A/N: I feel obliged to say how great it feels to have such a mature audience - one who regularly offers encouragement, sensible input and constructive criticism. Thanks guys :D So
thanks to all the reviewers for the last chapter - Gloworm41, hudson911, hotchner, twomoms, Pen, diana teo (who also reviewed Chp. 1. Thanks), NcisRulz, silvanelf and finally Krows Scared.

Pen - 'stupid frat boy' Tony is hilarious at times but you're right, now is the time for a sensible DiNozzo.

Anyway, I shall leave you to read this in peace - my author's notes seem to get longer and --- oh, I'm rabbiting again xD ...


Something was dribbling down his cheek – he could feel it, barely, against the incessant background burning that coursed from the back of his skull, down his neck and into his shoulders (where the blazing pain seemed to be most intense) then seeping out, like tendrils, into his arms right down to the tips of his calloused fingers. The pain did not stop at his fingers, however: instead it sliced into his ribs and down through his lower limbs. One leg seemed almost numb, with only the faintest inkling of pain residing there. His brain could barely understand what his body was telling him – or rather what it was not – yet gradually it dawned on him what that lack of sensation meant.

I cannot lose my leg... What the hell happened?

He pulled at his trapped leg, moaning as he barely felt something slice through his flesh, easing through it as if it were jelly. Slowly, he opened his eyes, only to find it almost entirely dark. A small square of light flickered above him, making him squint as his eyes re-adjusted to this sudden light source. When he was able to open his eyes fully, he rolled them around to see where he was trapped – his head seemed to also be pinned in its current location. He found the light had not only illuminated his face but also the wreckage that held him down – it covered him from chest downward – and above him was a combination of wooden planks, furniture legs, glass shards, grimy ceiling tiles and bricks.

Oh right, explosion, yeah...I remember now.

Gingerly, the man managed to release his left arm, stubbornly ignoring the protests from his ribs and other shoulder, and reached up to widen the hole, intending to dig himself out of the remains. However, he managed only to widen it by a few inches before he became aware of the large beam that swayed precariously almost directly above his stomach, restrained there by two short bolts already showing signs of the enormous stress upon them.

That would be good wood to use for my next boat...

He froze, not only because of the hounds of pain thrashing at the gates of his mind but also because he feared moving would cause further stress and shear the bolts.

For a long time, he simply stared at it, irrationally believing that if he stared at it for long enough and hard enough the beam would magically reattach itself to the other joists and would no longer threaten to crush him. He knew it was a stupid idea but he stared at it all the same – after all, there was nothing else he could do. He had no concept of how long he spent glaring at it, willing it to return to its place amongst the other rafters: he only knew the moment when his fierce glower had not been enough, and the bolts pinged away. There was a loud creak and then the sound of wood splintering – a sound he knew very well. Instinct took over and the man called out the only name he could think of that would stand a cat's chance in hell of stopping what he knew was coming...

At least that was what he had intended, but, just as he began to shout, the wood embedded in his shoulder was twisted by some unseen force, leaving him squirming (as much as the crushing force of wreckage on his lower legs would allow) in desperation to get away from the falling beam. His shout had been reduced to a strangled whimper, but he did not have the strength or the will, let alone the time, to try again. Instead, he allowed his head to thump back on to the ground beneath him, breathing heavily with his eyes open yet unseeing – overloaded by the flare of pain.

Ah, hell...

The beam crashed onto the debris covering him, pushing him down painfully onto the shards of glass below. For a brief moment, he felt an irrational flood of relief at the strong spike of pain that shot through his previously numb leg. Then he was unconscious – aware of nothing, let alone the dust that drifted down lazily and gathered on his exposed face, turning him paler and grey.


For the second time that day, Tony was yanked awake: this time by a thunderous crash instead of pain in his shoulder. The pain was still there but it was dulled by the sudden sense of urgency to look for any other signs of collapse Tony had acquired. Immediately he leapt to his feet and scanned the room, despite it spinning and black spots dancing in his vision. Thirty metres behind him, a cloud of dust had risen and was steadily dissipating as Tony gawked.

There wasn't a hulk of wood there the last time I looked.

Once more clasping his injured arm close to his chest, Tony carefully made his way to the newest site of destruction. Once there he rested for a while, as he glanced around him – looking for anything that would indicate the location of his co-workers and also watching for signs of the next collapse.

I need to find Gibbs and Kate before this whole building comes down... Why can't we, just for once, come away from a case involving explosions completely unscathed?

A dusty, black leather pouch poking from under a brick was Tony's first reason to get excited: it was Gibbs' empty gun holster. The clasp had been ripped from the man's belt in the explosion, hopefully flinging it in the same direction as its owner.

It has to be Gibbs': Kate, possessive as she is, wrote her name inside hers; it can't be mine, either, because I still have the clasp for mine attached to my belt. I doubt Brauer was carrying, and why would Susanne bring a gun when she had a bomb?

