Hi all! Apologies for the fairly long absence! I'm well and truly into uni life now, so I'm feeling that this may be the last update you get from me for a little while. I'll be posting again around Christmas, though! Maybe not that much, but I'm still aiming to get this story done by the end of this year so I can go back to focusing on its sequel.
Anyways, thanks to DS2010, Dobby and Padfoot, and 19Teardrop94 for your reviews! I'm glad you guys are all enjoying the story!
Anyway, guys, enjoy!
Sitting at her desk, Ziva tapped impatiently on the desk in front of her as she waited for news. McGee was sat at his own desk, and she knew that he was waiting as well, but for some reason she felt that slight bit more impatient than he.
Shown by the look of irritation on his face as he looked up from his computer and over at her.
"Could you stop that?"
She hesitated, her pen hovering in the air, as she looked over at McGee. "I am sorry?"
"Quit tapping your pen on the desk. It's irritating."
"It is not my fault I am on the brink."
McGee rolled his eyes at her. "You're on edge, Ziva. And it's okay to be worried – I didn't say anything against that. I said stop tapping."
She scoffed. "You would rather that I pace?"
"I don't think this office needs worn floors, Ms David."
Both agents looked up to see Director Vance descending the staircase leading up to his office. His sharp eyes roamed over the office floor briefly before landing on the MCRT's bullpen, and he completed his descent before entering the bullpen to speak to the two agents.
"I've been updated on the situation," he informed them both, and when both agents straightened up his lips quirked up into the smallest of smiles. "Andrew has been found and is currently being checked over by paramedics. According to DiNozzo, they should be taking him to the hospital in the next ten minutes or so."
"Ten minutes?" Ziva cried, at the same time McGee gave a doubtful, "Hospital?"
"Will he be okay for ten minutes?" the female agent demanded, a deep frown of concern present on her face. Andrew was almost like a little brother to her, someone she cared about and felt responsibility for – if he had passed out at a phonebooth, then they had better be taking good enough care of him to allow recovery.
"According to DiNozzo, he's awake and talking now."
"But how long is he actually going to stay in the hospital?" McGee asked, and when the other two turned to him with looks of confusion on their faces, he decided to elaborate. "Has no one else noticed that the longer the Parkson kids have been living with Gibbs, the more stubborn they appear to get? If Gibbs hates staying put when there's a case to solve, what about Andrew? Pretty sure he'll be one of the first to want to get revenge."
"Did Tony mention anything about Alex?" Ziva asked, the worry appearing on her face again.
"Unfortunately, no." The NCIS Director didn't miss the hissed curse Ziva gave. "Is there something important pertaining to him that we need to know?"
The female agent glanced to McGee for a moment, seemingly looking for some sort of confirmation that what she was about to say would be the right thing to say, before launching into her explanation.
"Considering we already know that Alex has some long-lasting ties with SCORPIA, I decided to take a closer look at the list that was on the hard-drive and compare them with the names of agents that have been given to me by my contacts." Moving towards the TV, she picked up the clicker from Gibbs' desk and brought up some pictures on the screen. "These are the individuals that Alex may have come into contact with, when compared with the mission files we obtained from MI6."
"You hacked MI6?" Vance directed his attention to McGee, who gave him a sheepish smile. He sighed. "I know nothing about this."
"It never happened," McGee responded dutifully, before Ziva continued.
"Then there is the list of agents on the hard drive that are known SCORPIA agents, but Alex would have been unlikely to come into contact with at any point in his life." Another click, and more photographs appeared on the screen. "Of course, the majority of these individuals have now been detained or killed, or are in unknown locations and have not been seen since the fall of SCORPIA earlier this summer," she explained, "apart from these men."
Clicking again, all of the images disappeared apart from a handful, with two of them larger and much clearer than the rest. Ziva walked up to the screen and tapped on the first of the two images.
"Agent William Carrol," she introduced, gesturing to the individual with short, dark hair and dark eyes, staring back at them with an indifferent expression on his face. "An ex-CIA agent who earned the nickname 'Walker' when he hiked ten miles to track down a lost lead. According to fellow agents, the lack of commendation he received in his time there slowly drove him mad, and he left, never to be seen again." Clicking once, an airport feed was brought up on the screen. "This footage was taken in 2011, in Italy. Rome, to be exact. Carrol was spotted arriving at the airport following a flight from the U.S. However, he was never seen actually leaving the airport, and there is no further footage of him out in the city… or the entire country, to be exact. The closest we've got to it would be earlier this month, when it was suspected that he arrived on American soil under an alias." Another video popped up onto the screen, this one a lot less clear. "Unfortunately, the footage appears to be damaged – we do not know why or how, but it can be assumed that this man is in the country.
