Hey everyone, sorry for the delay in this chapter, it's been pretty interesting around here, I haven't had a whole lot of time to write. I did a couple of edits in the last chapter to make this a bit more understandable, a couple people had some questions so I hope it helps everything make more sense. I know some of you are finding this story a little confusing and you are wondering what on earth Tony is doing, but please bear with me, I promise it will all make sense. And for those of you who have a pretty good grasp on what it going on, Good Job! I hope you all are enjoying the story and thank you so much for sticking with me, it means so much to me. Please review and tell me what you think, I love hearing everyones reactions and thoughts!

Sorry for the super long A/N, I'll let you get to the story!

Renee

Abby was great at multi-tasking. She really was. But when she was doing the jobs of three people, things tended to slow down.

And it didn't help having a stranger breathing down her neck.

"Have you found anything yet?"

Abby swiveled in her chair to glare at the man.

"I cannot make the computers go any faster."

Daniel looked down, his mouth twisting.

Abby felt her heart lurch seeing the sadness on the man's face.

"Daniel...I know that you're worried about Tony, we're going to find him."

He sighed and shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck.

"I know we'll find him, but in what state? Tony has a bad habit of ticking people off and if what happened to him is what I think…"

Abby reached over and squeezed the man's shoulder. She was worried too, at least she had her babies to put her energy into, all Daniel could do is sit there and wait.

"W-what do you think happened to him?"

Daniel hopped off the stool he had been perched on and walked over to the window, straining to see out of the underground lab.

"Stephan, the man Tony mentioned in the voicemail? There wasn't a man by that name. Not in the Malachi family. I've gone through our records over and over again and there was no man. But...the cop, the one who blew Tony's cover? His name was Stephan Cline. I can't help but think that Tony was trying to tell me something. He didn't go back undercover. Not without more information and the only one he could get information from is me. He would talk to me first. I...I think what was left of Malachi came after him."

Abby chewed on her bottom lip and thought about the kind hearted man who had come to her rescue. She began to type faster.

The doors of her lab swished open the exact moment her computer dinged.

"Watcha got Abs?"

"Gibbs! The video camera from the streetlight on Tony's block's footage just came in. And I'm still running checks on all the guys we have records of in the Malachi family to see if the name Stephan pops up, but Daniel thinks that it is the name of a cop and this is all an inside job."

Gibbs looked to Daniel who turned to Abby.

"Can we see the footage Ms. Scuito?"

"Only if you call me Abby."

With that she hit the button and the two men flanked her shoulders.

She began to fast forward to the date of the voicemail.

Daniel blinked when he realized that it had only been last night that he had gotten that call. Funny how much could change in one night.

Gibbs' eyes narrowed, leaning closer towards the screen.

"Wait, Abby, go back to midnight."

Abby looked over at him curiously and did as he asked.

He nodded to himself.

"Fast forward to midnight of the next day." He watched carefully, his jaw clenching as the video showed what he suspected.

"Keep pausing at midnight until we get to the night he left the message."

She made it the night before last before Gibbs asked her to stop again.

Daniel leaned in, turning his head to the side.

"There is a car parked across the street. Same car, every night. Doesn't show up until eleven and doesn't leave until two."

Abby looked at Gibbs in surprise.

"I thought your eye sight was supposed to be shot."

He ignored her and waited for her to get the night that everything went to hell.

Abby began hitting buttons and narrating for the men.

"Here we go. The black car shows up on time...and someone gets out!"

The three watched with bated breathe as two tall muscled men got out of the car and walked to the apartment building.

They waited.

Twenty minutes on the video passed.

"What is going on?"

Gibbs squeezed Abby's hand silently.

Another fifteen minutes.

Finally the men came back out, with one addition. One man had a tight grip on Tony's shoulder and the other had an arm wrapped around his waist. Tony's face was obscured from view, but his head hung low and his feet were dragging.

He was unconscious.

Gibbs clenched his fists as he watched the men shove Tony in the back of the car. One climbed in after him, while the other got in the drivers seat. The car pulled out onto the street and was gone.

With Tony.

"Abby get a trace on that car. Alexander, we're going to Tony's apartment."

Daniel nodded absentmindedly and followed the man out of the room.

Abby looked back at the screen and whispered-

"You'll be okay. I know you will. You have to be, you're supposed to join our family. Don't you dare let me down."

NCISncisNCISncis

Daniel got into the elevator after Gibbs, trying not to think about Tony, how his bright, happy, bouncy friend, who couldn't sit still to save his life, was being dragged from his home in the middle of the night and shoved into the back of a car.

He swallowed hard.

Who knew what was happening to him.

Who knew if he was even…

Daniel turned his head.

He was not going to think like that.

He was not going to come home and tell his daughter that...

No.

The jerking of the elevator coming to an abrupt halt tore Daniel from his thoughts.

He turned and looked at the man standing next to him.

"Agent Gibbs? What's going on?"

Gibbs narrowed his eyes.

"I don't know Detective Alexander you tell me."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, this doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I have an out of work detective who is dragged from his apartment in the middle of the night but still manages to send you a voicemail. A voicemail that says he's gone back undercover, something you claim is impossible and must be covering for something else. And then we have you, someone who just shows up at my work, needing my help to find someone that I have met once. And let's not forget that you think that this whole thing is an inside job. And I'm curious Detective, have you even gone to his apartment to check out the scene?"

Daniel's face flushed at the reprimand. Had he checked out DiNozzo's apartment? No, not really. He had gone and banged on the door for nearly twenty minutes and when no one answered, he turned back around and drove straight to Washington.

As for the rest of it-

Daniel straightened and narrowed his eyes, taking a step closer to Gibbs, who crossed his arms passively..

