Title: What Could Have Been
Author: Tearsofamiko
Rating: K
Disclaimer: I've looked high and low but there don't seem to be any hot federal agents hiding in my room, so I guess I don't own them.
Spoilers: Requiem
Summary: Even when it all said and done, it's the 'might-have-beens' that kill you.
The cold, dark water closed around him, pulling at him. He tried, wildly threw his arms out, tried to swim down, tried to reach the car. Just as he touched the cold metal, he looked through the window and saw the blank, empty gaze meet his in the watery darkness. A scream built in his throat as he realized the truth: he was too late.
Abruptly, Tony sat upright, shocked out of sleep by the image in his dream, the ache of the unvoiced scream gripping his throat. He buried his face in his hands, panting, almost sobbing, and tried to shake off the panic. In the darkness of his bedroom, as the sweat cooled on his face, he slowly managed to separate the dream from reality. He lay back in his bed and let the relief wash over him, let it drown out the panic. And as he finally began to relax, his thoughts drifted to the day before.
It wasn't unusual for his boss to go off, half-cocked, to follow clues from his gut. Gibbs' gut was normally right, anyway, so it didn't matter if a short-cut or two were taken. This time, however, Tony had seen indications of more than just Gibbs' hunches controlling his actions. And Tony should have acted sooner on his own guess that things were – as Abby would say – hinky. As it was, he'd barely been in time.
Nothing he'd ever felt before compared to the horrible, nauseating panic that had filled him as he watched that silver car roar backward into the harbor. With the fence too tall to jump, he'd had to run through the warehouse, deal with the remaining kidnappers, and the delay tore at him. He had known he had precious little time to get to his boss and had wasted as little time as possible in getting to the harbor.
He'd barely made it in time.
The water had been so cold, stealing what little breath he had left after diving in. It had pulled at him, holding him back, but he finally reached the car.
He'd barely made it in time.
The car refused to allow him access; the doors wouldn't open and he was frantic to get inside. So he pulled the windshield away and took Maddie as Gibbs shoved her at him. Getting her on the dock had been near to impossible but he'd managed it. And when Gibbs didn't appear, he dived back in.
He'd barely made it in time.
He was moving sluggishly now, his chest burning with the effort. But he refused to dwell on it. His boss' blank eyes had nearly frozen him, but Tony shook it off and pulled him free. Swimming back to the surface had felt like swimming through syrup but he made it.
He'd moved as fast as he could but he'd barely made it in time.
Tony still wasn't sure why Gibbs was alive, not that he minded. He'd gotten him free and done CPR, but nothing really seemed to have gotten through. So Tony switched to the girl, eventually managing to get a response. And as she gasped and choked, Tony finally saw Gibbs blink and take a breath. Collapsing in on himself, Tony heard the harshness of his own breathing for the first time. When Ziva and McGee showed, he gathered himself together and took charge.
Now, though, as he lay in bed, still shaking with the nightmare's remnants, the realization that he almost had been too late washed over him, pulled him under as surely as the water in the harbor had. Despite the knowledge that Gibbs was safe – probably at home working on that damn boat – the closeness of the situation hovered like a cloud as Tony fell back to sleep.
He hadn't been too late.
But he could have been.
And the nightmares began again.
