Hello! Okay, I might be barking mad for starting this story, but I'm so very inspired and would like to write it merely because I would very much like to read it and can't find any other story with the same plot - although, that doesn't show in the first chapter, not at all. Rest assured, though, it will be different than all other stories with basically the same plot.

I hope.

Anyway, please leave a review and tell me what you think! And if you find any grammar mistakes, which you're bound to do as English isn't my first language and I tend to become sloppy when I'm excited, please tell me so I can change the mistakes and learn so that I don't make them again.

Chapter 1, Wayfaring Stranger

I know dark clouds will gather me
I know my way's rough and steep
And the beautiful fields lie just beyond me
And I know my way's rough and steep

James Martinez was having a terrible day. It had started of badly and since then it had only gotten worse. The night before he had momentarily forgotten that he had work to do the following day and thus had forgotten to put on his alarm. When he woke up by himself at six thirty, he was already incredibly late and had no time for other breakfast than an apple and a glass of water. As he ran towards his car, putting a jacket on as he ran, he cursed whoever it was that had invented alarm-clocks, sunlight and time.

Once in his car, he suddenly remembered that he didn't have enough gas. A few weeks prior, when he had last used the car, he had lazily put that very task till "someday later" and now he was paying for it. Cursing, he drove into a gas station and irritably yelled at the woman in the car in front of him, until she angrily told him that they both had their windows open and if he said another word she would "kick his arse, be it or not that you look like a soldier, or something!" That shut him up.

When he paid his phone rang and after a moment of confusion he found it in his pocket and answered.

"Martinez," he said as he unlocked the car-door and sat down behind the wheel, steering onto the high way.

The voice on the other line was vaguely familiar, but he couldn't quite place it. "I'm agent Daniels," it said and James desperately tried to remember why he knew the voice but not the name. "I'm calling for a favor."

James wasn't completely unfamiliar with people, and especially government people like agent Daniels seemed to be, calling for favors or jobs, but something about the situation screamed wrong.

"Favor?" James asked, not wasting any more words. He was already late and he couldn't afford to be any later. This better be quick.

"Mhm," the other man said and James imagined him nodding eagerly on the other side. "One of the, ehum, men you'll be working with today will be familiar to you, but I want you to put any grudges aside and do your best to help him." Who was this man and how did he knew more about the coming job than James himself did? "He won't be what you expect him to be, but if you just give him a chance, you'll discover that he's a great guy. Special indeed, but great."

Then, to James' great shock, the other man hung up, without further information. "Stupid agents," he grunted and checked the GPS. Ten minutes to the destination, seven if he broke the speeding limits. Just for once, he thought it might be worth it.

When he showed up, out of breath from running up the seven stairs as the escalator was broken, no one even spared him a look. He was late, the meeting had started and his bad manners would be dealt with later.

"-is of the utmost importance!" a woman said and let her fist fall to the table with a bang. She was short and skinny and if it hadn't been for the serious, grey eyes James would have thought she was no older than nineteen or perhaps twenty. As it was, it was hard to tell her age, but he assumed she had to be at least thirty.

"I know, agent Odell, but it's all up to the agent now. If he's in no state to help, then you try your best to get him to tell you were the flash drives are and then you get them. He will be taken care of, but it's not your responsibility."

The man that said this was, in opposite to the woman he spoke to, both tall and bulky with a bald head and fleshy cheeks. His voice was flat, but the order was clear – the flashdrives were more important than the agent. The woman, agent Odell, flushed but sat down again from where she had been standing. James took a seat next to her and was greeted only by the familiar man across the table.

He had black hair, cut so short it almost looked gray, and his blue eyes were serious on the square-face. At once, James knew why he had recognized the voice of agent Daniels. This was the very same man, but James didn't know him as Daniels, he knew him as Fox, the man that he had been teamed up with at the beginning of his SAS-recruitment. Fox had gotten binned at one point, and James hadn't questioned it, but now he realized that that probably wasn't what had happened.

To his utter shock, Fox winked to him, and then he turned to the man at the end of the table and spoke with his Liverpudlian accent. "Sir," he said, "I understand how the flash drives are extremely important, but you have to understand that the agent is extremely important, too – he's one of the best we've ever had."

James blinked, but otherwise didn't show how surprised he was. For a superior to not take care of their agents properly, there had to be a whole lot of things going on and if the man truly was as good as Fox, no, agent Daniels, said he was, then he should be worth quite a lot.

"I know, agent Daniels," the bulky man said, huffing, "but when our agent has spent the last few weeks risking his life for these flash drives, don't you think that maybe, just maybe, we ought to value that?"

Agent Daniels didn't say anything, but James could see that he wasn't very happy. How had he ended up there, along with MI6 people on a highly important mission? Then he realized. Fox hadn't been binned, or he had, but one way or another he had been recruited by MI6. Figured – he'd always been very sneaky and secretive, the perfect agent. How he had such a special relationship with the agent they were supposed to save, James didn't know, but he figured that the agent had to be the man Fox had said that he, James, knew.

"Is everyone at the clear with the operation?" agent Odell asked them and James grunted his response.

He might not have been there at time, but he knew the basics of the operation, he'd been briefed with them the day before. He was to lead his team, a group of five highly trained men, to help the agents find the flash drives. Then, he and his men were to get the kidnapped agent out of there and if needed give him first aid. It was a basic operation, nothing out of the ordinary, but something made James suspect that there was more to it than he knew.

Not long after, James, his men and the two agents stood behind a group of trees not far away from the building where the operation was to take place. His men, four incredibly fit and quiet people, were busy loading their guns, but James was already finished and instead walked up to the man he had known as Fox.

"You sneaky bastard!" he said and didn't particularly care that he insulted the man.

