Part one of End of the Road.

Wolf crossed his arms, his body language saying the same thing as the scowl on his face. "Sir, we're SAS. Soldiers, not bloody search-and-rescue. If MI6 lost one of their guys, let them retrieve him themselves."

The sergeant was rubbing his temples, no less irked by the situation than K-Unit. "Yes, yes. That was my argument to them as well, but they insisted that they had already done all they could. Besides, there were hints that it wouldn't be as easy as just retrieving the spy. Evidently, some…violence might be required to get him back. Rumor is that he's switched sides."

"Is this going to be more along the lines of shooting and avoiding landmines, sir, because we don't specialize in the sneaky stuff." His shoulders stiffened as they both heard the knock on the door. "Honestly, tell them they're looking at the wrong guys."

The door opened before the sergeant could say the words, "Come in." Wolf found himself both momentarily startled and angered at the man who entered the room. "Fox."

"Wolf," the former SAS soldier, now MI6 spy, acknowledged. "Thought I might see you here. So, is K-Unit taking the job?"

"Taking the job?" His glare could have melted through walls of solid steel, much less mere human flesh. "Fox, you might have wanted to escape the front lines and work for the suits in espionage, but I sure as hell am not letting you drag the rest of my team off on one of your escapades. Find someone else to do the dirty work."

Fox was less than intimidated, which further surprised Wolf. The man had never been weak, but he certainly hadn't been nearly as sure of himself as he was now. From his strong stance to the easy meeting of his former team leader's eyes, he could be nearly as daunting as Wolf himself. Whatever he was doing, the job was changing him. "As a matter of fact, I think this job is right up your alley. I don't need someone sneaking around in the shadows, but a bunch of men capable of taking out anyone trying to kill me."

He refused to budge from his position. "You could grab anyone else. People better at whatever it is you're doing. Why us?"

"Because you guys are still my friends, even if we only see each other a couple times a year," he sighed. "Plus I won't have to brief you too much on the spy that I'm trying to get back. Other units might hesitate to help me if they knew who he was."

"I don't think we know any spies except you, Fox."

"On the contrary, you just think you don't know him. After all, Cub made quite the impression while he was here." He fished a small picture from his pocket, the kind you would find on a driver's license or passport. Wolf's brow furrowed further as the spy continued. "Alex was my partner for a year before he went missing on a simple in and out inspection in Pakistan. SCORPIA, the terrorist organization that recently suffered a couple terrible blows, sent Blunt, the head of MI6, an untraceable email that claimed they had killed Alex. We assumed that it was just another threat against him-" Another threat? Wolf wondered at what kind of job the kid was doing. "-but when he never called in, and missed his ride back, Alex was written off as dead." His lips twisted into a both proud and dismayed smirk. "He wasn't the kind to be taken alive." Before the soldier could get the words together to protest a kid being used in such a way, Fox flicked his fingers and a second photo materialized from behind the first. Both were handed over to him. "This shot was taken yesterday afternoon in London from a hidden surveillance camera above the Eurostar station in London. He managed to turn just the right way to avoid the older cameras, but this one had just been installed yesterday morning."

The photo wasn't perfect quality, but it caught the face of a kid with a hoodie mostly shading his face with stellar clarity. The bored look combined with the bookbag slung over his shoulders gave him a generic schoolboy expression, but the dark piercing eyes and way he held himself—wary, as if he would bolt at the slightest sound—stood him apart from the rest. It was Alex, and everything about him screamed dangerous when you looked more closely.

"What happened to him?" Wolf heard a tremor in his voice before he got it under control. "He looks…different."

Fox's expression said all there needed to be said, but he spoke anyway. "MI6 thinks SCORPIA brainwashed him."

"But you don't."

"No, you had to have kno…" he stopped as he realized his verbs were all past tense. Evidently, some part of him hadn't gotten used to the kid rising from the dead. "Alex was…is the most headstrong and stubborn person I know. He doesn't hurt people, and he would never work for terrorists. Especially SCORPIA. They…those people ruined his life. I'll be truthful with you, Wolf. MI6 doesn't want it known, but we're all he has left. SCORPIA killed his entire family and more recently, his guardian. They've made frequent attempts on his life. The only ones not dead who've ever known him are the spies he's worked with and K-Unit." Fox spun to face the wall and lightly thump his fist against hit. "He told me once that he'd long ago pushed the rest of his friends at school away in fear that they could get caught in the crossfire some day. I was his only friend, and now that I know he isn't dead…" he turned back to look Wolf in the eyes, his own blazing in fury, "I'm going to get him back."

Wolf nodded. After all, who could say no to that? "Where is he now?"

At this, the spy deflated. "As I was getting on the chopper to get here, Blunt sent me a message that he had just left the hotel that a foreign diplomat from the Middle East was staying at. The diplomat was found dead, his throat slashed open and blood everywhere."

