The spy pursed his lips thoughtfully.

Reclining lazily on the branches of one tree, he let his binoculars fall from his face. His current assignment was playing football with his friends rather skillfully, and even from his position, the spy's keen ears picked up faint cheering. Reaching into an inner pocket, the spy brought out a small notebook. Flipping to a new page, he began writing an encoded report on the past couple of days. The spy preferred not to use digital means to store information; who knew when a talented computer hacker would come along and compromise his security? Flash-drives could be stolen, files copied, email read - but he always kept his notebook by his side, and when he finished the job, he stored it in a safety deposit box that even Scorpia was unaware he had.

The spy was nothing if not careful; after all, he was Scorpia's finest, even if they insisted on sending him to complete menial tasks that a recruit could handle just fine. In this case, though, the spy grudgingly accepted that his assignment was proving to be very interesting indeed. Alex Rider was fascinating, an enigma of sorts, a curious mixture of teenage rebellion and MI6 spy.

Raising the binoculars to his eyes, the spy watched Rider be pounded on the back by his friends, presumably having just scored a goal. The spy noted the expression of pain that slid along Rider's face before it was replaced by a wide, easy grin. The kid was a good actor, that was for sure, but he couldn't hide from the spy.

The spy neatly recorded a few more notes. He should be sending his reports to his superiors, but he was growing displeased with Scorpia. They were hardly as effective and efficient as they had been years ago, when he'd been attracted to their unchallenged power. Now, they were getting defeated by children, and MI6 had a growing file sitting protected in Britain - not to mention the governments of other European countries. Germany in particular was growing very suspicious. They were wasting time trying to scout out Alex Rider, wanting to induct him - again - into Scorpia. The spy had only been watching Rider for a few weeks, and even he could tell it wouldn't work. The boy would never be attracted to Scorpia, no matter what lie they told him this time. He also would be remarkably easy to kill. MI6 had effectively rendered Rider a sitting duck by placing him in Wales. One shot and he'd be dead.

The spy had tried the gas trick to see how Rider would react. He was under orders not to harm Rider, only to observe until he received further instruction, but Scorpia had made the mistake of sending one man to do the job. The spy knew for a fact that nobody was monitoring his progress - they had important things to worry about, namely the fact that MI6 was coming closer every day to shutting them down - and the spy had free reign to play with Rider however he liked.

What he saw so far intrigued him. The boy was skilled, this was obvious. The spy had been watching his training sessions, and nothing could disguise the instinctual way that Rider moved. With proper training, not the blundering around this 'L-Unit' was providing him, Rider could become a real asset, a force to be reckoned with. He was a good actor, not to mention delightfully resourceful. The spy often had to conceal a smile when Rider used the guise of being a teenager to manipulate others into doing what he wanted them too. He was also quite irritating, in a snarky way the spy could appreciate. He could see why Scorpia and MI6 both wanted him on their side.

He lifted the binoculars again to observe. Perhaps this Rider could be useful to him, for the spy had plans that were much bigger than anybody would expect.

After the football game, Alex wiped sweat from his forehead, grinning at his teammates. His muscles were burning, protesting the hour and a half they'd spent working out and playing, but it was a pleasant feeling - the pain of accomplishment. His back, however, was aching, but Alex was very capable at ignoring pain.

"This settles it, mate," said Harrison as they headed towards the showers to rinse off before the night activities. "You're going to join the team when we get back."

"When are we getting back, anyway?" One of the boys asked. "It's been ages."

That was a question that Alex would very much like to know the answer to himself. They had been sent here to protect themselves, but as Alex was instructed not to do anything, and the SAS men were clueless about Scorpia, who was seeking out the spy? Certainly not K-Unit, who were in the middle of nowhere. He hadn't seen any action on MI6's part, but Alex hardly thought they'd leave everybody in Brecon Beacons without investigating the spy.

Shaking his head slightly, he tried to catch up on the conversation. His mind had been scattered lately, a niggling voice at the back of his head freaking out about the situation with L-Unit. What was he supposed to do, dammit? He would have to play it off like nothing happened, but how could he do that? Maybe he should acknowledge it...

Stop it, Alex told himself firmly, deliberately turning his attention back to his friends. He obviously couldn't take a shower in front of them, so Alex thought for a second about an excuse. It needed to be something that would take him a good ten, fifteen minutes.

