"Ziva! Come on, I know you're in there!" Tony called through the door. The door whipped open, revealing a slightly disheveled Ziva.
"What, Tony?" she snapped. He took a step back.
"I brought pizza, thinking you might want some company," he told her, holding up the box in his hand, "But geez, could you take the hostility down a notch? Thanks," he requested. She nodded.
"Sorry," she replied, opening the door wider to let him in.
"You look terrible," Tony observed, while looking around Ziva's room at the Navy Lodge. He set the pizza down on the table.
"I was sleeping, Tony," she rolled her eyes.
"Sleeping? At 1700?" he questioned, his eyebrows raised.
"Jet Lag. I am still running on northern African time," she explained, "Now, would you care to tell my why you are really here?"
"I told you. I brought you food."
"And the ulterior motive…?" she prompted. Tony reached into the box and pulled out a piece of pizza, plopping down on the bed.
"Bye dub dare need boo be ulbterior motib?" he asked, his mouthful of pizza making him difficult to understand. Ziva smiled ever so slightly.
"Did your mother never teach you not to talk with your mouth full?" she reprimanded. Tony swallowed.
"I said, 'Why does there need to be ulterior motive?'" he clarified. Ziva just sighed and sat in a chair, facing him and his spot on the bed. She suddenly looked a thousand years old, her body and mind weary from the jetlag and emotional stress, not to mention the past three months in a terrorist camp.
"I know why you are here, Tony," she revealed.
"So tell me, Miss David. Why am I here?" he asked, wondering if she truly had guessed his genuine intentions for showing up on her doorstep, pizza box in hand.
"You are here to check up on me, yes? Gibbs probably sent you."
"Well, sweetcheeks, you got the first part right," he began, before taking a bite of pizza. He held up his finger in the universal sign for hang on a second, until he had succeeded in swallowing. "But Gibbs didn't send me. I'm here on my own accord. Just checking up on my partner," he told her.
"I am no longer your partner," she reminded him.
"Doesn't matter. It's like… my version of Gibbs' motto, Once a marine, always a marine. Once partners, always partners. At least that's where I stand," he told her.
"So you are here because you feel it is your duty to have my back; to make sure I am okay?"
"I'm here because I know you're not okay, and I want to do my very best to fix that," he informed her.
"What makes you think that I am not okay?" she interrogated, wondering what could have possibly tipped him off. She had gone to great lengths to make sure she did not appear as broken on the outside as she was on the inside.
"Contrary to what you like to believe about yourself, you're only human. No amount of Mossad training can change that fact. And… well, you said it yourself all those years ago. Everybody breaks eventually," he shrugged. Ziva's eyes narrowed.
"So, what, you think I am broken?" she asked, anger flaring up inside of her.
"No, no! I didn't mean that… But they hurt you. I know that much. I could see it in your eyes in Somalia, and I can see it there now, no matter how much you try to cover it up. No one just comes out of that and is okay. Maybe after a while, sure, but definitely not right away."
"You have not considered the face that I was trained to endure this kind of thing. I was trained to be okay–"
"No amount of training can prepare someone for something like that, Ziva."
"Tony, I am fine! I do not see why you are so insistent that I am not!" she cried.
"I don't see why you get so damn defensive, Ziva! I'm trying to help you! All anyone's ever done since we got back is try to help you! And you just brush it off and say you're fine! But you're not! Everyone can see it, except you. You refuse to even consider the fact that maybe you're not. And that's okay! It's okay to not be fine! It's okay to be scared and to wonder why this happened to you. It's okay to cry about it and scream and punch things… It's okay to ask for help!" he ranted. By the time he finished, his voice had escalated to a yell. He hadn't realized that he was standing up, towering over her. She looked away from him and at the plain beige wall. Tony instantly felt guilty. "Look, Ziva…" he began, but he stopped when she held up her hand. He sank back onto the bed, looking at her intently. She slowly lifted her head and let her tear-filled eyes meet his.
"Do not apologize. I… I deserved that. I needed that," she insisted. Tony's eyes were filled with worry.
"Ziva, I made you cry," he pointed out, shame in his voice. She tried to wipe away the tears, but it did no good. A single drop of water managed to find its way down her face.
