I'm close enough to finishing the next, final chapter, so let's get this one out of the way. It's been an age since I posted, so a quick jog of your memory: Back on shore in Key West, Ziva and Borin watched Sacha and Julie dealing drugs out of a café, and Tony, McGee and Gibbs saw John and Martin meet up with Oscar on Oscar's yacht. When Tony and McGee went in for a closer look, John and Martin knocked Tony out. McGee called Borin to tell her Tony was missing, and the chapter ended with Ziva and Borin legging it back to help with the search for Tony.

Let's go.

When Ziva and Borin finally reached the marina, Ziva was pleased to see Gibbs holding a man by his shirt collar up against the wall of a kiosk. That suggested that the trail to find her partner wasn't completely cold. They had a lead.

"Tell me where they're going," Gibbs demanded as Ziva got within earshot. In true Gibbs style, he managed to sound terrifying without raising his voice.

The man, who was about 30 years younger and 30 pounds lighter than Gibbs, frowned like it was a ridiculous question. "How the hell should I know?" he said. "It's the frigging ocean, man! There aren't street signs."

Ziva stepped in towards him, and the adrenaline running through her had her giving him a shove for good measure. "Why are they going out to sea?" she shouted.

The man looked at her, then gave her a quick once-over. "Who are you?" he asked, confused.

Ziva ignored his question and gave him another shove. "Why?" she repeated.

"They're handing the stuff over," he said. "Salvatore's guys are picking it up."

Ziva turned to Borin. "Where is the closest Coast Guard vessel?"

"They'd be close," Borin said, and then pulled out her cell to make an urgent call. Ziva turned back to Gibbs. She wasn't willing to wait until the Coast Guard mobilized.

"We have to get out there now."

Gibbs nodded and pulled the man off the wall of the kiosk. "McGee! Get us a boat."

A sightseeing yacht a few slips over was about to start welcoming passengers on board, and McGee ran over and thrust his badge into the captain's face. Ziva couldn't hear the specifics of the argument that followed, but she didn't have time for it. She made sure that Gibbs had a good hold on their witness/suspect and then ran over and grabbed the captain's arm. His eyes widened and he pulled back from her and held up his hand.

"Ma'am, I understand you're keen to get going on your tour," he told her. "It'll just be a few minutes—"

"We need your boat," she told him, and shoved him back on board. "I do not have time to argue with you. Either you drive the boat or I throw you overboard and drive it myself."

"Who are you?" the captain demanded.

"NCIS," Ziva told him, and stepped on board.

"And Coast Guard," Borin added as she stepped on after her.

"I don't care if you're the Queen of England," the captain yelled back. "I've got a dozen paying tourists waiting—"

Ziva turned back to him and clenched her fists. "So, you wish to be thrown overboard, yes?"

The captain pursed his lips and looked her up and down, and then seemed to decide that she was serious. He turned back to look at Gibbs, McGee and the witness they'd found climbing aboard, and then stalked over to them, muttering to himself the whole way.

"You're all gonna pay me for the privilege of having you on board, right?" he said as he separated the yacht from its mooring. "I'm not much into charity."

"Send an invoice to headquarters," Gibbs said dryly, and dragged their witness after Ziva as she climbed up to the yacht's cockpit.

Ziva spied a pair of binoculars and grabbed them to do a scan of the ocean ahead. There was marine traffic all over, and she felt her heart sink. She brought the binoculars down and looked around for McGee. Gibbs, their witness and the captain had squeezed into the cockpit with her, but McGee must have been back down on deck. Gibbs handcuffed their suspect to the control panel and pointed at the radar as he glared at the skinny man.

"You, tell the captain where to go," he ordered.

The witness looked between them nervously and then gestured with his free hand. "Go west," he told the captain.

The captain—his nametag identified him as George Kostas—glared and then started the yacht's engine. Satisfied that they were about to start moving, Ziva ducked out of the cockpit again and started down the steps.

"McGee!" she yelled, and then briefly lost her footing as the yacht set off with a lurch. She looked up at the pier in time to see a dozen tourists yell and gesture angrily at them, but she had no remorse for ruining their day at sea. "McGee!"

McGee popped his head around from the front deck. "What?"

She rushed towards him and pointed at him with the binoculars. "Can you track Tony's cell phone with yours?"

McGee shook his head, and the near permanent look of worry on his face seemed to deepen. "No. His is switched off."

"That does not ever seem to stop you," she told him, raising her voice to be heard over the engine and the wind. "On our cases you always seem to be able to find someone's cell phone."

"From my desk," McGee pointed out.

"So get Abby to do it," Borin said as she joined them. When McGee didn't immediately respond, she barked, "Now!"

McGee shoved his hand into his pocket to grab his cell phone and stepped away to call Abby in DC. Ziva tried to take a few calming breaths, but abandoned that idea after the first two didn't come close to reaching the bottom of her lungs. She stepped closer to the bow of the boat and lifted the binoculars again. Borin stepped after her.

"Coast Guard is sending out a chopper to begin an aerial search," she said.

