Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed.

Alex went back to helping Moira move glass panels up to the lawn, the physical activity—and the fact that the glass panels tended to bite painfully into unprotected skin every time he lost focus—distracting him from what he'd seen, but the look on Erik's face remained firmly imprinted in his mind. When Charles and Moira finally declared that they'd brought up enough glass panels to give Sean another few days' worth of targets, he took the opportunity to escape up to his room. His excuse was that he needed to clean up before dinner, which wasn't entirely untrue given the grime from the panels that had rubbed off on his hands and clothes, but it wasn't something that he'd have thought twice about beyond sticking his hands under the faucet for a few seconds on a normal day either, and he had a feeling that Charles knew that. Then again, Charles had been looking at him strangely for the past few days anyway, asking how he was and all that. Hopefully he'd just assume that this was more of the same.

Alex scrubbed off his hands, brushed at the dirt on his shirt and jeans a few times before deciding that he'd done enough, and then rinsed his hands once more and headed for his room, flinging himself down on his bed. Erik. Afraid. Of dogs.

The last was almost an afterthought, putting 'afraid' and 'Erik' in the same sentence relation to anything was the hard part for him to reconcile. Well, okay, putting 'afraid' and 'Erik' in a sentence in the context of someone being afraid of Erik he could see no problem, hell, Erik seemed to enjoy intimidating people. But Erik himself being afraid just didn't seem possible.

He had some time before dinner, and after a few minutes of staring at the ceiling, Alex rolled back to his feet and wandered down to the library. It was deserted, which wasn't really a surprise given the time of day. After dinner was a different story since that's when Erik and Charles took themselves off to play chess or discuss world events or whatever it was that they did, but right now it was safe enough. Sean had already informed him that Charles didn't have any comics, which hadn't come as a great surprise, and he wasn't about to touch anything bound in leather and what probably wasn't real gold lettering but that he was a little afraid to look too closely at, but he had seen a couple shelves of paperbacks tucked off to one side. Something there was bound to be a decent distraction.

By the time the intercom crackled to life an hour or two later, Raven's voice summoning him and the others to the kitchen, he'd more than half convinced himself that he'd imagined everything. It just…it didn't make sense. This was Erik he was talking about. Except then, a few minutes after he'd taken a seat at the table, Erik walked—well, stalked—past him to take a seat at the other end without even a glance in his direction, and the certainty that he hadn't returned.

"Alex."

Alex swiveled as his name registered, and Sean frowned at him. "Could I have the potatoes, please?"

"Oh. Yeah, sure. " Alex picked up the bowl of potatoes that had somehow appeared at his elbow and passed it over to him.

"Man, that was like the third time that I asked you. What planet are you on?"

"Sorry, I was just…thinking." He shrugged and then realized belatedly as the potatoes moved on to Moira on Sean's other side that he hadn't taken any for himself. Too late now, though. If he asked for them back, it would only draw more attention to his distraction. Besides, they were bound to come back around eventually. If Hank didn't clean the bowl, first, anyway; on the days that Raven cooked, he always asked for second helpings of everything and complimented everything even if there was no reason to. It wasn't that she was a bad cook or anything—she was certainly better than Alex was—it was just that Hank was kind of hopeless when it came to flirting, and on a normal day Alex would have been holding back snickers and matching eye-rolls with Sean.

Today, though, Alex was just grateful that Hank and Charles monopolized most of the meal with talk about some new brilliant idea for an invention because he wasn't up to holding much of a conversation, and afterwards, he escaped up to his room before anyone could grab him. Normally he would have been happy enough to join Sean and Raven and whoever else in front of the television set, but the odds of any news show holding his attention were pretty nonexistent, and they were bound to notice.

He stretched out on his bed again with a sigh, staring up at the ceiling for a few minutes, and then frowned. He should have grabbed at least one of the books from the library. Charles wouldn't mind, especially since Alex still wasn't about to touch the expensive-looking ones, and not that he was a geek or anything, but despite the crappiness of both the juvie and prison libraries, reading had been one of the few things that he'd been able to do in solitary to keep himself from going crazy. Flipping through the ones here had worked okay to take his mind off things earlier, too.

