Inspired by the promo for Pyramid.

"Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them." — Napoleon Bonaparte

Her neck was throbbing.

Her eyelids felt heavy as they threatened to shut and open no more, but she fought. She fought with all she had to stay awake, to stay alive.

The room was spinning. Everything moving in and out of focus, dancing before her eyes. All the lines were blurred. The line between the locked room she was in, and the sliver of light on the floor outside. The line between saved and almost saved. The line between life and death.

He was still breathing. From the corner of her eye, she could see his chest heave, pushing up from the floor on which he laid. But still, the satisfaction she felt had stayed in a corner of her heart. That spark hadn't left her. Her fists bore the proof of the struggle, his blood literally on her hands, and she liked it that way. The fight in her is what kept her alive, time after time.

The carpet felt warm and soft. Her cheek laid against it, her own blood releasing from the fibers and seeping back into her. She could taste it. It was like a magnet, pulling her farther down into the depths of unconsciousness. I could lie here forever, she thought. Forever is how long it might take for someone to find her, and if that were the case, she would die right there. Right there in a pool of her own blood, next to the man who killed her.

Her head felt too light and too heavy all at once. The light streaming in from the crack under the door winked at her as people passed in the hallway, and she used her last efforts to move her arm a few centimeters down, shielding her eyes from all the things that could have been.

After hours of running around NCIS—talking to Abby, to Ducky, to Gibbs, Vance, McGee, EJ, and anyone who would or wouldn't listen—Tony sat down in his chair and buried his face in his hands. For the second time in two years, Ziva David's desk was empty, and a gnawing thought in the back of his mind kept rehashing the possibility of that emptiness being permanent.

McGee got slowly up from his desk and walked over to Tony's. With all intentions of speaking gone, he watched Tony rake his nails along his scalp in frustration.

"I don't know what to do, McGee. It's like he disappeared off the face of the earth, and he took Ziva with him."

"He's slipped up before. We'll catch him, don't worry."

Tony looked up at McGee, holding his gaze for a long while before speaking. "At this point, I don't care if the bastard cashed in a trust fund and moved to Cancun. I just… I need to find her."

They both instinctively looked over at her desk, almost as if expecting her to appear in the empty chair. But the chair remained as empty as ever, and the emptiness seemed to be spreading throughout the room the longer Ziva was absent.

McGee's eyes flickered up as Gibbs came storming out of the director's office, but his attention was brought back to Tony as his cell phone began to ring.

"Special-Agent-Anthony-DiNizzo-what-do-you-got," he said in a flurry as soon as he lifted the phone off the hook. There was a brief moment of silence, followed by a scowl. "Abby, I don't have time to talk right now." And he hung up.

McGee frowned. "You know, she just wants to know that you're okay."

"I'm fine." Tony glared at McGee as he opened his mouth to speak once again. "And if she cares so much, she can come up here and say it to my face. That phone line needs to stay open for any incoming calls."

"Tony, I understand that you're upset, but this is not Abby's fault. We're all trying our hardest to find Ziva. We all want to find her, just as much as you do."

Though Tony doubted the truth in that statement, he sighed heavily and stayed silent. He knew on some level that Abby was just trying to help, but at this point, trying wasn't enough. Trying hadn't been getting anyone anywhere on this case, and the longer they waited, the longer they all sat here, the smaller the possibility of rescuing Ziva became in his mind. He wondered if the roles had been reversed, if Abby was the one who was captured instead of Ziva, if McGee would feel the same way. But they weren't.

His phone rang once again and, not wanting to waste any more time with irrelevant calls, he looked at the caller ID before picking it up. What he saw nearly made him fall out of his chair.

It was Ziva.

"McGee!" Tony stood up and grabbed McGee's shoulder, pulling him down to see the caller ID for himself. "McGee, it's Ziva. We don't know how long we're going to have. Trace it."

McGee ran over to his desk, and Tony waited as long as he could before picking up the phone. "Ziva?"

McGee pointed at him, signaling that the trace was started. 19 seconds is all it would take, but 19 seconds seemed like a lifetime when someone's life was in danger. Gibbs walked past Tony's desk and froze in the middle of the bullpen. Tony's eyes were wide, his eyes staring at a fixed point on the floor as he listened to the other end of the phone, and McGee mouthed "Ziva."

Tony watched as Gibbs walked over to his desk and rested both hands on the edge, waiting for Tony to give some indication of what was happening on the other line.

Tony heard a soft clatter through the receiver, as if the phone was dropped on the ground, but the muffled sound of voices told him the call wasn't dropped.

