Disclaimer: I do not own any recognizable characters in this work of fiction. No profit, monetary or otherwise, is being made through the writing of this.
A/N: Written as part of theGift-Giving Extravaganza 2014, for autumn midnights, who requested: Harry Potter: Remus/Sirius, Dean/Seamus, Marauders!friendship, Lily Luna&Al&James sibling bonding NCIS: Abby-centric, Ziva-centric, Abby&Gibbs friendship, or anything about the team actually working on a case would be fabulous.
I decided to tackle a Ziva-centric story, with the team working on a case. I apologize for the lack of Abby in this.
Warning: The graphic nature of the case that they are working on might be a little hard for some to stomach.
Ziva shivered, and she turned her head away from the severed tongue that sat on a fresh layer of snow. If she hadn't been looking for it, she'd have stepped on it.
It looked like it had been placed there just recently. None of the new snow which had started falling not even an hour ago seemed to have touched it. There was no trace of blood, and just like the others, the tongue appeared to be in good condition – no disease or rot.
Very little bothered Ziva. She was tough. Had been taught to be tough from an early age. She was expected to be tough, and not easily moved.
But there was something about this case which was getting to her. Something off about it, and it bothered her, because she couldn't quite put her finger on what was wrong. She supposed that this feeling, whatever it was, is what Gibbs called his 'gut'.
Ziva shivered again, she locked eyes with Gibbs, and took some comfort in his presence. "This case gives me the heegie beegies."
"Heebie jeebies," Tony absentmindedly corrected. He, too, was avoiding looking at the tongue, eyes focused on a nearby tree.
There had been three others – each of them surgically removed, cleaned of blood, and placed in a remote location – over the course of as many weeks. And they'd not found any bodies. Each tongue had been marked with a serial number, linking them to a missing Marine who was presumed dead.
The only one who seemed to be handling the case well was McGee. He squatted beside the tongue and photographed it from a variety of different angles. His lips were pursed in a thin line, and Ziva guessed that maybe he hadn't been handling it as well as she'd thought he had.
"Boss," McGee said without looking up, "there's a number tattooed on this tongue as well." He'd used a pair of sterilized tweezers to lift the tongue from the bed of snow, revealing a series of nine numbers tattooed on the underside in blue ink.
Gibbs squatted beside McGee and squinted at the backside of the tongue. He shook his head and grabbed a fistful of snow and pine needles.
"We've got to catch this son of a bitch. McGee, run that serial tag. Find out the name of our newest missing Marine." Gibbs stood, and stretched out the kinks in his back as he walked away, sending Tony off to meet Palmer and Ducky.
"On it, boss." McGee finished photographing the tongue and tagged it.
Ziva paced from McGee to the tree that Tony had been eying. She knew that Ducky and Palmer would collect the tongue, and that their examination would, more than likely, not reveal anything new which would help their case.
She knew that, likewise, Abby wouldn't be able to find anything other than what she'd already discovered from the other tongues – DNA that belonged to the men whose tongues had been removed.
Whoever was stealing these men's tongues was good at what he or she did, and, if they didn't catch a break soon, the perpetrator would get away with it. That, in Ziva's mind, was unconscionable.
Whoever was doing this had to be stopped, the sooner, the better. Already, they were four victims too late.
"Ziver," Gibbs called her over.
Ziva took a deep breath, and steeled herself. She didn't know what it was about the dissevered tongues that bothered her, and was a little embarrassed that she was having such an adverse reaction to them.
"What do you make of this?" Gibbs held a branch off to the side, revealing a small patch of ground untouched by the fresh snow.
Ziva knelt beside her boss, a man who'd become more like a father to her over the years than her own father had been. She owed a lot to Gibbs.
She peered closely at the pine needle covered ground, and frowned at what appeared to be a broken link of chain from what could possibly be a silver necklace. Closer scrutiny revealed that the broken link was attached to some sort of charm.
"Do you think this is from our victim?" Ziva hazarded a guess, though her gut told her that it was from the man responsible for committing the crime.
