A.N. I know it is a little bit late for a post-Aliya fic but as well as it not being shown in Australia for ages after it was in America (boy did that suck) but it has taken me this long to get this much down on paper. Anyway, PLEASE review because if I get reviews I will update and if not then I will probably forget about it and update those fics I'm meant to update like Spanish and Schoolgirls.

Disclaimer: I own no one...except for this dark haired stranger...

Oh and the bits that are not quite "correct" it is most likely on purpose because the point was to show how Ziva's mind is working now.

She had lost all sense of what was real and fake days ago. Or it might have been months, eventually she had lost track of the days and sat, or laid depending on where they put her and waited for the men to once again try and get information out of her.

At first the torture was bearable. They obviously knew she was Mossad but they were simply testing her boundaries; a few punches here a few kicks there, nothing too serious but lately they must have realized that it wasn't going to be enough. It wasn't too bad anymore though, one wound seemed to flow into the next so her body had gotten used to the constant pain. Her arm was resetting for the second time and she had lost count of how many fingers they had broken but the thing that hurt the most when they did and still now was when they cut off her middle finger with bolt cutters.

She knew giving them the rude finger while they constantly asked questions was rash and she kind of regretted it now but that was one of the things keeping her going, annoying her captors.

That and the hallucinations.

She had known she was hallucinating when she saw her sister Tali, coming over and gently patching up her wounds like she had so many years ago in Primary School. Ziva always had to be patched up after a fight before her father got home or he would get angry. Tali had come first to care for her, then Ari to mock her and then to feed her. Nothing amazing just some tasteless mush and even though she usually threw it up afterwards she enjoyed it at the time. After that Gibbs would come in and just watch her. Sometimes when she was having a clearer moment he would turn into the guard who was stationed most of the time to watch her after she had ended up killing one of their men a few weeks ago.

Next came Ducky, healing some of her minor abrasions like Tali had, unnaturally quiet for him, he usually had a story from his youth to tell but Ziva didn't question it, it was just nice seeing a familiar face.

Abby came next. Talking about all kinds of things; about life back at NCIS and how they were all waiting for her to come back and she wouldn't stop until Ziva fell into a restless sleep.

At first Tony wouldn't talk to her but slowly he moved out of his dark corner to see her, speak to her and hold her when she was so close to giving up. She remembered him looking at her, the worry so clear in his green eyes and saying he was so sorry over and over but she had smiled as best she could with the injuries on her face and told him there was nothing to apologies for. He would remind her of Michael and their time together in Tel Aviv and her eyes would darken. She would tell him it wasn't his fault, she knew it wasn't his fault even back then but she needed someone to blame and that person happened to be him. She remembered how his eyes had lit up with the hope they had lacked since he had appeared in the room she was trapped in.

Then he would fade away into the darkness.

He would come again; explaining everything that led to him shooting Michael, stuff that was happening at NCIS, how he hadn't played a practical joke on McGee since she had gone and how Gibbs wasn't letting anyone sit or move anything in her desk.

She remembered apologizing to him when he ran out of things to say. She would cry and say she was sorry that he got caught up in all of this and how it would have been better if she had never come to NCIS at all. At that point Tony took her in his arms carefully and tried to smooth her matted hair down.

"It's not true Ziva," he said. "It will all be okay I promise so don't believe that for one minute. We wouldn't have been the same without you. I would have missed you. I miss you."

And then it all faded into black.

The men were coming more often now and a part of her knew she should be scared but she used all the energy she had left to annoy her captors and to stay awake.

After one particularly bad cut along her back she woke to see a strange man in front of her. He had dark hair and dark eyes, definitely not Tony or anyone from NCIS and he wasn't Ari. She wracked her brains trying to figure out who the mysterious man was because she was sure he wasn't one of the men torturing her but a name wouldn't come even though she swore she had seen him before.

"Come on, we have to get you out of here. You have nearly have been here a month and you don't want to know what they do to you after a month. That's right, stay with me," the stranger said wiping the large wound on her back with something that stung. It didn't matter though, after a month of torture it felt like nothing.

"Who are you?" she managed to croak out, her throat dry as a bone.

"That doesn't matter," he said. "Drink this and then we have to go. We've only got a few minutes to escape."

"Escape?" she copied, her throat better after the small amount of water he gave her.

"Yes. I will tell you it all later because I do not think you are going to remember anything right now."

Just as he said that, Ziva's eyes closed of their own accord and he quickly slapped gently a few times.

"You can't go to sleep now sweet cheeks. Just wait a little bit; you'll be safe with me."

"I know Tony," she replied. "I know because I am with you."

The man shook his head. She was calling him Tony again. He was guessing that this Tony guy was from NCIS, the place that the people wanted information on. She always seemed so much calmer when she was calling him Tony and even more so with the man she called Gibbs. He didn't know these people but he knew something and that was that the safest place for Ziva David now was NCIS.