Daniel's eyes open slowly.

Pressure pounds heavy behind them, intense and dizzying, and his vision is nothing but a blur. Migraine is the first coherent word that trudges through his head; it doesn't feel completely accurate, not quite, but it's close. He squeezes his eyes tightly shut again at the nauseating feeling of motion, as if he's floating on the surface of the ocean. Along with it, there's an odd sensation of friction spreading across his back like pins and needles; no, he's not floating, he's being dragged.

He hears himself groan, and then the movement stops. Something pulls at both his arms like he's a mannequin being posed, his hands brought together and left there.

It's hard to think past the lead balloon encasing his head and squeezing his skull, but he does, concentrates hard and manages to open his eyes again. Strangely, the world seems to have tilted sideways, which is probably not good.

"Oh." A voice from somewhere above him. "That's not good." And then the sound of someone walking briskly away, each step a hammer strike reverberating through the cool floor beneath him.

Right. He's on the floor, his cheek pressed against smooth concrete, his arms outstretched and blurry in front of him. He blinks, sluggishly, and lifts his head away from the small puddle of sweat forming around the side of his face. He can't move his arms to push himself up; there's something holding them in place, the heels of his hands pressed together on the other side of something white and vaguely tube-shaped. He leans closer, squinting against the pain that comes with movement, and finally forces his eyes to focus on the small pipe his arms are wrapped around, his wrists bound by a pair of black plastic zipties.

Oh. That's definitely not good.

There's a shuffling sound from somewhere behind him, and he clumsily manages to pull himself up into a sitting position, leaning heavily against the wall the pipe is attached to, just as a blurry figure comes to a stop next to him. Something brushes against the sore spot throbbing at the back of his head, and he jerks away with a hiss.

"Sorry." The voice again, closer as the figure kneels beside him. "Hold still, okay?"

"Ow–" More pressure at the back of his head, but this time a gloved hand on his forehead stops him from moving. He forces his eyes to focus and studies the person holding his head tightly between their hands – they're wearing the same drab gray coveralls as him, and a spark of recognition flickers somewhere in the back of his hazy mind. He knows this man.

"You're okay." He's pressing something against Dan's head; he can feel it now, some kind of cloth.

Daniel moves to grab his wrist, to stop him, because his skull feels close to caving in, but– Oh, that's right, he's tied to a pipe. "What's... What's happening?"

There's no response for a few seconds. "We'll get to that." The pressure eases, for just a moment, before returning. "But first, you gotta take it slow and stop bleeding, okay?"

He blinks and looks down. "Am I–" Oh. That sweat smearing on the floor and sticking in his hair – it's bright red, not sweat at all. "...Bleeding," he breathes.

"It's not as bad as it looks."

"Why am I..." He shakes his head, a mistake; the room won't stop shaking, and he shuts his eyes tight. "I...don't understand."

"Might be a concussion." The hands on his head shift, and then the pressure is gone. "Sorry. I didn't mean for that to happen."

"Didn't mean for..." The world gradually stills again. Dan looks up. "What did you–"

But he's alone again. He coughs, the sound echoing eerily in the small storage closet, and squints at the rectangle of fluorescent light pouring through the open door. It's far brighter than the single lightbulb flickering overhead, enough that the shadows surrounding him solidify into distinct shapes – a stack of broken chairs in one corner, covered in a thick layer of dust, and a chunk of discarded plywood on the other side of the room next to a conspicuous hole in the wall.

That's right. He'd pried it loose himself to retrieve the cardboard box hidden behind it – the same box that's now sitting out of his reach beside the broken plank, its faded octagonal logo facing toward him. Dan groans and leans forward to press a hand to his forehead as the memory returns in bits and pieces – the second pair of hands gripping the crowbar along with his, the shout of triumph as the wood came away from the wall, the coughs echoing in the small space from the years of dust scratching at their throats.

And then...what?

Something hit him. Someone hit him, hard enough to knock him out completely, and there's only one person it could have been – the same person that tied his hands to a pipe, the same person that he can now hear rummaging around in the next room.

