A few hours later, Ziva had fallen asleep yet again. He sat in the chair next to her bed, resting his elbows on his knees. He held the gold star between his fingers, gently caressing the gold pendant. He thought about everything that had happened that morning.

He had expected her to have flashbacks and nightmares after everything that had happened. He knew that eventually he would have to ask her what happened after they were separated at the second warehouse. He didn't want to know exactly what had happened during her interrogation. She seemed to be handling it just fine, and he was able to pretend that the experience wasn't as harrowing as it could have been. He was not looking forward to discovering that it would have completely destroyed anyone else, but she had just been desensitized to it, courtesy of her experiences as a Mossad officer.

The thought made him pause. Her father obviously wanted her dead. Would he ever think to check to see if he had actually succeeded? And now that Ziva was on the mend, would he send someone to finish the job? The idea of it made the blood chill in his veins. She may be in the hospital, but getting to Ziva would be less than a challenge for even the most green of Metsada operatives. The only way he could be certain of her safety was to stay with her at all times, but he knew that Ziva would insist that he go home more often for a decent night's sleep. And every moment he was away from her was a chance for her father to finish what he started.

Gibbs spent the hours until Ziva woke again thinking about everything that happened, and everything that could still happen. At one point he grinned, realizing that Ziva had been right; her star was soothing. It calmed his nerves, and focusing on it kept him from pacing the room. And when Ziva awoke, he was able to push his concerns to the back of his mind and focus entirely on her.

His worry stayed with him for the following days, but he became more concerned with Ziva. Her mood was worsening. Her words became short, with him and the nurses as well. It was as if a dark cloud had settled over her, and while Gibbs had somewhat expected it, he hated the sullen silences it created. She would withdraw into her own thoughts, and he knew even less about what she was thinking than he did before. It drove him crazy but he knew that if he pushed, she would shut him out completely. When she finally asked him to spend the night at home, he actually found it a relief. He left without reluctance, pressing a kiss to her temple.

Gibbs spent that night in his basement, but he didn't work on his boat. Instead he sat underneath the stairs, just as he had after Jenny's death. Then it had seemed cozy, with Ziva curled up next to him, but now it was vacant, empty. Only his scotch kept him company, but the fire it traced down his throat did nothing to ease the pain in his heart.

He wanted to help her, but he didn't know how, and it scared him. Until now he hadn't been aware of just how little he knew about her. He had learned to predict some of her actions, and some of the reasons why she did them, but now he knew how he had simply skimmed the surface. And the more she drifted into herself, the more difficult it would be for him to find her again. But how was he supposed to keep her grounded? If he pushed, she would shut him out, and if he let her be, she would still drift away.

He continued to think about it throughout the night. Even after the sun rose, he didn't hurry to get ready to get back to the hospital. He wanted to be there, but the feeling of helplessness that came with it was never welcome. Even if he did know how to help her, she would first have to let him. And the one thing he was certain of was that she would resist any form of help, from anyone.

He returned to the hospital around nine in the morning. He took his time walking to her room, trying to think of what his plan of action would be. He nodded to the nurses on his way through the ward, and they greeted him in return. He turned into Ziva's room—and froze.

Her bed was empty. The sheets were askew, unmade. He eyes searched the room, his mind jumping into overdrive. The room was empty, with no sign of Ziva. Her IV hung limply from the pole, dripping fluid into a growing puddle on the floor. Panic tore through him; thoughts of Eli David coming back to finish the job filled his mind, quickly followed by memories of Ziva lying bloody in his arms, struggling to breathe. He sprang into acting, tearing out of the room.

"Hey!" he shouted to the nurses at their desk. They looked up at him. "Has anyone been in this room?" They looked confused, and looked at each other in question.

"I don't think so," one said, her tone uncertain.

"Shut down the hospital! Nobody leaves!" he ordered. Julia obeyed by picking up the phone and dialing the security number, sensing his urgency. One nurse, though, decided to ask questions.

"Agent Gibbs, what's the problem?"

"She's gone," he growled. "When was the last time you checked on her?" he asked, not wasting a moment.

"6 am."

"That was three hours ago! Did you see anyone go in or out?" He struggled to remain objective, but adrenaline was starting to kick in. The nurse glanced inside Ziva's room to see for herself that it was vacant.

