Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS, or the characters, and chances are that I never will.

It's been a while since I've posted any NCIS fics, but hopefully this will make up for it. Please tell me what you think of it!

Enjoy!

It was just past seven thirty in the morning in Washington DC, and while most people were still at home, getting themselves and kids ready for school and work, the NCIS team was already busily working in the office, everything was as it always was, except, Ziva wasn't there, she'd been away the day before too, it wasn't like her at all, she hadn't even called in.

Gibbs, and Tony and McGee too were getting worried. Sighing, Gibbs looked up from the file he was reading, and instructed Tony and McGee. "McGee, DiNozzo, I want you to go around to Ziva's apartment, something's wrong."

They agreed without pause, and after taking Ziva's spare house keys from her desk, they left.

Not long after, Tony pulled the NCIS issue sedan into the street that Ziva lived on, he parked the car in front of the building, and then he and McGee went up to the front door and Tony pressed the buzzer for Ziva's apartment, no luck. "Maybe we should just head back."

"No, Gibbs will be pissed if we don't check out her apartment, maybe she's hurt." Tony said, trying to keep his tone light, to avoid betraying his fear, he couldn't shake the bad feeling he had, something was wrong.

"Well how're we meant to get in? Find a window?"

Tony shrugged, before going back to the car, and grabbing a couple of empty Chinese boxes, he did up his coat to hide his business shirt, and scruffed up his hair, as he headed back to the door, he told McGee, wait out of the camera's view, this'll only take a second."

Tony then systematically went through every buzzer, simply saying. "Delivery." And sure enough it worked, on the eighth try, the door handle unlatched, Tony swung the door open before motioning to McGee to come back, leaving the props on the steps, forgotten, Tony and McGee quickly make their way upstairs to Ziva's apartment, sensing the tension radiating from Tony, McGee held back on saying a anything about the fact that Tony knew the way straight up to Ziva's front door. And as they reached the door, Tony knocked, though at this point he wasn't actually expecting a response, and after waiting a moment, Tony gave up, and took the keys from his pocket, and unlocked the door, before he and McGee moved into the apartment, quickly searching from room to room for their colleague.

A minute later it was Tony who found her, but when he did, it took him a moment to realise that it was in fact Ziva. She was lying on the bathroom floor, curled in a somewhat foetal position by the toilet, she was unconscious, and had thrown up all over herself, she was so pale, but what really shocked Tony, was the fact that her long hair, the hair that Tony loved was gone, there was only a plain army green bandanna covering Ziva's head. "What the hell?" Tony muttered softly, in shock, before he came to his senses, and called out to McGee. "She's in here, call 911, now!"

Tim came running, only to stop in his tracks as he saw his colleague lying motionless on the floor. "Oh my god. Tony, what the hell's going on?"

"I don't know." Tony replied slowly, before snapping. "I said call 911, McGee, now!"

McGee fumbled for his phone, and a moment later he was speaking to the operator as Tony knelt beside Ziva.

"What is your address, sir?"

Unsure, Tim put his hand over the receiver, and asked Tony. "What's the address?"

Sighing in frustration, Tony grabbed the phone, and quickly gave the operator all the details she asked for, allowing him to return his focus to Ziva, assured that an ambulance was only minutes away.

"Should we call Gibbs?"

Tony thought for a moment before answering. "No, we should hold off, at least until we know what's going on." He then remembered something. "The 911 person said that the medics would need to know if she's on any meds, and that sort of thing. Search the place, McGee..." Tony looked down at Ziva, she looked so weak, he knew that there was something very wrong with her. "There must be something around here to say what's going on."

"Yeah." McGee agreed before moving away towards the kitchen, and only a minute later he called out. "You're not going to believe this, Tony."

"What?" Tony called back.

Tim came back into the bathroom, holding a thick manila folder.

"What's that? A case file?"

McGee handed it to Tony as he said. "It's medical records, pages and pages of them. It's cancer."

Tony hastily flicked through the file, as he went through it, his expression turned from uncertainty, to worry, to downright fear. "Breast cancer, shit." Tony ran his hand through his hair shakily, before bringing it to rest on Ziva's shoulder, she was burning up with fever. Tony grabbed a towel from the rail, and gently started to wipe the vomit from Ziva's face, and then from her shirt as best he could. As he did so, he asked McGee in an unfamiliarly gentle tone. "Get me a cold face washer, would you McGee. We need to cool her down."

Tim did so without pause, and a moment later he gave Tony the cold damp cloth. Tony put down the soiled towel, and proceeded to gently wipe the face washer over Ziva's face and neck. It was then that he heard a siren, the ambulance must be close, Tony looked up at Tim. "Head downstairs and wait for the medics, would you?"

