Title: Far into the Yellow Wood
Author: Wildpeace
Rating: K+
Summary: If you could change one thing to spare someone pain, would you? Metro Detective Anthony DiNozzo meets Israeli Prima Ballerina Ziva David, and nothing is ever the same again.
Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS, Tony, Ziva, Gibbs, Abby, Ducky, McGee or any of the other recognised characters that lie herein. I do not even really own Oliwia, but the real version is 4 years old and quite the kleptomaniac. She is however teaching me to say 'Merry Christmas' in Polish.
A/N: Quite honestly, I don't think I've ever worked as hard at a fic as I have at this one and mainly I have to thank the people who helped me wrestle ornery words into something like submission.
First G, who remembered she loves me more than she doesn't love AUs – thank you my darling.
Secondly, to the wonderful, talented and selfless: tigerlily25. I would not have been able to write this without your encouragement, your support and your lack of sleep. I owe you tons honey. Who else would have hand-held me through torture, too much wine, house arrest, and the tricky world of necrophilia? LOL! If anyone has not read the works of this wonderful writer, this wonderful person, I would implore you to do so. Witty banter comes as standard! :)
Reviews, comments and crit are always welcomed and appreciated.
XxX
The nothingness is overwhelming. In the dark, he can barely make out shadows and planes, though his eyes fight and strain against the black. His wrists chafe on coiled rope, wrapped tight and binding, and his ankles bend and bleed onto the dry floor. His voice hoarse with panicked overuse and enforced silence, he chokes his pleas into the empty room.
His head aches. The copper smell makes him retch.
Hadn't there been someone here a moment ago?
Hadn't he been somewhere else?
Music plays in his head and echoes in his ears. He can't quite name it, can't quite remember the lulling melody, the soaring harmony. His muscles clench in argument against their previous battery, but he cannot grant them solace. All he can think about are long tanned legs, arched in practiced elegance, swinging in unconscious innocence that was always belied by her eyes.
He screws his eyes shut. He would rather be tormented and his eyes pecked out then stare another second at the crimson marks that paint the floor, spread like webs and vines, the only thing that seems bright in the darkness.
Biting on his lip until broken skin makes liquid flow against his teeth, he wonders how he ended up here. Did they always end up here?
Could it ever end somewhere else?
XxX
Dim orange arcs of light bounce off of the rain-slick roads and sidewalks, casting the world in a strange, sombre glow as he goes to pick Abby up for their evening together. Though they haven't dated for two years ("We never dated, Tony. Six weeks of sex isn't dating"), he remains her 'plus one' for all serious occasions. This, despite her recent dalliance with the new, green NCIS agent Tim McGee, who he has only met in passing when picking up his happy Goth from work.
Abby lives on the third floor and there are 33 steps up to her apartment. He knocks on the door with a practiced rhythm and waits.
Abby's dark dress swishes around her knees and her black hair hangs shiny and loose around her shoulders – a change from her regular pigtails. Today is an auspicious occasion. Her lips are painted a deep, dark red and she presses them firmly against his cheek, smoothing her fingers along the soft, well-tailored material of his Ermenegildo Zegna tuxedo.
He teases her. " Emily the Strange is all grown up!" and she chuckles in his ear, allowing him to wrap the black embroidered shawl around her shoulders.
They have known each other for nearly three years – after the case he was working with Metro had crashed head-on with an NCIS investigation - and he ended up working alongside the Navy's cops. He had first been terrified by the sight of her, by the tattoos, scattered voodoo dolls and ear-splitting music, but as he had gotten to know her, they had somehow fallen first into bed, and then into an easy, lasting friendship.
" How's work?" Abby asks, straightening his tie with black painted nails.
Metro Detective Anthony DiNozzo fights to hide the wince. " Work is work."
He cannot hide the circles under his eyes.
XxX
The light, when it finally comes, is blinding. Dark eyes stare at him, and dark fists paint dark marks against his face and limbs and torso. At some point, a tooth is loosened, and rattles round in his jaw until he spits it into the dirt. It lies where it falls, glistening like a shard of bone, like a white flag of surrender. A tombstone; a way of marking his inevitable death.
Nothing is inevitable.
XxX
The ballet was Ducky's idea – a fitting way to celebrate his 76th birthday, he argued. And the Israeli Ballet Company had arrived in town only three weeks before, with their much-celebrated production of Giselle. Tony had seen the posters around the district – the lithe, limber brunette, caught mid-arabesque, her dark eyes wide and haunting, her limbs stretched and taut. In a passing way, he thought of her as beautiful, like the women in magazines, or the stars of his beloved movies. But she was alien, not part of the pavement pounding, cold coffee, suspect-searching life he led.
Abby kisses McGee on their arrival, making Tony poke her in the side as a tease.
Folding her arms across her chest, Abby pouts her crimson lips. " I knew I shouldn't have invited you."
" The Duckster invited me Abs. That man's loved me since the moment he met me. You dump me, two years later, he still keeps me around."
In the theatre, his knee presses against Abby's and his palms brush the soft velvet of the armrests. He can feel Gibbs' eyes on the back of his head, unreadable bright blues studying him as he tries to sit perfectly stock-still. He half listens as Ducky tells his tales of wine and women and county jails, and is unerringly curious about how on earth Ducky had managed to push a French policeman off a cliff. He still feels Gibbs' steel gaze upon him. He sighs with relief as the orchestra begins to swell and the lights dim.
The Israeli ballerinas are uniformly beautiful. Fused with elegance and exoticism, their movements are drilled and perfect. They bourée across the antique wood of the floorboards in unfaltering unison.
When Giselle enters the state, the other ballerinas are left in the dark. While they are beautiful, she is pristine. Tanned skin is all angles and defiance, raised chin to the ceiling and impeccable timing. White lace ebbs around her body, following the lines of her movement like water lapping against the shore. Dark curls lay slick against her forehead and behind her ears.
