A/U of the post apocalypto variety. Blame my recent binge of Walking Dead and the finals week looming ahead.
Let me know what you think, eh?
jae
"Filet Mignon."
A humbled laugh carries in the breeze. Brown eyes squint gently in the setting sun. She can barely make out the barn in the glow, but it may be better that way.
"Chicken," he calls softly, playing along but also mocking her hesitation. He slings his axe through the air. He flashes her a grin, watches her bring the bow up to eye-level.
He counts two less arrows than they had yesterday.
"Duck," A smile curls her lips, and he hears the arrow whiz by his ear and the tell-tale grunt of a target being met.
They settle for the last of a granola bar at the bottom of his bag.
"We're wasting arrows."
He swallows.
"We're wasting time."
Fifty-two lines cut in the leather of his badge help him track the days. At thirty-seven they crossed the Mississippi. At twenty-four they were separated. At sixteen they were helping Gibbs gather wood. It was after Ducky went missing. After Palmer was dragged off. After McGee left to track down Abby.
"You think he's finished his boat?"
Ziva casts her eyes down to his head resting on her thigh. He continues to glance up at the stars.
They both know it wasn't a boat he was building.
Boats don't start out as long, wooden boxes.
He shouldn't be surprised how quickly she became adept at the bow.
A lot of things no longer surprise him since the world went to hell.
They find refuge near an abandoned quarry for two days when she goes out for food and is gone twice as long. He'll remember the day for the weeks and months to follow, because it's the day he almost blows his brains out, and the day he almost blows her's out, too.
"What the hell were you thinking?" He roars, as she staggers into the clearing and he lowers his gun. She ignores the outburst just as she ignores the tears tracking down his cheek. He can't as easily ignore the dried blood staining her neck, her arm, her clothes. Nor the gaunt, terrifying look haunting her eyes.
He's seen that look before.
He doesn't let her out of his sight after that.
They stumble upon a hive a stone's throw from an abandoned town. The desert wasteland leaves them little shelter, and they're forced to retreat to a ransacked country store that holds a closet big enough for maybe one of them but ends up accommodating two.
She's suddenly everywhere and the heat that passes through them has little to do with the scorching summer day outside. But it's a good thing the sound of scraping nails and haunting groans give him ample distraction. The only thing keeping the Walkers out are her arms pulling at the door, keeping it shut tight with an iron grip.
He fidgets, taking his hand off her ass when he realizes where he placed it. He tries to wiggle it between their bodies to her hip.
"Hand me your knife."
Even in the dark, he can practically hear her eyes roll.
"I will get right to that."
Against his back, the door jingles and bucks.
Sometime after sunset, the abating stench of death tells them they have given up. For now.
"Should we run for it?"
Her cheek brushes his neck, and he knows what that head tilt means.
She's calculating the sudden stillness behind the door, the sound of dragging feet, the weight of their footfalls.
The strength she has left.
"Ten minutes." Her lips brush over his skin. Salty with sweat. Her arms clinging to the door throb. She relaxes her head against his him, and he lets her.
Thump, thump, thump.
The burning in her arms' muscles make her reconsider, as does the sound of his heartbeat against her ear.
"Maybe twenty."
The day she allows him to be turned is the day she turns a bullet on herself.
They decide to nix exploring the town and head west on foot.
He sidesteps a slain walker as she reaches down to pull an arrow from its heart. A tumbleweed tangles between their feet, and his eyes scan the desert wasteland for any sign of demons on the horizon.
He really hates the desert.
The violent shot she makes between an approaching Walker's eyes tells him he must have murmured the sentiment aloud, and as she lunges forward to finish the kill, he doesn't have to wonder whose face she imagines as her blade cuts the Walker's head clean from its neck.
Her nightmares return that night.
He curls an arm around her to still her flailing, the way he's learned works, and watches the embers of the fire glow with dying heat. She stills, but her whimpers continue on.
The nightmares don't leave her. But then again, had they ever left at all?
"Pizza."Bitter juice explodes between his teeth. He times his chews with the next toss. One, two, three.
She laughs just as her tongue darts out to catch the berry he lobs her, a sly glint in her eye.
