Disclaimer: See chapter 1.

A/N: I know this has been slow but I'm having a few issues on the home front, so to speak. Rest assured, I will finish, but it's just going to take some time. Multiple thanks to the ever-faithful co-conspiring Alaidh for all her help. Reviews are always appreciated.

Chapter 14:

"Danielle? What are you doing here."

"I'm a doctor," she said with a gentle smile. "I work here."

"Oh," Tony realised guiltily he'd never enquired as to her occupation when he interviewed her.

"What happened?" Danielle asked, taking in Tony's battered appearance. She looked at the file she'd been handed but the notes there didn't really illuminate her other than the word "fall".

"I fell down some fire stairs," Tony stated, glumly, matter-of-fact. "A whole flight of fire stairs."

"Okay, so did you lose consciousness at all?"

Tony flinched as Danielle touched is jaw, angling his face to the light. He nodded and instantly regretted the movement as his head pounded. "Yeah, I think so, for a coupla seconds."

"Aside from the obvious, I'm going to have to make sure you haven't done yourself an injury anywhere…"

"I can't feel?" He sighed deeply. "I know."

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

"Well, you look like crap," was Gibbs' greeting as Tony slowly rolled into the "office". Now that the bruises had come out completely, he looked worse than he had the previous night in the hospital. He'd checked himself out that morning after a nearly sleepless night – punctuated by hospital staff waking him to ask inane questions about the date and president and other pointless things.

He'd grabbed a cab from outside the door and gone to pick up his car – grateful to find it intact – and had driven it back to the house. He never thought he'd be so grateful to see his former home. He was unshaven, bone tired and his head still spun mightily with every movement. He felt in need of a good soaking bath. Damn, he thought, no bathtub downstairs. He cast a moody look up the stairs, missing the ability to move from floor to floor with the ease he'd taken for granted most of his life. And then Gibbs…

"Thanks, boss. Nice to see you, too," he responded in kind. He sat slightly skewed in the chair, protecting his bruised side, one foot clad only in a white sock, the outline of bandaging showing through from underneath. There were dried bloodstains and dirt staining his jeans, which had a small tear at the knee showing an iodised graze underneath, and a new set of scrapes adorned his well-worn leather jacket, aside from the neat row of stitches in his brow which met the large purple bruise running down the side of his head.

Gibbs' eyes dropped to the injured foot.

"Not broken," Tony supplied, not entirely truthfully as in fact there was a chipped bone in his ankle, but it could have been considerably worse.

"Hmmm." Gibbs' response was mild enough. "Go have a shower," he ordered bluntly.

Tony stiffly half-turned to go, giving Gibbs a view of the undamaged side of his face. "Yes, boss."

xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Tony sat on the shower bench, taking inventory of his many hurts as the water sprayed over him. Hello, Tony. Just keep your hands where I can see them. Tony looked down at his hands, seeing the skinned knuckles. He tightened one into a fist experimentally then relaxed the fingers and rested it on his thigh, imagining the ring worn by the perpetrator in the video, but which had been invisible under gloves or not there at all the night before. God. He leaned his head back against the wall of the shower and grimaced through closed eyes as it hit. Damn. There was something there, just tickling at the back of his brain. Something familiar about the muffled voice – a speech pattern, a tone.

"Gees," Tony said out loud, frustrated that he still couldn't place a name on the hands, yet certain that he knew the ring.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

"Where's DiNozzo?" Tony could just make out Gibbs' voice through the closed door of the bedroom.

"I think he's still takin' a shower, boss," McGee responded.

"Well, tell him I want to see him, pronto."

Tony grimaced. He was pretty sure he wasn't going to enjoy the forthcoming conversation with Gibbs. He'd messed up and he knew it. There was a soft knock at the door. "Yeah," he said, dropping the bandage he'd been awkwardly rewinding around his injured ankle. He watched it unravel, rolling under the bed, then looked up at McGee, who had stuck his head in the door. "What's up?"

"Boss wants you."

"I heard." Tony grimaced as he reached for the dangling strip of bandage, intending to continue what he had been doing before the interruption.

McGee looked behind him quickly then came fully into the room, shutting the door after him. He crouched down and retrieved the end of the bandage, rolled it up and continued to wind it around Tony's injured ankle, finishing by fastening it in place. "Thanks, McGee," Tony said gratefully.

McGee shrugged. "You're welcome. Gibbs is waiting."

"I'll be there in a minute."

xoxoxoxoxoxox

Tony hesitated outside the door, taking the opportunity for a few not-so-deep breaths and to don his most "innocent" grin before pushing it open and entering. He had a fair idea of what was coming.

