Alex woke and looked around his brand new room. He liked this room, but it wasn't his room, not the one he had had at home with Ian and Jack.
Then suddenly the boy realised that he was in his clothes in a bad, but the last thing he remembered was watching TV! Someone must have carried him to bed, he concluded with dismay. Because his ankle was barely hurting now, he hopped out of bed, but as his feet hit the floor, it gave way and he went crashing down, hitting his head on the desk as he went. Laying there, stunned as tears started freefalling down his face, he didn't notice Snake come in, or Fox.
Snake had run to Alex's room when he heard the thump. Throwing the door open, he ran over to the side of the bed, where he heard some snuffling and crying. He was lying on his side on the floor, crying as a small amount of blood trickled down his the side of his head. The medic barely noticed Fox come behind him as he lent down to the small figure on the floor. As gently as possible, the man lifted Alex up onto his bed. To Snake's surprise, Alex didn't argue with him about it, but instead he wrapped his arms round his neck and buried his head in the man's neck, sobbing. Fox retreated to the doorway and stood watching them, wanting to see how Snake would react to this.
Snake was startled by the boy's conscious actions, but he realised that Alex wanted comfort, so his paternal instincts kicked in, he hugged the blonde child back and rubbed circles on his small back, whispering words of comfort to him.
It wasn't until half an hour later that Alex fell asleep, so when he did Snake lay him down on the bed, and went to get medical supplies to clean his head and wipe away the blood.
When he was done he looked at his watch. It was 5:30! Tucking in Alex, the medic left the room, shutting the door lightly behind him.
"Snake…." Fox began, but the man just shook his head and walked back to his room, closed the door and flung himself on his bed, asleep in seconds.
Fox sat on his bed, pondering the night's events, but soon fell asleep, being up half the night really was tiring.
When Alex limped into the kitchen, the k-unit were already sitting at the breakfast bar, eating toast, reading newspapers and drinking coffee. As young Rider walked into the room, they all looked up simultaneously, slightly horrified by what they saw. Alex was looking ill. Dark circles hung under his eyes, which were half showing between the drooping eye lids. He looked pale too. Pausing in the doorway, Alex took in his surroundings, his eyes settling on the men in front of him. An awkward silence developed, no one quite sure what to do. It was Eagle, surprisingly, that broke this.
"Alex! Morning buddy! How was your night?" he exclaimed. Wolf really wanted to punch him, hard.
Alex looked around once again, his face read, wondering how to react to birdman. Snake saw his discomfort and stood up.
"Do you want some breakfast Alex?" he asked gently and softly.
Alex shook his head abruptly, and left the kitchen. They waited until his door closed from upstairs until they started talking.
"What the hell was that about?" Wolf exclaimed.
"The kid looked like ****" Eagle muttered, Fox nodded in agreement.
"He had a tough night last night. I had to go to his room at about 2:30ish. He must've got out of bed, fell down and hit his head on the corner of the desk as he fell. I had to pick him up and he hugged me, crying the whole time, he fell asleep a little while later, then I cleaned up his head and went back to bed, flipping shattered." Snake told them.
"Yeah and I watched" Fox muttered, making Eagle laugh. They gave him confused looks but decided not to ask. It was better that way when things concerned Eagle.
"We have to try and get through to him" Wolf concluded, after thinking about their current position.
"I agree. But we have to remember we are talking about a 5 year old here!" Snake said, and they lapsed into a silence, each man thinking about how they could help the unfortunate boy upstairs.
"I'm gonna go and get him dressed and washed" Snake said, excusing himself from the table.
Once at Alex's door, he knocked, but there was no answer, so he just opened it to find Alex sitting on his bed, tears streaming down his innocent face.
The SAS soldier walked over to him sat next to him, arms open. Alex caught the sign and crawled onto his lap, then looked up at Snake, wondering what he was here for.
"Do you want a bath Al?" Snake asked cautiously.
"Yeah please" he replied, wrapping one arm around Snake's neck, the other clutching a fistful of his shirt. He didn't want another person to leave him, and Alex decided that he was a nice person like Eagle.
So Snake grabbed fresh clothes for the boy and a towel, before heading to the bathroom, locking the door behind them and depositing Alex on the counter.
