Oh My GOD!!! 14 reviews - what did I do to deserve this?!? Not that I'm complaining, far from it in fact. First off, a massive thank you to all who reviewed, and/or alerted/favourited my story! I was shocked at the number of reviews I got, and pleased so many people liked the story enough to support it. Once again, huge thanks to True Colours and Sacmis(formerly Dreamcloudchild) because without them, this story most likely would never have made it to the point of being published.

Please review! You can look on it as a finger strengthening, calorie burning form of exercise! Really – the more you write, the more you lose! All together now, 1,2,3 aaaand type, 1,2,3 aaaand type, 1,2,3, aaaaand type! See? Virtually painless, next to no effort required. With all the benefits, how can you bring yourself to ignore the shiny button at the bottom? My previous reviews are lonely. Take pity on them. They need new friends.

And I do own the rights to AR. Really, I do. They're just lost somewhere… for a very long time. Oh, OK, OK. I lied.

Warning: One incident of swearing ahead. Don't say I din't warn you.

Previously:

Alex's smile was now razor-edged and vicious. The vindictive side of him was not often aroused, but once it was, woe betide the unlucky one to incite Alex's wrath. Wolf, furious at being interrupted and insulted, bared his teeth, appearing remarkably like his namesake. He opened his mouth, no doubt to deliver a stinging retort, but was again cut off by Alex's quiet statement.

"It's not so nice when it's your family, is it?"

Chapter 2: Oh Dear…

Wolf closed his mouth, for the first time looking faintly ashamed. Snake, Fox and Eagle fell quiet, instantly serious. Wolf, looking pained and annoyed at the same time, fixed Alex with a glare.

"Be that as it may Cub, I'm the one in charge, and I still don't see why we got stuck with looking after an annoying, smart arse kid. Why couldn't they just fly you back home – we don't need you. Unless your parents really don't want to see you?" the last question was voiced in a sarcastic sneer; but it still struck Alex to the quick. Almost against his will, his face hardened, and his voice grew coldly angry.

"I thought I just said it's not a good idea to insult someone's family?"

Although it was aired as a question to the whole room, it reached the intended target. Wolf's scowl deepened.

"What, now you can't take a few jabs? I thought you were supposed to be some sort of spy, but you're just pathetic." Wolf's tone was acid, but the rest of K-unit were looking distinctly uncomfortable. Alex didn't doubt that Wolf was only voicing the rest of the unit's concerns about his level of competence – well, probably not Fox. It seemed everything had now come to a head. Then Wolf made an enormous mistake.

"Maybe you could take offence if I said that your mum is a whore, your dad cheats on her, and they both deserve to be shot or something, but-"

Wolf never made it to the end of that sentence, because right then Alex drove his fist into Wolf's jaw as hard as he could. With a sickening crack it connected, and Wolf was sent reeling back, almost falling over. Alex might have been small, but he was well trained and knew how to punch. Not to mention, he was furious. He limited himself to one hit, though, as he knew it was enough to silence Wolf and he didn't feel like inviting a highly trained SAS soldier to attack him. At least, not anymore than I already have. It was surprisingly hard to control his temper.

All of K-unit were now on their feet. Snake had gone to check on Wolf. Alex had no doubt that Snake probably had needed to restrain Wolf from attacking him. Fox and Eagle blocked off Alex's view of him. Both men were grim and hard faced, but sly amusement lurked in the corners of their eyes. Right now, Alex didn't really care if he got the shit kicked out of him; he just couldn't stand anymore of Wolf's awful diatribe against the parents he had never even known. It was worth it anyway. Eagle shifted, and then caved in.

"You are either the bravest kid I've ever met, or the craziest."

Fox muffled a laugh, with a glance back to where Wolf was. Alex's shoulders tensed, seeing the movement out of the corner of his eye. Noticing this, Fox quickly interjected,

"We're not going to beat you up Cub," and he gave Alex a strained smile.

"Yeah," Eagle chimed in, "Wolf looks like he'll do it all by himself!"

Fox groaned and smacked him on the back of the head. He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by Wolf hauling himself to his feet and striding out of the room, utterly silent. He sighed, and then continued.

