Hey everyone. It seemed that people wanted to update soon, so I wrote this chapter in all my spare moments over the past two days. Hope you enjoy it. Please review.
Disclaimer: I don't anything from either NCIS or Criminal Minds and I'm not making a profit from this story.
Chapter Ten: Case Closed
He walked behind her, wrapping the arm brandishing the knife around her neck.
"Goodbye, Officer David."
Ryell heard a loud bang. He looked up to see the locked door shaking as someone from the other side shoved it open.
"Drop the knife!" Tony yelled out through the door. He had not managed to kick it open yet, but he did kick a giant hole in the middle. He aimed his weapon through the gap.
"You can't get a shot off from that angle," Ryell replied, turning back to Ziva.
Three shots rang out simultaneously. Tony had fired two, but his angle meant that they were wide of his target. Emily, who seemingly appeared out of nowhere, had shot Ryell square between the eyes.
"Whoa," Tony said as he managed to knock down the door with Gibbs' and Hotch's help, "Where did you come from?"
"There was a door to the basement around back," Emily answered simply as she helped Tony unbuckle the restraints around Ziva, "It was unlocked and to think that you three came the long way around."
"EMTs are on their way," Gibbs announced, walking over to his injured agent. Tony and Emily helped her up.
"Are you feeling dizzy?" Emily asked her.
"Not so much," Ziva replied, her neck sore and still throbbing, "It did not bleed too much."
They helped her outside the house as the rest of the teams' members arrived along with the EMTs. A crowd was now gathering around at the front of the house as McGee, Morgan and Reid worked quickly with Metro police officers to secure the crime scene.
Tony walked with Ziva to the ambulance, his arm holding hers tightly. She sat in the back of the ambulance while one of the paramedics attended to the wound on the side of her neck.
"You may need some stitches," the young woman told her, "The top of this cut is quite deep."
"Can I ride with her to Bethesda?" Tony asked anxiously.
The young woman nodded and went to speak with her colleague.
"You do not have to stay, Tony," Ziva began, obviously tired by the morning's ordeal, "I am fine."
"I'm staying," he reiterated.
"Thank you for finding me," Ziva then told him, slightly abashed.
"Well, it's not like I could lose two partners in one year," Tony joked lightly, "I'd get a bad rap for that. Nobody would want to work with me anymore."
"So your reasons for staying are entirely selfish?" Ziva asked with a smile.
"Of course," Tony replied quickly.
"Alright there, David?" Gibbs asked as he came around to the back of the ambulance.
"I am fine," Ziva repeated, "It's just a flesh wound. They said I need a couple of stitches."
"Is there a reason you're just sitting here, DiNozzo?" Gibbs then asked, turning to Tony.
"I was gonna ride with Ziva to the hospital, boss," Tony answered astutely.
Gibbs did not answer, but simply stared back at Tony.
He was about to cave, but at the last moment, chose to defend his reasoning. For some reason, he did not want to let Ziva out of his sight after what had just happened. He felt guilty about it, that was clear, after all, he left her alone and went back to NCIS, but he couldn't help but notice that there was something more to it.
"I'm going with her," Tony began as he straightened up, "Because Ziva is my partner. Is that okay with you?"
Gibbs said nothing and walked away from him. Ziva smiled at him as the paramedic came back, closing the back doors, leaving Tony and Ziva alone in the back of the ambulance.
oOo
Ziva found herself sitting up on the edge of a bed in the emergency room of Bethesda Naval Hospital awaiting the resident to arrive and stitch up her neck wound. Tony had gone to get coffee from the coffee cart in the lobby, so Ziva was alone. She found herself contemplating her near death experience and what the team would be like without her.
She'd hoped Tony would miss her. After last night's undercover rendezvous, she wondered what would have changed between them. There was obviously a lot of intense emotion involved in their relationship, but she recognised that whatever they had together, it could not be pursued. 'Rule 12,' Ziva told herself, 'We could never hide it from Gibbs.'
Then there was her father. Oh, what he would say if he found out that she feel for an American man, but what did he expect when he signed off on her release? 'So much uncertainty,' Ziva contemplated, 'Where do we go from here?'
"Hey," Tony said as he walked towards the cubicle she was in, "Obviously, the doctor hasn't been in yet."
"No," Ziva replied, "I checked my cell phone. You called me eighteen times. Did you not think that I would have called you back if I could?"
"That's why I was so worried," Tony explained, taking a seat next to her on the bed. He tucked a piece of her hair that had become stuck in the gauze back behind her ear. She found herself leaning into his touch, her cheek resting in his palm. She looked into his eyes, feeling all fears about their future leave her.
