I KNOW it's been like, FOREVER AND A HALF since I updated this. And I'm really really sincerely sorry. I was...er, am having some personal issues concerning me and this guy I know. It's like this deal where we're both like, obsessed and in love with each other (according to a mutual friend of ours), but neither of us can say anything about it. Add that on top of my social awkwardness and inability to carry on a proper conversation with him and you have emotional suicide and frustration. So that meant that I couldn't write ANYTHING. I was mentally blocked. It was terrible.
but I pushed my way through it, and somehow ended up with this crappy chapter of nothingness. It's really just a filler for the big event that's about to happen (which I already have written, so you won't have to wait too long) so I apologize for its boring and terrible quality.
Oh, and also keep in mind that the way i had things planned in the story had something to do with Agent Lee, so right now I'm going to have to ask you to overlook the real plotline concerning her for the time being.
And sorry about the personal rant at the top. I promise not to do it too often.
"Boss!" I yelled, throwing myself from behind the desk and vaulting towards the stairs. "Gibbs!" I tripped as I tried to jump more stairs than was physically possible in my haste. The names had brought up something so major, so out of my league that I had no idea how to handle it. After a few seconds of disbelieving, paralyzing shock, only one thought crossed my mind.
Gibbs.
"Tony!" Ziva called, and I could hear her following me. "Tony!"
I ran upstairs and burst into the Director's office, not caring how much trouble I would get in.
"Boss!" I shouted, running, wide-eyed, through the door. Vance and Gibbs both stared at me, probably wondering what in the hell I must have been smoking earlier. I knew I probably looked like a mad man with my rumpled and disheveled look and my crazed expression. Ziva came in right behind me, and I felt her run into my back and grab my arm to prevent herself from falling as she ran into me.
"DiNozzo!" Gibbs said, walking over to me. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Got a hit, boss!" I said.
"On what?"
"You know that thing you told me to do so McGee could take a break and stuff after you woke me up―"
"Yeah."
"I was narrowing down names and eventually got four hits."
"I suggested running them through the international database," Ziva interjected. "And what came up was not anything we expected."
"Well…?"
"You're going to have to come down and see," I said. "We have it down on the plasma."
I ran back down the stairs, followed closely by Ziva. It occurred to me as I was leaping over the railing at the bottom of the stairs that it would have been much easier just to call Gibbs, but I dismissed the thought. I just needed to get him down here.
"Amil Abdul-Jahar: A wanted terrorist suspected in several bombing threats in the past four years," I introduced, bringing up the man's picture with a click of the remote. "Never been brought in because no evidence could be linked to him. Last seen in the vicinity of Washington D.C."
"Address?"
"It's a fake," Ziva said. "It comes up as the middle of a field about ten miles outside of town."
Gibbs was silent.
"Do you want us to go check it out?"
"Not until we know more about this guy. Where's McGee?"
"Still sleeping, probably. Do you want me to get him?"
"Let him sleep a while. There's nothing-"
"Um…excuse me?"
Every single one of us in the room turned and looked towards the source of the tentative voice. To my surprise, Palmer, who was changed out of his teal green scrubs and looking like he was on his way out the door. He seemed very agitated and nervous, more so than usual.
"What is it, Palmer?" Gibbs asked, irately, pissed at being interrupted.
"Er…sorry…" the autopsy assistant stammered. "But I was just w-won-wondering if any of you had heard from…from…Michelle? Er…I mean, Agent L-L-Lee…?"
None of us could answer at first, taken aback by the randomness of the question.
"Why?" Gibbs asked.
"Um, well, I just noticed that she left all her stuff," he said.
"So?"
"Er, so I called her to tell her that and she's not picking up her phone. And she always picks up her phone."
"She'll come back and get it later, Palmer," Gibbs said.
"Um, Agent Gibbs?"
"Yes?"
"That was three days ago."
That was unusual, even for Lee the Lawyer. So I did some fancy typing that I had seen McGee do hundreds of times and tried to locate the GPS on her cell phone. It took me a lot longer than it would have for McTracker, but I got the job done, and soon a flashing red indicator came up on the map.
"Well, that's a freaking weird coincidence," I said, dumbstruck as I saw where Lee's cell came up on the map.
"There's no such thing as coincidences, DiNozzo," Gibbs said, turning around to face the screen. "What's going on here?"
"Well, Gibbs," Ziva said. "Lee's GPS chip just turned up at the exact address we found ten minutes ago for the suspected terrorist."
Gibbs stared at the map for a very long second. "Wake up McGee," he said briskly. "Fill him in. Meet me in the car."
"Yes, boss," I said, getting up hurriedly form McGee's desk and walking fast towards the elevator that would take me down to Abby's lab, Ziva hot on my heels.
…
"Can someone explain to me again why this suspected terrorist is not yet behind bars?" Gibbs asked as we were cruising down the highway, going ninety miles an hour.
"He was in one photo that also happened to include one of the terrorists that organized the 9/11 attacks in NYC, boss," I said, reading the page I had printed out before we left. "He was held by the FBI for a while, but no one could discover anything to incriminate him besides his terrible choice in friends. Which, unfortunately, is not a crime…"
"So they let him go?"
