A/N: Hello readers! Happy summer and 4th of July! Sorry for the long delay...I humbly beg your forgivenes and promise to do better over the course of the summer. Please enjoy this chapter and of course... REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW if you can! It would definitely make me smile :-) Forgive the shouting, I get excited when I think of reviews :-)

By the way ... I don't own Alphas... I just want one for myself! :-)

Saber sighed as all eyes suddenly trained on him. Rosen could be such a piece of shit! When all else fails, throw the helpless Alpha to the wolves huh? Did he think for even one second that Saber had forgotten anything that had happened to him at the hands of well meaning scientists? Well, Saber hadn't been helpless in a long time and if there was thing he had, it was a very long memory. There was no way in hell he was going to make anything easier for Rosen. Not at all. With a smile he simply raised his eyebrows and shrugged.

"Rosen and I do have quite a history. A rather scintillating one actually."

In the silence that followed his announcement, it took every ounce of his self-control to refrain from laughing as the other Alphas swung their shocked gazes back and forth between him and Rosen. Well, all eyes except for hers. Her gaze never wavered. If anything they narrowed slightly following his smart remark.

Damn those gorgeous eyes. Rachel brought out the worst in him, made him want to do anything in his power to get a rise out of her, even communicate telepathically, which he rarely did. It had been a reckless thing to do, but her shocked expression had been worth it. Of course, now he had to corner her and convince her to keep her pretty little mouth shut before she said anything to the others. Then again, the idea of cornering her held amazing appeal.

Rosen glanced at him as though waiting for a protest about his intention to reveal more about Saber's past, a past that he had always guarded jealously. Saber shrugged at him and spread his arms in the universal gesture of defeat. What did the bastard expect him to do? Protect the role that Rosen had played in the tragedy that was his life? If that was the case, well whatever the old man was smoking had to have been a tainted homegrown mix. There wasn't going to be any help from this corner.

"Do what you gotta do in the interest of the team, oh fearless leader." He said sarcastically. Rosen sighed before addressing the other Alphas.

"We realize now that Alphas have been around for decades. At the very least, but always in hiding. It is, after all, human nature to protect ourselves in order to survive. This was definitely the case with many Alphas. None of them were willing to risk discovery by the public at large, especially scientists like myself. Years ago, the only Alphas I was able to work with were those who volunteered to help the government with researching the seemingly new phenomenon. Usually, these Alphas tended to be scientists as well. Scientists in search of the truth about themselves and, eventually, their children. Saber's parents, his mother and his father, were both Alphas, powerful Alphas. At that time they were the most powerful Alphas that I ever had the opportunity to work with. We were... we were quite close the three of us. Melissa, Saber's mother, was a geneticist. She was so determined to learn everything that she could about the cause of the genetic changes we had observed in all the Alphas we studied. I didn't realize the reason for her devotion to that course of study lay in the fact that she was terrified for the future of any children she might have."

Rosen shook his head as he wearily took a seat behind his desk. He seemed to have aged ten years in the past ten minutes. "Saber's father, Maxim, didn't understand the need for our studies. The only reason he ever consented to work with us was because of Melissa. He loved her to the point of obssession, would do anything for her. But he never really trusted us, or anything we were doing."

"Turns out he was right wasn't he?"

Saber spoke suddenly from his perch at the window across the room. Try as he might, he couldn't disguise the bitterness in his voice. Even after all these years, the loss of his father cut like a knife. Maxim was the one person he had always known loved him unconditionally, the one person who had been willing to sacrifice everything for him. He jumped to his feet and began to prowl the room so he wouldn't be tempted to punch the glass out of the window and then use the same splinter filled, bloody fists to pound Rosen's face into a new shape.

Rosen at least had the decency to look embarrassed. Maybe the bastard had finally grown a conscience. So Saber went on, ruthlessly squashing the pain that inevitably accompanied memories of his father.

"Let me put a quick end to this tragic retelling of the story of my early life. My mother was basically a government guinea pig. Rosen says she was a geneticist, others have described her as a genius, but she was naive to the point of stupidity. She thought the people she called friends and colleagues, the people she had worked with, lived with, eaten with would give a shit about her and her baby.

Unfortunately for all of us, she was dead wrong. When she got pregnant, she became their living Alpha experiment. At first they let her keep playing house with my dad, then she had to move to a medical facility for her own good and the safety of her unborn child. My dad was allowed to visit her for a few months after her voluntary incarceration... until they started pumping her full of drugs and God knows what else against her will. All in the name of science."

Saber made sure he looked each one of his new team members in the eye as he spoke.

"My mother didn't survive my birth so I never knew her. Rosen and his ilk forced my dad to become as much a prisoner as my mother had been just so he could be with me and protect me. Just so he could be a real father. He died in their clutches too ... that's when I got the hell out of the torture chamber that I was forced to call home for fifteen years. I've been on my own ever since."

He smiled at Rosen, but there was an ice cold fury and hatred in his eyes that made Rachel shiver.

"I swore I would never come back. I think I may even have yelled something along the lines of, "You'll never take me alive!" when I ran for the hills. What a stupid kid I was all those years ago. Now here I am again. Back home. Be still my beating heart."

He crossed the room to stare out the window at the unfathomable night that shielded so many eyes and secrets.

"What a fool I was. You never really let me go, did you Rosen? You could have come get me any time you wanted. Hence my presence here today."

Saber didn't see any of the reactions of the other Alphas, or Rosen for that matter. He was so wrapped up in his memories. The unforgettable sight of his father's dead eyes.

He jerked a little when he felt the soft touch on his shoulder. When he turned it was the Pusher. Nina. There was so much sadness and empathy in her eyes he had to force himself not to look away.

"It's gonna be different this time, Saber. You won't be powerless. We're more than a team, we're a family and we protect our own."

Hicks wasn't far behind her, holding out his hand to Saber.

"Welcome to the team, Saber. I can't say it'll be easy, but you'll always have people at your back."

Bill gave him a wave and a slight smile from his seat across the room.

"You're alright with me...until you aren't."

Beside him Gary's fingers painted the air.

"That means he's your friend. Almost. Bill doesn't really like anyone. Except his wife. And me. Most of the time. When Bill is in a bad mood no-one is his friend."

Saber couldn't help his grin at that point.

"As long as you consider me a friend, Gary."

"I always liked you. You have honest eyes. I knew I could trust you. Even when Bill said he couldn't find anything on you, so you must be dirty, just good at hiding it."

Rachel still had made no move toward him he noticed. Like a nervous bird she hovered in the corner, observing everything, staying just out of it. He tried. He really did try to stay out of her mind, but if the mountain wouldn't go to Mohammed ...

"How about you, little hummingbird? Can we be friends?"

His whisper danced along her mind as he smiled slightly, his eyes on her face, willing her eyes to meet his. His smile widened when her wide, startled eyes jerked up to meet his laughing ones.

"What are you doing!"

She thought at him. He just smiled and held up a finger to his lips briefly.

"Our little secret. Tell no-one ... and I might let you in on it. Later. Alone."