Gibbs pursed his lips and shook his head, beckoning McGee over to take photos of their first real clue in the case Tony had taken to calling, for some reason Ziva couldn't fathom, Operation Whisper. After all, the men were more than likely dead, and if they weren't, they probably wouldn't be able to whisper.
As McGee snapped photos of the link and charm, Ziva joined Tony and Gibbs on a search of the grounds surrounding the tongue, looking for another clue to the identity of their killer. Ziva doubted that they'd find anything else, though she hoped that they would, because she wanted to lay this case to rest, and bring justice for those who'd been treated – in her eyes – like animals.
And that's probably what bothered her so much about this case; that it reminded her of how animals were butchered – without remorse, without compassion. Whoever was doing this had zero regard for human life.
"Got something here, Boss," Tony's voice rang out like a gunshot in the still air.
Ziva got there before Gibbs, and was kneeling on the ground beside Tony while Gibbs was still making his way over. Tony's fingers were hovering inches above a snow-covered leaf.
At first glance, Ziva couldn't see what had drawn Tony's attention to it. It appeared to be an ordinary fall leaf, weathered by the chills of winter, sodden by the snow which covered it. Upon closer look; however, Ziva noticed what Tony had – a single droplet of blood.
"It's fresh; he's nearby," Gibbs said in a harsh whisper, signaling for everyone to fan out.
He was peering over Ziva's shoulder, already reaching for his gun. Ziva, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, was reaching for her weapon as well.
Feeling eyes on her, Ziva followed Gibbs' lead, shadowing his movements, watching his six as Tony watched hers. Tim, from his slightly higher vantage point, covered them all. They had one shot at this. Their perp had grown overconfident, and sloppy, or maybe he'd just gotten bored.
Ziva didn't care what was going through this monster's mind, or why he'd been less careful this time around. She wanted him caught and stopped. Period.
Wanted the nightmares she'd been having since this case had started - tongueless, faceless men reaching out to her for help - to stop. Wanted to be able to face Mrs. Monroe, the mother of their first victim, and tell her that they'd caught the bastard who'd killed her son.
With any luck, once they caught the man responsible for all of this, he'd talk, and lead them to where he'd kept the bodies, so they'd be able to lay them to rest. Something to give the families of the men he'd killed closure and peace of mind.
Ziva would take great pleasure in making whoever was doing this talk. All she'd need was a locked room and a paper clip.
"Got him!" Tony shouted, and he took off running.
Cursing beneath her breath, Ziva followed after Tony. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gibbs and Tim head toward either side of the clearing in an effort to box their man in.
"You've got nowhere to run," Tony said.
He had his gun trained on their quarry, who had stopped running, and was standing, facing away from them, blood dripping from his forearm to the ground. Tony had a hand out to signal for the others to stop.
Though she didn't like it, Ziva stopped and stood off to Tony's left; the man they'd been pursuing was in her direct line of fire, should she need to take him down.
"Oh, I've got places to run," the man said, and there was something about his voice – about the way he said those words – that made Ziva's blood run cold, and her heart kick up a pace.
She adjusted her stance, dropping to one knee, finger on the trigger. She caught a glimpse of Gibbs circling around, and of Tim mirroring her own position on the opposite side of Tony.
He started laughing – the raucous sound reverberated off the trees. Ziva's trigger finger twitched, but Gibbs shook his head, and she held her ground, though everything inside of her was screaming at her to shoot – to end this chase once and for all, and to put an end to what – now that she could see and hear the man – was pure evil.
Ziva didn't typically put stock into concepts of good and evil. She didn't see the world in blacks and whites, and didn't believe that anything could be truly classified as evil, but the man standing in front of her, laughing as though he'd just heard the funniest joke in the world, made her believe in those stories she'd heard about the devil.
"Drop your weapon and put your hands where I can see them," Gibbs said. He'd circled around the clearing and was now standing in front of the man, ready to take him down.
Ziva's palms felt itchy, and she wiped the hand not holding her gun on her jeans. She hated this feeling – the heat in her gut, the sense that the world was tilting and waiting for her to adjust to the new skewed version that it was throwing at her.
