Tony was dead.

Abby had heard it, but she didn't believe it, not really. There was no way Tony DiNozzo could be dead. He was too full of life, too full of joy de vivre. It practically exuded from him, the way he did everything full out: from driving his beloved car, to the way he threw himself into his job. No one lived life the way Tony did and she wouldn't believe he was dead, she couldn't, not until she had seen it for herself.

Slowly she made her way to the morgue. Part of her was reluctant to go, once she was there; once she saw, there was no taking it back, but she had to do it. She owed it to Tony. They had been friends from the first moment they'd met, they'd clicked in a way that she rarely clicked with anyone. Lots of people looked at her strange goth clothes and the tats and judged her for it, not in a favorable way.

Tony had taken one look at her and smiled.

He held out his hand to her and asked, "Where have you been all my life?"

She loved him for that, for the fact that he accepted her just the way she was and never asked her to dress differently or act differently, he never wanted her to be anything other than what and who she was. This was the last thing she could do for him and it was pretty shitty that it was making sure that it was really his body in the morgue.

She stood at the door for a long time, just watching Jimmy as he cleaned Tony up. She knew how they said he had died with his face gone. They were wrong, it wasn't gone. All she had to do was close her eyes and she could see him smiling at her with that charming smile that made most women's insides go gooey. Most people only saw the smile and thought that was all there was. But she'd always seen past his mask to see the Tony that just wanted people to like him.

"Go on in, Abby," she heard Tony whisper in her ear, his breath warm on her ear, "get it over with quick, like pulling off a bandage."

She wiped away a tear. Tony was the biggest baby when it came to bandages. He'd make a bigger fuss over a paper cut than he did over gun shot wounds. Although, now that she thought about it, he did make a big fuss about gun shot wounds, too.

With resolve, she pushed her way through the door. Jimmy glanced up at her when he heard the door. His normally cheerful face was shadowed, his eyes red. Abby couldn't help it, she wrapped her arms around him.

"I liked him, Abby," he whispered into her hair.

"I know, Jimmy," she patted his back, "we all did."

She stepped away from him reluctantly, she was stalling now. She knew it. As long as she didn't look, it wasn't real. She turned her eyes to the body that lay on the table. Nude, it didn't really seem to bear any resemblance to anyone she'd ever known.

"Dr. Mallard said to send you the blood and DNA samples right away. Gibbs wanted you to run them first thing. I was just getting ready to bring them up to you."

Abby knew Jimmy was talking, she heard the sounds but suddenly the words didn't make sense anymore. She was staring at the body on the table. She'd seen plenty of bodies in her job. Bodies didn't disturb her, bodies of friends did.

"Abby?" Jimmy asked concerned.

She stared at the body that had once been Tony DiNozzo. It just wasn't possible he could be dead, that this.. husk could have contained him. It didn't even seem possible, it was too small and frail. The ribs showed starkly through the skin, and the legs were just downright skinny, not lean and muscular the way Tony's had been.

She reached out to touch the body, hoping that the touch would help to ground her and help her to accept what was in front of her. She let her fingers trail over the skin of the ribs, counting the bones and then down to the hip… That's when she saw it. Tony's hip. Curiously she tilted her head and bent closer.

"Abby, what are you doing?" Jimmy's voice finally penetrated.

She turned to him grinning like a wild woman. Or maybe he thought she was a wild woman because he took a step back.

"He's not dead, Jimmy! He's not dead!" She threw her arms around him squeezing him tightly before grabbing the items he'd set aside for her and racing to her lab.

She didn't even hear him call, "But you've got to sign the form…"


When Gibbs entered Abby's lab, the music was at its usual ear-drum shattering proportions. It was a good thing her lab was sound proof, because they'd be able to hear it all the way at the White House. Probably think the country was being attacked and declare def con one.

He was tired and felt old and had no desire to deal with Abby's music. Kate and McGee, who were following closely at his heels, winced when the music hit them like a slap in the face. He waved them on into the lab and made the detour to turn the music off.

