Author's Note: Sorry for the delay, but hang tight, people! It's fixing to get exciting. :) I've been building to this point, constructing carefully. Hope it all falls together for you! It's strange and clumsy and long, but I've so been looking forward to this part. Note that after the first section, the italicized sentences are Tony's flashbacks, sort of. Umm, you'll figure it out. Enjoy! And REVIEW! I really, really, really want to know what you think.

Déjà Vu

Chapter 9

"Did you really think you could get away with it? Really?"

Tony could see Ziva's face reflected in the smooth glass. Dark shadows fell over her eyes and her lips twitched sardonically. She turned, a slender hand poised on her hip, and the fingers digging into her flesh demanded an answer thirty seconds ago.

Tony's stomach dropped when he realized that they were in the same room. He wasn't in observation, and she wasn't interrogating a suspect. She was interrogating him. He swallowed nervously.

"Get—away with...what exactly?" He spoke jerkily. He hadn't felt this intimidated by anyone—Gibbs included—since…well, never.

She dropped into the chair across from him and chuckled darkly. "Screwing up."

"Um," Tony stalled, not daring to look directly at her. "To which incident are you referring? 'Cause there have been several over the course of my career."

Again she laughed, and he flinched. He'd rather she punch him in the nose than make a sound like that. She stood and paced around the table. He shifted; having a righteously angry Ziva hovering in his blind-spot set off all kinds of mental warning bells and red flags. It was a little bit more than his nerves could handle.

She sensed this, and leapt for the jugular.

"Well," she began slowly, her voice little more than a deep, threatening rumble in her throat. "Jenny first comes to mind."

She cocked her head, and he met her eyes for the first time. Open hatred shimmered in their depths. "And then Michael," she continued ruthlessly.

"Jenny—L.A.—you—you were there, Ziva," he stammered, flailing helplessly, grasping at straws. "You were there! And Rivkin…that was…"

He trailed off, finally. He couldn't say that Rivkin was an accident any more than he could say that he didn't bear the brunt of responsibility for Jenny's death. Because it wasn't exactly, and he did. Lying about it now would just be adding insult to injury, to both of them. But Ziva was out of line here. Way out of line. Hadn't they moved past this crippling blame game?

"What are you getting at?" His tone was icy, but not quite cold enough to conceal raw pain. Ziva leaned down so that he could feel her breath hot against his neck.

"I'm dead, too," she murmured. "Because of you."

"I know that." His temper flared suddenly. "What do you want from me, Ziva? An apology?"

"No," she hissed lividly. "I want an explanation."

He shook his head numbly. "There—there isn't one."

She cocked her head. "Carson?"

"Carson," Tony repeated flatly. "What about him?"

Apparently, Ziva's insane Mossad-ninja skills hadn't diminished with her passing. She hauled Tony out of his seat by his collar and shoved him hard against the wall. She pressed her forearm against his neck, causing his breath to rasp as he struggled to draw it.

"The man put four in my chest!" She seethed, eyes wild and swimming in tears. "And you let him go?"

"I'm sorry," Tony whispered. No apology had ever been more sincere. "So, so sorry, Ziva."

She heard a break in his voice and eased her hold. Her expression softened almost imperceptibly as a realization washed over her. "You loved me, didn't you?"

"I still do," he breathed raggedly. The correction was fierce and automatic. They were both stunned by his unprecedented openness. The impromptu confession settled in the room and Tony kicked himself mentally—and he could almost hear Kate saying 'I told you so.'—for not having told her when it might have mattered. Nonetheless, he continued darkly. "I thought you might have figured that one out after I took my little African vacation."

Ziva jerked away from him fast; almost as if he'd burned her. She turned and for the next several moments, Tony found himself admiring the slim curvature of her waist from behind. After a short eternity passed, she faced him again and his eyes met hers. Therein he saw reflected accusatory statements and mutual anguish.

Why did you have to make such a horrible mistake?

Don't you want to know what could have happened between us?

I was just beginning to enjoy living again. Did it have to end like this?

"Tell me then," she choked, for once unashamed of showing emotion. "Why am I dead instead of you?"

It was she who burned him now. She might as well have screamed the words. She asked again, more insistently.

"Why did I die instead of you?"

XOXOX

"Boss," Tony gasped, slurring his words as he swung his legs off his desk. In his state of semi-consciousness, he knew that Gibbs was somewhere near. Gibbs was always somewhere near. He blinked rapidly, trying to dismiss the dream and the nausea that came with it. "Boss, I quit. I quit."

