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Keep your feet on the ground.
The questions kept coming. The Man wanted to know about everything. NCIS. The team. Their cases. He kept her here, not letting her go back to the bullpen, that still moment, the strength and safety that Tony provided.
The questions about the cases were to give her an opportunity to relax into memory, to drift off of her guard, so she couldn't answer those either, didn't let herself speak, hardly let herself open her mouth, except when they forced her to drink water.
Once, she caught herself reciting a movie line that Tony had once used. "The vessel with the pestle holds the brew that is true." The Man screamed at her for that. But how could she explain? She didn't know the movie. She hardly knew that she remembered it, much less why she'd said it, much less why she laughed when the Man questioned her so fiercely about it.
Then everything hurt so badly that she began to drift again, and she saw him.
He smiled at her, leaning with one arm on a cubicle wall. "The vessel with the pestle? Out of all the movie gold I have given you throughout the years, you pickThe Court Jester?"
She smiled back at him. "The what?"
"The Court Jester," he said, gesturing, as he walked toward her, as always. "Danny Kaye? Angela Lansbury? Only one of the most comical courtly films of all time? The musical?"
"A musical?" she asked lightly. She was supposed to tell him something, but she couldn't remember it. Maybe it didn't matter. Maybe they were just supposed to talk.
"A great one! There's dancing, there's jousting, there's poisoning and fencing, and the music, well. The music!" he was getting into it now, but suddenly he slowed down; that half smile again, and he sang. "Where walks my true love? Where does she wander? We may be dreams apart, or just a smile away... where goes my true love, my only true love, does she have an eager heart that longs for me today?" He fell quiet for a moment. "It's from... the movie. Ziva?" His voice became distant, as though they were far away, became thicker, accented... "Why are you crying?" She felt her own tears sting the cuts on her face as he reached out to touch her, and - Sharp! rending pain, as if being torn from one universe to another.
"Why are you crying? Look at me!" Vise-like hands on her arms.
No. Tony, don't go.But he was gone.
Returning there was a risk she couldn't afford.
"No!" Tony fist slammed into the wall of the elevator as it rose from Abby's lab. "She's not dead! She's not dead... she's not dead."
"She was on a Jordanian freighter bound for the Horn of Africa..."
The Damocles.
"It went down in a storm two months ago... No survivors."
"No... She's not dead... she's not dead..."
"DiNozzo."
Tony closed his eyes and curled his hand into a fist as he turned around to face his boss. "What, boss?"
Gibbs faced the elevator doors as they closed. "I know you and Ziva were close. Tony, I'm..."
"Why did you let her stay?" Tony's eyes were black holes that bored into his boss's head. Never before had he interrupted his boss but this one time he couldn't hold back. "Why? She's dead because she stayed. You could have told her no." Gibbs was a statue not looking in any direction. "You could have... you could have done something!"
With a ring the elevator slammed to a halt. Gibbs' hand moved away from the emergency stop switch and turned to face the fuming agent. "What would she have said DiNozzo? What would she have done if I kept her from going home?"
Tony's face hardened as Gibbs words hit home. He began to pace back and forth in the tiny space like an enraged lion. "I let her stay because I knew she could handle herself. I knew that no matter what Director David threw at her, she could handle it. I knew that she'd survive. She's from the desert - I knew she could handle any sand monsters they threw her way."
Tony continued to pace, sorting out the thoughts in his mind. "What were you thinking when you let her stay?" His voice tried to remain harsh, but rising from beneath was a pained sense of urgency: the hopeless, helpless pain that he had been suppressing since he received the news.
Gibbs looked his agent in the eye and for once Tony knew Gibbs felt his agony. "I was hoping that someday she'd wake up. I was hoping that maybe she'd come home."
Tony's hand went to the emergency switch and returned life to the elevator. He turned and faced the door, once again at his boss's side. "Well, now that's impossible." His voice was bitter and filled with regret. "Ziva David is dead."
A hand rocked the back of his head. Tony gritted his teeth and added one more reason to why he wanted to sneak into Gibbs' basement and burn his boat. "DiNozzo." His boss's voice was soft but firm.
"What?"
Gibbs shrugged as he walked off the elevator and onto the squadroom floor. "What are you going to do about it?"
Tony didn't move as the elevator doors shut in front of him. His eyes hardened as it began to move once again. "Find him..."
...