He pushed himself upright again. Raven had cooked, which from their rough schedule meant that it was Charles' turn to clean so he should be able to get the books he wanted before Charles and Erik took over the library for the night.

At least he could find the library now without help, and when he opened the door and glanced around quickly, he saw neither Erik nor Charles, so he went in and let the door shut behind him. There had been a couple on the shelf under the window that had looked interesting…. He found two of the travel memoirs that he'd been flipping through earlier—way less boring than they sounded since they were about tramping through the jungle—and he'd just pulled out a couple of what looked like adventure books when he felt the prickling sensation between his shoulder blades of being watched. He dropped the books back on the shelf and spun around quickly.

Either his first cursory examination of the room had been lacking or Erik had come in silently because now that Alex was looking directly into one of the half-lighted nooks on the far side of the room, he could just barely make out Erik's form in one of the chairs, even if his features were still in shadow. "Oh. Hi," Alex said after a minute.

Not exactly the most creative greeting, and Erik remained silent.

"I'm just…getting a book." Erik. Afraid. Of dogs. No. He barely refrained from a visible shake of his head. He was not going there. He was especially not going there when Erik was right in front of him. He turned and picked up all four of the books he'd dropped without looking at them. "Excuse me."

Erik didn't say anything as he exited the library, and while he managed a smile and a nod when Charles passed him on his way to the staircase at the end of the hall, he kind of doubted that either had been very convincing. He made it the rest of the way back to his room without encountering any of the others, though, and with a sigh, he threw himself into one of the chairs by the window and opened the book on the top of his stack. Which, as he'd thought, was an adventure book. Unfortunately, it was an adventure book about a pack of dogs in the wilderness. Of course it was. "What the hell?"

He groaned and set the book aside. Firmly. And made sure that the next book that he selected was one of the travel memoirs which was good and safe and whatever because there shouldn't be any dogs wandering around in the jungle. The fact was that even if it was true, nothing that Erik felt about dogs was any of Alex's business. If he had any brains at all, he'd find a way to put the whole thing out of his mind—and make sure it stayed out of his mind—and keep his mouth shut unless Erik said something. Which, given that he hadn't seen much of Erik lately, was pretty damn unlikely.

The next day started with the usual run around the grounds, and Alex hid a wince as Charles pulled alongside him on the final lap. Charles didn't look like much of a runner, but he could move faster than most people would think, and if he was pacing Alex, it was because he had something to say.

"Hey," Alex greeted, mostly because ignoring Charles wouldn't work, for once hoping that Charles was going to say something about his training.

"Hello," Charles returned. "A lovely morning, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Alex had never met anyone else—well, besides the occasional old lady—who could call a day 'lovely' and not sound like an idiot doing it, but somehow Charles managed.

"As I was saying the other day, I've noticed that you've been rather quiet lately, and you went up to bed rather early last night. Are you quite sure that you're all right?"

"I'm fine. And I didn't really go to bed that early, I just borrowed one of your books. Well, a couple of your books. I hope that's okay."

"Oh, of course, you're welcome to borrow any book that interests you. But I hadn't realized that reading was part of your usual nightly routine."

Charles tilted his head, and Alex shrugged. And hoped that Charles wasn't actively reading his mind.

"Really, Professor, I'm fine. I just…I was in solitary for a while so I'm kind of used to being on my own most of the time, and I just needed a break." It was as good an excuse as any, and it wasn't as though he hadn't been in solitary for months at a stretch, after all.

"Mm." Charles nodded slightly, although Alex couldn't tell if he actually believed him or not. "Well, if there's anything that you'd like to talk about, I'm always available."

"Yeah, sure. Thanks."

They made the final turn in silence and started back towards the mansion. "Hank says that he's made a great deal of progress with the targeting system for your suit. Do you think you'll be ready for another trial run in a day or two?"

