Sup. Hi. Hola. Niihau. Bonjour. Hullo.

This is *THE REWRITE OF my first story, please follow, favourite and and review.

*** SO IN THE LAST FIC IT WAS A LITTLE AU, BUT IN THIS ONE IT FOLLOWS ON AFTER SCORPIA RISING EXCEPT HE DIDNT GO LIVE WITH THE PLEASURES.

WARNING: language.

-UR FAVE BOI

The day starts as it usually does - Alex falls out of his bed, flailing and screaming, springing to alertness when he hits the worn patch of carpet next to his bed. He slumps in embarrassment when he realises that it was just another nightmare.

He peels the sheets off of cold-sweat covered skin, cringing at the spots of blood from the slowly healing burn wrapped around his right shoulder like charred armour. He refuses to look into the mirror as he collects a towel off the floor for a cold shower, not wanting to see his little collection of scars or the haunted, fragile look he sports after nightmares.

Also, he can't stand seeing Julius in his place.

And, because he feels like a bit of an emo when he looks at himself and sees black hair (not necessary said Smithers, but just for a bit of extra cover) in a 'high fashion' messy undercut. Don't even get him started on the tattoo sleeve '6 had wanted him to have to look older for his last mission. At least the tattoo's actually quite beautiful, but Alex despises the fact that it's all around a scorpion. Blunt's sense of humour must be fucked.

It's not been too long since he took a bullet to his chest, around 2-3 months he bets, and with barely any time in the hospital and little to no meds or PT it's not healing as fast as Alex wants it to. The skin still stings and twinges when he touches it with anything. Whilst Alex isn't a doctor or a field medic, he knows that people with a regular bullet wound would still be in physical therapy and resting, not out running and fighting for their lives.

He has to wrap his wrist in medical tape to avoid the tattoo being seen by the other students, and that along with his 'edgy' hair has him a new moniker at school - cutter. The teachers don't really give a shit any more about what the other students call him. Secretly, they probably have the same horrid opinions of him.

His breakfast is - as usual - a bland energy bar and a piece of dry toast. Anything heavier so soon after a nightmare would send him into fits of either anxiety or sensory overloads, Alex can't tell which is which. He doesn't show up to the sparse therapy lessons '6 arranges for him.

But - like a good little spy - Alex pushes on, slipping his house keys in his pocket and pouring himself a cup of black coffee. He still needs to go to school, anyway. No matter how pointless it is seeing as he'll probably fail his GCSES. Anything is better than being in this house, alone.

He can't cycle anymore, since some Yr.7's thought it would be tough of them to slash the tires on Alex's bike, but walking is better for him. It calms him down.

School feels like a chore as he suffers through the hours - whilst he's getting increasingly better grades in tests he's still missing multiple piles of homework and class work. And the notes slipped into his locker, the hostile looks and sniggering whispers make Alex's throat close up.

They just don't understand.

He wishes he still has a friend to unload on, but Tom lives with his brother in Italy, somewhere, and they don't talk anymore. It's safer for them that way.

And who fucking cares what the few articles on PTSD he's read says, Alex can keep a lid on it all of he wants to. He's a bloody spy and whilst he isn't happy about it, he is definitely more than adept to handle his own emotions.

And school - it seems so pointless these days, especially after all that's happened to him. He doesn't even know what he wants to do anymore. They'd had a career counsellor in to speak with the Yr 10's and 11's a few days ago, and the lady told Alex from his vague answers that he should consider law enforcement - but there's no chance in the fiery blazes of hell Alex is going to let himself be dragged into that world.

Alex sits alone in the library trying to catch up on work during lunch time, and also to avoid his new English teacher - Miss O'Dellon - that keeps trying to talk to him. She wants to know about 'how he's feeling' because he always looks 'very distant' and 'sad' in class.

Her concern for him will disappear once she talks to the rest of his teachers. He just has to give it a few days and she'll be accusing him of cheating and disrupting class.

The walk home feels blurry and stilted to him, just like the rest of the day had.

When he finally gets inside, he slides down the wall until he's curled into a ball, hands pressed over his ears. He just feels so overwhelmed. He can't keep doing this. It's so lonely.

And that's when the phone rang.

Another piece of him breaks away inside, splitting straight off his soul and exploding in his head in fiery sound and colours.

Alex curls further to the floor and stays there - not just because his eyes and ears and skin and brain prickled, but because he doesn't want to pick the fucking thing up. His hands shake with tremors so bad that Alex puts his fingers in his mouth and bites down.

The phone rings again.

Again. (He bites down harder.)

Again. (He breaks the skin.)

Again. (He tastes iron.)

Alex dives for the small table, ripping the phone from the handle and holding it so hard he can imagine it cracking in his hand. He ignores the blood dripping down his fingers, clotting around the teeth marks and staining the sleeve of his navy school blazer.

