Tony and Penny entered what used to be the squad room, which was now gutted and smoke filled. They had to crawl through the debris on their hands and knees to avoid inhaling too much smoke.
'Right Penny I want you to listen to me and I want you to listen good.' Tony said in a no-nonsense tone. 'If this gets too dangerous or we can't find Gibbs, Jenny or Ziva, we leave; you got that?'
Penny reluctantly nodded her head before crawling further towards the centre of the bullpen.
'Now can you remember where Gibbs and Ziva were before the explosion?' He asked her.
Penny thought for a few minutes before she remembered that they said they were heading down to Abby and Ducky.
'They went into the elevator to the lab and autopsy.' She said as they made their way to the elevator.
'Well they must be still inside because Abby, Ducky and Jimmy got out.' He explained as they reached the elevator.
'Gibbs? Ziva? Can you hear us?' They shouted through the steel doors, but heard no response.
Looking round Penny found a large piece of solid metal piping, which would work perfectly to jimmy open the doors. Tony took the pipe and slowly prised the doors open, revealing the top of the elevator, which was approximately two foot below them.
'Gibbs? Ziva? Are you there?' Penny shouted down.
'Yeah we're here.' Gibbs shouted back.
Penny released a breath of relief when she heard Gibbs's voice, and the fact that he sounded alright.
'Are you both OK?' She asked with concern.
'Yeah we're fine, but we can't move. Every time we do the elevator moves some more.' Gibbs replied.
Tony disappeared briefly in to the direction of his desk, and returned a few minutes later with a flashlight. He turned it on a shone it onto the cables holding the elevator up, and saw that two of the six were completely severed and another two were partially damaged, but were slowly pulling away with the strain of the weight.
'OK so what are we going to do?' Penny asked as they looked at the situation before them.
'Well first things first we need to try to secure the elevator the best we can.' Tony said slowly as he thought carefully about what they could do.
Penny gave a small laugh as a joke popped into her head.
'Hey do you think I could create a splint for the cables like I did for McGee's leg.' She said with a small laugh. 'It's about the sum and total of my expertise.'
'Do you know what Penny, that's maybe not such a bad idea.' Tony said thoughtfully, resulting in a stunned silence from Penny.
'Tony I wasn't being serious!' She exclaimed.
'No but I am.' Tony replied as he once again shone the torchlight at the cables, and then down at the roof of the elevator. 'Penny if you're very careful I might be able to lower you down onto the roof of the elevator, and we might be able to secure the split cables with telephone wire and that parcel tape that's in your pocket.' He said as he yanked the wire from one of the shattered phones on the floor.
Penny looked at Tony as if to say that she wasn't very convinced by his plan, and she was muttering under her breath that this was probably the stupidest thing she'd ever done. With phone wire and cable in hand Penny was slowly helped down onto the roof of the elevator, with Tony supporting all of her weight until they were certain the elevator wasn't going to give way.
'OK Penny you're going to have to work fast.' Tony said as he saw an orange glow appear through the sides of the elevator as a fire burned somewhere beneath them.
Penny very carefully approached the cables, but stopped abruptly when she heard the elevator creak beneath her, she felt her breath catching in her throat and her heart was beating ten to the dozen. Once the creaking stopped she very carefully took another couple of steps until she was at the cables themselves. She began to wrap the first telephone wire around the gash in one of the cables, and secured it in place with a generous amount of parcel tape. She then did the same with the second cable, before wrapping the rest of the tape around the two temporarily fixed cables with the two whole ones.
'God I hope this holds.' She said under her breath in a silent prayer.
Once she had secured the elevator cables the best she could, she lifted the safety panel beneath her feet to reveal Gibbs and Ziva, who looked mightily pleased to see them.
'Right Ziva I'm going to lift you up, and then you and Penny can lift me up, OK?' Gibbs said, to which Ziva responded with a nod of her head.
Creating a cradle with his hands Gibbs helped Ziva up, who was then grabbed by Penny and hauled up. It had taken a bit of effort but Ziva was out at last. Once Ziva was up both she and Penny laid flat on the roof's surface and held their arms down into the hole for Gibbs to hold on to.
'OK on the count of three; one, two… threeeee!' Ziva said as they strained to lift Gibbs's weight.
They quickly made it to the entrance to the shaft, just as the elevator made another loud crack and was shunted further down by another few inches. Without saying anything Gibbs grabbed Penny first and almost threw her out to Tony, closely followed by Ziva. He then made his own way out just as the shaft filled with smoke.
'Thank you Penny, Tony, I think you may have just saved our lives.' Ziva said as Tony hugged her tightly.
'Come on let's get out of here.' Tony said as he went to head out of the building before being stopped by Penny.
'No Tony you promised we would find Mom as well.' Penny said as tears flooded her eyes once again.
Gibbs's heart nearly stopped when he heard that Jenny was missing, and for a few moments everything felt to run in slow motion.
'DiNozzo you take Ziva and Penny out, I'll look for Jenny.' He said authoritively.
'No Gibbs I'm not leaving without her. I'm coming too.' Penny said with determination.
Realising there was no point in arguing with her Gibbs agreed to let Penny come before they disappeared further into the building. Tony led Ziva out through the debris into the fresh air and light, and turned back to look at the building that still had three of the people he cared about inside.