"Look Agent Gibbs I don't particularly care whether this makes a whole lot of sense to you or not, because to be honest, I'm as confused as hell. All I know is that Tony is in trouble and that is more than enough reason for me to get involved. Because he would do the same if it was me. Because that's who Tony is. He's the guy who would step in-between you and danger in a heart beat. He's taken more hits for me than I can count. He does it for everyone. But then again, you already know that don't you? As far as I can tell, you would be down one forensic scientist if it wasn't for my boy. He took a beating for your family. All I want to do is bring him home."

Gibbs didn't respond, merely regarded the man in front of him with expressionless eyes.

Daniel took that to be as close to encouragement to continue as he would get from this man, so he kept going.

"You know, Tony didn't even want to tell me what happened between him and your girl. He was going to try to shove it under the rug, if I wouldn't have dragged him back to my place to shove some decent food in him, I never would have known. He shows up at my house all bruised and banged up, and I suddenly have a six year old asking why her best friend is the color purple. Took us ages to get the whole story out of Tony. He doesn't do anything to get credit, he just wants to help those who need it. I think the world needs more people like that, those who just want to take care of everyone, no matter how much it screws them over. If you got the chance to know him Agent Gibbs, I think Tony would really surprise you, you might find that he is something truly special."

He leaned in further, getting dangerously close to Gibbs.

"But if we don't get our *sses in gear, then you may never get that chance."

The silence in the elevator was suffocating. Daniel could hear his words echoing back in his ears, but he could bring himself to regret a single one.

Gibbs uncrossed his arms and studied the man in front of him quietly for a moment.

The seconds that followed stretched until Daniel thought he was going to lose what little control he had.

After an indeterminable amount of time, Gibbs nodded to himself and hit the button, restarting the lift.

"Then we better get going."

Daniel sighed in relief. As the elevator moved quietly, he looked at the man next to him.

"You have something else you want to say?"

Daniel swallowed.

"What do you think this is?"

Gibbs stared straight forward as he said.

"Something doesn't sit right with your department."

"You think it's an inside job too! Why-Why did you just put me through all that then?"

The elevator dinged and the doors pulled apart. Gibbs walked to his car, his reply tossed his over his shoulder to the shocked detective.

"Just making sure you know what you're getting yourself into. If this is related to Baltimore, this is going to get ugly."

Daniel stared at his back for a moment before chasing after him, mumbling under his breath.

"When was it ever pretty?"

NCISncisNCISncis

The walk up to Tony's apartment was just like Gibb's remembered it.

Mainly-dirty.

He sighed as the two walked unhindered into the lobby of his building and started up the stairs.

You would think a detective would choose a place with better security.

They came to Tony's door and Gibbs tried the handle.

It swung open without a catch.

He swiveled his glare at Daniel.

"It didn't occur to you to check the door?"

Daniel looked up at Gibbs with shocked eyes.

"It was locked."

Gibbs pulled his gun and Daniel followed suit. Silently the two stepped into the apartment.

Only to be greeted by the biggest mess they had ever seen.

Tony's couch and recliner were slashed, and the contents of the bean bag chair were spilling out and scattered across the floor. His kitchen was ransacked, dishes broke everywhere, the oven and refrigerator both left open.

Gibbs heard a strangled noise coming from the direction of the entertainment center.

He turned quickly, his gun already rising.

It was Daniel.

He was standing amidst dozens of DVD's. Their cases open and the discs cracked and shattered.

Gibbs watched him carefully as the man bent and picked up a disc, gently brushing debris off of it before straightening.

He looked up at the other man, and Gibbs was surprised to see the amount sorrow present in his eyes.

His voice caught in several places as he read the title on the DVD.

"M-Magnum P.I. H-he's seen every episode, has s-some of the memorized."

Gibbs looked away and started down the hall, giving the other man a moment.

He barely knew Tony, and he almost needed a moment.

He checked the guest room and bathroom, seeing that they were in the same state as the rest of the apartment.

He turned to the master bedroom.

Or what was left of it.

The mattress had been slashed, pictures on the wall had been shattered. There were several books scattered around the room, with pages in tatters. Gibbs leaned against the hall and sighed, two thoughts forcing out all the others. Two questions demanding to be answered.

What the hell happened here?

And where was Tony DiNozzo?

NCISncisNCISncis

The piercing pain in his side had faded to dull ache.

Unless he moved of course.

Or tried to breathe.

If he did either of those things, it felt like something was trying to rip itself out of him.

Like in Alien when the space creature came bursting out of John Hurt's character.

Well if all else failed, at least there wasn't a evil space alien about to come flying from his stomach. And at least his last name wasn't Hurt. Though with the amount of trouble he had been getting into lately, it would be fitting.

Tony smiled.

Or at least he tried to.

He was fairly certain his jaw was broken, and it made smiling, and not to mention talking, rather difficult.

Like that would stop him.

The man leaned towards him menacingly.

"You know, I could tell you that if you would do something for us, give us information, a favor, all this would stop. But that would be lying. And you know how we hate liars."

Tony snorted as he pulled his head up from staring at the floor. His eyes met those of the man he knew all too well and his smile widened.

"I hear you hate hypocrites too."

The blow to the head came hard and fast and unconsciousness came soon after. Tony gratefully sunk back into oblivion as the man looked at him in frustration.

He shook his head and walked to opposite side of the room where his cheap polyester suit jacket was hanging. He pulled it on while moving back over to Tony.

He roughly ran his hand through the other man's hair and chuckled.

Nodding to himself he left the room, shutting the door firmly on the man tied to the hard wooden chair.

Whistling a high pitched tune, he walked from the storage unit, locking the door behind him before getting into his car, and driving downtown. If he didn't get going, he was going to be late for work.

And that would just be a horrible start to his day.