A/N: Just a note regarding consistency and canon-ness: I'm afraid I haven't read the entire series over recently, so most of the plot points are based on my memory. I left Jack in the story because she has a small role and I hated that she died. If you see a plot point that belongs in the story that I forgot (i.e. Ryuubi Maelstrom reminded me that Alex burned his back), then please help me out!

That being said, enjoy. Criticism, advice, and all manners of reviews are accepted and appreciated. I don't own anything you recognize from elsewhere.

Mongoose looked at the group of teenagers assembled in front of them and sighed. He was not looking forward to this. Of course, neither was anybody else in the group. L-Unit had recently returned from an operation, and babysitting a bunch of obnoxious kids, well, it sucked.

Especially since Mongoose wanted to be at home with his kid. Despite himself, Mongoose found himself softening at the thought of little Ryan. His wife, Sarah, had sent him plenty of pictures, and they had even used Skype. While Jackal kept ribbing Mongoose about becoming a pussy, he didn't care. What baby wanted a tough soldier as a dad? When he returned for leave, he would make sure Ryan knew that underneath his hard exterior, he too could be a father.

Mongoose's eyes swung towards Alex. He didn't know the kid, not really, but Mongoose wasn't a huge fan of bullying. Hazing was rampant in the SAS, but it was expected and nobody really took it too far. Normally Mongoose wouldn't have interfered, but the sight of the kid's back still scared him a little. He hadn't really gotten a good glance, but he'd definitely seen a large scar and the edge of a nasty looking burn, or something like that. Alex had instinctively twisted to hide himself, but what Mongoose had seen worried him. Frog had been bullied in school, and he had a few "battle scars" to show for it, but they were small and innocuous. Alex had scars that looked like they came from abuse, and Mongoose didn't like them at all.

The rest of the unit thought he was a bit mental for caring about this kid, but Mongoose shrugged that off. Jackal was surprisingly easy to persuade into looking after Alex. It was only for a couple of weeks anyway. And, he was a medic. He couldn't see somebody on his side injured without wanting to take care of them. That's all it really was.

Beside him, Jackal glowered at the eight teenagers. "This is bull," he muttered for the fourth time. "I didn't sign up to be a babysitter."

Pelican's smile was deadly. "At least we don't have to worry about hurting their feelings or anything," he pointed out, looking entirely too pleased at the thought. "If they irritate us, we'll just make them do something miserable. Remember when we were recruits?"

As one, they shuddered.

"Point taken," Jackal muttered back. He cleared his throat and stepped forward. "Oi, you lot, listen up!" The kids lasped into silence, though Mongoose noticed the sneer that was directed towards them from Jeremy. Of course they had the trouble-maker and the bullied in the same group. Could this get any more reality-television? "Today we're going to be learning how to navigate our way through the forest."

They didn't look pleased with that idea. Smart kids.

"You will get the option of one survival tool," Mongoose said, motioning behind him to a table full of supplies. "Pick carefully."

"We will be watching," said Pelican next. He shot a particularly venomous look towards Jeremy, and Mongoose thought, not for the first time, that the man deserved a name like 'Adder' or 'Cobra.' Hell, even Snake would do, though apparently that was somebody in K-Unit. "Don't even think about stealing."

Frog finished them out. "You will be driven to somewhere in the woods and expected to complete some tasks. If you miss dinner, then...you'll be mighty hungry."

One of the girls looked affronted. "That's hardly fair," she said. "You're not even giving us a map. What if it takes an hour to get back, and we only have thirty minutes?"

Jackal pinned her under a stern glare, though they all knew she had a point. It didn't matter. They didn't have to be logical in a training exercise. Attacks were never conveniently scheduled or located. "Then you better walk quickly," he barked, and the girl subsided.

L-Unit stepped aside to let the teenagers at the supplies. Mongoose leaned forward curiously to see what Alex would do.

Alex was currently cursing the ground that the Sergeant lived on. He had just finished cursing Scorpia, MI6, Blunt and Mrs. Jones, so the Sergeant was the next logical target. After he was done with the man, he'd move on to his classmates.

The items on the table were all fairly basic. There was rope, a compass, a knife, a list of dangerous plants, a water bottle, matches, a whistle and a flashlight. It was going to be difficult to choose which one to take. Alex was leaning towards taking the knife. They most likely weren't going to stray past dark, so a flashlight wasn't necessary. Rope, compasses, water bottles and whistles were all useful, but it was the knife and the matches that they would need in most situations. Alex knew how to start a fire without matches, but should he display that amount of knowledge? They might not even need the knife on the other hand.

"I say we take the water bottle," said Mud Girl, reaching for it.

