Written for Madd Mogg during the Spyfest exchange on livejournal.

"Hey, Jack, I'm home," Alex called dropping his messenger bag next to the coat rack. He kicked off his shoes and made his way into the kitchen.

"I thought you were going over to Tom's house," she said absentmindedly, focusing largely on the cake she was meticulously covering in flowers of frosting.

Alex shot her a weird look similar to expressions plastered on many teens Alex's own age. "When did I say that?"

"When you walked in here a minute ago," she licked some frosting off of her hand and adjusted the angle of the cake.

"I just got home from school..." he trailed off.

She gave him a weird look. "Right... Oh! You're not supposed to see your cake, go away!" She set down her frosting tube and shooed him out of the kitchen.

Alex puzzled over what Jack had said while he licked off the spoon he craftily stole out of the frosting bowl. He hoped Jack wouldn't mind too terribly.

Certain things seemed out of place and he got an odd feeling. However, there was nothing that could prove that there was someone marching around and acting like Alex. Except Jack.

There was nothing else he could determine, so he started his homework in hopes that a clue would turn up later.

When he woke up the next morning, he found a coupon for a Japanese Steak House on his floor. It looked like it had been caught in the covers and fell out while Alex was thrashing from another nightmare.

After school, he made a detour past the mysterious steak house. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and his senses were on high alert.

What he did not expect, however, was the crack of a gun. He threw himself sideways and landed on the pavement painfully. A biker swerved to avoid hitting him.

He grinned at the blue sky. It was so pretty. Oh, so was that blue car. And that blue building. And that blue bus. And that blue person... wait, what?

To say Alex was confused would be an understatement. He lifted his arm to pinch himself to check if he was dreaming. Well, he tried anyways.

Becoming quite frustrated with his stubborn arm, he glanced down. Well, the liquid-y-stuff seeping through his sleeve wasn't blue. That's a relief. Maybe the blue hobo would give him and hand. He reached his usable (blue) hand out towards the blue man, however he was too far away. So he tried to swim towards the man. Unfortunately, that resulted in Alex falling over. Which wasn't really possible from his position, but somehow he managed.

Four men walked out of an alleyway and gathered around the boy lying on the sidewalk, bleeding.

"Snake," The obvious leader said. "Our orders were to bring him in, not shoot him dead."

"He's alive," the man, Snake, shrugged.

"Technically," another man said with a grin (causing others to roll their eyes), "Our orders were to take him down. I have the voice recording, if you'd like to listen."

"Yeah – take him down to MI6. NOT kill him." The leader glared at the other man.

"Well," the fourth said. "We might as well get him to a hospital."

Wolf wondered for a moment where the pedestrians and onlookers had gone. He suspected dark magic.

At the hospital, they didn't even need to ask the receptionist where to go. She immediately informed them to go to the second floor. However, when they arrived, the door was marked "Psych Ward."

Eagle shrugged. "Let's go in."

And that's how the five of them ended up locked in a holding cell.

(Luckily, Alex had been treated first – the shot had only grazed his shoulder. Which doesn't explain the blue).

"Er," Alex said. "Why are we in a cell?"

The silence had been stretching on for some time and Alex was sick of it. Technically, Fox was on watch, Wolf was pretending to sleep (because he was woken up by nightmares), Eagle was curled into a corner, and Snake was actually sleeping until Fox had stolen his shoelaces (when asked why, Fox replied that they always need a back door. The rest of K-Unit failed to mention that back doors usually involve the escaping party remaining alive). And collectively, they all thought Alex was unconscious.

"We're all crazy, apparently," Wolf muttered with a pointed look at Eagle.

Alex didn't want to ask.

"Hey, what's your name?" Eagle asked.

Alex raised his eyebrow in a way that clearly said are you crazy?

But K-Unit insisted on his answering so he said, "Alex..."

All for men huddled together and whispered conspiratorially. Alex wasn't sure what was going on, but he caught words from the conversation that didn't make any sense. He decided to be patient and wait it out while the whispers grew increasingly angry.

What seemed like an hour later, the four men finally turned to Alex. "We don't think you're really Cub. In fact, we know you're not."

To say Alex was shocked would be an understatement. "What?"

"Nope. You're his clone."

"Eagle! That was classified!"

"So? He knows it."

"He might have been lied to all his life. You don't know."

"Ah, but I do, young Pada-Fox."

"And how exactly do you know this?"

"Magic."

