AN: I started this a while ago and it was my first attempt at writing fanfiction. I never finished it so I took it down and am reposting it now as a finished one shot. I have no beta and do not own NCIS and or any of its characters. Thanks for reading.
Tony woke up abruptly, violently ripping himself away from the last vestiges of the nightmare that had recently held him in its hopeless degrading grip. He sat as still as possible attempting to slow and control the wild cadence of his uneven breaths and placed one trembling hand over his chest as if its mere presence would be enough to decrease the harsh thumping of his heart as it beat against the other side of the thin bone. God, he hated 3 am. Knowing he would never go back to sleep, he threw off the sweat soaked sheets which had tangled themselves around his legs, and padded silently on bare feet towards the kitchen. Although he could find his way through the apartment competently in the complete darkness he still took the time to stop and turn on every light as he passed. The dream had been a bad one and he found he needed the bright light to help chase away any lingering effects.
He relished the feeling of the cold tile under his feet as he entered the kitchen, his hands automatically reaching to the cupboard where he knew the bourbon was hidden. For medicinal purposes only he told himself, at least whenever he bothered to provide the empty excuse as to why the fiery amber liquid was the first thing he reached for to help keep the demons at bay. If he was being truthful, poor choices and genetics probably were a bigger factor but truth normally stayed away during Tony's middle of the night forays into the land of numb. Simply because the real driving force behind the staggering ferocity of the terror the nightmares delivered wasn't that they were dreams at all. No thought Tony wryly as he expertly downed the contents of his glass. The real bitch of it was they were memories.
Holding the bottle by the neck he turned and found the couch taking comfort in the soft worn leather. It was the first luxury item Tony had bought himself after months of saving and it had followed him from city to city, becoming one of the only constants in his life. Until he made the move to D.C and became a part of Gibbs team.
Sighing he ran shaky fingers through his hair, disheveling the already worry worn locks across his brow. On the wall his clock ticked away the time, an incessant metronome against the deafening silence of the apartment. He shut his expressive green eyes and prayed the reel of pictures currently streaming across his closed lids would fade back into the void. Instead Kate, Paula, Jeanne, and Ziva looked out at him with accusing stares fighting for dominance as head honcho of Tony's personal hell with the memories of his father, mother, and childhood. Of course running a close third were the endless lists of victims he had dealt with over the tenure of his career. His secret internal box of sorrow was busting at the seams, little cracks widening in the hastily built defenses, and Tony wasn't sure how much more of this he could take. Maybe this was what burnout felt like he mused slowly sipping his drink once more. The bourbon burned its way down his throat, the sensation like velvet tendrils of flame simmering in his stomach. He rubbed his eyes. God he hated 3 am. Blearily he looked at the clock. Scratch that, he thought, I hate 4 am.
Across town Ziva also lay in bed battling her nightmares. Her eyes raced side to side behind her closed lids and her chest rose and fell in rapid shallow breaths. Sweat glistened lightly across her skin, reflecting the luminescent glow of the moon through the thin pane of the window. Ziva's hands fisted tightly in the sheets, squeezing, twisting, worrying the already crumpled linens at her sides until the fabric seemed to restrain her thrashing quaking body. Somalia. Lately it was always about her time in the hell of heat and sand.
She sat in the room, still as death, longing for death. But fate denied her, so she sat and waited instead. Her hands had long since lost feeling from the harsh twisting of the binding against the delicate skin of her wrists. Blood had run over her body, cascading down from her various wounds and bruises, causing the rope to harden as the thick liquid soaked into the fibers and dried. She had been a prisoner in Somalia for over 2 months now and had lost all hope of ever escaping. Now she prayed for her own demise much the way she had earlier fervently wished for rescue. Even if someone managed to miraculously find her, Ziva wasn't all together sure she wanted to be rescued anymore. Not after what she had done and been forced to become.
She had entered into captivity a confident and capable human being used to being in control of, if not her situation, then at least her reaction to it. But being held hostage and tortured mercilessly for information that would put her co workers, her "family", in harms way had begun to break her. Little by little the pain and agony had swept into every pore of her body, resonating within every inch of her soul, until she no longer remembered why she was fighting in the first place. The only vital piece of herself she clung to was the absolute concrete need to hold silent so that she was the only one of her team to suffer such a fate. When she died, as it had stopped being a question of if a long time ago, she would take all her knowledge with her and her friends, colleagues, and team would be safe.
