A/N: It's been a LONG while and I'm sorry for making everyone wait! I'm in the school play and rehearsals don't end until 5pm every night until April, then we won't have it on Fridays, BUT during Hell Week (the week of the show) I won't be able to write. I'll be at school until 11pm and on show nights I'll be exhausted, after all that besides homework I'm wide open for you guys.
Here's a chapter update for you all! Enjoy!
Chapter 6
It was always a mindless, pointless chore, cleaning up all the sticks in the spacious yard that called itself the DiNozzo property, but Sarah and Tony did it anyway. Forced by their father's drunken hand every week to pick up sticks to put in bags to dispose of, Anthony DiNozzo Sr. could have easily done the task himself, but he preferred to "make his children useful" as he called it.
"This is absurd," Tony DiNozzo Jr. growled and threw his bag of sticks and limbs down to the ground, its contents half spilling out on the green lawn. "The drunken…bastard could do it himself! Or why doesn't he hire someone if we have all this goddamn money!"
It was rare for Sarah DiNozzo to hear her brother cuss, but when he did it was often due to their father. The man was just, many words, indescribable always came to mind first. Sarah sighed and tossed another stick into the bag before walking over to yet another. She looked around them. The vast DiNozzo property stretched many miles back towards some dense woods that Tony and Sarah often spent their days in when they were trying to avoid their father. The yard in the front of the gorgeous old Victorian was always well kept and green due to a few sprinklers being installed, but the back, the back was littered with patches of dead grass and trees limbs. There was an old oak tree, probably more than one hundred years old that stood stoically against the soft and hard wind by the horse stables and fencing. The DiNozzo's only had one horse, a pale white beautiful horse with a splendid mane and deep brown eyes. It had been Tony and Sarah's mother's horse and their mother had given the horse to Sarah to ride. Tony had taught her everything he already knew from when he too had a well bred horse, but the DiNozzo's had had to sell Tony's horse for reasons his father never disclosed. Still, Tony had Sarah how to ride bareback recently and that was a big accomplishment.
"Tony," Sarah sighed. "We're almost done…"
"You're not serious are you," Tony asked, scoffing a bit before standing from where he knelt. "Sarah we've only done half the yard."
"Exactly," Sarah said. "We're not done, but that doesn't mean we even have to finish entirely. Just fill up one good bag of sticks and leave the rest, not like he'll notice anyway."
Tony chuckled after a bit. He always knew Sarah wasn't one to fall into line as their father wanted them to. Tony did as Sarah told him to and soon their bags were full, left in the open field as both he and Sarah hopped over the fence where the horse currently wasn't exercising and running about in. Sarah ran faster than Tony, light on her heels. Tony ran fast too, but with purpose. He'd been practicing how fast he could run ever since he'd been planning his escape from his home after their mother's death. Sometimes Tony would catch himself staring at Sarah and thinking of how much of their mother was really in her.
"C'mon slow poke!" Sarah laughed and ran to the far edge of the field; there was a small pond over in that direction. Tony ran so quickly and so hard that when his feet hit the ground again after he'd jumped the other fence surrounding the horse stables he barely even felt it. Sarah was sitting legs out and head tilted up towards the sun, eyes closed and smiling. Tony smiled back and joined her on the edge of the water. Sarah's necklace hung on her breast and shimmered in the sun. Their mother had also left that to her.
"We could just do it one day yah know," Tony said, breaking the silence and looking up as well. "Run away from here. He'd never notice. Sophia wouldn't say anything."
"Oh Tony," Sarah replied. "You say that like it's so easy…"
"Because it is," Tony protested, he'd wanted to run away for months, years. "Look Sarah I can't, I won't do this alone. I need you all or nothing, we do this or we don't. Are you in or are you out?"
Sarah hesitated. What Tony didn't realize was that the man they faced every day was imbibed in alcohol and not himself. Sarah had seen the real man their father had been before their mother died and she still knew that deep down somewhere, that real man was still in there. She just needed to stay; she needed to stay to help him fight the beast inside.