Gibbs looked up from his computer screen and across the bull-pen at his wild-eyed senior agent. He raised his eyebrows. The gesture was a question in and of itself, which made the accompanying words were superfluous, really.

"Wanna run that by me again, DiNozzo?"

Tony shook his head but answered to affirm. "I quit. The job is—and Ziva—I quit. I can't do it."

"Oh, ok." Gibbs patronized him with a smile and then stood and walked to the younger man's desk, hovering confrontationally. "What are you gonna do, then?"

"Drink." Tony answered without thinking about it first. It was a too-honest answer. Because both of them knew that it wasn't a bull statement. In his right mind, Tony would've made a morbid crack about going back to Baltimore PD, to allay Gibbs's immediate concerns for his well-being. But DiNozzo was still reeling from his dream, and from everything else. And what little he still possessed of his right mind vanished with Gibbs's unusually severe head-slap. The hit set off a domino-effect pain wave that rattled down to his toes. Tony sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth.

Gibbs returned to his own desk, pinning Tony with a hard glare. "Go home, DiNozzo."

The annoyance and deep empathy in the order rankled Tony's soul. Whether or not Gibbs knew this, he continued.

"Go see a doctor and then get some rest. I don't want to see you here until the beginning of next week. And I swear, DiNozzo, you had better show up on Monday or you'll be fired a heck of a lot quicker than you can quit."

Tony stared blankly, anger threatening to make him do something terribly rash. And then he nodded in spite of himself. "Yes, Boss."

Just like that.

He stood and shouldered his backpack, wincing when his chest tightened. He cast a glance over his shoulder as he left. " 'Bye, Boss."

Gibbs didn't wait two seconds before letting his fingers fly over the keypad of his desk phone. The call was answered after the first ring.

"Duck," he began before the M.E. could offer a salutation. His voice was worried, almost fearful. "You said DiNozzo came in hurt this afternoon?"

XOXOX

Tony leaned back against the elevator wall and closed his eyes, concentrating on breathing in and out, as the machine made its descent. The fourth ding told him he'd reached the parking garage. The doors parted, but Tony didn't step out. He almost hurt too much to move. So he didn't appreciate the sudden, melodic peal of laughter that nearly startled him out of his skin.

"Going somewhere, Tony?" A woman's voice mocked him laughingly. "You look absolutely terrible."

His eyes flew open and his mind whirled furiously as he tried to figure out the possibility of the impossibility before him. He replied mentally before he rejoined aloud; the ghost of a sour comment made distant months ago.

No one ever accused you of having tact.

Any other time he would have replied with, I got shot last week; what's your excuse?

But the truth of the matter was that she didn't look terrible at all. In fact, she was a sight for sore eyes.

Even if he was sure that she was only a hallucination. He knew that he could never tell Gibbs about this. Never. Because it was insane.

If I could drag her back, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

"I swear," he muttered to himself, rehearsing what he'd say on the off chance that someone found out he was losing his mind. "I haven't been popping pills."

But that's impossible.

"Well," she said lightly, stepping into the elevator. "That's…good to know."

Ziva David is dead.

Ziva David is dead.

Ziva David is dead.

Tony hit a button, and the doors stayed open. He turned, and stared. And she pretended not to notice. Until her impatience got the best of her.

"Will you please stop looking at me like that?"

He shifted his gaze, but not his mental focus. "Ziva…"

He whispered her name, almost reverently. Which made his next comment sound unnecessarily blunt. "You're dead."

Her face drained of color, and her backpack slipped slightly off one shoulder. "You're kidding."

"Nope."

Ziva shook her head, bewildered. "How? I have not been to work in a week! What could I possibly have done that Gibbs is—Oh," she stopped short, eyes darting nervously. "Unless it's about the paperwork on the—"

"No, you're dead, Ziva." Tony interrupted flatly. "Gone, not living, deceased."

She was dead, her face ashen and slack, four bullets having stilled her heart, and he'd been helpless to save her.

Her eyebrows knit tightly, and she ran her hands lightly over her chest and stomach. "Not last time I checked." She leaned toward her partner and dropped her voice to a confidential whisper. "Tony, are you drunk?"

He didn't answer her question, and she wondered if he'd even heard it. He kept rambling, wildly.

"Ziva, we attended your funeral, and you were definitely dead. I saw you. We tracked down the shooter and he's going away for murder. Your murder."

He stepped up to the open casket, last in line. He wouldn't let himself admit that she looked good; beautiful, even.

Ziva blinked, and tried to make sense of him. Finally, she decided to indulge him, because there was a manic, grieved look in his eyes that she'd never seen before, and she prayed that she'd never have to see it again.