"No... no problem, Tony." McGee said, his voice shaky and uncertain, but he was more comfortable now he had a set task to do.

Tony then turned his full attention back to Ziva, who remained unconscious, despite Tony's efforts.

Barely a minute after Tim had left Tony alone with Ziva, so that he could go out to await the arrival of the ambulance, Ziva's body began to convulse, it started as a twitch, but then her whole body was shaking uncontrollably. "Damn it! Come on, Ziva, don't do this! Don't die, please, please hold on."

After that everything happened in a blur, Tim came back into the apartment with the paramedics close behind, Tim was startled when he saw Ziva's shaking form, and stayed at back, leaning against the wall beside the door.

The paramedics however, having been brought as up to date as possible by McGee on the way upstairs, went straight to work, what Tim had described, someone with cancer on chemotherapy and radiation, as he had discovered in the medical file that Ziva had been receiving for five and a half months, with a high fever, unconscious, vomiting, and now seizing, it screamed infection to the experienced paramedics. They went straight to Ziva, and knelt beside her as they started to work, one looked over at Tony, and told him. "You gotta move back, buddy. Let us help her."

Tony was reluctant, and seeing the problem, Tim moved over to Tony, and guided him out of the way.

Within minutes the paramedics had stopped the seizure, they had tried to put in an IV, but her veins were damaged from repeated accesses, only to discover that she had a triple lumen central line in her chest, and they had used that to start running in bags of fluids and medications to treat her, and once they had deemed her stable to move, had rushed her to the hospital, with Tony and McGee following in their car.

On the way to the hospital, Tony and McGee were both wrecked, Tim was driving, as Tony was shaking too much to even walk straight, let alone drive. As they were following the ambulance, Tim softly suggested to Tony. "We need to call Gibbs, tell him to meet us, and to call her father."

"You do it." Tony said, his gaze fixed on the ambulance in front of them.

Despite the high speed they were travelling at, McGee pulled his phone off his belt, and dialled the number for Gibbs' desk. It was gruffly answered on the first ring. "Gibbs."

Tim hesitated slightly before saying. "Boss, it's McGee. We found Ziva, it's not good-"

Gibbs cut Tim off before he could finish. "What happened? Was she attacked?"

Tim sighed. "She's sick, we're on the way to the hospital now."

"Which hospital?"

"Monroe University." Tim answered, and a second later the call ended.

Tony and McGee then exchanged a glance, they knew Gibbs well enough to know that once they got to the hospital, there would be trouble.

On arrival at the hospital, Ziva was rushed back into a treatment room, while Tony and McGee were ordered to wait in the waiting room for news, only minutes after they'd arrived, Gibbs burst through the entrance doors, Tony saw him, and he and McGee quickly moved to intercept him before he could reach the nurses' station.

Upon seeing his people approaching, Gibbs quickly closed the distance between them, and without pause, he asked. "Where's Ziva?"

"With the doctors, they told us to wait out here. Boss, she's-"
Once again Gibbs broke in before the sentence could be finished. "McGee, you said she was sick, what is it? Flu? Gastro? Food poisoning? ...Poisoning?"

The pair were silent for a considerable length of time, before McGee awkwardly said. "She's got cancer, Boss. We found a file at her house, full of medical records, the paramedics said it was an infection that got out of control because of the chemotherapy stopping her body from fighting it. It's bad, Boss, really bad." McGee thought back to as he watched the paramedics forcing air into her mouth from an oxygen tank via an ambu bag and mask, as they rushed her away.

Gibbs was stunned into silence, for once in his life he was unable to think of what to say, so much so that he allowed Tony and McGee to guide him back over to the waiting area, where they all sat down, and were left waiting for news.

It was nearly an hour later when someone finally approached the weary group. A young nurse, she looked like she should still be in high school, came over, and once she had their attention, she told them. "I can take you back to see Miss David now." As usual, David was mispronounced, and as they stood up, Tony muttered.

"It's Dah-veed."

As the team followed the nurse upstairs to the ICU, where Ziva had been moved to, she filled them in on Ziva's condition. "Miss David came in suffering from severe complications of the side effects of chemotherapy, her body was unable to fight any infections, so much so that this may have well started as a cold, but in her case it has deteriorated to sepsis, which has caused her to go into multi-system organ failure. The ICU team have got her on very powerful medications to fight the infection, and put her onto a ventilator to support her breathing, and a dialysis machine to support her kidneys until her condition improves, and she is being closely monitored."

"So she's going to be alright?" Tony asked, daring to feel optimistic.

The nurse stopped, and turned to face the group. "Her condition is extremely critical, the ICU team are doing everything they can, but it's really a waiting game. You need to be aware that she may not survive."

TBC...

So, how was that?

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