So, if you've stopped hyperventilating yet over the sudden appearance of an update (yes, I know), I have a small confession to make to you, oh my readers.

I promised back in 2008 that I would finish this story and post it as and when it was done. And I tried, I did, but something terrible happened - I completely ran out of inspiration. Dead wall. Staring me in the face every time I opened the document. And then, it spread. No Alex Rider inspiration anywhere. At all! It was awful. Everything just died, I didn't want to write ANYTHING.

And so, I didn't. It was my great AR famine of 2008/9.

But now, slowly but surely, inspiration has returned! I have about three chapters of this done (yes, I know, two years later and I STILL haven't finished it. Still. Inspiration!fail - and most people wanted me to write and post, so I'm bowing to reader pressure!), and will try and post RELATIVELY regularly. :D

Thanks as always go to Von, who is my life, my sweetness and my hope. She also delivers a mean kick up the arse when you need one. This is her favourite story of mine, and I hereby dedicate it to her!

DISCLAIMER: Anthony Horowitz wouldn't kill his golden goose in the same way I'm trying to.

Wolf had always hated the headquarters the SAS kept in London. The official headquarters were in Credenhill, but it was London that organised the essentials; appointed civilian instructors for things like first aid, language training and interrogation, dealt with any legal proceedings and liaised with the various government sections. In fact, the official name was the SAS Liaison Bureau, and that was possibly why Wolf disliked it; the Credenhill HQ was for internal matters, he knew where he stood there. The London HQ was for dealing with those outside the SAS, and he always felt off-balance and out of place.

It was in an old converted town house just of Grosvenor Square, quiet and discrete, and any inquiries would have found it to be the Trust branch of a minor British bank, set up in the Second World War specifically to deal with pensions for retired soldiers, which had slowly grown. In fact, it was still a popular bank with soldiers who operated in high risk areas.

On going inside, in his dress uniform - not an unusual sight for this bank - Wolf gave his name to the secretary, and was directed up to the fourth floor, where he knocked sharply on the heavy oak door - soundproofed, beyond all doubt, Wolf reflected- with 'Markham' writen on a brass plaque.

"Enter!"

Opening the door, and shutting it carefully behind him, Wolf turned to his superior and saluted smartly. "Sir."

"Ah, san Luca. At ease. In fact, take a seat."

Wolf sat awkwardly right on the edge of the seat. "Thank you, sir."

"Lieutenant, I'm sure you have some idea of why I've invited you here today."

"Alex Rider, sir." He nodded. "Has something happened, sir?"

"A great deal of information has come to light." Markham said, carefully. "A lot of which I am going to share with you, and on which I expect you to brief your unit," he paused. "Before we start, however, it may be a relief for you to know that you will of course be receiving active service pay whilst Command has you assigned to this task."

"Thank you, sir," Wolf said simply, and waited.

Markham offered him a thin smile. "Now. With the Rider boy, we've come up with a basic plan of action based on our new information – but the boy is unpredictable, and since you'll be carrying out this plan, you'll need to go in with a degree of – flexibility."

"Flexibility, sir?"

"If your approach needs to be changed, based on Rider's reaction, do it," Markham explained bluntly. "I'll back up any decisions you make with HQ." He sat back and paused for a second. "This is not our usual area, I know, and it's expecting a lot that this will go off without a hitch," he said finally, "especially since Rider is more than on edge and you have no relationship with him to work with. I'm not telling you this as an excuse for failure, I'm telling you so that you know we – I – don't expect miracles."

Wolf nodded smartly. "Sir."

Markham slid the photocopied folder he'd made up for K-Unit across the desk and Wolf eyed it without picking it up. "This is most of the information we have on the boy. I was given it by a man named Smithers, which," he made sure he had eye-contact with San Luca before continuing, "I am only telling you because you may need that information when you first talk to the boy. It makes for an interesting read," he met Wolf's eyes, and nodded, almost to himself. "I suggest you acquaint yourself with it before you try and meet the boy."

"Sir," Wolf began, then cut himself off, clearly uneasy.

"What is it?"

"I just can't – we made brief contact with Cub – Rider, sir. I don't know how comfortable he's going to be with our being acquainted with information like this when he's still working on next to no intelligence about us."

Markham looked away for a second. It was certainly a viewpoint he hadn't considered before. "I don't see a solution to that other than honesty," he said, and had he not been in the middle of a meeting with a lower ranked soldier, he might have shrugged. "You need to know what's in the file, and that's the end of it."

