to my awesome reviewer: xlivilightx

i hope i did better at not making her a mary sue this time. and thanks so much for the review!

also thanks to thewingedcolonel for favoriting!

everytime someone reviews or favorites or alerts my story, i get fuzzy feelings! thank you so much!

i really need some help with this story guys! i love constructive criticism!

DISCLAIMER: I live in the land of the terminater: arnold scwarzeneggar. no seriously. hes the governor of california. and since anthony horowitz is a current citizen of britain, there is no way that HE is ME (who is also a SHE.)

yea, i have no idea what im thinking.

All the men got to work. They sparred against people who were at about the same level as they were.

Alex and Shelley stayed away from them and tried not to distract them. Both of them were doing their best to try not to hurt the other too badly. Alex avoided hitting Shelley on her side, where she had been knifed four months before, and her stomach because of the gunshot wound. Shelley didn't actually know much about Alex's injuries from before she met him. So she avoided any places where anatomically it would hurt to be hit. Both tried their best to only use pressure points to incapacitate the other. Shelley looked at him, knowing that he wasn't trying his best.

He usually is really competitive. He would lose himself in the movement. It's why he's a good fighter. What's wrong with him?

Suddenly Shelley realized. He's doing the same thing I am! Shelley burst out laughing.

Alex heard her peals of laughter. He looked up, confused.

"Why are you laughing?"

"Look at us: we're the best fighters here and we're fighting like wimps. If we were on a mission, we'd be dead."

Realizing she was right, Alex started laughing too.

"Okay. Then we'll fight for real now. We need to practice. Just, you know no dirty fighting." Shelley decided.

"Right. So no hits where we know it'll really hurt." Alex clarified.

The sensei walking over, heard the last part.

"Ok, you two. Ready? Spar."

The two started to fight, properly this time.

Alex knew that he had to actually hit her, but it felt wrong. He was supposed to look out for her, not hurt her! As a result he didn't fight much harder than he had before.

Shelley was frustrated with Alex. She wasn't made of glass! I can take care of myself! Why won't he fight back? She thought angrily.

Shelley hadn't realized it but her anger was making her hit harder and increasingly faster. Alex easily blocked but he wasn't really paying attention to what he was doing. Suddenly, Shelley made it past his guard. The palm of her hand hit him hard, slightly off the center.

Shelley gasped as she watched Alex collapse. What the hell?

Alex felt the unbearable pain and he knew he was about to lose consciousness. He had no idea why though. What the hell?

The men stopped fighting to watch the fight. They saw Alex go down but they had no idea what was happening. What the hell?

Alex woke up in the infirmary. His thoughts were fuzzy. Slowly he processed the presence of multiple bodies near him. Slowly he tried to get up. As he sat up, he realized that Shelley was sleeping on his arm. K-Unit was also in the room. Wolf was asleep in a chair, head lolling back. Cat was asleep on a window seat.

Wait, a window seat? Alex thought. He looked around and realized that his room was really nice. Wow, special treatment.

He sat up farther and tried to find Eagle and Snake. He saw Eagle asleep on the floor, using Wolf's foot as a pillow. Alex smiled, thinking of Wolf's reaction to that when he woke up.

Snake was asleep in a chair outside his room that Alex could see through the window.

He felt Shelley stir as he finished sitting up slowly. She turned her head and fell asleep again.

Alex realized that he had no idea what had happened. He thought back to combat practice. Suddenly he remembered the crippling pain he had felt when Shelley had hit him.

Holy shit! Alex looked down at his shirt. He pulled it up to look at his chest. The bullet scar he had from three years ago, the one over his heart, was bruised and ugly. Quietly he groaned.

Shelley looked up for a second but then, exhausted dropped her head back to the bed and fell asleep.

He pressed the call button near his bed.

"Yes?" came the voice of a female. Probably the night shift nurse.

"Uhh…I'm guessing that I was supposed to press this when I woke up." Alex said uncertainly.

"Oh. Yes the doctor is on his way now."

"Thanks."

Two minutes later, the door opened and the lights turned on. The doctor walked in as the people around Alex started to wake up.

"Hey Cub. How you feeling?" the doctor asked as he checked Alex's vitals.

"I feel fine."

"Alex! You're awake! Oh my god Alex, I'm so sorry! I have no idea what happened! Why did you lose consciousness?" Shelley flung her arms around him and spoke in a rush, jumbling the words together as a result.

did I really just say oh my god? i sound so much like his old hysterical female fan club! Oh well. I have an excuse for sounding like an idiot.

Alex stumbled backwards a bit.

Did she really just say oh my god? She sounds so much like the girls from Brookland.

He smiled down at her.

