an. Content warning. Implied violence against minors, non-con assault, mentions of suicide.

As always thanks so much for the feedback last chapter, and I have to agree with you tmtcltb, I'll blame the show's writers for making Tom OOC in season 5!

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Friday, January 11th, 2019—USSOUTHCOMM, Mayport, Florida

Tom strode with Sasha side by side toward the secured area which held their prisoner. He'd caved two days ago, stated he was willing to talk but only to Sasha, and they'd decided to let him stew a little more. His request surprised no one, but to Tom's credit, he'd given little external reaction and remained uncharacteristically silent about it. Enough for Sasha to suspect Tom was avoiding it entirely. They split in the hallway, Tom heading for the adjacent monitoring room, and she toward the holding cell.

Sasha paused for a quick second when she entered, observing while Hector stared up at her intensely from his chair, eyes black, and a little unhinged. With leisure, she settled herself in the chair opposite him. Her movements crafted with a great deal of precision, watching as Hector's focus moved deliberately first from her face to her neck, then her body, until settling upon her left hand, which housed a thin gold band. The hint of a smirk tugged at his mouth, and she forced herself not to retract it in a knee-jerk reaction. Instead, Sasha neatly clasped them together over the Manila folder she'd brought with her—the movement appearing natural rather than reactive. When Hector finally looked up again, her expression was unaffected. Bored. Save for the subtly quirked brow that indicated she wouldn't wait long for him to waste her time.

"You look better than the last time we met," he drawled, attempting to taunt while staring again at her now healed neck.

"I'd say the same, but, your nose seems a little crooked—guess you didn't get that set," she countered effortlessly with a soft, sarcastic smile.

In the adjacent room, Mike discreetly glanced at Tom through his peripheral. Chandler's jaw was already clenched to suppress that burgeoning rage beneath his cool exterior.

Hector merely shifted his head before glancing toward Green, who stood guard at the door, staring studiously ahead. "I speak only to you."

Sasha fought not to roll her eyes, and looked at Green, nodding once at him. Danny only lingered for a moment, holding Martinez's gaze in a clear and silent threat before he turned and left the room, positioning himself just outside of it. The door clicked, and Sasha turned her attention back to the General. "So talk." She stretched her vowels over the word talk.

"Your game will not work." It was arrogant. Raised his chin as if he were the one issuing the demands.

"Game?" Both Sasha's tone and expression feigned innocence.

"This silence. Your men. Keeping me here—there is a movement which cannot be stopped, and it is only a matter of time until my people free me."

Sasha exaggerated her response, nodding as if that were of great surprise to her before she clicked her lips against her teeth and grimaced at him. "Yeah… I'm not sure you're as valuable to 'the movement' as you think."

"I created the movement."

Sasha narrowed her eyes. "Yet the people chant for Tavo and not you?"

"Tavo speaks for the people. He gives them a voice."

"Whose voice? Your voice? You believe in his tactics, his methods?"

Hector shifted in his seat, bringing his shackled hands to rest on the table between them. "I gave him his tactics; I am his method."

Sasha pulled a face of disbelief, taunting and belittling him. "You?" Facially shrugging while her eyebrow quirked. "I guess that could make sense… I mean he did go from being a Janitor to leading a revolution for a people he's not even a part of." Tipped her head. "Hates the country that gave his family asylum. Food. Education. Shelter—but loves Columbia? You sure he even believes what he says? Or is he that much of an egomaniac that he'll do anything for power?"

Hector huffed out a scoff, smug when he answered. "America gave him nothing. He put his life on the line to secure our freedom with the rebels in Panama. I gave him refuge after your people stole the future from all of us! Kept us the slaves to your trade agreement."

Sasha opened the Manila folder in response, pulling a photograph and placing it on the metal table between them. She pushed it forward with the index finger of her left hand. Hector swallowed, unable to hide the flutter of his eyelids in response. Sasha tapped her finger twice on the picture. "And who decides this? You or Gustavo?"

Hector's nostrils flared. "I will not fall your games," he sneered, leaning back in the chair, and staring at her.

"So you ordered this? Gustavo has no idea that his General executes 'the people' for whom he speaks? The ones who don't comply?" She pulled out another photograph, the one that made her stomach twist into knots. "And this?" Hector's eyes flickered down, and his brow creased, unable to control his reaction this time. "These aren't 'the people' you claim to defend? This doesn't matter to you?"

"What is this?" he answered tersely, veins in his neck thickening.

"It's Panama, Hector. It's what your leader does when he doesn't get his way."

Martinez affixed her with a stare that Sasha couldn't quite discern. "This is how you justify your crimes?" he shot back, nostrils flared. "A blue-eyed Gringo, very beautiful—unforgettable—who stormed the camp with the one you call Green but missed a body. Took the hands and feet of the people fighting for freedom with a machete. Showed no mercy when grown men begged for forgiveness."

Tom swallowed, ignoring the way he saw Mike react in his peripheral. Refused to engage in the ardent gaze now lighting the side of his face as Mike processed that information and put two and two together.

