Disclaimer: I do not own the characters.
A/N: Ok I am very sorry once again for late update but once again my life has been busy. But since I have kept you all waiting for such a long time here is a long chapter. Hope you all enjoy!
"It all started when you brought me back from hell…" I say sitting up and swinging my feet over the edge of the bed.
"I started having these nightmares that repeat exactly what I went through. They started off with just the things that happened but more recently they have involved you, Gibbs, Abby, McGee, everyone. The first night was the worst one I have ever had-"
"Have they been getting better?" he asks sitting up to match my position. I look into his eyes for the first time and I only see concern.
"No, sometimes that are not too bad but other times they are so unbearable that I wake up in a cold sweat and crying and I still believe I am in the dream-"
"Like tonight?" he asks cutting me off again.
"Yes, just like tonight. I am… sorry… Tony-"
"No, just stop apologizing. Nothing is your fault. Not what happened to you while you were in that desert, and not the nightmares, nothing is your fault Ziva." He tells me. But no matter how many time he tells me it will not erase the feeling of guilt I have.
"I should have tried harder. I should have been stronger. I showed too much emotion while I was there. And I should not be this affected by it now. It is over and done with. This should not be happening to me I am weak-"
"Ziva you are human. You are allowed to feel. You are not the trained emotionless killer that you used to be. You have changed. It's not a bad change either if anything you have became a better person." He tells me. I looked away thinking he was going to get angry but as I look back into his eyes I still only see concern.
"Ziva I don't know what fully happened to you but whatever it was, it was not your fault, and it is going to affect you." He tells me looking me straight in the eyes. Does he want to know what happened? Could I tell him? I cannot tell anyone. If anyone finds out they will see how broken I am. How dirty and unworthy I have become.
"Tony I cannot talk about what happened. It was too…" I cannot finish that sentence for there are no words that can describe the torture I went through.
"I am not asking you right now but I would like to know someday whenever you are ready to tell me. I want to help you. Now that I know you are suffering every night I can't just sit back and watch you hurt every day." He says. Why does he care so much? Why does he want to help someone as pathetic as me?
"I do not know if I will ever be able to tell anyone about it. I do not ever want to relive it. It was too unbearable the first time." A silence falls over the room as he sits there staring at me.
"How do you plan to help me Tony? You cannot control my dreams, you cannot stop them from coming after me, you cannot get rid of the memories and scars I have Tony. How do you expect to help me?" I ask.
"What are you talking about? What scars? I have never seen one scar on you?" he asks. He is even more worried and he moves closer to me.
"Nothing, I did not mean to say that." I tell him hoping he will drop it.
"No Ziva stop hiding from me. All I want to do is help you and you keep shutting me out. You are never going to get over this if you don't accept help from someone. Why not let that someone be me? I have already seen you after a nightmare. You have already freaked out on me enough times. Come on Ziva just stop being so stubborn and except the fact that you need help." I should have known he would not let it go. I did not expect him to raise his voice but he did. The more he spoke the louder he got. He really does care. Should I let him in? Should I tell him about everything? Will he treat me differently?
"Ziva trust me. I'm sorry for yelling but it's just so frustrating that you won't except help from anyone when you clearly need it. I'm worried, Gibbs is worried, Ziva everyone has been worried about and for good reason now that I know part of what has been going on with you. I already have assumptions about what happened to you. You stay distant from everyone now. You flinch away from peoples touch. Ziva trust me no matter what you tell me will not make me see you any differently than the way I see you now." It's almost like he was reading my mind.
"How do you see me Tony?" I ask. He moves even closer to me on the bed so his arm is around me. Even though I flinch away from his touch he still wraps his arm around me.
"I see you as the closest thing to perfect anyone can get." He says. I am speechless but I know I can trust him.
"Look Tony many of the things that happened to me in Somalia left scars on my body. I went through some of the most gruesome things you can imagine." I tell him moving away from him to bring my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around my knees.
"What did they do?" he asks a little more forcefully.
"You want to know everything?" I ask. Do I really want to tell him everything? He will see me differently; he will see me as week, damaged and pathetic. He says he will not but I know he will.
"Yes…from the beginning…please. I promise nothing will change. I just need to know what you went through. I saw you in that cell when the bag was ripped off your head and ever since then it has been killing me to know what happened." He tells me reaching out to place his hand on my arm. I flinch once again but he does not move his hand. He gently rubs his thumb against the skin of my forearm.
