Prompt #10: Don't want your hand this time, I'll save myself, Maybe I'll wake up for once" – 'Going Under', Evanescence
Just because he understands their interrogation methods, doesn't mean he's immune to them. Solitary confinement. Sleep deprivation. Sensory deprivation. He feels himself slowly beginning to crack, and when they ask tell us where she is, give her up and you're free it's tempting, so tempting to answer.
But he's not foolish enough to think their promises are real, so he holds on to the last bit of hope he has left. Sydney's alive. Irina's looking for her. The last two truths he has left. He has to believe he'll see his daughter again, somehow, however impossible that seems. Because if he doesn't believe that—
Come on, Bristow. Talk.
He looks at his interrogators with a blank expression on his face, and tries to hold onto what little control he has left.
Three months, he thinks. Last time it was six. He wonders how long they'll keep him this time. He wonders if it even matters.
Alone in his cell, shadows on the wall. Darkness creeps further in, slowly stealing all the light. Another day.
Four months, give or take a few days. It's getting harder to tell. They've given up their previous techniques, and try threatening him with various punishments. Life imprisonment. Death. He wants to tell them those aren't the worst things he can think of.
Month five. Maybe. He feels strange after finishing his dinner, and belatedly realizes something's not quite right . . .
He wakes up in a motel room in Mexico. It takes a moment to register: sunlight streaming in through the window, voices from the street below, laughter, music, the warmth of a body curled up against him.
Irina.
He thinks that maybe he has lost his mind after all. She stirs when he touches her hair; it's softer than he remembers. She smiles as she looks up at him, and he thinks she looks tired.
"Jack."
He can't stop touching her. It's the first genuine human contact he's had in months and she's soft and warm. And real. His dreams are never like this.
"You broke me out." He rolls so he's on top of her.
"Yes." She helps him slip off his shirt then smoothes her hands across his back. "I couldn't do it on my own anymore."
"Couldn't?" He doesn't believe her.
She grins. "Didn't want to."
Before he can speak again, she puts her fingers over his lips to keep him quiet. "I know, I know. It was dangerous and I shouldn't have, but—" Her sigh is somewhat shaky, and tells Jack everything he needs to know.
"It was about time," he says, and kisses her.
And slowly, his world starts to make sense again.