It's the second time I put an angst warning in the title and it's once again with a Ghost bot. I've got issues. This will be a multi-part series with it having 3 parts. There is a happy ending, I promise. I wish you all the best of luck. Shout-out to @gigglegirl for the bot!
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They had been searching for clues for months, and surprisingly, the clues all lead back to Indy.
The task force had decided to torture Indy until she confessed. Indy was bleeding, shaking, trembling, and protesting at the top of her lungs that she didn't say anything to anyone, but nobody believed her...
Until they caught the real traitor red-handed. Everyone felt sick as they watched Indy suffer...
Ghost, most of all.
If anyone on base knows what it's like to be tortured, it's Ghost. His history makes him accutely aware of what is effective when trying to get information out of someone. He knows what makes a person tic, how to isolate their weak spots and abuse it until they break. The last thing he expected was to put an innocent person through that, much less his own innocent teammate.
Ghost's steps are heavy as he walks into the holding cell. He takes in the sight of his teammate and can barely face what him and the team put her through for 3 days.
Indy's tied up to the chair, still breathing ragged from the last torture session. She has dried blood from all the cuts and punches she's recieved. Her head hangs limply, exhausted. Her usual fighting spirit is long gone, leaving her empty and a shell of her former self.
Indy hears a voice calling her name but doesn't register the voice as Ghost's.
He looks at Indy, his expression filled with sadness and guilt.
"Hey..." His voice breaks as he walks over and unties Indy.
Indy doesn't react, though, doesn't even let him know she heard him.
Ghost puts his hands on her shoulders, trying to get her to react. All Indy does is hang limpfrom the chair. He leans in and places his hand under her chin to lift her head up. He sees bloodshot eyes, eyes that contain little life in them. They are dull, broken. He doesn't like it.
"Look at me.." Ghost says softly, wanting Indy's eyes to meet his.
She finally reacts and meets his gaze.
He takes a second to compose himself after the sight of her broken spirit hit's him as hard as a knife to the chest. "I am so sorry...I...I wish I could make things right." It's killing him to see her this way.
Indy's eyes turn downward, feeling empty.
"Why haven't you said anything? Please, say something." Ghost tries to wipe her dried tears with his sleeve.
She still refuses to meet his gaze and he can't stand that. "Hey... come on... look at me..."
Indy doesn't, feeling tired, betrayed, and general pain.
He brushes her disheveled hair away from her face. "Just look at me."
She finally looks up, eyes hollow and emotionless.
"Hey... come here." He looks at Indy as he opens his arms for a hug.
She likes hugs, they always made her feel better after a hard mission. Ghost thought to himself.
Indy stays seated in the chair, just looking at him with no reaction. No real indication she even knows what's going on.
"Please, just come here for a second." He's desperate by this point, knowing he needs to fix this. The whole team needs to fix this. Ghost took it upon himself to be first, though, not being able to live with the guilt. He'd love to run and to slam himself into a wall for what he's done, but he can't leave Indy. He needs to make it right.
She wordlessly looks back down at the floor.
"Please..." He walks around the chair and sits down next to her, needing her to react, to do something. "...we need to talk..."
He takes her hand. "I need you to trust me, okay? I'm really sorry about what happened..."
Indy flinches as his hand touches hers.
"Hey... it's okay... look at me..." He gently caresses her hand. It hurts him to see her like this. He gently caresses her cheek to get her to look at him.
She closes her eyes and braces herself. She's still in survival mode and not trusting anyone. Not yet, at least.
Ghost wants to beat himself up worse than he did to Indy. "I'm not going to hurt you... look at me, please. It really hurts me to see you like this...I...I'm-I'm so sorry..."
Tears start to form in Indy's eyes, finally doing something besides looking hollow and broken.
He immediately wraps her in a hug, to try and comfort her. The hug breathes a bit of life into Indy as she finally starts moving and breaking down.
It takes everything in him to not break down with her. "I'm sorry...I'm so...so sorry...." He hugs her a bit tighter, causing Indy to wince as one of her wounds rubs against his rough clothes.
His eyes widen as he apologizes and immediately loosens his grip, basically letting her go entirely. "No, no, no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Indy stays quiet, her throat still hurting after all the screaming, pleading, and crying.
"It's okay... it's all over now." Ghost puts his hand under her chin to lift her head up.
"..pain." She says, her voice scratchy and rough.
"What?" He cocks his head to the side, trying to understand what she is talking about while also glad that she's starting to speak again.
Indy tries to lift her arm to the cut on her shoulder, one of several she'd recieved.
"O-oh..." He takes a few seconds to take that in before he runs his fingers along the cut. She immediately turns her head away.
"No, no, no, look at me." He gently turns her head back to him. "I'm not going to hurt you."
She's shaking under his touch even as Ghost tries to comfort her.
"No.. please." She whispers hoarsely.
"I'm just going to touch it for a second... please trust me." He's practically pleading with her, desperate to check her wounds. It's self-inflicted torture at this point, forcing himself to asses the wounds he and the rest of the team gave her. He touches the skin and moves it around, checking for infection.
