Vanished

"Never give in, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to a force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy." – Winston Churchill

Chapter One

Two days. Two more days of paperwork and monotony and cold lunches and then Wes would be on vacation. Sweet, blissful vacation. One whole week with no Captain Sutton. No new cases. No damned couples' counseling. And, most importantly, no Travis.

With this hopeful thought in mind, Wes walked into work that morning in a surprisingly cheerful mood.

"Morning, Cap," he nodded to Sutton as he made his way to his desk, a cup of steaming coffee in each hand.

He set one of the cups on top of an already precarious pile of papers on Travis's desk, and sank into his own chair with a sigh. He took a sip of his coffee, choked on the absurd amount of cream in it, and hastily switched his cup with Travis's.

He checked his watch. Ten past nine. Travis was ten minutes late. Wes smirked as he pictured his partner walking (more like stumbling) into the bullpen, bleary-eyed and with a hangover so obvious that even Captain Sutton would take notice. He'd told Travis not to go to that party last night. In Wes's experience, when a girl you'd dated once several months ago suddenly invited you to a party full of people you didn't know, it generally didn't turn out well. Or at least, that's what he assumed, because that had never actually happened to him.

Wes jiggled his mouse, and his computer screen flicked on. He wasn't going to wait for Travis to get started. The quicker he could finish and get out of there, the better. Although, he noted briefly, maybe if he took his time he wouldn't have to go to counseling that evening.

Travis woke with a start. Two seconds later, he decided he wanted to go back to sleep. His head hurt like hell, pounding at his skull. His heartbeat was too loud, pulsing and thumping in such an annoying manner that Travis found himself wanting to yell at it to shut up. And there was that spot, right between his eyes, that always felt like a hammer was being slammed against it whenever he drank too much. He also really needed to puke.

Privately, he admitted that maybe Wes had been right. The party had been a disaster. He hadn't been able to find anything suitable to wear, he'd lost his keys and had to take half an hour to search for them, his motorcycle had been out of gas, and on top of all that, Lisa had promptly kicked him out upon his arrival, assuring him that no, no she had not sent him an invitation and why would she do that because it's not like he had even bothered to call back after their date and it must have been some sort of mistake and she most definitely did not want him there.

There was no way he was going to admit all of that to Wes. No way.

Travis rolled over in his bed, trying to find the most comfortable position in which to sleep off his horrible hangover, and promptly discovered two things. One, his bed was rather more uncomfortable than he remembered and two, he wasn't actually in his bed at all. How could he be, when he was sitting in an upright position, unable to move his hands or feet more than a few inches?

His eyes flew open. No, definitely not his bed. He was sitting in an old wooden chair in the middle of an even older room, surrounded by boxes and crates and items that had clearly not moved for the past decade at least, what with all of the dust and cobwebs that had collected on them. Cobwebs. Cobwebs meant spiders, and Travis hated spiders. He shuddered. He tried to move again, and discovered that his ankles had been fastened to the legs of the chair by a length of rope, and his hands had been secured behind both the chair's back by another rope.

Travis let out a strangled laugh. God, tonight was just not his night, was it? He leaned forward, testing the ropes and the strength of the chair, just as a door opened and a figure stepped inside.

Wes glanced at his watch again. Forty-five minutes after nine, and Travis still had not arrived. He stared at the untouched cup of coffee on his partner's desk. Travis would pay for that now. Wes was not about to lose five and a half dollars on a cup of coffee that he'd so generously bought for him that was now undrinkable.

Travis was going to be sorry for being late. But Wes wasn't going to care. He was going to walk out of the doors at the end of the day, knowing that he had finished all of his paperwork and only had one day left until his much-deserved vacation, while Travis was stuck at his desk filling out the paperwork that he hadn't done that morning.

"Hey, Kendall," Wes called as the DTU detective walked by his desk. She stopped and gave him an imploring look. "Have you heard from Travis at all?"

She shrugged. "No. Why would I?"

Wes glanced at his watch. Fifty minutes.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, catching his glance.

Wes shrugged his shoulders. "No. He's probably just sleeping off a hangover."

