Journey Series: Ellick

The Most Dangerous Thing

Torres was sitting on a bench in a park. The park was deserted, which let him just think. Or not think, at least in silence. The sky cracked with lightning and thunder crashed around him. Rain, in the simplist way to put it, was pouring. It snaked down his back, rinsed the gel from his hair and streams ran down him endlessly. Quite frankly, he was sopping wet. Torres loved the rain. He was a sunshine state man through and through. But anyone who had grown up in Florida knew that it wasn't sunshine and beach days all the time. And after so many years of undercover work in the worst of conditions, the rain was like a soothing balm. Many of the hardened D.Cers who happened upon him drenched during rainstorms looked at him sideways. His landlord had even been called once when someone reported, "A man of hispanic ethnicity sitting on someone's deck just getting absolutely soaked in the rain." Yep. That had been him.

He couldn't blame people for thinking he was crazy. Maybe he was. But they couldn't understand. And he wouldn't want them to. It would be a dangerous thing if everyone knew. People always have secrets for a reason. The rain poured over him, and he thought. His *cough* therapist or whatever had asked something incredibly difficult. Of course she knew that at least to a degree. He hated therapists. They messed with your head and tried to make you feel like they did understand. But the truth of the matter was they wanted progress. They all wanted progress from him just to satisfy their selfish desires and coddle those warm feelings that arose from "helping" poor lost souls. Yeah... he really hated therapists. Even Jack with all her experience, he had hated her profession. No, he didn't hate Jack. Just what she did. Trying to probe inside his mind. Getting into his mind, he felt, would be the most dangerous thing one could do. Even more so if he let it happen. If he let it happen, he was to blame for the casualties.

If he had told his therapist that, she would have said not only was he trying to protect those he cared for, but also himself. He didn't want to talk, because that would be like ripping of a lifetime of bandaids and stabbing knives through old scar tissue.

He had faced a lot of dangers. Really, he couldn't count. Sometimes when he did sleep, then woke up drenched in sweat from the struggle of a nightmare, he'd wonder if it was really worth it. Making it through a lifetime of hell only to be trapped in another. It just wouldn't let up.

But even through all that, he had found a way to return to at least the appearance of normal. Except one thing: Trust. He couldn't trust anyone. He trusted the MRCT, sure, but only enough. That was another reason he couldn't sleep. He didn't trust that his neighbors weren't druggies or arms dealers. He bought coffee in different places so that the baristas wouldn't get too casual with him. He stared out the window at that diner, always believing that one day he'd turn around and the chef would be pointing a gun at him. And if he didn't see it, it would be over. Even if Gibbs made one of his random visits to check up on him and Ellie like he did, (oh yeah, he had known about those since the day he got back), there would be nothing he could do. The most dangerous thing for him was letting people in. When the cold became unbearable for him, he stood up and made his way to his bike.

Man, he loved that bike. It was like an odd constant for him. Often on his days off, he'd hop on his bike and just disappear for hours. He left his phone and just rode. He had told Ellie that he "unplugged" on those days, to avoid the inevitable situation that he knew would occur if he didn't respond almost immediately. He learned when first joining the team that she would barrage him with texts and calls. If driven to desperate measures, she would appeal to McGee and get him to put a trace on his phone.

Torres admitted to himself that things, though familiarity made things easy, would have to change. He had to get comfortable being uncomfortable. If he wanted to really move on, then it was just the way it had to be. Torres being Torres, decided on his ride back to his apartment that he would do this his way: dive in head first.