Welcome back. I don't know how many of you are reading this, but this is a quasi-sequel to A Rider on the Oregon. It's just more from the 'verse really, but the plot bunny hasn't been going away.

Hope you enjoy it.

The Oregon's Secret Gambling Addiction

The Oregon is a ship. A most magnificent ship, filled to the brim with technological gizmos, excellent kitchens, gleaming recreational facilities and a library to challenge the New York public library, but it was a ship none the less. For all the time the crew of the Oregon spent stopping evil conspiracies and cultural disaster, there was still an awful lot of down time.

Naturally the main method of entertainment was gambling. Juan Cabrillo allowed it under the dubious condition that they couldn't bet more than $5,000.

Gomez and Tiny ran a black jack game every Tuesday night. Eric Stone held a D&D tournament where the prize money was over the $5,000 limit that Juan had installed but it was silently allowed. But the real pièce de résistance was the betting pools. Ran by Maurice, Juan's butler, you could literally bet on anything. In fact, if the cafeteria served cheesecake and strudel regularly, there would probably be a bet on which one was ordered the most. Or there could be a bet on what color someone's tie was. If you wanted to put $20 on Mark Murphy's latest cyber girlfriend being of the male origin, you could slip it to Maurice. If you wanted to put $50 to the next assignment involving an evil organization that had a super secret base on the moon and were plotting world domination through brainwashing polar bears… well, Maurice would tell you the odds were against you, but he'd take your money and add it to the pot.

Given the fact that almost every single crew member has some background in the espionage department, they all kept very close watch on the latest whispers. So when people started talking about a mysterious agent that had a 100% success rate, the crew of the Oregon took notice. Each day the rumors grew more and more wild: the agent took out Julia Rothman, the agent went into outer space, the agent survived an encounter with Yassen Gregorovich, the agent was 14 years old.

Sure, most people discarded the last rumor, as even the famed head of MI6 would not be insane enough to use children in this game. As the weeks progressed and the rumors grew more and more people started to take some stock into what was being said. Then Julia Huxley a call from Belinda Troy, who complained that MI6 was abusing a young boy. By lunch the news had passed back to Julia's ears via Max's loose lips. Needless to say, Maurice made a fair killing off of that bet.

When Alex Rider stepped on board the Oregon some months later it was to the surprise and shock of almost everyone on board. First shock was that Juan had a niece. Then it turned out that said niece was in fact the guardian of Alex Rider. What a small world. The second was how young Alex looked. The first time the crew saw him as a whole was at breakfast the day after he and Jack had arrived. He entered the room still yawning and rubbing sleep out of his eyes. Jack was already in the room, eating with Max and Juan and she ushered him over to their table. Then, with the silent watching eyes of the entire room on them, Jack started to mother him. Alex tried in vain to brush her off, but a red tinge had started to appear on his check.

By then, most of the people in the room had decided they were going to kill Blunt. The world of espionage was no place for a child, even if said child could be the reincarnation of James Bond.

After that, they saw little of the legendary spy for two days. During those two days the betting pools were a whirl with activity. Everyone wanted to know whether Alex had actually gone into space, or beaten Scorpia twice, or killed Yassen Gregorovich. But one look from Jack Starbright and the crew knew better than to try and approach Alex, especially if the rumors were true that he had been forced to flee from England and MI6 after Blunt tried to force him to become a spy permanently.

On the third day, Alex Rider appeared at breakfast looking much better than when he had arrived here. Color had returned to his checks and his eyes sparkled for the first time in many months. Jack immediately noticed the change and tackled Alex with a ferocity made them both land on the ground. Alex laughed loudly, playfully shoving Jack off him. She responded in kind and started to tickle him.

"Jack….Jack…stop it!" He cried, gasping for breath.

"No chance Alex. I'm going to tickle you for so long that that frown of yours will be permanently banished from your face!"

Alex spotted Juan over Jack's shoulder.

"Juan… you have to… help me…"

"Sorry Alex, but Jack's right on this one."

Alex tried to groan but Jack started in on a new assault and so all his breath was knocked out of him. Finally Jack let him up after the merciless attack. Alex groaned and looked up to all the watching eyes in the dining room. He smiled softly.

"I'm sorry for interrupting for breakfast," he said lightly. "But my guardian has made it clear that I've been a bit too serious for her tastes."

"You bet your skinny spy butt you have," Jack grumbled.

Normalcy resumed with a few scattered looks back to Alex's table.

After breakfast Alex wandered down to the Magic Shop to talk to Kevin Nixon. He figured that it would be interesting to talk with Smithers' friend, see what adventures Mr. Smithers had been on, as possible blackmail material of course.

It was there that Eddie Song, Mark Murphy and Eric Stone found him, conversing deeply with Kevin Nixon. The words whipped cream, crossing-dressing, and penguins were barely audible but the group stared at each other in confusion.

Both broke apart quickly at the raised eyebrows and Kevin coughed to break the tension.

"I was just telling Alex about some of the exploits of a common friend. But what can I do for you?"

"Well," Eric exchanged glances with Mark and Eddie. "We were actually hoping Alex might be able to settle some… ahem… questions we had."

Kevin gave them all knowing looks.

"The bets?"

The three smiled sheepishly. Alex just looked confused.

"You'll find that, in the espionage world, nothing ever stays a complete secret for very long. We've been hearing rumors of your existence for quite some time. Nobody knew your name, but we saw your work," Kevin admitted.

"Really? But Blunt said that-"

"Blunt doesn't have as much power as he thinks he does," Kevin cut in gently.

Alex brooded over this quietly for a couple seconds. On the one hand, if the whole espionage world knew he existed then Jack could have been in danger this whole time. On the other, what did it matter anymore? He and Jack were free of Blunt forever. The whole nightmare of Scorpia and Yassen and being cut open until his heart stopped beating was no longer an issue.

He breathed out, calming down before realizing that something was still bugging him.

"You said something about 'bets'?" Alex asked.

"Well, you see… How would you say…. What I mean is…" Mark tried to complete his sentence, but just ended up failing miserably.

Eddie took over. "What he means is that we have a betting pool on what all you did on your missions."

"Did you really go up into space?" "Did you take our both Winston Yu and Julia Rothman?" Mark and Eric demanded at the same time, both with unholy looks of hero worship in their eyes.

Alex jerked back, completely unused to this amount of attention being paid to what he did on missions. Only Tom, his friend in England, had been able to hear what happened when he was away. Jack would only look upset and everyone else thought he was a drug dealer or addict or assassin so something else equally illogical.

"Uh, yes?" Alex answered hesitantly.

"Hah! I knew it!" "Did you use a gun or a sword? Trevor, an old CIA buddy of mine said that you dropped a flaming balloon on top of Rothmann, but I don't really think that's true." Eric and Mark spoke at the same time again, each clamoring to find out the answers to their questions. Alex felt a little bit like a religious prophet by the way they were hanging on his every word.

Kevin Nixon just sighed.

"I'll get Maurice down here. He should hear this, in order to sort out the bets."

Alex got the feeling as he watched Kevin reach for the phone that he had just bitten off a lot more than he could chew.

That's all folks. I might mess around in this 'verse a little more, but right now I have a Psych and Criminal Minds crossover that isn't going to write itself.

Thanks for reading.

-Kasumi Nishida