In case anyone's interested, I have posted the first two chapters of my first (real) work of original fiction up on fictionpress. There's a link on my profile, toward the bottom.

Disclaimer: I do not own Alex Rider.

"Shit," was the first thing to come out of Wolf's mouth, and Snake couldn't help but agree. He rushed over to Cub, flipping him onto his stomach to avoid irritating the wounds on his back any further.

"When did you say that envoy was coming again, Eagle?" he heard himself ask as he surveyed the damage. It was bad; Cub was alive, but only just. His pulse was so slow that at first Snake couldn't feel it at all. His joints were all poking out of his skin, and Snake had to wonder just how long he'd been stuck in here with little food or water. By the looks of it, it had been quite a while.

"Shit," he murmured again, to himself, pulling the last of the bandages out of his pack. They'd used most of them the day before staunching the bleeding of an Afghani child who had been struck by a roadside bomb. He could hear Wolf, Eagle and Bull discussing their story behind him, and he listened with half an ear so there would be no discrepancies.

"He wrestled the gun away from Snakey here; his last burst of adrenaline, let's say, because he don't look too healthy," he could hear Bull reasoning in his slow way behind him. Snake didn't mind his role in the story. He'd heard too many tales of dying men managing to kill their captors before dying themselves, something his medical sergeant had told him was called excited delirium.

But Cub wasn't dying, he reminded himself as he methodically tried to curb the blood that was all but rushing out of Cub's back. He couldn't die. Like it or not, he had been a part of their unit for the better part of two years, now, and Snake didn't let people in his unit die. No matter what.

He barely heard it when the door burst open again, fixated as he was on Cub. But he did notice when medics showed up, stretcher and all, to get Cub out of there and into a decent hospital. They took one look at his back—which, though Snake had done his best, still looked mangled—and lifted him onto the stretcher face down, careful not to jostle him. Snake thought that their faces looked a little green. He didn't blame then. He felt plenty sick to his stomach.

He stood and wiped the blood on his hands onto his pants. He thought nonsensically that his mother would have killed him had she ever caught him doing that. But his mother was dead, and Snake had bigger things to worry about.

"You guys all okay?" he asked the rest of his team, still watching the paramedics. "Wolf, you had a knife in you earlier."

Wolf grunted. "Fine," he said, and Snake knew he would get nothing more out of him until they reached a hospital.

"Eagle? Bull?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," and "Peachy," were the responses he got. He rolled his eyes. Some things never changed.

"Ten pounds says Wolf has an injury that puts him in hospital," he began, finally turning to look at his team. "I'm not an idiot, guys. I saw you all upstairs. Don't think that claiming it never happened will make it all go away."

Eagle ignored him. "I'm not taking that bet," he said, grinning at Wolf. "Wolfie here has gotten shot before without admitting it."

"Same," Bull grunted, holstering his gun again. "Sorry Snake. No wagers for you."

"Oi!" Wolf shouted, half playfully, half serious. "I know when to admit I need help. Now just doesn't happen to be one of those times."

Snake snorted. "Whatever you say, Wolf. Now let's see if we can figure out what hospital they carted him to."

His head throbbed unceasingly, almost to the rhythm of a half-remembered song playing in Alex's dreams. But, like the song, the tempo of the throbbing kept increasing, harder and faster until he could barely stand it. He opened his eyes and immediately closed them again, the light burning into his brain.

That had been a hell of a torture session.

He had kept count—Volta's men didn't usually go past twenty lashes. Volta himself, however, seemed to find no issue in far surpassing that number. Before Alex had lost count, it had been at least 37.

He didn't remember the end of it—indeed; it had felt as if it would never end. He wondered if he'd told Volta anything. He didn't think he would have. He liked to think he was made of stronger stuff than that.

He thought about opening his eyes again now that the throbbing had lessened, but he felt mildly comfortable. Why ruin it with a reminder of his dank surroundings? The longer he pretended to be asleep, the longer he felt content and unburdened. That was something Jack had taught him—when you needed a break, you just had to make it yourself.

The throb in his head returned in full force, and suddenly he remembered.

Jack was dead.

K-Unit, somehow, miraculously, had found him.

He had murdered Volta in cold blood.

His eyes flung open of their own accord. He was in a sterile, white hospital room—they all looked the same no matter where you were—and hooked up to about four different machines. He bit back a groan. His mission had gone nowhere and all he had to show for it were scars. And Jack's corpse.

His chest ached, but it went beyond a physical pain. Jack was dead. Jack was gone. Jack wouldn't be there waiting for him when he returned to England.

Somehow, her death hurt a lot more than Ian's had.

He heard the door open, and he looked over without meaning to. A doctor entered the room carrying a clipboard and clicking his pen.

"Ah, Mr. Rider!" he said with a slight accent. "How good to see you awake. How are you feeling?"

