My sister and I were talking recently about how they'll end NCIS, because, as much as we all hate to say it, it's gonna happen sometime or another. I described to her my ideal ending. Then I started writing it and it started evolving on its own. So now it's my ideal ending, plus a supernatural twist. :D
A/N: Sorry about the language! I was in a cussing mood, and since I can't do that around my kids, I figured I would do it here. Makes it a little bit more true to life, too, I think. :P
It was bound to happen sometime.
Given how many times he'd played the cards and come up aces, he knew eventually, he'd find the Joker in the deck. He was quite familiar with the jackass, too. Every time his life fucked up in any way, shape, or form, he'd look and lo, there'd be the Joker, grinning his little grin and acting like he was going to do something original this time; he never did. He knew, every time, that smug little bastard would wink, tip his funky hat with its little silver bells, and blow a big-ass hole through the middle of his future. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, because the damn thing doesn't toll at all.
It jingles – impatient, enthusiastic – like the Salvation Army Santa Claus on the street corner on Christmas Eve.
The Joker showed up while he was making every reasonable and unreasonable effort to apprehend a murder suspect.
Funny thing about this time, though. For a minute there, he could only hear the blood pounding in his ears. And voices. They were coming from somewhere, everywhere, and nowhere, all at the same time. Some part of him wondered if the Joker had stolen his other senses from him with that tri-colored hat and stupid little scepter. But he knew he was on the ground, and he knew how he got there. And knowing the creep in the black and yellow tights was responsible for him lying there (with God knows how much blood and how many guts spilling out of him onto the street) made him madder than hell.
"Son of a bitch! I swear I'll break his neck this time! Let me up – let me the fuck up!"
He was told later that he'd been screaming, hot tears mingling with blood and bile (he had Abby to "thank" for that lovely visual). It had taken two people to hold him down long enough to be stabilized and sedated. Imaging his blanket-covered, strap-held half-corpse on a stretcher was enough to make him physically ill. He didn't remember much after his initial bout of frenzied anger. He didn't remember punching Tim with strength he shouldn't have had, or breaking two of Gibbs' fingers in a desperate attempt to get up. He didn't remember spitting a mouthful of red saliva in Ziva's face as she tried to brush a few stray pieces of hair from his face.
All he really remembered was the flash of a knife strike and a moment of silence (as though the tribulations of the world paused to pay homage to his sacrifice) before he heard the jingle.
The Joker was standing over him, armed with a self-satisfied smirk as he shook his head.
Jingle, jingle, jingle.
They say the best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup. He knew that was bullshit. In his opinion, the best part of waking up was waking up at all.
Why it frustrated him so much to be waking up that time was obvious. He was drugged to the gills and barely coherent. His torso was wrapped with enough gauze and bandages to make breathing a relative challenge. Of course, that could just as easily have been coming from the tube in his craw and his odd side-lying position. Moving wasn't even an option. His legs wouldn't budge and his toes wouldn't twitch. He chalked that one up to really, really good drugs.
Until they dialed down the drugs. And his legs still wouldn't move.
"Well, fuck."
Somewhere in the background of the everyday hospital noises, his team's meaningless and useless platitudes, and his own hyperventilating, he heard a jingle.
And he screamed.
Words flew through his head for awhile after that. At first, they used to fly over his head. But he hated being out of the loop. And then he hated relying on Ducky for explanations to even the smallest word. And he really, really hated all those little sidetracks that the man took at seemingly every possibility. Sure, he had been a P.E. major.
Physical education was a whole world away from spinal column injuries.
So he sat down with his diagnosis and prognosis, a medical dictionary, and Google, taking an afternoon to be as silent and unforthcoming as his suddenly overbearingly Mother Hen boss used to be.
Incomplete Brown- Séquard's Syndrome: crossed hemiplegia caused by a lateral hemisection of the spinal cord. Characterized by partial paralysis and ataxia on the ipsilateral side of the lesion and deficits in pain and temperature sensations on the contralateral side.
When he finally translated enough of that to understand it, he glanced at the muted television and saw Batman facing down one of his arch enemies. He didn't see the famous (and suicidal) actor behind the face paint. He didn't see the missing hat or the wrong colors. But he knew he heard the bell.
He didn't mind throwing up on Gibbs; it wasn't the first time.
No one had to tell him he wasn't a field agent anymore. ("Appreciate you coming down here, Director. Now get the hell out before I throw a very used bedpan at you.")
