The Quantico Virginia police department had been called in for the second time that day to shots fired and this time the honor of placating them fell to Gibbs. The police chief himself had come down and was not pleased to find NCIS at the center of it all again. As Gibbs dealt with the irate man, he tried to rein in the anger that was pulsing through his veins. He wasn't really angry at having to deal with the local PD, he'd dealt with his fair share of police chief's in his day and knew what to say to get them to back off. What he was really pissed about, when he let himself examine his feelings that deep, was how the day had ended.

Private Simon Finch was dead and with him the location of all the evidence he had supposedly accumulated. How was the cold corpse lying in wait for his medical examiner back in the house supposed to give them what they needed to shut down the DC Angels and bring a halt to the Knights Templar's reach in the DC area? No, the evidence was gone, beyond his reach, and Gibbs was fuming. From the very beginning the case had done nothing but poke holes in his finely tuned exterior and Gibbs felt a bit like a boat on an ocean, being tossed about and battered against the rocks. A child was dead. A mother was dead and in the end, they might not have enough to bring down the originations responsible for their deaths. Then, to add insult to injury, he was going to have to tell the former Mrs. Admiral Finch that her entire family had been decimated in one fell swoop and he had nothing to show her for it except a tightlipped Jones who was already crying lawyer. There wasn't an empty loading bay around to help him get answers this time. The conversation with Gloria Finch was inevitable and there was nothing he could do to change that fact, much to his chagrin.

Gibbs tried not to lash out as the police chief jabbered on at him about professional courtesy and jurisdiction and all other manner of bullshit. Ziva must have picked up on his increasingly darkening mood because she stepped in between the argument and asked the Chief if he would be willing to aid them in their investigation instead of hindering it. Her interference had the Chief off and running on another longwinded diatribe, but she was able to maneuver him away from Gibbs. Gibbs threw her an appreciative look and walked away quickly. He pulled out his cell and called Ducky again to check on his ME's ETA. The sooner Ducky showed up, the sooner he could get his team out of there and back to NCIS. With the death of Finch and Jones in custody, there was a lot of work to be done. The doctor picked up on the first ring.

"Ah, Jethro. Two calls in one night. Everything alright over there?"

"I've pissed off the entire Quantico police force but other than that, everything's fine."

"One of your many talents, I dare say." The doctor joked good-naturedly.

"Are you and Palmer close? I could really use you here Duck."

"We just left the base and are headed your way now. With Palmer's driving, I expect we'll be there sooner rather than later." Gibbs could imagine the look his ME was giving his assistant. "Everyone there unscathed?"

"Tony dislocated his shoulder but other than that, no injuries on our end. Finch is dead, though."

"Poor boy and how sad for dear Mrs. Finch. Did you correct Anthony's shoulder?"

"Ziva did, I think" Gibbs scanned the milling pockets of people searching for his agent. He couldn't see Tony anywhere.

"Well, tell him I'll take a look at it for him when I get there. We're only a few miles out."

"You got it. Thanks, Duck." Gibbs didn't wait to hear if Ducky returned the goodbye; he was too busy scanning the faces of the police and military personnel around him looking for the familiar face he was searching for. When his sweep came up empty again, he was starting to get mad. He needed Tony out here and helping with the scene. It wasn't like him to be absent. His team was a well ordered machine, Gibbs had seen to that personally, and they all knew what was expected of them before and after a crime scene. For Tony to be skirting his duties, well that was tantamount to high treason in Gibbs' book. He stomped over and pulled Ziva from the police chief in mid conversation.

"Have you seen Tony?"

"He is not with you?" She asked, conducting her own scan of the people around them.

"No. You set his shoulder, right?"

"I did then came to assist you with Jones at the rear of the house. I did not see him after." Gibbs started for the house, anger building up again so that a sharp admonishment was ready on his lips for when he reentered the house and found Tony. He did not expect to find the home empty with no sign of his agent.

"Damn it! Tony, where are you?' He yelled, heading down the hall to the back bedrooms. "If you're using the can in this house, I'm going to be smacking the back of your head for the rest of your career!" Nothing. There was no response and a quick look into all the back rooms produced no Tony. The anger in his gut was quickly turning to concern. Ziva met him back near the destroyed front door. Her search had also come up empty.

"Where the hell did he go?"

"Gibbs, something is wrong. This is not right." She was right and his concern had reached its peak and was now threatening to turn into panic. He didn't let it show however and schooled his features and vented the panic into action.

