*sheepish wave* hey guys. I'm so sorry, I know it has been a while. But please accept this small chapter and the promise of more to come! Enjoy!
...
Tony immediately knew, even before he opened his eyes, that he wasn't in a hospital.
That was new. Usually when he passed out (which was far more often than he would have liked) he woke up in Intensive Care somewhere. But even though he chose to keep his eyes closed, the rest of his senses went to work.
The sheets he was resting on- in fact, the entire bed- it was far too luxurious, too soft to be a hospital bed. And there was an absence of that lovely hospital smell: the smell of sickness and of sterilizing agents that was so characteristic of the ICU. The usual cold was gone, replaced by a warm breeze. Where was he?
DiNozzo knew he'd have to open his own eyes to find out, but past experiences had taught him that any and all brightness would hurt him.
'Here goes nothing...' he thought,
He was right; it was not a hospital bed but an elegant four-poster bed that he laid in. He was wrong in that there was little brightness to hurt his eyes. The bedroom in which he found himself was dimly lit only by a pair of lamps on the nightstands on either side of the bed. Shadows cast themselves around the room without creating an aura of danger; this was a safe place.
The location of this safe place remained a mystery to him, until he turned his head ever so slightly to find McGee sleeping in the thick chair at his side. He realized that he must have been in the Clark house.
Tim's eyes were closed and his chest rose and fell gently as he slept. From his spot on the bed, Tony could see nothing but human in his best friend. This was the same kid who fell asleep at his desk after a long night of hacking or profiling. This was Tim McGee.
DiNozzo tried to sit up, but moved too quickly and was rewarded with a dizzy spell so intense he groaned. McGee's eyes shot open, revealing the vibrant, inhuman green. The color made Tony shiver. There was very little that was natural about it. However, the warmth and worry that lit up those eyes was one hundred percent Probie.
"Tony," Tim said, sitting up. "How're you feeling?"
"Been worse," he croaked.
"That's true," McGee conceded, handing him a glass of water from the nightstand. "How's your head?"
"Hurts. Sore."
"I'll bet. You don't even have a concussion, but you do have a nice knot on the back of your head and some really nasty cuts here and there...do you remember what happened?"
After a moment of thought, memories came rushing back to the senior agent. He tried to sit up too fast again, although in his panic, he didn't notice the pain or the fact that McGee was trying to gently restrain him before he fell off the bed.
"We were in Venice at some restaurant, and it felt like someone was watching us, and after dinner we were sure someone was following us, so we made a plan to get back to the hotel when we were jumped."
"Were they human or flightlings?"
"Flightlings. I didn't get a good look at them, but I'm sure of it. They took Ziva and Gibbs."
Fright pricked at the back of both Tony and McGee's minds. While the past few months had taught DiNozzo not to assume anyone dead, he also knew that Ziva and Gibbs weren't going to suddenly sprout wings the way Tim had- they weren't flightlings. That left very few options, considering the nature of their kidnappers.
"Don't panic," Tim said shakily. "I'll talk to Apollo."
He stood up to call the older Clark, when a thought occurred to him. "Wait. Why didn't they take you too?"
"Dunno," DiNozzo yawned, fighting off the recurrence of sleep. They must have given him medication...
"I need you to stay awake just a little longer, Tony," McGee said. "Do you remember anything else?"
"I passed out. When I woke up, they were gone...caught a cab...don't remember anything else."
As his friend drifted back to sleep, Tim frowned in concern. Considering how soaked he was when he arrived at the Clarks' home, Tony must have done some running in the rain, despite his injuries and the onset of shock.
A look at the clock told that it had only been a few hours since he opened the door to have DiNozzo pass out in his arms. A few hours was a few too many for Gibbs and Ziva to be missing. Silently closing the door behind him, the newest addition to the Clark family went to find Apollo.
Despite their rocky past with Team Gibbs, Apollo and Victoria were being very good sports about keeping Tony in their house. They could have insisted that DiNozzo stay in a nearby hospital, and McGee would have understood. It was actually Apollo who suggested the NCIS agent sleep in the guest room next to Tim's, and he personally checked over his multiple wounds. And although Apollo wasn't exactly happy having a hunter in his home, he knew that Tim cared for the man like a brother. After all, Tim was a Clark, and the house was his too.
Victoria, for her part, stayed out of the way until she was needed, making sure Tim slept, that DiNozzo's pain medication was in the correct dosages, and that tea was always ready for anyone who needed it. Tim, in his worry, took care of everything else.
He passed Victoria's room and stuck his head in the open door to find his surrogate sister reading.
"Hey."
"Hey," she said, putting her book down. "How is he?"
"A little sore, and his head hurts. He's back to sleep now."
"I think there are some of those hot-cold bandages in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom in his room."
"Thanks."
She noticed the troubled expression on his face. "What's wrong?"
