I'm sorry for taking so long to update. I was finishing a side project. Well, that and Neal was kidnapped and locked in a closet. The rescue mission was successful, but I don't know how long until Dean tries it again. Hopefully, not before I finish the next chapter.

08

"Ready Neal?"

"Almost. Few more minutes," he responded, barely glancing at his teammates as he rushed into his room.

Snake rolled his eyes as Wolf grumbled under his breath. Ben was about to holler something after him when there was a knock at the door. The man looked at the door then each other. Wolf stomped into the kitchen, showing he wasn't going to answer it.

Ben shook his head, going to open the door. He blinked in surprise. "Alex?"

She grinned. "Hi Ben," she said, pushing passed. She stopped upon seeing Snake. "Hi... Dave, right?"

"Hello," he greeted back.

Ben put a hand on her shoulder. "Why are you here?"

"Neal invited me to go paintballing."

" 'Invited'?" echoed back at her in more than one voice.

Alex bobbed her head back and forth. "Well, he actually made a bet with me and..." She trailed off as Ben started laughing hysterically.

Wolf stepped back into the room, watching Ben like the blondes were. Neal was drawn into the room as well.

None of the men saw the swift, studying glance Alex shot Wolf, preoccupied as they were with wondering if their friend had gone off the deep end. Same short dark hair, same serious brown eyes. Yep, it seemed like Wolf was just as surly as ever, she just wasn't quite sure what to think about the mustache he had grown.

"Wow Neal," Ben wheezed when he had calmed some, wiping tears from his eyes. "I knew you did stupid shit on occasion, but betting against Alex? Setting yourself up for failure there." At the looks everyone was giving him, he sighed and explained. "Alex has the best luck I've ever seen. And a pretty good poker face. I quit betting her."

"Hey, I don't always–"

"No. Just nine times out of ten," Ben interrupted, gaining a scowl from the girl.

Alex stuck her tongue out at the man. "Like it's my fault it takes you so long to learn from past experience." She smirked and flounced over the Neal as the dark-haired man sputtered. "Hi Neal," she said, reaching up to kiss his cheek.

"Hey babe." He smiled down at her, sliding an arm around her waist. "Oh, Alex, this is James. James, this is my girlfriend, Alex."

Wolf, James, nodded to her, crossing his arms over his chest, a gleam of suspicion in his eyes that Alex wrote off as him just being Wolf. "So, Neal, you 'invited' her along?"

Neal hesitated. "Kind of. I didn't think she'd win."

"What was the wager anyway?" Snake asked, feigning mild interest.

"Avoid him for half an hour at the fair," Alex answered then looked at Ben, a gleam of mischief in her eyes that only he saw. "It was like one of those 'trust exercises' you showed me. Did you learn those at the same camp?" she asked, affecting her own air of innocence to further hide her current playful mood. "Were you all counselors together?"

Ben gave her a mild look. "No Alex, none of them share that particular job history with me."

Neal's eyes widened slightly and he shot a look at Alex then Ben. Seeing the other two had caught his look, he spoke, changing the subject. "Anyway, I'm ready to go now. Who was driving again?"

"James," Snake answered, eyeing Alex with a bit more interest now. "Do you have any of your own equipment?" he asked her.

"Nope," she said cheerfully, grabbing Neal's hand after he picked up his bag. "I wouldn't know the first thing to get."

"What has you so perky?" Ben asked suspiciously.

Alex shook her head and said one word: "Tom." And for the two who knew him, that was all the explanation needed.

Neal opened his mouth to ask a question, paused, and shook his own head. "I'm not gonna ask."

Ben glanced at him. "You've met Tom?"

"Yeah. Nearly hit him too."

Alex shot a look at Neal. "You had him dangling ten centimeters in the air." She looked at the other two. "Tom is my best friend," she offered as clarification for them.

Snake cocked a look at the younger man. "I'm sorry, but I can't really see Neal doing something like that. James sure, but not Neal."

Alex smiled at the "Hey!" thrown out by Wolf, but otherwise he was ignored. "Well, apparently he thought Tom was attacking me when we were really just screwing around. Of course, Ben actually did hit Tom when they met."

