A/N: Sorry it's been so long on this one guys. I went away on holiday and really had no way to update. On the plus side, I managed to get this entire chapter done and ready for uploading! Hope you like it. :D (I suggest going quickly over the last chapter for a refresher!)
The first thing that Tony DiNozzo noticed when he woke up was a shooting pain in his back. He let out a high pitched yelp as his arm flew behind him. No, sleeping on a mattress thinner than Posh Spice was definitely not a good idea for a man with previous spinal issues. The second thing he noticed was a pair of eyes watching him intently from an alarmingly close location.
He exclaimed in shock and the little girl squealed and scurried backwards. Blinking his bleary eyes, Tony realized that this was the girl Ziva had been cradling in her lap the previous day. She couldn't have been older than twelve, with olive skin and a short, slight figure. Her large hazel eyes reminded him of a puppy or some form of squirrel and hair nearly black as night tumbled in loose waves over her shoulders. The dirty yellow ribbon from yesterday was still tied in the locks.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I'm not gonna hurt you," Tony reassured the child quickly. She merely blinked at him with those huge doe eyes of hers. Figures, Tony thought. She doesn't understand English.
"You… not… scare me," she suddenly voiced, concentrating hard on what she was trying to say. "Me am… not scare anything!"
Tony grinned at her poor attempt at English.
"Not scared of anything, huh? What about… this? ROAR!" he exclaimed somewhat quietly. The girl jumped before giggling a little. Then suddenly she turned around and scampered away, and yes, definitely this time he saw movement that resembled a squirrel. Or a chipmunk. Some form of furry little woodland creature.
And finally he spotted Ziva. She had not moved from her spot by the window from last night, and Tony wondered if she had even slept at all. A hint of an enigmatic smile played around her lips as he approached her.
"Her name is Hana," she said softly. "She is my life. I took her in when she was brought here a year ago."
"She's cute," replied Tony.
"Yes. A lot of men seem to share your opinion."
Tony's head flicked to hers automatically and he discovered that she was purposely avoiding his gaze.
"Not in a… sexual way. She just seems so innocent," he marvelled, watching Hana drawing loopy, girlish pictures of love hearts and flowers in the dirt on the ground.
"She should have been. But that was taken away from her. Innocence is not a luxury we are able to indulge in here. Not any of us," Ziva said in a faraway tone. He could hear her voice quake slightly towards the end of her sentence and extended an arm to brush her shoulder comfortingly. Ziva flinched away from his touch immediately and stood up, creating a safe distance between she and Tony. Her dark-lashed eyes glared down at him.
"I told her she should not be afraid because you would not hurt us. Do not make a liar out of me, Anthony DiNozzo," she said coldly. She turned and walked away from him coolly, her words resounding in the air behind her.
"Boss, what's my plan?" Tony murmured, rubbing his temples with his fingertips.
'Figure it out, DiNozzo,' came Gibbs' response through the earpiece.
"I know, but it's gonna be harder than-"
"He is talking to someone!" yelled Monique suddenly, pointing an accusatory finger. "Who do you work for, traitor?" she snarled. Tony held his hands up in surrender and opened his mouth to say something, before he was cut off again.
"Liar! He lies!" cried the woman with the cropped hair.
"We not trust him."
"He hurt us."
"What we do?"
"Okay stop!" shouted Tony, effectively putting an end to the outbursts. "I work for NCIS. It's a law enforcement agency in the US. We're trying to shut down this whole operation and get you out of here."
Ziva met his eyes as she translated for those who spoke little to no English. Slowly, as the words rolled off her languid tongue, the murmuring ceased. Wary looks were still being sent his way every now and then, but the majority of the women decided to leave him be. For now.
Ziva, however, regarded him completely differently. The openness she had displayed towards him previously had disappeared, and she looked at Tony professionally, clinically. He shouldn't have tried to touch her. It was a stupid mistake, a rookie one at that. Like she had any sort of trust towards men in her life.
But yet, looking at her now, leaning back against the wall with her legs delicately crossed, Tony wanted to touch her more than ever. The tips of Ziva's hair were lit up golden with the light of the morning sun and she was now concentrating intently on tying Hana's unruly raven locks into a messy braid. He wasn't entirely sure where the impulse came from. Perhaps it was his weakness as a cop for damsels in distress, combined with his eagerness for a challenge. Either way, this sudden urge, this need to protect her and heal her nagged at him like all of his previous stepmothers combined.
Tony had no idea how to deal with these women. The suspicious glares, the dead eyes, the bruises that covered their skin. He was out of his comfort zone to say the least.
But there was no way he was backing out now. Not after seeing what he'd seen.
The group of twelve year olds were currently sitting in a circle, playing some form of a hand-clapping game. Every now and then one of the girls would smile, but it would never reach her eyes. Tony noticed that they all wore nice dresses, ones that once might have been a bright color if not for the dirt and stains that covered them. He supposed the men wanted the girls to look pretty for them.
Those men were going to be pretty dead by the time this was over.
