Disclaimer: Don't own NCIS :-(

The agents flashed their badges out of habit, and couldn't help but smile. The doctor noticed. "Something amusing?" he asked.

"First time someone's pronounced her name correctly the first time, is all," McGee said.

"Ah yes, well. Ms. David already corrected my pronunciation. She is a very lucky woman. The blow to her head, while very painful, I'm sure, did no damage. She does have a concussion, and will need someone to stay with her tonight, to monitor her condition and bring her back in if anything changes. Also, it appears that she was shot recently?" he asked.

Gibbs looked at his watch. "Yeah, about 6 hours ago, give or take."

"A very exciting night, huh? Well, whoever dug the bullet out and did the stitching did a good job. I prescribed a cream to help prevent infection, as well as painkillers. I would advise her to rest the next few days, but I'm willing to guess that my advice would most likely be ignored?"

"I'll make sure she takes it easy, doc," Gibbs promised. "Can we see her?"

"Of course. She'll be discharged shortly, but you can all come into the waiting room while she fills out the forms."

The team followed the doctor into her room The ER was dead so early in the morning, so she had her own room.

"David," Gibbs said, nodding in hello.

"Gibbs! I am glad to see that you are okay," she said quietly. Her head was beginning to ache. "The last thing I remember was you putting the cuffs on me. What happened to Eli and Chazan?"

"I took care of them at the scene. Vance is dealing with them right now," Gibbs answered. He was curious himself to know what Leon would do, but he trusted his boss, at least in this matter.

"Need you to fill these out, Ms. David," the doctor said, handing him the forms.

She obeyed, and wrote as fast as she could. She hated hospitals, and spent as little time as possible in one. She wouldn't even have gone, but, as she was unconscious at the time, she hadn't really had a say. "Alright, well, my car is still at NCIS, so who wants to give me a ride?"

"You're staying with me tonight, Ziva," Gibbs corrected with a smile, foreseeing her reaction. "Doc says you need someone to stay with you, make sure that blow didn't do any damage."

Ziva rolled her eyes, but regretted it when it made her head pound. "Gibbs, you do not have to…."

"I know," he said. "Come on." He extended a hand to help her to her feet, and gently guided her outside. He wasn't surprised that the limo and his boss were both gone. He would ask the director in the morning, well, afternoon, what had happened. He ordered the team to take the day off, they had been working almost 24 hours straight and didn't have a case.

When Gibbs and Ziva got back to his place, he showed her to the guest room. The last person to stay there was Abby when she'd had that stalker. He hoped that this wouldn't be a recurrence, that he would always be needing to protect members of his team. But it was better than the alternative, he supposed. He handed her the smaller set of NIS sweats that he kept, and left her to get changed. When he went back into the room fifteen minutes later, he found her snoring gently on top of the covers. He smiled, and pulled the sheets over her, smoothing her hair.

He left and sat on the couch. He knew that it would be a long morning, but that was alright. As DiNozzo had pointed out earlier, they had pulled crazier hours for much less personal cases. As per the doctor's orders, he woke her periodically through the morning. For the woman who slept only a few hours a night and went for a run every morning, he was amazed at how heavy she was sleeping.

Probably hasn't slept more than a few hours since Eli sent Chazan, he though angrily. He wished he could let her sleep longer, but had experience with concussions, and knew that he had to do this. She'll sleep tonight, he thought with a laugh.

Just as he was beginning to doze off himself, he was woken by a scream. He was on his feet and halfway to the guest room before he realized he was awake. Throwing the door open, he saw the fearless ninja in the throes of a nightmare. He calmed slightly when he saw that it wasn't Eli breaking in through the window, but knew that whatever she was dreaming about was bad. "Ziva?" he asked quietly. "Ziva, come one, you're safe. You're okay, now," he tried saying gently, and even shook her gently, then harder. But nothing was waking her up. Getting an idea, he knew that DiNozzo would laugh hysterically if this worked. "David," he barked, gently tapping the top of her head with his hand. Sure enough, her eyes snapped open, and she sat up straight. "Ziva, hey, it's okay," he said, going back to gentle now that she was awake. He expected her to deny the nightmare, or brush it off as nothing, saying that she was fine, but she surprised him. As soon as the frantic look left her eyes, they filled with tears, and she started crying. His heart split in two at the sight, and he gathered her into his arms and let her cry it out.

A/N: Okay, so I know that this was a lot of Gibbs's POV, and some of it may have been a bit OOC, but I thought it fit. Let me know what you thought.