Chapter 2

He was currently hanging onto a tree branch, but quite frankly, he was beginning to question whether or not that was necessary. Nothing seemed right here.

Where is here?

That was a question he couldn't answer, but if he let go of this tree branch, would he fall forever, given that there seemed to be no ground? That was a question he could answer, but only if he chose to let go.

Maybe I could drop something else...

There was an additional question, though.

Right at this moment, he didn't really know why nothing seemed right. He couldn't currently drag up anything to compare it to...not consciously at least. He didn't know why that was, nor why it didn't really bother him.

He was wearing a hat, though. He could drop that.

How to get it off his head. What would help was a nice stiff breeze right in his face that would catch the brim and lift it off.

A gust of wind blew through the trees.

...right in his face, catching the brim of his hat and blowing it away, beyond his view so that he couldn't see what it did.

His eyes widened.

Coincidence?

"You know how Gibbs feels about coincidences."

"Who was that?" he said, speaking aloud for the first time.

His voice sounded strange.

"Let go of the tree. You won't fall."

"Promise?" he asked the voice. Twisting around to try and see who was speaking to him.

"I promise."

He let go of the branch.

And he just stood in the air, feeling both a little freaked out and a little silly for having been hanging there for however long. Then, he looked around. He couldn't see the source of the voice.

"Hello? Uh...why am I...wherever I am? Hello?"

There was no reply.

He looked around again. Then, he thought back to what the voice had said. Gibbs. She had said Gibbs.

She? Yes, it had definitely been a female voice.

Okay. Gibbs. Who was that?

"And I didn't say anything out loud. How did she know what I was thinking?"

Come to think of it, there were a lot of things not making sense.

"If I didn't have to worry about falling, why was I hanging? How did I get to that point?"

And another question.

"Why am I talking to myself? And why does my voice sound so strange?"

It really was like he was standing in a cave or something, not in the air, somehow surrounded by trees.

Basically, nothing made sense, from himself to the world around him and he wasn't very happy about that.

Can I walk?

That was the next question. If he was standing in the air, could he conceivably move to somewhere else? ...did he really want to find out the answer to the question? The last time he'd thought of a solution, it had happened out of nowhere. He grabbed a tree leaf. It was brown, almost black, but pliant. It wasn't dead. Just dark brown. He looked at it.

I want this leaf to turn green, he thought.

Then, without any fanfare, the leaf turned green. Bright, neon green.

He swallowed loudly and took a breath, afraid of the implications of being somewhere that he could make things happen just by thinking about them.

What if I fall, he thought.

And he took a step.

And he fell.

Up.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Ziva looked around, very irritated that everyone seemed to be hiding from her. She had followed Gibbs just a second after he had stepped through whatever he had stepped through.

And now, she was alone.

"Gibbs! Tony! McGee!" she called out, trying to sound only irritated and not concerned.

She ignored the fact that she was standing in the sky and walked as far as she could...which she discovered was not very far. She ran into a wall or rather a solid piece of sky after only a few steps. She began to follow that wall, touching it with her hand since she couldn't see anything that would indicate a wall or other type of obstruction.

"Gibbs!" she called again.

Her voice sounded confined. It was hard to square what she heard with what she saw. Her senses seemed to be contradicting each other.

The worst of it was that she couldn't see the way she'd come in, either. She could swear that she had walked all the way around the small space and yet there was no sign of an entrance...or exit.

The more she walked around, the more she felt like a caged animal. Her heart began to pound in her chest as she wondered what more she could do.

"You can do nothing as you act now."

She spun around.

"Who is that?" she demanded. "Show yourself!"

Then, she heard a song, one that she had not heard in many years. The lilting melody was both beautiful and painful.

"Ein Adir KeAdonai."

It was an impossible thought, but it was one that she couldn't dismiss once she'd thought of it. The song continued on, although the singer wasn't visible.

"Tali," she whispered.

And then, she suddenly remembered what Gibbs had said just before he had vanished.

He had spoken the name of someone who had died.

"Tali. Is that you?"

"Ziva, you have changed. Not all for the better."

She looked around, wondering if she was going insane or if this was really happening.

"It is happening, Ziva. You must let go of your determination not to show your fear. Fear is not a bad thing in its place."

"Fear is weakness," Ziva said, still unsure if she could believe that this was real.

"Fear forces the mind to cast about for something more than what it might assume is true. Ziva, you are trapped because your mind is trapped in what you allow to be real. This is not a place where you can rely on what you have always known. This is nothing you have known. If you wish to escape it, you must be willing to let go of what you have known."

"Tali, if you are really here, let me see you."