"Mahi." Her pursed lips are stained purple, and he wonders what it would taste like if he just crawled forward and ….
"A burger. Extra bacon. Extra cheese." He jerks to catch the berry she arcs above his head. He brings his hand up to pinch one of the berries between his fingers, examining it closely. The blurred image of her face becomes focused as she looms closer.
"And for dessert?"
Her breath tickles his face, lips only inches from his. He drops his hand with the berries, inhaling deeply.
He doesn't need to think twice about that.
They find water in the next city. Kill five Walkers in the next. Fight all day on foot. Then don't talk for two. Head south after stumbling on a hive. Almost die in the city after that. Finally sleep with each other in Paris, Texas.
(The irony is not lost on him.)
They don't talk about it for four towns, twenty Walkers, and a state later.
He thinks for two pretty efficient and adept ex- federal agents, they could be so stupid at times.
They make it to New Mexico two days before Gibbs had planned to meet them.
Ziva runs her brush over her sig, over and over though he's sure no dirt must remain.
"Are you afraid he won't show?" He gives voice to the fear gnawing at his insides.
Ziva's hand trembles slightly, lowering the brush. Her accent is thick in his ears. It doesn't ease his trepidation. "I am afraid," She cradles the weapon in her hand, then shoves the mag into the chamber. "Of what will."
The click of the weapon's safety sends shivers down his spine.
They wait three nights before moving on.
"Rule forty-three."
Ziva gives the hillside one last sweep, then bends to grab the earth-caked bag at her feet. Her eyes fall swiftly to her side where he tucks knife into his belt. He answers her silent look.
"No news is good news."
Ziva gives a hollow laugh. Those were the words he had said as they watched the plasma, the new stations, the reports; listening, waiting – for the world to fall apart.
"At least he had one rule right."
Tony grunts in what she takes as agreement, though it could be from the force of which he slings a knife over her shoulder.
She reaches for his side, closing her fist on the knife blade at his waist, and waits two beats for the Walker to move in range.
He stumbles on a hillside as rocks shift too quickly beneath him, and before he knows it, he's sliding down, down, down.
The last thing he remembers is the warmth of her hand that brushes with his a breath of a second too late.
He wakes with a throbbing headache that's quickly forgotten by the complete agony that is his foot.
She hushes him, shoving his face into her stomach and allows the cotton to absorb his screams, watching the veins in his neck bulge. She rocks him as, eyes wild, she scans the darkness beside the mountain with intensity, because the shrill sound of his screaming is enough to wake the dead.
And this is exactly what she's afraid of.
She has to set the bone right.
He gives her a stony nod in unwilling agreement and she sets to work; pushing him comfortably against a log, collects the last of the ibuprofen they have, rinses an old, cotton tee and wrings it out in the river bank. He tries to give her his most reassuring expression as she pauses with the rope in her hand, but it doesn't even begin to assuage the guilt that's taken up residence in her troubled eyes. But it's necessary, and they both know it. So instead he attempts to lighten the mood as she goes to knot the ropes around his limbs.
"If you wanted to tie me up, Ziva, you should have just asked."
A hollow laugh escapes her as she finishes a knot at his good ankle, fishing the other end of it through a broken log. She leans over him to wipe the sweat dripping from his brow, dropping her eyes lower before pressing a soft, long kiss to his lips. Momentarily, he thinks it might alleviate the coming pain. But nausea rolls through his stomach the moment she leans back, and her warm hands leave his chest and close around his ankle.
"Hold still," she commands. "And for the love of God, try not to scream."
"You are fifty shades of green."
His arms strain against the rope, and oh, the irony.
"Grey," he hisses, but allows himself to smile at the distraction.
They stay off their feet for a week even though it could mean a death sentence. As soon as he's able to hobble, they leave without looking back.
They steer clear from cliff-sides after that.
Together they take out a hive, the biggest they've come across, in a town somewhere in what he thinks could be the midwest. He's lost track these days.
Ziva lays low on a rooftop, a building that towers over what remains of a market center. The dead come from sewers, from boarded up buildings, from alleyways that criss cross in all directions.
