A/N: Still rated M, though this chapter it's mostly for language. Nothing too bad, but still on the safe side.

Also, I wanted to let you all know some things before I continue. First off, I felt kind of bad making Damon the villain, but I planned this story out before he even came back into the picture this season, and I found that I really really like him where he is for this fic. But for the record, in reality (and canon) I fully enjoy Damon Werth. He might be an actor playing a part on a TV show, but he makes one damn fine-looking Marine.

Secondly, this story is indeed very dark, but I do not intend to have an over abundance of Zangst. Y'all get enough of that in Something More. There is lots of emotion, don't get me wrong, since it's a dark, guttural topic, but... hopefully you'll see what I mean when you read this chapter.

Okay! All that's out of the way, so-- on with the story!

In the space of an instant, their Mission had morphed from an Assassination to a Rescue.

Gibbs' heart threatened to jump out of his chest each time he realized who it was they were setting out to save. She was alive, and they were suddenly in a place to finally bring her home. But for all the blessing this new development was, it also made their purpose that much more difficult to accomplish.

Before, it wouldn't have mattered if they were caught or killed in the process of carrying out their Mission. All that mattered was that they managed to take Werth down with them. But now, their Mission was to retrieve Ziva and take her back to Sanctuary— which meant they all needed to stay alive long enough for that to happen.

Now, they had to plan that much more carefully, and be that much more vigilant.

And yet, they couldn't. They didn't have the Intel to properly assess the situation, and they needed to act quickly—preferably that night. Logistically, it was the best time to make a move. The Bloods would be worn out from the Games and the festivities, and they wouldn't be expecting three men to rescue a lowly Survivor. If they waited until about three AM, biorhythms would be low, and it would be a little bit easier to take them off-guard.

The only Recon they did was collected once Fornell had led them to the Tracks, which was more a train yard than it was a single strip of tracks. It was immediately evident that this was not where they kept most of the Survivors.

There appeared to be only a few train cars in use as Fornell had predicted, and they appeared to be cargo cars rather than passenger cars. The cargo cars would be spacious enough house Survivors, but the Tracks were too quiet to be where the majority were being kept. Upon realizing this, the three Residents took a moment or two to try and analyze the scene, which inevitably turned into profiling.

"She's not a Blood," Fornell murmured first, careful to keep his voice quiet, "so she wouldn't be here by herself."

"She'll be with Werth," Gibbs said, trying to keep the ire from his tone. He had already explained his knowledge of the ex-Corporal to the other two men, who had simply nodded in acknowledgement. He left out the parts of how Ziva and Werth had seemed to share some vague kind of bond at the time—even he didn't want to think about it.

"Yes," Sergei agreed in his accented voice, nodding. "I have seen his type of behavior before. He will…" His gaze flicked to Gibbs and then not so subtly tried to amend his intend statement. "He will not let her out of his sight tonight."

"So instead of focusing on where she is, we need to figure out where he would be," Fornell translated. They took a moment to survey the scene before them as they sprawled just behind the crest of a hill that gave them a decent vantage point of the Tracks.

When they had first found the Tracks, there had been about twenty-five Bloods milling around the place. Now, less than a dozen remained, and even they seemed to be on their way out. There was no design to their movements, so they were not acting as Patrols or as Guards. At least, not most of them.

"Look there," Sergei rumbled, a meaty hand pointing towards the center of the Tracks. Gibbs peered over the hill, and saw train car next to which three Bloods seemed to be conversing.

"Three Bloods," Gibbs stated, as if to clarify it was what Sergei had been attempting to show him. The Russian nodded.

"Son of a bitch," Fornell muttered. "Look, Jethro. One of them is armed to the teeth." Gibbs peered closer, and sure enough, one of the Three Bloods was laden down with an M16 and a myriad of other weapons. "And I'll bet he's got a twin on the other side."

Comprehension clicked. "Guard duty," Gibbs observed. "They're guarding the big bad boss, and whoever he's got in that car with him."

"Damn straight," Fornell answered with a nod.

So now they had a target to focus on, and when the time came to move, they wouldn't have to waste time searching cars to find her. They waited for an hour more, until the only movement on the Tracks came from the occasional shifting of weight from the Guard they had spotted. It was obvious he was bored, and not expecting anything out of the ordinary.

