A/N: I'm on a roll here! Keep looking for more updates!

"I know Ducky said you were cleared to start walking again, but I want you to promise to take it easy, okay?"

Gibbs sternly crossed his arms over his chest as he watched Abby help wrap Ziva's bare feet with rags, while simultaneously affixing the braces Palmer had designed for her. The healing woman was unable to wear shoes because of her still tender ankles, but Gibbs had insisted on providing at least some kind of protection for her feet, despite the calluses that had developed on the soles. Ducky had insisted on providing some means through which to immobilize the Israeli's ankles, so as to promote faster healing. Palmer had managed to service the needs of both with a series of connected wooden dowels and old rags.

Ziva, for her part, was relatively patient, with both Abby's ministrations and Gibbs' well-meaning paranoia.

"Jethro, I am merely going to the end of the hall and back," she told him easily. She had regained some of her color in the past few days, and the bruises on her face were starting to fade. She was beginning to look like herself again. "I seriously doubt that you have anything to worry about."

Gibbs scoffed. "Yeah, you say you're going down the hall, but I know you. You'll get to the end of the hall, decide it was too easy, and then try to press your luck going down the stairs."

Ziva grinned shamelessly, only proving the accuracy of his predictions. "Relax," she intoned smoothly. "I'm only trying to get a feel for these things." She waved towards the pair of forearm crutches that leaned against the bed. Ducky had been unable to find a pair of full-length crutches, but assured them that the forearm variation would serve Ziva's purposes just as well. Ziva didn't much mind either way—she only wanted to get out of the bed.

"Again, you say that now, but if you manage an inch you'll want a mile," Gibbs returned. "Just humor me, okay?"

At that, Abby got to her feet, brushing off her knees as she did so. "All right, there we are! You're good to go!" She retrieved the crutches and passed them to her friend, who received them with a grin.

"Thank you, Abby." Ziva immediately threaded her arms through the plastic band that would help support her arms as she moved, and gripped the rubber handholds experimentally. Her right hand protested when she tried to curl her fingers around the handgrip. Only three obeyed—the remaining two remained grotesquely twisted, sticking out at odd angles. She'd gotten used to the warped fingers, but they had not seemed to grow used to her—she knew the pressure of resting her weight on her damaged hand would turn her hand to fire that evening. She didn't let it dissuade her from her mission, however. She would be getting out that bed if it was the last thing she did.

When she was satisfied with her hold on the crutches, she gave a deep breath. "Let's do this then."

Planting the rubber feet of the crutches firmly on the wooden floor, she gave a heave and propelled herself onto her rag covered feet. Unfortunately, she either miscalculated the force needed or forgot to account for the resulting pain in her ankles, and instantly began to topple forward.

Two pairs of hands caught her and propped her back on her feet, and then continued to steady her until they were convinced she was no longer in danger of doing a face plant. Gibbs remained stoic, but Abby was unable to contain her snort of amusement.

"That was a little anti-climactic," the scientist commented with a smile, which only earned her a glare from Ziva. "But it was an awesome first try," she amended hastily. "Please don't whack me with your crutch…"

Ziva simply rolled her eyes. "Thank you for your support, Abby," she said wryly. "But you can let go now." One pair of hands detached from her shoulders. "You as well, Jethro."

Gibbs hesitated, but when the glare threatened to focus on him, he relinquished his hold. Then she was standing on her own, with only the crutches to support her. She could feel the strain in her healing joints, but with the crutches taking most of her weight and the braces keeping her ankles in place, she knew she would only fall victim to a serious ache at the end of the day, barring unfortunate accidents like the one she had just narrowly avoided.

It took a moment for Ziva to realize, however, that though she was upright she now had no idea how to proceed. She considered the motion of the typical underarm crutches she'd used in the past, and went through the ways she could attempt to recreate it. It was unlikely her ankles would take her weight while she moved both crutches forward, but if she led with her feet she met the same problem midstride.

Perhaps not a pendulum motion as she had supposed. She would have to alternate arms to propel herself forward, so that at least one crutch remained on the ground at any given moment. But what to do with her feet? Dragging them behind her seemed counterintuitive—and painful—and she quickly ruled it out as an option. She let her mind visualize the various scenarios that could accomplish her goal.

What if she—?