Ben turned a faint pink when his teammates turned incredulous looks on him.

"That's even harder to see," Snake commented as Neal said, "I thought Tom was exaggerating."

"He was. It was a glancing hit at best, not one that nearly 'took his top off'," she quoted with a roll of her eyes. "Anyway, insane best friends aside, is what I'm wearing okay?"

Ben rolled his eyes and hid a smile as the other three looked over what she was wearing: heels, a knee-length denim skirt, pale blue shirt, and denim jacket, all tasteful and relatively new looking. Judging by the look of disgust on Wolf's face, he was definitely as surly as ever.

"I'm not... Are you even going to be able to run in those things?" Neal asked, gesturing at her shoes.

"How fast do you want me to go?" Alex asked, having fun playing dumb.

"You do realize that we're going to be in the woods, right?" Wolf snapped.

"Well, yeah, but that doesn't mean I need to climb a tree, does it?"

Neal looked at her, starting to look mildly concerned and horrified, wondering what was up with her. Ben turned away, coughing, when he saw this. No one paid any attention to him.

"Stop being such a worry wart," Alex said, rolling her eyes. She ignored the growing scowl on the team leader's face. "I brought jeans." She shook her head and headed down the hall to the bathroom.

Wolf turned his glare onto Neal. "What the hell is wrong with you? She's an airhead."

Neal's startled expression shifted into indignation. "She isn't normally like this."

"She was remarkably similar when I last met her," Snake pointed out diplomatically. He shrugged at the dark look Neal shot him.

Further comment was prevented by Alex's reappearance. "Better?" she asked.

Wolf grunted and stalked out the door.

Alex blinked. "What's his problem?"

"Nothing really," Neal responded, glaring after Wolf. He raised his voice as he added, "He just needs to get laid!"

"Just for that, I'm on James' team," Snake commented, following the shorter man.

"How many teams are there going to be?" Alex asked Ben as they waited for Neal to lock up his apartment.

"Usually two of six each," he answered then turned to eye Alex. "I think we'll see about getting you your own color and letting the other guys know what's going on."

She gave him a flat look behind Neal's back then shrugged. "Okay. If you think that's best."

Ben winced slightly, knowing that that particular expression never boded well for the receiver. "Well, what say we catch up so we don't get left behind?"

Over an hour later of Wolf's driving and conversation killing later, and Alex was looking forward to being able to shoot him.

People might have complained about her driving, but the only times she didn't drive like a sane person were when she needed to avoid pursuers or get somewhere fast, like that time in March when Ben couldn't drive due to an injured arm and needed to get to some sort of bomb that he had the only key card to disarm it and wouldn't let her just take it herself. Wolf's driving on the other hand, seemed to always be in 'evasive maneuvers' mode and since none of the guys were reacting, this was normal. And it didn't help that she was in the back between Neal and Ben, sliding into them more times than not; until she got fed up, anyway, and plastered herself to Neal's side, tossing his arm around her shoulders and ignoring the annoyed grunt Wolf made when he saw that.

As they were pulling up next to a few other cars with eight men standing nearby, Ben turned to Alex. "Don't be surprised if you hear someone call us by something other than our names."

She looked at him, frowning slightly. Seeing the look in his eyes and the lightly cocked eyebrow, she realized that he was playing along with her clueless act. "Like nicknames?" she asked, also seeing the promise of a future talk in his expression.

"Exactly. Nicknames."

"Is there a theme?" At the blank looks she caught from all four soldiers, she clarified. "Well, like if there's a group of friends and one is named John and one gets called Ringo then another friend might be called Paul even though his name is Greg or something like that. It would be a Beatles theme."

Ben blinked slowly then shook his head, having given up on trying to understand the way she thought sometimes. "Sure. Yeah there's a theme. All of the nicknames are animals." He blinked again at the mildly-disgusted look Alex shot him.

"I really don't want to know if any of them have anything to do with performance."

The outburst from all four men drew the attention of the other eight even though the doors and windows were closed.

Rather than listen to them complain like a bunch of little girls, something she actually did tell them, Alex popped the door open and crawled over Neal to get out.

