Changes and Choices

Disclaimer: I do not own "Buffy: the Vampire Slayer," "Angel," or "NCIS."

AN: Thank you to my wonderful reviewers! These fabulous people are DLillith21, Amitris, sambam17, Poopie, aveave, and a guest. Props to Amitris for their review, as it made me laugh and then flex my fingers a la Mr. Burns.

Chapter 5

Captivity

"We're going to die," announced Tim glumly.

Privately Gibbs agreed, but he wasn't going to say it. "We'll be fine."

"We have been here for hours," said Ziva. "I believe that if we were going to find a way out of this mess, we would have already." She sounded dejected; Gibbs had never heard her sound like that before. He didn't like it. If he hadn't been tied up, he would have head-slapped her.

"We'll be fine," he repeated. "Tony, how are you doing?" he asked the unusually quiet agent.

"Fine," Tony replied.

"What is wrong with you?" snapped Ziva. "You have been acting weirdly all day and now you are not driving us all crazy with pointless movie references. What is going on?"

"Nothing," muttered Tony.

"Is it Ellie?" asked Tim, being surprisingly perceptive.

Gibbs decided to put a stop to this. "Leave him a—"

"She's cheating on me," interrupted Tony, still in monotone.

"No she's not," said Tim, thinking Tony must be joking. Ellie wouldn't do that.

"She is," supplied Gibbs so Tony wouldn't have to. "I saw her kissing another man."

"Wow," said Ziva, and then, becoming angry, "that kalba."

"Ow."

The team members all looked up expectantly, only to see the crazy crocodile monsters dragging Abby, Jimmy, and Ducky into the room. The three of them were tied up just like the team. It had been Abby who said "ow" as one of the demons had inadvertently banged her into a wall.

"What are you guys doing here?" asked Gibbs testily. How dare they follow the team to the warehouse when they had absolutely no field training!

"They got us at NCIS, just as we were leaving" replied Jimmy forlornly. "I guess we knew too much."

"But we don't know anything, Mr. Palmer," replied Ducky, whose aged body was already aching from sitting on the hard floor. Also, although the gash on his forehead had already stopped bleeding, it couldn't have stopped hurting yet.

"Well, clearly they thought that was too much," said Jimmy, immediately regretting his caustic tone of voice. In his attempt to cover up his fear, he was just acting bitchy. Attempting to rectify things, Jimmy explained, "What I meant was: We know they are killing people in this warehouse. Since we knew where they were, we could stop them. So, they stopped us."

"Makes sense," said Tim, agreeing with the assistant medical examiner.

Now the seven of them sat tied up, on the floor, trying to figure out a way out of their predicament and failing miserably. The bonds were tied too tightly. All their weapons had been taken away. They had no way to call for help. They were doomed and they knew it. They settled into an uncomfortable silence as they wallowed in their misery.

After nearly two hours of silence and furious thinking, Abby suddenly shouted. "Did you see those things? What do you think they are? They clearly aren't human! They must be those cryptids that the weird organic compound from the crime scene came from. Do you think they're aliens? How cool is that? Like, from another solar system or something. Or … or they are time travelers and that is what we're all going to look like in the future. Maybe we've mixed our DNA with geckos or something. Isn't that neat? But, oh, maybe it's magic. I mean, they have a pentagram on the floor, so that means dark magic. Maybe they're like some weird demonic cult or something and like to murder women to worship Satan or something. Right? Right, guys?" Abby finally stopped speaking and took a breath. Not even focusing on breathing after that rant could wipe the gigantic smile from her face.

"You know we're going to die, right Abby?" said Tim a tad tetchily.

"Maybe not," she said, trying to shrug and failing due to being tied up.

"What does that mean?" demanded Jimmy. "Do you have a plan?"

"No … Gibbs?"

"What is it, Abs?" Gibbs asked.

"What's the plan?"

"Um, Abby … we don't have a plan," said Tim.