"Tony do not promise anything until you have heard everything." I tell him. He should not make promises he cannot keep.
"So tell me." he demands softly.
"I was given an assignment to go to Somalia and take down Saleem and everyone who was in the camp. I lost a few members of my team during the trip. Once we hit land the remaining of us were injured except me. So we called my father and told him the situation. He told us to carry out our mission no matter what it cost. So I went alone leaving my injured teammates to go back and inform my father of what was going on. I reached the cam and took out almost everyone. I got within a fingernail of Saleem until I became…overpowered." I look up to see he has not moved his hand and his facial expression has not changed. He still has the same caring look. My brain is filled with images of Saleem's men pinning me to the ground and binding my hands and feet together and knocking me out cold with the butt of my gun. I quickly shake the image knowing Tony is waiting to hear the rest of what has happened.
"The next thing I remember is waking up in a strange room tied to a chair with my hands and feet bound with rope. The first few visits were not by Saleem but by his men. They would come every few hours. It started with beatings mainly to my body and not my face. Once they realized I was not talking they aimed their fists at my face. The first day Saleem came to visit me I could barely see out of my one eye. He talked to me like I was not a prisoner. Be when I did not respond to anything he was saying he became angry and he began to hit me to get some sort of reaction out of me. He did not care if it was anger or not he just wanted to know that I was feeling something. But every hit I felt something even though I did not show it. I was trained not to show any emotion. I soon became tired of just sitting there taking the abuse like a baby so I decided to talk. It was not what he wanted to hear but I could have cared less." I can feel the silent tears streaming down my cheeks. He's still looking at me.
"Soon after I started talking back the beatings stopped and I was dragged into different rooms for my punishment. The first room I was put into had knives all over it. There were shelves filled with different types of knives, not one knife was the same. I was tied to a table with my hands and legs spread apart and a man would come in and ask me a few questions. Every time I did not answer he would slice into me. Sometimes it was a little cut while others were much deeper. Like this." I roll up my sleeve till it's around my shoulder and I turn my body to show him the long jagged scars running from the top of my shoulder to my elbow. His face has a look of horror as he looks upon the scar. He is looking at the mark almost like he is trying to study every abrasion on it. I turn my head away from him not being able to look into his eyes anymore. I flinch even farther into the bedpost at the feeling of his fingers tracing over the scar. I quickly turn away from his touch. I roll my sleeve back down to cover my arm.
"How many more?" he asks. His voice his soft and gentle. His face is so caring but it almost looks like he is in pain.
"A lot and they are everywhere." I tell him.
"C…Can I see them?" he asks hesitantly.
"Not right now." I answer moving a little further away from him.
"Alright, so after the…cutting…what did they turn to? He asks leaning back to give me more space to also so he can relax.
"They turned to burning, whipping, branding, and-"
"Branding? Like an-"
"Animal." I finish nodding my head confirming his question.
"Yes, I am forever marked." The tears are pouring down my face I do not even try to stop them. I lean on my side to slightly pull the waist band of my sweatpants down a little past my hip bone to expose the raised S mark on my skin. He sits back up fully alert again. His gaze never leaving from the S mark.
"Ziva…" he whispers. I know he wants to reach out to me but I am thankful he does not. He just sits there staring at my hip. I let go of my pants and they slide back into place. I sit back up and sit with my feet tucked underneath me facing Tony. His gaze is still glued to the spot on my hip.
"Tony please stop staring." I demand.
"Sorry. I just…I can't believe you went through that and still didn't say anything." He says moving his gaze up to meet mine.
"I did. I told him my name. I gave away information just because I was in pain. The longer I stayed silent the harder he pushed the branding tool into my skin. I was weak and gave into the pain. He then wanted to know everything I knew. I did not answer for I could not betray my family. But he just continued to talk to me as he pressed the harder into my side. He finally stopped after making sure I was going to be marked forever. " There is no chance that the tears are going to stop now
Tony's P.O.V.
