A Test in Partnership — Chapter Two
"Gibbs this is really not necessary," Ziva said quietly as Gibbs led her into the front hallway of his house. Gibbs shut the door behind them, ignoring Ziva completely. "Fine. Do you…mind if I take a shower? I hate the smell of hospitals, it…clings to me."
"Sure. You know where it is."
Ziva nodded, heading slowly up the stairs. Her cracked ribs did not appreciate the strain of movement, and pain was radiating through the lower half of her body, making the act of walking more work than it really should have been. She could feel Gibbs' stare on her back, probably wondering if she was okay. He knew everything that had happened in that basement, after all. No doubt he was questioning her mental state as well as her physical one.
Great.
It was a relief to get behind the safety of the closed bathroom door. Ziva found a fresh towel and washcloth and dug a pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt out of her bag, setting them on the counter before turning on the water and slowly getting undressed.
The water was far too hot when Ziva climbed into the shower. It pelted her skin, sending pinpricks of pain through the points of contact and instantly overheating her body. It felt good though — a nice distraction from the pain throbbing through the rest of her body. She set to work with working shampoo through her hair, trying desperately to get the hospital smell out of her hair. Hospitals. She hated hospitals.
She finished her hair and grabbed the body wash, squirting some of it on to her washcloth. As she began rubbing the washcloth up and down her body she shivered, squeezing her eyes shut to fight off the inevitable flashbacks of Shay "checking" her for weapons, pressing her against the basement wall, groping her, thrusting into her again and again…
No, no, no, Ziva thought firmly, shaking her head angrily. She could not afford to get caught up in that; one bout of PTSD was enough for one lifetime. But she couldn't quite rid of the feeling of their hands roaming over her, using her body, abusing her, violating her over and over and…
"No!"
The single word tumbled off of Ziva's lips, and the washcloth slipped from fingers as her hands flew up to clutch the sides of her head. She gritted her teeth together, trying desperately to stay where she was, not to slip back into that place, she couldn't go back there, she didn't want to…
Knock-Knock-Knock…
"Ziva?"
Ziva's eyes flew open, her head snapping up to look through the shower curtain. "I am okay," she called shakily. She forced her arms back to her side, her entire body trembling. Damn it, now Gibbs was going to be even more worried about her. She collapsed against the shower wall, letting her head fall back so the water could pelt her face. After a moment she knelt down, picking up her washcloth and beginning to scrub her skin with renewed vigor.
Gibbs was waiting for Ziva when she exited the bathroom, leaning against the wall opposite the door. He stared at her for a long time, taking in her tired expression and red skin. After a moment he held out his arms. A very, very small part of Ziva's mind ordered her to blow him off; she'd shown enough weakness to last the next six months.
But a much bigger part of Ziva's mind was screaming for the comfort that only a father's arms could provide. And so Ziva stepped forward, allowing Gibbs to envelope her in his warm grip. She buried her face in his shoulder, her breath catching in her throat. Gibbs tightened his grip when a small but discernable sob made its way past her lips.
The wall above Tony's entertainment center certainly was interesting. Tony had been staring at it for the past hour and a half, a mostly full bottle of beer hanging from his fingers. It was too quiet in the apartment; he should put on a movie, or turn on music, or something. But that would have involved movement. Something he just didn't have the energy for right then. And the wall really was interesting…
Tony's entire body felt numb as he watched Shay grope at Ziva, shove her pants and underwear away, then his own, and begin thrusting. He thought he heard small, pained noises from Ziva, though the drugs may have been causing him to hear things…
"Damn it," Tony groaned, running a hand through his hair. He looked down at the beer bottle in his hand, and after a moment he raised it to his lips, tipping it back and draining half the bottle in one sip. He wondered vaguely how much he was going to have to drink to make these memories go away. Well this was what alcohol was for, he supposed.
Several hours and far too many beers later, Tony was knocking on a familiar door. He didn't quite remember getting dressed or leaving his apartment or hailing a taxi (because unfortunately his own car was still at NCIS), and how he had recalled Gibbs' address was for beyond his comprehension.
But now he was standing on Gibbs' front step, knocking on the door and leaning heavily against the doorframe. "DiNozzo," Gibbs said tiredly as he threw open the door, giving the senior agent a glare that didn't quite register in the drunk man's mind. "What the hell are you doing?"
That was certainly a good question. "I-I need to see…see Ziva," he slurred after a moment. It seemed like the only answer that made sense. Gibbs made a noise in the back of his throat, grabbing Tony's sleeve and dragging him into the house. "Where-Where's she?" Tony asked, looking around. There was no Ziva in sight that he could see. "Where's Ziva?"
"She's upstairs. Sleeping. And you're out of your mind if you think I'm letting you see her when you're like this." Tony opened his mouth to protest; the words were cut off when Gibbs slapped him upside the head. "Get your ass on the couch and sleep this off."
"But…but Ziva—"
"You can see her in the morning when you're not drunk," Gibbs said firmly, shoving Tony into the living room. "Now lie down. Sleep. You're going to regret this tomorrow."