Hesitantly, she moved her left arm and leg forward together. She wobbled slightly as her right arm took most of her weight. She saw Gibbs inch towards her, ready to catch her should she fall, but her plan succeeded and soon enough the left crutch was once again planted on the ground a foot from where it had started.

She looked up at Gibbs, a triumphant smirk on her lips.

"Oooh, go Ziva!" Abby cheered happily, pride evident on her features. "You got it on the first try! That is so awesome!"

Tentatively, Ziva repeated the process with her right leg and arm. This time, the movement was smooth and more confident. She looked up once more, and this time it was Gibbs grinning back at her, his eyes shining with pride. There was also a gleam in his eye that made her cheeks tingle as blood rushed to them, and she blushed for the first time in years. Without a word, she swung herself around, and began to propel herself from the room.

Her movements were still slightly shaky, and several times she paused to regain her equilibrium. Each step jarred her ankles slightly, but she ignored the growing ache. When she reached the top of the stairs, she paused, and gazed down towards the open front door that allowed sunlight to pour through. But then she heard Gibbs clear his throat warningly. With a roll of her eyes she turned around and made her back to the bedroom, where both Gibbs and Abby awaited her. The effort had her slightly out of breath, and she sat heavily on the mattress of the bed to reclaim it.

As soon as her weight had shifted to the bed, and off of her hands, the fingers on her right hand immediately flared into agony. Her eyes closed as she sucked in a breath. She set the crutches aside, and brought her left hand over to gently massage the bones in her broken hand.

But when a pair of rough but warm hands settled on her wrists, her eyes opened again to find a pair of baby blues looking back at her. There was concern deep within them, and his hands replaced her own working fingers in rubbing her scarred skin soothingly.

"How fresh are these fractures?" he asked quietly.

She gave him a wry smile. "They're not." Gibbs arched an eyebrow at her. "Fresh, that is. They're not fresh." Gibbs waited patiently, knowing that she would eventually get around to answering his question. Sure enough, she continued a moment later. "It has been two years, or so I'm told."

Gibbs paused. Two years? That would mean the fractures had happened shortly after her Capture. Very shortly afterwards, before time distortion and misconception had set in.

"Ziver…" His effort to keep the pity from his voice was only partly successful.

She gave his hand a gentle, reassuring squeeze. "Abby, could you give us a moment, please?"

The scientist started, but quickly moved towards the open door while offering nervous words of affirmation. "Oh—Yeah! Of course, absolutely. Uhm, just, ah, let me…" And then she was gone, shutting the door behind her.

As soon as the door clicked shut, Gibbs turned back to Ziva, his eyes imploring her to not shut him out. "Tell me," he prompted softly.

She hesitated for a moment, pausing just long enough to gather her thoughts.

"It happened the day I was Captured," she said softly, meeting his gaze with a gentle one of her own. "The day I split from Sergei."

"What the hell happened?" he demanded. He'd been wondering for years what had happened that day, why she hadn't returned home. And now the knowledge was within his grasp—he needed to know. To his luck, Ziva seemed to sense his need, for she continued with a solemn expression on her features.

"We were a mile into our return when we were attacked," she told him. Her eyes were lowered, but not to avoid his gaze. She was remembering, sifting through the haze of memories that shrouded the events of the past. "They got Rider from behind, before he even had a chance to grab his knife. Sergei and I managed to fend them off long enough to run. But I was too slow… the Vipers. My knee hadn't healed enough, and I couldn't run fast enough. I was hindering Sergei's progress and the Medicinals had to get back to the Warehouse.

"I made Sergei go on without me. I tried to lead the Bloods away. I wasn't sure if it worked completely—I knew that some of them had taken the bait, but I didn't know how many there were in total. It became a game of cat and mouse… I had to stay within tracking distance of them, to ensure that they did not lose interest and go back after Sergei. I made it to Vector 10 before I was overwhelmed. Another band of Bloods was there, Harvesting."

"Harvesting?"

Ziva nodded brusquely, her shoulders tense. "We thought they were just mindless killers at that point, Jethro. But they had evolved. They were organized, with a command structure. I almost didn't see it, until I was Captured." She paused. "Their small unit leader ordered this." She nodded towards her two mangled fingers.

Suddenly, it felt as though the breath had been sucked from his chest, and he had to struggle to pull in another breath. "They did this deliberately?"