"Don't be daft," Tom immediately snapped. "What if we need to start a fire? Fat lot of good a water bottle would do us."

"If we all die of thirst, matches won't help us either," sniped back the girl.

"It's not even filled," said another girl. "I doubt they'd give us water."

Alex saw Jackal looking disappointed and knew that there was no chance in hell they would have gotten water.

Jeremy stepped up to the table, clearly intending to take the position of leader. "I doubt we need this list of plants," he said, pushing it and the water bottle to the other end of the table.

Alex personally thought the list would be useful for an extended stay, though not necessarily their trip today. While Jeremy was debating loudly the merits of rope over a compass, Alex reached out and snagged the list. Most of the plants were familiar, but a few he didn't know. He tried to quickly memorize the pictures. Who knew if he'd ever be stuck in this side of the world again?

"We're not taking that, Rider, keep up," snapped Jeremy when he saw what Alex was doing.

Alex put it back on the table. "Excuse me if I want to know what plants may kill us, even if we aren't taking it along."

"Good idea," said Tom, shooting a glare at Jeremy. He grabbed the list and scanned it over as well.

While the attention was on them, Alex said, "I think we should go for the knife."

"We might not even need to cut things."

"Yeah, but in case we do, it'll be more helpful," he argued back.

Brooke held up the matches. "And if we have to make a fire? What are you planning, to rub two sticks together?"

Alex actually carried matches in a small ziploc bag pinned to the inside of his shirt, but he wasn't about to tell her that. "What if we don't need to make a fire, then the matches will be useless."

Tom turned to the amused looking unit. "What's our task?"

Jackal waggled a finger in the most annoying way. "Many times on missions you are stuck in these types of scenarios," he lectured. This was true, but it wasn't as if these kids would be going on any missions at all. Alex still did not see the point of sending everybody to training camp. It would be a much more reasonable to send everybody to safe houses, but when did MI6 listen to a teenager? "You have a minute to decide."

"Knife," Alex said firmly.

"Matches," said Brooke just as firmly, which meant that Jeremy had to agree because he was a spineless little twat who just wanted to get with Brooke. This obviously meant that Tom had to agree with Alex, and the four of them glared at each other for a few seconds.

"Ten seconds."

Alex reached out to grab a knife, but Brooke got to the matches before him. She held them up triumphantly.

"I suppose that's good," said Jackal. "As your first task is to make a fire."

Jeremy shot Alex a triumphant look.

Jackal continued, voice light. "I just wonder where you'll get the wood."

Which is exactly why a knife would be helpful. Alex gave her another glare as they all clambered into a large van and set off. It took about fifteen minutes to get there, which could mean anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes to walk back. This would not be an enjoyable exercise.

A thought struck Alex. "You're going to be there the whole time, right?" Alex asked the unit members, ignoring the derisive chuckle from Jeremy. "You're not going to abandon us, are you?" He could just picture it. Eight defenseless teenagers wandering through the woods, too absorbed in their arguments to see the assassin taking careful aim...

Jackal rolled his eyes. "We're not here to babysit you," he barked.

A smirk crossed Pelican's face. "But we will be there," he said softly. "You just won't be able to see us."

Alex immediately resolved to spot them. He was glad that they would be following him, though. It would be his luck to get killed on a stupid exercise like this.

Unloading from the bus, the eight of them stood together in a group. "Your goal is to find the clearing marked with a red flag," said Jackal. "Light a fire. We will return once you are finished to give you the next objective."

"Close your eyes and count to ten," Frog said sharply, and they obeyed - even though Alex didn't entirely close his eyes. He heard a rustle to his left, knew the unit had gone anywhere other than the left, and when he opened his eyes again the four of them were gone.

Alex scanned the trees. Even though L-Unit seemed relatively young compared to the rest of the units, they wouldn't make a rookie mistake like allowing a rustle to give away their position. It was more likely that they stepped on the leaves, took off up a tree, and went the opposite direction. He couldn't spot them yet, but he was going to try his hardest.

"We have to find a clearing?" Tom said, looking around him with a wrinkled nose. "Are they bat-shit insane? It could be anywhere, this place is huge."

"Do you think other groups are in the same forest?" Brooke said. "Maybe we could help each other."

"There's no guarantee that we'll find anyone," Alex said, "or that they'll have the same mission. We should just start walking."

Jeremy sneered. "What do you know, Rider?"

Alex resisted the urge to hit the boy. He quite honestly did not know what Jeremy's problem was with him. While the rest of the school ignored him the majority of the time, Jeremy and Cameron went out of their ways to torment Alex. "What, do you have a better idea?" Alex snapped back aggressively.

