Hello, folks, it's been too long. Before I put this shield down, I would like to say thank you for not giving up on me.

The wheel of excuses says that I could not write because I was temporarily turned into an orchid.

Now here's the story.

-RF

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

Alex leaped to his feet as the door swung open, standing protectively over Lexi. The door hit the wall with a clank as two men dressed in camouflage burst into the room brandishing guns. Alex stiffened. He recognized them.

"Hands behind your head, Kid. and get down on the ground." A deep, almost gravelly voice commanded.

Slowly, Alex raised his hands, palm outwards, before placing them behind his head and kneeling.

The gravely-voiced man with olive-brown skin gestured to the slightly thinner, fair-haired man who turned to speak to someone in the hallway. Gravely-voice (as Lexi had decided to call him) kept his eyes locked on Alex, lowering the barrel of his gun uncertainty.

"Cub?" Gravely-voice asked. "Is that you?"

_/_/_/_/_/_/

"Kid, what are you doing here? Wasn't that thing with SIS a one-time deal?" Wolf demanded.

Alex raised a wry eyebrow. "Apparently not. Who'd you get to replace Ben?"

"How did you- Never mind, not important. We're here to get you and your girlfriend out. Is that her?" Wolf nodded at Lexi.

"Unless he has a secret love interest, yes." Lexi said faintly, with a ghost of a smile.

"Is she okay?" Wolf asked.

"No." Alex said. "That lunatic Kurst injected her with some experimental drug he called Epicurus."

"Epicurus, shit. That's the stuff SIS said-" Wolf broke off his muttering and held a hand to his earpiece.

_/_/_/_/_/

"We have the compound secure, no sign of Kurst, though." Eagle informed Wolf over the coms.

"Well I just found the two marked for retrieval in basement level two, and we're gona need a med team here ASAP. Sounds like Kurst tried out his new wonder drug on the girl before he made a run for it."

"Shit." Eagle's response summed up the situation perfectly.

_/_/_/_/

The med team arrived not five minutes later. Quickly, they loaded both Lexi and Alex onto stretchers and into the waiting chopper. (Alex protested that he didn't need a stretcher, but was ignored.) Soon after that they arrived at Fort Benning and were carted into the on-base hospital.