"Yeah, sure," Alex repeated, glad of the turn in conversation. Not that he was really all that eager to model more mutilated dinnerware given that there was still a sore spot on the back of his head from the last attempt—and he had no idea what Charles meant by his suit—but better that than the previous subject of conversation. Besides, he had been hanging around Hank's lab letting the guy measure and tweak and whatever lately. It made sense that he'd want to do another full test soon, and he was smart enough to know that Alex was a lot less likely to refuse the professor than him. Well, okay, Alex probably wouldn't have refused him this time given that Hank had been letting him hang around, but Hank didn't necessarily know that.

They slowed up as they approached the front door and headed inside for breakfast, and Alex was glad that Charles once again switched topics, this time asking about the book that Alex had picked up. It was a much safer topic than plasma blast practice, certainly safer than his current state of distraction, and best of all, Alex had read enough of the memoir to discuss it reasonably intelligently.

Alex breathed out, lowering the weights to his chest. He'd been late getting to the weight set today since Hank had ambushed him after breakfast for the testing that Charles had mentioned, down in the metal bunker, but he'd still found it free. Not really a surprise considering that there were a grand total of seven people here.

Today's test had included not only the chest plate but the return of the wires that went on Alex's forehead, and it hadn't gone so great—three more incinerated dummies and two more used-up fire extinguishers—but Alex hadn't been flung headfirst into anything metal, so he figured that it was an improvement over the last time. And Hank had seemed happy with whatever readings his instruments had given him, or at least Hank had wandered back to his lab muttering about recoil and displacement whatever, completely oblivious to what was going on around him, which Alex took to mean that he was pleased.

Up. And down. And up. And down. Charles and Moira were going into town later today to stock up on supplies and send another report to the CIA, and he was debating whether or not to go along with them. Sean was going since apparently there was some issue of Captain America that was supposed prove that Captain America could beat Batman and thus make him the victor in their argument, even if Alex didn't believe him, but aside from that, it wasn't like Alex had any real reason to go. He didn't have any money to spend on anything, and while eating Charles' food and sleeping in his house was one thing—at least the food and the furniture and everything were just there and there wasn't any embarrassing discussion about it—he wasn't about to go asking to borrow actual money like a little kid. Especially since he didn't see any way to pay it back in the near future. And he wasn't sure that trapping himself in a car with Charles for an hour or two was a great idea either.

He finished the set and racked the weights, pushing himself up and snagging his towel before it could fall. Whatever he decided, between the plasma blast and the weightlifting, he needed to grab a shower. It didn't take long to switch the weights back and wipe things down, and then he headed out into the hall. And only narrowly avoiding running directly into Erik.

"Hey," he greeted after a moment of silence.

Stare.

Right. This was Erik.

"I'm done with the weights if you wanted to use them," he said with a wave at the door he'd left standing open behind him. "I need to go shower and let Charles know that I want to go into town with them later." Hopefully he didn't sound as awkward as he felt, but hey, at least he'd made a decision about going into town. Erik didn't make any sign of acknowledgement, and he was tempted to turn around and in walk the other direction down the hall, but that would have been just a little bit obvious so he nodded slightly and started to walk past Erik. And froze when Erik's hand caught his elbow.

Erik's attention was on his arm, and Alex winced when he realized that Erik was looking at the bruise around his bicep, currently an ugly yellow-green. He'd been trying to keep it covered, but he'd removed the sleeves on most of his workout clothes right after he'd gotten them, and while running was doable in other stuff as long as he was wearing tennis shoes and not going all-out, weightlifting wasn't.

"This happened last week?" Erik demanded.

"Yeah, when the dog…." And Alex was an idiot because if there was one thing that he hadn't planned to bring up around Erik, it was dogs. He didn't even attempt to finish the sentence.

Erik released his arm and turned abruptly. "Come."

Way back when he'd decided that saying 'hell, no' to Erik was a bad idea, but right now he was really, really tempted.