Ziva nodded stiffly.

"I've sent a team of agents back to pick up Sacha and Julie at the café," Borin went on. "I promise to give you first go at interrogation."

Ziva chuckled bitterly through a clenched jaw. It was tempting, but it may not be the best idea to allow her access to Sacha and Julie if she didn't find Tony quickly, alive and in reasonable health. It had been a few years since she had used the 'physical coercion' skills she had learned and practiced in Mossad. But if any situation called for her to try them out again, interrogating the women who were accessories to her partner's murder would be a good starting point.

She gripped the binoculars tightly in her hands and took a shuddering breath. There was a time when she was not keen on Tony as a partner or a friend, let alone as the man she wanted to spend her life with. Partnership came first while they were playing Canadian assassins, and they realized that they could trust each other. Friendship took longer, although she came to like him as a person much sooner than she expected. She wasn't sure how long she had been in love with him. Somehow it felt like her whole life, even though the days and weeks when she was sure she hated him. But she had held those feelings back for so long. Denied them, ignored them, tried to kill them with other men and by pushing him away. Until finally, finally, she had accepted that he was indispensible to her. That she liked who she had become during and because of their partnership. That he had become a part of her. Finally, she had gathered all her courage and decided to love him openly, wholly and without regret. And for reasons she doubted she would ever understand, he loved her right back.

Ziva couldn't imagine what her life would look like without him now. She didn't want to. But if she was forced to live it that way as a result of John or Martin's actions, she would rain hell down upon them and their wives without a thought for consequence.

"I don't know, Abby!" McGee cried, cutting into Ziva's vengeful thoughts and drawing her gaze. "If I did, I wouldn't be calling. But he can't be too far away from where my signal is. They only had a five-minute start on us, tops."

Ziva watched him closely, hoping that the next words out of his mouth would be Great job! We're within spitting distance of that location right now! But instead he just sighed, accidentally caught Ziva's eye and gave her a weak smile before turning away again.

Ziva gripped the railing as she felt her anxiety peak. She felt so useless. There was literally nothing she could do except stand and watch the ocean and hope that he could stall John and Martin long enough to give her a chance to get there.

Borin nudged her arm. "Hey. Are you sure your cover was blown?"

Ziva pursed her lips and forced herself to think clearly. She didn't want to give the panicked response that was on the tip of her tongue. It would not be useful, and she was sure that she did not need to demonstrate to Borin how she felt in the moment. Borin was surely already aware.

"No," she replied, and focused on the facts. "No one made accusations. But John Paulson's attempted attack was deliberate. I am positive. And I can think of no reason that he would have attacked us otherwise."

Borin nodded slowly as she thought that over. "You know what I like about DiNozzo?" she said. "He thinks on his feet. He's good at improv. I'm sure that's saved his ass before."

Ziva could think of a dozen situations off the top of her head when that statement had proven true. But Borin wasn't getting it, even as she said all the right things to try to calm Ziva down. "I have no doubt that he will talk until they are sick of hearing him," she told Borin. "And that he will maintain his cover under every circumstance. I have no doubt that he will fight—" She broke up abruptly as she felt her voice begin to waver, and then took a breath to find her focus again. "He will fight until he is past exhaustion. He will not give up. That is not in his nature."

"Yeah, I got that," Borin said with something bordering on affection.

Ziva nodded. "But although he will try, he cannot control what John Paulson and Martin Rose are going to do." She paused and looked at Borin. Her colleague—friend, really, in this moment—watched her from behind dark glasses, but her mouth was a taut line that telegraphed her thoughts. She was already on the same wavelength as Ziva, but she wasn't going to say it aloud. Ziva would. "They took him out to sea because they think he knows what they are doing. There is no reason for them to let him talk his way out of being killed. And you know if they kill him and throw him overboard—" She stopped abruptly again, having reached her limit for straight talk. She couldn't make herself say aloud that chances were good that they may never even find his body.

Borin nodded and glanced away before very briefly putting her hand on Ziva's arm. "We'll get there," she told her. "And we'll get him back."

Ziva looked back out to sea and lifted the binoculars again to hide the tears she felt forming in her eyes. Yes, they would eventually find Oscar McCarthy's boat. They would find Oscar and John Paulson and Martin Rose. But whether they would ever find Tony DiNozzo was another question entirely.

…

I'm going to barf.

It was the first thought Tony had when he came to. His stomach was rolling, most likely from the sharp, throbbing pain in the side of his head that screamed concussion. The fact that he was clearly on a boat and skipping over the waves wasn't helping the situation at all. Nor was the sound of the engines or the vibrations they sent through his body.

God, this was the worst.