"Fuck off. I just got back from blowing up a bloody terrorist base. The least you could do is find someone willing to do your shit for you, Blunt." Alex's voice is quiet, but sharp and cold and painful all the same. He is half expecting a sigh from the other end, but when a bland and detached voice sounds through almost immediately he isn't surprised. After all, you need to be human to sigh.

"Alex, you have no choice. By law," Alex's mouth twists violently, anger that he tries to push into a dark and deep part inside of him rapidly bubbles to the surface. MI6 have showed him time and time again that they are above the law, and Alex is bellow it."We cannot allow you to live unsupervised when both you and the house you live in are under our possession. "

The blood rushing around his head and pounding against his ears sends a wave of nausea to his stomach. They couldn't.

"We are placing you under Witness Protection. Smithers will not be removing the dye from your hair, nor the tattoo from your previous excursion. This is, of course, to separate Alexander John Rider from Alexei Gregory Smith. Your new identity. Feel free to create whatever background for your new cover you feel prudent."

Blunt sounds so pleased with himself, and still so unaffected at the same time. The phone almost crushes in Alex's hand in an attempt to keep his calm, but he quickly looses it when the head of Covert Operations tells him that they're going to burn his house down.

The house he had raised himself in. The house he'd dreamt of coming home to every mission. The house Jack had lived in.

The crack it makes in his façade of professionalism is enough to completely split it in two, dragging everything forward for the world - for Blunt - to see(hear). He snarls at the fucker through the phone, listing every curse and profanity he knows in any language in a hoarse and dangerous voice.

"Now, Alex, none of that. Be reasonable-" the man sounds no different, he sounds like he's soulless. Alex always thought that about the man in spite, but now he knows it to be true.

It irks him further.

"I am being reasonable, Blunt! This is my life, you bloody well know I can handle myself, I don't need a fucking babysitter-" Alex's hand is gripping tightly on the back of the dining room chair, the wood cracking and his knuckles bright white.

Alan Blunt finally raises his voice, but it still sounds just as frustratingly vacant and smug as always. "Enough! Agent Rider, unless you wish to remain an Agent, you will allow us to move you to Brecon Beacons. We will not risk the safety of those surrounding you, by leaving you vulnerable. Either you act sensibly and do as we say, or you'll find yourself regretting it when your school, let's say, is bombed."

Brecon Beacons? SAS? Bomb? Risks? The words swirl around his head at the breakneck speed of a hurricane, and Alex is stuck, not knowing what he should be angry about more.

"This is the same as what you did last time! Bloody blackmail! I never wanted to be a spy, and I don't want to be a fucking soldier either, stop trying to make me to work for Queen and Country when Country has been abusing me for the last fucking year-" He knows he should stop before his mouth gets him in even deeper trouble. But frankly, he's too angry and in too much pain to care.

"Alexander John Rider, this matter has already been sorted. An agent is waiting outside with all of your necessities, ready to take you to the SAS camp. You shall be partnered with B-Unit, their best. We hoped to have you with K, as you were familiar with one another, but they are currently touring in places we aren't allowed to discuss with civilians- officially what you are as of now." His drops voice to a scarily calm and biting whisper, and Alex's blood freezes in his veins. "So, Alex, go outside and get in that car before I decide you could be useful in infiltrating the latest child prostitution ring. Our informant tells us they are looking for more young male sex workers."

With a scowl on his face, angry tears welling up in pained and frozen brown eyes, the Alex throws the chair splintering in his bloody hand at the wall with enough force to crack the cement and the picture frames on the wall to fall and shatter. "YOU FUCKING BASTARD, I HATE YOU!" Storming out of the room, calloused and scarred hands pressed tightly into fists, Alex slams the door so hard the sound is still ringing in his ears as he sulkily slumps into the leather of a black land rover. His mind is jumbled and he swears to the nonexistent gods that the car is spinning and oh he is going to throw up- no, no, pull it together.

As he rests his sweaty forehead against the window, he brings his hands up to his mouth to pick away the splinters and blood. He feels so small, so powerless. He almost lets out a few tears before he snaps himself back to reality and tries to build himself up again, coiling up his emotions in chains and shoving them tightly back into place. His skin feels prickly and sore with raw vulnerability.

There are no upsides, Alex realises, as they drive on. He will never again have to go on a mission, sure, but life as a soldier would be just as bad - if not worse. At least he could still drift between a state of anger and indifference at home, but under constant training and scrutiny? He doesn't think he'd be allowed to have a cold without someone taking the piss.

He's shivering, but no matter how much he turns up the heat in the back of the car he can't quite warm himself. It's a frostiness that seeps through his flesh and into his soul, and he feels pathetic and sad and sorry for himself.

