A/N: Just 'cause I love you guys, and you've all been asking, and it seemed like a nice time to introduce a new POV ;)

Also, I feel compelled to put another warning, but like…where there is Wolf, there will be naughty words, so expect that from now on.

ALSO ALSO ALSO READ READ READ: WANNA SEE SOME FANART OF THESE CHARACTERS THAT MAKES ME SO INCREDIBLY HAPPY AND ECSTATIC AND THANKFUL? Go to Deviantart and search jojo25102. It's INCREDIBLE. And AMAZING. And it brings me JOY! Please if you have an account and you like the work, comment to let her know! She's so awesome!

PS The new cover illustration is hers, too!

Enjoy :)

"He did what?" Lion asked, familiar exasperation and worry buzzing in his head before he remembered that Alex was safe and on his way back. Lion saw similar looks of surprise on Bear and Tiger's faces, and as much chaos as Alex seemed to attract, Lion just couldn't stop being surprised. "He broke your mirror?"

"Oh, well, that was one of the simpler things to fix," Eagle said, glancing at Lion from where he was folding the sheets from the pull-out bed Alex had been using. Maybe from the look on Lion's face he realized that was the wrong thing to say, because he blanched a little. "Um—yeah."

"What else happened?" Tiger asked, eyes glazed but attentive as he sat in one of their armchairs, still suffering a couple of side effects from a nasty concussion. He'd been a little too close to an explosion and had been tossed into a brick wall—they were lucky only his head had been hurt, and even luckier that he had a thick skull.

"Well—I mean, do you want it chronologically, or—"

"Stop talking," Wolf sighed, turning to us. "Eagle's making it sound worse than it is. Nothing awful happened." Wolf blinked, then looked away, considering. "Well—"

"Lord, I dunno why I let them do anythin'," Snake finally said, rolling his eyes. "There were some mishaps, but in the end everyone's fine, and nothin' happened that can't be fixed. He did have a wee infuriatin' habit of disappearing, but he was fine every time, so no harm done. The second one was a bit of a bigger scare, because he wandered off in London, but that was alright, too. It was after a particularly bad therapy appointment, too, so some slack is deserved."

Lion winced, unfounded guilt humming to life in his chest. He knew, logically, that it wasn't his fault he hadn't been here to help Alex through it this time, but he also remembered the startlingly blank look on his face after his last appointment. He remembered the tension in his shoulders, the look in his eyes. He didn't imagine it had gone any better this time round, especially without him or Tiger or Bear to talk him through it.

"We found him, and everythin' was fine, of course," Snake reiterated, and Lion forced himself back to the conversation, nervous energy buzzing in his toes at the thought of Alex alone on the freezing streets of London. He fingered the watch heavy around his wrist, and wondered if Alex could have used it. "He and Fox had a massive fight—" Heat, angry and protective, coiled quickly in Lion's chest—"but they made up. I think they're better than they were, now. Dunno what the fight was about, though," Snake said, turning to Wolf.

Wolf shrugged, looking unconcerned. Lion had the feeling that was the norm, for him. "Something about Fox being upset that Cub refused to let people help him, and Alex being upset that Fox thought he couldn't do it on his own, or something. I dunno, they were speaking in bloody riddles most of the time."

No, that sounded right. Lion sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. "Christ," he whispered, genuinely invoking the patience of Jesus Christ himself, because he wouldn't be able to get through this without divine intervention.

"Right. Well, they're fine now. He had a particularly awful flashback at the mall—Fox said it took him several minutes to pull him out of it, and even then he wasn't breathing right—but again, everything's fine now. He punched the mirror in the bathroom that same day, but he never did say why, though I have a few guesses."

Eagle took up the mantle, then, and Lion wondered how there could possibly be more. "Then—and this was not his fault at all, by the way, and he handled it gloriously—Fox's shit mother came round without warning and Cub verbally demolished her, which was a thing of utter beauty. Then he disappeared again, but only for a few minutes, and he was alright afterwards. Now he and Fox are out—doing something? Christmas shopping? Fox knows to wait to bring him back, so they're probably just killing time now. He needed it as much as Cub."