Another nod. "They slammed a cinderblock onto my hand, twice. They weren't allowed to kill me, because of the Harvest. They were gathering Survivors, taking them back to their base of operations. To be used in the Games, for sport and pleasure. So instead of killing me, they destroyed one finger for each of their number I killed."

"You took two of them out?" It was impossible to keep the pride from his voice.

Ziva gave him a grin. "Actually, it was more like six. But they didn't find the other four until I was already in the city. They couldn't find me then. I was already in the thick of the Herd."

"Wait, hold on," Gibbs requested. "Back up. What's a Harvest, Herd, Games… I don't get it."

Ziva took a deep breath. "When we first met the Bloods, their sole intent was to kill anything they Encountered. But when they Captured me in Vector 10, they wouldn't kill me. After they…" she waved her damaged hand in indication. "They restrained me and threw me into the back of one of your big military trucks. There were already a dozen Survivors in the truck, and they collected another two dozen before returning to base. A full Harvest of Survivors. When they brought us back to base, we became the first of the Herd." She closed her eyes, bracing herself for the words she spoke next. "In possession of the Bloods, Survivors became livestock. A Herd."

Indignation flared in Gibbs' gut, but wisely kept it to himself. Ziva was now gripping his hand tightly, her knuckles turning white. But her voice remained strong, despite her growing turmoil.

"And the Games… They weren't games. Not for us."

Gibbs suspected he knew what the Games were. The Stadium, the gladiator fights, the battle that had led to an injury that had nearly killed her before she had made it home. But he couldn't bring himself to reveal just how much he had seen. It was too uncertain; he had no idea how she would react to knowing that he had seen her at her most ruthless.

He didn't think any less of her for doing what she did. She'd Survived— that was all he cared about. But he had a sinking suspicion that she wouldn't feel the same way. It was too soon to tell how her Captivity had twisted her conscience, or how volatile she might have become.

Gibbs would help her with anything that might have changed since he'd last been with her, but he did not want to risk her rapid recovery with the sudden setback telling her how much he knew might cause.

"When you were in the city," Ziva continued, her voice shaky, "did you see the old Stadium? You took me to see a game there once. Before the Incident."

"I remember," Gibbs whispered.

"It's a killing ground now. He's turned the home of an American pastime into a slaughterhouse. From the moment we got there two years ago, there has been nothing but blood on that field." She swallowed, her throat working against the lump that threatened to strangle her. "There were three who were deemed to be too sick or weak to be of any use to them. They were killed right then and there—dragged to the edge of the grass and then bled dry like cattle."

"Ziver…"

"Some of us tried to resist. We thought that if we made it too difficult to keep us around, they would decide that it wasn't worth the effort to keep us."

"But they wouldn't have set you free."

"No," Ziva agreed. "They would have killed us, or simply stopped feeding us. But they would have stopped Harvesting. The Survivors they hadn't Captured yet would not fall victim as well. The rest of the world would have been spared our fate."

"It didn't work, did it?"

"No." A half-laugh, half-sob escaped her lips. "It didn't. But those of us in that first Harvest… we continued to resist. When the Games started, we balked. We worked together whenever we could, even when forced to fight against one another. We urged the others to Resist as well, to not bend so easily to the whims of the Bloods. To not become the cattle they thought we were. But it was only a few weeks before those higher up in the Bloods' new command caught wind of what we were trying to do.

"They selected twelve of us at random, though over half of that twelve had been part of the first Harvest. The leaders of the resistance."

Her hands clutched at Gibbs' fingers, as tears threatened to spill over her cheeks. He thought she would decide to stop, to bring the conversation to a close. But she took a deep breath and it seemed to steady her enough for her to start once more, her voice stronger than he would have expected.

"The Twelve were moved out into the Stadium, and lined up in front of the rest of the herd."

"A Game?" Gibbs asked.

Ziva shook her head. "No. A Culling. The first of many designed to weaken morale and perpetuate blind, mind-numbing fear. The Twelve were tethered, wrist to wrist, and forced to watch as a Blood went down the line with a pipe, beating each one to death. They were forced to watch exactly what would happen when their turn came."

Suddenly, her eyes were on him, staring him down where he sat next to her. And in that moment, he knew what was coming next. His heart was breaking even before her next words left her lips, and he had to fight to keep his expression neutral, though all he wanted was to crumble.

