A/N: So this is the second-last chapter. This could get kinda M-rated, particularly in the next chapter, just fair warning!

(~~~~)

Well, you've stuck around this long. Go get yourself a cookie, or a gold star, whatever suits your fancy.

Tony's glad you're here to relive this humiliation with him.

Really.

Thanks bunches, y'all are swell. But as long as you're here, make yourself comfy.

This is the last chance Tony will give you. This is the last chapter of his story before the grand finale.

Sometimes Tony thinks this is all a dream. Sometimes it all just seems so fucking unbelievable that it can't possibly be true. He wonders when this became his life, what he did to deserve this, and what the hell he could have done to earn what happened when it was all over.

But then, Paula sacrificed herself to save them all, Jenny pulled off the ultimate Jack Bristow "if I'm going down I'm taking you with me", and Kate, beautiful, do-gooder Kate, his little sister, well, as soon as that bullet entered her head, Ari's death warrant was signed.

It's not like they work nine-to-five office jobs and come home to supper and a wife every night. Their livelihoods depend on people's stupidity, on the worst parts of a person making their way to the forefront. Which, really, is only further proof that Tony should have seen this coming.

Really, Tony doesn't consider himself a sacrificial lamb, so you shouldn't either. There was just no good reason Mrs. Grueber and Carl should have died for fighting his fight. The appropriateness strikes him as he enters what he no longer considers his apartment: this is where it started, the two of them, here. He was crazy to think it wouldn't end the same way.

Now, Tony is still trying to save face, but he's not ashamed to admit, his body was practically going into convulsions of fear at this point (manly convulsions, of course).

He and Shayla walk to their old apartment, and a few paces has never felt so long. Tony notices every detail: the ugly print on the wall, his open closet door, the scratch on the door across the hall, the blinking light of the security camera, everything.

Shayla leads him into the apartment and it's an absolute mindfuck how everything is the same and yet different at the same time. Tony means, everything is exactly in place, from the alphabetically arranged DVD collection to the pan Tony remembers setting on the counter in what seems like a long-distant memory.

Shayla turns. "Tony," she smiles, squeezing his hand a bit, as Tony fights the urge to vomit. "We have so much ground to cover."

Shayla sees the look on his face, and her hand squeezes his again, harder than was probably necessary, but it's not about Tony now. She's (well, he could be considered a co-conspirator) dragged innocents into this now, and as the only one of the two with their sanity intact, it's his job to get them out.

He gulps, remembering their old medical examiner. God knows what she'd done with him, and right now, as she stopped briefly from typing on his laptop, Tony noticed a distinctive look of 'about to go off on a long-winded, Grey's Anatomy-esque speech' on her face. Not the kind of speech Ducky had time for.

"Yes," he ground out. "We do have a lot to cover."

She smiles at his acquiesce, coming over to ruffle his hair affectionately. Tony does not duck his head, but presses on.

"Starting with Ducky. Now that you've got me, you don't need him, right?"

And he supposes it was stupid to think that because he'd won with Mrs. Grueber, he was going to win at this too. At least, that's what Shayla's condescending laugh seemed to imply.

"Oh, baby." She pinches his cheek and he doesn't suppose the biting of her nails into his skin is an accident.

"I can't believe you survived without me, especially considering how stupid you are."

Tony forces the not-so-subtle insult to roll of his back. Tread carefully, DiNozzo, his mind yells, but Tony's never been particularly good at listening to his mind.

"No, darling, you have to let him go," he implores. "You promised."

"Never promised any such thing." She goes back to the computer, not even looking up.

Tony is confounded at this particular point in time. She had him. Was Ducky not just bait? She had Tony here, why did she need Ducky here?

"He was bait," Damn, it's creepy how she still reads his mind. "He still is."

"For...who?" he dares to ask, but she simply yanks on his arm and drags him to his computer, pulling up the security feeds.

(Yes, he has them programmed onto his computer. He's a federal agent, who has been set up for murder by a lab monkey. He also has made more than a few enemies over the years. Extra security is not exactly unjustified).

Despite the whole agent thing, however, his heart still sinks when he sees the dark ponytail of his partner coming into the building, gun drawn. Should have known she'd go off on her own looking for him.

"All of the women you fuck this devoted, Tony?" Shayla asks, false sweetness in her voice. Damn¸Tony is fucked.

He gulps, giving reason one last shot. "I can get rid of her."

She snorts, "please."

Her hand grabs his again, and drags him down the hall to his closet. The door is yanked open, and Tony stifles a gasp. Ducky flops weakly in a chair, one side of his face slick with blood.

"Knew there was something off about you," he rasps. "Have you had work done on your nose? It looks far too plastic."

It takes all of Tony's will to bite down the smirk at the bite that never really left the older man. Ducky's braver then Tony, but then, everyone is.

And by the glint in Ducky's eyes as Shayla's hand instinctively flies to her nose, Ducky knows it too.

Shayla has the balls to actually look offended, proving that some things can still shock Tony.

"Rude,"she sighs. "And I was only trying to teach Tony a lesson."

She withdraws a knife from her pocket, and before Tony can plead, before he can beg, before anyone can say anything, Ducky has a fresh cut on his face.

Myfaultmyfaultmyfault, Tony's mind taunts him.

The groan escapes Ducky before he can help it, and Shayla finally looks satisfied.

(You'd think at this moment, Tony would have been raging, right? She was cutting their medical examiner, Tony's friend, right in front of him. But here's a little life lesson for ya, kids: those who are weak and stupid like him rarely do what they're supposed to. That's how he became a cautionary tale)

Thus appeased, Shayla grabs Ducky by the ear and leans close.

"Here's what you're going to do," she says calmly.

(~~~~)

It is not until later, until Ducky's weak cry of "help" from the closet down the hall, that Tony begins to rethink whatever plan he may have had.

He had to hand it to Shayla, this was a pretty well thought out scheme of events, especially considering it sprung from the mind of a psychopath.

Maybe she's some undiscovered genius, he muses, and the thought is so ridiculous even to think that he can't help the giggle that escapes.

Shayla whirls around instantly, and Tony casts his eyes back to the ground.

He hears his partner's sure footsteps on the ledge, and just in time, Ducky groans again, the sound cutting into Tony as he realizes exactly how Shayla intends to get Ziva "out of the way".

It had taken so long for Ziva to learn to put people ahead of the job, and that was exactly what Shayla was manipulating.

Again, the rage should have swelled, but let's just stay with the weak and stupid thing. True and easy.

Tony caught a flash of his partner's ponytail as she rain to aid Ducky, stowed away in the closet, and then there was a slammed and almost suspiciously quickly barricaded door.

The pounding and Ziva's shouts (he's pretty sure there are swear words in at least six languages) echo through the hallway, and Tony can only bow his head and do jack-all.

Useless. Well, at least Shayla had been right about something.

That defiant little nugget of stupidity pushes into Tony's head, and he hears himself say "the team will find out. They'll come here."

And damnit, if Shayla isn't a thorough little psycho as she smiles serenely and murmurs something about her having friends too, their cars weren't looking so hot lately.

And Tony, with no gun, knife (should have followed rule nine), or ninja girl, braces to finish this alone. Just like it started, just like it will always end.

You'd think court-mandated therapy would be a great opportunity to ruminate. Yeah, so they'd have you believe.