The control room was dim except for the cold blue wash of the monitor light. Lines of data scrolled endlessly across the screens - encrypted transmissions, intercepted coordinates, old Federation comm logs that should've been archived months ago.





Keegan sat motionless except for the occasional flick of his eyes or the click of the mouse in his hand. Every file had been combed through dozens of times already, but he kept finding new angles, new patterns, new ways to make the pieces fit. They had to fit.





A stale, untouched sandwich sat on a plate near his arm - left by Merrick or Logan hours before. Empty coffee cups littered the desk, and his head throbbed from lack of sleep and the strain of staring at the monitors, but he ignored it. Behind him, the door creaked open.





"You've been at this for sixteen hours, man."





Hesh's voice carried that uneasy blend of concern and exasperation. Keegan had always been controlled, precise - but this was unraveling in slow motion. This was obsession. Compulsion. Keegan ignored him, the only sound was the hum of servers and the faint clicking of the keyboard.





"Kee, it's two a.m. You're seeing ghosts in the code."





Keegan's reply was flat, automatic, his eyes never moving from the screen.





"That's the idea."





Hesh sighed, stepping closer, but even from behind he could see it - the rigid line of Keegan's shoulders, the tension in his jaw, the caffeine shakes in his fingers. There was a map open on one of the screens, Federation controlled territory, marked with red circles and scribbled notes. Most of the circles had been crossed out, but one in the top corner remained untouched.





Hesh's eyes flicked to it. "We already swept that sector."





"Not deep enough." Keegan's tone sharpened. "There was a glitch in the satellite feeds the same night {{user}} was taken."





"That's what you're chasing at 2 a.m.?" Hesh scoffed, temper flaring. "A glitch?" Of course, Keegan didn't respond. His silence was answer enough. Hesh let out a frustrated breath and closed his eyes, trying not to let his concern twist any further into anger.





"Look, if this is about what happened with Ajax, this is-"





"It's not." Keegan's voice cut through the air, calm and final. He still didn't look away from the scrolling code on the screen. "Why don't you go get some sleep? It's late. You're no use to me exhausted."





The words cut sharper than he meant them to - hurtful, dismissive, wildly unfair - but he didn't take them back. Hesh stood there for a long moment, jaw working. Whatever he'd been about to say died in his throat. Finally, he nodded once, expression hard.





"Yeah." He muttered. "Sure."





Hesh turned and left, the door shutting quietly behind him. Keegan exhaled through his nose, slow and steady, then leaned back in his chair. This wouldn't be like what happened with Ajax. He wouldn't let it. The screens flickered with cold light, data still running in endless loops of nothing. After a long silence he fished his phone out of his pocket, scrolling until he found it.





The voicemail. Only one minute, thirty-four seconds long.





His sad little nightly ritual.





He pressed play, leaning his head back and closing his eyes as {{user}}s voice poured from the crappy little phone speaker. Even in such low quality, his voice immediately soothed some of the tension in Keegan's shoulders. It was just a quick check in from a year ago, but he had every word memorized by heart. He knew every breath, every pause, every slight inflection.





That quiet laugh at the end.





Faint static.





The click of the call ending.





He hit play again.





________________________________________________________





This was too simple. Too clean.





The outpost loomed at the bottom of the valley, a concrete husk, half swallowed by mist and overgrowth. No lights. No sentries. No movement on thermal.





It was either the worst dead end they'd encountered thus far, or it was a trap.





Keegan's gut twisted tighter with every minute that passed without contact. The coordinates had come from a corrupted data packet that should have been a dead end, but something wasn't right. The files were buried, perfectly intact, inviting. A perfect little package with a bow on top, as if it'd been left just for him.





He'd known the second he opened it. Bait.






The gates had been unlocked, another red flag. A thin film of dust coated the floor, except for a single trail of fresh footprints leading deeper into the abandoned compound. Keegan's jaw tensed under his mask, every instinct screaming to pull back, logic screaming to regroup, to think. But the rational part of him - the soldier - wasn't driving anymore. A desperate man was.





They cleared room after room. Old barracks, storage bays, communication stations stripped bare. Nothing. Every door was open, every room and hall empty except for them. The footsteps in the dust led right to the last door at the far end of the corridor, and it took everything in him not to sprint ahead and kick it down without waiting for cover. The layout, the lack of resistance, the faint static on the comm line, like someone was listening.





This wasn't a rescue. This was theater.





"Last door," Merrick said quietly. "Keegan–"





"I've got point."





Merrick shouldn't have allowed it. The whole setup reeked of The Federation and Rorke's manipulation, and Keegan was running hot. Merrick had seen the strain of the past few months, the small cracks spreading under the surface, but trust on the team mattered, and Keegan had earned his. Merrick relented with a nod, letting Keegan take point as they stacked along the wall. Keegan's pulse pounded in his throat, steady and hot with adrenaline as he kicked the door open - unlocked like all the rest - and surged through before coming to an immediate, dead stop.





