A/N: Judging by your reviews you are all going to hate me for this last chapter. I don't apologize though, all's fair in love and fanfiction, lol. It's very strange going back to stories that have sat untouched and unfinished for months and in some cases years and completing them. Keep your eyes out for my next one I'm finishing, it's a Stargate Atlantis featuring Lorne!

Chapter 3

Tony woke to burning. His hip, damn it burned. He couldn't help but moan from the agony. He squirmed trying to escape the fire scouring through his hip and he choked on his own breath as the pain in his entire body blindsided him. His whole body shook with shock and he could hardly breathe. The world swirled around him and bile rose up in his throat as the pain crashed over him in wave after wave slowly easing like the receding tide. When he could finally breathe as normally as his broken ribs would allow again he opened his eyes and blinked sluggishly. Everything was blurry and faded. He just stared ahead for a long time exhausted trying to ignore his hip.

The fog in his brain lifted a bit more and he started to think about ways to save himself. None seemed possible with the weariness he felt. He had to try though his mind told him. He couldn't just lay here and wait for Gibbs. He had to give his boss a hand. Hands. He had to have his hands. It was like a homing beacon and directed him on what to do next. His tired mind decided to get his hands from behind his back in front of him. He hadn't done this maneuver in years. Wasn't sure he could do it now. The effort it took for him to roll into a ball was horrendous and he whited out from pain twice. The room was spinning again when he came to his first and biggest problem the chunk of wood in his hip. He had to get his arm around it but it was awfully long and his arms were restricted in movement. Tony bit down on his lip, stretched his arm so that I could just barely slip over the top, his shoulder pulling at a painfully unnatural angle, and the wood biting deep into the crook of his arm as he failed to get totally clear of it as it remained immobile in his hip.

Tears streaked down his cheeks as all the nerves in his hip jumped and twitched excruciatingly and the muscles in his leg spasm. He lay there shaking for what felt like hours incapable of intentional movement as he rode out the waves of pain. When he began again he felt like he was barely hanging onto life he was so exhausted. Sweat gleaned on his skin in large beads and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth feeling like sandpaper from thirst. His heart leapt with excitement as he felt the rubber of his shoes against his forearms. Just a little farther just a little farther just a little farther! The chant seemed to give him the last bits of energy it took to get his arms over the toes of his shoes, his whole body sagging back to a more natural position as he passed out from exhaustion and pain.

Reality filtered back to him some unknown time later slowly. The sensation of being cold was first, then an overall ache, the sense of fear and being alone which were quickly followed by the ache turning into real, sharp pain. He struggled to form memory of what happened to him. Why he hurt bad but he could only catch snatches of images. Brass knuckles, fists, flying followed by piercing shattering pain in his hip, it was all jumbled together. He focused on breathing. It was difficult to do and hurt. He couldn't do more than a short shallow breath. He could feel a few of his ribs grinding together with each inhale. After a while he was able to start thinking again. His hands were in front of him now but in a cruel twist of fate his vision was too blurry to see if they were ok or not. He could see fuzzy shapes, determine the size of things, but not the condition. He realized sluggishly that the broken wood of the chair was still around him and that several of the pieces were rather large. Then he heard the cheerful whistle of his assailant and the plan was made before he even realized he was contemplating anything. He didn't think it through. He didn't go beyond what it took to get to his knees, then his feet, right leg totally limp and unable to bear the slightest weight, and pick up a large piece of wood.

The man had barely opened the door when Tony gave a shaky, faltering lunge and slammed his little wood shard down on the man's head. The blow certainly startled him and momentarily stunned him but it took him a mere second to recover. DiNozzo swung his weapon back up as hard as his shaking arms could manage catching his chin, his head snapping back and then an elbow to the man's stomach. That was all he could do. He collapsed weakly. He couldn't breathe. His chest heaved his ribs screamed and his attacker bellowed with rage. The first kicked took him by surprise he was so detached from the world around him and there was no recovering. The kicks blended together into a long stream of pain. He was suffocating, the world spinning around him with dark spots dancing and parading before his eyes their tempo and power increasing with every sharp kick that hit his chest. The only place the kicks landed. Tony's conscious thought shrank to one little phrase as the last of his strength edged him to oblivion.

He was dead for sure this time.

And then he wasn't.

He wasn't sure why he was waking up. He couldn't believe it either. More importantly he didn't want to wake up. Not to this kind of pain. He couldn't breathe through it, couldn't live through it. He had to escape. He didn't know about the tears from sheer agony rolling down his face or the soft little moans that escaped his lips like a steady roll of thunder. Time had no meaning again. It felt like he'd been here months already. Months of pain and fear and he couldn't get away from it. He wasn't sure when he'd opened his eyes but he knew the dim light was like a piercing laser to his corneas. Everything hurt. He opened them again. And there it was, right in front of him if he just had the strength to grab it. A cell phone! His captor must have dropped it unknowingly during the fight. There was a riot of pain rewarded moments later by the cool smooth touch of plastic against his almost numb fingertips. His movement was clumsy and he dropped the phone twice before he was able to get it flipped open. The glow that emanated from it hurt his eyes so he closed them dialing the number shakily by touch alone.

"Gibbs" the voice was so familiar yet so far away. Tony didn't really hear the answer.

"Hello?" Gibbs tried again. He could hear heavy breathing on the other end of the line. The phone number was one he didn't recognize.

"Boss" Tony coughed harshly from the single whispered word then groaned in the agony it caused.

"Tony! Tony where are you? Keep talking to me Tony" Gibbs barked urgently gut wrenching at the sound of that weak painful groan.