Summoning all his energy, he cracked his eyes open and looked around. He was below deck, sitting on the floor and slumped against the wall. Across from him was a dining table big enough to seat about eight. The two stuffed teddy bears that John and Martin had been carrying around were propped up on the built-in bench seats, and maybe it was just the concussion talking but those bears sure looked thinner than the last time he'd seen them. There was a stack of utensils and packages wrapped in white paper and duct tape on the table, and Tony would bet the house that there was cocaine inside. He glanced around for witnesses before attempting to get to his feet, but it became clear to him pretty quickly that it wasn't going to happen. Looking down, he saw his feet had been bound with duct tape. And he assumed that there was more duct tape keeping his hands together behind his back. In a moment of panic he leaned forward so her could feel for his gun at the small of his back, but it was gone. He was unarmed and taped up. Tony sighed.

This truly was the worst.

And then, things deteriorated. He heard multiple, heavy footsteps crossing the deck above him, and his eyes tracked them around the deck and over to the steps that led down into the cabin. It was no surprise when John Paulson and Martin Rose dropped down into the cabin, or that they looked like they wanted to kill him. Tony's heart rate picked up as he readied himself for whatever was about to happen. He didn't want to leave it in their hands, though. He needed to get on the front foot.

"John, what the hell?" he tried. "What's going on?"

John walked over to crouch in front of him, and Tony saw a gun—he realized with a sinking feeling that it was probably his—stuck in his waistband. "What's going on?" John repeated, and glanced up at Martin standing behind him. He let out a humorless laugh. "We've got a nosy guy poking around our business. A nosy guy who carries a gun, but no ID."

Tony swallowed, and tried his best to look clueless and panicked. "It's Florida, man. Of course I'm carrying a gun."

"Why were you poking around our boat?" Martin asked him.

Tony tried to shrug. "I was just looking for the right boat!" he said, panting. "My buddy and me are supposed to go fishing today. I was trying to find the right slip!"

John shook his head. "See, I don't believe you. You and your wife and been in our faces since day one of that cruise. I know you weren't supposed to be on our table that first night."

Tony's gut churned. Crap. That was bad.

"Who are you working for?" John asked him, his cheeks reddening with anger. "Salvatore?"

Tony didn't have a clue who Salvatore was, but filed that away for further investigation. Assuming he got out of this alive. "I'm not working for anyone!" he cried. "I went on a cruise with my wife!"

"Maybe he's DEA," Martin said.

Tony looked at him like he was crazy. "What? I don't know what you're talking about."

John shrugged. "Maybe we'll ask your wife, then."

Tony was pretty sure that his 'wife' would beat the crap out of both these guys—simultaneously—before they made good on any unspoken threats to her safety. But he played along, and got angry. "I swear to God, if you touch her I'm going to kill you both."

John and Martin shared an obnoxious smile.

"Tough talk from a guy who's trussed up like a Christmas turkey," John said.

Tony breathed deeply, and transitioned into the bargaining stage of his capture. "Look," he said. "Just tell me what you want, I can try to help you get it, and then we can go our separate ways and never see each other again." He looked between them. "Sound good?"

"Oh, we're definitely never going to see each other again," Martin said. "Because we're going to drop you at the bottom of the ocean."

"For what?" Tony yelled. "Looking at a boat? I don't know what you're doing or why you want me dead, but your reasons are wrong! I'm on a cruise with my wife and wanted to meet my buddy to go fishing. If we were in your face, it's because we thought we'd become friends."

"That's kind of pathetic," John said.

Tony took offence. "More pathetic than spilling the secrets or your crappy marriages to people you barely know?"

"Our marriages aren't crappy," Martin said angrily.

Tony wondered if the bad marriage thing was an act, or if he was just delusional. He wanted to throw it back in their faces that their wives were three seconds away from leaving them, and that Sacha was almost definitely having an affair. But he thought such stupidity would probably get him killed sooner than John and Martin had already planned, and he needed to buy a little more time for Ziva and his team to come rescue him.

But it sounded like time had already run out.

"Last chance," John said. "Who are you working for?"

Tony shook his head tiredly. Even if this was it for him, he wouldn't give up his team and make them a target of these people. He wanted John and Martin to be completely oblivious to the hell Ziva in particular would bring down on them.

"I'm a physiotherapist," he told them. "I work for myself. I don't know who those other people you mentioned are."

John stared at him with anger in his eyes, and then turned to Martin and nodded. Martin shrugged at Tony, as if telling him that Tony had brought this on himself and it was out of his hands to stop it, and then reached for the duct tape on the table. Tony's heart sank to his bound feet. He was all for going out in a blaze of glory while on the job, but not now. Not now. Not days after he'd finally sorted things out with the love of his life. After everything, didn't they deserve more time together?

"You don't want to do this," Tony warned Martin. "You don't have to do this. Do you want money? I can get you money."

But Martin just shrugged as he tore off a strip of tape. "I've already got plenty of that," he said, and secured the tape over Tony's mouth.

Tony yelled and tried to kick and wriggle out of the way. But John lunged forward and held him down as Martin pulled out another length of tape and started wrapping it around his head. And that's when Tony really started to panic. The tape started at his chin, and wrapped all the way around the back of his head and to the front again. In one continuous loop, Martin wrapped him up, over his mouth again, over his nose, over his eyes, over his forehead. Before he knew it, Tony was blind, mute and mostly deaf with only a small gap in the tape to allow him to breathe.

