Chapter 3
"When Dreams Turn into Nightmares"
"I will," Ziva assured, and suddenly the line went dead, startling Abby.
"Hello?" she called, not receiving any response. Sighing, she set the phone down. Just then, the elevator dinged, and Tony's and McGee's voices sounded in the hallway.
"We're getting the band back together," the Team Leader announced, oblivious to the phone call she'd received. Turning to face them, she smiled.
"Scooby-doo," she commented, her voice light and cheerful. DiNozzo grinned in appreciation.
"Nice catch," he complimented, as he and McGee came to stand before her. She smirked.
"Somehow though, I get the feeling that you came down here for more than just making movie references," she quickly added, trying not to look too suspicious.
DiNozzo let out a light chuckle. "You would be correct in assuming that, my gothic friend," he affirmed. Silence followed, making Abby antsy.
"Okay, well then spill," she demanded, "I'm not known to be patient when one of my friends in on the run from the law."
DiNozzo sighed. "So you heard?" he asked wearily, his exhaustion breaking through the light-hearted mask he tried so desperately to put on.
His tiredness made Abby's heart want to break, and one small moment she wanted to cry. "Yeah, I heard. The FBI weren't so good at keeping the reason of their visit a secret. I mean, over half of the building is talking about it," she confirmed, wringing her hands to keep herself from leaping into his arms and crushing him with the biggest hug she could manage. Upon her confession, his face went grave.
"I wish they wouldn't," he confided, his voice unnervingly serious.
"Wouldn't what, Tony?" McGee asked, slightly disturbed by his friend's soberness. Tony's face contorted itself slightly, evidence of the battle he was fighting to keep his composure.
"Talk," he finally spat, "Because that's all they can ever seem to do. Talk and talk and talk, and all the while, they sit in their cozy little chairs at their cozy little desks while Ziva is facing who knows what and running from who knows who. And yet all they can seem to do is talk, without taking action, and without doing anything about it."
Abby and McGee stared at him, mouths slightly agape. This was not the Anthony DiNozzo they were accustomed to. The Tony they knew was a womanizer who took pleasure in being juvenile and taking advantage of the younger agents. This Anthony DiNozzo was a fighter, one who would stand in support for his friends, family, and beliefs, one who would take a bullet for almost anyone, and one who would never shirk from a challenge.
As quickly as it has sparked, the fire died down, and Tony relaxed slightly, taking a deep breath. "Here's the plan," he instructed carefully, retaining the solemness he had displayed previously, "I want both of you to finish up whatever you have today, and then I want you two to meet me in the elevator at 8 o'clock sharp. If you're not here on time, then I will know that you're not on Ziva's six. But otherwise, I expect you both ready to do whatever is needed to get Ziva back, because this little adventure may spell the end for our careers. Until then, go about your day as you normally would, keeping an ear out for any intel that may help Ziva. In the meantime, I will go inform Ducky and Palmer of our plan. Got it?"
Both McGee and Abby nodded quickly.
"Good," he sighed. Turning to leave, McGee followed him, Abby's voice held them both back.
"Tony?" she asked hesitantly. The man in question turned to face her.
"Yes, Abbs?"
Abby immediately lurched forward, enveloping him in a bear hug. "We'll get Ziva back safe and sound. I promise," she told him before releasing him from her grip. His eyes immediately met hers.
"I know," he said solemnly, and with that he left just as quickly as he had come, leaving Abby alone to deal with the onslaught of emotions that had come from his and McGee's visit.
~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~
His heart was light, and he couldn't keep a smile on his face for the life of him. His nose was overwhelmed by the smell of the salty air, and as the ocean breeze wafted through his hair, he kept one hand on the steering wheel while placing the other over the hand of the person speeding beside him. Although he was only driving a several year-old minivan, he felt like the richest person on earth as he cruised along the California coast line, listening to the quiet hum coming from the smaller passenger in the back and enjoying the occasional laugh he drew from the red-headed beauty sitting beside him. Meanwhile, the radio played in the background, albeit it was drowned out by everything else around him.
