A.N.: It's been 35 days since I last updated. I'm so sorry, guys. I got a great excuse though: school. Yup, did that explain everything? No, okay, if I add procrastination, will that help?

3 weeks into school, I'm already pretty dead, and this chapter was written over the span of these 3 weeks. I know some of you guys sleep at like 2 in the morning and gets up two hours later (geez), but seriously, I sleep at 11 and gets up at 6, which is a good healthy 7 hours of sleep, but I'm still tired like unbelievably tired for some weird reasons.

But anyway, yes, I'm done. I hope this chapter will make your day, because seeing it finally come to a finale really did make my day. Can you believe it? Woohoo!

Standing beneath the large palm tree and with sand beneath their boots, Alex turned to Wolf. "This is where I met Marquis."

His reminiscence came out strangely calm as if he had emerged into a ray of sunshine after a violent harsh storm. Wolf eyed the young spy gingerly, wondering if it would take the young man a few days more before the two deaths could finally sink in. Sink back in. It was catching on, all right. Alex's hands were moving again: from a fist to slack against his side, then back to a fist. Clench. Unclench.

"Stop that," Wolf said, his eyes snapping to Alex's hands. "Nothing's gonna change if you don't change yourself."

The young spy sighed and his hands fell to a stop at the command, "It's like a nightmare I can't wake up from." His boots grounded against the sand and gravels, and they grunted in muffled protests. "They're just snippets. I can't…I still can't remember everything. I try to remember, but it doesn't work that way. It's only when I'm not trying that they come back, bits and pieces at a time. From the worst to…the least worst, I suppose."

"The woman, Kimani, what if she doesn't really want to know how her son died?" Wolf asked as he followed Alex, the young spy turned and stepped over the stone that separated the sandy beach from the road. Clusters of sand had formed just over the wall, marking the footsteps of the many pedestrians that had had the same intentions as them. "What she doesn't know can't hurt her. Truth is a burden that not many want to carry."

"She needs closure," Alex shook his head, their feet taking them past the first block from the beach. "It's gonna hurt, I know. She knows that too. And I need to know that I did everything I could to save her son. It's for her as much as it's for me."

And for you, Alex's eyes said it all when he turned to spare a sideways glance. Or perhaps Wolf had imagined it. He offered the spy a grim smile in acknowledgment. Alex had yet to mention Sabina since they left Kimani's house, and Wolf had the feeling that despite Alex's fixated attention on young Marquis's death, his adoptive sister's death was haunting his every step and stalking every alcove of his mind, whispering to be heard and to be dealt with. While they could scavenge for truth in the wind for Marquis's death, they couldn't for Sabina. She was a complete story, there was no more truth, or lies, to be discovered. They could only face it head-on.

"I never told you about the reason behind my…," Alex glanced down at his clenched hands, "problem."

"You don't have to," he shook his head. Wolf knew the truth already, and he didn't need Alex to go through it again. Alex looked as if he was about to, despite the soft refusal, so Wolf bluntly cut him off before he could start, "I know."

Followed by a stunned silence was a hesitant "how?"

They stopped walking but Wolf wasn't sure if it was their mind, or their feet, that really pulled them to a stop. Perhaps it was both. Or perhaps it was neither.

"I," he begun then paused, debating for a second if it was worth it to break it to the young spy—it was too late, he was already doing it. "I talked with Edward. He told me what happened."

"Ah…I see."

"It wasn't your fault."

"It wasn't." To his surprise, Alex agreed, albeit the inflections in his tone dark and anything but in agreement. "But I could've stopped him. Edward might've told you what…happened, but you don't know how I feel." He took a breath. "She turned, and I saw her eyes trying to flicker open. She moved, I know she did, and I felt my heart in my mouth."

Alex's hands reached up, rubbing his throat as the young spy swallowed. "And Edward, I don't know, I don't know why, but he just shot her. He wanted to her life to go peacefully, so she wouldn't suffocate to death. He wanted what's the best for her, I know that. But neither of us really saw it coming, and it just doesn't…" Alex struggled for words. "Just doesn't go away. It's just so messed up, Wolf, and I don't know what I did to deserve this—or what she did to deserve that."

The only thing that Wolf could think of as Alex slowly exhaled his tormented words was that the young spy was recovering his memories faster than Wolf would've hoped. Or wanted, for that matter. Maybe it was survivor's guilt, that he somehow lived while his sister died. Or perhaps it was just guilt in general, that his sister died. Or the stages of grief. Or shock. Wolf wasn't sure he knew what to do—Snake might, because he was the medic of the team—for what he was trained to do wasn't to stop and care about fallen comrades. Broke protocol and one down became three dead.

Screw that.

Suddenly, Wolf wished he hadn't been so rush in accompanying Alex on this trip down the memory lane. He should've lugged the whole K-Unit along because Alex had always been so used to dealing with K-Unit as a whole, and not as individuals. Snake was the medic, Eagle the one to spice up the mood, Fox would offer empathetic conversations that only the two spies could understand, and Wolf dealt with keeping them in order. And K-Unit, together, kept Alex from falling.

Falling…into what?

The answer came like second instinct.

Falling into who he once was before their meeting.

Sometimes, he wondered what Alex brought to the table. Then he would dismiss the absurdity of the thought. Because that was what friends were: they brought nothing to the table besides friendship and their flaws, but that was all that they needed. Wolf wasn't helping Alex because he himself needed closure; he was helping the young spy because they were friends. Comrades. It was as simple as that, just like every day on the battlefield. He didn't stop to help his fallen teammates because they were the best sharpshooter, or that they could mend wounds, or change the tide, or anything. They were friends, and that was enough words for him to go to the end of the world and back for them.

Alex better damn appreciates that while Wolf was still sentiment.

Wolf didn't like being sentiment, overbearing and over-caring like clucking mother hens. And Alex didn't seem to appreciate it either.

"Why are you helping me?" asked Alex.

It was night, and they had barely settled into their respective hotel bed before an insomniac Alex turned on his side. His voice shattered across the darkened room from the other bed like alarm clocks shattered across the morning silence.

"Go to sleep, Cub." Wolf turned dismissively so his unwavering back faced the questioning young agent. Because drowsy Wolf wasn't awake Wolf, and he didn't want to know what kind of crap that might come out of his mouth if he were to answer Alex's innocuous question honestly.

"I mean, we don't always go out of our way to help each other. So why now? You don't strike me as someone who wants to spread kindness and joy around."

"That's Eagle." They both snorted at Wolf's reply. Wolf heard the young spy turning and a clear sigh that escaped Alex told him the other occupant was now facing the ceiling.

"To think, four years ago, that I'd even live under the same roof as you bastards. Time flies, huh."

"Go to sleep, Cub. I don't do pillow talk." As soon as the words fell out of his mouth, Wolf knew he had thrown himself into the perfect trap of 'you're already doing it'. He winced and waited for the sarcastic reply.

It didn't come despite his apprehension. "I was thinking...Maybe I should just go visit Sabina's grave. It might help." Or it might not.

