I was going to post this last month but my computer broke down...I lost everything I had written!It's a WIP but the new computer is on the way and it should make things easier.It's not a songfic but the song is very important.Thanks Tori Amos(or not...).
1. Flying Over Memory Lane
He watched his agents discussing their current case. His agents. It sounded wrong. No, maybe borrowed, but certainly not his. He was still trying to figure out a way to bring his team back together and getting frustrated at himself.Tony, Ziva and Tim. Gibbs wondered what they were doing at that exactly moment. He kept an eye on McGee whenever he could but Ziva and Tony worried him, were too far away. Their lives had changed drastically and he could tell none was really satisfied with their new position. It was amazing how everything had changed in months, so little time yet one of the longest periods of time in his life. Searching for his keys, he asked himself what was keeping him on the job. Everything had been destroyed. Piece by piece. It was not like there was something left for him at NCIS anymore, not that he'd forgotten Abby and Ducky but it was hardly the same. He had lost his team. He had lost his Jenny. All took from him in the blink of an eye.
He missed Tony's jokes, his sense of humour, and the great agent in him. He held a place in his heart. So did Ziva.He'd learnt to trust her. She was loyal, skillful and there was this very sweet girl she kept hidden inside of her. Tim was briliant, dedicated and eager to prove himself, not that he needed to. He refused to headslap the new team. It felt like betrayal.
He missed Jenny too. Her enchanting eyes, her perfume, their fights, sharing meals together, meetings in the elevator. He had the impression he'd never get over it, didn't want to. If only her house was still there, he could smell her clothes, her pillow, rely on more than just his memory and the few things he had of their time together. Day after day, he caught himself looking up at the catwalk as if Jenny would come out of her office at any time and give him one of her smiles while she watched him. How tough it was, how it hurt. He saw her everywhere and it was silently driving him crazy. The moustache back on his face, his hair was longer. Jenny would have liked that.
Shaking these thoughts away, he headed to the elevator, suddenly aware that he owned Abby a visit.
The loud music that usually fulfilled the room couldn't be heard, which surprised him. He entered carefully, searching for Abby. She was nowhere to be seen. He found her Ziva besides her Tony and it made him smile. Life would be unbearable without Abby. He looked at the computer screen in front of him, she still kept his face there, just in case. However, he noticed it wasn't the one from always. It was a smaller one, covering half of the screen, the other half covered by Jenny's face. He had to deter his hands from touching it. He wished he could be more like Abby sometimes.
"Abby?" he called, searching for her, looking here and there.
"I'm here, Gibbs" she replied in a muffled voice.
He walked to the other side of her lab and found her sat on the floor, under one of her babies.
"Hey Gibbs" she said, almost cheerful, waving her hand at him "Help me?"
He took her hand and lifted her up, her pigtails dancing.
"Thanks" she turned away from him and went to her Caf-Pow.
Gibbs stood there, staring at her.
"You called me. Anything on the case?"
She bit her bottom lip, shaking her head.
"Abs? Do you have something for me or not?"
Abby grabbed Bert, pressed him against her tightly and nod.
"I do, but there's nothing to do with the case"
She turned around and walked to where "Ziva" and "Tony" were standing.
"We have something for you"
He watched as she brought a middle-sized box and put it next to her computer, in front of him.
"She wanted you to have this and…she said I was the only one who could give it to you if something happened, the only place nobody would look at".
Gibbs ran his hand over its top and nodded, not really listening anymore.
"I'm sorry I didn't give it to you before but you haven't stopped by in a while" she said, choosing her words.
By the end of the day, he got his keys and went to his car, carrying the box with him. Lost in his own thoughts, Gibbs was brought to reality as he saw a very familiar redhead leaving the building.
The little girl smiled widely at the woman, holding her hand. They were going for a walk down the beach, as they had always done, for as long as she could remember. She liked to live there, it was a beautiful place. There were lots of trees, a shining sun and the bluest sky in the whole universe. It was so perfect. She had everything they needed right there, but her companion kept leaving her behind from time to time. That wasn't good. No, it wasn't. The girl believed that she would find a way to show the woman that she didn't have to leave anymore, it'd be safe to stay.
And they would be together forever.The girl irradiated happiness just by thinking of the future.
"Faster" she said, clinging to her companion's hand, almost dragging her.
She was a January girl
She never let on how insane it was
Her older friend would be so happy, so thankful that she'd decide to stay. She had everything planned.
