A nice long chapter for you. I'm going out of town for a few days, but if I get a chance, I'll post a chapter over the weekend. Thank you, again, for all your kind words. Your encouragement has been inspirational.
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Friends ambled into the room day by day, offering words of hope and encouragement. And even though they weren't qualified or trained to make such prognoses, most told Tony it was just a matter of days before she'd wake up, and that doctors don't always know what they're talking about, and other ridiculous greeting-card lines that Tony knew were just so much hot air. No one wanted to believe it more than Tony, but no one knew the truth of the matter like Tony, either. And the truth was Ziva wasn't waking up. That she was wasting away. That every day she remained in the etherized world of coma, her chances of regaining her place in the corporeal world diminished.
It was a world of dreams for Ziva and nightmares for Tony.
A second Friday was fast approaching, and Tony spun through his iPod playlist, settling on the album "Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely." He thought it was highly appropriate to listen to Old Blue Eyes croon about the state of loneliness while he himself sat alongside his distant partner. He perused the list, ending on "One For My Baby."
"Ha, you remember this one, Ziva?" he asked, tucking one white bud into her ear, the other in his. The soft tinkling of a piano and the moan of violins ambled under Sinatra's emotive voice- "It's quarter to three, there's no one in the place, 'cept you and me..." Tony sat on the edge of her bed, draped her arm across his legs, and hummed along with the words for a measure or two. A smile lit upon his face, and he said, "Karaoke in Richmond. You sang a Nina Simone song, and I sang this. Good times. We should do that more often." He ran his fingers across the length of her arm. Her free hand lifted from the bed, and Tony pinned it across her abdomen. Her unfocused eyes stared at nothing, and her lips met, opened and met again, a motion he was used to seeing. "You want me to sing some more? Okay... 'I got the routine, put another nickel in the machine. Feelin' so bad, can't you make the music easy and sad?'" The last words stuck in his throat, a clog of memories, emotion and the unknown. Unable to speak, Tony let Frank tell the rest of the sad story.
A most remarkable thing happened. Beyond the contraction of muscles, her lips formed a soundless word. "Home."
He stared at her. He did not breathe. He did not move. He waited.
"Home."
Tony jumped from the edge of the bed, wrapped his hand across her forehead, and said, "I'm here, Ziva. Say it again, honey. I'm listening!"
And although it was unvoiced, a combination of consonants and vowels formed around a ventilator tube, Ziva said it again. "Home."
Tony jabbed at the call button, shaking with excitement. "I can hear you, Ziva!"
Chris, the shift nurse, scurried in, and took note of the event.
Tony scrubbed the back of Ziva's hand in his, grinned, and said, "This is a good thing, right? She can talk. It's a good thing. Of course, it is."
"Ziva," the nurse boomed, taking her hand in hers, "time to wake up now. Can you squeeze my hand? Come on now, Agent David, squeeze my hand."
Fingers, soft as air, fluttered in their grips, and Tony burst out in laughter. "Ha! That's what I'm talkin' about!"
"I'll call her doctor," Chris said, leaving Tony alone to watch for more words. But there were none. Not for the rest of the day.
Still, it was something.
In those days, when Ziva would move through old missions and seek out her target, all from the confines of a hospital bed, and all elbows and knees, Tony would hold her still. Grasp both her wrists in an iron grip while he talked to her, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice. She'd bolt up in bed, and Tony would press her back down, and never even a ghost of emotion would float across her face.
Protecting her from her mind was one kind of anguish. Deciphering her wants and needs, her desires, was another.
Seated on the edge of her bed, his almost constant perch, Tony wiped a warm washcloth across Ziva's face and neck. It seemed to bring her comfort and peace, and even if she didn't need to be peaceful, Tony needed it.
Soothing her skin and, he hoped, those inner demons, Tony rambled on, like he had been doing for days on end.
"So, that's how I got thrown out of St. Anthony's Preparatory and Boarding School. Seems leaving Mass to make an intercontinental phone call in the monsignor's office is counterproductive to the whole 'Educate the heart, and the mind will follow' principle they were going for. Personally, that's exactly what I thought I was doing. Rachel, I believe, was the name of the girl. I met her on spring break. She was in a similar predicament, only in Switzerland. Anyhow, at the end of the day, Senior wrote Monsignor a hefty check for the calls, another one to the alumni association of St. Thomas More in Connecticut to evaluate my mid-year application, and thus began the Big Chill of 1985, '86, '87-pretty much the rest of the decade. Guess I kind of lost track of Rachel after that."