The unspoken thought lingered uncomfortably in the air as it pulled them into the land of dreamless sleep. It was uncanny, Wolf thought, how he was able to sense Alex's silent thoughts without looking at the young man. Or perhaps it was his own thought that he imposed on the agent. Or perhaps it wasn't. Alex was right: time flew. Because he was sure that four years ago when they first met on that dreary Selection, he wasn't going to see Alex again after the moment the young spy shook his hand and stepped out of his life. Certainly not taking a bullet for him months later. And definitely not a cringe-worthy get-well card months after that. But most of all, never the sense of uncontrolled worry when Alex got himself in another one of his typical heart-before-head actions.

Alex worked well on his own, but sometimes he needed to know that the world wasn't always against him. Sure, the young spy was a trouble magnet—Wolf certainly did not want to live the life Alex had (spies, soldiers, secrets, deception)—but on a calm peaceful day, the magnet could simply stay where it was. Full. Untouched. Unmoved. Solid. Just…being himself. And stop being so insecure about the world.

"Do you still want the answer?" Wolf's voice startled Alex out of his reverie of staring at his hotel-serviced breakfast in silence.

"The answer? To what?"

"You asked me why I was helping you." Wolf shrugged as he picked up his own burger and bit into the edge. It was too rich for his liking.

The spy hesitated. Then he shook his head with a soft exhale through his nose. "No. Maybe not. Not today."

Good. Because Wolf wasn't sure what he was going to say if Alex had said yes. He was still discovering the answer himself.

They left their room minutes later with Wolf's plate half-eaten and Alex's clean. Alex remembered most of the important bits of his mission leading up to Marquis's death, and Wolf was glad they didn't have to fight the same battle Alex fought to retrieve lost memories. Too many variables in the mission and too many things could alter the equation. Wolf preferred that they retrace Alex's footsteps step by steps with the original.

Alex made Wolf call him Martin, just in case. Martin. The name didn't fit Alex. Probably because Alex was Alex, and Martin wasn't Alex. All they had in common was the letter 'a', and not even in the same place. Martin was two letters more of Alex. Two additional layers that completely disguised Alex, except for that one single letter…In a sense, Martin was Alex; a different Alex, maybe, but he was Alex.

From the kids and people they met on the street that knew Alex, Wolf found that despite Martin's careful disguises, Alex was slowly uncovered the deeper they dug. Their back stories were worlds-apart—Martin was the youngest brother of a family of five, ran away because he was fed up of the way he was treated—however, they didn't stop Martin from being Alex. His words were lies, but his tones were truths. And Wolf saw through it clear as day.

Perhaps that was how Fox managed to see right through Alex's disguise on their first, unforeseen, mission together.

Was that why Alex trusted Fox? Because the man knew who he was in spite of all his facades?

"We're spies," said an amused Alex, shrugging when Wolf voiced his question, "I trust him because we saved each other's lives. Probably too many times than either of us wanted to."

"So have the rest of K-Unit."

"...Are you jealous, Wolf?" The cheeky bastard grinned then rolled his eyes. "Look, I've known Fox longer, and better, than I know you guys. But don't worry Wolf, someday we'll have a great sleepover together."

Alex called him and the rest of K-Unit by their code names more often he did with their real name. If at all. But it was almost always 'Ben' when it came to Fox. He might felt something other than the foreboding sense of childish jealousy if the name 'Wolf' was a nickname and not a formal business name. After three years of saving the young agent's life, Wolf thought he at least deserved some sort of recognition.

Wolf sighed.

They stopped at a construction site and Alex told him that was the place. Of what, the young spy didn't need to voice out loud. Pieces of tattered crime scene tapes were strewn across the site, barely doing anything to keep out anyone and Wolf wasn't sure if that was the intention anymore. The construction had clearly taken up its tools again for the small trucks at the back were humming ambiently in the stifled afternoon air. They had no rhythms, no abruptness, like the sounds of cars rushing by the highway with no way to distinguish the individuality of them all.

"How're you gonna remember?"

Alex's eyes were on the stain on the ground next to a pile of freshly removed debris. "That's a lot of blood."

"Think it was yours?" That was a disturbing thing to say, and the young spy clearly thought so as well for Alex glanced at him with an arched eyebrow.

Alex kicked away the large rocks that covered the edges of the blood before sitting down, not caring if the dust would stain his dark shorts. Then he laid down, his head on the ground and his sunglasses shielding his eyes from the glaring rays.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to relive the moment."

Wolf snorted, escaping into the shade of the shaded overhead paces away to leave Alex to his absurdity. Reliving, huh. He wasn't a neurologist or whatever '-gist' that could explain the concept behind memory loss, and he certainly wasn't sure if lying down in a pool of dried blood would really trigger the memories to return.

He would rather Alex relieve the memory instead of reliving it. People forget for a reason, and Wolf didn't think it was for them to remember. Going on some sort of daunting 'heroic' quest to find what was lost was probably not the goal of life. But who was he to decide what was right and what was wrong?

Was being 'good' right? Being 'bad' wrong? Wolf wasn't sure he understood the concept behind the tropes of 'save the world' that was essentially the bane of existence to almost every other plot out there. Everyone was a hero in their story—their own story. Wolf didn't want to be the hero in anybody else's. If saving people, sacrificing himself for the alleged greater good, pulling people out of their misery, and all that bullshit was what people called 'right', Wolf would rather be wrong. The thought of having to always be there to save the day was daunting and downright horrifying, to say the least.

Good thing he wasn't a hero.

He was just…a friend.

"Ben called." The sound of the phone snapping shut had him turning. "He asked if we're gonna be back home in time for dinner."

"Well, depends on what we can find with your retrieved memories." Wolf shrugged as he leaned back against the chair. The shades before his eyes dimmed the world dark, and he could barely see his reflection in Alex's mirroring sunglasses.

He couldn't see the young spy's eyes, but then, he didn't need to see into the troubled depths to feel Alex's raging turmoil of emotions.

Marquis had died on the last day of Alex's mission. It was supposed to be a final bidding of goodbye. Just the two strangers-turned-friends going over everything that had happened in the short two months. Or long two months. Alex told him the organization rounded up boys and girls about his age and younger to provide a carrier for their drug trafficking. The young spy didn't use the word carrier—that was Wolf's gentler version of the brutal word 'host' that Alex threw at him. The drugs weren't on them. They were in them.

The thought of it made Wolf sick all over again.

The young black boy was Alex's informant. Marquis knew the streets, and the people, but he didn't know just how dangerous they were. It was naive of the parents to tell their child that something was dangerous and expected the innocent curious child to simply stay away from it. Fear ruled better, and stronger than loyalty sometimes. But it wasn't danger that took the young boy's life. It was their careless action and Alex's callow belief that nothing bad was going to happen on the last day that got his friend killed.

It had been an act of revenge by the scattered organization. Some sick last-ditched take at the classic 'taking them down with us'.

"Is that everything you wanted to know?" Wolf asked. The hot bench burned his arms at his every attempt to settle the limb somewhere on the metal. In the end, he forced the stinging sensation into the back of his mind and waited it out. "You now have everything you need to tell Marquis's mother."

"What if there's something more?"

"What?"

"I can't shake the feeling that there's something else that I forgot."

Wolf cast his eyes over. "If it's about the Star Wars movies you hated, you might be better off not remembering."

"That's a waste of a good nine quid." Alex rolled his eyes with a mocking huff.