Alex didn't answer—his 'you can't be serious' face did the talking for him.

"Ah, yes," the doctor said awkwardly, taking a seat in the chair next to the bed. "You suffered quite a bit in captivity. Your conditions were a breeding ground for sepsis—blood poisoning. It's a miracle you survived as long as you did."

"Why don't I hurt?" Alex asked, swallowing past the gritty condition of his voice. He knew he should be hurting everywhere—his back, his legs, his arms, his stomach—but he felt no pain. Just suspended in an odd sort of place where he felt nothing.

The doctor forced a laugh. "You are on quite a lot of drugs right now, Mr. Rider. Not only were you suffering malnourishment and dehydration, your sepsis was so bad that we had to put you on dialysis and artificial ventilation to support your lungs and kidneys. Before you stabilised, there was a while when we feared you might not make it."

"Is it better now?" he asked. He knew very little about artificial ventilation or dialysis, but he had tubes stuck up his nose. They probably had something to do with it.

"We were planning on discontinuing the artificial ventilation today—your lungs are stable enough to handle breathing on your own. Your kidneys, on the other hand, need the dialysis for a little while longer. You will probably be in here for a few more days at the least."

Alex nodded. "And my back?" he asked. "How is that going to heal?"

The doctor hesitated for the first time. Alex could almost see the cogs turning in his brain. A feeling of resentment grew in his chest. "Just tell me," he said impatiently. "I'm the one that's going to have to live with it for the rest of my life."

"Very well," the doctor sighed, his voice heavy. Alex almost laughed. He had reason to be upset? "You will have scars for the rest of your life," he said bluntly. "And it will likely pain you whenever you exert yourself." The phrase 'which should be fairly often, given who you work for' went unsaid in the awkward silence that followed. "There are creams and medications we will give you, but this is a lifelong injury."

Alex's jaw clenched involuntarily. Volta had ruined his life in more ways than one. Now he would be like Ash, downing pills like there was no tomorrow and forever regretting where his life had taken him. He already had so very few people left in the world to care about, and it wasn't like his job brought him very many new friends.

The doctor stared at him as if waiting for a response, but Alex said nothing. He didn't even bother to glare at the man. Finally, the man sighed, looking weary. Alex felt another wave of bitterness crash through him.

"You have visitors," he said, standing up. "Should I let them in?"

For a moment Alex's mind was blank. Then he remembered—it was likely Mrs. Jones, or K-Unit. Mrs. Jones always seemed to find him in hospitals.

"No thanks," Alex said. He didn't particularly want to see either of them. All he wanted to do was go to sleep for a very, very long time.

"Very well," the doctor said, bowing out the door. He closed it softly behind him, and Alex turned his head to stare blankly at the ceiling. His eyes didn't want to close. Even open, images of blood flowering on Jack's chest flooded his vision. He could only imagine what would happen if he let his eyes close.

It wasn't until the sound of voices woke him that he realized he'd fallen asleep after all. He kept his eyes closed and his breathing even. It sounded like the doctor had let visitors in after all. Bastard.

"...not good. To be honest, I feel bad." Eagle's voice was easy to make out, though Alex didn't like his pitying tone. Pity helped no one.

"You should feel bad," Snake's voice said after a second. "Sepsis is serious. Not to mention his guardian..." But he didn't continue. Alex was thankful. His chest ached enough as it was.

"But why are we here?" he heard Wolf ask, as if he'd said it a million times before. Alex almost—almost—smiled. He sounded like a six-year-old.

Someone—likely Snake—sighed deeply, sounding weary. "Who else does he have?" he asked. "A guardian means he had no parents. And now his guardian is dead. Who else is going to visit him in a hospital in the middle of bloody Afghanistan?"

There was a lengthy pause. Alex wasn't sure whether to be grateful or upset. Grateful that they had stopped talking. Upset that he was completely right.

"'Sides," Snake said, as Alex felt the silence growing awkward. "He's part of our team. We visited you in hospital, didn't we?"

Wolf grunted, which Alex took for a 'yes'. He wondered if he should open his eyes and speak to them. He felt as if he owed it to Snake, at least. The man had been nothing but helpful, and now he was being kind on top of it.

But he didn't exactly want to talk to anyone right now. He wanted to go back to sleep.

"This is going to be a very boring visit if he doesn't wake up soon," Bull observed. Wolf snorted.

"You're telling me," he said. Alex heard the rustling of fabric, which he took to be Wolf trying to make himself comfortable in the horrendous chairs the hospital provided. "Maybe I'll sleep myself..."

He heard a loud noise as someone fell to the ground. "Nope," Eagle said, sounding satisfied. "I didn't get to sleep in this morning; you don't get to sleep now."

