's sudden change in behaviour they had been practically living with him after all.

Although the blind rage never came much to everyone's surprise and instead they received a laugh from the small boy.

"Isn't it a little earlier for carol singers?" he asked, he should have expected this after all, it wouldn't have felt right unless something stupid like this had happened. It would have only made him more paranoid waiting for it to happen so he might as well have got it out of the way now.

Although Alex was laughing his head off in a moment of madness. K-Unit on the other hand remained frozen in their awkward silence, most likely waiting for the imamate death or for Alex to turn on heel and slam the reef rimmed door back in their rapidly turning blue faces.

Had Alex gone mad? Or was he just ill. Maybe the fact that he was home and not surrounded by giggling girls was too much of a shock for him and he couldn't cope...

Eagle took it upon himself to pop the question.

"Ar-are you feeling oka-okay?" he stuttered, no need to make Alex go Amityville Horror on him, after all better to be careful then lose his head to a not yet legally old enough to drink teenager.

Alex stopped laughing and smiled casually still holding the door wide open, looking at them again.

"Yeah" he said smiling to them. "So what are you doing here then? Please tell me your only here to give me a quick check up"

Eagle gave a nervous laughed nervously rubbing the back of his head.

"If by quick check up you mean spending the rest of the holidays with you then yep! Best check up ever right?" Eagle chirped brightly.

Alex was still smiling. That wasn't good, why was he smiling about this? They had already discussed and planned this in the car ride here:

They turn up on Alex's doorstep and upon seeing them Alex slams the door in their faces and they have to use the key Blunt had given them to get in.

Then, once they had got inside and located the most likely hormonal problem child (as Blunt commonly refers to him as) they sit him down and explain just what they are doing there.

Alex then explodes and yells, screams and whatever he feels the need to do, storms off and doesn't speak to them till tomorrow. They order Chinese and job done; they don't have to worry about it till the next day.

So much for having this all planned out. Alex had just ruined the plan in 3 seconds flat, and he'd barely said a word to them.

However this could be a thing Wolf thought to himself. This way there would be no screaming and he wouldn't have to go army cadet extreme on Alex, which would mean handling him the same way he had tackled the new recruits back at camp. Good old fashioned Pain and Punishment.

"Excuse me?" Wolfs head shot up as he looked at the boy, he looked... Eerily calm.

"He's taking this well. Too well"

Fox had been watching and quite frankly had seen enough. He had multiple choices:

One. Let Wolf deal with this, kiss his job goodbye and find himself witness in a child abuse trial.

Two. Let Eagle explain everything to Alex, kiss his job goodbye and find himself witness in a murder case, or more specifically Eagle's murder case.

Three. Let Snake take charge... That wasn't happening, Snake had brought "Around The World in 80 Days" in hardback with him, there wasn't so much of a shred of chance of him taking charge of anything.

Or Four. He dealt with the situation himself and could safely ensure they would all leave alive and well. There was a chance of dealing with a moody teenager still but he could ensure that everyone would actually wake up in the morning and MI6 would not have to be informed that one of their supposed top agents had finally broke and gone mad.

"Look Alex this isn't our fault, we really didn't mean to come and interrupt you're Christmas, we swear" Fox began glancing at the rest of his unit.

Eagle began nodding furiously, Snake just stood reading still not even so much as glancing up, and Wolf folded his arms and buried his chin into his scarf.

"Cause God forbid we interrupt you" Wolf muttered grumpily giving off a slight shiver, honestly Alex was positive he that he would make a great scrooge when he was older. He could see it now, him sitting in his huge comfy arm chair in front of the roaring fire, coughing up his guts while reaching for a tube pills at the side of him. Telling old war stories to the people who bothered to come visit him.

Oh yeah Alex could see him now.

Looking back to them again, like really looking at them, he realised he couldn't just leave them out here to freeze (as tempting as that was). Though he didn't appreciate Wolf's comment he stepped aside opening the door wider so as to let them in.

"Well you can explain it to me inside, I don't know about you but I'm cold"

Of course Eagle bounded in squealing, instantly asking if Alex had such a substance as hot chocolate.

Now how the hell was he going to explain this to Jack.

So what do you think? Not too bad right? Do I continue or not?

Dreamcloud.