"Well, at least you remembered the cost of the ticket. That's something."

"Yeah…" Sighing, the young spy tugged at the sleeves of his shirt to flick off the ladybug that had landed there. "After I got staked in the stomach, they stitched me up. I should've been back home half a month earlier but instead, I slipped into a pond or something and I nearly died."

"What do you want to say?"

"I woke up, and I was in the same hospital room that I was in before. Same doctor. Same nurses. Same everything."

"But…?"

"They said I drowned—this place is famous for its hot weather and beautiful beach, but infamous for the utter lack of other sources of water. If I know where I drowned, and go for a quick dip, I might know more."

"And where's that?"

"The hospital has a pool."

Wolf snorted. It wasn't just at the absolute absurdity Alex was suggesting but also that Alex had managed to slip and drown (and very nearly completely die) in a pool. A hospital pool of all pools and places. Hell, Wolf wasn't even aware that hospitals had pools to begin. But with Alex? Nothing could be deemed a 'safe' playground for him, making it a wonder for Wolf as to how the hell the kid even managed to keep being a spy after all these years.

While many served their country for patriotic reasons, Wolf didn't see the patriotism in Alex. He couldn't imagine the young spy standing on the top of the world declaring his devotion to the country and willingness to lay his life at the Mother's feet. Perhaps he was a tad too dramatic in his thoughts, but they were justified: whenever they gravitated toward Alex's reason to being a spy, light-hearted sarcasm and humor attacked their questions. Sharp humor and sarcasm was the young spy's defense to everything the world fast-pitched at him, they all knew that.

Therapy with Alex was similar to a comedy-drama to bystanders but could be an utter fuse-lighter in second-person perspective. It was funny, and it sure drew laughter from K-Unit, when they listened in on the young spy's session post-missions, but Snake pointed out that Alex was only pushing things further and deeper down in the dark bottomless pit. Abyss, that was the word Snake used, because abyss had a bottom. In the end, when they finally realized that Alex wasn't going to open up to them with some crappy heart-to-heart therapeutic talk about his emotions unless it had evolved to a catastrophic level, Snake decided to throw on some sad gut-wrenching movies whenever Alex engulfed himself in dark grey clouds. Even if the tears shed weren't for himself but for the fictional characters separated by boundaries of dimensions, they did notice the look of the world on his shoulder lessened on the spy's face.

If Alex realized their ploy to get him to get all emotional and cry his heart out, he didn't point them out. Perhaps he finally realized their good intents, and their intention to repay him for what he had done for them post their own traumatizing missions. None of them could sleep at night, and when they finally sat down at dead in the night, they would find Alex in the kitchen who would then shove a cup in their hand and let the welcoming warmth fight away the cold shivers their nightmares sent down their body.

That was when they knew they were home. Home. Not with their blood-tied family, not with their distant once-a-year girlfriends, but not without any of them. Their ragtag group made up the equally unorganized family and if Wolf was asked years ago, he would have never thought about this future.

Future. Past. Funny how people were constantly focused on their future, fearing, hoping, praying, and they brushed the past away once they lost their meaning. It reminded him of Alex preying on the candy jar, feet up on the coffee table and head back on the sofa as he sucked on the flavors—he could only savor for so long before it was gone, leaving only the faintest scent behind before it too move to occupy elsewhere.

Then there was Alex, trying to remember the feeling of it on the tip of his tongue, hoping to find the right one that would make his eyes light up like the shower of morning rays light up the dimly grey sky and say 'this is the one'. Watching the young spy stepped into the warm outdoor hospital poor, clad modestly in his shirt and shorts, Wolf couldn't help but doubt his methods.

"Are you lost, sir?"

"Oh, no." Turning to refuse the offer from the passing nurse, Wolf shook his head. "I'm just waiting."

They exchanged words, formality more or less before she went on her way with him convincing her that he did not need any assistance. When he turned back, Alex was waist-deep in water with his hands above the water, wading through the persistent liquid hesitantly. Crossing his arms, Wolf leaned back into the shade the looming umbrellas threw around the chairs.

Besides them, there was a woman slicing back and forth through the two ends of the water, two children sitting on the edge with their feet in the water, and an elderly man soaking in the sun at the pool. Out of place was Wolf's immediate thought as he shifted again, but perhaps they were at exactly where they needed to be. The pool wasn't a recreation center, and it visibly lacked the delightful screams and the brightly colored toys that adorned the water. The pool was at rest like all the other occupants were, and only the rhythmic periodic movements from the occupants disturbed the peace.

The locks of the young spy's dirty blond hair at the nape of his neck dipped beneath the surface gently as Alex's feet carried him to the deeper end. Even if from where Wolf sat he couldn't see the rest of his body, he could picture the water pushing the young spy up until he was on his tiptoes.

What was Alex trying to do? Hold his breath, open his eyes, and hoped memories would flash before him like people said it would for a dying man?

It reminded him of the poem Alex recited to him months and months ago for his school: The Art of Drowning. It had caught his attention and ensnared his memory, even if Alex had probably forgotten the words of it. The author mocked the utterly unrealistic expectation of these 'flashes'. The expressed skepticism at the flashes of memories had had himself pondering his actions at his last moment. Would he actually see flashes? Would he see the face of everyone he had ever met, ever loved, and ever cared about appearing before him as if sending him a farewell? It seemed absurd, but it had his mind drifting off to the tunnel-vision humans harbored since forever.

Why would he only appreciate what he had when he was about to lose them? Why would people begin to appreciate what they had had only when it was gone?

He was guilty of it nevertheless. Wolf could count with his fingers the number of times he had prayed to God for a miracle for something that was so far out of his control. Amongst them, he needed only one finger to count the number of times he had prayed to God to bring him back home safely. He had learned to appreciate the present, the people he had, and the things he had, but Wolf wasn't sure he had ever told them just how much they mattered. He just hoped they knew. And was that what all the other people were thinking as well? Because they were too afraid to appear to be weak in front of others that they kept their emotions to themselves?

It was then Wolf realized Alex's head was fully submerged, the top of his head barely visible beneath the water. The woman at the edge stopped to take a deep breath, shattering the serenity of the water shifting with and against itself.

Then the sound of water erupting and spilling onto the dry land accompanied Alex's loud gasp for air as he shot out of the water. The pool seemed to have washed away the color from his face by a few degrees, and it forced Wolf to stand up to investigate.

"You okay?"

"It's not working." Alex brushed the plastered hair away from his forehead. The shirt stuck to his body but his shorts were floating like wild reefs under the water. "Should I hold my breath longer?"

"I don't even want to answer that question," was Wolf's darkly muttered reply. "Why can't you just enjoy a good soak in the pool? You know, feel the water or some psychological crap. Anyway, I'll go talk with your doctor, maybe they'd know something. What's the name?"

"Um, Dr. Hayes. Zachariah Hayes."

"Okay, stay here. Soak the water, splash with the kids, and try not to drown, alright?"

The way Alex rolled his eyes before moving to the shallow ends to sit with his shoulder barely beneath the water, accompanied by an exasperated "fine", reminded Wolf painstakingly of a child.

