The exhaustion kept her right where she was.

And although she had tried to find sleep or some semblance of restful solace, the dirty and stifling silence had offered her nothing. Her mind was tormented by every sound, every agonizing second, and every beat in her heart. She could barely think without feeling stabs of pain all throughout her ribs and chest, let alone move. She simply laid there on the cold and unforgiving concrete, sweating through her labored breathing.

It was difficult, as her life seeped onto the floor, to care.

Her mind wandered as she stared down the wall so emptily glaring at her from across the room. Strange colors swirled against it, tempting, even sounds, blurred, indecipherable. She thought, dully, that it may not be a wall at all. She didn't even bother to chalk that up to the shitty conditions of her predicament, as delineating between delusion and reality wasted what little energy had not been taken from her.

Thinking without consequence – watching – was so much easier.

First she pondered her own end. She knew, deep within her aching heart, that it was coming. Whatever feeble hopes she had of escape or rescue had now dwindled into the dust that covered the floor. Her life was going to end. Ponytail had seen to that.

Would they bury her next to wherever they put Tony? Drag her out to the desert and leave her body for the scavengers? Or would they just take her head and send it back to her father?

It was fitting, far crueler than anything they'd done, that her grief for her sister had landed her here. To die the same way – alone, paying for the sins they were forced into.

She had not pictured her end like this. When it came down to it, when any chance of being saved was gone and when the sinking realization fell to her stomach, she did not want to go. Always she had claimed fearlessness in the face of death, but it was much easier not to be afraid when you had no idea it was coming.

Now she had lost that freedom.

Briefly she pictured life after death, but the images were just hopeful flashes and nothing more. There was a point, once, when she would have spit out her beliefs and convictions with pride in her eyes and certainty in her heart. Now? That freedom was slipping away, too.

Would there be anyone waiting for her, if any of it was true? Mothers that had not wanted her? Brothers she wished she could forget? Sisters and friends she should have protected? Tony?

(For the first time in hours, piercing cold flickered underneath her skin.)

Perhaps there would not be anyone, and their faces will have passed like a shadow against glass, shattered lives in shattered pieces. Maybe she would just melt away into the sandy beaches of the summer nights of her childhood.

Nights that had melted away too.

(Remember what he is.)

That's what her father said to her, in the dream that had been haunting her days and plaguing her nights. His warning, a verdict. So long ago, before sending her out to try her hand at the killing she was trained for. Before ordering her to run a knife through the heart of a man that betrayed his country to protect a relative. Before ensuring that his daughter understood what loyalty really was.

(Had he known, then – that it was a lesson she would pass on to Ari?)

Loyalty kept her alive for years, and now death had come to collect its debt.

(And she certainly fucking remembered him now.)

The beating sounds of footsteps filtered down the wooden stairs, and she wished she was anywhere but still lying on the filthy floor, exactly where he left her. A sickened feeling gripped her stomach as she failed to summon the energy to move or even look at him as he descended into the corner she was resigned to.

He looked down at her, frowning, then back to the chair she once occupied, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.

"Get up."

Her clouded mind was barely able to register that he had spoken, let alone issued a command. His boot pushed into her shoulder and flipped her onto her back. Her quiet groan at the pain of movement did little to ease his patience.

"Get up," he ordered again, this time louder. Still she did not look at him or his burning eyes, knowing she could not move even if she wanted to.

Forceful hands lifted her suddenly off the ground, and she wheezed sharply at the stinging and throbbing that stabbed at her sides. He dropped her heavily into the chair, tightly holding her shoulders to prevent her from falling right back over. Her vision spun at the abrupt change of position. He didn't even bother with the ropes. He didn't need them.

When she finally returned his gaze, she noticed that what she thought was one man was actually two. Ponytail brought a friend. Nice of him to invite one along.

(It mattered very little, as she would snap either of their necks if given a chance.)

The friend, the one she did not recognize, stepped forward and forced open her jaw before she could even attempt a defense. She tried turning her head away, but Ponytail was already pouring warm water in her mouth and over her chapped lips. The unexpectedness of it caused her to cough violently, choking on the intrusion.

He pulled back only for a second to allow her to regain her breath before he hastily finished off the bottle.

She released a breath, liquid cooling her parched throat. She waited, feeling it settle, then –

Her stomach convulsed and she promptly leaned forward and gave it all right back. Some of it sprayed over the front of Friend's pants, and he stepped back, disgusted. He cursed fluently at her, looking like he might strike her, but a warning glance from Ponytail stopped him. He retreated back up the stairs, vindictive stomps dying away as he reached the top, slamming the door behind him.

"I am not cleaning you if you vomit again."

Her attention snapped back to the man still standing in front of her. Swallowing, swilling the words around in her now burning throat, she matched the heat in his eyes.

"Next time I will aim for you."

He looked for a second as if he was going to smile, but the twitching of his mouth made it only halfway, his grimace all the more menacing.

"Charming."

Glaring, not wanting him to give him an excuse, she kept her silence. He turned away at her lack of response, dragging his own chair over to where she sat, immobilized by her own weakness.

"Tell me. How does it feel – dying?"

Again she ignored his taunt, instead trying to get her throat to cooperate with her desire to speak.

"Was Kadin involved?" she asked lowly, not meeting his eye. "I want to know."