"But … but what are we going to do?" asked Abby. Everyone could hear her voice catch. She had honestly believed that Gibbs had a plan. Then, as if forcing herself to believe her eccentricities, she announced: "Superman will save us."

"Superman?" questioned Tim.

"Well, if alien-demon-time-travelers are real, then why not Superman?" demanded Abby. No one had an adequate answer for her and just resigned themselves to quietly listening to her.

~ x ~ x ~ x ~

Where was he? worried Ellie. It wasn't like Tony to be so late without calling. It was nearly midnight and he still wasn't home. Earlier in the evening she had assumed that he was just still too angry with her, but not now.

At 6 p.m., Ellie had gone home by herself, after Abby had confirmed for her that the team was out. She had then attempted to cook dinner for her husband as an apology. As usual, that had not gone so well. She had burnt the sauce and the pasta had come out all glumpy. So, instead, she had ordered some Chinese food and then sat waiting for Tony to come home.

He hadn't. And he hadn't called either.

Now she was worried.

She had tried to go to sleep, but had been unable to. Usually, even if Tony weren't next to her in bed, she knew where he was. She found it impossible to sleep without that knowledge though. So, at about 10:30 p.m., she had tried to call him. It had gone directly to voicemail, which was weird because his phone was never turned off. It was one of Gibbs' rules. She tried to call him again a half-hour later but his phone was still off. So she tried to call Ziva, but Ziva's mobile was off as well. Where was everybody? She then tried everyone from the team, but all their phones were switched off too. As a last resort she tried to call Gibbs. She usually would not hesitate to call Gibbs. He was usually on her side when she fought with Tony, always willing to smack her husband for her. But not today. Today he had been glaring at her with a ferocity that he usually saved for perps. Nevertheless she called him. No answer.

Now she was beginning to freak out. Gibbs was never—NEVER—out of contact.

Without even thinking too hard about it, Ellie got dressed, left the apartment, and went back to NCIS. It was nearly midnight, but she needed to know where Tony was.

But when she got there, none of them were there. And to make matters even worse, there were signs of a struggle in the parking garage. There was a small amount of blood—human blood—in Ducky's parking spot and some more of that yellowish demon gloop.

Ellie tried Tony once more and once more there was no answer. Ellie sighed. She only had one choice now.

She had one more call to make and it was one that she really didn't want to make.

"Hello," he answered on the third ring. Probably after much fumbling, thought Ellie, smiling.

"Hey, Angel," she said into the phone. "I need your help … I think."

"What's wrong, Buffy? Are you all right?"

"My …" Again Ellie halted at the word husband. "My friends from NCIS, I think they may be in trouble."

"Why?"

"They aren't answering their phones. Also, there are some signs that those demons may have attacked them."

"Why would the Sargniss attack them?" asked Angel.

"I don't know," said Ellie, throwing her free hand into the air. "Maybe they knew too much."

"All right, just calm down and take a few deep breaths, Buffy. Are you sure they were attacked? Maybe they just turned off their phones for some reason," suggested Angel. Ellie couldn't help but smile. She and Angel had always had that effect on each other. If she was jumping to conclusions or talking a mile a minute, Angel could easily get her to take a deep breath. He could obviously tell that she was upset.

After calming herself, Ellie replied, her voice much lower, "They always answer their phones. Always. Also, there was blood and lactic acid in the parking garage."

"Lactic acid?" queried Angel. "Do you mean plakticine?"

"That's what I said," argued Ellie.

"Well, don't worry," said Angel, which, oddly enough, did not keep Ellie from worrying. "We'll find them. Give me the address of NCIS and I'll meet you there."

~ x ~ x ~ x ~

"Wait, shh," Ziva stage-whispered. "I hear something." Everyone silenced themselves and they could hear that strange, hissing language that the monsters spoke. And the sound was getting closer. All each member of the team could hear was that strange snake-like speech and the frantic pounding of their own hearts. As cool and calm as Gibbs and Ziva were in the face of danger, this was like no danger they had ever faced before and they were incredibly out of the element.

