A/N: Hey, guys. So I know that there are about 23894723987 elevator fics out there, but this one is hopefully a bit different from the ones you have already read. I want it to be a multi-chap following the hours Tony and Ziva are trapped in the elevator.

And I can tell you right now – if you are looking for lovey-dovey gooey-ness, please just exit the browser because that's not what this story is about. I can promise you that there is no kissing or cuddling or declarations of undying love to be found here. I want to stay true to the characters as I see them, and in my head, they are not going to do anything cutesy in this elevator.

What I can promise, though, is introspection and emotional intimacy and as much realism as possible. If you're craving that as much as I have been lately, then please, by all means, read ahead and let me know what you think.

Cheers, then, and enjoy. (Hopefully.)

The Longest Night
By: Zayz

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Do not go gentle into that good night
Rage, rage against the dying of the light

- Dylan Thomas

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PROLOGUE
4:30 PM

She begins to stir before he does. Breathes in the dust, the scent of plaster, the heavy stillness in the air. She coughs feebly and coaxes open her eyelids, trying to grasp the scene before her.

The elevator light is flickering weakly above her head. The ceiling has collapsed, sending chunks of debris into the elevator floor like pieces of meteorite recently fallen to Earth. There is a sharp pain in Ziva's ankle, where bits of the ceiling hit her hard; she tries to move her foot and is rewarded by such a vicious shot of pain that she almost cries out. She fears the ankle is broken, or at the very least sprained. Her head throbs; she can feel a bruise blooming on her temple where she hit the ground; her arm aches from absorbing her fall.

Her shaking, quivering hand is clutching Tony's, hard. Tony's hand is limp – he appears unconscious – but it's curled protectively over her fingers, like he had been clutching it just as fiercely before his consciousness left him. His other arm is draped over her middle. She can feel his shallow breaths against her shoulder, the back side of her neck. They are smashed up against the side of the elevator – just clear of the debris that has come down upon them.

Right in front of her face is a collection of rock and plaster, the dust just beginning to settle. She realizes, even in this state, that if he hadn't pulled her into him at the last second, she probably would have been crushed by the fall-out.

Panic flares in her stomach, a fire in the middle of the darkest night refusing to be quenched. The pieces slowly assemble themselves in her head – the evacuation, the bomb, Harper Dearing. God, the bomb went off in the middle of the evacuation.

It really happened. Dearing got a bomb on premises, and it blew up. She is sitting in the middle of the destruction, yet it doesn't feel quite real. It still feels like a vivid, dimly-lit nightmare.

Ziva considers getting up, shaking Tony awake, doing damage control on both of them as well as this situation. But her body doesn't seem to obey her brain's feeble demand and she just lies there. Lies there with an unconscious Tony still draped over her, the shock radiating through her like pain from a bruise, like heat from the flame, as she stares at the debris, as she tries and tries and fails to understand.

It takes several minutes before Ziva can convince her limbs to re-engage. She gently lifts Tony's arm from her torso and struggles to pull herself up to a sitting position. The simple movement is too much for her aching head; she feels extraordinarily dizzy. Once her bearings are back, she turns her attention to her partner.

She gives him a once-over, and he seems to have hit his head even harder than she did on the way down. That's her primary concern – that he has a potentially serious concussion. Otherwise, he probably got bruised on his sides, and she'll have to ask him how his arm is, because he probably hit that harder on the way down as well. Besides his head, though, he doesn't look as though he's in bad shape.

She crawls army-style towards the panel of elevator buttons, wincing as she drags her ankle across the floor. She's not sure who's listening, but she presses the emergency button anyway, hoping that someone might be paying attention. It dutifully lights up, but she frantically presses it several more times, because Tony might have a serious concussion, and this is a very tiny, claustrophobic space, and a goddamn bomb just went off and she's quite rattled by it.

Intellectually, she realizes she shouldn't be this rattled – bombs burst all the time, she's seen them and dealt with the fall-out and even planted many herself in the early years – but this is NCIS. Bombs don't burst at NCIS. The bad guys never, never hit here. It's practically an unstated rule of the trade.

