"He's still not answering, boss," Tony said, clicking his phone shut after leaving one of a series of semi-threatening voicemails. (Probie! We're on our way. Avila's our guy. Keep him there, but don't tip him off that he's our guy, got it? … … … McGee. Pick up your phone. Don't make me call Dorneget! … … … Timothy, this is Anthony. Stop ignoring these calls and Answer. The. Phone! And tell Dorney to change his voicemail greeting. It's goofy. But then again, he's kinda goofy, so… OW! Thanks, Boss…)

"That is unlike McGee," Ziva pointed out. She turned twisted her position in the front seat of the agency sedan to exchange a wary look with Tony, but said nothing further, neither of them wanting to put a voice to their concern.

Gibbs sped the car through the early evening traffic, quickly closing the distance between themselves and the Washington Channel. Tony watched the buildings whiz by in a swirl of color, only occasionally having to cling to his seat or door to steady himself. Glancing out the windshield, Tony did a double take, finally leaning forward so his head was nearly parallel with Gibbs and Ziva.

"Is that…?"

"Fire," Gibbs breathed out.

The dark smoke plumed into the sky several streets ahead, and the agents' fears were confirmed when they pulled up to RadSim's headquarters. The building was nearly engulfed in flames, hemorrhaging bits of debris from the windows and roof. The team nearly sprinted from the car once it was parked. Tony and Ziva kept close on Gibbs' heels as they easily located the man in charge.

"Gibbs, NCIS," he recited quickly, flashing his badge. "What can you tell me?"

Tony tuned out the man's report as his eyes danced across the building, slowly lowering to take in the streets surrounding the building. A crowd had already gathered outside of the taped perimeter, scrambling for a view of the wreckage and eagerly capturing the images on their camera phones. Tony continued to scan the boundary until he saw it through the gaps of people and kaleidoscope of flashing lights.

A navy sedan. NCIS standard issue vehicle.

No doubt it was Tim's.

Raised voices turned him around, and he saw Gibbs toe-to-toe with the Fire Chief.

"I may have men in there!" Gibbs was shouting as the other man slowly shook his head.

"I'm sorry, Agent Gibbs, but we cannot allow you, or anyone for that matter, to go inside there. We still have to…"

Distant shouting drew all of their attention to the right where two huddled figures were emerging from the building, one leaning heavily against the other. Tony didn't stop to think… he sprinted down the sidewalk to intercept the two individuals before anyone else. His heart dropped as he approached, seeing an unconscious Dorneget being pulled by Finneus Templeton.

"Ned!" Tony shouted, skidding to a halt once he'd finally reached the pair. "What happened?" he asked Templeton as he helped with some of Dorneget's weight.

"Greg," the man huffed out in a cough as they were joined by Gibbs and Ziva, as well as a crew of paramedics. Tony let Dorneget be pulled from his grasp, but he stayed close.

Dorneget looked like hell. The shirt on his left arm was soaked with blood as it stuck to his skin. His forehead also sported a gash, blood oozing down and into his closed eyes. But he was breathing… hurt, but alive, as the paramedics assessed his condition, spouting off relevant information to one another as they loaded him onto a stretcher and prepared him for transport.

"Where is McGee?" Ziva asked frantically, and Tony only shook his head in response. She turned her quiet fury to Templeton.

"Where is McGee?" Ziva demanded from him. "Where is he?"

"I don't…" he coughed out. "I don't know…" He was cut off as more violent coughs stole his breath. A paramedic quickly fastened an oxygen mask over his face, and Templeton hungrily breathed it in.

Tony swore under his breath, hastily turning away from the injured man to look at Gibbs, who was somehow trying to get information out of a semi-conscious Dorneget. There was a tight grip on his arm, and Tony twisted to see Finn staring at him. His eyes were clear, his skin color returning back to normal, and he was looking at Tony with pleading eyes.

"I didn't see Tim inside." His voice was strong, though muffled a bit by the oxygen mask. Gibbs, having given up on getting anything useful out of a groggy Dorneget, walked over as his cell phone rang.

