Will you think that you're all alone
When no one's there to hold your hand?
And all you know seems so far away
And everything is temporary, rest your head
I´m permanent

Scene Ten — Permanent

Gibbs was surprised, when he walked past the waiting room, to see Tony sitting on the couch in the far corner, staring out the window. He was tempted to keep walking (he was still a little pissed off, after all), but the look on the younger man's face wasn't one Gibbs could ignore even at his coldest.

"Fancy seeing you here, DiNozzo."

Tony looked up as his boss walked over to him. "Hey boss…what's up?"

"That's my line. What are you doing out here? I figured you'd still be with Ziva."

At the mention of the Israeli, Tony's face fell, and his head dropped to look at the floor. "She uh…she threw me out."

"She's awake?" Strange that Abby hadn't called him…

"Yeah. Woke up about an hour ago. She was…kind of freaked out to see me. Abby explained the situation to her, and she…" Tony sighed, scrubbing his eyes hard. "She was pretty…I wanna say she was pissed off, but she didn't have her usual 'DiNozzo screwed up' look, I couldn't really tell what was going on in her head…anyways when I tried to talk to her she told me to get out. And the way she was looking at me…I couldn't argue with her."

"It's probably better you didn't argue," Gibbs agreed quietly. They sat in silence for a moment; Tony returned to staring out the window. "She broke down at your funeral."

Tony straightened up, his eyes widening as he looked back at Gibbs. "She what?" Ziva breaking down wasn't exactly an idea that jived in Tony's mind. Hearing that she had broken down in public though…

"No. No way."

"I wasn't asking if you believed me. I'm telling you something that happened. Ziva broke down crying at your funeral. She spent a week ignoring how she was feeling and avoiding dealing with what had happened, and at the funeral she snapped. It only got worse from there." Tony stared at his boss for a long time, processing this bit information. Gibbs stared back for a moment before standing up and stretching. "I'm sure somewhere deep down she knows you aren't at fault for everything that happened. She was hurting though, DiNozzo, still is. Don't expect forgiveness to come easily."

Gibbs could tell, from the look on his agent's face, that forgiveness was the last thing he expected.

"Gibbs!" Abby piped when Gibbs walked into Ziva's hospital room. Ziva looked up quickly to see Gibbs, and then ducked her head again, blushing lightly. More than anyone, Gibbs knew how bad the last month had been. How far Ziva had fallen. How weak she had become.

He was the last person she wanted to see now. Besides Tony, of course.

Tony. Who was alive. Not dead. Tony was alive. Ziva closed her eyes as her face burned more.

"Abby why don't you go downstairs and get something to eat." It wasn't a suggestion, and Abby knew better than to argue. She stood up, wrapping her arms lightly around Ziva before slipping out of the room, giving Gibbs a look that clearly said, don't be too hard on her.

It would have been incredibly convenient for a doctor to walk in right as Abby left. But when was life ever convenient for Ziva?

"Ziva," Gibbs prompted the younger woman, trying to get her attention. When she didn't look up, he tucked his fingers under her chin, gently forcing her head up. Their eyes met; Gibbs could see a world of hurt and pain and fear shining in her mahogany orbs.

They stared at each other for a long moment before Ziva finally pulled away. "You have my attention," she mumbled, turning her eyes down to stare at her fists, curled tightly around the blankets. Gibbs sighed quietly as he took the seat Tony had occupied for the better part of the day. "What do you want?"

"Honestly, I'm not sure where to start. I want to yell at you for being so damn stupid, but I don't think the hospital is the most appropriate place to do that." Ziva's head snapped up to look at Gibbs, surprised.

"Exactly what was I stupid about?"

"Going undercover. Dawdling as long as you did with the suspect. Notgiving the signal for us to move in. Letting yourself be stabbed—"

"I did not let myself be stabbed," Ziva protested at once. "I was…trying to get his knife out of his pocket so I could apprehend him—"

"That wasn't your job, though, Ziva. Your job was to confirm that he was who we thought he was then give the signal for us to move in. But you didn't. You acted on your own, and it nearly got you killed. And why do I have a feeling that's what you wanted?" Ziva pressed her lips together for a moment, considering her answer carefully.