Ziva's lips gathered, released, and gathered again, another in a series of autonomic responses, he was told. When it first happened, Tony wondered if Ziva wanted him to kiss her. Her surgeons would say other things- "That's a great bilateral response"-which was almost as nonsensical to Tony as Ziva asking for a kiss.
Drawing the cloth over her arm and hand, he continued. "You'll be happy to hear your hair is growing in. Got a nice Rihanna/Cassie-thing going there. I like it." Her lips pulled into a half-formed pucker again, and Tony shook his head, rubbed the back of his fingers across her cheek. "You want a kiss, Ziva? Well, get in line, sister," he said.
But her lips continued to gather, and her agitation increased. "Fine. Feels a little odd, a little morbid, what with you all comatose and all, but, ya know, what's good for Pedro Almodovar..." Tony leaned over and kissed her cheek, just to quiet her. What could it hurt? He'd kissed her before, plenty of times. And it did quiet her, so he kissed her again, closer this time, longer, his lips coming away tasting of salt and sweat and surgical tape. It was only at that moment that he realized why he'd kissed her, not because she wanted a kiss, but because he wanted to kiss her, and had for a long time. Kissing her to express his care, his worry. He realized at that moment that he kissed her out of affection, and in that natural reaction to such a deep, consuming emotion, Tony shuddered.
He touched his forehead to hers, closed his eyes, and ground down on his teeth, and when he pulled away, regret, remorse and shame mixed in now with the taste of her. Tony wiped a shaking hand across his mouth, and his gaze fell gently on her closed eyes, on her lips that still demanded his. He smoothed back the hair from her forehead, and shook his head, cleared his suddenly constricted throat, and said, "What's going on in there, Ziva? What's going on in me?"
It surprised him how quickly sadness would wash over him.
And anger.
As much as he wanted to be with Ziva every moment, in case she needed him, which she did-she told him that every day, in a million different, silent ways-he still had a job to do. Not that he did it well, but he was there.
On a particularly grey Monday morning, when Tony had spent the weekend holding Ziva's hand, trying to keep the restraints from being used, those cumbersome, violent looking restraints, he slogged into the office. All he wanted to do was put his head on his desk, cocoon himself in his suit coat, and sleep. But, Tim's voice just kept prattling on about...well, Tony wasn't sure what Probie was actually talking about. Didn't really care, but that voice, that continuous drone was drilling into Tony's skull, like a bone saw.
"Did you get the information, or not, McGee?" Gibbs asked from his desk, growing just as tired of the explanation.
"Yeah, Boss," McGee said, coming around his desk, having sent an image up to the big screen. "Taubler was in Norfolk between the dates of October 22nd and 24th, which would discount his story he originally told us."
"You're sure?"
"I am," Tim said, nodding, proud of himself for having made the connection.
"Then bring him in."
"On it, Boss," Tim said, sliding back behind his desk, while Gibbs gathered files to take to the director's office.
"That's good work, McGee," Gibbs told him, and something in that exchange pinged a nerve in Tony, and before he could even stop himself, he was glaring at Tim.
"You found Taubler because he had a reaction to a flu shot," Tony hissed. "Brilliant, Needles McGee."
"It doesn't matter how you get there, Tony," Tim said, typing in the necessary information to issue a warrant on Petty Officer Taubler. "The little things matter just as much as the big things."
"Little things," Tony spat out, shaking his head. "Yeah, you're right, Timmy. Little, like your investment in this case. A contaminated vial of flu vaccine? Come on!"
"DiNozzo," Gibbs warned, to no avail.
"But, you know, you got a point, aside from that one on the top of your head," Tony went on, launching himself from his desk to stare down Tim. "It is the little things, like a smile. Like a tongue that sticks out. Oh, to you and me, it seems like one of those...little things. That what you call it? But to a neurosurgeon, it's a bilateral movement, and they're just pleased as punch. Hell, they're ecstatic! Just like you, Probie, with your bad batch of bug repellant. Meanwhile, doesn't change the fact that our petty officer's CO is decomposing in a body bag and Ziva's still a vegetable, now does it, Tim?"
