A Rude Awakening

When he woke at three in the morning, Tony got an eerie sense of déjà vu, even though he was sure he'd slept like the dead for the last few days. It was as if his body remembered something his mind had forgotten.

The room was dark and silent, but it felt like someone had woken him up, leaving him in that state of weary alertness that came from being jolted awake from a deep sleep.

"Who's there?" It was a stupid question, really. There was no one there, there couldn't be. Living in a safe, secure building was by design, and having really good locks on the door was no accident, either. He had to have somewhere he could relax.

And OK, it might not be an impregnable fortress, but it was secure enough that most nights he could sleep in the knowledge that anyone who got in would probably have got to him wherever he was. He was aware most people wouldn't find that very comforting, but if he had to be murdered in his own home, at least he knew his killer would be a professional. Someone who wouldn't mess around and would, most likely, send him to rendezvous with the man upstairs as fast as possible.

At any rate, there was no way someone had got in his bedroom in the middle of the night and then just stood there and watched him till he stirred.

"Ziva?" Well, almost no way. This didn't seem like a particularly good practical joke, but you could never be sure. Their tame ninja did have a strange sense of humour. "All right, McGee, very funny, you can stop now."

There was a rasping intake of breath, right by his ear. He leapt out of bed with a stream of profanities and had flipped the light on almost before he had a chance to think. There was no one there.

"Faster than a jungle cat." Absolute bladder emptying, bowel loosening fear could do that to a man.

He reached around the doorframe to hit the living room light, but everything was normal in there, too. He considered camping out on the couch, in case a change of scene would help him rest easier, then caught sight of Abby's picture. He cringed. Maybe not. He liked it, he really did, it was arty and nihilistic and other cool words, the kind of thing, if he was honest, he could point out to women to show how hip and groovy and deep he was (and what interesting friends he had). Tonight, though he didn't need to be seeing that swirl of black and red while he was trying very hard not to be utterly creeped out. It would be worse than flickering candlelight and a canopy bed.

Well... I guess at least I'm feeling better. He'd been half convinced he was dying. But a dying man couldn't move that fast. He should know. He'd had experience in that area, after all.

Apparently this time he was just losing his mind. He crept back over to his bed, looking round him as if he was expecting a crazed axe murderer to jump out at him. That would be preferable - something he could confront, deal with.

This sensation of being watched, of being alone but not being alone... He slipped under the covers, but didn't lie down, pulling the sheets up around his neck instead and pressing his back against the headboard to ward off the feeling there was someone right behind him. It didn't help a lot. As a kid, when he'd felt this way, at least he'd known there was someone in the next room or downstairs, or...

Suddenly, he really wanted his mom.

He glanced at the bottle of whiskey, his cold, hard bedfellow. It was tempting to down the rest and hope for a few hours of drunken stupor, but the wary part of him, the part that was an agent - Gibbs' agent, Gibbs' right hand man, the boss depends on me, I gotta get it together - refused to be a coward. He must've gotten eight, nine hours sleep after all. Sleep, fevered delirium, whatever. He could stay awake a few more hours, keep an eye out for hinkiness, figure out what the hell was going on, stop being paranoid, put his investigative skills to work.

And then tomorrow, he'd find someone who'd let him stay with them for the weekend.