Dr. Hayes was a man in his mid-forties, his hair a perfect shade of blond, and when he glanced up at his name, his green eyes shimmered up like starlight shimmered in moonlit pools as they left the clipboard he held in his arms. Before Wolf could say his second sentence past greeting, the man suggested they walk and talk. Each doctor had their own unique presence, some walked with a special gait, some talked with a lift in their tone, and some saw right through their patients. Wolf wasn't a people-reader, but he didn't miss the way the man did an immediate assessment on him, his grip tighter when they shook hands as if testing his grip, and his eyes linger seconds longer on the littered scars.

Of course. Why would Alex be under the care of just any doctor? Wolf received the impression that Alex had been too wounded to be airlifted back to the military hospital, but to have simply left a bleeding teenager in a neighborhood hospital? People would've asked questions. Unless the people weren't just any people.

"So how can I help you…Wolf?"

"Do you remember a patient you had weeks ago named Martin?"

"Ah." The man's eyes were a blank slate despite the brilliance. "I'm sorry, but I'm under a doctor-patient confidentiality agreement. I cannot disclose any information about any of my patients."

"You were his doctor. You operated on him, so you definitely knew who he really is. And had the security clearance for it too."

The first flash of warning seeped into the man's eyes. "I'm sorry—"

"He's a friend." Wolf sighed before the man's thoughts could travel to the infinitely many possibilities of Wolf being a threat to the espionage world. "I'm a soldier, SAS, and I know what he does. Look, he suffers from memory loss, from the drowning incident, and he's trying to remember everything that happened by reciprocating the events that happened."

Still suspicious of his words, the doctor returned. "Doctor-Patient confidentiality, sorry."

"Well, he's by the pool. That's where he nearly died. I told him to try not to drown himself while I come talk to you. Maybe you can try talking to him since I didn't have time to go through a medical career and understand how our brain magnificently works."

They were walking past the hallway with pure glass window, and Wolf noticed with a subtle grin the way the doctor peered down to take note of the figures at the nearly-vacant pool beneath. From the third floor, Alex wasn't hard to spot. He was pulling himself out of the pool with agility and shaking his head like a dog post-bath, droplets of water too small to be seen from where they were flying everywhere.

Alex was a dog person, they all knew that, but despite Eagle's numerous attempt to convince Alex that they needed a pet in the house, Alex hadn't budged on his solid 'no'. It wasn't that Alex was afraid of animals—Wolf had seen the way Alex stopped on the streets to dog-watch like some sort of lovesick fangirl—but rather, the young spy thought too much into the future. Who would take care of it when they were on missions? Wolf remembered Alex's frown that accompanied the question as he squashed Eagle's suggestion the seventh time he asked. Dogs didn't have the century-long lifespan that humans did, and when he watched the young spy's face as he said it, he had understood the reason behind his reluctance.

People often married for love, hoping an oath and a ring would keep their special someone close. Til death do us part. Alex was eighteen now, and having a dog would mean he would probably be there when the creature took the final breath. What was the average life expectancy for dogs? Ten, fifteen, years? He had searched that up months ago when Alex got annoyed and told them he didn't want to watch his dog die.

Eagle then promptly told him maybe it would be his dog watching him die instead of the other way. That shouldn't have been a funny joke—it had been nothing more than a tease, back then, at Alex's increase in accidents—and it certainly wasn't right now as he watched the young spy fall backward into the pool, counted to eighty-five in his head, and locks of dirty blond hair still yet to come up.

"Cub!" At the eighty-sixth second, Wolf flung open the last door to the pool and dove into the water, shirt pants shoes all. The only conscience action he did was to chuck down the phone in his back pocket.

The tepid water slowly engulfed him, grabbing his hair in all directions, and threatened to blind his eyes as his narrowed gaze focused on the unmoving body sinking like the Titanic: slow, graceful, like a martyr. Wolf felt as if he hadn't swum for a long time for his ears popped as he dove deeper to grab onto the young spy. Then thousands upon thousands of invisible needles stabbed into his ears as he landed in a crouch on the ground, grabbed the spy, and kicked off the floor to propel the both of them upward and broke through the water surface.

Something that Titanic never got to do.

The woman screamed, the old man opened his eyes, and the children hesitantly huddled closer while trying to peek past Wolf's figure to take a glimpse at the teen. He pushed him onto the warm solid ground, tugged only by gravity, before pushing himself up and kneeling next to him.

Pulse. No pulse. No. Pulse.

One two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen—

"C'mon, breathe."

Seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty twenty-one—

"Swear to God if you don't breathe…"

Twenty-four twenty-five twenty-six—

"C'mon, c'mon, Alex."

Twenty-eight twenty-nine thirty.

He tilted the spy's head back and moved the chin. One breath. Chest didn't rise. Wolf readjusted the position. Second breath.

It rose. Oh, thank god.

One two three four—

He didn't get to five before Alex was choking, and Wolf turned him onto his side in a hurry even as someone was trying to pull him aside and the professionals began to swarm them. "It's okay. You're okay. Deep breath, Cub. Breathe—no, no, it's okay. It's Wolf—breathe for me. Breathe for me."

"Coming through. Sir, sir, please take a step back. We've got him. Sir."

Arms pulled him back and away from the agent. "Fuck off! I got him—"

"Hey," It was the doctor, "You said you don't have the whole medical school background, so let the professionals take care of it, alright? You've done everything you can, and he's alive because of you. Let us handle the rest."

Alive because of him?

Wolf stumbled back as they pulled the agent onto the stretcher and rushed into the hospital.

"Let's get you something dry to change into." Dr. Hayes jerked his head toward the building in the opposite direction of the door that Alex had disappeared behind. At Wolf's rooted feet, he added. "C'mon. They will page me when they're done; they know I'm his doctor."

"...Alright."

The doctor's spared clothing fitted a few centimeters larger on his frame, but Wolf was grateful to get out of the dripping shirts and pants. His shoes were still wet, but he kept it on anyway. This wasn't a mission gone wrong, Wolf told himself as he threw a towel over his head. Alex wasn't bleeding out, they weren't running, they were in a hospital, and Alex was going to be fine in just a few seconds. But Wolf couldn't help but feel the sense of foreboding crawling up his skin, jeering and taunting the thoughts of 'what ifs'. What if he had been seconds too late? What if Alex's chest didn't rise on the second breath? What if Alex didn't make it the second time?

But why didn't Alex fight back?

"You asked me about his memory loss, I'm sorry for not answering you earlier."

"I don't want to listen to you talk right now, I'm sorry." Wolf wasn't sorry. "Will you…can I just sit in silence? I don't want to think right now."

He took a seat on the proffered sofa in the man's office, his feet itching to leap up and rush to Alex's side. The doctor reminded him of Fox. The way they both refused his need to see Alex, and Wolf could only pray the doctor wasn't about to drug him. Alex was going to be fine. It was just some water. Pool water. Chlorine and some crap. He was only under for a little less than two minutes. Alex knew how to hold his breath.

Why didn't he fight back?

Wolf nearly jumped when his phone rang. The doctor turned to grab it from the table before handing it to the soldier.

"Hey Wolf, how's it going?"

"Fox, I'll call you back."

"...Lemme guess: something went wrong."

"Alex." The doctor didn't seem at all fazed when Wolf said the name. "Nearly died. We're at the hospital right now. I'll call you back as soon as I know more."

