Oh. My. God. Did you guys see the Tiva at the end of 'Housekeeping'? I was being naughty and watching it during Bio and my teacher now thinks I'm clinically insane for randomly squealing during an ecology lecture. IT WAS SO CLOSE! I was like NO RAY, DIEEEE! And did you all see the promo for the next epi? If she says yes, I WILL kill someone!

AHH! Sorry, way to hyper and stressed out, I need to chill except the whole freakin' word is up my rear end about something or other…AHH.

Okay, I have calmed myself now. Thanks to:

aoki-reiko

1Styx and Stones1

clover janks

person

Previously on NCIS:

"Gibbs," he stood and listened for a moment, the office around him watching as he listened, his face emotionless. He nodded once, "I'll be right there."

Slamming the phone down seemed to snap the office out of its trance. "Did they find them?" Hunter asked standing up.

"Come on Lacey, you're going to go to Abby's lab for awhile," Gibbs said, picking up the little girl from her spot on the floor.

"Gibbs, what's going on?" Hunter called.

Gibbs punched the elevator button, "They found Ziva," he swallowed hard, "she's in rough shape. I'm heading to the hospital now."

"Is there anything I can do?" Hunter called.

"Keep working, we're going to catch the son of a- that scum that did this to my team."

Seven Hours Earlier:

Ziva had been walking for hours and yet it seemed like she hadn't moved at all. Her hands were stiff with the cold and caked with mud from running her hands along the wall so she would lose her way in the endless dark.

The dark, cold wet place and the injuries were now was slowly tearing away at Ziva's sanity, each drip, drip, drip of the far off water making her 'look' around her, but for what she didn't know. Suddenly, it seemed like voices began floating up from behind her. It sounded like they were speaking Arabic and she flashed back to her Mossad days.

Fear sped up her heart as well as her feet and she broke into a run. Ziva glanced back with the irrational part of her mind screaming that 'they' were getting closer. She caught her foot on something, sending her flying, hands outstretched to break her fall.

With a grunt and a curse, her landing wasn't the only thing that was broken. Her vision, or what there was of it, swam in pain and she cursed in multiple languages simultaneously. Pulling her self up, she bit down hard on her lip to keep from crying out.

Racing down the hallway once again (or what seemed like racing to her), she could have sworn that the floor was shaking. The voices were getting louder and a bright spot of light startled her into falling to her knees once again.

Looking back, she was blinded for a moment as light and noise assaulted her senses. The whole room began shaking and quaking around her, the voices escalated into shouting, shouting her name.

Then the whole room seemed to collapse around her, bringing darkness once again.

Forty-five Minutes After the Collapse

Tony, Agent Rodríguez, and three deputies arrived at the entrance of the East tunnel gasping for breath and hearts pounding. A young, skinny agent stood shifting his weight and the flare gun in his hand nervously back and forth at the entrance of the tunnel.

"What happened?" Tony shouted, racing to the agent.

"We think we found Agent David, but the tunnel collapsed-"

The agent was cut off by Tony, "But she was alive, Ziva was alive."

He nodded, "She was-"

Without waiting to hear anything else, Tony yanked his flashlight from his belt and darted into his tunnel.

Tatyanna Rodríguez quashed the urge to roll her eyes. Turning around, she pointed to one of the deputies, "You, go back to Base Camp and radio for some sort of digging equipment and backup diggers…oh, and medics."

The deputy nodded and turned to sprint back up the hill. The second one raised his hand, yes, actually raised his hand, "How 'bout me ma'am?"

"You come with me and see what we can do to help inside."

Two Hours After the Collapse

Tony's elation that Ziva was alive was terribly short-lived. About a mile in, a huge mound of dirt and rock blocked the whole tunnel all the way to the nine or ten foot ceiling. Six people were balancing at the top of the mound, shoving dirt and rock out of the way with their bare hands and Tony wasted no time in scuttling up the hill to help. Agent Rodríguez and Deputy two weren't far behind.

"How long ago did this happen?" Rodríguez shouted over the grunting as three of the searches rolled a rather large boulder down out of the way.

"About a hour ago," A tall, brown haired woman called, "We had been tracking a set of footprints when we saw Agent David. When she saw us, she started to run and the next thing we knew the whole roof was caving in."

Before anything else could be said, a voice called from higher up, "Hey, I think we're through!"