She had not wanted to reveal just how much this bothered her, how much this had been eating away at the pieces of her resolve that had not yet fallen away. But he was not fooled by her stoicism. He laughed openly, his smile revoltingly genuine.

It turned her stomach more than the water had.

"Of course he was. Who do you think arranged your ambush?"

"Why?" she challenged, not altogether shocked that her suspicion was not an idle one. "If he hated me so much, why wait to kill me now?"

Excited, not heeding any precaution about revealing too much, Ponytail could not get the words out fast enough. Like he had been eagerly awaiting this chance to describe just how much of a mastermind he was, inflated ego and all.

"But he did not hate you, I did. He struggled with it for years. I was not so blinded by old ties and some pitiful notion of – you have a phrase – love thy neighbor? He did not want to kill you, at first. He was content to resent you from afar. He kept your whereabouts hidden from me for a long time."

She was torn between not wanting to hear any more and needing to relieve the burden of not knowing. It sat like a weight, stationary, impossible to ignore.

"Well he changed his mind," she muttered coldly, cursing herself for having walked so blindly into the arms of betrayal.

"No. You did, when you returned from America almost five months ago. Remember your visit to Kadin? He told me all about it. He told me you were not coping well, you had too much to drink. You were whining about someone named Shepard. About how death seemed to follow you no matter how far you ran. Remember?"

"No," she lied, spiteful, her expression like armor.

"Perhaps you have a drinking problem."

"Fuck off."

"Careful. I could arrange a rematch, if you like."

That was something she could not afford, no matter how badly she craved a chance to end his life. Her limbs would not obey. Even the slightest twitch of her muscles was a strain against the ribs he had so easily broken the night (day?) before. And he knew that.

Again she was reduced to silence.

"But you let something else slip that night. You made the mistake of confessing that you pulled the trigger against your brother, not your lead agent. And worse than that – you were fucking the partner of the woman Haswari killed. That was the last straw for him."

"I wasn't. I never said –"

The back of his hand flew viciously across her face. The force of it turned her head, the numbing ache of her bruised cheeks returning with a renewed sting.

"I don't care. I only care that he finally agreed with me."

"That what?" she snapped, dark eyes flashing. "Killing me would somehow make your life better?"

He paused, leaning forward. Considering.

"What do you know about vengeance?" he accused, flexing his fingers against the arm of his chair.

"Enough," she returned softly, thinking of her knife and fuel and that silver necklace and stains that never ever come off.

"No," he spat, dragging a thumb against her lip, calloused skin tracing the fresh cut like a caress. He leaned closer still, hand that had been teasing her mouth now clamped fiercely against the back of her head, fingers twisted in her hair.

His whisper was unfeeling, low in his throat. Enduring.

"But you will."

Four days.

Already it had been four days.

Tony thought it would be harder to keep track of such a detail, but he knew. Every time the golden flecks of light would sink past the window and the dusty white of the moon would filter in, he had counted.

Four days, and all he had been able to do is get the stupid ropes off his hands. It took incredible effort, as it required putting pressure on his injured leg so he could use the other to break off a piece of one of the wooden crates, but it had worked, at least. His chafed wrists were bleeding and stinging from the exertion of cutting through woven bonds with a sharp piece of wood, but they were free. He could move them as he pleased.

(Which ended up being mostly to scratch the living shit out of his leg.)

It remained his only accomplishment in this entire mess of a situation.

He was laying on his back and staring up at the ceiling, trying to imagine that he wasn't stuck in an empty room guarded by gunmen in the middle of the desert. Hundreds of miles away from where he should be, and hundreds and hundreds of miles away from where he wanted to be.

But maybe it wouldn't be so bad – dying and everything. Maybe they'd just put a bullet through his head and it would be finished just like that. No famous last words, no blinding white light. Just bam, and fuck it, he'd be gone. He'd just float away and never even know he's dead.

But he did not want to die (fucking of course not), not like this. Not when he could have, should have, done something to prevent it. Not when his partner was so cruelly torn away from him without a second thought. Not when all he wanted to is just go home and blow this place into the sky and out of his mind.

Though if a quick death was the alternative to wasting away from starvation and sickness (yeah – that leg was definitely infected), he would rather they made up their fucking minds and just do it. Dwelling, however fruitlessly, on what he would do if they ever got out of here was only making it worse.

Then he remembered that there probably wasn't even a they anymore.

How he wished they would have taken him with her. Instead of her. But fate thought it appropriate to leave him to die in a dusty cell, thinking about all the things he should never have done. All the things he'd fucked up, people he'd fucked over. People who had fucked him over in return. Things he should have said. Should have listened to.

He never knew bitterness would smell like sweat and taste like sand.

Well, at least he can say that only a DiNozzo could die longing for a pepperoni and sausage pizza.

(Had he ever gone this long without eating?)

The rumbling ache of his stomach had long since faded, leaving only a staggering emptiness that had him unable to really move or focus on anything.

Except time. That he could still manage.

The minutes were long and tormenting, and he had no way of knowing if an hour or three had passed. But when the sun went down, and it was just him and the darkness, he knew. It was like he was floating above himself, feeling and not feeling at the same time.

Time he could still manage.

The stinging and searing of the gashes on his leg had mostly faded and he pretended not to notice whatever was oozing through the makeshift bandage. Nothing he could do about it, anyway.

Four fucking days of this.

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