"Oh, I have a question," Wolf cut in, eyes sharpening, before Lion could even begin to digest all of that. "Does he bloody eat with you?"

Lion blinked at the abrupt question, glancing to Bear and Tiger. Sure, Alex didn't eat much, especially for a young man his age, but Lion just figured it was a metabolism thing. He hadn't ever been particularly concerned, except for the days he barely ate anything at all. Usually, it was a side effect of some other issue, and once they fixed that, he ate.

Bear looked just as clueless as him—furrowed eyes, flat lips, and genuine confusion and concern. Lion's eyes slid to Tiger, though, and despite the concussion, his friend's face was turned down in a scowl of displeasure. Concern, too, but primarily displeasure.

"Um…he never eats much, but he eats, yeah. Tiger?"

Tiger scrubbed a hand lightly at his head, and Lion wanted to let his friend rest, but this question obviously needed answering. "In the Czech hospital, when I was staying with him. Dr. Svoboda said he was underweight. Alex admitted that he skipped meals a lot, just because he wasn't hungry, but he said it wasn't intentional, and I believed him. I thought he was getting better," he said with a glance in Snake's direction.

"No, definitely not," Snake said, shaking his head. "He barely ate at all if we didn't force him. It was like pulling teeth. I gave him some advice this morning on how to handle it all, and he said he'd try it, but keep an eye on him."

Lion nodded, dread pooling in his gut. He really thought Alex would be okay with them gone, but apparently there were things he hadn't accounted for.

"Fox just texted. They just parked," Wolf said, glancing up from his phone. "D'you want o stay for dinner? I made a shit ton in case."

Lion was tempted to say no so they could get home, but Tiger's head was settled firmly in his hands in obvious pain, and he wanted to give his friend some rest before they drove the hour back to Cookham. "That would be great, thank you."

Wolf grunted what Lion assumed was an affirmative and retreated to the kitchen, followed by Bear, who'd been complaining about how hungry he was for the past bloody hour. Tiger was still out of it, so Eagle offered to get him some pain meds, and Lion pulled Snake aside after a significant look in his direction.

"Did he try anything?" Lion asked quietly, cold, heavy anticipation in his gut. His mind flashed to the image of Alex half-dead, covered in his own blood and bruises on his couch, pale and cold and still, in the aftermath of the assassin and that bridge.

Lion had weighed the decision heavily, so heavily that he broke his limit for cigarettes that day from the stress alone, but he decided he had to tell Snake about Alex's suicide attempt. He knew, he knew Alex didn't want anyone to know about it, but Lion could not and would not leave him alone without someone else knowing, just in case something happened and he tried again. It had barely been a month, after all—recovery took far longer, and while he trusted Alex and his promise, Lion couldn't trust the world in which Alex lived and the things haunting him.

It wasn't as though he and Snake were particularly close, and Lion had been more than a little uncomfortable at first. He'd asked Snake to meet him nearby after he'd come over once to help Bear with Alex's physical therapy, but the man had been surprisingly gracious about the whole thing. Lion mostly chose Snake because Alex mentioned he liked the man well enough, and although he'd dealt with Wolf and Fox in the past, Lion had his reservations about the two of them—Wolf didn't seem like the type of man to tiptoe, no matter what the situation, and Lion still didn't completely trust Fox, after Alex's first reaction. Lion didn't know much of anything about Eagle, and that left Snake, who was mild-tempered and calm enough for Lion to convince himself he could know about Alex's decidedly fragile mindset, no matter what the kid said.

"No," Snake said seriously, and Lion felt something in him break in relief. "He didn't try anythin', but I'm really glad ye told me, because some of the signs are textbook," he continued, and that cold dread began to simmer again. "Sleepin' schedule's all over the place, he barely eats, and he definitely mentioned feeling like a burden a few times, which is one of the most concernin'. Besides that, I'm sure there's a lot of trauma that we don't know about," Snake continued with a glance towards the door, "and we can't help with what we don't know."

Lion took a deep, steadying breath, and shoved his hands in his pockets when he felt his hands twitch in desire for another cigarette. "I was afraid of that."