"Yeah, Abs." Abby's voice managed to cut through the cacophony of noises surrounding them. Tony grimaced, glad he didn't have to be the one to break the news to Abby that Tim was missing.

"Where?" Gibbs asked, turning to look out toward the channel.

"We could ask Abby to trace Tim's phone, yes?" Ziva asked Tony as Gibbs shoved his phone back into his pocket.

"Won't work. Dorneget said a man shot both him and McGee before destroying both of their phones," Gibbs reported.

"McGee was shot?" Gibbs nodded silently at Ziva. "How bad?"

"He wasn't sure."

"How is Ned?" Tony asked.

"Shot in the arm. Bump on the head. He'll be fine," Gibbs reported before turning his attention to Templeton. "Who is Avila working with?"

"What?" Finneus asked.

"He isn't working alone. My forensic scientist was able to hack into your system's GPS uplinks. Two of your yachts just left James Creek. She contacted the owners, and they aren't the ones on board, which means someone else is on board. My guess it's Avila and whoever he's working with. Possibly the other half of his pirating team. What happened inside?"

"I'm not really sure," Templeton answered. "I arrived in the office and saw smoke coming out of the windows. When I went inside, I found Benjamin dead and your man there unconscious."

"Benjamin?"

"Watson," Templeton finished. "One of my employees."

"He worked with Barker," Ziva added, remembering her interview with the man just earlier that day.

"I never saw Tim," Finn continued. "I was checking on Benjamin when the next thing I know I am getting hit over the head with something and I must have blacked out. When I woke up, there was smoke everywhere."

"Alright," Gibbs began walking away, motioning for Tony and Ziva to follow. "We have to get to James Creek and intercept those yachts.

"Do you think Avila has McGee?" Tony asked.

"He's either on one of those yachts, or…" Gibbs looked back at the building, and Tony didn't even want to think about what he was implying. "We'll call the Coast Guard, and…"

"Wait!" The team slowed to a stop to see Finn running up to them, an exasperated paramedic following closely behind. "I have several yachts here. You can take those." He pointed beyond the still-burning structure toward the Washington Channel.

Moments later they were running down the sidewalk toward docks. Tony could see that though the yachts were still quite large, they were smaller and sleeker than Templeton's personal one.

"We'll each track down one of the yachts," Gibbs explained on the way. "Tony, stay here and secure the scene. Call the Coast Guard and request assistance. Once that's done, check on Dorneget. See if you can get any more details out of him."

"Gibbs, wait," Ziva stopped running to eye the vessels in the distance carefully. "I do not know how to drive a boat."

Gibbs contemplated that a moment before Finneus spoke up.

"I can," he said. Gibbs looked at him a long moment, sizing him up, and Finn continued in earnest. "Please, let me help find Tim. It's the least I can do."

