A/N: Let's face it. I'm awesome. Hee hee! :D Many thanks to people still reviewing! I'm so glad you guys are still willing to read this!
Enjoy!
Gibbs was part of the ground assault. He knew an Angel was protecting Ziva, on his orders, but he knew that one sniper could only do so much in the chaos of a battle like this. Through the surging, tumultuous crowd he saw Ziva's struggle to fend off her attackers, spied the shadow creeping up to swallow her from behind. In that moment, all else ceased to exist. His sole focus, his only objective, was to get to her.
He'd long since traded his primitive polearm for the familiar handgrip of a 9mm Berretta, and with it he had cut a swath across the field, smoothly dropping any Blood who got in his way as he fought to reach Ziva. First three, then nine. He emptied one clip and reloaded a fresh one, the motions so ingrained that it remained second-nature, even after all this time.
But he wasn't quick enough. Werth got to her first, and was dragging her off to god knew where to do god knew what. In his periphery he could see the other Survivors struggling against the Bloods, Herd and Residents alike falling under the gang's growing rage. The element surprise was fading and the Bloods' confidence was returning. The result was unbridled violence and the instilled sense of superiority that made all others bugs beneath their shoes. But Gibbs had accounted for that.
In three minutes—a little less now—one last contingent of Survivors were going to flood the field, flanking the original point of advance. This contingent was led by Sergei and his best, each with orders to lay waste to every single Blood who raised a weapon against them. There would be no mercy, no benevolence. The final blow would cripple the Bloods, giving the victory to the Herd and their unexpected reinforcements.
But that meant he had three minutes to get to Ziva. Three minutes to eliminate Werth. Because as soon as Damon realized he would not win, he would make sure Gibbs didn't win either. He would murder Ziva, out of spite if nothing else.
Three minutes.
"Ethan, no!"
Ziva threw her elbow up and behind, as much a frantic bid to free herself as a deliberate intent to cause harm. The wild blow glanced off his ear, and he growled in irritation before jabbing a tight fist into the side of her neck.
Her vision instantly blackened, her body slackening in his grip as the stunning blow shocked her body's systems. Somewhere, a small voice in the sudden darkness reminded her that in the right circumstances, such a blow could kill. That same voice whispered she would not be so lucky as the man she'd once killed in an elevator.
Unsure of how far he took her when her senses began to return, her first attempt to reclaim her motor functions resulted in little more than a lurch of her upper body that unbalanced Werth. He might have thought she would try to get her feet under her, or expected a heel to his groin, but whatever the reason her deadened limbs became tangled in his and he stumbled.
They landed heavily, her dazed body trapped beneath him. She registered a furious curse and then a whirl of green and dusky blue sky as he flipped her onto her back in the grass. His knees straddled her hips, and his fist slammed into her cheekbone. His shadow blurred above her as she groaned, nauseous pain rising to her throat. But she did not scream.
He was furious, more so than she had ever seen him. She had defied him, insulted him publicly by halting the Game. And now, with the rebellion of the Herd and the attack the Residents, she had ruined him. Even if Jethro failed, if they failed, and freed no one, Damon's authority was blown to hell.
He had failed to tame her, to break her, and by honoring her trade—her life for the Sanctuary, denying the Bloods their expected slaughter—he'd left the Black Blood Gang vulnerable to Jethro's retaliation. Damon would not Survive this.
And as her vision cleared, she saw the gleam in his eyes, and knew that he would not let her Survive it either.
The realization struck an instant before heavy hands clamped themselves around her throat. Her breath halted abruptly, a squeaking click of her voice box the only sound to escape before silence shrouded her. The screams of the Survivors were dulled by a new roaring in her ears, her vision pulsing weakly in time to her heartbeat. Damon pulsed with it, his darkened silhouette hard and imposing against the setting sun. It was not the face she'd hoped to gaze upon before she died, but at least she didn't have to see his eyes.
She could at least imagine Jethro was here.
Her body jerked, a spasm borne of survivalist instinct that just couldn't die. One hand swiped at Damon's face, but he was too far away. The other merely flopped on the grass. Cold, hard grass that was smooth to the touch. Wait.