"Yes, sir," For a moment, Wolf tapped a finger against his leg, thinking, then said carefully, "but if I might suggest...?"

"What?"

"Is there anything that we could take on us for him to read? An exchange of information would probably set his mind a little more at ease."

Markham frowned lightly. "Such as what?"

"Our files, sir."

"That information is classified, San Luca."

"Yes, sir," Wolf ducked his head briefly, but when he looked up again, he met Markham's eyes straight on, "but with all due respect, Alex Rider was so classified, he didn't even exist outside MI6's records, and that's his folder right there. He's a sixteen year old spy, I think we can trust him with it. And I really don't see how we can possibly gain his trust without giving him something back for the information we have on him."

Markham's frown deepened for a moment, then he relaxed. "A valid enough point," he agreed calmly. "I'll have someone copy your files – with omissions where necessary," he added firmly, and Wolf just nodded – he knew when to pick his battles, "and have them brought round to you."

"Thank you sir."

"Now, this file," Markham continued as though there had been no interruption at all, "this should be everything you need to know, including the boy's address – unless you know that already from your previous contact with him?" Wolf flushed dully, but shook his head. "Then all of that is in here. When you get into contact with him, make sure to be calm and non-confrontational; we want the boy to be sure that we're on his side."

"And if he asks about what we want from him?" He asked, carefully; that was evidently Cub's biggest problem. He simply couldn't believe that someone could want to do something for him without expecting anything in return.

"Do whatever you can to convince him that we don't want anything," Markham said firmly.

"Is that true, sir?" He asked carefully. "Rider isn't likely to believe that we are expending so much effort for philanthropic reasons."

"Understandable," Markham agreed. He paused – what could San Luca tell him? "Tell him that MI6 has grown too big for its boots," he said finally. "And our – horror – at his treatment provides a neat way of cutting them down to size again. If he presses further, tell him that the man in charge of this – affair... knew his father."

Wolf had far too much sense to press the point – that admission alone was far more than anything members of the SAS usually shared with their junior officers. "Yes, sir. We're to make contact with Rider and establish a – rapport, yes?"

"In a nutshell, Lieutenant."

"And once we've established this rapport, sir?"

"I expect that will take a good week or so, Lieutenant," Markham said quietly, "if not longer. There will be plenty of time for me to contact you with further instructions. We will be dealing with MI6 whilst you establish this contact with the boy, we need to make sure that they're too tied up elsewhere to interfere with our," the briefest flicker of a smile, "rescue mission. I estimate that you have a fortnight at the very least, so. Use it well." He ended the interview with a firm nod.

Wolf took the hint, got to his feet and saluted. "Sir."

"Lieutenant."

Wolf was at the door before Markham spoke up again. "Oh, and Lieutenant – take a taxi home and claim it back. It would be extremely unfortunate if anything were to happen to that file."

The moment he got back home, Wolf rang the rest of his teammates, the file lying untouched and faintly ominous on his kitchen table. He wasn't about to open it just yet, unwilling to journey into the kid's troubled past all by himself, or whatever bullshit reason Eagle was bound to come up with for his leaving it well enough alone.

Whilst his team made the trip over to his, their unofficial HQ for this, he puttered about, irritated at himself for his own indecision, boiling the kettle without making tea, checking in his fridge without eating anything, sitting down at the sofa without turning on the TV or picking up a book without so much as opening it to read it. The file on his table was all too compelling a thought. Finally, with a bitten-off curse, he sat himself down at the table and pulled the file towards him, opening it and beginning to read.

The first page was nothing more than a bullet point of the kid's characteristics – his age, hair colour, eye colour, height and weight, and so on. The next page appeared to be a transcript of some kind, a school report of some kind, maybe? Wolf eyed the rest of the file, thick with paper, and sighed. This was going to take some time to get through.

Inevitably, that was when the doorbell rang, and he let Fox in with a nod. "Just started reading," he said tersely. "There's a lot to get through."

"What?" Fox asked, understandably confused. "Reading what? You just said to come over."

"I was called in to talk to the guy in charge this morning, Colonel Markham – you ever heard of him?"

"No. But then, I'm not Snake, the walking encyclopaedia of all things SAS," Fox pointed out with a grin. "He'll have heard of him."

"Mm," Wolf grunted, seating himself again at the table and fishing out about a quarter of the papers to hand over to Fox. "He gave me this. It's 'most of the information' they have on Cub, apparently."

"God knows how big the original must have been if this is 'most' of it," Fox commented, taking a chair opposite Wolf's. "I'd ask for a tea, but I'd rather wait until Snake gets here to make it."