No one had to tell him he would be riding a desk for the rest of his career, however long he decided that was going to be. ("You're just a regular treasure hoard of bad news, aren't you, Duck-man?")
No one had to tell him how sorry the bastard was that had stabbed him ("The bad guys always fucking say that, McIdiot.").
No one had to tell him that they hoped he would get better ("I'm fucking paralyzed, Abby. How the hell do you get better from that?")
No one had to tell him that the agency was paying for all his medical bills. ("If they didn't, Ziva, I would put a bullet in every single one of their heads.")
No one had to tell him anything. Until Gibbs did. He sat down in that chair he'd been just about glued to for three weeks, gave him a sad almost-but-not-quite-fucking-there-smile, and then gave him the hardest headslap on record.
"Wake up, DiNozzo. If this was the end of the world, I'd tell you."
When he didn't hear a jingle after that or see that smarmy face peeking through the window, he figured he was wrong.
Apparently, there was something someone needed to tell him.
Physical therapy was, without a doubt, the hardest, most embarrassing experience he'd had. He had been warned that. He believed it before he started. He didn't understand at first.
After he grinned and clapped his hands like a stupid little kid when he managed to get both his knees to lock and hold his weight for six seconds, he understood.
Apparently, embarrassment is a great way to teach humility.
For the first six months, he fell asleep and woke up to the sound of jingling bells.
It was Halloween.
He was almost back to work as a base interrogator.
He had already passed the physicals required.
And he found the second Joker in the deck.
Or, more accurately, it was standing on his boss's front porch, asking for candy and threatening to take its socks off.
And just like before, he didn't see the cheerful (and completely oblivious) child's face behind the face paint. He didn't see anything, because his eyes had rolled up into his head as he stepped backwards in all the wrong ways.
All he heard was that damned annoying laugh of his most constant tormenter.
And the jingle, jingle of that damned annoying hat.
His slip and fall cost him all.
If he had any sense of humor left, the rhyme there would tickle some bone of his, he was sure. He sometimes wondered if his humor hadn't been paralyzed, as well. But to see the silver lining beyond square one when he'd already spent a year just trying to get the courage to look up at the dark clouds…not too much of an occasion for laughing.
That night after the first home therapy session was the first and last time his boss found him with his service piece in his mouth. Gibbs calmly walked to the rented hospital bed situated in his guest bedroom, took the pistol from his hands, and smacked him upside the head.
"I already told you: if this was the end of the world, DiNozzo, I would let you know."
And then he'd been held like a baby while he sobbed every dark part of his heart out of his soul, his tears splashing against the bedspread, leaving equally dark stains on the fabric.
That was the first day since the street that he didn't see or hear from the Joker.
Three years later found him sitting in an uncomfortable chair in a hot, smoky, sandy bar. The beer was cold, though, so he didn't complain. The sight of his ex-boss dancing with a brilliantly-fake redhead made him laugh a bit. Beside that unlikely (and yet very likely) couple, his ex-boss's ex-boss was swaying in place, one of the barmaid's five year old daughters standing on his toes and begging "Uncle Mike" for another dance.
Mexico was as hot as he'd imagined, but the humidity was mild compared to Virginia. His left leg gave him a fair bit of trouble daily, though he was still a pretty able hand on the sailboat he and Gibbs had built. Swimming was paradise; it was just about the only place he didn't feel like an invalid.
Between the three of them (and their pensions, plus disability), life was good. They still heard from Supervisory Special Agent McGee and his 2IC Agent David every week. Hell, they all visited every holiday.
For the first time in a long time, life was good.
As he set his beer down, Tony looked at the table in front of him, covered with a deck of cards, scattered over the surface. They'd been testing each other's poker faces, laughing openly at the effort it seemed to take now to care about anything so damned serious as life and death. Blackjack, the game was. Shaking his head, Tony took a first look at the two cards he'd been dealt.
Joker. Ace.
Staring at the cards like he was an ancient seer trying to divine their meaning, Tony gave the Joker a hard glare.
"You didn't beat me."
I never meant to. You're coming up Aces from now on, DiNozzo.
And this time, when he saw the wink and heard that familiar jingle, he smiled.
All righty, there you go! A two hour fic – BAM! Kick it up a notch! Yeah, a touch of supernatural elements here. Lemme have it; I never get all weird like this. Almost never, anyway. ;) Thanks for reading! Leave a review, if you got time!