As Ziva was lost in her own little world a police man neared her position. After a runner had reported a death homeless person he was ordered to check the perimeter. Grumbling to himself about his task he nearly missed the small child huddled close to a large tree - Almost.

"Hello? Hey, kid. What are you doing here?" The officer asked, lightly touching Ziva's shoulder, making her jump up in alert.

"Relax kid," he tried to reassure her but his big frame hovering above her made her eyes widen in fear.

"Ouch, hey," He fought back the pain in his hand, where the small girl had bitten him and tried to get a better hold on the wriggling child, "Will you stop it! Damn it."

Finally the police officer had managed to get a firm - and for him safe - hold on Mini-Ziva and carried her struggling form to his car. Her foreign protests and screams falling to deaf ears.

(Ziva's point of view)

She nearly forgot to breath as a darkened figure suddenly loomed over her. Her first instinct to run was soon squashed when the man blocked her escape route and reached for her. Even biting his hand hadn't helped to make him back off.

Ziva felt a deep fear cursed through her small frame as she noticed that she was in an inferior position. There was no way she could overpower this man. She wished she had the knife her daddy gave her for such situations with her. Or even better, her daddy, who would make this man pay for assaulting her.

Her daddy always warned her about going with strangers and now this person was taking her away in this strange car! There was some kind of fence separating the back from the front part of the car. Mini-Ziva frantically looked for an escape but soon realized that the doors wouldn't open. Ziva breath hitched as panic overcame her. She was trapped and this man didn't looked any friendly at all.

Her daddy wouldn't be pleased...

"Damn kid, ya act as if I would murder you any moment," the police man watched the little girl in the rear mirror.

"Hey! Don't stomp your boots against the window!" He all but yelled at the top of his lungs. A damaged car would cause him a lot of paperwork. Especially when he had to explain that a child not older than four caused it.

"That's it," he muttered under his breath, "I was going to bring you to my police station but since you decided to cause trouble we'll have to change plans."

His dark eyes flashed as he met Mini-Ziva's brown ones, which widened at seeing the police man's angry expression.

Despaired, Ziva curled into a small ball in the space between safety guard and backseat. Her small body overwhelmed with shivers as fear and shock cursed through her slender frame.

(Ziva's point of view)

She must have passed out from the stress, cause as she opened her eyes again, she wasn't any longer trapped in the strange car.

Also she was pretty much surrounded by darkness, Ziva could feel something soft underneath her and a light blanket covered her from a cool breeze. Instantly she knew that this wasn't the gray-haired man's house. So where was she?

Feeling her way through the darkened room she soon had mapped it out. In the left corner from the door, there was the bed with a mattress and only a blanket on it, this was where she had woken up first.

To the right was a half opened window. All thoughts about escaping through it were squashed as she found herself four floors upstairs. There was no way she would survive a jump without hurting herself.

Otherwise the room was very small and completely bare. She also had found no light switch. It was probably to high for her to reach anyway.

Her last option was the door in which direction she looked warily.

What if the evil man was just waiting behind that door for her? Ziva sniffed and suppressed another set of tears.

She wanted nothing more than to be home right now. Or at least be with the people who were ordered to look after her.

As she cowered right next to the door, the little girl wondered if her daddy would find her here. He would come and get her out of this nightmare, yes?

Would he scold her for going off and not finding him? Making him come to her? She never failed him like this before.

When those men came and took her away from her family a few months ago, her daddy came and brought her home. He wouldn't leave her out of his sight for weeks. But she was younger then. Ari told her she wasn't a baby anymore. Also Ari said she would always be his little baby sister.

Would her daddy come for her now? Would he hug, kiss and cuddle her like he did once they were away from prying eyes and back with the rest of the family, in the safety of their home?

Somehow she knew, this time her daddy wouldn't be pleased...

"Where did you put the brat from last night?" The woman asked.

"In a single room, just down the hall. I didn't wanted her to cause havoc while being with the other children."

"Let's see if she's awake yet. I hate those interruptions of our normal routine," she grumbled.

"Back at'cha. I'm not in the mood for any more trouble today."

Taking a key from the board on the wall, the man unhurriedly walked down the hall, till he stopped in front of a wooden door.

"Be careful not to get bitten," he told his colleague smugly.

"She better not try or I'll forget myself."

With this the door swung open, revealing a semi dark room.

The tall man momentarily looked around, searching the room, "There she is," he pointed to the shivering girl in the furthest corner.

"Well, get her." The woman ordered.

"Coward," the man muttered quietly.

"What?"

"Nothing." He grinned to himself as he approached the child.

"Hello girl. Come here," he said, out of the sudden acting very friendly.

"Seems like she doesn't want, too," laughed the woman, putting her hands into her trouser pockets.

"Hm, come on. We want to get back to our 'TV'," he looked behind him at his colleague, giving her a lewdly look which she returned all to willingly.

-"Lo!"- Ziva shouted as the man tried to grab her.

"What?"

"Was that a no?" The woman wondered.

"Don't know," the man frowned and tried to grab her anew, "We will just bring you to other girls."

-"Lo, azov oti, lo,"- she shouted, her voice strained as she struggled with all her might against the man's grip.

"What the hell is she saying?" The man wondered as he carried her out of the room.

"Seems like she's another retarded one," the woman shook her head, "Let's bring her downstairs to the others of her kind."

(Ziva's point of view)

As the two white clad people had entered the room and approached her, Mini-Ziva immediately realized that her mommy was right when she had promised her that she would hear again.