"Blast, I forgot to take my pills," he said, slowing. That would give him a reason to take some pain medication for his back as well.

Colin glanced back. "Pills?"

"Yeah, I'm anemic," Alex lied easily, shrugging. "I need to take iron tablets twice a day to make sure I don't have an iron deficiency or something, I dunno."

"How long have you been anemic?"

"Oh, practically my whole life," Alex said, wondering if they'd buy it when he'd never taken any pills before. To his relief, the boys shrugged, clearly buying the story. Anemia was very common, which was partly why Alex chose it. "I have to go get the pills with Mr. Bray really quickly and I'll be right back."

"Go after you shower," Harrison pointed out.

Alex rolled his eyes. "It's stupid, but they make me keep my pills in the main office, and they don't let me take it after, er, three."

"Yeah, that is stupid. Okay, catch up, and if we're not in the showers, we're back in the room. "

Alex nodded and jogged off. Back at the barracks, he downed a couple pain pills and stretched, wincing as his back protested. No matter how hard he tried, his thoughts kept returning to L-Unit - what the hell should he do?

The unit in question were, once again, thinking about Alex Rider. It was curious how their lives had so quickly and easily become entangled with him, this curious boy of which they barely knew anything about. His file had been slender, containing only the bare bones of the situation.

Mongoose was the most worried out of the four, beating out Frog by a slim margin. The youngest member had a set of nasty bruises, and he kept looking around him nervously. He had almost died, so it was a perfectly understandable reaction.

Jackal fanned out the cards in his hand. They were playing poker, trading candy and other 'luxury' items that they had brought from home. He had his eyes set on a nice chocolate bar, courtesy of Pelican. Feeling pretty confident in his hand, he pushed forward a small bar of soap as his wager, not the nasty army type, but honest, good, actual soap. He looked up, expecting Mongoose to zero in on it, but the man was either doing a spectacular poker face, or he wasn't paying the least bit attention.

For Mongoose, it was the latter. He fingered his cards anxiously, absentmindedly adding a tin of mints to the pot when it was his turn. "What are we going to do about Rider?"

"You tell us, doctor," said Pelican, adding another chocolate bar to the mix and smirking at Jackal. He either had a very good hand, or was bluffing. "What's wrong with him?"

"It's probably post-traumatic stress," Mongoose mused outloud. "He's clearly been in situations where he was aiming to kill - I think something Frog did triggered the attack."

"Okay," Jackal continued, eyeing Pelican harshly, trying to get him to back off his chocolate. "Let's think about what happened."

"I have no idea," said Frog plaintively.

Pelican waved his cards around. "Obviously, you were fighting. Let's see. You pushed him against the wall - "

"And put your hands around his neck," Mongoose said, eyes narrowing. "He probably had a bad reaction to being strangled."

"I wasn't trying to strangle him."

Jackal grinned in complete satisfaction as Frog reluctantly folded and picked up a beer instead. "Well, I should hope not."

Mongoose gave his unit leader an annoyed look. "Anyway, we ought to figure out how to deal with him now."

"We could ignore it - " said Pelican.

"He's obviously repressing something major, there were no accounts of therapy in his file," Mongoose said loudly over Pelican. "We should talk to him."

"Right, like he'd want to talk to us," Pelican argued, sitting up. "It's none of our business."

"He almost killed Frog," Mongoose said heatedly. "What if we hadn't been there? What if Frog hadn't fought him off? He needs help, now."

Jackal snuck some candy off the table while they argued, ripping the packet open with his teeth. "I agree with Mongoose," he said, popping a sweet into his mouth.

They turned to look at him. "So do I," Frog piped up, unsurprisingly.

Pelican sighed and leaned forward, lightly snatching the candy away from Jackal and pouring some into his own hand. "Well, if he talks, good luck - but I don't think he will."

Mongoose ignored that. He would make Alex talk. Bottling things up was dangerous for anybody, but especially for those involved in traumatic experiences. Alex had to talk, for his sake - and for theirs.

Alex wandered around, not bothering to care where his feet led him. The part of his brain that was always watching kept him alert to an extent, although he was finding it difficult to keep scanning for signs of a watcher. To be honest, he had almost forgotten that there was a spy on the loose. Between night lessons with L-Unit and day exercises with his idiotic unit (unbearable, as Tom wasn't yet out of the hospital), Alex was too exhausted all the time to even contemplate Scorpia. MI6 had been suspiciously quiet, but he couldn't bring himself to care. If they wanted to conveniently forget about this whole mess of an operation, it would be their job to clean up any messes.

