Ziva is sitting alone on a chair. It's been two days, and Tony's still in critical condition. She's seen him now, with a tube down his throat and bandages covering his throat and his arms and his back. He's on his side, because his back is badly burnt. It's bad, and she knows it. The staff is worried about infection, and Gibbs is sitting on a chair outside the room that's been sterilized because they don't want Tony to catch a single bug or germ. Ziva's watching Abby hold McGee's hand. She knows something happened after Abby made McGee get into her car and then took him home, but she really doesn't care right now. Gibbs hasn't said a word to either of them, but Ducky's been around, telling them little things that make hope blossom in their hearts. Even Jimmy Palmer is there, he looks sad and uncomfortable, and Ziva wants to lash out at him because she's never considered him part of the team, he's never there...until she realizes that Jimmy is Tony's friend, and her anger deflates again. She watches everything and tries to remain at a distance, because these people are not supposed to be her friends, just her coworkers.

"Are you okay?" Jimmy suddenly asks and she hasn't realized that he's moved closer to her. Ziva looks up sharply, but Jimmy doesn't flinch and Ziva's wondering if she's starting to lose her ability to frighten people, and her heart speeds up because without that ability she might have to learn to trust. With a sudden clarity she realizes that she *does* trust these people, and she wonders when they managed to crawl beneath her skin and settle in her heart. "Do you need something to drink?" Jimmy asks and she nods. Jimmy gets up and disappears out the door to "their" room. Ducky was able to get them a room designated for families, and there's a sofa, and a table, and a few chairs scattered around. There's a poster on the wall that Ziva took down because it reminded her too much of hope, but the green walls reminds her of grass, and Tony, and laughter, and it's almost worse. Almost. "Here," Jimmy says and she flinches because he's so nice to her even though she barely speaks to him.

"Thank you," she says and accepts the glass of water. She looks down and remembers that Tony's just a hallway away, still fighting to live, and she's embarrassed that she wishes they'd serve alcohol in the hospital so she can get drunk and forget the smell of melting flesh that assaults her every time she opens and closes her eyes. Her throat feels raw, and tears burn behind her eyes but crying isn't an option because she doesn't cry. That's not how her family raised her, and it's not how her family knows her. And again she's struck with sudden clarity, these people are not just her friends, they're family, and her throat threatens to close completely at the thought of losing her brother, Tony, to lose him means losing a part of herself. She briefly wonders why she never felt that with Ari, because she should, because he was part of her real family. Again, another realization hits her and she knows that *this* family is her real family, not those people that call themselves father and brother and mother and sister. And it's all screwed up, time, family, friends, coworkers, it twists into a knot that can't be untied unless she cries and grieves, and she doesn't want to do that.

"It's okay," Jimmy says and Ziva hesitantly raises her eyes. "Everyone falls apart," he reassures her, but she shakes her head. She doesn't fall apart, it's not how she was raised by those people in Israel where she was born, it's not how people know her. The Ziva everyone knows remain cool, calm, and collected and that thought hurts because those are Tony's words, not her own, and she wants to be the person Tony thought she was but she's not. And then she remembers a conversation they had when no one else was around, Tony had asked her if she needed a hug and she had said yes. He had hugged her and she had cried on his shoulder while he said that he knew she wasn't as cold as she thought she was, and that it was okay to be human. Ziva's eyes are burning even more now, and it hurts because she's not supposed to fall apart like everyone else has, it's not fair to Tony, and it's not fair that he's doing this to her. "I'm going to hug you now, and you can punch me if you want," Jimmy suddenly says and then there's arms around her.

"No," she says and tries to struggle out of his grip, and she punches and kicks and threatens to scream, but Jimmy's arms are still around her, and it's like they're burning her, melting her skin, and the thought makes her sick because that's exactly what happened to Tony. And now the tears are here, and she shakes with the violence of her sobs because she's so tired of fighting who she really is, fighting the fact that she cares about these people more than she cares for her real family, and it hurts so bad her heart is breaking, the hurt is spreading through every inch of her body, killing her, shaking her to the core, because she has a family now, people who actually care about her for who she is, not what she can do for them. They don't need favors, they need her, and it hurts because she's not used to that.

"It's okay, it's okay," Jimmy says quietly in her ear, and Ziva still fights, but in the end she gives, because it's all she can do without killing someone, and she doesn't want to kill family, and that hurts even more because she killed Ari and she didn't feel much after that, but now she feels, and it hurts, and it's not who she thought she was, and Tony's in there fighting for a chance to live when all she wants is to kill him for doing something so utterly stupid as to get hurt when she's there, so she cries in Jimmy's arms, sobs her heart out because it's too damn much! It's too much! "Everyone falls apart, Ziva, it's okay," Jimmy assures her and now she's not fighting anymore, she's letting him hold her, and the arms doesn't burn her, neither does the support he's lending her, and it's comforting, and it's scary but it's also good. Ziva never thought Tony and Jimmy would be the ones who truly saw her for who she is, but she's been wrong before, and she knows that this is right, it's fitting.

But it doesn't make it easier.

-0-

AN: Dear God...I'm a monster. Review? :3