"I'm fine Shelley. You just hit an old wound of mine."

Realizing there were other people in the room, Shelley quickly let go of him.

The rest of the unit woke up completely. Wolf woke up and, realizing something was on his foot, he kicked and scrambled out of his seat. Eagle glared and pouted at him while rubbing his head. Cat rubbed at his eyes. Snake was the only one still asleep, outside.

The doctor interrupted.

"Alex, you know it's not as simple as that."

"What are you talking about doctor?" asked Shelley.

Alex shot the doctor a glare. He shrinked back a little.

"I think I'm going to have to ask you all to leave the room while I talk to Cub." He said.

The Unit filed out of the room with confused expressions on their faces.

"Thanks doctor. Now I'm gonna have to answer questions that I really don't want to answer." Especially Shelley. She's gonna be mad that I didn't tell her before. Alex thought as he spoke to the doctor.

"Sorry. But that was the truth. It's not just any kind of wound. It's a gunshot wound that's only centimeters from your heart! And I'm afraid that the force of the hit you took, may have undone some of the procedures you underwent during the surgery you had after the sniper shot you.

"How do you know any of that? It's supposed to be classified information!" Alex hissed.

"I demanded your medical file from MI6. That is a very unusual wound to have survived, Alex."

"I know."

"So you wanna tell them now?"

"I'll have to tell them eventually."

"Then I'll go tell them they can come in now."

The doctor went and talked to the Unit. Everybody came back in.

Shelley spoke first, looking slightly annoyed.

"You wanna tell me what is going on now Alex? Cause for some reason the doctor wouldn't tell me."

Alex couldn't figure out how to start explaining things so instead he just showed them. Pulling up his shirt again, he explained what had happened.

"When I was fourteen and just started working for MI6, I went on a mission to infiltrate a terrorist organization called Scorpia."

"We already know that Alex."

"Let me finish. Well, after I finished the mission, Scorpia wanted revenge. They had a sniper shoot me as I walked out of the Royal & General Bank."

Shelley gasped as his wound was revealed.

"That was the appendicitis I had, Wolf." He said, explaining the excuse for his hospitalization to Wolf, who had sent him a get well soon card while he had been in the hospital.

"Anyway, the sniper didn't kill me like he was supposed to obviously. But he did hit me. About three centimeters above my heart. I got lucky. I was stepping off of the curb at the second he decided to shoot. It's the only reason I'm not dead."

"When Shelley hit me during practice, she hit the old wound and the pain made me collapse."

"Shit, Alex why didn't you tell me? We're supposed to be partners! You can't hide something like this from me! We're supposed to trust each other." Shelley said looking severely pissed off.

"Look Shelley, I didn't even remember that I'd been shot! I haven't thought about it for two years!" Alex explained.

"Alex, I could've really hurt you. I hit you pretty hard. I could have messed something up with your old surgery!" Shelley said looking really upset.

"That's what the doctor was saying. But listen Shelley, guys, I'm fine! Nothing went wrong and nothing is going to happen to me. I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier Shelley but it's not a big deal!" he said.

"Yes it is!" Snake, who had finally woken up said. "Those types of wounds never stop hurting. Haven't you felt any pain at all on your missions?"

"Yeah but it always went away after a few minutes! I told you, it doesn't matter to me!"

"But it does matter to me Alex. What if something happened to you because of me?"

"But Shelley, I'm-"

Shelley had already left the room.

"-fine." he finished, shaking his head.

Shelley ran out of the room before the tears that had filled her eyes, overflowed.

"What the hell? What just happened?" Alex asked, dumbfounded.

"You're the super spy, this should be easy." Cat said his empathy showing. "How would you feel if you put her in the infirmary? You would feel guilty and you would feel like you had let her down. You wouldn't forgive yourself for it."

Alex stiffened and nodded.

"Well that's what she's feeling right now. She just put her partner, her best friend, into the infirmary. She feels like this is her fault. That coupled with the betrayal of you not telling her about the wound in the first place, is what caused her to break down just now."

"Shit. I have to go get her." Alex said, starting to get out of bed.

"No I think you should wait for her to come here. You're not supposed to get up anyway. Just wait an hour or so. We'll leave for now."

Alex, body stiff as he remembered what he had gone through when he had failed to protect her, just nodded and sat back down. He was too tired to be able to run fast enough to catch her anyway.

He watched as the unit left the room again.

Shelley made it back to K-Unit's dorm. She jumped on to the bed and started to sob.

I could have hurt him! I did hurt him! But why didn't he tell me about the injury? i trusted him with my entire past and he can't even tell me about a damn injury? she thought to herself. But then she remembered who she was talking about.

