It's been pretty quiet around here lately. I guess a lot of people are hanging out for Season three? I know I am. In the meantime, I thought I'd try my hand at a little romantic suspense, Will and Mac style. Please let me know what you think. Nothing motivates me to keep writing like a review or three!

PS. The title is from Religio Medici by Thomas Browne. Not that I have read it, but Dorothy Sayers quotes it in Gaudy Night, and that is one of my favorite books ever (and the main romance has quite a bit in common with Will and Mac, now that I come to think of it).

Mac came to slowly, letting out a soft moan as she did so. Oh my goodness, she was never going to drink again. Her mouth was dry, her head was pounding, and she didn't even remember how she'd got herself into this state. This had to be the worst hangover she had ever had.

Will. She needed Will. He would take care of her. She didn't want to open her eyes, as it would almost certainly increase the hammering inside her skull, so she whispered his name softly, hoping that he was close enough to hear her.

"Will?" she tried again, a little louder, but there was still no response. Reluctantly, she cracked open one eye. Shit. She hadn't even made it to bed. It was dark, and she was lying face down in the dirt. Where the hell was she?

Groaning, she tried to bring her hand up to push her hair out of her face so that she could see better, but couldn't even manage that. Something was wrong with her arms. They were – tied behind her back somehow. What the fuck?

Mac had a moment of blind panic as she thrashed around, trying desperately to free her arms. She couldn't move her legs properly either. Oh God, were they tied too? Where was Will? What in the fuck had happened to her?

She rolled on to her side, making her head swim horribly. She breathed faster and faster, fighting the urge to be sick. Her shoulder was pressing painfully into the dirt, and her mind was racing. Kidnapped. She must have been kidnapped. Nothing else made sense. No. No. No. She opened her mouth to scream, but thought the better of it. They hadn't gagged her, whoever they were, so she must be in a place where no one would hear her cries for help. The thought of strangers carrying her unconscious body to wherever she was now, tying her up and doing God knew what else to her inert form, was too much for her. She curled in on herself as best she could, bringing her knees up to her face, and sobbed.

For a few minutes, she knew nothing but black terror, but then her wits started to return. She needed to get a grip, right now. She started with her breathing, which was way too fast. In through the nose, out through the mouth. That was it. Now repeat. She'd been in some tight situations before, and she knew that the first rule of survival was not to panic. She tried to remember anything that she'd learned from her basic hostage training when she was embedded. What was that stupid phrase they kept using? Her brain was dull and sluggish, but with a bit of effort she retrieved the memory. "Passive co-operation, active intelligence gathering," that was what the drill sergeant had told them over and over. Which basically amounted to do what you're told, don't piss off your captors, but learn everything about them and the environment that you possibly can.

Okay, she could do that. She wouldn't think about Will, and whether he knew by now that she was missing. She wouldn't think about what might happen to her, and what it would do to him if she didn't make it out alive. She bit back another sob and forced her groggy brain to focus. First things first. Where the hell was she?

She turned over a bit more, trying to ignore the strain in her shoulders and the way that her bound hands dug into the small of her back. It was almost pitch black, but she thought that she could make out some darker shapes that might be walls. She started to roll towards the nearest one, but stopped, gasping at the pain in her ribs, arms and legs. Oh God, had they beaten her already, while she was unconscious? The thought made her gag, but she fought back the panic once more and resumed her slow progress towards the wall.

She finally bumped against it and used her feet to push herself into a sort of sitting position, leaning sideways against the wall with her cheek resting on the cool bricks and her bounds legs stretched out in front of her. Bricks. Maybe she was in some sort of basement? But no, the floor was dirt, not concrete, and she couldn't hear any noise from outside. An underground cellar perhaps? That seemed more likely. The air was cool and musty, although thankfully not too cold yet. It was only the beginning of October, so at least she wouldn't freeze to death. Her eyes were growing more accustomed to the dark, but she couldn't see any doors or windows. For one truly awful moment she thought that they had bricked her in, but then she made out something on the far wall that looked like a flight of stairs leading up to the ceiling. Okay, she'd explore that in a minute, but first she would take stock of herself.

She started with her feet. She still had her Manolos on, and for some reason that gave her a little bit of courage. Her ankles were tied tightly together with thick rope and professional looking knots, and although she couldn't see them, she presumed that her wrists looked much the same. She noted with relief that she still had her pantyhose on. In fact, she was pretty sure she was still wearing the same skirt and blouse that she'd put on for work that morning. Was it only that morning? She had no way of telling, but somehow it felt like the same day.

Her head was clearing a little, but her mouth still felt like a desert. She struggled to reconstruct her memories of the day. She and Will had had a lovely time in the shower that morning, she remembered, because they'd arrived flustered but refreshed just in time for the ten o'clock meeting. There hadn't been anything unusual about her morning, and then she had gone out to meet someone – who was it? That was it, her contact at the DoJ, who'd wanted to tell her something important off the record. Had she actually met Dave? She didn't think so. She remembered trying to hail a cab, and then someone grabbing her arm hard, and then – nothing. She shuddered. They must have drugged her then, or knocked her unconscious, because she couldn't recall anything else until she woke up on the floor of this room. Except for a nightmare feeling of falling, and not being able to save herself, and her head exploding with pain. The stairs. Oh my God. Had they thrown her down the stairs, or had she tripped and fallen? Either way, it explained why she hurt so bad all over.

She started to shiver, whether with cold or shock she didn't know. She was just so god damned scared, and all she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and pretend that she was safely back in bed with Will. But that wasn't an option. If she ever wanted to feel Will's arms around her again, she had to try and get herself out of this. And the first thing was to loosen the bindings around her wrists. Determinedly, she toed off one of her shoes, wriggled around until she had it behind her back with the stiletto heel pointing up, and went to work on the rope.