Issues
Chapter 2
A/N: Since I've gotten requests to continue this, I will, but there isn't much more to tell. I meant to say that the last chapter was complete...I missed clicking the stupid "Complete" button. I'll see where my muse leads me in this chapter, which could be the last for this story. Let's see, we have a devastated Ziva, a confused and running away CIRay (it is like a nervous tick), and a very angry and protective Tony. There's some stuff there.
For those of you that began to read my mistakenly put up "Vulnerable", It will be put up later, when I work on it more and it takes shape. That takes place in Season 3 when Ziva was still, so very bright and shiny penny new to the NCIS Team Gibbs.
An aside: I read, a while ago, a really fantastic fic where Tony and Ziva go undercover as a mixed religious couple to catch a serial killer preying on Jewish/Christian couples and I can't find it. It was really well written to the point that I wish it could have been a season story arc. Anyone remembering what the fic was called or the author's name, please PM me!
Now, on to Issues...I hope I don't disappoint.
Tony held Ziva for a while longer as she gradually calmed. He could feel her exhaustion and despair weigh more heavily on her as time wore on. Knowing how hard the flashbacks, memories and the accompanying nightmares had been on her in the past, he knew what to do to lessen the devastating impact on her.
After coaxing her back on the couch and convincing her to lay down, with the blanket that her Bubbe Ruuti made for her snuggled around her and to try to rest a bit, he went into her kitchen and grabbed her omnipresent cookbook, "The Spice and Spirit of Kosher-Jewish Cooking" that her Aunt Nettie gave her before she moved to America. If she ever needed comfort foods from her homeland, it was now. He thought fast and found the fastest things he possibly could that he knew she loved. Matzoh ball soup! That was brain-numbingly easy and she could steam her pain away in the hot, fragrant soup that would be gentle on her now traumatized and memory troubled and testy stomach; the matzoh balls he'd make small and delicate so that they wouldn't sit like a brick inside her already churning, traumatized stomach.
Luckily, Ziva was an excellent and well stocked cook and had everything on hand. He stumbled around the cookbook until he found what he needed...not called matzoh balls, but knaidlach, as they were called in the cookbook, he decided on the fancy recipe, with just a little extra to pamper her a bit. It had been almost six months since she had awoken, screaming in the night and he was determined to comfort her first before he beat the daylights out of Cruz.
Tony, setting the chicken stock with onions, carrots and garlic to warm and finishing off the last of the ping pong ball sized matzoh balls, dialed Gibbs number.
"Yeah."
"Gibbs, it's bad," Tony said softly, so as not to bother Ziva, whom was dozing fitfully in the living room. "Ziva had an incident with CIRay and she's far from good. She's had two bad flashbacks and I'm doing what I can for her but-"
"You still with her, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked, his tone sharp and unyielding.
Tony gulped, realizing that he didn't supply the information that he was still with her. "Of course, Boss. She's my partner and I won't leave her side while she needs me. She doesn't just need me, Boss. She's gonna be a mess if she insists on coming in tomorrow. It was bad, really bad. It was like just getting her home from Africa bad. She's resting under her Bubbe Ruuti's blanket on her couch and I'm making her Kosher comfort foods that won't upset her stomach, but, Gibbs, it's bad. Can you come over to her place? She could use your help. So could I. I'm so afraid that she's gonna freak out and flash back again while I'm trying to cook and I have to watch the food and her and...help her that way. Remember-"
"I do, DiNozzo," Gibbs said, running a hand over his face. "I wish you and I didn't have to. I wish she didn't have to. You keep an eye on her and keep at it in the kitchen. I'll be there as fast as I can. She needs us. I'll call McGee and let him know. He can bring in the reinforcements. You watch her like a hawk."
"Thanks, Boss," Tony said, cutting the connection and heaving a huge sigh. He anticipated that it would be a very rough night and even with Gibbs, McGee, Abby and Ducky, it would be very hard. He was going to kill Ray Cruz for this. The guy heard her story and he'd bolted. Granted, it was incredibly painful to hear, but she had to live through millions of times worse and the guy bolted and left her alone to deal with the trauma. Pulp was a kind word after what he was going to do to the guy. Nobody..NOBODY hurt His Ziva and got away with it.
