All he could feel was intense pain. Worse pain then he had ever felt in his life. It was searing through his veins, burning his skin. He felt as if the sun itself had been thrust inside him.

He heard a distant voice asking questions he couldn't quite make out.

He felt the needle slide in his arm and fireworks went off behind his closed eyes as the pain grew.

A small gasp escaped his lips followed by mumbled words, when he realized the voice wanted to know what he had said he raised his head. He looked into the eyes of the voice and with a smirk defiantly declared, "Master Corporal Samuel Braddock, N85-63-8936."

A fist flew at his face, connecting with a solid thud.

As the last of his consciousness faded away Sam could feel soothing cold running through him from the antidote filled needle pressed into his skin.

x.X. Flashpoint .X.x

Sam woke with a gasp; his had tightly curled around the Ka-bar under his pillow. After thoroughly searching the room, he let the knife slip from his grasp as he sat on the end of the bed.

He looked over at his alarm clock and sighed when he saw that it read 3:25 in blinking red numbers. Sam slumped forward and ran a hand over his face; he hadn't been getting much sleep lately. He had been avoiding sleep for the most part, the nightmares were too real. He was afraid one of these days he would wake up and find that he was back there and his escape and return home had been the dream.

In an attempt to push those thoughts from his mind, Sam decided to go for a run. He liked running at this time of day, there was no one around and the air was cool against his skin, soothing the heat he felt was ever present under the tanned flesh.

Sam quickly pulled on a pair of running shoes and a shirt to join his sweat pants and after checking his small apartment, took the stairs down to ground level and walked out into the cold night air.

Sam took off at a jog, scanning every dark alley before he neared it and occasionally glancing up to scan the rooftops. The sound of an approaching car had him reaching for the knife he had concealed in his waistband but the car passed quickly and Sam mentally told himself to relax.

As he reached the entrance to the park he heard the car backfire and practically dove for cover behind a large tree. As soon as the haze lifted on his mind he berated himself for acting like that and let his head fall back on the rough bark of the tree he was leaning on.

He let a soft curse pass his lips as he pushed himself forward and into an all-out sprint. He ran as fast and hard as he could, finally coming to a stop on the far side of the park he had been in. The slight burn in his lungs felt soothing, letting him know that this was real, he wasn't dreaming being back. He liked the feeling and turned and ran the entire way back to his apartment building and up the stairs. The burn had gone beyond pleasant now and he was practically gasping for breath but he liked feeling alive, feeling something. These days he felt so numb that the somewhat painful sensation was welcome as it was telling him he could at least feel something.

Sam cautiously entered his apartment and locked the door before checking every room and finally finding his way back to his bedroom to see the clock read 4:30. He sighed and decided he might as well get ready for work, even if he didn't have to go in until 7.

He stripped out of his sweat drenched clothing and went to the bathroom and turned on the shower. He sighed happily under the warm spray and closed his eyes for a moment.

When he opened them he frowned when he saw he was still holding the knife he had carried with him on his run. He didn't remember bringing it in with him and stepped out to set it next to the sink.

He caught sight of his reflection in the slightly fogged mirror and winced at the scars crisscrossing his body. His hand began tracing a few of the more noticeable ones but froze when they happened upon a particularly nasty one near his hip.

He wished he didn't remember how that had gotten there.

x.X. Flashpoint .X.x

Sam's face contorted in pain as the knife bit into his skin. The man leaning over him smiled darkly at his discomfort.

The knife was suddenly thrust deeper before being removed completely. Sam was glad for the slight reprieve and hoped it would last a few seconds longer.

Then, as suddenly as the pain stopped, it began again only worse. Sam couldn't hold back the scream as he felt the hand roughly shoved into his wound and as it moved around, brushing against something inside of him.

x.X. Flashpoint .X.x

Sam reached forward and grabbed the edge of the counter to steady himself.

The flashback surprised him, he had never had one while he was awake before. God, he hoped that never happened again, he had to get this under control or he wouldn't make it through the day.

Sam couldn't understand it though, he had been home for two months now, and he should be getting better, not worse. Shaking his head to clear it Sam returned to the shower and quickly finished up and went to get dressed and make breakfast.

As he dressed and cooked he tried his best to get his rushing thoughts under control, he couldn't let them interfere with his job, that was the only thing keeping him together and he couldn't lose that. He didn't know if he could make it through the day without the SRU to escape to.

At the SRU he didn't have time to think of his problems, he did his job and saved lives, he followed orders, if he gave himself a second to worry about his own issues someone could get hurt and he wouldn't let that happen.

x.X. Flashpoint .X.x

A/N- so there is the next installment in my Valor verse. I have no personal experience with someone going through PTSD so if something is off don't get too mad. I would appreciate anything you could tell me to make it more realistic though, all my info is through online research so I would love if I could hear what it's really like. Send me a private message if you don't want everyone to see it. Oh and I also want to include a support group type thing in here so any info on how to portray that would also be greatly appreciated. Also as you may have noticed, I am including flashback torture scenes. They are expanding on what is shown in Missing In Action and will show things not portrayed in that fic. To clarify, the first flashback was a sort of drug torture type thing or something like snake venom. Anyways, hope you like it.