They're surrounded until they're not, and though they collapse, exhausted and spent, leaning against the cool concrete of the building roof, it didn't go unnoticed by him that she made every shot.
He doesn't know anguish until the following afternoon.
They find evidence of what was a refugee base in a cluster of warehouses off a two-lane interstate. It is with trepidation they approach the large, imposing building nearest to the wooded area – their best chance at shelter. She picks the locks much less quickly these days, and he doesn't have to wonder as to why, because what could be hiding behind these doors isn't anything they ever wish to unleash.
She feels his eyes on her butt when she sits up, hand poised on the knob, because it tingles in that familiar way, and she takes a moment to swat him as he brushes her back behind his body – a signal that he will clear the building first.
He smirks as pushes open the door.
Old habits die hard.
"I never liked these kind of movies."
He steps over a bucket, holding his hand over his mouth, his nose. Ziva kicks at a sleeping bag and shoots it when it moves, her expression unmoving, not missing a beat.
"Because of the way they begin?"
They stop outside a cracked door in the back of the warehouse. His eyes fall to the floor, and he stoops to pick up a teddy bear that knew better days.
He swallows harshly. Something shifts beyond the door.
"Because of how they end."
He counts nine of them in total. And he can't call them children, not really, not anymore. Ziva deals the two grown Walkers that come at them beyond the door, but refuses to look away as Tony lines his sight and delivers nine unflinching bullets to the first of what she knows are many to come. Something stirs in what was a cheap, flimsy cradle as they make to leave the room. His hand is shaking at this point, but his gun remains remarkably steady as she raises her arm in tandem with his and fires at the same time. They leave the teddy bear in the cradle.
He's not sure whose bullet delivered the swift release of death.
It's better that way.
He wakes from his nightmare only to enter another. After a few shuddering breaths he becomes aware of Ziva murmuring against his ear.
"Tony, Tony. Shh, Tony."
His hand tunnels into her curls with urgency, pulling her against him until he can bring his lips to hers. He just needs to feel something, anything, anything but this. She rids her shirt quickly and his pants were discarded hours ago when the sun was setting, obscured by the trees encompassing their campsite and so he makes quick work of hers, crawling over her to settle his hips between hers and attack her mouth with his. She has to stop him when his hands reach between them, gripping her underwear because it's the last barrier between them.
"Tony," She pants, "We have to stop. We have to stop."
She's right, he knows. They were foolish before. To take the risk.
If it happened. If this happened. If it were their child he'd have to take out –
"I am here," she murmurs, as he collapses in defeat against her, his body heaving with dry sobs. She strokes her hand down his back, up and down, up and down.
"I am here."
If living on this planet wasn't already a death sentence, bringing a child into this world was.
He can't imagine. Couldn't.
Wouldn't.
Ziva tends to his ankle as he slips knives and guns in between his clothes and hers. "Hey," he murmurs, securing a knife in her sheath. She looks up from his ankle, bringing her hand up to where his still presses against her hip.
"I love you."
She leans over to kiss him, smiling.
It's the first time he has said it aloud. But it's not the first time he's said it.
It is unspoken in everything he does.
She finishes the knot of the bandage, regards him with a smile.
"I love you, too."
"So tell me again, Tony." She pants, reaching the top of the hill facing the deep, winding valley below. "How does this movie end?"
They pause as their eyes fall upon a tent. Two camping chairs stir beside it. Slowly, the gaunt faces of Walkers turn to look at them, dead and unseeing.
Sighing tiredly, they raise their weapons in sync as the dead begin to stand.
Their fingers pause over their triggers.
From across the valley, a shot echoes unmistakably, and before their eyes the Walkers drop, cold and unmoving. Immediately they drop, eyes scanning far and wide for the source of the shot.
Tony reaches for the cracked binoculars around his neck, focusing where Ziva points.
A grin spreads across his face. The first in days.
"We make it to the sequel, sweetcheeks."
Across the valley, a long, forgotten voice echoes.
"Don't just sit there," In the sun, his steely, white hair shines.
"Grab your gear. Let's move."