Shelley, get a grip! You know that he didn't mean to! He was just to busy caring about other people, like you, to care about himself. You love him to bits, but he is an idiot sometimes.

Shelley thought wryly to herself. Then she looked at her watch.

Damn! I can't believe its been more than an hour!

Shelley had had enough of the tears. She made her way back to the infirmary.

Alex looked up as Shelley walked into the room. For the past hour and a half, he had been pacing around the room, trying to figure out how to make Shelley feel better.

When he saw her though, all his ideas went out the window. Her hair was all over the place. Her normally bright, mischievous eyes were dim. They were puffy and bloodshot. Her clothes were wrinkled and basically, she looked terrible. Alex, protective instincts taking over his mind, immediately tensed up and searched all of his heightened-above-average senses; looking for the person who had done this to the girl he loved. And then he remembered that it was his fault she looked like shit.

Shelley saw him tense up. He scanned the room slowly and she knew that he was looking for danger as he had done so many times before. She wondered why, but then caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror that in the bathroom that she could see through an open door.

Bloody hell! I look like shit! No wonder the men just stared at me when I walked in.

She saw him figure something out and then his face became despaired. He deflated, looking guiltier than she ever remembered seeing him. Even guiltier than when she had been shot and he thought it was his fault for not protecting her. He looked like a little boy who had broken his mum's favorite vase after she had told him not to play ball in the house.

"What's wrong?" Shelley asked.

"Shelley, I'm frustrated." He said rubbing his face. She didn't say anything, knowing that he wasn't done talking yet.

"Shelley the only thing I have left is you." He continued, running his hands through his hair. Her heart started to beat faster at his words.

"And look at what I keep doing! I swore to myself I wouldn't let anything hurt you and look at this! Just look! I keep failing at it! And it's my fault, too! I'm so sorry Shelley. I can't seem to keep you safe!"

Shelley just stared him. What was he talking about?

"Alex that is utter bullshit," she said interrupting his self-berating.

He shut up and looked at her with pain in his eyes. It was worse than the pain she saw when he was talking about Jack leaving. And, she realized, it was the pain he felt for failing himself in his quest to protect me.

"Alex," she said walking up to him. He looked away from her and wouldn't meet her eyes.

"ALEX!" she growled/shouted. She grabbed his face with both of her hands. "Alex, look at me."

He obliged. He saw the spark of determination in her eyes that had been missing a few seconds ago.

"Alex, we have been on over ten missions together. And I was always the one who couldn't help myself. I was the one who always did something stupid that ended with us being captured. And you always saved our asses, Alex. So you slipped and failed yourself twice. Every-"

"I didn't just fail myself Shelley. I failed you. I'm supposed to stop you from being hurt and you trusted me to protect you from that."

"No Alex, I didn't. I don't expect you to always be able to keep me completely safe. I trust you with everything I have. But I don't think even you could save me from everything that could possibly happen. You're human, Alex. Not a robot. Yu know that; you're always trying to prove it to Blunt. No one could possibly keep someone safe from everything. Fathers can't keep their children safe no matter how much they want to. And I'm not your child, Alex. I am able to keep myself safe too."

"I know-"

"And you've done more than anyone could ever ask for. If it wasn't for you, I would've been dead already."

"But-"

"But nothing Alex. You know that what I'm saying is true."

"Yeah, I know." Alex conceded.

"And Alex?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry."

"Why? You didn't do anything."

"I hurt you too. And I don't just mean hitting you. I mean this…" she said covering his eyelids with her finger tips.

"Huh?" he said, confused.

"The pain there. I'm the root of that." She said quietly to herself. But Alex heard.

"Now you're the one speaking utter bullshit."

"Sure, Alex. Sure." But the spark was back in her eyes.

He laughed, knowing that she was back to herself.

She felt his booming laugh, the one that always made her smile. She saw his hair flop over his eyes and his brown eyes crinkled at the edges. She wanted to kiss him. So as soon as his laughter died down, she did.

She caught him by surprise. In one fluid motion she flung her arms around him and brought his lips down to hers. Suddenly after a minute, he started to yawn.

"You should go to sleep Alex."

"Ok," he said smiling.

And he tossed her onto the bed. Climbing onto the bed next to her, he pulled her laughing figure close to himself and fell asleep with her in his arms.

eh...doesn't feel like it was that great. i think i'm gonna try and make the next chapter less focused on just Alex and Shelly's relationship.
and maybe i should start adding more of a plot to the story. what do you think? leave a review or PM me!

remember: i love constructive criticism! and i also love hearing ideas! if there's anything you might want to see happen, let me know! i still have no clear idea of what i want with this story.

anyway until next time!

~C.J.