Fox grinned and gave James his hand. "Long time, no see, right Wolf?" Reluctantly, James took the hand and shook it. "Ben Daniels," Fox introduced himself. "Ben for you."

"Ben," James repeated. "I'm James Martinez."

He didn't add that the other man could call him James, partly because he was still a bit put for Fox's sneakiness and partly because he wasn't sure he wanted the other man to call him James. They'd only known each other for a couple of weeks and probably couldn't be considered friends, even if they could have been during different circumstances.

Before Fox had a chance to reply agent Odell stood in front of the two of them, a frown on her face. "I don't know how the two of you know each other," she said, clearly not enjoying the fact that they did, "but there's not time for small talk. We have to get moving."

They did, James and his men first and the two agents after. All of them wore Kevlar vests but James hoped they wouldn't need them. He didn't particularly like the idea of anyone getting hurt, especially as it was supposed to be an easy assignment.

The first shot rang as soon as they got through the front door and one of James' men fell to the ground, twitching. He prayed that the man had been hit where he wore the vest and that if that was the case, the man wouldn't be stupid enough to stand up. That, surely, would get them all killed. From this point, however, they all were more careful and James happily noted that the grin had been swiped of Fox's face.

"This way," agent Odell said and turned left, forcing James, Fox and the three remaining soldiers to turn around.

James thought it felt as if they jogged down the hallway forever, but surely it couldn't have been more than a few seconds, half a minute at most. Then, the sound so sudden it made him jump in surprise, a hoarse voice came from behind one of the doors. Turning, James noted that the doors weren't, as he had formerly thought, normal doors but rather thick metal ones with bars.

The voice called for them again, more anxiously this time, and to his surprise James saw Fox flinch. "Hello? Come on, open the door up! Cowards! How can you call yourselves men when you're not even brave enough to fight a teenager in combat?"

Teenager? Wait..? The voice was eerily familiar, but James thought nothing of it. He and the other soldiers focused on the door, trying to get it to open, when a pale face appeared behind the bars.

"Oh," the voice said and despite himself James turned his attention away from the lock they were trying to pick and to the person inside the room, "it's you."

For a while, James couldn't respond, as he was too shocked. He knew that pale face, the intelligent, brown eyes and the though dirty unmistakably blond hair. Somewhere in the background, he heard agent Odell and Fox having a quiet but heated argument of what to do next, but he couldn't quite bring himself to listen to what was being said.

"Hi," the boy behind the bars said and suddenly the world started moving again. "Long time, no see, right Wolf?" he said, repeating Fox's words from earlier.

"Cub?" James said disbelievingly. That was it – this couldn't be happening. In one day he'd met up with two people he'd thought he'd never see again. Apparently, he was wrong.

"Pleasure," the boy said and though his grin was cheeky James could clearly see signs of exhaustion and pain in the chocolate brown eyes.

Before James had a chance to repeat, however, one of his men stood up as well and turned to Cub. "Boy," he said and didn't seem all to surprise to spot not a man but a boy behind the bars, "if you could step away, we'll blast the lock open."

Cub nodded and did as he had been told, although James thought he moved slower than he should have. He didn't mention it, hoping that he was only being cautious.

"Once he shoots, we'll have to be quick," James informed them all. "Cub, can you tell us where the flash drives are?" He suddenly realized that was why they were there, that that was their main mission. To save Cub was only a minor goal.

Inside of his cell, though, Cub nodded. "'Course," he said and if anyone thought his voice was a bit weak they didn't mention it. "They're in the office, three doors to the left."

Nodding, the two agents took off without looking back. The four soldiers locked eye with the boy in the cell, whom covered his ears. A shot ran out and for a few seconds the hallway was so full of smoke that James could barely see his hands in front of him. He coughed and when he looked back up, he could see the silhouette of a small figure where the door had been only moments earlier.

"Cub?" James said and the silhouette took one, then two and three steps forward.

"It's Alex," the boy said and coughed, too. "Alex Rider."

"Alex Rider," James repeated as he watched the silhouette of the boy become more clear as the air cleared.

Something was wrong. He'd barely had time to progress the thought before Cub, no, Alex, stumbled, putting out a hand to stop him from falling.

"Easy there, lad," one of James' men said and stepped forward to help the teen regain his footing. "Can you walk well 'nough to get outta here or will we 'ave to carry you?"

Alex groaned in pain as he experimentally let his own feet carry his full weight. "I think," he said through clenched teeth, "that I might just've managed to twist my ankle." Then, with such stubbornness that it would've made James smile in any other situation, the teen said "I can walk," and they were off, running and, in Alex's case, stumbling, towards the end of the hallway were a large window would be their way out.

One of the soldiers crushed the window with his gun, but then he stopped. Angrily, James grabbed him. "Come on, what are you waiting on?" It didn't take any more persuasion to get the soldier to jump the few inches down to the ground and the rest of them followed suit, Alex being the last one to go.

The teen must've landed wrong, though, because he gave out a surprised shout in pain and fell to the ground, grabbing his ankle.

"You okay, Cub?" James asked as he took in the pale face, twisted in pain, the torn clothes and the dirty skin. It was quite clear that Cub was anything but okay, but he didn't know what else to say. Instead, he took the few steps that separated him from the teen and awkwardly lifted him up, supporting his weight and noting that the teen didn't weigh as much as she should have.

At some point during their stumbling and halting back to the forest Cub must have passed out, because he no longer helped support his own weight and when they reached the truck that was their way out of there someone took Cub from him and James hoped that the medics would take good care of him as he turned back to make sure that the two agents found their way out.

Overall, James Martinez's day had been terrible, he reflected as he went in to save his former team-mate and the other agent, while trying his very best not to think about what might've caused some of the injuries he had seen on the teen. They would never meet again anyway.

Right.

Right?