After a second, he groaned to himself. That had been a rather cold thought. He cared, to some extent, about his fellow schoolmates, as one might care about animals in a zoo. He didn't want them to get hurt, and they were interesting to interact with from afar, but he didn't particularly want to be the one to have to take care of them. He wouldn't wish pain on any of them (true pain, that is, though he'd often uncharitably wished they would all just go jump off a damn cliff and leave him alone) when push came down to shove.

Now, with the added complication of L-Unit, Alex had no idea what to do. He'd never...lost it like that. Alex prided himself on his control. Even in terrible situations, close to death, he'd kept his head. It was why he was still alive. He had just been sparring with Frog, he should have kept a tighter lid on his emotions! Alex pursed his lips in angry contemplation as he kept walking, kicking up dust as he went. Whenever he fought, his world sharpened in that strange way that he couldn't quite explain: he picked out details, and time seemed to occur in little bursts of fast interspersed with the slow. As he'd discovered shortly after one of his later missions, it was nigh impossible for him to playfully fight, but he'd never completely snapped like that. He'd never tried to purposefully kill somebody.

Guilt. It wasn't a foreign emotion to Alex, but he knew he'd never get used to that awful, curling feeling that one got in their stomach, nor the urge to clench his toes in his shoes or swallow repeatedly. Whenever he felt guilty, he wanted to do something, absolve himself of it, forgive and forget and move the hell on. As such, his desire to avoid the conflict altogether was warring strongly with his need to make things right, and he wasn't sure - though he had a sneaking suspicion - as to which would win.

As it turned out, the most unlikely member of L-Unit made the choice for him, as a smirking Pelican dropped from a tree in front of Alex and indicated with a sharp nod for Alex to follow him.

Alex stared after Pelican's retreating figure. How the hell had he missed the man in the tree? L-Unit had a uniquely terrifying ability to melt into thin air, and not for the first time, Alex longed desperately to learn the secret behind it. "What - where are we going?" Alex yelled after Pelican, whose easy gait suggested that the man didn't quite care whether Alex followed him. Of course, this made Alex want to follow him more, and so, muttering to himself, he set off after the manipulating bastard.

Despite himself, Alex was starting to like Pelican. There was something about his dry humor, sarcastic comments and disinterested, self confident air that attracted the younger boy. It was Pelican's "I don't give a shit" attitude that was the most appealing, for as much as Alex wished it wasn't so, it did burn slightly each time one of his schoolmates made a derisive comment towards him.

Jogging slightly to catch up, Alex walked alongside the man. "You know," he said conversationally, "It's considered common courtesy to speak to somebody when you jump from a tree in front of them."

"Is it?" Pelican answered, mimicking Alex's light, easy tone. "I must have missed that class in etiquette class."

"Pity, it's made you so awfully unrefined," Alex shot back drawlingly, the corner of his lips curving into an unwilling smile. Pelican wasn't acting like he was some sort of monster, and snarky banter was what Alex did best.

"There go my dreams of being a diplomat."

"You're a natural diplomat, though," Alex said sarcastically. "You've already made all of the kids love you."

Pelican actually gave a little half smile in acknowledgement, his version of 'touché,' and responded, "It's something about my utterly charming and winning personality, maybe."

"If by 'utterly charming,' you mean 'a complete berk,' then yes."

Reaching the now all-too-familiar warehouse, Pelican stopped in front of the door. "Such language from a child," he said chidingly. Then, without any apparent acknowledgement of his non sequitur, he said, "Mongoose is awfully curious about you."

"Oh, god," Alex said, switching topics effortlessly. "Reckon I can escape it?" He wasn't sure why, exactly, but he sensed that Pelican was on his side.

"Don't even try," the man advised. "One Mongoose's got his claws in a difficult problem, they won't ever come out."

Alex opened his mouth to ask something, and the reddened slightly and closed his mouth. Looking at the ground, he didn't reply, instead digging a small hole with his foot.

"What?" Pelican asked, obviously catching the nervous movement.

"Nothing."

"Just tell me," said the man. Alex looked up to see an unusually serious expression on the man's face. "I'm rooting for you, honestly."

