A/N: Sorry for the delay (although you're probably used to it now :P). No real excuse...

Chapter 10

They were awoken the next morning by the sound of the door to their cell being opened. Immediately they were on high alert, prepared for any eventuality. It came as rather an anticlimax when a guard pushed in a tray of food and two jugs of water. However, they were surprised to see a pile of rags to clean Alex's wounds with. As soon as the door had been relocked, Eagle began to talk.

"Huh, these people are weird. They practically kill you and then help you tend your wounds?"

"Probably just don't want me dying on them before they can get all their fun," said Alex cynically.

Snake started to dip the rags in the water, whilst Wolf split the food into equal portions for all of them. It was Snake who asked the question on everybody's mind.

"So, Cub, how did you get that bullet wound on your chest?"

Looking down, Alex noticed that his chest was bare, the angry red wound visible for all to see. He thought about lying for a second, but looking at their faces he knew they'd never believe him.

"I was sniped," he admitted, sighing.

"By...?" asked Wolf, pressing for answers.

"By Scorpia, obviously. I'd just started getting on their nerves so it was time for them to get rid of me. I was stepping off the pavement at the time, otherwise I would be dead." The casualness with which Alex talked about his near-death shocked K Unit, but they kept quiet.

After Alex had had his wounds cleaned, with only a slight tightening of the face betraying any signs of discomfort, everyone settled down to eat. Not a moment after they had finished, the guards came in again, this time wheeling in a TV set. Immediately, Alex's mind began to think of torture possibilities, but unless it involved watching mind-numbing daytime TV forever, he was coming up with nothing. A niggling thought at the back of his mind, which he tried to ignore, told him that watching Jack's last moments was torturous enough, but that thought was dispelled when one of the guards put a DVD into the player.

The other occupants of the cell were as confused as he was about the new developments and watched the actions with wariness. The DVD started playing with a voiceover, which was unfortunately the voice of Dr Three.

"Dear Alex and friends," began the voice. "Unfortunately I cannot be here to watch this with you, but I'm sure you'll enjoy it just as much without me. In the following short clip, you will find out some things about Alex that he would rather not have you know, and I am sure that he has been keeping this from you up until now. Please discuss afterwards in a calm and rational manner."

The voice stopped, and the scene shifted to reveal a poor-quality surveillance image, the angle showing that the camera was mounted above the heads of the people. However, Alex could still clearly be identified, listening with a group of people to Dr Three in a whitewashed room with no windows. Dr Three made a motion, and Alex and an unremarkable looking man stepped forward. The man was chained to the wall, and Alex picked up a small silver knife. He began to torture the man, keeping a blank expression throughout. Even though the video had no sound, it was obvious that the man was screaming in pain and writhing around on the ground.

The screen faded to black, and the guards wheeled the TV set away, locking the door behind them. There was a moment of silence, before the explosion. Throughout the scene, K Unit had become more and more angry, watching someone they thought they knew doing terrible things to someone else. Alex, on the other hand, had known almost immediately what was going to happen, yet he couldn't look away. He was left looking pale, but in their rage, no one noticed apart from Tom.

"And to think we trusted you as part of our team!" shouted Wolf.

"We wanted to help you, to make you feel more at home than last time!" added Eagle.

"I cared about your welfare, and this is how you repay us?" asked Snake angrily.

But worst of all was Fox's quiet disappointment. "I can't believe you joined those people, Alex."

This continued for a while, until Tom interrupted in a small voice. "Maybe we should let Alex explain himself. I get that what he did was inexcusable, but maybe we're missing something. I mean, why would Scorpia want to hurt one of their own so badly?"

Everyone had calmed down enough that they could see that what Tom said was true. They turned towards Alex expectantly, waiting for an answer.

"I admit, I joined Scorpia for a while," said Alex. "But," he added before they could start raging again, "I was misinformed. An assassin lay down his life for me, and before he died he told me to find Scorpia. They told me that MI6 had double-crossed my parents and killed them. I mean, what was I meant to believe? I didn't know anything about them, and then I learnt that they were killed by an organisation I thought did the right thing. I joined them, and then by the time I learnt the truth it was too late. You can't just quit Scorpia. Ever since, they've been on my case, trying to get me killed."

"You trusted the words of a dying assassin?" asked Fox. "Only you could get into such situations, Alex," he said affectionately, his earlier anger abating.

"Well, it's not like trusting Ash turned out so well," retorted Alex.

"Who's Ash?" asked Eagle, his own anger also fading.

"The guy Fox killed on the mission we did together," replied Alex. "He was my godfather."

Fox paled. "Alex, I'm so sorry, I didn't know..."

Alex's face hardened. "He deserved it. He placed the bomb on the plane my parents were flying on when he joined Scorpia."

"He killed your parents?" asked Tom, shocked. "In that case, he totally deserved what he got."

Alex smiled. Tom wasn't perhaps the most tactful person in the world, but he understood others very well. Alex couldn't ask for a better friend.

A/N: OK, so I don't think this was the best I've ever written, but I kinda needed them to establish some of this stuff about Alex and get it all in the open. Next chapter should be better.