But until that happened she worked on becoming an empty shell, a hollow replica of Ziva instead of the living breathing person who still cried from the pain, shrank from the bruising fists, and shuddered from the invading fingers. She simply crawled inside herself and waited.
She tried not to remember, remembering was painful but at times the memories overpowered her feeble resistance. Sometimes she would think about Gibbs, McGee, Abby and even Ducky, favorite past events, and little idioms and traits particular to the individual. She'd think about one of Ducky's stories or about Abby's need for Caf-Pow. Other times she would remember Gibbs's stare and how at first it had been intimidating but then had grown to represent reassurance, justice, and respect. These memories would seep in and fill up some of the empty being Ziva was trying to become and then it would hurt. It hurt to rip free the thoughts and memories so that their longing and familiarity wasn't able to torture Ziva by the knowledge that there were there and she was here….waiting.
But the one thing that tormented her more that anything, more than the beatings and the rapes, more than the degrading cell and subhuman existence, was the memory of Tony and the regret for what could have been.
Their relationship was a complicated thing
With a scream bursting free between her clenched lips, Ziva bolted upright and wearily took in her surroundings. She was in her bedroom, alone, and Salim was dead. Suddenly she began to frantically throw clothes on and pulled her running shoes on her feet. She had to get out of there. She desperately needed open spaces and clean air. She needed to breathe without feeling as if the memories were choking her from the inside out. Striding through the apartment, Ziva wrenched open the door and began to run. With no destination in mind, she ran feeling her feet pounding against the unforgiving concrete, relishing in the delicious burning of her lungs and the straining of her muscles. Faster and faster her legs pumped, proving to herself with each steady slap of the soles of her shoes that she, Ziva David, was alive, this wasn't Somalia, and Salim was dead.
Tony sat on the couch, his body long since accustomed to the stagnant position. The bourbon burned comfortably in his blood, just enough to give him a small buzz, and once achieved the bottle sat unmolested on the table. The clock still ticked away the seconds incessantly, as the quiet hours before dawn continued to unapologetically pass. Raising his head ever so slightly he listened intently towards the door, the familiar sounds of lock picking were just barely discernable against the backdrop of silence.
Tony considered his options of who would be breaking into his apartment at 4 in the morning. Either it was a criminal or a criminal associate bent on revenge, which in that case let them come in and try their worst. He was in no mood to play tonight. Or it was one of his co workers, which in of itself didn't make any sense as they had already wrapped up the current case and his phone hadn't rung. Opting with choice number one he quickly positioned himself behind the door and watched it creak slowly open. Momentarily weaponless and dressed in only his boxers, Tony could only hope for the element of surprise. Until he saw a familiar wealth of curly dark hair peak around the door frame. He only had a moment to steel himself against his near visceral reaction at seeing her, before he attempted to pull his mask down and become the Tony he allowed her to know.
"Come to kill me Ziva?"
The normally hyper aware Israeli didn't even turn at the sound; instead she pulled her body the rest of the way into the apartment and closed the door. She leaned her small frame back against the dark wood and then only then when they stood so close yet so apart, did she raise her eyes to meet his across their own personal chasm. Their gaze created a bridge that spanned years, friendship, love, betrayal, fractured trust, murder and torture, yet still remained strong. She had asked him once if he believed in soul mates and he hadn't trusted himself to give her the answer that had been screaming in his mind threatening to burst free from between his tightly clenched teeth. So instead he offered her glib and empty as was usually expected from Tony DiNozzo and pretended not to see the hurt in her eyes as she acknowledged his non-answer.
Once again playing the hilarious ex frat boy, he slowly dropped his gaze to her feet and then worked them up the length of her as he asked, "did you forget the definition of booty call usually included a phone call first, Zee-vah."
She just continued to stare at him, her dark eyes luminescent in the night, sparkled with …tears. Ohh shit she was crying. If there was one thing he couldn't handle it was tears, especially hers. It made him want to hold her, take liberties he wasn't allowed, kill whoever had hurt her. Instead he dropped the act and asked her with as much sincerity as he could muster considering it was the middle of the night and he had recently been imbibing.
