Chapter Seven
Louder, louder
And we'll run for our lives
I can hardly speak I understand
Why you can't raise your voice to say
Remaining at the hospital while Tony and Gibbs went out to get the antidote to whatever was plaguing their children was one of the hardest things that Ziva ever had to do. She was always to proactive in fighting for her children – the circumstances in how Shai and herself were even here were a testament to that, but to stand by and wait to hear news was a truly terrifying experience. In fact, this entire ordeal was a new fear that she had never experienced before. There was nothing more terrifying than the prospect of losing your children, the babies you had given birth to, soothed in the night, taught how to sit up, to crawl, to walk, to talk...it was frightening. She had to stand back now, and remain with her children. She had to sit, and comfort her deteriorating son, and hope for their comatose daughter, so that their father could go and find the way to save them.
The doctors had managed to get a small amount of food in Shai, but it meant that he was feeling sick again. For now, however, he was getting some much needed sleep, so McGee and Abby joined them in the boy's room, the two of them taking up the chairs while Ziva sat on the bed with her son, holding his sleeping body in her arms.
"He's starting to look a lot more like Tony," McGee noticed after a while. Ziva looked at him for a moment, somewhat startled by a conversation that wasn't filled with despair and medical terminology. "Shai's always looked so much like you," he elaborated. "You can see more of Tony coming out in him now."
Ziva nodded softly. "He is beginning to act more like him, also."
"That doesn't surprise me," Abby smiled a little. "Tony does love having his mini-me."
"More than you could imagine," Ziva confirmed.
"Momma..."
Ziva snapped back into her protective mother mode, looking down at the suddenly squirming boy in her arms. "What are you doing awake, Shai?" she asked him sweetly. "It is late."
"Can't sleep, tummy hurts," he complained. "Is dad back?"
"Not yet," she shook her head. "Your father has gone to get some medicine to make you all better," she reminded him.
Shai settled his head on his mother's stomach. "Daddy make me better."
"He shall, yes," she assured him.
"I know he will," he told her. "He promised." Ziva felt her eyes watering up as her son spoke. He obviously noticed as he looked up at her. "Why are you crying?"
"It is nothing," she assured him. "Do not worry about me."
"Don't be sad, momma," he told her.
"I will try not to be," she assured him. "You should try and go to sleep for a while longer," she told him.
He nodded, and settled his head on her stomach again and tried to sleep. His eyes closed, but they could all tell he hadn't gone to sleep yet.
"Ziva, you're a really good mom," Abby told her quietly. "Not that it surprises me or anything. I always knew you'd be a good mom, even though we all thought any kids of Tony's would be complete nightmares, but I always knew, and now I'm rambling..." she broke off, and collected herself. "I just...you're an amazing mother."
"Thank you, Abby," she said softly.
Shai suddenly jerked, and clutched at his stomach in a way that forced him into a sitting position. He whimpered and Ziva instantly moved with him. "Shai?"
"Hurts," he groaned, and Ziva grabbed the container they had cleaned out from the last time he had been vomiting. Luckily this was just in time as he began to heave his stomach clean once again. Ziva hated that she wasn't able to do more for her son when he was sick like this, but the doctors had told them that until the antidote had been bought back, tested and confirmed to be safe, that all they could do was support Shai and keep him hydrated.
"It really hurts," he whined.
"I know it does, tateleh, but it will all be over soon," she assured him.
"Where's dad?" he asked.
"He will be here soon," she soothed. "You are being so brave, he shall be so proud of you." She looked up at McGee, and looked somewhat frantic. "Where is she?" she hissed. "He should be here by now."
He just checked his phone sadly. "I haven't heard anything yet."
"He said he would be here."
"He'll be here," he assured her.
"He should be here."
"Ziva, he's coming," he told her surely.
"Momma..."
"Hush, Shai," she soothed, turning away from McGee. "I am here, I have got you."
The warehouse area was always creepy at night, even when you were a federal agent. Tony would have shuddered, made a movie reference and hid the tingle down his spine were this a usual case, but it wasn't. He couldn't even recall a movie that featured a warehouse, because he was so focused on saving his children.
"Where is the bastard?" Tony seethed, when he realised that they were, in fact, alone.
"He'll be here," Gibbs assured him.
Sure enough, moments later they noticed the outline of another man further down the warehouse from them. They approached him, as the man made no move to advance on them. With their hands on their weapons, clearly displaying their badges as per protocol which had been drilled into them by now, they took even steps towards the man, leaving a space of roughly ten feet between them when they stopped.
"I knew you'd come," he admired with a gruff, familiar tone. It wasn't a voice that Tony could place, though.
"Where's the antidote?" Tony asked immediately, not willing to waste time on how he knew this person. The team could figure that out later, all he cared about was saving his children.
