Tony's POV
Tony's Apartment
Neglect isn't anything new to my vocabulary, to my experience, nor to my life, but when I witness it, it still manages to make my blood run cold.
Nick didn't care that Alice died. No, he didn't care about Erin or her feelings, either. He only cared about a meeting with him, an insurance agent, and a thick stack of Alice's money in his pocket.
He has always made me sick.
Without so much as a weep, a hug to his daughter, a goodbye, not even a moment of silence, he burst out the door, leaving his daughter with his rival.
Luckily, that "rival" loves her, and knelt down to hug her as she began to sob again.
Now, the rival brought his daughter to his home.
I open the door to my apartment, and Erin walks in and looks around.
"My bedroom is to the right. You can sleep there tonight. I've got the couch," I tell her.
Erin turns around.
"You sure? It's your house."
I nod.
"Yeah. But she was your mom, and I just want you to be as comfortable and happy as possible right now. Besides, the couch is comfortable, too. That's why I bought it."
A tear rolls down Erin's face.
"You are making me as comfortable as possible right now, and it isn't because of a bed. It feels great to finally feel loved by someone besides mom. Well, her and Olive. Thank you."
I nod.
"Anytime, kiddo."
She smiles sadly, and goes to my room to drop her suitcase off and get settled in.
I walk around for a while, just thinking for a while about Ziva and Alice, until I hear a knock at my door.
I open it, and behind the door is Tim.
"Oh. Look what's behind door number three. What can I do ya for, Tim?" I ask, trying to lighten the mood to make sure that whatever conversation he's going to start won't be anything tragic.
"Just wanted to see Erin. Check in on her. Stuff like that."
I nod, and let him in.
"Uh, she's getting set up, so just make yourself comfortable. Want anything?" I ask, gesturing to the kitchen.
Tim shakes his head.
"No, thanks."
I nod.
"So, how's it going?" I ask.
He shrugs, and I decide to wait for a few seconds before pushing him.
He takes to long, so I ask,
"Anything wrong?"
He shrugs again.
"Just Abby issues, but you're taking to much right now to hear about my relationship problems."
"Hey, I'm never to busy to help out a friend. What's wrong?"
Tim sighs, and I wait for him to talk.
After a few seconds, he does.
"She hasn't been as… sympathetic as me. It wouldn't be a problem, since I'm being a little to sympathetic, but she almost doesn't seem to care about what you're going through. She's complaining more than anything. Saying that, since we're engaged, this is the last thing that she should be dealing with. She's a whole different person now. Anyway, we got in a huge fight, and she stormed out, saying that she'd be back in an hour or two. I waited for her for five hours, and when she finally came back, she smelled heavily of cologne, and her shirt was, ruffled."
"Tim?" I ask as he finishes.
He nods.
"She's going back to her old habits. You were right. I just can't trust her. It's just, I love her. For so long, I was sure that she was the one, but now, I don't know what to think, about anything. I mean, one girl that I trusted with my life killed my best friend's girlfriend, and my girlfriend is cheating on me again. It's like she's, indecisive or something. She loves me, she hates me, I'm the perfect boyfriend, I'm not good enough. She puts me through constant pain, yet I still love her with all my heart. I think for a second, 'wow! I can't believe that she just did or said that", but then, my next thought is our times together. No matter what she does to me, I just can't hate her. We were friends for six years, and I loved her all this time. We grew together, and we shared so many moments. Brother sister moments. Now, she did one of the worst things, but yet I still love her. I know that if I somehow look past this and take her back, then I will never be happy. On the other hand, if I let her go now, I'll never have the girl that I love, and I'll never be happy then, either. I don't know what to do."
I nod.
"Tim, you know that Abby is like a sister to me, right?"
Tim nods.
"You also know that I'd do anything for her?"
He nods again.
"Yet, from the very beginning, I knew that that woman is just not reliable or trustworthy. If you want a lying, cheating, somewhat rude, crazy, and controlling woman to marry you, then by all means. However, that isn't you."
Tim nods.
"Just, don't marry her if you can't trust her."
"Thanks, Tony."
I nod.
"There is someone out there that you can love and trust, Tim. That woman will love you. Don't settle for Abby."
Tim stares off, and we get absorbed into our own thoughts as we wait for Erin.
