A/N: After this, I'm going to be posting one chapter a day, to try and give myself some time to finish the fic.

(We'll see how that goes .)

Read and enjoy!

"Tanner's crew is coming to pick the targets up," Liz announced. "Dammit, Rider, I just got done filling out post-mission paperwork, and now I have more to do."

Ian rolled his eyes. "It's not like you'd have done anything with your day off, anyway. I want to be there when Callum and Colin start in on them."

"What -"

"No, don't be ridiculous -"

"You just got out of surgery -"

Brutal, cold hatred filled Ian's voice as he replied, "Scorpia went after my brother's son. The only thing stopping me from tearing their heads off and sticking them on pikes in Venice is the fact that I'm not on their side of the law."

Several eyebrows rose, and Taylor patted Alex's shoulder, responding flippantly, "Good to see that thirteen months out of commission haven't dulled your homicidally protective urges."

Ian smiled, all teeth and no warmth. "Oh, believe me, I've still got it."

"If Daniels had his way, you'd still be out of commission," Liz pointed out, giving Ian a cautious once-over.

"Good thing I'm his superior, then, isn't it?" Ian turned and hobbled back towards the house. "Come on, I want to get the sensors reset while the night's young."

"Rider, you're not seriously thinking about re-bugging your house in your condition," Taylor demanded, "Can you even lift your arms above your head?"

Ian flashed her a grin. "That's what I have you for, isn't it, Farnesworth?"

Taylor scowled. "Rider..."

"Algiers, Farnesworth, Algiers."

"... Damn. Fine, tell me where you want the infernal devices."

Ian hobbled back into the house, navigating around the shards of glass on the floor. "Just put mine back where you found them. The ones upstairs -"

"Wait a minute," Jack cut in, "The house was bugged? And you never told us?!"

"That would be the purpose of covert surveillance, Jack," Ian replied mildly.

"That's an enormous breach of privacy, Ian!"

"You live with the most paranoid spy in the British Isles, Miss Starbright," Liz commented as Taylor picked up Ian's bugs and disappeared to replace them.

Jack clenched her fists.

Alex remained silent behind Jack, watching. His housekeeper was more furious than he had ever seen her, and Ian was... Ian was acting as if he'd never been away, as if he hadn't been declared dead for over a year. He was acting as if he'd just been away for a conference, and as if the woman planting bugs in his house was normal.

Alex looked at the bugs on the coffee table they hadn't picked. "What about those?"

Ian hobbled over, picking up a few of the bugs. He handed them to Liz. "These are mine. The rest... Are not, and I'm concerned that there seem to be so many of them."

Liz took the devices Ian gave her and went to replace them, leaving Jack, Ian, and Alex alone in the living room. Ian picked up another one, holding it up to the light. "This one's MI6... Movers came by the house during the funeral, didn't they?"

Alex nodded. "They emptied out your office completely."

Ian pressed his lips together in a thin line, separating the pile in two. "Yes... And left behind some presents, too."

"These, on the other hand, are Scorpia," Ian said, gesturing to the other new pile. "Have you had any handymen stop by? Plumbers, painters, electrical workers?"

Jack and Alex shook their heads.

"So they broke in. I'll check the footage later. I think this one's DGSE, Taylor would know better. What the Frogs think they're doing..."

"These people have all been spying on us?!"

Ian nodded grimly. "And a lot more intrusively than anything I had set up."

"Are they still active?" Alex asked, gesturing to the bugs before Jack could build up steam.

Ian shook his head. "The scanners Liz and Taylor used killed them. Mine will reactivate when they put them back."

Jack make a noise that sound strikingly like an angry chicken. "So what kind do you have, then? Spying on us while we sleep?"

Ian snorted, and Alex wondered why his uncle didn't gamble, because his poker face was impeccable. "Don't be so crass, Jack. There's a camera with limited audio capability in the hallway and my office, and sensors on all the windows that alert me when they're used as entry or exits points. Downstairs, there are motion sensors in every room and possible entry point, and cameras with limited audio in the kitchen and the living room. Think of it as an extended security system."

"That's it?" Jack questioned suspiciously.