Things were not as they seemed, it struck her like an iron brand, searing her conscience, and pulling at her gut. Before she even fully understood what it was that she was doing, she was moving forward with purposeful strides, gun pointed before her, eyes locked on the shaking form of the man who'd been eluding them for several weeks now.
"Drop your weapon," Ziva heard her own voice, clear as a bell, echo in the trees.
It sounded eerie – as though her voice was an entity, separate from herself. She didn't stop walking, didn't hesitate to put the barrel of her gun against the back of the man's neck. He stopped laughing, dropped the weapon he'd been holding – a silver hilted knife – and held his hands in the air.
Gibbs didn't say a word, just narrowed his eyes at her as Ziva jerked the man's left arm behind him – heedless of his injury – and cuffed it, letting the metal of the cuff dig into his wrist. Ziva wrenched the man's right arm back, eliciting an audible hiss and curse from the man, and not caring in the least.
"You, are under arrest," Ziva said, her voice clipped and steely.
She felt a morbid sense of satisfaction when the man grunted as she pulled on his arms, checking the security of the handcuffs. The images of the tongues the man had laid out like baubles on the forest floor passed across her vision, and she gave the handcuffs a yank.
"Officer David." Gibbs' voice was deceptively quiet, pitched low so that only she could hear his censorious tone. He placed a hand on her arm, and she realized that it was shaking.
"I've got this," he said, and when Ziva didn't let go, couldn't let go, he squeezed her arm and gave her a tight smile.
Nodding, Ziva took a deep breath and released her hold on the cuffs. She took a step back, and let Gibbs take over.
"You okay?" Tim asked. He held a hand up as though to rest on her shoulder, but pulled it back with a self-conscious shrug when Ziva looked at him.
Ziva mentally shook herself, trying to erase the memories of the tongues and the pictures of the men who'd never been found from her mind. They were smiling – as though they were happy and fine and as though nothing had happened to them. It was the same as it was with other cases, and yet it wasn't. This one, for some reason – and maybe it was because of Mrs. Monroe and her perpetual hope that her son, against all odds, was still alive.
"I'm fine," she said, offering Tim as much of a smile as she could muster. She holstered her weapon, ignored the way that her hands trembled slightly.
"Right as mud," Ziva added, hoping that her words would convey a sense of ease rather than the unease she was feeling as she tried to rid her mind of the images.
"Rain, Ziva," Tony said dryly. "It's right as rain, and, no you're not." He didn't hesitate to place a hand on her shoulder and give it a little squeeze. "None of us is okay."
"Tony –" Ziva's protest was cut off summarily by the sound of a scuffle.
"Shit," Gibbs shouted. "Ziva, Tony, Tim, a little help here."
The man Ziva had cuffed had elbowed Gibbs in the gut and was trying to escape on foot. Hands trussed behind his back, he was running in a zigzag pattern, bouncing off of trees. He wasn't going to get far, but Ziva wasn't going to chance it. Not when they were this close.
She shrugged Tony's hand off her shoulder and took off after their killer, grabbing him from behind and whipping him around. It was the first time she'd seen his face, and it shocked her. Far from being the demon she'd envisioned, he was merely an ordinary looking man with almost bland features.
His cheeks, a rosy red, stood out starkly against skin that was far too white and pasty. His brown eyes were washed out, and his hair, though neatly trimmed, reminded Ziva of straw. It was greasy, and his bangs hung heavily in front of his eyes, obscuring her view of them. He reeked of copper (blood) and onion.
Ziva held her breath and narrowly avoided an elbow to the gut. She twisted the man away from her and shoved him to the ground. She placed a knee on his lower back, letting out a string of curses in her native language that would have made her brother blush.
"Stop trying to run," Ziva said, breathing hard against his ear.
The man stilled, but Ziva, ready for him to make another move to escape, didn't loosen her hold on him. She waited until Gibbs and Tony were both in place, before moving so that they could haul the man to his feet, and walk him to their waiting vehicle.
