G woke slowly and breathed in. A searing pain coursed through his chest, cutting his breath short. The pain was excruciating, but it was just the sharpness of the pain that contrasted with the overwhelming yet amorphous pain in the rest of his body. G whined. "Sam?" he asked the emptiness, not even sure that he had said his partner's name aloud.

He had been staring at the floor without understanding what he was seeing. G looked up, or attempted to. The stiffness in his neck stopped him, once, twice, until he gathered the strength to force his way through another wave of pain. Finally, not looking at the floor, the agent could see his hands bound firmly with sturdy rope above his head. Now unable to breathe, he let his head drop again and noticed that his feet weren't touching the ground. How the hell did I get here, and where is here?

G's mind had finally begun to function again. He looked at his surroundings, a dirty industrial room, probably long abandoned, but everything looked a little fuzzy. Indeed something had previously dripped in his eye and was blurring his vision. Blood? Blood on the floor below. His blood he realized speckled the floor. And then he noticed a new pain near his temple, and there he felt the annoying itch of more blood dried to his skin. Automatically, he moved his hand to wipe it away, to rub his bleary eyes, but his bindings stopped him, and even that miniscule motion left him breathless with pain. G felt himself fading out of consciousness, but it felt like he was drowning, but whether he was actually suffocating or just afraid, he was unsure.

…

G woke again. The sun had moved and shone through a dingy window that he hadn't noticed before. If only I could reach that window. He looked toward his distant salvation so close, yet it might as well be a million miles away. Agent Callen had neither the strength nor the tools to escape his bindings. Even if he had, his hands and arms were completely numb. Then he realized what had awoken him in the first place. The sun, which he thought should be comforting in his situation, was blinding him and making the room uncomfortably hot. The stinging kiss of heat on his skin made him yearn for a drink of water to wet his parched mouth, to soothe his raw throat. I am going to die of dehydration strung up like some animal.

"SAM!" G screamed. This time he was sure he had actually said his partner's name; the uncontrollable fit of coughing that followed confirmed the fact. When did I become so dependent on him anyway? The sharp edge of fear and a touch of hurt pride goaded Callen into struggling against his bindings again. He knew he was wasting his precious little energy, would be punished with waves of nausea-inducing pain, but he had to try something. He didn't want to die, not yet, not here, not without knowing... no he couldn't let his mind go there. Instead he fought though he couldn't breathe. Fought until his vision began to fade again from lack of air.

And in the absence of his struggling, with him unable to take even the shallowest breath, all was still. For a moment. Until the sound of the rope straining filled G's ears. Slowly. Perhaps it was just the sound of his weight swaying with the rope. Perhaps he had caused just a hint of damage to the rope. Until a sharp snapping sound punctuated the rhythmic creaking like the crack of a whip. G found himself in a crumpled heap on the unyielding floor. He had barely managed to protect his head from smacking the unforgiving concrete. More pain. Too much and everywhere in his body. To his dismay, his ability to breathe also did not improve. A sharp twinge of pain in his ribcage made him understand why. G's first memory of this ordeal rushed back to him, incomplete as it was. Two men, no three. One gave orders, and the other two had tied him up, had hung him from the ceiling, and had beaten the hell out of him. At some point, in his memory and in reality, he had blacked out again.

…

Once again G woke; however, this time he would have preferred to just stay unconscious. He didn't have the will to cope with the pain anymore. Like the previous time, something had awoken him. G realized there was another person in the room. He could hear the telltale noise, but couldn't truly comprehend. A surge of adrenaline raced through his body, but it was barely enough to keep him conscious until he felt someone touch him. Another dose of adrenaline released and he attempted to punch whoever had come back to finish him off. His instinct to fight to survive, cultivated through many years of being an agent, remained intact.

"G, I got you man. Easy. C'mon now…"

Although G's brain did not comprehend the words, he did recognize his partner's voice and stopped fighting. "Sam?" G whispered, once again unsure if he had actually said anything at all. G felt Sam lift him from the floor and hold him close. Sam continued to mumble what G assumed were reassurances. He was safe, and it was comfortable to lay his head against Sam's strong chest and muscled arm. Amid the commotion of his team securing the room and fussing over him, G fell asleep instead of losing consciousness, and the transition wasn't accompanied by the intense fear of dying and being alone. In that moment, he felt no fear, no pain.