Declassified

Declassified Part 4 Supportive Brother

      Dan collapsed onto the couch next to Berg, beer in hand. "You'd like her." He told his friend. "She's a cute redhead. Skinny, nice boobs, blue eyes." He wrinkled his nose in disgust as he grabbed the video game controller. "She's tiny though. Like, really short. Twenty four, but looks a lot younger."

      Berg nodded. "Alex will be over her in a week." He predicted. "I'd like to see her before they're over though. Alex has good taste in women."
      "Yeah, what about Leila?" Kevin asked, cracking open his beer. "Is that officially over?"

      Dan shrugged, thinking about the girl Alex had dated on and off since University. "I don't know. They've been off for months." He observed. "He'll probably get back together with her after Thalia ditches him."

      "You think she'll leave him?" Kevin asked, clearly amused by the thought of charming, handsome Alex being dumped. "She must be hot."
      Dan shrugged. "She's pretty hot for a short girl. But she's also a doctor." He looked at Kyle. "And she works for the same company as you do." He said, raising his eyebrows.

      Kyle frowned. "Oh. I think I've heard of her."
      Dan nodded, surprised. "Yeah. What did you hear?" He asked suspiciously.
      Kyle didn't answer for a moment. "She's good at what she does." He said finally.

      Dan frowned, knowing Kyle couldn't give any more details. Although the Petrovs knew what Alex did, and even Lily knew, they didn't reveal it to anyone outside of the family. Kyle was the only friend who knew because he was an agent as well. "She's out of his league. She'll get bored of him before long."

      "Such a supportive brother." Kevin said sarcastically.
      "He'll get over it." Dan predicted, shrugging.
      "How is Alex?" Berg asked as they started a new round of their game. "He's going to miss the entire summer if his ribs don't heal soon."

      "He's okay." Dan shrugged, thinking about the official cover story about Alex's injuries. He'd fallen down some stairs and broken two ribs. Their friends were used to stories of Alex's 'accidents'. It barely phased them now. Even Kevin who'd known Alex since Alex was in kindergarten, never questioned why he'd become so accident prone in the last six years.

      "We're going rock climbing tomorrow." Kevin reminded him. "Will Alex be up to it?"
      Dan frowned. "No, I don't think so." He shrugged. "Maybe hiking or something, but not rock climbing."
      "Will Andy come?" Berg asked.

      "I don't know. Andy usually likes to hang out with Alex." Dan shrugged, not mentioning that his brother worried about Alex when he was injured. "But if Thalia's still around, Andy will probably come rock climbing just to avoid her."
      "Andy doesn't like her?" Berg asked, not sounding surprised.

      "He likes her okay, I think. But she makes him nervous." Dan admitted. He grinned. "Although this morning I was giving Andy a hard time and she defended him. Like, in between us as if she was going to protect him." He shook his head, still amused. "As if a tiny little girl like her could stop me if I wanted to go after Andy."

      Kevin made a face. "You're a tiny little girl compared to Andy." He pointed out. "If you don't stop giving him a hard time, one of these days Andy is going to snap."
      "If that happens, you're dead." Berg predicted with a smile.

      "I can handle it." Dan shrugged, although he knew if Andy snapped it wouldn't be pretty. He smiled. "And I'd probably deserve it."
      When Dan killed Kyle's character off he immediately left the game. "Hey, Khalid, I want to show you my new paintball gun."

      Kyle nodded and followed his friend out of the room, his dark eyes revealing nothing.
      When they got to the spare room, Dan grabbed a paintball gun and dropped it in Kyle's hands. "So what did you hear about Thalia?" He asked.

      Kyle frowned, looking the gun over. "Not much." He admitted. "She was recruited out of med school."
      Dan nodded, unimpressed. "She's not a double agent or anything?" He joked.

      Kyle smiled. "No. I just heard she ended up in the field sort of by accident." He shrugged. "But then she was instrumental in stopping a major international terrorist attack." He raised his eyebrows. "She impressed someone high up in the agency."

      Dan nodded, trying to reconcile the Thalia he'd met with the girl Kyle and Alex described. "What exactly did she do that was so impressive?"
      Kyle gave him a serious look. "You know I can't tell you that." He smiled. "I didn't know Alex was the agent she worked with. Did she really shoot him?"

      Dan laughed. "Yeah. He got shot twice, but Thalia just got him with a small injury to the shoulder. Then he got shot by a terrorist, and it almost killed him." He looked closely at his friend. "Have you ever been shot?"
      "Classified information, Dan." Kyle said, handing him the gun.

      "You're as bad as Alex." Dan complained, following him back into the living room. But he knew that Kyle always played his cards close to his chest, revealing very little information about himself. Dan hadn't even known his real name until he'd known him almost a year. And he knew nothing at all about his job, other than that he must do something similar to what Alex did.

      "Your new gun is nice and all." Kyle said as they reentered the living room. "But without Alex you're doomed."
      Dan made a face. "If Alex is out we might need to rethink the teams." He protested.
      "Not as confident without Alex, huh?" Berg teased.

      "Yeah, because we gear the teams to balance me and Alex out." Dan scowled as he picked up his controller. "You guys get all the best players because Alex and I are so good, but that means we get stuck with the terrible players."

      "Hey." Kevin complained. "I'm on your team."
     "You suck." Dan grinned at his friend.
      Kevin threw a paperweight at Dan, who caught it. Kevin shrugged. "I do kind of suck at paintball, but at least I'm always on the winning team."

      "Yeah, come on." Berg protested. "With Alex out our team might stand a chance for once."
      "You have no chance." Dan said confidently. "You have as much a chance of winning as Alex does of having a lasting relationship with Thalia."