It was a quiet walk as they strolled along the barely visible pathway to the mess hall. Alex didn't bother checking to see if K-unit was behind him, instead pushing forward faster. He was intent on eating as quickly as he could and leaving for some necessary sleep. Not that he would get it anyway. It was just a habit. The nightmares made it all too easy for a sleepless night.

For the briefest moment, Alex tuned K-unit out—something he found he had to do often in order to stop the alertness and wariness that came with the job. He needed to relax here. Brecon Beacons was the safest place MI6 could have sent him, and they hadn't exactly sent him to good places before. It was a welcoming change from the high-speed chases and BASE jumping.

But he found he couldn't. The muscles in his back were still taut with tension, his hands still in fists, clenched, though he didn't quite know why. And besides, Alex snorted to himself, it's a military training ground. Like they'd let him relax. The fourteen kilometer run sounded less than appealing to the fifteen year old schoolboy.

His ears picked up the next sentence Snake said. "Is he seeing a psychiatrist?" he whispered to Wolf. "We all went through our tests…I wonder who's his psychiatrist?"

Wolf grunted. "He's a messed-up kid. I don't think it matters who his psychiatrist is."

"But—"

"But," Wolf snapped back, Alex quietly thinking it was rather forceful, "he's part of our team. What I mean is, he doesn't need a psychiatrist. He needs people who can relate over a university grad student who has no clue what real battles are. Bet his psychiatrist never went out into an under-fire building to extract civilians."

Alex's lips twitched at the thought. MI6 immediately sent him to a psychiatrist the minute he had returned, never mind Edward Pleasure's attempts to take him in instead. The psychiatrist there, one Mr. Henry Barry, was a cheerful young man who belittled his patients. Alex promptly ignored the man after the first meeting, preferring to bring in magazines and homework over the man's overzealous assumptions of his "work". The man hadn't even been briefed on who Alex was. He'd just believed Alex became an orphan.

Partially true. Only, Alex thought grimly, it was a year before. Ian Rider was his last living relation, and he'd died in the hands of Herod Sayle. His hands tightened unconsciously. All the lunatics who wanted to destroy lives were the ones who had destroyed his life…along with the ones who had helped him stop all seven billion of them.

Alex reached the mess hall with K-unit trailing behind. He caught Wolf's last words before the man caught up to him, "…the sergeant expects us to help the kid."

Well. The same sergeant who had expected nothing less than SAS perfection from a child wanted to keep an eye on him. He didn't know how to feel about that. Happiness? Anger? Caution? It was certainly in his best interests to see what K-unit would do after being handed the orders.

He pushed the thought away and door open. The moment he did so, he found what he thought were fifty men boring their eyes at him. Alex instantly reverted in assassin mode: the less he showed, the less they knew.

K-unit came up from behind, took one look, and breezed past him. The mess hall slowly relapsed back into the quiet chatter that Alex was used to, though no man's eyes left him. Alex grimaced but moved forward. There were many more new recruits than old veterans coming back for a refresher. It meant he would be facing about the same level of hostility he faced the first time he was here. Or worse. The thought did nothing to help him shake the wary feeling off.

Alex took his place in line, avoiding the paths of any soldier. He had a feeling he would be faced with forceful opposition if he did. It wasn't as though K-unit would intervene besides—what was the worst a soldier could do to a child like him? Beat him up? Alex doubted these soldiers would fall down to that level. A few words perhaps, nothing more. Although, Alex mused, he was using the lack of words to give off his hatred towards life at the moment.

He received his tray full of unidentifiable grey gloop and lethargically moved to the table where K-unit was sitting, purposefully sitting a few seats away in solitary. He didn't want them constantly looking at him in suspicion when he was just eating his meal.

His hand grabbed the fork and he started to eat without tasting. The men around him were quieter than usual, yet the hushed whispers managed to slide into Alex, the attempts for silence failing on the ears of a SCORPIA trainee. He could hear the man with the Brummie accent two tables down to the right questioning the sergeant for allowing a teenager inside official grounds, the Scotsman to his left arguing with the Scouse accented man on the reason why Alex was here. If only the three men knew.