Jeremy didn't, and after a few minutes of sulking he started walking into the forest. The rest trailed obediently after.

Tom gave an exasperated look over his shoulder to Alex before he smiled and walked up to one of the girls. "Hi, I'm Tom," he introduced himself. "What's your name again? Sorry, I'm pants with names."

The girl smiled shyly. "Miranda."

"I'm Amelia," said Mud Girl without prompting.

The third girl introduced herself as Jessica, and the unnamed boy was Colin. Alex already could tell that those four were not the dominant forces in the group.

As they walked, Alex kept looking for L-Unit without trying to be too obvious. They had melted into thin air, or so it appeared. That was strange, as the forest wasn't particularly dense. The floor was covered with a soft covering of leaves and grass, and there weren't too many bushes. It would be hard for four large men to not only conceal themselves, but also follow the teenagers. They were good, to say the least.

When he couldn't immediately spot them, Alex turned his attention to finding a clearing. Squinting low at the ground, he tried to look straight through the trees for any thinning and listened for the sound of running water. To his left, it looked as if the trees became considerably less dense, and he was willing to bet the clearing was that way. How was he supposed to get his classmates to follow him?

Alex made his way to the left side of the group. Maybe if he kept slowly walking left, they would follow him? He tried it for a few minutes, but all that happened was that they separated from him. Jogging to catch up, he concocted a new plan. Walking to the left of Jeremy, he stumbled and slammed into the boy, knocking him down. "I'm sorry!" Alex cried, jumping up.

"What the hell, Rider?" Jeremy immediately replied, lunging at Alex. Alex ran towards where he thought the clearing would be, and Jeremy lay chase. "Where are you going, idiot?"

Alex let himself fall a few feet away from where he could see the clearing. "Stop, don't hurt me, it was an accident," he gasped out, holding his hands in front of his face protectively.

Through his fingers, Alex saw Jeremy gearing to hit him, and he tensed up. "Don't hit him," said one of the girls. "God, Jeremy. Calm down."

"Boys," snorted another.

Alex grinned to himself as Jeremy left him alone. Taking Tom's offered hand, he hoisted himself up. "Sorry, Jeremy," he said contritely.

Jeremy sneered and they kept walking.

A few minutes in, they stumbled into a clearing. In the middle, there was a red flag with a picture of fire on it. Clearly, that was where they were supposed to build their fire. On the way there, Alex had been keeping an eye out for wood they could gather, and he found next to none. Either the SAS men had deliberately picked up wood just to be obnoxious, or that was standard in this part of Wales - Alex wasn't familiar with the geography, so he couldn't say for sure. In both cases, that would make building a fire difficult. There had been a few large logs and sticks where a knife would have been helpful, but clearly that was out.

"Does anybody know how to build a fire?" Tom asked, looking around him.

"Just pile some wood and light it," answered the other boy, Colin.

I hope I am never abandoned in the forest with these idiots for an extended period of time. Alex smiled tightly. "I'm not sure that's going to work."

"You need a pyramid," said Miranda, who thankfully seemed knowledgeable about this subject. "My dad and I go camping."

Alex mentally cheered. "So you know how to make a fire?"

Miranda fidgeted with her shirt. "Well...no," she admitted. "Dad always makes it while I watch. But you definitely need a pyramid. And leaves and stuff."

He could work with that. He held his hands out to indicate a length of about a foot. "Wood about this long?"

Miranda clearly wasn't sure, but she nodded anyway.

"We should separate," Alex continued. He had decided to take charge for a short while, if only because they wouldn't get things done otherwise. "Pairs or trios or something. Come back in five minutes with wood."

Jeremy immediately inched towards Brooke, who consequently moved towards her friend. "We'll stay here," she said hastily, "In case somebody is lost, just yell."

Tom and Alex shared a smile, and they started walking away. The other two boys followed them, which defeated the purpose of splitting up, but Alex didn't want to get into a fight. Tom walked a little faster, and when Alex caught up, lowered his voice to whisper, "How long d'you reckon we'll stay here?"

Alex shrugged, bending down to pick up a few sticks. "A couple days, a week? I dunno."

Tom picked up a pine cone and weighed it in his hands as if debating whether or not he should chuck it at Jeremy. "I thought they would have told you."

He smiled bitterly. "They haven't told me anything."

"Then what are you supposed to be doing here?"

"Making friends."

Tom gave him a funny look and lobbed the pine cone over his shoulder. A shout came from the two boys, but he ignored them. "Funny."

Alex chuckled softly. "I'm not kidding."

"That's stupid," said Tom. "You have plenty of friends."

