Hey guys! I am SOOO sorry it took so long to update. I've been so busy and my computer hasn't been working. Who else thinks that homework should be illegal? Just saying. :)

Anyway, thank you to those of you who reviewed! (Kittyhawk58, PlushItBunny, cdfuller21, NCIS-EW-HP-Gleek, DiNUTZzo, ArmchairDetective, and Ziva DiNozzo-David)

For anyone trying to figure out the relevance of the title to the story, it gets explained here.

Oh, by the way, I changed the genre from Crime/Angst to Friendship/Hurt/Comfort. It seemed more fitting. Tell me if you think I should change it to something else because I'm not good with this kind of stuff. Enjoy!

A Picture Worth a Thousand Words-Chapter 6

Jeanne walked into the dingy storage room in the basement of the warehouse. Ziva was sitting exactly where she had been two hours before, still knocked out. She pulled a digital camera from her pocket and turned it on. Turning to Ziva's lifeless form, she smirked. Her head was drooping forward so that the blood on the top of it could be seen. That hit had been one of the most satisfying things Jeanne had ever done. A few of her ribs were sticking out in strange ways. It was perfect.

She lifted up the camera and zoomed out so that Ziva's complete form could be seen. Her finger pressed the button, and with a flash, there it was. The picture shone brightly on the display screen on the camera. Jeanne looked at it and thought for a moment. Yes, this will do, she thought.

She turned on her heel and walked out of the room. A couple flights of stairs later, she reached the room she had set up. There were two portable desks with laptops and chairs and Dylan, hired help. He was about 6'2" and 250 pounds worth of muscle.

"Well?" he asked, turning away from his laptop.

Jeanne handed him the camera, "Still out. It might be awhile before she wakes up. Check and see if she's awake about every half hour."

"What are you going to do?"

"Sleep." She sat down in one of the chair and closed her eyes. Within five minutes, she was asleep.

"Hey," Dylan said, shaking Jeanne's shoulder lightly. Her eyes opened slightly, only partially awake. "She's awake."

With that, Jeanne got up and stretched. "How long was I asleep?"

"About an hour. Nothing happened," Dylan assured her. "You going in?"

She shot him an impatient look, "What else am I supposed to do? If she's awake, why wouldn't I take this opportunity?" She didn't wait for an answer. Grabbing the camera and a standing tripod off of her desk, she walked towards the stairs.

Ziva's vision was clouded. Her abdomen was killing her and she felt like her head was about to split open. "What the #!*% happened?" she whispered to herself. Then all of the memories of the past twenty-four hours came flooding back to her. For the first time, she considered her surroundings. She was tied to a chair in an empty cell.

No, not now, she pleaded to herself. This cannot be happening again. Somalia was clear in her mind. She forced the memories to go away. She wasn't in Africa any more.

She jumped slightly as the door to her cell opened. Jeanne walked in with an evil smile on her face. She was holding a digital camera and a tripod in her hand.

"Nice to see you're awake. How're your ribs?" Jeanne said as she set up the camera and the tripod so that they were facing Ziva.

Ziva didn't answer. She wasn't going to give Jeanne the satisfaction of knowing that she was in pain. True, her ribs hurt like #!*% , but she wasn't going to admit it.

Jeanne looked up at Ziva. She considered her for a moment and the walked over to the chair, "Oh, I see. Silent treatment. But, what you don't see is-" She grabbed a handful of Ziva's hair and pulled her head back so that she was looking at Jeanne. "-that when I ask you a question, you answer."

Blankly looking Jeanne in the eye, Ziva still said nothing. She was determined to keep Jeanne from getting what she wanted.

Jeanne let go of Ziva's hair and kneeled down next to her, "You know, I'm a little jealous of you to be honest," She saw the way Ziva's eyes widened in surprised and said, "It's the way Tony looks at you. He used to look at me like that. When he lied," Her voice turned sour. She stood up and sighed. "But, it's okay because he's about to feel what I felt. Ten times over." She punched Ziva in the gut.

Ziva's already throbbing ribs screamed in agony, but she kept quiet. White spots were beginning to dance in her vision. No, stop it. You have to stay strong, she told herself firmly. Jeanne was not going to win. But, God, her ribs hurt. A couple of them were definitely broken.

Jeanne took a step back and surveyed Ziva. After what seemed like an eternity, Jeanne pulled a slip of folded picture out of her pocket. Unfolding the picture, she said slowly, "Every time I start to think that it's not worth it to want revenge, I look at this. And then it's like a fire starts in me, and I start a new plan. Sometimes they are stupid with no chance of working, but other times, they seem possible. It took a while for this-," she motioned to the room around her. "-to develop into a working plan. But it all paid off in the end," Holding the picture up for Ziva to see, she couldn't help but notice the small smile on Ziva's lips.

