A/N: Just want to reiterate my violence warning from a few chapters back. If you need a break to pet a kitty or something, this is a judgment free zone. Personally I would write all kinds of crap if it gave me an excuse to pet kitties all the time, so there is that.

On the fifth day, it was difficult to tell what she felt.

Whenever she thought about it, she found that she wasn't capable of consistently feeling one thing for very long. It would come in spurts – random bursts of life and alertness interrupted by spans of nothingness. At times she would feel a weight gripping at her chest, pulling her down into the incredible sadness and sense of loss that devoured all. Or an impossible fury causing her to twist and burn – useless, her body practically immobile – until the old wounds would bleed and she was too tired to be angry.

Then the apathy would seep in and she would be reduced to an empty shadow, feeling nothing but the cold silence echoing off the walls.

Which was worst, she could not decide.

Either way, it did not matter. Not really. The time passed just as slowly (or quickly, really) and the walls were just as gray. The air remained thick and stifling, curling around her as she tried to control her own elusive mind, which, admittedly, was failing. Sometimes the walls became not walls and she would see faces and places that swirled in her memory and eventually faded into concrete.

Like some sort of dream, or something fleeting. An awareness that lingered, but faded.

She blinked –

And it vanished, replaced by the grim reality she faced. In front of her stood not a figment of her subconscious, but a breathing dark soul who was very much alive.

(This was worst.)

For a few stretching minutes he just stared, looking down at her marred face with a calculating gleam that she could not see, but feel. She had neither the energy nor the desire to meet his gaze – nothing new there. The past twelve (maybe?) hours had done nothing for her slowly evaporating reserves.

Her eyes stayed cemented to the floor, guarded. His subsequent glare bored into her bowed head.

"Am I to take that as a request for mercy?" he mused loudly, his voice taut with indifference.

She snapped her head upwards, fire flickering behind those eyes that would not yield.

"There she is," he sneered, the corners of his mouth turning slightly into a conceited smirk.

Almost as if he was proud.

"You know," he began, not waiting for her to formulate a response (convenient, because in her head she was capable of stringing together just about two words). "I was going to have you dig your own grave."

"Yes, yes," he continued, arms crossed thoughtfully. "Just outside. There is plenty of sand, I assure you. It would have been very poetic. But – you are even weaker than I thought."

(Fuck yourself fuck yourself fuck yourself)

"Can you even stand?"

Her silence held.

"Hey!" he shouted, winding his arm and bringing it down over her broken wrist. The effort it took to hold in the resulting anguish caused her to bite down on her own cheek, the wetness of fresh copper swirling around her tongue.

"I asked you a question. Can you stand?"

He stood there, hand poised to strike again, eyes betraying his sick excitement.

"No," she hissed through clenched teeth, her mantra of late racing through her mind.

"I thought not," he remarked coolly, relaxing his fist, apparently satisfied. "Perhaps I will make your partner do it instead. He at least seems capable of picking up a shovel."

"No," she croaked, unable to fully mask the desperation. "He – he has nothing to do with it. Let him go, you already have me. He has no idea about any of this."

"I know. But he means something to you."

"No! Leave him, you have me. Please –"

"So you do want mercy?" he interrupted, impressed at his own intellect.

"Fuck yourself."

(Oh – was that one out loud this time?)

He laughed, little more than a snort.

"Why – I thought I already had you?"

Her mind stopped, stiff as her back against the chair. A remnant of fear flared inside her chest.

He laughed again, waiting, nothing but the mutual sound of anticipatory breathing. Then all the sudden his clenched fist came out of nowhere and struck her cheekbone with reverberating force. The unexpected blow threw her head wildly to the side, stunning her, temporarily blinded. Her vision clouded, unable to register that she was now somehow on the floor.

He had knocked her completely off her chair.

She braced herself for the kindness of his boot, tensing her core painfully. The subtle click of the blade of a knife being released stopped her, frozen.

(No – fuck.)

Suddenly she became innately aware of her physical body - the blood pulsing through her veins, the dampness of the sweat running down her back, and the clamminess of her hands against her skin. She twisted her neck to see him, heart rate panicky, his muscular arm pushing down on her legs, holding them in place.

The silver of the blade glared at her. Silently, curiously, he refolded the knife and placed it back in his pocket, watching her the entire time.

A familiar smirk smeared across his face.

Was that all he'd wanted? To watch her writhe?

(Not watch, came the dull voice at the back of her skull. Not watch.)

The look on his face was enough. Instantly, she knew what he wanted. Knew what he wanted to take from her. Knew that he could, so easily, as she lay sprawled at his feet.

(Not watch.)

A wave of adrenaline that she thought had long expired washed over her, into her. She lashed out with the newfound freedom in her legs, kicking him dead on the back of the knee. He grunted and lost his balance, not having expected her renewed defiance.

It was enough to distract him for just a moment.

Within an instant she was using her legs and feet to push herself away from him. Her movement was primitive and ungraceful, sliding along like some sort of injured crab, but she shuffled and pushed until she could no longer ignore the burning pressure in her fractured ribs. She stopped moving and briefly closed her eyes, breathing heavily.