Tony's voice echoed down to Agent Rodríguez, "I'll go see if she's okay!"

"Be careful, we don't know how steady the ceiling is!" The tall brunette called.

Shoving his shoulders through the hole, Tony searched frantically for his partner. His flashlight caught her lying far to still for the Ziva David he knew. "Ziva?" he called.

He stumbled down to her, horrified at how beat up she looked, almost like a sad little ragdoll. Her face was bruised and bloodied and her hair was matted with more blood and mud. Her wrist was twisted at a sickening angle as well, but it was the huge gash across her abdomen that worried him the most.

"Is she okay?" Tatyanna's voice called down as the hole grew bigger.

"She's alive, but in pretty rough shape. We need to get the medics here ASAP!" he called back.

More of the ceiling crumbled down and one of the searchers muttered that it didn't look like it would hold much longer. "We've got to get you two out of there, I don't think the roof is going to hold! I'm coming down!"

Walking, or sliding as it turned out, Agent Rodríguez was getting more nervous with each second as more and more of the tunnel started to crumble around them. "We've got to hurry DiNozzo."

"I know," Tony muttered uneasily, "You get her feet."

With a nod, the two agents started working their way back up the slope as the ceiling really began to rain down.

"Hurry!" A voice called from above and three more sets of hands appeared, tugging the agents up as the roar behind them became deafening.

Just when it seemed like they weren't going to make it, they tumbled through the other side, one silent, one cursing, and one switching back and forth between cursing and praying.

The funny thing about al of this was that looking back, none of the agents would remember exactly what happened between the medics arriving at the scene and Gibbs arriving at the hospital. It was a noisy, colorful blur of faces and sounds. At some point, Tony, Ziva, and Tatyanna Rodríguez were shoved into one pitiful ambulance, taken to a hospital about forty-five minutes from collapsed tunnel then took an hour long helicopter ride to the Navy hospital in Washington D.C.

Tony had only suffered a couple scratches and a bump on the head but overall his pants were in worse shape then he really was. The medical staff had tried to treat him, but he refused to let Ziva out of his sight and ignored the doctors. Agent Rodríguez had a gash down her left arm that had been gushing blood since before she had left the tunnel. She had also tried to object to leaving Tony or Agent David, saying it was just a little cut but before anyone was actually listening to her, the world around her was sucked into a dark whirlpool and she passed out, crumpling to the floor gracelessly. Tony called to the doctors to do whatever they needed to as he followed Ziva (Incidentally, Agent Rodríguez's 'little cut' needed thirty-nine stiches).

Current Time:

Although he would never admit to anyone, Gibbs was actually terrified when he got the call from Tony. His agent didn't sound totally lucid and there was a bone-tired feeling that could even be felt over the phone. He barked at the nurse at the front desk for no particular reason then stalked back to where Tony was, praying for the first time in a long time that the feeling in his gut was wrong.

Tony sat on a hard plastic chair outside of one of the operating rooms, leaning forward with his hands folded in front of him focusing on one of the spotty white tiles. His head throbbing like it was having it's own personal heavy metal concert with a highly rowdy crowd.

"DiNozzo."

It wasn't a command or a question. Tony looked up and made an attempt at eye contact, "Boss."

"How is she?"

"Not to good. She's in surgery now."

"What happened?"

Tony paused, racking his brain for the words one of the doctors had thrown at him, "She was shot and there was some sort of complication...she all beat up and they think the gunshot is infected. And her wrist's ser-serveally-severely broken," he said, thinking that putting words into sentences was way to hard all of the sudden.

Tony had told Gibbs about the tunnel collapse over the phone and the elder man sighed as he sat down next to his senior field agent, "Where's Rodríguez?"

"Who?" Tony pondered for a second before amending himself, "Oh, her. I'm not sure. The last time I saw her she was passed out on the emergency room floor."

Gibbs bit back his remark and resisted the urge to head-slap his agent. Taking a deep breath Gibbs spoke slowly, "Alright. I'm going to go and check on her. I'll be back but you call me if anything happens."

"On it boss," Tony said with a mock salute.

Gibbs shook his head and stood up, feeling so much older then he had in a long time. He might loose Ziva and Tim might already be lost.

Snapshot: Gibbs' face as the door of the operating room begins to open.

Wow. That was so long. How did you like it? Yay, nay? Review and tell me what you think!

~Striker