"That was one time," Wolf grumbled, and they settled into a comfortable silence which lasted maybe three minutes before the doorbell went again.

Eagle and Snake arrived together, which earned them a minute or so of teasing from Fox before Eagle whacked him over the head with his share of the paper, and Wolf glared at them both indiscriminately. Snake brought tea over to the table, and they settled down for a silence which lasted all of a minute and a half before Snake – of all people – burst out, "oh, this is ridiculous!"

Wolf frowned. "The hell?"

"Medical records," Eagle said succinctly, leaning over to see what had Snake so worked up. "Huh, they look pretty – detailed."

"They look pretty long," Snake corrected, a snap in his voice. "Listen to this – shot above the heart, pulmonary artery ruptured. Surgery and PT. Scars on legs, infected, barbed wire suspected. Stitches and PT. Bullet lodged in brachial artery. Surgery and P-fucking-T," he flung down the papers. "I could go on. And on, actually."

Wolf glanced at the top sheet. "Doesn't sound that detailed to me," he said carefully.

Eagle shifted the top paper away. "Ah, but Snake has all the fun of the doctor's reports yet to come."

"You're focussing on the wrong part here," Snake snapped. "These are the medical records of a sixteen year old, and he's been shot three times that I can see – at least! And-" he broke off. "I'm getting worked up," he said finally. "I think someone else should take his medical records. Someone who can just accept 'em and move on. Wolf, swap."

Wolf took the papers handed to him with a fair degree of misgiving, but shrugged and sighed. "I think I got school reports and mission reports," he told Snake. "Try – I know it's hard, but try to be objective, OK?"

Alex put all his tools back neatly in the box they'd designated as 'his' and slotted it onto the shelf next to Derek's before turning to head into the office, only to be stopped as Don caught his arm.

"Hey, why not – give it a rest for tonight, huh?" He said, casual except for his eyes, which looked worried. "Go home early, get yourself some sleep."

Alex had a shift at the Goose tonight, and there was no question of 'going home early', so he just grinned and shook his head. It didn't matter that the grin felt as though it was stretching his skin too tight over the bones of his face, or that he just wanted to sleep for years, he had a shift later. "Look that bad, do I?"

Don managed a smile. "You look pretty bad, yeah," he agreed. "I wouldn't care, but I'm worried you'll start to scare of customers." The hand he laid on Alex's shoulder gave the lie to his words. "Everything OK at home, kid?"

"Yeah. Y'know, just... missing my mum." It went against the grain to lie to someone like Don, who'd been nothing but kind to him, but Alex was, he reflected bitterly, extremely good at lying. "It's... hard to sleep."

"And your uncle," Don started uncertainly, and Alex cursed himself for ever trying that lie. If only he hadn't been tired and off-balance when he saw Eagle, he could have come up with five better cover-stories off the top of his head, "he's not – he's not making things difficult for you?"

"Nah," Alex said lightly, and wasn't even sure whether or not it was a lie, "he was only hanging around for the Will to be read. Not that mum had much to leave." Which wasn't, he told himself, really a lie. He'd never found anything of his parents' lying around the house, though presumably they had left things.

"Well – well, good then," Don grinned. "Look, it's my birthday this Sunday, we were all going to go for a drink now – since it's Friday, y'know – why don't you come along?"

"'M underage," Alex said quickly, trying to think of a way – any way – to avoid going to the Goose with the rest of the garage.

Don laughed. "I won't tell if you don't, kid."

Alex paused, but couldn't see any way out of it. "Gimme a minute to change out of my overalls, then," he nodded, and managed a grin in response to Don's.

For once, luck seemed to be going Alex's way again, and Don by some miracle chose a pub other than the Goose. He let them buy him a half-pint of cider, pretended that this was the most daring thing he'd ever done, and let the other men's talk – about events he hadn't been there for, or jokes he didn't remember sharing – flow over him.

Derek leant across the table to him, two beers in and completely clear-headed. "C'mon, kid, your turn. You're a bit of a mystery really, aren't you?"

Alex shrugged. "Nothing so very mysterious about me," he managed a smile.

"You turn up out of the blue, no parents, sixteen years old, looking like you've gone ten rounds with Godzilla," Derek ticked the points off on his finger, and Alex shifted uncomfortably, "no explanation in sight. Mystery. Spill the beans, kid!"

Alex heaved a put-upon sigh. "Well, alright them. I'm actually a spy."

Derek laughed, over-loud, whilst the other mechanics grinned at the joke. "Right, then. And what are we? Your next investigation?"

