AN: This little piece wouldn't leave me alone as I was writing chapter four of A Wounded Soul. I hope you enjoy this fic! This story starts just after S1 E3 "The Element of Surprise".

Chapter 1 - A Ghost From The Past

Ed's head was pounding! The pain was so bad that he could't even get himself to open his eyes at the moment because he knew that the light that would invade was going to make it all the more painful. As he took a moment to try to breathe through the pain in his head his mind went back to try to find the cause of it. Could it be a concussion? he thought. But no, he didn't remember hitting his head, or his head being hit with anything. In fact the last thing he remembered was leaving the Goose with Greg. The Team had gone out, sans Sam, after the long day that they had had.

He sighed. Losing that kid in the gunfight had been hard for him. The poor kid should't have even been there! But he was, and now he was dead. Ed found himself wondering, yet again, if the kid could have been saved had Sam obeyed his orders and not gone barging in there with guns blazing. He hoped the stupid soldier would get his head on straight. Preferably sooner rather than later. He didn't like the fact that he had a man on his Team that had killed a teammate before, but he knew he had to push that aside. Clearly Braddock had been cleared or he wouldn't be walking free today.

Ed took a long minute to use sniper breathing to try to bring the pain in his head under control. He knew he had to open his eyes, to figure out what had happened. Finally, after several controlled breaths he chanced opening his eyes. They blinked rapidly as the light in the room assaulted his senses and the pounding in his head increased. Thankfully his vision began to clear after several attempts.

The first thing Ed noticed was that he was sitting on the floor against a cold, stone wall and his head was turned to his left. Ed saw a chain embedded in the wall and just beyond that he saw Greg. His boss and friend was sitting in the same position that he was, and Ed could see chains running from the wall to the shackles on Greg's wrists. He lifted his head from where it lay against the wall and looked to his right. He noticed another chain and beyond that one sat Wordy.

"Ed, you awake?" Wordy asked carefully. If Ed was feeling anything like he was then they were both sporting quite massive headaches at the moment.

"Yeah. What happened?" Ed asked as he looked down to see his own wrists in shackles as well.

"I don't know. I think we may have been hit with a sedative." Wordy slowly blinked his eyes for a moment before continuing. "I remember feeling like I got bit by a bug before blacking out, then waking up here."

"Speaking of here. Where is here?" Greg asked softly.

Both men turned to look at their boss.

"Best I can tell it's a warehouse." Wordy answered. "Haven't been with it long enough to tell for sure but it's got a warehouse feel to it."

"You guys okay?" Greg asked as he shifted a bit in order to stretch his sore neck.

"Just the headache from hell." Ed answered.

"Spike, Lou, Jules...they were with us." Greg realized suddenly.

"They're here too." Wordy answered as he lifted his shackled hand and pointed across the room.

Both Ed and Greg turned to see where Wordy was pointing and they saw three of their four remaining teammates on the opposite wall. They were all restrained in the same way and all looked to be equally out of it.

"Any idea what's going on?" Ed asked as he looked around.

In the middle of the room was a large metal plate with restraints bolted to the ground in each corner. It looked to be about six feet long and four feet wide. At one end of the room was a solid metal door. The other end housed what looked to be a shower head. There was a drain in the floor directly beneath the shower head and there were shackles on the wall just under the shower head. As Ed's gaze came back to the center of the room he noticed chains hanging from a beam in the roof several feet above them. His stomach dropped as he realized the reason that they were here. His Team was most likely about to be tortured.

"Boss? Ed? Wordy?" Spike called softly as he rolled his head around a bit. It felt like a bomb had exploded in his head it hurt so much!

"We're all here Spike. How are you feeling?" Greg asked, concerned about his Team.

"My head is killing me." Spike answered. He kept his voice low and it still felt like he was shouting.

"Spike?" Jules whispered as she slowly opened her eyes. Only to close them tightly when the light in the room hit them.

"Jules, you okay?" Spike responded, concern lacing his voice.

"Feels like a concussion grenade went off in my head." Jules answered as she slowly blinked her eyes open.

"I know how you feel. I was just telling the boss that I felt like a bomb exploded in mine."

"Is everyone here?" Jules asked as she slowly looked around. She didn't miss the fact that there were restraints around the room.

"Everyone except Sam." Wordy answered as he too took in the layout of the room.

"Where's Sam?" Lou asked. He had been quietly listening to the conversation around him as he attempted to ignore the drums in his head.

"We don't know." Spike answered as he looked to his best friend.

Greg took in the state of his Team and sighed. "It seems like they grabbed us all as we were leaving the Goose. Sam wasn't with us so maybe they didn't get him."

Just as Greg was finishing his comment the door at the end of the room opened an in walked four men. Two were dragging a man with them, one carried a weapon that remained trained on the unconscious man, and the other seemed to be the ringleader. Team One looked closely at the men and Ed, Jules, and Wordy immediately got the impression that they were military, or at least former military.

The men drug the man to the center of the room and unceremoniously dropped him on the metal plate that was situated between the two group of SRU officers shackled to the wall. As the man's head bounced off the metal plate Team One could finally see the man. They had found their missing Team mate. Or rather, the subjects had. Everyone watched as Sam was laid on his side and his hands and feet were shackled. The subjects had adjusted the restraints so that two were in the center at the top, and two were in the center at the bottom. Sam had a bit of room to move, but he wouldn't be able to sit up at all. Once he was shackled three of the four men left the room. The remaining man, the one that looked to be the leader, simply stood and stared at Sam for a long minute.

"Sir, my name is Greg Parker..."

"With the Strategic Response Unit. You want to know what's going on here and how you can help so that everyone can go home in one piece." The man interrupted.

