Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS... because if I did, Tony wouldn't be about to be sleeping in a hospital.
Disoriented and terrified, Tony lay confined to his hospital bed, held down by miles of tubing. The images kept flashing through his head. Reaching for Ziva's hand, seeing the car seconds too late, throwing himself across the car to shield her from the impact, waking up next to her seemingly lifeless body, reaching a bloody hand for her limp one before succumbing to unconsciousness. He didn't know if Ziva David was alive or not and Anthony DiNozzo would never forgive himself if she died. He'd been waiting for hours for a scrap of news, and he'd tried to make numerous breaks for freedom, but his injuries stopped him before the doctors did. He refused to sleep, despite the doctor's orders to get some rest. That should have been me. I should be the one in surgery. I should have been paying attention. This is my fault. Oh God, Ziva, I'm so sorry. His thoughts were choppy, as if there was a bad signal transmitting his feelings into words. He put his free hand over his eyes, trying to shield his field of vision from the intensive care unit around him. There was rustling at the foot of his imprisoning bed and Tony looked up. Gibbs was standing at the end of it, his ever-present coffee in one hand, "Aw hell, DiNozzo." Gibbs said softly. Tony just stared at him, his eyes sending a silent plea for information. Gibbs took a breath, "Ziva's out of surgery. She's stable." Tony breathed a sigh of relief. Ziva was alive. And right now, stable was good enough for him. "It should have been me. I should have been paying attention; I never saw it-" Gibbs shook his head, cutting him off, "Tony, you saved her life. When you threw yourself across and took the impact, you saved her life. When Ziva wakes up, she'll kick your ass if she finds out you've been blaming yourself." Tony just stared at him, his tongue between his teeth. That the most he'd ever heard Gibbs speak at one time. Gibbs had seemingly exhausted his daily word supply because he fell silent in a chair next to Tony's bed. Tony finally succumbed to sleep, his brain slowing down with the thought that she was alive.
They let Tony out of bed three days later. Battered, bruised and broken, he moved slowly, his ribs and chest screaming in pain with every step he took. He didn't go home, though. He took his turn in the cycle in Ziva's room. She still hadn't woken up and the doctors were worried. When McGee left, Tony took his spot in the chair next to Ziva's bed. He looked at the tiny form in the bed next to him, a shell of the woman he'd spent days in Berlin with. His breath hitched at the sight of the bruising and cuts on her face. "Hey, Zi. It's Tony. I don't know if you can hear me or not, but I'm here. We're working on Bodnar, Zi. They're getting close." He talked to the woman for twenty minutes or so about absolutely nothing, avoiding what he really wanted to say. Tony fell silent, thinking about what to say next. "Ziva, I'm so sorry. I wish like hell our roles were reversed and you had been driving, because then I'd be in that bed and you'd be here, awake, next to me. Or maybe not. Maybe you'd already be off being the bad-ass Mossad ninja I've learned to love, catching all the bad guys and hardly breaking a sweat. But they aren't. So I guess all I can do is hope you can forgive me for this and possibly not kill me when you wake up." Tony hesitated a second before reaching out and taking the battered hand laying at her side. "I guess what I'm trying to say, Zi, is that we need you here. I need you here. Don't leave me just yet, sweet-cheeks. Because if you do, you won't get to yell at me for turning into one entire movie character myself, McGee won't get to finish helping you find Bodnar, Abby will lose her best friend, Gibbs will lose his daughter," Tony's voice was almost inaudible now, "and I… I'll never get to tell you that I need you here. Because you complete me, Ziva. And if you die on me, something in me will die, too. And then you'll be stuck with a piece of movie-referencing, shallow, ego-centric me in heaven. And this shallow, movie-referencing, ego-centric very Special Agent will never get to tell you he loves you. So, hold on, Zi. For all of us." He broke off, his voice barely a whisper. He squeezed her hand and looked at her tattered face, her eyes stubbornly closed. He sighed. Some part of him had hoped that pouring his soul out to her would bring her back to him. But now all he could do was grip her hand like a life line and pray that Ziva David would come back to him, so that he could tell her he loved her for real, even if she went all ninja all over him. Which she probably would.
But Tony wouldn't care.
Because that would mean she came back to him.