A/N: Starting next week, updates will be every Tuesday around 8 pm (hopefully), kind of like an NCIS summer mini-series (maybe). Anyway, this is proving difficult to write, I, however, am blaming the fact that I am sorely out of practice . . . Much love and keep the peace, Kit.

DISCLAIMER: I am sitting in a coffee shop in Smyrna, Tennessee, and I own nothing. So please, don't sue.

II.

He barely has enough time to shield her before the basement windows erupt inwards as the ground heaves and a raging inferno scalds the air above their heads. And the explosion is loud; loud enough that it reverberates in his chest and makes his ears ring.

Of course, his ears are ringing because the fire alarm has been triggered as well.

"OhmyGod, ohmyGod, ohmyGod." And Abby has her face pressed into his shoulder, and she's trembling hard, and then there's a loud prffft noise that he realizes is just the damn hippo. He lifts his head to glance around, and there's glass everywhere, and smoke, and water because the sprinklers have kicked in.

"Abs? Abby!" he says loudly in her ear, and she ceases her murmuring and tilts her face up to meet his eyes. And hers are tear-blurry and terrified, and he does the only thing he can think of: He pulls her closer and presses his lips to her temple. "You okay?" he asks, and his hip is throbbing from the impact with the floor. She's having trouble catching her breath, though, so she just nods.

"Come on," he says, climbing to his feet and tugging her up with him. He bends down and picks up the hippo, passing it to her wordlessly before grabbing her hand and leading her toward the exit.

And sirens are wailing outside, and there's shouting, and screaming, and he and Abby are both nearly doubled over coughing, and, oh, the others better be out of this building . . .

Later, all he will remember is a bright white flash before total darkness and then an all-encompassing nothing.

The elevator pitches sideways and she knows that they are either too late, or Harper Dearing is too early. She turns to Tony and half-tackles, half-stumbles into him. His arm goes around her waist as the floor shudders and the sound of protesting metal nearly drowns out the mighty boom of the explosion. Tony breaks her fall as they both are tossed to floor, the lights blinking out, and the ceiling raining down on them.

And then there is nothing.

The emergency lights flicker on, bathing everything in an eerie blue glow, and the world seems to have momentarily stopped.

Tony is breathing heavily above her, having somehow managed to roll her between his body and the wall in an effort to shield her. She can feel his chest press into her back as he tries to gulp in a lungful of air, and his warm breath against her neck is oddly reassuring.

"Are you okay, Tony?" she asks softly, turning her head to perhaps see him.

His lips brush against her nape as he replies, "I think so. You?"

"Yes." Then, "Do you think you could get off of me?"

"I'm afraid to move," he tells her honestly, and his voice is also soft, as if he doesn't want to disturb the stillness. She understands because plummeting to her death holds no appeal to her either.

"Do you think it is unstable?" she asks in reference to the elevator that is easily imagined to be hanging precariously by a cable's thread. And she has the disconcerting sensation of balancing on a precipice.

"I don't know," he says, shifting minutely above her. "I do know one thing though."

"And what is that?"

"That we would fall together." And if he wasn't so serious she thinks she might laugh.

Instead she says, "You are strangely poetic in these types of situations."

"Yeah," he says thoughtfully. "I wonder why that is?"

"I do not know."

And then, suddenly, he's no longer above her.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," he says in mock disappointment from somewhere to her left.

She makes a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat as she places her right hand down to lever herself upward. The pain, however, that lances through her right wrist and slices up her arm sends her curling in on herself with a poorly stifled whimper.

"Ziva?" Tony calls, alarmed. She can feel him leaning toward her, the heat of his hand hovering just above her back. "Ziva?"

"I am fine," she says. She's staring at the well-worn carpet of the elevator's floor, blinking rapidly to clear her eyes of the tears that had sprung, unbidden, at the sudden and unexpected tide of pain. "I think I sprained my wrist."

Gingerly, she twists into a sitting position, leaning heavily against the wall, cradling her arm in her lap. Tony scoots closer to her, maneuvering himself so that they are shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh.

