Note: Wow, sorry, friends! To any who read this story and felt there was a gaping hole in the action, you were right! I'd missed two whole chapters somehow! I hope this makes more sense!
Act 3, Scene 1:
Gibbs returned his post of guarding the King, his gut churning over the new developments. He found the Royal Couple in one of the spacious foyers of the palace. DiNozzo was happy to report that things had been quiet… at least, as quiet as things could be with Director Polonius in attendance. Gibbs noticed that despite his lieutenant's opinion of the Director, DiNozzo didn't seem in too much of a hurry to depart, instead hanging by the Boss' shoulder. Probably to watch the show; the Director never fails to entertain, Gibbs guessed. He caught sight of Lady Ophelia hiding behind her father's shoulder and realized with a heavy sigh what DiNozzo's true motives were.
There was a knock at one of the doors leading into the foyer, and since DiNozzo was standing there, Gibbs nodded for him to open it and clear the persons incoming. It was Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Gibbs gave DiNozzo a warning look to keep his eyes open and pay attention. Gibbs didn't trust these two, and by DiNozzo's returning nod, the lieutenant didn't either.
Claudius seemed exasperated with his two spies. "And can you by no drift of conference get from him why he puts on this confusion, grafting so harshly all his days of quiet with turbulent and dangerous lunacy?"
DiNozzo's brows furrowed. "The King seems to think Prince Hamlet is pretending to be crazy?"
Gibbs had caught that too. Prince Hamlet had been squirrelly since that night with the 'ghost'. Catch him by himself and he makes perfect sense; put him with anyone else, he's a different guy, Gibbs thought to himself, remembering the Prince's 'hawk and a handsaw' comment. "Yeah, I have to agree with the Claudius on this one."
"He does confess he feels himself distracted," Rosencrantz responded to the King. "But from what cause he will by no means speak."
Guildenstern decided to chip in. "Nor do we find him forward to be sounded, but with a crafty madness keeps aloof when we would bring him on to some confession of his true state."
The Queen seemed concerned for her son. "Did he receive you well?"
The spies both nodded. "Most like a gentleman," Rosencrantz assured her.
"But with much forcing of his disposition," Guildenstern amended with sorrow.
"Our Prince doesn't trust these two. I don't either," Gibbs muttered to DiNozzo. "You keep an eye on these two turkeys; I want to know what they're doing at all times. I don't want them scratching their noses without you knowing about it."
"Got it, Boss," DiNozzo nodded, his gaze tightening as he focused it on his new charges. "Did we find out where these two came from yet?"
"Ziva's on that," Gibbs told him. "I think they went to school with Prince Hamlet; they seem to go back a few years. She'll find out the rest."
DiNozzo jumped to open the door for the two spies as they finished telling the King about the arrival of the players and how Hamlet had seemed to brighten up when he saw them. "They are about the court, and, as I think, they have already order this night to play before him."
Polonius nodded with enthusiastic self-importance. "'Tis most true, and he beseeched me to entreat your Majesties to hear and see the matter."
The King put on a happy smile for his new wife's benefit. "With all my heart, and it doth much content me to hear him so inclined. Good gentlemen, give him a further edge and drive his purpose into these delights."
"We shall, my lord," the two spies promised as they took their leave.
Gibbs motioned DiNozzo closer as his lieutenant prepared to slip out behind them. "Get an extra team together; brief them on what's going on; I want triple security at the performance tonight."
"On it," DiNozzo replied, then disappeared behind his charges.
Gibbs realized the Queen was also heading for one of the doors, and as she promised to be obedient to the King's wishes and begged Ophelia to aid in restoring Hamlet to himself, Gibbs wished he'd been paying closer attention to what the King was plotting now. He closed the door behind the Queen, keeping a close eye on the three remaining players in this interesting little charade.
Polonius attempted to take charge of the action, dragging his daughter to the center of the foyer and prodding her until she stood up straight. "Ophelia, walk you here. -Gracious, so please you, we will bestow ourselves," he interrupted himself, making sure the King knew what he was planning. Turning back to his daughter, he thrust something into her hands. "Read on this book, that show of such exercise may color your loneliness. – we are oft to blame in this ('tis too much proved), that with devotion's visage and pious action we do sugar e'er the devil himself."
Gibbs suddenly remembered Ziva's report, that Polonius was scheming to put Hamlet and Ophelia together and see how the Prince responded to her presence. He watched in disbelief as Polonius and the King scooted behind one of the doors, leaving it open a crack so they could hear the exchange between the two 'star-crossed lovers'.
Hamlet wandered into the room. His hair stood wildly up from his head, his bloodshot eyes darting over the area and appraising Gibbs for a brief moment before raking over the love of his life. "To be or not to be – that is the question: whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them."
Gibbs shivered despite himself. I've had days like that, kid…
Hamlet's expression grew dreamy and he spun in a slow circle, ending up once more in Gibbs' corner of the room. "To die, to sleep – no more – and by a sleep we say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to – 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep – to sleep, perchance to dream." He paused for a moment and gave Gibbs a sad and knowing look…
Gibbs suddenly knew the Prince was remembering that strange night when they'd hoisted a few together. After the application of a few cups that loosened both of their tongues, Gibbs had let slip about his late wife and daughter, and how close he'd come to ending it all…
Hamlet's gaze grew sadder. "Ay, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life."
Gibbs fought down the icy shivers that threatened to overwhelm him. The Prince was speaking right to him. He was rooted to the spot, unable to look away from the compassion showing in his cheerless smile. Hamlet knew Gibbs had found the man who'd murdered his wife and daughter. He was well aware of what his Master of Security had done upon that discovery…
The Prince actually patted him on the shoulder. "For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of despised love, the law's delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin?"
