"Tom!" hissed Alex to the desk beside him. Tom looked up blearily.

"What?" he asked, bored. Alex jerked his head to the front of the classroom, where Mr Milton had started checking over students' workbooks.

"Crap, what were we s'posed to be doing?" Alex rolled his eyes and shuffled his notes over towards Tom, it was a wonder the boy wasn't failing most of his classes. Admittedly, this was an achievement Alex was unable to replicate this year, but really, with all the school he'd missed out on, who could blame him?

"Just copy a few of my notes; he's still at the front of the class." Mr Milton's checks were famously thorough, but also incredibly slow. It was for this reason Tom and Alex had chosen seats at the back of the classroom, where they'd have more time to prepare.

Tom diligently began rewording Alex's notes, and Alex surveyed the class around him. Anthony and Cassy were at the front, racing through the work competitively, something the majority of students would have a hard time understanding. Alex had been able to keep up with them before, not that he'd put anywhere near the same amount of effort in, but he'd certainly been one of the top students. Now he was struggling to keep up with the below average students, and it was obvious in his reports. English and social studies type subjects weren't too bad, but his maths and science grades were blatantly lacking. Alex doubted he'd be able to improve them if MI6 pulled him out again, he only hoped they'd let him finish the year without any interruptions.

The rest of the class was not working anywhere near as productively as Anthony and Cassy. They were chatting happily with their neighbours and not overly concerned about the work. Alex wished he fit in with them like he used to, but it just wasn't the same. He'd been back at school for a couple of months now, and people had started talking to him again, mostly because of Tom, but there were still the odd rumours that he'd been involved with gangs or drugs, and no one wanted to be close friends with him.

Once a girl had even asked him out. Alex was fairly sure her name was Jessie, but he declined straight away. She was only after him because she was trying to fit the rebellious teen stereotype, and Alex knew she had no actual interest in him. Even if she had he still would've said no. Hanging out with lots of people just wasn't his scene any more.

Just one more term until the end of the year, surely MI6 would give him that, right?

Alan Blunt looked at the document carefully. He certainly didn't owe the American government any favours at the moment, but the more they used the Rider child, the safer he could be of their secrecy on the matter. If it did ever get out he'd have someone to share the blame with and MI6 wouldn't be singularly responsible for the breach of ethics. Blunt made his decision.

"Tulip? Would you mind calling in Rider this afternoon, there appears to be another problem with his account" Mrs Jones bit her lip, it wasn't her place to argue with the head of MI6, even when she knew what he was doing was wrong.

"Certainly Mr Blunt," she replied, unwrapping another peppermint. The crackling of the wrapper was the only disturbance in the otherwise silent room.

"So Alex," began Tom, "you're not going to be disappearing on us again over the weekend are you?"

"I don't think so," said Alex, a genuine smiler on his face, "I'm pretty sure if I was going to I already would've." Tom smiled.

"Great, because I'm going to the movies with a couple of people from school and they said it was fine if I invited you too." Alex grinned. His life was finally getting back on track.

"I'll be there, just text me the details and I'll check with Jack."

"Cool, see you then!" Tom said enthusiastically as he turned down his street.

"Bye Tom," Alex replied, continuing on his way. It was then that he felt a buzzing in his pocket. Ale rolled his eyes as he got out his phone and held it up to his ear. Jack was always calling him, she was way too worried about him, hadn't he proven quite well that he was able to look after himself.

"Hello?"

"Mr Rider?" Alex flinched at the bland voice, and he felt a wave of dread roll through his body.

"Yes."

"We've found some problems with your account, and we'd appreciate it if you came in as soon as possible." Alex slammed the end call button and angrily shoved his phone into his pocket. This was ridiculous. He thought he'd finally been left alone and now they were probably going to send him off on some mission to god knows where with no back up and no way home. Alex turned around towards one of the bus stops and furiously took a seat. This was it; he wasn't going to do anything for them.

It took Alex roughly two hours get to the bank and when he got there he was led immediately up to Alan Blunt's office. He wouldn't have taken so long, but he'd been feeling so angry he'd decided to take the longest route possible.

"Alex, we've been waiting for you," said Mr Blunt blandly. Alex felt a rush of hatred for the grey suited man and glared heatedly at him.

"I hope I haven't inconvenienced you in any way," Alex said, sarcasm seeping through his polite tone.

"Not at all, not at all. We've just been discussing your future options." Alex glanced over at Mrs Jones, who was sitting guiltily over in a corner. He could smell the sickly sweet scent of one of her peppermints, and scrunched up his nose in disgust.

"I'm not doing any more missions for you, so you can forget about it," Alex stated strongly, looking the head of MI6 in the eye.

"I never said anything about any missions Alex, we've simply found some problems with your current living arrangements and as your legal guardians it's our job to discuss these with you." Alex narrowed his eyes.

"What sorts of problems? If this is about Jack's visa you said-"

"I know what we said Alex, but the fact is we can only extend her visa for so long. And even doing that, she still doesn't have legal guardianship-"

"No! You cannot send Jack back to the states after everything I've done for you. That's just not fair!"

"Of course we don't want to do that Alex, but my hands are tied," Alex opened his mouth to argue but Blunt quieted him with his hand, "However if you are willing to do us another favour we might be able to help you out a bit." Alex glared at him. Blunt had him on a leash and Alex knew it only too well.

"Fine," said Alex, and Blunt smiled in that emotionless way he did, "I'll do one more mission for you, but I want a proper deal. If I do this for you it's under the condition that you give Jack a permanent visa and full guardianship, no more favours after that."

"Deal. Now go see Mr Smithers for a briefing and and any equipment, your plane leaves in two hours." Alex's mouth dropped open.

"Two hours? But what about Jack, and-"

"Well if you'd been a bit more punctual you would've had time to say goodbye, Alex, but it's too late now." Alex could swear that underneath his boring mask Mr Blunt was grinning victoriously, but there was nothing he could do about it now.

AN: Holy cow guys! I've never had that many reviews/favs/alerts before! And just for a teensy prologue! Thanks a bunch for the input! Also, I'm on holidays now, so I should be able to update a lot faster (sorry for such a wait). How do you guys feel about the length of the chapter? It feels a bit short to me, but it was at it's natural sort of ending, and I didn't want to change it. I'll try and make the other ones longer, but if it really bugs anyone I can join it with the next chapter :(.

Please feel free to give me anything constructive, I don't write all that much and I'm hoping to improve by doing this, so any suggestions would be great! Thanks guys :)