Title: Eye for an Eye

Author: Tearsofamiko

Rating: K

Disclaimer: I own nothing about the NCIS series, its characters or plotlines. Why rub it in?

Spoilers: Previews for the season 7 premiere Truth or Consequences

Summary: "What are you doing here?" "Vengeance."

A/N: I hadn't planned on giving in to the urge to write a "Ziva's found and comes back to NCIS" fic, but eh. And, anyway, it's not really. It's a Tony fic, based solely on the snippets and glimpses revealed in the preview. I took some liberty with the way time would've worked but, hey, I've used 3 quotes from the preview that could've happened at any time. So sue me. :)

.:::.

"What are you doing here?" The words are insistent, gruff, and heavily-accented, punctuated by a hand fisting in his hair.

He deliberately waits to answer, anticipating the moment when impatience wins out and the hand holding his hair, pulling his head back to an uncomfortable angle, shoves him forward. He smothers a grunt and grits his teeth at the ache the action produces. Straightening his shoulders as much as his restraints will allow him, he looks his captors straight in the eye.

"Vengeance," he answers, deadly serious and calmly collected as he lays his cards on the table.

Because that's really why he's here.

Vengeance.

For the way she flinches at little things. (A slammed door. The sound of a match being lit. Enclosed spaces and rooms that echo.)

For four months of silence abruptly terminated by a phone call in the middle of a case. (The sudden steel in Gibbs' eyes as he listens to the caller speak. Abby's tears when they're given the news. The way McGee looks so lost, so much like he did five years ago, as he tries to come to grips with the knowledge that she was captured and beaten near to death. Her father's dry tone and the careful blankness of his face on a screen in MTAC. The hollowness inside himself as he waits at the hospital, emptier than when Jenny died, than when Kate was killed.)

For the flatness of Vance's words ("It's a military mission on foreign soil.") as he speaks so simply of her ordeal.

For the broken sounds that fall from her lips during a nightmare.

For the wild confusion in her eyes -- eye, the other one won't open yet -- as she jolts awake with a gasp.

For the single tear that trailed down her cheek the morning she woke in the hospital to find them all there. (Abby and McGee camped out in the floor beside her hospital bed. Gibbs reclined in the hard plastic chair, his feet propped on the footboard. Ducky dozing in another chair by the door, slumped against the doorframe with her medical chart in his lap.)

For the silent words that escaped her that morning as he turned away from the window to meet her gaze, the first time since the courtyard at Mossad. (The hard press of the gun against his chest. The ache of his shoulder against the hot ground. The crushing weight of her anger and grief as she straddled his hips. "For you, Ziva.")

For the tension that had hovered in the squad room. For the shadows in Gibbs' eyes. For McGee's stuttering silence that first week. For the pictures on the walls and computer screens in Abby's lab. For the broken look in her eyes as the blood ran over her hands, for the blow that had shattered their trust and started this whole cascade of events.

For her. For him. For all of them.

"Vengeance." The word echoes in the room and he actually sees his captors flinch minutely at the weight of it, at the dead-certainty sounding in it. And, as they stare at each other, captor and captive, he knows they see it all in his eyes.

Abby's flash-burn anger.

McGee's fierce loyalty.

Gibbs' unyielding strength and determination.

His own need to avenge her, to prove that once -- this once! -- he won't fail her when she needs him.

He hopes they're afraid.