Forget the nausea from probable concussion. This was definitely, hands down, without a doubt the worst.

Figuring he hand nothing to lose, Tony continued to struggle and be as big a pain in the ass as he possibly could be as John and Martin pulled him up and dragged him across the room by his armpits. His head smacked into something—he assumed the ceiling or the wall by the steps—sending pain shooting through his head again and another wave of nausea through his body. As he was dragged painfully up the steps, he told himself not to throw up. Throwing up now while his mouth was bound up tight would probably kill him. And he still had hope that somehow, he'd get out of this before they threw him overboard and he inevitably drowned.

He felt the sun and ocean breeze on his bare arms when they got to the deck, and was sure that he heard a second boat engine joining the first. Tony was shoved roughly to the side, and he felt a second of pure panic when he thought that was it for him, and he was going to end up in the water. He saw Ziva's face in his head and prayed that one day she'd forgive him for leaving her so soon. But instead of ending up in the water he landed against the hard deck. Although it made pain explode through his shoulders and arms, he was never so happy to end up in a heap on the ground.

Through the deck, he felt the vibration of lots of footsteps moving quickly. He felt them disappear suddenly, seemingly in the direction he'd just been pulled from, and figured there were people moving below deck to grab the bricks of cocaine that had been on the table. If he was right, and there was a second boat, then perhaps they were doing the big drug deal out here on the water where there was no surveillance and no cops. That raised a new question: who were they handing off the drugs to? This Salvatore guy?

He didn't have much time to ponder that. Footsteps started thudding towards him, and Tony braced to be picked up again. Then there was a whole lot of yelling. He couldn't work out how many voices there were, but it was definitely a lot.

And then, gun fire.

Even with his ears covered up by layers of tape, Tony still knew the sound. And frankly, hearing gun fire so close to him while he was bound in tape from head to toe was almost enough to give him a heart attack. Someone tripped on his feet and fell down beside him before scrambling away again, but then Tony felt another big thud, like someone had just hit the deck, literally. With no way to defend himself, Tony instinctively curled up and held still, and hoped to God that the gunfire had come from Ziva and the team.

Because if it hadn't, he was pretty much done for.

…

"What do we have?"

McGee looked up at Ziva's voice and pulled his cell phone down from his ear. He looked stressed and apologetic, and that was enough to tell Ziva that he didn't have any information that she wanted to hear.

"There's some kind of interference that's blocking Abby from locking on to Tony's phone," he told her.

A tight knot pulled in Ziva's stomach. "Interference like a few hundred feet of sea water?" she asked.

McGee shook his head quickly. "No, no. Of course not," he told her, but without much confidence. "Something's jamming the signal."

"Un-jam it!" Ziva yelled at him.

McGee held up a calming hand as he nodded and brought his phone back up to his ear. "Abby, you've got to move on this," he said tightly. "Whatever you can think of, try it."

"Hey!" Borin cried as she dashed over to them. "I checked upstairs. There are two boats on the radar about two nautical miles southwest from here. The chopper is heading to that location now."

Hope soared in Ziva's chest and she and Borin squinted out to sea as if they would be able to see their targets from so far away. "How far out is the chopper?" Ziva asked.

"A few minutes," Borin told her.

The boat changed course slightly and Ziva heard the engine fire up. She held onto the bow as the boat gained speed, and she reached for the binoculars again. She swept them across the water ahead and fought to hold steady as the boat rose and fell over the swell. When she saw two dots ahead she felt a stab go through her chest, but she lost them again in an instant.

"I think I saw them," she yelled to Borin.

"Chopper's coming," Borin replied.

Ziva realized she could hear the faint slapping of helicopter blades over the grind of the boat engine and squinted up into the sky. A red and white Jayhawk was approaching at speed from the north, and the knot in her stomach loosened just a touch. They were close.

She lifted the binoculars again and after a little difficulty zeroed in on the boats. "They must be handing the drugs off to someone else."

"That's a lot of people handling the product," Borin said. "Leaves a lot of room to lose a kilo or two along the way."

"Sacha and Julie," Ziva said. "They are counting on it." She paused as a thought occurred to her. "Perhaps their husbands do not know. Perhaps they are selling on the side to build a bird's nest for when they divorce."

Borin didn't answer immediately. "Nest egg," she corrected. "You might be on to something."

"They were talking about going to Europe," Ziva started, but her words died on her lips when she saw a series of bright flashes coming from the boats. The curse she let out was in Hebrew, but Borin seemed to understand her tone just fine.

"What can you see?"

Ziva swallowed. "Gunfire. A lot of it."

"Can you see DiNozzo?"

The boat hit a wave, knocking Ziva's view of the boats right off course again. But it didn't matter. She shook her head. "No. They are too far away. I cannot determine identity."

Borin stepped away and got on the phone. "It's Borin," she said as Ziva struggled to find the boats again. "Get word through to the chopper that we've got gunfire. There is a federal agent on board in desperate need of assistance."

