A/N: OK, so this is another multi-chap fic, but each chap shouldn't exceed more than 300 words . . . . This is one of those iTunes challenge pieces, the rules are simple: Put your playlist on shuffle and write. So here is the product, I'll update several times a day until I have all twenty songs up. The lyrics to the are in italics and I only included partial of the lyrics, these are just the lines that really influenced the piece. So now I will shut up and allow you to read. Review if you like, I won't complain :^) Kit.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own NCIS or have any affiliation with Lifehouse.

BROKEN by Lifehouse

I am damaged at best/Like you've already figured it out

The broken locks were a warning/You got inside my head/I tried my best to be guarded/I'm an open book instead

And I still see your reflection/Inside of my eyes/That looking for purpose/They're still looking for life

Broken lights on the freeway/Left me here alone/I have lost my way now/I haven't forgotten my way home

I'm falling apart/Barely breathing/With a broken heart/ That's still beating/In the pain/ I find healing/ In your name/ I find meaning

So I'm holding on

She was broken. Her internal clock shattered, how long she had been here she would never know. Too long, far too long.

It was all her fault. But it was his too, she supposed.

The locks that had guarded her mind, kept her secrets in and her heart protected, had been broken, just like her. He did. Tore down every defense she had. She was an open book and he happened to be the sole person who could translate the encryption that was herself. He knew she was damaged long before she ever happened across his path. But he loved her anyway. And she loved him for it, for putting in the effort to love her, even though she could never deserve it, never appropriately reciprocate it.

And it was thoughts of him, words he had spoken to her lifetimes ago, gentle echoes in her ears, that kept her holding on. Through the pain and the torture and wretched despair, she would close her eyes and focus. Focus on the mental image of him in her mind's eye. And she would survive another day.

One more day.

One more day.

One more day.

And when he finds her, broken body (still breathing), broken spirit (still searching), broken heart (still beating), he begs her, pleads with her, to just hold on. Hold on. So he takes her home, allows her to heal on her own time. And she realizes she had never forgotten. Her way home. To him.