"Ziva, get outside and let everyone know what's going on. Get whoever you can to start searching the perimeter of the house." The former Mossad agent quickly agreed and was out the door in a flash and Gibbs surveyed the room trying to imagine where Tony might have gone. The only access points out of the house were the front door and the shattered sliding glass door at the back. It was the sliding glass door that pulled his attention so he stepped out into the fresh air and surveyed the ground. They were going to lose light soon and he hurriedly searched near the base of the door for any sign his agent had been there. He spotted Tony's abandoned Sig only a few seconds later. There was only one reason Tony would have dropped his weapon and left it where it lie. Gibbs' stomach bottomed out and his eyes frantically searched the shadowy backyard. There was nothing to be seen.

Shit.

Ziva pounded around the corner of the house as Gibbs donned a glove and picked up the Sig from the ground. A look of shared discontent passed between them but Gibbs refused to believe the worst or even allow the worst case scenario to play out in his mind. Tony was okay. No one dared mess with the members of his team... but wasn't that platitude really just bullshit? No matter how hard Gibbs tried, there was still evil in the world and it constantly tried to get its claws into the agents he'd spent years cultivating and growing to care for. Standing in the evening light, not knowing where Tony was or if he was okay, Gibbs kicked himself for not showing the agent more often how much he really cared. Then there was the added frustration of the involvement of a Mexican drug cartel in their lives. A drug cartel that was known for severing heads and killing all who got in their way. And if anyone had gotten in heir way, it was Gibbs, Tony, Ziva and Tim. How could he ever hope to protect them from such terrible men?

Dialoguing his fears internally wasn't helping Tony at the moment so he pushed them aside and wracked his brain for the next logical step. His infamous gut had been falling down on the job as of late. If they were back at NCIS in the safety of the bullpen all it would take was a look and he'd have three intelligent agents firing off ideas on what to do next. As it stood now he only had himself and Ziva and she appeared to be just as uncertain as he was and trying just as hard as he not to show it. The tree line beyond the property offered cover and a good place to hide and Gibbs decided they would start there. He remembered the smuggler's hole Tony and McGee had found Finch's drug stash in. It was as good a place as any to start looking. Finally finding direction, Gibbs quickly bagged Tony's discarded gun and tossed it inside the house in the direction of Simon Finch's body. The CSIs would find it and see that it was properly cataloged.

"Ziva, let's try for the trees." He unholstered his gun and made for the back of the property, Ziva following closely behind with her own gun drawn. He could hear far off voices shouting Tony's name as the tactical team turned search party and he contemplated calling out himself. Before he could try, he spotted a figure crashing through the brush near the tree line. The darkly dressed figure emerged cautiously a few yards ahead of them.

"Martinez!" Ziva exclaimed loudly, instantly recognizing the leader of the Knights Templar before Gibbs could even focus on the man's face. Realizing who they were, Martinez immediately took back off into the woods with Ziva hot in his heals. Gibbs knew he would be worthless in a foot chase but crashed off after the two fleeing figures anyway. He would not lose another team member to these animals and Miguel Martinez had proven himself a merciless foe. Ziva was an excellent agent, former Mossad and built for these situations and he shouldn't be worrying about her, but evil had a habit of surprising him and insinuating itself into his life and he couldn't risk leaving Ziva alone with the dangerous drug cartel leader.

Gibbs tried his best to maneuver through the trees but the terrain was treacherous and one particular root had his knee twisting painfully. Luckily it was nothing more than a little twinge of pain and he continued on until he came to a small clearing. He stopped for a moment and focused his hearing, trying to hear Ziva and the fleeing Martinez but all was quiet around him. He was about to move on but something white near a rock at the edge of the clearing caught his eye.

The white was glinting even in the weak light that was still managing to make its way through the trees. He trained the barrel of his gun at the whiteness, sure that Miguel Martinez was hiding behind the large outcropping of rock protruding from the forest floor. His heart began to flutter in his chest. The tables were suddenly turned and Ziva, the backup he now desperately needed, was nowhere to be seen and he was alone in the clearing with the psychopath. He reminded himself quickly of his skills and how they made the situation routine. He knew this. He could do this in his sleep and it was imperative that they bring Martinez down. Gibbs pulled on old training, imagining the cowering cartel leader as one of the cardboard cutouts he'd shot at with ease in his exercises as a sniper in training. He would make quick work of the bastard but he had to hurry. Tony was still out there somewhere.