The eyes in the photo, the flat dead hazel ones, felt like they were staring through him. His instincts had been right. The somewhat-innocent kid that had trained with them three years ago was now an assassin to the soul. He swallowed hard. Just what had he gotten himself into? And how could Fox still believe the teenager wasn't on the other team? "But you think we can get him back?"

"Yes." The fire had returned. "We have to."

The SAS soldier met his former teammate's gaze before shaking his head tiredly and muttering, "Guess this means I'll have to cut into my vacation time."

"Actually, you won't be."

Fox and Wolf snapped their heads sharply to the side as the sergeant continued to sign his initials on various documents. "Sir?"

"Seeing as how you don't have much vacation time left, after you took the month off to stay with your daughter while she had the flu. Anyway, according to this tiny little file," which he held up without ever letting his line of sight drift from his work, "you and Snake had your arms and legs severely torn up while scaling a fence between you and the terrorist cell."

"Sir, that's true but it wasn't as bad as—"

The sergeant did lift his head up this time, one eyebrow arched. "Is that so?" he interrupted. "If my memory serves me right, the two of you were ordered to go on temporary leave to recover until I determined you were fit to return to duty."

Fox smirked. "This wouldn't happen to be a medical leave you're putting them on? In other words, one that wouldn't take days from their vacation time and allow them to receive minimal pay until they return to duty?"

"That would be correct. I do believe that your other teammates, Eagle and Falcon, should stay off duty as well. There are no other teams that need temporary members, so I see no reason that they shouldn't join you on a couple weeks of paid leave."

Wolf glared at both the sergeant and Fox, who seemed like equal partners in pulling off this feat. He ground his teeth as he said, "I'll rally the troops."

"As long as you sustain no unexplainable injuries, there should be no question as to the integrity of K-Unit's sudden leave."

"Yes, sir." As he moved past Fox, he rested a hand briefly on his shoulder. "Meet you in five." He took a couple deep breaths in and out as he thought of how to break the news to his team. He wasn't even sure how he felt about it himself. When Cub had arrived, the team had assumed, as anyone in their position would have, that he'd gotten on the wrong side of a rich father and maybe been arrested a few times. Of course, the kid had acted perfectly behaved and it had been his team, including himself most of all, who had been the immature ones. The point had been to get him binned or force him to the point of calling up his father to let him free of the camp, yet with each incident, Cub had accepted them and calmly done the best he could. Knowing now that not only had he been an orphan, but trying to get serious training for an undercover operation, he felt guilty.

He pushed open the cabin door to find Falcon with his foot placed firmly on Eagle's back and Snake on his bunk, calmly reading The Two Towers*and purposefully ignoring the latest bickering match. His team looked up as he entered with a solemn and shadowed expression, not commenting on either Falcon or Eagle's lack of maturity, as was the norm by now, or rolling his eyes in self-sympathy with Snake. Falcon removed his foot, scared of what had happened, and Eagle rolled up into a squatting position. Even Snake closed his book, looking up with a worried frown.

"We're going on "medical leave", courtesy of SIS**. Have your stuff ready in the next two minutes. Briefing will be en route." As soon as the word 'ready' left his lips, the three moved into a flurry of activity, clothes and other necessities already placed within easy reach in anticipation of this very scenario. Wolf let the microscopic smile escape his lips as he watched them, pride burning brightly in his chest. His team trusted him to do the right thing and know what was going on, biting back their questions until a better opportunity presented itself.

Grabbing his own cargo bag, which he had never bothered to unpack, he waited patiently at the cabin door. Everyone was packed within half the allotted time and quickly walking to the small landing zone that sat just a few hundred feet from the firing range. Nothing bigger than an averaged sized helicopter could fit in the area, and no more than one at a time either. Wolf was only mildly shocked to see that Fox was manning the controls. In their time at Brecon Beacons, there had never been more than the basic courses on piloting; they hadn't been expected to do much of that unless their pilot was shot or became debilitated mid-flight. The spy, on the other hand, looked comfortable where he sat, no hesitation whatsoever. When he adjusted the controls, it was with the lax movements of someone who had done the same thing repeatedly until it became second nature.

Eagle nearly caught Fox in a surprise hug until Snake grabbed him, yanking him forcefully back by the nape of his neck. "Good to see you again," Fox grinned, twisting back momentarily to make sure everyone had their limbs inside the vehicle and none were absent. "Hold on tight, I gotta make this trip in half the time I normally would." The blades atop the chopper began to spin in lazy circles at the flick of his fingers, their rotations growing faster and faster.

When they were airborne and thoroughly underway, Wolf turned on the headset covering his ears and jutting to the side of his mouth. The rest of K-Unit followed suit and, once he registered all three clicks, he began speaking. "Fox needs help getting one of his own back," he began only to be interrupted by Falcon's polite cough.

"Uh, who's Fox?"

He sighed. Of course, Falcon was the most recent recruit to K-Unit. "He's the guy you replaced. Fox was hired by MI6 for some reason, so he's no longer SAS."

