A tag to Revenge that turned out to be longer than expected. For Mel who forced me to write this - thank you :P
Also thank you to Sarah for helping me 3
I warn you: This is a little OOC - on purpose! And you will probably go through three different stages of emotions while reading this.
Anyway, enjoy reading and feel free to tell me what you think!


„Ziva no!" Tony shouted as he rushed into the gym straight towards her, seeing what she was doing.
He tried to pull her away from the punching bag with all of his strength, but Ziva was trying to struggle her way out of his embrace, the anger still racing through her veins.
"Ziva, what are you doing here? Stop abusing yourself!" Tony brought out while still fighting against Ziva's willpower. He was breathing heavily because she wouldn't calm down.
"Tony! Let go of me!" she replied through gritted teeth.
He didn't know how to end all this. All he knew was that he had to stop her from throwing any more angry punches in order to keep her safe.
"No Ziva. I won't. This isn't right. You shouldn't hurt yourself. Let's talk about it, ok?"
He knew that she wouldn't think rational right now but he nevertheless hoped she would listen to him. At least this one time.
All of the sudden he felt the tension leaving Ziva's body and he loosened his grip on her.
What happened next wasn't anything he had seen coming.
Ziva was slowly sinking onto the floor right in front of him.
She tucked up her legs and buried her face against her knees and for a brief moment the room was covered in silence before Tony heard the tiny sobs escaping from Ziva's lips while her petite frame started trembling.
His heart was clenching at this sound and he carefully sat down beside her to pull her into a half hug.
He slowly stroked her arm which finally undid Ziva's tears that were now streaming down her face relentlessly followed by another heartbreaking sob.
Tony felt helpless seeing Ziva in such a state. Of course he had seen her crying before, but never in such a desperate manner.
"Shh, it's ok Ziva. I'm here." Was all he could say for the moment. She needed to calm down first before they could start talking about the reason for all this.
While Ziva was trying to compose herself Tony's eyes wandered to her hands. She had boxed without gloves on and now her knuckles were sore and covered in small amounts of blood. Tony gasped and carefully reached for her hands.
"Oh my god, Ziva. Why didn't you use the gloves? We should really go to Ducky and let him treat it. It doesn't look good." His voice was still even but also filled with concern for her health, considering that her shoulder must hurt as well.
"It's nothing Tony" Ziva replied, but before she could finish the sentence Tony interrupted her. "Don't say you're ok. I know that you are not. You don't have to play this game with me."
She knew he was right about that and she was tired of pretending to be an invulnerable person.
But what should she tell him? How could she make him understand what caused that emotional mess inside of her. The last months had been draining for both of them.
"I am not ok." She admitted, pausing for a moment after this revelation. Tony pulled her a little closer, now gently brushing her hands with his fingers.
"We can't go on like this Tony." Her voice was barely above a whisper by now and another wave of tears rolled down her cheeks. He swallowed at her words, exactly knowing what she meant.
Before she continued speaking he wiped the tears off her face.
"I need clearness. We…need clearness." Her brown eyes looked at him intently trying to catch his reaction.
Tony slowly nodded before his eyes drifted off into the depths of the room and she could tell he was intensely thinking about their situation.
After a while he broke the silence between them. "Ziva…," he began.
"Yes?"
"What did you want to say when" Tony closed his eyes for a second; trying to push away the upcoming pictures "we were in the car. Right before…"he didn't need to finish his sentence. She knew what he meant and even though there was no way of denying what happened she didn't want to think about it either.
She took a deep breath, knowing that they finally needed to talk about all of this.
It didn't matter how long it would take to discuss all the things that happened in the past, she didn't want to avoid that conversation anymore.
It also didn't matter that they were sitting in the middle of the gym, her shoulder and hands still pounding from the pain.
All that mattered was that he came to find her and that they were finally talking.
She took one last deep breath before she started answering his question.
"Tony, I…"