Finally, Gibbs nodded, and the three of them ran off toward the docks, leaving Tony behind.

~~~NCIS~~~

Ziva watched with curiosity as Finn expertly piloted the yacht out of the docks and they sped across the water. Abby texted Ziva the coordinates, which Finn added into his navigation system, and they were quickly underway. With the yacht seemingly driving itself, Finn pulled out his cell phone and shot off a quick text.

"Trying to reach out to Greg," he answered Ziva's questioning glare. "I don't know if he'll answer, but if he has Tim, then maybe I can convince him to let him go."

"I would prefer he not know we were coming," Ziva stated firmly.

"Oh, I didn't tell him we were," he assured her. "Just appealing to his humanity, I guess."

At Ziva's nod, they fell into a comfortable silence. Finn occasionally would check his phone for a response, but none came. Ziva kept her eyes peeled on the horizon, waiting for a glimpse of the target of their pursuit. Soon enough, the channel opened up to where it met the Anacostia, and eventually the Potomac.

"There!" Ziva pointed. Straight ahead, where Abby's coordinates had led them, was another, non-descript yacht. She noticed immediately something was wrong.

"It's sinking!" Finn voiced her fear.

"How?" Ziva asked, unable to pull her eyes away from the sight. It was clearly a lot lower in the water than it should be, but Ziva could not see any external damage that would cause such a thing.

"I'd have to get on board to know for sure."

"How long?" Ziva asked, frantic in the knowledge that not only had McGee been shot, but he could also be on board a floundering vessel. "How long do I have?" Ziva demanded when Finn didn't answer.

"I don't know!" Fin shouted back, and Ziva sighed in frustration. "Look, I'll pull us up alongside," Finn said a little more calmly. "You should be able to jump right on board."

Telling Finn to remain where he was, Ziva jogged to the sundeck and waited. It wasn't long before the yachts were side-by-side, and Ziva carefully hoisted herself up on the railing. Keeping her balance, she waited until the right moment before leaping across the small space and landing as quietly as possible on the other yacht, immediately pulling out her weapon in the process.

Ziva wanted to call out for McGee, but her training took over and she clenched her jaw in silence as she focused on sweeping each room she passed through. Though it was a bit smaller than the yacht that had been home to their crime scene, this still had several rooms to explore. Luckily there were only two decks, and she quickly cleared the top one before working her way downstairs to the lower level.

Unlike the main deck, this area was one large room instead of multiple, divided areas. It looked almost like a cargo hold, with several dozen, large wooden crates situated around the small space, no doubt filled with Avila's illegally procured goods. The sloping floor caused by the listing ship made it difficult to navigate around the crates. Streaks of dust and shallow grooves on the ground showed that many of the crates had slid across the floor when the boat began to take on water, shifting most of them down toward the far wall.

Ziva found McGee behind the final crate.

He was inside a locked, steel cage, and what that was doing on board, Ziva hadn't a clue. He was seated, with his hands secured behind his back, though from this angle, Ziva could not see how. He was slumped forward, unconscious, and Ziva's blood boiled at the sight of the blood caked on his shirt. But he was breathing.

"McGee," she whispered, shaking the steel cage and causing it to rattle loudly. "McGee!"

With a groan, McGee rolled his head to the side, and his eyelids began to flutter open.

"That's it, McGee. Open your eyes."

His green eyes were clouded and searched the room in confusion before settling on Ziva's face. She held her breath as his gaze lingered upon her without any trace or recognition.

"McGee?"

He screwed his eyes shut, clearly in pain, and Ziva's fingers itched to reach in and comfort her friend, but he was too far within the cage and she could not touch him.

"It is alright, McGee. I will get you out of there."

She thought she saw his head move in an affirmative nod, but he was beginning to tremble (most likely in shock), so she wasn't sure. Releasing her gaze from his face, Ziva began to examine the cage more closely. On the other side she found the padlock, and was just about to bring up her weapon to fire at the lock when the sound of another gunshot had her instinctively spinning around. Just over the top of the crates, Ziva's view of the stairwell leading to the sundeck was briefly blocked by a body tumbling downward.

Ziva moved carefully forward, crouching low to the ground, her gun raised and ready. Slowly edging around a crate, she found a man face down on the floor, clearly dead from the gaping wound on the back of his head. It wasn't Finn, meaning it was Avila, or his mysterious partner. She scanned the area, debating between making her way back toward McGee to offer what little protection she could with a steel barrier separating them, or heading upstairs to find the assailant. Coming to a decision, Ziva did one final look around the room before inching her way up to the sundeck. She barely had two feet out into the sunshine before a figure crashed into her side, causing her to slam into the hard deck, her gun sliding out of her reach.