"Hey," he heard her indignant call from the other room, "I was listening to that."

"I'm surprised you can hear at all listening to music that loud, Abby," he said.

Making his way to where the rest of his team waited, he handed her the Caf-Pow he had picked up on the way.

McGee and Kate were there waiting for him, with Abby. The stood watching him expectantly, waiting for him to let them know what was next.

It was all so... normal. Which made him all the more acutely aware of DiNozzo's absence. It just hovered there, that awareness, that sense of something missing. He'd even started to turn to Tony several times already during the course of the morning, needing information or someone to run this errand or get that piece of equipment from the van.

Every single time he'd been forced all over again to remember that DiNozzo was dead. Every time it hit him with a new wave of pain that he would push aside, then deal with the problem himself because he just didn't have the strength to deal with his own pain and Kate's or McGee's, too

It had been a long morning.

Now they were in Abby's lab at her urgent request and she had the temerity to be bright and smiling. He knew she knew DiNozzo was dead, he'd told her himself. When he left her before going to the crime scene..., Tony's apartment, she'd been working hard to not break down.

It was like she was a different person. If he didn't know better, he'd suspect drugs, but that was one thing he never had to worry about with Abs.

Abby didn't reply to his acerbic comment, she just threw her arms around him and gave him a hug. For a moment he just let himself be surrounded by her, let himself give into the pain and the need to touch and be touched.

Then he pulled away, They had work to do. Tony's murderer was still walking around free and that was intolerable.

"Abby, you called us?" he reminded her.

She smiled and giggled. She actually giggled.

Gibbs felt his fists clench and ground out, "Abby, we don't have time for this. Now I don't know what's going on with you, if this is some weird reaction to Tony's death, but we need..."

She jumped and twirled in her glee.

"That's just it, Gibbs," she said as if that should explain it all.

Gibbs looked at Kate and McGee to see if they had an explanation for Abby's strange behavior, but they were both as mystified as he felt watching Abby with alarm. Kate shook her head at his questioning glance and McGee just stood with him head cocked, a frown creasing his forehead.

"What is 'it', Abs?" Gibbs asked tiredly wishing he'd stopped for coffee along with her Caf-Pow.

"Tony's death. That's what this is about. Perception." She waited, eyes wide, for him to understand what she was saying.

Maybe he was getting old, because he wasn't able to follow where she was leading today, "Abby, I just lost an agent and I'm sorry, but I'm not in the mood for games."

She grabbed his arms and shook him a little, maybe trying to dislodge the cobwebs in his brain, "Gibbs! Somebody wants us to think Tony's dead, but that's not his body in the morgue. Tony's not dead." The words were out in a rush as if she were afraid they would stop her, tell her she was crazy and leave.

There was an intake of breath from McGee and Kate.

Gibbs didn't even dare hope that she could be right, hope led to more pain when it was proved to be wrong. He'd walked that road before and he wouldn't do it again. He needed the proof, something hard and tangible that he could see and touch.

"Do you have evidence of that, Abby?" he asked sharply.

"Do you remember Jeffery White?"

Normally he could deal with Abby's round-about way of answering his questions. Her brain didn't work in the same linear way that most brains did, it was part of her brilliance. Today he just wanted to shake her. He knew it wasn't her fault, so he took a breath and waited for her to get to her point.

"You know the crazed psycho killer that Tony was chained to the last time we lost him?"

That hurt. He knew Abby hadn't meant it the way it sounded, but it hurt way down in his gut.

They just kept loosing DiNozzo. First there had been the time when the crazed woman had been taking marines. When Tony had disappeared Gibbs had felt his insides twist knowing what had happened to the other victims. That time had turned out alright because DiNozzo was stubborn as hell and just wouldn't sit around and let himself be rescued.

The second time had been when they'd let him handcuff himself to Jeffery White.

"Trust me, boss," he'd said then, flashing that shit-eating grin of his. "I can handle it."

