Torture
A/N: Need I still say that this is totally AU? Spoilers for 1x08 "Foe". Mentions of violence (just in case the chapter heading didn't clue you in), so reader discretion is advised. Usual disclaimer applies, though I do own my OCs.
Thank you everyone who reads, reviews, follows ... drop me a line, if you like.
John wasn't lying or bragging when he told Ulrich Kohl about those sixteen hours of torture in Kandahar. In fact, in his life as a Special Forces soldier and then as a CIA operative he'd been "interrogated" more often than he cared to remember. It was a part of the job he didn't particularly care for, but a part of the job nonetheless. Maybe he was getting soft – whether as a result of age, or of civilian life, or of being treated like an actual human being for a change by those three people who had grown so close to his heart within the past few months, he didn't know – but when Kohl stuck that wretched needle in his ulnar nerve, it hurt.
He closed his eyes, trying to mentally remove himself from the pain. It didn't work, not really, because his memories of his days in the CIA were as far from a "happy place" as anything could be.
"The brachial plexus is a network of nerves ..." John blinked and just barely stopped himself from hanging his head in defeat, turning it slightly to the side instead. As soon as I'm out of here, I'm taking Hannah for a day out. Horseback riding, maybe a picnic, definitely a game of basketball ... just something to make up for all this lost time. But in the same instant, he heard Kara's mocking voice: "You never go back."
Then the pain in his shoulder subsided to a bearable level, and he was trying desperately to collect himself enough to dissuade Kohl from going after his daughter. Next thing he knew he was staring into the muzzle of a silenced gun, fully expecting to die within seconds. He had screwed up, for the worst reason of all: he'd been cocky, underestimating his adversary and letting his guard down. Now he was going to pay the price. In a moment of crystalline clarity, however, he realised that, now his death would hurt other people – people he cared about, people who cared about him. All he felt at that moment was failure and painful regret at letting them down.
Then suddenly there was Lionel, and then he was free. Getting up was difficult (he had to brace himself against the table like an old man, for goodness' sake), and moving was painful. His right arm felt useless after hours of long needles being stuck into nerves, but that didn't matter right now.
Drawing his gun on Kohl with his right hand was a dumb move, triggered by nothing else than sheer force of habit. Surprisingly, he didn't miss when he fired, but the recoil of the weapon made the pain in his arm flare up again. Only this time, it refused to subside.
When he proceeded to check his opponent's gun – again, force of habit –, he discovered to his horror that the clip was empty. He had shot a defenceless man. Feeling sore and tired, he dropped on the bench next to Kohl.
The old East German operative was gone within minutes, and John knew he had to get out before the police arrived, but he was so exhausted, he could barely think straight. Running on autopilot, he steered in the general direction of the only place he had felt relatively safe recently.
*POI*POI*POI*POI*POI*
He realised the clinic would have been closed for hours by now, but he knew how to get in without tripping the alarm, and he could always leave Hannah a note letting her know he'd stopped by so she wouldn't report it as a break-in. What he hadn't counted on was the possibility of someone still being there at this late hour. His brain must have been more addled by pain and fatigue than he realised, because no sooner had he opened the back door than he found himself standing face to face with his sister.
"John!" she exclaimed quietly, apparently alarmed by something she saw. "What happened?" Ushering him all the way in, she closed and locked the door and led him to her office.
"Hannah? What's wrong?" A tall, dark, and quite attractive man in blue scrubs rose from his place behind her desk when they entered. John stiffened, and for a second Hannah thought he might bolt, but then the strangest thing happened: the two men stood face to face, eyes locking, a myriad of emotions playing out on their faces. For a few seconds, all that could be heard in the room was the ragged breathing of three very shocked people. Then the two men visibly deflated ... and stepped into a long, tight hug.
"They told me you were dead," both whispered at the same time, closing their eyes against tears of anguish, sorrow, and relief beyond words.
*POI*POI*POI*POI*POI*
Time seemed to come to a stop for a while. Hannah stood rooted to the spot, trying to comprehend what was going on. The two men apparently knew each other, from their days in the military, if she had to guess. Hannah knew that her friend, Dr Benjamin Al-Khalil, had been an army surgeon until his unit had been ambushed en route to the site of an accident on an Iraqi mountain road. He had been captured, held hostage and tortured for three days until a unit of Marines had got him out. The incident had left him scarred for life, both physically and emotionally. His captors seemed to have known about his profession, because they specifically went for his hands, breaking virtually every single bone in both of them. He would never be able to work as a surgeon again.
