A/N: Another update! I'm going to run with this for as long as the muse is with me. I got lucky, but this one was the hardest chapter yet! I hope it was worth it!

I use the term "rodimy" which I read was a Russian term that means 'sweetheart', usually applied to kinsmen or someone considered family. Just for you reference in reading this...

Enjoy!

When Ziva woke, her vision was a blur of shadow and dusty white. The dark of the Boxcar was gone, as was Damon's heavy breaths against her skin. Somewhere in the back of her mind she registered pain, but she ignored it, just as she always did.

Blinking heavily, her eyes focused, and she realized the dusty white above her was actually ceiling tile. She was instantly on edge, as she tried to first to figure out where she had been taken, then why Damon had put her there.

But wait. Damon hadn't been the last face she saw last night. She'd been surprised about something, about someone…

Jethro.

No. It couldn't have been. Another dream. That's what it always was. She'd see him, and then she'd wake up in Damon's clutches again. But last night—it seemed different, looking back. She couldn't remember exactly what had happened, but she knew he had been there. Hadn't he?

The air felt heavy in her nose, stale. It struck her as odd… but it didn't really matter, and she simply tucked the information away for later. Where was she?

She turned her head to the left—ignoring the familiar chafe of steel around her neck— and saw a wall of numbered metal squares that struck her as familiar.

Then, all of a sudden, Ziva knew exactly where she was. There was no doubt in her mind what room she was in, or what it was she was lying on. And she knew that she didn't want to be there. She couldn't be there. She had won the fight, she had put up with Damon—

She couldn't be dead.

Instinct kicked in and she tried to jump off the table, but something kept her legs from functioning properly. A flash of pain ran from ankles to knees, but then she was falling, her upper body and hips already over the edge of the autopsy table before she could alter her course.

She braced herself for the impending collision, but then suddenly, strong arms came from nowhere and caught her before she hit the ground. Then an arm reached up and hooked under her legs, lifting them gently from the table before both arms lowered her to the floor.

The arms were thick, and muscular, as was the chest she rested against. She could smell sweat, and the slightest hint of blood, but she knew that whoever had caught her was not Damon. Relief did not immediately wash over her though, because she knew that there was no reassurance that whoever held her was any better than Damon was. All she knew for sure was that the arms around her were definitively male.

"You must be more careful," rumbled a heavily accented voice. Recognition tickled at her awareness, and she was just identifying the Russian pronunciation when her gaze flew up to land on her rescuer's face.

"Sergei?"

The name came out as a question, though she knew in an instant that it was him. The prominent brow, thin lips, the lumpy Russian nose… there was no chance it wasn't him. His had been the last face she had seen before her Capture, and she remembered it as clearly as if she had just seen it yesterday.

Sergei nodded. "Yes," he said in his deep, stilted English. "You are safe now."

She hadn't realized it, but those were the words she had apparently needed to hear. Ziva could feel the tension leave her body as relief washed over her, and she gave a heavy sigh as her hand came up to brush her hair from her face.

"I really am in Autopsy then," she said. Even to her own ears, her voice was raspy from disuse. But Sergei nodded.

"Yes," he affirmed, "at your NCIS." He met her gaze as she swallowed the information, but then frowned when Ziva began to grin.

Suddenly, without warning, a laugh bubbled to the surface, spilling from her lips before she could even think to censor it. Sergei stared at her in confusion as she shook, and moisture pooled in her eyes before finally spilling down her cheeks. The mirthful sound eventually turned silent as she ran out of breath, but it wasn't until her gut began to cramp painfully before she could force herself to suck in a lungful of air.

She looked up at Sergei with a chuckling smile, and saw concern clearly etched on his features. Wiping her eyes, Ziva forced herself to calm down. She rested a reassuring hand on her friend's barrel-like chest and began the task of attempting to explain herself.

"I'm sorry, Sergei, I'm fine," she reassured him. He looked at her in disbelief. "It's just—" She bit back another laugh. "For a long time, I always knew I would end up here… Only—" She snickered involuntarily. "Only, I did not think I would be alive for it…" and then she could contain herself any longer, and she was laughing again, as Sergei looked on helplessly.

Her ribs protested loudly against the strain, and the pain in her chest ended the fun quicker than she would have liked. She took a moment to catch her breath, and leaned heavily against Sergei as exhaustion suddenly hit her.