"He kept trying to get answers from me but I would not say anything. So he left me alone in the room with barely any food or water. He came back after a while and he had food with him. He tried to bribe me with food to get answers from me. I did not give in a t first but the need for food was too overpowering and I gave in. He wanted to know my last name and where I was from. But once he got my name he gave me the food and the he had his men do research on me and they contacted Eli. They got him on video call and talked to him. They had us face to face and asked him if he could make me talk for them. He said no of course but they threatened they would make him watch while they tortured me. But he did not care. He just played it off like it was nothing. He told them he knew I talked since they found out we were related. He told them that I was a disappointment and he told me I failed my assignment. He told Saleem to do as he wished with me. That whatever he does to me will be my punishment for failing." Her tears are pouring even heavier now. I want to reach over and pull her to my chest but in the state she is in it is probably better if I don't. This must be killing her to tell me everything.
"What! How can he say that? He was the one who did that. It's his fault not yours. You didn't deserve anything you went through." I am furious right now. How can her father do this to her? I hate him. I hate him more than I already did if that is even possible.
"That was not even the worst part. Saleem had found out that I worked with NCIS and he wanted to know my relationship with them. I did not tell him of course. So he became angry and he dragged me to a dungeon type room and tied me up in chains to hang on a wall. Saleem had children, a son and a daughter. The boy was 13 and the girl was 16. Her name was Kalila. She did not like Saleem at all. She went against everything he said. I found out she was the one doing all the research on me. She had no idea what Saleem was doing with the information but it was what she was told to do. She listened to these orders for her brother's sake. She caught Saleem torturing me one time. I was still chained to the wall when she caught him. They argued for a long time and he ended up tying her up next to me. She told me about her life and what she has been through. She knew all about me, she told me she withheld information from Saleem to protect me. She reminded me of Tali in so many ways. Her attitude was different but the way she looked, from her brown curly hair to her big brown eyes. It was so hard to look at her sometimes. She told me what Saleem planned to do with me if I did not talk to him soon. I told her I did not care and that I already had an idea of what was to come.
Saleem left us in there for a long time before he came back. We were on the brink of death at the time. Kalila was already so small before she got locked in there. By the time he came back she was a skeleton. Her clothes barley fit her as it was, by that time they were practically falling off her. We thought we were going to die at that moment but then he walked in. He asked us how we were like nothing was going on. He walked straight over to me. He started rubbing his hands all over me. I was powerless against his actions. I was just hanging there while he felt every inch of my body. Kalila yelled at him to stop but he did not. They continued to argue until he started to ignore her and he turned his attention back to me. He began to rip my clothes from my body only leaving me in a tank top while Kalila screamed at him to stop. He was using me to torture his own daughter but at the same time he was torturing me. I had to hang there and listen to her screaming while Saleem took the only thing he had not taken yet. I do not remember how long it went on but it felt like an eternity. The pain I felt after he was done with me was like none other I had ever experienced. He unchained us after he was done. We both fell to the floor not even trying to block our falls. He left afterwards to leave us with our thoughts. I pushed through the pain to pull my clothing back on." I can't listen to this. I mean I had a feeling that this happened but to actually hear her say she was raped by this monster is even more horrible than I thought it was going to be. I thought I prepared myself for this but it did matter it still hurts to know what she went through. One of the worst things is he had a quick death. A bullet to the head what we should have done is made him suffer.
ZIVA'S P.O.V.
He's going to run; he's going to never want to see my face again. I still do not understand how he has not run away. I am damaged beyond repair and yet he sits there staring like I have told him nothing.
"The pain was so great I could barely move. I asked Kalila to kill me but she refused I begged her to do it but before she could answer her brother Ramey walked in saying he would do it. I met Ramey once before when I was talking to Eli. He was holding the camera. He was crying and asking Saleem why he was doing this. But he had changed since then. He was not crying and he had the same evil look as Saleem. He came in a grabbed a camera off the wall. He told us that they recorded everything that went on in the room. He walked over to me and began to harass me. Kalila asked why he was doing this and he told her that she was weak. That Father taught him how to be a real man and not some cry baby like he was before. She was done. So she waited until his attention was back on me before she snuck over and took the camera from his hand. He stood up and asked for it back but she smashed it against the wall and it fell into tiny pieces that not even Abby could put it back together. He slams Kalila against the wall and chains her back up. Saleem returns and calls him off of his sister. He tells Saleem that Kalila smashed the camera. He did not care he only cared about making me talk. Once he walked in a little farther is when I noticed he had a taser in his hands. He approached me and lifted up my shirt to expose my stomach. He quickly pushed the taser onto my flesh and my body started shaking. I still did not talk and he became frustrated. He tossed the taser away and pulled out a magnifying glass and a high powered flashlight. He figured out that if you use the right kind of flashlight with a magnifying glass that the light will work the same as the sun. He shined the light through the glass onto my stomach right underneath the taser marks. It slowly burned my skin to form a circular mark. I remember looking over to tell Kalila not to look but she was already faced away.