Putting two and two together, Hannah remembered him mentioning a good friend being severely wounded in the ambush. Ben had been dragged away before he could help his buddy properly – he had to leave him on that dusty mountain road with a gaping, heavily bleeding leg wound. It was something that still gave him more nightmares than the three days of torture.
Distractedly making a mental note to check John's leg for scarring at the next occasion that presented itself – and she was pretty sure it would present, at the rate they were going – she shook herself out of her bewildered stupor to tend to the situation at hand. It wasn't a second too soon, either, because suddenly John's knees buckled, and if it hadn't been for Ben's quick reflexes and impressive strength (something she knew from first-hand experience), he would have hit the floor.
"Easy, buddy," Ben soothed while manoeuvring the presently half-unconscious 200 pounds of pure muscle that were Hannah's brother onto the exam table by the wall. "Can you tell me what happened?" he inquired while starting a thorough examination.
"Got stuck with a needle," John managed with clenched teeth, trying to breathe through the nauseating pain that assaulted him once more.
"Got stuck where, John?" asked Hannah while organising the material she would need.
"Right elbow. Right shoulder." John did his best not to pass out from the pain, but at this point passing out sounded pretty tempting.
Hannah hurried to cut the sleeve open since it was fairly obvious he wouldn't be able to get out of his jacket and his shirt. She switched on a second light over the exam table, illuminating some impressive bruising and significant swelling.
"Oh my ... what the heck?!" Hannah blurted.
But before John could reply, Ben did, and he sounded sick. "They went specifically for the ulnar nerve and the brachial plexus. He was tortured."
Hannah whirled around to see a very pale Ben leaning heavily against the exam table. "For goodness' sake, sit down, Ben!" she urged, angling for a rolling stool with her foot and pulling it close so he could sit on it.
"To be continued," she murmured, though with a distinct feeling that it wasn't going to happen. "John, I'm going to draw some blood so I can run a quick tox screen. I'm afraid I can't give you anything for the pain until we've ruled out a few things, but I'll put you on an IV to flush your system, okay?"
John sensed that she wasn't really asking, but he gave a non-committal nod anyway. "No drugs, though, and the needles were clean. He stuck them in rubbing alcohol before sticking them into me," he wheezed by way of an explanation. "Just had a lot of fun poking my nerves."
"That's reassuring," Hannah snorted, although she was a bit relieved about that particular bit of information. Anything else might have been disastrous. Drugs, hepatitis, HIV ... she shuddered at the potential implications. "I'm going to run the tests anyway. Better safe than sorry. And you are getting that IV, buddy, if only for the shock symptoms. Same goes for you, Ben." She turned around to the still very pale doctor, who looked as if something horrible was playing out before his very eyes, something only he could see.
With a sad sigh, she dumped her gloves as she knelt down in front of her friend. "Ben?" she addressed him, putting her hands on his trembling knees and rubbing them lightly. "Ben, do you hear me? Ben?"
Slowly his eyes focussed on Hannah and he took a deep, shuddering breath. "C'mon, let's get you lying down, sweetie," she said in a soft voice while gently cupping the side of his clammy face with her hand.
Despite his pain, John was intrigued by the scene unfolding before him. He'd seen army buddies in the middle of flashbacks, and those episodes could be frightening, to say the least. However, Hannah didn't seem to be intimidated or frightened – just highly focussed on the man before her. Ben, on the other hand, latched onto her voice and touch with a level of trust that spoke of a deep bond between them.
"Ben? Are you with me now?" Hannah asked calmly, never breaking eye contact.
The man just nodded, obviously trying hard to control the trembling in his muscles and his erratic breathing.
"Ben, talk to me. Tell me where you are."
"Clinic," he whispered.
"Good. And do you know who this is?" she continued, half turning to John to give his uninjured hand a quick, reassuring squeeze.
"John," Ben breathed. "He's alive."
"Yes, yes, he is," Hannah agreed quietly, and John had to swallow against the wave of emotions that rushed through him at the utter wonder and relief contained in these few short words.
"But he's hurt," Ben suddenly remembered, a dark shadow crossing his face. "Tortured."
Hannah looked from Ben to John, willing him to deny Ben's statement, but since he couldn't lie to his sister, he just remained silent.
With what looked like a final mental shake, Ben shrugged off the remnants of the terrifying flashback and returned fully to the here and now. "Ulnar nerve and brachial plexus. We'll need to look out for neurological symptoms, and we'll need to keep an eye on motor function. But for now, I think some immobilisation, anti-inflammatories, and painkillers are in order, as soon as we've made sure there is nothing dangerous running through his system."