"You were out longer than we expected, rodimy," Sergei told her, his nickname for her rolling off his tongue. She half smiled at the sound of it. But then she stiffened, as one word stood out in her mind, sending a jolt through her heart like a lightning bolt.

We.

It wasn't a dream, she wasn't dead. He was here, somewhere. Where did he go? She had felt him, his hand on her cheek, pushing her hair from her eyes. That had been him. She had to find him.

Suddenly, Ziva shoved herself out of Sergei's grip, her mind focused on the one thing that had kept the fire in her heart burning, regardless of what she had done at any given time.

"Jethro—" her husky voice threatened to give out as she uttered the single word.

She had to find him.

"He was here, where is he?" she demanded forcefully. She struggled to get her feet under her, but her feet refused to respond. "Sergei, where is he?"

Her friend did not immediately respond, but she barely noticed beyond an increase in her frustration as her hands worked furiously to get her feet to get where they needed to be. The pain from before shot through her legs, but she pushed through it, even as the tears in her eyes lost their happiness. Finally, she gave up on her legs, and simply reached up to grasp the lip of the table above her head.

Shoving Sergei's helping hands away, her arms trembled as she fought to pull herself up, a task made difficult by the fact that everything below her knees felt like dead weight. But she persisted, unable to think about anything other than getting to him. She had almost gotten her legs under her when her hand slipped from the table, and her legs folded like limp noodles.

But once again, arms rescued her, only this time—this time they weren't bulky against her skin. They didn't dwarf her as they lowered her to the floor. And this time, the voice attached to them was not a rumbling accent. It was a voice that was both tender and gruff, just like its owner, and could whisper words of love just as easily as it could bark out an order.

"Careful," it murmured thickly in her ear, "you'll tear your stitches out."

It was a voice that had echoed in her dreams every night since her capture, a voice that had offered comfort regardless of whether she lay alone, or in Damon's bed. It wasn't a voice at all, she told herself as she turned to face the man she had Survived so long to see.

It was the Voice.

---

Gibbs returned from the head—she'd been out much longer than they'd anticipated—just in time to see Ziva's hand start to slip from the metal table. Moving quicker than he'd ever moved in his life, he somehow made it to her before she fell to the unforgiving tile floor. Somehow he managed to say something past the lump in his throat, but then froze as Ziva's head turned, and all he could see were wide brown eyes brimming with apprehension and desperation.

For several long moments, he could barely breathe; her proximity took the air from his chest like a vacuum, and it was if his mind had suddenly severed all contact from the rest of his body. He couldn't blink, he couldn't move. He saw her pulse jumping beneath the skin of her neck, just above the dark hollow of her left clavicle. It sped up erratically as he watched, and he could feel his own heart keeping pace, matching beat for beat.

He was debating the valuing of reaching out to touch her cheek, when suddenly her hand flew up and connected sharply with his cheek.

He blinked in shock; the blow surprised him more than it actually hurt. But before he could do anything else, calloused hands framed his face as her lips came crashing down on his. They trembled against his mouth, and he could hear her breaths grow ragged as the contact persisted. After the longest moment of his life, she pulled away, but something drew her back again, even as she began to speak.

"What were you thinking—?" She kissed him again, fresh tears falling down her cheeks. "You stupid—" Another kiss. "…stupid man!"

He could feel a grin tickling the corners of his mouth, but it was smothered by another kiss. "You could have—gotten yourself—" Short bursts of words were punctuated by quick pecks on his lips. "—killed!" Her hands never once left his face, keeping him in place even if he had wanted to move away. "Did you—even have—a plan?!"

This time, she pulled away long enough to get a full sentence out.

"What were you thinking?" she asked, her fingers tracing his face lightly, her eyes searching his for an answer she didn't wait for. "Dangerous—" she said after pecking his lips again. "He could've—" She leaned in once again. "—killed you!" Gibbs let his own hand come up, and rest against her tangled hair. "You stupid—stupid…"

She was unable to finish when her voice finally gave out. Then, thin arms wrapped fiercely around his neck and she began to shake, her frail body quivering as sobs of relief wracked her. Gibbs pulled her close, his own tears beginning to fall again as he clung to her like a lifeline. His arms encircled her far too easily, a testament to the need to get her back to Sanctuary, but he disregarded it. He focused on the moment, on her ragged breaths against his neck and her small hands clutching his back in desperation.