Gibbs crouched low and tried to move forward without noise. Complete silence was impossible with the undergrowth and he was sure Martinez knew he was there. He was surprised that the cartel leader hadn't made a break for it or at least tried to shoot at him. Gibbs was exposed out in the open clearing, the safety of the trees far behind him and his gun his only leverage. If Martinez did decide to make a break for it, Gibbs would have only one chance to bring the cartel leader down. There were any number of trees nearby that Martinez could dive behind and plenty more to cover an escape. Gibbs realized with a sinking feeling that, if Martinez was able to dodge his bullets and make a break for it, by himself Gibbs would likely be unable to stop his escape. If he didn't work fast, there was the possibility that Martinez would get away and he couldn't let that happen. Not with Tony missing and not with the countless dead bodies Martinez had to answer for. Gibbs steeled himself. He was good with a gun, better than most, but he wasn't perfect. Gibbs slouched forward cautiously.

He was seconds away from charging, hoping desperately that the cartel leader wasn't armed, when the unmistakable sound of two gunshot echoed in the air around him. It came from his right and was quickly followed by one more that sent birds scattering from the trees. Gibbs paused and held his breath but nothing in the clearing moved. The gunshots didn't make sense. If Martinez was here in the clearing with him, then who the hell was firing? Unless...

Gibbs closed the gap between himself and the rock with gun at the ready. He was close enough now to find that the white he was seeing couldn't possibly be a person crouching down. The rock gave the illusion of sticking up straight out of the ground, but in reality it was protruding from a small rise in the earth of the forest floor. There was no room for a crouched figure to hide, only enough room to slightly obscure a discarded NCIS Kevlar vest. His heart skipped a beat and he picked up the vest with shaking hands.

"DiNozzo!?" He called, scanning the forest floor for any sign of his agent. "Tony, damn it, answer me!" He'd spent all day, hell all week trying to control panic every time it clenched in his gut, but when he looked down and realized the vest in his hand was stained with blood, and lots of it, he was choking on it and his heart rate skyrocketed.

"DINOZZO!" The bellow that escaped from his lips was borderline hysterical and Gibbs took off into the woods. He headed in the direction of the gunshots, searching every inch of forest floor for some sign of Tony and calling out his name every few steps. There was no sign. Nothing hinted that the agent had been there and no noise permeated the fog of his panic. He practically fell over Ziva in his frantic search.

"Ziva, I found..." he was going to tell her about the vest, let her see that he was half crazed with worry and in need of her ever present cool calm to ground him. It was a testament to how every out of control he felt that he was contemplating reveling to his agent just what a state he was in. Ziva, however, was standing over the prone figure of Miguel Martinez and appeared to need grounding of her own. The fallen cartel member had two shots to the upper chest that were slowly being surrounded by circles of crimson and a third shot to the head almost directly at the center of his forehead. An abandoned semi-automatic weapon lay a few inches from an outstretched hand. Ziva stood over the corpse and was breathing heavily as if fighting for control. Gibbs, forgetting his own loss of control for a moment, came up beside her and placed a soft hand on one of her trembling forearms.

"Ziva," was all he said and her confused eyes met his. It was unnerving to see Ziva this way. He'd witnessed the state only a handful of times. She had looked at him like that after she'd shot Andrew Hoffman in that warehouse nearly six years ago. He pushed her arm down and to the side, taking the aim off the corpse of Miguel Martinez and pointing her gun harmlessly at the ground. The action seemed to pull her out of the confusion.

"Gibbs?"

"What happened, Ziva?" He asked quietly, not wanting to hinder her return to calm.

"He was running, I chased him, managed to keep up, but he turned on me. I got him twice in the chest and brought him down but then he started talking. Oh god, Gibbs."

"It's okay, Ziva."

"No, you don't understand, Gibbs! He started telling me that he... that Tony was..."

"He said something about, Tony?" He hadn't realized it but he had taken Ziva's shoulders in his hands and was shaking her slightly. He made himself let go. "I can't find him, Ziva. Tell me what Martinez said."

"He told me what he did... about Tony's screams... how he begged. I couldn't listen anymore, Gibbs. I... I shot again..." Gibbs understood what Ziva was trying to say, that she had delivered the head shot to Martinez in the heat of the moment but they didn't have time to worry about that now. Martinez had done something to Tony.

"Think Ziva! Did he give you any hint as to where he left Tony?"