Greg held in his surprise at the man's words. How did he know what I was about to say? He wondered.

"I bet you're wondering who I am. How do I know how you operate? How did I manage to capture your whole Team in one night?" The man turned at met Greg's eyes. Greg could see the pure hatred burning within them. "How about you ask Braddock when he wakes up."

With that the man delivered a swift kick to Sam's stomach, laughed, and walked out. He closed the door behind him with a thud and the entire Team heard the lock click into place.

"Greg?" Ed looked between Sam and his boss.

"I don't know Eddie. I guess we just have to wait until Sam wakes up to see if he can tell us what's going on." Greg answered as he stared at his rookie.

Ed couldn't help but wonder what trouble the cocky ex soldier had gotten them into this time. This kid's causing us nothing but trouble. He thought as he glared at the Rookie's unconscious form.

"Sam? Sam, can you hear me? Sam, wake up!" Lou called out. He was afraid that the hit to the head when Sam was dropped on the floor would give the man a concussion. That wouldn't be good because they wouldn't be able to properly treat him with them all shackled to the wall.

"Come on Braddock! Stop sleeping and wake up. You need to tell us what's going on!" Jules called out. She was angry that it was his fault that they were in this predicament.

All six members of Team One called out to Sam to try and wake him. Some were worried about his physical state while others were simply wanting to know why they were chained to a wall. Unfortunately for them he remained unconscious man in the middle of the room.

"I'm sorry Matt. It's not like I wanted to shoot a .50 caliber round through you. I swear, I was cleared to fire!"

"Yeah, well you did, and now you're in this predicament. Just how do you think you're going to get out of it?" Matt asked.

"I don't know man. He seemed to be really, really pissed at me. Rightfully so too." Sam sighed as he looked down, unable to meet Matt's gaze. "It's all my fault. I killed you. I deserve anything he does to me and more."

"NO! Samuel Braddock you listen to me right now!" Matt stood and screamed at him. Sam looked up, startled at the tone of Matt's voice. "You were given bad orders. I don't know why they told you the area was clear. I don't know why they cleared you to fire. But they did. Shit happens. You can't go back and change the past."

"It should have been me." Sam said softly as he once again looked away from his friend. "I killed Anna Marie, and I killed my best friend. I deserve to die."

Suddenly Matt faded away and all Sam felt was pain radiating throughout his body. His stomach and chest hurt and his head felt like he was doing a handstand on an IED for fun. He fell back on his training. Sam focused first and foremost on keeping his breathing under control. As he counted out sniper breathing he searched his mind to figure out what had happened.

It had been a long day at work. He had ignored an order from Ed to stay put and instead went into the apartment. He had know the cop was close to being dead, he wanted to get him out before that happened. However, instead of things ending well a kid had been killed. As he stood outside the building he had made a comment to Ed that it was too bad about the kid. He knew that if he stopped to think about it too long it would consume him, the fact that the kid might still be alive if he had just obeyed the dumb order. Ed refused to drop the matter though and Sam realized that it wasn't just about that order. Something else had been bothering Ed.

So he asked. He asked if Ed wanted to know what happened in Afghanistan. Even though he already knew the answer he had hoped he was wrong. But the look in his TL's eyes told him he had hit the nail on the head. So Sam told him. Told him about Matt, how he had killed his best friend from two kilometers away. Despite his best efforts he hadn't been able to keep a sob from escaping during his explanation. At this point he could care less what Ed thought of him.

Once they had managed to get through a very heated debrief Sam showered and left the Barn as quickly as he could. He couldn't be around them, not since they now knew what kind of a monster he was. Well, they would think they knew. He would keep the awful truth to himself. Sam had gone home, to his apartment that he had just moved into yesterday. He didn't even have furniture yet. But he couldn't stay there. So he had left, gone to the one place where he could really be himself. But, that's where they found him.

Sam realized that his head was finally clearing and he was starting to hear sounds around him. He had to be hallucinating though because it sounded like Team One was here. He had no idea why they would be here. Surely he was hearing things. Wait, no. That's definitely Ed screaming at me. He thought.

"Braddock, if you don't open your damn eyes I'll shoot you myself!" Ed yelled. He could tell that Sam was coming out of the sedation and he was so infuriated at him he didn't care how the Rookie felt.

"Eddie, calm down." Greg was finally able to raise his voice over the voices of his Team. They were all so angry, well, most of them anyway. They didn't even know why they were here yet. They didn't know Sam's side of the story.

Sam blinked his eyes open and the first thing he saw was Ed's angry face glaring at him.

"It's about time you woke up Braddock!" Ed glared.

"Ed, stow it!" Wordy spat out. He couldn't believe that Ed was acting this way with Sam, again.

"Sam, are you okay?" Greg asked as he carefully looked over his newest Team member.

"A bit sore but I'll be fine." Sam answered carefully.

"That's good to hear." Greg was carefully to keep his voice calm. His Team was angry enough as it stood. "Sam, the men who took us. They said you would know why we were here. Do you know who took us and why?"

Sam closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Yeah, he knew, and if he were being honest with himself he was surprised it had taken him this long.

"Sam?" Wordy asked. He saw the brief flash of pain on Sam's face and started to get worried.

Sam opened his eyes and looked at Greg before turning his gaze to meet Ed's. He maintained eye contact with his TL.

"His name is Mark Simmons. He's out for revenge against me for something that I did a few months ago." Sam answered honestly.

"Who is Mark Simmons?" Ed asked pointedly.

"Mark Simmons is..." Sam swallowed the emotions that were just below the surface. "He is Matt's brother."

AN: Well, what do you think? Would love to see a review with your thoughts!