She scrambled to her feet, only to come face-to-face with Finneus Templeton, brandishing a Colt pistol. He made a wide arc around her until he was standing directly over her fallen weapon, bending over to pick it up while his aim on her never once wavered. He threw her weapon overboard, and she heard the soft splash as it impacted the water.

"Toss your phone," he commanded with a flick of his wrist. Ziva took in his cold expression, his calm hands as he gripped his weapon, and knew that she had greatly underestimated this man. "Now."

Ziva kept one hand up while sliding the other in her pocket, pulling out her phone, and pitching it over the deck and into the water.

"On your knees," Finn directed as he took a step toward her. The boat was starting to tilt more dangerously now, and Ziva waited, stalling for what little time she knew she had left.

"Why?"

Finn snorted. "I figured a seasoned NCIS agent such as yourself would have figured that out by now. On your knees."

Ziva shook her head. "No, why do this? Though he did not say much, I could tell that McGee felt very highly of you. Not only have you betrayed that friendship, but you also burned down your own business and killed two men! Now you plan on murdering two federal agents? Why?"

"It was all Greg's idea," he began, pointing down toward the dead man. "He came up with everything."

"It is rather convenient blame a dead man," Ziva snarled.

"He was brilliant, though," Finn said with a hint of admiration. "Did you know that we set up that office space in four hours yesterday morning? It was nothing but an empty shell until Greg made it over. It was a good thing you and your teammates didn't take me up on my offer for coffee. We didn't have electricity, let alone a coffee machine."

He shook his head almost nostalgically.

"I wasn't lying before," he continued, "when I said that Ernie had potential. He was incredible. The tracking devices he created in the RadNav systems allowed us to track down the yachts easily enough; selling that information to the highest bidder was the next logical step. We all had a cut in it… equal shares… until Ernie got greedy."

"You killed him," Ziva narrowed her eyes.

"No, that was all Greg. The plan was to scuttle the fleet. This one's nearly down," he observed with a thrill.

"Why kill Avila? I thought you were partners."

"More money for me," Finn said with a shrug. "Now on your knees."

Ziva lowered herself down, carefully angling her body toward Finn and keeping her eyes on his weapon. Predictably, he moved a step closer to orchestrate his kill shot, and Ziva nearly grinned. Springing into action, Ziva popped back up onto her feet, latching on to Finn's wrist and spinning outward, twisting his arm with vicious precision. With a shout, Finn dropped the gun, and Ziva didn't bother trying to pick it up.

Finn had height and weight as his advantage, but Ziva was too quick to allow him to use it. She jabbed and ducked, each blow hitting nerves and joints of tendons, maximizing each hit she lands with deadly accuracy. Finn fell to the ground within seconds, Ziva's foot pressed dangerously hard on his chest.

She was about to give him an ultimatum when he surprised her one final time, latching onto her heel and giving it his own twist. That, coupled with the listing deck, caused her to lose her balance and she stumbled backwards, nearly tripping over her own feet down the stairwell. She barely managed to prevent her fall by clinging to the handrail a few steps down, and she whipped around, fully expecting another attack from Templeton.

But it never came. Instead, her heart sank as the door to the outside slammed shut in her face, and when the soft thunk of a tumbler locking into place echoed down the stairwell, realization slammed into her like a stray bullet.

Templeton had just locked her inside. She slammed her body against the door after a failed attempt at the handle. She tried a few more times before a distant rumble of another engine starting up had her pause. Templeton was on the other yacht, now. He was gone. She and McGee were alone.

The boat was sinking.

She had no phone.

The boat was sinking.

No way to contact Gibbs.

The boat was sinking.

No weapon.

The boat was sinking.

No way to force herself out of the room.

"Is the boat sinking?"

The pain-filled voice pulled her out of her panic and she dashed down the remainder of the stairs. McGee was awake, though clearly groggy, and staring at her with a confused expression. Once again she found herself wishing she could physically offer comfort to her friend, but it was useless.

"Yes, McGee, but we will be off the boat well before that happens." She was pleased with how calm and sure her voice carried, and equally as happy as she saw a little bit of the tension melt away from Tim's shoulders. "Can you get up?"

