(Warnings for violence and alcohol)

~Every Heart Has Its Pain~

Every heart has its pain...Only the way of expression is different...Some hide it in their eyes...While some hide it in their smile.

~Unknown

A/N: Throughout this fic there is a person called 'Zero', he is the commander of the operation at the control centre. 'Zero' is like a codename. Usually, call signs are something like 'R1ØB' but for the purpose of this fic I will call them by their codenames as it will save confusion :)

There is an illustration to go with it too... - art/Every-Heart-Has-A-Pain-312912922

Dr. Sutton

"How are you coping?" I ask the soldier in front of me. He looks up from the arm chair as I ask.

"Fine." He replies, that is what everyone says. He subconsciously crosses his arms and they act like a protective barrier. He is clearly not in the mood for talking.

"Why don't you tell me what happened while you were in Belarus?" I encourage.

Lewis Harrington

"Hello Zero, this is Wolf, Eagle has been taken, I say again, Eagle has been taken, over," I say into the radio that is strapped to my webbing.

"Hello Wolf, this is Zero, when did he disappear, over,"

"Zero, I don't know, over."

"Roger, wait out." He tells me and I pull my rifle into my shoulder. I hear the radio crackle and someone else is speaking.

"Hello Zero, this is Shark, Lion is missing, I say again, Lion is missing, over." That's two; I know there are only five other out there patrolling these woods towards the agent. We've been scattered slightly. I think about calling a regroup so we can get to the agent who will give us more information on the mission.

"Hello, Kilo and Lima, this is Wolf, I am calling a regroup to the ERV I spell Echo Romeo Victor, over," I say, spelling it out because of the occasional bad signal we get.

"Bear, ok, over,"

"Jaguar, ok, over,"

"Shark, ok, over,"

"Snake, ok, over,"

"Tiger, ok, over,"

"Wolf, ok, out"

I get all ok's and I begin to move to the emergency rendezvous (ERV). I am watching where I put my feet so that I don't make any excessive noise.

We meet up, I am here first and I see the others in the near distance coming towards me. I take a knee and wait. One by one the other five get to where I am.

Everyone is taking a knee and I begin speaking in a low murmur.

"Okay, the agent is at GR 315 009," I inform them. "This ERV, GR 315 012." We need to get to the agent as quick and as efficiently as possible so I think that making a beeline towards him will do the job, as long as we are all on look out in this jungle. The compound we are raiding is ten klicks from here; the guards are probably swarming out here.

A crackle from the radio, "Hello Wolf, this is Zero, no move out for seventy-two hours, over,"

"Wolf, that's too long, they'll be dead by then, over," I say, I don't want one dead comrade, let alone two.

"Zero, orders are orders, no move for seventy-two hours, over,"

"Wolf, roger, out."

I repeat to the rest what the orders are even though they've probably heard them. We head back a couple of klicks to where we started off.

We go slightly off to where we had camped the night before. These nights aren't planned so we've got a few more nights of hard-routine, nothing we haven't done before. We dig in so that there are two of us to a hide and the hard routine means no talking, cooking, or even a warm brew. As I lie there I try to take my mind off what they could be doing to Eagle and Lion. I hum a random song, but morbid thoughts and images still play in my mind, so I get my head down and sleep.

...72 hours later...

We set off in an extended line about five metres apart from each other. We are getting closer to the agent and I can see the clearing ahead. I signal for everyone to stop and Shark and I go ahead and the other four take up positions around us while we make contact with the agent.

I lower my gun for a split second as I near.

"Lima Yankee." I say quietly, it is part of the password.

"Quebec Foxtrot." He replies and he hands me a small packet from his pocket, I assume it contains surveillance photos of the compound. I stash them away in my combat jacket.

"There are four guards at the depot entrance and four at the main entrance. Lots inside." I can tell he's trying to keep it brief; meeting agents is dangerous, especially seeing as he is Agent Alex Rider.

The blonde scans the area quickly; I can see he's taken note of my men, where they are position around us keeping an eye out for any enemy coming towards us that could compromise this meet.

Agent Rider carries on speaking, "If your two men are inside they'll be expecting you. They are well arms with AK-47s for most of the guards and some of them have been carrying a light machine gun." I nod to Shark and we head off with one final check of the surrounding area. We've been given a spec of what the building looks like both outside and in. I run over it in my head as we head towards the compound and try to workout where they'd be hiding the two soldiers.

