Journey - REVISED EDITION

Doubts, Memories, and Quitting Lungs

He gently moved Alex off of him and onto the bed, the teen's eyelids twitching. They opened. One pair of confused brown eyes met a bright blue pair of laughing ones.

"Good morning, sleeping beauty." Falcon said good-naturally.

Alex groaned and closed his eyes again, curling into the blankets.

"How do you feel?" He asked, poking the boy in the shoulder.

"Leave me alone." Alex mumbled.

"Not a morning person, huh?" He chuckled, his smile becoming sad, memories of another dark-haired teen who hated mornings filling his mind.

Alex said something under his breath that left Falcon whistling and wondering where he learned language like that.

"It's ok. I'll bring breakfast up, but you'd better be ready for it." Falcon slid off the bed, and marched out of the room with the others, leaving Alex to catch some more sleep, or, hopefully, realize how much he needed to get out of bed and keep moving.

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Alex had heard everything.

Everything.

He couldn't believe that Falcon hadn't told K-Unit the truth. He'd kept it a secret. How did a complete stranger know that that's what Alex had wanted?

They'd just met. Crazy. They knew nothing about each other. Insane.

For some reason, Falcon looked vaguely familiar to him. Maybe he'd seen someone who looked a little like him on magazine covers or something. Falcon definitely had the face and the smile of a model.

But Alex looked past the smile-lines and humor, and saw a hurting person. He'd seen the pain in those blue/grey eyes. It wasn't harsh, but it was there. It was definitely there.

And he recognized it.

And, more than anything, Alex wanted to know why. He knew a grand total of nothing about K-Unit's new member. To be honest, he hadn't even thought that maybe they'd have replaced Fox, so Falcon's presence came as a complete surprise. Once he'd gotten over the initial shock of it there was the issue of him needing to pretend to be asleep.

The surprise wasn't entirely unwelcome though. Falcon had helped Alex breathe again. He hadn't judged. He'd kept one of Alex's weakest moments a secret. So he couldn't be all bad.

But who was he?

Alex shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, and began to climb out of bed. Without warning, his lungs decided to quit. Blood filled his mouth, and he coughed, trying to clear his airways, his pitiful wheezes painfully quiet. He crumpled to the floor, hands clutching his sweatshirt, blood dribbling out of his mouth. Was he finally dying?

His vision faded in and out. For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, he found himself suffocating.

Perfect.

Somewhere, he heard the door open, and someone rush in. They were prying his hands away from his chest, shouting to someone else, someone standing in the doorway, on their phone.

"It's okay. It's okay. Help's on the way."

It was Falcon. Somehow, that made Alex feel just a tiny bit better. He gripped the hands that held his own, as Snake came from behind and lifted him into a sitting position. It was a little easier now. But the blood was quickly filling his lungs faster than he could clear them.