"So he's okay?"

"I don't know. He was alive."

"But he's okay?"

"Yeah. He's okay."

Wolf wanted to slam the phone shut and chuck it across the room but Fox didn't intend to end the conversation just yet. "And you?"

"Me?"

"You okay?"

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Cub nearly died. And you're asking me if I'm okay?"

"Previously on Alex Underwent Surgery with You Behind the Doors, I had to drug you before your hyperactive neurons can shoot you dead from the inside out. So excuse me if I'm wondering if I need to fly over there and drug you again."

"I'm fine." Wolf exhaled in exasperation. Then he took a deeper breath, feeling the air reaching the top of his lung before he exhaled. It felt nice. "How are things?"

"Things are great. Hey Wolf?"

"What?"

"It's almost June."

"Yeah." Whatever that meant. "Listen, I'll call you back."

"Okay. Call me as soon as you get anything. I'm not gonna tell the other guys just yet, but if things get worse, I'm letting them know."

"Good call. Thanks."

Fox smiled. "No problem."

The sound of solid tone hit him softer this time, and Wolf gingerly snapped the phone shut. He supposed he still wanted to fling it across the room, but…Alex was going to be okay. And if the young spy even dared to say he wanted to continue the memory search, he was going to personally slam the case-closed stamp on Alex's head. It was like time travel because trying to find the lost history was similar to altering the history: dangerous, daunting, and irreversible. Alex had already remembered the deaths, he didn't need to dig up more things. He didn't need the past any more than he needed more guilt to gnaw away his brain. If the things he lost were happiness, screw it, they could make more. They could make happiness, if that was what Alex wanted, they could make sadness, joy, anger, frustration, annoyance, excitement, anything.

Wolf didn't believe in God, but he was perfectly willing to let God take the blame of it. Perhaps it was some silly fate that erased Alex's memory, and if that was what God intended, so be it. He would take an alive but brooding Alex over a dead and silent Alex. Wounds could heal, there would be trials, and errors, and then victory. Unlike errors, they needed only one victory.

Who dares wins. Alex just needed to take that leap of faith.

Faith. Ah. Wolf supposed Alex had always taken that leap. He was the one who flew down buildings instead of using stairs, the one that dared to mess up the rendezvous exfil time, and the one who took things into his own hands when it got rough and, ironically, out of his hands. Wolf wasn't surprised at the self-confidence. Alex had always had faith in himself, he believed in himself and that he could somehow maneuver out of every situation.

Perhaps it was because every other second he was alone, battling the world. He grew up with an uncle whose increase absence and death finally led to the reveal of the dark truth of their family, a housekeeper who died because of the truth, and his adoptive family who slowly disintegrated into nothing. It was simple: Alex had issues with interpersonal connection. And hell, with anything. He was just so afraid that he was going to lose them that he tried so hard to not get close to them at all.

But Alex trusted them. Now they just needed to convince Alex to take that leap of faith with them. Before that, Wolf had to persuade Alex to stop chasing the past.

"You nearly died. Again."

Alex fiddled with the edge of the gown they had fit him into. "I remembered."

Wolf opened his mouth to shut the agent down, but in the end, he sighed wearily. "Anything important?"

"No." Alex didn't even bother to at least try to sound convincing. "Did you talk to Dr. Hayes? When can I be discharged?"

He went to get the doctor and left the two to talk. Alex, apparently, was lucky that he hadn't suffered any brain damage due to the oxygen deprivation. All thanks to Wolf and the eighty-one seconds he had counted in his head. He didn't want to think about what if he had been minutes too late, seconds too late, and Alex ended up forgetting more than he had remembered. Sometimes, he thought maybe Alex had just never thought of him as someone who had feelings. Why couldn't Alex realize that every time the kid took a nosedive down the cliff of stupidity, Wolf was always the one to catch him? Experiences didn't necessarily make it easy, and Wolf was afraid that one day he wouldn't be able to catch him.

Months and years ago, the only thing he worried about was being there, gas pumped and vehicle readied, waiting for Alex at their rendezvous location and worrying what if he couldn't catch him. Now, he was being dragged by Alex's lifeline, selfishly wanting to let go but at the same time, not wanting to think about the consequences.

For once, he just wanted a year of absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. No secrets, no lies, no six-months missions, no dead relatives, no blood, no hospital, and no wounded souls. The first thing he did once the two lugged their luggage through the familiar front door was ordered Alex to bed despite the sun being high-up in the sky and the air hot and stifling like a silent wail.

The spy didn't argue.

"How's Alex?" Fox asked worriedly as they seated themselves in the kitchen.

"Hasn't said more than two words since we left the hospital."

Wolf had secretly hoped that Fox and Alex's spy relationship would help convince the young agent to say his all understood the pain of bereavement, having smelled the coppery air one too many times, but Wolf wasn't sure if he would understand the difficulties the spies had to overcome in their career. Espionage wasn't a game of overpowering, it was a game of strategy. Sneak in, sneak out, and if possible not even stirring the blades of grass beneath their feet. SAS? Oh boy, they were there to make about as much noise as possible, storm the hideouts, grab the package, and anyone who stood a toe in their way got a double tap for their trouble.

Alex wasn't one for violence; Fox had told Wolf of Alex's first kill, his clone, Julius Grief. But Wolf supposed it was so much worse than shooting a man dead. It had been shooting himself, and a piece of him had probably died along when the body crumpled onto the ground. Even if the young spy's hands were still untainted of blood, his mind was already haunted by violence.

What was Alex gaining from this whole tilted line of work? What did Alex want to become back when he was thirteen? What would he have become if MI6 hadn't dragged the boy into their mess?

Wolf shut his eyes. Dragged? No, Alex was naturally curious. He might have been forced into the first mission, but he had voluntarily gone back to MI6 after he had…left the Pleasures. He didn't blame Alex for doing it. He had no one, after all, to go back to. Or go to. And that made Alex almost a ward of the Intelligence unit. Was it by choice? Was Alex content with it? He thought he remembered Alex saying he was. Wolf didn't know.

But there were a lot of things he didn't know.

"Have you ever feel so done with everything?"

"Every morning waking up to Eagle's cooking." Fox rolled his eyes as he remarked, earning glare from the sharpshooter. "Why?"

Alex's question seemed harmless, but Wolf watched the young spy through the top of his mug as he took a sip of his tea. It had been a week, and Alex had gradually begun to offer more in their typical casual conversations. Fox told him Alex hadn't said anything about what he remembered, only that drowning was a horrible thing.

Horrible. Funny that the teen described it that way, because of all that eighty-one seconds, Alex didn't fight for his life. What was Alex trying to achieve by drowning himself again? Was dying a good price to pay for remembering? Remembering, after all, was only split seconds worth of emotions in comparison to dying. Dying was an eternity worth of void. Though Wolf surely wasn't one to talk afterlife with his atheist attitude and independence of the superior figure.

There were a lot of things Alex could live for if not for the past. The future, for example. Blows after blows, Alex just had to get up and get over it. That was what life was: it had no ultimate destination, no plans. But one thing it wasn't was an endless loop of suffering. There was an end to everything, and it was simply the question of what were they going to do before the end. Did Alex really want to spend his whole life chasing what he had had, or crafting what he would have?