After Bear had opened up to him and Tiger about his fleeting suicidal thoughts as a teenager, Lion had gone a little overboard in his research—he wanted to be prepared for anything, just in case. He knew all the major warning signs by heart, knew some strategies to support the individual, everything, but every shred of it felt so inadequate, so irrelevant, when he thought of Alex.

Alex was a mystery wrapped inside a puzzle, hidden deep inside concrete walls forged from trauma after trauma. Every time he let something slip, revealed something else, it only left Lion and the others with more questions. Lion thought he was doing a good job of keeping it from showing, but he was getting sick of not knowing who to go after.

Lion didn't consider himself a vengeful person. He'd never actively wanted to seek out his father for revenge, those drunkards who'd threatened his sister, his mother who'd left them…he didn't think he'd wanted to actively pursue any retaliation against those people in his life. But Alex obviously hadn't had anyone to protect him, just like Lion, and—Lion just didn't want—Lion didn't want him to feel alone anymore, was all, because Lion knew that feeling, and it burned.

He'd always had Angelica, but when they were runaways, skipping between relatives who weren't much better off than they were, he'd tried to burden her as little as possible, and that forged a certain loneliness of a child given too much. He didn't ever want his little sister to carry that weight, and he wanted to take some of it from Alex, now.

But Alex was so stubborn. For good reason, Lion was gathering, but so stubborn, and so afraid. Lion didn't know what he could do with the knowledge he had, because everything Alex did was so unconventional, it was taking everything he had to keep up.

"He's going to need a lot of support," Snake said, confirming Lion's worries. "I figure ye lot will be fine, and we'll try to make an effort to be on standby, but I really think he needs therapy or medication, probably both."

"He has medication, he just doesn't take it," Lion grumbled, dragging a hand down his face. He was exhausted. "He doesn't like the way it makes him feel."

Snake's eyes narrowed. "That's not good."

"Yeah," Lion agreed. "I'll…we'll talk to him. See what we can convince him to try. I just…he's drilled himself to resolutely into keeping his secrets that I don't know if any therapist would even help," Lion admitted, voicing his worries for the first time in a while. Bear and Tiger knew, but they hadn't spoken about it in a while. "I don't know if that will work."

Snake sighed, looking away and scraping a hand over his head. "I don't either," he admitted. "But he's a lot more likely to listen to you than to us. I think we're all fine now, but it was rough at the beginnin', especially after how poorly trainin' went."

Yeah, Lion still wanted that story, but he was willing to let old ills rest for now. "Alright. I'll let you know."

Snake nodded with a calm smile and they returned to the living room, where Tiger had finally given in to lying down on the couch. Eagle was glancing worriedly at the other soldier as he flipped distractedly through a magazine. "Okay?" Lion asked, familiar concern narrowing his vision.

Tiger waved a flippant hand, the other arm thrown over his eyes. "Bloody bright. And spinning."

Lion hummed in dissatisfaction, but accepted the explanation. It hadn't been a major concussion, but Tiger had never had the best constitution, even with how much he worked out. "Take it easy, alright?" Tiger grunted in affirmation.

Lion wandered into the kitchen to check on Bear as Snake started talking quietly to Eagle about an engagement. Lion found Bear talking Wolf's ear off about something on the mission, while Wolf glared at a pot on the stove.

"Bear," Lion interrupted with an exasperated smile. "I'm sure he's trying to cook."

Bear, whose face was stuffed with half a bagel, glanced at Wolf with wide eyes, as if he'd just realized he'd been ranting for six minutes. "Oh, sorry."

"S'fine. It's nothing compared to Eagle when he gets going," Wolf responded without looking up, shimmying something around on the pan in front of him. Lion didn't consider himself a cooking expert, despite what his unitmates insisted, but he couldn't deny whatever was in Wolf's pan looked damn good.

"See? It's fine," Bear said, taking another ungodly bite of bagel. "I was telling him about the landmine in Iran. Remember, the one that Ell triggered?"

Familiar, time-shorn grief hummed to life, but Lion smiled, pleased that they were finally able to talk about Ell without the insurmountable pain from at first. Lion didn't particularly like to remember the period of time just after Elliot's death—it had nearly torn them apart—but now that time had dulled the edges, it was nice to remember his friend. "I remember. Bloody idiot was trying to skip rocks on the sand. I thought the commanding officer was going to skin him alive."