The bare-boned plan they came up with in the meantime had taken that into accommodation, and with a silent nod, the three men slipped out of sight as they abandoned their position on the hill. Silent as ghosts, they moved onto the rail yard, their movements so smooth that not even the gravel crunched under their feet.

They darted from shadow to shadow, careful to keep out sight of the Blood on duty. When they had no more room to move closer without exposing themselves, Gibbs nodded to Sergei, who immediately drew his knife with a nod. Then, with a speed and grace that belied his size, the Russian swiftly darted to where the Blood was standing. Before the man had a chance to react, a meaty hand had clamped over his mouth while a knife punctured first his windpipe, and then the vulnerable part of the spine where it met the skull.

The kill was quick, silent, and bloodless. Sergei gently stowed the limp body beneath the car, then disappeared around the other side of the car to do the same to the other Blood on duty. As he waited, Gibbs glanced at the gravel in front of him—and froze when he saw dark, familiar drops of shadow on the moon-washed pieces of stone.

Blood.

Looking closer at the ground, Gibbs' old Marine training kicked in, and his keen eyes could suddenly pick out the familiar ovals that were human footprints. The drops of blood existed within a particularly small set of them, which he immediately interpreted as meaning that whomever the blood belonged to had been barefoot when they had walked across the gravel. And then, a few steps closer to the car the Residents were currently targeting, there was a deep furrow, and in an instant Gibbs knew he was in the right place.

Someone had been dragged through here, and recently. Gibbs would put money on it having been Ziva.

But then a flash of movement caught his eye, and Gibbs saw Sergei waving him over. After a quick glance around to look for any Bloods they might have missed, both Gibbs and Fornell joined Sergei next to the rail car. With a nod, he dismissed the two of them to carry out the plan. They would pose as the Bloods on Guard, to ward off unwanted wayward attention, while Gibbs silently entered the car.

The side hatch to the box car was open only by about a foot. After taking a moment to listen for sound from within, Gibbs carefully pulled himself into the car. He remained flat on his stomach once he was in., all too aware of the moonlight at his back, and knowing he needed to keep as low a profile as possible. He also found that by allowing most of the moonlight to cascade over him, he was able to see more once inside.

However, as soon as his vision had adjusted, he almost wished it hadn't.

In the center of the car, two sleeping forms lay on a pile of ragged cloth. Werth nearly dwarfed Ziva's small form with his half naked body as he lay sprawled on his stomach. One heavy arm draped over the curve of Ziva's waist, who lay next to him.

To Gibbs' relief, she was fully clothed, though in the back of his mind he knew that fact didn't really mean anything. It had been hours since the fight had ended, and anything could have happened in the meantime.

She had turned half on her side, her arms lax against the floor in front of her. The cuffs had been removed, leaving raw weeping bands of flesh in their place. Gazing at her, Gibbs couldn't help but noticed how relaxed she seemed. He chalked it up to exhaustion, given the events he had witnessed, and took comfort from the fact that her position in relation to Werth made it seem as though she had tried to move as far from him as she could, with only the restraining arm on her waist keeping her within his reach.

And then he saw the ring of metal around her neck, and from this proximity, he could see that it was two inches wide, and that the D-ring on the front had been attached by hand. As a whole it seemed crude, rough, and vicious. The chain that had been attached to it after the fight was looped around an exposed joist. A padlock, heavier than the one at her neck, locked it in place. Gibbs shoved the growing anger away, forcing himself to focus on what he needed to do.

But before he could realize that he needed a lockpick he didn't have with him, he happened to glance fleetingly towards Ziva's lax features—and froze.

Wide brown eyes stared back at him in the moonlight, her gaze a mixture of confusion, apprehension, and curiosity. She hadn't moved an inch, though the slightest of tension had settled over her limbs. It was then that Gibbs realized that she could only see his silhouette in the moonlight—she had no way of recognizing him.

Slowly, silently he moved just a little bit closer, just enough to cast his face into shadow. There was a long moment as her eyes adjusted and focused, but then they widened even more as recognition hit. She blinked once, as if she expected him to disappear, but when he didn't her chest lifted in a silent gasp of shock.

