Author's Note: This is a story about one person's recurring battle with depression. Yes, I played around with canon a bit. I loved S11's "Once a Crook." But - as always - I kind of wanted Tony to go completely off the rails. This is also my way of closing the book on the idea of Tony and Ziva. I guess it's time to move on. So here's some more hackneyed, emotion-wrought tripe for your viewing (dis)pleasure.
Summary: He thought he couldn't do this without her. Turns out he could.
Rating: T (FFN), FR15 (NFA); mentions of suicide
BLACK DOG
I.
He splits his life into two parts: pre-Ziva and post-Ziva. He could add a third part, if he chooses, and he could call it during-Ziva, but that sounds awkward. Although if he thinks more about it, he could choose to call it present-Ziva, or maybe just time-spent-with-Ziva. But sometimes it's easier to pretend there was no time at all that spanned from pre-Ziva to post-Ziva.
It's a blur. A happy, perfect blur. Sometimes hard, but mostly… nice.
He's tired of thinking about it. Feeling it. Her absence has long gone stale, like a week-old loaf of bread left out on the counter, no protective wrapper. The mold collects and grows. Throw it away; he's gotta throw it away.
But he also has to wonder.
Is she somewhere out there - twisted up, bent all out of shape - spinning in ever widening circles, mourning this lost expanse of years?
All of it wasted time and wasted effort and wasted emotion.
Does she care?
How long does he have to care until he doesn't have to care anymore?
Is there a statute of limitations on heartache? Or on recurring themes of abandonment and disappointment? Is there a point in time when it would be appropriate to wake the fuck up and resume a normal existence?
He isn't himself these days. He knows this with uncomfortable intimacy. It takes him longer to jack off, and not in a good way. It's a major concern, for a DiNozzo.
After all, DiNozzos do not wallow in lovelorn grief. DiNozzos hardly have the instinct to form lifelong attachments. That's not how it's supposed to work. Not for him. Right?
He's being dramatic. DiNozzos are dramatic.
"Uh, Tony?" McGee begins to say. He looks bothered in that inhibited way of his; he doesn't like to offend anybody with his being offended. "Your fly is open."
And sure enough it is. That affects him as much as he's affected by anything else in this post-Ziva era. Which means he isn't affected at all.
"Thanks, Tim."
The workday has officially begun.
II.
He decides to split his life into two new parts. Actually, new-old parts, but he supposes he's damaged and bleeding on the inside out, so he's allowed these liberties. They are as follows: pre-breakdown and post-breakdown. Again, there could be a third part: The Actual Breakdown.
He likes these new labels. They're nuanced and flexible. He can spend time thinking about them. He's not immune to the fact that it's time not spent thinking about Ziva, even if - in that ever roundabout way - he still is thinking about Ziva.
He could apply these labels to different parts of his life. They are not fixed in time. They are fluid. He could make diagrams and charts to illustrate this. Venn, flow, pie, pros and cons. The possibilities are endless. He needs a new obsession. This is as good as any.
During a lunch break that is rapidly exceeding the allotted hour, he stops at Walgreens and buys a ten-pack of Crayola markers, several poster boards, scissors, a purple glue stick, multi-color construction paper. He smiles at the checkout girl and uses a credit card. He donates a dollar for breast cancer research when the keypad prompts him to do so.
He gathers up his purchases and starts for the door. There's a large box to his right, a quarter of it filled with school supplies. Number 2 pencils, steno pads, erasers, calculators, reams of white paper. He pauses. An elderly lady bumps into him with a cart laden with discount toilet paper and kitty litter. He dumps everything into the box and leaves.
When he reaches his car, keys digging into his palm, the weak autumn sun is boring into his eyes. He turns around and walks back. He waits a beat - impatient - as the automatic door slides open. He almost bangs his shoulder on it.
He grabs a backpack off of a peg and finds he doesn't give a shit about the price. He begins to fill it with pens, protractors, rulers, wide-ruled notebooks, day planners, color pastels, Sponge Bob folders. He stuffs it full to the brim, so full that zippering it shut would be a fruitless effort. It takes the checkout girl ten whole minutes to scan every item, and after he pays with that same credit card (one more dollar to help fight breast cancer), all of it gets dumped into the box. It makes a satisfying noise.
Damn, that felt good.
The few people shopping nearby don't turn around, and they don't smile. It's 2:35 PM on a weekday. They have nowhere to be except here. They continue to shop, moseying around on a quest for aspirin or wrapping paper or a bottle of soda.
Everything here, it's gloriously anonymous. He doesn't know them, and they don't know him.
This is the best he's felt in weeks.
"Where the Hell have you been?" Gibbs asks when he arrives back at the office. Very late, he knows, but he spent twenty extra minutes buying himself a strawberry-banana smoothie and watching ducks swim around in circles at the park. He's got a seed stuck between his teeth to prove it.
But he doesn't want to explain what he's just experienced, so his answer is dismissive. Distracted. The usual order of things. "Traffic's a nightmare, Boss. I swear."
Gibbs is pissed for the rest of the day.
III.
