Oh, hey, a vacation-update! Hastily edited because I have a piece of pie awaiting me. Peace out, pie-less ones!

Alex had absolutely no intentions of taking up Wolf's offer to wake him the next time she had a nightmare. Unfortunately, that meant when she jolted awake later that night with pale half-moon marks etched into her palms from digging her fingernails in so hard, she didn't have anything to do. Since Tom had gone to K-Unit about her midnight visits, she didn't feel right sneaking out to visit him anymore – or anywhere at all, honestly. She didn't really want to do that to Wolf know that he wasn't so bad(or, at least, not as bad as she'd originally thought he was), and anyway, she wasn't entirely sure what he would do now if he caught her still slipping out at night.

So that was how, thirty painfully terrifying minutes later, she found herself in the doorway of Wolf's room, watching the outlines of his body in the dark and trying to decide if she was really going to be so pathetic she'd wake up a grown man just so she didn't have to face her dreams. It was weird, actually, because as stupid as she felt, she also felt sort of better, having this sort of solid proof that there was another person alive in the flat who wasn't being drowned or maimed or slowly dissected without anesthetic every time he closed his eyes. (Or, at least, if he was, he didn't show it.) And there wasn't any worry of waking him up accidentally, at least; he was SAS, but she was Scorpia-trained, and if there was one useful thing the organization had taught her, it was how to slip in and out of a location undetected.

After a while, though, she decided it was just too creepy to be hanging around watching him sleep, so she shut the door silently and ran herself a bath instead. Almost two hours later, she climbed out, looking like a prune but feeling much calmer, and even managed a few hours' sleep propped up on the sofa with an old cassette of Doctor Who turned on low.

Wolf made breakfast the next morning and didn't specifically say anything about having found her clutching a cushion and snoring on the sofa, which she felt somewhat grateful for. What he did say, however, was "You have an appointment at two today. Do you like pancakes?", which she felt was redeemed by the offer of something she could slather in syrup

Things didn't get awkward, really, until she realized that Wolf was staying in. While she tried to complete coursework, he hovered and stared and basically did everything that could possibly put her more on edge than she already was until she finally snapped out, "You don't have to stare at me every moment, I'm not going to suddenly explode."

"Right," he said with that unnerving uncertainty he'd adopted for the day. It almost made her wish for the Wolf of the night before. It might have been difficult and painful to get through, but at least he'd seemed to know what he was doing. Now, it was obvious that, although he was no less determined to do the right thing, he barely knew what the right thing was. "That was probably not. You're not supposed to be left alone right now, but I have – as long as you tell me," and he took on the brook-no-arguments this-is-a-direct-order tone he'd had the night before, "if anything happens, I could run next door. Sort of promised to move a bureau or a cupboard or something, I can't remember which."

Despite herself, Alex's lips curled up into a smile. "Oh," she said innocently, "is that what they're calling it these days? Well, as long as you don't take too long and remember to use protection –"

"Remember," Wolf said, "that I could stay here and stare at you for the next few hours."

"Right," Alex said quickly. "Go on then." As he slipped out the door, she called out an innocent Have fun!

Thirty minutes later, she wasn't sure letting him go had been such a good idea. It wasn't that she was scared to be on her own, but she hadn't realised what a relief it was to have him around until he wasn't. Without him there, she found herself even more on edge, cataloguing every sound, every motion, anything that could conceivably turn out to be some sort of horrific disaster. Admittedly, she had to admit that she still would do when he was present, but some part of her had subconsciously relaxed knowing that there was a highly-trained soldier also on hand to keep the place secure.

She was simultaneously relieved and startled out of her skin when the phone rang and Eagle piped out a cheery hello on the other end of the line. She straightened herself out and said, "What do you want?", doing her best to regulate her voice into something even and calm.

"What do I want?" Eagle said indignantly. "It couldn't just be that I called up to hear the dulcet tones of my favourite youngest-ever team member? I have to have some sort of ulterior motive?"

Alex let the silence on the line speak for her.

"I might've rung to ask James a question," he admitted. "But it was really something like three-tenths question, seven-tenths check on you."

"Oh," she said. Weirdly, the flat seemed a lot less potentially dangerous than it had a minute ago. Maybe it was the thought of yet another highly-trained soldier ringing just to check in. "He's off moving furniture."

There was a pause on the line.

"I'm sorry," Eagle said, "I must have heard you wrong. I thought you said James was moving furniture."

"There's a girl in the next flat over – Mia – she's really tiny, and I guess she asked him for help because she couldn't move anything on her own." she said. (Actually, Alex suspects Mia could have managed perfectly well on her own, but she couldn't begrudge the girl taking advantage of such a convenient resource like a heavily muscled SAS man right next door.) "Unless they actually are having sex."

Eagle spat something out on the other end of the line. "What?"

She shrugged, though she knew he couldn't see it. "Just a theory."

"Are you old enough to know about that? I mean, obviously you are, but are you old enough to be talking about it in relation to James' love life? Because, honestly, I'm not sure I'm old enough for that – "

"I am fourteen," Alex pointed out as she drew her legs up under her comfortably. When the refrigerator spit an ice cube out into the tray with a loud clunk, she didn't even flinch. "It's not as if I don't know what sex is."

"Well, yes, but shouldn't it still be sort of theoretical or oh my god please tell me it's only theoretical."

Driven by a sudden sense of cruelty, Alex said, "Actually, there was this one time – "

Eagle groaned loudly.

" – that this woman and her girlfriend wandered in while I was searching their room, so I had to duck under the bed while they had sex on top of it."

There was silence on the other end of the line.

"Alex, I don't think we can associate anymore," Eagle said, finally. "You have better on-the-field stories than I do, and I just don't think I can live with that."

Eventually, though, it was almost two, and she sat in a waiting room, staring at a blank white door that, any minute now, would open and reveal the person she was supposed to bare her soul to. If that wasn't excruciating enough, Snake had showed at one and insisted on waiting for her with Wolf, for moral support. Just as it turned two, someone stepped out and said, "Alex Rider?"

The two SAS men stood and accompanied (well, more like ensured) her first few steps toward the room, but once beyond the threshold, she was on her own. The doctor immediately launched into something, a welcome-my-name-is-I-want-you-to-feel-comfortable spiel, but instead of listening, she found herself examining the room. Despite a dismal attempt at comfort in the form of a few overstuffed armchairs, the room looked sterile and free of personal touch; only an original painting of a city street on the wall saved it from utter blandness.

"Why don't you sit down?" the doctor said, gesturing to one of the seats. Uneasily, Alex noted that her smile looked a bit forced. "Then we can get started."

All of the sudden it crashed in on her, how she didn't know anything about this woman, how she could be literally anything and anyone. Her exits weren't good: the window was too high up to climb out, and the doctor had managed to maneuver herself between Alex and the door. The walls, she realized with a jolt, were soundproofed for privacy; literally anything could happen in here and no one outside would know.

"Are you okay?" the doctor said, frowning, and reached for something on the table and a voice deep inside Alex said gun!

Before she could stop or think or do anything but react, Alex threw a tissue box at the doctor and bolted from the room, streaking out of the waiting room and towards the staircase. Wolf and Snake stared at each other for a moment as she ran past before one of whom swore and they both jumped to their feet to tear after her.