Sleep didn't come easily that to him that night. Not in the slightest. If there was one day that Sudden Insomniac Syndrome would assault a person, it would be today. He didn't even care if that was a real disorder, because it was now.
TV surfing the movie channels was his way of releasing. His way of getting out - of getting away from it all. He had tried alcohol when Kate died and learned his lesson the hard way. Just like anesthetics and sedatives, he didn't handle alcohol well. He didn't remember those nights after she died - only vague memories plagued him. And for some reason, he wanted to remember now. He wanted to remember this pain. He wanted to remember so that when he faced her killer in the eyes he would share that pain and know every inch of the pain he caused him.
The Court Jester was what he settled on. What could be more brain draining than a 1950's musical about a clown?
"Jester, sorry, jester." Great now I'm talking to myself.With a throw back of his head he downed the rest of his beer - the only one he'd allow himself to have - and proceeded to let himself to lose himself in the morbid musical wanderings of the mid-1950's.
"...Where walks my true love? Where does he wander? We may be dreams apart, or just a smile away... where goes my true love, my only true love, does he have an eager heart that longs for mine today..."
"Ziva?"
There she was. He found her once again. She wasn't facing him this time. Instead, she was was leaning out over a balcony wearing white with flowers in her hair. "I'll know my true love, don't ask me how or why..."
"Ziva?" He stepped towards her and gently turned her around.
"Tony... you came."
He laughed. "Don't ask me how. I was passing out on my couch and the next thing I knew I'm being serenaded by you in a white dress on a balcony. Very 'Romeo and Juliet.'"
"Why are you here?"
"For you," he said, confused.
Her face set. He had seen her do this before, turn her own skin into a mask to hide herself, knew her tells - jaw forward slightly, eyes hooded. She looked uncomfortable in the dress, light though it was, as if it were weighing her down.
"You're not helping me, Tony."
"What do you mean?" He felt cold, although this place seemed to have no weather to chill him.
"Every second I'm here, I'm not there. And when I'm not there, I'm not focused, and I don't know what I'm saying while I'm here, do you understand that?" She looked the closest to frantic that he'd ever seen her, looking up at him with her hands balled into fists.
"Understand - what? Ziva, what are you talking about? Where are you? What's happening?"
Things were fading, spinning away into darkness around them. He could feel himself waking up and fought to stay there, to stay with her, or to pull her with him.
"I'm dead, Tony!" she shouted, finally, voice ascending into a sob. "I... I died. I went down with theDamocles. Please. Please don't come back. Please go! Letme go!"
"No! Ziva! Stop!" He seized her shoulders and shook her slightly. White fabric and golden sand came away in his hands, but he held on to her. "What -what are you saying?"
She drew a shuddering breath, stepped back, and looked him in the eye. "I'm saying... good bye, Tony."
"No." He reached out to her, to pull her in and keep her close, to save her, but she was already fading away. Backing away. And as she was shrouded in the devouring darkness, the white dress turned into battered and torn clothing. Her face was once again marred by black bruises and dried blood, but he only caught a glimpse before the scene disappeared.
In the darkness, he could still hear her crying. "Ziva..."
The dream ended abruptly, his ears filled with the song from his dream. He blinked back tears that suddenly evaporated into boiling rage. With hardened eyes, he went to the window and looked out upon the dark city.
And there he stood. Waiting, plotting, cursing, like a beast in the night. All he could see was red. Revenge would be red if revenge was a color, he decided. And he would get revenge.
Gibbs' words rang in his ears. What are you going to do about it?
"Find him." Tony's words were bleak and emotionless. Fire was in his eyes. "I swear I'll find you."
When your head's in the clouds...
A/N:
There were a few questions on whether or not this is a one shot or would be still continue it. To answer you who asked: This will most definitely continue. It's based on the lyrics of the song "Brick By Boring Brick" by Paramore
Also, a BIG BIG BIG thank you to jessisparks who found the beautiful song from "The Court Jester" It really is a beautiful song and we can totally see Tony singing it (even though it is sung by a girl here *chuckle* work with us here!)
If you guys have anymore questions like the ones above please feel free to ask! (see questions like that can be used for reviews ;) okay enough with fishing for reviews. I shall be silent now. but seriously review. okay i'm really done now.)
The links to both the lyrics to "Brick by Boring Brick" and the song from "the Court Jester" on RedHandedJill44's profile if you want to see them