Alex looked around him, glumly. He really, really hated doing this. Especially with Tom, who was, at this moment, dancing towards him, clutching a bag of some sort, a wide grin on his face, and an expression which guaranteed he was going to say something annoyingly cheerful.

            “No, I’m not happy.” Alex said, pre-empting his best friend. “So, you can shove that cheerfulness somewhere where the sun doesn’t shine.”

            “Aw, c’mon Alex! Everyone’s cheerful now!”

            “Well, I’m not.” Alex said, glowering at him. “So, obviously, not everyone is. Plus, d’you really think that Wolf does Christmas?”

            Tom considered it. “Maybe not…” he said, slowly. “But, hey. You can still be cheerful.”

            “Give me four good presents to get for members of the SAS, and I’ll show you cheerful and festive and merry, and whatever.” Alex told him, sourly. “But, until then, shove it.”

            “Well, I have found this one store…” Tom dragged him along the street, until they were stood outside one particular shop. “There you go. That’d be perfect, right?!”

            “Tom.” Alex said, in a bleak monotone. “It’s an Army and Navy Supplies Store. They work for the SAS. D’you honestly think that there’s anything in there that they haven’t already been issued?”

            Tom’s face fell. “Oh. Yeah. Oops…”

            “Right. So, I’m still stuck with trying to find presents for people in the SAS.” Alex said, grumpily. “Any ideas?”

            “Books are always safe…?” he suggested.

            “What if they’ve already got them?” Alex asked, reasonably.

            “They can always take them back.” Tom pointed out. “Plus, you can always have fun getting books for people. Get them the most apt books for them, but not necessarily ones they’d have thought to get for themselves. Like, your real guardian – Wolfikins, or whatever – is shit at house-keeping, right? So, get him a book on that.” Alex had a sudden, vivid image of Wolf wearing a frilly pink apron over his combat gear, wielding a feather duster, and ruthlessly suppressed it, before his grin turned into fully-fledged laughter.

            “Y-yeah.” He said, fighting down the laughter.  “That’s… that’s a really good idea.”

            That was why, fifteen minutes later, they found themselves in the huge Waterstones in Piccadilly.

            “There’s bound to be something here!” Tom grinned at him, irrepressibly.

            Alex nodded, absently. “Yeah…” he turned to him, and said, with a slow smile. “D’you want to meet me here in a couple of hours? I’ve got some ideas…”

            “I hate it when you get that look.” Tom muttered, watching as his friend disappeared into the seething crowd. 

            In all honesty, neither Wolf nor Alex had mentioned Christmas at all until a couple of days ago, when Wolf had said, totally out of the blue,

            “Normally I go round to my mother’s for Christmas. Have you got anyone to go to?” Alex had felt a sudden rush of panic – who could he possibly ask to spend Christmas with? Unless he pretended to go out, and let himself back in once Wolf got back – when Wolf had frowned, and said, “Sorry. That came out wrong. What I meant was, did you want to come, or have you got someone to go to?”

            “No grandparents, obviously no parents…” he paused, then continued cautiously, “But I’m sure I could find someone, because you probably don’t want me hanging around all day…”

            “Nah.” Wolf said, with a grin, clapping him on the shoulder. “My Spanish grandmother’s coming over; she objects if there’re less than about twenty people in the house for Christmas. I’ve got two older sisters, and a younger brother, and they’ve all got kids; two older than you, who you might get on with, and two younger, so that’s eight, including me – my parents don’t count – normally, I have to resort to inviting Neal and the rest round. They love my Gran.” He grinned, fondly, possibly one of the least ‘SAS’ expressions Alex had ever seen on his face. He looked at Alex for a long moment, then said, a little awkwardly, “See, my Dad was a junior diplomat, so him and my mother were almost never there. Gran practically brought me up; she got cancer a couple of years ago, but she battled through it. She’s like that. Dippy as they come, but tough as nails.” There was real affection in his voice, the like of which Alex had never heard before, from Wolf at least. “But, I warn you,” his voice was more light-hearted now. “She’ll keep asking you if you’re actually my son, or whether you’re just some wastrel I picked up. Abuela is great, but once she gets ideas in her head, she’ll stick to ’em. She’s convinced that Snake has some sort of speech disorder, because of his Scottish accent.”

            Alex grinned. “She sounds cool.”

            “Yeah.” Wolf nodded, then looked at him. “You know, that’s the most teenage I think I’ve ever heard you sound.”

            “Yeah? Well, that’s the least SAS I’ve ever heard you sound.” Alex retorted, relaxing a little.

            “I don’t sound SAS!” Wolf protested, without heat.

            “I’m sorry, but you really do.” Alex shrugged. “It must be a switch you just turn on and off in your brain, that you keep forgetting to turn off.”

            “Oh, go to hell, Cub.” James looked at him. “So – you’re coming, then?”

            “Unless it’s a problem…”

            That had sorted out the problem of where Alex was going for Christmas, but, unfortunately, hadn’t sorted out the problem of what to buy present-wise. Which was what Alex had been trying to sort out. But now, he seemed to have had a break through.

*

            Armed and ready, having wrapped the various presents, and attached labels to them, he clutched the bag in silence as they drove out of London to the village where Wolf’s parents had retired to. Alex would have been lying if he’d said that he wasn’t nervous; he had various different issues with going to Wolf’s house, the first being the sheer awkwardness of it, but the second having a great deal to do with Eagle, and his love of saying things designed to embarrass someone.

            Wolf was driving, though it was Fox’s car; Alex was on the back seat, crammed in to the middle, squashed on either side by Eagle and Snake. Eagle kept grinning at him, in a vaguely terrifying way, and Snake, who had noticed, kept shooting him sympathetic looks.

            Wolf finally saw Eagle’s evil smiles in his rear-view mirror, and said, evenly, without taking his eyes off the road, “Neal, stop trying to scare Cub. He’s faced things a hell of a lot scarier than you.”

            Alex glanced up at the man. “Oh, I don’t know…” he muttered to himself. Eagle’s grin grew.

            “Cub, don’t encourage him.” Wolf said, without changing his tone.

            Apart from Eagle’s concentrated attempts to freak Alex out, the journey was mainly uneventful.