Air, he needed air! His lungs couldn't take much more of this…

His head was pulled from the bucket of sea water, his eyes stinging from the salt that caused everything to blur. This was the fourth time his head had been dunked and each time he was staying submerged longer and longer. Between each dunk he was questioned but he barely had enough time to breathe, let alone answer them.

"I'm losing patience with you boy. Answer the questions!"

"I'm telling you I don't know!" Alex cried, his voice better after having being given the time to recuperate slightly. "Are you deaf or just stupid!?" He asked, knowing that wouldn't end well for him but he was past caring at this point. He just didn't want to die with them satisfied.

His captor shot daggers at Alex and shoved his head back into the water. This time he'd done it too hard and Alex's forehead was knocked into the bucket. He felt a rush of dizziness alerting him to fact he was about to lose consciousness.

Alex waited for him to be pulled back up one last time but then the dream changed. Instead of it ending with him blacking out as he stared into the eyes of his captor, he could hear a grumbling noise. It almost sounded like a tractor…

Alex startled awake, sitting up ramrod straight as he did so. He allowed himself a two second scan of the room, to assure himself he was safe and alone, before flopping back into the centre of the bed to calm down. Briefly, he remembered Snake apologising for the location of his room. He now knew why. Eagle, whose room was right next door, was a snorer.

He was glad though. Eagle's snoring had prevented him from having to go through any more nightmares. The intensity at which they were now occurring bothered Alex. In the hospital they had been nowhere near this bad. What was the difference?

Alex suddenly realised he was extremely sweaty; his panic in the dreams affecting his body in real life. He sighed. There was no way he would be getting back to sleep now, but it felt too early in the morning to take a shower and he didn't want to wake the others. Alex got up from his bed and decided that it didn't matter because he felt absolutely disgusting and someone woke up and asked him about it, he just wouldn't answer. At least it was his room opposite the bathroom.

Stripping off his clammy pyjama trousers, he turned on the shower and allowed himself a few minutes under the warm water which eased his aching ribs. He knew the bandages would need to be changed after his shower, but hopefully they could wait till the morning when Snake said he'd do it. Alex allowed himself the chance to relax under the rush of water before regretfully turning it off and wrapping himself in a towel.

He was about to enter his room when he realised someone was watching him. Alex turned his head and found Eagle was standing in the corridor, holding a glass of water and looking at him with bleary confusion.

"Whatcha doing out here Cub?"

Alex subtly turned his chest so his bullet wound was out of view before he answered. "Having a shower."

Eagle squinted at him. "Isn't it like 4am? Why're you awake at this time?"

"Got a bit hot and wanted to cool down. It's alright, go back to sleep."

Eagle looked like he wanted to press the issue but he was way too tired to get serious. Instead, he just accepted it and muttered a "see you in the morning," as he shuffled back into his room. Alex let out a sigh of relief and did the same. With any luck Eagle will have forgotten about it in the morning or passed it off as a dream.

"He's still being troubled by nightmares," Eagle said the next morning. Everyone was awake except for Alex who had fallen asleep at his desk, head pillowed on his arms. No one had felt it necessary to wake him and after the reaction he'd had with Snake touching him, no one wanted to risk moving him.

"I know. What can we do about it?" Snake asked. "Wait, you're not telling us something. Did something happen last night?"

"He was having a shower at 4am. Now, I know teenagers have weird habits but that is seriously strange and he looked really uncomfortable when I asked him. I would have asked him more but I was too tired," Eagle said. "Oh, and he tried to hide his bullet wound again."

Snake shook his head in exasperation. "He really thinks we have no idea?"

Eagle shrugged. "Obviously not."

"That was something I wanted to talk about actually. How the hell does a kid get a bullet wound right next to his bloody heart! Adults don't even get that sort of crap!" Wolf had to remind himself to be quiet otherwise risk waking Alex up.

"My guess would be an assassination attempt," Fox replied grimly. "Only a professional could get it so close and I think Alex is lucky it didn't kill him."