"Nothing. All he would tell me was that we'd never find him." Gibbs swore loudly and stalked away from Ziva. He pulled his radio out and relayed to the tactical team all that had happened and was assured by the voice on the other end that all available officers and tactical team members were on their way to help search the woods for Tony. Gibbs quickly inquired after Ducky and if he'd arrived on scene yet, but the voice on the other end of the radio told him they'd halted all traffic into the crime scene and had asked Dr. Mallard and his assistant to please wait until the scene could be secured again. He couldn't argue with the logic but knew it had probably pissed Ducky off to no end.

Ziva joined him again and this time seemed to be back in control of herself. He realized a focused calm had also descended upon himself. The time for panic was over. They needed clear heads to track down their missing friend if Martinez' last words were to be believed.

"Let's start back towards the Finch house and see if we can find him before we meet up with the tactical team.

"What about Martinez" Ziva asked, not looking back over at the corpse.

"He'll be fine there for now." The Israeli nodded and they took off back towards the Finch property. The sun would soon be gone and storm clouds were gathering in the east. Gibbs thought he could almost feel the slightest tremor in the ground beneath his feet from the thunder off in the distance and the wind picked up in the trees. The thought of Tony out in the woods bleeding and exposed had him picking up his pace and his scans of the forest floor around him. Several yards away to the left, Ziva was doing the same thing.

They were finding no sign of Tony and would soon meet up with the search party he could now hear off in the distance, calling Tony's name. Gibbs was getting more frustrated by the minute and ran through everything he knew about Miguel Martinez.

The man was a cold blooded killer who would destroy anything and anyone in his path so it was likely that where ever Tony was, he was in bad shape. Martinez had most likely been hiding in the woods when they had arrived at the house tonight. If the evidence that Simon Finch had collected was so dangerous to him, why hadn't the drug cartel leader been in the house interrogating Finch himself? He'd killed a six year old boy and his mother trying to get to Finch yet he had left Darius Jones to question him and had been out in the woods...

The thought hit him like a freight train. What would have brought Martinez out into the trees? Knowledge of a smugglers hole conveniently hidden in the woods near the backyard of the Finch house.

Gibbs took off at a run and yelled for Ziva to follow. He made a man dash in he approximate direction of the hole, praying that his memory of the scene photos and Tony and McGee's own descriptions were accurate enough for him to find it in the gathering dark. When he thought he'd found its approximate location, he fell to his knees in the brush and began feeling around for the door. Ziva immediately picked up on what he was after and knelt down a few feet away to help search. Gibbs' heart was pounding in his chest. The smuggler's hole was nearby, he was sure of it, but part of him didn't want to find the opening in the ground. He was terrified of what he might find there. Tony had been a magnet for disaster the entire case but only because, Gibbs realized with a sudden wave of some emotion he couldn't describe, the younger agent had poured himself into every aspect of the case. He'd been there with Gibbs to visit the Admiral, he'd been with McGee at their first encounter with Finch, he'd been behind the glass as Gibbs interrogated the Admiral's wife and he had been there in the loading bay when Gibbs had had to do the unthinkable. Tony's unwavering loyalty hit Gibbs hard and had his eyes misting and his hands moving all the quicker. What felt like an eternity later, Ziva was yelling for him.

"Gibbs! Gibbs! Over here!" He was on his feet before he knew it and ran to Ziva just as she started to pull the heavy door up from its hiding place under the brush. He bent down to help her and the heavy door was flung back. The both bit back strangled cries of rage at what they had uncovered. Tony's body had been manhandled into the small space and Gibbs' heart feared the worst. A cry crawled up the back of his throat but he refused to release it.

'Not yet,' he told himself inside his head. 'Not until you have proof.'

Ziva had her hands on Tony in an instant, checking desperately at his carotid for a pulse. Gibbs held his breath and waited for his proof.

"There's a pulse but it's very weak." This time he let a little strangled cry of relief release with the breath he'd been holding.

"Gibbs, we've got to get him out of this hole." He fell to his knees beside Ziva, ignoring his protesting knee as it screamed at him for the abuse. Working together the two agents carefully unfolded Tony from the small space and tried not to do him further injury. As far as Gibbs could tell Tony's left leg was broken but unlike McGee's similar injury, Tony's break had the bone protruding grotesquely through the skin of his lower leg. His left arm looked to be broken as well and while it stuck out an unnatural angle, no bones had pierced the skin. Realizing he'd forgotten to radio for help, Gibbs pulled out his radio and hailed whoever was listening once they'd laid Tony carefully out on the ground. He could see the Finch house through the trees but no one was around them. The tactical team had begun their search of the woods far to the left of their location.

