Abby and Ducky slowly walked back into Ziva’s room. Abby was silently crying and Ducky looked aghast. Tony decided not to press the matter, fearing an all-out breakdown from Abby.
Unfortunately they did not go unnoticed by Ziva. “How is Gibbs?”
Abby emitted a sob, borrowing her head into Ducky’s arms. Ducky looked toward the ground. Avoiding Ziva’s eyes.
“Oh my god, is he-“
“No!” Ducky yelled. “He’s alive, at the moment.” Ducky whispered at the end. “We didn’t even get to see. When we got to the room an alarm went off and we were ushered away.”
“Will he be all right Ducky?”
“I wish I could say I knew Ziva.”
--------------------------------
McGee stirred. He wondered for a moment where he was. Then it all came back. Being taken hostage, an explosion as a diversion, being shoved in a truck, and being injected with something. Hopefully it’s not dangerous. His eyes slowly adjusted to the light. He looked around the room, or cell to be more accurate. McGee saw Palmer slumped over next to him; his arm had been bandaged. There was a small window near the corner of the room with bars on it. McGee saw only one door. McGee reached over and shook Palmer. “Palmer! Jimmy wake up!”
Palmer stirred a little. A few minutes later McGee tried again and this time Palmer woke up. “Ow, what’s going on McGee?” Palmer asked unconsciously rubbing his arm.
“I don’t know. Why would they want an ME assistant and a computer nerd?”
“Valuable hostages?” Palmer suggested.
“Oh, come on Jimmy, if that’s what they wanted they would have taken Gibbs and the Director.”
“Right.”
“Any reason they would want to take you hostage Jimmy?”
“Nothing that I can thin of. You?”
“No.”
The door swung open. A masked man stepped in carrying a bag. He placed it on the floor and walked out of the room closing the door behind him. McGee opened the bag. In it he found food; two bottles of water, a turkey and ham sandwich, and two apples. “Since when do hostage takers actually feed their hostages?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure hungry.” Palmer commented as he reached for an apple.
“Jimmy! You don’t know if they did anything to that!”
“R-right. Well-uh, the water bottles are sealed so we can have those.”
“Take small sips, I don’t know if we’ll get anymore.”
“Right.”
“And stop saying right all the time.”
“Right.”
McGee groaned.
----------------------------
Little progress was made in a week. Ziva had been released from the hospital on orders of bed rest which Tony was having a hard time of making sure she followed. The Director, against many protests, was back at work heading the search for McGee and Palmer.
She was a mess. She still was losing Ziva back to Mossad once she recuperated, buying her a little more time. And Gibbs was still hanging on by a thread. Any news would be good news at this point. Hopefully he would wake up and be alive and well. Or he would die and be at peace. Not stuck in a limbo between life and death.
His condition hadn’t improved much over the week. The only thing that doctors could say that was making progress was the fact the bones were healing. Beyond that, no one had a clue.
To make matters worse the search of McGee and Palmer was going cold, and fast. The kidnappers had managed to escape without so much as a trace. The explosions had done their jobs, they were excellent diversions, and no one saw a thing. They didn’t even have a general description; they had nothing. Jenny hoped McGee and Palmer would find a way out on their own, because she didn’t know what she could do.
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