Chapter Two: Cell Block Tango
18x06:1mm

*Trigger warning*

Isana and Nick were driving to a new location for a case. Nick wasn't listening to Isana at all, they were bickering and it wasn't okay, Isana wanted to drive, but she was still banged up from the last case they worked and there was a ninety percent chance they would have probably crashed.

"I miss McGee," Nick smirks

"Oh, believe me, if I could trade you for him right now, I would."

"- Hey!" He chuckles. Getting out of the car, "That hurt my feelings."

"Still no service."

"Hey, don't you blame that on me. I'm not the dude that gave you awful directions." Nick mutters as Isana holds her phone up in the air trying to get service.

"Yeah, well, what do you expect with no street signs? Plus, how nervous would you be about tipping off the Feds about a house full of explosives?"

"Who are you trying to call?" he asks as Isana sighs.

"Look, you better hope these people can tell us where the tree that looks like Dolly Parton is..."

"No, seriously. You've been trying to get service since before we got lost. Just seems like an important call, that's all. What's going on?" Nick asks.

. "Oh, look. Your favorite, a car with a popped hood."

"All right, all right." Nick walks around the car while Isana walks up the steps to the house. "Uh...the battery cable's fried." Isana rings the doorbell.

"- Hey, this is a-a landmark. "Notable historical site. Sheriff's office and residence."

"1898, ooh. I bet there were some, uh, notable mustaches back then." He pretends to be brushing a fake mustache as Isana sighs going to knock on the door but it opens.

"Ooh. Door is open. Hello?NCIS." they enter the house. " Looking for some directions."

"Yeah, and you also need a new, uh, battery cable"

The pair begin looking around the place,

"Wow," Nick says pushing a door open. Isana walks to where he is. "Hola, serial killer." there are some stairs and two old cells down at the bottom of the steps.

"Mm, no, this was a sheriff's place, remember? You know, I saw a house like this on Zillow once." Nick nods as they look around just for Gunshots to start happening, He grabs Isana by her shoulder and they both run down the stairs returning fire the best they could. They end up inside the cells returning fire, until each cell door closes and they sigh realizing they are stuck inside.

"They're definitely gone. The Duncans have left the building. You know, I bet they're headed to the doctor. We hit that one guy at least twice." Isana sighs looking around her cell. "Thanks to your wrong turns, we must've been driving in circles and ended up at the right..." she starts moving the toilet around. "...house. Nick?"

"How are you moving the toilet right now?!"

"You know, you know what I don't get is why these guys were operating out of an old sheriff's place. It makes no sense." Isana keeps pushing the toilet up against the wall. The sound of porcelain scraping against the cement floors.

"Well, it makes all the sense. Word on the street is you got a jail in your basement, no one's gonna even think about coming at you." Nick grunts trying to move the toilet which is bolted to the wall. "Okay, seriously, yours is not bolted at all, right?"

"Okay, I'm in position." Isana stands up from the toilet and lifts herself on the bars of the window to peek through. "No way!"

"What?"

She sighs. " They took our car!"

"What?! Oh, of course, they did! Of course Of course they took the car Of course, because their battery cable - was fried!"

"Okay, just calm down. Calm down." She pulls her gun off her hip and breaks the glass on the window with the butt of the gun. "All right, I took the glass out." she tries to pull at the bars. "These bars aren't going anywhere."

"Wait, hold up. Because, uh, when I make it up to my window, uh, maybe I'll, uh, I'll rip out the bars."

Isana exhales. "Right, with your superhuman strength?"

"Yeah."

Isana sighs, "Mm, okay. Let's try something." She pulls out her phone and holds it up towards the window. She gasp. "I have service! I have a bar!" the bar goes away, "Damn it! How does a bar show up and then never come back again?" she sighs and tucks the phone away just as the sound of glass shattering is heard on Nick's side. "Uh... you okay over there?"

"I think we're stuck in here."

Isana looks around her cell seeing a big black chest. "Wait a minute."

"What? What is it? Izzie, we have a wall between us... what is it?"

She opens the chest, seeing a black duffle bag. "Uh... I found something."

"What?"

She then opens the duffle bag seeing the explosives. "I found their explosives."

"The cocktails, the ones they're trying to sell?"

"Yeah. They're here." Isana picks them up looking through the bag.

"How many?"