"I did not go out there with the intention to die—"

"Then why did you go?" Gibbs interrupted, not really in the mood to deal with her scripted responses. "What were you after, Ziva? Because clearly you weren't in it just to catch a murderer. What were you thinking?"

Ziva knew that the honest answer — she'd planned on letting fate play its course — was going to get her nowhere. As it was Gibbs was going to have her in psych evaluations until she was as gray as him. There was no reason to give him any more ammo to work with. "I thought I could handle it on my own. I have fought men bigger than him before and won, I…overestimated myself. Or perhaps I underestimated him."

"Or perhaps you weren't thinking at all. Which has been a common theme with you, as of late." Ziva winced at the reminder of her last stint in the hospital, and the reason behind it.

"It is…not what you think, Gibbs."

"Really?" Gibbs asked, slightly sarcastically. "Because right now I think you had a death wish. Tell me I'm wrong."

"You are wrong," Ziva replied at once, a bit sarcastically as well. She was tired of this conversation. Nothing she said was going to convince Gibbs he was anything other than right. Why was she wasting her time?

"Now honestly tell me I'm wrong."

Ziva sighed heavily. "Gibbs I do not know what you want me to say. I can argue with you until we are both green in the face—" That wasn't the expression, but whatever. Gibbs didn't bother to correct her, "but you and I both know you are not going to change what you are thinking. So what is the point?"

Gibbs stared at Ziva for a long time. "You're doing it again," he finally said, earning himself a confused look.

"Doing what?"

"Shutting down. Being cold and logical and trying to avoid how you feel. Remember where that landed you last time?" Ziva cringed once more at the reminder of the funeral. "Stop lying to me, Ziva. Stop avoiding what's going on in your headspace. Deal with it and move on."

Ziva didn't have an answer to that. She'd been struggling, with no help from Abby of course, to rebuild the walls that had been systematically destroyed since Tony's funeral. But the walls she had been building were weak now, crumbling even before Gibbs had come in.

And as tears filled her eyes, she realized these walls weren't going to save her this time. "I really was not trying to die," she whispered, her voice shaking.

"But if you had?" Gibbs prompted gently.

"I would not have minded."

She didn't let the tears fall, even as Gibbs moved to sit on the bed, gently taking her in his arms. She buried her faced in his jacket, her breathing shallow and stressed, sending lances of pain through her abdomen.

But she didn't let the tears fall.

Tony closed the door quietly, grateful enough to be walking away from this spy mission without getting caught. His head was spinning.

"I really was not trying to die."

"But if you had?"

"I would not have minded."

Tony didn't remember lifting his arm, but suddenly he was throwing his fist into the white plaster of the hospital wall. He barely cringed as a low crunch followed the blow, followed by pain he didn't quite register.

"Ow."

Tony's head snapped around to look at McGee, who was watching him with an even gaze. "It isn't the wall's fault, you know."

"No, but I can't punch Conrad or Vance," Tony growled. "Besides, the wall didn't suffer."

"No, but you're going to. You should have a doctor look at that." Tony pulled his fist away from the wall, flinching visibly when he tried to straighten his fingers.

"She wanted to die, McGee." No answer. This probably wasn't news to McGee, though. "She fucking wanted to die; she went under cover with every intention of going back to NCIS in a god damn body bag. What was she thinking?"

"She was thinking she was in pain and she wanted it to stop."

Tony pressed his lips together, closing his eyes. "It wasn't supposed to be like this," he whispered after a moment. "She…she was supposed to be okay, damn it. This wasn't supposed to happen."

And against everything…McGee felt bad for his co-worker. No matter what had happened, Tony hadn't expected so much fall out from all of this. He hadn't expected his "death" to cause so much trouble. So much pain.