"Why did you change locations?" Ziva's voice sounded weak and strained. Tony pressed the receiver harder against his own ear.

There was a chuckle. "I like to mix things up."

"Is that why you have not killed me yet?"

Tony looked up at Gibbs, then McGee. He bent down slowly, reached for his gear, and swung it over one shoulder.

"5701 Marinelli Road in North Bethesda!" McGee nearly shouted. "It's the Marriott Hotel!"

"Let's go," Gibbs said as he turned and walked toward the elevators. Tony followed close behind, and McGee gathered up his belongings as quickly as he could, rushing toward the doors as he heard the ding as the doors opened. The three of them stepped in and slammed the button for the first floor. The closing of the doors finalized the end of the call, as the signal was lost within the confines of the wall. Tony had surging impulse to throw his phone against the metal walls; he instead snapped it shut with a groan of frustration and stuffed it in his pocket.

He didn't get a chance to hear Cobb say, "I haven't killed you yet because I am waiting for your friends."

"Waiting for my friends?" Ziva glared up at Cobb, her hands bound behind the hotel's desk chair that she sat in. Cobb smirked, placing both hands on the arms of the chair and leaning in so his face was inches from hers. His brown eyes so much resembled Saleem's that she had to consciously force herself to maintain eye contact and not look away.

"Yes. I have particular interest in a few members of your team." The image of her kneeing Cobb between the legs flashed before her eyes, but the deep purple bruise just under her eye throbbed and she desisted.

"Why?"

He smirked and backed away from her and, as if he had read her thoughts, glanced at her legs before answering. "Let's just say we have a few things in common."

"I highly doubt that. They are not killers."

"Oh really?" Cobb walked over to the dresser and rested his elbow against it. "A marine sniper who has never killed anyone. I find that very hard to believe, don't you?"

She stayed silent.

"And what about your friend, Anthony? He was a cop in Baltimore before coming to NCIS, wasn't he? You mean to tell me that he hasn't killed anyone either? Not even a suspect? An… enemy, even?"

In an instant, Ziva was taken right back to that night two years ago, the night that changed everything. Shots being fired in her apartment. Her running up the stairs. Opening the front door to see Tony on the ground, a gun in his right hand being pointed at her, and hers being pointed back at him. Michael's dead body lying feet away, four bullet holes littering his chest.

"You're not so innocent yourself, Miss David. You were a trained assassin as part of Mossad, were you not?"

"That was different."

"Different? Why? Because it was a job? Because you couldn't disobey your father?"

Ziva bowed her head and looked at her lap instead of the smug grin Cobb was flashing her from across the room. "You have done your research."

"Yes, I have. In any case, killing people is not the only thing we have in common." He walked back over to her, lifting his wrist up to his face to look at his watch. "They should be arriving outside the hotel at any minute now."

He was expecting them. It was a trap.

Even if all of them arrived together, there was no saying how much damage would be done before Cobb was finally subdued. A rescue mission on Ziva's behalf had almost gotten them all killed once before. She couldn't risk that happening again, because there was no promise of a next time.

If she was going to act, she had to act fast.

"Boss, would you mind, uh, slowing down just a little bit?"

McGee was leaning forward from the backseat of the Dodge Charger, a hand on his stomach, as he tried to catch Gibbs's eye in the rearview mirror.

Tony gave him a look and he slumped back into his seat without another word.

"How long?"

"We're a couple blocks away," McGee said, looking out the window at the nearby street signs. "You're gonna take a right up here, Boss."

Tony grabbed hold of the hanger above the window as Gibbs jerked the steering wheel, sending McGee sliding across the backseat.

"You'd think after years of riding with Gibbs, McGeek, you'd learn to wear a seatbelt."

"I… I forgot. Too preoccupied." McGee cleared his throat and straightened up. "Take a left up here, and the hotel's going to be on your right."

As Tony braced himself for another sharp turn, he couldn't help but think of what lay behind the doors of the hotel. NCIS doesn't negotiate with terrorists, or serial killers. But if Ziva was held hostage, Tony didn't think he could live with not doing everything possible to get her back, be it money or his own well-being.

That was the optimistic side of him. There was still a voice in the back of his mind, one that wouldn't go away no matter how hard he clenched his fist and tried to distract himself with tactical plans. One that asked the question he didn't want to have to think about answering.

What if she's already dead?

It took a little more than 20 minutes for them to get from the Navy Yard to the Mariott. A lot could happen in 20 minutes. A lot more than what Tony wanted to think about, and a lot more than he was prepared to deal with. Right now, he had to focus on finding her.