"Not right now, Ziva. You have to let me be seen. It is you who are making it impossible Not me. You must let go."

"Let go of what?"

"Everything."

Then, she sensed that Tali was gone, whether she'd really been here before or not.

Let go? What in the world was she supposed to let go of?

She looked around and then she looked at herself, at the gun she was holding in her hand still, gripping it tightly, almost like it was going to save her.

I can let go of this. ...but if I do I am depriving myself of a weapon. Why would that be necessary?

And yet... what good was it really doing her here? It was a crutch, nothing more.

Decision made, she threw the gun to the side.

It didn't fall. It just hung in the air. Ziva stared at it.

It didn't fall.

Again, she looked around.

Where am I?

If it was necessary to let go of everything, then, she would have to let go of how she expected things to go. Could she do that? Ziva knew that she wasn't always very good at letting in new ideas. It seemed important, though.

She closed her eyes.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"Tony, wake up!"

Tony sat up and looked around. He could have sworn that he had just leaned against one of these weird trees for a second.

"No seconds here, Tony. Stop being a lazy butt and get moving."

"I'd recognize that voice anywhere," Tony said, getting to his feet. "Kate?"

"Yes. You're pretty quick on the uptake today, Tony. What's that all about?"

Tony grinned, even as he warred with deciding whether he was happy about hearing Kate's voice or not.

There was a low chuckle.

"You're not dead, Tony, if that's what's worrying you, but you could be if you don't get a move on. Or you could be worse than dead and I don't want that, either."

Tony turned and thought he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.

"Kate...if you're here, where are you?"

"I'm right behind you, Tony. That's where I'll always be unless you can figure out how to see me."

"I don't get it."

"You don't have to. Just accept that you'll only see me if you can. Right now, you can't."

"I almost did."

"Good. Keep working on it."

"What's going on?"

"I can't tell you that, but I can tell you that it's serious and if you do too much joking, you might not ever get out of here."

"Where is here? I mean, I'd just about decided that I hit my head on something when I tripped and if I went to sleep, I'd wake up in a hospital or something."

"No, you didn't hit your head, but Tim did, and that's bad. You need to find him."

"Hit his head? On what?"

"I don't know. I wasn't there when it happened."

"Why isn't he right here? He was only just ahead of me."

"That doesn't matter! Nothing that you expect matters. The only thing you can expect is for things not to make sense, but you need to work within the parameters...only, I don't know what they are, either."

"But...you're dead and all, aren't you?"

"Dead doesn't mean omniscient, DiNozzo. I'm helping as much as I'm allowed."

"Allowed? By whom?"

"Focus, Tony!"

Then, there was a very strange vision of a hand in front of his face, but with the hand connected to a wrist that appeared to be protruding from around about his nose. It vanished quickly and there was some very unladylike swearing.

"Sorry. I forgot that I can't give you a Gibbs slap like you deserve."

"Gibbs doesn't really do that much anymore. Good thing, too. I think I was on the verge of brain damage."

"Just get moving. Please?"

Tony looked around, wondering where he was supposed to move to when there didn't appear to be anywhere to go.

"How?"

"Very good question. Just try, Tony. You need to find Tim and Gibbs and probably Ziva, too."

"Probably?"

"She's not on my list, but that doesn't mean she's not on someone else's."

"Another dead person? Like who? Ari?"

"No. Someone more important to her. I'm just a name on a page. I'll check back in later, Tony. Please, get out of this."

Tony thought he heard something and he turned quickly, catching just a glimpse of dark hair. He smiled to himself. Almost. Next time.

Then, he turned his attention to the space around him. This really didn't make any sense. Tim should have been right there.

...unless he fell?

But why would he fall when Tony himself didn't seem to be falling anywhere, in spite of the fact that there was nothing to stand on?

He looked down.

And he suddenly realized that the trees didn't seem to end, either. There were trees and branches and leaves and everything, but there didn't appear to be any roots. Why?

Well, if there's no ground, what good would roots do?

Then, he looked down again and he thought he saw something moving. Something. Someone?

How far down was that?

How would he get down there?

If he started to fall, could he stop?

What if he couldn't stop? Would he keep falling forever or was there a bottom?

But what would happen when he hit the bottom?

He put his hand down and felt all around his feet. Nope. There was nothing. No surface that was just cleverly disguised. He really was standing on nothing.

Well, if there was nothing, then, he should be able to get through it without too much trouble. Maybe he could use the trees to push himself down since he was just sitting there without falling.

And there was something or someone below him.

Okay. No more sitting around. Time to get moving.

If he could.