Rule 39: There Is No Such Thing As Coincidence (Tony DiNozzo Love Story)

From Russia With Love Pt 2

Ziva's POV

    Once behind the restroom door my breath escapes me and a broken sob echoes in the small room. Staring up at the ceiling, the warm tears tip over and slide gently down my cheeks. I close my eyes and lean against the sink, my reflection blurry in my peripheral. Another sob breaks away from me and I look into the glass in front of me.

McGee's POV

    "Abby, I need you to analyze this," I say as I enter her lab and she turns away from her computer, her eyes rimmed red.

    "What is it?" She asks and I know she's not asking what it is, but what was found inside the box.

    "A shirt and CD," I say, placing the trash bag on the table. She nods and pulls on some gloves before opening the bag gently and pulling the box out. I pull the bag away and I hear her let out a gasp. Looking towards her, she's lifting the bloody shirt out of the box and holding it up.

    "This is—this is her shirt," she says, she looks at me with teary eyes and I swallow hard. Gibbs enters with an evidence envelope and looks between Abby and myself.

    "I need to know if there's any fibers or fingerprints on the box, shirt, or CD, that go back to anyone connected with Novikov. I need the CD cleaned and analyzed to see what's on it and if it's genuine, and," he pauses as he places the envelope down, "I need to know if the blood is human and if it belongs to Erin," Gibbs says. "These are the gloves I used to grab the shirt and CD," he adds. Abby nods and looks back to the cloth in her hands. He says nothing more as he leaves. Silence hangs between Abby and I as she sniffles and begins working with determination. A familiar look on her face like the one when we were trying to prove Tony's innocence when Chip was framing him.

    I take a seat in the corner as she works and fall into a solemn daze as I hope that Erin is okay.

Tony's POV

    It's been over an hour and I'm sitting in Erin's chair, overlooking her desk. No one else from the team has returned, but the other agents on this floor are back at their desks and working. Some glance towards me, but I pay them no mind as I sit quietly. Just after being here just over three months, her desk is nearly identical to what it looked like six years ago. Everything is neat and in its place. Her computer is at the left corner of her desk and the keyboard in front of it at an angle. To the right of the keyboard on the desk is a folded newspaper with the days crossword almost completed, nine more words needed. Her pen haphazardly laying over it like she intended to pick it up during her paperwork to fill in one of the words. I look up towards her computer to see the photo she used to have is sitting next to the computer, it's a photo of the entire team at dinner at a sushi restaurant. Her smile is bright as she's caught in laughter, Abby is smiling with McGee sitting next her and he's red from the joke Erin had said just before the photo. Gibbs is grinning and looking towards the camera with his arm around the back of Erin's chair and a relaxed face, one that was lost shortly after Erin left. I'm sitting on the other side of her, my eyes bright with happiness and my hand holding hers on the tabletop. My grandmother's wedding ring was in my pocket and I'd intended to give it to her that night, but I got scared. Maybe if I'd have asked her, she never would have left and none of this would be happening.

    "Abby's got the CD cleaned up," I hear and look up to see McGee standing a few feet away from the desk. His face is blank, but his eyes are dark and puffy. I swallow and stand slowly to follow him back to Abby's lab.

    When we enter the lab it's silent, Gibbs and Ziva are standing at different ends of the room. Gibbs in front of Abby's computer near the screen while Ziva is leaning on the counter near Abby's spectrometer. McGee moves to the chair and takes a seat as Abby moves from foot to foot at the computer.

    Gibbs looks around at us and nods. I walk closer to the screen, just a few steps from Gibbs when Abby releases a deep shaky breath and hits a button on her computer. The screen alights and begins quickly with a shot of Erin sitting in a chair chained to it. There is a man standing in front of her.

    The man punches her across the left side of her face causing her to whip her head to the right. She tilts her head back forward and stares up at him. She speaks something and I recognize it as Russian, her lips are stained red. The man nods before his fist moves forward and hits her once more.

    We watch as he punches her across the face, busting parts of her skin and creating dark bruises and blood to drip over her face. He punches her all along her torso and Erin groans. The sound of cracking is heard as he hits her once more along her left side. Erin slowly sits up in her seat, her breathing is obviously ragged and she's trying hard to take air into her lungs. She stares up at the man as he steps back and says something in Russian. Erin's face begins to go blank, her eyes empty as she stares ahead.

    The video ends and we stare at the dark screen.

    "What did he say?" Abby croaks out after a few minutes go by and we still haven't moved.

    I turn to look at Ziva and she has tears streaming down her face.

    "Ремень ее к столу. Теперь начинается самое интересное," she says, her voice breaking.

    "What does that mean?" McGee asks.

    "Strap her to the table. Now the fun begins," she answers, her eyes close. A soft, painful sob comes from Abby's direction and everything in my vision becomes unfocused. It's like the others in the room aren't really there and aren't their true forms. I walk out of the room and rush for the stairwell. Running up the flights I stop in the middle of two floors, my breath coming in gasps. I grip the railing as I slowly fall to the ground and my chest feels like it's being ripped apart.