Bear laughed and continued on with the story, and Lion was thankful to know that he could talk about Elliot now, in a positive light, as well. Even with Tiger and Elliot's friendship, Bear had still taken his death the hardest, since Ell had died saving him.

"What're you making?" Lion asked when Bear finally stopped to breathe.

Wolf flicked blank eyes in his direction. "Stir fry. The brat said he liked it."

"He does," Lion agreed with a smile, watching the soy sauce glaze over the onions and fried egg. The pot held rice, which looked almost done. "That looks good."

Wolf grunted in acknowledgement, and Lion was glad he wasn't the type to get easily offended, after being friends with Tiger for so long. "Cub said you cook too," Wolf said nonchalantly, and the use of actual words from the gruff man almost surprised Lion. Wolf fluffed the rice and scooped it into the simmering glaze, steam billowing from the pan as he did so. "He tried to make breakfast this morning. It was halfway decent."

Lion smiled, feeling fond, and really couldn't wait to lay eyes on the kid himself. He flicked eyes towards Bear as he polished off the bagel and went to pester Tiger about something. "Yeah, he likes cooking, as long as it's simple stuff." Wolf didn't respond, flipping the contents of the pan in rapid succession to evenly coat the rice. God, Lion had missed real food. He hated MREs. "So…Wolf, how was he? I already spoke to Snake, but Alex said you…worked together, before."

Wolf glanced at him and shrugged. "How much did he tell you?"

"Just that you worked together, after he was Cub," Lion said carefully. "He didn't tell us much else, and I'm not asking for that. Just…you knew him before, so I was wondering if you…noticed anything. That we should worry about."

"Well, how much fucking time do you have?" Wolf muttered, and Lion blinked in surprise. "I worked with him nearly two years ago, and not for very long, but he was a lot better than how he is now. I dunno what the bloody hell happened in between, but he's barely the same kid."

Lion felt his shoulders sink. "Really?"

Wolf nodded, reducing the heat on the pan to simmer and turned to chop some chives with smooth, quick movements. "Still a spitfire with the best of them when you get him going, still far too sarcastic for his own good, but something or someone fucked him up. I have a good idea of who it was, too," he continued with a scowl, "but there's not much we can do about that."

Lion barely kept himself from asking for a name, hands fisting in his pockets.

"He's skittish as hell. He was quiet before, but he was practically a ghost at the beginning. And I dunno if it's been diagnosed or whatever, but from what Snake and Fox said about his flashbacks, he's got some pretty fucking bad PTSD. So, yeah."

Lion sighed, familiar unease in his blood. It reminded him of the first few months after Angelica went off to college—the startling wrongness, the surprising uncertainty of day to day life without a specific person who should be there but wasn't. That was how he felt on this mission without Alex—while he was more than happy to keep the kid out of harm's way (he didn't really know how he'd cope when he was expected to bring Alex on more missions, but that was a problem for later) he missed him, and was unsettled knowing he wasn't there to help Alex if things went wrong.

"But he's a strong kid," Wolf said, his voice tense with forced nonchalance, punctuated with a dismissive shrug that couldn't hide the spark of pride in his eye. "I guess we'll figure it out."

"We?" Lion let slip before he could censor himself, surprised by that from Wolf, of all people. Granted, he hardly knew the intricacies of his personality, but it was unexpected, nonetheless.

Wolf glanced his way, unimpressed as he upended the cutting board into the stir fry, chives sizzling in the glaze before Wolf cut the heat completely. "He's in my unit too, dumbarse."

"Aw, Wolf called you dumbarse," Eagle said from the doorway, and Lion felt his heart skip a beat in familiar panic at the unexpected male voice before he quenched the feeling, reminding himself steadily that this was not his childhood home, and his father was not here. "That's a term of endearment around here—shit, Wolf, I was kidding! Good thing you have shit aim."

Lion blinked in surprise, almost missing the onion Wolf chucked at Eagle. "I missed on purpose. Evie would kill me if you had a bruised face for your engagement photos."