Tony had nearly died that time. It had been so close. When he'd seen the blood spattered windows and Tony lying against the wheel of the car, he'd feared the worst. That time it had turned out okay, too.

The job they did was dangerous, they all knew that when they signed on. There was always someone who was going to be angry that they'd been caught, someone who was trying to prevent the NCIS agents from finding out what they'd done. They were always targets. Gibbs had lived with that most of his adult life, and he could deal with it. It was knowing that his agents were also targets that was hell to live with.

But he trusted them, he knew they were good at what they did, or they wouldn't be on his team. He couldn't coddle them or protect them, it's what they did. It was who they were.

It didn't keep him from wanting to protect them.

"I remember Jeffery White," he said, feeling his patience stretched to its limit.

"Well, Tony was pretty freaked by the whole thing. He really liked the psycho killer dude..."

"Abby, is this leading to some sort of point?" Gibbs asked.

She just ignored him, going on with her story, "He and I went out for a drink after everyone went home. Tony got pretty drunk, did you know he's a fun drunk?"

"Abs?" Gibbs had nearly reached the point of explosion and she could see it.

"I'll bet you're a mean drunk," she grumbled.

"Do you really want to find out?"

She just grinned cheekily and hurried on, "Anyway, to make a long story short...,"

"Thank God," Gibbs breathed.

"I took him home that night because there was no way I was going to let him drive, he would have killed himself." Instead of being embarrassed about her unfortunate choice of words, Abby laughed, "Get it, killed himself?" She looked hopefully from Gibbs to Kate and McGee all of whom just blinked at her aghast.

"Wow, tough room. Anyway, he wanted to show me his tattoo..."

"Tony had a tattoo?" Kate asked, surprise coloring her voice.

"He does," Abby confirmed. "Right here," she pointed to her hip where the torso and the leg came together. "He told me the last time he'd gotten that drunk was when he was in college. He and his frat brothers had gone out and had their house insignia tattooed there."

"Figures," Kate tried for cutting, but missed it completely.

"You saw a tattoo, on his hip?" McGee asked, a little jealousy creeping into his tone, making it high and squeaky.

"McGee don't be so Victorian. Of course he showed it to me. It was really cool, too!"

"Abby," Gibbs shouted. "What's the point of all this?" He thought he knew, but he needed her to say it. He needed to know.

She just blinked at him, as if it should be obvious. "Gibbs, that body down in the morgue doesn't have that tattoo."

All of the air went out him with a whoosh, when he breathed in, he had hope again. Oh, yes, Tony was alive.

He grabbed Abby by the shoulders and kissed her on the cheek before exiting the lab for the morgue, Kate and McGee following. They'd also shed the shroud of pain and sorrow they'd been wearing all morning. They practically ran to keep pace with Gibbs.

Abby smiled fondly after them, touching her cheek. "Oh, yeah, Abby to the rescue."

With a happy sigh she turned back to her instruments. They were slowly working away on the blood samples and the DNA from the body in the morgue.

"Who are you?" she asked, chewing on a pigtail.

She had a friend to find and that was where she was going to start.


Tony stirred in his cage, trying to find a position that would ease the cramp in his muscles. He knew by now that it was a futile effort, but the pain was so bad he had to do something or scream in rage and frustration and he wasn't giving his captors that satisfaction.

The bars pressed into his back, the cold metal biting through the material of the thin tee-shirt he wore. The shivering had become a constant in his world and there wasn't much he could do about it except be thankful that his captors, whoever they were, had left him the shirt and boxers. Torture 101 said to strip your prisoner in order to take away his identity. He wasn't naked. Just be thankful for small favors.

He squinted at the room around him. It was hard to focus, his vision was blurry and tended to be grey around the edges. Which, since the room was grey, he didn't think he was missing anything, it was just unnerving and frustrating. He knew that was what his captors were going for, but it didn't help knowing that.

He would have liked to have had some information about the whys and the whos, or even the how longs. They'd taken his watch along with the rest of his clothes so he didn't have any clue how long he'd been there, resident in the little box.