Tony collapsed onto the couch, burying his face in his hands and swallowing hard. "Is she okay?" He asked after a moment. It was probably the most coherent thing he had said in the last five minutes.
"She'll live," Gibbs said quietly, resting a hand on Tony's shoulder and giving him a light squeeze. "And so will you. Get some sleep."
Tony lied down, almost against his will, reaching out and grabbing the blanket off the back of the couch, dragging it over his tired body. He was out in no time. Gibbs watched his senior agent for a moment before looking down at his watch. It was about time for him to go wake up Ziva and make sure she wasn't in a coma.
But as Gibbs made his way back upstairs, he found Ziva leaning against the wall outside of the guestroom, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Her jaw was pulled tight, her expression even more unreadable than usual — and that was certainly saying something. They stared at each other for a long moment before she finally pushed herself off the wall and went back into the guestroom. Gibbs sighed, rubbing a hand over his mouth. He knew his agents could come back from this — he had faith in that.
He just didn't know how long it was going to take.
Tony groaned as consciousness slowly reasserted itself. Oh boy. His head felt like it was about to split open. Ouch. Okay Tony, think. You drank last night. Did you do anything that's going to make it impossible to face human beings? He scrounged his face up in thought. He had drank…and drank…and drank…then he'd gotten his jacket on, and he had…he'd gone outside and hailed a taxi. But where had he gone?
Suddenly the smell of sawed wood assaulted Tony's nose, and he groaned loudly. He knew that smell. It was the smell of a certain silver-haired man's house. Crap. Tony really hoped he was imagining that smell. He didn't want to think about what he could have possibly said to his boss in his drunken stupor.
Please say I'm dreaming, please, please, please…
It took a bit of effort, but finally Tony forced his eyes to open. And there it was — the ceiling of Gibbs' living room. Oh crap. He had gone to Gibbs'. Crap, crap, crap.
A small cough caught Tony's attention, and he sat up slowly. Ziva was leaning against the wall near the living room door, watching him a rather unreadable expression. Tony stared at her for as long as his pounding headache would allow, and finally he had to squeeze his eyes shut. "Yes, I would say last night was not your brightest hour, was it?"
"Finest," Tony corrected automatically. "It wasn't my finest hour."
"I think brightest works in this case as well." Well she wasn't wrong. Tony ran a hand through his hair as he forced his eyes to open again. His gaze found Ziva again just in time to see her slide down the wall, settling on the floor. She looked exhausted; Tony wondered if she had slept at all last night.
"How…how are you?" He managed to ask after a moment. Her answer was as predictable as ever, of course.
"I am fine. I am not the one who spent last night drinking and getting drunk then taking a cab halfway across the city just to drop in and visit my boss." Tony winced. Yeah, she was right — not his brightest or finest hour. "What exactly did you hope to accomplish? I mean, besides drinking yourself into oblivion."
What had he wanted to accomplish? Oh, nothing much. Except maybe getting the memory of watching his partner being raped right in front of him out of his head. But he wasn't about to say that to Ziva. "Right, right, I'm an idiot. I know. Try not to hold it against me, huh?"
"I will do my best."
They lapsed into silence for a few moments. "Boss-man gone?" Tony asked after a moment, and Ziva nodded slowly.
"He…wants to get to work with…with finding Shay and Rawling." Tony didn't miss the slight hesitation in Ziva's voice, the almost indiscernible shaking when she said those bastards' names. Tony gritted his teeth together; he would have liked nothing better than track them down himself and tear them both apart limb from limb.
But his head was pounding. He knew he was going to be useless at the office, and anyways, there was no way he was leaving Ziva by herself. Gibbs had most likely already laid down the law and informed her he'd have her thrown out of the building if she tried to go to work. At least, that was the only reason Tony could think of as to why Ziva hadn't gone in with their boss.
"So…what now?"
The three words carried so much more weight than most people would have expected. Ziva looked up from the floor, empty mahogany eyes meeting pained green. She considered the question for a moment, before saying, "Now…it is almost noon. We should probably think about eating. We will probably have to order out, I doubt Gibbs keeps much more than coffee here…"
Translation, Tony thought bitterly as he watched Ziva standing up and wander into the kitchen. Now we start compartmentalizing and acting like the hellish day that was yesterday never happened.
A bottle of ibuprofen was sitting on the coffee table. Tony grabbed it and worked the cover off, popping a couple pills into his mouth and swallowing before jumping up and following Ziva.
The next hour or so passed in relative silence. They ordered a pizza, and Tony fought Ziva down to pay (he had, in his drunken stupor, at least remembered his wallet), and they sat down to eat at Gibbs' table when the pizza arrive. Tony hated how hard this seemed; usually any time he spent with Ziva, whether they were talking or silent, was easy, comfortable. They'd long ago gotten to that place where words just weren't necessary for them to communicate — one simple look, and they could practically read each other's mind.
But the channels of communication were closed now. Every look Ziva gave Tony (and there weren't a lot of those) was empty and unreadable; he may as well have been sharing pizza with a stranger. "Do you…wanna talk about it?" Tony finally asked, his voice sounding strange and foreign even in his ears. Ziva looked up from the pizza slice she had been picking at. They were both still on their first slices; neither had much of an appetite.
