"...the process of building a family, of making a living for it, of nurturing and maintaining the individuals in it, costs worlds of pain."
-Lillian Rubin

All things considered, Wolf took it well. At least, he didn't shoot, maim, or actively attempt to kill anyone. Instead, he sat down on his dusty excuse for a living room sofa and put his head in his hands.

"You're a girl," he said.

Despite the serious circumstances, Alex couldn't quite stop the beginnings of an amused smile from crowding out her attempts at stoicism. It's not that she found this particularly funny, exactly, but the part of her that still smarted from her weeks in training reveled in the sense of schadenfreude. "Yes."

"You're a teenage girl. And you were with us all that ti – " His head snapped up sharply, eyes wide with sudden horror. "All that time."

"Yes." After a moment, she realized what he was probably thinking of (a billion excuses to get the showers alone, and no end of averting her eyes), and embarrassment coloured her face. She cleared her throat and decided it might be best to steer the topic a little. "Yes. Um. In addition to the training, the Agency needed to know that I could pass as a boy. If it was needed." And she had, with flying colours. If Wolf's reaction was any gauge to the rest of the unit, none of them had suspected that Kit was anything other than a distinctly male nuisance.

Apparently, her admittedly weak attempt at assurance fell on deaf ears. Wolf had dropped his head into his hands again and had starting shaking it as if that would somehow change the reality of their situation. Alex somewhat awkwardly hefted her travel bag, thinking it might be best to leave him to it. "Should I put this in my room – "

Wolf, she noted, took a few moments more than strictly should have been necessary to respond. "Yes. Yes. Jesus, just – it's the second one from the bathroom. Unpack or whatever, I'm going to be here for – I'm going to be here."

"All right." It only took her a minute to locate her room. Like the rest of Wolf's flat, it was fairly bland and un-lived in, but he'd at least made an attempt to clean it before her arrival. She could tell by the tracks in the carpet that it had been vacuumed recently, but the closet stank of must and stale air. She hadn't brought much; MI6 had assured her that the placement was temporary, only necessary while they cleared up some unfortunate allegations of child abuse against Jack. Mr. Blunt in particular had been extremely adamant that it wouldn't take more than a week or two to clear the charges, but now that she was away from Jack's care, Alex couldn't stop the terrible feeling in her gut that the MI6 would prefer her permanently in the keeping of someone more… government.

The bed was relatively comfortable, which came as something of a pleasant surprise; certainly better than she had expected. Once she had finished setting her few belongings in dresser drawers, she sat on it cross-legged, holding the one main personal item she'd allowed herself: a photograph of herself, Jack, and Ian on a camping trip, taken a year before her uncle's death. There wasn't anything particularly special about that photograph compared to any others, but something about the smile on her face gave her pause. She just looked… happy. She was holding up a fish she'd caught; Jack was still a little blurry from trying to get in the frame before the timer went off, and Ian had just finished tugging a lock of hair out of her face. It had been below her shoulders, then. The SAS had made her cut it for training, and the few missions since requiring her to pose as a boy had required she keep it that way.

Speaking of. She placed the photograph on the dresser, careful to set it so that the glass cover was facing downwards, away from any prying eyes. The one mirror in the room was appallingly smudged and clouded, but it gave her enough of a reflection for a spot check. In deference to the heat, she'd worn a tank top today. Like most of her clothes, it wasn't especially feminine, but it also did nothing to hide the few curves she'd managed to develop (despite MI6's best efforts). She bit her lip and dug into her clothes for an oversized pullover. It didn't make her look especially masculine, but with the way it swallowed her upper body, it at least succeeded in giving her an androgynous appearance.

On her way back downstairs to check on Wolf, she heard his voice engaged in excited conversation from the kitchen, probably on the telephone.

"- the hell am I supposed to do with a teenage girl? I mean, Jesus, I was only getting used to the idea of having the kid in the house!" A pause, during which she could hear Wolf pull out a chair and sit down on it heavily, Slowly, she began descending the stairs again, taking care not to trigger any squeaky boards that might give away her position. "Kit! Kit's a girl! Of course I didn't know, why the hell would any of us know? Who the hell sends a teenage girl to an all-male SAS training camp?"

Before he could receive any answer, Alex pushed the door open. "If it helps," she said, voice quiet and almost hesitant, "you can think of me as a boy."

Wolf swore and twisted around to face her. Too late, she remembered she was still wearing makeup from this morning. Since she had started taking missions from MI6, she'd developed a certain pleasure in at least looking like a normal teenage girl, when she wasn't running around the houses of megalomaniacs, trying to save the world and not get herself killed in the process. Today especially, she'd felt the need to assert some sort of individual style, even if it was small and came in a tube. But it also ruined the reassuring androgyny she'd been trying to project in the hopes that it would make Wolf less likely to throw her out for being the wrong gender.

"I'll call you back," he said into the telephone before hanging up and facing her. "Look, Kit – Alex," he corrected. "It's fine. I just wish I had a little warning, that's all."

Despite the ache in her heart at the thought of being shuffled off somewhere else, she reminded herself that she had no desire to endure Wolf when he didn't want her around, and pushed on. "Or – or I could go." To her horror, she felt a catch in her throat as she spoke, and cast about the room for something to focus on. It wasn't as if she was wild about staying with the K-Unit leader, but the thought of being shuffled off to some nameless MI6 agent – or worse, back to the uniform barracks she'd spent the last night in after Child Services showed – cut into her in a way a knife never could.

Wolf must have seen something of that in her face, because he sighed and said, somewhat reluctantly, "No. You were still a part of the unit. That means something." Even if he himself wasn't sure what it was, as she guessed he didn't. To her surprise, he then cracked a smile that, admittedly, looked a little rusty, as if he didn't have all that many uses for it. "Besides, how else am I supposed to get some downtime? Hell, if all it takes is babysitting you, I would've volunteered months ago."

When she didn't show any particular signs of amusement at his attempt at humour, he let the quip fade. "Look," he said with another sigh, "give me an hour to adjust, then we'll figure out dinner or something. All right?"

After a quick glance to his face to determine if he really meant it or was just trying to prevent some kind of childish temper tantrum, she nodded. "All right."

And maybe it wasn't a rockslide of acceptance, she decided, but that many pebbles shifting at once were bound to have some sort of seismic affect. Maybe he wouldn't kick her back to MI6 immediately, after all.