Hey. This is a one shot in response to a challenge in my writing group. The challenge was to write a one-shot in which our favorite character from the show is blindfold and show the reason and how they react. I came up with two ideas actually. I'm writing this one tonight and the other in a couple of weeks. Hope you enjoy. Please read AND review. Thanks!
Abby Sciuto woke up freezing. The place she was in was cold and damp and she was wearing only boxers and a tank top. She reached around in the pitch black for her blanket but felt only cold hard concrete. She soon realized that it was pitch dark because she was blindfolded.
"What the hell?!" she demanded out loud. She tried to get the blindfold off but it was tied too tightly. When she tried to move she discovered she was chained to a wall by her ankle. She couldn't move more than about three feet.
She hugged herself for warmth and whispered into the empty darkness, "Where am I. Please God, let Gibbs and the others find me. Don't let me die here. Wherever here is."
Meanwhile, at NCIS, Gibbs arrived in Abby's lab with her morning CAFPOW to find the lab empty. Abby was nowhere to be seen. He set the CAFPOW down on her desk and headed up to the squad room.
"McGee have you talked to Abs today?" he inquired of the young agent.
McGee shook his head. "No, Boss. Why?"
"She's not in her lab. There's something wrong with that. She's usually here before me." was the reply.
"Maybe she stepped out for a minute." Tony suggested.
"Did you ask Ducky or Jimmy?" Ziva questioned.
"Called them on the way up here. They haven't seen her either." Gibbs snapped.
"She's probably just stuck in traffic." Tony tried to reassure his boss.
"I am sure she is just fine." Ziva added.
Suddenly, McGee's eyes widened as she stared at his computer. "Uh, Boss. You need to see this."
"Maybe she's down in the evidence garage." Gibbs stated, ignoring McGee.
"Boss. I mean it. You REALLY need to see this." McGee repeated, his voice sounding more urgent.
"What is it, McGee?" groused Gibbs in annoyance.
"This." McGee rasped out. The others gathered around the computer and were shocked at what they saw.
Ziva gasped out, "Oh my..." while Tony muttered, "What the..." Neither of them could quite finish their statements.
"What the hell am I looking at, McGee?!" Gibbs yelled, alerting the entire room.
"It's..It's a live internet feed. I just got an email and this was the attachment. It's Abby." the younger man explained shakily.
"This is happening right now?!" Ziva exclaimed in shock.
"It's live, Ziva, so yeah. It's happening right now. " Tony retorted.
Ziva let the remark and the tone go, since she understood he was as worried about their friend as she was. The Goth appeared to be in some sort of dungeon chained to a wall. She looked disoriented and terrified. Tony and Ziva felt their hearts break at the sight.
"Where is this coming from?!" Gibbs demanded.
"I'm working on tracing it, Boss but so far it's bouncing off different towers." was the anxious reply.
"Work harder! We don't have any time to waste. We don't know how long this person has had her or even who it is." Gibbs ordered.
"Yes, Boss." McGee answered nervously. Gibbs gave out more orders. Tony went through old files to figure out who would want to hurt the forensics specialist and Ziva called around to find out who had seen her last.
Back in the dungeon, Abby was still trying to work at her locks, but to no avail.
"Hello?!" she called out.
Banging on the metal door that she could barely reach with her palm by lying on her stomach, she added, "Hey! Answer me! I know you can hear me!"
"Shut up! I'll come down there when I'm ready!" a male voice screamed back over an intercom.
Abby felt her way around trying to find a water source but found none. She was really cold by now.
She huddled against the wall in attempt to avoid the draft. It was an hour before her captor came in. He brought her a jug of water.
"Please. I'm so cold. Let me go. I'll keep my mouth shut. Just let me out of here. You have me blindfolded. It's not like I could ID you anyway." pleaded Abby.
"Not happening. Not until I show how weak you really are. You're some big-shot scientist. Forensics, Is it? Well I'm about to show you that you ain't so high and mighty. You may be able to figure out evidence but your team can't protect you now. They'll never figure it out and if they do, they won't want anything to do with you when they find out what a pathetic, disgusting little weakling you are."
Abby froze as soon as he mentioned her job. "Wait a minute. How do you know where I work and what my team does? Who ARE you?!"
