A/N: Slightly AU, set after series three. I'm hoping to come back to this later and expand it a bit more.
It starts with pain. It catches him completely off-guard and it's so pure that it sends a wave of nausea rolling through his stomach. His training immediately takes over and he breathes through the pain. It's a simple exercise, one that's been ingrained into his subconscious since he was just a boy.
Inhale. Exhale. Acknowledge the pain. Let it go. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat.
He follows the exercise down to its minute details. He's always been good at following the rules; It's that temper that gets him into trouble. But even following the rules fail sometimes. He tries, though, and so he follows them like twisted recipe for a soldier – take several guns, add a group of inexperienced men, mix well with discipline and duty, let simmer, send into field, shoot there, stab here, kill everyone. The rules (those damnable, wretched rules) are there for a reason: to keep order, to keep people safe.
They've failed him once again. After his last tour (no, don't think about it – stop!), he swore he'd never fail again. He promised it.
He's not good at keeping promises. He never has been.
He watches people disappear through anomalies. He watches people die. He thinks back to the terrifying future that may or may not have been prevented and shudders. He tries to breathe through the pain - the overwhelming, nauseating pain that blooms behind his eyes (under his ribs, down his legs, across his chest). It doesn't help. He keeps seeing Connor, Abby, Cutter, Jenny, Danny, Sarah.
Bile rises in his throat and he vomits on the blood-stained tiles. His stomach continues to clench long after its emptied itself. His throat is raw and tender and all he wants to do is breathe and stop breathing. He's not sure which one it is anymore. (He stopped being sure the moment he killed that first man all those years ago.)
In the end, he keeps breathing. Not by choice (he'll never be able to make the choice again), but by chance. It's chance that he falls into blissful unconsciousness. It's chance that his lungs continue to work, despite the abuse they've endured.
(Maybe it isn't chance, but he stopped being religious, so it's all the same to him.)
He keeps going. There are new people that need protecting, new anomalies open all over Britain, new (old) creatures that need to be returned to their rightful time.. He's been ordered to keep working. And if there's one thing that Captain Becker does well, it's following orders.
He follows orders, breathes through the pain, and let his body heal.
He knows his tattered soul never will.