"That's it. I have no interest in playing Big Brother; my only concern is the safety of the members of this house."

There was steel in Ian's voice that Alex had never heard directed at Jack before. He had always been unfailingly polite and sometimes even gentle with her, as long as Jack had lived with them.

"You're all set, Rider," Taylor said, returning to the living room. "I don't suppose I can convince you to check yourself back into St. Dominic's?"

Ian waved dismissively. "It's a broken leg and a few cuts, I'll be fine."

"St. Dominic's?" Alex asked, "When were you there? How long-"

Alex cut himself off, but the unstated 'How long were you there' and 'How long have you been back' were heard loud and clear.

"We touched down on British soil some thirty hours ago," Liz replied, returning down the stairs, "And he checked himself out four and a half hours ago."

"Where were you before that?" Jack demanded, addressing the elephant in the room.

Ian sighed. "Imprisoned by Scorpia. They attacked in the middle of my mission in Cornwall. I got out about two days ago."

"And they, what, they let you go?"

Alex's eyes widened in shock. "Jack!"

Ian smiled blandly. "I made a very persuasive argument."

Ian turned back to Taylor and Liz. "You two go make sure Daniels hasn't caused an international incident on my lawn."

Taylor nodded. "We'll see you in the morning, then. Daniels is staying the night -"

"What? Why? Tell him to go home."

"- To make sure you don't do anything stupid, and to escort you to headquarters tomorrow morning."

"He'll remain outside," Liz added amusedly, "You won't have to see him until you leave tomorrow morning."

Ian scowled and gestured towards the door.

A tense silence settled over the remaining three members of the Rider household. Ian looked between Alex, Jack, the coffee table, and the broken lock on the door. "Well -"

SMACK

Ian's head snapped to the side as Jack slapped him across the face. The redhead's chest heaved as she breathed angrily, the hand at her side still clenched into a fist.

Ian turned his head back, his expression calm. "Can't say I didn't expect that."

"Didn't expect - You - you make me so angry, Ian Rider! All this time, you lied to us, and now your lies have gone and trapped Alex in this nightmare and -"

"I never wanted this for you, Alex." Ian cut through Jack's rant, his brown-swirling-green eyes intent on his nephew. "No matter what Blunt said, how he twisted things - because God knows that's what that man is good at - I never wanted you involved in this life."

Alex swallowed. "You... he said you were training me."

Ian reared back, half-disgusted, half-annoyed. "Bollocks I was! Alex, to be a spy, a good spy, you either need to love what you do, or love your cause enough to do it anyway."

"So all the languages, the extreme sports, the karate..."

"You realise that if you put on your CV that you speak four languages fluently, you can get almost any job in the United States, Great Britain, Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, and many South American countries? How many of your peers will have that advantage?

"I'll admit, enrolling you in karate lesson down at the club was related to my job. Blunt had me working a case on child prostitution in the United Kingdom. I was... made very aware of just how vulnerable most children in the UK are. I wanted you to be able to protect yourself."

Ian sighed, running his fingers through his hair. "And the rest... I wanted to give you the world, Alex, but I'd never be able to make it home for dinner every night, or make it to every one of your matches. I'd never be able to give you a normal family experience, but trips to places most people don't get to see? Vacations and holidays in different countries and different cultures? New experiences to show you just how big and beautiful the world is? I could give you that. I... tried... to give you that."

Alex didn't know what to think. It was everything he'd wanted to hear since he first met Alan Blunt and Tulip Jones. But... Ian was a spy, too. He lied and manipulated people for a living. How did he know for sure that Ian was telling the truth?

There was something old and infinitely sad in Ian's eyes as he finished, "My position in the Service involves a lot of worst case scenarios across the entire globe. I won't be around for you forever, and I wanted to give you every good memory, every useful skill, for whatever you wanted to do with your life before my time came."

"Were you ever going to tell me? Tell us?"

Ian glanced at Jack for a moment, before nodding. "When you turned eighteen. Or earlier, if you went to a residential Sixth Form, or decided you wanted to move out at sixteen."

"To recruit him?" Jack asked sharply.

