Sorry it took so long ! there's a timejump in this chapter and i think i know what I'm going to do with this story so I'll update more frequently. And I'm going to try to make chapters longer after this one ! Now that I know where I'm going with it, it'll be easier to put more in, thanks for bearing with the horribly short chapters so far haha :)

also monsterunderyourbed, I totally missed that ah ah ah darn. OK so then forget the 17 part- he just looks older than he is. That was a stupid mistake, I'll try to keep those to a minimum ! thanks for pointing it out to me though !

Thanks for reading !

March 7 ; 7:00

Alex didn't expect the training to be easy. But he also didn't expect for it to be difficult.

He supposed that with all the time he spent scaling buildings and sneaking through ventilation systems (he's kidding, obviously, that didn't happen... often) he wasn't exactly physically accustomed to running ten kilometers right after breakfast and then jumping into drills. He was positioned next to Snake, at the end of the line of soldiers currently doing practiced push ups. Alex didn't fall behind, but he was certainly more out of breath than Snake was. The man cast him a sidelong glance when he cleared his throat, and Alex huffed in amusement. Snake probably thought Alex didn't do much outside of his missions - an unfortunate circumstance that stopped after the incident at Point Blanc, which Wolf undoubtedly told at least Snake and Eagle about, if not Panther, too.

The drill leader barked at the group to stand at attention. He strode down the line, his eyes sharp and ruthless, inspecting every inch of the soldiers standing in front of him. His gaze lingered on Alex a second longer than the others before he ordered them to proceed to the obstacle course. Alex wiped the sweat off the back of his neck and shivered. His body was hot and the air was cold- an odd contradiction.

The schedule was packed today. It was the first day back since Spring Break, so Alex supposed it made sense for them to be pushed this hard, but in the back of his mind, he wished he'd been informed that, for the first few days, he was in for anything but an easy ride. First up had been the ten kilos, and then the drills - which were similar to what a high school gym teacher would call "warm ups", only multiplied by about one hundred - and, for the K-Unit and a few other units, the obstacle course. Then, thank god, lunch, and after lunch came shooting evaluations, and lastly, another obstacle course, aquatic edition.

If he were being honest, Alex would say that he wasn't all too excited about the aquatic course. He'd have to keep his shirt on- Blunt had specified that Alex's presence at the camp was classified, and that he was to go to any such length to keep it that way- to keep everything under wraps. Including himself.

The obstacle course was short but difficult. It'd recently rained, so the mud was thick and cold, and the equipment was soaked. K-unit was set to go second, after L-Unit. Alex watched the first man -short but muscular- step up to the line, and when the timer began, he shot off. He was taken by surprise when the mud -despite looking semi-hard and heavy- grew slick underneath his heels. Alex watched him push forward past multiple obstacles, observing where he seemed to have difficulty and where he seemed to exert himself. He did the same with the three following soldiers. Wolf and Snake were in front of him, but by now Alex felt confident in his ability to navigate the course. They flew through the course, themselves, seemingly having little to no difficulty.

Alex stepped forward and pushed down the feeling of being watched (to this day, he had difficulty being in front of crowds for the lone reason of feeling exposed, utterly and horribly exposed). His shoes sank into the mud and he lifted them a few times before the timer began. The minute he heard the click and the order, he was off. His legs carried him swiftly across the mud - it took a moment for him to get used to the feeling, but once he was accustomed to it, there was barely any difficulty in the exercise at all. His fingers were nimble and quick, and he used his entire body weight to hurl himself over the wall. He lost balance when he landed, nearly crashing to his knees had it not been for an instinctive roll. When Alex realized what he'd done, he almsot stopped there. He pushed on to the finish line and ignored the looks of surprise when his time was announced, albeit hesitantly. What he was more concerned about was the mud covering his body from his roll- he'd done it without thinking, and through the mud no less. When he went to stand by his unit, he expected silence. Instead, Snake clapped him on the back and Wolf stared at him for a moment through eyes of scrutiny before nodding once and mumbling gruffly, "Nice work, Cub."

Alex allowed himself a smile.

June 3rd ; 20:00

Alex's stomach grumbled violently. He'd missed the beginning of dinner, which had started at seven, and was beginning to wish he'd hurried with his shower. Today had been particularly dirty -it'd rained and the air had been thick. Crawling through the mud had felt like crawling through hot, wet concrete. He wasn't complaining, though; exercises like these were precisely the ones he enjoyed, the ones helping build him into quite the athlete.

He'd been at Brecon Beacons for about three months, now. Weekly, as Blunt had promised, Jones came and visited. Alex's schedule was modified on those days for ten minutes out of training, and the feeling of unease and skepticism that had harboured itself at the pit of his stomach the first few visits quickly dissolved into a routine comfort. They didn't talk about much; she asked him how he was, how he was feeling? Physically and mentally? What was he eating? Any night terrors, lately? How's his relationship with his unit? Good? Good.

She kept to formalities, kept herself strictly business, and Alex suspected that was why it was so easy. She didn't try to play it off like she was just having a nice chat.

Alex's visit with Jones was tomorrow, now that he thought about it. The drive up was miserable- four and a half hours through winding mountains. He wondered how she could stand it.

In other news, the K-Unit and he had become closer and closer in the past three months than Alex could have ever expected. Wolf no longer looked at him like a fugitive, and Eagle had become much more comfortable with involving Alex in his jokes. Snake had grown a bit suspicious of Alex's tendency to never show any skin besides his arms, head, hands, and neck to them, but whenever he tried to push it, Alex made sure to dance around the subject skillfully. He was good with words, good with persuasion, good with evasion. Snake was no exception.

Panther was a bit more complicated. Over the first month and a half, he'd insisted that Alex was a child- a teenager. He shouldnt' be here. Panther had been adamant about that. When Alex received a pat on the back or a quiet compliment for his performance, the look in Panther's eyes was nearly always disapproval. Sometimes awe. Alex had tried to tone down on the action, to be honest. He didn't push as hard when he knew there was something he was good at. The first day of shooting practice, Alex had shot three into the heart of the target and two into the abdomen, and only in a minute. The soldiers around him had stared in perplexed awe, some looking unsure, some looking unconvinced. It was then that Alex had decided to give himself a bit of a handicap. Now, he twitched his hand when shooting, putting the bullets a little off target. Now, he made sure to slip once or twice while on the obstacle course. Now, he made sure that, during gun assembly, he took just a few seconds longer than the last person to finish. He was being careful. He had to be.

Blunt had told him not to reveal anything, but Alex probably couldn't care less about Blunt's request. No, keeping his identity and his missions a secret was for the sole purpose of Alex's dignity. Jack had always looked at him with eyes full of pity, looked at him with her lips thin and her eyebrows drawn. And Alex knew all she saw was an abused teenager. She didn't see a triumph or victory. She didn't see his accomplishments, as sick as they may have been. She didn't see his skill.

And maybe Alex was the sick one. Maybe he shouldn't be proud of himself. Maybe... He was unstable. Maybe he wasn't secure, maybe pulling the trigger in practice felt better every time. Felt more natural. And maybe that should have scared Alex. Set off alarm bells, maybe told him that something was gravely wrong.

It didn't.