Her fingers clutched the foreign object, and a new pain flared minutely in her dimming awareness as sharp edges sliced her skin. Glass. A shard of glass so large it sat like a knife in her hand. It took barely a moment for it to register before her palm curled around it tightly.
Sunlight glanced off its reflection, cutting through the growing shadow of encroaching death as it sank into Damon's neck. A spray of blood arced through the air, thick and coppery on her tongue as she sucked in a gulp of air when his grip loosened on her throat. She let her hand fall as she withdrew her improvised blade, cutting the wound wider before plunging deeper.
Wide eyes stared back at her as her vision cleared, a choked gurgle trailing from above as blood coated his lips. His hand lifted to staunch the bleeding, but he knew as well as she that it do no good. The certainty of death was now his to swallow.
Another strangled cough escaped him, and his hand fell from his neck, this time to stroke the hair from her eyes. His fingers were slick with blood, coating her skin with a warm touch that was incongruous to every touch before. His gaze met hers for a tenuous moment, before lowering to her lips, his fingertips trailing over them in a featherlight caress.
As she watched his eyes glazed, losing their eagle-eyed focus as his body sank on top of her. His chin rested upon her chest, his nose brushing the skin of her neck. She felt his breaths until they were no more, but it was several heavy, interminable moments as she sensed his pulse slow, then fade. The voice in the back of her mind sounded again, proclaiming herself finally free, even as she lay in the macabre parody of a lover's embrace.
"ZIVA!"
The sharp shout cut through the din of sudden silence, and she reacted reflexively. Her hands pushed at Damon's dead weight, but the corpse didn't shift until Jethro knelt to help her, shoving Werth to the side before scooping her up and away from the puddle of muddied blood.
She let him move her, her mind struggling to catch up, to cut through the haze that filled her thoughts with cotton. She blinked, and then she was looking into blue eyes, dark with emotion as his hand cupped her cheek, tilting her chin up to look at him.
"I'm all right," she said, her voice raspy. Her throat hurt, she suddenly realized. But the pain faded as reality came back to her. Damon was dead, and Jethro was here. They were both alive.
Her arms wound themselves over his neck, pulling herself into his embrace. Her eyes burned as he held her, felt the relief flooding him as keenly as if it was her own. It was her own.
"I'm sorry," she whispered huskily. "I'm so sorry…"
His only response was to squeeze her tighter. He would never blame her for doing what she did, for trying to save the Residents. But she knew in her heart she should never have done it. Should never have asked him to accept it. Dying together was better than Surviving alone.
He pulled back after a moment, looking her over as if to convince himself she really was okay. His hand brushed her cheek, and when he was content with her welfare he met her gaze as his thumb wiped the blood from her lips. Then his eyes closed, sighing to rest his head against hers.
She let his calm wash over her, and felt her heart rate slow to something resembling normal. She could breathe again, though her throat still ached, and her gut released its tense knot—a presence she hadn't noticed until it was no longer there.
He helped her to her feet, and together they stood for a moment, regaining their bearings. Inevitably, their gazes fell to Damon Werth, the empty body left on the blood-soaked ground. Devoid of life, he hardly seemed the monster who had ruined so many lives, but even then Ziva could not reconcile him to the dedicated Marine she had once met, another lifetime ago.
Wordlessly, her hands lifted, and shaking fingers unbuckled the collar around her neck. Its lock had been removed and left with the chain in her cell, undoubtedly still hanging from the bunk rail she'd been tethered to. She spared the collar barely a glance before tossing it away, letting it land on the back of her captor's body.
Jethro didn't comment beyond giving her hand a squeeze, but the newfound sense of freedom she felt wash over her was halted in its tracks when she remembered who else had been so desperately seeking freedom.
"Ethan."
The whisper passed her lips, and she spun on her heel to sprint back to the playing field. But she dropped mid-pivot, her right ankle giving way. She pitched to the right, and when Jethro caught her she barely gave him the chance to put her upright before trying again. She barely managed a few steps, her right foot nearly unresponsive.
A body ducked under her right arm, and a hand planted itself on her waist. "C'mon," Jethro murmured. Together they moved quickly, Jethro sensing her haste. She guided him, and within minutes they reached the field.