I see the compound ahead of us and motion for everyone to halt and we get down on out belt buckles, studying for a few minutes. My team play out their drills that we had practiced weeks before hand. I could hear single shots being fired, one for each guard. I did the same rounding corners and being faced with a man with an AK pointing at my face. There is no hesitation and I shoot the man in the chest, directly through the heart. I bend down to check for a pulse and when there is none, I move on, to the next corner.

It's a simple wipe out mission. It is supposed to be a simple wipe out mission.

It is what is around the next corner that's made me wish I had never done this.

Eagle is kneeling on the floor. One hand is handcuffed to a pipe of some sort that ran along the length of the wall; the other is folded over his stomach. His face is covered in bruises and fresh blood. There is a tear in his jacket sleeve where there is a wound bleeding sluggishly and looks like it is from a knife.

In front of him is a man in combats also laying face down on the dusty floor and I know at once it is Lion, but I kneel next to his side and turn his slightly just to check and my suspicions are confirmed. There is a bullet hole in his head, but also one in his knee and stomach. He was tortured. I grab a pin out of my webbing and use it to pick the lock on his handcuff. I quickly work my way round the inside of the locking mechanism and Eagle is soon free. He doesn't move but instead stays exactly still, staring at Lion.

I reach down and pull him up placing one of his arms over my shoulder so he can support himself. I radio in that I've got eagle.

"Hello Wolf, this is Shark, have you got Lion, over."

"Wolf, he's dead, out." I say to him bluntly, perhaps too bluntly, I don't know what else to say. I can hear shouting coming from down the hallway and see three men stood at the end. I take Eagle's arm from around my shoulder and force him to sit down quickly. My rifle is back in my shoulder and I've fired off three shots before they've even realised I've noticed them, the recoil slamming back into my shoulder.

I pick Eagle back up and Shark comes round the corner, stopping dead at the sight of Lion. He's instantly down next to him, looking for a pulse and I let him, even know I know he's dead. The soldier picks Lion up over his shoulder into a fireman's lift and places a small charge on the metal pipe.

The rest of the team have set charges too and we hurry out of the building and from the surrounding area as quick as we can.

The building blows suddenly as the charges go off one by one. I can see the smoke billowing up into the air along with a large fireball of fire. It's quick to settle down when the charges have all been set off and we head to the pick up point.

Several soldiers are waiting when we get there and take Eagle from my shoulders and lay him down on a stretcher. They begin to wipe the bloody dirt from his face and soothe the cuts. One of the medics places a splint round his wrist, the one he had been holding against his stomach when I first saw him. I don't notice that the helicopter has taken off and I quickly drift of to sleep.

When we land I let the medics take Eagle to the infirmary so that he can be treated. I follow the rest to the debriefing room. The officers are already present when I get there and I shut the door as I am the last one in.

"Evening gentlemen..." The commanding officer starts and he goes on to tell us what happened over the course of the mission, even though we were there. He asked us questions about general stuff and then he turned to me. His eyes seemed to burn into me. My heartbeat quickened, I know he is going to ask about Eagle and Lion.

"So, Wolf," He starts. "I need to know every detail about what happened when Eagle and Lion went missing." His eyes have burnt right through my skull now and I take a deep breath and tell him exactly what happened and what we did.

"How did you not notice that they had gone sooner?" He questioned.

"I don't know, sir. Some of the men in the compound, we were told in the briefing, are very skilled. I think that they were able to abduct them without us knowing using their skilled training, sir." It's a bad excuse for us clearly not doing our jobs right and I suspect I'll be binned on the spot.

I receive a small nod of a slight approval from the officer and I fall back in line with the others and he pulls Shark forward and asks for his excuse for letting one of his team get captured and killed.

Finally the debrief is over and I get out of the building as quick as possible and dash to the infirmary.

I find him easily as there are many people in the wards. He's sat up in bed, arm strapped up with a cast and sling. There's a bandage round his upper arm from where they'd burnt him. A couple of stitches close a wound he'd had on his face under his eye, that I guess was from a knife.

He looks down at the white sheets covering him as I near, he probably doesn't want to talk to anyone and I respect that, but there's no harm in trying.

Scott Beane

I walk into my front room, my arm strapped to my chest in a dark blue sling. My wife, Lily, is on the settee, little Oscar sat on her lap giggling and gurgling. She has been told what has happened, to me anyway. I daren't tell her how Ryan Neely was shot in front of me. I know Ryan has a wife at home, a young girl and twins on the way. I tell myself that I should be glad it wasn't me just to rid the pain and guilt, but t only makes it worse.

