Wolf had come to the conclusion that Fox was an idiot.

'Bonding he says, spend some time with the kids he says . . .' Wolf thought to himself angrily as he fidgeted on the couch, fully aware that Alex's eyes were darting to him every twenty seconds or so. 'Easier said than done!'

It was Sunday, the day after Fox's visit to the flat. The morning had started off well enough – having both had too much to drink, Fox had slept on Wolf's couch for the night, complaining in the morning about having to curl up and wake up stiff and aching, though Wolf was of the personal opinion that he was just being a drama queen – they'd had far worse conditions on missions, really.

After breakfast (which Wolf prepared all by himself, thank you very much) Fox had cheerfully walked out the door, calling goodbye to the roommates and giving Wolf a very thinly veiled comment about "enjoying their time together". He obviously believed it to be surreptitious, but from the way the teenager stared after him, eyebrow raised incredulously, Wolf would say that he failed spectacularly.

Which led to his current dilemma. It was all well and good telling Wolf to "bond" with his young ward, but what the hell was he supposed to do? Take the kid to the shooting range? That would be considered inappropriate (and wasn't that ironic). Take him to the park? The kid seemed a little too old for that and though he'd never said anything, Wolf knew that Alex hated any kind of insinuation that he was a child (even though he is). Besides, what could they do there? Feed squirrels and stare at the world from a bench? Not exactly a thrilling pastime.

So, with no ideas on what to do at all, the pair of them had ended up on Wolf's leather couch, watching Jeremy Kyle, the air heavy with an awkward silence that neither of them knew how to break. The thought was so depressing that Wolf almost wanted to cry. And those frequent glances were making him feel like a bug under inspection.

The soldier nearly jumped out of his skin when someone hammered on the door. Standing quickly and attempting to regain his composure, he stormed down the stairs and swung open the door, his most menacing glare in place.

"Oh, I'm sorry dear, have I caught you at a bad time?"

Wolf's glare faltered and was replaced by an uneasy, though genuine smile. "Mrs Walker; what can I do for you?"

Mrs Walker was Wolf's neighbour; she lived in the ground floor flat in the next building. She had lived there alone since her husband died a few months before he moved in to his flat and her daughter and grandchildren had emigrated to New Zealand some years ago. The woman was seventy-eight and often had problems with her flat that she asked Wolf to fix; he'd never had the heart to say no.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but some silly teenager damaged my garden fence and it's a bit difficult for me to patch up; would you mind giving me a hand?"

"No problem. Give me five minutes, I'll be right round."

The old lady smiled, showing the gap where many of her yellowing teeth had fallen out. "Thank you, that's very kind."

Wolf closed the door as she wandered back to her place and jogged up the stairs, jumping into his bedroom and rummaging through his closet to get his boots.

"Who was that at the door?"

Wolf jumped at the voice, swearing as he banged his head on the door frame of the closet. Turning, he saw Alex standing at the threshold of his bedroom, looking vaguely confused at the sudden change in his guardian. "It was old Mrs Walker who lives next door; she needs some help in the garden."

"Shall I come too?"

Wolf looked up in surprise at the offer, then, figuring the kid must be bored out of his wits, shrugged and said, "If you want to. It'll be a while though."

"Why? What's the problem?" Alex asked, briefly raising his voice to be heard as he followed Wolf's example and went into his room to retrieve his trainers.

"She came over saying her fence needed fixing, but that means I'll have to fix the bits that are fine as well and while I'm round there she'll find another couple of jobs for me to do."

"She does this often, then?" Alex enquired as he reappeared, sitting down to pull on his shoes.

"I think she just likes the company; she's a widow and the rest of her family lives in New Zealand." Wolf answered as he rose to his feet at the same time Alex did, leading the boy down the stairs and out the door.

XXXXX

As it turned out, unsurprisingly, Wolf was right about Mrs Walker's request. The fence had a massive hole in it where someone had clearly put their foot through and then run off, which Wolf was currently patching over with a slab of wood, a few nails and plenty of under-his-breath swearing.

Alex, meanwhile, was preoccupied with the rest of the garden; as it was at the bottom of a flat building, it was extremely small, but it clearly had been neglected for some time. Alex was currently attempting to remove a large clump of weeds that was choking a rose bed, cursing angrily whenever his hand slipped and the thorns scratched him.

"How you doing over there, Cub?"

Alex glanced up through his hair at the man, who was leaning against the fence, pausing for a moment. "Well enough. You?"

"Same. Only two injuries so far." He held up his left hand, which had been holding the wooden plank in place and was bleeding rather badly from where he'd scraped it with the hammer.

