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Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.

Chapter Two

"Our most basic instinct is not for survival but for family. Most of us would give our own life for the survival of a family member, yet we lead our daily life too often as if we take our family for granted."
-Paul Pearshall.

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Glimmers of light from the bulbs outside were flickering through the closed curtains across the naked, splayed bodies of two newlyweds basking in the afterglow of their passionate love-making. They laid, spooning, like that for hours and every so often, Tony would nibble or place feather-light kisses on the soft flesh of his wife's neck or earlobe, using his strong grip and her waist to meld their bodies closer together than they already were.

"What are you thinking about?" Tony whispered softly, sensing Ziva's distance from reality and expressing his concern about it.

"Nothing," Ziva lied in barely more than a whisper, but her tone told Tony more than words ever could.

"You can tell me, Ziva," he pushed, still in a soft and supportive voice. "You can tell me anything. Are you feeling okay?"

"Physically," Ziva answered and rolled over to face him. She put her hands on his cheeks and rested their foreheads together. "It is just a feeling. I'm sure it is nothing. It will pass."

"Why do you feel the need to lie to me? If you're worried, I want you to tell me. Remember what I said when we got married. I want us to share everything. No secrets."

"I know, Tony, but it really is nothing," Ziva maintained. She leant in and placed a soft, lingering kiss on Tony's lips, closing her eyes and enjoying the touch of the familiar territory. Tony, on other hand, smiled into the kiss, wrapping a hand around her waist and brought the other hand up to bush her hair together as he deepened the kiss. His tongue was pushing itself into her mouth, but she did not allow him entrance, flipping her mood to playing hard-to-get.

They broke apart, laughing, and Tony rolled Ziva onto her back as she pulled him on top of her. Her fingers were threading through his soft dark hair as his hands were braced on the mattress. Tony lowered his body and placed a soft kiss on her lips, but did not stop there. His lips trailed down to, and along, her jaw line before moving down her neck. He was moving oh so slowly and Ziva felt an excruciating urge build up in the pit of her stomach. She finally released a loud moan when he made contact with her breast. The following moans, however, were drowned out by the sound of her ringtone.

"Your phone's ringing," Tony told her as he stopped the passionate attacking of her skin. She sighed and rolled over, grabbing her phone off the bedside table. She looked briefly at the caller ID before answering.

"Kalev! You are interrupting sex!" she scolded her younger brother, but upon hearing his voice, her expression change dramatically.

"I can't find Emily," his panicked voice told her.

"What do you mean? Where is she?" Ziva asked, panic rising in her voice. Tony could tell that something was very wrong. His wife was normally very effective at keeping her emotions in check.

"I don't know. She went to the grocery store down the road and didn't come back again. I went there, but she wasn't there and nobody's seen her. I never should have let her go anywhere here by herself!"

"Calm down, Kalev, we will find her. Emily is strong and she can take of herself." As she spoke, Ziva found herself trying to believe the words she was saying as well.

"Are you coming?" Kalev begged. The sound of her younger brother's voice begging her for help almost broke her heart.

"Of course. I will call you soon." And with that she hung up in a rush. Jumping out of the bed, and making Tony jump too, she walked to their wardrobe and pulled out some clothes.

"Emily's missing?" Tony asked worriedly. He walked up behind her and placed his arms around her waist, holding her reassuringly. "We will find her."

Ziva nodded, trying hard to believe him, but she was blinking back tears.

"You go to reception and get us a flight outta here and I'll pack," Tony told her as he grabbed out a pair of underwear, jeans and a short sleeve shirt. Ziva, who'd already speedily dressed, was out the door a few minutes later. She half-ran from their bungalow to the main building at the resort that housed reception.

"Mrs David," the young receptionist said brightly, recognising the face of one of the many honeymooners. "What can I do for you?"

"I just received an urgent message from my brother, and my husband and I must leave immediately," Ziva told her in a rushed voice.

"Is everything okay?" she asked urgently.

Ziva merely glanced back at her and did not directly answer her question. "Can we get a flight out of here tonight?"

"Back to DC?"

"No, Pakistan," Ziva told her.

At first, the receptionist thought that Ziva was being sarcastic, but there was no joking manner in her voice or expression. "Just a moment." And she picked up the phone and made an urgent phone call.

Meanwhile, eight and a half thousand miles away, Gibbs was staring across the bullpen, his eyes flickering from the desks normally inhabited by his senior field agent and Mossad liaison officer. They were currently deserted by the two probationary agents who hadn't arrived for work yet, leaving him and McGee alone in the bullpen with a few other agents around. It was, after all, only seven in the morning.

