Chapter Text
The funny thing was, you couldn't even tell he'd been tortured, once he was off the oxygen and safely discharged from the hospital. Drug torture didn't exactly leave a mark. Not a visible one. Apart from the dark bruising under his shirt, there was nothing in his appearance to indicate what had happened.
Except that he was alone in the elevator, heading down after a two hour debriefing about the last two years, and he was shaking like a leaf in the wind.
Colby leaned against the wall, wincing as the movement jarred his ribs, and gripped the bar behind him.
It wasn’t even the questions, he thought, trying to control his breathing and get a handle on himself before he reached the ground and the doors opened. It wasn’t the interviewers or the situation. It wasn’t talking about Lancer, Carter, or Kirkland, or the two years he’d spent lying to a team that had become family to him, someone who’s only living close relative was his mother.
The fact was, he didn’t know what it was. Just that by the time he’d shook hands and stepped out of the room and toward the elevator, he’d broken out in a cold sweat and was walking on wobbly legs.
The elevator doors opened, and he straightened, ignoring the pain and trying to conceal any last trembling as he walked toward the exit.
To everyone else, what he’d been through had just been a bump in the road in a promising career. No one but him could see the mountain he’d climbed, only to tumble into a confusing valley he didn’t know the way out of.