Warning: May contain triggers for some. Allusions to sexual abuse but not graphic.
Post Truth and Consequences, Tony and Ziva on the journey home and in the time before she is reinstated to NCIS. Yeah it's probably been done before and by much better writers but this little angst bunny set up camp in my head and would not go away! Assumes a previous sexual relationship in S3 which was terminated when it was clear that they could never just be partners with benefits.
Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS or any of it's characters.
Sometimes, something is so broken that, however long you may try to make sense of the chaotic remnants, its pieces simply will not fit together again.
She didn't say more than five words to him before they entered the heavily armored air lift. Tony could tell how badly she was hurting by the disjointed movements of her hips as she stumbled through the sand. She had insisted on climbing inside the chopper under her own power even though clearly past the point of complete exhaustion. He had to admit a deep admiration for her strength. Her stalwart Ziva stubbornness gave him hope that there was more of her left than her hollowed and haunted eyes betrayed.
He had seen similar behavior in other newly liberated hostages. She had stared down the barrel of utter despair, finger poised on the trigger for so long that her mind was now struggling to accept her own salvation. Her body, however, had been drawing on its last reserves for longer than he cared to think about and now that it sensed safety, it was slowly shutting down on her. By mutual unspoken agreement, he, Mcgee, and Gibbs would let her stand on her own two feet until her legs buckled beneath her. That she could still place one willful foot in front of the other was a miracle he would surely remember to thank someone for later.
The ground fell away beneath them as they rose smoothly into the air, banking sharply left toward the distant coast and the air craft carrier that awaited their safe return. Ziva was wedged firmly alongside his hip and shoulder, buffered on her other side by the stoic and reassuring presence of Gibbs. To her credit, she managed to hold her head high for the first 15 minutes of the flight before slowly wilting against him.
Tony met Gibbs's eyes over the top of Ziva's lolling head, saw the almost imperceptible nod he gave, and swallowed the lump that rose in his throat as he unfastened her harness. He gently slipped an arm beneath her knees and secured another around her shoulders, pulling her body snuggly to him so that her forehead rested against the pulse point at his throat. Even with the vibration of the chopper, he could feel her heart beating steady and strong next to his. She smelled like sweat and blood and pain and other things he couldn't even bear to think about but the solid weight of her in his arms was the most gratifying feeling he could imagine.
She didn't stir when they finally touched down on the noisy flight deck or when Gibbs lifted her briefly so that Tony could unstrap himself. His muscles tensed in the absence of her reassuring warmth but Gibbs seemed to sense his need almost immediately and transferred Ziva back into his arms without comment.
A medical crew met them on deck with a stretcher but he refused to relinquish his hold on her, insisting on awkwardly negotiating the narrow portals and passageways between the deck and sick bay with his precious burden in hand. The flat hard look in his eyes told everyone he encountered that arguing the point of his own evident exhaustion would be utterly fruitless.
The only sign of her remote consciousness was the tiny whimper she gave when Tony gently deposited her on the crisp white linens of the hospital bed in the infirmary. He smoothed the hair back from the filthy and tear streaked skin of her face before stepping back as attendants swarmed to her side and swept a protective curtain between them.
A strong hand on his shoulder prompted him to turn around. Gibbs was regarding him with something suspiciously close to sympathy and it made him extremely uncomfortable.
"Dinozzo." Gibbs's voice was hushed, also not a good sign.
"Yeah boss, I'm just gonna hit the showers, be ready for debriefing in 20 flat." He turned toward the infirmary doors but was stopped dead by the firm pressure of Gibbs's hand against his sternum.
"That one's for you."
He followed Gibbs's finger to another hospital bed not far from Ziva's concealed one. "Really Gibbs, I'm fine. I just need to wash up, find some really good lip balm, drink some Gatorade…I'll be good to go."
"A terrorist held you captive, Dinozzo. He beat you upside the head a few times, not that I can really blame him, and injected you with god knows what. You're not going anywhere." He stepped closer and pitched his voice so that only Tony could hear. "Don't leave her."
"Now that you mention it boss, I am feeling a little fuzzy." He looked over Gibbs's head to where Mcgee was slowly backing away.
"Same goes for you McGee." Gibbs didn't even bother turning around. "Debriefing can wait." He looked pointedly at Tony. "I'll be back after everyone's gotten some rest."
After three hours of IV fluids and more poking and prodding than he was entirely comfortable with, Tony was pronounced in relatively sound health. The blows to his face had broken no bones and his blood work showed only minute traces of whatever chemical agents he had been injected with.
He had been allowed a trip to the showers and as he watched the desert grime flow in a seemingly endless stream from his body to the drain, he wished he could cleanse the image of an utterly broken Ziva from his mind.
She had awoken after an hour in the infirmary while the Ship's Nurse began washing the filth from her limbs in an attempt to assess her injuries. The sound of her cries and the pained grunts of the unfortunate corpsman who had been assigned to hold her roused him from the edge of sleep. He grabbed his IV pole, pulled the curtain aside and almost immediately wished he hadn't.
Her struggle stopped the moment she saw him and she quickly drew a sheet from the bed in a futile attempt to cover herself.
She wasn't fast enough.
Now, as he closed his eyes and let the steaming water pour over him, the remembered image of every angry bruise on her breasts and ribs, every half-healed and weeping gash and welt on her back and hips, seemed burned across the inside of his eyelids. Raging fury welled inside of him and he regretted only that the death of her assailant had been so quick and that he had not been able to add his own bullet to that of Gibbs's.
When he returned to the infirmary, she looked much cleaner and much calmer. Her hair had been washed and now spread like a damp dark halo on the pale pillow beneath her head. Her hands were folded atop the sheets and she looked…peaceful.
The nurse bustled over to him. "We've given her a sedative, nothing too strong, just enough to help her sleep for a few hours." She looked up at him, mouth twisting in disgust. "I've seen human beings do terrible things to each other Agent Dinozzo, but this..," her voice broke and she cleared her throat, resuming her professional mask. "I've been given orders to let you stay with her until she wakes. Let's hope you fare better than our corpsman." She turned and strode back across the room to the aforementioned corpsman who was now sporting a dislocated shoulder for his trouble.
He noted that a padded reclining chair had been placed beside Ziva's bed for his comfort. Mcgee was nowhere to be seen but when he asked, he was told that Gibbs had come to drag him off to debriefing.
Avoiding her IV, he slipped his hand between the rails on her bed and rested it over hers. He leaned forward and, laying his head across the folded crook of his arm, watched the shadows on her face and listened to her rasping snore until his eyes drifted closed.
It was the silence that woke him.
He lifted his head to find Ziva contemplating him with dark liquid eyes in the dim light. Someone had pulled the curtain around them for privacy and turned down the harsh overhead fluorescents.
"Morning." He sat up and winced at the painful kinks that had formed in his neck and back.
"How long was I off?"
He smiled and glanced at his watch. "You were only out a couple of hours. How do you feel?"
Her eyes drifted down to where his hand still covered hers. "Tony," her voiced was hushed, "about…about earlier…"
He tried to push the image of her mutilated body from the space between them, tried to keep the burning pain behind his eyes from spilling over.
"Please do not tell the others. Please do not tell Gibbs." Her voice was strained and pleading.
He was helpless to do anything other than watch as tears began to flow down her cheeks. "Ziva…"
"Promise me Tony. I can bear the pain. I can bear the memory of everything that was done to me, but I could not bear it if they were to look at me..." She drew a deep shuddering breath and continued, "If they were to look at me as you are looking at me now."
More to come and soon.