A/N: Decided just to post it all. Now.

The young man sitting across from Lance was not normal. At all. He'd walked in with aviator sunglasses in his hands and a smirk on his face, looking more like an arrogant twenty-something than the broken seventeen-year-old that James Carter had spoken of. His body language was confidant, his smile self-assured. Yet there were dark rings under his brown eyes, probably from lack of sleep. He was pale, though that might've been the lack of sun in Britain. There was a slight tremor in his hands.

"So, Mr. Rider-" Lance stopped abruptly at slight stiffening. "Or Alex?"

"Alex is fine."

"Awesome. Alex, what would you like to start with?" A smile played across Alex's face.

"To be blunt, doctor, nothing. I'm not planning on starting with anything."

Lance blinked and tilted his head. Carter had mentioned that he and 'the others' had had to cajole him into coming, but he hadn't expected this.

"You know that the session is an hour and half long, right?" Lance asked. Alex ducked his head and said something under his breath that sounded a whole lot like 'damn you all to hell'.

"How long did your friend tell you it was?"

Alex choked a bit at 'friend'

"He didn't say. He implied that I would be done before noon."

"It's eleven thirty."

"Exactly." Alex drawled, rolling his eyes and looking for a moment the teenager he was.

"Well we've got an hour and a half to burn, then, if you're not here for help."

"Damn straight."

"What do you propose we do with it?" Lance asked, half amused.

He shrugged. Lance had an idea.

"I think I've got a deck of cards."

"Why not?"

"How? How? It's poker! It's partially luck!" Lance exclaimed, after losing his seventh game in a row.

Alex's eyes laughed as he smirked.

"I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."

"You're cheating. You must be cheating! How are you doing it?"

"I find it amusing that you seem to think I'm going to tell you." the teenager responded.

"I'm a trained psychologist! I should have the advantage, here!"

"Frustrating?"

"Yes. Very." Lance said. Then sighed. "Again?"

"As much as I like poker, I'm starting to get tired of winning. It's like playing with a ten year old."

Lance laughed.

"Fine. So how the heck did you get to be so good at poker?"

"I started playing when I was four, so I suppose that gave me a bit of a head start."

"Four?! Who teaches a four year old to play poker?"

"My uncle, apparently. I got into some trouble in primary school for taking other kids' lunch money. And lunches. And a couple fists."

"They hit you?"

Alex shrugged. "They tried to. Seven year olds are uncoordinated."

"Not when it comes to hitting other seven year olds."

Alex chuckled. "Yeah, I guess I was just less uncoordinated than they were."

"What did your parents do?"

"Nothing." Alex said, a different tone entering his voice, a bit of the glory forgotten.

"Nothing?"

Alex shrugged.

"So your uncle teaches you to play poker, you use those skills to win all your classmates' valuables, get into a fight over it, and your parents didn't do anything?"

Alex shrugged again. "What could they do? They were already dead."

A beat passed while Lance took that in.

"So when you said your uncle taught you to play poker when you were four, that was because..?"

"Yeah."

"How old were you?"

"Not even a year."

"So you don't remember them, then?"

"Nope."

"What happened? If you don't mind me asking."

"Plane crash." Alex said.

Lie.

"I actually wouldn't mind another game. You up for it?"

"Sure." Lance answered. That was a smooth topic change, for a seventeen year old.

Alex dealt.

"Can we talk for a second first, Alex?"

Alex paused for a second, but didn't look up.

"Sure."

"I understand that you're not planning on coming in again?"

"Yeah."

"Your friend James mentioned a few of your symptoms."

His shoulders stiffened slightly as he finished dealing.

"He wants to help, Alex. So do I."

"I don't know what he's been telling you, Lance, I'm fine."

"It seems to me you might be suffering from chronic post traumatic stress disorder, one of the longest cases of it I've ever seen. It seems it's gotten worse in the past week or so."

"I'm just fine, Lance. I thought we were going to play poker?"

"Nice try, Alex."

"I. Am. Fine." the kid repeated, staring Lance down.

"Are you really? Do you really believe that?"

"Yes." Alex's voice had grown cold.

"I don't think you do, Alex."

"I don't particularly care what you think."

"You're a smart kid-"

Alex's face turned to stone and he rose like a thunder cloud.

"Fuck this."

And he was gone.

"That was a compliment." Lance said to an empty room.