"Ok, Tony," she began slowly and eased toward him, holding her hands out and folding them into his. "How did I die?"

The scene replayed itself in his mind's eye for the hundredth time. His gaze was fixed, and distant.

They took their position, standing on either side of a rusted, sagging door. "Stay behind me," he ordered tersely.

"I wanted to protect you," he explained roughly. "I knew you weren't a hundred percent that day."

Tony leaned across her lap and opened the glove-box, tossing up a bottle of Motrin. 'Don't wanna see that glazed look in your eyes if we run in to trouble.'

"We went in. It was easy, at first."

Shots fired back to back. The thug had tried to pop him. The bullet embedded in a wall. Ziva's was a kill-shot. She nodded. Tony kicked in another door. Not clear.

"After that, it was a maelstrom."

So many shots were fired that he couldn't count them all. Couldn't hear anything, either. The only thing that registered in the blur was the pulsing in his hand, weapon discharging.

"There were six guys when we busted in, and after the fire-fight, you and I were the only ones left standing, as the saying goes." Tony pursed his lips. "Or so I thought."

One, two, three, four, five six. Fired in rapid succession. One of them took two, the other four.

Tony shuddered, and Ziva found herself tightening her grasp on his hands to try and pull him back to the present.

"And then?" She prodded gently.

"Next thing I know, I'm on the floor, and your blood is everywhere."

Tony couldn't control the violent trembling of his own hand enough to feel for a pulse in her neck. A warm liquid, colored dark, brilliant red, pooled beneath Ziva's body.

Zivastared at her partner in a fascination of horror. Something was not right. Tony wasn't Tony. She noticed how his eyes were sullen, and his face pale-grey. She was nearly pressed up against him, and she could hear the shallow, labored sound of his breathing. Was it grief catching up, or years of anxiety taking toll? Was he ill? She didn't know. She didn't think she really had the time to figure it out. Her next move would be to reach for her phone and make a 9-1-1 call to Gibbs. But first, she had to clear something up with her partner. Maybe it would set him straight, calm him down.

"Tony, I was shot four times in the warehouse." She searched his eyes, trying to impress upon him the seriousness of her statement. She squeezed his fingers, and spoke slowly, placing an emphasis on each word. "But I was wearing a vest."

"No you weren't," he responded immediately, coloring. "It's my fault, Ziva. I put them in the trunk of the car, and—"

He couldn't continue. The stunning truth hit him like a bolt of lightning.

Ziva turned and saw him still standing at the rear of the car, staring into the empty trunk. Something about the hard set of his jaw was unsettling.

I'm the one who put the vests in the car, Gibbs. One too few.

"I didn't want you to see," he whispered faintly as the memory came crashing back. "I didn't… want you to see that I wasn't wearing a vest. That's why—that's why I could barely…"

His head shot up when she called him. He shut the trunk of the car and zipped his jacket almost to his chin as he jogged toward her. There was something strange in his smile.

And his voice trailed off.

He staggered backward and his head met the concrete with a sickening crack. DiNozzo felt like he'd been disembodied. He saw himself expend tremendous effort to pull up on one knee, shoot and kill one of the scum-bags they'd left injured on the floor. Saw himself fight against unconsciousness, gasping, coughing, choking for air as he crawled toward his partner. They'd hit him full in the chest.

He began to slide down the elevator wall, and Ziva let herself go down with him. She clutched at his front. As she bent over him, her eyes dark and concerned, a glimmer of something dangling from her throat caught his attention. He reached for it. Her Star of David.

Was it? He tried to remember.

He stepped up to the open casket, last in line. Ziva looked almost normal, with even her pendant resting in its usual place at the base of her neck.

"Tony?"

"The funeral—your funeral—you were wearing this. But…but then Carson…"

His words became slurred and incoherent.

Carson reached into his pocket and then shoved something into Tony's grasp. It was small and metallic. Ziva's Star of David felt cold in his palm.

Ziva pulled her hands from his and gasped at the blood that slicked her palms. It was the same blood that covered his shirt. His eyes drooped and fluttered. Suddenly, and for no reason at all, his rapid-fire mind turned to a scene from four years ago. Sitting in a car, on a rainy night, watching a ship that half blew up only moments later and drove Gibbs to a fake early retirement.

He smirked wanly; Ziva had had him all figured out.

Tony, your dying words will be, 'I have seen this film.'

Her face blurred in front of his. He saw her mouth moving, but couldn't hear the words. He reached into his pocket. Where his hand should have closed around a Star of David necklace, it closed around a bullet.

His vision rapidly faded.

"I've seen this film."