Suddenly, he knew what to say.

"I have not. I've never felt so done with anything." Wolf set down his cup, daring Alex to turn to face him fully. "I grew up in a happy family. They supported my every decision, even to join the SAS. I knew what I wanted to do, and I aimed for it."

None of the rest of K-Unit expected him to answer the question with the seriousness in his tone, but Alex's eyes dimmed before they returned to the light dull.

The burning question of why Alex hadn't fight back tormented him for a whole week before he finally got the answer as he continued.

"Things are hard sometimes, but I've never felt like giving up on everything and just be done with life. I lost friends to the endless warfare, and I lost people I loved due to my job. You think you've nothing left to live for, but if you can just see past the tunnel-vision, you'll realize that you have a lot to live for."

"Wow, that's deep, Wolf." That bloody humor of the spy's.

"I'm serious, Alex."

"Sure, Mr. Therapy." Alex's lips quirked up in a small smile before he glanced away. "Hey, I'm gonna go to San Francisco next week. Do you want to come?"

"San Francisco? Why?"

"Sabina's supposed to be graduating today. If she were alive."

Wolf didn't know why Alex asked him for permission, but he gave it anyway. Perhaps this was the last goodbye Alex needed. It had been almost a year since the warm summer air faded with the girl. Sabina would be eighteen this year, walking up the platform to shake hands with the principal, receive her diploma, and bid farewell to the school she would've been in for two years.

They hadn't talked to Edward for a while either. What was the father up to now? A lone journalist without the lights of his life guiding him. Would he be even more careless now? He had never been a man of public bias, after all, he wasn't backing down from any gossips, not even if publishing them meant a certain death.

Then, what did the man have to live for? A year ago, he would have throttled Edward for the way he had treated an underage child. But now, Edward was just like all of them. He was a family man, and the death of his wife had thrown him over the edge. Emotion was a horrible thing.

Horrible. That word again. But would emotions be horrible if they brought tranquility? Would it be horrible if it was what they wanted? Alex had described his experience of his latest drowning 'horrible'. Would drowning be 'horrible' if it brought Alex eternal peace?

No. No, it wouldn't, and when the realization hit the ground running, it had him grinning like a fool the same time a relieved laugh escaped him. The parents around him glared daggers at his interruption and he grinned unapologetically back as the guest speaker cleared his throat and began to speak into the mic.

"Fourteen years ago, I was the same as all of you here, sitting in those ugly shade of blue robes, and awaiting our verdict under the burning sun. Four years in high school, and you can finally bid it goodbye. You'd think that after four years of long drone out speeches, cross-campus classes, hairy teachers, constantly-yapping friends, and oh my god what's wrong with the cafeteria food, I'd be running around like a crazy chicken celebrating my freedom. I for one, fourteen years ago, wasn't coping well with all the sudden changes…"

Not coping well with the sudden changes. Wolf supposed it was only high school that Alex's life could really relate to. Everything was a havoc; lies, frenemies, conflicts, etc. But not coping well, that was an understatement of the century no matter how hard he tried to label Alex with it. Wolf ducked his head before another chuckle could escape him. Fox jabbed him on the side, silently asking him what put him in such a good mood. It was only yesterday when he was still worrying over his head about Alex's sudden desire to attend the graduation. Fox didn't understand his relief. It was similar to remembering the tip-of-the-tongue word that he couldn't days ago: he finally understood. For the first time, he didn't have to wait for the spy to explode, for the abyss to overflow, to attend and understand the wounds.

Alex didn't just slip, contrary to what the doctors told him, he had thrown himself into the water after he woke up in the hospital with the stake out of his stomach. When the water first engulfed him, he was already gone. Too blinded by his grief to see the light. He was coping with neither Sabina nor Marquis's death, and perhaps when he was revived, his mind took the chance to wipe them clean—nothing to remember was nothing to wake up in nightmares over.

But Alex had said drowning was a horrible thing. Fox might not have noticed Alex's confession, but Wolf did. Even if Alex hadn't fight back when the water tugged him away, he was fighting back now against the guilt and overwhelming grief instead of letting the black tides sweep him away again.

Perhaps he had underestimated the spy. Wolf had thought Alex would be stuck, unable to pull himself out of the hole unless Wolf were to lend a hand. The truth was, Alex didn't always need help getting out of binds, he needed help getting out faster before the cuffs worn his wrist red. Although the chance of the young spy asking any of them for help was slimmer than that of him no longer attracting trouble like a magnet, Wolf knew Alex now. And even if he had to break down that stubborn barrier to come to his aid, he would do it in a heartbeat.

"...We had one last class meeting, out on the field, and the teachers were like 'c'mon kids, cry your eyes out because this is really goodbye'. And I was like 'dude, what's wrong with you?' Like, I don't cry, alright? I'm not gonna bawl my eyes out because some teacher wants to take pictures of emotional kids and use it to promote happy monkey squeaky toys or something.

Well, I was certainly not the only one arching an eyebrow in skepticism, I promise you. But in the end, we were each engulfed in a hug from our teachers, and then we all broke down in tears. Every single one of us. Each of us had worn a different mask of indifference to the field that day, but behind every hardened mask is a fragility so bright that it brings together all those around and blinds those that seek to exploit it. And as we cried openly on the field like a bunch of dying cows, I realized the name of that vulnerability. Separation Anxiety."

The crowd laugh and the speaker's lips quirked up in his own amusement as his eyes scanned the crowd. Each person shone a different shade of blond, brown, black, but when the sun caressed the robes, they all lit up in the same glow of navy blue.

What was Alex's vulnerability? He was afraid of losses, of losing things, of losing people he loved, but then, when was someone not? It was stupid of Alex, of anyone really, to even think he was alone in this world. Unlike those idiotic dystopian novels with the people all programmed with undying happiness, everyone in this world was suffering from one thing or another. And until the world got swept away by totalitarianism and brainwashed to mindless happy creatures of equality, Alex wasn't going to be the only one suffering from bereavement.

Sometimes Wolf woke up in the middle of the night, listening to the sounds of bombshells dwindling with his nightmares, and had the strongest urge to get up and run to every room to check on their occupant. Snake probably had it worst, being the medic whose face would be the last face some soldiers saw before the light in their eyes fade away with their last breath. But Wolf had to be the iron rod of the team, he had to hold them together. He couldn't afford to appear weak. If the beam were to fall, the whole roof would come down. And if he had to be an asshole about the whole emotional craps to keep the team from falling, he would do it.

But Alex wasn't Wolf. He didn't have to support anybody but himself, and that was enough to warrant vulnerabilities in front of those he called family. This wasn't high school, this was life. Of all the people he met and friends he made growing up, he remembered only two who stuck around but fade into the air after he joined the regiment, and vaguely of some jerk who had tried to dye Wolf's hair rainbow. Those brief fleeting friendships would change, but family had their back no matter what. And by family, Wolf didn't mean the one whose blood coursed in unison.

The audience's laughter drew Wolf's mind back to reality. The speaker took a long pregnant pause before his voice rang out again. "I'm thirty-four this year, eleven years till I'm officially eligible for having a midlife crisis. That's a long time, but I've got existential crisis tagging behind, baby! God, I think about life all the time and I can't emphasize the word 'all' enough. I even had it highlighted and underlined on my speech paper.

