DISCLAIMER: I do not own NCIS
Chapter Fourteen: Bête Noires & Wonderful Discoveries
The morning light poured through the trees and Abby lifter her head up off the ground and groaned. Another day stuck in this hell. Aw, come on, positive thoughts Abby! She stretched and walked to the stream she had fallen asleep next to. She looked at her matted hair and the dirt stuck to her cheeks. I really wish I had a shower right now. Abby closed her eyes. Last night- or really right after what would've been lunch- she'd fallen asleep. Recounting the dream she had, Abby sighed deeply.
She was standing in the forest again, but it was almost pitch black. She couldn't move at all and her broken arm was burning.
"Abs!"
"Tony!" she wanted to call out. But she couldn't. She was still frozen. Ziva yelled to her next. Then Ducky, then Tim, then Gibbs. She could almost see them through the trees, but they didn't see her. Tears poured down her cheeks. She wanted to call to them, to say she was okay, to tell Gibbs she loved him. But she couldn't. They flew by her, searching in all the wrong places.
A tree branch snapped nearby and she threw herself behind the nearest tree. No, no, no, not Mikel, he can't be here, oh no, oh no! After almost landing on her arm, she didn't move for a few minutes. When she looked out from behind the tree, she couldn't see anything. Taking a sigh of relief, she stood up and continued walking downstream. Abby soon lost herself in her thoughts. She thought back to before she was kidnapped. She wanted to remember the last thing she had said to the team.
Oh crap, I almost forgot Gibbs and I had been fighting this whole time!
She let out a little gasp.
I can't die with us fighting! God, I don't even remember what we were fighting about… Oh yeah I ran into a room with a dangerous and armed man to save them…
Abby felt like an idiot. Now she was determined to make it out of here. Singing softly, she walked- well, it was more of a limp thanks to her ankle- a few miles. Sitting down next to the stream again, she scanned the surroundings.
Oak tree, clearing, bushes, flowers… Nope, no food.
She huffed. Almost looking away, a big brown tree trunk caught her eye.
Oh my god… that's not a tree trunk!
She could've screamed. Getting up, she started to run as fast as she could to it.
N-C-I-S
Gibbs woke up at five that morning to keep searching. They had agreed to resume searching at seven, but he couldn't sleep anyway. Not that he even needed sleep. Now he was mostly walking through the heavily wooded roads, listening as only a sniper could. Each time he heard a branch snap, a leave crunch, a distant voice, he spun around to look. But it was never Abby. What could've happened to her? Maybe he was wrong, maybe Mikel really did know something more about this… He hadn't even been back to check on the two kidnappers since he interrogated them. Oh well, I bet someone's taking care of them. Gibbs didn't even really care. He kept trekking through the old roads, trying to get some kind of gut feeling about this. If this had been a normal case with a petty officer missing, his gut would've told him if she was…dead or not by now. Lately, however, he couldn't feel a thing. He was just too close to this. He sat down on a tree stump and looked around him. What if she went into the forest? They had assumed she stuck to the roads. There's no water or food around here Gunny! He head-slapped himself. How could he have not thought that she would go in search of water? The forests around them went on for miles, untouched by most people; she could've been lost in it this whole time! Jumping up he took out his phone to call in some favors. In an hour, a group of park rangers had put together a search party large enough to start looking.
N-C-I-S
If one word described this place, it would be old. Abby was standing in front of it, taking in its outside. Making sure it was really there and not some hallucination. It was empty, she'd already checked. And it had been for some time. The owner wasn't going to come knocking at any time, but this was still a huge break. The cabin was medium sized, had a single floor, a tiny porch, and about eight windows all around. She jiggled the doorknob, but it was locked tight. Grabbing the hairpin she'd been lucky enough to keep, she broke into the cabin.
The living room was spacious. There was a large run covering the floor, a dusty brown couch sitting on top of it. There was a fat, tiny TV sitting on top of a rolling entertainment center. The long skinny coffee table held two magazines, one a TV guide from 1997 and the other an issue of Time magazine from 1999. Yep, this place was old. The living room opened up into the kitchen, which was squished, barely fitting the old stove, refrigerator, and countertop taking up the rest of the space. She opened the door to the fridge, even though she knew anything in there would be spoiled, and discovered a few packages of trail mix. Sure they were old, but they were edible. She placed them on the counter, going out to explore the rest of the place. The bedroom was small too, the bed just barely fitting inside it. It had a clock/radio on the side of it, and after a few minutes of battery hunting, she found enough double A's to turn it on. She squealed when it ticked on, displaying the date and time. Turning it on to a random news channel, she left it on the side of the bed, just happy to hear the other voice floating through the cabin.
The only other room was a bathroom, but after a single look in the mirror she shivered. She still looked pretty bad. With an idea she ran back to the bedroom, looking through the closet to find a pair of sweatpants and a moderately clean football jersey. Changing into her new clothes (while trying not to think about the cleanliness of the previous owner's) she tossed the old ones out. They couldn't be recovered anyway. Then she went back to grab the food. Eating about one entire box of trail mix, she wandered over to the TV. Clicking it on, she was pleasantly surprised it worked. Whoever owned the cabin was still paying for electricity. Then maybe the water works too… Excitedly running to the shower, she happily cleaned herself from all the dirt of the last few days. And then she saw it. It was sitting on the kitchen table, and she had no idea she had missed it. A phone. An actual phone. If the electricity in the house worked, than the phone must too, right? Daintily walking toward it, she pulled the phone out of its cradle and pressed the corresponding buttons.
Please God, please let it work, please let it work….
N-C-I-S
Haha, I know, I'm so evil. Do you guys think it's going to work? The cabin was a lucky break for Abby; maybe a working phone is just too lucky. Or is it? :D Review!
~whynotlive