Disclaimer NCIS is not mine

Author's Note This chapter and the next are the last two of this style before i begin to close this storyline, and start on the next bit of this story. I feel i should warn you that this story will span over ten years in thee time, so there will be a few time leaps in the up and coming chapters. But i'll warn you when they happen.

thanks for the reviews, and please keep them coming, enjoy!

A Beating a Day

'Keep on dreaming
Don't let it break your heart'
-Eli Young Band, Even if it breaks your heart

"Get up!"

Another day. Another beating. Another wake up. Another session of excruciating pain.

Her eyes opened at the feeling of water being tipped over a fragile and weak frame. The shock to her system took a couple of seconds to die down, causing her breath to become harsh, raspy, and spontaneous. Half of her mind told her to breathe, whilst the other told to try and get the water in her mouth. To try and rehydrate her traumatised body. If her hands had not been tied then she would have, but instead she just closed her eyes once more, and let the remainder of the water tip over her. Causing her red hair to become drenched and stick to her face and neck in a tangled mess. The ties around her wrists had already dug into the skin, chafing and cutting at her. Causing her pale and soft skin to be covered with dark red patches – but they weren't the only signs of pain on her battered body.

She was lifted up by the man who had rudely awakened her. They all looked the same, although she knew that this was a man who was nothing much more than a guard. He had never been one to torture her, never done anything except wake her up on the odd occasion. The man in charge was the one who she had only seen once, on her first day. And whom she would not be upset never to see again, because it was him who had broken her rib.

The man took her by the hands, and lifted her so she was almost kneeling, except it was not her holding her body up. "Walk!" The man ordered. But Jenny didn't make any effort to move, simply for the reason that she had no energy left. All the men that acted as her guards only ever spoke single words, and it made her wonder exactly how much English everyone here spoke. Part of her wished she understood them, at least then she would know why she was there, but then again, she wasn't sure if she wanted to know what her fate was to be. After all, that would most likely extinguish the small amount of hope she still had of her escape.

When she failed to respond to his order, he simply dragged her along the floor, causing yet more grazes to form along her bare feet and legs. But Jenny just remained lifeless. With every day that passed, that hope grew weaker, and part of her wondered just who would even miss her . . .

Another day. Another dead end. Another step further away from finding her.

He sat at the small desk they had given him, with barely even enough room for a computer and a coffee cup to be on it at the same time. He sat there, looking at the picture on the screen. Looking at the last time anyone had seen his partner. Walking away from the riverside and towards her car, with her coat blowing out behind her and her high heels clip clopping away. No doubt thinking of the hotel bed that was waiting for her, and the flight back home that she was to take.

Their last sighting.

The coffee cup was empty now, the cardboard not even still warm. And even after a dozen coffees that day, he didn't feel awake. The caffeine had no affect on him now, the adrenaline had worn off, and the amount of time since he last slept and ate was beginning to take its toll. He may like to think he didn't need anything but coffee to survive, but he was wrong. Jenny had always told him that.

Stan had arrived in Moscow after numerous delays getting there. But Gibbs had barely seen him since he left to go and visit the docks where she had last been seen, and drive the route she was supposed to have taken. It was reassuring to the silver haired man that his own agent was there, checking everything. It was times like this he was glad that he had managed to get his team to the standard where he didn't have to tell them what to do. That they used their initiative. Will had been calling him with updates, and apparently they were checking all scheduled and unscheduled outgoing flights from Moscow.

Russia was a massive country though, and Gibbs was no going to kid himself into thinking that they could search the whole of it to find her. Even if they did, well, she could be anywhere around the world by now.

Anywhere.

And what was worse, was that they didn't only have to look into the life of Jennifer Shepard, they had to look at her alias as well. And all of that took time, time that they didn't have.

Today it was a kick to the stomach that awoke the redhead, however it was not to slumber that she had slipped into, but unconsciousness. Somehow she had been dragged back into the room they housed her in. The square, dusty room, with sand coloured walls, and not even a window. With just one steel door that was opened only to deliver her from a torture session, or wake her up. Every couple of times someone would chuck her a granola bar. The only time she would get water was when they were interrogating her. But even then she ended up choking on it as it was forced down her throat.