Three Days Later…
Alice's Funeral
As soon as we get to the funeral, Erin runs over to Alice's coffin. She whispers to it, and I decide to leave her alone for a while.
I walk around, and I find Olive, Alice's Aunt Olivia.
When she sees me, she smiles to me sadly and hugs me.
"Oh, Tony. It's been way to long," She whispers.
I nod.
"Yeah. I missed you Olive. I'm so sorry for your loss," I whisper back.
"Thank you. I'm sorry, too," She answers, and we break the hug.
We smile sadly at each other, and I look at Alice's coffin again, noticing Erin crying on it.
"What's going to happen to Erin?" I ask, almost scared of what the answer will be.
She sighs.
"Well, Nick doesn't want her anymore, which I'm sure you could imagine. I would take her, but I have to many health problems to raise a child. I'll hopefully be around for several more years, but I just can't take the process of raising a child now. Eren, Alice's sister, doesn't want her, so that's out. It looks like Erin will go into foster care," She answers, with sadness in her voice.
I look over at Erin as Olive tells me this. How can Nick be so cruel? How could Alice fall in love with him? Why does such a sweet, innocent girl have to be tortured like that?
All the questions and uncertainty kills me, because that little girl is all that I have left, and seeing her in pain puts me in ten times more pain.
All that I know is that I have to find the perfect family for her.
Big or small, that family just has to be loving.
Wow, I love that little girl, like, like a daughter. My little girl.
Alice's daughter is my little girl.
Maybe she should actually be my little girl.
"No. She can't go into foster care. She needs to stay here, with familiar surroundings and familiar people. I'll take care of her until, well, until we decide what's best for her."
"Are you offering to be her foster dad?" Olive questions.
I nod.
"Yeah, and if I decide that I'm ready, and if she approves, maybe she'll be my adopted daughter, but I just have to figure it out first."
Olive smiles and hugs me again.
"Thank you, Tony. Alice was so lucky to have you. You loved my niece and treated her well, and I'm sure that you will treat her daughter well, too."
I smile.
"Hey, Alice was your daughter. I know that your sister gave birth to her, but you still adopted her and raised her. You raised her well, too."
She breaks the hug, and I notice tears running down her face.
"I know. She was the best daughter I could've asked for. Alice's sister hates me, but Alice, she always accepted me as her new mother, and now… Ugh I just can't believe that she's gone." Olive whispers through the tears.
I break down with her, and we hug once again, sharing the same grief.
The same sorrow.
The same loss.
The same broken heart.
A few minutes later…
After all of the fair wells were said and done, the soldiers who came fold up the flag on Alice's casket, and the little girl grasps the last thing that she has of her mother for dear life.
I don't know if it's for her life, or for the hope for her mother's life.
All I know is that I kneel down, and she lets me hold half of the flag, and she cries with me.
"Thank you for making my mommy as happy as you did."
I nod as I continue to cry with her.
Soon, she hugs me, with the warm embrace causing so much comfort. It will be okay, I tell myself.
Then, she whispers something to me, something that everyone dreams of hearing, but that I hear so rarely.
Although a woman may say it, she doesn't mean it, and it doesn't matter.
Yet, when this little girl whispered it, it broke my heart in a new way, but fixed it a little at the same time.
She whispers,
"I love you, Tony."
Ziva's POV
Parking Lot Right Next To The Funeral
I'm hiding right behind a car right next to the graveyard. Right next to the action.
I've got a front row seat.
I look over, and I find Tony talking to an old woman. He looks over at the coffin, with a little girl right next to it.
Probably Alice's daughter, Erin.
Okay, that's sad. Back to Tony.
I notice him hugging the old lady. Comforting her, even though he never comforted me.
Well, except for, several times.
Wow.
Come to think of it, he was more caring, loyal, and, I can't believe I'm saying this, charming, then Michael.
I haven't even thought about Michael for a while, come to think of it.
Even when I have, my thought were mostly about the possibility that he actually did kill someone. The fact that, that he could've attacked Tony. That Tony was actually trying to defend himself.
Wait, that makes so much more sense!
My boyfriend tried to kill Tony, and, and I tried to kill him. Then, I killed his girlfriend.
I've only killed the innocent, and only defended the guilty.
With realization setting in, I look over at Tony and Erin again.
Erin, the poor little girl, continues to sob over her mother's grave.
Where is her father? Does she not have one? Did I just make her an orphan?