"What this idiot -"

"Hey!"

"has just said is wrong, Cub. Wolf was…" here he hesitated for a moment. "Wolf was wrong to say that to you, and he knows it. It's just he's…"

"Stubborn as a cranky donkey with the temperament of a bear?" interjected Eagle, cheerfully.

"I was going to say, he's difficult to be around sometimes."

"Well yeah, that too."

Fox rolled his eyes and cuffed Eagle on the back of the head again. Then he turned to Alex, concern evident in his eyes.

"You alright Cub? Don't take what he said to heart, he's had a really bad week-"

"Bad month, more like." Eagle muttered. Fox glared, and then continued.

"-and you know he doesn't like kids at the best of times, and, yeah." He paused, looking incredibly awkward. "You being here was kind of the last straw for him really." He shrugged. "It doesn't excuse him, but try not to hold a grudge, ok?"

"It's alright." Alex's voice was completely flat. When he turned his gaze up to meet Fox's, the man looked surprised, and worried, at what he saw there. "I don't want an apology, or anything. I just want to be left alone." With that pronouncement, he turned and left the room.

Fox turned to meet Eagle's incredulous stare.

"I know." He said, quietly.

Eagle's mouth set in a hard line.

"It's like he's empty, or stone, or, or, or something. A kid shouldn't look like that! It's fucking unnatural!" He paused, struggling for words to get his point across. "I mean, he was angry enough to punch Wolf, of all people a minute ago! And now, he's just, just…" he paused, searching for the right word.

"Icy? In control?"

"Yeah!"

Fox sighed.

"Didn't you notice? He's nearly always in control. Even when he hit Wolf, he was weighing up the consequences. As if he thought it was worth the potential battering!" He shook his head mournfully, and then smirked. "It probably was worth it from his point of view, and it was definitely worth it from mine."

Eagle grinned wickedly.

"Shall we go soothe the wounded pride of out erstwhile teammate?"

"I think we'll have to." Fox sighed. Eagle just groaned.

Wolf stormed into his room. He was livid, and the fact that his jaw was aching like fire did nothing to help. If anything, it only served to further incense him. Until he remembered just who had hit him. He winced. Cub was small for a sixteen year old – actually, how old was Cub? They had never been told and the kid had never said anything either. But he had to be at least sixteen. For one thing, MI6 couldn't use him unless he was, and then only with consent from a parent or guardian. Even they had to follow the law. And Cub was too quiet, too serious to be that young. There was something in his demeanour, a sort of inner serenity that said, 'I've been through worse, so what can you do?' Even when he'd driven the kid to the point of physical violence, there was no blinding rage in his eyes. Annoyance, yes. Anger, yes. Out of control? No. Just calculation, and cool disdain – or contempt.

Wolf started to feel the first stirrings of shame. For all that he'd said about kids and adults, and being the one in charge, he was the one who'd acted like a spoilt toddler. Wincing as he thought over what he'd said, he concluded he had been a perfect arse, and made a fool of himself. Ah, hell. This was the low point of an already crappy month. Taunting a kid wasn't right, especially when he was away from home and probably missing his family. And Cub had given him plenty of warning, after all. The whole Neanderthal thing was pretty obvious in hindsight. He'd just been too angry and prideful to see it. Old habits were hard to break he thought, ruefully. Wrapping his self-introspection session up, he summarised. In truth, he'd had it coming. He had taunted the kid for days, and some of the stuff he'd said was, well, pretty bad. Downright vicious, even. He sighed. He'd come up here with the intention of fuming in dignified silence for a while, but he was too restless for that now. It was time to go for a run.

Alex sat, legs crossed, meditating. It was something that, surprisingly, Ian hadn't taught him. Jack had, in one of her phases. He smiled softly. The thought of his crazy, fiery, red-headed, sometimes hyperactive American housekeeper always cheered him up. The thought of what she would have done to Wolf had she been present, made him smile even more. The form of revenge Jack usually used would make his actions towards Wolf look positively saint-like. Like the time Ian forgot her birthday altogether, even though she said she wanted the day off. Ian had gone into the 'bank', and Jack had no other choice but to look after him and abandon all her carefully laid plans. When Ian had come home, she had exploded, her hair ensuring she was the living embodiment of a volcano. Ian had steered well clear of her afterwards until she had calmed down. Probably because his ears were still ringing. He had always made sure to remember her birthday and buy a nice present after that.