"I was one of the Twelve, Jethro," she said, her voice hard, but tremulous. "I was supposed to die that day. I was eighth in line. I watched seven of them die."

She had heard them too, even more than she had watched. They'd been beside her, and it was all too easy to resist turning her head to look. But she'd even felt them, with every pull and tug she felt on her wrists as each one fell.

She could smell the blood that had flown through the air with every vicious blow that had been dealt. The first blows hadn't bled, but that fact was soon remedied when the pipe came crashing down again and again. The first blow sought merely to incapacitate, and the unforgiving metal had caused enough pain to bring a full man to his knees. To make a man scream in agony as his skull was split open, and his brains spilled onto the field.

She closed her eyes, hoping to banish the memories from her sight, but in the resulting darkness, the images only sharpened, honed with years of hate and confusion and resentment and guilt.

"When the Blood got to me, he drew back the pipe, ready to kill me, but then— he stopped."

"Werth." The name burned like acid on Gibbs' tongue as he spoke up. It sickened him, but now he had one thing to thank the monster for—if Damon hadn't been there, if he hadn't fixated on Ziva, she would have died that day, in the first Culling with the rest of the Twelve.

And there would have been nothing left for Gibbs to rescue.

"Yes," Ziva affirmed bitterly. Disgust overcame her then, though she continued on, driven by some unidentifiable need to share. "He was watching as well. He must have recognized me, and told his man to move on, to Spare me. And he did. The Blood barely even stopped to think about it. He killed the rest. He destroyed four more people with a goddamn grin on his face."

She could still see the confusion in their eyes, just before the pipe hit them. She could see the confusion, as the last of the Twelve wondered why she had been spared, and the hope that maybe they too would be pardoned so miraculously. And then the instant came when they realized that no such mercy for them, a moment before the agony overcame them, and a moment later they were feeling nothing. Dead, all of them.

And how she had envied them.

Even as she had lain there, pulled to the blood-soaked grass by the weight of the corpses on either side of her, she'd envied them for the peace that had finally come to them. She hadn't known it was Damon, not then, but she'd known that she'd been spared for a reason—a reason she would not like.

Her assumptions had been correct. And her envy for the dead had only grown as the months passed, until she'd remembered the scrawled note she'd given to Sergei.

"I tried to escape," she whispered, her throat burning with unshed tears. "I tried, but he caught me each time. And each time I was punished, either at his hands or in the Games. I—I tried to get back to you, but—"

A sob finally broke free, and Gibbs was there to catch her as her shoulders slumped and stiffened at the same time. His arms wrapped around her, enveloping her as gently as he could as his own tears prickled at his eyes. Her hands clutched at him, and she buried her face against his neck.

"You're really here," she muttered, her voice thick and slurred in her distress, though Gibbs could still hear her clear as day. "It feels like a dream, but even I couldn't imagine a place like this. I've never noticed where we were before. Unless they were memories, all I dreamed about was you. The where never mattered." He held her closer, his hand stroking her hair lightly. "And now I keep waiting for you to disappear again, but you never do, and I know that every moment you spend with me, the harder it will be for me to wake up."

"This isn't a dream, Ziver," Gibbs said, pulled away just enough to look into her tear-filled eyes. "You are safe. He can't hurt you anymore. You're here, with me, and I'm not going to let you go again."

"That is what Abby said."

"And she's damn right. You should remember that she usually is."

Her eyes left his, and guilt immediately surged through him. He hadn't meant to sound harsh, but in his desire to reassure her of her safety, he'd lost control for a moment. She had no need for his desperation right now, he knew. She just needed calm, and understanding.

"Look, I know you might not trust this right now," he said carefully. He'd felt the same way after coming back to the war, and he shuddered to think what she might see when she closed her eyes. He himself had seen plumes of red-tinged sand puffing into the desert sky—IEDs that took one of his buddies with each detonation. "But I will do whatever it takes, however long it takes, to prove to you that you're safe. That you have nothing to be afraid of here. This isn't a dream, and you will not wake up from it. This is real, I promise."

Ziva regarded him for a long moment, and he waited patiently with bated breath as she absorbed what he'd told her. But then, to his chagrin, she looked away. Her hands claimed her crutches once more, and a strained smile curled her lips.

"I think I would like to make another round on these things."