A/N: Thank you for the lovely reviews! I hope you enjoy this chapter!

I still don't own them…

Chapter 6

Both Jane and Ethan felt their hearts miss a beat before they even saw a figure emerge from the shadowy space in front of them. Despite the voice had some lower tone to it and lacked the usual liveliness, it was still Benji's voice. The two agents watched as the all too familiar Englishman approached them. Ethan almost had to laugh as his experience had taught him almost to expect something like that all the time. Even though he had seen his friend die, there had been a hunch he now realised he had been trying to suppress, dismissing it as denial. Brandt couldn't have just killed Benji even if his life had depended on it. There had to be some trick. And now he basically saw the proof in front of his eyes.

"You!" Jane was the first one to gain the ability to speak. All emotions she was experiencing were creating a storm inside of her and she moved towards Benji, her eyes glistening with fury.

"Jane…" Brandt called out warningly, noticing her look, and Ethan noted that the analyst seemed to be worried about something.

"We thought you were dead!" Jane either didn't hear or just ignored William's call. "We saw it happen!" she started to punch the former technician's arms while saying every word, not paying attention to the "ows" it caused. "We thought we'd never…"

"Don't unnerve him!" Brandt now sounded even more agitated and seemed to have caught Jane's attention this time. That split second was enough for Benji to grab both of her wrists with a death grip midway through one of her attacks.

"Stop it!" he nearly growled, breathing heavily.

Jane couldn't hold back a startled yelp, both because his grip on her wrists was actually causing pain and because the look on his face was downright scary. She had never thought she might be frightened by Benji of all people but at the moment his expression was almost murderous. Ethan looked from this scene to Brandt and back, noticing how tense the analyst looked, as if frozen before springing into action.

Benji shut his eyes tightly and took a deep breath. It took him a few seconds to recompose himself before he finally let go of Jane whose eyes were now wide with shock.

"I'm sorry," he almost whispered, opening his eyes to look into hers. Jane felt a lump in her throat, realising that now they were filled with pain and something that was impossible even begin to comprehend at the moment. It was as if he had been through some kind of torture and still couldn't get rid of its traces in his memory. Without saying a word she launched at him again, this time throwing her arms around him in a tight embrace. Benji stumbled back a bit awkwardly but returned the hug, feeling Jane's breathing shake against his shoulder, as if she was trying not to sob.

Brandt let out an audible relieved sigh and relaxed, taking a step back.

"I think Luther might have told them," he suggested, breaking the silence at last.

"I figured," Benji answered dryly. The notes of sarcasm in the reply made Jane chuckle softly as she pulled away from the hug.

"Are you alright?" There were a lot of questions that had to be asked, like "how?" and "what happened?" and "what is Lovett hiding?" but Ethan felt the need to ask this one first, finally being able to have a proper look at the Englishman.

"I'm fine," Benji answered with a little sigh, "I am not actually mad if that's what you are referring to".

"You don't look that fine," Jane argued in a soft voice.

It had to be said that she was right. Benji didn't look fine on any level. His skin was pale and there were thick dark shadows under his eyes. His eyebrow was not healed after the split they had seen in the video, and the same went for his lip. His eyes, always so bright and youthful, seemed slightly out of focus.

"You didn't see me like a week ago," Benji replied bitterly. "Trust me, it was worse".

"So what happened?" Ethan decided to keep the professional tone.

Benji sighed and sat on a long table beside Brandt who was standing by it. Jane and Ethan decided to take it as an example and sat on an opposite table.

"I don't really remember much," the Brit started, looking down at the floor. "When we were here on our mission, we came to a realisation at one point. The mission itself was to take out a drug dealer, preventing the deal he was about to make. One detail though looked suspicious to us. For some reason we were not allowed to get involved with the other half of the deal, the buyer. After giving it a thought we decided to check the guy anyway. So I hacked into his communications and found some of his contacts. Guess who I traced them to?"

"Lovett," Ethan said breathlessly. Benji nodded.

"It turned out that Lovett was in the business. And our mission was essentially just removing the competition. He was going to offer the deal right after we had finished our job".

He took a pause, as if letting the information sink in.

"What we didn't know is that we were being watched. There must have been a bug planted somewhere. Guess we'll never know where it was…" He sighed deeply. "That morning I went out to check a few things with an acquaintance we made in the local police force. It later turned out that it saved my life," he took another deep breath. "I came back to the safe house only to see the building explode in front of my eyes. Gas leak, they said. I really doubt it, to say the least. What happened next practically proved all our suspicions. Lovett was there. Why would he even be there if he had nothing to do with the whole deal? They…"

His voice broke and he shut his eyes. Brandt placed his hand on his friend's shoulder and squeezed gently.

"They grabbed me right in the middle of the street. For some reason Lovett decided not to kill me quite yet. I think he needed to find out who else knew about his business. He made up a great plan to make everybody question my credibility. No better way than having me proclaimed insane".

There was another silence and Jane and Ethan had no idea what to do and what exactly it was that was bugging their friend so much. Brandt squeezed Benji's shoulder again and the Brit finally looked up, letting his friends see that his eyes were filled with unshed tears.

"Not everyone who had come with Lovett was part of his gang. I needed to look… 'believable'. Last thing I remember clearly is a syringe being filled with something and then…" he swallowed. "I don't know what it actually was but it was really strong. I spent the following what I later found out to be three days drugged literally out of my mind. In the brief moments when I kinda regained consciousness I couldn't remember my own name… Hell, I couldn't even figure out what species I belonged to…"

As he spoke, Benji was staring blankly into the space between Ethan and Jane but he still caught a glimpse of their terrified faces. Jane paid no attention to the fact that tears were running down her cheeks again and even Ethan looked pained. Benji remembered those brief moments of everything getting clearer. He wanted to get out, wanted everything to stop because he really felt like he was going insane. There was just no way out, it was like a dizzying fall into oblivion with nothing to hold on to.

"And whenever I showed any signs of coherence, they drugged me again. They were going to bring me to the US to get whatever they needed to know out of me. Afterwards… I don't know, they wouldn't need me anyway. Wouldn't be difficult to get rid of me".

"So…" Ethan had to swallow a lump in his throat, "how did you get out?"