Disclaimer: I do not own the Alex Rider series.

Wow. A new year, and a time for new beginnings. This is my one attempt at humour. It's sort of a crack! fic but, meh, who's counting? This is to celebrate my birthday, which was yesterday, and say Happy Birthday to my twin sister, mml94. Okay. So, that's it. Oh, and I'd love a review. Seeing as I had to sit down and think and write this thing out, if you're going to read it the least you can do is take a minute out of your life to tell me how it was. So, thank you very much for clicking and get a move on! Go on! Read the story!

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A very irate Yassen Gregorovich removed his earphones, set aside his laptop and stalked out to the front door. He left his iPod playing and repressed a sigh. He had been unwinding for the first time in a fortnight when the doorbell had started ringing five minutes ago. It hadn't ceased.

Yassen opened the door, furious, and glared down at the small girl on his doorstep. She was barely four years old and was carrying a huge cardboard box that was almost as big as her. She wore a hat that was grey with a huge red bobble on top. Even Yassen would have admitted it was adorable if it's wearer hadn't been persistently ringing his doorbell for five minutes.

"What could you possibly want at", Yassen checked his watch, "half ten on a Monday night?"

"Ex'cuse me mister. You wanna buy a kitty?" the girl asked.

Oh dear god. What on earth had possessed him to answer the door? The snow was still falling outside, pinwheeling in shaky cartwheels to the frost ridden ground. The small front garden of his house was blanketed in the blinding white substance. Yassen blinked twice, adjusting rapidly to the change of light.

Beyond the small, freshly painted wooden gate that closed his small cottage from the world, the lights of the village of Saint Michael twinkled in a subdued manner, no match for the hundreds of stars clustered above in the sky. It struck Yassen with a thud that he was starting to think about things in a much to feminine way. Cottage? He refused to describe his recently purchased house as a cottage. Or a bungalow. He would go with cabin.

Yes, that sounded perfect. What self-respecting assassin lived in a cottage, after all?

"No. Thank you. I do not want to purchase a kitten from you" Yassen replied flatly. He refused, of course, to use the word 'kitty'.

He made to shut the door, congratulating himself on his patient, polite reply. But the door wouldn't close fully. Yassen pulled it open again and frowned. The little waif on his doorstep had blocked it with her foot. His frown deepened. He was a terrifying contract killer. This girl shouldn't have been brave enough to even step into his garden.

And yet. Hmm. What on Earth was wrong with this child? She must have been malfunctionary to even knock on his door.

"C'mon mister. You gots to buy a kitty. He can be your new friendliest pet. If you don't takes him, then me and my brother Karl has got to drown him. Mummy said so" the girl pleaded. She laid the box down on the step gently and for the first time Yassen got a good look at her.

She had blond curly hair that rested at her shoulders and huge blue eyes filled with worry. She wore a grey pinafore and black tights with sensible black shoes. Adorable, in an almost exaggerated manner. She smiled nervously at the Russian and Yassen allowed the corners of his mouth to curl slightly in reply.

"No. I do not have time to look after a cat. I am sure someone else will take it off your hands for you" Yassen replied. He felt...bad. Something about the girl's defeated little shoulders when she lifted the box made him stop and wonder. A cat would make his life so much better....NO! What was he thinking? Cats needed to be looked after constantly and fed and they did nothing in return. There would be no profit or gain from the action.

The girl turned, the box clasped firmly in her tiny hands and sighed before lifting her foot to walk away. From inside the box Yassen heard a small meow.

"Wait" he said softly. The girl spun back around, eyes full of hope. Yassen glanced out past her and noticed a slightly older boy leaning against the boundary wall of his property. He too had the same curly blond hair and blue eyes. Must have been the brother.

"What are you doing out so late wandering around, trying to foist cats on innocent bystanders?" Yassen asked dryly, moving slightly to lean one shoulder against the wall. His most recent wound, a slash to his side, split open under the bandages. It was a good thing he'd taken enough morphine in the morning to take down a rhino.

"Well, I leaved the door open one night and the neighbour's cat came in and Snowbell got little babies in her tummy off him. Mummy was really cross and she said I had to get rid of all the kittys. But there was a whole lot of 'em. Snowbell had fifteen kittys in her tummy! Two of 'em died and we had a kitty funeral and I cried for three whole days. So I had to find thirteen people to takes a kitten. I gots twelve of 'em houses but there's no-one left to take one and I don't wanna drown the last one. I only need you to take one, mister. Please?" the girl begged.

"Are cats a lot of work?" Yassen asked quietly.

A wide grin split across the girl's face and she laughed loudly, a peal of innocent joy leaping from her mouth. Yassen felt an answering smile flit across his features which he immediately tried to stamp out. No! He could feel blood leaking from his side and knew straight away that he had two minutes to wrap up this conversation before he bled through his bandages.

"Nope. When he gets bigger you won't even have to be 'round to feed him 'cause he can hunt mice and birds and stuff. He's the smallest out of the kittys and he nearly died when he was borned but he's the sweetest. Nobody else wanted to take him 'cause they said he was too small and skinny and weird looking. But I think this is the perfect kitty for you" she said, stumbling over her words.

"Alright. I will take this kitten. Now, how much do I owe you?" Yassen asked, reaching for the wallet he kept in his back pocket at all times. The girl was practically bouncing with joy but she paused in her revelations to turn and shoot her brother a thumbs up.