"What's wrong, Ziva?" Forgetting his nearly naked state he reached out a hand to draw her closer as he attempted to steer her towards the couch. But she dug in her heels and halted his momentum.
"I do not know why I am here, except that …" Her voice with its' melodious lilting accent trailed off and he waited not even realizing he was holding his breath, for her to speak again. "I need…" She stopped again and Tony didn't know if it was her troublesome English or her usually bullet proof composure which was causing the difficulty in her articulating what it was that she needed. So once again he waited, watching her. Her features, almost always so stoic, were betraying her inner turmoil. Her lips pulled and tugged as she worried them with her teeth and her eyes practically begged him to figure it out and finish the sentence for her so she wouldn't have to.
"I woke up tonight with the taste of cigarettes in my throat and the feeling of sand harsh against my back. I smelled him, his sweat, it was all over me. I do not want to continue to remember, his memories are the ghosts that fill me. I am empty except for what he has put there, he left his mark upon me and I cannot remove it." She broke off again, her words which had been scratching one after another like sandpaper going opposite the grain halted and it was once again the two of them in silence.
Oh god, Tony thought to himself, how do I handle this? The one monster she needs me to kill for her and I can't because been there done that and he's already dead. A bullet had pierced his brain as gracefully as it had flown through the air, sent on a beautiful yet deadly mission from Gibbs's sniper riffle when they rescued Ziva from her time in the terrorist torture camp in Somalia. Tony understood how difficult it was to terminate memories and how often times the strangle hold they could have on you was worse than if they had been a real physical threat. Looking at her shoulders slumped in defeat and the tracks the tears made as they rolled down her smooth pale cheeks, he vowed to give her whatever she decided she needed. Even if it was digging up Salim so she could kill him again herself.
Tentatively he reached a hand out to rest on her trembling shoulder, intending to provide comfort in the only way he knew how. She was standing so close in the dark that he could smell her shampoo mixing ever so sweetly with the unique scent that was purely Ziva. She uncharacteristically leaned in slightly to his touch and raised her tear filled gaze to meet Tony's, solemn and utterly anguished against the golden backdrop of her olive skin.
"Help me Tony," she whispered. "Help me to forget."
"Of course Ziva, whatever you need, just tell me. If you need me to help you bury a body in the backyard I'm totally the guy you call. If you want to go on a pizza tasting spree count me in. Even if it is just a friendly ear and a shoulder to cry on, Zee I'm your guy. I promise"
Suddenly and without warning he had an armful of pliant Isreli, lush curves molded to his chest, her body warmth spreading from hers to his.
"Help me Tony, help me to make new memories. I haven't been with anyone since….since that summer. I need to get my body back, my soul back. But it has to be with someone I trust. That is you Tony. I trust you, with my body, with my life. Besides, you say you are good at it, yes? Make me forget Tony, please."
The words tumbled out of her mouth finding purchase in the air between them, and as quickly as she had spoken her impassioned speech was soon over leaving nothing but her anxiously bated breath and his surprised stutters of indrawn oxygen while his brain rushed to catch up with the situation. Can I do this he wondered; can I give her tonight, knowing it may break me in the morning? One night stands were nothing new to Tony, but never with someone he cared so deeply about.
Ziva struggled in his arms, fidgeting until her feet touched the ground. Hurt radiated from her eyes and he knew she mistook his silence for something other than what it was.
"You don't want me, not after so many have been before."
Her eyes were downcast and her chin trembled, but her frame stood rigid and unforgiving. Tony blanched as the meaning behind her words hit him.
"God no Zee, I swear. I just… Are you sure this is what you really want? I don't want you to regret this later."
"Yes Tony, I want to be with you, right here, right now, tonight."
Tony swept her up in his arms and pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead. Knowing the only option had ever been to capitulate to her wishes, he began carrying her down the hallway, hitting light switches as he went. He knew that no matter what the morning would bring that tonight he could and would live up to Ziva's expectations. He would help her to forget about Salim. They would be partners in the truest sense of the word and under the soft blanket of dark, they would face their demons together.