She held his gaze unblinkingly, and for a moment, the grime and the tattoo and the scar all disappeared from her features. The dark circles under her eyes vanished, as did the bruises and sprinkling of blood that decorated her cheek. For a split second, he saw her as she had appeared the last time he had seen her two years ago, with bright happy eyes that smiled up at him.

But then he blinked, and reality returned. He moved to slide closer to her, but Ziva's hand lifted from the floor, palm towards him, silently telling him to freeze. He obeyed, and watched as the same hand tilted to lightly tap the thin chain pooled on the floor in front of her. The message was clear—she wasn't going anywhere until they got rid of the chain.

He didn't have time to find or manufacture his own lockpick, and alarm rushed through him briefly before he wormed his way back to the open door. He silently touched Sergei's shoulder, attracting his attention. When the Russian looked at him in concern, he got straight to the point and used a calloused hand to mime the presence of a collar around his neck and then used another hand to pull at the air in front of it, as he would a chain.

Luckily, the Russian caught on in an instant, and for a moment his expression turned thoughtful as he racked his mind for a solution. Then, something clicked. He turned back to Gibbs and simply held up a finger, telling him to wait. Gibbs nodded, and Sergei swiftly disappeared from sight.

Gibbs shifted his attention back to the inside of the boxcar. Ziva had remained motionless, still and silent as stone. She had even managed to force the tension from her body, no doubt fearful Damon would sense any long-term stiffness to her frame. He resisted the urge to return to her, knowing that every time he moved he ran the risk of waking Werth.

But then a moment later, Sergei was back, and the Russian proudly handed him an 8'' screw cutter. It was about the size of an average pair of pliers, and seemed so absurdly obscure as it sat in Gibbs' hand that he caught himself wondering where in the hell the man had managed to find it in the middle of a train yard. But then he grinned, and realized it didn't matter. The chain was just skinny enough that the cutters could do the trick, if Gibbs knew the right place to make the cut.

He silently slid back to where Ziva lay, and was unable to bury the elation he felt when he found her still staring at him. It felt surreal, to have her so close, so alive… but he shoved that from his mind too. Neither of them would be alive for long if he didn't hurry. He showed Ziva the cutters, and she nodded once in understanding of what was to come.

Gibbs crawled to where he could reach the chain without straining, and would have enough of a grip to exert the force necessary to split the chain. When he sandwiched the chain between the blades, he aimed for one of the joints, rather than a single link. It was a gamble, as it would make it harder to break the chain, but he would only get one cut. Gibbs knew in his gut that as soon as the chain snapped Werth would be violently alert.

He had a single chance to break the chain, and then they would have to run like bats out of hell.

The thought had crossed Gibbs mind to try to cut Werth's throat as he slept, but he knew that Werth's training would make it too difficult to accomplish. The ex-Corporal would wake and fight back, and even though Gibbs might kill him in the end, it wouldn't be before half of DC heard the commotion. On top of that, Ziva was way too close to the bastard for any sort of reassurance that she wouldn't get caught in the crossfire.

So Gibbs focused on the chain. As soon as he was in position, he glanced at Ziva. She was looking up at him, her eyes still wide in the darkness, and when he held up three fingers to indicate the count, she nodded as her body grew tense again, this time as she coiled slightly, ready to launch into action. Gibbs hoped that her speed on the field earlier that night was still with her.

He began the count, silently dropping each finger as he went.

One. Two. Three.

The chain snapped with a soft chink, and Ziva was up like a shot. Damon's arm slipped from her waist as she bolted to her feet, ready to sprint to the hatch. Gibbs was set to follow close on her heels, but he was completely unprepared for what came next.

Just as Gibbs had predicted, Werth reacted instantaneously, but instead of launching to his feet to chase after Ziva, he simply twisted and lunged toward her from where he lay. Before she had a chance to take two steps, Werth's hand had emerged from the blankets, a Ka-bar firmly in his grip.

The knife darted out and with a roar, Damon slashed viciously at Ziva's ankles. She crumpled with cry of pain, and in the next instant, Werth was on top of her, the tip of the knife pressed firmly to the skin above her collar. Their noses nearly touched as Damon leaned in close, completely unaware of Gibbs' presence.

