Fox looked morosely at the clear liquid in his glass for a minute then drank it. The burning on his throat felt good. He pulled the bottle forward and refilled the glass, before pushing it over to Wolf.

He didn't know what he was drinking. It tasted of petrol and was quite probably explosive. Oddly enough it smelt of beetroot. His brother had brought it back from Russia, and the alien characters seemed to mock him and his inability to read them. It was something you drank to get drunk.

Right now he was drinking it in the hopes of oblivion.

The problem was Cub... Alex. It always was.

Fox and Wolf had been sent on a retrieval mission, Wolf as the leader of the SAS and Fox as the MI6 liaison. They had been happy to see each other and the entire mission had gone as planned, until they broke into the cell.

Wolf kicked the door in and walked through. Fox followed right behind. They knew the agent would be in here. There was nowhere else that he could be. They had not expected to find Cub.

They definitely had not expected him to be like this.

He was covered in burns and bruises and blood. His broken arm hung uselessly at his side and the moonlight glinted off what could only have been bone, poking through the skin.

But it wasn't his injuries, as horrendous as they were, that scared them. It was the way he was standing at the barred window, looking out over the moonlit mountains, as icy as the snow that covered them.

It was the emptiness in his eyes, his blank expression. He didn't look human.

"Cub?" said Wolf, cautiously.

The agent turned to look at them. There was no pain or fear in his eyes, no relief at being rescued. Fox couldn't help but feel that anything would have been better than those empty, bottomless holes of despair.

They had been repulsed. They wondered what had happened to the quiet, but nonetheless human, boy they had known from training. Wolf wanted to know where the fearful, but determined, teenager from Point Blank had gone. Fox couldn't recognise the passionate spy he had been partnered with in the empty shell they had retrieved.

At the tender age of sixteen, he had seen all the evil in the world and it had left its mark and not just in the scars that littered his body – though there were many. His mind had been shattered. He had no reason to believe that the world he saved so often deserved saving. He simply did what he was ordered, for it was easier than arguing and pretending to be normal when he was so obviously not.

Fox poured himself another drink. His hands shaking as the clear liquid slowly rose to the brim.

Alex, Cub, they were both gone now, vanished, to be replaced by Agent Rider. Anything else was just an act.

Agent Rider was cold, inhuman, with no visible emotions. He was, in all respects, a weapon. Just a weapon.

The next morning, both he and Wolf had gone to talk to Blunt about it. They had never made it to the office. They had been told firmly, that Agent Rider was none of their concern. They had been told never to try to contact him or check up on him unless he was on a mission with them.

They had been told nothing, but actions speak louder than words, and the meaning was clear.

The fact was that MI6 preferred it this way. Alex was the perfect agent: no emotional ties, no fears, no weakness. He was immune to torture for he wasn't scared of pain and he actually seemed to welcome death. Just give me peace his tortured eyes seemed to cry. But peace was never forthcoming. Only more pain... only more life.

Fox picked up the glass and drank it. There was nothing else he could do.

***

A/N: Ok, so what did you think? Please review and tell me.

Oh, and none of this belongs to me. Honestly, what did you expect?