Alex raised an eyebrow. "Are you blind?"

"I mean, it's beyond me why anybody would want to be friends with you, but plenty of people still like you," Tom said, giving Alex a grin. "We were just told to leave you alone."

Alex stopped. "You were what?"

"When you disappeared the first time, you know, when Ian died, this weird looking guy came in and told us that he was your psychiatrist or some such shit, and we should leave you alone because you were dealing badly with death," Tom said, as if that were common knowledge. "I mean, I knew it was bullshit, but the teachers yelled at us if we talked about you or pestered you so everyone just sort of left you alone."

"What the fuck?" Alex whispered harshly, clenching his fists. He didn't have a psychiatrist. This smelled heavily of MI6, and he was not pleased. Why the fuck would they tell everybody to leave him alone? Thinking back on his school experience, that explained a lot, actually. A few jerks liked to harass him about being a druggie, some others thought he was a weakling, but most people just pretended he didn't exist. Why would MI6 - or anybody - want his schoolmates to leave him alone? The thought of all the months he spent thinking everybody hated him made Alex want to punch something. He was struggling to keep his composure. He could have had a perfectly normal school life, but no, MI6 had to interfere again -

"Calm down," Tom said worriedly, placing a hand on Alex's shoulders. Alex flinched him off. "Remember, those guys are watching, calm down - "

Alex took a deep shuddering breath, wrestled his anger into a small ball, and shoved it down. He smiled coldly. "I was not aware of that."

"Shit," Tom said. They walked silently for a few seconds. "Gonna go fuck someone up?"

"Exactly," said Alex, and left it at that.

Hidden in the trees, Pelican watched the boys, specifically Rider. That had been an enlightening conversation. He didn't buy for a second that Rider was bullied - he showed none of the signs. It was also blatantly obvious to anybody who was watching closely that Rider was faking. It was nigh impossible to hide signs of advanced training to another who had the same sort of background, and who knew what to look for.

Pelican's estimation of Rider shot up a notch.

Back on the ground, the boys had stumbled onto a large pile of logs and sticks that were way too big for the fire. Jeremy, nursing a few scrapes and scratches, sat sullenly on a rock. He had tried to bend a stick into two to break it, and it had lashed back and scratched him.

Alex and Tom gathered a few and walked a few feet away. Alex wedged one slightly into the ground, held it at the top, and kicked it firmly near the bottom. It snapped in two, and he bent to gather it up.

"How'd you do that?" It was Colin, who had come up behind them.

"Oh, Tom's dad showed us how to do that a few years ago," Alex lied, turning.

Tom nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, we went camping once," he said, continuing the story easily. "It was the craziest thing, man, I swear we were attacked by this horde of massive rabid squirrels - "

"Can you show me?" Colin said, trying to bury his own stick into the ground.

"Twist as you dig it," said Alex, showing him. "It's easier that way. Now kick around here." He motioned to a spot that should be easy to break.

Colin kicked it firmly, and it split neatly. He grinned, holding up the pieces. "Thanks! Do you go camping a lot?"

"Sometimes," Alex said, half-truthfully, figuring on the spot that he could use more of his camping knowledge without being suspicious. "My uncle used to take me."

Colin nodded, but his face had turned instantly cautious and he quickly changed the subject. That only confirmed what Tom had said earlier. He supposed it was nice, in a way, though they all probably thought his hospital trips were psycho episodes or something.

Maybe it wouldn't be too hard to make friends again.

Building a fire was impossible.

Downright impossible.

Alex gave up about halfway through. He couldn't deal with these...these children. Honestly, they acted as if they were purposefully trying to be incompetent. In the middle of a loud argument about whether the leaves and small kindling went on top of the pyramid or underneath, Alex accidentally-on-purpose tripped over a rock and came down hard on one knee. He rolled slightly so that it didn't actually hurt, but that didn't stop him from crying out in pain.

"Are you alright?" Tom asked, as the argument stopped momentarily.

Alex nursed his knee and stretched it gingerly. "I guess," he said, wincing in feigned pain. "Shit, I may just sit down for a while."

"We don't need you anyway, Rider," came the expected comment from Jeremy. Alex ignored him.

Their attentions all turned back to the argument, and Alex took that time to lean on the pile of sticks and glance around him to spot the unit men. He let his gaze unfocus slightly as he skimmed the trees, waiting for any sign of movement. To his left, something flickered in his peripheral vision, and he turned his head ever so slightly.

