OK, it's not letting me do the neat little line thingy, so this is all you're getting - little stars between different sections.

I was asked when this was set; it's after Skeleton Key. SOrry for not mentioning that! Yeah, it's after Skeleton Key - Eagle Strike and Scorpia are going to happen, but with a twist. You'll see what that is in about two chapters time, I should think.

I get my GCSE results back tomorrow, along with a hundred thousand other people, and I'm nervous as hell. So forgive me not writing anything else, or saying thank you for all the reviews - I'm so grateful, but I'm just too stressed to comment on it now.

IIIIIIII

Sunday dawned too early for Alex, who woke to the late autumn sun pouring through the window, a side-effect of being too tired to close his curtains the night before. Although it was early November, the sun had decided to put in an appearance this morning, and Alex was woken by it at eight.

Knowing that he wouldn't be able to sleep, Alex forced himself out of bed and listened for a couple of minutes to make sure that Wolf wasn't in the shower – the last thing he wanted was an even more embarrassing early-morning experience. When he couldn't hear anything, he grabbed his towel, and headed for the bathroom.

Showered and dressed, his hair wet and occasionally sending drips onto his T-shirt, Alex made his bed, and looked at the pile of washing in the corner of his room. Three shirts, boxers, socks, dirty casual clothes… he really needed to do some washing. On the other hand, though, it made no sense to do just his own – apart from anything, once he'd separated light coloured clothes and dark coloured clothes, he'd be washing very few clothes at one time, and it would be a waste of washing powder and of water. Alex sighed. He'd have to wait, and ask Wolf whether he wanted any washing done.

With very little to do, he tidied his room up, got his books ready for school tomorrow, made sure that he had a clean shirt and that everything was tidy, then looked at his clock. Another sigh followed – it was still just ten to nine.

Breakfast took about fifteen minutes, and Alex was willing to bet that Wolf wouldn't be up for ages yet. He tried reading, but nothing took his interest. He didn't want to turn on the TV, in case he woke Wolf, or in case it took too much money, or something… in any case, day time TV had always bored him. After about half an hour of waiting, bored and with nothing to do, he washed up the dirty bowls and plates, etc, that were in the dish washer by hand, simply out of sheer boredom. He cleaned the kitchen again, scouring it, but even that didn't help alleviate the boredom of the morning, in a flat which was still heavily silent with sleep.

Finally, in desperation (and forgetting about Michael Webb's visit), Alex scribbled a note to Wolf, and left. He was sure Tom would be glad to see him, and if he wasn't, or if he wasn't allowed out, there were other friends he could meet up with.

IIIIIII

At Tom's house, he rang the doorbell, and waited.

A small, extremely pretty dark-haired woman answered the door – a woman Alex recognised as Tom's mother. Having only ever seen her when she was screaming insults at her husband, he wasn't prepared for her to smile charmingly, and say, in a friendly, kindly way,

"Oh, hello. You must be Alex – I recognise you from your last school photo. I went through it and picked out all Tom's friends. He never brings them home any more." She ended on a slightly wistful note, but then shook herself, smiled determinedly, and continued, "I suppose you're here to see Tom."

"Well, yes, if that's OK." Alex nodded, uncertainly.

"Of course it's OK," she smiled, "Don't be silly. Tom!" she called over her shoulder, "There's someone here to see you!" she turned back to Alex, and stood back, holding the door open, "I'm sorry, do come in. Tom won't be a minute… I know he's up, I heard the shower, and it certainly wasn't my husband."

Alex smiled nervously, hoping that the mention of Mr. Harris wasn't going to turn her into the screaming harpy he'd seen before, but she seemed almost unaffected by it.

That lasted all of five minutes, until a tall man, also dark-haired, walked into the kitchen. Mrs. Harris, who had her hand on Alex's shoulder, pushing him gently into a chair, stiffened, and practically hissed when her husband said, sarcastically,

"Bit young to be one of your toy boys, isn't he, Marie?"

Alex flushed bright red at what he was implying, but Marie Harris squared her shoulders and said, coldly, "This is one of Tom's friends from school. You do remember Tom, don't you? You know, your son?"

Alex could feel the row brewing already, and excused himself with a hasty, "I'm just going to go and see where Tom is…"

The shouting exploded before he was even out the door.

IIIIIII

Tom was in his room, pulling on a T-shirt. He gave Alex a rueful smile. "They've started late." He said, quietly. "I guess you being here has been a good influence."

"Your mum seemed so… so…"

"Normal?" Tom suggested, bitterly. "Yeah, they're perfect parents – so long as they're not together. Calm, reasonable, friendly, generous… and then you put them in the same room, and suddenly they're… well, they're impossible. So, are we going out?"

"Yeah." Alex nodded, off-handedly. "Anywhere you want to go, in particular?"