"Trying to escape again, bitch?" Werth shouted, his expression more enraged than even what had been seen at the stadium. "HUH?!" he bellowed, lifting Ziva's upper body up an inch before slamming it back onto the floor. Ziva gasped in pain, and then coughed for air before giving a moan. Tears leaked from her eyes as she struggled to push Damon's weight off of her, but her efforts were futile, as he only let more of his bulk rest on her.

Gibbs acted on instinct, and used the only weapon he hadn't relinquished at the hatch of the box car—the cutters. With a single swing, he brought the pliers back and then slammed them down on the sweet spot left vulnerable on the back of Werth's skull.

By some miracle, it worked, and Werth slumped as he lost consciousness. The knife fell from his hand, but Gibbs barely noticed as he immediately moved to shove the Blood away from Ziva. She gave another moan of pain as he did so, but Gibbs couldn't stop to react to it. He scooped her up into his arms, and sprinted to the hatch, which Sergei had pulled it the rest of the way open as soon as he had heard the commotion inside.

Gibbs jumped out of the boxcar and landed on his feet with an agility he'd thought he had lost. He refused to think about how light she was in his arms, and instead gave a loud "let's go!" before breaking into a run. They avoided the direction they had come—it was familiar, but they knew it to be crawling with Bloods. They kept to the shadows as best they could, and managed to get a good distance from the Tracks before the skidded to a stop in a deserted alleyway.

He gently set Ziva down on the pavement, noticing her quickened breaths for the first time when she gave a guttural groan of pain as she leaned back against the wall behind her. In the shadowed moonlight, Gibbs could see her eyes clenched in pain, and the tears that trailed from them. Moving closer to comfort her, his hand rested on her knee for a moment, which only made her give another sharp cry.

"Don't!" she pleaded breathlessly as she tried to gulp back her tears. "Stop-- don't touch… Please!"

Gibbs jerked his hand away, and she nearly sobbed in relief. He pushed a matted lock of hair from her face, but let his gaze drift down to her legs, which were somewhat splayed, knees bent over to the side. Keen eyes spotted the blood that had begun to pool beneath her ankles, and how the entire back of her heels were smeared with the viscous fluid. Behind his eyes he could see the blurred shape of Werth's knife and Ziva's cry of pain echoed in his ears.

"Shit," he muttered under his breath, rage building within him.

Werth's reflexive attack had caught the back of both her ankles; Gibbs could see the gaping wounds the blade had left behind, and even in the dark, he was fairly certain that both her Achilles tendons had been severed. It would account for both the pain and the slightly unnatural lines of her legs from calf to heel.

"Sergei, my pack," he commanded as he moved towards her feet. The Russian handed him the book bag without a word, and Gibbs immediately rummaged through it until he located the bandages Abby had sent with them. He glanced up at Ziva, whose eys were tightly closed against the pain. "I have to bandage these," he told her. "It's gonna hurt."

"Do it," she bit out past clenched teeth.

Gibbs obeyed, not giving himself time to hesitate. He worked quickly and efficiently, shutting out Ziva's muffled cries of pain. He did not allow himself to look up until he had tied off the final knot. It was crude, but effective, and it would have to do, at least for now. Finally glancing up, he found that Ziva had covered her mouth with a trembling hand in an attempt to muffle her cries.

The act surprised Gibbs, since he himself had momentarily forgotten their perilous location in his concern. He forced himself to focus with a shake of her head.

"We can't take her all the way to Sanctuary like this," he said. "We have to find a place to shelter, at least for a day or two." He looked to the mouth of the alley, where Fornell was standing watch. "You know anywhere we can hide out?" he asked his friend.

"Actually," Fornell replied, "we're close to the Navy Yard, believe it or not."

Gibbs felt a jolt of familiarity at the mention of the place that featured so prominently in his Memories. "Perfect," he said. "Ducky kept extra Medicinals in Autopsy. They might still be there." He passed his pack back to Sergei, and then gingerly picked Ziva up once more, who whimpered softly as her wounds were jostled despite his care. "It's fortified, at the very least."

Sergei nodded in acknowledgement, and Fornell simply shrugged.