"No, I haven't seen anyone." Her tone was now full of concern. Gibbs anticipated her answer, and immediately reacted.

"Search every room. Every closet, every bathroom, any place a person can hide. We need to find her, and we need to find her now." The nurses scrambled into action, calling security and the personnel from the other wards to come help. Gibbs pulled out his own phone as he raced through the ward, glancing through each room he passed. He pressed his speed dial, and soon Dinozzo picked up on the other end.

"Yeah boss!"

"David has vanished from her hospital room," Gibbs said, getting straight to the point. "Get McGee and get your asses here ASAP. Have Abby and Ducky on stand-by."

"Got it boss," Dinozzo responded, all business. "Be there in fifteen." Gibbs shut his phone and tucked it into his pocket. He finished checking the other patients' rooms, and then moved on the supply rooms. Nothing.

"You keep searching," he told the nurses. "Use the intercom and give status reports every ten minutes, understand? Everything gets routed through Julia."

"Understood, Agent Gibbs," Julia replied. "Security has the building locked down. No one will leave, and we have ambulances rerouted to the nearest hospital, but we can't stop walk-ins."

"That's great, Julia. Keep it up." And then he was gone, heading to the next ward. He looked in every room, and their adjoining bathrooms, but didn't find any sign of Ziva. He poked his head through every door he passed in the hall, but still—nothing.

He had almost finished his circuit of the floor when he roughly opened an unmarked door to his left. As soon as he did, though, he froze. His vision was filled with green foliage, and a burst of fresh air assaulted his senses. Looking around as he slowly entered, he saw that he had happened upon an open-air garden. There was a stone pathway that traced its way through the shrubs, and periodically a fountain gently released water to trickle down carefully piled rock structures. The effect was calming, and he was able to take his time walking along the path. The sun shone down on him, warming. He wondered briefly how he had managed to not know that this place existed in the seven weeks he had been at the hospital.

As he turned the bend, he saw a small form standing against a metal rail, looking out over a small koi pond. He heaved sigh of relief as he recognized the form as Ziva. He broke into a sprint towards her.

"Ziva!"

She turned to face him, but he gathered her into his arms in a firm embrace. He pressed his face into her hair, taking a deep breath. She had a hospital-issue robe over her gown, and it felt bulky under his touch, but he didn't care. He clung to her tightly, and he felt her small arms reach up to return his embrace, but her movements were hesitant, and he knew that he had taken her by surprise. He pulled away and bent down slightly, looking her directly in the eye.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he asked, brushing her hair out of her face. She looked at him, wide-eyed. He saw confusion cross her face, then shift into something indiscernible.

"I could not stay in that room anymore," she said, shaking her head slightly. Her eyes conveyed exhaustion, and while her voice was soft, it was also strong and unfaltering.

"You didn't tell anyone, have anyone help you…" his voice was reprimanding, and her eyebrows lifted in surprise. When he next spoke, he forced his voice to soften. "I thought… Jesus."

"I did not realize…" Ziva said after a moment. He saw her expression turn apologetic. "I… I could not breathe. I did not think to alert the nurses, as I did not need their help." She paused. "I did not mean to worry you."

He sighed. After a moment, he straightened and pressed a kiss to her forehead. The skin-on-skin contact, through the kiss and through the hand he was grasping, reassured him and helped him get his nerves under control.

"You got out here on your own?" He gave a small half-smirk to show that he wasn't angry. "You shouldn't have done that, Ziver." Her gaze dropped, and she turned away from him, looking at the koi pond once more. He joined her at the rail, standing close enough for their shoulders to be touching.

"It hurts," she said, her voice soft, "a lot." He looked at her in concern, but she continued before he could say anything. "But I feel better now than I have since… since I woke up." A small smile curled her lips. "The air out here… and the sun…" Her tone was content, happy, and it made his spirits lift. Perhaps her recent depression was not as it had seemed. But he had been right about one thing: there was lot he still did not know about her.

"You ready to go back?" he asked after a few minutes. She looked at him in reluctance. "We put the hospital on lockdown." Her surprised look made him grin. "I wasn't taking any chances." He jerked his head toward the door that led back to the ward. "What do you say we give the nurses a rest, huh?"