I killed this little girl's mother!
How did I not realize this sooner?
My own tears start to form, and I look over at Tony.
My blurry vision just barely makes out the depressing sight of a broken old woman, and a broken man, sobbing and embracing each other with a bond formed by similar suffering.
This vision haunts me as I ask myself,
What have I done?!
A few minutes later…
The little girl is handed a folded up flag, and Tony goes to comfort her again.
The little girl cries again.
Her little face turns to my direction, and I stare at that beautiful, youth-filled face, and I just can't can't get over how much pain I caused a little girl.
This isn't what was supposed to happen.
I sob harder, and I struggle to remain silent, but I lose as I see the little girl's lips form the words,
"I love you."
With that, I gasp in pure agony and regret, and I immediately regret my decision.
Everyone hears the loud sob, and turn to me, and they see me.
Tony's red and puffy face makes the most anger- filled face that I've ever seen, and he runs straight towards me.
With my heart pounding, and tears still pouring out of my eyes, I sprint out from behind the car, and into the surrounding woods, with the enraged Tony right on my tail.
Tony's POV
Woods
I hear a loud yet familiar sob in the distance, I look over to see the source, and when I spot it, rage is all that I feel.
Everything else in the world disappears, and all of my focus, all of my vision, and my whole world focuses on the face of my best friend's killer.
She runs for so long, periodically looking back at me with her tear-soaked, wild face with her wild eyes.
My legs burn. My whole body aches. Yet, my mind, my will, it has never, ever been more focused or determined, so I ignore the sharp physical and mental pain, and I press on, until Ziva looks back again, and she falls.
She falls, and she tumbles right down the hill she was running down.
A pedestrian, aka a tree, stops her path with a loud, painful-sounding crunch and thud, accompanying it.
I run down the hill, and she struggles as she gets up, and she gasps for breathe.
I reach into my jacket pocket, and I pull out my gun and point it right at her, right at her heart, right where she shot Alice.
"Tony! Tony, put it down!" she shouts.
I just stand there, and she gasps.
"Please!"
I continue to stand.
"Tony, I'm so sorry."
I shake with rage, and I struggle to hold the gun at least somewhat steady.
"Yeah, like I was sorry? How many times did I have to tell you that it was self defense? Well guess what. When you killed Alice, it wasn't self defense. It was anger. Your self-induced justice. Why shouldn't I get mine?" I shout.
She puts her hands up.
"Because of our past. I started to cry because of the memories. Think about the past. Wasn't the past great?"
I try to think back to a good time with Ziva, but all that I can remember is her yelling at me. Her doubting me. Her unjustly losing trust in me daily.
Then, I remember the good times with Alice. The support she gave me. The laughs we shared. The smile she brightened my day with. I think that it finally hit me that I will never see that face or hear that voice ever again. That I will never see the woman that I love ever again.
The past with Alice was so beautiful.
"Yes," I answer, referring to my past with Alice, instead of with Ziva.
Ziva sighs in relief.
"Exactly. I, I made a mistake. A huge mistake that I regret. Just, let's forget. Just remember the past. I can make that amazing past come back, if you just put. The gun. Down."
My world grows cold.
I'll never have Alice back, because of Ziva. I'm done being pushed around.
"No, you can't, Ziva. Alice is dead."
My finger twitches, and her face shows such utter horror.
Then I pull the trigger, and she drops, a big heap on the ground.
I walk over to her, and she looks at me with misery and pain in her eyes as she presses on the bullet wound in her chest.
I stare at her with some sorrow, as she silently bleeds out on the ground.
Soon, she grows limp, and looses her grip.
I know what I did. I know that it's wrong. That I shouldn't have done it, but I don't care about that anymore.
I lost sense of what's right and what's wrong long ago, all because of the pain I've endured throughout this month. Throughout my life.
Yet, something always improved me, and my strength.
Sadly, that strength was stolen.
It was stolen in the cruelest way imaginable.
Yet, that strengthened me, too.
Now, I'm stronger than I have ever been, and I probably have the best daughter ever to show for it.
A sense of justice and hope finally rushes over me with so much force.
It makes my blood run cold.
Author's note: Thank you guys so much for reading this! Honestly, I can't believe it's over. A four month project is over, and it makes me proud, and I have you all to thank. Thanks to everyone who read this. I'll post the epilogue soon.
-Anne Tutusuvich