"Let's do it."

---

It took some effort to get into the NCIS building, and then to force their way past the once-pneumatic doors into Autopsy, but Gibbs took it as an indicator that no one else had gotten there before them. Inside, Gibbs told Sergei where to look for the Supplies, and sure enough, the bandages were still there, and still in their sterile packaging.

While they had been navigating their way inside, Gibbs had noticed that Ziva had been drifting in and out of awareness. It was not due to blood loss, he was sure of it, though he suspected the pain and shock were major factors. He knew his hold on her was painful, as his right arm pushed both behind her knees and pressed against the back of her calves.

Once in Autopsy, he laid her out on one of the silver tables. The sensation of the cool metal on her skin brought her back to full lucidity, and she moaned in discomfort. He murmured words of comfort to her, then informed her of his need to properly re-bandage her wounds. She didn't respond beyond a groan, and Gibbs was unable to discern whether it was out of annoyance or if she were simply drifting out again.

As Gibbs carefully unwound the bandages, Fornell dutifully cleared the adjoining rooms, checking for any unwanted visitors. When the former FBI agent reentered the room, his elbow accidentally flipped a switch on the nearby wall.

Suddenly, with an ominous hum and several loud whumps from the direction of the ceiling, the emergency lights running along the walls began to glow. The sudden illumination startled all three men, though Ziva didn't seem to notice.

"Thought all the electricity dried up years ago," Fornell remarked.

"Must be some juice left in the backup generators," Gibbs observed as he continued to work. "It's better than nothing."

The last of the bandages fell away from Ziva's skin, finally revealing the extent of the damage. The bleeding had largely stopped, but now he could see that his suspicions had been correct. When she moved her legs in pain, her feet barely twitched. The driving force behind foot flexion—the Achilles tendon—had been sliced on both ankles. Thankfully, the cuts were relatively clean, with very little torn skin.

He took a deep breath to steady himself, then turned to Sergei.

"I need those bandages."

To his surprise, Sergei did not immediately surrender the Supplies.

"Boss," the Russian rumbled, "I can help her."

Gibbs blinked. "What?"

"Her ankles are cut," came the stilted reply. "I can fix them. The tendons, yes? I have seen it done many times in the field. Easy."

"Sergei, you would need sutures and needles and forceps—we don't have those Supplies here."

"The doctor gave me a kit before we left," Sergei replied quickly. "He said Abby's kit was not adequate when the Boss was concerned."

Gibbs rolled his eyes slightly as he recognized the accented words as those Ducky would have absolutely no qualms saying. But still he hesitated, and his gaze drifted to where Ziva lay, her chest rising and falling at infrequent intervals as the waves of pains came and went.

"It will help with her pain," Sergei added. "She will not walk yet, but fixed tendons will give stability inside her leg, and ease the pain."

After a long moment, Gibbs finally nodded. As Sergei went to fetch his kit, Gibbs moved towards Ziva's head. A hand on her forehead prompted brown eyes to open, and they were soon trained on him, though they were clouded with pain.

"Sergei says he can stitch you up," he told her. "He can reconnect the tendons."

"What?" Her soft voice was thick, and Gibbs saw her eyes unfocus slightly as she shifted her position on the table.

"The pain in your legs—your tendons have been cut."

"Oh." This time, there was comprehension.

Gibbs pressed on. "Sergei can suture them back together—"

"Okay," she responded immediately.

"But there's no way for him to anesthetize you," he finished. To his surprise, she shook her head.

"Don't care," she told him, her voice clipped.

Gibbs smiled. "You sure?"

"Work fast," came the terse instruction. Sergei approached the table with the kit in hand, and nodded as he registered her request.

"She must lie on her stomach, and she must stay very still," the Russian told him. "You must hold her steady."

Gibbs looked down to find Ziva already trying to turn herself over, though she'd been forced to pause halfway there as her weakened legs became entangled with one another in the process. He quickly helped her the rest of the way, but it was Sergei's strong hands that steadied her lacerated ankles.

Once she had settled, Gibbs climbed up onto the table with her. He sat himself Indian style, and together they worked to get her upper body onto his lap, where he could easily wrap his arms around her. He nodded to Sergei, who immediately got to work.