He stopped burning me and he placed his lips on my skin. When he placed his lips on mine all I could taste was ash. He decided to have his way again while Kalila begged and begged and soon I started begging. This was not the first time he had decided to kiss me but for some reason this was just too much. Once he was done he walked out ordering his men to take us. They grabbed Kalila and took her out of the room. I saw them drag her down the hall and into a room not far from when they placed me. Saleem threw me back into my old room and tied me back up to the chair. He left saying he had business to attend to. The next thing I heard was Kalila's screams. She was in so much pain and I couldn't do anything. Just when I thought I couldn't take listening to this her screams stopped. I knew that once they stopped she was gone. Saleem walked in a few minutes later and he threw the jacket Kalila had on at me. He killed his daughter like it was nothing. She did not mean anything to him." The tears just keep coming as I remember Kalila and all she did for me. She was so young; she could have had a better life if only I fought for her. We could have rescued her and took her home with us. Then she could be here now and I could be taking care of her. But I did not fight. I did not talk so she had to be punished. Kalila please know how sorry I am for everything I did. For all the trouble I caused you.
"Ziva… was that the jacket that you were wearing when we found you?" Tony asks softly. I still do not understand why he is still here.
"Yes, I still have it so I can remember her forever. She was one of the greatest young girls I have ever met. I wish I fought harder against them. Maybe if I just talked she would still be alive." I say.
"Ziva, don't say that. If you talked they would have killed you and her. It wouldn't have mattered if you talked or not. If you had talked you would have died-"
"Maybe it would have been better that way. Tony I was ready to die, in fact I wanted to. I did not want to live with everything I saw, heard or went through. I did not mean to live through it." I tell him.
"Well you did. And you know what? I am glad you did. I meant what I said Ziva, I can't live without you." He says quoting himself from out time in the desert.
"I know and I am sorry I just miss her and I wish I did something more for her." I respond looking away trying to wipe the tears from my face.
"You did do something. You helped her. I know it doesn't seem like it but you did. If she did not meet you then who knows what Saleem would have been doing to her. She got to meet an amazing woman before she died. She got to spend some time like a normal girl having a friend before she went." He tells me scooting next to me. I sit there silently waiting for him to continue but he doesn't. After a few minutes go by I see him lean over and look at the time.
"Alright Ziva, it's late and we still have to wake up for work. Why don't we try to get some sleep." I cannot believe he wants to stay here. After everything I have told him he still cares. What is with him? Why does he have to do this? It is only making things difficult. Is he expecting something more? Does he want something or is he just being nice?
"Tony, why have you not run away in disgust?" I ask.
"Because I care. Because no matter what you tell me I will still see you has beautiful and I perfect. You can't change in my eyes." He tells me lying down next to me. He looks at me with soft eyes. He lifts the up the edge of the covers for me to crawl under. As I lay down underneath he tucks me in while he stays above the covers. I do not know how I feel about him lying in bed next to me. But what shocks me more is that when he goes to wrap his arm around me to pull me closer my first reaction is not to flinch but to snuggle closer to him. Is it possible that I can be restored? Is it possible that I will forget all of this and begin to live a normal life again?
"Good night Ziva." He whispers gently into my hair.
"Thank you for opening up and letting me in. I promise to keep you safe from now on." He says wrapping his arm tighter around my waist like if he lets go I will run. A smile grazes my lips as I snuggle into his arm embrace.
"Good night Tony and Thank you." By the sound of his light snoring I know he did not hear me but that does not matter. I have Tony now if I need help and I know he will help me to recover from everything. Closing my eyes I listen to his light snoring and I fall into a deep sleep where my nightmares do not plague me.
A/N: So there you have it folks. I have part of the net chapter planned out I have to figure out the rest then I will write it and hopefully get it posted. Please review!