His eyes flicked up towards the catwalk, where Acting Director Harmon Rabb was strolling from his office and down the stairs. After the Domino incident, Leon Vance had been 'let off,' although a misstatement had been passed around that he retired; the second director to do so in the space of a few months. That notion pushed forth doubts about the ability of the SecNav in the minds of a lot of politicians, including the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State. On the recommendation of those politicians, it had been insisted that the SecNav reinstate Jennifer Shepard as the Director of NCIS.

Jenny had, of course, accepted the position, and was looking forward to the prospect of getting back into the swing of things, but had a few requests of the Secretary first. Her reinstatement came the week after she found out she was pregnant with hers and Gibbs' child and she was currently on maternity leave, with only a few weeks left of her pregnancy. The baby was due in the first week of February and she'd been off since Christmas, so the new Assistant Director, ex-JAG Harmon Rabb Jr, had, in effect, been the Acting Director since then, leaving his wife and two children behind in San Diego for a few months.

"Hey, Gibbs. You still here?" Harm called out as he walked into the bullpen and up to the agent's desk. He lowered his voice, indicating to the others in the bullpen that it was to be a private conversation. "Any idea when Jenny is coming back to work? I'm not pushing, but I need to let Mac know. She wants to go back to work full-time but she can't until I get back because of Higen and Masai."

He was referring to their two adopted boys, three-year old Higen from Japan and eight-month old Masai from Kenya. Gibbs smiled back at him, finding that the pair of them actually did work rather well together after getting over their tension from the few years prior. "I wouldn't know. Probably the end of February."

"Okay," Harm answered with a shrug as the phone on Gibbs' desk rang.

"Gibbs." He paused for a long time and Harm guessed it was because the person on the other line was talking. "Okay, I'll see what I can do," Gibbs finally said after about a minute. "I'll call you back in two minutes." And he hung up the phone and looked at Harm.

"What's wrong?" the Acting Director asked. McGee had been listening in since Gibbs answered his phone, but now he walked over to join the conversation.

"Emily Prentiss is missing," Gibbs told them.

"In Pakistan?" McGee shot out and Gibbs nodded.

"That was Hotch. He doesn't know whether she's just missing or has been kidnapped," Gibbs continued.

"Wasn't she meeting with terrorists?" McGee questioned.

"What?!" Harm ejected. His faced moved from understanding to confusion and back again.

"She was a part of a joint-agency anti-terrorism task force working with lashkars in Peshawar and the surrounding province," Gibbs verified. "But according to Hotch, there wasn't a problem with the operation. Kalev called him and said that she went to the grocery store this morning and didn't come home again."

"You should go, Gibbs," Harm told him. "I can't put you on any real cases until you get DiNozzo and David back anyway, not with those two..." He nodded in the direction of the two recently-arrived Probies who hadn't done any work the team in the past week. "Go and help the BAU out on this. And take McGee."

Gibbs nodded to him and dialled the number for the line in the BAU conference room, leaving his phone on speaker. "Hotchner," came the answer.

"McGee and I will be there. Has anyone told Ziva and Tony?"

"Kalev said that he'd spoken to them first," Hotch answered. "Garcia, can you call Ziva?"

"Dialling her number now," they heard Garcia's voice say.

Gibbs, McGee and Harm could hear the dial tone and then Ziva's voice as she answered.

"David."

"Ziva, where are you now?" Gibbs asked quickly.

"You know about Emily?"

"We do," Hotch's voice answered.

"I am at reception and about to leave," she replied quickly. "Tony and I have a chartered flight to Sydney and then a commercial flight on to Karachi. We still need a flight from there to Islamabad."

"We can take care of that," Hotch told her. "Gibbs, is it just you and McGee?"

"And Abby too," Harm answered for him. Gibbs looked up cautiously at his superior, who merely nodded understandingly back at him.

"Can you get to Dulles in an hour and a half?" Hotch asked. "Our flight to Karachi leaves at ten, which means that we should arrive there at eleven o'clock tomorrow morning. When do you land there, Ziva?"

"0900 in the Pakistani time zone," she answered immediately.

"Wait there for us. I'll have a chartered flight to Islamabad for all of us," Hotch told her.

"Agreed, it is better for us to travel together," Ziva answered. "I have to go. I will see you then." And with that she hung up.

"Is your whole team going?" Gibbs asked the other team leader.

"Ambassador Prentiss convinced the State Department to invite us and Strauss had no choice but to agree," Hotch answered.

"We have to go," Morgan piped up. The BAU team, with the exception of Aaron Hotchner, had been silent since news of Emily's disappearance gripped them. He had finally broken their silence, saying what they were all thinking. "Emily's our family. We can't leave her behind."

"I know," Gibbs told him. "I know. And we will find her."

"I hope so," Hotch finished with before hanging up.

"We will find her," McGee repeated softly.

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"I could do almost anything to you."