Snake ran the bath and added the bubble bath, and when he turned around, he found Alex actually looked half asleep, so Snake undressed his young ward and slipped into the bathtub.
"Alex you might want to wake up about now…" Snake stated. The boy merely nodded.
Half an hour later
Seeming as Alex was half asleep; he had decided to splash him a bit with the water, which definitely woke him up. Well, it actually did more than that…
"You ready to get out now Al?" Snake asked. The boy's fingers were wrinkled from being in the water too long.
"Nope! I wanna keep playing with the bubbles!" he exclaimed, before sliding under the water.
Snake rolled his eyes and lifted Alex out of the tub, much to his dislike, before wrapping the 5 year old in a big fluffy blue towel. He then dried him and gave him his underpants, which he rather quickly pulled on.
But then, being the 5 year he was, Alex decided that the bubbles were much more fun to play with than getting dressed, so Snake ended up carrying his ward to his bedroom and getting him dressed himself.
"You feeling better now Alex?" Snake asked, trying to get his attention, but failing miserably because they boy was now struggling against the firm grasp Snake held him in.
Alex yawned and stopped fighting, nodding as he did. The little boy was dressed in a Froggy t-shirt and some khaki trousers, along with some yellow socks, overall making him look adorably innocent.
Alex lent against Snake's chest, once again clutching the man's shirt. He wondered if Alex held onto him like that because he was scared of letting go, and he knew it was a definite possibility.
"What's your name?" Alex suddenly asked, and Snake could've hit himself. He had forgotten to tell the young boy his name!
"I'm called Snake" he replied, and was utterly taken aback when the 5 year old turned to face him, and rolled his deep brown eyes.
"That's what the bird man said yesterday! But what's your real name!"
Snake sighed and gave in; "My name is David. Eagle's name is Matt. Fox's name is Ben and the other man, Wolf, is called James. Happy now?" he exclaimed.
Alex's stomach rumbled, and Snake began laughing at Alex's expression; he was gazing, horrified, at his small stomach. The man continued chuckling as he stood up, resting Alex on his hip, and walked downstairs to join the rest of his unit.
… … … … … … …
Half an hour later found Alex happily munching on buttered toast, as they had no jam, Eagle playing games on his HTC, Snake reading a section of his medical encyclopaedia labelled: treating children; wounds and illnesses. Wolf had gone to watch TV and Fox was showering.
He finished his breakfast and clambered onto Snake's lap, yawning again. The man had come to the conclusion that the behaviour and side of Alex they had seen yesterday; older than he really was, was purely out of his fear and anger. This boy sitting on his lap was young and innocent.
"Alex can you write?" Snake said suddenly.
"Ummm I can write my name and all the letters in al-al-alp-"
"Alphabet?" Snake asked, completing the boy's sentence. Said boy nodded.
"Eagle can you pass me a piece of paper and a pen?" the medic asked, but the idiot of the unit ignored him, captivated by his childish game.
Snake threw a bread crust at Eagle's face, causing him to fall off his chair in surprise. Alex laughed.
"What was that for!" Eagle exclaimed, but Snake merely shrugged and replied: "pass us a piece of paper and a pen."
Eagle stood up and got the things asking, the whole time muttering curses in flawless German, which he was fluent in, along with Spanish, French, Polish and Russian.
Alex grasped the pen, and held it correctly. His eye brows knitted together in concentration, he wrote out the alphabet, followed by his name. His writing was big and messy, but the point was that he could write, and from reading his file Snake discovered, with disgust, that he hadn't been to school. It said it was due to his issues, but the SAS man wasn't stupid. He knew it was because MI6 wanted to turn Alex into a weapon, and the kid knew a lot about them. They wanted complete control of the boy's life. Stupid Alan Blunt, the man thought bitterly.
Eagle too watched Alex write, and then had a silent conversation with Snake, to find they both thought the same things. When Snake looked back at the page, he found that Alex had gone from trying to write his surname to scribbling all over the page.
Snake rolled his eyes at the child's attention span, before putting Alex onto Eagle's lap, much to the man's surprise, just to get a drink of orange juice for him, even though Alex hadn't actually asked for it…
The Scot shoved the juice in front of the boy, who looked up, confused.