"We are both going to be doing enough talking in the psych evaluations you know Gibbs is going to make us go through. Do you really want to put yourself through more torture by talking about it now?"
Well she had a point there. Still, Tony wasn't sure it was healthy for them to be bottling things up until their psych evals. "I just think…you know, maybe you'll feel better if you talk—"
"Tony if you are trying to tell me you would like to talk, I will be more than happy to listen," Ziva interrupted calmly. Tony paused mid-sentence with his mouth hanging open. Now he felt bad. Ziva had been through so much worse than him, how could he let her think he was the one struggling with all this?
While Tony was lost in thought, Ziva stood up, taking her glass in hand going to get something to drink. Tony jerked back to reality as the sound of glass shattering echoed in his ears, and his eyes focused on Ziva. Somehow, her glass had slipped and crashed to the floor; her normally steady hand was shaking visibly. Tony's eyes flew to her face, but her gaze wasn't glassy, as he had expected. Not a flashback, then.
"Ziva?"
Her head snapped around to look at Tony, and she crossed her arms quickly and tightly across her stomach, looking away again. After a moment she stepped carefully around the glass to go in hunt of a broom and dustpan. Tony stared after her, his jaw clenched tight. He really couldn't have hated himself any more at this moment even if he tried.
Eventually Ziva came back; Tony's offer to clean up the glass fell on deaf ears. He shouldn't have been surprised, he supposed. But he would have felt bad if he hadn't at least tried.
"Are you okay?" He finally asked as she finished scooping the glass into the dustpan and threw it away. "And please don't say you're fine."
She didn't say anything for so long, Tony wondered if she'd decided against silence in place of her default answer. "It is…not like I have not dealt with something like this before," she finally said, turning away so she wouldn't have to face Tony. "I will be fine."
Tony knew she was talking about Somalia. Ziva had admitted to him once, when she had been so wasted she hadn't been able to tell if she was talking to Tony or herself, that she had been raped in Somalia more times than she had been able to count.
"If you wanna talk—"
"I do not want to talk," Ziva interrupted firmly. Tony pressed his lips together, words chasing themselves around in his head.
"Fine," he said firmly. "Then I do." Ziva looked around, surprise sparking to life in her eyes. "I want to talk about it. I want to talk about what it was like to watch them hold a gun to my head while they told you if you didn't cooperate they'd shoot me—"
"Stop—"
"I want to talk about what it was like to watch Shay pin you against that wall and rape you and watching that oaf Rawling—"
"Tony—"
"I want to talk about what it was like to sit there for hours afterwards and watch you curl up on the floor in pain because two guys had just raped and beaten you—"
"Just stop!"
The shout cut Tony off mid-sentence; Ziva whirled around, her eyes flashing dangerously, and Tony knew he had gone too far. "Why can't you ever just leave things alone?" Ziva asked angrily, her fists clenching at her side. "You push and push and push like you think it is going to do any good, but you will never talk about things that are bothering you, you are such a hypocrite sometimes I cannot stand it, and I am so sick of you pushing! I am begging you…please, please let it go. It is bad enough that I am going to have to relive it in the psych evals. I do not want to do it with you as well."
Tony held his breath as Ziva finished her rant. She didn't look nearly as angry as the words may have lead a bystander to believe. If anything, she looked desperate. Like she was just begging Tony to let everything go. And he was tempted to just grant her wish and drop the entire subject. If she didn't want to talk, she didn't want to talk.
But he couldn't let it go. Not yet.
"I was down there with you Ziva. I was there too. I know everything that happened already. Nothing you say is going to make me think any less of you. If that's what you're worried about, you don't have to. I could never think any less of you. You gotta know that."
Ziva stared at Tony for a long time. The defensiveness drained from her expression, and suddenly she just looked exhausted. Tony wondered, between having to wake up every hour because of the concussion and the fact that she was just Ziva, how much sleep she had gotten the night before. Her eyes were empty again, unfocused, as if she had fallen into a trance. It was frightening.
"They were going to kill you."
Tony stiffened a bit, pressing his lips together as Ziva focused her still empty gaze on him. And suddenly, he wanted to find these sons of bitches. And he wanted to put a bullet in each of their disgusting heads.
"What was I supposed to do?"
She sounded as if she was begging him for an answer. And in a way, Tony realized in disgust, she was. She was looking for him to tell her she should have done things differently, should have found a way to get them out of there. He had an excuse, he had been drugged. But Ziva didn't have the luxury of using the same excuse. Tony wondered if she had just lied awake last night, going over everything in her head, seeing what she could have done, what had gone wrong. What she had done wrong.
"Nothing, Ziva. There was nothing you could have done."
The answer didn't seem to satisfy Ziva. Though if Tony was honest with himself, he hadn't expected it to.
Author's Note: So...studies show that reviews are vital to hurricane survival. Or I might be making that up. Who knows. Review anyways? ~Sam