"-brilliant, hot pink, brightest thing you'd ever seen!"

Seeley and James both laughed at Snake's expense.

"He couldn't get the dye out for weeks!"

"I bet you all washed in the river after that."

"Damn straight. Though we didn't tell any of the others."

Laughter erupted again, cut off by James' cell ringing.

Booth ate a couple more fries as James answered. The two of them had picked up right where they'd left off, swapping stories about fights, other soldiers, camp pranks. Seeley'd realized that he'd missed the companionship of other men like himself. He hadn't caught up with any of his old friends in a while. He needed to do this more often.

"He what?"

Booth's head snapped up.

"I thought you were waiting for him?" James sighed. "No. He'll show up later, you know how he is. Right." He hung up.

"What's going on?"

"Kid walked out of your building just now. They weren't expecting it, and he disappeared. Likes to do that."

"Are you going to go look for him?" Seeley asked. James shook his head.

"It'd be pointless. He knows how to disappear. He'll come back eventually." James sighed again. "It's just frustrating. He needs help, he's just too damn stubborn to admit it."

"Can't say I haven't done the same thing before, James." Booth admitted. James chuckled.

"Me neither."

"Come on, Cub, the deal was one session. You didn't finish."

"I'm not going back, Snake."

"You didn't even give it a chance."

"I'm fine, I don't need a shrink."

"If you don't need a shrink then what's the harm in one session?"

Cub made a frustrated noise and flopped backwards onto the hotel bed.

"No."

Wolf was worried. Cub had come back from overseas angry, exhausted, and unable to sleep. Cub always had nightmares, but this was a different league altogether. Wolf had to watch as the circles grew under his eyes each day, unable to help for the damn stubbornness of the kid. Wolf knew he wasn't getting much more than a handful of hours every couple nights. The kid was slowly but surely falling apart.

He didn't even show up after the failed psych appointment until the next afternoon, clothes dirty and rumpled, smelling like a bar.

"You're going back." Wolf grunted. Cub rolled his eyes.

"Make me."

"I will if I have to. You're falling apart, kid. Grow up and admit you need the help."

"I'm perfectly fine, Wolf. Leave it."

"You damn well know you're not, Cub. I'm not a moron, you reek of whiskey."

"You're not my nanny. I can take care of myself."

"The hell you can, Cub! You're seventeen! You won't be legal here for another four years! You're not sleeping, you're not eating, pretty soon you're just going to bloody fall over."

"Goddammit, Wolf I'm fine, get the hell out of my room!"

Wolf made a frustrated sound somewhere in his throat and marched out of the motel room, Snake behind him.

"He's not fine."

"'ya think?" Snake asked sarcastically.

"Idiot kid's gonna get himself killed."

Booth's black Chevy pulled up to the motel as Wolf and Snake were headed to their room a couple doors down from Cub's.

"Hey, James, what's the scowl for?" Seeley asked, grinning. James grunted, still scowling.

"You must be Booth? Mac Drummond." Snake said, shaking hands with the FBI agent.

"Seeley Booth." he responded. "Is this a bad time?"

"It's fine. Kid's just being an asshole. You know a good bar?" James said.

"Sure do."

"Great. I'm going to need a drink. Al will just have to miss out on story time, since he insists on being a bastard." James grumbled.

Mac noticed Booth's confused look.

"The kid finally showed up an hour ago, barely able to walk and reeking of booze. James got a little upset."

Booth's eyebrows were raised. "You realize I'm a federal agent, right?"

"Book him if you want," James said. "He'll be out in an hour and your career will be over."

"Didn't you say he's seventeen?"

"Yes." Mac said unhappily. "He's seventeen."

"Okay then." Booth answered, eyes wide. "Is he okay?"

"No." James said shortly, turning the key on Landon and Ben's room and stepping inside.

Seeley and Mac followed him in.

"Ben, Landon, this is Seeley Booth, he was a Ranger back in the day, he knows a good bar in the area."

A cheer went up.

"Where's Al?" Eagle asked, frowning.

"Not coming."

"Damn, he's got the best stories. Back, though?"

"Yes. Just being an asshole. Again."

The silence was broken by Landon.

"I'm literally dying of hunger. Let's go."

A/N: Just a refresher: Landon Taylor=Eagle, Ben Daniels=Fox, Mac Drummond=Snake, James Carter=Wolf.