"Drink it. All of it." Snake commanded. Alex wanted to argue with him just for the point of it, but he was thirsty, and Ian had made him drink a cup of orange juice every morning, something to do with his attention or something.
As Alex drank, his eyes were sad and distant. Eagle stayed still as a statue with the boy on his lap, and Snake went to attempt to get Fox out the shower, as he knew the man would stay in there all day if he had the option.
…. … … …. ….
Alex was sitting in between Wolf and Eagle on the sofa, watching the men play a hippo race in the Madagascar Xbox game. Snake was sitting in the recliner in the corner of the room, writing out a shopping list.
Fox came downstairs, his hair still wet form the rough towel dry he had given it. Snorting, he sat on the floor and watched the two men finish their race. The room erupted in cheers and laughter when Eagle beat Wolf. The man was rolling around the floor in laughter at Wolf expression, due to the fact that the man lost. Yes, he had actually fallen off the couch!
Alex grinned and chuckled, enjoying this time they were spending together. He liked spending time with them, he decided, it was like having a family almost, which is what he wanted so badly, even though he didn't realise this yet, after all, he was only 5 years old.
"Guys in 5 minutes were going to Sainsbury's, so get ready" Snake commanded suddenly.
Eagle groaned. "Do I have to come Snaky? I hate the supermarket!"
"Yes all of us are going" the other men groaned too, shopping with Eagle was…difficult to say the least.
The man turned to Alex and spoke to him softly "Alex lets get your shoes on kiddo."
Alex didn't want to go out, so he shook his head and crossed his arms, frowning. The 4 SAS men raised their eye brows at this.
"Come on Al!" it was Snake's turn to groan now.
The boy shook his head again; fun.
…
Alex glared up at Eagle, whose job was to get Alex in the car, seeming as he had laughed when Wolf was kicked in the face. It has taken both Snake and Wolf, and ten minutes, to get one of Alex's shoes on, they didn't do the other one as it had an ankle support on. The shoe was a converse, which made it all the more difficult. In the end Wolf had Alex in an iron grasp, pinning him down, whilst Snake had put on the shoe and tied it on. So Eagle's job was to get the boy in the car, and keep him there on the journey. Again; fun.
"Look Al, we can do this the hard way or the easy way. You get in the car or I force you into it, what's it gonna be?" Eagle asserted.
Alex thought for a second. Eagle tensed, he had no idea what the kid was planning, but before he knew it Alex had kneed him…where it kills. Groaning, he leant heavily against the truck.
"Snake…" he called weakly. Said man ran out to find Eagle holding his place and leaning against the car, and no Alex in sight.
"Eagle can't you do one thing right?" Snake practically screamed, very angry.
"I...I tried, but he kneed me before I could do anything!" the man's face was ashen, ashamed. Snake was right, he admitted to himself, he never did anything right.
"Don't worry Eagle, he's not far" Snake said, before continuing, shouting this time "WOLF, FOX, GET YOUR BUTTS DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!" then listened in silence as two pairs of feet ran down the stairs.
They burst through the door way, to see an empty car, being leaned on by Eagle, and Snake with a furious frown on his face. And no Alex.
Wolf, living up to his names sake, growled.
….. …. …. …. …. …. …. … …. …. …. …. ….. … …..
"We've searched everywhere!" Fox exclaimed in frustration. They had been searching for over 10 minutes and had found nothing at all.
"Well he's John Rider's son and Ian Rider's nephew, not to mention was raised by the man, he's gonna be good isn't he?" Snake countered.
Eagle was silent for a moment, and then it hit him.
"Guys I know where he is!" Eagle shouted, silently congratulating himself for figuring it out.
"Where then?" Wolf once again growled angrily.
Alex lay under the car, as he had been since he kneed Eagle in the balls. He knew how to hide well, and used the car as an advantage, silently breathing and never moving. As he heard what Eagle was saying, he cursed the man in French, silently of course.
Then all of a sudden 4 pairs of eyes were staring at him from different points. A pair of furious grey ones (Wolf), angry green ones (Snake), amused blue ones (Eagle) and annoyed brown ones from Fox. He could see from those looks that he was in deep trouble.