Author's Note: This chapter was harder than I thought, because I really don't like graphic violence. The human imagination is worse than reality, anyways. Many, many thanks to gaelicspirit, blazeofobscurity, and pandi16 for their help and listening to me rant and rail against this before I finally got the hang of it. The show has left a lot to be desired since I am not a fan of the fact it has become Mary Poppins, former MI6 and the Idiots Who Occasionally Contribute to the Story Line. ::twitch:: Oh well. That's why I have fanfic.

Time was a funny thing, his mother always told him. Never enough of it, and somehow, always too much on your hands. He'd never thought about it much. He'd never seen any reason to. Looking at a watch only made good times fly and the bad times drag.

It mattered less in the Pit.

And somehow, he kept hearing Rick's voice with his standard excuse – time is a construct – every time he was late.

Time is a construct.

It just popped into the forefront of his mind in the middle of an interrogation session, and there it stayed. He held onto the thought for what seemed like days. Months. Years. And he laughed to himself about the oddity of time. TC would have some interesting thoughts on it.

If he ever saw them again.

In person, anyway.

Because he imagined them every day. Saw them in his sleep. Talked to them when he was alone and in darkness too thick to even see his hand in front of his face.

And every time he was yanked from the Pit and into blinding light and flashes of color and bursts of raw agony and questions shouted at him that he no longer understood even if he wanted to answer, he heard Rick's voice – time is a construct – and heard TC's snort and imagined Nuzo's eye roll.

Time is a construct.

He hadn't been here for weeks.

Time is a construct.

It was only minutes.

Time is a construct.

He could take anything for a few minutes.

Time is a construct.

Especially for his brothers.

It was only a few minutes.

A few very long, very lonely minutes.

He still didn't understand what they wanted with Robin. He wasn't even sure if Robin was alive to protect by refusing to answer, but damned if he cared.

Swelling reduced. Cuts scabbed. Bones mended. Burns healed.

So what if his pinkie would always be a little crooked? So what if he had a new scar? So what if it was always going to ache when it rained?

The information about a journalist from Hawaii was coming with him to his grave, no matter how many bones they broke.

A small mercy was that he was alone when they took him, and alone in the dark. He hadn't seen in the others since the mountain side. He knew they were alive – when he teetered on the edge of consciousness, darkness edging across his blurred vision, he would catch snippets of complaints about their other prisoners. Mostly about failure of their parent country refusing ransom, which could be anyone, but then he'd catch things like the big one cracked one of the bars or the Americans are being difficult and demanding something. It wasn't proof positive that they were alive, but it was close enough.

Hope didn't require much.

His personal favorite though, had to be: The American who speaks Russian – do you believe what he says? Followed by hushed denials of no, of course not.

It hurt his aching ribs, but he chuckled anyway.

He'd always wondered about Rick's history. Thomas could only apologize but so much for being nosy, but after their first meeting going less than swimmingly, his curiosity got the better of him. The sharpshooter's record was a mile long, mostly with NJP's regarding disrespecting superior officers, failure to obey, and one oddly truncated entry that had Rick's signature swearing up and down he would never make a wager against a certain NCO involving cash or goats.

The complaints weren't a concern for Magnum. If anyone bothered to look at his own record, he doubted they'd still be surprised why he was still just a lieutenant.

It was the bizarrely devoid personnel file. Like Rick had just popped into existence at the age of 18 with a suitably dull background that wouldn't raise any eyebrows, beg any questions, or turn any heads. Nothing to explain why a kid born in Hawaii was one of the best marksmen the Marines had ever seen. Or why he spoke mostly-fluent Russian. Or how he knew hand to hand combat before boot camp.

He did wonder about why Rick had such a problem with authority figures. Not just the back talk that irked a lot of superior officers, but after only one day together, Magnum considered it more of a flat out paranoia. Before Rick knew Thomas was an officer, the older man (by a whopping total of three months) was personable and joking and fun – and the second he realized Magnum was in fact Lieutenant Magnum, just like that…Rick was gone, and Sergeant Wright took his place. Cold, aloof, disparaging, and accusatory, like Thomas was some sort of undercover NARC out to make sure he remembered he was a mere E5 in the shadow of holier than thou officer.