Standing up straight after pocketing the holster in his torn suit jacket, Tony looked around for further signs. A tangled mess of plastic and circuitry caught Tony's eye and he picked it up, turning it over in his palm. He recognised the signs of Gibbs' frustrated abuse of the phone – repeated slamming off desks, violent snaps shut, angry collisions with walls trapped between a calloused palm and a concrete wall – the hinges were already cracked and the screen on the inside was barely held by the glue.

He only got this like a week ago – that was a bad week.

In vain hope he looked around again, but this time there were no other indicators, although two of the larger heaps of rubble he had noticed before were closest to the holster and ruined phone.

Choosing the nearest one and steeling himself against the throbbing pain in his shoulder, the senior field agent began shoving aside several rough wooden planks and concrete block after concrete block. The beam that had fallen from the ceiling was too heavy to lift, but Tony had managed to slide it off the pile of rubble, giving him clear access to the rest. After thirty minutes of sustained exhaustive effort, however, Tony began to think there was no one under all the destroyed building material. Gradually, as he became more and more certain there was no one underneath, his pace slowed until he found he was too weak from pain to continue and collapsed onto the remaining pile, cradling his arm again and drenched in sweat.

In his feverish digging, Tony had failed to notice a buzzing sound overriding all other noises had developed in his ears, and it now blanketed him. Momentarily, he wondered if this would be the end of his relatively young career in law enforcement...In fact his career as a whole – if he was deaf there was no way he would find a decent job. He had spent two years under Gibbs, and earlier he had resented the hard task-master but slowly, as the Gibbs rules began to seep into his brain, the long, demanding hours his boss forced him to work began to pay off – he got more senior assignments while on a case, Gibbs seemed to respect him more (at least he had stopped calling him Probie). If truth be told, Tony could not imagine working anywhere else, and the thought of losing all he had worked so hard for unsettled him, to say the least.

As he rested and the pain in his shoulder slowly abated to a dull throb so did his hearing return. When he heard the gentle crackle of flames licking at objects around him, he grinned broadly – relieved to be able to hear again. His oafish smile, however, was abruptly straightened as he became aware of another, less encouraging sound. Tony could not hear the thunder of hundreds of B.F.F. employees rushing from the building but he did not know for how long he had been unconscious and assumed they had already evacuated.

They probably don't even know we're here!

But there was a troubling moan coming from underneath his perch on the rubble.

He leapt to his feet, and the moan quickly stopped – only to start again as Tony pulled at a piece of wood sticking vertically out of the rubble. "What the hell?" The young NCIS agent exclaimed, his mind racing through all the possible identities to which that pitiful sound could belong. There had only been the three navy investigators, Susanne McNeil and Steven Brauer in the room when the boom had gone off. The ceiling had collapsed after the blast and anyone who had fallen through would have been on top of the pile, but there was no one. The B.F.F. C.E.O. and his severely disgruntled mistress had presumably been killed instantly by the high-powered explosive – at least Tony hoped so – leaving only two of the three NCIS. Gibbs' gun holster had been close to the pile and there were no indications that it could be Kate Todd.

Careful not to press down on the piled-up wreckage, Tony leant closer to it and called, "Boss, that you?" He did not really expect any coherent response and so was only slightly worried when he received no answer at all. He waited a few moments more then began digging, ignoring the stabbing pain it caused. His hands were already grazed from his previous digging excursion, and his renewed efforts formed new ones and reopened the older ones, leaving them bloody, the dirt stinging as it caught in the wounds. Tony's first attempt at clearing the area had made a significant dent in the heap of concrete and wood, but there was still a lot for him to slave his way through.

The pain in his shoulder increased until it reached almost unbearable levels, but still Tony continued, shoving it aside, and forced himself to concentrate back on the task in hand – he had put his failure to notice his lack of hearing down to his single-mindedness in the search for his teammates – and again his determination returned, pitching him into a noiseless capsule of deep concentration and blocking out the pain that plagued his body, threatening to make him pass out.

That was another of the numerous tricks Gibbs had taught him during Tony's two years at NCIS – that was one of the reasons Tony had become so loyal to the older man: he actually taught Tony things, imparting his years of experience and wisdom on the young DiNozzo – not like his father who ignored him constantly. That same technique of focusing on anything other than the source of pain was what Tony used now in his desperate bid to save his fellow NCIS agents, his friends, the closest people he had to family.

Eventually his efforts – both at blocking the pain and digging through the mass of destruction were rewarded as he peeled back a wooden plank to reveal a cut, bloodied and pained face. "Shit!" He muttered. The eyes were shut, although Tony could not tell if that was from being squeezed shut by their owner or because of the blood caked over the bruised face. He threw himself to his knees beside the face and reached out a hand to feel for a pulse in the carotid artery. Tony was extremely relieved to find one, fast but strong. Releasing the breath he did not realise he had been holding, Tony bent down and whispered to the still form below him. "Gibbs. Wake up. C'mon, boss, wake up."


A/N: *insert usual requests for reviews here*

Next chapter'll hopefully be up tomorrow - trying to sort out me tutoring someone maths at the moment...