Alex frowned at the sight, rising to his feet, "Do you want me to hold it in place while you put in the nails in?"

Wolf nodded, looking rather relieved. Alex guessed that he had been about to ask if his ward would do exactly that. As they struggled with the fence and Alex tried not to visibly flinch as Wolf attacked it with the hammer (which came way too close to his fingers for his liking), neither of them noticed Mrs Walker standing in the doorway, watching them with a smile.

Once the hole had been mended, not without a great deal of argument about whether or not it was in the correct position, she called to them, "Come in, boys – I made tea!"

Nodding gratefully, Wolf led Alex into the flat towards the small kitchenette, where, somehow, the woman had managed to squeeze a round table with four chairs in the middle. Alex wondered vaguely how she managed to work around the obstruction to make meals as he sank into a seat besides Wolf.

"There you are," the woman said cheerfully as she placed three mugs on the table and took a seat opposite them. "I can't say how grateful I am to you for this, and all the other help you've given me in the past, Chris."

"Not at all, Mrs Walker." Wolf replied smoothly, smiling amicably as he sipped from his mug. Alex stared down into his brew and tried not to laugh.

"And of course it was very kind of you to help as well, young man. I didn't catch your name . . . ?" Mrs Walker probed, giving Alex what he felt was a unnecessarily penetrating stare.

"Alex, Mrs Walker." He answered, politely.

"So, when did you two boys get together?"

Wolf's head jerked up in shock and Alex choked on his tea. It was Wolf who answered, rather shakily, "E-excuse me?"

'Did he just stutter?' Alex thought, giving Wolf an odd look sideways.

"You know, become an "item" or whatever it is you kids are calling it these days . . ."

"We're not a couple!" Wolf denied vehemently, face flushing a furious red.

Mrs Walker's face was the picture of surprise. "Really? Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you, I just assumed, what with the pet names and everything – "

"Pet names?" Alex interrupted suddenly. "What pet names?"

"Wolf and Cub, of course." Mrs Walker answered calmly, as if trying to explain something very simple.

"They're not pet names, Mrs Walker." Wolf stated firmly.

The old lady gave him a rather sly smile and said, "If you say so, dear."

Wolf and Alex exchanged an anxious look, completely clueless as to what they should do or say.

Fortunately, Mrs Walker saved them the trouble, "Well, if you're not a couple, then what are you? It's not every day that a young man takes in a teenager. And I've never seen you visit Chris before now."

"I'm his new guardian," Wolf responded cautiously.

"New guardian?" Mrs Walker frowned, looking rather perplexed. Her next question was directed at Alex, "You're in Care?"

Alex hesitated briefly, before saying, "Yes. Mrs Walker. It's a situation I'd rather not talk about, if that's okay with you."

"Of course, dear, whatever makes you comfortable." The woman clucked in a motherly fashion, reaching across the table to pat Alex's hand affectionately. Alex squirmed in a slightly agitated manner at the look of pity and curiosity she directed towards him.

Wolf, noticing this, stood up and said in a forcedly jovial tone, "Well, we better tackle the rest of that garden now. Come on, Cub."

Wolf looked away as Mrs Walker shot him another insinuating look at the name, almost missing Alex's grateful smile as the boy got his feet and followed his out of the kitchen.

XXXXX

Another two hours later, the weeds were all gone and the garden was looking a lot better than it had when they had first gone over. As they walked towards Wolf's flat, Mrs Walker stood in the doorway of her house, waving after them. Wolf could feel her bespectacled eyes boring holes into his broad back throughout the short journey.

Once in the living room, they both collapsed onto the couch, too lazy to have a shower at that particular moment. Wolf reached for the remote automatically and clicked on the TV to some random cookery show that neither of them paid any attention to as they tried desperately not to think about what the old woman had guessed about them.

After a few minutes, Wolf broke the silence between them, "Thanks for helping me with all that."

"Hm?" Alex looked at him for a moment, then switched his gaze back to the TV. "It was no problem; I had nothing else to do."

"Yeah – I'll bet that's not what Ben had in mind when he told me to bond with you."

Alex tensed up as the words left his mouth. Wolf mentally flinched as he realised how that statement had sounded.

"Ben told you to spend time with me?" Alex's question was totally toneless, not a hint of accusation in it; that made it worse.

"No – well, yes, but –"

"You don't have to do that if you don't want to. I know we're not friends and you didn't want to take me in to begin with. I'm grateful you did that much, you don't need to do anything else." Alex informed him calmly, still not looking at him.