She reaches the young man dancing Albrecht, and her face lights up in the perfect impression of adoration. Her steps fall in tandem with his as they twist and turn across the stage, falling in love in a single dance.
Tony is not the only one transfixed.
XxX
He twists in his chair, trying to ease the pressure on his spine, on his legs. His ribs creak and arch, stabbing him gently in the lung, as though in protest. Licking his parchment-dry lips, he finally finds words.
" Who are you?"
From the shadows, the response is swift. " I think the question is, who are you?"
XxX
He waits for the valet in the biting winter cold, and huddles against the wind, wishing he hadn't waylaid his overcoat in favour of vanity. His lungs take air in and out, whistling their disapproval, and Ducky shoots him a concerned glance. " Dear boy - " he begins, but Tony cuts him off with his patented 'charm smile' and a firm hand on the shoulder.
" It's fine," he promises with only the faintest trace of a lie. " I got my flu shot yesterday like a good little boy."
As the others leave, the sky is black. Abby's lips are red, McGee's ears are pink, and Gibbs gaze is steady and blue. The moon reflects silver on the water.
" You want me to wait?" Abby's voice rings through the night, and her bright eyes are round and loving. He kisses her on the forehead like a little girl and sends her off. In the end, he waits alone.
Ten minutes later the valet has still not found his car, and he shifts from foot to foot and swallows down his irritation. Most of the crowds have dissipated, so the voice, when it shouts, cuts through the whipping wind.
Instinct and training kick in at the same time, and have him ignoring the baffled valet and setting off at a half run around the corner of the building, his hand floating over his hip where his gun normally rests.
The woman's small stature is belied by the burning look of annoyance in her eyes. Dark curls tumble down the back of a champagne-coloured Macintosh that does nothing to disguise the graceful curves of her body. Tony would have recognised her anywhere – Giselle. Her arm is trapped in the heated grip of a man who stands over her. His hair is a flash across his forehead, high and tight, and his looming is close and purposeful.
" Hey!" Tony's voice breaks their standoff, and the man lets go of her wrist. She stumbles back after the release, banging her head on the wall, her shoulder scraping the brick. With a flash of his eyes and spat words that are lost to the wind and encroaching rain, the man takes off into the shadows.
In an instant, Tony stands across from the brunette. His fingers wrap around her shoulders. She flinches, twisting her face away from his. " It's okay," he promises, reaching for his badge as she reaches for her bangs, pushing the long curls back from her face. " I'm a cop."
Her face is sceptical. " Police?"
" Metro Detective Anthony DiNozzo."
The woman known to him as Giselle has eyes that are chocolate and shadows. She licks her lips with a darting pink tongue. " I am Ziva," she finally speaks, and her accent is rich and full of history.
" Are you okay?"
" Thank you, I am fine. I just need to get back to my hotel. Do you know where I can get a taxi from here?"
" You'll be waiting forever," he warns as he falls into step with her, out of the shadows and towards his waiting car. " It was a packed show tonight."
As the valet finally drops his keys in his outstretched hand, her eyes trail from his head to his toes, appearing to size him up. " Could you drive me home?"
XxX
In the corner of the room, in a corner hidden from his gaze and swathed in shadows, a voice groans, the volume ebbing in and out like the tide. The voice is familiar, but unknown, and he tries to call out, but gets no response. " Hello?" he calls, " Hello? Are you all right? Can you untie me? Can you help me?"
The dark corner falls silent.
XxX
In the car the streets are blurred with rain. Blues and oranges mingle and swirl on the windshield, and Sinatra croons gently on the stereo. Ziva-who-was-Giselle angles her body towards his and blows hot breath into her cupped hands. Her curls fall over her shoulders in silky pirouettes.
" So you dance?" He stumbles over the words, hindered by his infatuated teeth and lustful tongue.
Wry amusement spreads like watery ink from the corners of her mouth. " Since I was a young child. Professionally since I was twenty."
He combs through years of words and pictures: images of toe shoes and tutus and biographies of famous spinning women. Anna Pavlova winks at him from the depths of his memory. " Isn't twenty kind of late?"
" After my service," she explains, and her rod-straight back and neatly folded hands suddenly make sense.
" Israeli women serve in the Army," he remembers, picturing her wrapped in khaki, tightly tied hair and his sidearm in her small and slender grasp. " Does that mean you know how to kill me?"
Her fingers dance from his knee and up his thigh, leaving him squirming in his seat.
" In many, many ways."
XxX
The blows are frequent and varied, a barrage against his senses. His voice has disappeared into the dry air, and so when a fist cracks his cheek, he can do nothing but gasp. Bile creeps into the back of his throat like the doubt creeping into his mind.
Will he ever get out of here? Will the bonds ever loosen?
He is hit again, this time with such force that the chair he is tied to topples over. Gravity smashes his head into the floor, and his arms pull so hard against the ropes that he feels his shoulder slide out of joint.
Finally, a scream breaks loose, and rips into the night.
XxX
Ziva's lips are warm and soft, and eager. Her pen scratches out a series of numbers against his skin and his eyes follow the movement, committing the inky lustful pattern to memory. " Can I ask you for coffee?"
" You can ask me to bed."
" Will you say yes?"
Her laughter is low and rich and her lips hover somewhere between his cheek and his mouth. Her fingers still tease his thigh. " No." Then, " But ask me again. Second time is a charm, yes?"
He's too polite to correct her, too willing, if she is, to race towards his desired conclusion.
As she slides from his car into the disapproving marble structure of her hotel, she waves her fingers at him. " Laila tov, Tony."
He watches her disappear. " Buonanotte Ziva."