They walked and walked, passing birds standing on the way and an empty chair, which she thought was very strange but didn't have time to make questions. They were doves, all of them, and the only kind of living creature, human or not, aside the girl, she'd ever seen there. When the woman had arrived for the first time and inquired about the doves, the girl refused to explain to her why there were so many doves around, saying that she'd have to find it out by herself, that she couldn't tell her or the black doves would know it. They always did. She never said why that would be a problem…
"Where are we going today?" the woman asked, staring at sea almost entirely left behind.
"We're going to the woods" she answered, more than proud of herself.
In that tiny kinda scary house
By the woods
By the woods
By the woods
A few steps along and the sun could not be seen anymore. The trees were older and larger, with very dark green leaves. She didn't know if it was already night because the trees blocked the way and hid the sky. The humidity increased and an unpleasant, almost fetid breeze filled her nostrils. As they got even deeper in the woods, she got goose bumps on her skin. She had a bad feeling about this place and wanted to return to the calm beach and never set foot in the woods again. It became denser and darker as they progressed. Soon the woman was too tired to continue and stopped, still holding the girl's hand. However, while she recovered her breath, she found herself alone. Moreover, alone and lost.
The shadows of the trees seemed to press closer everytime she looked around, as if they're alive and moving. They moved in a pulsating motion, breathing heavily. The woman looked for the girl, calling her name until her lungs began to protest, mainly because those trees were breathing in all the oxygen and breathing out carbon dioxide. There was no reason to worry about starving wild animals, she knew she wouldn't find anything other than doves, but she couldn't help feeling like a prey being observed by its predator. When she tried to find her way back to the beach, she heard the sound of something running through rustling leaves and branches, long and continuous, still distant but close enough to be audible which caused her to freeze, thinking it might have been just her overactive imagination or the girl, that had found her at last.
"Is that you? It's late, we need to go" she shouted to the girl, or so she presumed.
Black-dove
Black-dove
Not getting a response, she gathered all her courage and self-control and walked to where she thought the noise had come from. In the silence, listening very carefully, she heard the faint sound of voices mingled with the vibrating sound of dancing leaves. Taking a few steps forward, she was able to see the shape of something crouching near an empty chair and shook all over as it stared at her with its big eyes wide-open before vanishing. Her heart rate and the shivering of her body increased. She told herself it had been just an animal that got afraid of her and run away, maybe the girl was wrong.However, she could hear loud footsteps and whatever it was had left muddy footprints behind. Everything happened so fast that for the first time since she had realized she was lost in the woods, she feared for her life.
All of a sudden, looking at the bushes to her right, she saw a flashing light shining towards an even denser area. As she followed it, the light getting brighter as she walked, she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up and it only got worse when she saw yet another chair. Choosing to ignore it, she kept going in the light's direction. Approaching by a rough path, she found herself in the front of a hut. It was very small and dusty on the outside and made of wood, cluttered with trees, yellow, brown and green leaves, branches, vines and ground growth. Except there was no sign of the light that had guided her, seeing that the lights, if there were any, on the inside and outside were all turned off. It looked scary enough from where she stood, she doubted its interior would turn out to be completely different and that staying there until morning was the best alternative she could come up with. Her brain worked quick, weighing her options. Staying out could be dangerous, the temperature had already dropped and she was starting to get hungry.
You're not a helicopter
You're not a cop out either
With trembling hands and sweating, she took a step closer to the old, large door. The feeling of being watched took over her, intensifying the tremors of her hands and she felt an internal shiver. Slowly, she grabbed the doorknob, which was incredibly freezing to the touch and turned it. As the door swung open, creaking loud, she almost turned around, thinking some fresh air wasn't so bad after all. She looked up at the sight in front of her and instantly found out two things: one, the house was abandoned; two, she neither would get any sleep nor attempt to even blink an eye while she stayed under that roof. Just by staring at it, lingering in the doorway, she couldn't help but feel as if there was a presence lurking in the shadows. Listing all the reasons to why she should rather go in than stay out in her head, she tried to convince herself of what was supposed to be the best for her then.
She was about to get in when she was reminded of her little friend. Rationally, she guessed the girl had to be somewhere outside but for all the time they'd walked together, the child had never hesitated, not even once. It was therefore unlikely that she was lost as well. But if that was true, where was the girl and why would she leave her alone on purpose? If it wasn't so dark and cold…She hadn't forgotten the mysterious light that had vanished either, just like that creepy little thing near the chair. The shack, considering the darkness, was empty. She couldn't imagine herself turning off the lights if she lived in a place like that and with the friendly neighbours there must be. It looked creepy enough from the outside and breaking into it, in the middle of the night, didn't seem such a good idea after making sure there were no lights shining from the inside, not one she could spot from the doorway.