Lion had to physically bite back a snort at the way Eagle's face drained of color. "Congratulations," Lion offered at the mention of the engagement. He figured that must've been what he and Snake were talking about earlier.

"Oh, well, I'm proposing on Christmas, so it hasn't happened yet, but we'll see," Eagle said, fingers fidgeting as he scoured the fridge, ignoring Wolf's muttered complaint that dinner was literally almost ready. "Thanks, though."

"You'll be fine, idiot," Wolf muttered.

Eagle hummed.

Silence persisted. Lion was almost uncomfortable with the amount of time it did so, and he almost said something about the weather just to get something going before Eagle said, "By the way, Cub nearly lived in your sweatshirt," with a grin bordering on teasing.

Lion blinked. "Really?"

"God, he only took the damn thing off to wash it," Wolf chimed in, draining a pot into a huge bowl on the counter, and Lion supposed he'd missed the simmering pot of miso soup in the back, but he wasn't complaining.

Lion chucked despite himself, pleasant warmth in his chest. He hummed in response when he realized he should give one, almost lost in his thoughts.

He was glad he'd been able to give Alex something comforting even if he hadn't been here to do it himself, and the thought was refreshing.

Thinking about it, Lion had no idea how Alex had come to mean so much to him.

It wasn't like Lion was frugal with his emotions. Watching Alex so carefully guard his heart was like looking into a mirror to watch his past self. For a long, long time, Angelica was the only one he could stand, and healing took a long time. Lion had too many experiences in which people left, or ignored, or forgot. He couldn't count the number of poker buddies who ignored his father's obvious abuse, the number of teachers who ignored the bruises and the withdrawal, the number of passing adults who could see his skin, see Angelica's skin, and did nothing.

He remembered once, in high school, for a fleeting moment, he thought someone was on his side when his basketball coach saw the cigarette burns on his shoulders while he was changing out, but Lion would come to find later that he hadn't done anything. Had asked if Lion was okay, if everything was alright at home, but had never filed a report.

Lion—Daniel—had eventually grown exhausted of the scathing pendulum of hope and disappointment, so he stopped hoping. He stopped hoping for a rescue and started planning for an escape, because at thirteen, it was very easy to realize that no one gave a shit about two random kids in a bad house among the millions of kids in bad houses.

He remembered cutting neighbors' grass and sweeping and dusting at the local mom and pop grocery store to scrape together some savings, so one day he could give Angelica something more than the shithole they'd grown up in, and he remembered coming home one day to find his father counting the bills he'd stashed in his mattress and thanking Daniel for the booze money. Then he'd broken his nose for hiding it from him.

Lion had never felt as trapped and hopeless as he did in that moment, and that was a turning point for him, when it came to other people—he was viscerally aware of the fact, for the first time since his hope started to wan, that no one cared, and no one would.

He felt that way until he was fourteen and he threw himself into an empty music room to talk himself through a panic attack, coming face to face with a scuffed, forlorn piano, rays of broken sunlight illuminating the dust particles in the air and the obvious disuse of the room.

It became a haven at school, and he liked to mess around on the piano and teach himself simple melodies, until one of the music teachers—Ms. Ackerman, a young teacher with black hair and almond eyes, with a kind smile and endless patience, heard him one day and offered to teach him.

He never told her. He couldn't stand the disappointment, so he never told her, but he wondered some days if things would've been different if he had.

But he didn't. He learned the piano, which was still one of his favorite things today, and it relieved stress like nothing else. He didn't have one of his own, but the pastor at his church let him play the church piano after services when no one was around. Still, when he was a kid, a piano could only do so much.

He didn't know when he'd stopped closing himself off so tightly to others, but he knew it had taken a long, long time, and it was something he was still working on. He'd figured out somewhere along the way that he was something between asexual and demisexual—he really didn't know which, yet—but he wanted a partner, someone to share his life with, and it had been a painfully fruitless journey, because he just couldn't make himself open up to someone that completely. It had ruined more than a couple tentative relationships, and Lion was truly scared that this disdain for intimacy and anything other than blood-won trust would never fade.