"AGENT DOWN! NEED AN AMBULANCE NOW! WE'RE TO THE WEST OF THE HOUSE NEAR THE TREE LINE! AGENT DOWN!" He barely registered the reply that crackled through as his attention was pulled back to Tony. He absently noted that the hand he'd used to radio for help was stained red and that the radio had slipped slimily from his hand to land in the grass beside him.

Ziva had pulled a knife from her pocket and began cutting away the black fabric of Tony's t-shirt from his torso. Gibbs almost wanted to stop her from pulling back the loose flaps of shirt when she'd finished cutting, unable to deal with the images his brain was flashing of what they might find there. He didn't stop her though and as she peeled back the fabric from the congealed blood that covered Tony's torso, he couldn't avert his eyes from the trenches carved into his agents flesh. The worst was low to the belly where a long and jagged deep slash was seeping copious amounts of Tony's blood out into the brush beneath him. Gibbs hands instinctively shot out to put pressure on the wound while Ziva's hands went to other wounds his shaky hand's couldn't reach.

The war zone that was Tony's chest washed a wave of nausea over Gibbs and he struggled to keep the sickness at bay. He couldn't afford the distraction and tried to blank his mind to what it was seeing. It was an easy process for him when the victim beneath his hands was someone he didn't know, but this was Tony and the emotions warring inside his chest would not quiet. The sight of his agent, bleeding to death amongst the tress, was pulling such strong emotions from him, some he never knew himself capable of feeling. He flitted from one to the next in quick succession. Rage, hopelessness, pain, confusion, anger, uselessness, all rolling around in his chest in a fight for dominance. He tried as best he could to ignore the battle within him and find his focus.

Their hands were going up and down at an alarming rate with the quick and shallow inhalations Tony was taking. Gibbs eyes met Ziva's and he knew they were both thinking the same thing. Tony needed an ambulance and he needed it now. Their hands would not long hold back the inevitable. He'd lost so much blood. Gibbs increased the pressure he was putting on Tony's wounds and the movement pulled a moan from Tony. It was the first sound he'd made since they'd found him and suddenly his eyes were slitting open.

"Tony?" His agents eyes were unfocused and glazed over.

"Tony!" even his name wouldn't bring the younger agent's eyes to Gibbs who finally issued a sharp "DiNozzo!" which snapped Tony's slatted eyes to him.

"m'sorry boss..."

"No, don't talk," Gibbs said quietly, trying to hold his agent's wavering gaze. He didn't understand how Tony was conscious, but he wasn't about to question it. It was a relief to see Tony's open eyes even if they were unfocused and confused.

"… really… screwed…up. Got…k'napped… like a damn…. rookie." Tony was stopping on every other word or so to draw in oxygen. Gibbs tried not to flinch at the rivulet of blood that had started running from the side of his agent's mouth. He dared not move his hands from the wounds on Tony's torso to wipe the little river away. Ziva whispered low, trying to sooth him.

"It's all right, Tony."

Gibbs barely registered that the first of the promised officers had arrived beside him. One of the men let out an audible gasp when he reached them. Ziva gave the man a sharp look but Gibbs didn't dare break his eye contact with Tony in case... God forbid, it was the last time he could speak to his agent.

"Martinez wanted... the evidence."

"We got it covered, DiNozzo, try not to talk."

"Knife… How bad… Boss?"

"Where is that fucking ambulance!?" Gibbs bellowed, watching as Tony's eyes rolled up into his head before Gibbs had the chance to answer his question.

"Come on, Tony. Don't do this." He would have shaken the fallen agent if his hands hadn't been preoccupied elsewhere.

"There was a massive pile up on I-95." An officer said to him, getting on his knees beside Tony's head and placing the mask from a portable oxygen tank over the unconscious agents face. "Ambulance is 10 minutes out." Gibbs' didn't know where on earth they had found the oxygen tank and he didn't care.

"My ME is close, someone radio Dr. Mallard. He's got equipment." He listened as someone unseen behind acquiesced to his request.

It wasn't supposed to happen this way. Gibbs was not supposed to be here holding Tony's insides in, sickened by the blood welling up from between his fingers and through Ziva's. He risked a glance from Tony's face to hers and realized she was crying. He'd never often seen Ziva David cry, but tears were tracking down her cheeks and she was murmuring softly over DiNozzo in Hebrew. Gibbs looked back at Tony and noticed a pale tinge to the agents skin that hadn't been there before. He felt his own tears threaten mutinously and he prayed to a god he no longer believed that his ME would get there soon.