"You misunderstood my message," he told them. "I said that I had an antidote, not that I was going to hand it over. Not without a price, anyway."
"No, you're going to give it to us right now," Gibbs told him simply, with that eased authority that had the team running whatever tasks he gave them immediately.
This man, however, challenged them. "What makes you think that?" he asked.
Tony gave a tiny shrug. "If you don't, I'm going to shoot you right between the eyes."
"And then you'll never get your antidote," he pointed out. Tony fell silent, and the man allowed a smile to creep into his voice. "See, you don't think things through in the long run. You never did."
"Whatever grudge you have with me has nothing to do with my kids," he argued.
"The toxin was never meant for the children," he insisted.
"Then me, my wife?" he asked.
"Either," he decided. "Both would have been nice. However, seeing the torment on your face right now is rather more satisfying than your deaths would have been," he noted.
"You bastard," he snarled.
"And the other victims?" Gibbs asked him.
The man held up his hands, which were briefly visible under the light, whereas the rest of his body remained unseen in the shadows. "Test subjects, nothing more."
"Why?"
The man shrugged. "Your agent here ruined my family, it's time for me to ruin his."
"I don't even know you," Tony insisted.
"That's where you're wrong, Anthony."
He frowned, the voice triggering something in his mind again. "Who are you?" he asked.
The man stepped out of the shadows, and revealed his true self to them. There was a familiar jaw line, an identical nose, a similar brow shape. The voice was nothing compared to the memories that came flooding back when Tony saw the man standing before him.
"You," he snarled, as he lunged and threw the man against the wall, pressing his gun against his temple. "You bastard! My kids are dying because of you!"
"If it weren't for you my wife wouldn't have died," the man shouted back.
"Mom's death wasn't my fault!"
"Wasn't it?"
Tony stopped, looking directly into the eyes of his own father for the first time in more than twenty years. His finger jerked, pulling at the trigger a little despite himself.
"Tony!" Gibbs shouted at him, when he saw the movement. He stepped up closer, looking directly at Tony's father. "The antidote?"
"Is in a safe place," he assured them.
"Tell us where it is, or-"
"Or what?" he tested. "You'll have own son shoot me?"
"I'm more than ready to shoot you myself," Gibbs told him. "But I think Tony deserves this one."
"Give me the antidote," Tony growled. "Now."
His father shook his head. "It was always your fault," he told him. "She started drinking after you were born."
"She drank before I was born," Tony corrected him. "She drank because of you."
Tony fought back every memory of his mother, his beloved mother, knocking back drink after drink to cope with her monster of a husband.
"And then the accident..."
The screaming... The darkness... The smell of burning...
"No," Tony shook his head, his hold on his father tightening.
The smell of blood... The smell of petrol... The smell of smoke...
"She chose to save you first, her treasured Anthony..."
The screaming...the screaming...
"It wasn't my fault," he insisted.
"Nicholas and Andrea would have lived if it weren't for you," his father reminded him cruelly. "She could have saved them if she weren't trying so hard to save you."
The blood...
"Losing them destroyed your mother," his father continued. "If it weren't for you, she wouldn't have taken her own life..."
"IT WASN'T MY FAULT!" Tony screamed in his face.
"And now Shai and Rhia are sick."
His eyes darkened dangerously. "Don't you dare say their names."
"They're going to die," he taunted.
"I SWEAR TO GOD I'LL KILL YOU!"
"Tony," Gibbs calmed him again. "The antidote first."
"You're feds," his father pointed out. "You won't let a fed shoot a civilian."
"Self-defence," Gibbs recited. "You attacked Agent DiNozzo, he retaliated appropriately. We make exceptions for monsters like you."
"This is taking too long," Tony decided, before lowering his weapon and callously shooting his own father in the thigh. As he screamed, Tony screamed over him. "Where's the goddamn antidote!"
"Jacket pocket," he choked out, as he staggered down to the ground in pain.
Tony raided his jacket and found the small vial, which he transferred to his own pocket. They turned around and began to retreat back to their car, intent on getting back to the hospital as quickly as possible and leaving the bastard in the alley to bleed himself out. However, when they reached the car, he called back to his son.
"You won't protect them forever, Anthony!"
Tony raised his eyes to Gibbs, who gave him a long look before getting into the car. Tony went back over to his father and stood before him, watching his blood seep through his trousers onto the filthy floor, mingling with god knows whatever was spilled on the ground. Never had his father been seated in a more appropriate venue, he decided. He raised his gun, bringing it directly in his fathers face. He'd often joked about being in this position with his father, but he always thought that perhaps he'd feel something, perhaps something would happen to stop him, but nothing did. He felt nothing, he saw nothing, and nothing stopped him.
"You're wrong," he shook his head. "I'm always going to protect them."
And when the bullet left his gun and entered his fathers skull, he did feel something.
And it was one of the greatest feelings he'd ever felt.