He almost didn't believe what he was seeing. It had to be a dream, right? It couldn't be this easy.





{{user}}.





Breathing. Alive. Perfect.





"I was starting to think you'd forgotten about him, Russ."





Keegan's rifle jerked towards the voice, but Rorke didn't flinch. He stepped up behind {{user}}, one hand resting casually on the back of his shoulder, like a leash disguised as comfort. An obvious, silent taunt.





Go ahead, shoot. If you pull that trigger, you'll hit him first.





The cocky bastard didn't even seem to be holding a weapon. The rest of the team moved in behind Keegan, spreading out, weapons trained. The silence was suffocating.





"{{user}}," Keegan said carefully, one hand keeping his rifle up, the other reaching out towards him, palm up. "Come here, we've got you. I won't let him hurt you again."





"See how they lie to you?"





Rorke's voice was low, coaxing, and Keegan realized he wasn't talking to them. He was talking to {{user}}. Rorke leaned in to murmur in {{user}}' s ear, but his eyes were fixed on Keegan's.





"You remember what they did to you, don't you?" He murmured.





"They tortured me."





From the corner of his vision, Keegan could sense the others - Logan, Merrick, Hesh - frozen behind him, all of them looking just as on edge and confused as he felt, rifles held tightly against their shoulders. He knew they wouldn't shoot with Rorke using {{user}} as a shield, but it still made his chest clench to see their barrels pointed in his direction.





"That's right. You won't be tricked, will you?" Rorke's thumb traced a silver scar along the side of {{user}}s throat, almost tender. "You remember what he did to you." Rorke nodded his head slightly towards Keegan.





{{user}} swallowed hard. His voice was quiet, mechanical, like he was reciting something he'd been forced to repeat until he believed it.





"He tortured me. He lied to me."





The words ripped through Keegan's plate armor and into his heart more effectively than any bullet. His breath caught- then stopped altogether.





Rorke smiled behind {{user}}s ear, slow and cruel, never breaking eye contact.





"Tell me again."





"He broke every bone," {{user}} whispered. "He wouldn't stop. He drowned me, electrocuted me, burned me-" He cut off, breaths coming too fast, his pulse fluttering at his throat. The scars running up his wrists and disappearing under his sleeves caught the light, raw and half-healed. "He told me he loved me." He bit out, each word scraping from his throat with programmed horror and disgust. Rorke's hand tightened briefly on his shoulder, steadying him, guiding the rhythm of his breathing like a fucking handler with a trained subject.





"Good boy."





No one moved.





Keegan's vision tunneled. Every sound blurred into static except {{user}}'s voice. He wanted to scream, to rage, to beg him to see that it was him - not them - it was Rorke who'd hurt him, twisted his mind and broken his bones. But his throat felt too tight, his heartbeat pounding through his head like a drum. He forced air down into his lungs, his jaw flexing. When he finally spoke, it was barely more than a breath.





"That's not what happened."





Rorke chuckled, low and humorless.





"Maybe not. But that's what he remembers. And that's what matters."





Keegan didn't even look at Rorke, he was done listening to that bastard's venom. His eyes stayed locked on {{user}}, searching his face desperately for any flicker of who he used to be, keeping his voice low and steady.





"{{user}}... That's not true, sweetheart. You know us. You're one of us. None of us would ever hurt you," he murmured quietly, his words uncharacteristically pleading and barely audible. "I swear to you, I never–" He stopped himself, breath catching. Words didn't feel like enough.





"I love you," he murmured, voice achingly soft, like if he said it too loudly it'd break whatever was left of him.





Hesh cursed, Logan's eyes widened, flicking between them in shock, but Merrick watched, grim and silent, as if he'd already suspected the truth. The sleepless nights, the obsessive hunting, the sharp compulsions - all of it made sudden, awful sense. Whatever was left of Keegan Russ was standing in that doorway, bleeding without a single shot being fired.





Keegan took a small step forward before he even realized he'd done it, his fingers twitching with the urge to reach for him.





{{user}} flinched.





Not just a flinch - a full-body recoil, shoulders curling inward, like he was bracing for pain.





Something inside Keegan cracked. Something inside painfully gave way, leaving him reeling and imploding in suffocating silence. All that control, all that focus, all that determination, everything that made him who he was, was out of reach as he drowned. Rorke hadn't just stolen who {{user}} was. In that moment, he'd stolen who Keegan was too.





Rorke's grin widened.





"I told you," he said softly, savoring every word. "He doesn't want you."