"Nah, you're my cover story," Alex embroidered. "I'm investigating – hey, Don, what should I be investigating in your garage?"

"Tax fraud," Don tried, playing along.

"Please, I'm a super-spy," Alex returned, getting a little more into the spirit of things, "tax fraud and they send an accountant."

"Fine then, I don't know – drugs smuggling. I'm getting it out in the engines."

"Fine criminal mind you've got there, Don," Will put in, with a grin. "S'pose we'd better keep an eye on you now the kid's put it into your head?"

"Eh, why bother? We've got our super-spy doing the dirty work for us," Derek chuckled, and Alex relaxed fully for the first time in what felt like months. He might only be 'the kid' to most of them, but they didn't ask anything more of him than that he turned up to work on time and did his job as best he could. And they included him and considered him. It was a heady, unusual feeling for Alex, and he intended to enjoy it for as long as possible.

They stayed in the pub, chatting and just – spending time together. Alex couldn't remember the last time he'd just sat and talked to people, especially not people he actually wanted to spend time around – until about half an hour before his shift at the Goose, when he sat back and stretched, surprised at the strength of his own reluctance to leave. "I'd better make a move," he said quietly, "I'm in early tomorrow." And working late tonight, he didn't say.

Don glanced up at him, his expression momentarily worried before it smoothed out into mild determination. "Why don't you make it a free day, kid? You look like you could use the sleep." He smiled, "call it a birthday gift."

Alex was so tired, he didn't even think about how maybe he needed the money more than he needed the sleep, and after a moment's consideration, nodded gratefully. "Thank you," he said simply, "that would be great."

Don smiled, clearly pleased. "Which means you've got no excuse not to come to the party," he said, satisfied.

Alex frowned, vaguely wondering if he could backtrack himself out of this. A drink with friends he could manage, a party was probably not his thing. Especially not given how he felt at the moment. "Party?" he asked warily.

"Don calls it a party because he's a fuckin' cheapskate," Derek grinned. "It's lunch, down in that pub near us? The Goose on the Green."

A chill went down Alex's spine. "Yeah, I know the one," he said rather faintly.

"Best part of it is," Mike leaned in, "Ella comes, and you do not want to miss that."

"Ella?"

"My wife," Don said comfortably. "Don't know why she says she'll come when she has this idiot pawing her all the way through. I keep telling him hands off, but it's like talking to a brick wall." He gave Mike a considering glance. "Like looking at one, too, actually."

Derek spoke over Mike's outraged protests. "It's just a meet up, kid, you can make it. We promise to cut your food up for you..."

"Oh, leave off," Alex said absently, the humour in his tone totally at-odds with the low-level panic he was feeling. He had an early shift at the Goose – Sunday was one of their busiest days, especially for food – but he didn't have an excuse not to be at this party of Don's. By his own admission, all his family were dead or absolute bastards, and he couldn't even say he needed to catch up on his sleep anymore. "I – yeah, I guess I could- I mean, that sounds really great," he managed a smile. "I'd love to."

"OK then," Don nodded, giving him the same wide, pleased smile as before – and Alex couldn't help but respond with his own, more genuine this time. "See you then. We'll be getting there about – what, two-ish? Round about then anyway."

Alex's shift ended at one – he heaved an internal sigh of relief, and nodded. "See you then."

Alex all but fell through the front door of his house, abandoning his carefully-adopted limp, and allowed the previously internalised sigh full reign, relief and exhaustion given an outlet for a few brief seconds before he pushed himself up and into the kitchen. There was actual coffee and tea in the cupboard, a half-full bottle of milk in the fridge, along with cheese, bread, ham, pasta in the next cupboard along. He was a damn sight better off now than he had been before, and the knowledge of an entirely free day tomorrow to do – whatever he liked with, to sleep, watch TV, just let things catch up with him a little... it was a heady prospect.

He made himself a tea and collapsed onto the sofa, absently flicking the TV on and determinedly moving past the news channels. He didn't want to know what terrible things were happening – MI6 would probably guilt him into helping clear some of them up before too much time had passed, and he was going to maintain his own blissful ignorance until then – and settling on a showing of 'Chicken Run' on Channel Five. Mindless entertainment, something Alex hadn't been able indulge in for way too long.

He settled back on the sofa and prepared to enjoy every single moment of it.

And there it is! In its terrifying technicolour glory. :D I hope you all enjoyed it after the long, long wait!

Do drop me a line if you did. (grin)

-amitai