Author's note: Written as one of the 3 short fics submitted to the semi-finals of the NCIS-LFWS Contest. The prompt on all three was "epidemic" and they all had to center on the same character. Major death fic.
Oblivion
by Brynn
It had happened so quickly; and, no one even knew it was happening until it was too late. Someone had released a poison, or some fast-acting pathogen into the building.
'Was it someone who worked there?' Tony wondered, 'Maybe someone who had worked there for years as a sleeper?'
Apparently, there had been enough time to sound the alarm, but precious little time to actually respond to it. Immediately after the alarm began, Tony already noticed people nearest the vents dropping over. It (whatever it was) didn't take long to work its way across the floor.
Gibbs had immediately barked unnecessary orders at his team, and picked up the phone to call Ducky and Abby. As Tony joined the other agents filing toward the stairs in an orderly fashion, he noticed that several people broke protocol and tried to use the elevator. He couldn't help but wonder if there'd be anyone alive by the time the doors opened on the first floor, or if there'd be anyone on that floor to notice.
As DiNozzo neared the stairs, he watched as Ziva dropped in her tracks, just in front of him. He knelt to check on her just as Tim fell beside them. Tony checked for pulses – nothing. 'Damn,' he thought, 'This stuff is fast!'
Tony looked back toward their desks, expecting to find his boss striding, unaffected, toward them, but was shocked to see the older man lying on the floor at the entrance to their quad.
'Well,' Tony thought, 'I guess we finally found a bug willing to tangle with Gibbs!'
Tony found that he couldn't get up again, nor could he breathe well. His vision was fading fast, taking his consciousness with it.
'This is it,' he thought, 'No last minute reprieve from this one. No suicide chain for this bug. No end to this epidemic.'
As he closed his dark eyes, which were now useless anyway, he couldn't help but wonder how widespread this epidemic was. 'Was it confined to this floor? Had Abby and Ducky gotten out? Did it encompass all of NCIS? Washington? The Eastern Seaboard? Had terrorists finally managed to take down America?'
As he took his last breath, he decided it didn't matter. Everyone he cared about had been in this building. If this thing was building-wide, his whole family was now dead. He had one last hope that none of them had suffered, and he let oblivion take him.