Storming out from behind his desk, Gibbs barked, "DiNozzo!"
Refusing to take his embittered eyes off Tim, Tony answered exactly as he knew he should. "On your six, Boss!"
The two men marched to a secluded section of the bullpen, below the stairs, where Tony was sure Gibbs would beat him down to the formless husk of a man he already knew he was.
The steely, intractable penetration of ice blue eyes would make any mortal wither, and Tony girded himself, trying to approximate an equally formidable stare as he held fast to his anger, his resentment. Resentment that the world just went on. That his partner lay disconnected to him and to life, day after day, hour after hour, as life went on without her, and that nobody seemed to notice but him!
Gibbs narrowed his eyes, scanning his senior agent's expression, finding what he already knew, what he'd been accustomed to seeing these past weeks-Tony was spent, physically, emotionally. Dog tired, at the end of his rope, but just stubborn enough, just goddamn desperate enough to think that he could try to do it all. And maybe Jethro understood a little better than he let on why Tony was beat. After all, he'd often checked in on Ziva late in the evening, only to find her hand in Tony's, and Tony asleep in the side chair. There were a few evenings when he'd find Tony asleep in her bed, curled up behind her, anchoring her down with his arm. The nurses would tell Gibbs that sometimes it was the only way to get Ziva to sleep, and wasn't Agent DiNozzo such a sweet, kind man? He must really love her...
Would Gibbs ever let Tony know he was aware of these intimate moments? No. Did it bother him that these acts of affection flew in the face of rule number 12, never date a coworker? Oh, a little. Probably more than a little. Extenuating circumstances, he rationalized, and there was a distinct lack of flowers and candlelight in her hospital room, so really, not a date, but definitely beyond "I got your back," especially since he physically had her back.
So Jethro knew the harsh words Tony had spewed in the bullpen were borne of these and many more nights, so a certain amount of latitude was in order. But not much.
When Gibbs shifted his stance and without words said to Tony "Come on, DiNozzo!" guilt began to gurgle inside, and the standoff was over. He anchored a hand to his hip, took a deep breath, and let his shoulders slump. Damn, he thought, pinching the bridge of his nose, suddenly aware of a headache building behind his sinuses. He had tried so hard to keep it all together, to be the partner Ziva needed and the team member Gibbs counted on. But it was all becoming too much, and he had snapped at the one guy who deserved it the least: McGee. There was no reason to talk to Tim that way, and Tony knew it. Gibbs knew Tony knew it.
Tony braced his hand to the wall, unable, just yet, to look at Gibbs, so deep was his embarrassment and shame.
"Hey," Gibbs voiced, cocking his head to find DiNozzo's bloodshot eyes, forcing him to look up from his self-loathing, and when Tony didn't look up, Gibbs said it again. "Hey!"
"Um," Tony began, clearing away the distortion in his voice, "I think I'm gonna..."
"Go home," Gibbs told him.
When he did finally regain his bearings, when he felt he could look his boss in the eye without being reduced to a puddle, Tony nodded.
The heat that had fueled their departure had dissipated, and Tony slogged back into the center of the bullpen, stopping before Tim's desk, who waited for his obviously distressed and repentant friend to make the first move.
"Look, Tim," was all Tony managed before Tim stood up, gave a brisk bob of the head, and offered his hand, which Tony took.
"Don't worry about it," Tim said, his features compassionate yet uncompromising. "But, don't do it again."
Tony guessed he deserved the reprimand. He lowered his eyes, chucked Tim on the arm, and grabbed his belongings.
So much for a hard day's work.
He meant to follow orders, to go home, like Gibbs had told him, but as if guided by its own navigational system, he found his car headed for the hospital. Hell, if he needed to, he'd sleep in the chair next to her bed. Two birds, one stone. He hardly knew what his apartment looked like these days, anyhow, and it wasn't as if he slept there any better than he did by her side, holding onto her hand between bed rails, reminding her of who she was, until his arm fell asleep.
Just like it was any ordinary Monday.
Except, it wasn't.
