This one's short and sad, with implied character death. You've been forewarned. Protection Detail chapters 7 and 8 will probably be up tomorrow afternoon for anyone who cares.
She had made it a point never to say goodbye. It was too abrupt, too final. Goodbyes meant gone for good, torn off rearview, never coming back. Once upon a time they had been natural, instinctive, as normal as breathing, as ordinary as thank yous and hellos. But the last time she'd said it, the last time that word had escaped from her lips and into his ears, it very nearly had been goodbye. He'd staggered back into the bullpen battered, bandaged, and bloody, she with wounds that would never heal, scars that would never fade, and memories that she would spend the rest of her life trying desperately to suppress. Two weeks later, when he'd met her eyes and shot her a thousand-watt grin for no particular reason, as if to let her know how happy he was that she was back where she belonged, at her desk, in his life, she'd sworn to herself she would never leave him again if it cost her her life. From that moment, it was no longer goodbye. There was the occasional 'take care,' a 'see you later' from time to time, even, after a wait that seemed like forever, 'I love you', religiously, every morning and every night, a reminder of just how much she cared. But never, ever, did she say goodbye.
He'd hadn't really noticed it before, had never paid any attention, never given it more than half a second's thought. Then came the night she got into the elevator, alone, for the last time. A sidelong glance over her shoulder to make sure boss man's back was turned. A quick kiss. Then another, hungrier, more passionate. She paused a moment, searching his mischievous, twinkling eyes, then swatted his cheek gently. "Later, love," she whispered, resisting when he placed his hands on her hips, trying playfully to pull her into his lap. "Later." She chuckled and pecked him on the cheek again, quailing under the look Gibbs gave her. "Right, Boss." She trailed her finger under his jaw as she returned to her desk. A wink. A seductive smile.
"You're a tease, you know that?" She grinned again, blew him a kiss, belatedly double checking to see that Gibbs had taken the opportunity to walk off with McGee, mumbling something about Abby.
"So are you. But I love you anyway." She gathered up her things, her coat, her bag, her gun, hair obscuring her face in the process. It made her look soft, sweet, and vulnerable in a way that he found unbelievably endearing. If only he'd reached out then, pulled her back into his arms for just a few more seconds, if he'd finished up a little earlier or begged her to stay a little late. Maybe things would be different. "I am stopping at the market on the way home to pick up some things for dinner. Anything in particular you need?"
"We're running low on bacon." Her nose wrinkled.
"Bacon is not kosher."
He laughed. "And yet, it's sooooo delicious." She glared at him in mock annoyance before leaving the bullpen.
"Goodbye, Tony." She tossed her hair a little - he could see her smirk in his mind's eye - and sauntered out of his life. She didn't even look back.
*
Three hours later, a call came in. He had finished packing up, finally done with his reports and running late as usual. He knew she would understand. She always did.
It was Detective Wright with Metro PD. They'd gotten a call from a little place on Georgia at around 2015h reporting a firefight in the parking lot. In their initial, cursory examination of the scene, they'd found a bloody, mangled badge, and when they realized the little red Mini Cooper was registered to an NCIS agent, they'd phoned right away. Tony hung up without saying a word and called hoarsely for Gibbs and McGee. His cheeks were slicked with tears.
*
In the twenty minutes it took to get from the Navy Yard to Northwest DC, he called six times. "You have reached Special Agent Ziva David. Please leave a message and I will get back to you as quickly as possible." He flipped his phone shut and bit his lip, silently urging Gibbs on, as if, by leaving a column of drivers behind them laying on their horns, cursing his name, it would save her, save them all from the fears that gnawed at his insides, that brought him closer to his knees with every throbbing beat of his heart.
*
She wasn't there, was nowhere to be found. It was almost better that way. Her body wouldn't have to tell the story. The crime scene could do it for her. Skid marks in a wild half-circle where her back tires had been pumped full of lead, the passenger door flung wide, pinning her between the car and an SUV, ducking for cover. A little ways away, three masked men lay sprawled across one another, each with a slug between their eyes, bleeding out on the tarmac. The windshield of the Mini was riddled with bullet holes, the hood slick with blood and shards of broken glass. Another man was spread eagle upon it, face so mangled he was nigh on unidentifiable, a fourth accomplice curled at his feet. Tony recognized the boot prints that fled from the scene, crouching behind a retaining wall that lined her up nearly perfectly with the pockmarked bumper of a '69 Camaro, where a slight woman convulsed in a pool of her own blood, EMTs surrounding her, a frantic flurry of motion, as the life ebbed slowly from her limbs. The wall was spattered with blood, the ground before it awash with small hand-prints. She'd been dealt a minor wound, probably to the thigh, had been thrown to the ground, reduced to crawling, desperately clawing for the Sig that lay several yards out of her reach. And then, so much blood, so much more than he could possibly bear, and a trail from those boots being dragged off into the suffocating darkness.
Somehow, he managed to hold it together, managed to keep the tears locked up and the demons at bay. Just as Gibbs conversed quietly with the shopkeeper, just as McGee fished a 45 from the front seat of a Civic, as if nothing was wrong, Tony snapped pictures of the scene, of the dead and the dying, and was somehow able to pretend that it wasn't her blood that stained his hands, that the gun, the badge, the bullet holes were in no way connected to the woman who'd sat across from him every day for as long as he cared to remember, that if he finally made it home that night, he'd find her waiting with a wry smile and a warm meal.
Eventually he made his way to the Mini. Her bag was still tucked safely under the dashboard, but the rest of the car was in chaos, the black leather seats dyed as red as the paint job, foam oozing from bullet holes, dashboard littered with broken glass. She'd dislodged her groceries clambering over the passenger seat, sending several severely bruised tomatoes and a carton of what had once been eggs crashing to the floor. A carton of milk had exploded on the blacktop, now a swirling pinkish mass partially obscuring a package of "Thick-sliced Original Country Bacon." He sank to the floor and buried his face in his hands.
*
The only thing waiting for Tony when he finally got home that night was an unopened bottle of Jack Daniels. He was ruminating over glass six, salty tears mixing with the last dregs of whiskey, when Gibbs walked in, unannounced, sat down across from him, and poured three fingers for himself. He was two drinks in before he said a word. "It ain't over till it's over, DiNozzo." Another swig.
Tony conspicuously avoided eye contact with the older man as he drained his glass. "But she…you…you don't get it, Boss. She never…" his voice cracked, "she never says…she said goodbye. Said goodbye and just…just left me there…" He stood up and staggered over to the couch in the darkness, chest heaving with dry sobs. "I'd drag her back…in an instant…hold her close and never…never let her go…but…with her…goodbyes are for- forever." He muffled his cries with a pillow, but could find no cure for his shattered heart, for the aching, Ziva-shaped hole in his chest. It was as if someone had torn it out with their bare hands, chopped up the thudding contraption into a thousand tiny pieces, and proceeded to sew it back in again with a rusty skewer. "She…she told me be-…she told me before…once she says goodbye…she's….she's never coming…never coming back."
FIN