He zones in between realities for the next hour, his head pounding from weeks of sleep deprivation, his chest aching and throat feeling closed. When they finally pull into the muddy Welsh camp hours and hours later, it's nearly dawn. They'd driven through the night.

There are very few soldiers milling about, some only jogging around for a light morning run. The air is biting but refreshing, and the clouds a regular light grey-white. Alex feels a slight crispness as his combat boots touch the ground - having changed into standard SAS kit when they'd stopped to use the restrooms, along with wrapping more medical tape around his fingers - and the mud not too wet.

Slinging his duffle over his right shoulder - quickly swapping to the left when he realises how fucking stupid that idea was - Alex makes his way over to the Sargent's hut.

He knocks once, stiffly and firmly, and then waits rigidly behind the door. When the door swings open, Alex walks in briskly, standing before the Sarge's desk like a coiled spring. He schools his expression into neutral professionalism, and doesn't blink when the man shouts at him. His fingers clench and flinch behind his back, but what this unfamiliar Sargent can't see won't hurt anybody.

"I push my men to be the best of the best, and then I push them even more because that is how we work in the SAS! We are professionals, elitists, experts and veterans! Now I have a prissy rookie tagging along with my best unit for God knows why, and I don't know a bloody thing about you! I don't even have your fucking name and age! How old even are you, you look barely bloody 20 years old?! In my camp, you are to be treated like a soldier, and whatever age you really are will not make a difference when it comes to effort! I'm not expecting you to keep up with my best men, you useless maggot, but I am bloody well expecting you to try until every bone in your body is broken and your muscles turn to mush! I will not tolerate any laziness, you belong to me now, do you understand me, Lynx?!"

"Yes, sir!" The (newer, younger and thinner) Sarge is no less intense than the man who'd been in charge earlier in the year, but he doesn't scare Alex. He isn't frightened often anymore. He sees a glimmer of satisfaction in the Sarge's eyes - most likely thankful that at least he wasn't a wimp - but it's immediately replaced by sourness and disinterest. "Cabin One, hop to it. I expect you to be at your first course promptly, soldier!"

With the Sargent's dismissal, Alex leaves with a stiff back and locked jaw. But even under his rigidness, he can't help but be relieved.

This Sargent doesn't know who he is. To the SAS, he is simply a young recruit fast-tracked by the Special Intelligence Services because of potential. That means they haven't been told about all the... Other things about him that '6 liked to exaggerate. Like his medical records - which out of context seems very very bad - or even his mission records.

It helps that in the almost-year since he'd last been at Brecon Beacons, his hair is no longer blonde. And he has a tattoo, which should mean that he's older than 18, at least.

Also, since his last visit, he's grown taller. He's probably got another growth spurt to go, but just over 5'9 is a more than good enough height for 14 turning 15 year old, and decent enough for the age he's trying to pull off now. Whatever that is, anyway. 20?

He's worked off all of the fat in his body - which is probably unhealthy, but oh well - and is now all muscle. Not because he's bulky, but because he hasn't eaten properly for a few weeks. But it's not like he does that on purpose or anything. He just can't keep down heavy meals.

But yeah - he looks almost completely different now. Even his cheekbones have sharpened and his jaw line has squared out. It's not obvious he's 14 unless you look for it.

As Alex walks along the rows of huts and obstacles and low buildings, he realises that Cabin One is by far the nicest cabin. Perks of being the best and most hard-working Unit, he guesses. It's larger than the other huts, uses the Instructors bathroom and shower stalls because its closest, and the roof looks a little thicker than the other's. When he knocks, a satisfying dense sound echoes out and Alex fills the time waiting for B-Unit to get up and dressed by making sure the tape on his wrists and knuckles are still clean.

The man that opens the door is a sleepy but bright-eyed man in his early 30's. He's tall, with broad shoulders and a trim waist, a crossed scar on the bridge of his nose that trails on one side into his eyebrow.

Seeing Alex's stance and (measly, impersonal) bag, he pulls himself to attention and salutes with ease, and Alex salutes back. "Lynx, reporting as Sharpshooter for B-Unit, sir." His tone is stoney professional, and the man echoes it with a, "Croc, Leader and Medic of B-Unit."

Croc reaches out his hand to shake after they get the formal stuff out the way, and Alex - Lynx - grips firmly and shakes once, not reacting to the hard squeeze Croc gives.

The man clicks his tongue with a nod, a raise to his eyebrows as he opens the door and whistles to the other two members of the unit. Alex is stepping through the door with his small duffle bag as the other men stand to (a slightly more casual) attention.

The first man is a giant, 6'3 with bulky shoulders and arms but friendly laugh and smile lines, blondish-silver hair and smudged sleep around his eyes. The second man is partly Italian, Alex thinks, with olive-toned skin and curly chestnut hair a little longer than regulation is supposed to allow. He is more of an average height, thank god, at just under 6'0. They're both in late twenties to mid thirties, too, he guesses.