"That's for me to know and you to find out." taunted the man before walking out on her.
"NO! WAIT! DON'T YOU DARE WALK AWAY! YOU CAN'T KEEP ME IN HERE!" Abby screamed. The door opened a second later and a ratty old thin quilt was tossed in her direction. It landed on her and she wrapped it around herself. It wasn't very warm but it was better than nothing. She felt around and found the water jug, drinking as much as she dared. Then she laid down on the cold concrete floor and began to sob.
When she had finally reduced to sniffles, she whimpered, "Gibbs, find me. Please find me." before falling into an emotionally exhausted sleep.
In the squad room, Gibbs whispered to the screen in front of him, "We're trying, Abs. I promise. We're trying."
"Boss, I've got something!" McGee called out.
"What've you got, McGee?" Gibbs replied tensely.
"Well, I still can't pin-point an exact location, but I narrowed it down to Arlington, Virginia.
"That's not enough." Gibbs snapped.
Tony entered the room and stated, "I've got more boss. I just spent the past two hours going over these files. This one guy caught my attention. It's Raymond Weis. He kidnapped Navy wives and kept them in a basement before killing them and dumping them in a ship salvage yard. Here's his picture. He never met Abby but it was her work on the evidence that got him caught."
"Is he not in prison?" Ziva questioned.
"He is, but the way Abby's being held is so similar to that case that I was thinking it could be a copy-cat or a disgruntled family member." Tony explained.
"That's a bit of a stretch." McGee stated uncertainly.
"Well, it's the only thing that stuck out." Tony shot back, his tone showing how worried about his friend he really was.
Ziva spoke up before a fight could break out. "Well, I have talked to all of Abby's friends from the nuns to the drummer in the Sterile Puppets. None of them can think of anyone who would do this to her. However, Carole remembers that there was a man that worked in the ticket booth at a concert they went to last week. He was flirting with Abby quite a bit and had the gall to ask her out right then and there. Of course Abby politely said no. She told him she wasn't really dating just then. She'd just come off of a bad relationship. He seemed to buy the excuse and simply took their tickets and that was that. Except that Carole caught the man watching Abby as they left later. She still has her ticket stub. She is on her way in with it."
"Any distinguishing features?" Gibbs questioned.
"Carole couldn't remember much but she did say he was blonde with curly hair. The one other thing she did notice was that he had a distinctive tattoo on his wrist. It was a ship's anchor." Ziva informed him.
"Uh, Boss? The captor's back." McGee anxiously told Gibbs. The other's rushed over and McGee turned the volume up.
"What do you WANT?!" Demanded Abby.
"You KNOW what I want!" Insisted the man.
Abby shook her head. "I DON'T know! How CAN I know if I don't know WHO you are."
The bad guy scoffed. "Isn't that just like you? You ignored me the first time we met. You thought you and your little friend were better than me. You brushed aside my compliments and invitation like they were nothing. Like I was nothing. Well, not anymore. You're going to be taught a lesson. You need to be taken down a peg!" With that, Abby received a hard smack across the face that made her fall backwards against the stone wall and slump to the ground unconscious.
The team in the squad room gasped in shock and Ziva suddenly jumped up and ran from the room. Without waiting for permission from Gibbs, Tony took off after her.
Gibbs let them go and requested, "McGee, zoom in on his wrist." McGee did as ordered and discovered something horrifying. There, as plain as day, was an anchor tattoo on his wrist.
Tony finally found Ziva in the ladies room. Retching could be heard coming from one of the stalls. He leaned against the wall, waiting patiently until she finished, flushed, and emerged from the stall.
As Ziva was rinsing her mouth out, Tony approached her and inquired softly, "You ok?"
Ziva stole a quick glance at her partner before quickly averting her eyes. "Tony, you shouldn't be in here. This is the ladies' room."
"A sign on the door never stopped you from entering the men's room to find me." Tony pointed out, adding, "Anyway, you never answered my question."
Ziva sighed. "I am fine, Tony."
After a pause Tony pressed, "You had a flashback, didn't you. Somalia."
"Tony, I do not wish to talk about it. Leave me alone." Ziva insisted.
"Ziva." Tony pushed.
