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Chapter 10

Tony grimaced as he awoke, his head throbbing painfully. He reached up to touch his head, then frowned in confusion when his hands wouldn't move like he wanted them to. Blinking, he slowly came to the realization that there was cloth wrapped around his eyes and metal digging into his wrists. He was handcuffed and blindfolded, then. But how…

The agent gasped as memories flooded back- the Chinese food thug, the cartel members who had suddenly flooded the house, diving for cover behind the couch, frantically calling Gibbs and shooting at the men, getting shot in the arm, seeing G dragged out from behind another chair with a gun to his temple, and the seeming leader of the men yelling at him in Spanish to surrender or he'd shoot G, kicking his weapon to the men, and standing with his hands up, until something had hit him in the head.

"G," he hissed, trying to bite back a gasp when pain flooded up from the bullet wound. "G!"

"Tony?" the other agent whispered.

"Yeah," Tony muttered, sighing in relief. G was alive, and the two of them were together. The situation might not be completely hopeless then.

"You okay? You were out for a while," G asked. Tony heard shuffling noises and realized that the other man was moving closer to him.

"Got hit pretty hard in the head," the former detective admitted. "You?"

"Same, but no concussion as far as I can tell, and I wasn't out anywhere near as long as you were. You think you have a concussion?"

"Maybe. Nauseous, but not really dizzy and I don't think I'm slurring," Tony said, lifting and lowering his eyebrows and rolling his eyes in an attempt to dislodge the blindfold slightly.

"Well, the nausea might be due to the fact that we're in a cramped, foul smelling moving vehicle," G said, his voice suddenly right next to him.

Tony frowned, listening for a second. He could hear the clanks of whatever they were traveling in, and feel the floor on the vehicle swaying slightly. How had he not already figured out that they were in a car or something?

"Tony? Tony!" A hand was running along his arm, then stopping to grip his shoulder. "Answer me!"

"Huh?" the SFA asked eloquently.

G breathed a sigh of relief. "You went silent for like ten minutes. I thought you'd passed out again."

"DiNozzos don't pass out," Tony groaned as the car jerked and bumped, jostling his wounded arm, which was not the one G had grabbed, thankfully.

Chuckling slightly, G said "Sure you don't. Just don't do it now, cause I would not want to watch you slip into a coma when I can't do anything. Or rather not watch you do it, since I can't see, but just stay conscious, okay?"

"'Kay," Tony muttered. "Wonder how the cartel found us, if this is them."

"I think it is, since they all speak Spanish and I think I saw some drugs."

"How'd you see anything? And didn't you wake up here? How long was I out?" Tony asked, his sluggish brain slowly seeming to reboot.

"Woke up briefly when they were loading stuff into trucks and cars. When they realized I was awake, they blindfolded me before I could see much, but it looked like they had some heroin and cocaine. Then they knocked me out again, and I woke up in here. Since I woke up the second time, I think it was about two hours, maybe three before you woke up. Thought you were in a different vehicle or something, until I heard you start groaning."

"Ugh…wonder if it's morning yet, if your team's wondering where we are," Tony mumbled, shifting to try and alleviate some of the pain in his arm.

"Don't know. My watch is still on, but I can't see it with the blindfold. Actually, hang on a second."

Tony heard more shuffling sounds of G moving, this time to directly in front of him.

"I'm going to try and remove your blindfold, but this will be difficult with my hands cuffed behind my back. I'll try not to punch you, but if I do anyways, sorry."

Tony huffed a laugh, feeling G's hands run along his neck, then up to his face. He reached the blindfold, then tugged it up slightly. Dim light reached his eyes, and Tony gritted his teeth when it sent a spike of pain through his already aching head.

"That enough?" the other agent asked, and Tony murmured agreement.

His eyes slowly adjusted to the light while G moved back to his left side. They seemed to be in the back of some car, with the seats removed and a barrier put up between them and the driver. The windows were extremely dark, letting in only a slight bit of light. Tony shifted his arms so he could see his watch, wincing at the pain the movement caused.

"It's seven in the morning," he told the other agent. "I must've been out for at least nine hours, and you six."

"Well, the team should start looking for us in a few hours," G said, not sounding very optimistic about it. Tony twisted to see him better, and was relieved to see that he didn't seem badly hurt. He had a cut on his forehead, most likely from when their captors had knocked him out, but there were no other obvious injuries.

"I did leave a voicemail for Gibbs. But, assuming we've been driving for at least a few hours, we could be anywhere right now," Tony pointed out realistically.

"So we can't count on the team for rescue. We'll have to get ourselves out," G reasoned, frowning.

"Yeah. Any chance we see, we take it. But while we're here, we should try to find out how the cartel's back, who's calling the shots this time. Lopez got shot like a dozen times, we both saw his corpse. Did Eric or Nell find anything about who could have taken over the cartel while I was on the phone with Vance yesterday?" Tony asked. The throbbing in his head was beginning to subside, and he was thinking more clearly now.

"That's a good plan, but no, they didn't find anything. They were going to keep looking into it last night and today, but that's not exactly helpful to us now," G sighed, bringing his cuffed hands up over his legs so they were in front of him.

Tony repeated G's earlier motion, groaning at the pain reawakened in his wounded arm.

"Are you sure you're all right?" the other agent turned slightly towards him, worry creasing his brow.

"Yeah," Tony muttered, hurriedly racking his brains for an excuse to keep G from finding out (and worrying) about the bullet wound. "Just jostled my head. Luckily I have a thick skull." He chuckled slightly, but G didn't join in. "I'll move your blindfold, okay?" It was hopefully dark enough so that Callen couldn't see enough to make out the wound. Tony tugged the material down a little bit, enough that the other agent could see somewhat, but hopefully not so much that their captors would notice.

Once G's eyes had adjusted, he looked around, taking in the meager details of their prison. Once he seemed to have gleaned all the information he could from it, he focused on Tony, scanning him for injuries as best he could in the dim light. Tony shifted, a bit uncomfortable under the intense look, but met his eyes squarely. Apparently satisfied with what he saw, G turned away to study the barrier at the front of the space. He lightly tapped on it, and Tony scooted forwards to see what he was doing. G shoved at the barrier, and scowled when it remained stationary. Tony moved to one corner to check for loose spots or weak sections, and G did the same on the other side.

A few minutes later, after lightly tapping, scratching, and pushing quietly so as not to attract attention, Tony turned back to G, who shook his head.

"Damnit," Tony muttered. "Maybe we try knocking, see if anyone's on the other side of that, or if they care?"

"Sure," G agreed, awkwardly shifting his hands to move his blindfold slightly. The cuffs were tight, with a very short chain, making it difficult to do anything with their hands. Tony lifted his arms and rapped sharply and loudly on the barrier. They heard an excited babble of voices, then the vehicle swerved and stopped. More voices joined in, loud enough to be heard, but just quite enough so the words couldn't be made out. There was a loud scuffing of shoes near the back of the vehicle.

"Move to back of vehicle!" An accented voice called out. Tony and G exchanged glances, mentally preparing for whatever was in store for them. The door slowly began to open…

A/N(Benny)- So so so sorry about the long wait! Concert and testing season is in full swing, which means there is very little time to write! We'll try to get the next chapter up a lot quicker, but next week is Concert Hell Week, which basically means a) we get really sick of our instruments b) we get really sick of the band room and auditorium c) the music teachers get really sick of us and d) there is no time to breathe. YAY! Not. Again, terribly sorry for the wait!