The edge of the wall was less than a foot away. He had remained standing in the same spot the entire time, watching her with that same look in his eye.

They both knew she had nowhere else to go.

He walked over to her, his steps low and dangerous, face marred with a primal malice. For a second he just hovered over her, the rage and the power (the rage and the power) building up inside him.

His hands were quick, curling around her waist from behind and easily lifting her body as if it were nothing more than pale skin and broken bone. The awkward position of his grip prevented any retaliation, and he stepped away from the wall, dragging her along.

Ruthlessly he threw her back down onto her stomach, the smack of impact between body and concrete resonating. Her jarred ribs burned and stabbed and compressed together in a clawing haze.

Quickly, not giving her even a second, he crouched down and flattened her to the ground, sitting on top of her thighs and effectively pinning her in place. She fought against his hold, trying to roll out from underneath him, but it was as vain as her attempt to crawl away. He was far too heavy and at her struggle he shot out a hand, closing it around the back of her neck. He squeezed, fingernails digging into her, forcing the side of her face against the ground and instantly ending her resistant motion.

(Though maybe a broken neck was worth being spared from this.)

Then he ripped at her waistline and yanked downward, her last line of defense now pooled at her ankles.

And he laughed. A breathy, excited laugh, and the hand gripping her neck was replaced with his entire forearm as he shifted his body. His elbow dug into her shoulder blade, pushing aside the material of her shirt and exposing the partial bareness of her back.

With his other hand he clutched just above her hip, pressure closing in on her damaged torso. He mistook her stifled cry of distress as a fearful whimper, arm barred against her neck pressing further.

"Shut up," he seethed, voice throaty and strained.

A pause, as he did something with himself, then –

He wrenched apart her legs, tearing into her, his nails now clenched so tightly he was gouging angry red tracks on her skin.

She swallowed it – all of it – down, closing her eyes against him, willing herself not to feel. She longed to latch onto something, anything. Just not this. Anything but this. Longed for her weakened mind to carry her to a different place, a place away from stifling bunkers and spiteful men. But it didn't. All of her guts and her contempt, all of what she thought might save her, was failed from the start.

His nails dug further still, the vice in his grip never faltering.

(Is this what her existence had been reduced to?)

The thick grunts in her ear intensified as his flesh pounded into hers, pierced only by his laugh – now turned cold – when he caught sight of the way her face was scrunched in agony. It made him all the more relentless, determined to leave her nothing.

When he was finished he moved much slower than necessary, leisurely picking himself up off her. Each movement was decisive, smooth. A taunt.

She was incapable of moving at all, cheek still pressed against the floor. Her eyes remained glued to the wall, dust unmoving. She only half-registered that he had moved to the foot of the stairs, stepping over her. Some yelling, that laugh again, and then two or three of his lapdogs jumped at the call of their master, harried feet echoing loudly off the wooden steps.

Two sets of hands gripped her by the underarm and heaved her upwards, one of them cursing as her head fell forward, almost bringing her right back down again.

Someone else tugged at her pants, shoving them back up her waist, making some comment she could not comprehend and pointing at whatever was sticking damply to the inside of her leg.

Another laugh.

Whatever pain she had been feeling had vanished, her body completely numb. She could not even feel how badly her own limbs were shaking. Her vision swayed dangerously.

"Hey – hey! Wake the fuck up," spat Ponytail, repetitively tapping his palm against her face as she threatened to slide out of the hold she was in. "You don't get to swoon yet."

She tried to blink away whatever was closing in, barely hearing him.

"This way," he ordered his companions, who were still working to support her deadweight. He took them past the stairs, away from the light peering through the door, onto the narrow hallway that led elsewhere. Further into the bunker.

Hauling her along was slow work, as her muscles were like lead and unable to help themselves, and they had to keep stopping and ensuring – rather halfheartedly, as it was hard enough just to keep her standing – that she had not yet passed out.

Their leader awaited them at a corner, his demeanor unfazed.

His voice held the same careless fury that had fueled him since the day she arrived.

"I want to see the look on the American's face when I give him back his Israeli whore."

On the fifth day, he knew exactly what he was feeling.

Well – no. It could hardly be called a feeling. It was more of a…presence. It fogged his mind and swirled through his muddled brain, spinning and filtering. It crept down his skin and through his veins and right into his fingers. He saw it on the walls and heard it through the door and grasped it in his hand. It was like a cloud. It hovered, it moved, and it was positively out of reach.

It was absolutely nothing at all.

Anthony DiNozzo had ceased to feel. Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, he didn't know. But did it really matter? Really? He just did not care. And why should he? Why should he give a fuck anymore?

Things probably would have been easier if he'd gone insane already. He let out a small laugh to himself, trying to imagine his own hallucinations. A conversation with himself or whoever he conjured up would at least be more entertaining than…whatever the hell he was doing now. But then, pretending to hallucinate to pass the time was probably just as crazy as actually hallucinating. Go figure.