Except now, when the rule lies as broken, shattered, as this elevator.

No one is answering the emergency call – which is just as well, because that was some bomb, shaking up this elevator, and she is sure there is plenty of damage elsewhere to take care of. So now she turns her attention to Tony, who is sprawled across the elevator floor.

He doesn't look as though a bomb just detonated nearby. He looks like he's taking a nap, sleeping on the job after a particularly tiring day. He looks so peaceful, so blissfully unaware of what is happening, that for a fleeting second she is tempted to just let him sleep, let him enjoy the peace while he can.

But she knows she has to check him out to make sure he isn't concussed. So she shakes his shoulder, whispers, "Tony? Tony, wake up."

He isn't waking. She shakes him more insistently. "Tony, wake up."

She is rewarded by a grunt, a crumple between his eyebrows indicating frustration. She continues to shake him. "Tony, I really need you to wake up."

He makes an unintelligible noise and squirms uncomfortably. Ziva shakes him still more violently. "Tony, wake up now."

"Mmmph." His eyes fly open and immediately find hers. "Wuzzgoinon?"

"I think you might have a concussion," Ziva says, slowly, clearly, much more calmly than she feels. "I need you to sit up."

The word concussion triggers a burst of surprise and fear in his hazel eyes. Obediently, he pulls himself into a sitting position, and Ziva negotiates her bad ankle into a sitting position in front of him.

"What is your name?"

He blinks, thinks about it. "Tony Dinozzo."

"What day is it?"

"I don't know."

A cold, all-consuming pressure grips her heart and refuses to let go. "What is the date today?"

He glances up at the ceiling, but cringes at the flickering light. "I…umm…it's some time in May, right?"

"Yes. What is the year?"

"2011? No, 2012. Right?"

"Yes. What is my name?"

He stares at her hard for a few seconds. Then— "Ziva. Ziva David."

Thank goodness he got that one right. "Where are we right now?"

"Elevator."

"Where is this elevator?"

"We…work here, right?"

"Yes. Where do we work?"

"NCIS."

"Good. What city is this?"

"Washington D.C."

"Yes. Good. Do you remember what happened?"

This one takes him the longest to answer; his brows crinkle with concentration. "Something… something bad was going to happen. We were trying to go somewhere."

"What else do you remember?"

"It was…was it a bomb?" He shakes his head. "Wait, no, that can't be right. Why would someone bomb NCIS?"

"Do you remember the case we were working on?"

"Something about boats, and wiring." Suddenly, his face lights up with inspiration. "Wait, it's Dearing. Harper Dearing."

The name fills her with something black and vicious; she wants to punch a hole in the elevator wall. "Yes. Dearing."

He's struggling; the pieces are coming into place, she can see it in his expression. Then his eyes go dead.

"Dearing wanted to bomb NCIS as revenge for his son."

She swallows thickly. "Yes."

"And the bomb went off as we evacuated the building."

"Yes."

"And we're now trapped in this elevator." He gestures around at the rubble, the flickering light above their heads.

"Yes."

He puts his hand to the back of his head, winces at the soreness. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. My ankle might be sprained, but otherwise, I am in good shape. I'm worried about your head. You must have hit it hard when we fell."

"It hurts," he admits. "Reminds me of the time when Cole shot me."

"At least you remember what happened this time."

"Yeah, I guess."

"How are you feeling?"

"Lightheaded. Dizzy. Nauseous. That light is way too bright. But otherwise, fine."

"I think you have a concussion."

"Maybe." His eyes wander towards the glowing emergency button, the tiny red beacon in their airless elevator space. "Do you think anyone knows we're in here?"

"I don't know," she says. "And even if they do, there are probably many victims from the blast; they will be the first priority."

He looks her in the eye. "So what are we going to do?"

Ziva sighs. "I don't know."

A/N: This is just a little introductory chapter, so yeah, not much has happened, but any and all feedback is still deeply appreciated. I don't know how long this story will end up being, but I have some interesting-ish stuff planned and I want to take it at least ten chapters or so.

Hope you guys are willing to give me a chance here. Until the next chapter, then…