"Deal." She said, half lying to Tony as she shook his hand. "It's a deal…"
"Sarah." Sarah was knocked out of her daydream as she gripped tightly, almost tight enough to puncture her palm. She looked down at the small twig she'd agreed to find, along with other small twigs, so that she and Tony could start a fire in the safe houses' fireplace. The agent in charge of watching them was stationed nearby and a few others were guarding via the woods. Tony spoke loud enough so that Sarah could hear, but not them. He didn't need to arouse any more suspicion than he and Sarah already had. Gibbs could sniff out a liar like a hound a dead rat so Tony also could only hope Gibbs hadn't uncovered what he had about "Eleanor Bishop" and how she really didn't exist.
"Yeah," Sarah snapped out of it and continued to grab other sticks. "Sorry just, thinking about the past I guess…"
"Me too lately," Tony gathered a few more sticks for kindling and looked over at her, smiling like he had been in her memory. "Guess it's just hard to believe we both survived it all ya know?"
"Yeah," Sarah sighed and begun to walk inside. "I suppose…"
Her voice grew dim and so did the light outside. Tony and Sarah walked through the front door of the safe house, a cabin like structure with no internet connection, television, or even anything remotely twenty first century. It was for their own good, but Tony would've killed for a computer game of solitaire right about then. Sarah was content to read. The two siblings set the kindling down into the fire and relaxed in the chairs behind them. Sarah and Tony both had remembered roaring fires in their household, controlled and somewhat beautiful in way, how the flames would dance and how the wood would crackle and pop. Sarah often fell asleep in front of the fireplace; book still in hand, and breathing steady. Tony or his mother before she died would carry Sarah up the stairs into her bedroom, close whatever book she'd been reading, careful to mark her place for her and tuck her in.
"Bring any great literature this time?" Sarah asked, tucking her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them before resting her chin on her kneecaps and smiling. Tony reached into his duffel and pulled out an old worn out journal with handmade stitching on the front followed by another one, the other one Sarah recognized immediately.
"My journal…" she said in a sort of excited yet melancholy tone if that was at all possible.
"I kept it because," Tony stopped talking a moment, as if his words were stuck in his throat. "It kept me going. Your words, your words were so positive and you'd stopped writing in it so long ago I figured you wouldn't miss it if I took it. I took mine too."
"You've read it then I take it?" Sarah asked, she'd never really been one to be offended by lack of privacy since she'd had little to none at home, but she also trusted Tony, her brother, her closest ally.
"Every word," Tony nodded. "You were always so, happy."
"I was dying inside," Sarah said, the pop of the fire distracting her for a mere second. "I was dying just as much as you were."
"But see that was what I loved best about you Sarah," Tony smiled at her, into her darker hazel-ish eyes. "Even if you were dying inside, you never showed it."
"Because we were a team," Sarah smiled up at him and plucked Tony's journal from his hands, setting it down next to her leg. "If you read all of my words it's only fair I get to read all of yours."
Sarah fidgeted with the rug below her feet and bit her bottom lip. She found it hard to relax with a known enemy out there, looking for her, aiming to hurt her brother. She couldn't let it happen. She couldn't even pretend she enjoyed this time with him, as much as she did, because she also knew that it could easily come to a fast end. Her eyes met Tony's once more and she smirked.
"What's your favorite entry?" she asked, trying to distract herself. The sun had set and the fire case shadows throughout the room and said shadows danced on Tony's and Sarah's cheeks and face.
"Tony taught me how to ride bareback today," Tony recited, holding the book in his hands as if it was the Bible and he was giving a sermon to the masses. "He told me he'd teach me it so that I could ride away one day if I needed to."
"Really," Sarah laughed a little. "That one?"
"Well I was going to pick the one where you call me your hero," Tony chuckled. "But I figured that'd be a bit egotistical of me."