Ducky and Palmer were waiting by their vehicle, the younger assistant medical examiner wide-eyed as Gibbs and Tony passed in front of them, frog-marching their prisoner between them. They both took a step back, watching as the man was loaded into the back of the SUV.
"It's back there, Ducky," Tim said, gesturing with his thumb, and offering Palmer a grim smile.
"Same as all the others?" Ducky asked.
Tim nodded and sidestepped the duffel Ducky had laid on the ground. "Just give me a second, and I'll go with you and Palmer."
Ziva watched Ducky and Palmer head into the woods, torn between returning with Tony and Gibbs to interrogate a man she knew was guilty, or staying with Tim. In the end, her sense of duty won out, and she followed her teammate into the woods, maintaining protocol, watching out for her teammate and the medical examiner and his assistant.
By the time they returned to headquarters, the interrogation was over. Tony had an almost haunted look in his eyes, and Gibbs, typically stalwart, appeared to be a little shaken.
"What happened?" Ziva grasped Tony's arm as he walked past.
"They're not dead." Tony's tone was clipped, and he kept walking.
A quick look at Gibbs confirmed what Tony had said, he was already at the elevator, waiting impatiently for the doors to open. Tim had already switched gears, turning away from his desk. Ziva matched Tony stride for stride, even as she tried to make sense of what he'd said.
"Who? Who's not dead?" Ziva asked, resisting the urge to smack Tony on the back of the head when he remained silent, jaw twitching.
Gibbs smacked the elevator button with an open palm and glared at the doors. One look at Gibbs was enough to keep her from asking any more questions. He looked both angry and worried, making Ziva think – insensibly – of the harried white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, always on the go, an ever-present deadline that needed, above all else, to be met. It had been one of her favorite books – a forbidden treat that her older brother had given to her – as a child.
Gibbs started moving toward the stairs when the elevator doors finally slid open. They all filed in, and Gibbs jabbed the button for the floor which would lead them to the garage a little harder than was necessary.
"He's got them stashed in a basement," Tony said, supplying Ziva with only a partial answer to her question. "All four of them."
Tim paled. "You mean –"
Gibbs cut Tim's question off with a grim nod. "He's been collecting them."
Tony dragged a hand through his hair. "Like a kid would collect toy soldiers. Creating his own personal set of live-action GI Joes." Tony barked out a humorless laugh.
"Certainly puts the movie into perspective."
Gibbs smacked Tony on the back of the head, and Tony blinked. He gave Gibbs a grateful look, and took a deep breath, as though steeling himself.
"Sorry, boss, I just…"
"I know, Tony." Gibbs voice was soft and firm, yet understanding.
"So –" Ziva opened her mouth and closed it, unable to give voice to the question she wanted to ask, unwilling to believe what Tony was saying, what Gibbs was confirming.
It felt like the elevator walls were closing in on her, and she stabbed at the button, willing the elevator to move quicker, to get to their destination so that she could escape the entrapping metal walls. She needed to get out, needed to find those men, bring them home as Tony, Tim and Gibbs had brought her home once upon a time. It felt like it was yesterday and yet she there were days when it seemed as though it had all taken place decades ago, almost like she'd dreamed it – the captivity, the torture, the walls that always seemed much too close.
She knew what it was like to be held prisoner, what it was like to be without a real voice, and these men had been stripped of the ability to talk, of their ability to protest whatever it was the man who'd taken their tongues subjected them to. Visions so dark that they stole her breath, and made her clutch at the very walls she sought freedom from, enveloped her, and for a horrifying moment she was lost in time, trapped in the past with no way out.
"Ziver," Gibbs' voice – filled with concern – broke through to her, and she swam to the surface of the nightmare that she'd been plunged into. The images of her own time as a prisoner fading away with Gibbs' voice, and the steady beat of his heart as he held her close.
"It's okay." Gibbs' chin rested on the top of her head, and she could feel the timbre of his voice vibrate through her. It was comforting, and at the same time, embarrassing.