That night, he decides he'll split his life into two completely new parts: pre-career and post-career. He comes up with several sub-parts, because - really - there are so many parts that create the whole of who he is. If he thinks about it, he could transcend the pall of depression that's overcome him post-Ziva. She isn't the sum of his whole. He doesn't need her, or the idea of her, or the promise that some day she'll drop from a mother-fucking cloud and save him from himself.
It's bullshit.
She had been a crutch temporarily holding back the crazy. Crazy, according to him, but maybe it's more of a black hole - sucking and vacuous and cold - according to others.
No, let's be real, Anthony, he says to himself, alone in his apartment, nothing but white painted walls, expensive possessions, and a rapidly aging goldfish to hear him out. He'll get another. Soon.
Granted, tonight he's drinking heavily, so sense isn't really what he's set on making. He's working his way through his vast knowledge of mixology. He keeps his dry bar stocked for one major reason: nights like these.
One day blends into the next in a never-ending recurring cycle.
He donates more school supplies. He puts a portion of his paycheck towards it. His goal is to fill up an entire box. Two boxes. Three.
He drinks a lot. Talks in circles and makes excuses for himself.
"Uh, Tony." It's McGee again. "What are you doing here?"
He sits down and considers at what point he'd like to get back on that horse again. Today maybe. Or tomorrow. "I work here," he answers.
But McGee is still talking: "Don't you remember?"
"Remember what?" He's annoyed - at Tim, at his desk chair that seems slightly off-kilter, at the bongo drum beat going on in his head. Last night, like all of the other nights that predated it, had been a disaster; Kate the goldfish had nothing new to say.
"You didn't hear what Gibbs said?"
"What did he say?"
"He said you're done until you can get your shit together."
He tries not to look horrified, even though he is… Deep down somewhere, underneath that ever-thickening layer of uncaring. He succeeds, barely, although right now he looks like he might vomit. "Exact words, Tim?" He has to strangle back the half-hinged laugh that's lurking somewhere just above his Adam's apple.
"I kind of agree with him, Tony-"
"I have my shit together; it's all good. So just shut up over there. You're talking too loud anyway. Giving me a headache." He thinks he can dismiss McGee easily enough, like a gnat buzzing around in his ear. But Tim is much like a terrier.
"Tony-"
"I said-"
And a terrier will not be silenced. Or interrupted. "I agree with him, Tony. I'm not working with you out in the field. Not when you're like this. Sorry, but I won't."
That settles it, and he's left absolutely floored.
"I'm so sorry, Tony."
McGee never forgets to apologize.
IV.
If he's honest with himself, he'd admit this whole mess started long before Ziva. Long before he even met Ziva. Long before he even knew Ziva existed.
Whether they call it a mood disorder or not, he knows it's an ebb and flow, like an ocean tide. Sometimes worse. Sometimes better. Sometimes so extreme that it uproots entire towns and drags them away. As far back as he can remember, he's limped from disaster to disaster, weathering the consequences like a buoy at sea.
He's strong; he knows he is. Someone else might have given up already, but he hasn't and it's not currently in his plans. But he also knows how plans have the tendency to change.
He lies in bed for hours and wonders where the next turn is. Right now, he doesn't know; this road has grown dark and all of the cross-streets are unmarked.
If he's honest with himself, he'd admit that Ziva was the latest trigger. That bullet has already left the chamber. It's funny; he thought it would hurt more than this. But in reality, he can't feel anything at all. The novocaine numbness spreads out like a cancer.
When he takes his car through the back streets, traveling the route by memory, he sees things he's never noticed before. A hubcap leaning against a stop sign. A group of grocery carts abandoned in an overgrown parking lot, the painted lines long faded away by the weather. A tiny structure that dispenses nothing but bulk ice.
He prolongs his wanderings. There's too many things left unseen by those preoccupied with life. Not having the energy to do anything but watch has offered him a whole new world to explore.
V.
"We're scared for you," she says from where she hovers in the kitchen. The clock on the wall has run out of batteries. It's stuck at a quarter past three. The second hand lurches in place like some dying creature. Stubborn, yet its fate is inevitable.
"There's no need for that, Abs. But thanks. Really. I'm okay." He feels like he's floating, like his head is drifting towards the ceiling, attached by nothing but a balloon string. "I'll be back - right as rain - soon enough. You'll see."
Abby is so full of emotion. She wrings her hands until the skin becomes bone white and taut. "I'm afraid we're losing you," she admits.
"I'm right here."
The drugs do this to him; they fight the good fight for him, because right now, he can't fight it for himself. His body reacts in strange ways to pharmaceuticals. He doesn't know why except that it's always been that way. When he was little, before his mother got sick, he once spent an entire week in a whacked out stupor. And another time, after she died - and even though his father was frantic to figure out what kind of chemical anomaly was stealing his little one away - the funk lasted for weeks.
"We'll figure it out," they say. "We'll get this right. Here are some exercises to try…"
But this is the nature of the beast. He wonders how he can seem so okay on the outside yet feel so sick on the inside.
He wonders when he became so fucked up.
He wonders when he wasn't so fucked up.
He's fought so hard to overcome.