Glancing at his wife sitting in the passenger seat, Jethro Gibbs breathed out a sigh of contentment, feeling like he was on Cloud Nine whenever Shannon looked at him like he was her everything. She looked at him curiously.
"What are you thinking about, Jethro?" she asked sweetly, her voice as heavenly as the sound of angels. He let his head roll in her direction.
"About how much I love and adore you," he admitted sheepishly, looking her straight in the eye before quickly returning his eyes to the road. Shannon immediately blushed.
"Yeah? Well I love you too, my handsome marine," she announced, feeling satisfied when he blushed as well.
"Yeah?" he asked, glancing at her with grin on his face.
"Yeah," she confirmed, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek.
Suddenly, a sound of displeasure came from the back.
"Ew, Mom, Dad! You two are going to give me cavities!" Kelly exclaimed, glaring at them with a look of disgust. Shannon chuckled and Jethro let out a hearty laugh.
"Well if you don't want cavities, then shut your eyes," Jethro finally proposed, still smiling like a lucky son of a gun.
Kelly didn't like his solution and immediately made it known. "But how will I be able to watch the ocean if my eyes are closed?" she asked incredulously, her face portraying extreme sarcasm and seriousness. Shannon had to bite her tongue to keep herself from laughing at her eight year old daughter. Jethro, however, held his composure much better than his wife.
"Pay attention to the ocean then, and don't look at us," he replied, using his rear view mirror to glance back at his annoyed daughter.
Kelly's contorted itself into a displeased expression. "Like you guys make it easy," she huffed, "I can't even concentrate on the music with you two being so sickeningly sweet!"
Jethro laughed, quickly being joined by Shannon who turned a shade of pink from laughing a little too hard. Kelly became even more annoyed by their laughter, but her face suddenly lit up when "U Can't touch this" by MC Hammer came on the radio.
"Oh, oh, turn the radio up, Daddy! This is my favorite song!" she exclaimed excitedly. Much to her delight, her father complied with a small smile. However, her mother was much more astonished.
"Kelly!" she quickly scolded. Her reprimand fell on deaf ears as Kelly was too distracted by dancing to the music, leaving Shannon to scoff in disbelief. Turning to Jethro, she asked, "How does she even know this song?"
Trying to look innocent, Jethro merely shrugged, feeling the weight of his wife's displeased look make him more and more uncomfortable by the second. Finally, she looked away from him.
"And to think that I thought the other army brats were the culprits," she scoffed with a chuckle.
Before Jethro could even open his mouth to defend himself, two loud gunshots pierced the air, and within fractions of a second, blood splattered on his face and clothes. Looking over in terror, he saw his wife dead with a bullet between her eyes.
"NO!" he shouted, slamming on the brakes and bringing the car to a complete stop. Reaching over to carefully cradle Shannon's head in such a way that he could look into her lifeless eyes, his heart died inside of him and tears threatened to fall. "Nonononono, Shannon, sweetheart, please stay with me!" he pleaded, hot and salty tears rolling down his cheek. His wife remained lifeless, and ever so carefully, he brushed his fingers over her eyelids to close them.
With erratic breathing, he suddenly thought to check on Kelly, but his breath hitched as soon as his head swiveled around to look at her. She too sat lifeless, a bullet between her eyes. As if he was slowly being suffocated, he gently placed his wife against the back of her seat and reached behind to hold his daughter's hand.
"Kelly?" he asked, his voice cracking and remaining barely above a whisper. No reply came. Although logic screamed that it was no use, he called her name one more time, devastated when he received no answer.
Letting the distressed tears flow freely, he let go of her and turned around in his seat, gripping the steering wheel tightly to the point that his knuckles turned white. Letting out an inhuman scream of pain and anger, he began bashing his head against the steering wheel, his howls growing louder. Suddenly, something moved in his peripheral vision and he turned quickly, only to find himself staring down the barrel of a gun.