Sarah and Tony found themselves laughing. Their laughter echoed through the empty safe house. Sarah felt like more of a prisoner than a protected witness right now and honestly Tony couldn't have agreed more.
"So what happened," Tony asked, his voice growing a bit colder. "After I left?'
Sarah didn't want to answer. Tony wouldn't like the truth, so she did what she'd done all her life. She lied.
"He got better," Sarah said, not breaking the certainty in her voice that she'd been mustering up. "He got much better Tony. He got clean. I left. It was hard, it took time, but it was worth it. I tend to think you gave up on the man a bit prematurely."
"Sorry sis," Tony scoffed. "I couldn't forgive him if I tried for all of that, all of these times he's tried to talk to me. As if he actually cares."
"He got better Tony," Sarah pleaded with her brother. "Please understand that. The man who beat us, the man who tormented us, that wasn't dad. That was the monster that had seeped into his blood and mind and taken over."
Sarah took Tony's hand in hers and rubbed the back of it.
"I killed that monster." She said.
Tony stayed silent, taking it all in. The fire sizzled and crackled. The echoes of their own heartbeats and breathing were all that was heard in the dark house. Sarah pressed her mouth into her knees and sighed. Tony let go of her hand and stood from his chair. He grabbed his jacket and put it on, motioning for Sarah to follow suit.
"Where are we going?" Sarah asked, copying Tony.
"I'm not spending a perfectly starry night in a cabin," Tony explained, silently cracking open the cabin door and letting them both out before quietly shutting it again. "Not when I can spend it outside like I used to, with my little sister."
Sarah smiled and knew exactly what Tony was referring to. Tony had explained earlier he'd been stationed at their safe house before; guards checked in at scheduled and patrolled the outskirts at all other times. There was a small path in the woods leading to a clearing that no one else knew about, but Tony. He'd stumbled upon one day when nature had called during his watch.
Tony looked all around them and the pair pulled their jackets closer to each other and silently tore off into the woods like they used to when they both couldn't sleep after a night of constant abuse from their father, or if they'd both just had a rough day without all that. Sarah breathed out as she watched her brother up ahead of her. She wasn't used to be the one following him; it had always been the other way around.
Tony led her to a small clearing where the stars were perfectly visible and the breeze blew softly through the grass. He motioned for her to go ahead of him. She obliged with a small bow of her head and she sauntered forward and plopped down in the grass, shedding her jacket and tossing it behind her.
"Tony," she asked. "Are you sure?"
"The guards will see the smoke," Tony reassured her, sitting down next to her and looking around at the night sky which was perfectly clear, an amazing sight for being so near to Washington DC. "They won't check up on us until three am and it's twelve am now, we've got plenty of time."
Sarah nodded and looked around at the swirling and confusing constellations. She remembered Castiel explaining a few to her, most of them his older brothers had created so he knew little, but enough to provide for interesting conversation. Tony had learned almost there was to know about all the stars in his spare time. He'd usually spit out various star names and such, but that night he remained silent until he pointed straight to the North Star.
"There's mom," he smiled and lifted his finger to point, they both knew it was the North Star, but they' d both agreed long ago it was the mother, shining the biggest and brightest down on them, guiding their way. "Still shining."
"Yeah," Sarah smiled big and a warm sensation flooded her heart. "She is isn't she?"
The moment passed and the siblings didn't talk anymore they just enjoyed the splendor of Mother Nature. Tony forgot suddenly about what they'd just been through and the weirdness that had ensued. He was just enjoying the new time he had with his sister.
Sarah looked up at the stars. She saw stories, she saw wars lost and won by the angels and other great heroes. But most of all she saw the faces, she could almost picture them, the faces of the Distinguished Angel Council all staring down at her in disappointment, anger, disgust, at the angel who had disobeyed. Surely she'd be thrown out of Heaven? But at the moment, in the glow of the stars, in the company of her brother, she found herself no longer caring.
Read and Reviews are welcomed and appreciated profusely!
So what will come next for the DiNozzo siblings?
More to come soon readers!