The second rule of Torture 101 – take away the prisoner's sense of time. Deprive them of any contact that would give them control over their environment. They'd done a pretty good job with that one. For all he knew he could have been a prisoner for a day, a week, a month, he just didn't know. If the growling of his stomach was any indicator, he guessed he'd missed a few meals.

He tried not to think about how hungry he was, or how thirsty. The thirst was worse than the hunger though and refused to be ignored. He knew he was in more danger of dying form the thirst before the hunger could get to him. He'd imagined death sometimes, in his imagination he always went out a hero in a blaze of glory saving the girl and getting the bad guy. Dying from dehydration was a sucky way to die, one he wouldn't recommend to anyone.

But then again, f his headache and constant nausea were any indicator he might just die of his concussion before any of that happened. Although he didn't know if people actually died of a concussion. The doctors sure fussed enough about it.

"Pull it together, DiNozzo."

Tony blinked at the specter of Gibbs standing outside his cage, watching him expectantly, like Tony were a monkey in a cage and he was waiting for him to do something amusing.

Ah, yes, the hallucinations. They were an indicator of a concussion, too. How could he have forgotten?

"Working on it, Boss," he mumbled.

You ignored Gibbs at your own peril, even if he was a hallucination. He already had a king-sized headache, he didn't need Gibbs thumping on it.

"What happened, DiNozzo? Who has you?"

Typical Gibbs, didn't ask how he was doing or if he needed anything. He cut right to the important stuff.

The most irritating thing was that he still didn't have any idea of who had taken him or why. Except for the guys who had showed up at his door on Friday night, he hadn't seen any of his captors.

When his door buzzed, Tony didn't think twice about answering it.

Many of the residents knew he didn't mind helping them out with minor fix-its when the building manager's office was closed. Sure they could wait for the next day, but he really didn't like the thought of some of the older folks stumbling around in the dark if a light was burned out.

He didn't have a problem replacing a burned out light bulb or unclogging a sink. When Mrs. Perkins in the apartment two doors down had dropped her wedding ring down the sink, he'd gone down and retrieved it for her. She said she couldn't stand to go to sleep and think of it there in the trap with the rest of the garbage.

Besides the building was secure, he'd checked that out first thing before moving in. Not foolproof, but good enough. So, he'd opened his door without even checking to see who was there. When he found three strangers at his door, he was immediately at the alert. By then it was too late and he knew it.

Feigning sleepy casualness, he leaned against the door, "Can I help you guys?"

From his vantage he could see that the hall was deserted. That was one break, he didn't want any of his neighbors to get hurt. And it was going to be bad, he knew that immediately, too.

The guys knew he knew.

They began to edge past him into the apartment, "We can do this easy or we can do this hard."

He smiled at them refusing to be moved, "You guys don't know me that well, cause you'd know I always choose the hard way. Just ask my boss."

He kicked out at the one nearest him, but the man was ready. He just caught Tony's foot, way too easy, and spun him and shoved. He must have hit his head on the edge of the table, cause he blacked out. When he came to, he had the mother of all headaches.

He was also horrified to find a body on his sofa. A body that looked an awful lot like him, wearing his clothes. And blood was everywhere. His apartment looked like a scene from some really bad slasher flick.

He didn't have time to think of all the ramifications before the bad guys had him up and out of the apartment, slamming the door behind them. He winced as they jerked on his arms, pulling him along forcefully. The world was spinning and he was really afraid he was going to lose the contents of his stomach all over the hall. It would serve the dirt bags right if he puked all over them.

It was then that he saw Mr. Kransky from across the hall crack his door. He prayed the man would just shut the door and lock it.

Of course he didn't. Mr. Kransky was the watch captain for the floor and he took his duties very seriously.

"Tony, is everything alright?" He suspiciously eyed the two men holding Tony up.

Tony knew he was a mess. The bad guys had changed his clothes somehow, he couldn't let himself think about that one, but he was bloody and beaten. He couldn't walk by himself, the two men were on either side of him, their fingers biting into his arms, holding him in a bruising grip. He could feel the weight of a weapon pressing into his side. Before he could frame a reply, one of the bad guys spoke.

