For about a week, Snake, Alex, and Ben would go off to one part of the island while Bear, Wolf, and Eagle would either take a boat to another island where they would train with or against other units or train on one side of the island. Sometimes Ben would accompany the out-of-the-loop group for regular training, but more often than not, he acted as Alex's cheerleader.

"That's it!" Ben shouted up into the sky. "You got it!"

Alex was hovering – a benefit of having hummingbird genes was that he could flap his wings faster than the human eye could see. It was only a few days after Snake first teachings that Alex managed to fly in a figure eight, and two days later Snake taught him to hover.

But landing was rough. His wings, fully extended, would touch the ground before his feet, making any sort of landing difficult. As Snake put it, he had to drop out of the air just above the ground. So far, his attempts had ended in crash landings – that is, falling flat on his face or hands. Thankfully, the soft sand almost cushioned his light weight and seemed to prevent severe injury.

"Move forward over the ocean!" Snake shouted up to Alex, a solid thirty feet above them. Ben and Snake were standing on the sandy beach, watching Alex hover. "Try to find uplifting winds and glide!"

After a moment of hesitation, Alex shakily flapped his wings at a different angle and began to pick up speed, heading out over the ocean for a loop around. He performed a slow, unsteady u-turn as he got further away. Unlike a real bird, he flapped through the manoeuvre, rendering it clumsy and far from graceful. His body hung down awkwardly: the opposite of a streamlined bird. Snake said that the angle might put damaging stress on his wing-joints, but he didn't have a suggestion as to how to remedy the issue.

"Do you think he can do it?" Ben asked Snake, eyes still on Alex.

"I don't know. His wingspan area to weight ratio is much lower than your average flying bird."

Ben glanced over nervously at Snake. Sometimes he couldn't understand from where Snake drew conclusions. When Snake uncrossed his arms in alarm, Ben looked over the water quickly.

Alex was falling – no, racing toward the water. As far as Ben could tell, he was doing exactly as Snake had asked: holding his wings out to the side, angled slightly with a great deal of forward movement. But it didn't seem to help.

"Flap!" Snake shouted, startling Ben. "Flap!"

Maybe it was the sea breeze or the ocean spray, but Alex didn't seem to be able to hear Ben and Snake. He was resolutely trying to glide, though it was apparent to the onlookers that he was plummeting down. This was his first time over the sea, too.

"Flap!" Ben shouted, as loud as he could. He accompanied the alarm with ridiculous arm motions.

Just as Alex was about to fall into the water, he got the message and flapped his wings. But it was too late. Like a coin into a wishing well, Alex disappeared from view.

"Alex!" they chorused in unison.

MMMMM

The water was surprisingly welcoming and warm. It even looked nice, like a Mediterranean blue. But it was similar to a brick wall in the way it greeted Alex. It slammed into him.

First his feet, then his legs, wings, and head. He went completely under. Deep under.

With some degree of alarm, Alex opened his eyes when he felt something slippery brush against his legs, not thinking about the water. The water stung and burned for all the blurry sight it gave him. It was extremely dim under the water, testifying to how far away he was from the surface.

There was a fish or whale or dolphin of some kind. It was gray, big, and above all, blurred.

The creature seemed to be moving to swim away, but it suddenly turned to face Alex. Much faster than Alex could have anticipated, it swam to him. Alex unwisely gasped in shock. Bubbles streamed up to the surface, signalling Alex's air loss.

It got closer and closer, and Alex could see it was opening its mouth – huge! Not friendly, then.

Desperately, Alex kicked and instantly discovered the drawback to having not-waterproof wings: they created a ton of drag underwater, even as he tried to fold them so he could streamline. Even his buoyancy was being dragged down by the friction between the water and his feathers. But he couldn't evade the creature, whatever it was.

So Alex did the only thing he could think of.

With great haste, Alex snapped open his wings. Unlike the gray blob heading toward him, the motion was slowed tremendously by the water, and he couldn't really move as well. But the motion had the intended effect. The creature seemed hesitant, and it seemed to slow for a moment. Alex had just about quadrupled in size.

Alex could feel the pressure in his lungs. He needed air. But he needed safety, first. With great desperation, he tried to flap his wings underwater.

His frantic motions didn't have the intended effect. Not only did he feel like he was not moving, but he also felt the need to breathe even more greatly than before. And it only seemed to confuse the creature further, rather than scare it away.

Then things took a turn for the worse.

The creature – whatever it was, Alex still couldn't tell – chose to swim right above Alex. And Alex floated really well – he was rising slowly toward it.

Without thinking, Alex inhaled through his mouth.

And he inhaled water.