Ziva hoped to God that was still the case. Usually an agent in desperate need of assistance was a situation they all wanted to avoid. But it wasn't worse case scenario. Worse case scenario was when no amount of assistance could possibly help anymore.

Tony just had to hang in there for a few more minutes.

…

After all the noise and movement died down, Tony held still and listened as he counted to 200. By the end Ziva hadn't arrived, and he was as close to sure as he could be with his eyes and ears covered in duct tape that he was the only one left on the boat. Or, at least he was the only one left alive or not critically injured on the boat. With the smell of gunpowder still filling his nose over the salt water, he decided to chance it and make a move. No guts, no glory he told himself, and took a few shallow breaths through his nose before he pulled himself with some difficulty into a sitting position. He half expected to hear the crack of a gun being fired at him, but worked on scooting across the deck on his butt in what his spatial awareness told him had to be the direction of the below-deck cabin. But almost immediately, he made contact with a wall.

Swearing to himself, Tony swiveled around, pushed his back up against the wall and used the purchase it gave him to get to his feet. He was hoping to find that the wall continued all the way up above his head—that would likely mean that he was leaning against the cabin where he wanted to be. But when he tentatively leaned back to check that he was right he only found open air. He was up against the railing.

Tony swore again and tried to drop to the ground carefully, but having his wrists and ankles bound together made it difficult. He ended up with pain shooting through his shoulder and up his spine as he literally hit the deck, and he had to resist the urge to let his frustration get the better of him. He had to keep a cool head. While he had no doubt that Ziva and the team would already be looking for him, he had no idea how long he'd been unconscious for before he'd woken up below deck, and so he didn't know how far out to sea they'd gotten. He couldn't stay tied up like this—God only knew if John Paulson or Martin Rose or someone else in their team who Tony hadn't seen had survived and was just waiting to pop up and throw him overboard—so he had to work on freeing himself. And there was no way he'd be able to do that if he let his frustration, anger or fear get the better of him.

Tony took a few more shallow breaths and tried to slow his racing heart. When that didn't work, he moved ahead with his plan anyway and scooted across the deck in the opposite direction that he'd come. His feet came into contact with a body along the way, and maybe a second and third, and then sent what he guessed was a gun skittering across the deck. Finally, his feet hit another wall and he started feeling his way along in search of an opening. Sweat prickled along the back of his neck, and down his arms, chest and back, and he again thanked Ziva for forcing him to put on sunscreen that morning. He didn't need severe sunburn on top of near suffocation, dehydration and the pain his arms and shoulders were going to feel for the next few days.

For a moment his mind wandered to that morning when Ziva's fingers had trailed across his shoulders after her mouth, and his heart squeezed. The first time she'd given him a massage she had ended up giving him a Vulcan nerve grip, admittedly after he had deliberately baited her into it. That had been so early on in their working relationship that he didn't even really like her yet, even if he had very much liked the opportunity to get naked and make out with her. That case felt like a hundred years ago, and he'd fallen in love with her a million times since then. He couldn't help but think that there would be something cinematically tragic about losing each other now. As much as he'd love to watch that story on the big screen, he didn't want it to become his life. Or his death. So he would get the hell out of this situation, and then he would request several more massages for his arms, shoulders and neck.

His ninja really had some magic fingers on her.

The hot deck was burning though his clothes by the time his feet found an opening in the wall. Heart pounding with hope and exertion, he stretched his legs out and angled them to search for a step downwards. He found one, and then scooted forward again quickly to reach the second step. When he hit another solid platform he moaned with relief. He'd found the cabin.

Summoning what remained of his energy, Tony pulled himself up to the edge of the steps and then attempted to execute a controlled drop down into the cabin. But, as before, agility wasn't on his side right now. He smacked shins and knees against the stairs before landing on the floor of the cabin with a thud that made his teeth rattle. He smashed his right shoulder and hip and then his head into the ground, and he wasn't completely sure but it seemed to him that the pain made him black out for a second or two. Nausea again rolled in his stomach, and he forced himself to stay still and try to breathe until he was sure that he wasn't going to vomit and choke.

He let out a less-than-manly whimper as he started moving across the floor to where he remembered the table being. He wasn't completely sure, but he thought there may have been something on the tabletop beside the packages of drugs that had been pulled out of the teddy bears' bodies. If he could get a knife or some other sharp tool, he could free his hands. If he could free his hands, he could free his face and legs. And if he could get the tape off his face, he could see what he was doing, find his goddamn cell phone, call for help and then triumphantly drive the frigging boat back to shore.

It sounded like the perfect plan and, in the grand scheme of things, fairly easy to execute. Except that when he got to his feet again, turned around and strained every screaming muscle in his shoulders and arms to search the table, he didn't find anything that felt like it could help him. He was still covered in tape with no apparent way of helping himself.

Not even the duct tape over his mouth could muffle the expletive that he screamed at the ceiling.

