AN I don't own NCIS of any of its characters! I wasn't going to post (or write) this so soon but I was reading reviews so... here we are. Enjoy!
Tony wanted to scream. He wanted to throw things across the room until they shattered and he wanted to scream at the top of his lungs until there was no more oxygen left to breathe in. But Ziva was sleeping, so he stayed quiet and still in his chair. He just watched her breathe.
She could have stopped breathing. But, honestly, it would have been easier if she had. He hated himself for thinking that but it was true-even if his every heartbeat was just waiting on her breath, even if he felt like he would die the second her chest hesitated to raise. It would have been easier if they'd killed her. She could have gone to heaven, left her father and all the other people who'd hurt her behind, she could have been at peace. But that wasn't her style.
Ziva was a fighter, and she lived. She didn't always survive, she didn't always get out in one piece, but she lived. And here she was, just living, and it felt like his world was falling apart. Because it was real, now, and she was real. The bruises on her face were real, the scratches on her skin were real, and the ripped, bloodied underwear sitting on the bathroom floor of that hotel were real.
Girls were raped. In the US, in other countries, in bedrooms and in holding cells. Foreign girls in US military camps were almost always raped-he knew that, and yet somehow this was so much harder to understand. Soldiers were shitty sometimes. Men were shitty sometimes. People were shitty, more often than he liked to admit. Tony didn't agree with that craze that came over men's eyes when they saw girls helpless, he didn't like it or ever feel it himself, but he understood it. In the twisted, sick way he understood murderers and psychos, maybe, but he understood it.
But not Ziva.
People were tortured and interrogated, that was just how it was. He hadn't liked it, at first, but he'd accepted that fact and that there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn't be there for all of them, so he had to shut it off. He had to be there for none of them. He had to look past it, he had to ignore it, he had to shut off that part of his brain because otherwise? Otherwise, he would drown in all the horrible tragedy and crime that was humanity at its worst. He'd watched Gibbs drown in that, and he wasn't going down that road. Even if it made him a monster, even if it kept him up at night in the beginning, even if it was horrible. He had to just… shut it off.
Seven years could do a lot to a person. He'd changed-a lot-and he wasn't proud of it but, with his dad dead and the team disbanded, there wasn't anyone he had to keep up the charade for. He took the jobs he did because it fit. Because, at least he told himself, he saved some goody-two-shoes soldier with a wife and kids back home from selling his soul to get information. If he did it, then someone else didn't have to. Someone who still had a team to go back to, who still had people that needed to see humanity in them. That was what he told himself, at least.
But this was Ziva. This was his Ziva who was curled up on the bed, breathing, and looking so damn broken he wanted to cry. His Ziva. He could tell from the burn marks on her upper back that they'd electrocuted her-taser or otherwise. It wasn't one of his preferred methods, too big of a risk of internal complications, but… he'd still done it. He'd done it to people.
How many of those people had been undercover, or forced to take the fall for someone else? Not many, realistically, but that didn't help. How many had had families? Friends? If they could do this to his Ziva, without even blinking... How many of the people he'd interrogated had been someone else's Ziva?
No one is looking for him, all blood relatives are dead, they live alone, no romantic partners-how many times had he heard that, even said it? Like being alone made torture okay, suddenly. Ziva was alone, by all accounts. But that didn't meant she wasn't loved, that no one was thinking about her, that no one cared. Amina Ahmed was a terrorist, a loner who bit people in the crotch. But she was Ziva. She was his Ziva, and they tortured her.
For God's sake he had almost tortured her!
"Don't do that to yourself, Tony." He almost screamed at her voice. How long had she been laying there, awake, just watching him freak out?!
"I'm fine, sweetheart, go back to sleep." She glared, though, until he scooted the chair closer and took her hand again. But, even with that, she didn't close her eyes again.
"Stop it. You're beating yourself up and I can tell. Stop." He sighed, even when she squeezed his hand. "I mean it, sweetheart, stop."
"You're not going to mention the fact that I was going to interrogate you? Torture you?" She chewed her lip, even though it was cracked and bleeding already, but didn't look away from him. Had her eyes always been like that? Like the kind of warm he could fall into after a long day and sleep for hours. Like the kind of comfort that made him melt. Like… her.
"I interrogated people, tortured them, before you met me." But that was different! That was… she'd been different then.
"That was different, Zi. You were different back then." She laughed a little.
"You mean that was before I discovered my human side?" He was quiet, but that seemed to be answer enough. "People change. I lost it before I met you, you lost it after."
"That doesn't make it better." She squeezed his hand, smiling a little even if he looked like he wanted to die-which he was sure that he did. Because, he did-in fact-want to die.
"No, it doesn't. But it does mean you can take a minute and breathe before you panic about the moral implications of what you've done. It does mean that we're on an even playing field. It does mean that, for now, you can set that aside and just be here with me. Because I need you right now. More than any of those thoughts, more than any of those faces, more than any of those nightmares. Can you do that? Can you be here for me, for right now, sweetheart?" Somehow, that made him breathe. If only for a second, he sucked in oxygen and he could see her a little clear. See the bruises on her cheeks. See the anxiety behind her eyes, the shudder in every breath. She needed him.
"Yeah, I'm sorry. Of course I'm here for you, sweetheart. Of course. What can I do?" She smiled, finally letting her eyes fall closed again as she squeezed his hand. He couldn't tell anymore who was reassuring who, but he didn't care. It felt good.
"Keep talking? I'm just.. Really anxious and your voice helps so maybe you could keep talking?"
"Of course, sweetheart. Hey, did I ever tell you about that time McGee got his tongue stuck to a swing set and Gibbs had to pour hot water on it?" He kept talking, kept telling stories, but his focus went to her face. Her eyes relaxed, so they weren't so pinched at the corners, and the longer he talked, the slower her breathing came. It began to shallow, gradually, as he ran out of funny stories and switched to just true one. The plague, too, eventually once he was sure she was asleep. He didn't stop talking, though, because… Because she needed him to keep talking, so that's what he did. He kept talking. After a while, he prayed that she wasn't listening to the words but he kept talking, telling every story he could think of even the ones that made him ashamed to be alive. He kept talking, though.
Because she needed him to.
Thanks for reading! Positive reviews make me update a hundred times faster! Also, I've decided to continue this one a little longer but not sure how long it'll be. Thoughts?
Side note, please be nice to me it's really scary to put your own work out there like this! Please and thank you.