Quickdraw
She was strong, much too strong to be felled by that stupid man. He was nothing to her, her life would continue after him. Yet he was still able to hurt her. She had readied herself for battle, her weapons of choice laid out on the table.
She glanced at the screen of her laptop but there was no notification. He had yet to respond to her last move and it was making her oddly nervous. She held her hands still and scolded herself. She was a David and a special agent and she was not going to lose.
It baffled her how he could hurt her so easily, how he managed to knock her to the ground without so much as breaking a sweat. She needed to guard herself against him but he knew more about her than she did.
She heard an electronic beep and she spun around to read his retaliation. The words seemed to creep under her defenses and to find her weakest points. She felt the impact in her chest, the dull ache following the sharp pain. It was more painful than any of the bullet wounds she had ever suffered before.
She managed to type out a text; it was more likely to shock him. She paced, waiting for the reply and hoping she had hit her mark. The clock in the kitchen was the only thing she could hear, that and the thumping of her heart against her ribs.
Tony quickly returned with a characteristically witty retort that no doubt took him only seconds to think up. The effects would last a lot longer. Ziva went cold and sat down on the sofa, dropping her head into her hands. She couldn't grasp how the words from Tony, the man she had known and trusted for years, could cause more anguish than her time in Somalia.
She was hesitant to admit it but she needed to get to safer grounds, this was no longer a fight she could win. Staying alone in her apartment might lead to her getting drunk and doing something even more stupid like calling Tony and begging him for forgiveness. She had to find a neutral zone.
Abby asked a lot of questions but Ziva knew she was trying to help. She confiscated her phone and kept her in her lounge where she couldn't get into any more trouble. She was safe, she was in Switzerland and not even Tony's forces could reach her there.
Of course Abby had no idea about the second phone, the one she kept for emergencies. Tony knew her well enough to know that if she even if she didn't answer the first she would always answer her back up. She read though the messages slowly, then again to make sure she understood.
His aim was excellent, it always was. He might be funny and joking around but he had been doing his job for years and knew where it hurt the most. She was trying to stay upright, to take the pain silently but it was too much.
She wanted to run, to get far away and forget everything but she felt tied to him. Tony was still her soul mate and the further she got from him the worse she felt. She needed to talk to him, to be with him.
Nobody could make her feel like he did, make her smile after the most hellish of days. She wanted to phone him, to call him and apologise. He would make all the bad feelings go away, make her think about the happier times.
She held her nerve and replied with the first thing that popped into her head. It wasn't clever or funny or intelligent but it was harsh and true. She would keep fighting until she died, until he killed her with one final strike. She couldn't stop now but it seemed he wouldn't either.
That was why they were together, because at heart they were both warriors.