Wolf ran a hand over his face. "Fuck guys, how the hell can one kid be so unlucky and lucky at the same time. How old do you think it is Snake?"

Snake shook his head. "I'm not entirely sure but I would say about four months or so. Fairly recent but not enough to play up much unless it's aggravated. I suppose we should be grateful his captors didn't exploit it like they could have." He grimaced at the thought.

"Oh yes," Wolf said sarcastically. "I'll just go thank them that weren't as big of dicks as they could have been."

"Well, there's nothing we can really do about that now except make sure it continues to heal, like the rest of him," Fox said, cutting the conversation topic. "Back to the nightmares. What are we going to do?"

"We could take him to see one of our psychiatrists" Eagle suggested but Fox shook his head.

"He's tight lipped enough as it is; I doubt he would say a word about it. My guess would be that the only one he confided in was his previous guardian."

Everyone frowned at the mention of Alex's deceased guardian. So far Alex hadn't said a word about her to them and they wondered if he had properly grieved for her at all seeing as he had been taken captive straight after her death.

"I think the best thing to do is earn his trust enough so that he'll feel comfortable talking to us about it" Wolf said grudgingly, knowing that it wouldn't be an easy task. "Though I may be better if we know what he's been through beforehand so we know how to handle it. Fox, do you think you'll be able to get Cub's file?"

"I should be able to. I can go now." He suggested and the rest of them agreed.

Once he left Eagle spoke up. "I feel kind of bad sneaking behind Cub's back," he admitted. "Do you think we could try and find out without needing to look at his files?"

"If you think you can do it. Just don't annoy him or pester him with it. If he doesn't want to talk about it then there's nothing we can do to make him," Wolf reasoned.

"Ok, I can agree to that. Leave it to me."

Alex woke with a crash to the floor. He blinked and realised that he must have fallen asleep while trying to study. His ribs protested as he got up and the healing skin over his burns tugged, making him wince. It had also done nothing to help his head which was now beating a painful drum at the back. Breathing through the pain, Alex checked his watch and found it was 10:30am. He was grateful he'd managed to get a good few hours of undisturbed sleep before he saw the others. The last thing he needed was to turn up with dark rings under his eyes that begged question.

He quickly got changed and went to get some breakfast. He knew Snake would want to change his bandages but he needed some food beforehand. As he got to the living room the memory of seeing Eagle the previous night entered and he hoped once again that the man had forgotten all about it.

In the living area, only Wolf and Eagle were present, both of them sitting at the table with cups of coffee.

"Snake's in his room getting his medical stuff ready and Fox went out," Wolf explained when he saw Alex's questioning glance. "Take a seat."

Alex did that and was just about to ask what they had for breakfast when Eagle beat him to it.

"Hey Cub, we should probably talk about your missions."

Alex snorted. Yeah, no. Not happening.

"Bananas…" He muttered and Eagle looked at him with confusion.

"Er, what?"

"I was just wondering if you had any bananas for breakfast. I'm pretty hungry." Alex said as he stood, searching the kitchen.

"Uh, sure. In the fruit bowl by the fridge," Eagle answered, watching Alex with confusion.

Alex went to get them but Eagle wasn't finished. "Seriously Cub, as one of your four amazing guardians I think…" Alex interrupted him.

"Tea?" He asked.

"We don't have any, coffees on the side if you want it. Now really, we should…" He was interrupted a second time.

"I think I'm going to wait in my room until Snake's ready. I have a load of studying to catch up on."

Weakly, Eagle raised a hand in protest but before he could say anything Alex was gone. Beside him, Wolf snorted. "Great plan genius."

Eagle glared at him. "It was worth a try. Sorry if I don't feel like learning private stuff without his consent."

Wolf sighed and shook his head. "It's probably the only way we can, conscience be damned. Now stop sulking and finish your damn coffee."

Alex was finishing his banana as Snake knocked on his door.

"Come in," he answered and Snake walked inside, medical kit in hand.