Black-dove
Black-dove
Sneaking her head through the now open door, she searched the nearest wall trying to find the light switch. A couple of minutes later, she had successfully turned on all the lamps she could see, she counted two, in the living room. It was better than she'd thought, not as frightening or hideous. Hesitating, she got in, step by step.
"Hello?" she called. No answer.
There wasn't much furniture. A small sofa, a dozen pictures hanging on the walls, a fireplace next to a closed door, a round table with four chairs in the corner and a red oak bookcase full of books. Everything was surprisingly clean, no spiders or cobwebs, the only evidence that it wasn't an abandoned place. There was fresh air too. The tiny hut looked more real than anything she'd seen since entering that world. There was something about it. There were no shadows around it because it wasn't affected by the moonlight; it was solid, permanent, rigid, with vivid colours but not painted. The wind too didn't come near it, like there was a sort of a barrier shielding it. The cold had stopped and so had the hunger but her mind still worked to organize everything in a logical sequence. There were books here and there but it didn't look untidy, it looked more like an organized mess. The books had different colours and sizes, most of them in the bookcase. One of them caught her attention. She'd recognized its cover everywhere. She hadn't exactly a list of favourite books but she had read that one twice. She opened it and started reading, maybe it'd be good to spend the night there…
I should have trusted him more. I should have been honest from the beginning, expressed my feelings, told him everything. (But if he'd known what I was really like, would he still have loved me?) The trouble was that I wanted to maintain his illusions for him intact, and it was easy to do, all it needed was a little restraint: I simply never told him anything important.
But it wasn't more honesty that would have saved me, I thought; it was more dishonesty. In my experience, honesty and expressing your feelings could lead to only one thing. Disaster.
Feeling the hair in the back of her neck standing up, she lifted her head from the open book. That same presence she'd felt before was there again and so was the fear it provoked. She heard footsteps going from the threshold to the centre of the room and then stopping. Slightly recovered, she took a step back, and another, until her back was against the bookcase. It started again, low and heavy footsteps going in her direction. She'd have run but didn't know where to.
You don't need a space ship
They don't know you've already lived
It was so close to her that she could feel and see its breath in the air, cold and gray, floating next to her face. She turned around as fast as she could but didn't move; it'd grabbed her wrist. She found herself slowly returning to her previous position, against her own will, afraid of what she'd see and so she closed her eyes. Voices started to echo inside her head, calling her name, whispering their secrets in her ears, the room started to spin around. Children, men, women, their words sounded incoherent and didn't make any sense. Some were angry, others frightened, scared, crying in agony, shouting, pleading for help. There was a baby crying, a child laughing, a man getting furious at his wife, all reverberating at the same time with multiple frequencies. She fell to her knees, screaming in agony.
"Make it stop" she whispered
They wouldn't stop, she couldn't make them stop. They were so angry and she had no idea what she had done to them. She rested her forehead on the ground, wrapping her arms around herself, shivering from more reasons than just the cold air. She was too tired of fighting and they refused to stop.
"Let me go"
It was suffocating and she was temporarily blinded by the unbearable pain. She felt a warm liquid beneath her hands and faced the ground. It looked like water but felt pastier and was slightly blue; she saw her own face reflected there, different, strained out of shape, and a black shadow hanging over her head.
It stood in front of her as soon as the water had evaporated, dressed in a black cloak, a hooded figure. It stretched its arms, palms up, reaching out for her. It knew her, her thoughts and she did recognize it in return but from where?
On the other side of the galaxy
The other side of the galaxy
The other side of the galaxy
She moved away in anticipation from a touch that never happened. Without uttering a word, it spoke to her, she saw her name floating in the air, felt it touch her skin. She tilted her head back and looked up at it. She wasn't so afraid anymore but still apprehensive; she didn't know what to expect. The voices in her head screamed louder and louder, it was blurring her eyes.
It looked neater and dangerously closer, with arms wide open. She couldn't see its face but sensed its eyes on her. Its voice echoed in her head, angrier and louder than the others, whispering words of hatred. She didn't see it moving forward and striking her, like a lion would, covering her entire body with the cloak. Her head hit the floor with a thud, but she saw something before she lost consciousness. And then that feeling…
She had a january world
So many storms not right somehow
How a lion becomes a mouse
"I just want to rip it from your chest…" the hooded figure whispered in her ear and pain spread through her body.
She cried in silence, not able to move anymore. The voices started to fade away, they were crying too, for her and for them. She knew she'd never forget that place…
And that awful feeling those voices gave her that day would never leave her bones.
By the woods
By the woods
By the woods
By the woods
By the woods
By the woods
TBC
I'd love to hear what you guys think, mainly because I'm not so sure if I should be doing this...not in English anyways.