"We found a new home," he told her, attempting to distract when her hand clenched painfully around his as Sergei made the first cut. "You'll love it," he continued switching into full ramble mode. "It's in the middle of the woods, miles from the City. The stars are so bright…" He went on and on.

He knew there was little chance she was listening to him, and even less chance that she would remember it in a few hours, but he kept talking all the same. It was a distraction for him as well. It took his mind off her agonized gasps and whimpers, and off how she writhed against his hold. It took his mind off how frail she was, and how easy it was to still her squirming.

But finally, to his relief and by some grace of God, she suddenly slumped in his arms while Sergei was stitching her left ankle. Look down, Gibbs realized she had lost consciousness. Sergei also saw, and nodded in approval.

"That is good," he declared. "Means less pain. Now she will not feel pain while I do the second ankle."

She remained unconscious the rest of the procedure, and after Sergei had wrapped clean bandages around her ankles, Gibbs helped him turn her so that she lay on her back once more. A pair of the plastic neck rests Ducky used to use for his cadavers kept her feet elevated, which they hoped would reduce both the swelling and her pain level when she woke.

As soon as the procedure had been completed, Gibbs had climbed off the table, but he didn't go far. He stood next to the table, and for several long moments, he simply stared.

It had happened too fast. Finding her, rescuing her… it was too quick. It couldn't be real. Nothing so miraculous could happen in a single night—in a matter of hours. He was half-convinced it was all a dream, or a nightmare. But when he reached out to touch her, her skin was warm, solid. It was even tacky with drying sweat. She was real.

She was here, and soon she would be home. She would be with Tali. His family would be whole again.

He was shaken from his reverie when Fornell approached.

"What's the plan?" his friend asked brusquely. "We can't stay here long."

"If Ziva's not too bad, we'll head out when she wakes up," Gibbs replied after a moment's thought. "She should be okay as long as she doesn't walk."

"There is a high risk of infection," Sergei spoke up. He had found an old rag, and was attempting to wipe the blood from his hands. "These conditions were not ideal for surgery."

Gibbs nodded. "Ducky has antibiotics at Sanctuary. We need to get her there as quickly as we can. If we hurry, we could probably make the trip in about four days from here."

Sergei and Fornell nodded in agreement. After a long moment, Fornell cleared his threat.

"I'm gonna go see what we can Scavenge from this place. Maybe one of the vending machines has a Twinkie." He moved towards the door, but then turned back. "Sergei, is it?" The Russian glanced at him. "You ever had a Twinkie, Sergei?"

"No," came the heavy reply.

Fornell beckoned to him. "Come on, they're best when they've aged a few years."

"Would they not spoil?" the bigger man inquired skeptically, though he did move to join Fornell. The former FBI agent let the Russian pass through the door first, and he gave Gibbs a knowing nod before following, leaving him alone in Autopsy.

"Nah," Gibbs heard Fornell reply once out in the hallway, "haven't you heard? Twinkies never go bad. Klownie Kakes, though, they're a different story…"

But then the Voices died away, and Gibbs was alone with Ziva. He was infinitely grateful for Fornell's subtle segue to draw Sergei out of the room, and giving him some privacy. He pulled Ducky's old desk chair over to the Autopsy table. If he stood, the view of Ziva lying so still was eerily similar to how Kate and Jenny had looked when they had lain on the table. But by sitting in the chair, he could more easily pretend they were in a hospital somewhere, and not in the basement of an abandoned federal building in some sick replay of his most ghostly Memories.

As he sat there, looking at her thin, scarred visage, the events of the night played over and over in his mind. Flashes of her fighting in the Stadium were followed by images of her standing with arms outstretched arms in submission. And then she was tumbling down the risers, before the scene cut to Werth looming over her with his hand between her legs.

Gibbs felt something in him snap, and his head fell to his hands. His chest tightened painfully, and suddenly he couldn't breathe. He began to rock, forward and back, and when the tears finally came, he let them. They poured down his grizzled cheeks, pooling in the stubble that had grown on his jaw since leaving the Sanctuary.

Anger and relief and heartbreak and hope all clamored for supremacy in his gut…

And all he could do was weep.