"You don't owe my anything. You can have him for free. 'Kay?" the girl said, turning again to leave.

Yassen tapped her shoulder and she spun around. She lifted the box, handing it to him with a beam. Yassen pressed a twenty pound note into her hand and winked slowly and deliberately at her.

The girl's smile widened, larger than any smile Yassen had ever seen. Her eyes twinkled as she bounded down the path. She stopped at the gate to wave and yelped an ecstatic 'Thank You!'

Yassen turned and carried the box effortlessly into the small cabin, setting it down on the floor. He heard another meow. Slowly, he reached down and opened the box.

What he saw made him pause. Inside, a tiny kitten huddled in the corner. It was small and a dark blond colour, with large brown eyes. The girl was right. It was small and scrawny with an underdog air about it. Or even undercat. Yassen frowned at his pathetic wordplay and sighed.

What was he supposed to feed this small animal? Scratch that. What he supposed to call this small animal?

All of a sudden, the kitten sprang out of the box and landed gingerly on the carpet. Yassen froze, panic bells chiming loudly in his head.

"Nice cat. Nice cat. Stay" he said gently. The kitten took no heed of the "firm" command and prowled stealthily over to its new owner's legs, arching its back and meowing quietly. As kittens went, it was small, but its size put it at about two months or so old.

The kitten stared up at the Russian with a look that clearly said 'What am I doing here?'

"I have no idea, little cat. Now, why don't we find you something for you to eat. You like milk? What am I saying? Of course you like milk, you're a cat. I think I might have some tuna. Come, little cat. Let's go and take a look in the kitchen" Yassen said softly. He ignored his bleeding side and instead carried the kitten into the kitten, setting him down on the floor with a look that he hoped conveyed that monkey business at this hour was ill advised.

"Now, to find some tuna" Yassen said, turning his back on the kitten and rummaging through the food cupboard. He was sure there was tuna in it. There! Bingo. He pulled down a small can of tuna and set it down on the counter. He looked around for the tin opener, which was nowhere to be found. Damn. He wished absently that he had someone else to blame when his things went missing. Maybe the kitten could fill the position?

Wielding a knife, Yassen slit open the top of the tin and pulled the jagged part of, slicing open two fingertips. He bit out a muffled Russian curse and washed the cuts in the sink, wrapping his hand in a dish cloth. To cap off the perfect moment, he'd bled through the bandages on his side and his shirt was getting blood on it, the red stain gradually growing larger and larger.

Carefully avoiding the jagged tin, he tipped tuna into what looked like a clean bowl and dumped the empty can in the bin, the offending jagged lid ripping the plastic bag he'd thoughtfully placed inside his rubbish bin early on in the day. With a loud sigh, the Russian turned and pulled out a slightly cleaner bowl. He managed to produce half a carton of milk from the fridge with two hours to go until it's expiration date. Yassen ignored the printed date on the top and poured the milk into the bowl.

There. He was practically a gourmet cat chef. He picked up both bowls and carried them carefully over to the table. And only then did he discover that the kitten had disappeared.

He swore again, this time in Arabic, and jogged back into the lounge where he could hear a quiet mewling sound. There was the kitten! Thank God. But...

The room was a mess. The kitten had managed to knock over a glass of water, soaking Yassen's papers and his laptop, which was now billowing an odd, purple smoke from it and shooting sparks of electricity into the air. Yassen swore loudly for the third time and darted across, grabbing up the cat into his arms where it burrowed, whimpering. Good thing he'd had fire extinguishers installed into the cabin.

He grabbed the nearest one and doused the laptop with white foam. Once it stopped sparking he collapsed onto the sofa, straight into a large puddle of kitten urine. Oh. This really was shaping up to be a great night. Between being press ganged by a small child into taking a kitten and then his laptop being set on fire by said animal. Yassen found himself laughing at his strange night and smiled. It was actually almost funny.

Later on, while the rest of the world slept, Yassen lay on his bed with his eyes wide open and his kitten on his chest. He was rubbing its ears gently and the kitten was purring loudly. The two sat in companionable repose and Yassen petted his new pet carefully, terrified of hurting it accidentally.

"You know, little cat, you are a lot of work. I should have thrown you out the minute you set fire to my laptop. But I think I quite like the chaos you accidentally introduce to my world" Yassen said softly. The kitten sat up, as if he understood the Russian's words and turned, flicking his tail in Yassen's face indignantly. Yassen laughed and stroked behind the kitten's ears and he turned back around, purring, before settling back down on Yassen's chest.

"You get your little nose into everything, don't you? But what should I call you? You still have no name, little cat" Yassen said, settling down to think.

After a few minutes of toying with Snowflake he dismissed it as ridiculous. What kind of assassin kept a cat called snowflake in his little English cottage? Damnit. Cabin he reminded himself.

All the kitten had done so far was walk into Yassen's life and mess up his business things. Suddenly Yassen's mind was drawn to a person who'd done the exact same thing. Who'd just sauntered into his world bringing trouble right behind him. Alex Rider.

"I have it. You, little cat, are going to be called Alex. You like it?" Yassen asked, smiling.

Alex purred loudly on his new owner's chest and squirmed slightly. Yassen's smile widened and he decided that maybe having a little company wouldn't be so bad after all.

Finished. Please review. Please?