"Do it, you bastard!" he growled, watching as the person behind the gun smiled, preparing to pull the trigger. Closing his eyes, Jethro Gibbs prepared himself for what was to come next.
BANG
Gibbs woke up with a start, gasping for air. Confused and disoriented, he glanced around the room wildly before focusing on the tall figure standing before him.
"Mornin', Sleeping Beauty," it said, its voice loud and irritating to Gibbs's sensitive ears. Focusing harder on the figure, he found it to be Mike Franks, his mentor and former boss, holding a recently fired shotgun.
Due to Gibbs's blank stare, Mike tried again. "I said mornin', Sleeping Beauty, have a bad dream?"
Gibbs shook himself out of his grogginess and let go of the sheets he realized he'd been clutching the entire time. "What?" he asked, slightly bewildered.
Mike let out a huff of annoyance. "Did you have a bad dream?" he repeated, practically yelling.
Gibbs shook his head. "No," he replied, ignoring the incredulous look he received from Franks, "Why ya ask?"
"Cuz you kept shouting no and calling for Shannon and Kelly," Franks explained. Gibbs sighed.
"Well why didn't you try to wake me?"
Franks scoffed. "I did!" he exclaimed, "First I started calling your name, then started shaking you and slapping your face."
"Then what's that for?" Gibbs asked, pointing to the shotgun in Mike's arms.
"This? This was my last resort. I fired off three shots before you finally came to," he told him, walking over to the wall to hang the shotgun in its proper place. Gibbs sighed again and rubbed his tired face with his calloused hands. Mike turned back to him after putting the shotgun away.
"You wanna tell me what it was about?" he asked. Gibbs shot him an annoyed look.
"No," he said firmly, standing up and trying to push past him. Mike, however, stopped him in his place and looked at him sternly, placing a hand on his right shoulder.
"Let's try this again," he retorted, "You gonna tell me about it?" Gibbs sighed, his face growing solemn. After a moment of trying to make up his mind, he finally opened his mouth to speak.
"It started out as a mere memory, but it had a much more twisted ending than the one I remember," he explained quietly, rubbing the back of his head.
Satisfied with the reply he had received, Mike clapped his hand on Gibbs's shoulder a couple hands before letting go. "Hurry and throw on clothes for wading in while I gather together the fishing tackle. We're having fish for breakfast," he announced with his crooked smile. Soon after, he stalked out of the small hut, leaving Gibbs alone to his thought.
Plopping down on his cot, Gibbs sighed wearily and reached for his wallet, pulling out worn photo. A ghost of a smile crossed his face as he gazed at the two faces that smiled back at him, remembering the moment that had brought on those smiles.
"Daddy! Daddy! Come take a picture of us!"
"Woah, hold on there, Kelly. You can't just drag your mom like that."
"I'm alright, Jethro, but you might want to hurry and take the picture before she explodes from excitement."
"Take our picture, Daddy!"
"Alright, ready? One, two, three, cheese!"
"Cheese!"
Smiling, Gibbs carefully gave the picture a small kiss. "I sure love you guys," he said solemnly, fighting back the tears that wanted to flow. Carefully placing the picture back in his wallet, he rubbed his face and sighed.
Time to start another day, he thought to himself, Another day without my girls.
~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~
Feeling a tug on his line, Jethro Gibbs slowly began to reel in his line.
"I think I got one," he commented to his friend beside him. Franks looked at him in surprise.
"Another one? Is there a lucky rabbit's foot you've been holdin' out on me?" he asked skeptically, "I thought you wasn't a believer of the supernatural."
Gibbs chuckled, grunting when the pull on the line became harder. "I'm not," he clarified, "I'm just a very experienced fisherman."
Franks let out a roar of laughter. "Yeah right, tell that to the three foot tuna you let get away a day or so ago," he remarked smugly.