He stepped into her room and found a clutch of nurses bustled around his chair, their movements jutting and lacking the usual fluidity. Between them was a fat quarter of cloth, bound by tubes and topped by a cervical collar.
The realization hit him like an arctic wind, that this was a person slumped between them. That the boneless form they were manipulating into the chair, whose head tilted listlessly to the side, whose mouth hung agape, whose flat eyes caught no light, and whose dark hair tumbled artlessly from her head was Ziva.
"What's going on?" Tony asked, unsure he said it aloud or only to himself.
Angela, the day's shift nurse, glanced over at Tony, and said, "Change of venue. Helps the process sometimes." Just as quickly, she resumed her work, positioning the acquiescent body in the chair, strapping Ziva into a sitting position, clearing tubes.
Ziva needed him. That's why he spent all his days and nights at the hospital, because she needed him to be in the room with her, holding her hand, waiting for that moment her eyes would focus on him, and he could say, "I'm here." She needed him, and he kept telling himself that in order to keep coming back day after day after day after...
But here he was again, across from her, and there she was again, being placed into a chair, half-dead, and she gave no visible notion that he was in the room with her, or that she cared. Or worse-that she didn't want him with her. Again. That he shouldn't bother. That she was ready to die. Again.
Truth serum or not, it was at that moment that Tony knew why he was standing helplessly by in her hospital room, hardly able to breathe.
He needed her.
She was the reason in his frenetic, irrational world. She tethered him to care, to devotion, and let him fly unbound into passion. She was his waking thought and his cooling water. She was that shim in his soul that kept him balanced and centered. She dazzled him, and challenged him, and without her, he was walking in circles, alone and unsure of himself.
He needed her, and her slack features told him what he already knew-she didn't care. That he was as important to her as all the stories he had told her, as all the songs he forced into her deaf ears.
"You can come in," Angela said, but when she turned to look for him, Tony was gone.
He didn't remember when the afternoon's glaring sun slid into the evening's moonless sky. He hadn't looked at his watch when he finally stumbled breathless into his apartment, coming to sit awkwardly, without thought, on his coffee table, where he would stare into the closed translucent drapes, still wearing his trench coat, his holster, his badge, while memories of her hovered all around him.
But somewhere over the course of hours, necessity pulled him from his stupor, pulled him from that abyss where all reality expressed itself in shocking brutality.
Flipping the light on in his kitchen, Tony shielded his eyes, and came to realize just how long he had been languishing in his dark apartment, caught between the worlds of purpose and futility. Between hope and despair.
How many nights had he stood at his kitchen counter, talking himself into pouring a drink, talking himself out of drinking it? How often had he reached for the tumbler, the ice, the Johnny Walker Gold, only to wipe away the want with the thought that she might wake up?
Two cubes, that's all. You don't water down the Gold; you open it up, expose its peaty undertones. That's what his father had taught him when Tony was younger than the bottle of fifteen-year-old Scotch. Senior had told him that you pour two fingers and three on top of that, and you drink it down before the ice cubes lost their hard edges.
The ice cubes, he figured out years later, were only truly there to cool down the glass that you'd roll across your aching brow, and the tumbler etched with diamonds was for kneading away the tension, because if you were tossing back Johnny Walker Gold like it was ginger ale, your life was well and truly in shambles, and only the cold feel of cut glass could penetrate through that much pain. The Johnny Walker Gold just helped anesthetize the ache.
Tony placed the glass on the counter, unable just yet to release it. It was empty. Empty as her eyes. Empty as his life without her, and that alone brought a deeper level of emptiness.
Why had he bothered? What kind of fool was he to think that it mattered whether he was with her? Who was he to her, really? They'd had their moments, sure, and they'd had cloaked, obfuscated conversations about their true feelings for each other, but no promises had been made, so why? Why? Why was he killing himself to be with her every moment he could possibly carve out? Would she ever know, and even if she did, would it matter?
And what if it did matter, but Ziva never woke up? What then? When would he decide that enough was enough? How long could he last being at her side? Did he have that kind of strength?
Then again, how could he not? Life without Ziva-an abyss. Bottomless. Hollow.
Tony clamped both hands to the edge of his counter, locked out his elbows, and let his tired head fall to his chest.
And wept.
