The Little Soldier

by Kiamii

A steady beeping awoke him first. He also heard muffled voices before brown eyes slowly began to open and suddenly the voices stopped, Alex Rider's vision clearing until he found himself facing Ian Rider, his uncle and neglectful ways. The four-year-old blinked wearily before he attempted to sit up only to be pushed back onto his back.

"Calm kid," Ian ordered, "you just got through one hell of a fight."

"What happened Uncle Ian? Aren't we supposed to go camping today?" Alex asked in a daze. Ian blinked in confusion. What the hell?

"Alex... what's the last thing you remember?" he asked warily.

"You promised you were going to take me camping in Wales!" Alex said, upset that he possibly missed his camping trip that he wanted to go on.

"You were in an ex-... accident on the way there," Ian lied and thus began a lifetime of lying. Ian had always been partially honest with Alex and the child had once known he was a spy but hadn't grasped it before when he discovered during the trip. The doctors discovered Alex's memory was blocking everything from the moment Ian headed to Wales to the explosion. Nothing was there anymore and they weren't sure he'd ever gain his memory of that week back. Alex no longer even remembered the men or finding out his uncle was a spy. The explosion had crashed Alex's head right into a tree and Ian had been the one to find him as he had been chasing the man who kidnapped his nephew.

There had been a Scorpia member in SAS and Ian had been on the lookout for him, finally discovering the man codenamed Lynx moments before Alex was taken from the camp. He had rescued his nephew and brought him to a hospital nearby. The child had undergone a coma for three days before finally waking, revealing his amnesia. Ian from then on told Alex he was a banker, like he had before, only he had stopped taking Alex on trips with him. It was two years later when Ian hired a babysitter by the name of Jack. Alex never recovered his memory of that week and Jack was none the wiser of it.

Wolf had never forgiven himself for letting Alex be taken. K-Unit had been given R&R for a week back at their own homes for the trauma. Normally a child's death wasn't that hard of a hit to a soldier, but they'd been fighting for the boy for a week and witnessing the explosion itself had changed the men.

Therefore, when years later they were in Iraq, an explosion had set the men into flashbacks. They were forced to return to the camp for recovery and re-training, the team semi-falling apart. The Sarge had thought to send them their newest objective. Cub. 14-year-old blond boy from MI6. Wolf had gaped at the Sarge, boiling when the man told him they were in charge of Cub because they'd handled Alex. That was a bunch of bull. They'd failed that kid! Well Wolf certainly didn't plan to screw with another kid's life. He was going to see to it that this boy got out of this camp alive, unlike Alex.

Yet when he'd found himself face to face with the handsome blond child, old memories of the four year old sprang to his mind. Cub looked like Alex. Too much like him. Anger coursed through the soldier fast and he'd shoved Cub against the wall, promising him a living hell. It was too late to change that move. He'd begun to disrespect Cub immensely. All because the kid reminded him of Alex. In looks only though. He had ignored and insulted the teenager too much to get to know him. Fox and Snake were the quietest in the action against Cub, but Eagle would protest their cruel behavior when Cub was out of the room. They were cold, ruthless men to him for a fortnight.

It wasn't until Wolf found himself watching the boy skateboard down a hill on an ironing board that he realized what Jones had called Cub. Alex.

MI6... Alex.

God, Cub was Alex.

He'd treated the boy like scum. Like he wasn't worth living for. What the hell had he done? But it wasn't his fault. Wolf had once tried to talk to Cub, before the boy left. He'd casually mentioned a time he'd found a small child in the woods and lost him in an explosion. There had been no recognition. How could he be their Alex from those many years ago? The boy hadn't recognized them at all! Wolf decided then and there that he needed to talk to his unit. They were all seperated after Cub's departure, sent to different aspects and missions and they weren't due to go back to being a team for a few months, hopefully Wolf could get a hold of them soon...

When he did, it was to discover even worst truth than before. They were currently at Snake's place, lounging in his chair and chatting about nothing at first, then their lives after leaving one another, and then it moved onto Cub. It had been almost a year before Wolf could find his teammates and finally get them back together as K-Unit, and even then Eagle had been planning to leave the SAS. The war zone in Iraq had done a number on the normally happy go lucky soldier, so it was understandable, though they wished he didn't. Fox, he discovered, had been removed from the SAS and pulled into the MI6, sent to the ASIS temporarily where he did a mission with the one and only Alex Rider.

"I've got something to tell you guys," Fox said with a frown, "Cub was Alex. The kid we found all those years ago."

"I know," Wolf said, drawing their attention, "he'd told me his name in that Point Blanc mission but I hadn't connected the dots until now. Why didn't he tell us?"

"Amnesia," Fox responded, "Jones finally revealed to me that Alex had hit his head in the explosion, resulting in memory loss though she suspects he might one day recover the memories if pressed enough. His uncle never tried."

"Shouldn't our presence have jogged his memory?" Eagle asked with a thoughtful frown, sitting on the couch in Snake's living room. The owner of the house was currently sitting on the recliner, his own thoughts with him.

"Wasn't enough apparently," Fox said with a shake of his head, "that no good uncle of his had just died when he'd been sent to us. He wouldn't have recognized a hippo with that sort of trauma. He's only fourteen too."

"Crap," Wolf cursed, "and I thought Cub had been 17 at least. God I was a jerk."

"We all were," Snake countered, "but we could make it up to him you know."

"How?" asked Fox.

"Find him."

Author's Note: This is the end to The Little Soldier. Look for one last chapter on "Inside Lingo" as a sequel to this story! If you guys review lots on it, I might just continue on that story with a little present.