"Yeah, they let him go back to his house, but every once in a while a team visits to check up on him."
Gibbs made a hard right turn off the interstate, and Ziva slammed into me. "You'll wanna take another right up here on 32nd street, boss," McGee said from the front seat.
A few blaring car horns and several near-accidents later, we came to a screeching halt outside of a run-down looking house covered in peeling white paint that sat in the middle of a field. A couple of the fake decorative shutters were crooked and falling down, and the grass was uncut. There was no car in the driveway, and there was a pile of old, yellowing, newspapers on the front porch. The only thing to suggest that someone actually lived here was the fact that the little red flag was up on the mailbox by the curb.
We all quietly got out of the car, guns held low and at the ready, yet carefully hidden so no one peeking out the curtains could see.
"McGee, David…back door," Gibbs said in a low whisper, gesturing with his hands towards the gate that led to the backyard. After a brief glance and the pang of separation from Ziva, I followed Gibbs onto the porch, trying hard not to step too hard on the creaky wood.
"In position, boss," came McGee's voice through the earpiece.
"Okay…now."
And all four of us burst through the doors, shouting various versions of 'Stop!' and 'Federal Agents!',
There was no one around. The house was empty. McGee and Ziva came in through the kitchen, and Gibbs and I cleared the rest of the floor. In the silence that then ensued we heard nothing. Not a scrape over the floorboards as someone tried to discreetly shift their position in their hiding place, or the metallic click of the safety on a gun. Nothing.
Ziva ran her finger over the surface of the counter in the kitchen and held it up for us to see. "Dust," she pronounced. "It seems that no one has been here for quite some time."
"Look around for anything suspicious," Gibbs ordered curtly, probably pissed that he didn't get to shoot anyone. So we all spread out, and I had the difficult task of balancing that order with the sudden, driving need to stay close to Ziva. Flashes of the kiss―that I still had trouble convincing myself actually happened―was taking up most of my brain. They were so vivid; I could almost feel her lips on mine again.
And then she was in front of me. "Tony!" she said sharply, snapping her fingers in my face. "You are day dreaming."
I shook my head, dispersing the images. "Right. Sorry." I continued on my inspection of the east wall, and Ziva walked back across the room back towards the kitchen. A noise in the wood, however sounded an alarm in the back of my head.
"Wait…Ziva," I said, turning around. "Do that again."
"Do what again?"
"That thing you just did."
"Snap in your face?"
"No, walk across the floor."
She gave me a raised-eyebrow, curious look, but did as I asked. The floor creaked under her feet, but at a certain spot in the center of the room there was a distinct tone difference. Ziva noticed it too when the floor suddenly echoed.
"It's hollow under there," I said. "But why?"
"Trapdoor?" she suggested, and we both bent down to the floor. And there, sure enough, was the faint, pencil-thin outline of a cut-out square in the middle of the room. Ziva blew the dust away, and the outline became clearer.
"Gibbs!" I called quietly. "We got something."
He and McGee came striding in. "How do we get it open?" McQuestions asked as Gibbs ran his fingers over the wood. Boss said nothing, except to pull a crowbar from out of nowhere. He shoved it into one of the cracks and pulled upward, and with a rending sound of splintering wood, the trapdoor came up, pulling with it the remains of the lock that had kept it closed from underneath. We all waited with baited breath to see if bullets would come ripping out of the darkness, but there was still silence. It was a lot scarier than actually being shot at.
As usual, after a minute or so, Gibbs went down first, treading softly on the wooden stairs that had been revealed. I went next, gun up and ready, Ziva and Probie following close behind. It was dark in this creepy basement, the only light coming from the little amount of early morning sunshine coming through the hole that we had just created.
When we hit the bottom, Gibbs flipped on his flashlight. A basement was revealed, but there was nothing in the main room except doors. No people…no remains of people…no threats of blowing something up in red paint on the wall. I half expected to see a foosball table tucked in a corner.
"I'm confused, boss," I whispered.
"Shut up, DiNozzo."
Intense silence reigned again, and I concentrated on Ziva's breathing. Softly, in and out. In and out. And then Gibbs raised up one hand and pointed to one of the doors. I thought it might have been his sixth sense cropping in again…or his x-ray vision.
A muffled sound was coming through, very faint, and very tired sounding. Gibbs crept soundlessly towards it and tried the handle. Locked. He then gave me a look. The I-want-to-see-behind-this-door look. I stepped up, and with one swift motion, kicked the door in.
You would think that with the line of work we pursued that we would get used to freaky asshole terrorists creeping us out. But no.
Agent Lee was on her knees in the middle of the closet, her hands and feet tied, as well as a gag in her mouth. She looked beaten and malnourished; her hair lay lank and greasy on the sides of her face, her makeup in dried up streaks on her cheeks and her clothes ripped and dirty. On the wall behind her, in a sickening color of red, were the words:
"Hello, Agent Gibbs."
As usual, I am always up for a episode discussion! What did you think about Lee and that craziness? And the rumors about the Christmas episode coming up in a couple weeks? Favorite Tony-Ziva moment so far this season?
And am I the only one who thinks that Palmer's hotness is underappreciated? (I'm so excited for the rerun of About Face...yay for the only Palmer-centric episode!)