Chapter seven

Summer 1979 Derris, Maine

The drizzle was coming… to wash away the pain, the fear and most of all the blood.

"Promise me" an eleven year old ordered with a tone of a man he would yet to become. He turned his dark eyes to the six others, taking in their dirty faces one by one. They had faced hell this day… they had faced IT.

"please promise me if IT comes back we'll come back all of us… and we'll finish IT" Anthony 'Tony' DiNozzo ordered never looking away never backing away.

The oath he was demanded of each of them was much bigger then any eleven year should ever make… but it was an oath none of them could ever walk away from.

because they had faced IT… they had gone into the sewers and hurt IT.

A tall, lanky and far sighted African American boy stepped forward first, his neck still sporting the scars from his battle. They would fade in time and in his memory until they all had to remember.

"I puh-puh-puh-promise" Gilbert 'Gill' Jefferson promised reaching for Tony's hand, in years to come his hand would dwarf Tony's hand by one whole glove size but right there and then they were all equal, no one bigger nor smaller then the person they stood beside.

"Me too… hell you guys know how to party" Stephen 'Stevie' Thompson declared in his indifferent accents… none had the heart to tell him they all sounded the same. He too placed his dirty hand on Tony's and Gill's.

The meek but beautiful girl among the group stepped forward standing close to Tony, her muddy and twisted raven black hair trailing down her back. The thing she used to hide her bruises and tears away from the world would make her famous in the years when she became a woman.

"I promise" Kimberly 'Kimmy' Lance promised placing her delicate hand on top of their hands.

A boy at least a foot smaller then all the boys and the girl stepped forward taking a deep breath from his pump that he carried like a life line before placing his hand in the half formed circle and looked directly at Tony.

"I promise" Martin 'Marty' Nicolas promised too with a wheeze that hitched his breath but never threatened him enough to take another deep breath from his pump.

The tall an always neat and tidy boy hesitated for a moment, his dark blue eyes glazing over for a moment never daring to look back to where they had all fled.

But even he placed his hand in the circle but refused to meet Tony's eyes, most would tell you this was a look of a grown man who knew he couldn't keep his promises but still promised any way seeing no harm in an eleven years old promise.

"I promise" Theodore 'Teddy' Kovak promised in a shaky breath that didn't suit the boy who had become known as steady Teddy… a man who would grow up to become even more neat and tidy then he already was.

The fat- porky pig kinder fat- kid stepped forward last with a graceful ease not connected with any one of his size. Though he placed his big and fat hand in the circle years from now that hand would be smaller and more roughened by time and work.

"I promise" Kenneth 'Kenny' Holden promised with determination that years later a man named Luke Stokes would see.

Tony looked from each with a stern gaze, taking in the looks of six eleven year olds catching a glimmer of the adults they would become- the very same adults he would meet twenty eight years later- and he nodded.

The oath was half sealed… something more was needed but none of them were old enough to understand what else was needed. Teddy was the first to with draw his hand and a dread filled the other six, a dread that no eleven year old had the emotional range to name or even understand.

Years later they would be able to understand that the dread was the knowing that the circle had been broken long before they had forgotten and been retold. But for now they simple accepted the dread as part and parcel of what they had faced.

"For Dickie Terence" Kimmy stated… because she had put a band aid on the three years old knee two days before IT had killed him.

"For pops" Gill stated… because he wouldn't know now but in years to come when his father laid dying his scarred lungs helping his cancer he would know that the fire that caused his fathers scarred lungs had been something to do with IT.

"For anyone that big ape Tommy ever started on" Stevie stated… because Tommy had been born and raised in Derris. And Derris was apart of IT.

"For- for the swans" Teddy added in a shaky voice while his hand found it's way back to the circle… because his father had always told him about the swans that had lived on Blue lake nearly thirty years ago but was found slaughtered.