"How have you been feeling? Any more pain than usual?" Snake questioned as he set his equipment on the desk.

"No," Alex replied, ignoring his minor incident in the morning because it was a bit embarrassing and it didn't hurt anymore because of it.

"That's good. Mind if I get a look at your ribs?" Alex shook his head and prepared to take of his shirt when a sudden thought made him hesitate. Doing this would reveal his bullet wound to Snake and there was no way the medic was just going to ignore it. The problem was that in order to change the bandages, he had to take his top off.

Snake, seeing Alex's hesitation, took pity on the teen.

"Alex, we know about your scar," he said and Alex's eyes widened.

"What, how?"

Snake explained. "When we found you in the cell your chest wasn't exactly covered. It wasn't hard to miss."

Alex swallowed and avoided looking at Snake. "I'm surprised you haven't brought it up," he said dryly, attempting to keep the panic at bay.

"We don't want to force you into telling us anything you don't want to" Snake told him, ignoring the fact that right at that moment Fox was attempting to get Alex's files.

Alex gave him a look that said 'what about Eagle?' and Snake clarified. "Except Eagle but he's always been more curious than the rest of us. Look, you don't have to talk about it now, you don't have to talk about it at all but we know the nightmares haven't stopped and we really think it would help if you spoke about it. We won't get mad at you; we'll get mad at Blunt and anyone who has tried to hurt you in the past."

Alex stayed silent. He didn't know why these people, these strangers, cared about him or what he had to say so much. Maybe he never would, so he merely replied "I'll think about it."

Snake smiled at him, pleased that he'd even got that much out of Alex and then begun his examination.

"I request to see Alex's file"

"May I ask why?" Blunt questioned to his operative. Honestly, he was rather surprised he hadn't been asked for the file straight away but he would preferably like to keep it. Whilst he didn't care what people thought of him, Agent Rider's mission never seemed to go as planned and therefore his guardians might be a bit…shocked. And then they might try and shout at him which was always a tedious occasion.

"As one of his legal guardians I think I have the right to know what my charge has been going through since his recruitment. I believe it is currently hindering his recovery and seeing as the point of us looking after him is for that very reason, I want to ensure it goes as smoothly as possible. If looking at his file requires that then I will do it."

"You do know Agent Rider will not be pleased if he finds you have been looking at private information. It is also against the rules to give out files to other operatives, you know that."

Fox clenched his hands. He knew it wasn't normally done but then he really needed to see those files.

"Alan. I believe we can make an exception in this rather…unique case" Mrs Jones said and Fox blinked in surprise. He wasn't expecting the woman to come to his aid.

Blunt sighed. If Mrs Jones thought he should do it then he saw no reason to not let her to deal with the consequences.

"Fine. Mrs Jones, please go and find Agent Rider's folder for Agent Daniels."

Mrs Jones nodded and Fox had to wait an uncomfortable five minutes in silence with Blunt before she returned.

"Here you go Agent Daniels. You can return this tomorrow. I don't think I need to stress the importance that these not find their way into the wrong hands, do I?"

"No, of course not. I'll bring it back tomorrow," Fox reassured her and she graced him with a small smile. She had become somewhat fond of Alex Rider and was glad that his guardians appeared to be treating him well. Better than he would have been treated had Blunt been in full control of his recovery.

That evening, he waited until Alex had retired to his room for the night before showing the other's the files. He hadn't even opened it as he wanted them all to read it together. He retrieved the file from his room and they all gathered around it on the table.

"Are you sure we should do this?" Eagle asked; biting his lip. Wolf huffed.

"We have no other choice. Let's get it over with," Wolf opened up the file and his hand stopped in shock.

"Tell me this is a joke and I'm not really seeing this," Fox asked weakly.

"Nope, you're seeing this alright," Wolf said, feeling extremely stupid.

The pages were blank!

I had to keep this bit in. It's a tad less realistic than I would like but I just wanted to keep it. As always, a massive thank you for all reviews, favourites and follows!