"Bear, I'm this team's Linguist. I organise our strategies, too. Welcome to B-Unit, Lynx." Bear. Fitting name for such a large man.

"I'm Panther, B-Unit's Techie. Planes, cars, communications and stuff if you didn't already know. Nice to meet you, Lynx." Panther nods at him with a neutral quirk of the lips, his eyes running up and down Alex and assessing him.

'Lynx' shakes their hands, too, and puts his bag on the empty cot. They seem a lot thicker than the ones he remembered from training. He isn't sure wether it's just because they aren't rookies anymore or because this Unit is obviously the favourite around here.

Seemingly reaching his point of resistance, Croc sits down on the cot next to his and ruffles through his own stuff. "So, Lynx, where were you before SAS? You look a little...young."

Alex had to hand it to him, the man doesn't fidget or bounce or show any expression other than a professional interest and a bit of friendly warmth. Alex is impressed. He feels like an amateur child actor sitting next to an Oscar winner.

But he's been anticipating this question, so Alex shrugs, and bends to redo the laces on his boots so they can't gleam anything from his expressions. "I was in MI6, can't say where, but basically they'd plucked me right out of school-" he has to duck his head further to his boots so they don't see the haunted waters churning in his eyes ."-and made me fill in on some über dangerous mission a family member of mine was supposed to be doing. Last minute."

He lets his voice sound just bitter and cold enough to show the Unit he is not pleased with this fact. It's not even acting, here.

"They'd pulled me from that once it was over, pushed me through a mini BB course and regime and shoved me in here." He sighs and shakes his head, shrugging slightly as he pulls on a heavy canvas jacket over his long sleeved, military standard shirt. "It's not like I was going to be anything else anyway."

He has, actually, told the truth. Just not all of the truth.

At the same time, he's not being too open or trustworthy. No names, places, backstory or age is offered out and even the other soldiers could tell he's probably skipping around some stuff, but that is only fair. They're all strangers.

Panther and Bear nod at each other. "'6 are real bastards, Lynx, you should try and avoid them from now on. We had a kid sent here about, what, about 10 months ago? It was very hush hush, but we managed to squeeze out of the old Sargent once he'd left, that SIS were using Cub - the kid - for suicide missions. "

Fuck. Suicide missions?! He didn't know that!

Alan Blunt is much more of a nutter than he'd previously thought.

Whilst Alex fumes and shakes on the inside, 'Lynx' pales. He shifts and chews on his lip, trying to display the thoughts of 'that could have been me' to the unit.

Inside, again, he screams, because that was him. Still is him. Always will be him.

"Bloody awful, if you ask me." Croc adds on. The man hasn't stopped looking at him, something unsettled under his mask of a clam and collected leader but Alex has never been good at reading through expressions to see what people were thinking - outside of fights, that is. Hopefully it's just the leader evaluating his new soldier, and not anything distrusting or sinister. "He kept up ridiculously well, but he was so unhappy. Ill for some of the course, I think. Might have been depressed. God knows that rookie unit of his - bunch of jealous newbies, really - didn't make things better for the kid."

Shit. Alex is going to have to remember very carefully that Croc is not only a leader observant of his team's behaviour, but also a Medic looking out for everyone's health above that. He's got to be very careful with his body language and actions, Croc's - and Bear and Panther for that matter, too, he has to assume - eyes are probably sharper than K-Unit's were.

Fuck. Like this isn't hard enough already.

When they go down to the Mess Hall, it's still early and not many Units are inside, as a whole at least. Panther swings an arm over his shoulder, dragging him along and Alex grimaces before he can help himself. He can only hope that it's not paid much attention to. Alex almost - almost, he's not that bad at acting after all - cringes again when he sees the raised eyebrow and tilt of the head sent from Croc to Bear when Panther turns to chat about some facts on the SAS.

Alex sits along with B-Unit at breakfast, pushing around plain oatmeal in his bowl but not eating more than half, and stays quiet; nodding and responding in all the right places.

So far, his plan of staying under the radar isn't working great for him. He's going to have to come up with something today to fit in with the Unit. Croc is already calling bullshit on his story, Alex just knows, and Panther is somehow projecting himself as some kind of mentor/guide for him. Bear just looks amused at his very presence.

Alex supposes it's his fault for not planning for any different outcomes. He had been expecting to be treated like utter shit, but looking at the situation as a whole he thinks this is much worse. He now has to put effort into the whole 'I'm older than I look and I'm not that interesting I swear' thing, and he's actually being watched closely by neutral eyes.

He bets Alan Blunt is laughing it up somewhere big time, relishing in the shitstorm he's just started.