Author: Revanche
Disclaimer: Navy NCIS is owned by CBS, or at least TPTB. Summary's sort of from a Tori Amos song.
Rating: PG-13
Feedback: Would be much appreciated.
Spoilers: None, really.
"Convention" should probably be read first, as this is what comes after.
They say on days like this, you know who your friends are.
xxxxx
Morning's like rainwater down her brilliant silk, slashed tires and hours of jetlag piling up, and he can't for the life of him remember if he's slept.
She hasn't come back. He hasn't wanted her to. He's listened, though, he can't help it. Listened past the late-night buzz of Bruce Willis and Jackie Chan, listened through the walls and heard nothing more than the roar of the shower. And the bed's gone untouched, a cold autumn plateau, and this room is so anonymous that he thinks he's going to go insane. The curtains are open and time-dark branches are silhouetted in one corner, a pretty accent, like they were placed there after the hotel was built, for the ultimate postcard effect. This is where people go to be alone and to be lonely, and he thinks that he saw this in a Sofia Coppola movie once, except that was Japan and he fell asleep sometime during the middle, one of those artistic and ultimately meaningless pauses that went on forever.
And he's not sure whether this coating of dust, of dirt, of grime on his skin is from her or if it's leftover from that dank almost-empty room, devoid of life and so utterly black, so utterly cruel. If maybe he brought some of that out with him, wisps like smoke around his hands, around his shoulders, or if this is from her, if she's burned him, started something slowly spreading. Because it didn't work, he didn't really win, and she didn't really lose, and that grates on him. It's not how it should be. Should have erased the rest of the night, made it real, made it matter and made it okay. Should have brought her to her knees like prayer, should have made her cry out for salvation, for hers and his and the rest of the world in which things like that can happen, in which little girls can disappear on the way home from school and the devil's the sad man down the street who made her laugh and showed her around his garden. Told her the names of flowers, foreign, the same language in which Kate says she's sorry, please save her soul.
And it didn't work.
A car starts in the parking lot, right outside his window. Somebody going back to real life, going to catch a plane. He's got to do that soon, and he's going to have to look at her, to smirk and pretend that everything's normal, peachy, and to somehow withstand Gibbs' stare, the one that, if it were any other crime, would have him begging for mercy, forgiveness. Confessing.
Jesus.
He doesn't bother laughing. It's not funny, not at all. Ironic, maybe, but he's not in the mood to be amused. He's tired, which makes him think that maybe he's spent the entire night here, staring at the ceiling and outside at the city and trying not to think about anything at all. But maybe it's just the morning after and he can't wait, can't hope that things will somehow get better. They don't. They won't. There's always another body. On and on, a montage of skin and screams and metal, bullets and chains, and not nearly unique enough to be called anything like soul. They're just human. What people do. Soul has nothing to do with it.
And the water starts up next door for a second time, and he tries not to think about what she's doing, tries not to think about skin and cheap tile and needle-hot spray, tries not to think about probable cause, because he knows, some part of him knows, that it's a very bad idea. And he knows that he's going to have to present himself eventually, going to have to go out and reenter the world, move on. Pretend that this is normal. Fly home, sit next to her on some commercial jet, drink bad airline coffee and look at the magazines or the clouds, anything as long as it's not her.
So he moves, finally, changes his clothes and folds the dirty ones. Stares at his reflection in the mirror, one corner cracked, branches like the ones outside his window, and cuts himself while shaving. Tiny wells of blood, contaminating the scene, staining already-ruined porcelain. Not shame, he thinks. Not shame. What's necessary. What's right. What they do to stay alive. Small crimes, he thinks. Paling in the face of what it is they really do, how often they attempt to save at least small portions of the world.
He steps into the hallway, closes the door behind him and wonders if they all look the same, this hallway, dull roses and cheap music repeated all over the country. One in every town in which they'll stay. One for every night. And then she's there, too, but before he can say anything, Gibbs is stepping from the elevator and he looks tired and raw, beaten. He looks like Tony feels, really, and he looks like Kate doesn't, and Tony thinks that saying something to her now would be an exceptionally bad idea. No, he knows it would be. So he doesn't. So he follows her down the hall, follows Gibbs back into the elevator, and thinks about what he's going to say later, what he's going to tell her and what he's going to do.
And then they're outside, crossing the parking lot again, and there is no mystery about the city in day, only a stifling, permeating sadness. The harsh light of day, really, he thinks. Not that it's unexpected, but he'd hoped that maybe this time it would be different. The rental car's waiting, parked in the shade, and as he reaches to open the door, he catches a glimpse of the look on her face, shuttered and blank and waiting, and he wants to taste her right here, to hear her whimper and watch her shudder, tears like shattered glass along the organic architecture, smooth lines of her face. Right here, right now, in harsh gray daylight so that she can't pretend that it's anything but desperate, anything but cheap. So she can't make it better, can't dress it in metaphor and justice and can't smile in satisfaction, sharp cat gleam of her eyes and bittersweetness where her teeth press against her lower lip.
"Something wrong, Dinozzo?" Gibbs asks, drawls, bored and annoyed. There's a lot of that going around.
"Tired," he says. "Late night."
"I hear doxycycline works wonders," Kate says. Calm and if she feels the same way, she doesn't let it show. There's no darkness lingering in her eyes, nothing heavy and unmentionable. Untouchable, he thinks. Untouchable.
He looks back at her, down at her, over his shoulder, and smiles. "Should I be worried?"
And she ignores it completely, and he thinks that if he could, he would shoot her, get it over with now. Because death in some form or another is inevitable, really, and where's he going to go from here? "With your history, Tony, I would be," she says, and the corners of her eyes crinkle just for him, and he wonders if anyone else notices, if anyone else sees, and if she knows how badly she will regret this.
And now he's sitting in the backseat of some government-issued rental car, trading innuendo with her, and Gibbs is looking on, or maybe looking in the other direction, and he wonders if maybe Gibbs knows. How couldn't he? Maybe this is the point, some psycho training exercise. Character building. Better here, safe, than out in the field. Except it's not safe at all, not at all. This is a one-way ticket to destruction, to the end, and he knows this is a mistake. So does she. They both know it, and neither's going to do anything, reach for the brakes, because to do so would admit defeat. Would be giving up. So they're going to die by the sword, he thinks, and that's not funny, either.
The light turns green. Gibbs accelerates and they lurch onto the street, meld into traffic. Join the others, blank, wan faces, this dull slate-gray, heading for destinations, planes to catch, and futures untold, but he wonders how much is really going to change. What's going to happen next. How long it will take, for this to end and for her to scream, cry uncle and bleed.
And maybe, he thinks, he doesn't want to know. One step at a time. One after another, a relentless march. Case after case, one after another, and these dark, dark nights, and maybe that's how it's going to be, and he'll find out eventually. Waiting, he thinks, is supposed to be the best part. Anticipating. Because no matter how bad this idea is, how wrong he knows that it is, at least technically, he thinks that he's going to find out.
But right now, the light's green, and they're moving, and as long as they don't stop, maybe they'll be okay.
As long as they keep moving.
xxxxx
The End