Title: Death and Remembrance
Author: Gibbsgirl
Spoilers: Ep 3x15 Head Case
Rating: T for the "ick" factor. (I'm a mother, I wouldn't let my kids read this one)
Summary: Ziva has a tough time after finding the decapitated head at the beginning of Head Case.
Disclaimers: Yeah, and they're still not mine. I keep trying and not getting anywhere. I'm not even writing for the show, yet. Dang it all.
Author's Note: Thanks go first to rinkle (Rinne) for her challenge to write a third season fic. I must admit, I've stayed away from season three mostly because I wasn't really sure I was comfortable with Ziva. So, rather than avoid her, I further challenged myself. I wanted to find an ep where I could get to know something about her and one that hadn't been done to death.
Thanks, as always, go to Mac, my beta extraordinaire, without whom my work is just so much mediocre crap. And to Karie who read through this and several versions of the end as I agonized over just the right way to say it.
In Head Case, Ziva never names her Mossad friend. For the ease of reference here, I have given him a name.
Her hand shook as she reached for the cooler in the trunk of the car. This was bad, she thought. This was wrong. She tried to pull her hand back, but watched as she continued to reach forward against her will. She opened the cooler and spied the bagged head and felt her eyes slam shut. Just a prank, she told herself. Not real. When she opened them again she was standing in front of the trunk, reaching for the closed cooler. She could feel her stomach roll.
As she fought against herself, tried not to reach for the handle on the small chest, she knew what she would find as she flipped the cooler open: a plastic wrapped, decapitated head. She braced herself for the sight of the pale waxen head they discovered earlier that night, but horror coursed through her at the sight of her old Mossad friend, Noam Weiss. His head now rested there instead, gazing up at her, unblinkingly. She pulled back, gasping in shock, only to note that the container that held its sickening prize was now an overnight delivery service carton. One end had become soggy and bloodied from its grisly contents.
Trembling violently, she flicked her eyes around the garage for some means of escape, even as her feet felt rooted to the floor. Impossibly, she found she was no longer in the chop shop garage, but in Interrogation. Even as she tried to process the visual insanity, some higher part of her brain attempted to assure her this must be a dream. Adrenaline, however, had a firm hold on her and on a visceral level this was real.
Alone, she turned around in the room to find the gruesome package sitting in the center of the table. It seemed to beckon to her with an innate evilness, drawing her closer even as she tried to step backward. Swallowing the bile that rose in her throat, wanting only to get it over with and end the sick game, her hand darted out and swept open the flaps of the dirty box that held Noam's head.
She froze, hand in mid-air, no sound able to escape her paralyzed throat as tears flooded her eyes. Expecting to see Noam, she found instead that McGee's head rested in the box. His young face clearly registered the shock of unexpected death and she could feel her heart start to pound as she stared down at him. Suddenly, she squeezed her eyes shut, unable to take the sight of him, dead like Noam.
Breathing deep, determined to get herself under control, she opened her eyes slowly and looked back down. McGee no longer stared up at her in shock. Now it was Tony's head, a twisted grimace on his face. A small mewling sound escaped her, unbidden. Her eyes were drawn to the bloody jagged stump that was his neck, making her wonder if his death had been painful and prolonged.
Acid and bile clawed their way up her throat, and she swallowed reflexively trying to tamp down the unbidden reaction. Looking around for a trashcan and finding none, she clapped a hand over her mouth in an effort to contain what could no longer be stopped and ran to the door, yanking furiously at it. It released suddenly and she flung herself headlong through it to land in Autopsy. Without even trying to process the geographic inaccuracies of the situation, she threw herself over the sink and vomited.
"Why Ziva, aren't you feeling well?" Ducky's voice intoned from his position near one of the autopsy tables.
She stayed silent, uncertain, wiping her mouth with the side of her hand. He continued without looking at her, "Do join us, we're just about to have the unveiling."
Looking over to the gleaming metal table she spied an all-too-familiar cardboard box. "No," she whimpered, shaking her head as she leaned against the row of sinks for support.
"Don't you want to see who's inside?" The doctor turned to face her and her eyes widened in fear. Ducky… and not Ducky. As he stepped closer she swallowed convulsively, the vile taste in her mouth sickening her. Definitely not Ducky. Her Ducky was a kind man. This Ducky had an oddly evil glint in his eye, as if he would enjoy seeing her suffering. Or adding to it.