The was why he valued the platonic relationships in his life so much, even if they took years and years to solidify.

Alex was an enigma, because it had taken precious little time for Lion to realize if anything ever happened to that kid, he'd come undone.

It was just like the all-consuming protectiveness he felt for Angelica, for Tiger and Bear. The sight of their blood made him dizzy before he got a hold of himself, and their pain was his pain, and he truly didn't understand how Alex had taken so little time to draw that feeling out of whatever box Lion shoved it into.

Maybe it was because Lion saw himself in Alex, a kid far too young to carry the monsters he did, and he knew that no one had been there for him. He knew that was part of it.

Lion supposed the rest of it didn't matter much, though. He cared about Alex, more than he thought he would, and right now, all that mattered was finding a way to help him through whatever he was facing.

"We couldn't find him a hoodie at the store, so I gave him one of my old ones," he responded after a long moment, trying to hone back into the conversation. "It's huge on him, but it's the only one I had extra."

"It's a dress," Eagle responded with a grin.

Lion snorted. "Maybe."

Lion was glad Alex liked it, though.

"They just parked downstairs," Wolf said with a glance at his phone, sliding the stir fry into a huge dish and setting it on the counter. "Eagle, make yourself useful and get the plates out. Go get your brat," Wolf threw to Lion.

Lion had to laugh, meandering back to the living room to wait, more than ready to lay eyes on Alex for himself. It had been a shitty mission—nowhere near the worst, but definitely not the best—and it hadn't been any easier knowing Alex wasn't with anyone Lion strictly trusted. Though Snake seemed like a good guy. They all did, but Lion was more inclined to trust Snake.

"Alex is on his way up," Lion threw to Bear, who was texting one of the kids from the youth center about one of his assignments, looking pleased, and Tiger, who was inches away from sleeping. The comment woke him up, though, and he sat up gingerly, a hand on his forehead.

"Stay sitting," Lion tried, but was promptly ignored.

"I'm fine, seriously," Tiger said, and Snake tossed Lion a knowing smile. Lion supposed being the medic for Wolf, he had to put up with plenty of stubbornness. "Let's grab the runt and some food and go so I can sleep."

Lion was going to say something else, but was interrupted by the sound of the door opening. Fox came in first, with an almost pleasant smile and a nod behind him, and there was Alex, lost predictably in his thoughts.

Lion's first thought was that he was pale—far paler than when he'd left—and he wondered it that was from lack of food or sleep or both. The next was that there were bandages wrapped around his right hand, and Lion assumed they were from when he'd punched the mirror. He was walking with a slight limp, but he looked totally at ease without his crutch, which was a huge improvement in and of itself.

That was the extent of his once over before Bear tackled the kid. "Alex! Aw, mate, we missed you! The mission wasn't nearly as fun without our double oh seven."

Lion caught the brief look of panic over Bear's shoulder before Alex's mind caught up with his surroundings, and a sun-bright grin stretched over his face, making him seem a lot younger than he actually was. "I thought you weren't going to be back until later!"

Lion was quick to go forward, pulling Alex in for a careful hug once Bear finally let him go. Fox scooted around us to give us some room, but Lion barely paid him any mind as he felt something tight and tense loosen in his chest. "Yeah, we came back a little early, thought we'd surprise you. You been okay? Any incidents, scuffles, whatever?"

Of course, Lion knew there had been, but he didn't want Alex to think they'd been going through his business without him. The immediate embarrassment colored his cheeks and he looked away. "Um…"

"I knew it!" Tiger shouted, punching Bear in the bad hard enough to draw a wince from him. "I knew it. Bear, you owe me seventy bloody quid, you cheapskate. Alex, what'd you do? Depending on the circumstances, I get more money."

Well, Lion was glad to see Tiger looked a little livelier, anyways. Lion was surprised to feel Alex lean into his side as he watched Tiger and Bear bicker about the intricacies of their bet, but he wasn't complaining. He'd been starting to think Alex would never be comfortable with physical contact besides a pat on the shoulder of a ruffle of his hair, so this was good progress.

"Close the bloody door," Wolf called from the kitchen.