A few branches waved as if wind had rustled them, but none of the surrounding trees were moving. Probably one hiding up there. He kept looking as the rest of the people in his group decided to compromise and put kindling on the bottom and the top. They only had ten matches, so Alex hoped they would sort things out soon - he didn't really care at this point. He had contributed to the wood, and he could let his classmates argue it out. Who had decided this was a good idea? Alex wasn't even sure that this gave him added security, as a sniper in one of the trees could easily take him out before the SAS men reacted. Somebody could hide in a bush, or plant an explosion...while their barracks were empty, a Scorpia agent could sneak in...there were all sorts of dangers posed to them while they were away from camp. He supposed that the survival techniques were good, but he knew how to build a fire, and L-Unit hadn't even given them any instruction. How were they supposed to build a fire with no help? If Ian hadn't taught Alex, he too would be stumped.

"Fuck!" The expletive came, surprisingly, from Brooke as she dropped the box of matches in disgust. "We're done."

"You lit it?" Alex asked, turning his attention back. The kindling had all burned up without lighting the larger sticks of wood in a pyramid.

Brooke sat moodily next to him. "All the matches are gone."

"Now what?" Tom asked, also sitting.

"You failed," came a voice from behind them. They all turned quickly to see Jackal striding towards them, looking upset. "That took you entirely too long. You argued constantly, half of you failed to get adequate wood, wasted your one survival tool, and didn't even build the damn fire correctly before you tried to light it! If this were real, you would die."

The eight teenagers sat sullenly. Alex tried to figure out where Jackal had sprung from. He hadn't heard the man jump from a tree, which meant that he probably had been on the ground...more than anything, Alex resolved to try to pick up some techniques discretely from L-Unit. Maybe he could convince Mongoose, the nice one, into teaching him a few. Alex could hide when he needed too, but he was nothing compared to these four.

"Get up," barked Jackal. "We're walking back. We'll be going with you, as we think you're incapable of finding your way back."

The other three members swung down from trees, appearing as if by magic. Alex was mollified slightly to see that he'd guessed Frog's position, but he wasn't pleased that he missed the other three.

He couldn't afford to let his senses dull like that - it would likely mean death for all of them.

Far away, the members of K-Unit sat in a dusty motel, trying to figure out their next move.

They had nothing. Nada. The information they'd obtained from the warehouse had been a fat lot of encoded nonsense that had fried the cheap netbook they'd bought to download the information on. They were still hanging on to the flash drive, but it wasn't helping them at all.

For the millionth time, Eagle groaned loudly. "I still don't understand why the hell we're doing this," he complained, tossing a raggedy tennis ball he'd filched from the streets up and down. "This isn't our area at all."

Fox sighed heavily. "I told you, we're doing this as a favor."

"To who, Cub?" Eagle tossed the ball up. "He's just a twitchy little kid."

Fox only shook his head. "My new employees asked me to assemble a team. I picked you. If you have a problem with that, you can leave."

Eagle blew air out with his lips and grinned wryly at Fox. "Aw man, you know I'm down to reunite the group, but couldn't we have done something cool and less hush-hush?"

"Everything we do is 'hush-hush,'" said Snake, snatching the ball out of the air. "But usually our mission isn't classified even to us."

Fox had known that MI6's refusal to tell K-Unit anything would cause problems, but there wasn't anything he could do about it at the moment. "I promise I'll tell you everything when we get back to camp," he said placatingly.

"Ah, camp," said Eagle, leaning back. "Can't say I miss that shithole any."

"Does anyone?"

Eagle grinned and kicked Snake so that he gave back the ball. "I'm sure some people have fond memories of walking up at four AM to run the first five fucking miles of the day," he said sarcastically, "before eating a piece-of-shit breakfast and doing stupid training exercises."

"They aren't stupid if they work," pointed out Fox.

"They're stupid if half the people flunk out," Eagle said in rebuttal.

"Which only weeds out the stupid people," Snake said, adding his two cents. He took back the ball and bounced it against the wall. "You're just mad because you almost failed."

Eagle made a face at Snake. "Because of that little kid!"

"That little kid's dangerous," Wolf said, speaking up for the first time. He shook his head at the memory of the ordeal at Point Blanc. "He's also annoying as fuck. Doesn't surprise me that someone's out to off him."

Fox, who was actually fond of Alex, said, "He's annoying, yeah, but he doesn't deserve to die for it."

"Some people do."

"Cub doesn't. And anyway, if we find the people after him, we find a helluva lot more."

Nobody argued with that, and they started debating about whether they should stay in their current country or move on.

Alex stumbled while trying to jump over ropes stretched across the ground and almost fell flat on his face. Swearing to himself, he hobbled his way through the mini course, wishing all the while that he could just do it normally in half the time.

"Why are you so bad at this sort of thing?" Colin asked, not unkindly, as they took a break for water.