"Ok. I did. When Abby was knocked out, I saw my captor. I saw Saleem. It was... difficult...remembering. Are you satisfied?" Ziva spat out.
Tony ignored the last part and simply told her, "If you need to sit this one out, Gibbs would understand."
"Absolutely not. Abby will not spend another minute in that prison. She needs all of us."
Tony looked unsure. "Well, I know better than to try to change your mind. But, if it gets to be too much, I need you to promise to take a break. You're no good to Abby if your mind isn't totally in the present."
"I do not need a break. I am fine now. Let's get back to the squad room. Abby is running out of time."
"Ok. You ready to get back up there then?" Tony gave in. Ziva nodded and the two headed back to join the others.
Abby had since given up on getting the locks undone or getting the blindfold off. Her captor returned periodically with water and food. She had a horrible headache and her throat was very sore. She had lost all sense of time.
When she heard the door open the next time, she turned towards the sound and rasped out, "Why are you doing this?"
"I told you, I'm teaching you a lesson in manners. When I'm done with you, you'll never treat me or any other guy like garbage ever again."
"I d'don't understand." Abby stammered.
"Don't lie to me. I know you recognize my voice. Have you forgotten how disrespectful you were to me at the concert last week? I was very nice to you. I even asked you to go to the laser light show with me with VIP access. You just brushed me off. Now you'll pay for being rude." Seethed the captor. Abby gasped as it connected with her who this man was.
"The ticket booth guy." She murmured, before passing out once more.
At NCIS, twenty- four hours later, the team had been working for thirty-six hours straight. Ducky and Palmer had come up to check on the progress.
"What do you have so far?" asked Ducky.
"Well, Carole just came in and brought the ticket stub. She and McGee are running the finger prints through AFIS." Tony told him.
"How's Abby doing? I-is the live feed still up." Palmer spoke up.
Ziva sighed. "It's not good. She may not last much longer. She is very ill."
"We have the prints."
Carole jumped in, "My prints were there of course but there was another set as well.
"The others belong to a Marvin Kirk. He was dishonorably discharged from the Navy for sexual harassment. His mom recently died. She had a castle for a home. Her husband had built it for her when they were married. Marvin and his cousin who his family took in as a teen lived there until they grew up. You will not believe who that cousin was." McGee informed the others."
"Raymond Weis." Gibbs guessed.
"You guessed it, boss." was the reply.
"We found the address in Arlington. It's been sent to your phones."
"Grab your gear." Gibbs declared. The team headed out to bring back their beloved Goth.
By now, Abby had a deep hacking cough along with everything else. She had stopped fighting and trying to get loose. She no longer had the strength. She only hoped that the team would be able to move on after discovering her body. She could tell she wasn't going to last much longer.
She suddenly heard voices outside her prison. She couldn't decipher them. She was drifting in and out of consciousness when she heard her captor yell in her face before pointing a knife at her. She prayed to God to take her quickly before she heard another shout and a gunshot.
"Abs! Wake up. You'll be ok. An ambulance is on the way. Stay with me." she heard Tony say in a voice that sounded far away to her ears. The last thing she remembered before passing out again, was seeing her NCIS family's concerned faces over her as the blindfold was removed.
The next thing she knew, she was waking up in the hospital. Gibbs and McGee were each holding one of her hands. She could see Tony and Ziva looking anxiously through the window. Palmer and Ducky were a little further back behind them.
"You guys found me. I knew you would. I never stopped believing." Abby whispered huskily.
"You know we wouldn't stop till we had you back safe, Abby." McGee reminded her. Abby squeezed his hand before looking around at the others.
"I'm just glad we arrived in time,Abby." Ziva spoke up softly.
Tony gave a nod. "Yeah. You had were burning up when we found you. The doctor said you had a temp of 105 and eventually diagnosed you with pneumonia. We thought we were going to lose you there for awhile." Abby's eyes filled with tears as she looked around at her family once more.
"Thank you. I love you all." The other's returned the sentiment and they gathered around her bed with gentle hugs and kisses, thankful that Abby was safe and sound with them once again. Their chosen family was once again complete.
Well, I hope you all enjoyed that. It was fun doing this challenge. Chapter 11 of Stressed to the Max for those who read that will be up later tonight or tomorrow morning. Thanks for reading. Bye.