Wolf hesitated, unsure how to take that. While Alex sounded perfectly reasonable, as if it did not matter to him, he got the feeling that the teenager was somehow hurt by his careless slip of the tongue. "I know I don't have to; I want to."

Alex brought his hand up to his lips and began to bite his fingernails almost unconsciously. "It's okay, Wolf, really. Nobody should be pressuring you with that, not even Ben."

Wolf frowned in total perplexity until it hit him what the problem was. "Hey, Cub," he began, shifting his body so he was facing the younger male fully, "Ben didn't pressurize me into anything, okay? He didn't need to tell me to spend time with you, I wanted to. I'm just not sure how to do it, you know? You had a point when you said we're not friends; I don't know you very well and you don't know me. But that doesn't mean we can't be friends . . . you know . . . eventually?"

Alex finally looked at him, turning his face slightly. Wolf found it impossible to tell what was going on in his head as he stared at Wolf silently, as if weighing him up. Then he smiled, "Yeah. You're right."

Wolf smiled back. Glancing at his watch, he stood up, "Come on, help me get the dinner on."

"Okay."

XXXXX

After dinner the two of them silently decided not to watch the TV for once (after Oops TV was finished, of course) and talked instead, mainly about school, work and interests. Eventually family came up.

"So how'd you get that car? The insurance alone must be massive."

"It is, bloody thieves," Wolf growled irritably. "But I got it at a bargain price, so the insurance wasn't that much of a problem to begin with."

"How'd you get that? Glare at the salesman until he agreed to give you a discount?" Alex asks, the picture of innocence as Wolf turned the infamous glare on him.

"No, actually, it belonged to a friend of my stepfathers; the bloke wanted a newer car, so my stepdad bought the old truck off of him for my seventeenth birthday."

"That was nice of him."

"I thought so."

Alex hesitated, then decided to ask anyway, as he never could control his curiosity. "So, if that was your stepdad, your dad – "

"Is irrelevant." Wolf said shortly.

Alex wisely stayed quiet, sensing that it was a sore point with his guardian. Instead, he changed the subject, "So what's your name short for? Christopher?"

Wolf fidgeted for a moment. "Sort of," he said evasively.

Alex raised an eyebrow, "Sort of?"

Wolf glared at him again, "Will you stop doing that damn eyebrow thing? Ben does that to me all the time – it's really annoying!"

Alex continued to stare at him blankly, awaiting an explanation.

Wolf made a funny noise, somewhere between a grunt and a sigh, then said, "My full name is Christophoros Stephanidis. It's a bit of a mouthful, so I just go with Chris."

"You're Greek?"

"Yeah," Wolf said. "My parents are Greek, but I was born in London. Lived here my whole life."

"I'm guessing you have a large family then?"

Wolf grimaced. "Oh yeah, but most of them are in Greece, thank God. And after my dad left, we got cut off from his side, so that limited it a little."

Alex smiled. "Brothers and sisters?"

"Just a little brother – Nicodemus. We call him Nico."

"You see him often?"

Wolf smiled, "Not as much as I used to, since I joined the SAS, but whenever he's in the area he drops by."

"What's he do?"

"He's a musician. Drums, bass, violin; you name it, he plays it."

Alex smiled. It was unusual to see Wolf so openly happy. "I take it you're close."

"Thick as thieves. Always have been. He's only eighteen months younger than me."

"How old are you, anyway?"

"I'm twenty-three. What?" the soldier demanded, catching the look on Alex's face.

Alex shrugged, "Nothing. You just seemed older, that's all."

"Humph." Wolf responded, not looking amused. After a moment, he asked, "What about you?"

"Me?"

"Yeah, I read in your file that you lived with your uncle until you were seven, then he employed your guardian – Jack, isn't it? – to be the housekeeper and to babysit you, right?"

"If you already know, why are you asking?" Alex's voice had taken on a sharp edge that Wolf noticed, but ignored in favour of getting answers.

"Well, what I don't get is how you lived with him all those years and never realised he was a spy."

Alex remained silent for a long while. Wolf was starting to think he should backtrack when the teenager finally decided to answer. "In hindsight, it was kind of obvious. But at the time, I never thought anything about all the weird things, like the injuries, or the constant absences – I mean, he was just Ian. It never occurred to me that he'd lie or even that he'd have anything to lie about."

After a brief hesitation, he added in a whisper, "At least, I never thought he'd lie to me."

Alex looked down at his hands, completely missing the searching look that Wolf was giving him. When Wolf spoke again, it was about something utterly different and eventually, Alex joined in again, trying to forget he'd said anything about Ian Rider.

A/N: That ending was a little melancholy, wasn't it? It was supposed to be like that, honest.