Sasha gave no reaction, but her voice was cold when she bit out. "What threat could children possibly present to your freedom, Hector? Not even a bullet, butchered alive!" His eyes burned as they looked at her, unable to answer her question, and she saw the doubt creeping behind his bravado.

"You know what I think—" she paused, studying him with scrutiny again. "I don't think you know anything. I think you're a follower—I think you were lied to and used, Hector. Gustavo knows you're here and yet he sends no one… you're disposable to him—you're a pawn and he's using your army to kill the very people you claim to free." Sasha tilted her head as she affixed him with a sympathetic look that she knew would make his skin crawl. Saw the flicker that crossed his face before he reined it in and pretended to be amused instead.

"Arrogance and lies. Another American pastime."

Sasha smirked and inhaled, pushed back her chair. "It was a good talk but—I only have time for people that know things."

As she collected the photographs laid before him, Hector saw an opening and seized it. He burst from the seat, moving as far as his tethered feet and handcuffs would allow. Just enough slack in both to grab her wrist and twist in such a way that she was forced to submit and bend her elbow or risk it breaking. Sasha let out an involuntary yell of pain as the ligaments screamed in warning, and he used the way she faltered along with her momentum to yank her clean across the table. Where Sasha expected a hit, he did something far worse. Forced his lips against hers, rough and demanding while he held her pinned beneath him. Knew exactly why he'd done it and for whom.

She was wrenching an arm free to knock him out when she heard the door almost rip off its hinge, and not three seconds later Hector was torn clean from above her and slammed into a wall. Thought she heard the distinct sound of cracked plaster in addition to the arrival of Green, and Mike, who stood shocked as she quickly recovered. Sasha spun herself on the table, only to find Tom with his hands around Hector's neck. For a moment, there was complete stillness, each of them frozen in place before sense kicked in and Sasha with frantic urgency realized that they couldn't let him do this. No matter how much they might want Martinez dead, how much he deserved it, it was wrong.

"Tom," she called, but he didn't respond. His gaze was locked with Hector's. Sasha stood and moved, but where she'd expected to see rage, she found nothing but complete, collected focus—a level of calmness and control which sent chills down her spine because she realized he was doing this on purpose. This wasn't an emotional response; this was a choice.

Her voice held a distinct air of panic when she tried again. "Tom." Reached out and grabbed his wrist while he choked him. Tom didn't react. Didn't even flinch, his eyes firmly locked with the General as he watched the color slowly change in his face. Squeezed with all of his strength, muscles rigid and flexed in his arms, and hands white where the circulation constricted from the force.

Sasha's eyes darted between Tom and Martinez, noting the deep reddish-purple color of his skin. Knew she had seconds left to get him to stop, or he'd be dead. "Stop! Tom, stop it—we need him alive." She tugged at his arm, nodded at Green and Slattery, who were caught in a strange form of indecision on whether they were really about to wrestle their CNO—Tom—away from Martinez.

Still, Tom ignored. Stayed rigid with a surge of almost inhuman strength that both Green and Slattery couldn't shake as they attempted to wrench him away, and counted the seconds in his head. Watched as the defiance started to slip into pure undulated panic in Hector's blackened eyes. As he suffocated him to the absolute brink of death before releasing his grip. Watching with black satisfaction as the General slumped to the ground at his feet and gasped in desperation for air.

Tom shrugged off Green and Slattery, the action far more aggressive than it should have been, and they let his arms go, though he had enough restraint not to wrench his right wrist out of Sasha's grip. Instead, he threw her a look that clearly communicated his desire for her to let go, and she did fast with an expression upon her face that he did not want to process right now. In the dead silence, Tom could hear their elevated breaths around him, taste the tension in the room, and he fixed his gaze on Martinez again. Watched with extreme gratification while Hector writhed on the floor as he gasped, only stilling when he met the blue fire again, and though Chandler was silent, his message was clear.

Tom looked him up and down, then in a more restrained manner, at Sasha again. With a subtle movement of his eyes, he gestured to the adjacent room, and she wordlessly grabbed the folder. Green stepped forward, hauling Martinez back into the chair, and Sasha exchanged a troubled look with Mike as she passed him.

The door of the adjacent observation room had barely closed before Sasha erupted. "What the hell—"

"Are you okay?" Tom interjected. She could rein hell down on him later for all he cared, but he needed to know that first.

Sasha blinked and moved her head in disbelief like she didn't understand why he was asking her that. "Me? I'm fine—but you?"

Tom squinted. "Sasha. He just assaulted—"

"You just tried to kill him! And you didn't listen to me!" Punctuating her point by throwing the file down on the desk beside her. "What were you thinking!? Did you forget what happened after you killed Shaw?"

Tom scowled at her. Should have expected she'd be this blunt by the indignant look in her eyes alone, but it had been a while since she'd been this angry with him. "That was different."

"How!?"

He didn't answer, clenched his jaw instead, and merely blinked.

"Explain it to me, Tom. I'm serious this time, I'm lost and I'm trying to understand what the hell is going on with you!"

Instead, he seethed, knew she had him by the balls on this one, and he didn't much care to explain himself. All he cared about was the immense satisfaction he'd derived from feeling Martinez' neck under his bare hands, the moment the fear had shone in his enemy's eyes—the victory. "He's afraid to die," he told her nonchalantly instead.

