A/N: Last chapter (finally). I may write an alternative ending but we'll see. The point is, please enjoy the concluding chapter to Fear. :) I don't own NCIS.

Through hours and days and weeks, she fought, and she fought hard. Reality once again evaded her, disallowing her the luxury of consciousness and the real world. It was unpleasant, to say the least; she was suspended, not moving forward nor backwards in her attempts to wake. It wasn't as if she didn't want to - rather, her body refused to comply.

Often, she was left alone with her thoughts. It didn't take a genius to realize she was getting less and less visitors. From the words that filtered into her world, those visitors were losing hope. This only forced her to really consider just how long she'd been insensate, lethargic. Still, she forced herself to have faith; from what she could grasp of the bits of memory left, there were people out there that cared for her. Surely, if they actually cared, they'd fight as hard as she to keep her alive, right?

It was taking more and more willpower to believe that.

Deep down, she knew it would help if she heard his voice. She was occasionally comforted by the voice of the man she identified as Jethro (somehow the name seemed off, but it was all she had to go off of), but Jethro was not Tony. Somehow, Tony meant more to her. She felt as though there was something she had to tell him, but she'd forgotten exactly what that was.

It was incredibly frustrating, to say the least. All of it was. Unable to release the frustration, it was simply building up, replaying itself in her mind, a constant reminder that, despite the existence of an outside world, she was completely and utterly alone. Voices did nothing to calm this feeling. While she was thrilled to hear actual words from what she guessed were actual people, it was quickly becoming insufficient.

Maybe this feeling was a good thing, she reasoned; it forced her to fight harder, didn't it? And boy did she fight. She'd often heard phrases like, "She's a fighter, that one," or, "She's strong, she'll pull through," and wondered if she truly was a warrior in the real world. The voices certainly dramatized her combative skills - if only they knew just how hard she was fighting now…

Twenty days into an ever-lasting coma, things changed. Even the air seemed to shift around her. She couldn't pinpoint exactly what caused the tension, but it was bad. It was as if she'd lost a part of her heart; somehow, it felt missing, no longer suspended with her, no longer real. It absolutely terrified her.

She'd always had good instincts; it was a key part of her success as a Mossad officer, and she'd utilized it quite a few times over the years, as a tool to save herself or an early-warning system. Most people learned to suppress their instincts to the point that the uneasy feelings were almost non-existent or easily ignorable, but she was different. Her father had pushed her to listen to those feelings, to nurture them, but also to learn when to disregard them.

Now, she'd been taught, was not the time to disregard. Now was the time to analyze. But how could she do so when she was alone in a darkened, deadened world? Her only hope would be dialogue, and she hadn't heard a spoken word in three days. She wasn't dying, was she? No, that wasn't possible; the thought hardly frightened her, while this feeling was absolutely terrifying.

Her saviour came in the form of data hours into that twentieth day. Though it was really no saviour at all; her friends would often look back on this day and remember the absolute horror that had crossed her features upon overhearing their words. It had started innocent enough, and the words had escalated into the doomed phrases they'd never wanted to acknowledge or speak around her.

"Jethro, is she doing alright?"

"Yeah, Duck, she seems okay." The voices were strangely strangled, quieter than normal. It only increased her uneasiness and fear, the overwhelming feeling that something was terribly wrong.

"The doctors say she's doing relatively well. They didn't expect her to survive."

A pause, and then a bitter, "Maybe not, but he was supposed to live… they said he'd live, Duck. So why didn't he?"

"Maybe… maybe he thought she was gone," the words were nearly inaudible, so quiet that she'd strained to hear them. The full meaning of the conversation hadn't struck her yet, but the atrocious sensation was still building; it would reach the climax soon, she realized, and that only frightened her more.

"She wasn't breathing when we found them… So, maybe…"

"She's going to be devastated, Jethro."

"Can she hear us, Duck?"

"Maybe. It's hard to tell. Occasionally comatose people may hear things from the outside world but they don't always hear everything."

"So then… she doesn't know yet." It was really dawning on her now; her heart felt as though it was beginning to freeze. They couldn't be saying - couldn't be implying what she thought they were, right? He had to wait for her, he had to be there, she had to hear him -

"She'll find out when she wakes up…"

"I can't believe he's dead, Jethro. I-I thought he'd hang on for her… I thought he'd…"

Audio cut itself off just then but the effect of the words had already hit her. Her breathing became ragged and her mind was filled with nothing but screaming; her screams, his screams, hers, his… She'd hung on for him, hadn't she? Why had he left her? How could any of this have happened, after all they'd lived through?

Outside her body, she was being watched by two very alarmed men. One of the two was desperately signalling the nurse, the other talking in a muted voice she couldn't make out. Her face was a mask of absolute terror. A whimper escaped her mouth. If she was terrified, they were doubly so; how could such careless words have that effect on the girl? She was supposed to be strong, she was supposed to carry on…

But they'd forgotten the age old rule, hadn't they? They'd been careless in their words, assuming she couldn't hear them, and… they'd pay the price then, wouldn't they? Her panic, her ragged breathing, all of it was turning into an impossible situation. If they couldn't calm her down, things could be catastrophic… She could die with him, then.

She was not long for this world, they'd soon realized, not without him.

Because he'd died, they said; he'd died three hours earlier.

Without him - without her hope, her light, her love, without everything him and everything not him - she stopped the fight. Without hesitation, she laid down arms, drew her last breath, and let the world fade away.

There was no use fighting now…

She'd see him on the other side.

Where is he?

They'd come so close to the love they'd wanted,

The life they'd always yearned for

But the universe was not on their side,

They said; they were never destined to be together,

Kept apart by fear.

Rest in Peace, their tombstones read.

Love conquers fear and fear conquers the fight.

Once he'd left her, alone, love perished with him;

Fear returned, fight died,

And ultimately,

Fear won.

A/N: My apologies if the medical side of this isn't completely correct. I spent a while attempting to find out if it was possible to react and die during a coma in this sort of situation but, because giving up hope/stopping the fight is an internal decision, I really didn't get much for results.