Dead or alive.

"You never did tell me what it was that you had in common with my team." Ziva snuck her feet behind the legs of the chair as she spoke, moving as slowly as possible as to not attract attention to herself. Cobb smirked.

"Promotions. Or, lack thereof." He stepped even closer to her, and Ziva's heart start beating a little faster in her chest. Just a few inches more…

"You see, there are very qualified agents on your team who have been passed over time and time again for jobs that they deserved far more than the people who wound up receiving them. The whole system, it's corrupt. And people like me, and Agents Gibbs and DiNozzo, are the ones who suffer because of it."

"So you are going to remedy this by killing them?"

He chuckled softly, leaning over so he was very close to her face. She could feel his hot breath on her face, and she tried not to blink. "No. No, no, no. You misunderstand me. See, we need to dissociate ourselves from the ties that bind us to government agencies that only succeed in screwing us over. So I'm inviting them here to give them an opportunity to detach themselves from this fabricated idea of family that's keeping them at NCIS in the first place. I'm inviting them here to watch me kill you."

At that moment, Ziva lifted the back legs of the chair, pivoted it, and threw all of her weight onto it as it came crashing down onto Cobb's foot. He let out a yelp of pain and struggled to release his foot; meanwhile she drew her knees up to her chest, placing her feet onto the seat of the chair and pushing herself upright, sliding her arms out from behind the chair as she stood up.

"Bitch!" Cobb pushed her backwards so she flipped over the back of the chair and landed hard on the mattress behind her. Ziva pushed herself up and, with much difficulty, swung her arms out from underneath her. Though they were still bound, she had much more control if her arms were in front of her. But she wasn't prepared for Cobb to launch himself onto the bed, knife in hand.

The subtle glint of the blade didn't match the raging fire in his eyes as he pushed Ziva hard onto the mattress by her shoulders. He straddled her stomach, pinning her arms down as he put his weight on her stomach. He moved his hand to the middle of her chest, pressing down hard against her ribcage with one hand while he held the knife aloft in his other. Ziva's breathing became more shallow as her lungs struggled to expand against the weight of Cobb on her chest, and when he slashed at her throat, she was too slow to completely move out of his way.

The cut in her neck stained the white sheets behind her a sinful red. Though it was deep, it spanned only a couple inches across, and in the split second after it happened she reveled in the fact that he hadn't hit her windpipe, or by the feel of it, her jugular. But she was losing blood fast, and if she didn't act quickly, Cobb would have an ample opportunity to finish what he started.

Ziva pulled her wrists out from underneath his legs, balled her hands into tight fists, and with all the force she could muster, punched Cobb hard in the gut.

He bent over with an audible groan and she swung her arms up and punched him clear in the jaw. He rolled off her with another outcry and she scrambled onto her knees and crawled off the bed, landing heavily on her feet. But the room was spinning, and she could feel the blood from her neck running down her shoulder and chest. She pressed a hand to the wound, attempting to stem the blood flow long enough for her to regain her composure. Cobb had made it to his feet, an angry red welt forming on his jaw and an even angrier look on his face as he stormed over to her. He had left the knife on the bed, and was reaching into the holster at his side for the gun Ziva knew was inside.

Her first thought was to wait for him to approach her, as to save as much energy as possible recuperating. But in those next few seconds, she changed her mind and half-ran toward him, aiming a kick first toward the hand that was pulling out his pistol, then at his chest. He stumbled backward against the wall, and as he recovered and ran toward her again, she grabbed hold of the chair to her side and swung it in the direction of his head.

The leg of the chair hit him square in the temple, and his knees folded beneath the dead weight of his body as he fell to the floor, unconscious. Ziva knew it wasn't over, but the room was spinning again and she didn't place so much as throw the chair to the ground as she collapsed onto her knees. Placing pressure to the wound didn't seem to be helping; blood was trickling between her fingers, running down her arm and staining her skin. The lights were getting dimmer, the world was fading away, and when she slumped onto the ground, she couldn't help but wonder how long it would take them to find her body.

There were 12 floors in the hotel. That meant somewhere over 300 hotel rooms total. Over 300 places where Ziva and Cobb could possibly be, and Gibbs, Tony, and McGee had absolutely no clue where to begin.

They split up the floors by threes; Gibbs taking the first, Tony taking the second, and McGee taking the third. They couldn't exactly barge into everyone's hotel room, so they kept their ears open for any unusual sounds or signals. People would have heard a struggle. And Ziva wasn't stupid. She might have left a scratch on the doorway as a warning to those who would be looking for her. And Tony could only hope there was enough time for a loud struggle.