Being preoccupied, Gibbs didn't reply and began to reel faster, his rod beginning to bend from the strain that the fish was causing. Suddenly, the strain decreased and his rod began to return to its original form.
Letting out an annoyed huff, he turned to Franks who was snickering from his loss.
"Yeah, well maybe if you had grabbed the damn net like I asked you to, it wouldn't have gotten away," he retorted, sticking another worm on his hook. Franks mocked looking insulted
"You blamin' me, Probie? I thought I taught you better than that," he declared, casting his line out. Gibbs only shook his head and smiled, casting his line out as well.
Beginning to reel his line in slowly, Mike began to feel pressure on his line. "Aw, here we go!" he announced, reeling in faster. Glancing at Gibbs, he smirked, "Let the real fisherman show you how it's done." Gibbs merely rolled his eyes, his attention more focused on Mike's line than his own.
Mike's line began to bend more and more before some of the pressure was released. Soon enough, a large shadowy figure could be seen coming towards the shore in the choppy water. Grinning, Mike beckoned to Gibbs excitedly, "Hurry and grab the net, Probie. I've got myself a beaut!"
Obeying his mentor's order, Gibbs set his rod down carefully and picked up the large net that lay on the sand, holding it out towards the water for when Mike would reel the fish in closer. However, the figure didn't struggle as much as it should've, and the closer it got to shore, the less it looked like a fish.
"Is that-" Gibbs was stopped from finishing his sentence when Mike interrupted him.
"Don't you dare jinx me, Jethro!" he ordered harshly, clearly frustrated.
Gibbs held his peace until Mike finished reeling in his "prize".
"I didn't know you were planning on making sushi," Gibbs commented, letting out a small chuckle at the sight of the large mound of seaweed, "You're not laughing now, are you?" Mike groaned and grumbled.
"Damn it, Probie! I thought I told you not to jinx me!" he yelled, being more annoyed when Gibbs only laughed.
"Hey, I waited until you got the seaweed out of the water," he defended, still grinning.
"Yeah, but I bet you were thinking up some sort of incantation while I was towing it in," Mike accused.
"I thought we just agreed that I'm not superstitious," Gibbs quipped, feeling satisfied when he thought he heard Mike swear under his breath and say something about him being too much of a wise guy.
Due to the sound of the salty oceanic waves crashing against the seashore, neither heard the soft footsteps that approached them.
"Hola, Señor Gibbs and Señor Franks," Camila called, carried a woven sack in hand and waving with the other. Both men in question turned, giving her a smile. Mike looked particularly pleased.
"Well if it isn't the little miss ray of sunshine. You're just in time for breakfast," he announced, gesturing to a couple decent sized fish sitting in a cooler. Camila chuckled.
"You're too kind, Señor Franks, but I already ate," she confessed, shrugging nonapologetically. Gibbs smothered a chuckle when Mike's face grew distraught upon being rejected.
"So'd ya bring the stuff I asked for?" Gibbs inquired, glancing at the bag in her hand. Camila nodded.
"Sí, you owe me twenty-five American," she replied, handing him the sack, along with a couple other envelopes. Pulling out few stray dollar bills from his pockets, Gibbs handed them over.
"Keep the change," he insisted.
"Gracias," Camila thanked him, giving him a small smile as she put them in her back pocket.
Looking at the two inquisitively, Mike shifted towards Gibbs, trying to peer into the woven sack he was holding. "You, ah, you wouldn't happen to have a pack of beer in the sack, would ya, Probie?" he asked. Camila chuckled and Gibbs smiled.
"Señor Gibbs is going to feed you something other than fish and beer," she explained as Gibbs opened the sack to show Franks. Franks scoffed in disgust at the sight of the vegetables.
"I don't need him to cook me anything. Whenever I get bored of fish and beer, I just go up to the cantina and get myself a burger and mojito."