"A lot. I mean, this is worth a fortune. There's no way they'd leave these behind. First chance they get, they'll come back for them." After a few more minutes Isana had officially taken out all the packs of explosives. "Not one detonator. These things are useless."

"Well, you wouldn't want to use 'em to bust out of here. A mix like that... We don't know what kind of damage it could do."

Isana leans up against the wall. Dividing her from Nick. "Hmm. Since when did you become so careful, cowboy?"

She can hear the sound of his hammer to his gun being pulled back. "Only one shot left."

Isana pulls out her's to check. "Hmm. Two for me." When these guys come back, we're screwed."

"Hey, we're gonna figure this out, okay?" Isana exhales. " Are you okay? If you're nodding, I can't really see it."

"You don't have to keep asking me. If I'm not okay, I'll let you know."

Nick scoffs. "Yeah, sure you will."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"You know exactly what it means." he continues.

"No. If I knew what it meant, - I wouldn't be asking."

"- It means that you were trying to make a call in the car for, like, minutes, and you wouldn't tell me who you were calling." Nick pesters as Isana shakes her head already annoyed with him.

"Because it's none of your business."

"- But you made it none of my business when you decided to hide it from me," Nick says.

"Why are you being so hover-y?"

He chuckles slightly. "First of all, who says "hover-y"?"

"You refused to let me drive, you had to be a hero with the directions, you are badgering me about my phone calls, and this morning, you made me wait eight minutes before I sipped my coffee so it wouldn't burn my tongue."

"Because it burned my tongue! I was trying to save you." He shrugs.

"I don't need saving!"

"That call you were trying to make is about something that's going on with you." Nick continues.

"- Okay. So we're back to this again?"

"Yeah, I always tell you what's going on with me," Nick says.

Isana laughs. "You do not. Yeah, you ask, I tell you. I was trying to call Sloane, okay? I had an appointment with her that I'm going to have to reschedule, so can we just get back to our lives now?"

"You call her to talk about Merriweather and the plane?"

"Nick, can we just...? Look, we need to figure out a way out of here, okay?" She walks to the other side of the plane.

Isana and Nick sat in silence. Her hands were shaking, and everything was coming back to her in flashes, she had endured so many ungodly things, but what Merriweather and his goons did scar her a bit more. It brought old feelings and memories. So much so that she was sleeping with her gun strapped to the inside of her lampshade next to her bed. She had a knife under her pillow, bear mace hidden in a few places as well as her paton, she was going back to her old ways, turning into this emotionless killing machine and she couldn't take it anymore, not like this, part of her felt that talking with Sloane would help, but she didn't like the things she was suggesting. Jack explained how maybe she needed a new change of scenery, how maybe just maybe, she needed to take some vacation time or quit her job. But those things wouldn't happen yet, she wasn't ready to leave yet. Not right now, maybe after a few more snakes rattle her chains, she would consider it, for now, she had her back pressed against the wall just like Nick was in his cell. He was twirling his gun around with his finger.

"Concrete, water, fire. fire. These things can't detonate, but we could burn them." Isana explains.

"And burning ourselves alive would help how?"

"It's called "brainstorming," and I'm just throwing ideas around."  Isana sighs.

" Maybe you should throw out a good one."

"Okay. At least I'm trying. You're just shooting everything down." She scratches her nose.

"Well, because they're all bad ideas."

"Can I have a piece of gum?" Isana asks.

" What?"

"I think better when I'm chewing," she explains.

"- I don't have any."

"Nick, I'm not an idiot. I know you keep an extra one in your front left pocket for breath emergencies." She speaks up as he makes a face.

"Well, that's my-my last piece, and I'm trying to save it."

Isana makes a face. "For what?"

"- Well, you know, in case we have to MacGyver something later."

Isana laughs. "Oh. Okay. You think my ideas are bad, and you think we're gonna bust out of here with a piece of Big Red?"

"- Look, you don't know why..."

" Give me the frickin' gum!" she yells

"- Okay, fine. Damn. Take it down a notch, all right?" He hands her the gum through the cell.

"Thank you. Oh, my God."

"Look, it's mushy, all right, but my pants are sweaty. What do you want me to do?" He starts rambling.

"- No." Isana grunts. "There's a bolt here. It stopped the door from closing."

"Can you open it?"

She keeps trying to pull at it. "No!"

"- You need a lever."

