Hi! This is a oneshot set a few days after the end of Till Death Do Us Part :) I hope you'll like it.
The One Without Wounds
Tony checked his watch for the hundredth time that day and sighed when he saw that there was still a half an hour before the end of his work shift. He moved his gaze to the makeshift office - an unfamiliar dusty place with few windows and too many people - then he went back staring at the watch on his wrist, hoping that time had passed faster in that couple of seconds.
It hadn't.
He sighed once again and glanced down at the files he had been poring over for the past few days. He knew every line of those documents by heart - he had studied every word, memorized every number - yet he still hoped to find something he had missed: the sheet of paper was full of data about Dearing - his past known movements, his bank records, the names of all his close relatives – but the more he read those words, the more they sounded meaningless and useless to him. There was nothing there that could help him find Dearing. There was nothing there that could erase what had happened.
He forced himself to think of something new, something he hadn't considered yet. He watched the recordings of the explosion multiple times, in the hope that he would notice a detail, a tiny almost invisible detail that could help him in any way. Twenty five minutes later, he gave up.
He turned off his computer in the most brutal way and snapped shut the folder on his desk, feeling as helpless as ever. He had to find something, he needed to find something: he owed it to his team, he owed it to his family. He couldn't disappoint them, not now that they were hurt, not now that they counted on him. Yet, he couldn't help but feeling lonely in the office all day and working alone, without his colleagues, was extremely heard. Vance had assigned the case to another team and Tony had worked all that time on his own, following the rare leads he would find until he realized they led nowhere. He was left alone with his thoughts and his anger, but above all with his pain and his sense of loneliness. Therefore, when the hour hand reached the silver six, he immediately left, because he needed to flee the solitude, he needed to see his friends and keep company with them as they faced pain.
That night, too, he rushed out of the building as soon as his work shift was over, but, when he found himself in the open air, he was soaking wet because he had forgotten the umbrella upstairs. He pondered the option of going back to take it, but then decided that he would dry during the car drive. He turned on the engine and then left.
This routine had only went on for a couple of days, but it already felt like he had driven along those roads a thousand times. He had learnt to know every turn, every signpost, every placard. He would get angry when he found himself stuck in the traffic and he would tap his fingers on the wheel in case of red lights. Luckily, that day he managed to reach the hospital in a little more than half an hour but he was too tense to thank the world for the unexpected grace.
When the nurse saw him, she welcomed him with a nod and told him that Abby was waiting for him. He endeavored to smile to compensate her for her kindness but all he could do was murmuring a "thank you". Though, when he reached the door of Abby's hospital room, he forced himself to wear the widest of his grins. He knew he was going to see his friend, but he couldn't help thinking of what else he was about to face: the wounds on the body, the scars on the face and the pain in the eyes. He mustered up courage and he opened the door.
He had already seen them multiple times in those hospital beds, but every time he entered one of their rooms he couldn't help but feeling crushed at the sight of his wounded friends. He would approach them, never letting his smile fade, and he would chat with them, trying to light up their day. He knew they spent all their time alone and his visit was the brightest moment of the day: he tried to be with them as long as he could, dividing the time he was given into four equal fractions. He shared with them as many funny stories as he could think of. He tried to do what he always did on the field: he joked, talked about movies, made them laugh every now and then. If he could make them forget their pain for a short period of time, he could say he had. He tried to be the healer of their broken hearts, the light in their dark days, but when he went out of the room, his smile died, and the show paused for a few seconds – just as long as it took him to go from one room to the other.
He was the thread that linked all of them, the one that could speak to them all and bring news and messages from one to the other. He was the only one who was already out of the hospital, and he had to act like the one who's fine, like the one without wounds, but in very truth he was bleeding inside, aching like ever, and no pain killer could make him rest. He knew he had been lucky, but in this position he had to carry the weight of the pain of all the others on his shoulders, and he feared he might fall very soon.
He couldn't bear the sight of their wounds any longer. He tried to ignore them when he talked to his friends, but the tone of their voices, the short pauses and the deep breaths they had to take revealed him that they too were attempting to hide their distress.
Abby was still cheerful and bright, but her wings were tied to her body – just like her hair, scattered on the pillow, was only the shadow of the joyful ponytails that would flutter about in the lab.
Not even Gibbs's stern look could conceal his weakness and uneasiness. He didn't want Tony to stay with him long, he told him he should dedicate more time to the others, but Tony knew that it was because the boss hated to show himself so fragile and hurt. Yet, Tony wouldn't leave: seeing him injured was unsettling, but it didn't change his opinion about the man. To him, Gibbs was still the most unbreakable person of all – and the strength with which the boss faced the pain only proved Tony's theory.
McGee was the one who worried him the most. The explosion had flung him to the ground, leaving him with a concussion and some broken bones. Also, a shower of glass had hit his body and Tony feared the cuts would take a long time to heal. For once, McGee never looked annoyed at Tony's jokes: the senior agent suspected that the loneliness of the long hours of the day would make Tony's presence a little more bearable for Tim. He probably waited for his visit just like the others and Tony struggled to make those thirty minutes worth of his expectations. Of course he mocked him, of course he still said things that would make McGee roll his eyes; but he tried to show his fondness with his words, he tried to let him know that he was there for him. Just like always, they spoke their secret language of teases and barbs, a language that they were both used to interpret as a sign of affection.