"Our pal Tony here fell and hurt himself, we're helping him to the hospital."

Tony felt a warning squeeze on his arm. 'Shut up if you know what's good for the old man.' He got the message loud and clear.

But Mr. Kransky didn't. "Is that true, Tony?"

Tony was confident of his ability to get out of the situation once he was out of the building full of old people who could be hurt because of him.

He nodded, "Yeah, Mr. Kransky. Mike and Steve here are just giving me a hand. Now why don't you go back inside? I'm sure your wife will be wondering where you are."

It was a risk, but only a small one. Mr. Kransky didn't even know it was a clue, but hopefully Gibbs would when he came looking.

God, he hoped Gibbs came looking.

"Well, sure we're looking, Tony," hallucination Gibbs assured him, "but we're not sure what we're looking for. You've got to give us some time."

Tony groaned. Really, if he was going to be blessed with hallucinations, why couldn't it be hot girls instead of Gibbs?

"Beggars can't be choosers," Gibbs took a sip of his coffee, torturing Tony with the thought of the hot brew. He could almost smell it.

"Yeah, yeah, got you, boss," he mumbled just to keep the hallucination happy. You didn't piss off Gibbs even when he wasn't real.

"What are you doing to get yourself out of here, Tony?" hallucination Gibbs asked.

"Boss, this thing is rigged," Tony protested. "It's connected to some sort of electricity, when I touch the latch, it shocks me."

He'd been so smug when he found out that the only thing keeping him in the cage was a dinky little slide thing like you found on a pet cage. Probably because his cage was literally a dog cage. A large dog might have been comfortable enough in it, but not a large person. It didn't have enough room for him to stand in and not enough room to lay in either. All he could do was curl up on the floor in a ball or tuck himself up against the side, hunched over a little. Neither position was terribly comfortable for an extended periods of time.

That was okay, he wasn't going to be there long. They might have gotten the drop on him back at his apartment, but they weren't going to keep Anthony DiNozzo in a dog cage. It wasn't until he'd tried to slide the latch free that he discovered it was connected to some sort of electricity because the jolt he received had knocked him unconscious.

Gibbs nodded slowly, absorbing the information, "That is bad. I'll give you that."

Tony shut his eyes, hoping if he ignored the hallucination, it would go away. Surely Gibbs knew that he'd done everything he could to get out of the cage.

"It doesn't sound like you tried that hard, Anthony. But then you never did apply yourself."

Tony groaned. Oh, great, now his father was joining the party.

"You are not my father, and I don't have to listen to you," Tony informed the hallucination stiffly.

Painfully, Tony maneuvered himself in the cage so that his back was now to his father's hallucination. It really didn't change his view of the room – same grey walls, same bleak room, but it made him feel a little better defying his father.

"What? You're waiting for your boss to rescue you?"

It didn't mean he didn't still hear the hated voice.

"He'll find me," Tony asserted stubbornly.

"Does he even know you're missing? Does he care?"

Tony knew that it was his own subconscious worry speaking to him at the moment. It didn't keep the thrill of fear from sliding down his back.

Did Gibbs know he was missing?

"He'll find me. Gibbs doesn't leave people behind."

"But he also depends on you to get yourself out of situations. And what are you doing? Oh, yes, lying shivering in your cage." The voice of Tony's hallucination held that tone of contempt he always heard from his father.

Tony knew he had to stop listening to his own fears. That was what the bad guys wanted. They wanted him to give into his fears and insecurities so they could break him, so they could get whatever it was they wanted from him.

The trouble was he didn't know what it was they wanted. So far he hadn't seen his captors, they hadn't asked him anything or revealed themselves. That was part of what frustrated him so much. He needed an enemy that he could point his anger at, that he could use his own brand of DiNozzoness on. Then he would feel like he was doing something. But this silent treatment was driving him insane. Hence the hallucinations.

