Meh. *Disclaims*

Her mouth is dry and filled with dust. It chokes her, and she cries out, lashing frantically against the bonds that restrain her. Her fists meet cool air and warm skin. Large, sensible hands place themselves over her, calming, soothing. She shrinks away, curling up against the wall she is lying next to. Crazed and panicked mumbles. Empty sobs. She tries to pull her hair to cover her face but all she feels is the velvety fuzz of a shorn scalp.

She is violently sick.

He watches from behind the plate glass, his eyes riveted on her frail and broken form, his mouth set tight and resolute. Inside his head, tears are falling and his voice cracks and tears as he bellows such anger into dead and bleeding ears.

"Tony. Drink this."

He turns away and blinks at the cup of coffee in the scratched and capable hand. Blue eyes, hard and concerned, gaze levelly as he refuses.

"Tony. It wasn't a suggestion. You've been standing here for hours. You haven't eaten or drunk anything. You need to sleep." A throaty sound of derision interrupted him, but Gibbs silenced it with a well-worn sense of authority. "I know you won't consider that, so caffeine is the next best alternative. Ask Abby."

The man with the troubled eyes and shaking faith accepted the Styrofoam. The liquid inside is brown and hot and bitter. It revives him. The white and terrified girl in the next room screams. The coffee slips from his hand and crashes to the floor. It sweeps across his feet in a muddy wave and the cup rolls to the door. He stands in the puddle and his face is drained and tired.

"Tony. I'll fix this. Go, get another one, or go sleep. She'll be here when you wake up. McGee can come and watch over her if you want." His words smack into the man's eyes and leave no trace. They slide down his cheeks like tears and spill to the floor. Mingle with the puddle and he is far, far gone.

"Tony. Come on. This won't help. She's gonna be OK. We found her, didn't we?"

At this, the man turns and glares with helpless eyes. His breathing is erratic and his words are a jumble of confusion and anger and hurt. "Yeah. She's breathing, Gibbs. Great. She's alive. Doesn't mean...doesn't mean..."

"Doesn't mean she forgives you. Or you have forgiven her."

He laughs, a mirthless, bitter little laugh that falls like lead. "What have I got to forgive her for? I killed her boyfriend. She really loved him, and I killed him. And I left her behind."

"DiNozzo, you had no choice. Who are you, director of NCIS? You couldn't decide whether we dragged her back kicking and screaming or whether we left her on the tarmac."

"But it would never have been kicking and screaming. She wanted to come back. She was...testing. Seeing whether we wanted her."

"Damn it, DiNozzo! She's under her father's thumb! Always has been. When he's around, he controls her completely. He told her to ask that question. But I couldn't pretend that I was OK with punishing you, DiNozzo. It was kill or be killed. Just like you said."

"Yeah, she's alive. I'm glad." The silence that follows is stoic and unrelenting. Gibbs sighs and turns away. A sickening feeling of paternal responsibility overwhelms him, so he gets another coffee.

Inside her head, the sun is blinding white on a shining marble courtyard. The sky is a bright, clear bowl and she can hear the sea in the distance. Swathes of material hang, suspended, in the air. Scarlet, peacock blue. Moss green. Lemon yellow, cinnamon, nutmeg. Black. The palest pink and the most vivid purple. They flutter like flags.

"Tony. Tony!"

The voice rips itself from her throat but she does not understand it, or feel the significance. She does not know why she is calling and who will answer. She hears a dull and desperate thud, like a fist savagely smacking into a plate glass window, and then there are raised voices and open doors and shouting, and dragging. And then silence.

"Tony."

The beeping of the machines that surround her take her to another place. Walk out of a little metal box into an underground cavern. Filled with white and silver and grey. A jumping, smiling girl with black pigtails and a caffeine fuelled expectancy. Beep, beep, beep. May-ja-mass-speck. Major...

Drumming. Marching. The sound of military anger. It takes her back to her little square cell. A knife, embedded to the hilt in her shoulder. She stirs and begs with a frightened empty mouth.

"As you can see, we've keeping her on high-dose sedatives for the majority of the time. She's traumatised, sir, intensely distressed, and it's proving very difficult to acclimatise her to the new environment." The woman with the square glasses and kind eyes looks up from a clipboard and gazes impassively at the tired man with the cold cup of coffee in his hand.

"What does that mean?"

"Well...it's really too early to tell, and it does so much depend upon the capabilities of individuals. As she was, uh, a...'officer' with several...international organisations, we believe that her psychological hardiness will be better than most. But still...she's gone through a lot. When you brought her in, she was incredibly dehydrated, starving. Hadn't seen proper daylight or had fresh air in a dangerously long time. And of course, that's without even considering the extensive and brutal damage that was done to her physically. We treated her for multiple broken bones, two stab wounds, one that she seemed unaware of, several cigarette burns that only did superficial damage but will, unfortunately, scar, her head had been repeatedly bludgeoned, there was massive internal bleeding...Mr - DiNozzo, was it? – to be frank with you, it's a miracle she's survived."

"And?"

"And..." and here the woman looks away and twists her lip almost imperceptibly, "Certain tests have indicated that some of her abuse was sexual."

"Can you just spit it out, doctor?"

"Mr DiNozzo, she was raped. Repeatedly. We've found traces of only one male, which has to be taken as a positive, but-"

"A positive? She was raped and you're seeing the positives?" His mind is crowded and shouting and black. He sees naked bodies and bloody floors and empty eyes and knives. His fists are a blur as they slam into the glass separating him from the woman lying broken in the bed. He does not resist as the doctors and nurses rush from her room, as Gibbs steps in and covers his head with a palm, pushes his face down and drags his inert body down the corridor. A sink. It fills with water and his body is pushed forwards so he is submerged. He opens his eyes and sees the cold hospital light filtering down through the ripples. He is intensely calm. And then he starts drowning. He is yanked out, choking and sobbing like a child.

Down the corridor, a nightmare away, two dark eyes open and they search.

OK, I don't think I can handle much more depressingly fatalistic 'Ziva's all traumatised and doing crazy mumbling' angst, so look, she's all woke up.

Reviews are lovely :)