"Let me see," he coaxes, extending a tentative finger to brush the back of her hand. Her wrist is already swollen, and evidently very tender, or at least, that's how he's translating the sharp intake of breath she emits when he probes the area. "Can you wriggle your fingers?"

"I would rather not."

"Ziva."

Her fingers twitch minutely in response, and he almost thinks it was an unconscious movement, but then she's looking at him questioningly, as if to say Satisfied?

He meets her eyes and declares firmly, "Broken."

"How could you possibly know that?" she demands defensively. "You cannot possibly know that-"

The trill of Tony's cell phone interrupts her, however, and they both go very, very quiet. And then Tony is extracting the device from his pants pocket and pressing a button, and pressing the phone to his ear, uttering a faux-cheery, "Hello?"

"DiNozzo." And from where she's sitting beside Tony, Ziva can easily make out Gibbs' end of the conversation, and the worry that manifests as irritation in his gruff voice.

"Oh, hey, Boss," Tony greets as if their situation is anything but dire. And Ziva knows he's just relieved Gibbs is able to call him at all.

"Where the hell are you?"

Tony drops all pretenses, "I'm in the elevator with Ziva. Where are you?"

"You have Ziva?"

"Yeah-"

"McGee?"

And Tony pales slightly at the implication. "He isn't with you?" and the question is tentative at best because the answer is a blatant 'no'.

"No, he's not with me. When did you last see him?"

Tony remains silent, clearly unsure, so Ziva has mercy on him and whispers, "He was heading to the bullpen to secure his computer before evacuating."

Tony gives her an appreciative glance before relaying this information to Gibbs.

"Are you and Ziva all right?" Gibbs asks after a beat, and Ziva has a sinking feeling about McGee.

"Yeah, yeah, just a little shaken up. Ziva thinks her wrist is broken and I agree. I don't know how stable the elevator is though . . ."

"I'm handing the phone over, DiNozzo. Stay on the line."

"Right."

There's a fuzzy sound as Gibbs presumably passes the phone on to someone else, and the ominous sound of wailing sirens can be heard over the line. "Agent DiNozzo? My name is Ted, I'm with the fire department. You're in the elevator, correct?"

"Correct."

"Are you alone?"

"No, Agent David is with me-"

"And her wrist is broken?"

"I think so."

"Okay, Agent DiNozzo, I'm going to send a team to survey the shaft and make sure you guys aren't in any immediate danger. It's going to take about fifteen minutes, so just hang tight. Is the elevator cabin tilted?"

Tony glances around the tiny space, "I think so."

"Are you at the lower end of the tilt?"

"Um . . ."

"Yes," Ziva whispers. "Say yes."

"Yes," Tony repeats into the phone, still not understanding but just going with it.

"Okay, don't move."

"Okay." There's an audible click and then nothing.

"Well," Tony says after a moment of staring blankly at the now silent cell phone. "He didn't even say goodbye." And Ziva knows what he's doing, that he's trying to relieve some of the tension, that he's trying to pretend that McGee isn't missing, and that they aren't stuck, and that her wrist isn't possibly –probably – broken.

She stays silent and he looks down at her.

"Hey," he murmurs, reaching for her uninjured hand and giving it a squeeze. "It's gonna be okay, we're gonna get out of here."

"McGee," she whispers and they both ignore the catch in her voice.

"They'll find him, Ziva," Tony reassures her, and he, mercifully, sounds so sure of this and she wants to believe him. "He may already be out of the building."

"Without his phone?" And she can't help but be the skeptic.

Tony seems to mull this over. "You know, he may be better off not being outside the building, you know? If it turns out he was in the parking lot and not answering Gibbs' calls . . ."

And she does smile a bit at this.

Tony leans his head back against the wall with a dull thunk, and Ziva tilts her head onto his shoulder, slouching into him. And his warmth is reassuring, and his incessant babbling is comforting.

"You know," he says idly, "It could be worse. I saw this in a movie once –no, it was a Twilight Zone episode. Yeah, that's it. Anyway, the elevator had this killer spider at the bottom, or something . . ."

Killer spiders aside, Ziva finds herself praying that this day doesn't get any worse.

Later, she'll think she should have known better.