A/N: My first fanfic ever. And my first written story in over 5 years. Comments or suggestions? Made any mistakes? Tell me! Help me improve!
Disclaimer: the characters and some situations or actions belong to CBS, Don Bellisario, their writers, Paramount or whatever they call themselves. However, I would gladly accept them as a gift and have already included them in my present list for my birthday. Serious.
Warning: violent situations. Like very violent. No torture, nevertheless. Spoiler: (But suicide.)
Ziva is parking her car. Unhurriedly. Almost automatically. She has done this a zillion times. Brake, pull keys from the contact, grab gun, out of the car.
Now she is walking towards the building. Steadily, unconsciously alert. Years of training do that to you. It is due to this awareness that she notices the car. His car. Tony's car. Parked right there, across her building.
She starts to hurry. He seems to be incredibly attractive for danger. Her pace is quicker.
Then the shots run out. She freezes, her foot on the air, her mouth open. She is thunderstruck. Her chest heavies and her mind is analyzing the possibilities. Damn it, each one is worse than the other!
Suddenly, she starts reacting again. She is running through the stairs, almost flying. 'Stay calm,' she recites like a mantra.
There she is! She has arrived to her apartment, her safe house. But the door is slightly ajar, like a signal of the tragedy, that she feels, is awaiting.
Gun out, secure off, door kicked open.
And, for a second, she stops in her tracks. This place used to be my home, now I doubt it will ever feel the same again.
Because,they are both lying there, between trashed objects and in a pool of blood, side by side. For an instant, she hopes. But the gun in the man on the left disrupts the thought.
This is it. The moment she has evaded for so long, the one in which she is forced to decide between Michael and Tony, two of the most important male people in her life. She has always knew this time would arrive, and feared her decision.
However, now, the choice is so simple, so blatantly obvious. She just follows her heart, her gut and her soul.
Tony seems so pale in contrast to the scarlet under, over him when she reaches his side. Too much red, her conscience tells her, his chest is not rising…
She screams his name, as if her voice would bring him back. She shakes him, and wishes a reaction, anything, a cough or a blink. But his wide open, glassy, lifeless eyes tell her he is no longer at her side.
Her sight clouds and fails as her eyes wander downwards, stopping at each of the three holes in his chest, right where his heart is.
Why? Why him? Why Tony? He was always so full of life, always so strong, always so cheerful… Well, sometimes even way too happy. She couldn't bring herself to compare him to this shrunken, heavy, marble white, drained of life body. That wasn't him. Her partner, her friend, her soulmate, the one and only who had been whenever she needed him. Yes, she has finally admitted those deeper feelings that were hidden behind the 'friendly banter' façade.
Nevertheless, that was completely innocuous now. Her whole world had been ripped into pieces without even letting her to taste it, the future she could have had if she had just had a little more courage to bring those walls down. Destroyed, leaving her with all her regrets, her grief and that emptiness in her heart.
Years seem to have passed, but actually, less than a minute has gone by. Just 20 seconds, the ever-logical part of her brain corrects. A lifetime, the rest exclaims.
Michael, the man who is responsible for all of her pain and suffering. Not far in time, she had been romantically, physically involved with him; but that is the past, and she is repulsed by the mere thought.
She approaches to him. Dead too, she thinks kicking his side. A soft groan is heard. In that case, not alive for long. Without any trace of doubt, she pulls the trigger.
Dead. Like the love of her life. Like Tali, her mother, Ari, Jenny, her Iraqi friend, and many others she has loved or had in great esteem.
What do I have left? What would I live for? Granted, she still has Gibbs, Abby, Ducky, McGee and the Autopsy Gremlin. Her father is not on that short list. Those days in which her only concern and desire was to make 'Daddy' proud and happy are over. He doesn't really value her, her effort, her determination; he only cares about his soldier, his best asset. Why should she stay? The (few) good things left in her life are not enough. She can't bare the idea of a day without him. With his ghost joining those who she has lost throughout her years. Those who inhabit in her nightmares, who mess with her head.
She has only a few doubts. Her will, she took care of that after the Hoffman experience. A fifth of her copious goods and properties for each of the persons who may care about her.
What she is about to do just felt too easy, too coward, too cliché. Wow, no one ever had thought of using those words before for Ziva David. Tears track down her cheeks. It is the end, her end, she has no choice. Like during most of my life, she reflects bitterly.
It is not her imminent death the reason why she doubts. Before coming to America, she had always known she would die young. Her job was too dangerous, too risky. Late 20s, not a bad survival age for her line of work. Since her arrival, however, she had hoped for a happy ending. Silly me, an American dream life for an assassin? Sincerely, she had known all the way that was impossible. Still, she feels she needs to say something. The surveillance cameras will tell the rest of the story. She was good, the best, so she was sure that even Michael had surely checked, he wouldn't have found the concealed gadgets. McGee and Abby were the only ones who knew of their existence.
Another single shot is heard. It echoes in the walls, in the hallways.
The tactical team which breaks in moments later, leaded by Gibbs, faces that macabre scene. There they lie, Michael, and Tony, the one he thinks of as a son, with Ziva draped over his chest. He rushes to her side, but she has a single gunshot to her temple. He notices a piece of paper tightly clutched in her hand. Sorry, it reads. And the tough warrior falls to his knees, watery eyes. He has lost two of his children today.
The end.