Camila scoffed and Gibbs rolled his eyes. "You can't just live off of meat and alcohol, Mike," Gibbs stated. Again, Mike scoffed.
"Hah! Watch me," he retorted defiantly.
Camila put her hands on her hips. "Señor Gibbs, you are a true saint," she commented, "I don't know how you can stand living with such a grumpy old gringo." Mike looked insulted.
"Old? Who you callin' old? I might not be as young as I used to be, but I'll still give you a run for your money," he bragged, causing Camila to raise an eyebrow.
"That's exactly what I'm afraid of," she replied. Mike grunted and said something inaudible before spinning on his heels and heading back down the beach. Gibbs turned to follow, but Camila stopped him.
"Hang on, Señor Gibbs, I still have something for you," she called, holding out a phone, "You have phone call." Gibbs looked confused, approaching her before removing the device from her hand.
"Did they give a name?" he inquired, dialing the recently called number and listening to the dialing tone. Camila shook her head.
"No," she said, "But it was a woman, and she made it seem urgent."
Gibbs nodded. "Alright. Gracias, Camila." Suddenly, he heard the person on the other end pick up.
"Whoever this is better give me a damn good reason as to why they are interrupting my fishing," Gibbs ordered sternly.
"Shalom to you, too, Gibbs," the voice greeted, surprising Gibbs.
"Ziver? How'd you get this number," he asked, sauntering a ways away from Camila and a still grumbling Franks.
"Does it matter?" she retorted. Gibbs noted the weariness in her voice but said nothing about it.
"Well yeah, yeah it kinda does," he replied, "I thought I gave explicit instructions that I was not to be bothered." He heard a sigh on the other end.
"It was Abby," she confessed, "But if it helps, I tortured it out of her."
Gibbs scoffed. "No, not really, cuz I'd have to skin ya if you even so much as touched a hair on her head," he stated, ruffling his long salt-and-pepper hair. Sighing, he asked, "So why'd you call?"
"Can't I just call to catch up and ask how Mexico is?"
"Today, Ziva."
Again, Ziva sighed. "I may need your help," she confessed.
"If this is to help you with your practical prank war on DiNozzo, then I'm not interested."
Ziva let a out a wry chuckle. "No, it is nothing like that. It is much more serious."
Gibbs frowned. "How serious are we talking, Ziva?"
There was a pause. "I may or may not be on the run from the FBI and NCIS."
Gibbs sighed and rubbed a calloused hand over his tired face. "Where's DiNozzo? Why can't he help you."
Her answer came faster than he expected. "Because I do not want him to," she blurted. Sighing, she clarified, "I do not want him sticking his head out for me when I was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Gibbs noticed her error in the usage idiom and smiled. "It's neck, Ziver, and that's what partners are for though, Ziva, to watch your six and pull you out of whatever rut you find yourself in." Again, there was pause as Ziva sighed heavily, knowing that he was right.
"I know, but if he got in trouble for helping me, I would not be able to live with the guilt," she confessed, "Plus, the FBI are probably watching him like a hawk, hoping that he will lead them to me." It was Gibbs's turn to sigh, knowing the truth in her statement. He rubbed his face again.
"Ziva, honestly, what am I gonna do about it? I'm three thousand miles away!" he asked, slightly frustrated by the situation.
There was another pause. "I was hoping… maybe save me?"
Again, Gibbs sighed. A whirlwind of thoughts rushed through his head, and the pressure he felt didn't help. Along with that, he could almost hear Ziva holding her breath. Then the storm cleared and peace settled, allowing him to think clearly. He knew what he should do.
"Hang on, Ziver," he finally instructed, much to Ziva's relief, "I'm comin' for ya."
A/N: Guys, seriously, thank you for taking the time to read this. Also a HUGE thank you to everyone who followed, faved, or reviewed! It means the world to me :-)
(Also, I didn't change the last scene cuz I felt like it didn't need changing. As they say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it."