I would like to thank Vicky24c for beta reading this. If there are any more mistakes it's all on me. I will have to take this story nice and slow maybe one chapter a week, cause I am also writing several others. (I am on a flow or is it in a flow right now) Well anyway I hope you enjoy and please leave a review.

Running on Empty
Part 3

It took Ziva time, but she slowly started feeling better. She remained silent about her time in Somalia, telling her therapist just enough to keep her satisfied, but little did anyone know it was just barely scratching the surface. The visits to the therapist were courtesy of a strong suggestion from Vance- and Ziva didn't have the energy to fight it.
If you didn't know any better, you would say everything was just fine, like old times- but if you looked closely, you could see it below the surface. Ziva's smiles never really reached her eyes. She was much more subdued than ever before. When answering questions, she was guarded, thinking carefully about her answers rather than blurting out the first thing that came to mind like she used to do- though it did still happen on the rare occasion.

The rest of the team knew it, felt it, but didn't know how to address it. Tony had given it a shot once, in the warehouse where he had tried to justify their breaking and entering. He received a very sad look, but very few answers, and it stuck in his mind like glue. She had said that what Saleem did was bad enough, becoming like him would be even worse. Tony really didn't know how to relate to that, was she defending the bastard or what? She chose to ignore him, concentrating on the warehouse. They never talked about it again
until...

They had a new case. Ducky was at a loss as to what had happened to the poor man that was on his table. He had been tortured, but Ducky couldn't work out exactly how he had died. The man had burn marks on the tips of some of his fingers, and had some sort of burn marks on his chest, most likely from a rope being wrapped too tightly around his torso. Had the man been dragged over the ground with a rope? He also noted that some of the man's teeth and molars were broken, some were even missing. Ducky sighed. He had never seen this before. He didn't like to admit it, but he was at a loss.

"My dear boy, whatever happened to you? Don't worry. I will find out."

He tapped the man on the forehead and asked Palmer to take the samples from
the body up to Abby. Soon after Palmer had left, Ziva entered the morgue.

"Ah, young Ziva. You're right on time to share some tea with me!"
Ziva smiled. "Yes, I believe I am."

While Ducky busied himself making the tea, Ziva wandered over the dead man Ducky had been talking to. She paled when she saw the man's injuries, but remained in control of herself. She stepped a little closer to the man just to be sure that what she saw wasn't a dream- or more appropriately, a nightmare- but the moment she came closer to the dead body and that smell entered her nose, she turned around, ran to the nearest bin and vomited her breakfast straight into it.

Ducky turned around, alarmed by the sounds of her vomiting. "What's wrong dear?
Breakfast didn't agree with you? Are you sick?" He raised his hand in order to feel her forehead, but she flinched away from him.

"Do not touch me."

Ducky immediately backed away, only crossing the distance between them to give
her a glass of water and a towel. Ziva cleaned herself up and felt a little better.

"You are not alright. What is wrong? You know you can tell me."

Ziva sighed and sat down on the floor. "I am sorry." she said softly. "It
is... him. How did he die?"

"I don't know, at the moment he remains a puzzle waiting to be solved."

"Does he have burn marks on some of his fingertips?"

Ducky looked at Ziva with questioning eyes. "Yes, he does."

Ziva looked at Ducky and slowly but surely lifted her hands, showing him the insides of her
fingertips. Just like the man on the table, she had the same marks.

"How…" But Ducky knew. From that moment on he knew. She had been
tortured the same way as this poor man on the table. He shook his head and sat
down next to her on the ground. It was an odd sight, the elderly man sitting next to the young woman in the morgue, both alive, but remaining still and silent for a long time.

"They would…" Ziva drew in a deep breath. "Come and get me, and tie me
to a chair. One of the men would tie some sort of cables to my chest. I
realised soon enough that the cables were hooked up to a battery. They were
going to electrocute me."

Ziva stared into the abyss. Nothing was said for a long time, Ducky knew not
to press. She needed to do this on her own terms.

After a while she continued.
"It is really odd to smell your own flesh burning, it has this strange odor.
His teeth are probably also broken, or even missing." Ziva looked at Ducky for
confirmation, who nodded. He stared at her intently, patiently waiting.

"They did not give me a piece of rubber to bite the first time they tried
it. I nearly died because I bit my tongue so hard. After that, they would shove a piece of rubber inside my mouth so I did not bite it again. The shocks also caused my bodily functions to let go. I can still hear them laughing every time."

All of a sudden Ziva had enough. She needed some fresh air.

"He probably died because they used too much electricity." With that last
sentence she got up, and before Ducky even got to his feet she was gone. She
nearly ran into Gibbs, who was on his way down to see Ducky, but they passed one another without speaking. Gibbs entered the morgue and saw Ducky wipe his face with a cloth. He chose not to comment on that, figuring that if Ducky had something to say he would.

"What'd'ya got Duck?"

"I know how he died. He was electrocuted. They used too much power, and the
poor fellow had no chance of surviving." Ducky told him in an uncharacteristically dull voice, like all the life had been sucked out of him.

"You told me that you didn't have a clue how he died. What happened?"

"They did it to her in Africa."

Silence.

Ducky didn't have to explain. Gibbs knew.

TBC…..