"I don't get it!" Tony burst out suddenly, surprising McGee. "She thought I was freakin' dead that one other time when my car blew up, she dealt with it just fine then!"

"Last time it was like for a couple of days," McGee reminded Tony. "And there wasn't a funeral. And she didn't think you died for her."

Tony's heart jumped into his throat as he thought, for the first time, about the last time he'd seen Ziva, when he had been shot, when she had been desperately trying to keep him awake, keep him from bleeding out. He remembered her eyes, wide with fear and pleading with him even as she told him to shut up.

He couldn't recall ever seeing her that scared.

"It should have been her," McGee continued quietly. "Or that's how she saw it. In her exact words, 'the stupid moron pushed me out of the way and got himself shot.'"

"She called me a moron?"

"It sounded less insulting when she was close to tears." Tony swallowed hard, shaking his head slowly. "I don't think she's in the most rational state of mind right now either, for the record. Give her time, Tony. Everything will be back to normal before you know it."

God Tony wished he could believe that.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully, much to the gratefulness of everyone's frayed nerves. Tony got his hand checked out and discovered he'd sprained two of his fingers. Oops. He allowed the doctor to wrap them up, avoiding questions about how it had happened.

Gibbs and McGee didn't stay for long, though the latter mercifully passed along a message to Ziva asking if Tony could come into the room. He seemed to regret returning with a negative answer.

Abby stayed with Ziva for the rest of the day; Ducky brought food her and Tony (who he was bewildered to find sitting in the waiting room), and stayed to visit for a little while as well. Ziva expertly dodged his questions about why Tony was in the waiting room, and Tony mumbled out less than satisfactory answers of his own. Ducky ended up calling Gibbs to get the entire story.

"Tony have you been home yet?" The man in question looked up at Abby, who was gazing at him with sad eyes. His first reaction was to panic, of course; he couldn't imagine any scenario in which Abby voluntarily left Ziva alone in the room. Abby seemed to guess at his panic. "The doctor's with her now, I thought I'd give her some privacy. And come see you."

Tony sighed as he relaxed again. "No, I haven't been home yet. And I have no intentions of going home until I know she's okay."

"She is okay though, Tony. I mean…yeah, she's probably going to be here for a little while longer, but the doctor thinks she's past the worst of it." Tony didn't answer. He hadn't meant okay physically. Though of course Abby's reassurances were a bit of a bonus. "Go home, Tony. I can only imagine how much it hurts that she doesn't want to see you, but…she doesn't want to see you. And you're not going to accomplish anything by sitting out here."

"I'm not leaving, Abby."

And that was the end of the discussion. Abby sighed as she walked across the waiting room, sitting down on the couch and throwing her arms around Tony, hugging him tightly. Tony was momentarily thrown off; he managed to hug her back as he recovered himself. "I'm so glad you're not dead," she mumbled after a moment. If Tony hadn't been so miserable, he would have laughed at how ridiculous the statement sounded. "And I know she is too. She's just confused right now, and hurt. But when she has time to really think things through…you'll see. It'll all be okay."

"Do you really think that Abby?" Tony asked as he pulled away, taking careful sure to stare straight into the Goth's eyes.

"Yeah, Tony. I really, really think that."

She was lying.

Ziva turned her eyes to the ceiling, grateful for a moment alone. The doctor had just left, and Abby still wasn't back. This was a moment to cherish, she decided, closing her eyes.

I wonder what Tony's doing right now…

The thought came out of nowhere, momentarily shaking Ziva until she remembered that Tony very well could be doing something at that instant. He wasn't dead after all. He was alive. Tony was alive.

Ziva pressed her lips together as she pushed herself into more of a vertical position, crossing her arms tightly over her currently sensitive abdomen. Yeah that was definitely going to start getting annoying. Well if anything, being stabbed was another thing Ziva could cross off of her "list of ways it might be okay to die." The already small list was just getting shorter every day.