"- Ah. Okay, MacGyver. You got one of those in your other pocket?" She teases as he hands her the piping from the toilet. "Oh. That'll do." She takes it, getting right to work.

Thirty minutes of Isana's grunts are the only thing that fills their silence. Before Nick finally speaks up, "Are you using your Quads? You got to use your quads.?" Isana grunts more. "Hey, Izzie, what angle are your feet?"

"Okay, the more..you shut up...the harder I can push." She gets the cell door open and the lock at the bottom starts hissing and rising. "What the...?" she puts her foot on top of it. 

"I think I heard the door move. Did the door just move? Are you out?"

She hears a quiet whirring sound and looks up seeing a bomb attached to the door. At the top. "Oh...Holy mother."

"Izzie Did you get it open, yes or no?"

She swears quietly to herself. "- Um... Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I got the door open, but, um...

I'm pretty sure these cells are rigged to blow."

" What? - D-Do you see a timer?"

Isana shakes her head. "- No. When I opened the door, it released some sort of... pressure plate, and it's wired to the ceiling."

"No, no, no, if a pressure plate would've been released, then the explosives would have gone off."

"Yeah, n-not so much... It wasn't released all the way, because I, um...I'm standing on it." she sighs.

"You gotta be freaking kidding me."

"Well, this is my second bomb encounter of the week. That's got to be some kind of agency record, right?" Isana shrugs. "But then again, Gibbs has me beat."

"So, this is the storage place for their high-priced explosives. But why rig these cells to blow?"

"When they leave, they flip the switch, and then if anybody breaks in, the whole place just blows," Isana explains.

"Yeah, no evidence to lead back to them. That's a good call."

"Wait a minute. Was that a "Torres Teachable Moment"? You know, when you ask me a question that you already know the answer to, and then if I get it right, you congratulate me?" Isana asks with a hint of teasing on her tongue.

"No, I'm not playing mind games. I'm just, uh, I'm trying to make a-a foothold here so I can reach my window."

She shakes her head. "Oh, no, dude, the phone thing isn't gonna work."

"Well, you had a bar for, like, a second, and my arms are longer than yours."

She scoffs. "They are not."

"- Yes, they are."

"- No, actually, your arms are disproportionately short for your body." She teases again

"Okay, will you stop? You're standing on a bomb. We don't have a lot of options."

"Yeah." she sighs, she can hear Nick's futile attempts at trying to climb up into his window.

"The foothold's not deep enough so I'm gonna shoot it. Brace."

Isana shakes her head. "No! Stop. H-Hello? Ricochet? If you shoot the wall, the bullet could just bounce right back at you."

"- I'll duck."

She sighs. "- No, stop, stop. Just..." she's  scared, He might hurt himself. . "Do you... do you want to know what I was gonna tell Sloane? During my appointment today? I... When they were trying to get me on that plane, I knew there was a bomb, and I knew if they got me on the plane, that I'd never get off, so I... I fought. And... I wasn't just fighting for me, I was fighting..." the room was silent as if Nick knew what she was trying to say. "Look, you only have one bullet left. You need to save it. Okay? We... We'll figure something out."

"Okay."

//

Isana's entire body still ached, but she had no choice, but to stand there, all while she could hear Nick pacing back and forth. Nick, give me an inventory. Nick!"

"- What?"

"Wearing a hole in the floor isn't gonna do anything. Look around and give me an inventory of what you see." she sighs,

"We did that already, twice. There's nothing here that can help us. Forget it. I gotta get up to that window. I'm shooting the wall."

"- No! Just please..." Isana pleads.

"- No, listen, I'm not gonna make another list here. Your weight could shift. Uh, your leg could cramp."

"I'm not gonna get a cramp." she begins.

"You don't know that. You...'cause..."

"'Cause I'm a girl, and girls get cramps? I swear to God, I-I've had enough of your overprotective, hover-y man crap." Isana begins arguing.

"Look, it's not because you're a woman, it's because you're..."

"Because I'm me?" she scoffs. "I kicked your ass in every..."

"You're not listening to what I'm trying to say to you! Just listen! I'm not gonna sit here and watch you almost get blown up again. I'm not okay with you getting blown up, Ana. I'm not okay with that."

The silence in the room is deafening, and neither of them were admitting their feelings. Isana feels her heart clamoring around in her chest, thumping loudly through her ears,

"What's going on over there?" she asks, trying to make her voice seem strong.