Sasha blinked in confusion and scrunched her features into an expression that could only be defined as 'what the fuck are you talking about?'

"I could see it in his eyes. He's scared."

"Tom—"

"I wasn't gonna kill him, Sash. I just needed to know." His tone was definitive when he cut her off. Assured.

She exhaled, exasperated, some of her anger slipping into something else that was a little harder for him to ignore."Know what?"

Tom's eyes fluttered, eyelids moving but not closing as he regarded her. Trying to dispel the sound of that gun firing. The taste of bile in his mouth as he'd heaved for what seemed like hours into the sink of that stateroom. Tried to forget how he'd laid on the floor. Broken. In unimaginable pain, and visualized blowing his brains out, the only thing that seemed prudent to do. Recounted lies to convince himself that the kids would be ok—even better off—because Mike had assured him they'd be taken care of should anything happen to him.

"What he's afraid of."

There was a darkness that statement which opened a pit in Sasha's stomach. Her head quirked in a micro shake. "You can't kill him, Tom. I know you want to, and I know why, but you can't." Delivered bluntly, and Sasha almost wished she hadn't because the sadistic shadow that passed across his face became far more concerning than she'd previously thought thanks to his next words.

"I don't need to."

The substantial intensity of the cold steel-blue gaze Sasha found herself subject to made her insides clench. Found that she didn't have a response because she'd never seen it before—and while those words should have been comforting, Sasha could only dread what Tom meant. Various scenarios that didn't warrant contemplating flew through her head until softly she shook it, eyes round and pleading—trying to appeal to the man she knew him to be. Swallowing against the knot in her throat as she took a breath and cautiously stepped closer.

"Don't make the same mistake again, the same one I did… please—you're scaring me." She'd breathed it. Pleaded it. As close to begging as Sasha Cooper would get.

His eyes softened, turned his head to the side a little as he brought a hand up to gently run his knuckles against her cheek. "I know what I did, and I wasn't gonna kill him—but he needed to know that I will."

Sasha searched his eyes, didn't know if that was supposed to make her feel better or worse, but settled for worse. The confirmation of her suspicion that he'd been in complete control of himself was, in reality, a far more sinister prospect.

Earnest, Sasha took his face between her hands, urging him to hear her. "That's exactly why I'm scared." She watched as his eyes faltered almost imperceptibly, a modicum of uncertainly filling them. The only sign that he was actually listening. "I won't let you go down this path. I know you're in pain, Tom. I know I hurt you—I can see it, and I can help you, but I promise you—this—what you're doing right now? It won't fix it."

Sasha cursed inwardly and clenched her eyes in frustration as the handle moved, and they stepped back. An automatic response drilled in after years of sneaking around when they shouldn't be. Beyond exasperated because for a split second she'd had him. There was a spark of something in his eyes, something sad and fearful and it had called to her as if begging for help before it was interrupted and buried again beneath that practiced exterior.

Mike stepped through the door, rigid with apprehension, and peered cautiously between the two.

Tom saved him the trouble of speaking by addressing him first. "Save the speech, she already read me the riot act." His tone was dry when he said it.

Mike tilted his head and raised a brow. "She's right and you know it."

Tom's jaw muscle flexed while he affixed Mike with a reticent look. "Noted." The acknowledgment hung there for a brief moment before Tom used the opportunity to excuse himself. "I'll be in the war room." Though it was clear he had no intention of engaging further in conversation about this, not right now at least.

Sasha deflated and stared at the floor, leaning back against a table to perch on the edge of it.

There was a thick silence where Mike didn't know whether she needed space or an ear, but she pre-empted his indecision. "What exactly happened after the feed cut?" It was quiet, and she was looking at the floor while she spoke. The need to know finally prompting her to ask, morbid as it was.

Mike's lips drew into a regrettable line. "We were in CIC, he didn't say a word. Looked like he was about to go down, but he managed to leave and then shut himself in his cabin."

"For how long?"

"Hours. We gave him space—I was about to go check on him but, he came to us before I got there. All he said was 'mission hasn't changed' and then he left again." Mike exhaled. "Something broke in that room. Could see it in his eyes... I thought it got fixed when you showed up alive, but..." He trailed off and tilted his head instead of finishing that statement. No need, Mike felt he'd made himself clear.

Sasha tried not to let her frustration show, but his answer left her no closer to a solution, so she merely pursed her lips in response, and folded her arms while she fought not to cry.

"We'll steer him back," Mike said optimistically, and she didn't mean to, but she scoffed. Emotions getting the best of her.

"How? No one can pull rank on him, he's basically the whole god damn military at this point. Reiss doesn't have the balls to reel him in—or his respect—and he didn't even listen to me in there. Don't act like you can't see it."

Mike gave a disparaging look in response because he couldn't disagree.

Sasha pinched her nose and reeled herself in. Exhaling heavily. "I'm sorry, I know you're just trying to help." Her bottom lip parted, as if she were about to share something more, but seemed to decide better of it. "I have to go. I have a meeting."

Mike straightened and nodded his response while she all but scampered out of the room.