I stand at the door for about five minutes, oblivious to the weight on my back of the bergen hanging from my shoulder. She comes into my line of vision, her blue-grey eyes locked onto mine and our son's bright blue eyes just gazing round the room with no interest in anything in particular. I risk a small smile and I feel on the very edge of tears and before I know it Lily is hugging me tight, Oscar squealing in between us. I know both she and I are crying.

I'm home; I'm safe.

Words for me to keep repeating. I pull Lily into the lounge and she places Oscar on his play mat and he begins to pick up the large Duplo blocks and tries to stick them in his mouth, when that doesn't work he resorts to throwing them across the lounge. I chortle a little and it sets Lily of giggling.

It's then I think things could go alright.

... 6 Months Later...

I wake up from yet another twisted nightmare from the happenings six months ago. Oscar is crying in his room and I can hear my wife soothing him. I take a couple of deep breaths before climbing out of bed and going to see them both. As I enter the room, I can see my son's face is red from crying. Lily soothes him quickly and puts him back in his cot.

Slowly, we go back to our bedroom on the opposite side of the hallway. I lay in bed, flat on my back, staring at the ceiling. I feel my wife shuffling up to me and she drapes her arm over my chest and with the other she begins to tousle my hair. I turn my head and look at her, smiling (as best I could).

As the weeks wear on, the nightmares get worse and worse. I see his face, the contorted, twisted look of betrayal as the man stood over him presses the barrel of the gun into his forehead. I can see his finger curled round the trigger, taunting me.

I am alone in the house at the moment; Lily is at her parents' house with Oscar. It's only about eleven in the morning but I find myself reaching for the drink in the cupboard by the sideboard in the lounge. I take a swig of it and it burns as it goes down. I take a deep breath, setting it on the side.

The urge to drink more to get the images out of my head are to strong I keep sipping at the clear liquid. The images got stronger and stronger. I was sure I could hear that single gunshot ringing through my ears. Feel the blood on my face and those eyes... I can feel the staring straight at me.

I crouch to the floor, desperate to get them out of my mind. Why! It wasn't my fault!

Another swig. They eyes.

Another. The gunshot... no wait, it was a door. I can feel hands on my shoulders and the pressure seems to relieve the images some, but not much. That man, the one who shot Ryan stands in front of me gun in hand. I wonder if it's real. It can be but I can feel the barrel of the gun pressed into my skull. I stand up quickly and push him against the wall. A whimper. No...

"I'm sorry..." I shout, I still have him pressed against the wall, bottle of drink still clasped in my hand and then he seems to fade.

Lily is stood in front of me, shaking, tears streaming down her face. I take one last look at her and turn away. I run out of the house, down the street. I let go of the bottle and I hear it smash against the stone pavement. I get to the end of the road and go across the field where there is a children's park in the centre, surrounded by trees. I go towards them and stop. I rest against one of them and I slide down it, feeling it scratch my back through my brown shirt. The trees are dripping water from the rain this morning. Large drops soak into my combat trousers and make the fabric look darker. I push my head back and knock it against the bark of the tree and breathe in the cold air.

About ten minutes later the rain is back and huge droplets of fresh rain drop onto my trousers, soaking them completely and wetting my brown t-shirt too. I shiver as a drop lands on my nose from my blond hair. It's getting colder.

"Scott!" I hear someone shouting my name. "Scott!" There it is again, closer this time; I subconsciously shuffle closer into the tree when a familiar face appears in front of me. Ben is kneeling before me and is still calling my name. I can hear him but I can't focus. I shut my eyes and open them again, his voice is calm and I can focus on him.

"I'm sorry..." I don't know what for; it's just the first thing that comes out. "I'm really sorry."

"It's alright," Ben pulls me forward into a manly hug.

"Lily?" I ask, remembering I ran out on her crying.

"She's at home, with Oscar, they're fine, you didn't hurt her, just scared her a little. She called me. I knew you wouldn't have gone far and you come here often after work with Oscar."

"Yeah," I say.

"Come on, you're soaked."

"So are you!" I say and laugh. It makes me feel good inside and I suddenly forget all that has just happened.

They say laughter is the best medicine and it sure is.

Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it.

BETA'd by my awesome friend Valkyriexx :D

Review, constructive criticism welcome