Viva Mexico

Disclaimer: I don´t own any characters or anything!

Summary: Post-Hiatus. Gibbs moves to Mexico after resigning from duty. The team is ambushed and soon news are out that an old enemy is back. Will Gibbs come back to save them or does it need a little more to convince him that the team needs him?

7- Revelation

Somewhere in Washington

The sound of dripping water was the very first thing Tony noticed as he slowly regained consciousness. His head felt like it had been split in half and he couldn´t really remember how he had landed here. He slowly opened his eyes and felt the pain explode. Counting to ten he blinked a couple of times until he could make out some of his surroundings. The pain was still there, but now it felt more like Gibbs had slapped him a bit too hard. Something deep within him cringed at this thought, but it was gone the next moment when the surroundings became more clear.

It was a damp, smelly place -and it was cold, very cold actually. Tony tried to move, only to come to the painful realization that his body was tied to some kind of pipe. To his right, he heard a low moan and when he managed to turn his head enough, which felt like his neck would break any moment, he saw McGee, who seemed to wake up as well. "McGee? You hear me?" He asked and noticed that his voice sounded awful.

"Sh...Tony, are you there?" The younger agent asked, sounding about as bad as Dinozzo felt. "Where are we?" He then asked and tried to look around, but all he could see were damp, dark walls and a small iron grid in the floor.

"Smells like a sewer." Dinozzo replied and bit his lip when a sharp pain shot through his head again. "You don´t have some aspirin, do you?"

"Sorry, can´t help you there. I would need some myself. Where´s Ziva?" Tim then asked, as he remembered that there had been three of them in that ambush. He looked around, but except for Dinozzo and himself there was no sign of another human being anywhere around. He felt a chill creeping up his spine when the hopelessness of their situation finally found a way into his mind.

"I think she took off, but I´m not sure. Just saw someone climbing up a wall." Tony replied and gave up trying to get free. His hands were held behind the pipe with chains, as were his legs. Both felt too heavy to lift and he knew that he should save his energy for whatever was still to come. "Remember when that asian girl took those officers and put them into the sewers to die? Feels like back then when she got me too." He added, but couldn´t really feel relieved at the knowledge that he might have guessed what this room was. He also remembered how long it had taken the others to find him back then. And back in those days, they had had at least a distant idea of where it might be.

Mexico

A couple of days after his visit to her house, Linda turned up at Mike´s place. From the shadows under her eyes he could tell that she had not slept a lot the night before, maybe even longer. Her usually neatly done hair seemed in disarray and a long streak was sticking out of the ponytail. The sun made her hair seem more auburn that usual and for some reason, Mike sensed that she was not just coming over to say hi. "Good to see you." He greeted her and looked at her for a moment longer. "What´s wrong?" He asked and motioned her to come in.

She sighed and sat down on the couch. "I guess I have to tell you a few things." She said and ran her hand through her hair, as she waited until he returned from the kitchen. Franks always had fresh coffee, no matter what time or day it was. After yet another sleepless night, she knew that even his coffee wouldn´t help much, but still accepted the cup he held out to her. "I wasn´t completely honest to you and I´m really sorry, Mike. I didn´t mean to fool you, but I had no choice." She told him and turned the cup in her hand. "I haven´t seen your friend around today. Did he go out?"

"Jethro? I think he wanted to drive down to the beach today and take a walk. He called up Jenny and somehow that must have disturbed him. What´s the matter then?" Franks asked and wondered what secret those brown eyes were hiding.

She took a deep breath and put her glasses onto the table right next to her cup. "I didn´t move here because of some husband -I was never married." She said and watched his reaction. He seemed a bit surprised, but nothing more yet. "I was placed here to protect an undercover mission. It was vital to get some of the top people of an El Quaida cell that was causing trouble along the eastern coast."

Franks stared at Linda in surprise. "Wow...I mean, I´ve heard about protective custody and such things, I even placed some people in it myself, but I never thought it was that perfect. So, will you tell me the whole story or do I have to beg for it?" He then asked and leaned back. It was strange to see the woman he had grown to like with different eyes now, but it seemed to explain a lot of things he had wondered about.

She put the cup down and looked at her hands. "I´m not a teacher either -I´m not very good with kids actually. I know it sounds like I´ve lied to you all of the time, but I had no choice. I am the same person, but my biography is a bit different from what I told you. I´m a federal agent, Mike. Actually, I´m one of your own." She said and smiled.