Alex heard Wolf growl, sounding almost animalistic. He figured now was a good time to wake up. He let his eyelids flutter a couple of times and let out a small groan. Apparently it wasn't loud enough, because Wolf and Eagle continued their roughhousing. Bull guffawed, but Alex didn't hear anything from Snake. He assumed the man was looking at the scene as a parent would—with slight disapproval, but mostly amusement.

So he finally opened his eyes. Snake, of course, was the first to notice. So he kicked Wolf in the shins and gestured with his head, a small twitch toward Alex.

"Hey," he muttered, hating how his voice was still gravelly. Shouldn't it have gone away already?

"Hey to you, too," Snake said, his eyes penetrating him. He almost unconsciously adjusted himself underneath Snake's gaze, before he caught himself. He wasn't nervous. He'd faced more frightening people than the SAS man before.

Eagle said a bright, "'Lo!" and Wolf grumbled a greeting. Bull grunted to show his acknowledgment.

There was an awkward pause. Alex wasn't quite sure what they expected of him.

"How are you, Cub?" Eagle asked. Alex's face darkened.

"Abso-fucking-lutely brilliant," he said, making eye contact with the man. Eagle actually flinched. "I'm stuck in hospital, I'm going to have scars on my back for the rest of my miserable life, and, oh yeah, Jack is dead!"

"Wrong question," he heard Wolf mutter after a long pause. Alex clenched his jaw and bit his tongue. Hell yeah it was the wrong question! There was nothing going right in his life!

However justified he felt, the expressions on their faces were still surreal to take it. None of them—even Bull, whom he had never personally met—seemed able to comprehend his situation. But then, he reasoned, he didn't exactly look like himself, and he looked even less like the normal teenager they all seemed to be expecting.

Afghanistan had turned into a hotspot for illicit behaviour recently. This went beyond extremist terror attacks and into megalomaniacs itching to take over the world, which was why Blunt and Jones had sent in Alex. He was particularly good at his job. His success rate was untouchable—100%. Fully grown agents couldn't even come close.

It was the fastest he'd ever been captured. He'd barely even stepped off of the plane, clad in the traditional Islamic Sunna dress, with his hair dyed black and his skin tanned dark, before he'd been apprehended by one of Volta's men. They had seemed to think that he knew the location of a detonator. He didn't. That had been his assignment—to find it.

Needless to say, he hadn't succeeded.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been kept in that hellhole of a basement room—a dungeon—but he knew it had been long enough to start to starve. He had noticed when his knees seemed knobbier, when the cuffs around his wrists seemed to loosen. And he had noticed the hunger.

For the first day or so it had only felt like he skipped a meal. It was just a hollow feeling in his stomach; no big deal. And then it started making weird rumbling sounds that seemed to echo around his cell. Then it felt as if a hole was being burrowed in his insides, growing bigger and bigger every day. That was when they fed him—just enough to keep the hole in his stomach from growing so large it would encompass him. They left him with the pain of starvation, the feeling of hunger that never went away. They gave him enough food to live, but not nearly enough to survive.

The thirst was worse, because they would tease him with it. Only trickles some days; gallons the next that he could never finish, but couldn't save. He went without it often. He had started to feel so disconnected that sometimes he didn't even notice when someone entered his cell. Not feeling anything was better than the pain of hunger and thirst.

He imagined he must look a fright. He imagined his face to be gaunt and bony under the false tan skin, his hair to be dark and matted. He imagined his eyes to be lifeless. He felt no life in them. He felt like a ghost. He imagined he must look like one too.

To be honest, he probably would've looked at himself the same way K-Unit was looking at him. He hadn't seen a mirror yet.

"So...erm," Eagle said, clearly uncomfortable with long periods of silence. "Uh...when are you going home?"

Snake flinched as soon as the question left his teammate's lips. Alex shrugged. "Home is where the heart is, isn't it? At the moment, my heart is right here with me."

Eagle seemed to have to process that thought. "But..." he said, "but... that just doesn't..."

Wolf kicked him. "Shut up Eagle," he said gruffly. "You have a way of asking the worst possible questions."

"What'd I do?!" Eagle yelped, rubbing his shin. "'S not my fault I'm tactless."

"Cue 'your mum' joke," Snake muttered, rolling his eyes." Alex didn't think Wolf heard him, because surely he would not have continued with, "No, that would be your mum's fault," he said. "Where'd she raise you, a pigsty?"

Alex felt disconnected from the whole scene as they began to wrestle, knocking things from tables. He watched them for a moment before he turned his head back to the ceiling, not closing his eyes.

None of the other four noticed, too engrossed in the impromptu wrestling match that had by now encompassed most of Alex's room.

He didn't make eye contact when they stopped and he responded to none of their questions. Faces awkward and mildly concerned, they eventually gave up and filed out of his room much more subdued than they had been moments before.

Alex didn't care. He turned his head back to the ceiling and stared.