"Well, we could go to the cinema, or something." Tom suggested, grabbing his wallet.

"Oh, er…" Alex shifted, uncomfortably, "I missed my Saturday job this week. I, er…I've got no money."

"That's OK." Tom said, shrugging. "I've got my allowance, I'll pay. So… d'you need breakfast this morning?"

They were half-way out the door when Tom's dad shouted from the kitchen, "Where do you think you're going, young man?"

Tom sighed, and turned back into the kitchen. "Out, with Alex."

"What about your homework?" his father boomed.

"It's done." Tom replied, shortly. "I finished it yesterday. I told you, at supper – but I guess you were too busy shouting to hear me."

"Tom!" His mother said, shocked, "We always listen to what you say!"

"Yeah, sure – which is why you remember me saying that, I guess. Right?"

Alex didn't like the tension in the room, so he stepped forward, and said, quietly, "Tom's just helping me with my history coursework. He understands the, er… Roosevelt's New Deal better than me, so I asked him if he'd help me with it, and he said yes. We're just going to go to my house, if that's OK."

Both Mr. and Mrs. Harris looked more at ease after that, and they were waved off with an amenable smile from both of them. The two adults waited a full five seconds before throwing insults at each other again.

"Wow." Tom said, smiling, "I'm impressed. I guess that's why MI6 employ you, huh? Because of your diplomacy and excellent lying?"

"Yeah." Alex grinned, half-heartedly, "And my age."

"And because you can kick people's ass."

"And because they really don't care if I get killed."

Tom was silent for a few seconds, then said, uncertainly, "Yeah – but that's true of everyone, isn't it? I mean, they can't mind. If they minded sending people into places where they might get killed, they'd go mad."

"Yeah, it's true. I just wish it wasn't me they were sending." Alex replied.

"True… but you're here now. So, which movie are we going to watch? The new Harry Potter film's supposed to be good…"

IIIIIIII

After the movie – they had gone to see the new Harry Potter film, but Alex had fallen asleep in the middle – Alex picked him his bike from Tom's house, and rode back to Wolf's house.

He had the feeling something was wrong the moment he shut the door behind him. The voices in the living room were raised, and occasional words and snippets of the argument floated through to him here and there as he listened, putting his keys and jacket down as silently as possible.

"Not fit to look after a child… why… not even with Child Services… honestly…"

"Doing my best, Michael… not a parent… I'm sorry… how could…"

He made his way through to the living room door, and paused, uncertainly. Michael and Wolf were in the middle of a full scale fight, that much was obvious – and it seemed to be about him.

"Hello?" he said, tentatively, never one to shy away from a fight, but understandably nervous when approaching an angry, highly trained SAS operative.

Not that Michael knew that, of course.

Wolf calmed almost immediately. "Hi, Alex." He said, shortly. "Did you forget that Michael was coming round?"

Alex gave Michael a glance, and a fleeting smile. The man had been nice, but Alex knew better than to immediately trust people. "Yeah, I had." He said, coolly. "What's the fighting about?"

"Nothing…" Wolf began, but Michael interrupted him.

"The fight," he said, with a piercing glare at his friend, "Was about you, Alex. As I'm sure you knew." Alex kept a level gaze on him, not bothering to flush or deny it, or in any way admit that he might have been at fault. His knowing it might have been because he was eavesdropping, and might therefore have been perceived as being something to be ashamed of, but eavesdropping had saved his life before now, it was something he'd been trained to do; it wasn't something he was going to feel guilty about now. "I don't think James is a fit guardian for you, and I want to know the real reason why he's looking after you. Or not looking after you, if I know James."

Alex looked at him for a few seconds longer, then glanced at Wolf and started to grin.

"You want to know the real reason?" he said, still grinning. "The whole truth?"

Wolf flinched, almost imperceptibly, but Michael nodded. "Yeah." He said, very softly. "I do."

"Well, the whole truth is that actually, I'm an escaped convict." Alex told the younger man, confidingly. He wasn't entirely sure what wild urge had caught hold of him at the moment, but whatever it was certainly felt more interesting than anything else had this whole, boring day. "And Wolf – sorry, that's his codename within our gang; it's a nationwide conspiracy, our gang, did you know?" Michael shook his head, looking increasingly bemused. Wolf, however, had looked amused the moment Alex had said he was a convict, and his last statement had brought a slow, amused smile to his face which made him look totally different. He looked almost like someone Alex could trust when he smiled like that. "Well, anyway, I went to the ringleader, and he told me to stay with Wolf until the police attention died down. So here I am. Except, now I've told you, I'm going to have to kill you."

Michael grinned. "Nice try, kid." He said, but looked serious again a moment after. "I'm serious, though. Why are you staying with him?"

"James is a government employee on semi-leave." Alex sighed. "And I'm a problem child they need a temporary home for. We got paired up for a couple of weeks."