The second prong of the Residents' attack had come and gone, the battle having now pushed out into the surrounding streets as the Bloods tried to run. Jethro saw more Bloods than Survivors lying dead on the pitch, but it was a small comfort when they had so few to lose. And as Ziva led him to one fallen soul in particular, he knew that he felt the hollow victory just as keenly as he did.
"Ethan…" She pulled her arm from Gibbs' neck, letting herself fall to her knees beside her friend. Blood stained his shirt, even bubbling where it leaked from his wound. Fear spiked in her chest, and she immediately moved to put pressure on the laceration before looking up to Jethro. "Get Ducky!"
But Jethro's head shook no. "He's not here, Ziva."
Of course he wasn't. He was too precious to the entire Sanctuary, and he was so old now. But he could save Ethan, she knew it. And she knew that without him, Ethan didn't stand a chance. She knew it as surely as she knew that her applied pressure was doing nothing to stop the bleeding. A hand brushed her shoulder, clutching at her sleeve.
"You got 'im?"
Ethan's voice was thin, but his hope seemed so out of place that she almost laughed. Instead she grasped his hand, and let his fingers clutch at her. "Yes," she confirmed. His eyes lit up, and his lips almost turned up into a smile. "He's dead."
"So're the others," he reported, coughing out a mouthful of blood. "Most of 'em…"
She nodded, blinking back tears. "We're free, Ethan." She swallowed, trying to dislodge the lump in her throat. "You're coming home with us."
Bloodshot eyes lifted to where Jethro stood over them. "This the guy?"
"Gibbs," Jethro offered, by way of introduction.
A bloodied hand lifted over Ziva's head, and their hands clasped in a brief welcome. But then Ethan coughed again, and was left wheezing for breath against the pain. Ziva's grip tightened on his hand, silently urging him to stay with her. It was selfish, but she'd earned the right to be selfish about this—hadn't she?
"Ethan…"
"Don't." Ethan's counter was startlingly terse. "No platitudes." He blinked at her sluggishly. "We knew this was how it might end up."
They had. There'd been no misconceptions. But she didn't have to like it. He'd earned freedom just as well as she had. Maybe even more, because without him she would've gladly let herself die in the first Game she'd been thrown into. Or she would have lost herself completely in the role Damon had set for her.
Ethan looked to Jethro once more. "Take good care of her," he instructed, his voice failing again. He held Jethro's gaze until the older man nodded before looking back to Ziva. "You can live for the both of us."
"Ethan…"
But he was already gone. She'd expected to see his final, agonizing breaths, or a death spasm as his life left him. What truly came was so gentle, so peaceful she could hardly believe it happened. But she was the only one holding his hand now, his fingers lax in her grip. His wound was no longer frothy, the turbulence stilled in the wake of his death.
She didn't realize she was crying until she blinked and felt the burn of tears. She looked into Ethan's unseeing gaze for a long moment before reaching out to carefully close his eyes. A gentle hand settled on her shoulder, a steadying presence as her fury warred with loss.
"We're taking him with us," she declared, her voice thick.
She heard Jethro suck in a breath. "Ziva…"
"He's coming with us!" she snapped, knocking the hand from her shoulder before dashing the tears from her cheeks. "He's coming home! I don't care how long it takes us to bring his body to the Sanctuary. He's coming with us."
"…All right," came the soft acquiescence.
A moment passed, and Ziva's fury softened to heartbreak. "He wanted to see it," she whispered, barely a murmur. "What it stood for… It was enough for him to give everything he had…" She swallowed thickly. "He deserves to rest in peace."
She felt Jethro nod, though she didn't look up to see it. "He will."
Ziva continued to hold Ethan's hand, not moving to rise from her vigil beside him. After a moment, Jethro knelt beside her, wrapping one arm around her while his free hand settled over top hers, covering Ethan's limp fingers as well.
Together they sat, until even the distant sounds of continued battle faded, then turned to muted cheers as the Survivors realized their victory. Eventually, the moon came out, and torches were lit to light the field and the surrounding streets. It wasn't until Sergei's familiar footsteps approached them, pausing a reverent distance away to allow the trio their peace, that Jethro again broke the silence.
"Let's go home."