"I'm right here," he repeats while Abby anxiously looks on. "Where I've always been."
She waits with him through that night. Waits until daybreak comes again, because that's what they're all doing lately. Waiting until this insidious, invisible thing relinquishes its hold.
VI.
He needs new parts to divide his life into. The other ones have gone rancid and rotten with age. He desperately needs something new, but he's run out of ideas.
Some mornings, he paces his apartment and glares at the clutter he has allowed to gather. He hates the tight, constricting space it has become. It's the cage of his self-enforced quarantine. He avoids his friends, especially Gibbs. It's always best to go underground until the emotional rollercoaster begins to slow. Until the ground reappears under his feet.
Gibbs has grown frustrated. "Snap out of it, DiNozzo," he's said. "C'mon."
He's trying as hard as he can, but he knows there's still something missing.
It's not Ziva. That ship has sailed what feels like years ago. He's stuck to the shore, running along the thinning ribbon of sand and trying to keep up. But he can't keep up. The tide rises nearer and nearer. He'll drown, and he'll admit it would be a small mercy.
No, he knows it's not her. She's not what he's missing at all.
This time, he's completely honest with himself.
He's always been this way; it's always been there, lurking beneath the veneer of okay. This is his battle.
This time, he'll drown.
VII.
The sun rises yet again. It's late November, approaching December. The trees are bare, and the sky's gray like a sheet of stainless steel. McGee visits early, bringing with him a kind smile, sprinkled doughnuts, and two coffees. He looks like he's dressed for work.
"I heard a rumor that you're feeling better," McGee says while they sit at the kitchen table, across from one another.
It's nice of McGee to say such a thing, even if the reality is that he feels like he's backsliding into an even deeper, blacker hole. He's tired. It's a fatigue that wraps up his bones in what feels like thick cellophane. All he's done today is roll out of bed. He wonders if it's possible to keel over and die from nothing at all.
But even so, he feels like McGee has just offered him some sort of gift. Simple companionship, maybe. He's felt so alone for so long. So he replies, voice genuine and unusually transparent, "That's nice of you to say, Tim."
"It's true. Come on." McGee watches him closely. He has this odd expression that's both fierce and encouraging. McGee is trying to find his friend.
"What?" He has to ask, because he knows this expression. It only comes around when McGee is trying to solve some sort of problem. He doesn't like that it's now directed at himself.
"I know," McGee suddenly says.
Tony stays quiet. He looks away.
McGee continues, "I know how it feels. I know how it follows you around, always. I know. Please, don't shut us out."
He doesn't know what to say. He's suddenly realizing the presence of his own self, un-showered and groggy. It's strange how easy it is to live inside your own head, until something real, something made from flesh and blood, knocks you out of it. All he can mumble is this: "Bet you would have never guessed."
VIII.
He feels the weight of a weapon on his hip as he leaves his apartment. It's a familiar companion, a longtime friend through thick and thin.
It's what he knows, and it might be the last thing he feels.
He takes a trip to nowhere, passing up familiar landmarks, familiar streets, neighbors he may or may not yet know. He ends up at the coast. It might as well be the edge of the Earth. It's beautiful and sad. Both. The day is giving way to night, the sky smooth with a whimsical scattering of emerging stars and swirling cirrus clouds. He stands against the wind and watches as the fishing vessels fade into distant pinpricks on the subtle nexus of water and sky.
He debates the necessity of what he has planned. Cell phone turned off. No lo-jack in his personal vehicle. He walks alongside the surf. It's too late in the season to wade around in the waves, but he feels like doing it anyway. The wind cuts through his light jacket, cuts right to the quick. The joggers work hard against it; they give him a wide berth.
He feels crazy.
Genuinely nuts.
He hasn't felt like this in years.
He knows of a guy who did it in the parking lot of CVS, 68 tablets of Xanax. He knows of another guy who aimed two centimeters too far to the left. Now he does nothing but shit and piss all over himself. He knows of a drug addict who hung himself with a length of Ethernet cord rather than suffer through prison again. He knows of someone else who went out at sunrise, sat on the edge of the 15th green of his golf course community, and left a gory mess all over the sand trap.
Decent people.
He picks at sea shells. Keeps the beautiful ones, throws back the broken ones, and finds that he can't do it.
He just can't.
Not now and probably not ever.
Gibbs picks him up close to midnight. He drives silently, headlights from the opposing side of traffic passing over his face. He looks like he hasn't slept in weeks. Gibbs looks old.
"They found you floating naked beyond the breakers," Gibbs says. "Clothes left folded up on the sand, along with your gun."
"Stargazing." His teeth chatter.
"That water's fifty degrees, DiNozzo. Are you going to tell me what the hell your problem is lately? And don't tell me it's because of Ziva."
"It's not."
"Then what is it?"
"Take me back so I can get my car."
Gibbs shakes his head. "You try to check out on me again, Tony, and I'll drown you myself."
X.
He stops at Walgreens for the first time in weeks, but the school supply box is gone. Just the wooden pallet it once rested on remains. He already has a bundle of merchandise in his arms. Why hasn't he noticed until now? He pauses and stares. People move around him. Busy strangers.