Ziva didn't like to appear weak or vulnerable. She didn't deal well with it, and yet, with Gibbs – even though they were surrounded by Tim and Tony – she felt safe. No one outside of the elevator would ever know what had happened. No one outside of this tight knit little group that felt more like family than co-workers to Ziva, would know that she'd broken down, that she'd let the memories of her past briefly overwhelm her.
It wasn't okay, but Ziva nodded, and breathed in the scent of Gibbs – spicy aftershave and sawdust – let it ground her, and keep her in the present, where she was a hero surrounded by heroes. A life she'd made by choice – a family that she hadn't been born to, but one which had been forged by the fires of trial and hardship. A family of choice, and one she loved more than the one she'd left behind.
"I'm sorry," Ziva said, pushing back from him just as the elevator dinged, announcing their arrival.
Gibbs slapped the back of her head. It was sharp and light, just hard enough to chastise her for breaking Gibbs' number one rule.
"Enough of that," Gibbs said. "We've got a job to do. There's no telling what conditions the men were being kept in."
"Yeah, Clarke was a couple of cards short of a full deck," Tony added, circling an index finger around his ear, and whistling. "If you catch my drift."
Ziva rolled her eyes, taking Tony's joking for what it really was – a ploy to lighten the mood, to keep Ziva, and the rest of them from letting their minds wander toward their darker recesses. He took another slap to the back of the head for his efforts, but Ziva caught the almost grin on Gibbs' face and some of the tension in her gut started to ease.
"So, this Clarke, was a crazy as a lunatic?" Ziva asked.
"A loon," Tony said, sighing dramatically and wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
"Though, to be fair," Tim added quickly, "Ziva's saying makes much more sense. Lunatics are crazy, whereas loons are the state bird of Minnesota, and not particularly known for –"
Tim was cut off by a sharp slap, and he hunched his shoulders, offering Ziva a sheepish grin. "Guess I got a little carried away."
"Yeah, McGeek," Tony said. "Or should I say, Mr. Factoid. It's crazy as a loon, no need for explanation, that's just what it is. We don't need to know the 411 of loonology."
"It's actually called – "
A pointed look from Gibbs stopped whatever it was that Tim had been about to say, and he shoved his hands in his pockets, ducking his head. Before they've all managed to secure their seatbelts, Gibbs pulled out of the garage like a bat out of – Ziva's pretty sure she's got this one correct – hell, tires squealing.
"What I don't get," Ziva said, body sliding into the passenger seat as Gibbs took a sharp turn, "is why he removed their tongues. It doesn't make sense."
And it didn't make sense to build a live action army of tongue-less soldiers. Even less sense for the man, Clarke, to leave the tongues, like Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumb trail, for investigators to find.
"He's certifiable," Tony said, wincing as Gibbs took another hairpin turn and Tony slammed his shoulder into the window. "Cuckoo, loco, off his rocker."
"Tony," Gibbs growled, glaring at Tony through the rearview mirror.
Tony sobered and gave his boss an apologetic smile.
"He was trying to trap us," Tony said, "leaving the tongues, like presents – his words – for us. Thought that taking the men's tongues out would give him the power he needed to command his army. He was crazy."
The explanation wasn't satisfactory, and didn't take away any of the unease that Ziva had felt since they'd found the first tongue. About the only thing which would bring any satisfaction, and that probably wasn't the right word to use in this situation, would be reuniting Petty Officer Monroe with his family, proving his mother's belief that her son was still alive to be true.
It would be a hollow victory, though. After all, the men – rejoined to their families or not – wouldn't be returned to them whole. They'd be broken. Forever.
What had happened to them – not just the loss of their tongues – wasn't something that could ever be completely fixed.
And maybe that was okay. Maybe these men that Clarke had taken were strong enough to make it through the days and nights where it felt as though taking the next step, the next breath, was an almost insurmountable task.
Maybe they'd be strong enough, with the help of their families, to overcome the nightmares and the demon-thoughts that came for them when they least expected it. Maybe it would be enough, in the end, for them to simply not be lost forever, to not be forgotten. Maybe it would be enough to just be found, and rescued – as it had been for her.
Reviews would be greatly appreciated. This one was a challenge to write - both perspective and form wise.