She hesitated, but then nodded in concession. She pulled away from the rail slowly and turned to walk with him down the path. Her short movements told him that she was still in pain. He watched but didn't say anything, knowing she would be offended. She managed to take a few steps before her legs gave out. Gibbs was waiting, and immediately caught her, sweeping her up into his arms smoothly. Her arms instinctively looped around his neck, and she looked at him with a sharp gaze.

"You were waiting for that to happen," she said tiredly, finally resting her head against his chest. He grinned.

"Anything for the chance to sweep a beautiful woman off her feet," he responded. He felt her grin against him.

By the time he had returned with her to the ward, she was dozing lightly. She was woken up however, when the nurses caught a glimpse of him.

"Ms. David!"

"He found her!"

"Is she hurt?"

"Get a doctor!"

Gibbs slowed as the nurses crowded around in an attempt to check on their missing patient. Ziva turned her face into him, away from the flock of personnel.

"Make them go away," she mumbled. He nodded and pushed through the crowd, trying to put his body between them and Ziva. After a moment or two, they caught the hint and pulled back, allowing him to reach her room in peace.

He gently laid her on the bed and pulled the blankets up around her before stepping back and letting Julia swoop in to hook up her IV and take her vitals. Ziva began to doze again, which caused Julia to wake her, worried about any brain trauma. She began to ask the tired Israeli questions, but Ziva was less than cooperative.

"Go away," she mumbled. Julia grinned and stepped back, turning to Gibbs.

"I think she's okay," she said, amused. "Where did you find her?"

"Garden," he responded. A flash of surprise flitted across the nurse's face.

"How did--?"

"She walked."

"But… she shouldn't be strong enough to walk. She hasn't even had any physical therapy for her broken leg!" Gibbs froze; he had forgotten about her fractured leg. "And even if she had the strength to limp out of here, someone would have seen her!" Gibbs shrugged.

"Once she gets an idea in her head, she'd gonna do it. I've learned not to question how she does things; she just does it. Plus, she's been so out of it from the drugs, I bet she didn't even realize what she was doing." Julia shook her head.

"Unbelievable." She looked at the sleeping woman. "I've never seen anyone like her before, Agent Gibbs. Most people wouldn't even be coherent at this point."

"Well, she is unconscious now, Julia." He grinned at the nurse, who smiled back.

"That's true. I don't blame her; she must be exhausted." She paused. "If she wants, we can arrange it so that she can go outside whenever she likes. We want to make her comfortable, Agent Gibbs. She just has to communicate with us."

"I know that, Julia," he responded. "But that's not going to happen. It's not in her nature. She's self-reliant to a fault. We can only learn as we go… She'll only let us know what she wants after she tries to do it for herself."

"Well, you were right last week," she said. "She's definitely keeping us on our toes. And she is definitely a difficult patient, but none of us actually begrudge her for it. Usually 'difficult patient' means hypochondriac. Let me tell you, we'd take her over one of them any day." She paused. "And you know, it's patients like her who make this job worth doing, and keeps it interesting." She shot him one more smile, and then left the room to go spread the word that Ziva had been found.

Gibbs moved to take a seat in the chair next to the bed, but a soft voice from the bed stopped him.

"Jethro…" He looked at Ziva and found her eyes blinked drowsily. She had turned onto her side, and was looking at him with unfocused eyes. He raised an eyebrow at her, and in response, she scooted to the other side of her bed and patted the space she vacated. He grinned, and accepted her silent invitation by climbing up onto the bed next to her.

She wormed closer to him, snaking an arm around his waist. He draped an arm of his own over her shoulders. Almost instantly, her breathing evened out, and he knew that she was asleep. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dinozzo and McGee appear at the door. He looked at them, and found them both grinning like fools.

He shot them a death glare and waved them away. McGee was appropriately chastised, but Dinozzo's grin merely grew and he raised his hands in a mock surrender. He backed away slowly before turning to shift his attentions to one of the nurses. Gibbs rolled his eyes before relaxing back against the bed. His sleepless night of sitting in his basement was catching up with him as he felt his lids get heavier, and more difficult to keep open. Ziva's warm form next to him only relaxed him even more.

The next time Tony looked in on them, both his boss and partner fast asleep.