Ian shook his head. "No. Alex, you're good at what you do, very good from what I've read, but you don't have the temperament for a spy. There would be no point in me pushing you towards that life. I would have told you because I'd have wanted you to stay safe and aware after you moved out of my protection."

It was too much. Ian was saying everything Alex wanted to hear, every hope he had used as a shield in those first days after he met Blunt. And now, long after those hopes had faded into bitterness, Ian was serving them back to him on a silver platter... And he couldn't trust him. After everything MI6 had put him through, he couldn't trust his own Uncle.

"Your car," Alex blurted out, "I saw it - after the funeral. There were holes in it, blood..."

Ian's lips twisted. "My car is armour-plated with bulletproof glass. I checked, it's currently in MI6 holding. I don't know what you saw, but it wasn't mine."

Alex felt sick. "So Blunt faked it, all of it - just to get me to work for him."

Ian pressed his lips into a thin line, his knuckles white as he gripped the handle of his crutches. "He has a lot to answer for."

"And you work for this man?!" Jack demanded

Ian's expression hardened. "Alan Blunt is a lot of things, most of them unpleasant. But above all, he is a patriot, and this country needed him. He has a lot to answer for, and where it concerns Alex, I will make sure he does."

Another tense silence descended between them. There were so many questions Alex wanted to ask. How had Ian gotten into spying? Why did he do it? Did he know the truth about John Rider and Ash and Yassen?

"Was any of it real?" Alex asked, "Your funeral - were they really your friends, or was that just a show, too?"

"Spies don't have friends, Alex, we have allies and we have assets. But to answer your question - everyone besides Blunt and Jones was told I was dead. Some, like Taylor, didn't believe the story, and even Blunt and Jones didn't have proof of life."

"So they suspected you weren't dead, but didn't have any evidence, and went ahead and labelled you KIA, is that it?"

Ian nodded.

"Then how did you..."

Ian smiled slightly, but there something vicious and cruel and deadly in his expression. "I got tired of Scorpia and made my way out. Taylor, Liz, and two of my other colleagues who had been attempting to find me picked me up and brought me back to England."

Alex sat back down on the sofa, burying his head in his hands. "It's... It's a lot to take in."

"I can imagine," Ian replied and Alex felt his hackles rise at the calm, even tone of his Uncle's voice.

"Can you?" he demanded, his head snapping back up, "Do you know what it feels like to lose someone you love, and then find out everything you knew about them was a lie? Do you know what it's like to get them back, and still not -" Alex buried his head back in his hands with a frustrated groan. He looked back up before Ian could even respond, his voice high. "Can you even feel? After all the lies and deceit and manipulation, are you even human anymore, or just another - another construct from MI6?!"

Alex broke off, his breathing laboured. Inwardly, he was horrified at what had spewed from his mouth. Where had that even come from?

There wasn't any anger in Ian's expression, though, only a small sad smile and something... faded. Tired. "I've got a lot of drugs in my system right now," he replied frankly, "With a concussion. So that might have something to do with my… skewed emotional responses. And the rest... I lived with the knowledge that my brother was dishonourably discharged and proceeded to turn traitor on our country, on everything we believed in, for several years, until he died on a bridge over the Thames. And then I found out he was a double agent, and he came back, telling me his wife had an infant son, and that they were going to France for the next several months. So, yes. I know a little of what you must be feeling right now."

Alex's gaze dropped down to the carpet. The pain in Ian's voice when he talked about his brother, he remembered that. He'd heard the same pain so many times growing up, until he finally stopped asking about John Rider. In this, at least, Ian wasn't lying.

"... I missed you," Alex said softly, half to the carpet, and only half to Ian.

There was a shuffle of plaster across carpet and the soft thud of metal, and Alex felt Ian's fingers card through his hair. His Uncle hadn't done that in years, not since Alex decided he was 'too old' to have his hair played with when he was eleven.

"I thought of you every day," Ian admitted, "When I was under Scorpia's power, the thought of you was what I held on to. It's always been what kept me going in my darkest days with MI6."

Alex rested his forehead on his Uncle's hip, and, for the first time since a policeman knocked on his door at three in the morning, cried.

A/N: So, what's the verdict?

Thanks for reading!