Journey Series: Ellick

Echos

Torres practically dove headfirst back undercover. He once again devoted himself to the role. He became it. 17th name, 17th home address. He played the role, gathered intel, washed, rinsed, and repeated. The days blurred together until one day he woke up and realized that over two years had passed. Over two years since had seen Ellie, or anyone at NCIS. The job was dragging on. But it was okay. Typical gang, drug/traffiking ring bust. Did he want it to be over? Had he found what he was looking for? Maybe he needed to try harder. Or maybe he was looking in the wrong place.

Laying awake on his bed in his small condo in Colombia, he could still feel an ache. A hollow, empty void inside of him that echoed with the horrors from the past. He hadn't been able to find the right way to get away from it, but going back to the past had helped little. It angered him. Where were the answers? What if he could never find them? Was he doomed to be plagued, haunted by nonverbal questions? Grasping onto the echos of possible solutions that were always too far ahead of him? It was a twisting, sickening battle that he felt like he was always losing. Would he always be this way? Broken, covering up the pain. Never able to stop, never able to be content. Always feeling restless and unsatisfied, always looking over his shoulder.

The more he thought of it, the more it sickened him. Ellie made it so much worse. She had promised to wait, and asked for him to promise to come back. Now he had left, and wasn't sure if he could ever go back home. Home. Did he even have that?

He tossed and turned. Only part of his inability to sleep was due to being undercover in that moment. He squinted and looked at the digital clock on the stool beside his bed. It read: 0334. Screw this, he thought. He made up his bed and went for a run. There was nothing else to do at such an unearthly hour. But then again, running, he was good at it.