Kneeling down on the forest floor, keeping his hands clamped over bleeding wounds, Gibbs felt a peculiar feeling descend upon him. It was a feeling that he often got when he said goodbye to someone he'd connected with on a case or in his life. Zach Tanner, Maddie Tyler, Hollis... It was a feeling of something coming to a close, something he didn't want to end and Gibbs felt words start and didn't try to stop them.

"You do not die today, DiNozzo." Gibbs choked out as Tony struggled for each breath under the oxygen mask. "Do you hear me? Not today and not like this. Ducky is on his way, so is the ambulance. You hold on until they get here. You hold on until they get you to Bethesda and then you hold on even after that. This is not how Anthony DiNozzo goes out. Not this way and certainly not at the hands of some two-bit gang banger. You hear me, Tony?"

You. Will. Not. Die. The memory of those words spoken years ago flooded his mind and he closed his eyes against it, anger winning out over all the other emotions and boiling in his veins.

"You stay with me, DiNozzo, damn it! You stay with me!"

"He's here," Ziva said quietly with a tilt of her head. Gibbs glanced over his shoulder and saw his ME moving quickly towards them.

"DUCKY!" He bellowed over his shoulder and watched the ME's pace quicken. He'd made it. His ME had made it in minutes. Gibbs looked up and met Ducky's eyes and didn't have time to check the raw fear he knew the good doctor would see on his face. He didn't care, though, just like he didn't care when he was unceremoniously pushed from Tony's side and the doctor set to work with grim determination. Ziva was batted away as well and Jimmy took over for her on the other side of Tony.

Gibbs watched Ducky and Jimmy work, their motions almost like a well choreographed dance. Ducky took the pressure bandages Jimmy had at the ready for him and covered the worst of the knife work with the white gauze then reached for Ziva's hands and replaced them on Tony's torso. He felt for a pulse at Tony's neck and asked after the ambulance with a steady and calm voice.

"ETA is seven minutes."

"He doesn't have seven minutes." Ducky's expression had turned grim and he removed the finger from Tony's pulse point. Jimmy, evidently understanding the look, held the two defibrillator paddles out to Ducky who took them with shaky hands. Gibbs' tried not to shake himself. If Tony needed to be shocked then that meant he didn't have a pulse and if Tony didn't have a pulse then that meant his agent was dead. He tried not to let the thought destroy his foundation, it was the only thing keeping him up.

Tony's body arched away from the ground as the shock was delivered. Gibbs watched with breath held as Ducky searched again for a pulse and then strangled back a cheer when he saw the faintest lift at the side of Ducky's lips. It was the doctor's version of a smile under duress.

"I have a pulse!" He exclaimed and Gibbs let out the breath he was holding. Some color had come back to DiNozzo's cheeks and his chest was rising and falling again and stayed that way until the paramedics arrived. Everyone was happy to relinquish control to the experts who worked quickly to stabilize Tony as best they could and get him ready for transport. Gibbs moved in to help the paramedics roll Tony onto a stretcher and found himself with hands clamped tight over the wounds again as the paramedics grabbed either side of the board to walk Tony out to the ambulance. Their gurney would have been useless over the soft earth of the backyard.

When they reached the street the crowd of onlookers had grown and night had completely fallen. The clouds he'd noted off in the distance ages ago had arrived and were spitting a fine mist down onto their heads and every so often a crack of lightning lit up the night sky. He didn't have time to count the seconds before the thunder came, a long ago tradition he'd shared with his daughter.

The paramedics loaded Tony in the back of the rig and Gibbs climbed in after. He'd expected resistance, even had the speech he would give to be allowed in ready to go, but his way was not barred and he was allowed in without comment. Ziva stood outside in the misting rain, staring in at them, her urgent eyes going back and forth between him and Tony and the paramedic securing Tony's gurney. The driver stepped around her to close the doors and Gibbs caught Ziva's gaze once more through the back window as the rig prepared to pull off. She had stopped crying but her eyes held a desperation that had Gibbs wanting to throw open the doors and take her with them. He felt as though he were leaving a man behind, but Tony needed him now and as the rig pulled away from her and the siren wailed to life he looked away and focused on his mission.

Author's note: another chapter that ended up twice as long as the original version! Tony talked earlier about a headspace he finds himself in sometimes during intense situations and I think i was unconsciously describing where I go when I get into a writing groove. I hope you're having as much fun reading this as I am of writing it. I'll try to get another chapter up soon. I've got the last few chapters outlined but not at all polished. Please leave a review, it will help motivate me to post quicker! :)