Alex shrugged, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "I spent a lot of time lying down," he said. "My muscles got weak, I guess."

Colin bit his lip, and then said, "Me and a coupla guys from the football team were planning to continue our training here. I mean, we have a whole championship tournament in a month, and we can't slack off - you should come."

Alex froze. "Thanks," he said hesitantly, not at all sure how to respond to that. His paranoid mind immediately began whirring ahead. Were they trying to make fun of him? Did the teachers make Colin decide to be nice? Was Alex getting pitied? Was it safe to go out in the open like that? How was he supposed to pretend to be a weakling for even longer, in front of his old football friends?

Colin smiled, shrugged a shoulder, and said, "You know Harrison's the new captain, right? He'll whip you into shape."

"Thanks," said Alex again because he had no idea what to say.

Tom elbowed Alex and said, "Hey, the new captain's even more of a terror than you were? Impossible."

"I was not a terror," Alex responded, still trying to get his head around this offer of friendship.

Colin snickered. "Alex, you made us practice the same thing for hours. I got so buff when you were captain, damn."

Alex grinned and said, "I bet I helped you get all the girls, even though you all kept cursing me."

"Can't deny it," said Colin. "I'm glad you've decided to come, I think we're starting today. Tom, you're, uh, welcome to come too."

Tom shuddered. "More exercise? Are you daft?"

"Guess so," Colin said, putting down his water bottle as Jackal yelled for them to stop running their mouths and start running their feet. "It'll be fun."

"Yeah," Alex replied, jogging back to the beginning of the course to try again. "It will be fun."

During lunch, Colin took his tray to sit next to Harrison. "I invited Alex to train with us during free time," he said as he sat down.

Harrison looked up from glaring at his food. "Rider?"

Colin raised his eyebrows. "We've all played together since grade school, Harrison."

Harrison looked a bit embarrassed at him. "There's a lot of Alex's," he defended himself. "Did you find out what the deal is on him?"

"Apparently he's weak from all the hospital trips," reported Colin, setting aside his bread - the only decent part of the meal - for last.

"If he was even in the hospital."

"Are you talking about Rider?" Another boy on the team, Tony, sat down next to Colin. "He definitely wasn't sick the whole bloody time."

"Why not?" Colin asked. "I mean, his uncle died. People get sick a lot after those kinds of things."

"Yeah, mentally sick," another boy chimed in. "Not physically."

"It's possible," said another.

"Yeah, but Alex was always really strong," said Harrison. "He worked out like crazy, remember his training sessions?"

They shuddered together.

"I don't think he's as weak as he's letting on," continued Harrison. "He has muscles, and you don't get muscles from laying around."

Colin shrugged. Alex was a mystery to everyone. "He practically flipped when I asked him to join us," he said, grinning a little at the thought.

"He was pissed?"

"Surprised," corrected Colin. "Like he was confused why I was talking to him."

They all turned to look at Alex, who was sitting by himself a little ways off.

"Poor guy," said Harrison. "With his uncle and all."

"Yeah." Colin was quiet, thinking about his own uncle, who had died last year. "Maybe we should talk to him."

"Don't be a fucking pussy," said another boy scornfully. "We're not his therapists."

"We were his friends," Colin said forcefully. "Maybe if we'd, you know, talked to him after his uncle died, he wouldn't have got into drugs and all that shit."

"Don't be a girl."

"And anyway, they told us to leave him alone," Harrison pointed out.

Colin took a bite of his lunch, grimaced, and swallowed quickly. "This shit is disgusting. And we didn't have to ignore him."

"Do you think he's really into drugs?"

"Or a gang!"

Colin nodded hesitantly. "I think that's the reason we're here," he confided, dropping his voice. "I mean, you've all seen the movies."

Harrison grinned. "His gang pissed off another gang, and bam! Gang war!"

"Maybe he's in the mafia!"

"Maybe that's why he's pretending to be weak," said one boy, waggling his eyebrows. "So nobody knows he's the mafia!"

Laughter followed this statement, and the conversation turned to the best movies about the mafia. Although Colin participated, he couldn't help but keep looking at Alex. He felt bad for the guy, he really did. They'd grown up together, gone to the same primary school and everything. Maybe once Alex realized he had actual friends, he'd stop being a druggie and go back to being normal.

He hated the sun.

Alex tried to muster up the strength to glare balefully at the sun, but he failed. It was all he could do was keep walking - keep soldiering on.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been out in that blasted sun. It could have been minutes, days, weeks, hours. Time blended together into one large haze of thirst, pain, exhaustion and the heat of the sun. His mind was strangely empty. There was just one thought hammering in his head: get to base. He thought it slowly as he took slow steps. Get. To. Base. He accentuated them with a footstep, keeping his body in time. If he stopped, even for a second, Alex knew he wouldn't get up - the only thing to do was to keep walking.