"Can't…b-breathe…." DiNozzo screwed his eyes shut tighter and just tried to breathe. He'd never felt so much pain before. There must be a herd of elephants on his chest. Gibbs was talking again but he couldn't really hear. He was too far away.

"Tony! DiNozzo! Answer me!" Gibbs barked.

"Boss….where?" Can't focus, can't think, everything starts to blur together again. Tony tried to piece together what was going on but the memories were slipping away again like sand through his fingers.

"I'm coming DiNozzo. I'm coming to get you just hang in there. Don't hang up the phone Tony" Gibbs held his breath waiting for a response. He could just barely hear Tony's labored breathing.

"Kay….Boss" more coughing followed by footsteps approaching. What Gibbs heard next made his heart hammer with fear for his agent.

"You little wretch! How'd you get my phone!" Gibbs couldn't see that Tony's only response was to tighten his grip on the phone. It was his way out of this and he wasn't letting go of it. There was the bone crunching thump and the crisp clear sound of Tony giving a scream broke through the speaker straight to Gibbs. He nearly broke his phone from the abrupt tightening of his grip.

"Let go!" the man hollered again. Another bone crunching thud andTony screamed. Gibbs growled.

"Hang on Tony, just hang on" he encouraged through the phone knowing neither man would actually hear. Three more sickening thuds and then a clatter of the phone being dropped and the line went dead as Gibbs raced to Tony's location. Good news at last!

For Tony however things weren't so good at the moment. The man wasn't just mad, he was furious. Crushing his victim's hand to get him to drop the phone wasn't enough. He had DiNozzo slammed against the wall struggling feebly getting high off the sound of his every rasping attempt to breathe the shotgun bearing down mercilessly on his neck. He held him to the wall until the moment his eyes start to roll back into his head then let him drop boneless to the floor and kick him hard in the stomach. Tony coughed harshly and began dry heave for his stomach had nothing to give. The laughter of his attacker rang through his ears tauntingly as he hoisted him up again making him suffocate. If he only had the strength…

ON ROUTE…..

Gibb's knuckles were a stark white against the grey of the steering wheel. Abby's voice a constant buzz in his ear keeping him appraised of what she knew. The call was disconnected. He was just fifteen minutes from the location. A location that should take him forty five minutes to get to was now going to take him just under thirty minutes. McGee and Kate, now finished with her case, were barely staying in their seats even with their belts tight as they could get them. They had to get there now!

The house was small and isolated by the looks as they sped towards it at last having it in their sights. Gibbs was out and running gun drawn before the car had even stopped with Kate and McGee close behind. They burst into the house like a hurricane on the coast shouting out each room being clear. Gibbs was the one to find the room where Tony had been with the cell phone and remnants of chair left behind splashed with blood.

"Clear! They're not here" he yelled angrily. Tires were screeching abruptly with the smell of burning rubber and Gibbs tore his way outside to see a car with two passengers speeding away.

"No way in hell" he growled to himself jumping in his own car and the chase was on. The car ahead screeched around a corner turning right and Gibbs kept pace. They jerked around a left turn then another left leaving nothing but a straight away for several miles. Jethro knew he had them now. He was gaining rapidly and would be able to force the car to stop. It was only a matter of time. Suddenly the passenger door of the car whipped open and a body flew out of the car hitting the pavement hard and rolling about fifteen feet then lay lifelessly still. Gibbs screeched to a stop leaping from the car before it truly stopped. A trail of blood and skin was left on the pavement, the wood chunk snapped off and rolling to the side of the road as Gibbs charged towards Tony. He was sprawled and quivering with tears rolling down his cheeks but remained otherwise motionless.

"Shit Tony" He dropped down and scooped him up panicked by the gurgling choke. Blood spilled from his mouth as Gibbs propped him mostly up right against his chest and cried out weakly. A van blurred past them and suddenly Ducky was there. He took one look then dug through his van supplies and rushed back slipping the oxygen mask onto Tony. He flinched and wriggled trying to escape with a whimper but the mask was held firmly.

"Easy my dear boy this will help" he held on a moment more watching the fight, and life, drain a bit from his glazed eyes before turning to the cuffs at his hands, ankles already freed by his captor. One hand was curled in on itself and swollen to the size of a small melon. "Let's get these of you" Tony waivered from writhing and moaning in pain with tears streaming down his face to staring lifelessly ahead with barely the energy to breath as Ducky fought to stabilize him in the minutes it took for the ambulance to arrive.

Life shifted to fast forward after that. Tony and Gibbs whizzed to the hospital while Ducky and the rest of the team cleaned up the crime scene. Tony flat-lined twice on the way but was brought back with a hard struggle and then he really was gone. The doctors rushed him behind those double doors and that was it. He was left waiting not noticing as he waited for nearly a day. Now he stood in the doorway just staring at Tony. He was on a ventilator, most of his body was bandaged, his hand was splinted until he had the strength to survive the surgery to repair it, and his hip was covered in gauze while the wound drained. The doctors were careful not to discuss his prognosis. Gibbs already knew though. He knew Tony would keep fighting and survive. This wasn't that one moment when everything fell apart. It was just cracked and battered.

"Boss we found him. He wrecked the car about three miles up the road and died on route to the hospital" McGee whispered making it a point not to look at Tony.

"Go home McGee" he rasped and drank deeply from a cup of coffee.

"Boss?"

"Just go home McGee, tell Kate to go home too" he didn't turn to look at his agent.

"Yes Boss" Silence filled the room as the minutes passed. He felt old today.

"Sorry Tony, no answers, no justice"