The kick to the stomach hit her sore rib, making her screw her eyes up in pain. The rib that had been broken since she arrived, and had not been left alone long enough to begin to heel. Because every time they wanted something they kicked her, or dropped her, or did something that ended up damaging it more. And part of her wondered if her injuries would kill her before they did. Whether God would be merciful and take her away before she was executed. Whether the dehydration would take her, the exhaustion or the injuries that were no doubt apparent inside.

That thought seamed merciful to her now. Death seamed peaceful.

"Wakey wakey Sleeping Beauty." Someone laughed, and she opened her eyes just enough to see the man who she believed was in charge, the one who had broken her rib. The man laughing was someone behind him, stood with a gun at the door, and she guessed that the boss thought of himself as a bit of a comedian. She just lay there motionless, and waited to be dragged. "Now its time to have some fun." The boss then nodded to the other man, who picked Jenny up and threw her over his shoulder.

She guessed she must have lost some weight if they could do that now. But she hadn't looked, her weight was not exactly an urgent issue right now. And as she was carried, she stared off into space, wondering just what memory she could wrap herself in today whilst they beat her up. Which bright place could she think of to get her through another round?

Today marked Jenny being gone for well over a week. A fact that had Gibbs even more antsy and on edge than he had been since the whole dilemma began. And what was even worse was that they had nothing. Stan had been up in the Russian MTAC for the last two days, frantically following Jenny's car on CCTV before she was taken. Trying desperately to try and find the car that had taken her. Will was back in DC doing the exact same thing, and Tom Marrow was basically getting every agency on board, and urgently trying to build relations with the Russian police department in the hope that they would lend a hand on the investigation. Yet the fact that they were annoyed that NCIS had even been undercover on their territory in the first place was not doing anything to help.

Gibbs, well he felt useless. He was no good when it came to technology, everyone knew that. And as there was no evidence he was stumped. So he had been fighting with Marrow to let him go and speak to Yakov, to go back in as Leo and ask for help. But that was a battle that Gibbs was yet to win. A battle that he was beginning to think that he would not win. After all, Yakov had a strong hatred for Leo. And even if both shared a mutual concern for 'Julietta', everyone doubted that he would help. All that Yakov would see was Leo trying to turn another arms dealer over to the police.

Stephanie had booked herself into a hotel, and he had barely seen her apart from when he had gone there to change. She was annoyed at him – duly annoyed at him – but at the same time she would not say anything. Truth be told she was just as scared that they wouldn't find Jenny. Firstly because she knew that without his partner her husband would be a different man. Jennifer Shepard had an unusual talent in the way that she could so easily tame the former marine. Stephanie had never known him without the other woman taming him. But secondly, she was scared because it had finally brought the truth to light; she was all of a sudden so blindingly aware of how dangerous what Gibbs did was. How easily it could have been him who was the kidnapped one. How easily she could lose Gibbs. That was what was really making her shiver in her boots.

The fact that she could so easily wake up one morning without him there.

"Boss." Gibbs looked up from the computer screen at his desk to see Stan Burley. When he had returned to his desk he found a note from Agent Ishutin, telling him that a file had been emailed to her to show him. So he'd been sat there reading the findings of William Decker back in DC, but also reading the full version of Jenny's assignment file. Something he had not realised that he had not actually read.

Stan Burley looked at his boss, and felt a wave of fear. He'd never seen Gibbs like this, not even after the whole Paris ordeal when even red had been shaken up. So seeing his boss in a state that he could only describe as broken, well he could not deny the fact that he was scared. "I brought ya Chinese, had to search the entire city but I figured that you probably could do with it." Stan said, as he pulled up a chair to the end of his boss's desk, sat down and pushing the container over to his boss, along with a fork. Unlike their red headed friend, he didn't much care for chop sticks, he preferred to actually be able to eat his food and not have to lay a balancing game in order to do so.

"Thanks." Gibbs said. Opening the carton, and looking at the Chow Mein that Burley had bought him – the one he always got when they ate take away. Gibbs sat there eating, not even saying anything, because he didn't know what to say. He was never one for much talking, but when something as tragic as Jenny's kidnapping was still going on, it made him not want to talk even more. That and the fact that he could not remember the last time he had eaten. Just like he had not realised just how starving he was.