He felt much calmer now. Meditation, unlike all the other ridiculous new age rubbish Jack made him try, worked. Despite the fact she insisted she wanted to try, he knew she had found it for him. And he was very grateful. The simple act of focussing on his breathing and nothing else helped to centre and ground him. If he concentrated only on his breathing, then there was no room for emotion. It was a good way of clearing anger, and now he was using it to try figure out why today went as badly as it did. After all, it's not like Wolf has actually been reasonable for the past few days. What went wrong today? He exhaled one last time, trying to push out all the frustration and anger that was welling up inside him. Realising that it wasn't really working, he decided to burn it off. Rolling over, he began to count off the press-ups. One… two… three… four… five… six… seven…

"Oi Fox, c'mere" Eagle called, softly.

"What?" Fox was fast growing irritated with Eagle's incessant need for conversation. And why was he practically whispering? Apart, he reminded himself dryly, from the fact that with Eagle, everything was a drama. Despite how annoying his unit were, he was glad to be back from his secondment with MI6.

"Just c'mere, there's something I want you to see." He turned and waited for Fox, a pleading expression spread across his face.

Muttering an uncomplimentary narrative to himself, Fox reluctantly put his book down and followed him. As he recognised where they were going, he grew more and more confused.

"Eagle, where are we going, the only one who sleeps here is-"

"Cub," Eagle finished. "I know, but trust me; you'll want to see this."

Fox groaned, but followed anyway. Despite himself, he was intensely curious about Cub. He knew Cub the best - from Australia - and liked him, but that wasn't much. They had no file on him, and the kid barely stuck around long enough to say hello and goodbye, let alone hold a full conversation. Although, he thought, rather guiltily, we didn't encourage that kind of behaviour last time or this time.

Suddenly Eagle halted, and Fox bit back an expletive as he nearly crashed into him. Scowling angrily, he pushed past a smug Eagle, and stopped. Turning round, eyebrows raised, all he could ask was,

"What the hell?!?"

Eagle shrugged, grinning.

"That's what I said too."

Fox turned back to the sight before him. In the room, Cub had taken his shirt off and was vigorously pressing on the floor. As he watched, the kid switched to sit ups. His movements were smooth and flowing, the muscles obvious and prominent in his well toned arms and stomach. Despite already knowing Alex was in great shape, he couldn't help but be impressed. But what had caused his outburst a minute ago was the fact that once Cub finished those sets, he turned to attack. Facing away from them, he could nevertheless see the ferocity behind the lightning fast kicks, jabs, punches, blocks and movements of the kata the kid was moving through. Fox twisted round to grin at Eagle.

"I think Wolf should be glad he got off with only one punch," he murmured.

Eagle's answering smile widened before he admitted,

"I thought that too." Then he sobered and carried on. "But look, he's got to be seriously mad to start working out spontaneously. I don't want a fight anymore than you do, but at this rate it's only a matter of time, and we were lucky Snake was able to get Wolf out last time, before it kicked off again. We were even luckier that Cub didn't attack us either, or really try to hurt Wolf."

Fox nodded, before replying,

"I think it was more a warning, y'know? Or he considered it the only way to shut Wolf up for a while. He didn't hit him anywhere that would have caused real damage, and judging from what he's doing in there, he knows where to hit." He furrowed his brow, thinking. He wasn't allowed to say that he'd worked with Cub, and that made calling the others on their behaviour much more difficult. As much as it galled him, orders were orders. Cub knew that just as well as he did, although he had been much more vocal in his disapproval. He'd never get used to the kid's sense of humour, but it was damn funny all the same. Eventually, he sighed and looked at Eagle resignedly.

"We're going to have to talk to Wolf about this, aren't we?"

Eagle grimaced.