"Hi, boss," he said, putting on a confident front.

Gibbs smiled back, and Tony instantly quailed.

Kate was typing up some notes on McGee's laptop. She had looked around curiously when Tony entered the room, but soon resumed her work until she sensed Gibbs' stony silence. At a pointed look from the boss, she gathered up her notebook and left the document open and incomplete on the computer. She left the room, shutting the heavy oak door quietly behind her.

Tony peered curiously at the computer screen, but his attention snapped back when Gibbs spoke again.

"What the hell did you think you were doing, DiNozzo?" Gibbs raised his hand to slap his senior agent across the back of the head, then seeing the condition of said head, withdrew it.

Tony cringed and hesitated, trying to formulate a reasonable response. "I had no reason to think there was any danger in going to speak to Nataliya, boss," he said finally.

"On the contrary, DiNozzo, in view of the circumstances you had every reason to think it."

"What do you mean, boss?"

"Think about it."

"Well…" Tony floundered. His brain really wasn't up the usual glib manoeuvring in which he engaged normally when he had been caught out. "I guess…I wanted to speak to her again alone because I thought she was hiding something and that maybe…"

"Maybe what?"

"Maybe she'd speak to me alone where she wouldn't with Kate there."

"And why would she do that, DiNozzo?"

"Why because of my natural charm, boss." Tony grinned broadly. "I was pretty sure she knew more than what she told us earlier."

"And did she?" Gibbs had begun pacing, but at this point he stopped, pulled out a chair in front of Tony and sat in it.

"Did she what, boss?"

"Know more than she said earlier."

"Yes, boss, that is, she told us…"

Gibbs raised an eyebrow. He'd already gotten the information from Kate but he wanted to see what else Tony had picked up on.

"..ah…but you know this already, boss."

"I want to hear it from you, DiNozzo. From the top."

Tony sighed then caught his boss's severe expression. "Nataliya called me."

"Time."

Tony consulted his phone and held it up for Gibbs to see. "4.13 pm. She sounded upset – scared even. She asked me to come to her apartment because she had some info for the case that might help. She gave me twenty minutes to get there…" Tony looked up at Gibbs and shrugged. "Boss, you know what it's like – sometimes it takes me that long just to get in the car…" He paused before continuing, "You and McGee weren't here. Don't know where Kate was. I left as fast as I could."

Gibbs smirked somewhat at the last comment.

"I drove to her apartment. Went up to her floor in the elevator and then the power went out. The apartment door was unlocked – it popped open as soon as I touched it. I entered. A gun was pressed to my neck. Nataliya was tied to a chair on the far side of the room. The guy with the gun wanted info on the case – didn't believe me when I said I didn't have any. Said that if I didn't give him what I had, he'd kill Nataliya. I heard the gun cock, so I grabbed his arm. The bullet went wide. He ran, I chased…"

"And you fell down the fire stairs like the klutz you are."

"Right, boss," he said sheepishly. "And that's when Kate arrived on the scene, coming up the stairs – right after the perp ran the other way."

"And this guy knew you?"

"He knew my name. A lot of people have that information."

Gibbs held up his hand as if to slap Tony's head but held back. "What's your gut tellin' you, DiNozzo?"

"Could be he knows me…but I'm not sure. He's familiar somehow, but with the mask and all…I just can't put my finger on it, boss."

Gibbs thought for a moment.

"Boss, how did Kate figure out where I was? I didn't leave a note or anything with an address…did I?" Tony asked suddenly.

"No, but you did write on a notepad." Gibbs gestured to the lined pad sitting on the tabletop beside the computer. The top sheet had been lightly rubbed over with a soft pencil to reveal what had been indented into it by writing on the previous sheet.

"Ah…frottage…" Tony smirked. He pushed forward a few feet to get a clearer view and recognised his own haphazard scrawling of Nataliya's address. Our Katy's come a long way, he thought, pleased with her and grateful that she'd shown up when she did. He became aware that Gibbs was giving him a curious look.

"Frottage?" Gibbs asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, frottage."

Gibbs' eyebrow rose even further.

"From the French "frotter" meaning to rub. The technique of creating a design by rubbing, like with a pencil, over an object placed underneath the paper. Rubbing over the indentations like that is also a kind of frottage. It can also be the act of obtaining sexu…"

"DiNozzo!"

"Sorry, boss."

"Frottage probably saved your life."

Tony had the good grace to remain silent.

"Next time, wait for backup."

"Yes, boss."