Alex squinted, but everything remained just as murky as before. With some trepidation, he tried to inhale again, but he could feel the water seeping into his respiratory system, and his reaction – normal for a human – was to cough. The bubbles streamed up above him and into the creature.

What the creature was, it didn't like that. Alex could have sworn he heard some sort of moan as it swam off.

Vaguely, Alex remembered something from Biology class. Fish. But the lack of oxygen was getting to his head, and he couldn't really remember the details. Instead, he kicked for the surface.

It seemed like forever before he reached the surface. His wings were practically dead weight. He'd accidentally breathed in water twice more without gagging, too, but he couldn't do it on purpose yet.

Alex gasped and coughed when he broke through the surface of the ocean. Faintly, he could hear someone calling his name. And splashing, too.

"Alex!" a very near voice shouted. "Alex!"

Alex recognize the sound. "Ben!"

Over a crest, Ben appeared. "Alex! Are you all right?"

"Yeah," he called back, just as a wave washed over him, pulling him back under for a moment. But as buoyant as ever, he bounced up to the surface. "Ben – "

"Here!" Ben held out an inner tube. Alex couldn't believe he'd missed it. "Grab on – you must be exhausted." Alex held on tightly, but he was so light that it didn't really help him float. Ben seem to sense this, and he continued to hold on anyway.

"Thanks," Alex sputtered. "There's something in the water below us!" he shouted.

Ben's expression would have been worth gold in blackmail, but Alex didn't have a camera. He had more important things on his mind. Like getting back to shore quickly.

"I'm going to try to take off," he told Ben. The older man nodded and held onto the tube, securing it as best he could. Alex sort-of belly-flopped onto the tube and raised his wings behind himself. The appendages dripped and dribbled audibly. Then he snapped them down. He managed to get enough lift on one downstroke to pull himself partially out of the water.

But he couldn't raise his wings fast enough to catch another downstroke. They were heavy with water, soaked through and through.

With a clumsy splash, Alex plopped down in front of Ben once more.

"You can't fly with wet wings?" Ben asked.

Alex shook his head, feeling oddly shaken and scared.

He wasn't quite sure when he'd started thinking of his wings as a infallible way to fly out of any situation – a means of escape, if necessary. One that he could rely on. A security. Insurance. After all, that's what birds use them for most often. He'd chased enough pigeons in his youth to know wings were their means of escape from children.

And now, it seemed, the very same wings were his watery doom.

MMMMM

Ben wasn't quite sure what was on Alex's mind. Since they'd gotten back on shore (swimming with great haste, though Alex was strangely slow), he'd changed his demeanour entirely. Instead of active and ready to leap into the air on Snake's suggestions, he didn't seem enthused about flying at all.

Though, Snake hadn't suggested flying after that. He too seemed a bit shaken about the whole ordeal. It wasn't surprising, considering it had been on Snake's suggestion – gliding – that they'd almost lost Alex.

But now Alex's wings were dry. Or mostly, at least – he'd been sitting in the sun with them spread for what felt like forever. They still had a few hours before Eagle, Bear, and Wolf returned from whichever island they'd slunk off to this time.

To Ben, they were wasting time.

"Shouldn't Alex practice a bit more?" he finally prompted. The other two were sitting on the beach. He was standing, making an equilateral triangle betwixt the three.

Snake looked up at him. "I think we could use a break for the rest of the day."

"That's what night is for: rest."

Snake frowned. "But we just had a very scary experience, per se. A break might be well-advised."

"Alex?" Ben asked. Alex didn't even seem to hear him.

"Alex?" Ben tried again. "What do you want to do?"

Alex started drawing something in the sand. "I..." he trailed off.

Ben sat down in the sand next to him. "Did the thing in the water scare you?"

"Not too much."

"Do you feel all right?"

"Yes."

Ben drew in a deep breath and let it out very slowly. He looked at Alex's wings.

Some of the feathers had turned white. It was a very strange sight to behold – a mixture of black and white feathers, like a parrot who'd forgotten to organize his feathers in a black-and-white film. Ben realized that the feathers actually did look like an old movie, complete with white flecks where they didn't belong.

"Snake, come look at this." Ben reached out and took hold of one of Alex's wings. It felt like there were little grains of sand all over the feathers. Alex didn't look up, instead continuing to draw in the sand.

Snake scooted over next to Ben and stroked the wing gently. He furrowed his eyebrows. "I think the salt dried in the feathers. Look, you can see some of them aren't as neat as before. The salt has pushed some of the barbs apart, so the vane doesn't look right."

Ben looked at Snake. "Come again?"

"The little string-like bits on each feather extending from the rachis."

"Snake..."