…

The closer they got to the Sunfish and the other yacht floating beside it, the lower Ziva's hopes fell. Despite the Jayhawk hovering just 50 feet above the deck and calling for anyone on board to show themselves, there was no movement on board either boat. Surely if Tony was okay, he would have been out there and waving for help? Her heartbeat thudded as fast as the helicopter blades and she felt herself begin to panic in earnest, but she knew that would be of no help. She reached for the gun in her waistband she'd taken from Borin's car, and having the familiar weight in her hand went some way towards calming her down and helping her to focus. Not long now; just a matter of seconds and she would be on board, securing the scene, and punching and/or shooting John and Martin in their throats if she didn't find her partner in better condition that she left him that morning.

"This is the Coast Guard," came a booming voice over the Jayhawk's speaker. "Prepare to be boarded. If there is anyone on board, put down your weapons and immediately come up to the deck with your hands up."

Not a single person moved on either boat, and when they got right up close to the Sunfish's stern the reason became clear. One man lay dead on the rear deck, his arm hanging over the back of the boat and a thick train of blood dripping down into the sea. Another two men lay on the main deck, blood pooling between them and streaked across the deck in two or three directions. There was another body on the deck of the other boat, slumped against a bench seat with his head bowed to the ground. None of them were Tony.

"DiNozzo?"

Ziva snapped her head around at Gibbs' voice coming from right behind her. She shook her head at him. "I do not have a visual."

Gibbs nodded and unholstered his gun as McGee and Borin gathered around. "McGee, Borin, you take the other boat. Ziva, you're with me."

Ziva nodded and gripped her gun tightly as they all raced to the back of the boat and prepared to jump across. She squinted against the sea spray whipped up into her face from the Jayhawk's rotor blades, and then, as soon as the boats were close enough, she made the jump. Her right foot landed on the Sunfish with a minor skid, but she kept her balance and jumped over the dead man—she thought it might have been Oscar McCarthy—on the deck.

"NCIS!" she yelled, but between the boat's engine and the helicopter noise she doubted she'd be heard. "If anyone can hear me, come out with your hands up!"

"On your six," Gibbs said from behind her, and then she felt his hand come to rest on the back of her shoulder.

Guns raised and at the ready, they covered the distance to the main deck quickly. Standing over the bodies she'd seen from the other boat, Ziva confirmed that they were John Paulson and Martin Rose. She nudged the gun that was lying just out of Martin's hand well out of his reach and, without taking her eyes of her surroundings, she squatted to reach his neck and feel for a pulse.

"Dead," she told Gibbs, and then crab walked over to John. When she pressed her fingers to his throat, John let out a pained grunt. But he didn't move, and his pulse was weak. "He does not have long," she said. "We need to get him out of here quickly."

"We'll chopper him out," Gibbs said.

Ziva nodded and stood again and then stepped around the blood on the deck as she approached the cabin.

Below deck, Tony sat still and concentrated on the droning noise that had grown louder over the last two minutes and now seemed to surround him. Maybe it was just his hope talking, but it sounded to him like a helicopter. The question was whether the helicopter belonged to the good guys or the bad guys. He was trying to calculate how lucky he was when a strong hand suddenly landed on his shoulder and scared the crap out of him. Instinctively, Tony jerked away, pitching to the side on the bench seat and kicking up with his feet. He made contact with the person's leg—was it John? Had he survived? Or was it someone worse?—and then pulled them up and kicked out again, hoping to catch them in the stomach. He only caught dead air, though, and the action caused his body a lot more pain than his first kick probably caused his assailant. He brain scrambled to come up with a new plan. Maybe he could let them pull him out and then charge them somehow? But then something made him stop: the scent of Ziva's moisturizer. Maybe that was his hope talking too, but he stopped struggling for a second, and it gave the person time to put their hands on either side of his neck. The touch was gentle, calming, and this time Tony could definitely smell Ziva's moisturizer. She'd worn the same lotion ever since he'd met her, and whenever he got close he could smell it over everything else she wore. It was a smell he associated with home, comfort and having someone at his back.

He was saved. His ninja had come through for him. And John and Martin and everyone else involved in this case could suck it so hard.

He felt the tension of the tape binding his ankles suddenly release and he was finally able to separate his legs. He groaned a thank you, and then followed her lead to stand up when she put her hands on either side of his waist. He turned his back to her to give her access to his wrists, and when she cut the tape he felt a millisecond of pure relief until he tried to move his hands in front of him. All the muscles in his shoulders and arms, and a few too many in his chest as well, screamed with pain at the change in position, so much so that it brought tears to his eyes. He groaned at the burning, stabbing, throbbing sensation feeling even as he tried to roll his shoulders and stretch, but it didn't do a whole lot of good and he knew that he'd need a couple of long sessions with a physiotherapist to set everything right again. Ziva might have magic fingers, but they weren't that magic.

Despite the pain he lifted his hands to his face to try to claw at the tape covering him, but Ziva drew them back down again and encouraged him to lean against the table. Tony let his shoulders sag. Okay, it probably made more sense for the person with the unobstructed eyesight to deal with the mess covering his head. He just wanted it gone as fast as possible so that he could breathe and blink and drink something.