…Gibbs had paid that debt with a rifle, rather than an unsheathed blade…
"Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns, puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?"
What is he trying to do? Gibbs' gut shouted, forcing him to realize the clever Prince was trying to manipulate him… for what, exactly? Is he trying to get me to do something? To not do something…?
To understand something? Gibbs managed to break eye contact and straighten his shoulders.
The Prince stepped back, his own gaze lifting skyward, and his voice dropped in pitch and tempo. "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pitch and moment with this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action." His piece spoken and an apparent accord struck with the Master of Security that Gibbs didn't quite understand, Hamlet turned his gaze upon the other occupant of the room with well-feigned surprise. "– Soft you now, the fair Ophelia. – Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered."
It's about time he noticed she was here… What is he up to?
Ophelia looked nervous as she greeted the Prince. She fumbled with a packet of letters and trinkets that she pulled from a pocket. "My lord, I have remembrances of yours that I have longed long to redeliver. I pray you now receive them."
Hamlet's eyes grew withering. "No, not I. I never gave you aught."
Ophelia drew in a long breath and held it. "My honored lord, you know right well you did, and with them words of so sweet breath composed as made the things more rich. Their perfume lost, take these again, for to the noble mind rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. There, my lord," she said, shoving the packet into his hands.
The letters hung limp in his hands as he stared at them in derision. "Ha, ha, are you honest?" he demanded.
She was taken aback. "My lord?"
"Are you fair?" he tried again.
Shaking her head in growing fear, she tried to back away from him. "What means your lordship?"
He stepped closer to her, and if there had been any violence in his expression, Gibbs would have intercepted him. "That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty."
Ophelia attempted to gather herself. "Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?
He nodded, tossing the packet of letters from hand to hand as he leaned in closer to her. "Ay, truly, for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof." He turned away from her, his shoulders sagging. "I did love you once."
Like most of the spurned women Gibbs had ever seen, Ophelia scented the weakness and pounced. "Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so."
Hamlet snorted, and only Gibbs could see how heartbroken the poor kid actually was. "You should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you not."
She resented that. "I was the more deceived," she shot back.
He stormed a pace away. "Get thee to a nunnery!" he ordered her.
Gibbs was distracted from the Prince's tirade by one of the doors sliding open a crack. Knowing the King and Polonius were close by in case Hamlet really lost his temper, Gibbs sidled away and waved Ziva into the room. She was watching her charge, the Lady Ophelia, with sorrow, but when Gibbs cleared his throat, she snapped her attention back to him.
"I have spoken with all of my contacts, Gibbs, and no one seems to know of our two spies. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were indeed school fellows of Prince Hamlet, but after their graduation, it is as though they fell from bowels of the earth."
Gibbs squeezed his eyes closed. "Fell into the bowels of the earth, Ziva," he corrected with an attempt not to chuckle.
"Whate'er," she shrugged in irritation. "How our new King knew how to contact them is a mystery I have not yet been able to solve… Gibbs, Hamlet has gone; do you want me to follow him?"
Gibbs' gaze snapped over to the sobbing Ophelia.
The poor girl hadn't been physically harmed in any way, but dealing with such a distraught former love must have been hard. "O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword, the expectancy and rose of the fair state, the glass of fashion and the mold of form, the observed of all observers, quite, quite down!"
Gibbs let his head fall backwards as a sigh escaped him. "Why can't anyone just say what they're thinking?"
"I believe she is," Ziva reminded him with a playful grin.
"And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, that sucked the honey of his musicked vows, now see that noble and most sovereign reason, like sweet bells jangled, out of time and harsh; that unmatched form and stature of blown youth blasted with ecstasy. O, woe is me to have seen what I have seen, see what I see!"
"Seriously?" Gibbs sighed again. " 'I'm upset; the prince is crazy.' How hard is that to say?"
"You always were a concise kind of person," Ziva consoled him.
The King's booming voice interrupted them. "Love?" he demanded of Polonius, his voice thick with sarcasm. "His affections do not that way trend; Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a little, was not like madness. There's something in his soul over which his melancholy sits on brood, and I do doubt the hatch and the disclose will be some danger; which for to prevent, I have in quick determination thus set it down: he shall with speed to England for the demand of our neglected tribute. Haply the seas, and countries different, with variable objects, shall expel this something-settled matter in his heart, whereon his brains still beating puts him thus from fashion of himself. What think you on it?"
Ever the toady, Polonius was nodding in full agreement to the King as he took his sobbing daughter in his arms and comforted her. "It shall do well. But yet do I believe the origin and commencement of his grief sprung from neglected love. – How now, Ophelia?" he asked, interrupting his own conversation with the King to wipe his daughter's tears.
"How do you think she is?" Gibbs snarled under his breath, forcing Ziva to cover her mouth lest she giggle.
"You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said; we heard it all. – My lord, do as you please, but, if you hold it fit, after the play let his queen-mother all alone entreat him to show his grief. Let her be round with him; and I'll be placed, so please you, in the ear of all their conference. If she find him not, to England send him, or confine him where your wisdom best shall think."
The King accepted the suggestion. "It shall be so." Catching sight of Gibbs at the end of the foyer, he made a sharp gesture accompanied by a shake of his head. "Madness in great ones must not unwatched go."
Taking his unspoken orders, Gibbs headed off to find the Prince and keep a close eye on him, leaving Ziva behind to watch over the King.