"James?" Michael looked at him. "Is that true?"

"I told you this before, Mike. Yeah, it's true." Wolf said, looking him straight in the eye. "Why would I lie to you?"

"I… don't know." Michael admitted, reluctantly. "But I do know that whatever job you do for the government, it doesn't involve much sitting behind a desk. The day you started working for them, you started disappearing for weeks on end, and I've barely seen you. I don't know why this kid has suddenly appeared, but I don't believe a word about him being a problem child, he seems like a good kid – and I'm not sure I believe this has anything to do with your 'job'." Wolf cracked a small, sarcastic smirk at that, and Alex could almost hear what he was thinking: 'You have no idea…'. "Surely, if they wanted a government employee, they'd have picked someone from Child Services to look after him?"

"Who said I don't work for Child Services?" Wolf asked, blandly.

Michael sighed, deeply. "Sure, whatever. What's lunch?"

Wolf swore, then looked guiltily at Alex, who just shrugged, and bit back a smirk of his own. "I forgot. I put a joint beef in the oven, it's probably a bit burnt by now…"

The kitchen was filled with smoke, and when it cleared enough for them to see the beef, it wasn't so much a joint of meat as a piece of charcoal.

"Jaime, when did you put this thing in?" Michael asked, looking in horror from the smoking, blackened lump to Wolf, who shrugged, vaguely.

"About nine-ish?" he said, doubtfully. "I'm not really sure."

The blond man glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. "It's nearly three o'clock!" he pointed out. "You've been cooking it for at least five hours! How do you just forget about it?"

"I'm not a very good cook!" Wolf defended himself. "You know that. I was just trying to make a nice meal because… well, because."

"See, this is why you're the last person I'd trust to look after a child." Michael said, and Alex, looking from Wolf to Michael, decided to step in before a fight started up again.

"Anyone want a toasted cheese sandwich?" he suggested, quickly.

"James, the kid is looking after you, not the other way round." Michael frowned. "I'm really not happy with this."

"I know. You've made your point, but could you stop referring to him as 'the kid', please? It's getting on my nerves. You know his name."

"Sorry." Michael apologised, to Alex. "A toasted cheese sandwich would be great."

IIIIIII

Michael and Wolf watched a football game after the make-shift meal, and Alex washed up, and went and lay on his bed for a bit, reading, and listening to music on his iPod. He didn't know Michael had left till Wolf appeared in the doorway, about an hour and a half later.

"Hey." He said, awkwardly. "Can I come in?" Alex pulled his headphones out, and nodded, wordlessly. "Thanks. Look… I know I haven't been the best guardian, or whatever. But, I, er… it's not cos I don't like you… it's just, I don't know what to do. I've never had to look after a kid."

"I don't need much looking after." Alex shrugged in response. "I'm pretty good at looking after myself."

"I know." Wolf said, ironically. "I was there at the camp, remember? God, I was a real bastard to you, wasn't I?"

"Yes. But then, you were OK at Point Blanc." Alex pointed out. "And if you hadn't been such a bastard, I'd probably have got myself binned because it was such hell."

"Why were you there? Or aren't you allowed to tell me?"

"You already know I'm a spy, and if you're gonna sell me out, that's enough information. I don't see how it's going to hurt telling you – if you want to know."

"Yeah, sure. It'll pass the time."

"You remember a guy called Herod Sayle?"

"Asian guy, amazingly rich, and giving all those laptops away in return for British citizenship? I thought he got a freak case of pneumonia, and… oh. He died."

"Yeah, but it wasn't me who killed him. That was Yassen Gregorovich. No, Herod Sayle had gone to the same school as the Prime Minister, and had been bullied by him. I guess it gave him come kind of complex, because he wanted to completely ruin him, and to do it, he was going to kill all the school children in Britain with his 'gifted' laptops. They all had some kind of small-pox virus in them."

"And you stopped him?" Wolf asked.

"Obviously." Alex smirked. "But it took three sprained muscles, swimming with a lethal jellyfish, and a parachute jump over the Science Museum to do it."

"It's probably being taught to the SAS as a case scenario of what not to do." Wolf smirked back.

"Probably. On the other hand, that's not my problem. I did what I was supposed to do. So… what was your first assignment?"

They spent a relatively companionable evening talking about the various missions MI6 had sent them on; Wolf commented before he left that it was probably the first civil conversation they'd ever had with each other. They didn't say goodnight, exactly – that would have been worryingly friendly, and they weren't on good enough terms just yet – but it was certainly a better atmosphere than they had been living in for the past few days.

Alex went to sleep feeling hopeful. Perhaps this next week wouldn't be so bad, after all.

IIIIIIII

Don't be fooled! Things don't look up for at least another... ooh, three days or so?

Well, until next time, dear people - good night.

ami. xxx

PS. Thanks for all the reviews!