This reminded Alex all too much of his previous conversation with Frog, and he couldn't help but wonder if this was a plan engineered to make him individually trust each member of L-Unit. If that was the plan, it wasn't working, as he just felt rather suspicious. Still, Pelican's piercing look let him know that the SAS man wasn't going to let this go, so Alex sighed and asked, rather childishly, "Are they mad at me?"

He shouldn't be asking that, it was weak and kiddish and he didn't care what they thought, but it relieved Alex nonetheless to have Pelican crack a small, surprised smile and say "Of course not."

He shouldn't care, but he did, which was worrisome in itself.

Alex looked worried, Frog noticed as Pelican led him in the door of 'their' warehouse. He had every right to be. Even though the shit with Alex had creeped Frog out - he wasn't going to lie, he'd almost died at the hand of this kid - it wasn't really Alex's fault. Frog had talked a little with Mongoose, who'd explained the type of PTSD that he thought Alex had. Anybody who would lose their grip on reality during a simple sparring session had to have been through shit so messed up, Frog didn't want to think about it. So it wasn't Alex's fault, not really; Frog blamed that bloody MI6. How dare they mess with a kid's mind like that? So, he tried to twist his face into something resembling an encouraging smile, and to his pleasure Alex definitely noticed it and relaxed infinitesimally.

Although they often disregarded him as the youngest, Frog could be very observant, and he wondered at the look on Pelican's face. Though they'd been a unit for a couple of years, and Frog knew these three men better than he knew himself, Pelican would always be a bit of a mystery to him. Jackal and Mongoose were perfectly open about their pasts, as was Frog, but he'd always gotten the impression that something bad had happened to Pelican, something the other man wouldn't ever say.

Whatever had happened to Pelican, Frog didn't know. He did know, however, that there was a strangely calculating look on Pelican's face, as if the man was trying to decide something or the other about Alex. That shouldn't be a surprise, since they were all constantly trying to figure things out about Alex, but Frog still wondered what the look might mean.

He was torn from his internal musings as Mongoose stepped forward. "Alex," he said, his voice in what Jackal deemed his 'therapist' voice. It was softer and deeper and soothing, and it worked like a charm on Frog. Alex, on the other hand, stiffened imperceptibly. "Is there anything we should know?"

Frog watched Alex anxiously. Unsurprisingly, the teenager gave a mocking smile and said, "Not to my knowledge, no."

"Alex, you understand that we need to know what happened," continued Mongoose, and it was that sentence that made Frog cringe. He didn't know Alex all that well, but the unintentionally patronizing tone that Mongoose had adopted made even Frog stiffen, so obviously it wouldn't work on Alex either.

"I wasn't aware that you needed to know anything about me," Alex said lightly. "You're just here to teach me to survive."

"Who's trying to attack you?" Mongoose pressed, his dark eyes following Alex. Frog frowned in contemplation, wanting to know the answer to that as well. Oh, they knew sparse details - something about a terrorist organization, Alex was a spy for MI6 - but they didn't know why he was here or what he was hiding from. Not exactly.

Alex's tone was sarcastic, and even Frog could tell it was a defense mechanism. "It changes daily," he said dryly, in a voice very similar to Pelican's. "I'll have to look up the updated version."

Speaking of Pelican, Frog noticed his friend give a sudden, involuntary smile before he covered it up again. He was amused by this, though Frog wasn't sure why. He certainly wasn't laughing.

Mongoose exhaled in frustration. "You can trust us," he said.

Alex clenched his fists, but only shrugged and said, "We'll see."

Jackal, who had been following along silently, stepped forward. "Rider," he barked, most likely hoping his captain voice would spark some kind of obedience in Alex. Frog hated that voice; it made him feel chastised and young. "Tell us right now."

Alex was apparently made of stronger stuff than Frog because he just raised an eyebrow and said simply, "No."

"Tell us now, Rider, before we go straight to the Sergeant and make him tell us. Because if he gets a wind of the incident that happened here - when you nearly killed Frog - " Alex flinched, "you can bet your ass that he'll tell us everything we want to know."

Frog felt bad for Alex as he stared at Jackal with such a tangible feeling of betrayal that Jackal's tough look almost faltered. Still, the SAS man was used to appearing mean, and so Jackal kept his arms crossed as he waited for Alex to respond.

"Fine," Alex said, and his voice was harsh. "Fine, dammit, what the hell do you want to know?" And his voice was getting louder, and he was squeezing his fists, and Frog knew that Alex was close to losing control again. He wanted to step in, stop the inevitable explosion from happening, but one stern look from Mongoose made him pause. Had he and Jackal planned this entire thing to get Alex to snap? Frog looked uncertainly at Pelican, who only gave him the smallest nod.