"Which means he's not here. So I repeat, is there something wrong with that?"

"Fair point," out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Sutton walking into his office. "Would you excuse me for a minute?" without waiting for an answer, he got up.

"Hey, Cap," he leaned against the doorframe of the office.

"Wes. Come on in, have a seat," the man gestured to the chair opposite his desk.

"Oh. Um, with all due respect, Captain, I don't really think… I'm in the middle of… I just needed to ask you a question."

"Oh, okay. You just looked like you had a lot on your mind. You know, talking about things always makes them better, Wes. What's up?"

"Have you heard from Travis?"

Sutton immediately sat up in his chair. "No, but he'd better show his face today. He owes me a new pair of socks! You know, he-"

"Okay, thanks," Wes interrupted before Sutton could get too far into his story.

"Have you tried calling him?" Sutton asked to the detective's retreating back.

Travis watched as the door closed behind the man. At least, he assumed it was a man, not that he could really tell from the black hooded mask he was wearing. The words from their short conversation replayed in his mind.

"Who are you?" Travis asked cautiously, careful to avoid eye contact. It was hostage training 101 – never make eye contact with the abductor. More often than not, it would be taken as a challenge, and it would piss him off. Being restrained in a room with a man who both had complete control of the situation and was pissed-off on top of that was something you wanted to avoid.

The man made a noise that sounded much more like a bark than a laugh, although Travis suspected that it was supposed to be a laugh. "Like you don't know. Quit stalling."

Travis tried to control his heavy breathing, which was becoming increasingly more difficult in the stuffy air. Rule #2: Stay calm and play along. "Look, man, I'm sorry. I just – I think you might have hit me on the head with something. I don't know, I can't really remember much. Everything's a little fuzzy right now. So if you could just remind me-"

"Shut up!" the man slapped Travis across the face. He gritted his teeth, trying to ignore the stinging. "You know exactly who I am, and exactly what I want."

None of it made any sense. The last thing he remembered was leaving some crappy bar downtown near the party – so crappy he couldn't even remember the name – and getting on his motorcycle to head home. That had been at what, one in the morning? Now daylight trickled into the room through the bare spots in the single, grimy window to his right. Which meant it was probably mid- to late-morning.

Travis shook his head, trying to clear it. The pounding had subsided to a dull ache, but for some reason he still wasn't able to think clearly. Someone – the same guy who had just left, most likely – must have drugged him at the bar. Which meant that this was premeditated. This wasn't just some mugging-gone-wrong. No, the man in the mask had meant to take Travis.

After several minutes, sure that his abductor wouldn't be returning for a while, Travis began to struggle with the rope around his wrists. He found the knot with his fingers, felt the ridges of it as it looped around itself. The guy, whoever he was, was a pro. This was a military-grade knot. Which meant that Travis had little to no chance of untying it.

That's when he felt something. An odd sensation, pulsing out from his pants pocket. Almost like a vibration… his phone. His phone was vibrating in his pocket; someone was trying to call him. If his phone was still there, that meant the man wasn't as smart as he looked. Travis strained against the ropes furiously now, trying to slip one of his hands out of the loops of rope. He pulled, tried to twist his body to get better leverage, but his feet, anchored to the chair, stopped him. He swore audibly, frantically working at the knot again with his fingers.

"Come on, come on," he muttered, willing the phone to keep vibrating.

It didn't. With one final vibration, it quieted.

"Damn it!" Travis yelled, his frustration exploding out of him.

"Travis, this had better be one hell of a hangover," Wes growled into the phone. Again. That was the third message he'd left for his partner, and still no return call.

He looked at his watch again. It was now nearly two o'clock in the afternoon, and still there was no sign of Travis. Wes was nearly done his paperwork, and Travis's coffee still stood on his desk, full to the brim and freezing cold. He estimated that he had about an hour of paperwork left, and then he would head back to the hotel to change and shower, which would leave him just enough time to get to the counseling session.

If Travis didn't show up to the session, he would drop by his apartment on the way back. Just to make sure.

With a sigh, he turned back to his paperwork.

A/N: Well, what do you think so far? Should I continue?