A/N: I don't know what this is or where it came from, but I hope you like it. I haven't decided if there's going to be another chapter, or if I'm just going to leave it here. We'll see. Review, review!
Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS. I do watch a lot of it, though. Like, I'm watching an episode right now! Hi, Frame-up.
There is no one to hear the shots when they go off.
Except for the man with the gun, of course. And, well, she hears them, too – spins around in time to catch the first in her side, the second in her chest, and the third somewhere in between. (There are three bullets, you see: two to end a life and one just for luck.)
But there is no one else to hear the shots, no one to rush to the rescue or to call for help. The alley simply returns to its former silence once the shots finish their echoing and the sound of retreating footsteps fades. And after she slams onto the concrete, she is silent, too – save for the raspy breaths that slip out from between chapped lips. Her vision flickers dangerously, and she cannot find her voice to call for help. (And even if she could, it would not matter – there is no one nearby, remember?)
She watches, transfixed, as her blood stains the ground a deep crimson, filling the cracks and crevasses that have formed over the years. It is covering everything much too quickly, and she knows there should be pain, but she feels nothing at all, save for the coolness of concrete pressing against her cheek. Her eyes remain closed more often than they stay open now, and the few things she can see look as if they have been blurred and covered in flickering black spots. She thinks that is her phone lying next to her, but she cannot remember if she had been talking to someone before the man called her name and fired his gun.
She knows none of these are good signs, but for some reason, she refuses to believe she is about to die. She refuses to believe that after surviving her years in Mossad, after surviving explosions and standoffs, after surviving Somalia – that after all of this, she is about to die because a man whose face she never saw fired three shots into her when her back was turned. She has lived through much worse (Tali dying, Ari dying, Michael dying), and it would be almost pathetic for it to end here.
Suddenly, she hears a voice in her head that agrees with her. Low and insistent, it is a voice reminding her of her duty as a crazy ninja assassin to die in a way befitting such a person and –
Being shot in an alleyway? Are you kidding me, Ziva? That's actually embarrassing.
It takes her by surprise, so clear and realistic that she actually manages to open her eyes to see if he's really there. (He is not.) Oh, well. It is only further proof that Tony has taken up a semi-permanent residence in her brain. But that is nothing she has not become accustomed to over the past few years. Or, at least, as accustomed as you can ever be to having Anthony DiNozzo popping up in your head at inopportune times.
She shushes him and returns to thoughts of her attacker. Maybe she should be focusing on attempting to move or calling for help, but trying to sort out why she's crumpled in a heap in an alley will have to work. It will keep her from retreating into the beckoning darkness for a while longer, which she supposes is a good thing. (After all, it is getting harder and harder to remember why she wanted to live again after she was so ready to die in Africa.)
She runs through what she recalls, which, for someone who prides herself on being observant, is startling little. She was cutting through a back alley, she remembers. She was walking somewhere important, she thinks. She was caught unaware and unsuspecting by a man who knew her name, she knows. This, this final thought, is disconcerting; no one catches her so unprepared for battle. Maybe her time at NCIS really has made her soft. Somewhere, her father his chastising her carelessness.
Once, she never would have been blondesided by the shots.
Blindsided, Zee-vah. You really have reverted, haven't you?
She cannot bring herself to tell Tony to shut up this time; she has the feeling that his annoying voice is the only thing tethering her to reality. Well, a sort of reality, at least. Hearing voices cannot be a sign that she is long for this world.
And then, suddenly, there is a flurry of noise all around her. She never noticed how still everything had been just a moment before – how quiet even her breathing had become – until sound flooded back into her world. Footsteps enter the alley, a siren trills in the distance, voices fly above her. And one of these voices, she notices, sounds very familiar. Unmistakable, in fact. But this Tony sounds farther away than the one in her head, his voice fuzzy and drifting in and out. It sounds more panicked, too, a sharp undercurrent of worry and frustration covering the usual levity in his tone.
She hears –
Is the ambulance stopping for pizza? Someone get me Gibbs on the phone.
She hears –
Ziva, if you don't open your eyes right now, I swear to God I'm going to tell Abby you're the one who spilled her Caf-Pow last week. And you don't want me to do that – we both know hell hath no fury like a caffeine-deficient forensic scientist scorned.
She hears –
Hang in there, okay? Just a little bit longer.
She hears –
Damn it, Ziva, don't you dare die on me; I can't –
She hears –
Nothing.
Her world fades to black, and there is no Tony to keep her company here.