"Tell us who's after you," Jackal ordered. "Tell us why you lost it the other day, why you almost killed Frog, why your classmates are here, and why we're training you."

"Jackal - " Frog began hesitantly, as even though he had been told to be quiet, the completely blank look on Alex's face was scaring him. But Jackal gave Frog a venomous glare, and he shut up, privately hoping that they hadn't taken this too far.

Alex cleared his face of all emotion, hoping desperately that they hadn't noticed how close he'd come to exploding. He couldn't lose control, not again, not like this. He couldn't tell them anything, he couldn't have them look at him with disgust, he couldn't bear for them to know just what he'd been through. It was none of their damn business, and if he could just still his racing heart and get his act back together, he'd be fine, perfectly fine, he just needed to calm down...

"Tell us everything," Jackal barked again, and despite himself, Alex felt himself flinch at the commanding tone. He didn't have to do anything they told him, he could take care of himself, they had no control over him! He was fine, completely fine, if they would just leave him alone!

"Alex," said Mongoose, and his soothing voice made Alex's skin crawl. His eyes darted around wildly, and he felt trapped by these men, with their insidious efforts to get him to crack. If he couldn't even resist this, then how was he supposed to resist interrogation? He'd done it before, plenty of times, but he liked these men, and they were looking at him with concern in their eyes, like they actually fucking cared -

- but how could they care because nobody really cared about him anymore, not him personally, only whether he lived or died. He was just a tool, and they were trying to crack him, and they were advancing on him, coming closer, and he just couldn't resist any more.

"Get away from me," Alex said, but his voice was shaky. His vision was blurring and his head was pounding. "Get the fuck away from me!"

"Alex," said a voice, and this time it was Frog, and Alex took a step backwards. He hadn't meant to hurt Frog, it had been an accident, but he wasn't good enough to control his feelings and he was so terribly sorry. "Alex, it's okay, you don't have to say anything if you don't want to - "

"Yes, you do," said Jackal, and Alex's eyes swung wildly from the two men. "You have to tell us what happened to you."

What happened to him? Alex blinked, and blinked again, and all he could see were flashes of images printed on his eyelids, of Ian and Jack and Ash, of Damian Cray and Julius Grief, of Nikolei Drevin and Paul, and Dr. Three and Yassen Gregorovich, of Ben and K-Unit, of Sabina and Tom. They cycled through head, life size video games, dissecting tables, clones, rockets, Scorpia and death. He couldn't breath, couldn't focus, all he could do was think about everything that had happening and how L-Unit had no fucking idea about him.

"If you tell us, we'll understand," said one of the men - Alex couldn't make out exactly who it was. His breaths were coming faster and he was struggling to keep any semblance of control, anything -

Mongoose sucked in a breath. Alex was coming apart right in front of him, and though it went against his moral code to let the kid hurt like that, he was a doctor first and foremost, and he knew Alex needed to let everything out.

He shared another look with Jackal, who once again repeated his command for Alex to tell him what had happened. Alex jerked, and an expression of great, terrible pain stole across the teenager's face - and he started talking.

It was barely coherent at first, mumbled sentences about somebody named Ian and camping trips. "I didn't know he was training me!" Alex said loudly, making all of them jump. "I thought we were having fun, but he was just training me to take over his place. Lies, all it, he didn't stop lying to me until he was killed - "

L-Unit gave each other startled looks. What was he talking about?

"And if I hadn't been so damn curious, I wouldn't even be here," Alex continued, recounting some insane story about climbing out of a window to break into Ian's office. Mongoose couldn't help it: he stared, open-mouthed, as the story got even more incredulous from there.

He remembered the Stormbreaker computers, and he knew the line had been discontinued, but he'd never really wondered why. He'd figured it was some tech thing, the computer wasn't working properly, whatever; did Alex really mean to tell them that the donator had been insane, trying to kill all of the school children, and Alex had single-handedly stopped him?

It got worse. Before long, Mongoose's disbelief turned into sorrow, and all he could do was mourn for this boy, this broken, hardened boy, who had been through way too much entirely too soon.

Alex didn't know why he was talking.

