I'm sorry that this is taking so long for me to update guys, schools a lot of work…but I'm trying to do better! Basketball starts soon (bleck) and so hopefully the updates will be about every 2 weeks. I KNOW that's a long time, but it's the best I can do. Thanks to my reviewers:

aoki-reiko

1Styx and Stones1

julie507

smush68

The reviews motivate me…so keep 'em coming! Ready or not, here I come!

Snapshot: Blackness

"I'm not asking for the entire Navy, I'm asking for backup! Two of my agents are missing and-" Gibbs' face was consorted in anger as he listened to what the Director had to say.

"I don't give a damn. I need eight to ten backup agents out here now. We've got less than two hours of daylight left and time is running out!"

Slamming his phone shut, Gibbs stomped back to where DiNozzo and the three local cops stood in the fading light.

The last hour and a half had been spent searching the wood searching the woods and the surrounding area for Ziva and McGee. Aside from Ziva's gun, there was no sign of them. It was like the eerie house had swallowed them up.

Looking at the clouds rolling in from the west, Gibbs was beginning to think that there was less than the two hours of light left he had shouted at the Director. The only good thing that had happened this afternoon was that the girl Tony had found in the basement was now in stable condition at the Navy hospital in Washington D.C.

Speaking of the girl, or thinking of her as the case may be, Tony hadn't been able to stop thinking of her. He could see her haunted expression and feel her boney hand on his jacket. "Horror house. Upstairs, you have to go. Please help us."

Tony's eyes suddenly lit up. "Boss, I think we should check out the upstairs of the house, maybe that's what the girl we found meant-"

"Let's go," Gibbs cut him off. Waving at the deputies, Gibbs commanded, "One of you follow us up, the other two post yourselves at the doors."

Jogging across the yard with a new sense of vigor, Tony took the lead into the house, then, with a slightly slower pace, up the stairs. The stairs and the hallway it connected formed a 'T', and at the top, Tony waved the deputy to stay and went to the right side while Gibbs took the left.

Carefully drawing his gun, Gibbs stepped over a bowed floorboard and counted the doors. Odd sounding yes, but a fact. There were four on his end, three open/missing and one that looked like it had a lock on the outside of it.

Clearing the first three rooms only took about three minutes and soon enough, Gibbs was standing at the door with the lock on it. With one hand he carefully tested the door and was surprised to see that it was just dummy locked, the chains and bolts had been put into place but not locked. Listening as he prepared to push, there was a faint sound that he couldn't identify but that was defiantly human.

With accuracy and speed derived from years and years of doing it, Gibbs kicked the door back and shouted, "FEDERAL AGENT!"

Instead of an armed villain with a gun drawn, the only thing in the room was fifteen small beds crammed together and a tiny girl tied to the wall.

Skinner than anyone Gibbs had ever seen, she was half under the bed furthest from Gibbs, crying and yanking all with all her might to get out of the zip-ties that held her wrist. Crossing the room in three steps, Gibbs picked the girl up so she couldn't hurt herself more and in one swift move, cutting her bindings.

Tony heard his boss shout and was standing outside of the door awestruck just thirty seconds later. The little girl had dark brown hair, wide blue eyes, pale skin and was only wearing what looked like a ratty t-shirt that was being used as a dress. Her wrists were dripping blood from where she had cut them with the zip-ties and she was shivering with an amazing force for someone so small.

Without another word, Tony reached into his pocket and dialed for an ambulance while Gibbs shrugged off his coat and wrapped it around the girl, holding her close and whispering something that Tony couldn't make out.

As he hung up the phone, the house shook with a rumble of thunder and Tony felt something in the air had changed. Instead of the set of a horror movie, the house was beginning to really feel like a horror story- and this time, the monsters were real.

Timothy McGee wasn't always afraid of heights. That all started at age ten when he and his sister made a tire swing and had decided to hang it in the tallest tree in the McGee yard. Sarah, being five, wasn't expected to climb the tree, so actually tying the tire swing to the tree was up to Tim.

He had reached the branch that he had selected easily but just as he shimmied out onto the branch his hand slipped and suddenly the ground was rushing up to meet him.

With a gasp, his eyes flew open. Looking around, all he could see was blackness and he knew he wasn't lying on the grass in his backyard. Wherever he was lying, it was not his bed either; the ground beneath him was damp, hard, and cold. There was a throbbing in the back of his head that told him movement might not be such a hot idea, but he tried to sit up anyway.

The slight movement of his head sent waves of nausea to his stomach and stars dancing in front of his eyes. As he lapsed back into unconsciousness, his subconscious registered the sight of someone lying just across the room from him.

Pain.

It was the first thing that registered in Ziva David's mind as she came back to the real world from wherever she had just been.

The second thing that registered was the clingy; damp feeling of her shirt sticking to both her back and her shoulder.

Like McGee, she knew it wasn't a smart idea to move, but unlike McGee, she was literally not able to move herself in the least bit.

Before the pain caused her to black out, she felt that there was someone else near by. Her instincts were screaming at her to get up and neutralize the threat, but her body wouldn't-or couldn't comply.

Snapshot: Blackness

A kind of boring snapshot, but that's the game sometimes. We'll be checking in with out MIA agents every once and a while…but part of the story is the reader NOT knowing where they are either…so don't expect to figure that out!

The reason I didn't use the Director's name is because I haven't decided if I want this set when Jenny was still alive or not…and yes, there will be some Tiva romance and a bit of McAbby!

Review please!

~Agent Striker