AN. Yay I told you I'd get it out sooner. This dream is how the story started so I managed to post the other one, write this and go to the dentist to get a tooth pulled in the time between posting the last two chapters :D Pretty good huh? Oh well, here you are,
Please review! I've gotten tonnes of Story alerts and favourites but barely any reviews. The alerts and stuff is great and I appreciate it but please take the time a write a quick review, just a few words make me happy.
Disclaimer- I don't own anything.
Oh and I know that Ari didn't kill everyone it's just the way Ziva's dreaming it. If you have any questions (coz this chapters kinda odd) chuck them in a review.
She was on a rooftop with Ari. Not just any rooftop but the rooftop where he had set up his sniper rifle, ready to shoot Kate on the rooftop near them with Tony and Gibbs.
She saw what he was about to do and ran up to him, trying to pull him away from his rifle but it was like there was an invisible barrier around him and she couldn't get to him. She saw it in slow motion, the bullet flying out of the rifle, flying through the air, flying through Kate's head and flying on. She saw Kate go down like she was right next to her, saw the pain in Gibb's and Tony's face and they tried in vain to bring her back. Then she was in Israel.
Her mother had been taken by some of her father's men and she had followed them, even at the age of four, silent as some of the best agents. She saw them hold her mother down while one of the men put a bullet through her head, looking right into her eyes as he did. Ziva knew she had to be quiet or the men would find her so the sobs that racked her tiny body were completely silent and she only waited to see the face of the man who shot her before she ran. It was Ari, well at least in her dream it was and she couldn't escape his satisfied smirk as he wiped her mother's blood from his face.
She was in Tel Aviv, watching with amusement as her sister Tali looked through all the shops on the other side of the road, excitement lighting up her face when she found something she liked and ran in the shop to try it on. It hadn't been thirty second before the entire shop blew up, the blast making Ziva fly out of her chair where she was having a coffee and hitting the pavement behind her. She wasn't worried about her own injuries, only her sister and she ran towards the shop, ignoring her Mossad training on how to deal with a bomb and running straight towards it. And then she saw him, Ari, walking out of the rubble, completely unharmed with a bomb strapped to his chest, smiling the same satisfied smirk as Ziva chased after him, chasing to kill. But no matter how fast she ran she couldn't catch him even though he was walking and she fell to the ground, tears pouring down her face, heart breaking at the loss of the only thing she lived for these days, Tali.
Then she was in Abby's lab, holding a bag of evidence as she walked in the door but it was closed. That was unusual. She turned the handle and opened it only to have her heart stop at the sight before her. Abby cowering by her beloved computers as Ari aimed a sniper at her head. It was the same feeling as when he shot Kate, a kind of fire rushed through her and she tried to run and grab Ari to make him stop but she wasn't fast enough and a loud shot shook the lab and Abby lay on the floor, blood pooling from a hole in her head. She went to lunge at Ari, not bothering with a gun, needing to kill him with her bare hands but he walked past her in an instant and she was too late, not able to do anything but stare at Abby.
Then she was back at her house, the doorbell ringing as she walked towards it. She opened it and saw McGee standing there, holding a bottle of wine and dessert for the dinner party she had planned for tonight but then she saw behind him Ari, with a sniper rifle aimed at McGee's head, anticipation etched on his face. Ziva's warning yell was too late though and the bullet ripped through McGee's head, ghosting right through her harmlessly and then McGee toppled over, landing in her arms. She was holding back her tears as she dropped McGee's body and ran after Ari, not even trying to catch, just getting close enough to shoot him but as she put her hand where her gun usually was it was bare and by the time she had reached down to her ankle, Ari was gone.
They were in Autopsy, the images moving faster than normal now, bang Ducky was dead, killed by the supposedly dead body in its body bag just as Palmer ran in. Bang Palmer was dead too and she could stop the tears falling down her face as she tried to bring back her two friends from the dead.
Then she was in a car. It was familiar, not her mini but a car she had rented while she was working undercover ops with Jenny. She looked to the driver's seat and saw Jenny and she smiled briefly before she saw someone in the backseat. She spun herself around as quickly as possible but it wasn't fast enough and Jenny was dead against the steering wheel, blood flowing freely from her head, and with a small click the back passenger door closed and Ari got away again.
She was in her lounge room now. Sitting on the couch with Tony at the other end, watching one of his favourites, James Bond. She was laughing at the impression he was doing when all of a sudden a bang went off and he had stopped mid sentence, a ghost of a smile still on his face and Ziva closed the gap between them, trying in vain to stop the bleeding but a hole through his head was hard to fix and she fell into darkness clawing at her chest, trying to reach her heart and stop it breaking.
Then the darkness cleared and she was in Gibbs's basement and he was calmly working on his. She hoped for a second that he would make this all better, say that everyone survived and that he had shot Ari but all her hope faded when she saw Ari standing in the corner, Gibb's own gun trained at his head.
"I needed you to commit suicide with your own rifle" She heard Ari say but the rest was a blur as he pulled the trigger and Gibb's fell to the ground with a bang and she sprinted down the stairs, there was no way Ari was getting away this time.
She got to the bottom and walked right up close to him raising her small gun as she did to his head. But the gun changed and suddenly it was a sniper rifle and as she looked through the view, it wasn't Ari she was shooting at it was herself, but that didn't slow her down and she pulled the trigger and watched as her body fell to the ground, but it was okay, because that was good Ziva and now she was dead she could make sure nothing else would ever hurt her, that she cared for no one else, because if she didn't care about anyone, nothing could hurt her. But then she was in her house, in her spare room. There was only one more person she needed to get rid of. Only one more person stopping her.
Ziva woke up with a scream. The dream had been so real, so vivid. She saw all their faces flash through her head, pale and bloody in death and no matter how hard she tried they wouldn't go away and no matter how hard she tried she could get the image of herself shooting Kiara in the head.
"Kiara." She said fearfully, starting to pull herself from the bed when she heard a little voice from beside her.
"Yes?"
"Oh Kiara, I thought something had happened to you." Ziva said, letting the breath of air she had been holding out.
"Ziva did you have a bad dream too?" The little girl asked quietly. "I heard you scream after I came in. Was it scary?"
Ziva looked at Kiara with as big smile as she could muster after that dream.
"It was scary Perach Katan, but it was only a dream. What about you?" She asked tenderly, pulling the girl closer into her arms.
"It was a little scary, but I forgot about it when I came in with you." She said quietly, her little face serious and determined.
"Well that's good Perach Katan, let's go back to sleep then." The little girl rolled over and snuggled back into Ziva, feeling the woman's strong and protective arms hold her while she slowly drifted to sleep, knowing that Ziva would keep the nightmares away.
Ziva on the other hand, was worried. If Kiara's strong, sweet presence couldn't get rid of the terrifying nightmares, was there anything out there that could. Ziva knew that she wouldn't go back to sleep tonight and for as long as she could until she found something that kept her from reliving the haunting death of all the people she loved, so with tears leaving tracks down her face and her heart racing she laid her head back down on the pillow, ready to endure the silent night until the safe light of morning came.