If Nuzo hadn't choked, near dying on his beer at the bar when Rick complained about Magnum's rank and pointed out that no one hated Magnum more than anyone wearing bars or stars, he doubted Rick would've ever trusted him enough to be friends.

He wondered what Rick was telling them now.

He wondered how much of it was true.

He hoped they didn't worry about him. At least not as much as he worried about them.

The words of Louie Zamperini echoed on the heels of Rick's – If I can take it, I can make it.

Simple sentences to remember. Sometimes he said them aloud instead of his own name, rank and serial number, which seemed to confuse his interrogators enough to give pause, glancing between each other and wondering if he'd finally lost his mind.

Shortly after arriving in Afghanistan, Magnum and Nuzo were sent to talk to some of the locals – a peace keeping operation to garner goodwill towards the official Afghani forces and the American military over the Taliban – and one of the young men showed them his scars as a wordless explanation of why they didn't dare go against the Talib.

The Taliban, they torture you the worst in the beginning, the teen said, showing off thick, ropey scars from where he'd been beaten with a stave soaked in water – it'd cut through his skin like a knife through meat. After that, they do it for sport, not necessity.

Thomas currently regretted not asking the kid how long 'the beginning' was, because he wasn't sure how much of this he could take.

Time is a construct, he reminded himself every time he caught his thoughts wandering to how long it must have been since the crash. Or when hunger started to gnaw away at his gut, and his throat clicked every time he swallowed against the dryness. Or as the sharp agony of recent injuries faded to dull aches and scabs formed over wounds. Time is a construct.

But when the oppressive total darkness from the Pit pressed in from all sides, reeking of cold and damp and something rotted in the shadows that attracted the rats that bit through his clothes, and he wondered if he would ever see his friends again, he didn't care. He turned his face into the dirt and screamed until he could scream until he couldn't hear anything else.

Not the voices in his head, not the scratch of rodents in the dirt, not the questions of the Taliban about Robin, until they came to drag him away again, and it started over anew.

This time, they didn't drag him to the now familiar interrogation room. Magnum didn't even have his eyes open, keeping his head bent and his eyes shut against the blinding glare of the bare bulbs lining the naturally carved stone corridor of the cave. His bare feet dragged against the well worn and packed down dirt floor, too tired and petty to make an effort in keeping himself upright.

If they wanted to take him somewhere new, they were going to have to work for it, and he felt a pang of vindictive bitterness when they had to readjust their bruising grip on his arms more than once.

When the bitter cold wind hit him in the face, he couldn't help the sudden, sharp inhalation or urge to wrap his hands around his chest, the shock forcing his eyes open even as the dim gray light of a rainy sky blinded him after so many days (weeks?) underground and in the dark.

It took longer than it should have to realize he was outdoors. The air hurt his lungs, but he sucked it in greedily, even as it made his teeth ache and his chest burn and his nose run.

Fresh air. Cold as hell and wet from the rain, but fresh air. Instead of damp and mildew, he smelled pine and sagebrush.

When his captors released his arms, he didn't even bother to put his hands out to catch himself, dropping to his knees in the damp sand and clay, forcing himself to remain upright even as he could feel himself sway dangerously in the wind.

Thomas looked up at his captors, squinting through his one good eye against the gray sky at the shadow looming over him.

"This is it then, huh? You couldn't have picked better weather?" He coughed, voice rough from days of not using it except to scream. "Sun would've made for a better lighting for an execution. Nice contrast for the camera."

He held no illusion to why they hauled him outside. ISIS was primarily known for public and recorded beheadings of enemy combatants or foreign aid workers and journalist, but they hardly cornered the market on it. He gathered what little moisture there was in his mouth and spat at the feet of the closest man.

"Get it over with," he growled. "I'm cold and I'm bored, might as well be dead, too."