"I am not okay," she practically whispered the admission.
"I know," he replied, his voice soft and gentle.
"I am not used to… to being broken. I never thought it would happen. I mean, I knew… I knew that everybody breaks. But… You never think it could happen to you. Because if that happens… when that happens… You feel like there is no turning back. Being broken… You cannot possibly imagine what it is like, Tony," she told him, standing up from her spot in the chair, "They kept telling me I had broken. They kept insisting that they had broken me. But… I refused to see it. I refused to even consider the fact that they had killed everything but my body. And when I realized that they did… I realized that the only thing left for me was for my heart to stop beating. You can fix things that are broken, Tony, but… Some things are just broken beyond repair," she told him, her voice wavering. Exhausted from her speech, she sunk onto the bed next to him.
"Not you. We'll put you back together, Ziva, I promise," he vowed, pulling her into his arms and rubbing them gently and comfortingly.
"You can try," she said softly.
"Why are you so convinced that what I'm trying to do is an impossible task?" he asked.
"Because he is still here. I am… Still scared that I will wake up and this," she gestured to the room, "Will all be a dream. I am afraid of waking up to his breath in my face and his knife in my flesh," she told him, another tear escaping her eyes. Followed by another, and another, until she was practically breaking down.
Tony scooted up on the bed a little until he was leaning against the headboard. He held her in his arms, stroking her hair gently.
"Shh. It's okay. I'm here now. You're not going back there. I'll never let that happen, you're not going anywhere. I'm not gonna let you go anywhere you don't want to," he assured her.
"He is always there, waiting to take me back there when I fall asleep."
"Then I'll stay here all night, Ziva. I'm not going to let the nightmares hurt you," he promised.
"You should not make promises you cannot keep," she told him.
"I promise you I will at least try. I'll stay with you until they stop coming if that's what it takes. I've just gotten you back. I thought you were dead, but miraculously, you are not. I'm not going to let these ghosts take you away from me again."
Ziva smiled slightly.
"You can stay if you want," she told him, while on the inside, she was begging him to stay. Luckily, he seemed to see her true intentions.
"Good," he nodded, satisfied, and then paused before continuing, "If you're tired, Ziva, you should sleep. I'll still be here in the morning," he vowed, "That's one promise that I can keep."
"I do not want to go back there," she whispered drowsily.
"I'm here. I'll always be here. If I don't keep the nightmares away, then I will wake you up, okay? You're safe, and you're gonna be okay. They can't hurt you anymore, Ziva," he assured her, still stroking her hair.
"And you will be here in the morning? I do not want to wake up alone," she told him. He smiled at her.
"I will be right here with you. As long as I'm here, you're safe. We're safe. I'll ward off all of the monsters under your bed, okay? It's just us now. Nothing else to worry about," he whispered to her. "Just listen to my words, sweetcheeks. That's all there is. Us. No Saleem. No Somalia. No ghosts, no nightmares… Just us. Just my words. Cling to them. Hear my voice." He continued to whisper soothing words in her ear, rocking her back and forth. He hummed an old lullaby from his childhood to her.
Ziva's eyelids closed and her body finally began to relax.
She allowed herself to lose herself in Tony's words and the melody he was singing. Just them. Just the two of them. Nothing else. No one else.
She felt herself slipping into the clutches of sleep. Before, this would terrify her, those seconds before she lose consciousness and fell into the abyss of nightmares composed of all-too-real memories.
She smiled as she felt him press a faint kiss on her forehead. She trusted that he would have her back. He would probably not sleep that night– instead he would stand guard over her, protecting her from nightmares invisible to everybody but herself. She really believed that he would be able to protect her from these unseen monsters-under-the-bed. She placed her life in his hands for the thousandth time in her life, and slowly fell into the welcoming embrace of sleep.
Tony felt her breathing even out and smiled softly. Looking down on her sleeping form, he decided that he would protect her at all costs, from enemies both visible and invisible, for that was what partners did for each other. He would keep her safe. He would have her six.
Neither of them knew what morning would bring. But he knew one thing for sure.
When the sun came up, they would both be together. She would be safe and sound in his arms.
A/N: Please review!