He held her until her breathing evened out—all too soon, he thought—and let her be the one to pull away first. She wiped her eyes with an apologetic laugh, but Gibbs only smiled as he trailed his thumb along her jaw, the calloused pads of his finger catching on the car that creased her skin.

He still felt that small sense of detachment, as if he still couldn't believe she were real. He knew she was—he could feel her skin and see her smile, and those were real, no doubt about it—but after two years… It was too haunting a feeling to shake off so soon.

Fornell cleared his throat gruffly, and both Gibbs and Ziva glanced up to see him standing awkwardly off to the side, his hands shoved into his pockets with his eyes averted. Sergei had remained where he was, though he too had respectfully averted his eyes. But then his gaze returned to them, allowing Gibbs to see a protective gleam in the Russian's eye. It was one that had previously been been reserved for Tali, but Gibbs was glad to see it there for Ziva.

"Not that I don't know this is a really emotional moment," Fornell said, shoving his hands in his pockets, "but we really need to start thinking about getting out of here. We've been here way too long."

Gibbs hesitated, but finally nodded. "It's almost midday. If we hurry, we can make it out of the city by nightfall."

To his surprise, Ziva bobbed her head in agreement. "It would be the best time to go," she told him. "They'll be North of the Stadium for a few more hours. If we take a route to the Southwest, we may be able to avoid them completely."

"But won't they be looking for you?" Fornell asked.

She shrugged. "They've been having problems with some up and coming Gang up in Maryland. They'll go to them for me first."

"Bloods having trouble with a rival Gang?" Fornell retorted with scoff. "Didn't think there was such a beast."

"Honestly, it's not much," Ziva responded. "But from what I've overheard, Damon's mostly been using them to keep his men occupied."

"He didn't even see me last night," Gibbs spoke up, which only made Ziva nod.

"Then he thinks I either ran, or I was taken by the Maryland gang. Either way, he'll probably assume I ran North anyway, since there's a better chance I'd find protection there."

"All right then," Gibbs said, "Southwest out of the City it is. Sergei, you and Fornell will be forward, and keep a lookout for Threats. I'll follow behind with Ziva."

When they had all gathered their Supplies and Weapons, Gibbs gently lifted Ziva yet again. She moaned involuntarily in pain as he did so, but this time her arm wrapped over his shoulder to help him take her weight, and it made her seem feather light in his arms. The night before, she had been as limp as a ragdoll, which had allowed him to feel what little weight she still had on her bones.

And while she felt nearly ethereal in his arms, he could also feel the muscles that bunched under her skin, and the power in the arm that rested around his neck. It belied what she'd been forced to endure in the two years she'd been missing, the dozens of fights just like the one he'd witnessed the night before, along with who knew what else. But when he caught the gleam in Ziva's brown eyes as she looked up at him, he let the anger go.

Instead, he grinned.

"Don't get used to this," he teased her gently. "If you're going to being staying at Sanctuary, you're gonna have to pull your own weight."

Her eyes narrowed slightly, but then her brow arched, nonplussed. "If I have to put up with any more lines like that, I'll have earned my stay by the time we get there."

Gibbs chuckled in response, and then pressed a kiss to her temple, ignoring the grime still caked on her skin. "Touché," he conceded.

She sat up in his arms slightly, bringing her head up closer to his. He heard the severed chain clink against the metal still fastened around her neck, and suddenly wished he had thought to hold onto the bolt cutters he'd used to knock out Werth. But then a shiver went down his spine when her lips tickled the skin of his right ear.

"Thank you," she whispered softly, her voice low with heavy honesty. Gibbs' breath caught in his throat, and could say nothing while chapped lips pressed against his cheek. When she pulled away, he glanced at her, and saw her chin quivering ever so slightly as she gave him shaky, but appreciative nod.

They would have time for a long, long talk soon—but for now, they were okay. They had time now, and even though it was more precious than it had ever been before, they now needed to focus on getting home. On returning Ziva safe to the rest of her family, and having Ducky take a look at her, and pumping her full of antibiotics.

He tightened his grip on her and with a nod to Fornell and Sergei, moved towards the door. He was just sidling through doorway after them when he felt a sharp smack against the back of his head. He grunted in surprise, stopping abruptly as he gave Ziva a questioning, sidelong glance, but she only settled deeper into his arms and rested her head on his shoulder, the broken chain brushing against his chest.

"That's for letting me wake up on a damn autopsy table."