Tony had settled himself onto his mattress and was staring at the ceiling, attempting to make shapes in his head out of the cracks in the concrete when suddenly the door burst open and an angry voice yelling in Hebrew interrupted the peace. The man in the doorway looked around before spotting Tony and yanking him up by the collar to his eye level. His expression was livid and his muscles tensed as he continued screaming in his face, before hauling him back to the door. Tony was left a defenceless ragdoll in his vice-like grip and had no choice but to obediently follow along. Just as the door shut, Tony heard Ziva shriek something in Hebrew, but then the loud clang of metal echoed through the air and he was being pulled down the hallway.
They shoved him into the cell next door roughly, and as Tony hit the ground he inhaled a cloud of dirt and instantly retched it back up. His throat burned and his eyes watered. Attempting to face his attacker, he was presented with yet another guard instead. The man leaned against the wall with his eyes narrowed.
"We have found one of our best men," he began, his voice coarse like sandpaper. "Thrown in a storage shed and dressed in civilian clothing."
"Well that's strange. Maybe the guy's got a weird fetish or somethi-"
Tony's smartass reply was cut off by a hard backhand across the face. He sucked on the inside of his cheek tenderly, tasting blood.
"On the same day that we discover an unfamiliar guard speaking with an American accent!" the man snarled. "And we do not believe in coincidences."
"Hey, I know a guy like that. He's pretty kickass. I think you might even like him."
Tony was rewarded again with a hard kick to the gut that left him winded for a few seconds.
"Would ya shut up DiNozzo? I'd like you back in one piece." Gibbs murmured through the earwig
Before he could stop himself, he'd replied "Got it, boss." He froze. The man blinked before his eyes narrowed into slits.
"Who are you talking to?" he yelled, his nostrils flaring. He came at Tony in a blur, grabbing him by his hair and shoving him down to the ground. His nails drew blood from Tony's ear as he roughly yanked out the electronic bug that sat hidden inside. With a loud growl, the earpiece was thrown to the ground and stomped on by the guard. A single orange spark flew from the dismembered wires, and then the bug, Tony's only lifeline to home, lay limply on the floor.
The guard left, slamming the door behind him, but not before dealing several more crushing blows to Tony's body. He stopped only when he heard a sickening crack come from the agent's ribcage and suddenly it was a lot more difficult for Tony to breathe. When the guard had gone, Tony stared blankly at the mass of wires on the ground, wheezing, and suddenly feeling more alone than ever. He guessed he hadn't realized the sense of comfort having Gibbs constantly in his ear had brought him. Now the only companionships he carried were his thoughts, and a strange hissing sound coming from the side wall.
He turned to investigate, dragging his aching body to the wall of the cell, and jumping slightly when he saw a familiar pair of deep brown eyes looking at him through a hole in the bricks.
"Ziva," he breathed, partly in relief, partly because his injuries left little effort in him. The eyes merely blinked in return. She moved her head upwards so he could see her lips through the gap.
"Are you alright?" she questioned, though not with concern. It irritated him now, the clinical, indifferent tone she used with him. He wasn't entirely sure why, but it did.
"I'm fine," he said back in a clipped voice. The slight wince in his words told different.
"You do not sound it."
"You don't sound like you care," Tony responded bitterly, without thinking.
"Am I supposed to?" she questioned back, genuinely puzzled. "I do not know you, nor trust you."
At this, he frowned. She was right. Why was he expecting so much of her? He had only known the woman for a night. Tony supposed the spark, that connection he had felt to her last night could perhaps have been one sided. Most likely one sided. Definitely one sided, he told himself. He mentally scoffed at his own idiocy. But when he turned to look towards the gap again, his heart jumped a little. Had her mouth always been so inviting? With full, rounded pink lips and a slight curve? He could just imagine taking that perfect bottom lip between his teeth and—
No, no, NO. Stop it, DiNozzo.
Ziva was a vulnerable, broken woman, and he couldn't take advantage of her.
But perhaps that was the problem… he didn't want to take advantage of her. He wanted to heal her, hold her, show her that not every man in the world was selfish and evil, that some genuinely cared about her and her wellbeing.
Where all this was coming from, Tony had no idea.
"I'm fine," he reiterated, pulling himself up to lean against the wall. A slight yelp escaped his mouth at the impact, but his lips quickly tightened. There was silence for a while, and Tony thought that perhaps she had gone, until he heard Ziva's voice again.
"I do care," she whispered, almost inaudibly. "What I do not know is why."
He met her eyes through the gap once more.
"I'm gonna get you out of here, you know?" he said softly to her. "All of you. I promise."
Tony thought he saw liquid reflected in her deep brown orbs before she wrenched her gaze from his, and again he was left confused and wondering what he had said wrong this time.
Then suddenly, her hand had replaced the spot, reaching slightly towards him, and when he allowed his fingertips to brush hers, she did not flinch or pull away.
And Tony knew he didn't imagine the electricity that shot through his body and shook him to the core this time.
A/N: GAH. It's so hard to restrain myself from just making them run into each other's arms already. But no, that would be to easy ;) These two have a long road ahead of them!