This is a year jerker to write. I am a full Tiva shipper and I would die if they killed either of them off. I just feel as I am searching for chemistry in my other stories I have to write a short AU one.
By my side,you'll never my side,you'll. never. be.
'Cause I'm fake at the seams,I'm lost in my dreams, andAnd I want you to know, that I can't let you go.
Everyday in 7 years nothing had changed. The two circling each other with gritted teeth and bated breath. With each lunge leaving a mark that had to heal. Things may well be the same. If only they had seen what the other felt. They would see a reflection of their own feelings in the other. A good fit. Every comment he made she had a answer to. An unending dance. Maybe would never draw to a close.
So much detail and so much history could be snuffed out in a mere second. Anything he would have to say to her would fall away and seem meaningless if she wasn't there to hear it. Her eyes no longer saw and her heart no longer beat. She had touched his life and stirred it up as he watched. She had left a Ziva shaped mark in his consciousness. It was still there even though she wasn't. What could kill her? She was a warrior. She was rock solid. It never occurred to him that he was one of the few people she had cried in front of. Now Ziva was away and he was moored to this planet by hardly anything. She had taken all his bonds.
Each other times she had died he had bought her back. Perhaps again?
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight...
He pumped her heart with his hands. Even though her eyes were closed and still. He pushed to keep her here. Let her live his thoughts chanted, they screamed. He couldn't live without her. Hadn't he already said that.
Twenty three, twenty four, twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine...
His breath didn't even bring her back. In a flash strangers, paramedics took over. Pulled him aside. He wanted to yell no but he hadn't the emotional strength he just stared. Refusing to believe it. Like a child.
All was black.
Gibbs was there, talking to him, yelling at him, though his eyes were glazed over. Gibbs was shaking his arms then he let his head fall and he sat beside Tony defeated.
Not again! Not again! What about Kate? What about Paula and Jenny? Now Ziva? Never Ziva. He was collapsing inside. Gibbs was giving up. He never gave up. Never on Ziva.
"Ziva?" He whispered. Calling her. Hoping for here to run over and whack him over the head.
Everything was bad in life now. Home was empty of her memory's. Everything about work hurt. The elevator, the bathrooms, her desk. He held it all back. He was no longer the shell shocked agent sitting in his partners blood in the parking lot. He was the month on agent. Supposed to have buried her and moved on. Now he was broken.
"Tony." Gibbs looked old. He had bags under his eyes and his hair was shaggy. He didn't even drink coffee anymore. He was nice all the time and he had no strength to bate him. It was his first day back since he had tried to quit three weeks ago. Gibbs had slapped his head and then hugged him. He couldn't loose another kid. Not after...
He stood there in the squad room without speaking. He saw McGee wasn't here. He was mostly with Abby these days. Vance had tried to buck them up but had stopped short when they wore their broken hearts on their sleeves. No proper cases came their way. He began to experience that blur he had met when he first thought Ziva was dead. Words didn't make sense anymore. He found himself on the floor behind her desk by the end of the night. A tear slipped down his face. It smelt like her as the memory's came flooding back. he closed his eyes and imagined she had never left.
"Ziva. Why did I waste a day. Why did you go. Why didn't I tell you... I love you." he admitted this to himself for the first time. It made it all 100 times worse. He began to shake. Unaware that Gibbs could hear him. And was also shedding tears.
"I miss you so much." He exhaled and opened his eyes. The illusion was gone.
Nights when Tony fought his battle to sleep were filled with dreams he could never remember afterwords except smells of disinfectant and cleanliness. And a voice. An impossible voice. Saying things he couldn't identify. Calling him?
Wakefulness bought no gifts. Food had no taste. Days rushed in to weeks which blurred to months. 6 Zivaless months.
"Gibbs." Tony addressed him as he sat in the mans basement with bourbon and the boat. "Gibbs I don't know what to do. What do I do?"
Gibbs would have answers. He had lost a lot more in one go than Tony had. He had to have a strand of advise.
"You have to get out of your head case. Back to work. Tire your self out so you won't dream." Gibbs replied from the shadows as he rocked his neat drink.
"What about the regrets?" Tony asked "Gibbs what if she was it?"
"You loved her?" Gibbs asked in a little bit of surprise. Not disapproving.
"Yes, I don't know, I think I did." He shook his head trying to get it clear. "It makes it worse to address it. Gibbs I could have married her in time,"
Gibbs tried to interrupt but Tony shook his head and pushed on
"I don't care how we got there. We could have gotten married and had kids and grew old together!" His voice shook as he addressed the impossible. "I mean it's not like we were going to retire and never see each other again after we grew up. I would have done something before then!"
"You don't have regrets. You both found out what it was like when things went bad between you. She almost died." Gibbs added
"I saved her." Tony moaned at the memory. Her back in his arm as he half carried her out of her prison. Her panting breath. He assuring her.
"I never want our family to get hurt. That's why rule 12 exists. Break ups can affect us all." Gibbs lowered his head as he spoke.
"You broke the family when you let Ziva go head to head with Dave Massey the murdering psychopath." Tony had let his rage take over him.
"I know."
Gibbs sounded pitiful and small and Tony felt a lurch of guilt from his words.
"I am sorry Gibbs. It wasn't your fault." Tony whispered as he leaned his head against the cool frame of the boat.
"It wasn't anybody's fault." Gibbs said sternly.
After that confrontation I had alot to think about. Did I love her? I soon relised that yes. Yes I did. That night I slept. I dreamed.
Her voice was back so I could hear it this time. "Tony? Tony? Can you hear me? Tony I love you. I should have told you sooner. I should have told you right when I relised. When you looked at me back at NCIS after you saved me. After that I was in love with you." a brush of breath on his face and lips on his own. And the dream was over. That night became special to him. The next day they got a case. A one day case that kept them busy. Tony felt tired when he got home. He fell asleep with a smile. Ziva didn't speak to him that night. He could just hear her breathing. Like she was sleeping.
Some days he would pretend that she was with him. Just in the shadows. Laughing with him and still at her desk, which remained un-cleaned out and unfilled, she would sit there shooting him flirty looks and witty remarks. Just like normal. One night he was sleeping when he felt a heart beat foreign to his own like it was lying on his chest. He had woken up with a jump and started calling for her, hoping she was actually there. But she wasn't.
Sleeping became easier when he pretended his dead partner was sleeping just close enough to hear her breathing.