Snake sort-of hugged Alex's right wing and tipped it a little bit, spreading out some of the feathers. He gently pushed some of the feathers aside to expose one feather from near where it was attached to Alex's skin. Alex flinched, but made no move to stop them.

"This stem-like long part of the feather is called the rachis." Snake ran a finger down the slightly raised centre of the feather. "All of these little things coming off of it that connect in a mostly solid flat shape are called barbs, and together they are called the vane." He traced the smooth part of the feather. The vane had three or four breaks in it. "Then, near the base, the fluffy not-so-smooth barbs are called afterfeather."

Ben nodded. "So you mean that Alex's feathers look messy because his wings aren't smooth anymore, and the salt has messed with his feathers."

Snake nodded, still holding the feathers apart. "Exactly. I think that instead of taking that break, we might want to spend our time preening. Does Alex have any means of preening?"

Ben nodded. "He's told me that you can just use fingernails to do it."

Gently, Snake took hold of his model feather and gripped near the rachis with his fingernails, drawing them away.

Sure enough, the separated barbs stuck together again.

Snake looked delighted at the outcome. "Of course! The barbules will be bigger on a human-sized bird, so we can lend Alex a hand."

"Can I take a nap?" Alex asked quietly.

Snake looked at Ben. Ben looked at Snake. They had a silent conversation, just like old times, reading each other's face.

Finally, Ben asked, "You don't want to help us preen your feathers?"

Alex looked up at them. "It's not like I wanted wings to begin with," he snapped. "I didn't get a choice."

Snake looked at Ben, shocked. "You mean MI6 forced this on him?"

"No!" Ben exclaimed. "It was an accident."

"If by 'accident' you mean MI6 not giving a damn about back-up."

"Alex, that's not what I meant."

"Fine – but it still stands that I would have chosen normality over – over this."

Snake closed his eyes. Ben could tell he was upset – he knew Snake had high morals. "I – I just never would have guessed." He looked at Alex, who was still picking at the sand. "You never gave any indication that you didn't like having wings. In fact, I remember you laughing the first time you took off."

Alex didn't answer.

"What changed, Alex? I know you liked having wings at some point." Snake finally asked. He started to preen Alex's feathers a little bit, almost absent-mindedly, as if he were only seeking to do something with his hands. "Was it the gliding?"

Alex shook his head no.

"Did the novelty wear off?"

Again, Alex shook his head.

Ben sighed. Snake wasn't getting anywhere, and Ben had a pretty good guess as to what was wrong. But first, he asked, "Alex, is it because your wings can't do everything you wanted them to?"

Alex didn't move. He even stilled his fingers in the sand.

Ben waited, but Alex didn't answer for a long time. "Alex?"

Finally, Alex answered quietly, starting to draw once more. "It – it was really cool, you know? After I got over the whole 'my life just changed forever and I can't go back' thing. I hated them when I first got them – they made Jack go insane."

Snake looked at Ben, but Ben shook his head and mouthed, "Later" to him. Snake nodded, and continued to listen to Alex.

"And I hated them when they plucked me out of society. But then I could fly. I could really fly. I could fly and go anywhere I wanted; I can hover like nobody's business. And maybe I can't glide, but I can still take off and land."

Ben nodded, realizing that Alex was letting out a lot of emotion, despite his monotone. "But?" he asked gently.

"I can't swim," Alex answered, his voice whispery and soft.

Ben replied, "But you held your breath for a long time."

Snake frowned and furrowed his eyebrows as he fiddled with another feather. "And you float."

Alex looked up, and to Ben's shock tears were flowing from his eyes. Then he looked down again. "But – but my wings. They make so much drag that I can't move in water. I'm useless. And I can't even fly if they're wet." His voice cracked. "Now I'm just a useless freak again."

"Hey, it's okay, Alex," Snake tried. "You can still fly. And it's amazing that you have wings."

Alex didn't answer. He just curled up into a ball, ceasing his sandy art. Ben felt his heartstrings being tugged at, and he kneeled in front of Alex and wrapped his arms around him. "You know you're not a useless freak. None of this is your fault."

Alex didn't respond verbally – instead, he jumped up onto Ben's lap and hugged him back, burying his face in his shoulder. Ben just held him there, sliding one hand up to hold Alex's head against his neck.

Snake, who'd lost track of which feather he was preening, shifted forward and commented, "So what if he can't fly through the water? He can still fly."

Ben looked down at the boy in his arm, who was also gripping him like a lifeline. He thought about everything Alex had been through

"I don't think it's just the water, Snake."

MMMMM

AN: Aw! Some emotional development.

Just out of curiosity, what do you think Ben means by his last line?

(I know what I was thinking when I wrote that, but I'm curious to see if you get to the same conclusions.)

Drop a review, if you want to.