Everyone was shaken even more when they heard a blood-curdling scream. The scream bespoke fear, anguish, horror, despair, and all the other emotions one feels before one is ritualistically murdered.

Gibbs began struggling against his bonds even harder. It was of no use, though. He had been trying to loosen his bonds since he had been tied up and all he had succeeded in doing was cutting his wrist. He could feel the blood running down his hands and pooling on the floor.

Then the Sargniss entered, dragging a terrified woman with them. She had curly, brown hair and was of medium height. She was slightly overweight, but, had she not been chalk-white with tears streaming down her face, she would have been quite striking. The team couldn't tell what color her eyes were because of the steady flood of tears. She was sobbing so hard that she was wheezing. She kept trying to beg for her life, but every time she tried to speak, all that came out were sobs and coughs.

"Leave her alone!" shouted Gibbs, but the Sargniss ignored him.

The woman looked to Gibbs and silently pleaded with him to save her. But Gibbs could do nothing but watch.

Two of the Sargniss pulled the woman to the center of the pentagram while the NCIS team watched in horror and regret. The demons held her still and upright, though her legs were threatening to fail her. The rest of the demons gathered around the pentagram and began to chant.

One of the Sargniss broke free from the circle and approached the hysterical woman with a large sword. "Leave her alone!" shouted Gibbs again. But—again—the Sargniss ignored him.

"NOOOOOO!" screeched the woman as the sword was buried into her side. And then she fell silent and her sobbing stopped as shock set in. Her eyes became unfocused and the Sargniss supporting her finally let go. She crumpled to the ground and watched her blood flow out and across the pentagram. And still the Sargniss spoke in their sibilant hissing.

The hissing seemed to go on forever while the woman in the center of the pentagram slowly died. By the end of it, Abby was sobbing, Jimmy had fainted, and Tim's face was drawn and pale. Gibbs, Ziva, and Tony just looked furious. And Ducky, who was often immersed in his memories, was entirely in the present, focused on the dead woman in front of them.

Once the woman was dead and all her blood had pooled underneath her, streaking across the pentagram, one of the Sargniss stepped forward and lifted the woman, completely ignoring Gibbs and his team. They carried the body out, again leaving the NCIS crew alone.

"Well, now we know how Lt. Grand died," said Tim with a strained voice.

"Yeah," agreed Tony, sounding equally wretched.

"I am going to get all of us out of this," Gibbs told the rest of them, sounding much more assured than he felt. He had no idea how he was going to save his team, but he knew that he had to. He again began to struggle against his bonds, setting his blood flowing again. Abby just continued to sob.

Again Ziva heard something before the rest of them, quickly quieting Abby. "I hear someone coming."

They all looked at the door, expecting to see the demons return. They were shocked to see Ellie standing framed in the door.

"Ellie," said Tony in a low voice, "what are you doing here?"

"Shh," she stressed, coming closer.

But Tony didn't listen, his concern for his wife overpowering his common sense.

"Ellie, you shouldn't have come here," he said as she got closer. "You should have called for help."

"It'll be OK," she promised. Instead of coming directly to them, she suddenly veered right to look behind some crates. Gibbs had to admit to himself that she was doing a superb recon job. No shadow was left uninspected.

"How did you know where we were?" asked Gibbs.

"It was on Abby's computer," she said while looking behind some more crates. Then, approaching the pentagram, she bent down and inspected the blood. Looking up with concern written all over face, she inquired, "None of this is any of yours, is it?"

"No," answered Gibbs.

"What are you doing here, Ellie?" asked Tony again.

Looking straight into her husband's eyes, she said, "I'm here to rescue you."

And then she spun around, having heard something that no one else had heard. Out of seemingly nowhere, three Sargniss rushed Ellie from the door.

"Ellie!" screamed Tony, as one of the Sargniss swung his giant hand with its razor-like claws at Ellie's face.

x TBC x

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