Seeing the other two teams - she was pretty sure it was D-unit and L-unit who had been at training with K-unit - staring at her, she just grinned and waved. "Hi. You must be friends of Neal's and the other's. I'm Neal's girlfriend, Alex, and I'm going to join you guys today. I just want to get this out of the way now, whatever your nicknames are–" She cut herself off as she fended off Neal's hands from covering her mouth. "Anyway," she continued, elbowing her boyfriend in the gut. "If your nicknames are connected in any way to your performances, I really don't want to know."

"I cannot believe you just said that," Neal muttered, covering his face with a hand.

Alex smiled innocently. "They were curious what had the four of you freaking out."

Wolf rolled his eyes, dumping the guys' bags on the ground and slamming the trunk shut. "And now they think you're insane."

"Yeah. So?"

Ben shook his head. "You are not allowed to spend time with Tom before doing anything with any of us, got it? You start acting like him."

Alex pouted. "Damn. We thought it would take you longer to say something. You suck."

One of the other soldiers spoke up. "What is going on?" Alex glanced at him - tall, built like a tree, and bald. She was pretty sure his codename was Bear or something like that.

Wolf walked over. "Eagle is a moron. Whose team am I joining?"

"Who's going to be with you?"

"Snake."

"D-unit," a different man spoke up. He had messy red hair, pale green eyes, and was just a couple inches taller than Wolf was. Coyote maybe? "We'll take Fox. What about the girl?"

"She's going to have her own color," Snake answered. "She's... ah..."

"Insane and an airhead," Wolf supplied.

Alex scowled. "Whatever you might think about me, I am here and I'm not deaf nor am I stupid."

Wolf waved her off. "Go sit somewhere."

Ben saw the growing anger in Alex's eyes and grabbed her arm. "Let's get you a gun and some ammo, okay?" He didn't wait for an answer and just pulled her after him. "Keep it down, okay?"

Alex growled softly. "I can't believe the nerve of him! Is he like that with all women? No wonder he needs to get laid," she snarled, loud enough for all of the men to hear, then lowered her voice just for Ben to hear. "He was actually better at training. I am going to make him regret that."

Ben looked at her from the corner of his eye. "What are you planning?"

"Anything that I can get away with blaming on you."

"Thanks," he said dryly. "Just don't do more than you want to answer for. Wolf is a suspicious bastard; that hasn't changed and I don't see it changing anytime soon."

"Hey, Ben? Thanks again for putting up with this and not saying anything to Neal. I'm just not sure what to say to him or when or how... Or even if it'll last through that or long enough for it to matter."

Ben looked at her. "You don't need to explain or justify it to me. I know the problem with dating someone who doesn't know what you do. If it makes you feel better, Neal can be understanding of the issue, whenever it does come up. Just, he can be pretty stupid sometimes, remember that, okay? He's head over heels for you and it's something I haven't seen before. And I've known Neal since we were in school."

"I didn't know that," she murmured absently. "But will he be when, if, I go to tell him?"

"If it makes you feel better, talk to me first and I'll let you know as best as I know."

She smiled slightly. "Thanks."

He nodded, pulling out his wallet as they got to the stand with the rental guns and differently colored paintballs. "One gun and fifty pink balls."

"Pink? Really?"

"Yeah. Think you can get everyone at least three times with fifty?"

She turned to look at the rest of the men, glowering in Wolf's direction. "...Twice definitely. Not sure about three. Pretty much everyone's unknown and Wolf is a real tempting target right now. What am I going to get for it?"

Ben paused then grimaced. "I'll teach Tom and Jack how to fight. And give a free favor."

"Like you wouldn't do me a favor anyway." She shot a smile at him. "Any bonuses?"

"Let's see how you do and I'll let you know." He thanked the clerk and passed Alex the loaded gun, paying the fees just after.

"So, blue team will go in first. Five minutes later, red will. Five minutes after that, we'll start. Questions?" Coyote was saying as they rejoined the group.

Alex raised a hand.

"Wait ten minutes then do whatever you want," Coyote said, dismissing her.

Alex scowled, brown eyes going cold. Oh, they were all going to regret this.