Ziva was always the last one he visited. He couldn't say why, he just felt like it was the right thing to do. They had barely seen each other for a week after the bomb blast, had barely talked since the moment they had fallen to the elevator floor together, her body covering his, offering him a protection. Their fingers were intertwined and he couldn't remember when their hands had been separated: all he knew was that he felt deprived of that touch, as though the warmth of her hand was now impressed on his palm and as long as they were apart there would be something he was missing.
During the short visits Tony paid her at the hospital, they never spoke of what had happened in the elevator. Ziva seemed to be determined to avoid the topic and Tony didn't want to force anything. They were silent most of the time, actually. They talked a little – she would ask about the case, he replied that there was nothing new – then the silence fell between them and they would stay there for long minutes, listening only to the sound of their breaths. Yet, he knew that Ziva enjoyed his presence. He saw the tiny smile that lighted up her face when he entered the room and he knew she felt less tensed when he was around. Though, seeing her in such pain killed him. Just like Gibbs, she hated showing that she was hurt, but much more than Gibbs Ziva was an open book for Tony. He could sense her tension, her distress, her desire to escape from that hospital bed. He adverted her anger, and he knew she had a hard time accepting the fact that she had been outflanked. Sometimes, he wanted to reach out his arm and pass his hand on her face, in a desperate attempt to comfort her. He knew she would let him comfort him, he knew he was the only one she would let get that close. But he had never dared to do what he desperately wanted to do – touch her, cure her – until that night.
As soon as he entered her room, he knew something had changed. She wasn't lying on the bed, but sitting, her back leant on two pillows. She welcomed him with a smile, just like always, but this time it was a less weak smile and the grin that rose on Tony's lips was, for the first time that day, completely honest. He approached her bed and stopped only when he was standing right next to the mattress, his hand only a few inches from her body. He smiled again.
"Hey," he said, and the gleam he saw in her eyes gave him the strength to ask a question he had never dared to ask. "How are you?"
Her lips curved a little and she sighed, then nodded; but when she replied and said "Fine" he knew she wasn't lying. Not totally, at least.
He sat next to her, on the chair that the nurses had kindly put there for him and his daily visits, and he stared right into her eyes, savoring the positive energy that she was finally emanating. There she was, finally getting better, finally emerging from the darkness.
When she spoke, her question made him start because he didn't expect it at all.
"How are you doing, Tony?"
She asked it with genuine concern and Tony looked at her with a surprised expression: she was in a hospital bed, restrained there because of her wounds and her scars, yet she asked him how he was feeling. She had seen beyond his mask, she had looked beyond his smile, she had noticed his distress beyond the regained health of his body. His shell was transparent in front of her eyes.
He didn't want to tell her the truth. He didn't want her to carry his weight too - the pain of her body was already heavier than any load he would want her to bear. Yet, he didn't want to lie to her either: she would know he was lying, she would know he was trying to protect her by hiding the truth, and it would hurt her. She would want him to be honest with her and lies would just leave another scar. He decided that, since she could already read his heart, he should at least spare her the effort to do so by being straight.
"It's not easy… " he said. "Going to work, with no one of you there…. And then coming here and seeing you all hurt…" His eyes were fixated on hers and neither of them looked away. "I feel helpless."
She shook her head and bent forward a little, shortening the distance between them. "You're not." She smiled reassuringly.
"I know." He shrugged. "But I still feel like that."
He saw the concern growing into something more on Ziva's face, something he couldn't name, but that gave him chills; and he shivered again when she reached out her hand and placed it on his cheek. He instinctively closed his eyes and breathed in deeply as she stroked his skin with her thumb, just like he had done more than a year before in the elevator, after Mike's death, when she had let him hold her in his arms, touch her with his hands. Now, she was the one who was comforting him, because she was the one who understood. He felt lighter as she kept caressing her, but when she leant forward and rest her face on his shoulder, he knew she was asking for help too, in her own silent way, in their own silent way.
He moved his hand toward her body and looked for hers; when he found it, he squeezed it gently for a brief moment, then he intertwined his fingers with hers. He focused on her regular breath, he savored the retrieved warmth of her hand – and he didn't feel like something was missing, not anymore.
He couldn't tell how long they remained that close to each other, each giving warmth and getting strength. He only knew that she was healing him, somehow, curing his sorrow, erasing his pain. For a while, he could forget the loneliness of the long days at work, he could forget the uneasiness in front of his friends' distress.
She was his cure and he was hers, and for some moments – both the wounded and the unwounded one – felt no pain, there in each other's arms. There was no Dearing, no scars, no loneliness. Their scent could cover the smell of hospital and they inhaled it, savoring a new kind of air, which was so much easier to breathe, so much warmer in their lungs.
They spoke a lot from that day on. He told her about his life at work and she told him about her days at the hospital. One day, they even talked about the explosion.
Sooner than he expected, she was ready to go out of the hospital too. She stayed home a couple of days, but she insisted to go back to work shortly after, and Tony wasn't alone anymore. They spent the days at the office, then together they went to visit Abby, McGee and Gibbs. Day by day, they supported each other as they faced the difficult tasks of the unwounded ones, made each other stronger for the ones who were weakened.
Together, they waited for the hurt to heal, and for the pain to fade.