So far the bad guys had been using standard torture techniques on their prisoner: they'd let him doze and then shock him awake, they didn't feed him, they took his clothes. Tony wished they would just get on with the interrogation part of the program because he was getting bored with this part.

"Be careful what you wish for, DiNozzo," he heard Gibbs say just as he felt the current flow through him.

This one started at a lower voltage and felt like ants were crawling across his skin. It quickly escalated to hot fire running through his veins. He held out as long as he could, but when the tremors began and he hit his already injured head on the bars he embraced the darkness that accompanied the hot pain slicing through his head.

----

A bucket of water brought him back to consciousness. The world descended on him like a fist, everything in his body hurt, even his hair. He pried his eyes open to try and get a look at whomever had given him his bath, but he was too late. Whoever it was had slipped away into the shadows.

He was surprised to find that he was no longer in his cage, locked up and shivering. Now he was sitting, wet and shivering, in a chair that looked like something out of Trek.

Not one of the new ones, this was from the original, classic Trek, where women dressed like women and men were Captain Kirk. He'd always wanted to be Captain Kirk when he was growing up. The man had an entire starship at his command and the beautiful women always fell at his feet. How cool was that?

Gritting his teeth, Tony tried to gather his wits. He needed to gather intel but his attention kept wandering. What had happened to his hallucinations? They'd deserted him now when he could really use the distraction because this didn't look like anything he was going to enjoy.

There was something clamped to his head, he could feel it adding to the pain already resident there. There were IV lines attached to needles that pierced his skin. Clear fluids flowed through them into his body.

That freaked him out. What were they giving him? He struggled in place and found that he was pretty much immobilized. His captors had made sure he wasn't going any where.

"Gibbs," he whispered miserably as he felt himself succumbing to whatever it was they were pumping into his veins.

Then his world went black.

----

Tony woke, curled tightly into a ball, back in his cage. He was shaking badly enough that his teeth chattered as well as rattling the cage he rested in. He was cold. Colder than he'd ever been before in his life, cold inside out like he was the cold.

Shit. What had they done to him?

He clenched his eyes shut and concentrated on sitting in that damn chair. He remembered how cold it had felt, like sitting in the embrace of a metal tomb. He remembered the band that wrapped around his head tightly, feeling like it was trying to squeeze the top of his head off. He remembered the feel of the drugs as they made their way through his veins, burning like fire in his blood.

Then there was nothing but darkness and vague images of horror and carnage: bloody broken bodies, war blasted landscapes with charred corpses staring at him. He felt like he needed to take a shower, not just because of the filth he was currently residing in. He wanted to wash his brain out because he felt violated and soiled.

He tried to push himself up and the queasiness that he'd been ignoring for so long rose up within him. It was all too much and the nausea would be denied no more.

It forced its way past his throat into his mouth and he had to let it out or choke. He lay there retching long past the time when there should have been nothing more to come up. He was certain that he'd thrown up his toe nails at some point.

When it was over, he could only lay there on the bottom of the cage, shaking and miserable. He almost wished for death because it had to be more comfortable than this.

The voice, when it came startled him. He didn't know why. After all, he'd had Gibbs for company earlier, no reason Kate shouldn't join the party.

"Now that's just gross," she said primly.

"And good morning to you, too, Kate," he managed to croak out.

He didn't know why he bothered talking to the hallucinations, it just seemed the polite thing to do.

"Have you seen this, Kate?"

Oh, great and the Probie, too.

Tony just shut his eyes and let them amuse themselves. They were hallucinations, it wasn't his job to keep them company.

"What is it, McGee?" Kate asked.

"Look, they've suspended the cage so that Tony isn't lying in his own... well, you know."

Geeze, wasn't that just like the probie? He couldn't even say the word in Tony's crazed delusional state.

"Shit, McGee, the word is shit," Tony told him.

He opened his eyes to find both of them bent over examining his cage. Kate's derriere was just inches from his nose. He knew he was in bad shape when all he could muster was indignation.