As Tony was finishing the last of the matzoh balls and plopping them into the fragrant broth, a blood curdling scream ripped through the quiet of Ziva's apartment. He dropped everything and ran to his partner's side.
She was sitting up, eyes open, but still lost in the past, terror filled. He gently shook her to wake her. "Ziva! Ziva, come on, wake up! Wake up!"
At that point, Gibbs opened the door to her apartment. Tony left it unlocked after talking to him. He shot to her side, sparing Tony a glance.
"She's still asleep, Boss. We gotta wake her up."
Gibbs nodded. "I remember this." He shook her hard. "David! Where the hell do you think you are!" He gave her a good head smack.
She blinked, suddenly awake and her eyes beginning to focus. "Oh God, no. Oh, please, no." and she began to break down. Tony reached for her, but Gibbs gave him a gentle push away. "You get back to that kitchen and keep working on the comfort foods. The team is coming over and if it isn't steak cowboy style or burgers on a grill, then I'm lost. You're a better cook than I am right now. Give her comfort."
Tony stumbled away from her and went back into the kitchen, putting the soup on low and flipping through the book, looking for more comfort recipes he could handle with his skills and what she kept in stock in the house. A good five dishes later and the rest of the team there to help Ziva overcome something so horrid, he set out to find Cruz to find out exactly what happened.
"Be back soon, Boss," Tony said in the most steel-edged voice Gibbs had ever heard from his Senior Field Agent.
"No Federal charges, DiNozzo."
"Promise. I just want to talk to him and make sure he knows to handle her with extreme care. She's my partner that we all took out of that Hell. We all know a safe margin of what she went through, Boss. It's nothing I would wish on my worst enemy. I want to make sure he understands," Tony said, a hard edge to his voice. His eyes became soft and slightly wet. "I hate to see her hurting so much, Gibbs. She deserves so much better from life."
Gibbs took in his misty Senior Field Agent's eyes and clapped a hand over his shoulder. "I know. Talk to him, Tony. Make him see what she is unable to talk about. Make him understand the Hell she went through and why he can't leave her like this. You're both off tomorrow. This reaction is too big. She needs time to heal and you need time to be her comfort."
Tony was relieved. He needed to find CIRay before too much time passed. It hurt his heart that he needed to find this cretin, but he understood Ziva's private Hell and in what she had felt safe letting him know.
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"Boss, he's gone. CIRay took an overseas assignment and won't be back for six months at least," Tony said, anger coloring his usually cheerful voice. "He left a few hours ago and, of course, the CIA won't tell me where he went, just that it's at least a six month assignment."
Gibbs sighed and ran a hand over his tired face. "Then get back here, DiNozzo. She needs you. I've got her calm, but she's still flashing back and it's been ugly."
"On it."
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When Tony finally made it back to Ziva's apartment, he saw her peacefully curled up against Gibbs and McGee, Abby and Ducky uselessly banging around the apartment.
"Want to help me?" he asked.
The three nodded, voicing soft concern for their traumatized friend.
"Tony, she hasn't been this bad since you guys brought her home from Africa," Abby said, snuggling into Tony's side. "I'm scared for her."
Tony hugged the big hearted, sensitive Goth. "She'll survive. She has us and that's what's important. We all know what she went through and we can get her through this. Ray attempted to be intimate with her and she freaked."
"I'll kill him," McGee said, a hard, protective edge to his voice.
Tony shook his head, laying a hand on the Probie's shoulder. "No, you won't. I want to kill him too, for this, but, he's on an overseas assignment and we can't even talk to him and tell him what he did wrong with her. All we can do is be her support and comfort her. She even said that he was being gentle with her. He wasn't trying to hurt her. He scared her without meaning to."
Ducky spoke up. "We understand her and we're her family. She needs all of us right now. She needs us."