"This man, on the other hand," the second individual's picture came forward. "His name is—"
"His name is Dominic Harrison." The voice came from the elevator, and all three individuals in the bullpen turned to see Lisa Harrison approaching, a dark expression on her face.
There was a thick silence as the unasked question floated about the bullpen, before Lisa's lips pursed, her eyes meeting those of every person there before finally landing on the image of the man on the screen.
The man with the same fair hair and blue eyes as the woman stood before them right then.
"He… he's my brother."
Opening his eyes slowly, Andrew wasn't surprised at all to find that he was in a hospital bed. Granted, the room was nowhere near as bright as he was used to when first waking up in a hospital bed, but there was the same overly-clean smell and the slightly rough sheets surrounding him. Pushing himself up into a sitting position with a wince, he decided to glance around the room.
The empty room.
The definitely surprised him. Usually when he woke up in a hospital bed, there was at least one person in the room with him, either asleep or watching over him. And since Gibbs often accompanied him for his check-ups, he was also used to the smell of strong black coffee filling the room. Being alone in a hospital room like this was a foreign and kind of scary feeling for him.
Then again… it meant that there was no one in the room to watch him if he tried to get away.
Looking down, he realised that he had an IV line running into his arm, and he followed the line up to the bag hanging beside his bed. Even he wasn't stupid enough to carelessly rip the needle from his arm – the line was probably giving him the nutrients he had been missing for the past few days he'd been locked up, and whilst he was very grateful for that, right now he had more pressing matters at hand.
Slowly pulling the needle from his left arm, he winced at the slight stab of pain it caused before hanging the line over the IV bag beside his bed. He pushed down on the tape used to hold the needle in his arm to staunch the slight bleeding, before pushing the sheets off and swinging his legs off the bed.
Andrew had to admit, he was fairly wobbly on his feet for a few moments. Of course, he had recently been kidnapped and was fairly malnourished (considering his diet had been wobbly recently anyway), but that wasn't going to stop him from doing what he wanted to do. He had to help Alex.
That boy was battered and bruised and being left in there at the mercy of Walker could only end badly.
Making his way slowly over to the door, Andrew' brows furrowed when he heard voices on the other side of the door. The voices were familiar, but he barely had the time to register whose they were before the door opened, and a nurse walked into the room, turning the light on so that she could tend to the patient that should have been in the bed.
Needless to say, she got a real shock when she realised Andrew was standing right in front of her, eyes wide.
"What are you doing?!" she practically screamed, and the teen jumped back, stumbling a few steps before falling back onto his butt. "You should not be up and moving about! And your IV line!" She put her hands on her hips, glaring at the boy. "You get back into bed right this instant, young man! You should not be up and moving around! Not when your blood sugar is so low!"
Andrew opened his mouth to speak, but the nurse was talking over him in an instant, drowning out whatever he wanted to say.
"You have been malnourished for a while! You shouldn't be moving around when you haven't yet recovered, and you especially should not be removing the IV line providing you with the nutrients you need to recover!"
"But I—"
"No excuses! Get back into that bed!"
"No!"
The woman appeared startled at Andrew's yelled answer, before she narrowed her eyes at him, making his own eyes widen as he began to shuffle back along the ground. "Excuse me—"
"What's going on in here?"
Both Andrew and the nurse turned towards the door, where Gibbs stood with Doctor Martins. The male agent had a single eyebrow raised as he looked between the two, whilst the young doctor sighed, closing her eyes for a moment before opening them and glaring at Andrew.
"Get back into that damn bed, Parkson."
Andrew scowled at the doctor. "That's not very hospitable of you, doctor."
"Don't test my patience."
"I bet you asked for my case so that you could take care of me, didn't you?"
A look of irritation passed across her face. "I got stuck with you because I've worked with you before and have good knowledge of your present conditions. Now get back onto the bed."
Andrew stared at the doctor for a few moments, a look of defiance appearing on his face just as he responded, "No."