"Close calls make your life harder.Brace." a shot is heard and Nick starts groaning.

"Nick?"

"Just kidding. It worked."

"- It did?" she asks,

"- Hell yeah, baby. Vámonos."

Torres does get to call Gibbs but it's spotty at best and the reception is just god awful they didn't make sense of anything Gibbs is saying, neither was he.

"Anything?" Isana asks.

"How can a bar just show up and... not come back again?"

"Hey, how much do you think Gibbs heard?" she asks,

"I don't know. From what I could make out over here, not much. Whoa. Truck."

"Is it Gibbs?" Isana knew the answer to her. But she was trying to be hopeful. "Nick?"

"Not Gibbs."

The parents ready their guns towards the door. Hearing the front door open, there was this gun-wrenching silence.

"Don't shoot, man. I got a situation down here." Torres starts.

"Standing on your pressure plate. You shoot, I'll step off."

Nick nods. "You got a solid setup down here, dude."

"Everything will explode. Me, him, your bricks down here. And probably you up there, too, am I right? So why don't you come down here and we'll talk this through." Isana says.

"How do I know you're being straight?"They slide their guns away from themselves. "That was easy," Travis smirks as he walks down the stairs. "No ammo left, huh?"

Isana shrugs. "I had two shots. One with your name on it, if you don't act right." 

"Where's your brother?"

"Dead. You killed him." He glares at Nick in particular.

"Sorry about that."

He clenches his jaw. "We weren't that close."

"Hey, listen. We all know how much these bricks are worth. You want your payday, we want to walk out of here in one piece."

Travis eyes Isana up and down, "So what's the plan?"

"The plan is, you let him out, you disarm the bomb. We give you five minutes, take your bricks and walk away."

He chuckles. "You're feds. You can't make deals like that."

"Exigent circumstances."

Travis smirks. " Nah. You've had all day in here to figure a way to slip me up. We're doing this my way."

"Yeah? What is your way?"

"I'll get this thing working and I'll let you out. But I ain't disarming anything. You go into her cell, you slide out the bricks, and I'll be on my merry way. Hey, you want to live, and I'd rather not be running from a federal murder charge for the rest of my life. It's a win-win. But if you don't like it, I could just shoot you both and take my chances with a good old duck-and-cover. What do you say?" he asks.

"Open the door."

Travis gets the lever working and Gets Nick's door open, he steps out hands up in the air.

Nick stands in front of Isana with a smirk. "Hey, good to see you."

"I thought you'd be sweatier."

"The day is young." He replies as she nods.

"Hmm." he starts trying to take her place. "Wait. Stop. - Stop.'' She moves her foot slightly so he can get in front of her.

"- You got it?"

She nods. "Yeah, I got it."

"You sure?"

She just nods, Their faces were so close, she had both hands on his shoulders and his hands were on her waist, as they stared into each other's eyes. She felt the urge to kiss him, it was strong and intense, and the goosebumps on her skin made all the hairs stand up.

"Let's go!" They look back at Travis. "I said let's go! The bricks, get 'em out here." Nick gets to work packing up the bricks.  He tosses the bag outside of the cell. "'Well...this has been a bunch of fun." he picks up the bag. "But I got some borders to cross. You know, ammo or not, only a coward gives up his weapon. Or her weapon, if you're into that equality thing. Travis laughs, backing up the stairs. "Either way, you got to live with it now. The both of you. You got to live with letting me walk. Oh..." he shakes his head walking up the stairs he turns his back and Isana throws her knife from her boot into Travis's shoulder. He groans before running up the rest of the stairs, and out the door.

"Hey." Isana goes to block Nick from moving.

"I can catch him."

"I'm not letting you past me again," she warns,

"- I got this, you'll be fine."

"This isn't about me, it's about you. I'm not okay with you getting blown up either." There they were with that lustful staring, mouths twitching, palms eagerly clammy, wanting nothing more than to just rip each other's clothes off and make ravishing love, but they were so fucking stubborn.

"Well, what are we gonna do about that?" he tilts his head to the side. she just shakes her head at him just as Gibbs comes inside, they get the bomb disarmed and everything is back to normal. Isana and Nick with their sexual tension, the tension so thick and so hot that it has no room to escape. Isana had a choice to make she could either. Stay here and let these feelings of hers go to waste. Or she could leave and let him figure out just his important something is when it's gone.