"Don't you two have something better to do? Like find me?" His voice had raised at that and he winced at the shock waves it sent through his body.

"Look who woke up cranky this morning," Kate said brightly.

And he hated that about her, too. She was always so... chipper in the morning.

"You'd think he'd be grateful for the company," McGee said to hallucination Kate, offense in his tone. He shrugged, "Well if that's the way he's going to be, we can just leave." They both turned as if to walk away.

"No," the word jerked from Tony.

As annoying as they were, their company was better than being alone in the cage, not knowing when his kidnappers were going to come for him again.

"God, Tony, you are pathetic sometimes," Kate commented, bending down again until she was eye level with him. He could see the glint in her eye, she was trying to goad him.

He managed a small grin, and pushed himself up just to spite her. The nausea threatened, but he was able to control it this time. "I'm locked in a cage by unknown captors, tortured and generally just feel like crap. So, what's your excuse?"

It was feeble, but it was all he had. And besides it wasn't like the real Kate would ever know, would she?

"What did they do to you, anyway?" McGee asked. He had his pad and pen out.

"What are you doing, Probie?" Tony asked, outraged.

"I'm taking notes," McGee answered, as if that should be obvious. "This would make a great scenario for one of my novels."

"I knew it," Tony crowed. He wedged himself into the corner so he had two sides of the cage holding him up. "I knew I was the hero in your stories."

Hallucination McGee just stared at him blankly.

"What?" Tony asked with a grin, "do I have something on my teeth?"

McGee shook his head, "I never said the story was going to be about you. I just said it would make a great scenario."

"Come on, McGee, where you gonna find a better hero? I'm smart, I'm handsome, the chicks dig me..."

He ignored the rude noise from Kate.

"And I know you respect me as your superior, so who else you gonna write about?" Tony finished his list with a small shake of his head that set off a new round of shockwaves through his body.

He gripped the metal bars of his cage and attempted to breath through the pain. The world started to grow black, but he held on stubbornly. He was in control and he wasn't going to black out. Grimly he let the cold steel of the bars ground him and keep him aware. Slowly, slowly, he pushed the pain back to a manageable level.

When he could finally open his eyes again and focus blearily, he was surprised to find that his imaginary playmates were patiently waiting for him.

McGee continued as if they'd never been interrupted, "He is delusional, isn't he?" He commented to Kate.

"That's our Tony, he always lives in a dream world even when he's not being tortured by unknown captors and pumped full of strange psychotropic new drugs."

Tony pulled in a breath, "Yeah and you suck, too," he mumbled by way of a rejoinder.

Most days he enjoyed the sparring with Kate and/or McGee. It got the blood flowing and kept his wits sharp, but today it was more than he could manage. Kate seemed to sense this, too.

"Come on, DiNozzo, is that the best you can do?" she challenged him. "What did they do to you in that machine? Suck your brain out through a straw?"

"Wouldn't be much of a loss." McGee laughed at his own joke.

Tony and Kate just stared at him, until he began to look a little uncomfortable.

"What? It was funny. Come on," he protested, "on any other day it would be funny."

Tony finally relented, "Yeah, yeah, any other day it would be funny, Probie. Sorry, I'm just not feeling well today."

Kate's voice changed, it became more serious in that way she had of knowing when the fun was over and they had to get to work, "What did they do to you, Tony?"

He laughed weakly, "Don't you think I wish I knew, Kate? I just... It was bad, that's all. Hell, you're my subconscious, you probably know more what happened than I do. You tell me."

She regarded him for a moment with sad eyes and he felt the fire marching against his skin.

"I wish I could, Tony," she told him sadly. "I really wish I could."

Not again. No, not again.

"Kate," he cried desperately, "I need some help here."

The ants had increased their tempo and the pain was coursing through his body. He curled up into a ball trying to let as little of his body as possible touch the metal, but it wasn't any good.

"We're coming, Tony," he thought he heard her whisper. "Just hold on."

And then she was gone and there was just the pain.

This time when the darkness came, he welcomed it eagerly.


To be continued...