McGee shook his head. "Zip tied… to the wall," he grunted.

"How is your side?"

McGee looked down at his wound. "It's not too bad," he stated simply. "I'm not sure how much use I will be once we get out of here."

"Okay, that is okay. I will think of something. Perhaps…" McGee let out a quiet gasp. "What? What is it?"

She followed his gaze down, and saw a small puddle of water beginning to soak through his trousers. At first, she felt a flush of embarrassment on his behalf, thinking that he'd wet himself. But at McGee's panicked look, she realized that it was something much, much worse.

The boat was sinking.

What began as a slow trickle started to steadily flow in directly behind McGee's trapped body. He was stuck at the lowest part of the boat. She caught Tim's eye, and saw how his brow crinkled in that way when he was extremely worried or upset, and realized that he had figured it out, too.

There was no way he was getting out of this alive.

"Ziva…"

"Okay," she nodded, speaking her herself more than to McGee. "Okay."

She stood suddenly, and began turning in a small circle, feeling oddly both frantic and calm as her eyes stared at the padlock, willing it to magically break open so she could reach her friend. Of course, that was impossible, so instead her mind raced with possibilities. The boat was taking on water. McGee, in the position that he was in, would be submerged sooner rather than later. First she needed to get him untied from the wall…

Bending quickly at the waist, Ziva pulled out the knife strapped to her ankle, straightening to eye McGee carefully.

"Okay, McGee, listen to me carefully," she began, walking back to the front of the cage so she was directly in front of him. You need to angle your body so you are as far away from the wall as possible. But I need a clean line of sight to your hands. Do you understand?"

Ziva didn't think it was possible with Tim's blood loss, but he became even more pale at what Ziva was implying.

"Why?" he asked shakily.

"I am going to throw my knife at the wall by your wrists. You can use it to cut the ties and free yourself."

Tim swallowed heavily and began to shake even more. "Uh, Ziva, are you sure…?"

"You have to trust me, Tim," she soothed. "Can you do that? Can you trust me with this?"

Something changed immediately in his expression… it was a look Ziva could not put a name to. Whatever it was disappeared almost immediately and he nodded firmly.

"Of course I trust you, Ziva." He shifted his body forward and away from the wall, though Ziva could clearly see the pain it caused him to do so. She waited a few moments, breathing deeply to calm her own nerves. She was fully aware of the knife's weight in her hands as she bounced it slightly, adjusting her grip over and over until she was ready. McGee never took his gaze off her, and when their eyes connected, that look was back… and he smiled.

Giving him a small nod, she focused her aim and threw the knife.

It landed perfectly.

Tim let out an audible sigh of relief, and immediately began rubbing his ties back and force over the knife's serrated edge. Minutes passed in silence as he worked, all while the water continued to rise within the large room. Because of the angle of the yacht, the water all streamed down toward the wall Tim was leaning against. Already the water was lapping over his stretched-out legs, and more than once Ziva saw him shudder against the cold. Finally, when the water was above his waistline, he gave a yelp of glee; his arms fell limply away from the wall and he slouched forward, exhausted. Giving him time to recover, Ziva turned and began to search the room again.

"Ziva…"

"I just need to find something to pick the lock," she reassured Tim as she heard him calling for her. Her shoes were starting to get wet from the slowly rising water.

"Ziva, you have to go."

"No," she said firmly from somewhere to his left. She peeked over to see that he was now standing and gripping the bars of his prison with one hand, the other pressed firmly against his wound.

"Ziva, please," he begged.

She ignored his pleading, desperate to find something of use to get the lock open. The room was heartbreakingly bare of tools. She warily eyed the crates, calculating the possibility of there being something useful inside, but it was futile. Each crate was sealed, and she would need a crowbar to get them open. Something else this boat seemed to lack.

"Please go," Tim implored once more.

Ziva shook her head, getting down on her hands and knees to search on the floor for a pen, a nail, anything. She crawled the length of the room, but it was fruitless. She stayed on her hands and knees for a moment as the reality of the situation weighed heavily on her, and she took several calming breaths before standing.

"Ziva…"

"TIM!" He closed his mouth with an audible click, and he stared at her with slight alarm as she suddenly reappeared back in front of the cage. "I am NOT leaving you here, do you understand me?"