Speaking of sanity, were those footsteps he heard approaching outside?

Not bothering to ponder if his suspicion was legitimate, he was powerless to stop his reaction. His heart rate quickened considerably, his eyes shot to the door, and instinctively he felt the gravelly dryness in his mouth. He might be losing it, but those were definitely footsteps, multiple pairs, and they were definitely getting closer. He heard the bolted lock adjusting before the heavy door was pushed open with a metallic creak.

He stared dumbly, shocked into silence by what he saw.

Four people emerged through the doorway, the first with a carefully schooled expression and baleful eyes. The two – no, three – behind him were far less calculated, their motions careless as they strung their quarry along without a second thought. The one in the middle, the one who had each arm draped over one of their shoulders and whose feet dragged behind, looked like she was half-dead.

Her nose, mouth, and chin were caked with dried blood, whose crimson streaks trailed all the way down her neck and disappeared beneath her shirt. There was a small cut on her lower lip and dark blue bruising surrounding the cheekbone and under-eye of the same side. On the other side she sported an inflamed cut surrounded by a yellowish tinge from her encounter with the rifle butt several days earlier, not fully healed.

Her eyes were closed and she looked as if she was barely conscious, her head hanging forward as they moved further into the room. At their release she fell to the ground with an ungraceful thud, her tired arms too weak to try and brace herself for the landing. Her eyes did not open and she did not move at all, even after colliding with the ground.

His own weary gaze was fixed on her motionless body, and he did not flinch when the door slammed shut again.

"Ziva," he whispered throatily, his voice deep and coarse from underuse.

No response.

"Ziva," he tried again, louder this time. He pushed himself off the wall and moved down to all fours, ignoring the squeezing pressure in his leg as the blood rushed to his thigh.

The concrete was cold on his palms as he crawled over to his partner, who was still unresponsive. She gave no sign of life when he reached her, and with a touch of desperation he gently took her shoulders and lifted her body upwards. He held tightly, supporting her arms and torso, her legs still lying on the floor, bent at an odd angle.

Now they were facing each other, his muscles straining with the effort of keeping her from falling over. A low wheezing noise escaped her when he had pried her from the floor, her eyes flickering open, brown irises coming into contact with green. Her eyes widened a fraction.

"Tony?" she whispered, bringing her right hand up to his cheek as if checking to make sure he was real. Her breathing was deep, face marked by disbelief.

He just shook his head numbly, completely at a loss for words. He couldn't seem to get past the dryness in his mouth or the thickness of his tongue. Her eyes were still locked determinedly onto his, and he felt his throat constrict. She opened her mouth to speak again.

"Tony."

He nodded slightly and kept his gaze fixed solely on her.

"Listen to me."

"Relax, okay?" he tried, clearing away the emotion in his throat. "We have time –"

"No," she cut off, every word draining. "When he is finished with me, you will be next, but you have to run, or fight, do not let him –"

"I won't, okay? Just stop, you're exhausted," he consoled, rubbing a thumb against her shoulder.

"He is going to kill me. And then you."

"Not if I can help it."

She didn't seem to hear him.

"He will take you outside, make you dig sand, but you cannot let him, you have to live –"

"Stop! Stop talking," he ordered, the hardness in his voice stronger than his words.

The sweat on his back started to chill.

"Don't quit on me yet, ninja," he urged, giving her a little shake. "I need you to keep your head."

Her voice was painfully quiet, defeated.

"Tony," she called again, not looking at him. He shook her again, harder than before, needing her to hear what he was saying.

"We aren't fucking dead yet."

(Silently, she disagreed.)

"I do not think Gibbs is coming," she whispered, her voice so low that he had to hold his breath to hear her.

Tears slid down her face and her breathing became a little more erratic. He felt her muscles tense as her lip started to quiver. The truth in her soft brown eyes was so raw and beautifully honest that he couldn't stop himself as he felt moisture stuck to his own cheeks. He swallowed the lump back down as an unknown weight pressed against his chest.

"I know," he returned softly, the salty water from his eyes running over his chapped and parted lips.

Her shoulders started to shake and she closed her eyes, the tears falling freely down her face as the last piece of her resolve fell away. He released his hold on her arms and pulled her body into his, one arm wrapping around her back and the other cradling her head as she sobbed into his shoulder.

Only now did he see the deep bruising around the back of her neck and shoulder blades, the fresh scratches embedded into skin from where her shirt had ridden up. His stomach dropped and he forgot that he was the one that was supposed to be keeping his shit together.

He knew, then, that he loved her. His heart felt like it had been split open with the sheer relief of finding her alive and having her breathing, feeling, right in front of him. His chest swelled and his throat constricted and he knew this was all going to end, but this was so real that he was fucking crying for it.

(He may not be in love with her, fine, but what difference was that anymore?)

They weren't fucking dead yet.

No.

Not yet.

Five days.

Thanks for reading, drop me a line, then be on your way! But seriously. Pet a kitty or something.