The two men didn't move. Didn't speak. Didn't even acknowledge he'd said anything at all. They stood only a few feet away, their Russian military coats pulled high against their necks while they held their battered and dated Kalashnikovs across their chests. He was a little surprised they didn't even bother to hit him for his insolence. It wasn't like they'd tolerated sarcasm any other time. They just stood there, watching him.

Thomas wasn't entirely sure what the hold up was. This was…strange, even for the Taliban. He wracked his brain for something maybe one of the villagers mentioned about execution tactics, thinking he was missing something. But he didn't see a camera, or a cellphone. His quick, cursory glance around the opening of the cave revealed nothing – no jeeps for secondary transport, no boards to be nailed to (he shuddered at the memory of finding a crucified man in a recently won village), no extra men gathered around for a public stoning…which would've been stranger still, since that was typically for adulterers, not war prisoners.

Just the two men with their rifles, not even aimed at him.

Were they thinking he was going to try and run, and they could justify shooting him in the back? The Taliban never needed such an excuse. And where would he go, even if he did run? He was barefoot. No coat, and no sleeves.

And Rick, Nuzo, and TC were still somewhere in that cave.

If they expected him to run, he wondered if they knew it would only be right back where they'd dragged him out of.

Minutes dragged by.

Nobody spoke. Nobody else joined them.

The wind, barely noticeable before, started to pick up, swirling in eddies like an airborne tide in the small clearing of the cave and cutting through his too-thin and filthy shirt making him shudder.

The sky darkened. A storm was rolling in over the mountains.

It began to rain.

At first, it wasn't too bad. A bare smattering of droplets here and there, and Thomas hoped blindly that the storm would just miss them. His shivering awakened older injuries, reminding him that lack of shoes and his friends were far from the only reasons he couldn't run for it.

Spite made him want to not give in to instinct to try and warm himself or retain what little body heat he had. A kneejerk reaction, but a foolish one. He would fool no one pretending he wasn't cold, when shivers visibly wracked his whole frame. He rubbed his arms, hunching in on himself as much as broken ribs would allow, and after a few futile minutes, he made to stand, pushing himself up with one hand so he could move – limited as it would be – to try and force circulation back into his extremities and keep him warm.

A foot swept his arm before he could dodge, sending him back into the dirt face first with a snarled "Zäno bezaned!" from one of the guards.

So he wasn't allowed to stand, he thought, pushing himself back to his knees and spitting out the mouthful of sand. That answered whether or not they expected him to run. But then what the hell was their plan?

It started to pour.

The heavy rain pelted down like chips of ice, stinging his bare skin like angry hornets, soaking through his clothes in a matter of moments. His clothes plastered to him like a second freezing skin, turning the rocky clay beneath his knees into frigid mud.

The guards stepped back into the overhang of the cave opening, one lighting a cigarette while the other pulled the collar of the coat up to his ears against the chill.

Thomas bit his lip when he realized exactly what their plan was.

Death from exposure.

Long, slow, painful, and minimal effort from them, and no way to ward it off.

His teeth still chattered, bruising his bottom lip even as he tried to stop them. He was tempted to make a break for it just so he could die faster from a bullet to the back than the slow death they had planned, but when he moved to stand again, he didn't even need the guard to knock him back down. His arm gave way beneath him, his own weight forcing him back down into the dirt, collapsing onto his back.

What the hell was it Nuzo taught him back in Coronado about hypothermia? Shivering was a good thing, and when it stopped, that's when you knew you'd gone from cold to hypothermic. Memories of sitting, arm in arm with the other SEAL trainees in the Tijuana sloughs, neck deep in the bone chilling mud overnight. His class, once 130 strong were down to less than fifty, and with the promise from the instructors of a warm fire and the release of their classmates if only five quit, more were about to drop. One lone voice in the night had started to sing. Horribly out of tune, and barely recognizable, it didn't matter. Another voice joined in, and then another and another until the entire class was singing like drunken sailors on shore leave.

Not another man dropped from the class during the remain of Hell Week.

It's easy to hope when there's someone else beside you. When there was a team, or a friend, going through the same hell.

There was a reason why they operated as a team.