"For mother" Marty stated clutching his pump tighter hoping that if his mother was watching right there and then she would see he still had it… because something in Derris, something about Derris made his mother worry even more then she ever had too, because she couldn't put a name to that irrational fear but still embraced it.

"For us" Kenny stated his voice barely above a whisper but still sounding like he had bellowed it across the marsh land surrounding the standpipes… because even though they stood there alive something had been lost that day and IT had stolen it.

Tony flickered his eyes from each person and saw that they too were watching him.

"For Sasha" Tony stated clearly and firmly… because Sasha had only been six years old, she had been bored and because she had loved Tony and he had loved her.

BEEEEEEPP

the annoying tooting sound snapped Tony from his thoughts and caused him to glare as the small ford tore past him and became a dwindling set of tail lights against the dusk.

Tony heaved a sigh and saw the road had changed a lot since he left the city, which to him was just a few seconds ago but daring a look to the dash board he had to squint and tilt his head to make sure it didn't say it had been forty minutes since he left Bangor airport.

Looking back to the road he almost laughed out loud at the thought that it would have taken half that time if Ziva had been driving.

A sharp twist of pain came when he thought about Ziva… his last words to her, her face as he walked out of his apartment door.

He didn't know why she had come after him… Gibbs he could believe, Abby almost half expected… McGee a little out there but he might have come but Ziva.

He didn't slow in his packing as she stood watching him… for the first time she didn't say anything smart or sassy to him instead watched with those big round eyes of hers trying to understand what would force a grown man to flee his work, his friends, to travel back to some back water town none of them had ever heard of.

"I promised… I made them promise and some promises you can't break no matter how hard you try" Tony declared out loud in the empty car.

"why" Tony half expected to look to the passenger seat and see Ziva still staring at him, but instead he caught sight of the sign reading Derris straight ahead.

Another twist of pain came and Ziva was driven from his mind and another dark haired, big eyed girl took over his thoughts. Not a woman but a girl, aged six years old missing her two front teeth and sporting two bucks that the tooth fairy had left her.

Tony turned sharply and pulled over to the hard shoulder, the traffic had lessen a good deal since he left the city so even if some one did honk at him he didn't hear it. The tears were already streaming down his face as he climbed from the car and heaved into the dirt.

"Sasha" Tony muttered between heaves, bracing his hands on his bent knees trying hard to swallow down the dry hot air. How could he forget that face, that girl, that laughter, that smile, that wavy brown hair… that death.

Tony finished his heaving and sat heavily against the car stealing hitches in his breathing.

He had forgot because she had been apart of Derris and he had forgotten Derris, but his parents hadn't… three years after they had left Derris, Tony had been coming home when a girl aged six fell from her bike and Tony helped her up.

Sasha had a nasty bruise when she fell from her bike his mother had screamed blue murder when Tony pushed the small bike back home.

His parents were quiet when he told them what the girl looked like, a half memory surfacing in his mind but never solid enough to grab. That haunted look crossed their faces like the memory was solid enough for them and it was hitting them just hard enough.

Tony heard only one name later that night long after his parents went to bed and thought Tony couldn't hear them.

"She sounds just like Sasha" his mother had all but wailed but then he heard the heavy thump of his father getting up and pacing.

"Sasha died… Tony forgot about her… he doesn't remember" his fathers stern voice was enough to put a stop to his mother's cries and Tony's need to find out who Sasha was.

But now he knew… he remembered, and as he climbed into his car he pushed it to the limit and only vaguely noted his driving was kin to Ziva's.

It didn't matter though because Derris was there so close that you could smell the standpipes and the Blue lake that once upon a time could still be swum in before the sewer had backed up and flooded the whole lake.

IT was waiting and it held a special smell a mixture of fear, hunger and death all rolled into one that was special to Derris and Derris alone.

It was the same smell Tony had smelt the day Sasha was buried… it was the smell that would drive Tony crazy enough to promise to come back and fulfil that promise.