He was in the middle of a desert, or maybe a field. The location was constantly in flux as Alex tried to wrap his blurry head around this ordeal. He had been traveling with a partner, but the man hadn't been vigilant, and he had fallen. Alex had kept walking. He couldn't bring himself to care about the man, who was training to be a Scorpia assassin and would most likely be killed for his failure.

He kept walking. That was all he could do.

When Alex woke up, sweating, he lay panting in his bed, clutching the sheets defensively.

The survival missions that Scorpia sent their trainees on were brutal. Alex shuddered to himself and wiped his hand across his forehead, but his hand was as damp as his face. He sat up, feeling exhausted. It was stifling hot in the barracks, which probably was what had prompted his dream, and he kicked off his sheets and swung his feet over the side.

Padding over to the door, he swung it open to let cool air in. Why was it so damn hot? It was chilly outside, and he hadn't thought the barracks would have air conditioning or heating.

Walking back to his bed, the door still cracked, Alex reached into the pack by his bed and drew out a small LED flashlight. Flipping it on, he directed the beam towards the ground as to not wake the rows of snoring boys. Towards the back corner of the cabin, he found the source of the temperature: a small heater that was turned way too high.

Alex knelt by the heater to turn it down. Pausing with one hand on the dial, he stopped and sniffed the air.

Bitter. Tangy.

Alex coughed, instinctively jerking away from the heater. Shit! That smell was not normal, and while Alex didn't know what it was, he was willing to bet it was bad. Mind whirring, he reached for the plug and pulled it. It sparked, but nothing appeared to happen.

"Everybody get up!" Alex shouted, pushing the heater away. His mind whirring, he made a snap decision. "Get up right now!"

A few boys stirred. "Whassit?"

Alex jogged over to the door and flipped on the lights. Groans arose from the half-slumbering boys. "What the hell?"

"The Sergeant said that if we're not in the mess hall in ten minutes, we won't get meals for a day," Alex yelled, wrinkling his nose. The scent was spreading. "It's a night exercise."

"What?"

"Just get up!"

They didn't appear to be stirring, so he knelt by Tom's bed and shook him forcefully awake. "What's going on, Alex?"

"Make sure everybody makes it to the mess hall," Alex said sharply. Tom blinked, yawned, and nodded sleepily.

"Why?"

"Night exercise, the Sergeant just came in, didn't you hear?" Alex lied, trying to impress with his eyes that it was a serious situation. He wasn't sure whether Tom understood, but he didn't have time to waste; he needed to find the Sergeant.

"What are you going to do?"

Alex opened his mouth and hesitated. "Um, get the girls," he said, unable to think of a good reason to leave. Tom nodded and swung out of bed, and Alex jogged away. He passed a group of soldiers conducting a night exercise and sped up before they could ask him anything. Alex managed to make it to the main office within a couple of minutes, and he flew in the door without knocking. "Sergeant!"

A grumpy looking soldier looked up from a magazine, hand going immediately to his gun. "What do you want?"

"Where's the Sergeant?"

"Not here," the soldier said dismissively. "Go back to sleep."

"It's urgent," Alex insisted. Where was the Sergeant?

The soldier rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure it is. Listen, baby, I don't care if you wet your diaper - go the hell back to sleep and don't come back."

"The cabin, there's a heater, it's smelling weird - "

"I don't care," the soldier said firmly. "Go tell your teachers, or sleep, whatever. We're not babysitters."

Alex swore and jogged away, trying to figure out what to do. He didn't have enough time to argue. Get everybody out, he decided and sped up. When he reached the barracks, he saw to his dismay that only a few people milled around outside. "Rider," said one of them - Harrison. "What the hell's going on?"

"The Sergeant told me to wake everyone up," Alex said quickly, tripping over the words. This was bad, shit, he needed to figure out what to do! "Now. He's pissed. He wants us in the mess hall."

"Why?"

Alex bit his lip. "I dunno, just go," he said pleadingly. "I don't want to get in trouble - "

"Someone just collapsed!"

Alex whipped around. A boy clattered down the stairs of the barrack, pointing behind him with worried eyes. "He just fell over!"

"Who was it?"

"That short kid, Tom," said the boy. "He was poking around Kevin's heater and he just fell over, I swear!"

"Is this part of the training exercise?" Harrison asked, not looking too worried.

Alex seized the opportunity. "It must be," he agreed instantly. "We should get to the mess hall before it's too late."

