He sat silently in the fading Washington sun. The warm breeze carried with it the scent of May flowers and the sounds of the busy streets below. This time of year as never good for him. Here, in this place he'd come to love, spring inevitably brought death, and summer saw him struggling to crawl back out of the hole. Kate, Gibbs, Jeanne, Jenny. Every year, something as lost, and he was fighting the evidence that he'd lost too much of himself to survive this coming tragedy.
If it had been any other time of year, maybe he'd have hope. Not now, though. Not during May, suspended as they were between bitter winter and oppressively humid summer. Any other time, and he'd almost be able to believe that his desperate struggles might do some good. But now… now he fought as a dying man: painful, fruitless battles. He fought because he didn't remember how to do anything else. Because even knowing that May could bring no happy endings, he was simply unable to let go without at least trying to save them.
She'd lied to him, before, in the elevator. She'd lied to his face and he'd known in that moment just exactly what brand of pain he could expect this May. He thought, somewhat whimsically, that he should start taking the stairs. Through all those years of abrupt stopping and starting, the metal box remained miraculously unbroken. He'd fared significantly less well, since something in his life seemed to shatter every time the emergency stop as pulled. Yes, he really should just take the stairs.
The problem was, he knew this year would be significantly more painful than the others. Not because, as Ziva contended, he was jealous (although he was). And not even, as Abby suspected, because he loved her (although he did). No, this year he'd suffer because he quite honestly couldn't remember how he coped before her.
She had appeared out of nowhere before he'd even had the chance to fully comprehend the feel of Kate's blood on his face. She had teased him about phone sex and told him of his little sister and made him smile hen doing so had seemed an impossible task. When McGee mentioned fraternizing, only half in jest, he'd realized it had never occurred to him to think of her as the enemy.
A year later, when his world was still trembling from the impact of the explosion, she had appeared just as suddenly at his door with Thai food and a movie. In the flickering light, as Cary Grant walloped Jimmy Stewart, she'd casually declared that he'd do just fine and he'd forgotten to doubt her. The dust began to settle.
He'd snapped at her continually after the loss of Jeanne. He had screwed up after all. It was careless, and if there was one thing he wanted less than comfort, it was Mossad-style stiff upper lip speeches. Never one to back away from a challenge, she had all but browbeat him back to sanity.
And Jenny. She'd been glued to his side from the time he'd called Gibbs to the moment he'd boarded the plane. He didn't doubt for a second that she'd have ganged up with him against McGee, even knowing full well that she agreed with the Probie. She'd run interference with Abby. She'd settled his frantic mind.
He just wasn't sure that without the teasing and browbeating and unconditional acceptance he would be strong enough to make it to next May. Eleven months just wasn't enough time.
Lost as he was in these fatalistic thought, he still felt her approach before he heard it. Uncharacteristically hesitant, she paused several feet behind him. Distance he felt, was something he ought to get used to. He moved to regard her with solemn eyes. Her own caramel ones reflected his knowledge back at him in the warm spring air. It was all he needed.
"Tony-," her voice was soft with resignation.
He turned his back on her explanations as the sun began to fade into the skyline. He didn't ant to miss its departure. It was getting far too easy for things to slip away when he wasn't watching. As the orb dropped into dusky silence, he made his reply:
"No such thing as a happy ending in May."
That she didn't understand served to underline the truth of the situation.
He hadn't expected her to get it.