Summary: One night after work, Tony is abducted and beaten by someone. Then, he is buried alive. The team activates the GPS in his cell phone and finds him, but when they dig him up, is he the same Tony he always has been? What kind of PTSD will he have from this? TIVA…
Chapter 1
The day had been normal for Tony; a crime scene, a body, all the usual. He sighed and walked out of work and into the parking garrage. Before he could get to his car however, he felt a large hand cover his mouth with something to knock him out and before he knew it, he was no longer awake.
The room where he was sitting was cold and dark. The man didn't show his face, he wore a ski mask to hide behind. "Where is it?" The man shouted.
"Where is what?" Tony replied, confused as ever.
"Don't mess with me!" The man shouted. "I know you know what I want!"
"If you told me I might be of more help, but I have no idea what you want." Tony replied.
"I want access to all of the files in NCIS, NOW!" The man shouted.
Tony became silent, afraid to make the man angry. He knew he couldn't do that; that it would put everyone at NCIS in danger.
"That't what I thought." The man frowned and kicked Tony in the gut. "Spill!" He shouted.
Tony didn't break. He just kept letting the guy beat up on him. Finally, it seemed the man was bored. He covered Tony's mouth with the same stuff that knocked him out before and Tony fell asleep.
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Ziva sat at her desk silently. She felt anxious today, something was off. She needed to tell Gibbs that Tony's car was in the garrage but he was not here.
"Gibbs!" She caught his attention. "Something is not right. Tony's car is in the garrage but he is not here. He is more than fifteen minutes late. We need to find him."
"I will check the bathroom and see if he is in there or something. If not, I will have McGee trace the GPS in his phone and we will find him." Gibbs told her.
She nodded. "Thank you Gibbs." And she went back to her desk and waited.
A few minutes later, Gibbs came back from the bathroom and shouted for McGee to trace the GPS in Tony's phone.
"Where does it trace to?" Gibbs asked.
"A field about twenty miles or so from here." McGee replied.
"What would Tony be doing at a field?" Ziva asked confused.
"Good question. No one is dead today, so let's investigate this." Gibbs led the team out of the office and to the field.
McGee had a little device that showed the exact location of the GPS, it was a little red dot that was flashing on the screen. "Here it is!" He shouted.
Everyone came running. "I don't see the phone." Ziva replied. "Or Tony."
"I think he is buried." Gibbs said frowning.
Ziva's eyes got wide. "Let's get a team out here now! He could be dead!" Her voice was panicked.
Gibbs nodded and called in a team to dig up the site. Shortly after, one of the shovels hit something hard and solid. It was a coffin.
The team that had been digging brought the coffin up and Gibbs opened it up. Inside was Tony, naked as the day he was born and scared out of his mind. Gibbs dropped a blanket inside and gave Tony a moment to cover up. Then, he fully removed the lid of the coffin and helped Tony out.
The team looked relieved, but Tony looked like a different man. Ziva walked up to him and embraced him gently, causing him to feel emotional, vulnerable.
He didn't cry, but he did fall to his knees right in front of her and bury his face into her waist. He closed his eyes and relaxed. The coffin had made his body stiff. There was no room to move in the coffin; none at all.
He loved the way she felt, so soft, gentle and warm. He didn't want to let go of her, but he knew that soon Gibbs would separate them and make him take the ambulance to the hospital.
"Ziva," Gibbs's voice was soft.
Ziva turned to look at him but did not move away from Tony. "Take the ambulance with him." Gibbs told her. "Don't leave his side until I get a full account of what happened to him from him."
Ziva nodded, relieved that Gibbs had not ordered her to leave Tony. Tony stood, his knees hurting from lack of blood flow to them for such a long amount of time. Ziva led him to the ambulance and sat with him until they got to the hospital.
A doctor came and looked at his bruises. There were so many, but he didn't have any broken bones, just bruises. "He's lucky." The doctor told Ziva, who was sitting in the same room as Tony. Tony, however, was lying curled up in the bed looking exhausted and afraid to actually sleep.
"If I fall asleep, I will wake up here right?" Tony asked.
"Yes." The doctor replied.
Tony nodded and closed his eyes, letting himself finally sleep a real sleep, not a drug induced sleep like the evil man who had kidnapped him had given him.
The doctor spoke to Ziva. "He is going to probably suffer from some pretty bad PTSD after this." She explained. "He will need therapy, and here is the best doctor I can recommend." She handed Ziva a card. "I will give him some pain pills. Otherwise, I think he will be fine. We will keep him overnight for observation."
Ziva nodded and the doctor left. She sat on the spare bed by Tony and fell asleep too.
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Tony watched Ziva sleep; she was so relaxed. He took her hand in both of his and she began to stir. Her eyes opened and she saw him. "Hey." She whispered.
"Hey." He smiled. "Sleep well?" He asked.
"Yes thank you." She leaned up. "How about you?" She asked.
"Good." He replied, joining her on the bed.
"So, whenever you are ready to talk about what happened to you, Gibbs wants to hear it all and have it on record."
Tony frowned. "I don't want to talk about it." He looked glum.
"Okay." Ziva replied.
"Gibbs won't just say okay." Tony was still frowning.
"You're right." Ziva replied. "But if you want, I can be in the room when you tell your story. Do I relax you?" Ziva asked him.
"Yes." Tony replied, lacing his fingers with her's. "Right now, you are the only person in the whole world who doesn't seem to stress me out. You relax me fully."
Ziva smiled. "Most people wouldn't say that about me." She told him.
"Well," he began. "I am not most people. I am a very strange man. Some people might call me a fairly normal man, at least, before I got buried alive I was fairly normal, but not since…I had time to rethink some things while I was in that coffin. You know, I was awake in there for three hours." He told her. "And in three hours, I decided that I want to get married and stay married and never cheat on her, not ever, and I want to be a father, and I want to get old with someone, and I want to do so much before my body seriously will be going six feet under." His fingers were still laced with her's.
"So," she began. "The doctor wants you to see a psychiatrist. Are you up for that or not?" She asked him.
"Sure, why not?" Tony asked. He smiled at Ziva and she smiled back. She was liking this side of Tony.