"We'll find her, we will boss." Stan said, looking over at the senior agent. The man who was like a father to him, who had turned him into so much of a better man. Who had, in no uncertain terms, made him grow up into a man. And as Gibbs nodded, and Burley sighed, both men thought about just where she was, and what she was doing.

Both hoped that what was happening was better than what they thought.

Both were wrong.

Chucked into the room yet again, her limbs smacking to the floor, hard, her head landing on the floor. Causing yet another scratch on her forehead. Already Jenny could feel the blood begin to trickle down her face, the tingling feeling that followed it soothing the pain. Lying there, she wanted to cry, but crying took energy, energy she didn't have.

The red head didn't know how long she had been there. She hadn't seen daylight since she arrived; it could have been days, weeks or even months. But she didn't know. All that the special agent knew was that they knew who she was, and they wanted information, information that she would die before giving. Today had been another torture session. Her head had been held under the water until she thought they would kill her, and then pulled out again.

It seemed that was their new tactic. Make her think they were going to kill her, give her the hope of this nightmare ending, and then stop it all. The water had been one of the less severe tortures; she didn't even want to think about the others. She would never tell anyone about some, never tell Gibbs in particular, because she knew that he would never look at her the same again.

Would.

She was thinking about the future again, about her escape. It was easy to do, easy to think that this was all some test that would soon be over. That was how she got through it, thinking like this was just one very dark tunnel, but with every torture session she got one step closer to that light. Whether that light was a rescue team coming to save her, or the arms of God ready to lift her up, it didn't matter. Either one was better than this.

Her face was filthy, her clothes were filthy, her hair was wet, and she was cold. The red head moved her wrists, but once more just felt the plastic chafing at her skin. They had been looser not long ago, but she guessed that they had spotted that and put new ones on to stop her from slipping out of them. Not that it would do much good. Jenny was nothing but bone now; she had no muscle on her and no energy to fight her way out.

She swallowed, but her throat hurt from the water, it felt like it had been rubbed with sandpaper. Something she would not put past them to try and make her talk. Closing her eyes she once more fought the urge to cry, to sob, but the knowledge that they were probably outside the room now, and would hear her. That fact stopped her, because the last thing she wanted was for them to think that they were winning.

So once more, Jenny thought of a happier place. She thought of NCIS, where she always thought of. Jenny remembered the team, Gibbs' glared, Stan's jokes and Will's eye rolls. She remembered a time before Stephanie and before Julietta was ever a name she went by.

With those memories rolling around her mind, she fell into unconsciousness. A calm and warm place, where things didn't hurt anywhere near as much as they did in reality.

And she dreamed, of all the things she had never let herself dream of.

Love. Marriage. Children. Family. Normality.

All the while, everyone else tried to find her. And yet with every day, they got no further. Rumours spread, rumours that she hadn't been kidnapped but had run away, had been killed, had decided that she wanted to be Julietta. Those rumours surrounded them all, and with every rumour that sprouted that hope faded, that dedication was reduced.

Yet five people believed in her.

Five people who knew he best, believed that she would never betray her country. Believed that, no matter how long it took, they would find her. Down in Autopsy back in DC, Ducky began to make his way through his massive web of connections, calling in favours, and doing what he could to help. He was a man of men; that was something that he was currently proving. He went through contact after contact, starting in France, and making his way through Europe.

Up in his office Tom Marrow fought to keep Gibbs in Moscow, a battle that as the weeks went on proved harder, and harder to win. He did his best to control everything, helped in every way he could, whilst down in the bullpen William Decker ran himself ragged. Working cases basically single handed, and spending his nights trying to find Jenny. Feeding information to and from Moscow, and using the resources which America had at their finger.

Stan Burley worked as hard as he could, keeping Gibbs sane, and building relations. Working with Russian PD, and trying to find her. But what he managed to do that no one else did, was he managed to make Gibbs feel useful. Whether it was asking him to check something of Jenny's, or pretending he needed help with a Russian case. He did anything he could.

Five people, worked flawlessly in sync, all desperately trying to find the redhead.

The red head who lay starved and beaten on the dusty floor in another continent.