"Blood tests will take at least an hour," Hannah nodded. "Until then, try to get some rest. Both of you." She gestured to the corner of the room. "You can take the couch, Ben. I'll be with you in a minute."
The other doctor, however, shook his head. "Let me give you a hand here. I'll take care of his arm while you get the blood tests up and running."
Apparently Hannah understood his need to regain control, and to reassure himself that his long-lost friend was indeed alive and more or less well. She quickly drew blood and set up an IV for her brother before she grabbed the vials and disappeared towards to the small lab in the back of the clinic.
*POI*POI*POI*POI*POI*
"What happened after we got separated?" Ben asked quietly while applying antiseptic cream to John's battered elbow.
John sighed. "I honestly don't know. I passed out shortly after they ... took you ... When I came to, I was in a military hospital in Germany and it was two days later. I tried to find out what happened to you, but I was told there were no survivors. I told them they were wrong, that you were captured and probably held hostage, but they said there was no evidence for that. I was incapacitated for weeks, and when I finally got back on my feet and started digging around, your file said 'Missing, presumed dead'. It said ..."
Ben stopped what he was doing and gave John an incredulous look. "What?"
"Yes. It said they found ..." John swallowed hard and averted his eyes.
"John, that's impossible! They got me out after three days! I was flown out straight to Tel Aviv because an American hand surgeon was there attending a conference. A week later I was back in New York!" Ben dropped his stiff and scarred hands onto his knees, staring at his friend with the same bewildered expression he was seeing in John's face.
"But ... why ... I don't understand ... why would they ...?"
Ben pressed his lips together in a thin line and started bandaging John's arm. "I suppose it was too embarrassing," he said in a bitter voice after a few moments. "Especially after 9/11. A half-Arabic, half-Jewish doctor in the US army, getting captured by Al Qaeda ..." He looked up again, and the betrayal in his eyes was once more mirrored in John's. "I was discharged with a fat check and a gag order. They said they'd make sure no-one would believe me if I told anyone what had happened to me."
Both men fell quiet for a few minutes, each trying to process what they had just learned. Finally, John whispered, "I'm sorry. I should have kept digging."
Ben locked eyes with him again and emphatically shook his head. "You have nothing to be sorry for. They lied, to both of us. It's not your fault. And if anyone should be sorry, it's me. I didn't even try to find out what happened to you. I just assumed that you couldn't have survived those injuries. The condition you were in, you had less than thirty minutes left when they dragged me away from you. I was convinced you'd died on that mountain road."
*POI*POI*POI*POI*POI*
"I always thought I'd die in a place they didn't know my name," was what John said out loud, standing on the cemetery over the fresh grave of the old East German operative. What he left unspoken, however, was the awareness that maybe this wouldn't happen after all.
"You think anyone will care for our names?" –
"After we're dead." Even as John said the words, he knew they weren't true, at least not in the life he was leading now. There were people who cared for his real name, who knew him by it, and accepted without question that they could never again call him by it, or ever share their knowledge with anyone.
"I thought we already were." No, he wasn't. He was very much alive, as were the most important people in his life.
They had talked until the wee hours of the morning. Ben had asked if John knew anything about his own rescue (just what he had sketched together from the medical records: apparently he had only survived because Ben had performed an outstanding first aid). John had asked what Ben was doing now (running a therapy centre for traumatised military personnel on a horse farm in New Jersey), and how he and Hannah had met (at a medical conference). The question John hadn't asked, though, was about the nature of their relationship: that was a) none of his business and b) fairly obvious anyway. Then, just before the break of dawn, John had slipped out of the building with a promise to keep his arm still for another twenty-four hours ("still", of course, being a loose term in John's mind).
Yes, John was indeed very much alive, and he felt it, too. He only hoped he wasn't making a mistake in embracing the love, care, and friendship that was offered to him so freely, and in allowing himself to love and care in return. He vaguely but truly felt like he wasn't expendable anymore.
It scared him like nothing else.
A/N 2: I was a little hesitant about bringing a second OC into this story, but he was needed, as you'll see in future chapters. Also, he sort of grew on me over time, so please bear with me.
I realise that the original series starts out on the fact that Finch and Reese are both people without ties to their pasts, but as the series progresses, we see that this is not quite true for either of them. Moreover, I find it highly improbable that they would never come across anyone they knew in their past lives – I'll just say "six degrees of separation".
Next chapter is all written, though it might not be up for another week since I'm in the middle of the pre-Christmas rush. (What on earth was I thinking negotiating deadlines for "before Christmas"?)