"He says that Ziva and Gibbs were taken by flightlings."
Victoria's eyes became stormy with concern. They hadn't known about any aggressive flightlings in Venice, at least not any that could outdo three expert hunters!
"Do you know where Apollo is?"
"I think he's watching TV in the living room."
Tim turned to head in that direction. After a moment's thought, Victoria put down her book and followed.
Apollo was indeed watching TV. Even though it was much too early in the morning to be awake, none of the flightlings could sleep after the night they'd had.
The older man looked up when they entered.
"How's that friend of yours, Tim?"
"Better than he was a few hours ago, thanks to you."
Apollo smiled but let the compliment go. "Did he wake up?"
"Yeah, but he's asleep again."
"Understandable. Now, did he say anything about your other team mates?"
"...he said they were taken by flightlings."
Apollo's brow furrowed. "Oh."
"Yeah."
"Well...I'm afraid that you know their chances of survival are..." he trailed off, and Tim nodded.
"I know," he said quietly, almost whispering.
It was silent for a minute before Victoria spoke.
"There's no reason we can't look into it, right?"
"No, you're right. There isn't," Apollo agreed, looking at her. "And besides, your friend was staying at a hotel, was he not? I think it'd be better if he checked out and stayed here until he was strong enough to be on his own."
"What do we do?" Tim asked, hopeful.
"As soon as Mr. DiNozzo is able to travel, we will go to Venice."
...
Ziva awoke to far a worse situation than DiNozzo had. Actually, she woke up mid-flight, and was immediately presented with a view almost one hundred feet off the ground. Her captor, unaware that she had regained consciousness, clutched her tightly, and she didn't struggle, lest he drop her.
In fact, the former Mossad agent realized that she could not move her head much at all without warning the flightling that she was awake. However, she could hear the rustling and flapping of several sets of wings, and assumed that the other monsters had Tony and Gibbs with them.
The unknown flightlings were not in the air for long. Only a few minutes after Ziva had woken up, she felt a decrease in their altitude, and they neared a huge, Renaissance-era mansion directly on the main harbor of Venice. Even in the moonlight it was clear the place needed some work, but in its heyday, Ziva realized, it must have been a palace.
The flightlings avoided both the roof of the house and the water, choosing instead to land on a small stone walkway behind the house.
As they landed, she tried to remain limp, so that her kidnapper might think her to be asleep. Instead, he dropped her with such force that the impact elicited a small cry of surprise.
"Oh good, you're awake," her kidnapper sneered. "Means I don't have to carry you. But if you try to run, you're dead."
She had received worse threats from coworkers! Ignoring the man in front of her, Ziva looked over his shoulder to see that Gibbs was there, presently being put down by his own captor.
There was no sign of Tony.
The flightling yanked her up by the arm and shoved her towards a dark passageway in the wall. Gibbs fell in step beside her. Sad excuses for electric lights illuminated the path, which led down a passageway and into a cavernous room filled with cells of various sizes.
Of course, a dungeon.
Ziva felt Gibbs stiffen, and knew that this enormous house must be the lair of these brutes. Surely, the two agents were being brought here to die. The young woman held her head high, and with a small Hebrew prayer, prepared to meet the end.
Without a word, the flightlings (three in all) forced the two prisoners into a cell towards the end of the block. Unable to fight, they entered the small space, then looked around warily.
"Don't worry, you've still got a couple nights left," Gibbs' flightling informed them. "Sweet dreams."
After they left, the two agents were left in almost pitch black.
"What do we do?" Ziva began, but before Jethro could answer, a gentle voice called from the next cell over, "Excuse me? Are you alright?"
Since each cell was separated by a stone wall (only one wall was made of bars) they didn't have a face to match with this kind voice. Gibbs answered anyway.
"We're not hurt. Who's there?"
"My name is Andrew," the man answered. "Those creatures that took you..."
"We know what they are," Ziva said. "Do you?"
"Yes. My grandmother was a flightling. But she wasn't like this."
"Do you know why they put us down here?" Gibbs asked.
"From what I can tell, they're trying to collect as many humans as possible. They're having some gathering at the end of the week. And we're to be the main course."
"Great," Jertho said angrily.
Just then, one of the flightlings returned. "You two aren't hurt are you?" he said without kindness. "Cause we don't want you to bleed to death or anything right now."
"What did you do with Tony?" Ziva asked.
"Who? Oh, the third one. He sort of hit the ground with a crack and stopped moving. We only need live humans, so..."
Fear gripped the two at the implication. Tony was dead? No. Ziva had made the mistake of believing him dead too many times- and had just recently made the same mistake with McGee. She wouldn't do it again. It was clear from Gibbs' subtle head shake and hug that he felt the same way. They both feared, but would not grieve until they had proof.
In the meantime, they had their own lives to worry about.
How were they going to get out?