Abigail Sciuto went through the evidence very carefully. These days everything she did was careful.
She had failed. Kate was dead. Shot through the head by an unseen sniper on a roof as the team had prevented a terrorist outrage.
One tiny consolation. Ari was not the sniper. No. Her Ari, her tired, fragile Ari was a prisoner in Gitmo. Director Shepherd and Gibbs, and a number of other agencies including the FBI had concluded that Ari was no longer useful and was now a threat. Mossad Deputy Director, Eli David had agreed. It was rumoured to be his suggestion that his son be sent to Gitmo.
His own son. Abby felt a little sick at that. No one had known that Ari Haswari was really Ariel Haswari David, half Israeli, half Palestinian and pawn on his father's chessboard. Even now, Abby was uncertain if everyone knew the whole truth. Ari had only told her the night before he was arrested. If even half of the rumours Abby had heard about his father were only partially true, her heart bled for her incarcerated lover.
Her heart bled for her friend Kate too. The pain of her friend's death had been the final straw. Gibbs had enumerated her sins to her in a private meeting that made Abby's heart pound and the air seem thin. Giddy with both relief that she had kept her job, and disbelief that she was not going to be sanctioned, she had soon discovered that Gibbs had erected a wall between them. That in some ways was worse.
Outwardly he carried on as before. But she could feel the distance between them. No Kate to share with. Gibbs so distant. Abby had faltered. She could not take her concerns to Ducky, he would also be disappointed in her. So she dealt with her issues alone. She had to.
She threw herself into her work with even greater passion, because there was going to come a time when her secret would no longer be possible to keep.
Swallowing her pride, it took every ounce of courage Abby possessed to ask permission to write to Ari. Aware that Director Shepperd knew that they were lovers, Abby tried to keep calm and held her emotions in check. The right to send a one sheet letter once a month was hers and it took another slice from her reserve of courage to walk back to her lab as though nothing very much had happened. The cold look of disapproval in Director Shepperd's eyes said everything.
It was clear that Tim and Tony did not know. Abby did her best to seem like business as usual. Hemmed in on every side with hostility or potential hostility on the inside grieving for her double loss, her friend, and her lover.
The final nail in the coffin of Abby's misery was the arrival of Ziva David as liaison officer. It did not take the brain of a genius to work out that Ziva was the younger half-sister that her Ari had talked about. Abby couldn't fathom why she was there. A member of the David family in their midst could only spell trouble.
He was kept segregated from the others. Ari coped well at first. A tiny kernel of hope in his heart that they would tire of this game, and eventually he would make his way back to his lover. To his family. The week before this all began, he had made over his entire estate in trust for Abby so he knew she was taken care of.
Then he was taken from his cell in the middle of the night.
The cold look in the eyes of the older man standing in front of him, Ari knew he was going to suffer. His father wanted answers, and so far Ari's answers had not been satisfactory. He knew that. There were certain things that he could not reveal. They would lead too close to Abby. He had to protect her.
They stripped him naked. He could deal with that. He could go away deep inside himself. Humiliation was nothing, he could endure.
He told himself he could deal with it. His wrists roughly bound together with a plastic tie, he was pushed down until he was lying on the board, his wrists yanked above his head and tied down, then his ankles. They were brutal and methodical, the heavy cloth over his head…
The board dropped, his head lower than his feet, the cloth over his head, the water cascading down. He thrashed and struggled, he was drowning and terrified.
He had no idea how long they kept him, he was isolated from the outside world, time and space had no meaning. His wrists and ankles raw and bleeding from his struggles. His arms and legs covered in bruises. His throat raw from screaming and the effects of repeated partial drowning.
Finally they seemed to lose interest in making him scream. They roughly put his jumpsuit back on. Almost paralyzed with cold, injured, they dragged him back to his cell and dumped him on the floor.
He lay there, too weak to move, slipping in and out of consciousness.
Time passed. He had no idea how much time, somewhere in his pain and misery someone came along. He was lifted to the hard narrow bunk. His soaked jumpsuit removed, his wounds treated. A gentle voice, he was helped into a sitting position. "Drink this." It was all part of the dream, so he drank obediently. As he slumped back down, a gentle hand rested on his head.
He slept.
She knew it was against orders, for days she had stood aside and watched while he was tortured. Then they seemed to lose interest. He was dumped back in his cell in a pitiful state. Paula Cassidy was not without compassion, and seeing what was done to prisoner Haswari by his own people made her feel sick.
Discreetly she had him treated and cleaned up. She couldn't do too much, but she could make him a little comfortable, and give him a fighting chance of recovery. She wondered at his stubborn refusal to break. Tell them what they wanted to know. It was then she found the letters, tucked into a corner of the loose cover on the mattress. Three single sheets, carefully composed, very carefully cherished that she realized the truth. Haswari had a lover. He was protecting his lover.
He was sick. But he was also a fighter, he wasn't going to give up. So Paula arranged food and medication, and hoped like hell she wasn't getting it wrong again.
He slept a lot. Not wanting to draw too much attention, Paula gave him the medication herself.
He had been awake for two days, but he feigned sleep whenever anyone came near to check on him. Trying to work out in his head what he was going to do. He could still hope, but that was diminishing with time.
All he wanted to do was go home.