He expected that Ziva would just find the end piece and start pulling and unwrapping the tape. But when he felt the metal of what he knew had to be her knife press against his throat, he panicked. Not because he thought she was going to cut him, at least not intentionally. But because they were on a boat that was rocking just enough on the waves to make him think that she might cut him unintentionally. He wasn't prepared to loose even one layer of skin to this exercise, and it all suddenly seemed like a very, very bad idea. He pulled back from her, but Ziva just gave his shoulder a gently squeeze in understanding before going right ahead with her plan anyway. He felt the dull edge of her knife run from the corner of his jaw on his left side up and towards his ear, and when the boat rolled a little less gently to the right he started to panic that she was going to accidentally slice his ear off. He squeaked and pulled back again, and then Ziva put her hand on the back of his head.

"Hold still," he heard her yell into his ear.

Easy for her to say. Tony dropped his head back and let out a frustrated scream, and then he reached out to grip her hips between his hands and steady himself. Okay. He could do this. If he could trust anyone's hand with a knife, it had to be Ziva's. There may have been a day in the past when she might have messed with his head to make him think she really would cut off his ear or nose or tongue, but those days were gone. She'd proven herself to be pretty fond of him these days, and he just had to trust that she'd protect his face and jugular as best she could.

He drew in as deep a breath through his nose as he could manage and then nodded at her to go ahead. This time he felt the blade run from the corner of his right jaw up to his ear, and then across to his nose. When that was done, she started to peel back the tape. Tony gripped her hips and braced himself for the world's largest Band-Aid being ripped off his face, but in the end it didn't hurt as much as he thought it would. It stung like the burning aftermath of a brutal slap across the face, but he didn't scream or cry or otherwise embarrass himself. When the piece was finally liberated from the bottom half of his face, Tony broke into a huge smile.

"Air!" he cried, and sucked in a deep breath. "Ziva, air is so good. I don't know if you know that, but it's just such a wonderful thing."

Ziva's fingers ghosted across his jaw before her lips came down on his for a few fleeting but glorious seconds. He ended up with an even bigger smile.

"I'm pleased to see you too," he sighed. "Well, feel you." He paused. "Please don't cut me." He thought she said something in reply, but between the tape still over his ears and the ongoing drone of the engine it was hard to tell. "What?"

"Hold still and I won't," she yelled.

Tony nodded. "Okay. Is that a helicopter?"

"Coast Guard," she yelled, and then put her knife up above his ear. He pressed his lips together tightly and held still as she drew the blade down behind his left ear to his neck, and then peeled the piece of tape off. Immediately, Tony's hearing got a lot better.

"Damn, that's loud," he said, but he wasn't complaining. "Did you get John and Martin?"

"Martin is dead," she told him, and this time he heard her perfectly well. He would have smiled, but he was annoyed by the information, even if he expected it. "John was alive when we came onboard, but barely. They are working on getting him onto the chopper now." She paused. "Was that you?"

"Who shot them?" he asked with surprise. "I'd like to say that I managed to save my ass by shooting a bunch of bad guys while blind and with my hands tied behind my back, but you saw what I ate for breakfast, Ziva. I'm feeling a bit sluggish."

That got him another quick kiss. "You should have had the oatmeal."

He scoffed, because that was never going to happen. "John had better live," he told her, as if Ziva had any control over it. "I'm really looking forward to testifying at his trial."

"So am I," Ziva said, and then started on freeing his other ear. "Coast Guard agents have arrested Sacha and Julie. We can interrogate them this afternoon."

"It's not that I'm not happy about that," he said. "But they didn't wrap my head in duct tape and threaten to throw me into the ocean."

"If they had, they could have expected to meet the same fate when I got my hands on them," Ziva said darkly.

Tony grinned, pleased to be on her (very) good side. "You're a hell of a woman, sweetcheeks."

"Are you all right?" she checked.

"Yeah," he answered automatically.

"Tony," she said, and this time he heard the weight in her tone. It occurred to him that she was really asking, and that she was really worried.

"Pretty sure I've got a concussion," he admitted. "I took a couple of hits to the head. Passed out a few times. Luckily didn't vomit."

"Is any of this blood yours?"

"I have no idea," he answered honestly. "But I don't think so. My arms hurt like a bitch."

"I am not surprised."

"Hey, when you pull the take off my eyes, can you please try to save my eyebrows?"

Ziva breathed out a laugh. "I will try."

"You can't make fun of me if I lose them," he warned.

"I promise. Hold still."

Again, Tony pressed his lips together in a tight line and prayed for Ziva's steady hands as she ran the knife from his hairline down the left side of his face, and then repeated the motion on the right.

"This may get uncomfortable," she warned him, and then ran the knife down the center of his forehead and very, very carefully down the bridge of his nose. The sharp point of the knife only pressed into his skin once, and he forgave her immediately. What was a nick or two here or there between friends when she was trying to save his face?