The little girl could faintly hear the people's voices. She frowned. What were they saying? The little girl knew that she must be the topic of their conversation as they kept pointing at her. But the words seemed very foreign, which made her shiver involuntary.

Suddenly the big man closed in on her, making her shrink further into the corner. She could tell that those weren't nice people.

All her struggling and begging them to leave her alone were ignored as she was carried down a seemingly endless staircase...

"Another one?" The man in charge asked listlessly, unlocking a thick steel door.

"Yes."

"Be careful, she likes to bite," the man said as he set the little girl down inside of the room. By now she had giving up the struggle.

"Looks feisty."

"Oh she is," the woman winked and dragged her other colleague back with her.

(Ziva's point of view)

Uncertainly she looked around the large gray room. It looked like a lounge and reminded her a lot of the office where her daddy's friends worked. Only this one contained smaller tables and chairs. Then and there she could see a toy lying around. Otherwise the room was void. No plants, colorful things or people.

Behind her, the steel door let out a noisy sound as the door fell back in its place and was locked again.

Mini-Ziva furrowed her little eyebrows and slowly walked to one of the doors, which led from the lounge. She was careful to stick close to the wall, not knowing what danger lied ahead of her. "The possibility to be seen when you go around a place, instead of crossing it, is much smaller," she heard her daddy's voice.

Under her bare feet the floor felt ice cold and the plain white shirt and pants, she found herself dressed in, didn't held of the general cold temperature of the room either.

Ziva gulped down her rising fear as she finally had reached the first door, finding it slightly ajar. After all, her daddy taught her that the only fear is the fear itself.

Tentative she peered inside the room, seeing an even larger room. The small beds hinting that she just had found the bedroom.

She was about to inspect the room further as a sound to her right made her froze.

"There you are." An older woman looked out from the room to her right.

Before Ziva knew what happened, she felt a hand grasp her upper arm, dragging her into the room to her right.

Her eyes widened as she saw the amount of other children, sitting apparently behaved on their seats around tables, which where loaded with cornflakes, slices of bread and jelly.

"Sit, eat, be quiet."

Ziva knew that the old woman had just ordered her to do something, as she was roughly placed into one of the chairs on a table. But what?

The little girl looked at the woman questionably, but she only got a shake of the woman's head and an angry glare as response.

Across her, an older girl seemed to sense her predicament and put a jelly bread onto Ziva's plate.

Surprised, Mini-Ziva looked at her and was rewarded with a gently smile which she all too happily returned.

(24 hrs after Ziva had disappeared)

Gibbs slammed his desk drawer in frustration.

"Damn it!"

McGee looked up, startled from where he had concentrate on finding a trace of their missing team member.

"I'm gonna check those police stations and children's homes myself now."

"Let's go," Tony exclaimed, jumping to his feet also.

"Tony," growled Gibbs.

"I'm coming with you," the teenager stated, already on his way to the elevator.

(Ziva's point of view)

After a quiet and not really tasty breakfast, she and the other kids were led back to the lounge. While Mini-Ziva was first very wary of the partly strange acting children, she soon realized that they were as trapped as she was.

In an act of bravery the little girl walked over to a child which had secluded himself from the rest of the others. She thought that he looked fairly normal and safe to approach - How wrong she was. If her daddy hadn't taught her to react fast, she would have had been hurt by the wooden block the boy threw at her.

Looking over to the old lady, Mini-Ziva once again realized how alone she was. Instead of watching if everyone behaved, the woman was keeping herself busy with a crossword puzzle.

Suddenly the wish to be back with her daddy threatened to overwhelm Ziva once again.

However she was brought out of her thoughts by an uproar across the room, started by the very same girl, which had helped her at the breakfast table.

The girl spoke not the language of their guards, but the language in which her mommy would speak to her if her daddy wasn't around.

She immediately recognized it, as a man approached the girl and she started screaming at them. From her position in the corner of the lounge, Mini-Ziva could see that the tallest of the three men stuck a big, scary looking needle into the girl's arm as the other men held her roughly.

Suddenly a memory of last night came back to Ziva. It was the same kind of needle the mean people had used on her, when she had first arrived here.

Reliving this moment, Ziva learned fast that it was better not to act scared or rebellious, if she didn't wanted to get pricked again.

The little girl wondered if all people in white coats were such meanies, but the black lady at the building and the one with the glasses weren't mean...

At least the man with the glasses gave her this nice box with the dancer.

Would those men give her a gift, too? Somehow Ziva doubted it...

By the end of the afternoon they had only a few police stations left to check, as Gibbs decided to take a break at NCIS headquarters. While he headed to the bullpen, Tony was ordered to bring Abby the Caf-POW they had collected earlier.

"Boss," McGee all but ran to Gibbs as he stepped out of the elevator, "I was about to call you!"

"You found her?"

McGee could only nod and hurry after his boss as said person turned around, heading for the parking lot.

"Where to?" Gibbs asked as he set the car into drive and accelerated out of the Navy Yard, McGee giving him directions.

"A police officer remembered her, after a colleague told him that you had dropped by earlier. The other officers didn't knew, cause the man brought her straight to an orphanage. He claimed that due to the late hours they would have been stuck with babysitting till next morning otherwise." McGee explained as Gibbs sped up even more.

"F*cking morons," Gibbs thought, gripping the steering wheel so tight that his agent could see his knuckles turning white.

~ TBC ~

Lo = No

Azov Oti = Leave Me [Alone]