And Thomas had been alone for a very long time.

He couldn't remember the song the one lone voice had started that night on the flats. The only thing that popped into his head was the song from a cartoon about the rain, so out of the blue he almost laughed out loud.

Drip drip drop little April shower, beating a tune as you fall all around.

Time, the traitorous bastard, dragged on. Lost meaning. Seemed to slow and stop, as frozen in this moment as he was.

At least he would get to die under an open sky.

When door flung open, they all jumped. Even the other prisoners.

Food wasn't brought more than once a day, and today's meal was still digesting. Whether it was breakfast, lunch or dinner, no one really knew. Without natural light, days and nights became meaningless, time bleeding from one hour to the next until Rick was sure he was going to lose his mind.

Best guess they had to go from was hoping their natural sleep cycle remained intact – night owl Rick compared to early risers TC and Nuzo. It was far from an exact science. According to TC, circadian rhythms could falter from external factors, such as daylight (which they had none) and temperature (which remained the same).

Until recently, their most accurate way of measuring the passage of time was the severe bruising on his back. TC had some rather…creative…ways of describing how the violent shades of black and purple slowly faded into sickly green and jaundiced yellow, and how the swelling gradually reduced to allow him to move his toes, and then his feet and legs without sucking in a breath between clenched teeth to keep from crying out.

As much as the others seemed to want to track time, Rick purposely ignored them. Didn't make tally marks, didn't try and keep track of when food was brought, because as far as he was concerned, the days dragging by meant only one thing:

The odds of Thomas being alive dropped with every passing one.

Instead of watching the guards for time checks, Rick paid attention to what they carried. Some had rifles. Some had bayonets and swords. Some had only knives, and others seemed unarmed. Every one posed different problems and opportunities for escape – unarmed soldiers were easily taken out but left him with no weapon to take for himself, and the odds of being able to take out two Taliban fighters without being noticed or killed without his own weapon were pretty grim. Trying to tackle someone with a weapon, well…fifty fifty chance that the weapon would be his by the end of the fight, but at least he would have something to shoot someone else with.

There was also the problem with the locked door.

TC smashed one of the cages pretty easily, reaching through the broken bars to grab the haji by keffiyeh and yank him face first into the bars, breaking a nose and chipping more than a few teeth.

After that, they were upgraded to metal. Which was actually pretty funny the first day, because they hadn't realized TC could still reach an arm through, and metal hurt a lot more than just splintered wood.

Now they came in pairs, one with a gun trained on TC, the other slid food through a crack beneath the door.

Rick's primary contribution while waiting for the swelling in his back to go down was throwing thinly veiled insults in Russian at the guards.

Thinly veiled. Graphically suggestive. Take your pick. The Russian seemed to throw them more than anything, but then, Afghanistan had long been an occupied territory for them. It was a tossup as to whether or not the individual guards thought of Mother Russia as an enemy or an ally, but they almost all understood at least a little of the language.

Enough to understand what Rick planned to do with their entrails if he was ever let out.

In fairness, what probably kept him alive had less to do with fear of him, but fear of TC. Something Nuzo pointed out on more than one occasion, comparing them to a junkyard dog and a yappy terrier.

They never heard word about Thomas. Whether he was dead or alive. If he was just left in a cage like they were, in another cave. If he was being tortured. He wasn't even used as a threat against them.

Anything would've been preferably to nothing.

At least, that's what he thought.

Between the two guards hung a limp and lifeless Thomas. His head was titled back, catching what little of the light the bare bulbs offered, his normally tan skin a sickly gray. One entire side of his face was bruised, from temple to beyond his jawline, swelling his eye shut, his other one closed. His hair was longer than the last time they'd seen him, just long enough he would've caught hell from Greene for being out of regs. He was soaked through, his clothes plastered to him revealing how much weight he'd lost in the time he'd been gone, and what little of Thomas's skin he could see was speckled with half healed cuts, bruises and…Rick swallowed tightly…burns.

He wasn't breathing.

And now you can blame gaelicspirit for that ending. As always, feel free to come find me on tumblr disappearinginq!