Alex was quick to kick the door shut with his foot, squeezing Lion's wrist before disentangling himself from his side, still beaming. "I missed you guys."

"We missed you too," Lion responded. "I missed having another level head around."

Tiger rolled his eyes and immediately regretted the action, his eyes pinched in pain as he retreated to the couch. "Prat. We weren't that bad."

"Are you okay?" Alex was quick to ask, face immediately falling into a careful mask of shadowed concern. "Bear, you said it wasn't bad—"

"It's not," Bear was quick to assure. "It's really not. Tiger just hasn't had any meds in a while and he's tired. There's nothing to worry about."

Alex sent another wide-eyed look towards Tiger, who waved it off. "M'fine, kid. I'm not gonna be pushing up daisies anytime soon."

Tiger's natural dismissive attitude seemed to quell some of Alex's worry, but he was still quick to tell Tiger to lay down, more of less corralling him towards the couch, closely followed by Bear.

Lion went to follow, but Fox stopped him with a significant look, and Lion just noticed the unusually low hunch of the man's shoulders, the haunt in his eyes.

"Hey Fox," Lion tried, knowing that despite their differences, he was important to Alex. "Everything okay?"

Fox glanced back at the living room, and was seemingly satisfied with what he saw, because he turned back to Lion and said, "He…talks to you, right? Alex?"

Lion blinked. "Sometimes," he responded carefully. "He doesn't talk much to anyone, though. But yeah, he talks to me. Why?"

"Has he told you about someone named Jack?"

Lion thought carefully. "He mentioned her. But he didn't tell me who she was."

Fox nodded. "It's, ah…I think whatever's making it hard for him to, to be okay…it's a lot worse than I thought," he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. "And I saw some shitty things happen to him and around him, so I know it's probably worse than you guys thought too, and…shit, I don't know how he's even here."

Something ugly and frightened stirred in Lion's chest, and it was a challenge to keep it off his face. Lion didn't know how to ask what was so bad without asking for a piece of Alex's past that he didn't feel comfortable sharing yet, and while he didn't want to compromise that boundary and Alex's trust, he didn't know how else to help him. "What can you tell me?"

If Fox was surprised by the slow, careful way Lion worded his question, he didn't show it. "That if what happened to him happened to me, I'd be fucked up," Fox admitted. "He was—I—I don't know what he wants to share, but…I just wanted to let you know that I think it's worse than a lot of us thought, and I don't know if I'm the best person to, um—support him, really, but he seems to trust you—shit, this is not how I wanted this to go…"

He took a deep breath to collect himself, and Lion let him, feeling his eyes narrow at Fox's obvious unease. "Just…he's been through something really awful, and I don't think he ever really dealt with it, on top of all the other awful stuff. So…just so you know."

Lion nodded slowly, confused and uncertain all at once, angry on Alex's behalf and upset that he couldn't do more. And grateful to Fox for letting him know even though they hadn't seen eye to eye at first, and probably still didn't. "Thank you. I'll keep all that in mind."

Fox nodded, obviously at a loss now that he'd said what he needed to say, and retreated to the kitchen. Lion could hear Wolf's low voice and was surprised to hear how careful it sounded—he wondered if there was a reason for it.

Lion leaned against the doorframe of the living room and watched Alex laugh as Bear recounted some of the more lighthearted moments from their mission, Tiger chipping in his two cents every now and then, Eagle and Snake listening with half an ear as they cleared the center table to hold plates and glasses.

There was no doubt in his mind that the future was going to be an uphill battle, and there would be challenges and setbacks and pitfalls that would test them all, especially if the people after Alex were as dangerous as he said they were.

Still, he thought as a half-smile curled at his lips, watching Bear animatedly describe something while Tiger dismissively corrected his storytelling and Alex laughed, watching with interest and contentment—his brothers were alright for now. Everyone was unhurt after a long, long few weeks, and that was all he could really ask for.

He remembered the pain and fear of his childhood home, the loneliness of nights sheltering Angelica from the horrors of the street and relatives they couldn't trust, the bitterness of his inability to allow people to see the broken pieces he tried to hide behind his easy smile.

