Title: The consequences of losing perspective
Series: The result of all changes, part 1/3
Characters: Colby.
Rating: T (I think, but if I should rate it M, just tell me and I will)
Spoilers: All seasons.
Summary: Insight to Colby's reasons to do what he did during season 4.

Feedback: Yes, I love it! Please, READ & REVIEW.

Disclaimer: I do not own Numb3rs or anything related to it.
Beta:Thanks to my lovely beta.

A/N: This was written for the savecolby community at Livejournal, because of the 1 Year Later – Anniversary Challenge.

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THE RESULT OF ALL CHANGES

Part 1 – The consequences of losing perspective

Even if he had tried to take things with a positive view, he was sure that the last year had changed his life in several ways. There was no veil that could cover his eyes from seeing everywhere the signs of the process.

In the last years, he had hated Dwayne so much for having messed up his mind. He couldn't stop the doubts about what was true friendship and what wasn't. A long time ago, that man had been the only person he could trust. They had helped each other to survive in Afghanistan, learned to lean on each other like they were an extension of their own bodies.

As the long, stressful days passed, they had slowly built a bond that would join them forever, for good and for bad. Because when Colby and Dwayne were fighting together in the Middle East, they had shared their fears about being killed, about seeing people get hurt… and being forced to become the cause of serious damage themselves.

Dwayne had sworn thousands of times that after all that he had been through during war, he would probably get too traumatized to have a normal life when he was sent home. He had said that he would always need his friend Colby to calm his nerves, someone who truly understood what was going on inside his head since they had both been out there in the field, been each other's stability for months.

But after they had been told to abandon the conflict area, there had been very few attempts to get together again. Maybe it had been the overwhelming sensation of being at home. Maybe it had been the efforts to try to forget about everything they had seen, heard or done. Or maybe it had also been the pressure that each man felt of being aware that someone else knew about his secrets and as a result had complete power over his life and emotions.

There weren't terrible things that Colby and Dwayne had done and confessed each other. They had shared sweet stories about their childhood, trying to pretend they were safe and warm at night, they had shared several experiences related to their families when they missed them; they had even told each other about some innocent embarrassing secrets in regard to the romantic aspects of their past.

And yet, that level of intimacy seemed to be the deepest they had ever shared with anyone before.

People say war changes the way of thinking of the men and women that participate in combat. They say that strong relationships are created when they are surrounded by horror and pain. But they don't talk about what happens to those soldiers after the fight is over. They never explain that sometimes those bounds provoke people to change their minds so dramatically that at some point they become someone who is able to do things they would have never imagined before.

That was exactly what had happened to Dwayne first. He had lost perspective and Colby had to go and clean up the mess. Colby hated that it had required him to betray his partner. He had regretted so much that their story had taken the horrible path that it had; and at the same time, he knew that it was the only option.

He would have never been able to participate in what Dwayne was doing. He would have never agreed to join his madness. And he had taken his decision to blow his friend's cover and restrain his liberty.

The most ironic little detail was that even after all the suffering Dwayne had brought into his life and all the trust issues he had grew into his partner's heart, Colby got the nerve to put himself in the same disappointing position… And he did it less than a year later from the moment Dwayne had been taken down by the FBI.

He hadn't thought about the consequences when he had agreed to be a triple agent. All he wanted to do was serve his country, not thinking about Dwayne anymore, because that would mean that all the slightly good experiences he had had during war hadn't meant anything, that it had been all a lie, and that there wasn't one single moment he could really treasure from those years in Afghanistan.

After a lot of deep thinking, later Colby had discovered that that was the reason why he had accepted the undercover mission. There had to be a way to recover his passion for duty, there had to be an incentive that made him realize that it hadn't been all in vain.

But when the members of his very team got their hands on him and took him down like a criminal, he finally saw the big mistake he had made. His spirit was torn apart by the looks on his friends' faces, mainly because he had built a bond with them without even noticing it. Colby had spent so much time trying to recover from Dwayne's actions, and restraining himself from letting people discover that he had been lying for so much time, that he had lost the ability to realize when people became an important part of his life.

So when he was there seated at that interrogation table, with Don by his side looking disappointed, and David yelling at him, Colby had thought it was all lost. His partners had trusted him and he had let them down. He had wasted everything he had gained in two years.

And suddenly, it all changed when he was on that ship as a hostage. The needle of that syringe held by such fearless hands, trying to inject a mortal substance inside his body… Dwayne giving up his own life to help him.

That was the answer he needed. The proof that Colby hadn't been that wrong when had considered Dwayne his best friend. But it was such a shame that this demonstration of loyalty had taken such a horrible sacrifice.

Before passing out, Colby had to handle the need to scream because of everything that had happened. Dwayne was still a good person at some level, and Colby couldn't do anything to save him.

And thenhe realized that his team would come to take him home. If Colby himself could trust in Dwayne again, then Don, Charlie, Amita, Larry, Megan and David would probably believe him and give him a second chance. If he was lucky enough.

Faith was kind because it recognized that all that Colby had done was because of the search of something true that he could hold on to.

The needle got under his skin and it made him pass out. He didn't know what had happened on until he woke up in the hospital, full of scars, bad memories, and regrets. Because even if he was saved by his team, he suspected things would never be the same again. And he was right.

Since then, he had tried to swallow everyone's looks and do his best to catch the criminals that appeared every day. He had made efforts to get close to David again, but it had always seemed that it wasn't going to work. He had even tried to help Charlie to get himself together during the Bonnie Parks case, and it had been very hard for him to get a good response from the mathematician. He had had to deal with ghosts from his past that reminded him some of the worse tasks he had to take care of when he was still in the Army.

Colby had also participated in risky missions, threw himself at dangerous rivers and exposed himself to big explosions. It was his way to tell everybody that he was going to give his life on the field for his friends, that he was trying his best to turn back time, even if he knew it wasn't possible.

Because all he wanted was having the ones he loved by his side, getting the sensation of being appreciated and the joy of knowing that some people cared about him back, all these things he had lost because of Dwayne, and recovered a little when he had died. But what Colby needed the most was to recover the feeling of not being alone ever again.

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A/N: PLEASE READ AND REVIEW, 'CAUSE FEEDBACK IS LOVE. I'll try to respond all your comments because I really appreciate that you take the time to submit them.