"Jesus! What happened to you?"

Tony smirked at Borin's voice coming towards them. "Nothing much," he replied dryly. "One of the cruise ship's extreme exfoliation treatments got out of hand."

"Is that duct tape?" Her voice was closer now, and he guessed she was standing beside Ziva.

"They covered his entire face," Ziva told her, and Tony was surprised by the controlled fury that had entered her voice. "Bound his wrists and ankles."

Borin swore under her breath, and for the first time Tony thought about how scary he must have looked to Ziva when she found him.

"But I'm fine," he assured them. "Aside from the concussion. And imminent loss of my eyebrows."

"And a fair chunk of your hair too, I'll bet," Borin said. "How are you supposed to get that out? Stick your head in the freezer or something?"

"Shave it," came Gibbs' voice from further away. "You're gonna have a proper Marine cut, DiNozzo."

"Short back and sides, boss," Tony said without the slightest hint of enthusiasm. "Can't wait."

"Borin, chopper's about to leave," Gibbs said. "Need you on it."

"Got it," Borin called, and then gave Tony's shoulder a gently punch. "Good to see you in one piece."

Tony waited until he heard her climb the steps out of the cabin before he shook Ziva's hips urgently with his hands. "Ziva, I don't want a Marine haircut."

"I will do what I can," she told him, and then started peeling the tape back from the right side of his face. "Now, this is probably going to hurt."

"It already does." He squeezed his eyes shut behind the tape and did a full body wince as she peeled and peeled and peeled. To his great relief, the tape hadn't stuck to his eyelid, but it felt like he really was loosing an eyebrow. "Careful," he warned unnecessarily.

"Your eyebrows will grow back," Ziva reminded him. "But you cannot go through life with duct tape on your eyes." She gave the tape a final tug, and Tony chanced opening his right eye. The cabin was dim enough that the sudden light didn't hurt too much, but he had to blink a few times before he could focus on Ziva's worried face. He could think of one or two times before now when he had been happier to see her, but this came a close third.

"Ah, you're so pretty," he sighed on a smile.

Some of Ziva's worry melted away to be replaced with a relieved smile, and she glanced over her shoulder for the others before cupping his cheek in her hand and leaning in to kiss him softly.

"How much eyebrow do I have left?"

Her eyes moved up a fraction. "At least…80 per cent," she estimated.

He popped the eyebrow in question. "That's not so bad."

"One more to go. And then we will work out what to do about your hair."

He would have liked to watch her as she leaned so close to him and worked on peeling off the last bit of tape from his other eye, but he couldn't help once again squeezing his eyes shut and cringing through his entire body. As she worked the whump whump whump of the helicopter blades started moving away, and that gave him the space to realize that the pounding in his head wasn't from the noise. He really, really wasn't looking forward to the next couple of hours, and wondered if he would allow himself to swallow a handful of painkillers.

He felt a final pinch as the last corner of tape came off his skin, and even though his head throbbed, and it felt like there were half a dozen ice picks driving into his shoulders, and he was pretty sure he was going to vomit a couple of times before the sun went down, he still felt better than he had in hours.

"You are free," Ziva declared with a smile.

Tony blinked and gave her hips another shake. "I'm not dead!" he exclaimed, and then lifted his hands to rub his stinging face. "But I am very sticky."

"We can work with sticky," Ziva said. "We cannot work with dead."

"Always look on the bright side," he said.

They shared a smile and then their eyes fell to the parcels of cocaine sitting on the table.

"Well, we wanted hard evidence," Ziva said.

Tony nodded just as McGee stepped down into the cabin. The probie looked sincerely relieved to see him, which was quite a departure from how he'd greeted Tony earlier in the day.

"You okay?" McGee asked.

Tony nodded. "Sure. No big deal."

"Who was on the other boat?" Ziva asked him.

"Not sure," McGee said with a shrug as he walked over. "Two dead guys, no ID. And no one else." He eyed Tony. "I assume you had something to do with that?"

Tony shook his head. "No, I sat that gunfight out."

McGee eyed the packages of cocaine and the teddy bears. "So, I guess I've got a crime scene to process."

"Just you?" Tony asked.

"And Gibbs." He looked between them. "Gibbs wants you to interrogate Sacha and Julie," he told Ziva, and then looked at Tony. "And he's sending you to hospital."

It wasn't how Tony wanted to spend his afternoon, but truth be told he thought that a quick medical examination might be a good idea this time. He looked at Ziva. "Just giving you a heads up, sweetcheeks. If they offer me drugs, I'm going to take them."

Ziva and McGee shared an amused, knowing look. Loopy Tony was just around the corner.

"Well," she said, "it will certainly make it easier to get all the tape out of your hair if you are stoned and agreeable."

And Tony had to admit that she had a good point.

So, I know pacing isn't quite right and there are a bunch of other problems, but hey, I'm just an amateur. And I just want to get this thing out there and be done. Hopefully won't be much longer before the final chapter is posted. Yay!