Disclaimer - I own nothing. I am not making any profit. Please don't sue me.
I would like to emphasise that this story is not as angsty and depressing as this first chapter. It's mainly handling the aftermath of this event. Don't worry, I haven't started taking myself too seriously. Though, saying that, this is a far more serious story than any other NCIS fic I've done so far...
It's still Tate though, of course. ;)
It can often happen with a traumatic event, that afterwards, the victim has trouble recalling details with any real degree of accuracy. Their memories are blurred and insubstantial. In place of facts and figures, people simply remember flashes of emotion and sensation. A smell, a touch, a scream…
That's how it was with Kate.
And for that, Tony envied her beyond comprehension.
A flashback…
"She's hot," said the man. He was smirking, but his voice shook as he spoke.
Tony strained against the ropes that bound him to the wooden chair, but his efforts were pointless. All he could do was growl incoherently from behind his gag.
The man laughed insanely at him. His face was etched with hysterical desperation. "What was that, agent DiNozzo?"
Tony didn't bother to try and answer. He simply slumped back in his seat, feeling the deep imprints in his wrists and ankles prickle painfully as the ropes peeled away from his skin.
"Don't worry about the ropes. They won't be bothering you for long," said the man, matter-of-factly.
Tony did not even attempt to understand the man. Instead, he turned his attention to Kate. She was lying in an untidy ball in the far corner of the room. She still wasn't conscious. Through the dark curtains of hair over her face, Tony could make out the bruise on her forehead where the man had hit her with his gun. She hadn't woken since, and the slight rise and fall of her chest was all that reassured Tony that she was alright.
The man followed Tony's gaze.
"You agree? She's pretty gorgeous." He crossed the room, and knelt down beside Kate's unmoving form, clumsily stroking her hair.
Tony now had one objective in his mind and that was for the son of a bitch in front of him to get his hands off of Kate. He tried intimidation. He strained angrily at the ropes again, shouting and yelling through the gag, but the man would not look or listen.
Eventually, exhaustion and a raw, burning throat forced Tony to become still and silent again. He contented himself with two thoughts. One, Gibbs knew where he and Kate were, and must surely be on his way to check on them by now. Two, if the man was planning to harm them, or try and force information out of them, he was clearly waiting for Kate to wake up.
He tried not to think about the word 'torture'.
His new feeling of relative calm quickly evaporated when the man stood up and fetched some rope. Kate was no longer still, but was slowly sitting up. Groaning, she took her head in her hands, and gently massaged the rapidly darkening mark on her forehead. Taking advantage of her confusion, the man dragged her to a chair directly opposite Tony's, and secured her to it with the rope he had picked up from a small table that Tony hadn't noticed until then.
"Tony? What's going on?" Her eyes were wide, and her head jerked rapidly from side to side, as she tried to take stock of the surroundings.
Tony tried to comfort her, but it was difficult when he couldn't move or speak. He watched as she blinked hard a couple of times, her professionalism returning with her vision. She turned to face the man.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"I need to know what you know."
"If you're talking about the bomb, we don't know where it is," she said, earnestly, "And neither do our team."
The man shrugged as he untied Tony's gag. "I'm supposed to take your word for that, am I?"
Tony rotated his jaw a couple of times before speaking. "She's telling the truth! We have no idea!" His voice was hoarse, and his throat was still painful.
"Shut up!" yelled the man, "I need to know for sure!"
"So what are you going to do?" asked Kate, "How can we prove it?"
The man did not reply, but stood in front of Kate, took a few steps backwards, and drew his fist back. In the fraction of a second before he lashed out, Kate and Tony's eyes met. She looked terrified.
As his fist impacted with Kate's jaw, all three people in the room let out different cries. Kate yelled loudly with pain, tears springing to her eyes. Tony yelled in protest. This was worse than anything he had been imagining. Meanwhile, the man cried out in triumph. He studied his own fist, his eyes saying simply, I can do it!
"No!" shouted Tony. "We don't know anything!"
The man did not listen, and once again, his fist collided with Kate's face. He ignored her scream of pain, and turned to Tony.
"What do you know?!"
"NOTHING! What sort of coward are you?!"
At his words, the man looked angry, and turned to Kate again. This time, he spread his hand out wide, and slapped the bruise from the gun. She cried out again.
"We don't know anything!" Kate spat the words out desperately between sobs.
The man hit her once more – this time, splitting her lip.
"We don't know!" she sounded hopeless.
"She's telling the truth!"
Tony watched the man. He was clearly beginning to believe them. Maybe he would stop, but what then?
Kate's head was slumped, and blood, sweat and tears slid to the floor from underneath her hair. The man lifted her head by the chin, and looked into her eyes.
"What. Do. You. Know?"
"Nothing," she said again. She looked over at Tony, and he looked back. Neither said anything, but they took a little comfort from each other's eyes.
"Right," said the man, "I've got no use for you then." He reached into his jacket, and Kate and Tony exchanged terrified looks.
"Put your hands in the air!"
The man did so.
Tony had never been so happy to see Gibbs.
Gibbs had placed the man under arrest as soon as he had dropped his gun, explaining that the team had found and disabled the bomb. McGee had hurried over to Kate, for whom the relief of being rescued and the numerous blows she had received had been too much for her body to handle. Once again, she had fallen into unconsciousness. The ambulance had been called, and the entire team now found themselves sat around her hospital bed as she awoke.
"Ow." Her hands crept towards her face, which was swollen and bruised.
"How are you?" asked Gibbs.
"Pain. Lots of pain."
Gibbs smiled sadly. "That's understandable."
"Did you find the bomb?"
"Yeah, but don't worry about that now. Just relax."
"So, what happened?"
"You don't remember?" asked Tony.
"I remember us searching the bomber's basement, and I remember…being tied up, I think, but that's about it."
Tony thought for a moment. "Good," he said eventually.
Go on, you know you want to. Review, that is :)