Prologue

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DiNozzo opened his eyes with a groan, his head pounding and his vision worryingly blurry. He couldn't tell where he was, the confusion combining with the headache and making things seem entirely more disconcerting than he liked.

Reaching out blindly, his hand connected with something he soon recognized as a steering wheel, frowning in confusion. He was in a car, then. But where was he, and how had he gotten there? He realized suddenly that he was freezing, teeth chattering, and that he didn't have a jacket, just the thin, lime green shirt that McGee and Ziva were so fond of making fun of.

Tony groped for his cell phone, frowning when it wasn't in his pocket or the center console. What the hell was going on? Frustrated, Tony stopped for a moment, allowing his head to fall back against what he assumed was the driver's seat headrest. Taking a deep breath, DiNozzo started replaying what he could remember of the day's events.

He showed up for work in the morning, a bit late, but nothing out of the ordinary. He'd…talked to Ziva and McGee and Gibbs, surely? Maybe gotten a few headslaps, drunk a few coffees, used the head? Grating his knuckles against his eyes, DiNozzo let out a dejected yell, wondering why the hell he was unable to remember anything. Blinking his eyes open again, he was surprised to see that his vision was starting to clear.

"Well, thanks for small favors," he grumbled as the steering wheel became clearer, and he could see that the car was definitely not his own.

"The hell?" He muttered, leaning over the center console as he reached for the glove box, hoping to find some kind of documentation. As he shifted, though, the car let out a low, grumbling moan, and the entire frame shifted to the right. Startled, DiNozzo stopped moving, muscles tense as the car finally settled and stopped creaking.

"Holy crap," he muttered, wracking his brain for some kind of clue that could explain his current predicament, even as he slowly and carefully peered out the window.

And suddenly, he remembered everything with horrifying clarity, even as he realized that he was in a pretty bad situation. A really bad situation.

Anthony DiNozzo was sitting in an old, broken down car partly on and partly off an old, broken down bridge over a swirling river that promised to be even colder than the car he was stuck in.

Cautiously trying to open the door and failing, then initiating a fruitless search for his cell phone frustrated Tony even more, and he knew, sitting in a creaking car with clattering teeth and numb fingers, that if there was any time ha had had to rely completely on Gibbs and his gut, it was now.

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A/N: So I've been wanting to write another NCIS fic for a while but was drawing a blank, then came up with this idea…let me know if I should continue.