Tony was scouring the walls and doors on the 8th floor when his phone began to ring. "Yeah, boss."

"Tony, the owners of the hotel received reports of loud noises coming from a suite on the 8th floor. Possibly suite 809 or 811."

Tony's heart seemed to jump up into his throat at this news. "Okay, I'm on it." He pressed his ear to every door along his way, just in case. He approached suite 809 with caution, but heard the muffled sounds of a TV, and people talking in low voices. He stepped slowly toward the door of 811, gun out and ready, and kicked down the door.

His eyes first went to the bed—a huge patch of blood stained the middle of the comforter, while a trailer of blood spatter followed a path down to the foot of the bed, onto the floor, and to a body of a woman lying on her stomach on the floor, her head surrounded by a small pool of blood.

Ziva.

Tony let his grip on his gun lessen as he ran over to her limp body. He flipped her onto her back and lifted her eyelids, then felt for her pulse on the side of her neck that still remained intact.

The beat of her heart was faint, but it was there.

Hands shaking, he stood up and grabbed a pillow from atop the bed, slipped the pillowcase off, and carefully wrapped the fabric around her neck. The splotch of red blossomed quickly across the linen. Tony pulled out his phone, dialed 911, and ordered an ambulance to meet them at the hotel.

Cobb, who was on the floor beside Ziva, completely ignored by Tony, coughed.

Tony whipped around in time to see Cobb rousing as he flitted along the surface of consciousness. What he didn't expect to see was a very alive, very capable, and very armed agent sitting beside him, shaking and livid. Ziva was lying helpless, almost at the brink of death, and the murderer who made her this way was perfectly fine, if a little bruised.

"You piece of shit," Tony ground out, and instead of going for his handcuffs, instead picked up his gun and thrust it into Cobb's chest, right above his heart. His finger was quivering over the trigger, but he let it rest there for a few seconds, watching the fear dance in Cobb's half-open eyes. Maybe this was a taste of what exactly he had done to eight…

Nine, a voice in the back of his head said. Ziva would make nine.

He could feel his heart pounding in his ears, and he had the sudden urge to pick up the knife that he had seen on the bed and slit Cobb's own throat. But instead, he gripped the gun tighter in his hand and hit Cobb across the face with it. Just once.

He then threw the pistol across the room with a surge of adrenaline and got to his feet, pulling Cobb by the shirt so he stood up in front of him. "Come on, get up!"

With another outraged cry Tony threw him against the wall and swung his fist at every inch of him he could reach, holding him in place with the other hand. Cobb struggled under his grip, but not nearly enough to throw Tony off of him, and with one last punch he let go of Cobb's shirt and watched him fall back down to the ground.

"I could kill you right here," Tony muttered, and the sight of Ziva lying feet away from them only increased the urge to do just that.

"Do it," Cobb said. "Do it and do all of us a favor. You know you want to. But you don't have the guts." A drip of blood ran down his face from the corner of his mouth, and he bared a blood-stained smile to Tony.

Tony picked up his gun and pushed it into Cobb's neck, enough to make him splutter and choke. His eyes were narrowed at the man beneath him, his chest heaving. Never before had he come this close to murdering a man, not out of necessity or self-preservation, but out of sheer hatred. And if Gibbs hadn't run in at that moment, he didn't know what he would or wouldn't have done.

"Tony!" Gibbs grabbed Tony's shoulder's and pulled him off Cobb, but not before Tony managed to get in another punch to Cobb's neck. Gibbs unceremoniously pushed Tony behind himself and flipped Cobb over to cuff his hands behind his back, taking extra care to push his face into the carpet. It was only then, when Tony walked toward it, that Gibbs noticed the other body on the floor.

"Ziva…"

"She's alive," Tony choked out. "But barely."

Ziva's eyes opened as if the weight of the world was fighting holding them down. She looked up, first at Tony, then at Gibbs and Cobb, before moving her gaze back to Tony. "You came."

"Of course I did, Ziva." Tears sprung up in his eyes—at both the insinuation and the fact that she was still alive to insinuate it. "You thought I wouldn't?"

"For a moment, I was… not so sure you would arrive… in time." Tony swallowed hard. "But you did."

His hand moved down to find hers. It was limp, and fit into his own without protest. He squeezed it hard. It took a few seconds for her to squeeze back.

He bent down, tilting his face away from Gibbs's gaze. "It's going to be okay," he told her, a mantra that he repeated in his head until he believed it himself.

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