"Come closer, my dear," he said, his tone just to the wrong side of soothing, sending fear skittering along her spine. She was glued to her spot, allowing him to step close and slip an arm around her. Then with a perfectly awful smile he drew her nearer to the putrid object on the table.
"Stand right here, Ziva. I wouldn't want you to miss seeing any of this." He positioned her at the foot of the table and with his admonition she was frozen in place, helpless to look away.
Ducky, now properly gloved, reached for the box and casually withdrew the head. The pigtails gave it away quickly and Ziva moaned. "Oh, Abby," she said softly as she took in the details of the young woman's face, blood splashed on the chin.
"I wasn't aware that the two of you were that close," Ducky commented. She simply shook her head in response. There were no words for how this sight affected her.
But Ducky wasn't waiting for an answer. He held up the head and shifted around, examining it from all angles. For a moment, it was out of her view and she was grateful. She tried to look away from the spot where it had been, but was unsuccessful and when the doctor's horrible find was visible again the shock was nearly too much for her. This time she was staring directly into the blue eyes of her mentor, Jethro Gibbs.
She began to shudder uncontrollably as those once-vibrant eyes stared back at her, clouded in death and unblinking. Not Gibbs too. Then Ducky passed Gibbs' head to Jimmy who had appeared out of nowhere in this bizarre horror. As he carried away the silvered head, she felt the dampness of tears on her cheeks, wondering what could possibly come next.
"Now," she heard, as she felt a blade against her neck. "It is time for you to join them."
"No! I will not let you take me!" she cried as she lashed out against her attacker. And, oddly, she felt the presence of her dead teammates behind her before the dream dissolved into so much mist.
Ziva sat bolt upright in bed, one hand clutching her neck, panting. As her eyes darted wildly around her darkened room, reassuring herself that the horrific images were only a dream, her breathing settled and she felt her heart rate slowly return to something more normal.
Tossing the sweat-dampened covers aside, she slipped off the bed and padded silently into the living room. Pausing only to turn on a lamp, she continued unerringly to a shelf on which she kept a small photo album.
Being assigned all over the world for Mossad and often reassigned at a moment's notice, she traveled light. There were precious few items that went with her everywhere. She ran her fingers over the cover of the small leatherette album and smiled. It had been with her for many years.
Settling herself, she curled into an overstuffed chair with a cat-like grace and immediately opened the album. Her thumb slid to the worn page and she flipped to it. She stared down at the pictures of her taken with Noam right before he left on that mission. His last mission. Tears gathered in her eyes and she blinked them away.
Turning back to the beginning of the book, she looked at each picture, remembering when they were taken, the laughing faces, the hugs and kisses shared between friends and lovers. And she remembered the deaths of too many of them. So few of them were left alive, it seemed and she wondered briefly that she had been so lucky to be one of them.
Finally she reached the last pictures in the book. There were a few candid shots that she'd taken of her NCIS teammates and one that Tony'd had Ducky take of the group. She ran her fingers affectionately over the plastic-covered images, smiling in recent reminiscence. Jen had given her a whole new opportunity and it meant more to her than anyone knew.
But now the images from her dream returned to haunt her. So many of her friends had died, many in very unpleasant ways. It was part of the job, they knew, just as it was for NCIS to accept that death could and did happen. Why, though did she have this dream? Was it simply a reaction to finding that cooler and being reminded of Noam? Or was it more? Was it an omen of things to come?
She shook her head. She did not believe in such things, dreams and portents, fortune-telling and seeing the future. She flipped back through the small book and tears slid down her cheeks, wishing that she had known the future and could have prevented death. She sighed, allowing herself a rare moment of grieving for the lives of her friends who had died trying to prevent greater atrocities than merely war. She glanced at each of their faces one more time as she turned back through the book, grateful that she'd known each one of them.
She closed up the small album and stood, placing it back on the shelf, wondering what made her one of the lucky ones, one of the ones who stayed alive. She'd had her share of dangerous missions and close calls. What criteria does God use to decide who lives and dies?
As she headed back toward her room she caught sight of the dawn breaking though her kitchen window. She stopped, transfixed, as the fingers of pinks and yellows reached out through the sky ahead of the rising sun. The beauty and the promise of the day whispered in her soul.
Luck had brought her here, given her this job, these friends – but skill had kept her alive. Watching the sun peek through the buildings as it crept over the horizon, she reached up to finger her pendant absently before turning away from the pale sunrise. Work awaited. No one knew where the day might take her or what dreams the night might hold, but this was the life she loved and she wouldn't want it any other way.