Disclaimer: See Chapter 1
Thanks to everyone who put this on alert and fav. Thanks to shirik, BnBFanatic, Laura-trekkie, bat-with-butterfly-wings, Topanga and julie250 for your reviews.
Also to Imagine and Terra who made this soooo much better – Thank you. ;-)
and without further adieu…
Tony and Ziva
One week ago - 30 May, Time unknown
Cold. Dark. Hurting. He woke up slowly and found himself somewhere else.
Curled tightly against a wall, he had fresh bruises on his skin and tightness in his chest. The customary rattle that he never quite seemed to get rid of on cold days announced itself with his next breath. He sighed, briefly remembering that psycho who'd sent a letter to NCIS infected with pneumonic plague, that he'd been stupid enough to open.
And, in the process, no doubt saved McGee's life, he mused.
He shivered. Damn. It was cold wherever he was. Not that he could remember much.
Chaos. Screaming.
Reaching for his gun that wasn't in his holster.
Pain.
Forgetting about the bruises and scarred lungs, he released an involuntary grunt of discomfort, sitting up suddenly as his memories launched at him like a love-starved woman. He remembers the fists and boots. He remembers Ziva.
Oh God. Ziva…
She had fought like a wildcat high on drugs. Even as he had gone down, his body folding around a boot, he had admired her skill. The cold efficiency she'd battled with until the butt of a gun crashed into her skull.
He had seen the life seep out of her as she had crumbled into herself.
The fury had ignited. Given a brief respite, he'd risen like a demon, his eyes full of fire and venom. Only the familiar click of a gun being drawn had sounded loud enough to alert him of his own peril.
He'd turned, determined to stop whoever it was, when something solid had crashed against the back of his head. Darkness had come about instantaneously...
...until he had woken to find himself here.
For once he couldn't be held captive somewhere nice with cable TV and hot dinners?
Clearly this wasn't Ziva's place anymore. This was some kind of make-shift prison. Sturdy enough, he surmised from what he could see in the dim slice of light from the door.
Ziva was nowhere to be seen.
For a moment he panicked as the image of her motionless battered body flashed back at him.
Then he heard a peculiar sort of hissing sound, similar to air escaping…or…possibly…being indrawn like one does if one is in pain…
"Ziva?"
His voice sounded abrasive, even to himself, in the stillness. He hears another hiss, plus a grunt of discomfort, followed by the sound of cloth sliding against something, seemingly jagged. Looking for the source, Tony turned and now realized the noises were coming from just the other side of the wall.
It might as well have been a thousand miles away. His fingers touch wood, rough enough to impale one or two sizeable splinters into his hands. He holds his breadth, listening intently.
Nothing.
Throwing a cautionary look towards the bolted door, he tries to rouse her again - calling her name softly.
No response. In fact, there weren't any indications of another living soul. In his anxiety over Ziva's whereabouts, he was beginning to be unsure if what he'd heard was even been real. After possibly two or three minutes (which felt like 20) had elapsed, he'd become aware of other noises that buildings make as they cool off at night. And just as Tony had convinced himself it'd all been just random sounds…
"Tony?"
He could hear her pain. He could hear the effort it must've taken to speak his name. And he had been right. She was on the other side of the wall.
"You okay?"
"I've had worse."
Somehow he believed her. He wondered about all the agony that Ziva managed to keep hidden so well throughout the years he'd known her. About the horror stories she didn't share. How a woman so strong could, at the same time, seem so vulnerable.
He sighed, recognizing her well-concealed agony only because he had just as many years of practice perfecting that particular skill they held in common, like so many others.
"Anything broken?"
A groan and then some muffled movements were heard through the wall, as he guessed she was assessing her condition.
"I'm well enough to defend myself," she asserted finally. "Are you hurt, Tony?"
"Do bruises count?"
He could hear the smile in her voice when Ziva enquired, "Any idea who the men were that attacked us?"
"No. Sorry. I thought it might've been someone you or your father had pissed off."
He hears her chuckle at his answer. It took him back to the time when they'd been undercover, taking on the identities of two dead assassins until things had gone to hell. The uncontrollable fear he'd felt when Marcos Siazon had threatened to cut Ziva into pieces resurfaced momentarily with a vengeance, but he managed to forcefully bring his focus back to the here and now.
It wasn't something he was willing to investigate - definitely not under these circumstances, in this place, or anywhere else for that matter.
"Any chance you can pick the lock?
His belt was gone. And with it Rule number 9. Never go anywhere without a knife.
His shoes, shirt, watch and wallet were missing too, not that they would've made a difference.
But somehow he hoped that because she was Mossad she had a lock pick hidden under some fake skin or something.
Hey, you can always hope. There had to be a reason why the protagonists always seemed to triumph over the antagonists in the movies he liked to see so much. He had yet to meet a script in which the good guys really lost out.
Besides, Magnum always managed to escape his captors.
He cleared his throat when the uncomfortable silence continued long enough for him to start worrying again.
"Any luck?"
"I'm sorry, Tony. I could not find anything to use to pick the lock."
Nodding was instinctual, even though he knew she wouldn't be able to see him.
"Do you think Gibbs knows?"
Now, it was his turn to chuckle. "Gibbs knows everything. I bet he's already breaking down doors and out intimidating the bad guys into telling him where we are."
She didn't reply. Most likely she knew, just as well as he, there'd been no apparent justification for the assault and that it'd probably be Monday morning before Gibbs realized they were missing.
They were in-between cases. They hadn't been on the receiving end of threats for awhile. Gibbs would have no reference or starting point, other than to search for anyone who so horribly despised one or both of them that it drove him or her to orchestrate and carry out this brutal scenario. Personally, in his career as a cop and very special agent, he had gained enough enemies to fill a lifetime. It was a list that included the idiot who had tried to frame him for murder - Charles Stirling. And Ziva's list, he was convinced, was at least twice as long as his.
Think of something.
But he kept drawing a blank. Their kidnappers were distinctly professionals. They wouldn't be so amateurish as to allow him or Ziva the slightest opportunity to escape.
The safest course would be to wait and see what happened next and hope to hell that Gibbs would find them before their attackers returned.
***********
tbc