There was silence for a few moments as Andrew's response sunk in, before the nurse's face reddened.
"Andrew Parkson—"
"I'll take him."
Both the nurse and the doctor turned quickly to face the agent who had just spoken, their eyes wide. Of all the people they expected to keep Andrew in bed, Gibbs had to be at the top of the list. So for him to be supporting Andrew actually getting out of bed, against the doctor's wishes, and straining himself… there had to be something wrong.
Before the nurse could explode at him, Doctor Martins placed a hand on his arm, catching his attention. "Agent Gibbs, a word, please?" she murmured, her eyes shifting towards the door. The agent followed her gaze, before nodding, following her out of the door.
As soon as the door had shut behind him, the young woman turned to him sharply. "Okay, what do you need Andrew for?" she demanded, her eyes narrowing. When he simply raised his eyebrows in response, she gritted her teeth. "Look, I know that you care a lot for his health, and you wouldn't try to get him out of the hospital unless it was absolutely necessary. So I want to know why exactly you're taking him out so that I can assess the risks and decide whether to let him go with you or not."
"Assess the risks…?" Gibbs simply raised both eyebrows at the doctor, as if asking her a question in return.
She pursed her lips and gave him a firm look. "Don't let the boy do anything stupid, and I'll let him go."
"That boy is stubborn."
"Yeah, he's as stubborn as you, which is why I'm hoping you tell him to do the right thing and rest after all he's been through. That boy is a teenager. He shouldn't have to handle this much at such a young age."
The way Gibbs' eyes hardened showed that he at least agreed with what the doctor was saying, but they both knew that he would balance his protection of the boy with whatever he could do to save Alex. There was no way he would ever risk Andrew's life, but if the boy could help out even a little bit with the case, then he would take what he could.
"So is Alex," was his simple answer, before he headed towards the front desk.
Doctor Martins scowled as she watched him walk away. "Where are you going?"
Gibbs glanced at her over his shoulder. "To get his discharge papers. He'll never rest unless we get him released."
The redhead let out a slow, tired sigh as she watched the male agent walk away.
Honestly, if anything was going to kill her on the job, it was Agent Gibbs and his son.
Alex gasped as he felt another hit to his stomach, causing him to instinctively curl into a ball. Which would have worked, had he not been bound tightly to the chair by his arms and legs, keeping him in an upright position that made him prone to being injured. All he wanted to do right then was sleep, or at least do anything that will lessen the pain, but there was no way that Walker would let him do that.
Not when he was currently trying to beat the information he wanted out of Alex.
As soon as Walker had entered the room, the teen had been dragged backwards out of the room and down to one of the cells that he was pretty sure he had never been in before. And all whilst he was still sitting in that chair, his arms and legs secured around it. And then Walker had got to work.
Still gasping for breath, the teen's eyes flitted up to where Walker stood over him, his dark eyes manic as he grinned sinisterly at Alex.
"You sound a little short of breath there, Alex. Like you've been for a run."
"Funny you should say that. There's not much room to sprint in here."
Another blow to the stomach made Alex cry out in pain, too winded to take in another breath for a good few seconds. When he'd finally recovered, he winced as he tried to breathe in as deeply as he could, attempting to get some air into his lungs. His ribs ached, with the occasional stab of pain shooting through his chest; he could feel his leg throbbing from where it was being held against the chair leg tightly in an awkward position; bruises all over his body ached from where Walker and his guards had been ruthless.
He desperately wanted out.
"You really do think you're funny, don't you?" the man teased lowly, leaning down and putting his face very close to the teen's own, which was covered with a sheen of sweat. "Your sense of humour isn't the best, Rider. Maybe you should work on that."
"I guess I will, since I seem to have a lot of time in here."
"I suggest you work quickly. I'm not a very patient man."
The two stared at each other for a few moments, Alex's eyes hardened in defiance, before Walker straightened up, a smirk on his face. "I suppose I'll have to give you time to work on that, Rider." The man turned to head towards the door, leaving Alex behind looking utterly confused.
As soon as he reached the door, Walker turned to look over his shoulder at Alex, still smirking. "Oh, and Alex? You are a strong swimmer, right?"
Alex's eyes widened as the door closed behind Walker, understanding the implications of what the man was doing.
This was a water-tight room.
If he wasn't found soon, he would drown.
Oooooh, tell me what you think!