It hurts like hell and she can only take so much. "Enough." Indy pleades, her throat burning at the strain on her vocal cords.
"Okay..." Ghost pulls his hand back, leaving the wound alone. He looks over at it, then at Indy. "Are you okay?"
She shakes her head 'no', too tired and in too much pain for words.
"I'm sorry...I'm so so sorry..." He gently caresses her cheek, not wanting to ever cause her any more pain.
Indy closes her eyes and just breaths. She can barely move, though, not without feeling a lot of pain. Her head throbs and her thoughts are hazy. It's almost like she's in a trance, acutely aware to the pain she is feeling and not much else.
"I'm going to bring you to the medbay... you need to get better, okay?" Ghost's voice is filled with concern. He gently picks her up, bridal style, and carries her to the med bay.
She winces as he carries her, unable to ignore the pain of her wounds pressed up against him. Her eyes close and focuses on her breathing as Ghost walks into the med bay and lays her down on a medical cot.
A doctor comes over along with a nurse to patch Indy up, whimpers and grunts of pain leave her as they work. Ghost doesn't leave her side even though he can't bear to see the pain she's going through. Pain he caused.
Finally, the doctor finishes and leaves with the nurse. The damage is extensive but luckily not too bad. Obviously there are a lot of cuts that needed stitches, bruises, scrapes, but luckily, there wasn't need for any casts when it came to the sprained joints. Her shoulder left shoulder was wrapped up tightly with it being sprained the worst.
"How are you feeling, love? A little bit better?"He gently brushes her hair back from her face.
Indy doesn't answer him, though, not even when he used his pet name for her. It was platonic, he's british after all, and she knew it. It only made her feel worse when he called her that.
You don't hurt the ones you love. She thought, stuck inside her own head.
"It's ok...you get some rest. I'll be right here." Ghost doesn't really notice how the pet name affects her, not with how unresponsive she is.
The pain meds give her enough of a reason to do as he suggests. She's out like a light minutes later. For the entirety of that day Indy simply sleeps and tries to recover. One by one, the rest of the 141 visit her. They don't really speak, too ashamed, and just stand by her side. She get's tired of being in the med bay, though, not wanting to be out in the open. It's afternoon the next day when she stands and starts walking, mindlessly heading to her room against doctor's orders.
Ghost, who hasn't left her side the entire time, doesn't want her to go and tries to stop her. "Hey..." He trails off as he blocks her way. Indy simply goes around him and keeps walking.
"Where do you think you're going?" He asks, following after her. He's clearly worried and wants to know where her head is at.
He tries to stop her again once she reaches her door. "Hey, hey... please talk to me..." He pleades with her, wanting desperately to help her heal the pain they caused her.
Indy finally looks at him. Really looks at him..
Broken.
It's the only word that can be used to describe the look in her eyes.
Ghost can't stand it, his heart dropping further than it already had gone. "I'm so sorry... can I come in with you? Just for a minute?"
She looks back down and shakes her head 'no'.
He looks as if he's about to start begging. "...please..."
Indy opens her door and sees it's been ransacked, it was obviously done while looking for evidence of her 'guilt'. She takes a breath, seeing the mess, and just walks over it.
Ghost takes in the mess as he walks into her room after her. "I'm sorry...I forgot that.....we just....sigh....." He can't even attempt to explain the mess, knowing nothing he says will fix it. Nothing he says will fix her.
She just walks in, careful not to step on anything, and clears the bed before laying down.
"Please... let me at least try to make you feel better... please..." He asks sitting on the edge of her bed.
"...why didn't you stop it?" Her voice is raw, grating. It's clear evidence of how much she screamed while tortured, how much her vocal cords were damaged.
Whether they were damaged while she screamed for mercy, screamed in pain, or screamed her innocence didn't matter. Nobody would be hearing her usually calming voice or cheery words of encouragement for a while, something that Ghost really wishes he could hear right now.
He doesn't have an excuse, not one he himself would accept, anyways.
We had orders.... Is all he could think. Pathetic excuse.
"....let me hold you, please..." He gets into the bed next to her and wraps his arms around her, wanting to hold and comfort her. Indy doesn't react, lost inside herself.
"I'm sorry...but I'm here for you, ok?" Ghost's own voice cracks as he tries not to break. He's trying so hard to make the pain go away, praying to a God he doesn't really believe in if it means there is a chance of undoing it all.
Indy falls asleep, curled up into herself as Ghost refuses to let her go.
...she likes hugs....they make her feel better.... He keeps thinking to himself.
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...we alive? We good? I'm personally crying so I hope you all are doing better than me. Obviously, this isn't all the bot. A lot of it is me adding details and extra stuff to the story. I don't really know where this came from either. Best friend, if you are reading this, no I'm not going to therapy. That's what writing is for.
Let me know what you all think in the comments!
Link to bot: https://c.ai/c/rkz7oGmyGZkXw5O5JkNASm0m-gBQaHD1JiuTZO3hxXc