He didn't know why he was telling them about the man of war, or Mr. Grin, or Point Blanc. He shouldn't have told them about almost being dissected, or the clones, or K-Unit coming in (they all inhaled sharply in surprise at that). It was violating the Official Secrets Act, and what if one of them was the spy...

Despite himself, he kept talking. It felt so good to finally unload, to look at the ground and tell somebody all about the terrible things that had happened. He had no idea what he was going to do once he stopped talking, but at the moment, he couldn't have stopped, even if he wanted to do so.

Minutes passed. Alex didn't know how long he'd been talking, but L-Unit had been completely silent, taking everything in. As he came to an end, he felt his cheeks start to burn - why had he told them everything? Why had he done that? He wouldn't be able to face them anymore, not now.

"Alex - " It was Mongoose, or maybe Frog, reaching out to him.

He ran.

Pelican stared after the retreating figure of the boy.

One second, he'd been shakily telling them about his shitty life, and the next minute he'd seemed to come to his senses, look around, realize what he was doing, and run.

To be honest, Pelican didn't blame him. Neither did the rest of L-Unit, apparently, as they all stood there with no intent to go after him.

"Oh my god," whispered Mongoose after a few long seconds, snapping them all out of their daze. "Oh my god."

"Was he telling the truth?" Frog asked, voice quiet and forlorn. He stared at the open door, apparently unable to comprehend what had just happened.

Pelican didn't blame him.

He'd been through plenty, but he'd chosen it, and he had been plenty old enough to handle it. There was a reason why Pelican was the oldest member. He'd joined the SAS the latest. He couldn't imagine going through half of the things that Alex had lived through when the boy had just been fourteen. "No wonder the kid is so fucked up."

"Pelican," hissed Mongoose, always protective.

Pelican shrugged unapologetically. "It's completely true and you know it," he said. Maybe it was cold, but there was no point beating around the bush. They had to acknowledge what was wrong with Rider before they figured out what to do next. "He's irreversibly screwed up."

"It's not his fault," said Frog defensively. Pelican raised an eyebrow. Apparently everybody was Alex's number one defendant now.

"We all know who to blame for this," Pelican said in response.

Jackal cleared his throat, but his voice was still gruff. "No wonder he didn't trust us."

"You ought to have known something like this would have happened," Pelican said, who had no sympathy for his fellow unit members at the moment. Alex showed many signs of having been through a crappy life; did they think his story would have been easy to handle?

Mongoose ran a hand through his hair. "We have to figure out what to do."

Pelican gave a little nod. They were all in shock; he was, too. They needed time to digest everything that had been said. He was relatively sure that by the night, all four of them would be much more agitated than they were now. It was hard to react when everything seemed so unreal.

"We need to let him know we're here," said Mongoose, who, out of all of them, was the most attached. However, it was a mark of how much all of them cared, to some extent, about the kid that nobody teased Mongoose for saying something so touchy-feely.

Instead, they all nodded - even Pelican. They would be there for him, as foreign as a concept as that was, because whenever they looked at Alex, they saw a kid - and a kid who most definitely needed help.

Whether or not the kid wanted to admit it.

Alex ran.

The steady rhythm of his feet pounding the ground calmed him, though he doubted he could ever recover from what had just happened.

He'd told.

He'd told.

Like a whiny kid who couldn't deal with things, he'd told, and he was sure it was going to turn out badly. They'd go to the Sergeant, they'd tell their friends, they were the spies...Alex knew with 100% certainty that this was going to turn out like shit.

He didn't need help. Alex never needed help. Ian had raised him to be independent, and he'd taken the lesson to heart years ago. He couldn't believe he'd just unloaded on them like they were his therapists. They were virtually strangers to him, and he'd dropped his guard. If a spy dropped in front of him right now to capture him, Alex knew he wouldn't have the strength to fight him off. His limbs felt shaky, and his mind was a mess. He was a mess.

A/N: This will be the last chapter of weak, angsty Alex, I promise. Next chapter, after an enlightening talk with the Sergeant, Alex returns to kicking butt. I have one word: paintball.

I hope this didn't seem too OOC. I just didn't buy that Alex would go through everything and come out relatively unscathed - mentally, that is. He was bound to have a breakdown at one time or the other. Now, it's up to L-Unit to see how they react. I hope you liked a little glimpse into the spy's mind...he's about to become a far more important character.

Hope you enjoyed this! I love my readers, I really do. Comments and critiques are, as always, much appreciated.