"Okay, everybody go," Harrison barked authoritatively. The yawning boys reacted instantly to the order, making their way sleepily to the mess hall. Alex dashed inside. Tom was lying next to the heater as the boy had said, a stick in his hand. He'd clearly noticed the smell and decided to investigate. Dammit! Why would he do that?

"Tom!" Alex whispered harshly, shaking his friend. "Tom!"

"Let's get him out of here," said Colin, who had lingered behind. "You get the head, I'll get the feet."

"Thanks," Alex said shortly, bending to pick up Tom. He was relatively light, so it was easy for the two boys to carry him out.

"How do you think the SAS men knocked him out?" Colin asked enthusiastically as they carried him to the mess hall. "Pretty cool, huh? I wonder what they're going to teach us this time."

"Yeah," Alex said tightly. "It's pretty cool."

This was all his fault. What if Tom was seriously injured? Alex mentally cursed himself. He should have evacuated everybody first, dammit, or told the teachers, or something...

The boys sat in the mess hall, talking excitedly as they began to become more alert. None of them seemed to notice that the girls were conspicuously missing, or that there weren't any SAS men. Alex laid Tom down on the table and sat at his head, trying to figure out what to report to MI6. How could he tell them he'd failed so badly?

A few minutes later, a very upset Sergeant barged through the door. "Somebody tell me what the hell is going on here?"

"Rider said it was a training exercise," someone piped up before Alex could say anything.

The Sergeant's eyes fell on Alex and the prone figure of Tom lying beside him. "Of course it is," he said, without missing a beat. "But why the hell are you sitting here shouting to each other? If I wanted to ambush you, you'd be dead before you even heard me coming!"

Silence settled on the boys.

"You took too long evacuating, and one of your men went down," the Sergeant continued. Alex thanked whatever deity that occasionally looked after him that the man was good at improvisation. The Sergeant crossed the room and picked up Tom as if he was a rag doll. "Rider, come with me, we're taking him to the hospital to get the antidote."

Alex followed obediently. They walked in silence to the hospital, where the Sergeant passed Tom off to the soldier on duty. Once Tom was safely in a bed receiving a check up, the Sergeant rounded on Alex. "Cub," he said roughly, "what the hell happened?"

"The heater," Alex said, suddenly at a loss for words. He felt very much like a little kid getting reprimanded by the principal. "It woke me up, it was smelling funny, so I tried to find you - "

"You went to the main office, didn't you?" The Sergeant said, groaning. "Cub, why would I be there in the middle of the night? Why didn't you go to my barracks?"

"Your - your barracks?"

"Dammit, Cub!" The man visibly restrained himself. "What happened after that? Did you tell the soldier on duty what happened?"

"I tried, he didn't listen!"

"A teacher? Another soldier?"

Alex opened his mouth, but he had nothing to say and shut it again.

The Sergeant swore to himself. "Okay, where is this heater? Did you leave it alone?"

"I - I unplugged it," Alex said hesitantly.

This time, the swear coming from the Sergeant was much louder. "Are you a child, Rider?" The Sergeant shouted, gesturing wildly. "They told me you were trained! Act like it!"

"I didn't have much time - "

"You never have much time!" The Sergeant cracked his knuckles. "Dammit, you should have left it be, evacuated everybody, and told an adult! L-Unit, they would have listened. The soldiers outside. Your teachers. And why the hell did you come to the main office? I told you lot on the first day where my barracks were. You could have told MI6. Stop acting like an untrained child, and start acting like a trained agent!"

Alex tried to defend himself, but there was really nothing he could say. "I tried - "

"And you failed. You screwed up, Rider. There's probably an assassin around right now," the Sergeant said, making Alex shut his eyes in horror. He hadn't even thought of that. The Sergeant was right, he'd acted impulsively like a kid. He couldn't afford to make mistakes like that."

"Go tell the doctor what the smell was like while I fix this situation," the Sergeant growled, pointing to the next room. "Stay here. I'm sending L-Unit to look after you. As of now, they are informed of your status, Cub."

"What? You can't do that, it won't solve anything!"

"Since you insist on acting like a child, I'll treat you as one," the older man said harshly. "Now stay here. I make the decisions." He gave one last venomous glare and stormed out.

"Fuck," Alex swore softly to himself. His body was trembling with adrenaline. He had messed up before, but it was usually on the job and he could find a way to fix things. Alex had never really been yelled at like this before, as if he was an unruly child.

And now L-Unit would be informed of his status! How could the Sergeant do that? That would only make things worse!

Alex groaned and went into the next room to talk to the doctor. He'd really screwed up this time - it was completely, 100% his fault.