Alex slept fitfully seated between Snake and Lynx. Snake checked him occasionally. Clammy skin, cold, his breathing shallow but thankfully regular. Cub was filthy but then they all were. The kid had grown about eight inches since Snake had last seen him four years ago, but was dangerously thin. They drove through the night and were lucky to cover the 400km with no interruptions and only two bathroom breaks, Cub slept through both.

The outskirts of Basra approached. Their first checkpoint. "Shit, Mouse whose manning it. Please say its one of ours."

"Aussies." said the guy sitting shotgun.

"Right, we play this cool. We all need medical attention. Hopefully they are on the look out for us." Wolf slowed down and everyone put their hands in view. All except Alex who was wrapped like a mummy in a blanket.

Corporal Mac Henderson noted the four grim faced men in the Landcruiser and the shaggy blond hair of a sleeping young man. His instincts screamed, his signal put all at the checkpoint on their guard.

Alex woke as the SUV slowed, but he kept his eyes closed. He half listened to Wolf and the others talk about the checkpoint and the teams of soldiers stopping, checking and searching the vehicles entering Basra. Alex felt the hot dry air enter the car as Wolf lowered the window and introduced himself by name and with a string of code words. Wolf then added they all needed immediate medical attention, especially Cub. Alex tried to laugh but it turned into a dry hacking cough. He was back to being Cub as Snake told him to drink. A bottle of water was pressed to his lips and he took small sips, remembering anything larger would induce vomiting.

Alex had noted the soldier on patrol was an Aussie from his accent. Alex opened his eyes and tried to focus to see if he recognised anyone from his time at Perth, but everything remained blurry and his eyes watered in the bright sunlight. Doors opened, all the others exited. Snake began ordering the soldiers to be careful. Arms gripped Alex and he was pulled from the car and gently laid on the tarmac. Snake with a first aid kit started to do a thorough check on Cub. He got as far as noting the scars, scabs and misaligned bones. "Oh Christ Cub, what did those bastards do to you?"

Alex did not care about the past. He smiled. The sun was warm on his face. He had escaped the eternal dark. He looked up and knew he was hallucinating. Knelt down next to him was Jack. She had tears in her eyes. Alex smiled even though he was now crying, talking to his sister. "Don't leave me Jack. Take me with you. I miss you so much." Alex hiccuped and then whispered. "I'm sorry Jack. I Love you. Please don't leave me alone again. Please." His voice was failing. He could see blackness closing in at the edes of his vision. He reached out to Jack, his arm feeling like lead.

Somewhere in the background Snake asked "Who's Jack?"

Alex woke to a familiar room. St. Dominic's Room eight, third floor, high dependancy unit. He blinked. Wolf was sat reading the sports pages in the Sun. "You woke me to tell me how Manchester United are doing. Shit, tell me Chelsea won, but Man U are a complet and utter bunch of losers."

"Nice to see you awake Cub. You've slept for nearly two weeks, this is after going into cardiac arrest in the chopter. Snake had to give you CPR. He still having nightmares about the mouth to mouth bit."

"Sorry did I use too much tongue." Alex grimaced. No wonder his mouth tasted rank.

"Shut up Cub. I need to get the nurse and doc to look at you." Wolf strode out.

The doctors came and went. Alex had had three surgeries already, reseting misaligned bones. He was due for several visits to the plastic surgeon as well. He'd had a bout of pneumonia and several septic infections. He had been lucky, but he had at least another two months in hospital. Physiotherapy and a lot of head shrinking to look forward to. Alex looked a bit like a mummy. He was severely anaemic, underweight and weak as a kitten. No one mentioned the last year.

Wolf visited the next day with a bag of grapes. Alex was surprised to see him again. It wasn't like they were friends.

"Snake will visit on Saturday probably with his kids. He talking about returning to his regiment. Something about too much excitement."

"Business as usual if you ask me. I've been threatened with a long slow painful death regularly since my fourteenth birthday. Come to think of it, you were the one threatening at one point. Double O Nothing. Thats me."

"You were in a bad way, Cub. You nearly died."

"I wanted to go with Jack. Go back to living in Chelsea. Her bad cooking. Me being a good student. Ian phoning occasionally when he remembered he had a nephew. The good old days."

"Is that who you talking to, when you were on the stretcher?" Wolf looked concerned, speaking in soft tones, like he cared.

Alex could not equate this man with his life and experiences. Alex had been here eighteen months ago after trying to kill himself. There were no concerned friends or colleagues then. Just some faceless strangers from MI6 who signed the papers sectioning him. "Fuck off Wolf. Fuck off back to MI6 or Brecon or wherever you crawled from. No one cares about me. I figured that out at the age of 15 after Jack died. Even the fucking bank didn't want me. I was a fucking basket case. Full on PTSD, depression and paranoia. Yassen found me and then he sold me to those cunts in Tel Aviv. At least I always knew he was a grade A bastard. He killed my uncle Ian, did you know that. With two bullets he ruined my life. The sad thing is... He's the best friend I have. My only friend." Alex looked at the guard on the door. This was a prison just as much as Iraq.