Dan leans toward the doorway, craning his neck uncomfortably to search for movement. All he can see from his angle is the lone bookshelf that lines the wall across from the closet, sagging beneath the weight of its haphazardly stacked materials. "Hey...Leon?" he calls out uncertainly. "Wh– Where are you?"

No response. He pulls at the zipties, contorts himself to place one foot flat on the wall and leverages his weight to try and snap the plastic digging into his skin, but it holds strong. The pipe itself is old but sturdy, not giving a single millimeter to his experimental kicks at either of its connection points within reach.

Footsteps thud in his ears from somewhere nearby, each one a sharp echo of the earlier blow to his skull. He turns toward the door, toward the shadow gradually growing closer along with an ominous rumbling that makes his hair stand on end. His attention catches on a blurry object resting against the wall, and realization curls in his stomach. "Did you..." He finds Leon's eyes as he steps through the doorway. "Did you hit me with a crowbar?" he asks, to a nod. "Why?"

"I am sorry about that, but I'd rather err on the side of caution," Leon replies evenly. "I wasn't sure whether you'd be armed."

Why would someone in their line of work need to be armed? Daniel squints at the cart that rumbles into the room along with Leon. It's loaded with cleaning supplies – bleach and rags and spray bottles and all manner of assorted things that do make sense for their line of work, though perhaps not in the current context. "What are you doing, what is that for?"

Leon places a jug of bleach on the floor and turns to face him. "Cleanup."

Oh.

Shit.

The fear must show on his face, because Leon adds, "Look, I don't want to hurt you. But if that's what it takes to get some answers, so be it."

"Answers," he repeats, like a foreign word he can't understand. "Answers about what?"

"Why don't you tell me, Daniel Faraday?" Leon crosses his arms. "That's your real name, isn't it?"

"I...can explain that," Dan says quickly. His mouth is too dry, his chest too tight and his breathing too fast and he coughs once to clear his throat. "Alright? Will you– Will you let me explain why I–"

"I don't care about that." Leon steps closer. "What I wanna know is, who sent you?"

He blinks. "Wh... What?"

"I knew someone would find me eventually, but I didn't think it'd be this soon."

"I don't..." He shakes his head, not understanding. "What...are you talking about?"

"Don't!" He surges forward, and Dan flinches away, presses himself into the wall. "Don't act like you don't know!"

Oh, this is bad. "Listen to me, this is... This is a mistake. I wasn't sent here, I'm not–"

"Stop lying. You're here to try and bring me back, aren't you? I'm not going back." He crosses his arms again, then adds, "Or did they just send you here to kill me?"

"No!" This is very, very bad. "No, no, absolutely not, I– I don't wanna kill anyone, and I'm not working for anyone, it's– it's only me," Daniel stammers, his hands gesturing frantically against the wall. "I swear, I'm not– I don't know who you think I am, but you've got the wrong person."

Leon's eyes narrow. "You really expect me to believe that?"

"Yes!"

He sighs and picks up the crowbar, and Dan's heart leaps into his throat.

"Leon, wait–" He wraps his arm around the pipe to hold his hands out like a shield as Leon moves toward him. "Listen to me, okay? Just calm down, this isn't– No one has to– to get hurt, here. We can... We can figure this out."

Leon stops directly in front of him. "This is your last chance." His hand tightens on the crowbar. "Tell me the truth."

"I am telling you the truth, I swear to God." Daniel's voice shakes, and he takes a deep breath to steady it. "You have to believe me. Please."

"Wrong answer." Leon raises the crowbar with both hands.

Dan ducks his head and blurts out, "I know about the island!"

That stops him; he freezes, mid-swing. "What?"

"The– The island, where the DHARMA Initiative was conducting their research, I... I've been there before." Daniel tries to keep his eyes on Leon's face rather than the metal weapon in his hands. "That's why I came here. I thought, maybe, if I could dig through whatever's left of their records, I might be able to figure out where it is." He takes a few quick breaths and swallows against the lump in his throat. "Okay? That's it, that's the truth, I swear."

A tense silence hangs in the air. Daniel flinches and shrinks back against the wall when Leon finally moves, slowly lowering the crowbar to rest one end on the floor. He kneels in front of Dan and does nothing but stare at him for a few long seconds. Finally, he speaks, his voice a dangerous monotone:

"Tell me everything."