Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by the writers, producers, et al of the television show 'NCIS'. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, internet persona, or other being, living or dead, is completely coincidental and unintentional unless otherwise noted.

A/N: Okay, so I'm a dumbass: I'm a smoker (please, no lectures, and no, that's not why I'm a dumbass, though you might not agree with that statement). I accidentally lit the filter on my smoke and it burned too far to simply trim it (I despise smoking filterless cigs). So, since it was my last one (until I get some more cash), what was I to do, throw it away? No! Duct tape really can fix anything; I taped a filter off a butt onto the existing cigarette. SUCCESS!

Anyway, here's the next chapter for your reading pleasure – I hope you enjoy it. And I feel I should point out that Tony's view of spelunking and my own are in no way similar (I quite like caving, but even I'm not crazy enough to ever want to do underwater caves).

Falling Up

Chapter Four

The roughly excavated hallway meandered in a winding track with no branches, forks, or adjacent halls for nearly an hour before it opened into a fork. Tony took the candle stub he'd taken and used it to draw a mark at the opening to the right-side fork before moving down the branch. Every footstep bounced and echoed, playing tricks on Tony's ears, making it seem as though he were following someone or being followed, or both. Every time the twisting confines of the narrow slit of rock had the sound bouncing, he had to pause, though he quit calling out after the third time. The rushing sound – which Tony had decided was likely water – remained constant, neither growing nor decreasing in volume.

Unease had wrapped Tony in a cold shroud ever since finding that first skeleton, and as he searched for an exit, the same thoughts kept repeating and repeating in his mind: Why were the children left behind? What exactly happened in that bootleg distribution hub? Why were there no lanterns anywhere but the 'barracks'? Why, when whoever had been running it had cleared out, had so much been left behind? He was no closer to the answers than he had been back in that damp, cobweb-strewn hole.

His thoughts were interrupted by a noisy beep from his phone. Pulling it from his pocket, Tony leaned against a mossy patch of wall. The battery indicator was flashing. His shoulders slumped in defeat. He powered it off to preserve what little juice it had left, then replaced it in his jacket. "So much for calling the team when I get out of here." He sighed and checked the time on his wristwatch.

It was closing in on four in the afternoon. They had arrived at the derelict warehouse at almost precisely noon and the bust had gone down less than ten minutes later. "Four hours," Tony mumbled. "How come it feels more like four days?" His nailess finger throbbed in counterpoint to the goose egg on his temple while a dry scratchiness was beginning to coat his tongue and throat. "Shoulda stayed upstairs. But I was so sure there was a way out…" He rubbed the point where his hair ended on the back of his neck. "Probably is a way out, but not one I'd see. If there were two hidden doors, I'd bet real money that there's more I simply didn't find."

He raised the lantern and looked back the way he'd come, then faced the opposite direction. "This reminds me a little of the first bit of the maze in Labyrinth." The memory of the eyeball-moss in the film flashed through his mind and he pushed off the wall. The patch he had been leaning on was a pale blue color, a little smushed, but noticeably lacking in eyeball protrusions.

"Come on, DiNozzo – get a grip on yourself. It's just a tunnel. Nothing down here but a few spiders and some rats. And your overactive imagination." A tiny voice piped up from the back of his mind, But you heard someone – something – laughing. You know you did. "There's no such things as ghosts," he replied, but had anyone else been there, they would have heard the uncertainty in his tone.

Squaring his shoulders, he pressed onwards.

Quit chasing questions, DiNozzo. What's the evidence tell me? Okay, they were keeping people in there. The presence of children indicate it was not a case of them being competitors or rivals. No, the fact that they had their own jail confirms that. If it were a rival, they'd go in the cells I found. I'm going to run with the idea that they were dealing in human trafficking. Illegal immigration or slave labor or whatever, I don't know the motives, and probably will never know that part, not unless I can find someone still around who was there back then. Anyway, so… They kept their living cargo in the most inaccessible part of their warehouse. That set of empty chains either means it was always empty or that someone managed to get loose. The bullet marks I saw tend to indicate the latter. Okay, so guy busts loose, knocks out a guard, takes his weapon. Fits with the evidence so far. But why, if they managed to get out, did those kids get left behind? And what happened to the rest of the guy whose arm is still chained to the wall?

While Tony chased his own thoughts inside his head, the rushing noise of distant water faded away until the only sounds remaining were his own pulse, breath, and footsteps. Tony didn't notice this, not until the tunnel he was following suddenly made a hairpin turn to the right and opened into a vast cavern.

Tony stopped and stared. Even in the flickering yellow glow of his lantern, the cave was beautiful, draped in flowing, frozen stone ranging from white through several shades of yellow to grey. His lantern couldn't reveal the far side of the cave, though looking directly up, he managed to catch sight of the ceiling – roughly sixty feet above him. Floor of the tunnel must have angled down, rather than up. Drips of water splashing on both rock and into inky, still pools pinged around the chamber.

Disturbed by the sudden openness after hours of close confines, Tony involuntarily took a step back into the tunnel. "Okay, I got two options. Option one: I head back the way I came." His voice echoed back to him just as he was about to continue. It was like hearing his clone speaking while standing next to him. He suppressed a shiver and continued silently, Or option two: I press onwards and pray there's a way out of here.

Exploring caves was not something he was equipped to do. And it's not something I ever really wanted to do, either. Always thought the people who did so were plain crazy, and those idiots who explore underwater caves are stupidly suicidal. "Guess it's time to head back and see where that other branch goes."

As Tony retraced his steps back towards the fork in the tunnel, the light from his lantern faded from view of the limestone cave. On the opposite side of the cave, a tongue flickered out and picked molecules of sweat and kerosene out of the air. Its owner's mind swam up out of hibernation at the prospect of food.

Still puzzling over what possibly had happened back in the distribution hub, Tony's ears didn't pick up on the nearly inaudible whisper of scales scraping over rock.

A/N2: I got side-tracked yesterday, so this chapter was a little later than I'd intended. Sorry about that.

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