"Okay, why do you think I'm the close of Alex (or something)?"

Wolf did his best to look patient. "Well, you see, you passed the Japanese Steakhouse without eating there. The real Alex would have."

"I had no money on me. And anyways, I was investigating!" Alex spoke.

"Whatever," Eagle said. "We have other reasons, too."

"What reasons?"

"Good ones."

"Your hair was different," Eagle said sometime later.

"Yeah – I got a haircut. People do these things periodically."

"A likely story."

"Aw, I missed my birthday," Alex said for lack of anything more intelligent to say.

"You'll be – what? – twelve?"

"No."

"We still don't believe you, Not-Alex."

Alex sighed and went to sleep.

They were released the next day with an official looking form stating that an official police follow up will commence and an official doctor will make an official diagnosis of preexisting mental conditions.

To say the five of them were happy campers would be a very long stretch. In fact, whoever says it should just be shot on the spot. Wolf does not approve of such ridiculousness.

Alex tried to leave K-Unit behind, but they insisted on forcing him to visit the 'bank' with them so that Blunt could tell him something. At least, that's what Eagle told Alex. Alex didn't exactly believe him and had a sneaking suspicion that it had to do with K-Unit being convinced that he's not Alex.

At their arrival, they were immediately ushered into Blunt's office who was (surprisingly) frustrated and demanded to know where they had been for the past couple of days. None of the men (and a teenager) were willing to say what had happened, but eventually Wolf took the lead (like he should) and recounted their tale.

However, it seems like it was the wrong thing to do. "So you shot one of our spies and didn't even bother to check and make sure it was him?" K-Unit and Alex flinched from his tone.

Sometime later, Tom found himself glaring at the back of Alex's head. Well, technically it was Faux-Alex's head, but Tom doesn't know that yet. For plot purposes and all that.

Anyways, so Tom was glaring at Faux-Alex's head and the arms that stretched across Sabina's shoulders. Stupid girl. She should have stayed in the States where she belonged. Nope, Tom was not biased at all.

He psyched himself up to confront Alex in a battle of manliness for breaking Tom's heart and approached Alex. He opened his mouth to speak, but unfortunately fell into a deep sleep due to another fail by K-Unit.

"We were supposed to knock out the other Cub!" Wolf shouted in Fox's face.

"Oops."

Luckily, Snake shot Alex before the teenager could run away. Sabina screamed like a little girl... wait... yeah, and fled to the bathroom to sob her eyes out. Fortunately, erm... I mean unfortunately, she ran into the boys bathroom by accident.

With most of the spectators mysteriously absent (Eagle blamed dark magic), K-Unit was able to take both Tom and Faux-Alex out of the school and into their car. From there, they traveled to the "bank" where Faux Alex was dumped into the cell with Alex.

Blunt and Wolf peered in at the two identical boys while they began arguing and even starting to come to blows over which one of them was Real Alex.

Luckily, Eagle had a (surprisingly) brilliant plan and pushed the newly-awakened Tom into the cell with both Real Alex and Faux Alex. They both responded identically with asking if he was alright and wondering why Tom was there.

Tom was horribly confused and Faux Alex looked at him as if to say 'don't you recognize me?' with a sad, kicked puppy expression.

Clearly needing a way to prove to Tom that Alex was NOT Faux Alex, Alex grabbed Tom's hips and kissed him, while Faux Alex's nose turned up in disgust.

Tom smiled and pulled away, looking Alex in the eye and knowing that this boy was Real Alex. He turned to the small viewing window and mouthed "this is Alex."

He kept his grip on Alex's forearms so that Faux Alex wouldn't try to trick him and knew that he was right. Alex would never have gone back to Sabina.

Before leaving, Alex asked Blunt if he could meet his clone one last time. Faux Alex was rather annoyed, but listened to what Alex had to say.

In the end, Blunt ended up keeping Faux Alex on as a spy and letting Alex live happily ever after with Tom.

"It's such a happy occasion!" Wolf said, tears filling his eyes.

Blunt nodded enthusiastically. "Time to celebrate!" He brought out a tray of pink sugar cookies. "Here you are, Dears. Have a wonderful life!"

Fox, Eagle, and Snake threw pink confetti at Alex and Tom as they left the building.

The next morning, Alex woke up to SAS eyes boring into his. "Faux Alex, it is time for your games to end!" Wolf said theatrically and brought a stun gun up to point at Alex's chest.

Not again.