She reached out then, taking his icy hands in hers and leaning forward so her vision was filled with nothing but his face, and she realized in that terrible, beautiful moment, that if she fails, they may die down here together. The last thing she sees in this life may be McGee, and she knows now that there may be nothing else at which she'd rather be looking.

His grip on her hands tightened, and she found that she was desperately clinging back.

"Do not ask me to do something I am incapable of doing," she whispered. "You, who have done more for me these past few days…"

"What? I haven't done anything, have I?"

Ziva laughed at that, because of course Tim would not understand. He couldn't know how much his presence, his smile, has meant to her. How could she explain that his smallest act of just listening to her and understanding her minor crisis of confidence had changed the way she looked at her life and her happiness? Because Tim was right… he didn't do anything. He was just being himself.

And that's what made it so amazing.

What made him so amazing.

"McGee," she began, not sure how best to explain it. "I am a happy person. I love my work. I love my friends. I have loved my life for some time now, and I never thought that would change. Except, now it has changed."

"Because I did something?"

Ziva laughed. "Sort of, yes. When you and I spoke yesterday, it changed the way I was looking at my life. It was as if our conversation pushed down a single domino, which toppled another, and then another… and they are still toppling over." She paused to offer him a small smile. "I am anxious to see what happens at the end."

Tim smiled back at her and shook his head lightly. "And you accused me of being a philosopher."

"And you correctly described this as falling," she tossed back.

McGee couldn't hide his surprise. "Yeah, I guess I did."

"Then we are in the same boat," Ziva asked tentatively. "Yes?"

McGee rolled his eyes. "Ziva, that was terrible," he said with a laugh, but he clung to her hand even more tightly. "But yes. I guess we are."

He shivered then, and Ziva looked down to see that the water was up to their thighs.

"McGee, I am sorry…"

His hand reached out through the bars and cupped the back of her neck. She leaned forward, closing her eyes, and their foreheads rested against one another through the cold steel. Ziva was struck by his nearness, his solidity. When she opened her eyes, she realized she was crying, yet not in sadness. These were tears of discovering what she really wanted out of life.

She took his hand away from her neck and pressed it against her cheek, not bearing to look at him any longer as the water inched above her waistline. She felt his fingers grow wet with her tears, but she refused to pull it away.

"Gibbs will find us," he whispered, and she finally opened her eyes to look into his. McGee conjured a small smile from some hidden reserve, and Ziva marveled at the depth of his caring and concern for her. Injured, shivering from cold, and minutes away from death, and he was still comforting her.

"McGee, I do not think…"

A sound… muted… but still noticeable, reached their ears and Ziva pulled away. Thinking quickly, McGee removed the knife from the wall and handed it over to her as she slunk toward the stairwell. She flattened herself against the wall, and waited.

A knock startled her, but it was the voice that followed that had her running up the stairs.

"Ziva?"

"Gibbs! In here! McGee is injured!"

There were a few more knocks and eventually a firm command to move away from the door. A few gunshots later, Gibbs, along with a few Coast Guard officers, were storming down the stairwell.

"Are you alright?" Gibbs asked, carefully eyeing Ziva.

"I am fine. But McGee is trapped and needs medical assistance."

Gibbs made quick work of the lock, thanks to his Sig Sauer, and soon enough, Tim was being helped out of the cage.

"Ned?" he asked Gibbs, pausing at the base of the stairs.

"Stable at the hospital, McGee" he reported. "You'll be joining him there shortly."

"Templeton?"

"In custody."

"Who was in the other yacht?"

"Finn's secretary. Enough questions, McGee, and let yourself be looked at."

Tim nodded silently as the Coast Guard personnel helped him wade through the water and up the stairs, out onto the sundeck. He blinked in the bright sunshine, and nearly stumbled. Ziva was at his side in an instant, linking his arm in hers. She smiled at him then, happy to know she was able to finally provide him with some support. Suddenly, Mali's words came back to her…

"But you need a man, Ziva! Someone to make you even happier… more fulfilled! I was also very happy in life, but then I met Berel. And now I cannot imagine my life without him."

As much as Ziva liked to tell people, including herself, that she liked her solitude, and that she did not need anyone, all it had taken was an evening with friends and a discussion with McGee to make her feel as though a part of her needed this type of relationship. It wouldn't be easy… relationships never were. But as long as she was with the right man… anything was possible.

And as she gave Tim's hand one final squeeze as the Coast Guard took over his care, she had a pretty good idea of who that right man could be.

END.