I worry about a lot of things like, when's breakfast, when's lunch, where are my keys, and what in the world did my friend do to my shirt. But the one thing I worried about the most throughout my life so far, is my future.

Everybody wants to know their future—well, except some who wants to go to the past and, I dunno, find Abraham Lincoln's assassin and write a full-blown conspiracy theory paper on it for history class. The truth is, future really scares me, and sometimes when I lay awake counting sheep, all I can count is the number of ways my girlfriend might leave me. It's the uncertainty that pushed our fear, and because of this inability to control what's happening to us, we sometimes lash out on others or isolate ourselves believing that the fewer variables there are in our life, the more certain our future will be."

Was that what Alex had done when Sabina died? Refusing to confide in any of them because he was afraid of the future? Of how a single 'wrong' word could destroy the life and friendships he held dear to? Suddenly, the sense of foreboding settled back in his stomach. They might have dealt with Marquis, but Sabina was still a subject untouched. Even if Alex had deemed his death an event for the future, he had really yet to say a single word about his sister. What if choosing to live now was Alex's ploy to somehow die later after 'atoning' his guilt?

Alex's eyes were fixed on the speaker's when Wolf angled his gaze to the spy and didn't seem to have noticed the quick glance.

"One day, I jumped out of my bed, I went to my girl cooking omelets, kissed her on the top of her head, and told her that I don't want to lose her. It was honestly one of the most cringe-worthy things I've ever said to anyone, but god, it felt really good. You know what she said? She asked me if I was drinking in the bed at four in the morning because I sounded like a drunkard. Then she said if I can get the plates out for breakfast, she'd dance with me.

I was like, dance? She was like, yeah, for our wedding. And oh man, I haven't proposed to her yet. The ring was still in my drawer. Yeah, I know right. That girl, man. As it turned out, she found the ring when she was doing laundry. A word of advice? Don't ever use the sock drawer to hide anything. Now we've been married for seven years and my little baby girl has made her fourth friend now. And every time I see her bringing that one boy over, I wiggle my eyebrows at my wife. That boy's a keeper, I tell you."

The speaker's humorous tone rang like warm summer wind across the crowd, and it drew the expected reaction from the awaiting crowd catching his every word. Wolf liked the man, and he could almost see the humor on Alex. But they were different kinds of humor. Humor was Alex's shield, but it was a toy easy to be manipulated by the man. However, Wolf could hear the hardship in the man's tone. Perhaps humor had once been a shield to him too, but since then he had learned to control and contort it to his will: whether it be feather or metal.

"I know all of your parents have some degree of expectation for you, whether it be getting into the whole Stanford, Oxford, whatever-ford, good colleges or having a certain job occupation when you grow up. But you know what, I was that Jack of all trade, master of none, back in high school, yet here I am, standing here giving you a nice lecture about life. High school doesn't define who you are, in fact, nothing does. I didn't know how to play the trumpet when I was in high school, but now I can play beautifully. My neighbors love it so much that they personally came to visit us and told us to lower the volume because they're afraid they're gonna die from the absolute beauty of my skill.

In my opinion, the truth is the colleges don't care about your grades more than they care about your passion. They don't need robots who know everything but really nothing at all. They needed people who make mistakes, who can make a difference, who is passionate about what they do, who dares to step into the undiscovered land, and who isn't afraid to dream big. And I was very lucky to have my wife beside me the whole way when I told my father no thank you, I don't want to be a programmer. I don't want to live in an office befriending lines after lines of code."

The crowd was silent, and perhaps for the first time for longer than five sentences, the man's face was settled in pensive fixation as he scanned the faces.

"He asked me what I want to do, and I told him I didn't know. But deep inside, I knew. I wanted to be in law enforcement. I want to catch bad guys. I want to be someone's six, to have their back. I want to go home feeling good about what I did. But I didn't tell my father that because I was afraid. I feel like I couldn't trust him to support me, and that was a really scary thought. I didn't tell anyone about what I want to be because I was just so afraid of not being good enough. That was when I learned my insecurity. I had no one that I trust.

Until my girlfriend, two months into our relationship, promptly told me to suck it up and go out into the world and do what I want to do. She didn't even know what I wanted to do, she just knew. And that's when I found the first person that I feel like I can talk to as a person.

You see, what I needed in life was just someone I can talk to, that somebody who really defines what family is. She's my beacon, and I became hers too. This world is too big to solo it, and if you can't find a group to fight the world with, shrink your battle. Fight for somebody else, fight for their world, fight for their wishes, and that's a whole lot more satisfying than standing still in your world, giving up in your fight against the rest of the world."

Wolf exhaled softly. But humans weren't made for others. They were made for themselves. They would live the sword to defend themselves, but their instinct wasn't programmed for others. Was worrying about others really more meaningful? Was being a fixer the purpose of life? People seemed to constantly forget that fixers, especially fixers, needed fixing too. But then, what was the meaning of life?

Perhaps it was like a survival game: they had to fight against the rest of the world. It was always easier in groups because they all had only one life—they didn't have cheats and they didn't have infinite many chances to perfect their skills. Everyone began as their own person until they could the group they belonged in. And some didn't even know there were groups, to begin with, because life had no rules besides death.

When they came back from San Francisco, the first thing Eagle did was to cram them around and on the sofa in the living room and snapped a couple of pictures that he moved onto his computer.

"You will see" was his only reply when they asked what the hell he wanted with the pictures.

Nothing changed much in the house. Morning, noon, night, everything fell back into a comfortable routine hyped by the occasional suggestions each member offered to brighten their day. Mrs. Jones gave Alex a well-deserved break of three months that none of K-Unit thought was really long and sincere enough. Though it was a great improvement from Blunt's era years ago.

Everything was about as peaceful and good as it could get.

Until five days later Alex disappeared in the middle of the night.

The first thought that ran across Wolf's panicking mind was that he thought Alex had been getting better.

When they woke up that the morning, they had found the stove cold, the sofa untouched, and Alex's bed devoid of life. Alex's car was parked outside and his bike in the garage where a thin sheet of dust had already begun to claim ownership of the vehicle.

It was as if the wind had whisked him away from the slightly ajar window in his bedroom. Why didn't Alex tell them?

Wolf was panicking, and the rest of K-Unit could see it on his features and in his actions. He had called Alex fifteen times since morning, and each time it went straight to voicemail. Alex didn't set up a personal message, and the smooth uncaring voice of the woman sent shards of irritation throughout his body. It was Fox's firm grip on his wrist that stopped him from chucking the piece of useless plastic across the room.

Every time before when Alex did his disappearing act, Wolf could sort of piece two and two together to form half the picture to give him reassurance. But this time, he couldn't even get half a piece from the murky water. Was it Sabina again? Or was it Marquis? He thought they were past that, or at least enough that even if Alex was still reluctant to talk to them about, he wasn't going to attempt anything rash. Was it somebody else? Something else? Was it something K-Unit said?

