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"I know. I thought that too. I'm happy with where I've landed and what needed to happen along the way for that." This he can say with absolute certainty, because this isn't regret speaking. He doesn't do regret.

"But I resent that some things weren't... Easier. That's what it was for the next series: easier. They'd fail a test and get more training and a second try, not PsyOps and a death threat. They didn't get yelled at as much. Their standards were lower to meet, with more down time, less discipline."

He understands adapting methods. But they'd made the X6's stronger and faster, then demanded less of them. It's a warped way of doing things, and he's angry on Alec's behalf. If he could destroy everyone associated with making that program, he would, and he'd do it slowly. It's only because Alec doesn't want it that he doesn't try.

If only they knew they're only spared because of a man they systematically tortured for twenty years.

Alec knows the high, strict bars he'd had to clear were what made him who he is now, what gave him the skills he still practices. So that isn't what Lark focuses on.

"That's why I try so hard to spoil you," he says, a soft smile at the completely understated phrase. It isn't spoiling, it's something much more personal.

Those skills - that absolute freedom he has now because of them - are why he doesn't regret everything he worked hard and found a way to survive. He loves who he is. He loves where he's landed.

He chuckles and pats his stomach, which no rational person would call soft, but still lacks the single minded definition and adds a few healthy pounds from when he was twenty. "You're doing an enviable job of it," he assures Lark, warmly.

"There's nothing I'd do differently."

"I know. And I'm glad." Regrets aren't something either of them hold onto for long. Life has too much to learn and too much to offer. But he does hope that someday there will be someone Alec can turn to who simply understands, however it is that Alec still yearns after.

"I wouldn't blame you if you don't go back to the group. But I'll also support you if you do."

He considers that, trying to make a decision now. Trying to make a choice to drop it and let it go, or at least stop thinking about it. This is where he finally starts to unfold his legs, twisting to ease down on his back beside his husband, looking up at their ceiling, one hand behind his head.

"I miss my unit," he says very, very quietly.

He can't bring them back and he isn't sure Alec would if he could. They've only touched the topic very lightly in all these years.

But he can help stave off their second death. "Tell me more about them?"

Alec thinks of them often, keeps them alive in his crystal clear memory of them, but the combination of his self imposed conditioning never to betray their confidence and his own practical mindedness has been too powerful over the years to let him actually talk about them. For it to even occur to him to talk about them.

He starts to say something but it doesn't make it easily now either. He swallows and tries again, thumb tip tapping against the pillow.

"I was closest to Evan," he finally manages. It's not a name he's mentioned before.

He doesn't look at Alec, he just listens the quiet way he does whenever Alec's past comes up.

"What was he like?"

"Clever." He can picture his brother as readily, as accurately as he could the tile he's staring through.

"He was the first to work out any puzzle we were given. You think I'm fast with a rubix cube? I'm full seconds behind his fastest time. But he was quiet, too. Not shy, not stupid. Just quiet."

The obvious question is what happened to him, but that isn't what Lark wants to know. Maybe not ever; it's not the important thing to learn. "What was he like when he did talk?"

He's grateful for that; grateful too for the space Lark makes for him, that lets him ease this out of his own mind as painlessly as possible.

"He talked to me most, but it was always to the point. It was the only time he'd say anything, and he'd say what he meant, and that was it." He notices his tapping thumb and stills it, lips quirking faintly. "'Stop overthinking, Knox.' He was a bossy little shit but usually right. 'You know what to do, so do it.'"

He feels so nauseous his mouth waters in response; he ignores it. It's just the conditioning.

Lark isn't looking at him but he knows Alec's voice so well that he can all but see his expression. Both the faint smile and the nausea.

"You said you were closest to him?" Gently prompting for more, for whatever comes to Alec's mind.

Alec is quiet and still for a long, long moment. Possibly so long it might seem he's not going to answer.

But finally, swallowing again, voice flat just so he can say anything at all, "He said I made him feel safe." A beat. "He made me laugh for the first time."

He made me laugh for the first time. That leaden fist to the gut again, because he knows Alec isn't talking about as a toddler, the way everyone else first learned.

"What made you laugh?"

Here at last is the first hint of uncomplicated fondness: he smiles, just a bit, like a knotted up muscle finally starting to slowly release.

"He could wiggle his ears." Alec learned the name for this skill much later than most people do. "You know how hard it is to be upset when someone stares at you, dead serious until you pay attention, and then does that with a straight face?"

Lark doesn't know what Evan looked like, but he's seen how utterly blank Alec's face can be and he can imagine this scenario so well it makes him laugh. All the more because he can picture a very, very young Alec finding a few seconds' relief from the bleak world he'd been born into.

No one at Manticore outside of those fifteen soldiers knew Evan could do that. It wasn't important to them. It didn't matter.

Evan didn't matter to them. But Lark laughs at this one stupid small thing that Alec misses keenly about his brother, and Alec's smile warms as he breathes out. It lets him relax enough to turn over on his side towards Lark.

"I can still hear him, clear as anything." Alec tends to overthink. From Evan he learned how to be more direct. "Cutter reminds me of him, a little. How he might have been as an adult."

"Then I would have liked him." He already does, for the bit of happiness he gave Alec. "I don't know anyone who can do that ear trick. Not without being a wolf, in wolf form."

"It's a ridiculous trick," Alec agrees. He's even tried it himself before, of course, and even with his precise control over his body he can't do it like Evan could.

"He even got Shila with it, once."

"She probably needed a good laugh." They all did, but it has always sounded as if Shila had their wellbeing more squarely on her head. "What did he look like?"

It's a difficult question. Alec can list off exactly how tall he was, how much he weighed, his BMI, the angles of his face to a double digit degree. That's not what he looked like, though.

What he looked like was harder because of personal hygiene standards when they were young. Alec closes his eyes, ultimately, trying to find the words to describe him.

"Taller than I was, but lighter built. He might have grown into it eventually, but I remember... long arms, long legs. Dark skin and darker eyes and hair darker still. One of only two models like him for our series."

It fills in a few places in Lark's imagination. He studies the ceiling of their luxurious little bedroom. "What do you think he would have thought of the Barge?"

It's funny how Alec can imagine Evan so clearly, but the moment he tries to put him into more modern context, the memory starts to break apart and fragment.

Actually, funny isn't the word for it. It's not amusing at all, but he tries, opening his eyes again but leaving them unfocused.

"Shila wouldn't let us talk about the world outside the compound much. She wanted us focused, and I helped her. But Evan used to watch the humans more closely than anyone, and if a question came up and any of us at all had the answer, it was probably him. He was watching them as people, not as captors." This, too, is maybe a bit of where Alec gets it. "He'd be good at this. And he'd enjoy the same things I enjoy about it, and never let us take that for granted."

"Makes me want to enjoy it a little more," Lark murmurs. He has always known he was more privileged than most kids, but he's only become aware of the things he took for granted since he met Alec.

Alec makes a small sound of agreement. Then he reaches out to brush Lark's wrist with his fingers.

"I want to tell you about them. It's just old habits die hard."

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