"Oh. Alrighty then."

"So Fox's partner was presumed dead when he went missing in the Middle East, and SCORPIA claimed responsibility for his death."

This time it was Snake that interjected. "SCORPIA?" The medic's face had visibly paled. "He must have gotten in really deep to have them after him. That's practically a death sentence."

"It is a death sentence," Fox's voice came in grimly from the cockpit, where he had evidently entered into their feed without any of them hearing.

"They're not just a terrorist group," Wolf explained to the confused Eagle, who was still green around the edges in the worldwide military going-ons and the youngest of the unit. "They have authority over just about every terrorist anywhere in the world. Supposedly, they can have anyone killed with one phone call to the right person. There's more to it, but there are more immediate concerns at hand."

"He wasn't dead," Snake guessed and Wolf nodded a confirmation.

"SIS has pictures of him in London. They believe he assassinated a foreign diplomat for SCORPIA."

"God, that's…" Falcon thought it over. "Is he a double agent then?"

Wolf raised his shoulders in a 'maybe'. "The evidence that suggests he killed the diplomat is all based on coincidence. There's no hard proof, but it still looks very likely that he did."

"And we're being called in to help…why?"

Wolf took in a ragged breath and exhaled again to keep his tone steady and unemotional. "The spy was one of our former teammates. It seemed right to help get him back."

Snake frowned. "But Fox was part of our original team, and Falcon's been the only replacement we've ever gotten. There hasn't been anyone else."

"Remember the time during training early on when we had a fifth team member?" he asked quietly.

"Cub," Eagle and Snake both breathed. If they hadn't spoken simultaneously, he might not have heard them say the name. Falcon looked scrambled once more.

"Cub was dropped in during training for ten days with no apparent reasoning behind why he was here," Snake explained. "He couldn't have been sixteen at the time—"

"Fourteen," Fox cut in.

"—and we didn't exactly give him the red carpet welcome. He just left one day and we never saw him again."

Wolf twitched where he sat, not mentioning Point Blanc due to the OSA forms MI6 had made him sign.

Fox, as the only one in the group who actually knew anything about Alex, picked up where Snake left off. "MI6 had recruited him immediately after his uncle's death. The spy business was in his blood and he picked up his uncle's mission when he left BB. Ever since then, he's been the youngest spy that we know of."

Snake almost laughed. "And he ticked off SCORPIA? I'm impressed."

"He almost destroyed them," he said in all seriousness. "He was running active coordination against them before we lost track of him seven months ago." Eagle whistled and everyone glared at him as it sharply pierced their eardrums via the headsets.

"Wait up," Snake said, raising a hand. "He's reappeared in London and supposedly killed a diplomat in cold blood? If he was fourteen then, he would be sixteen or seventeen now. He's not a killer, just a teenager with really crappy job choices."

K-Unit waited for Fox to back that up, but all they heard was the near-silent fuzz of static.

A minute later, he answered softly, "It wouldn't be the first time he's killed. By my count, this one would be number twenty. Maybe more. I wasn't with him on every mission."

Wolf suddenly felt sick to his stomach and he knew from the expressions around him that he wasn't the only one. MI6 hadn't just recruited a kid to do their bidding; they'd twisted a kid into a trained killer.

"But I don't think he would ever murder an innocent person," Ben quickly added, "and he would never work for the people who killed his family. That's just insane."

Wolf spoke up. "If he's been imprisoned by SCORPIA for over half a year, they could have made him do just about anything. Hell, any of us would have given in by now. They're masters of torture and deception."

"It doesn't matter either way," Fox insisted. "He's my partner and I owe him my life at least three times over. Whether he wants to or not, I'm dragging his ass back home with me."

"And we'll be backing you up," Wolf said. "For how we treated him at camp, we're in his debt."

"He's our teammate, technically," Snake agreed and Eagle rapidly nodded, adding "We'd do no less for any of our own."

Falcon huffed. "All I know is that some kid out there is neck deep in shit out there and only a couple years older than my niece." He threw his hands up the best he could in a cramped space. "What the hell. Count me in."

Fox's weak chuckle carried over their frequency. "Good, because if he doesn't recognize us we might be screwed. More seriously, don't be afraid to go all out against him. He's better than most people and I'm damned sure he's better than all of us. Especially if he's lost his morals on killing innocents."

A/N: Two chapters in one day? I must be dreaming. I never get these posted this fast. Remember, there is no correlation between End of the Road and my Safehouse arc.

* Yes, I am a total geek. Just finished the part in the Dresden Files series where Uriel leaves Dresden the copy of The Twin Towers (Lord of the Rings book 2). Who knew that such wisdom could be extracted from the best science fiction series the world has ever known? Oh wait, c'est moi. ^^

** SIS (Secret Intelligence Service) is the official name of MI6 (Mission Intelligence 6). I use the names interchangeably, because sometimes one sounds better than the other.