"How are you feeling, Officer David?" a young man said as he entered the cubicle, pulling back the curtains. Ziva and Tony quickly pulled away from each other. The young doctor was dressed in light blue scrubs and a white lab coat.
"I will be better when I can go," she answered, still reeling over another misspent moment with Tony.
The doctor smiled and took the gauze patch off her neck. A nurse wheeled in a trolley with an array of medical equipment on its upper shelf. He cleaned the cut as the nurse prepared the sutures for stitching. It only took the doctor five minutes to stitch the two inch wound on Ziva's neck closed. Tony soothed Ziva's anxiety about it by stroking her left arm softly.
"I need you to sign some forms and then you can go," the doctor told her as he finished up, "I will want to see you in a week's time to remove them."
He walked out of the cubicle, leaving the nurse behind to clean up. "I'll be right back with those forms," she then told them and wheeled the trolley out.
"Emily's picking us up," Tony announced as Ziva finished off signing the form. They walked out of the hospital together and in the direction of Ziva's red Mini Cooper with Emily sitting in the driver's seat. They chatted animatedly as Emily first drove to Tony's building and then home to the Capital Building with Ziva.
oOo
"So, what happened last night?" Emily said later that evening. She was sitting around the kitchen bench in Ziva's condo as Ziva filled her dishwasher with the used dishes from the dinner she had made for the both of them. "Come on, I want all the juicy details."
"I am not telling," Ziva answered as she placed a plate at the back of the dishwasher, "There is nothing to tell anyway."
Ziva had received a phone call from Gibbs earlier to let her know that they had wrapped up the Ryell case. The BAU team would be going home, in a manner, but Ziva knew that what this case had done for her. Not only did she get to experience emotions that were quite new to her, but she had also begun a firm friendship with her neighbour and sometime colleague. She finished fiddling around with the dishes and walked to the fridge. "Glass of wine?"
"Sure," Emily answered brightly, "Why not?"
Ziva brought out a chilled bottle of Merlot and two wine glasses, pouring them a generous portion each.
"Okay, look Z," Emily began, taking another stab at gossip, "I saw some of the surveillance footage from the house. Pretty steamy stuff."
"Was it really, Em?" Ziva answered, trying hard to sound as though she did not want to talk about it, but she knew that Emily was now a close friend and it would probably feel good to voice some of her concerns. 'At least this way, Em can tell me how stupid I am,' Ziva's inner voice told her.
"I'm just saying," Emily continued, "It looked like whatever was happening between you two was pretty intense."
"It felt that way, too," Ziva admitted, quite sorrowfully.
Emily found it hard to suppress a screech of glee. Not only was her new friend finally opening up about herself, which she guessed did not happen often, but she could tell Morgan she was right about them. 'Wait, no,' her inner voice said loudly, 'You can't tell anybody about this. You're somebody's confidante.'
"He kissed me this morning," Ziva continued as her fingers drew circles around the edge of her wine glass, "It was nice. He did not even have to do it. We would not have been under surveillance anymore. Did he only to it to keep up appearances?"
"Honest, truth?" Emily asked and Ziva nodded, "I don't think so. You should've seen him when you were missing. I've rarely seen a man so stressed and anxious, and I know human behaviour. These deep emotions, Z, they're not one-sided."
"It does not matter," Ziva told her, "There are rules. Gibbs has rules. It is just confusing. Where do we go from here?"
"Well," Emily contemplated, "Tomorrow's Saturday and we have the day off work. I think some retail therapy is in order." Noticing the confused look on Ziva's face, Emily clarified what she meant. "Shopping."
"I do not shop," Ziva told her.
"I don't care," Emily replied forcefully, "You're coming. Pen's dragging Abby along and JJ is bringing the car. It may not be LA, but we're still gonna shop in style."
Ziva smiled weakly, not entirely sure that this would spell fun for her.
"It'll be great," Emily assured, "All of us girls cruising the town. Meeting handsome men, maybe picking up a bargain and lunch at a nice restaurant. Trust me, you'll enjoy it."
Ziva gave in.
"Great," Emily announced as she finished off the last mouthfuls of her wine, "I'm gonna go to bed. I will see you at 0900 tomorrow morning. Probably beforehand. JJ will pick us up at 0930."
Ziva walked her friend back to her own condo and then returned to her own. She smiled as she bolted the door shut, no longer worried about her near death experience, now happy about the joyous events of the day.
A/N: And some people thought I would kill off Ziva. She's my fav character. Of course, I would not do that. And then what would I do with Tony? LOL. Please review.