Now, watching a family of his own—maybe different from most people's, but still important to him—laugh and smile in safety, no matter how fleeting, he thought that as long as he could salvage moments like this for as long as he could, everything would be alright.

And no matter who he had to fight or convince or face, he would keep his family safe.

He didn't plan on breaking that promise anytime soon.

A/N: Hi my friends. I'm sorry it's been a while. Happy two-year and one day anniversary of the beginning of this monster! Real talk: it's been a shitty few months, tbh, which is why I haven't been posting. My mental health is in the pits of Tartarus, my 40 hour a week internship and my two additional part time jobs are kicking my ass, and I have yet to be accepted into any grad schools (and I've been rejected from two) so my future is bleak and my dream is kind of slowly crumbling before my eyes? Even though I know that's really dramatic. But. I'm just. Yeah.

And even through all of that, you guys kept commenting and reviewing not that I needed to update, or hurry up, but that you wished me well and hoped I was okay, and those got me through some tough days, so thank you. Thank you so much for your genuine support of this fic, no matter how irregularly I update, no matter how sporadic the chapters are. I appreciate you all and I'm glad I get to talk to you about something that makes me happy when you comment, so thanks :)

Hi, depressing rant over. Lion! I love him. He's my absolute favorite. God I love him. Okay, but I hope you liked his POV!

Reviews! Like I said. You're lights in my life :). Thanks to The-Phandom-Queen, Dobby and Padfoot, NeleWW, M-chanchen, MillieM04, Lira, ShadowFox452, snapshotz, Cakemania225, Asilrettor, Fox, ElNonie, 627-OrganizedChaos, Em0Wolf, otterpineapple06, Eva Haller, Guest, Riderkitty, Johanna, CoffeeandOakLeaves, Cortanacordeliacarstairs, Lily, Guest, taliaTMNTdrea, Guest, Guest, Weirdo, ShadowKitten45, Guest, Guest, Fox, PuffandProud, Guest, Ff1892, ShadyWillow, Guest, Guest, and Guest!

Lira: Hahaha I'm glad! Omg thanks! Hahaha yeah that's still a while away, but me too! OMG I WOULD LOVE TO SEE IT WHEN YOU'RE DONE! Fanart makes me heart so happy!

Fox: Omg thank YOU! Hahahahaha early L-Unit just lakced some character development, they've always been great to me, but I totally understand what you mean! Ohhhhhh wait that would be so cool, I'll definitely try to squeeze that in! K-Unit is wonderful. Thank you :) and NO NOT AT ALL! THAT MAKES ME HAPPY!

EmoWOlf: Thanks so much! And ME TOO hahah!

Guest (Love the chapter!...): Hahaha thanks! And yeah, I agree XD Thank you!

Johanna: Omg thank you so much! Yeah :) sarcastic alex for the win! Snake is so underrated. Hehehe Wolfy. Sarov was awful. RIGHT?! Fox! My child. Just call Alex the SAS defense against shit parents haha. Wolf is such a big bro. Alex opening up is everything. Thanks! THANK YOU! The drawings are incredible and I look at them when I'm sad XD

Lily: Amen! Hahaha yeah. I love them!

Guest (Aaaaaaahhhhhh!): Thanks so much! I'm so glad you like it :) Hahaha he has a knack for that

Cortanacordeliacarstairs: Thank you! Hahahaha no worries!

Guest (I'd love to see Alex…): Me too! That will come, promise :) Hehehehe it will. Thanks so much!

Guest (My favorite chapter…): Omg thanks so much!

Weirdo: Your reviews always make me so happy! Thanks for taking the time to write them, they continue to make me smile :)

Guest (As always…): Thank you so so much!

Guest (I swear I check this story…): Thank you so much! That's sweet of you to clarify :) Omg you're so kind thanks!

Fox: hahaha thank you :)

Guest (Amazing!): Thank you!

Guest (Hi! I hope all is well…): Thank you! I've just been kinda bad, but this review made me smile :)

Guest (Hoping everything…!): Thank you! I missed you too!

Guest (Hope your okayyy): Thank you :)

Again, thank you all for the kind words and wellwishes, and have an awesome day :)