Newbies. Alex personally thought the Brummie-man wouldn't survive. He was much too overweening, too pompous, too argumentative towards authority. No, he would be out long before the four weeks of training were up. Still, Alex couldn't be the judge for these men. They had to all be extremely well-trained in terms of military men, else they wouldn't be here. All SAS men were at Brecon Beacons for a reason. His was for assimilating back into a normal British teen.

His fork clattered onto the plate. Alex looked down and saw to his surprise the tray empty. Somehow, without actually burning from hunger, he'd manage to finish off inedible food…more than his kidnapping.

He didn't want to think about that.

He stood, taking his tray over to the drop-off where several men were waiting in line for the chefs to clear the area. A few soldiers stole curious glances but quickly turned away the moment Alex caught their eye, all except for one man whom he recognized as Hawk, the sniper for L-unit.

Alex didn't particularly like Hawk. The previous time at "camp", Hawk had been smug about going over to the shooting range, often shooting glares at Alex without undisguised contempt. He'd swung his rifle over his shoulder with ease and Alex found himself staring at the man wondering what exactly he'd done to piss off the soldier.

But perhaps he was being too judgmental. After all, Hawk hadn't exactly spoken to Alex. In fact, Alex remembered, Hawk had barely shown up in the areas where Alex trained, as L-unit was in a different sector. Maybe, Alex thought, it was his fourteen year-old self speaking of jealousy. He never saw L-unit completing the obstacle course at the same time K-unit was.

Hawk met Alex's eyes full-on, his black-brown eyes seeming to drill holes into his head. Alex didn't flinch, instead deciding to meet the man with a blank stare. It was only a second but it felt longer to him. Then Hawk nodded respectfully, and moved forward to brush past Alex.

In that instant, Alex was seized with terror. The simple touch transformed into a shock, the same touch of fear drowning him the moment Jack's vehicle exploded into flames. He fell back, staggering and gasping for breath as he clutched his head in agony. He couldn't think. He couldn't breathe.

Before he could get a hold of himself, his killer instinct clicked "on" and he turned emotionless eyes to Hawk, seeing not a soldier of great pride but a man bent on destroying him. His hands reached out, grabbing Hawk's wrists and twisting them so it snapped with a heart wrenching crack! Hawk barely let out a scream, suppressing the pain as he desperately turned his eyes to the boy in front of him in shock, but Alex only saw Hawk as an enemy. He didn't think about the soldier as a soldier but as a person of harm.

They killed Jack.

They killed Jack.

Alex slammed Hawk onto the ground, lifting the man off his feet. He spun around to add in an extra kick, impairing the soldier even further as blood spurt from his already broken nose. Then he took a step back to admire his handiwork…

"Cub!"

Alex barely registered the name was referred to him, turning to the speaker's voice with blind eyesight. There another soldier was, built exactly like Hawk, spoke exactly like Hawk. There was no name for this man. He was the enemy too.

He moved forward—and was stopped by a hand clutching the edge of his school uniform.

School. Uniform.

Alex jerked backwards, blinking rapidly at the sudden realization of the present. There Hawk's hand was, tugging him backwards. What for, again? Oh yes…Alex froze. He was about to attack Eagle, the same man who belonged to his unit. The same man who was responsible for Alex's well-being.

He started to shake, back and forth, his brain unable to catch up to what he had just done. No, it wasn't that. He'd already caught up to the situation. He just didn't want to think about it. What does a boy say when he was about to kill two men without a second's thought?

A bitter taste spread in his mouth. It was SCORPIA that needed to pay for this. SCORPIA had taken Jack away, had taken away any chance that he had of ever returning to the ordinary schoolboy.

He looked up to see the entire mess hall staring at him, wary, with their weapons they had on them drawn. They were standing, watching him, waiting to see if he would make another mistake. No, he hadn't known there was a way to salvage his burning destruction in his heart, and he'd released it onto a man who he didn't even know personally. He was ready to kill an innocent man simply because he was angry.

He couldn't deal with them watching. They were watching too closely, with just too much scrutiny.

So he turned on his heel and ran out of the mess hall, ignoring the cries that exploded behind him.