Part of her knew — really knew — that it was irrational to stay angry at Tony. He hadn't…really done anything wrong, after all. Technically. He'd been stupid to get himself shot, of course. But the whole plan for him to be dead…he hadn't thought of that. He had only done his job by agreeing. Any one of them would have done the same. Hell Ziva would have gone along with it in a heartbeat. It was her duty, after all. Just like it had been Tony's duty.

But the last month and half — every stupid, irrational action she'd taken — was still very present in the back of her head. Taunting her. Reminding her of how damn far she had fallen. What she had become.

She could barely face Ducky and McGee when they came in to see her. Even if they hadn't seen things to the extent Gibbs had seen them, they still knew how weak she had been. Everybody knew.

And she would never be able to take any of it back.

She made her way through rows and rows of headstones, though what she was looking for she wasn't exactly sure. Her eyes caught sight of a hole a few feet ahead of her, and she went to it quickly, knowing, without knowing how she knew, that this was what she was looking for.

"Come on, don't gimme that look. You think this is going to kill me?"

She flinched as the familiar words assaulted her ears, her head snapping around as she stopped, less than a foot from the hole, and looked around, her eyes darting left and right to find who had spoken. But she was alone. Giving up, she continued her approach to the hole, stopping at the edge and looking inside.

"You can't get rid of me that easily anyways."

She hadn't known until she looked into the hole that she would find him there. But somehow it wasn't a shock to look down and see Tony laying in an open coffin, clearly dead, blood still staining his shirt from the bullet wound that had been meant for her.

It wasn't shocking. But that didn't stop her from reeling back, choking on a scream as she stumbled to get away from the awful sight. As she turned to run though, the coffin appeared in front of her, Tony's dead body taunting her. She took a step back, raising her hands as if in defense, and found they were painted red, covered in blood. His blood.

"You can't get rid of me that easily."

"Shut up!" She screamed, trying to cover her ears, but the blood was slick, her hands slid away…

And suddenly he was standing right in front of her, eyes open and wide and void of life, the blood dark against his white shirt, a warning a signal.

"You can't get rid of me."

"No!"

Ziva's eyes flew open, her breathing escaping in harsh, ragged breaths, her heart flying in her chest, beating a violent tattoo against her ribs. She swallowed hard, trying to remember how to breathe and cringing when the healing wound on her stomach protested violently. She shuddered as she choked back another scream.

But then a pair of arms went around her, warm and comforting and familiar, and despite the fact that they were the arms of the absolute last person Ziva wanted to see, she couldn't stop herself from relaxing into his grip, taking small comfort from his continuous whispers of, "Breathe, Ziva, just breathe, it's okay. It was only a nightmare, it's all over. Just breathe, it's all right. I'm here. Just breathe."

Ziva gave in completely, turning her head and burying her face in his chest, breathing in his scent, shivering as she remembered thinking she would never have this again. Remembered that she had very nearly lost this.

He's not dead.

"Do not go," she ordered in a small whisper. A part of her mind cursed her for being so weak, for not telling him to let her go, for letting him think she needed this, needed him. She didn't care. She couldn't let him leave. Not now.

Tony just chuckled. It was a weak sound, but a chuckle none the less. "Ziva you're here. Where the hell else would I go?"

Author's Note: So I'm not generally a fan of my own work (as you've probably seen from my self-loathing Author's Notes) but I'm not gonna lie — I really, really, really love that last line. Hope you all do as well.

Also, I received an absolutely fabulous anonymous review for the last chapter that I absolutely have to reply to. I believe the name was Luna: I love when people overanalyze stuff, and people taking the time to overanalyze the strange, sometimes unhinged musings of my mind makes me feel all tingly inside. So thank you sooo much for the review, I loved it!

Not that I don't love all reviews. As you all know I was super nervous about posting this, so the positive feedback I've been getting has been amazing. So thank you to everyone =D Review please? — Sam