Ziva remembered that picture. It was her birthday. She had told everyone it didn't matter, that she never did anything on her birthday. But of course, Abby had brought in a cake for her, but kept it a secret until the late afternoon. Just as Ziva was about to leave, Tony had called Abby from the bullpen. Less than two minutes later, Abby showed up in the full bullpen, accompanied by Ducky and Palmer, with a giant cake that read, "Happy Birthday Ziva." Ziva pretended to be annoyed that they had bought her a cake, but in truth, she was delighted that her family was there with her to celebrate her birthday with her.

Palmer had brought up a camera, so Abby called a group photo. They got one of the interns to take the picture. At the last minute, Tony threw his arm around Ziva's shoulders. Surprised, she laughed as the camera flashed. Later when she looked at the picture, she saw that McGee was playing with Abby's pigtails while she was laughing. Palmer was blinking, and Ducky and Gibbs were simply watching the scene in front of them with smiles on their faces. It was a scene of happiness. Bliss. That was three years ago.

For the first time, Ziva spoke up, "That was a good day," It hurt to talk, but she had so much more to say. Looking up at Jeanne, she said, "May I ask why you feel the need to do this?" That was all she could get out. Even that small sentence took all of her effort to keep her voice steady.

Jeanne narrowed her eyes and said very plainly, "Because I wanted that to be me next to Tony."

Ziva wasn't sure what to say to this. Even if the was, she wouldn't have gotten a chance to say it; Jeanne landed a powerful blow to the left side of her face. She could already feel it starting to swell. Block it out, she yelled at herself. You can block it out. And so she did. She wasn't sure how many more punched Jeanne threw at her, but she didn't care. She could no longer feel it. Only when she stopped, did Ziva feel the full force of the pain Jeanne had inflicted upon her. The pain came in waves. Each one felt like being hit in the face by a train and in the ribs by an SVU.

She couldn't help it: she let out a gasp of pain. That one sound elicited a smirk from Jeanne. She pulled out a lighter from her pocket, "After this, I won't even need this picture anymore. Might as well get rid of it now." She lit the lighter and positioned the picture directly above the flame. As it caught fire, Ziva caught a glimpse of Tony, with his arm around her neck. Then it struck her; this may be the last time she saw him: picture or in person.

That though was pushed from her mind as she saw Jeanne drop the burning picture to the hard, concrete, floor. When it hit the floor, Jeanne stamped on it with the toe of her boot and walked over to the camera that was still sitting on the tripod in the middle of the room, "Now smile for the camera. Wouldn't want Tony to get upset, would you?"

Ziva bit back her retort, and instead tried her hardest not to show her pain. She wiped her face of emotion, as she usually did, but her pain was different. It was everywhere. She bit down on her lip to keep from crying out as a wave of pain hit her. She looked directly into the camera lens as the flash went off. She hated the thought of her friends seeing her like this; so broken and vulnerable.

"I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere." Jeanne teased as she turned on her heel and walked out of the room.

As soon as she heard the door click, Ziva let out a low groan. Her abdomen screamed in pain and her face was throbbing. Her hopes at escape vanished. There was no way she would be able to walk with her ribs in this condition, much less fight her way out. Defeated, she let her head fall back to look at the ceiling.

A few minutes later, Jeanne returned, this time with her driver and a cell phone in her hand, "We're going to have a little chat with your teammates. What do you think?"

"Go…to… #!*% ." Ziva managed in short breaths.

Jeanne made a "tsk" sound, "There, there. You might not want to talk though. They need to hear what I have to say," She dialed a number in the phone and waited as it rang. When the other end of the call was picked up, Jeanne said, "So how did you like my pictures? I thought they were pretty nice, if I do say so myself,"

Ziva felt as though she was going to be sick. Her team had seen the picture. Wait, pictures? When were the others taken? What had she looked like? Did she look as pathetic as she felt at the moment? Her thoughts froze as she heard Gibbs speak.

"I've seen better. What do you want?" Gibbs sounded livid.

Jeanne shot a sideways glance at Ziva, "Me? Oh, nothing, just for Tony to know what it feels like."

Ziva's face paled when she heard the next voice. It sounded so afraid. So different from what she usually heard. The jokes and friendly banter it usually produced. Tony said, "To know what what feels like?"

"Heartbreak."

That was all she could take. Ziva couldn't listen to this any longer. The only way to stop it was to speak over it, "Tony, don't come. She'll just-" She'll just kill me anyway. Those were the words that she was going to say before being punched in the nose by Jeanne's driver. She heard it break with a sickening crack.

Ziva's vision and hearing was patchy. She did manage to hear Tony ask desperately, "What do you want?" It broke her heart to hear him like this. She wanted to tell him it was going to be okay, but she was already fighting to stay conscious, let alone speak. Her ears missed the end of the call, but the last thing she remembered before the lights went out was Jeanne squatting down in front of her and saying, "I told you not to talk." With one final punch to the gut, Ziva's vision went dark.

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