Choking On My Own Lies
Disclaimer: If you recognize it then I don't own it.
A/N: For Whumptober 2022 #16 No way out -No one's coming
Colby Granger was going to die alone.
He couldn't breathe.
Five weeks in jail and nobody had come to see him. Not that he expected anyone to. Once he had been interrogated and deemed a traitor his team had tossed him away and forgotten he had even existed. He knew he had blindsided the people he had called friends, nobody had seen it coming. He had done his job well as a spy, not one person had even suspected him of being more than he appeared. Until the Janis List. Colby Granger had just been a lowly FBI agent trying his best to help others. Overnight he had become a traitor to his country and his team. His friends turned their backs on him but not before showing him their anger, betrayal, disbelief, and hurt. He never wanted to involve them in his hidden life. He wanted to do his duty and have them never the wiser about his secret life as a spy. Most days he could forget he was lying to them. Living a double life, working with the enemy. On other days he looked in the mirror and couldn't meet his own eyes. He felt like the worst kind of man. He was lying to the only people he care about. They trusted him with their lives, yet he was spying on them. He wanted out so many times but if he got out of the game too soon it would have all been for nothing. He cursed saying yes, Dwayne Carter, and the fire that had forged their bond he couldn't seem to break free of.
Nobody was coming for him. He was on his own. There was no way out. He had walked this path knowing that he would most likely not live to reach the end of it. The life of a spy was a lonely and dangerous one. It was a life he would not ever have chosen for himself. A soldier, cop, and federal agent were all things he saw himself doing. Upholding law, order, freedom, and justice. Protecting the weak. Protecting his country. Protecting anyone in need. When the call had come, when he had been asked to do his duty to save lives and help his country what could he say? He said yes. He reluctantly agreed to become a triple agent.
Everyone he cared about thought he was the worst kind of traitor. He was alone. The only man who knew the truth was dead. He was truly alone. A man without a country. A man without a friend. A man with no one. He had burned every bridge when he accepted this assignment. He was not cut out to be a spy, yet he had become good at lying. He only ever wanted to help his county, and stop bad guys. He had failed in both. He was going to die on this ship and no one would ever know what had really happened. They would never know how hard he tried to do what was right. They would never know the real Colby. He thought he was the real Colby with his team. They didn't think he was. In the end, he was alone with his mistakes. No last-minute save. No friends to have his back. Not when they thought he had stabbed them in theirs.
When his hander had gone dark he called Charlie. He hadn't lied when he told him that it would take the FBI longer to track the consultant's phone. That wasn't the only reason he had chosen to call the younger Eppes brother. Charlie was the only one who could really help him. He knew if anyone could get Don to listen it would be his little brother. He wasn't jaded, his big brain was open to all sorts of possibilities and he was smart enough to question what was right in front of him and seek the truth.
David probably wanted to put him back behind bars, no questions asked. Too hurt by Colby's betrayal, he wouldn't listen to any excuses. Don was most likely feeling guilty and blaming himself for not seeing things sooner, questioning his own judgments. Colby hoped he'd listen but it would take time. Time he wasn't sure he had. Megan just wanted to fix everything. After the DOJ thing, she had been questioning everything anyways. She struggled to trust herself let alone a teammate accused of treason.
Don had let him go on the subway tracks. He had a clear shot, he could have easily taken him down, but he hesitated. Colby held onto that fact. Somewhere deep inside Don questioned if Colby was really a traitor. There was a possibility that all the good he had done over the last couple of years had meant something. He told Don he trusted him. That he was the only person he could trust. He was alone, trapped in a web he had helped to weave. It was slowly strangling him as his escape was cut off. His options had dwindled to one Mathematician finding him in an ocean of ships. He wondered how many Chinese freighters were in the L.A. area. Whether his team believed him or not, he hoped they came after him, even if it was just to arrest him again. Dwayne had told him they were in this together. He was tired of dragging each other out of wrecks. He hated owing Dwayne Carter, it had been a noose around his neck for years. He just really wanted to be with his team when the shit hit the fan. He was going to die, zip tied to a chair, injected full of poison, in agony. All alone.
His dad had been alone when he died. He could see him standing next to his torturer looking down at him in disappointment. He tried to breathe through the pain and paralyzing influence on his body. Every involuntary twitch of his body sent stabs of agony through him. He wanted to scream but didn't have the air or energy to make more than pained wheezing. He tried to be strong. He tried so hard to do what was right. He wanted to always make his dad proud of him. He had failed. He was going to die a traitor to his country and friends. Nobody would ever know the truth. His body would be thrown into the Pacific like trash never to be laid to rest next to his dad. He would be forgotten except as an occasional warning of what happened when a man went bad.
He wanted his team, they weren't really his team anymore he reminded himself, he had forfeited that right. Time had ticked slowly on. His lies had been too much for even Charlie's trust and equations. Even if the FBI team wanted to come, the ship had to be too far out to sea by now. They would need a search warrant from the state department, which could take hours or days to get. They couldn't save him even if they wanted to. The unknown man from the DOJ was going to kill him. It was getting harder to breathe and the pain was nearly overwhelming. He wasn't a traitor but he wasn't going to die a hero either. His death would mean nothing. Neither would his life. All the good he did would be overshadowed and tainted by his perceived actions of a few years. Gunshots erupted around him in a disorienting array of sounds to his fuzzy mind. It was finally all over one way or the other. He was helpless to stop the piercing pain in his chest. His heart felt like it was breaking in two. He thought he heard somebody call his name in the distance. But he was already gone, beyond their reach.
He couldn't breathe.
Colby Granger wasn't going to die alone.