The uncertainty pushed fear into his mind and he couldn't think straight. Every time he tried to start at the beginning, doubts and what-ifs shot through the thin attempts. It rocked his world, and it had been sixteen hours. It had only been sixteen hours. He thought time would be painfully slow, but it went by seconds by seconds. He was looking at the clock, listening to each tick and each tock even as the buzzing and the voices in his mind whispered loud enough to shake the world.

Fox made Wolf sit down as he made the call to someone named Smithers, asking them to track down Alex's phone. But before either of them made their next move, the ringing of Wolf's phone broke through Eagle's pacing in the living room. He dove to where it lay discarded on the sofa, scrambling to pick up.

Who else could it be?

"Alex?" His voice cracked.

"No, it's Edward. Edward Pleasure."

"Oh." The crestfallen feeling sent his heart to the pit of hell, nearly sending the phone dropping from his grip. "Oh. Edward. Hey, now…now's not a good time. I'll call you ba—"

"Alex's okay." The man cut him off before Wolf could cut the phone call. "Alex's here, with me, at the cemetery. He's visiting Sabina, and I think he's been here for at least an hour."

"Alex is in…San Francisco?"

"Yes, he is. He said he took a taxi from home and got on a plane, and he didn't tell anyone. I called as soon as he told me that. You're probably worried."

Worried? Ha. What an utter big fat ugly fucking bloody understatement.

"Put him on. Put Alex on the phone."

The phone picked up the sound of wind and the thwacks of fumbling before it settled in another's hand. "Wolf."

"Get your ass back home. Don't make me waste money on a plane ticket to San Francisco."

"Yeah, yeah, alright." Surprisingly, Alex laughed. "I was about to leave anyway. I'll see you guys...tomorrow? Well, it's still morning here in, so…yeah, you know what, never mind. I can't do the math. 14 hours flight, I'll be there."

No explanations. No apologies. No 'sorry I almost gave you a heart attack'. No 'I'm sorry I forgot to leave a note'. No 'I'm sorry I never think about my actions and the consequences'. None. Zilch. Nada. But before Wolf could shoot back at the ungrateful spy, Alex ended the call. After hearing too many times the monotonous voice of the woman apologizing on behalf of the spy, the dull tones was music to his ears. The buzzing in his mind was dying down in a last dying crackling of fire and ashes, finally reassured that all of his what-ifs and doubts were bogus lies.

Alex got home at seven in the morning the next day, and he wasn't alone. "I invited Edward."

The spy looked better, Wolf realized. And it wasn't just the haircut that Alex had managed to get during the short trip. Gone was the length and curls that used to touch the corner of his eyes and in its place was a neat trim on the side and the back, the hair on the top of his head curled up into the air by the forehead and perfectly gelled in place. Speckles by speckles, the lights had returned to his brown orbs, and his lips quirked up in a small smile at K-Unit's reaction.

"What happened to your hair?" Fox arched an eyebrow as he reached over and poked the new sharp look gingerly.

"I'm going to college next semester." The young spy pushed past them as he dropped the bomb. "Anyway, is anyone hungry? Because I, for one, am starving. What's for breakfast?"

"College? What do you mean college?" A confused but not confused Fox followed Alex into the kitchen. Snake and Eagle ushered the adoptive father along, leaving Wolf the duty to close the door.

The door clicked in place, and so did Wolf's closure. Something fell into place.

This was it, he realized as his hands slowly unclasped from the metallic handle.

This was his closure, and he had been wrong. He thought he would find his closure through Alex's acceptance of Sabina's death. But that wasn't it, because it had never really been about Alex or Sabina. It had always been Wolf himself. Alex's acceptance might have been the closure to the subplots of the wild ride, but ever since he had inserted himself into Alex's life to battle the shadow that troubled the young spy, he had been searching for a sense of closure to his question.

Was he 'right' to step into Alex's life?

Watching Alex's face lit up and hearing his laughter all the way from the kitchen island, Wolf had found that he didn't need an answer. It was everything he needed, right or wrong be damned.

And that was the closure he had sought for sleepless months.

"Tea for your thought?" Alex's sarcastic tilt had him turning. His cup of the warm beverage was pressed into his unsuspecting hand.

"How 'bout next time you decide to run away from home, you leave a note?"

"That defeats the whole purpose of running away from home." The young spy took a sip of his drink as he followed Wolf's example to lean against the door.

Slowly, lights began to cascade into the room as gentle wind breezes sent the curtains over the ajar windows fluttering in the warm summer air. Dust particles fluttered like morning fireflies as they rose and fell like ashes and snow. They stayed like that for a long moment, listening to the conversation bits that float through the air, and feeling the dying heat escape from the cup in their hands.

"You asked me if I've ever considered quitting 6," Alex finally spoke.

"I did?"

"Yeah, about half a year after you guys waltzed into my house and told me you guys need a place to temporarily stay at."

Wolf snorted. "Right." That seemed like such a long time ago when all he had to worry about was their rendezvous location and missions.

"And I told you I've never considered it because I felt like it was part of me. Well, I've been thinking about it ever since, and yesterday when I visited Sabina, I think I found my answer."

"Lemme guess, college."

Alex chuckled and ducked his head. "Yeah, sorta. 6 is something my parents, and my uncle, and the deputy and heads chose for me. It's not my choice, and I'm tired of not being able to take control of my life. I don't want to be swept away anymore. I know I will never be able to part from 6 completely, because the truth is, I do enjoy it. The thing between trouble and me is that we find each other, no matter where I go. So, well, if you can't beat them, join them."

"So you would still be in this whole espionage mess?"

"Part-time, I need a job. Mrs. Jones better pay me extra for this. But this isn't what I really want to talk about. I…" Alex sighed. "I know I'm irrational, rash, heart before head, and naive, and you all had to deal with me and my troubles. Especially you, Wolf. You never signed up for it, but you were, you were always there. I think you've seen my best and worst side, and I don't think I could've done anything just by myself."

Alex swallowed, his eyes glancing away in embarrassment and Wolf had to hold back a snort. Alex hadn't changed as much when it came to cringeworthy proclamations.

"So, I just wanted to say thank you. Really. Thank you for always being there…Being here."

Wolf's lips quirked up. "I didn't have a choice."

Then they let the comforting silence seep back into the room.

Eagle broke the moment by peeking his head past the wall with a camera and whispered. "Hug it out, guys. Hug it out."

Two days later, a delivery guy knocked on their door to drop off a box the size of a drawer. Eagle was quick to dart to the door to take the package, pushing past a confused Alex who knew he didn't order anything. "Thanks for the delivery, man."

With ease and precision of a soldier, Eagle cleared the tape and pulled aside the straps before spreading out the photos and items in the box. Except Eagle, the rest of them groaned as they took a closer look.

"See, I told you you'll see," Eagle said as he handed each of them that glossy photo of the five of them squeezed uncomfortably on the couch looking at the camera. "It's a family portrait thing. So one day, when you're like two hundred years old, you can look at this photo and say, hey, isn't that good ol' Eagle and my buddies?"

Then he started handing out the mugs. "I know this joke is cliche, but hey, look at all these beautiful mugshots. Mug, mugshot, ha. Get it?"

Their resonating resignation was in unison. Then Alex laughed, and without reason, they all joined in.

Their relationship was still, in one word, rocky—but that was just the way it was supposed to be.

FIN

A.N.: It's been a really fun ride, guys!